#the concerns raised by people of color and police lack of investigation

[cult-of-artemis-and-athena]

Roasting Rapeclown Andrew Tate

Romanian outlet Libertatea first reported the raids, citing information from sources that the Tate brothers were suspected of running an organized criminal group that coerced women into making adult videos.

(because of course they did)

Cops say the suspects used 'physical violence and mental coercion' to force the women to comply with their demands, including 'intimidation, constant surveillance, control and invoking alleged debts.'

Police say a total of six victims have so far come forward claiming they were sexually exploited by the organized criminal group. 

Disappointed, as I would be of anyone in this situation, but not surprised, considering who it is.

However, keep in mind it's still under investigation so his activity is not officially confirmed. I hope if he and his brother are indeed guilty - I'm inclined to speculate that they are - they don't wiggle out of it on a technicality, or pay anyone off. Romania is not known for its lack of corruption.

Thinking back to the video in the first post about him, which was the interview with Oompaville, the "rumor" that Tate was involved in trafficking was brought up in a semi-joking manner. To which he cheekily suggested that he couldn't confirm or deny, which was a clear red flag that he was thankfully stupid enough to throw.

Obviously the accusations concern a serious crime, but I appreciate the epithets the Mail Online uses to invoke him:

Self-described misogynist...

...branded 'the king of toxic masculinity'... ...his online diatribes against women...

...boasted [that] '40 percent' of the reason he moved to Romania was because the police were less likely to pursue any sexual assault allegations against him[.] ...his unruly judgments on women [and] regular shares photos of himself traveling in private jets.

Look at these fucking mall ninja weapons. My sides.

The smaller one appears to be a "Knights Templar" mini-sword, likely a letter-opener. The large one appears to be a "Freemason" ceremonial sword. The dark one in the middle is some kind of "tactical gladius" bullshit. All three likely of AliExpress quality. The silver and black one on the far right is a camp axe and significantly more concerning.

One of these things is not like the other...

Maybe he thought if he carried if he mixed the weapon he (speculatively) used during his violent philandering sprees in with some mall ninja fuckery, that the cops searching his car would assume he was a nerd and leave him alone?

You know if someone brings you to this front door, they're going to be a problem.

Tate the cobra knight. He's a snake, and a horse's ass who takes nothing but L's. That's an insult to snakes and horse anuses. Also chess.

We also continue to have more mall ninja fuckery in the form of an Eastern dragon sculpture. This is an insult to Eastern dragon sculptures.

He's so edgy that he can't have a swimming pool that's a color normally associated with water by people who don't have major problems. Maybe it's supposed to evoke swimming in a pool of blood, a la "sexy vampire" like the scene from Blade where the sprinklers at the vampire club start spraying blood and everyone starts having orgasms.

It makes me think of a Chick-Fil-A restroom, so it might as well be yellow...another awful color only a psychopath would use for their swimming pool.

"His parents must be so proud! Raising a Son who is this is bad enough but to raise 2, begs a closer look at their upbringing. Shameful." -- from the comments

Like I said before, his parents' relationship seems to have been the stereotypical "male psychopath, female cluster-B" pairing, based on his anecdotes. Clearly, they dun fuk't up, and it's regrettably been society's problem for the past couple years.

(I deleted my Andrew Tate Pt. 2. The intention of the post was to attempt to explain the social factors that created this Rapeclown, and interactions with other parts of society. However, in relation to current circumstances, the tone would have been inappropriate, and not conveyed what I intended.)

[foxydivaxx]

The Mystery of The Black Rose Chapter 1

After this, I don't think I can write any stories or anything anymore. I should just quit.

The Davis family at a glance seem to have it all. A seemingly perfect, well rounded and God-fearing family. The late Chief Gboyega Davis passed away about 18 years ago and many expected the matriarch of the family to falter over her husband's death. Yet this woman somehow managed to bounce back via her clothing line Violet Life which is reportedly worth a billion dollars.

Naturally with such success, there would be a lot of pressure on each of her three children to succeed in whatever chosen field that they set their sights on. So far, the oldest two children are doing well in their careers. Temitope, the oldest child and the only son of the family, is now a successful and highly respected doctor. Bisola who is currently married is an accountant for Savannah Bank.

All that remained at the moment is the youngest child Wuraola who is still in University studying Journalism in the hopes that she makes it as journalist someday. The girl comes across as a shy yet sweet and friendly person to be around. However, there lies a great pain in her heart. Said pain emerged one fateful day during a phone conversation with her sister Bisola.

"Wura, you are overreacting again. Mother isn't like that."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!! I AM NOT CRAZY!! MUMMY HAS THAT TENDENCY TO NOT ONLY INSULT THE HOUSEGIRL AND TELL HER TO HER FACE THAT SHE IS ONLY A HOUSEGIRL BECAUSE SHE LACKS INTELLIGENCE!! THIS SAME OLD HAG ALSO INSULTED ME FOR TRIPPING OVER THE STUPID CARPET AS I HELPED HER BRING SOME COOKIES!! THIS WOMAN HAS BEEN BULLYING ME AND THE STAFF FOR YEARS FOR FUCK'S SAKE!! YOU WERE THERE WHE THAT WOMAN CUT MY HAIR OFF FOR NOT DOING THE HAIRSTYLE SHE WANTED ME TO DO AND YOU BLOODY DID NOTHING!! YOU AND TOPE!!"

Thank goodness their mother had gone out otherwise had the woman listened in on Wura's rant, the child's situation could have gotten worse.

"Seriously Wura calm down. Also, yelling like that will not help matters. Plus mum had every right to yell at both you and Yemisi since both of you do not know what you are doing half the time!!"

Wura just sighs. Why did she even bother herself with reporting her mother to her sister who is obviously so blind and refuses to look at anyone's point of view? It is almost as though Bisola cares more about herself than anyone else and it shows.

"So you mean to tell me that I should take whatever beatings and insults that woman throws at me?" Wura asks in a cold tone.

"Wura she is your mother...."

The last born immediately hangs up on her sister and lies down on her bed. For the past couple years, she had been questioning her role in the family. As far as she is concerned, they are all chess pieces in whatever evil game their mother intends to play.

I can't believe people find that woman's behavior to be cute. That is not cute. That is pure borderline abuse. How come no one has seen through her bullshit yet?

That was about five years ago.

Five years later, the entire family had gathered at the main Davis family home to have a family dinner to celebrate the 18th anniversary of Chief Davis' passing. As per tradition, the family and their friends and various well known celebrities that they happen to know would show up at the Church for a special Thanksgiving service. The family then heads to the family home to eat together and send some time before heading off to their various homes.

"Wait, where is Wura?" The kids' aunt, Aunty Yewande asked. The rest of the family exchanged looks.

Temitope snorts. "Hmmph that girl. She is probably watching that her favorite Korean show." he says with a mocking tone and shrugs. If there was one thing the family often mocks Wura for, it is her obsession with Korean dramas and Kpop which they often found childish.

"Or she could be sleeping. At times, Wura gets tired after church services and just doses off. She did not head downstairs for lunch." Says Violeta their mother.

"I will go fetch her." Says Bisola as she raises up from her seat. She takes slow yet tentative steps as she walks up the steep stairs.

"Wura come downstairs!! Dinner is ready!!" she calls out to her sister.

No response.

No do not panic. The girl is fine. She is fine. Nothing bad had happened to her. She is perfectly fine. Bisola kept on reassuring herself as she keeps on walking until she arrives at her youngest sister's room.

Of all the Davis children, Wura has the largest room with cute pink colored walls and white furniture at the girl's request. At the corner of the room lay a collection of CDS and books messily stacked up on the shelves above Wura's study desk. It seemed that the girl hadn't cleaned up at all. Bisola sighs. Their mother is strict on cleanliness and Wura always bore the brunt of abuse for being disorganized and having poor hygiene. This naturally affected Wura at school because how can someone so disorganized and scatterbrained like her even do well at all?

Bisola pauses as she hears notices a sea of water coming out of underneath the door of Wura's bathroom.

"Jesus wept." Could Wura have left the tap open to overflow like that?

Is she in there?

She slowly walks over towards the door and opens it. The sight that greets her forces her to scream her lungs out. Right inside the bathtub was none other than a naked Wura who seemed to be completely knocked out. There were heavy cuts and bruises all over her body and beside her were tubes of prescription pills. The rest of the family get alerted by the scream and rush upstairs to see what the fuss was about.

"Bisola wh-" Temitope freezes once he sees it. His wife Amelia gasps. When Violeta joins them, she immediately passes out with Yetunde holding on to her. "Mama Tope!! Please wake up!!"

Tope immediately springs into action and gets into the bathtub and picks up his little sister's unconscious body whilst Bisola's husband Timothy pulls out his mobile phone and immediately calls the nearest hospital.

"Hello!! Y-Yes!! We have an emergency here!! Our youngest family member drowned in the bathtub!! Please send paramedics down here!!"

Meanwhile, Tope performs emergency CPR on his sister, hoping and praying that the girl wakes up. Unfortunately for him, it seemed all his efforts were in vain. He then checks her pulse and his heart sinks.

"S-She is gone guys."

"No.." Bisola muttered in total disbelief. Tope simply sighs, trying not to appear emotional as he stares down at her body, his hands shaking in rage.

"Breaking news!! The youngest daughter of the Davis family, Wuraola was found dead in the bathtub of her bedroom at around 7.30pm today. Official cause of death is still unknown." says a news reporter who had just arrived at the scene.

Paremedics soon arrive and place Wura's body onto a stretcher and head outside. "NO!! Give me back my baby!!" Violeta screams as she chases after the paramedics. "Mummy calm down." Says Bisola.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN CALM DOWN?!! MY DAUGHTER IS GONE!! MY BELOVED WURA IS GONE!!"

The woman slumps onto the floor and begins to weep bitterly. Tope has tears in his eyes as his brother-in law comforts him. Amelia on the other hand, just stares up at the ceiling above them, not a single tear in sight. Thank goodness the only grandson of the family was with her parents. Lord knows how they would explain about what had just happened to his favorite aunt.

The Chief Inspector of Police arrives flanked by a group of police officers.

"Ah, good evening Mr Kasali." Says Bisola.

He simply replies her with a curt nod. "Please lead us to the crime scene."

Tope wipes his tears and takes it upon himself to lead them up to the room. "This was where we found her." he says, pointing at the bathtub which was still filled with water. There were still some blood stains on the tub.

The Inspector nods to one of his men who pulls out his phone and takes a photograph of the crime scene. Another set of police officers begin to investigate the area.

"Did anyone else come into the room with her?"

"No sir. It was just her. We hadn't seen her since afternoon. I remember her saying something about wanting to take a nap because she was tired and did not even join us for lunch."

He was not saying the complete truth, that he already knows. Nevertheless, Kasali chose not to press him even further.

"Did she have a fight with anyone?"

Tope begins to think. "She did have an argument with mummy but that was over where she wanted to go for her Masters."

Pure utter lies. It hurts that he has to cover up their family's tracks here.

Kasali nods as he notes all this down. "Alright. We shall leave no stone unturned in this case. You have my word on that."

"Inspector!!"

He turns around and walks over to a police officer who holds up a blood-stained razor blade and knife.

Tope's eyes widened in shock. "Holy shit!!"

His mind then flashes back to one particular day where he had just returned home after his graduation. He remembers seeing Wura holding a knife and him immediately confiscating it from her.

Wura please don't tell me you still harmed yourself.

"Very well. Pack that up. We will have to talk to others that know her in order to understand what led her death." With that, he and the other police officers leave.

Once everyone else was gone, Tope immediately walks over to his mother and grabs her by the hand.

"What the hell did you tell Wura that led to her death mother?! Tell me huh!! What did you do to her?!!"

"Ah hah!! Tope leave our mother!! Can't you see she is still upset?!"

"Shut up Bisola!! You do not help matters at all with your nonchalant attitude!!"

Bisola immediately keeps silent. He then stares at their mother who was cowering in fear. "I will not repeat myself again mum. What did you tell Wura?"

The woman gulps, fear gripping her as she meets her son's angered glance.

"W-Well.....you know that Wura is a messy person who is also a scatterbrain. She always forgets things. Today she forgot to give a special package I had wrapped for Mama Kanyin."

The boy's death glare intensifies. "So because of a stupid package, you sent her to her death."

The woman looks away.

"See? That proves my point. You and Bisola should be proud of yourselves because you have murdered my little sister!!" With that, he walks away, leaving a stunned mother and sister behind.

The boy stomps all the way down and sighs to himself as he walks towards his car and slams the door shut. Amelia had already left the vicinity to go pick up things from the supermarket. He could have done better and saved Wura from that place. From all those horrible people. But he himself was way too consumed with his own darkness, his own madness to even save his little sister.

He would not necessarily call himself the closet sibling to Wura but he still tried his best to be a big brother.

He just sits down in the driver's seat, his mind a total mess as different conflicting voices start to fight for control over him. Almost as though he were possessed. Maybe he was.

He then hears his phone buzzing which distracts him for a brief second. Reaching for his iPhone, he sees a notification about a message from an unknown number. Suspecting that it could be one of his crazy girlfriends, he checks the phone and is met by the following message:

Shine your eyes Mister man,

Your problems are not yet over,

No matter how saintly you try to be now,

Your sins are about to come crashing down on you.

Tope simply laughs it off. "Sins. What sins?" Truth be told, he is aware of what this mysterious person was talking about. However, he thinks little of such.

"Must be one of Danielle's tricks to try and get into my pants again. Stupid bitch does not know when to quit." He mutters as he starts the engine and begins to drive off to his home.

Bisola sighs as she sits down in her old bedroom. Unlike Wura's, hers was a lot more subtle with plain neutral colors. Her mother was fast asleep haven given her some medication to calm her nerves down and try to force her to sleep. So far her plan worked.

Her husband has gone off to go check on their son whilst she stays with her mother to keep watch over her. Before she could do anything else, her phone vibrates next to her on the bedside table. Fearing for the worst, she picks up the phone and checks her messages and gasps upon reading a rather vague yet scathing text.

You try to see the good in others,

Yet you refuse to acknowledge your inner darkness,

Your careless tongue and bitchy attitude caused the death of someone,

Someone that ought to be close to you,

Your other brother has problems no doubt,

But at least deep down he has a heart unlike you and that wretched witch

You call a mother,

"Who sent this?" Bisola asks. No. Wura is dead. There is no way she could have sent this even though the tone used her sounds exactly like her. Must be some friend of hers.

"Friend? Wura and friends? Pfft. Yeah right." As far as she and the rest of the family knew, Wura had little to no friends. Or so she thinks.

Meanwhile, Tope arrives at his house on Banana Island. Compared to Alakada, Banana is more of a surburban area filled to the brim with extremely wealthy individuals, mostly politicians and famous musical and movie superstars and a couple wealthy billionaires.

He packs the car and walks off to his penthouse suite that he recently bought with the new paycheck given to him by his boss Dr Roberts. Perks of being a in-demand doctor.

Once he reaches his suite, he heads straight to the living room and throws his blazer onto the couch and takes a seat on one of the chairs.

"You are back."

He looks up to see his beautiful wife who was wearing a purple silk dressing gown over her night gown. He nods. "This day has been a horrible day for me." He mutters. His wife takes a seat beside him.

"Poor Wura."

He simply nods and remains silent. Lord knows how they would fix this mess.

[chiseler]

The Violence of Demanding “Peaceful” Protest

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, dozens of U.S. cities have be rocked with unrest, ranging from small protests to open rebellion and riots. In watching coverage of the protests over the last week, several predictable issues and themes have emerged in how these protests are being framed by city and state leaders, police, and mainstream media outlets. I think that those of us who are committed to anti-racist politics need to directly grapple with some of these frames if we are going to shift how our collective efforts to challenge racism and injustice are understood going forward, for the wider public and for ourselves:

1.) “Outside agitators” Both the governments and the media are going all in on dividing the good vs bad, legitimate vs illegitimate protesters, in order to control the unrest by turning people’s sympathies against it. They will say they support the cause but not the methods, but these are crocodile tears. They will cite MLK as a weapon against black protest, but it was MLK who said that his biggest enemy was the white moderate who valued order over the struggle for justice. It is these same moderates who condemn rioters rather than blame those in power who make riots inevitable.

The city government leaders are just lying, point blank, saying that the people who are doing anything other than quietly praying in their Sunday best are outside agitators. They have no evidence of this at all, and there is actual evidence from arrest records that most people vigorously protesting enough to be arrested are locals. This is an old tactic, and is used around the world by those in power seeking to discredit energetic social and political movements.

MLK felt compelled to condemn this rhetorical tactic, since it is the same one that was used by Jim Crow mayors and sheriffs against him and other civil rights protesters. The most important of his numerous criticisms here is that *it does not matter* if someone comes from elsewhere to stand with those protesting injustice. Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere: the logic of domination and oppression breeds and spreads, and produces further domination and oppression, while insensitivity to injustice anywhere breeds insensitivity to other injustices. We are all woven into a single garment of destiny, and cannot pretend that any injustice could (or should) stay parochially contained.

2.) Violent vs peaceful protests Those who condemn property damage during protests should reflect on a few specific points:

First, tactically, riots and the damage they cause raise the economic and political cost of continuing with the everyday violence of business as usual, and have been an integral part of successful struggles for democracy and equality throughout history. This increase in cost can force elites to make concessions, and shift what counts as an acceptable policy bargain to buy peace again. Polite tactics have not worked whatsoever to ease the systemic racial and class inequalities and violence of places like Minneapolis. What else is left, besides people of color opting to die without a fuss?

Second, the human costs of continuing business as usual, from the early deaths and sicknesses imposed by police violence, racism, poverty, lack of healthcare, environmental racism, stress, etc, are incomprehensibly massive. They are far higher than any costs from these riots, at a minimum producing hundreds of thousands of early deaths in the U.S. a year.

This means that if you are opposed to “violence”, then you must prioritize ending these systemic conditions over the flash in the pan of any riot damage. It also means that if you truly oppose violence, then you must consider what given tactics *do* about this systemic and state-enforced violence. If your “peaceful” tactics don’t pose a threat to the continuation of a violent status quo, and even help sustain it by institutionally channeling, containing, and de-fanging challenges to it, then those measures are *more violent* in what they produce than riotous street clashes or mass strikes that compel actual concessions and change.

3.) Property damage as “violence” Conceptually, calling broken windows, burnt cars and looting “violence” is extremely dubious in it’s implications. It puts unexpected forms of damage to or destruction of things as such in the same moral continuum as human suffering, and conveniently only those things that pose a direct threat to the people who own the world. Legal material destruction, of course — such as through a manufacturer shuttering and offshoring a factory (and with it a community’s ability to thrive), or a developer destroying poor people’s housing to put up empty luxury condos for investment, or a company spilling pollutants into the environment and our bodies — is never really framed as “violent”, even though it is more widespread and destructive.

Calling property damage violence also ignores the violence entailed simply by the state-backed imposition of particular rules and distributions of property. Property isn’t just stuff, it is also the rules for deciding who will be denied the right to use that stuff, and how that denial will be legitimized. If you’re concerned about looting, consider it in light of this.

The current distribution of resources is the result of racist state violence, centuries of openly white supremacist policies, imperialism, and exploitation. No honest person can disagree. It cannot be considered just or moral. Even in market terms, it cannot be considered a result of consent or fair competition. The pitifully low wage exploitation perpetuated by retail outlets in these areas are a product of these violently imposed unjust conditions and systems, and is itself a looting of the time, sweat, and well-being of people who are not truly free to do otherwise.

What, then, justifies condemnation of people’s attempts to grab goods that alleviate conditions of violently imposed and flatly unjust conditions of inequality and poverty? If just distributions are blocked politically, then how can we condemn what essentially amounts to material self defense against illegitimately imposed conditions?

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4.) On looting during protests Charges that people looting are acting opportunistically, or without pure enough motives make the mistake of thinking that pursuing material enhancement amidst unjust conditions is at odds with, rather than a central component of the demand for dismantling systemic racism. This isn’t separate from the fight against police brutality, since policing as such, as well as police brutality in particular are historically and tightly connected to state efforts to maintain racial and class inequalities and property rules under American capitalism. Demanding saintly selflessness from rioters is a dehumanizing double standard, and itself undercuts the legitimacy of demands for material justice and restitution.

Insofar as looting contributes to raising the cost for elites to ignore an unjust status quo, we can consider looting to be a useful element in producing an actually status quo-threatening pressure for concessions and change. Depending on the target (or Target), we may even say that it is ethically obligatory, if we take the struggle against violence seriously.

*** Ultimately, whenever those in power attempt to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate protesters during times of social unrest, this should be interpreted as nothing more than a classic divide and conquer tool designed to make the unrest more manageable and to divert a fraction of the less demanding participants towards the least costly (to those in power) concessions. It means they are scared. It also means we should investigate what it is that they are truly scared of losing — and what we stand to gain.

The world.

by Justin Mueller

[phroyd]

KABUL, Afghanistan — When Rahima Jami heard that the Americans and the Taliban were close to a peace deal, she thought about her feet.

Ms. Jami is now a lawmaker in the Afghan Parliament, but back in 1996, when Taliban insurgents took power, she was a headmistress — until she was forced out of her job and told she could leave her home only in an ankle-length burqa.

One hot day at the market, her feet were showing, so the religious police beat them with a horse whip until she could barely stand.

Horror stories at the hands of enforcers from the Taliban’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice are a staple for any educated Afghan woman over age 25 or so. Now those women have a new horror story: the possibility that American troops will leave Afghanistan as part of a peace deal with the Taliban.

Six days of talks ended Saturday with a promise they would soon resume, bringing the parties closer to a deal than at any time in the 17 years since the Taliban were ousted from power. The mere possibility of concrete progress on peace inspired a wave of enthusiasm and hope among many Afghans on all sides that four decades of nearly continuous war could actually end.

Among many women, though, the hopes raised by a possible end to the fighting are mixed with an undeniable feeling of dread.

“We don’t want a peace that will make the situation worse for women’s rights compared to now,” Robina Hamdard, head of the legal department for the Afghan Women’s Network, said. The organization is a foreign-funded coalition of prominent women’s organizations.

No one needs to sell Afghan women on the need to bring an end to the bloodshed. They have buried far too many husbands and sons and brothers. But they fear that a peace that empowers the Taliban may herald a new war on women, and they want negotiators not to forget them.

“Afghan women want peace too,” Ms. Jami said. “But not at any cost.”

When she thinks of that time she was beaten, she said, “I remember it and I actually feel faint.”

And like many women, Ms. Jami is convinced that any peace deal that gives the Taliban a share of power will come at the expense of freedom for Afghan women. “Come that time, they will complete their incomplete dreams and they will be crueler than in the past,” Ms. Jami said.

Afghan women praying at a shrine where s female islamic scholar was beaten to death in 2015.CreditLynsey Addario for The New York Times

Compounding that concern is a fear among women that they have been sidelined in the peace process, and that when Afghans finally sit down at a peace table together, there will be no women present.

“We don’t want to be the victims of the peace process with the Taliban,” said Laila Haidari, a businesswoman who also works with drug addicts.

Ms. Haidari’s work would not have been allowed under the Taliban regime, when she lived in exile in Iran. “But the Afghan government totally ignores Afghan women on the peace process,” she said.

Shukria Paykan, another woman member of Parliament, recalls spending the Taliban years “forced to be inside a dark cage when out of our houses — I mean the burqa.”

Ms. Paykan was forced from her university professorship and her daughter’s school was closed, like all girls’ schools under the Taliban. She opened a clandestine school at home, pretending to teach girls the Quran and dressmaking, among the only subjects allowed for them. The only women allowed to work then were doctors, and even they had to have a close male relative as a chaperone at work.

Ms. Paykan, who is from Kundiz, said she felt shut out of the Afghan peace process.

“I have been an M.P. twice and a university professor, but no one has ever asked me about peace talks with the Taliban, or even told me that my rights will be secure,” she said. “We have had 40 years of war and everybody is tired of fighting, but that peace should not be at the price of losing our rights and freedom as women.”

Raising concerns about the lack of transparent negotiations, doesn’t make anyone war monger, continuing war or negotiations for exit are not mutually exclusive. If US wants to exit, they can do that gracefully like they did in 89 instead of rushing an imposed settlement

It is still early days in this stage of the peace process, and last week’s talks in Doha, Qatar, did not include any Afghan government officials, men or women.

American officials hope to persuade the Taliban at a later stage to sit down with Afghan officials, which they have so far refused to do, and issues like the Constitution, which guarantees women’s rights, would be on the table then.

Some women in government expressed satisfaction that talks had at least begun.

“Women need to raise their voices so they are not forgotten,” said Habiba Sarabi, the deputy of the High Peace Council in Kabul, and one of 15 women on the 75-member council, which is appointed by the government. “Without women it will be a broken peace. But we are optimistic about the peace talks.”

Saira Sharif, an Afghan poet and politician from Khost, said that previous efforts at talks between the government and the Taliban had excluded women.

“The Afghan government has assured women many times that women’s rights will not be affected negatively after a peace deal with the Taliban,” she said, “but women were not involved in the previous talks with the Taliban, and we need a place in future ones. We came a long way to achieve the rights we have now, just to lose them after a peace deal.”

Members of the women’s soccer team training in Kabul in 2016.CreditAdam Ferguson for The New York Times

Everyone involved in peace negotiations agrees that the war could end only with a power-sharing deal. That might mean sharing government ministries or territory around the country, or some combination of the two. It might even mean Taliban officials standing for national office — and possibly winning.

“We want the Taliban to accept women’s rights and publish a statement where they guarantee women’s rights,” said Ms. Paykan. So far, though, no one is even talking about that, she said.

Ryan Crocker, a former American ambassador to Afghanistan, was a key diplomat in Kabul in January 2002 and helped establish the first post-Taliban government. “We put a big premium on women right from the beginning,” he said. “One of the very first things we did was to get girls schools up and running.”

Mr. Crocker said he was worried that the withdrawal of American troops would have consequences beyond whatever future role the Taliban have.

“What really bothers me is, what is going to happen to Afghan women and girls?” he said. “Acute misogyny in Afghanistan goes way beyond the Taliban. Without a strong U.S. hand there, it is not looking very good for Afghan women. They can do as they like to them after we leave.”

Indeed, many Afghan women have a hard enough time without the Taliban around. The president of the national soccer federation, and three other top officials of the organization, are under suspension over accusations that female players were sexually and physically abused; an investigation has been underway for nearly two months, with no arrests so far.

Women are still reeling from the 2015 murder of a female Islamic scholar, Farkhunda, by a mob of men as police officers stood by idly. Shelters set up to protect women from abusive husbands and families have been under growing pressure from government and society.

[Read The Times’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning reports on Afghan women.]

Ms. Haidari’s restaurant in Kabul, Taj-Begum, has been raided by the police repeatedly. S he said was being harassed because she allows men and women to dine together, doesn’t always wear a head scarf, and is a woman in business.

Her drug rehabilitation center was closed down, too, amid unfounded accusations that it was a front for prostitution. “It is a democratic government, but still women face many problems in this country,” Ms. Haidari said.

Qadria Azarnoosh is a Hazara dancer, whose traditional art has been suppressed by cultural conservatives in recent years — or as she puts it, by “Taliban mentality people who are not Taliban members.”

Last week she and a group of female friends staged a public performance of the colorful dance, knowing many of their parents would disapprove and possibly confine them to their homes afterward. That same day came news of the peace talks in Doha.

“When we heard that U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan in 18 months, we girls were asking each other, ‘Now what will become of us?’” Ms. Azarnoosh said. “People already think we are bad girls for dancing. What will happen to us if the Taliban become part of the government?”

Follow Rod Nordland, Fatima Faizi and Fahim Abed on Twitter: @rodnordland, @FatmaFaizi and @fahimabed . Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar.

Phroyd

[loyalflutist]

Manmade Killer (Pt. 1)

It was Christmas. Snow fell down within the city of Shinjuku and friends, families, and couples come together to celebrate the occasion. The night sparkled from decorations. Blue, red, green, white... all kinds of colors brighten the city. Tranquility makes it difficult for much negativity to taint anyone during this holiday. However, Oshima Yuko couldn't celebrate it. In one of the many buildings, on the third floor, the squirrel sat in one of the many desks. An ex-detective that originally came from the Metropolitan Police Department years ago, she came to an early retirement due to a past issue. But nevermind that, the young woman in her mid-20s clicked away on her laptop. Each keystroke was notable in the barely lit premise, a desk lamp the only source of light. Exhaustion. Fatigue. And alone. She desires to sleep, yet won't allow her body to feel the relief. Yuko has to keep on working. Work... work... work... work. The saying "sleep is for the weak" is horribly applicable to the ex-inspector. She furrowed her brows and resisted the temptation to rub her weary eyes. A loud exhale as she continued to tap away on the keyboard. "Yuko? You're still awake?" Thanks to Yuko's mental and physical state, hypersensitivity is prominent. She nearly leaped off from her black rolling chair. Thankfully, the person that called out for her is none other than Special Police Officer Yokoyama Yui. The tall raven-haired woman rested an arm against the doorway between the main workroom and the nap room, her sharp gaze aimed at the squirrel. In comparison to the ex-detective, not a hint of fatigue was shown on her face and body language. Donned with a white collared shirt, black pants, and uniformed blue jacket, the medal "SP" clung to her shirt as a sign of her prestigious position. Although her duty is to protect VIP figures such as politicians and CEOs, the Kyoto-originated female personally requested to be Yuko's bodyguard. Yui's reason for doing so? Well, it wasn't a difficult question to answer. A faint exhale escaped from her partially parted lips. "You should be sleeping." Yuko shook her head. "I can't. Shouldn't you be sleeping in the nap room here?" Another sigh came from Yui's lips when she saw the other female reach towards her cup of coffee. It wasn't necessarily the caffeinated product that concerned her so much. Instead, it was more so with how OLD the coffee is. When the SP Officer checked in for the morning, Yuko was sipping from the same container and drinking the God-knows-how-long-it's-been-made black coffee. It wasn't like the squirrel to forget how to operate normally on daily necessities. Then again, it's not surprising considering the month-long predicament that ate at them. Endlessly taunting them... especially Oshima Yuko. No grave sins were committed to sending her to Hell, but she's experiencing one right now. Rest did not bring any alleviation, agitation gnawing at her nerve. "Yuko..." she said. Yuko readjusted her seat as Yui waltzed over to the clear-glassed window from behind the inspector. Hands in her jacket's pockets, the Kyoto woman stared out to the city view. If it weren't for the heavy atmosphere that weighed on their shoulders, they would've not only celebrated the holiday but share wine with each other just like old times. Maybe even played out in the snow with their teammates. "I know you're trying your best to search for your sister, but I can't protect you from diseases." A scoff. Then, Yuko clicked on the laptop a few times to close all of the web browsers. Whether she was closing them to actually take a break or closing them out of obligation to shut Yui up is up for speculations. Thanks to the brightness of the screen, it somewhat reflected on the window's surface. The SP Officer didn't have to look over her shoulders to see what was on the device. Nevertheless, her eyebrows slightly raised at the sight of a group photo. Oshima Yuko. Yokoyama Yui. Yamamoto Sayaka. Kashiwagi Yuki. Watanabe Mayu. Maeda Atsuko. Matsui Rena. Seven members. A mixture of active and retired officers. A melting pot for the roles they each played. A group primarily focused on stopping a terrorist organization outside of police jurisdiction and limitations. They were after Adrestia. A faceless Japanese terrorist organization bent on taking revenge and delivering retribution to those seemingly "evil" to justice. They were meant to be upheld as a holy figure that would topple the police force. Those victims who died were murmured and whispered amongst the civilians to be truly terrible in society. For the government to lack efficiency in handling these small, but severe problems became a devastating blow to their reputation. Fewer people trusted the police and more on Adrestria. It's almost as if a superhero arose from the crowd and stood up for what is right and what is wrong. However, what made them God? What made them decide what's just and unjust for everyone? Not many were able to perceive this fatal flaw as their criminal acts... might not be so criminal at first glance.   It has been six months since their existence came to light. Their first appearance was no minor introduction. The death of a man who is labeled as a stalker to an idol from AKB48 was their first case. Gunned down by a security guard protecting Team K when they were out on tour around Japan, the man immediately killed himself before he explained why he chose to murder the fan. Either way, Team K have been protected thanks to him. Adrestia made a big note of who they are when they uploaded a video on the Internet about the fan's crimes. He had stalked them, taken photos of them, and sent them Anonymous videos of the dirty actions he did with those pictures. Idols filed a report many times in the past. The police came to protect them but did a lackluster job. He still came to bother them. Over... and over... and over again. One idol even committed suicide because of it. Adrestia took action and protected the group in the police's stead. We are Adrestia and we strive to take revenge on the evils that outlived their days compared to their victims. The Cleansing Day will come when New Year Eve arrives. All in a distorted voice. Eventually, exactly a month after that, another death came to light. Instead of just one victim, there was a total of a whopping twenty. To make matters worse, they were all young adolescents. Their crimes? Bullying hurts but cyberbullying hurts even more. You have no way to distinguish who they are and if they really meant what they said. These twenty students, all between the age of 12 and 22, committed a grave sin. They bullied others on Facebook. Many victims called for help, but no one came to their aid. Police officers and therapists mocked them for their sensitivity. Adrestia did not take this lightly. We took action and protected the bullied users in the police's stead. We are Adrestia and we strive to take revenge on the evils that outlived their days compared to their victims. The Cleansing Day will come when New Year Eve arrives. A more feminine distorted voice, distinguishing itself from the previous video. And so it went on. Month by month, their crimes became horrific. Murders of rapists, child molesters, corrupted government officials, bribers, murderers, stalkers, corrupted officers... It went on. The crimes committed by them were atrocious. Police forces throughout Japan, especially Shinjuku, went haywire. Everyone in the organization used as much force as possible to search for the culprits. Some overexerted and abused their authoritative powers, making innocent civilians go to jail as a way to pat down one of the monthly cases. Lives were at stakes, reputations were at stakes, and most importantly, answers were desperately needed. The group that Yuko had formed alongside with her stepsister, Mayu, had kicked into gear. Beginning the day after the first month's murder, Yuko and everyone spread out to do their research. They were possibly the only ones able to stop Adrestia given their resources and experiences. But every single time they came close to an answer, it slipped through their fingers. In its place, another murder pops up in the name of the terrorist. It was a frustrating cycle. Loads of responsibilities and trouble began to accumulate as the months ticked by. Clues were gathered, but not enough to catch up on the latest events. By the time the ex-detective found an answer, the worst-case scenario unfolded before her eyes. That day, on November 25th... Yuko's thumb ran across Mayu's face on the screened photo. "I have to find my sister." Missing. Mayu is missing-- Er, well, it wasn't to say that she's missing like those found in the missing person poster. Actually, the Special Regions Crime Prevention Office (SRCPO) member is plastered on the bulletin board of this investigative's room as a wanted individual. Alongside, Kashiwagi Yuki went missing. Whether she was found with Mayu or not currently is not clear. Same goes for Matsui Rena. She disappeared the same day as Yuki. Then there's also the other two members-- "I can't forgive her. She murdered Sayanee." Yuko snapped out of her trance-like state at the sharp proclamation from Yui. She turned to look at the officer, her baggy eyes staring straight at the fierce woman. As if to showcase how serious she is with her statement, Yokoyama took the gun out from her holster and toyed with it. She unloaded all of the bullets into her other hand and immediately stuck them back into the cylinder. One-by-one, the gold metallic ammunition went into its original spot. Silence hung in between the two figures. Figuring that Yuko would object to her perspectives, the Special Police Officer raised her chin slightly. "Did you also forget that she murdered your parents?" They may not have been related to each other, but they were adopted together under the two kind parents. They were raised to be an outstanding citizen of society. Yuko and Mayu wished to serve in the police department as a way to give back to the community. Of course, thanks to a mishap, Yuko took early retirement (more like quit) from her position and became independent. Mayu, on the other hand, remains as a counselor and listens in to people's worries during times of emergencies. Regardless of their roles and what they did with their life, they loved their adopted parents dearly. So the cold-blooded slaughtering of their parents was the last straw for Oshima. She vividly remembers their death. It was exactly one week after the disappearance of Watanabe Mayu, Kashiwagi Yuki, and Matsui Rena. Yuko returned home with her parents to have dinner with them. There wasn't much to discuss, but the least she could do is bring them comfort during this turbulent time. It was likely that the three were kidnapped by Adrestia, but it's also possible that the trio's disappearances didn't correlate with each other. The independent detective does admit that it was too much of a coincidence to have such scenario occur though... Regardless, the doorbell rang during their quiet mealtime. Yuko went to open the door. A loud gasp came from her direction from the sight of who it was. There stood Watanabe Mayu in the doorway. Her eyes dead. A black collar snapped around her neck as if she were an animal. A handgun held within her two hands. The white police uniform she donned disheveled and dirtied. Yuko didn't even have a chance to register a dialogue before Mayu shoved her way into the house. Two fires came from the weapon. Two screams. Then, silence. Complete and eerie silence. It wasn't long till Mayu walked right out the same doorway as she had entered, ignoring the older female. Darkness from the dimly lit streets engulfed the gunner once she was far enough. Yuko was still standing in awe. Oshima Yuko always wondered why she wasn't able to stop her sister at that time. Was it because of her lingering attachment to Mayu? Was it because she hesitated to pull out her own revolver and shoot Mayu? Was it because she was shocked to think that her sister would return after a week of disappearing? Whatever it was, their parents are dead. A single bullet straight to their forehead. It was a direct hit to their brain. Death is certain for their fates. Still... it was all too strange. How could someone like Mayu not only go off to hurt their teammates, but their very own parents? Sure, they weren't related by blood, but it doesn't excuse the abrupt and violent end they were met with. Something must've caused her younger sibling to react this way. Yuko parted her thumb from the screen and bit the bottom of her lip. Besides, Watanabe harmed someone that she too cared for greatly... Someone that Yuko couldn't understand why either. "There's also Acchan too..." she cracked. Yui nodded in the background. That was right. Not only was Sayaka the victim in this betrayal, but Maeda Atsuko was at the brunt end of it. This didn't happen all in one day. The first victim was Yamamoto Sayaka. Yuko remembered the video that Mayu had personally sent to them, stating that another teammate would be next on her hit list. Her lifeless voice... Her bone-chilling message... Was this really the sister she knew since they were children? Atsuko... oh, Atsuko is someone Oshima loved so much. The ex-detective and a profiler from the Crime Lab at the Metropolitan Police Department. The unlikely duo that became tragically separated by a murderer no one expected. Yuko's hands curled into fists as she shakily exhaled. "Yuihan, I want to talk to her before I bring down her judgment. Even if you want to take revenge on behalf of your lover, I... I can't allow that. She's my sister." The Special Police Officer shifted her attention back to the scenery. She narrowed her eyes. "Well, you better be ready for it. I have a feeling we're going to find her before January 1st." "...right." The sooner, the better. Yuko wanted nothing more than to get this nightmare over with. ---------- In another location, Kashiwagi Yuki, a hacker at the Cyber Crimes Division, felt so useless. It wasn't the useless kind of sensation where one stands on the sideline. At least she could be cheering for someone or something. She could become an influence thanks to those encouraging words. This was a literal uselessness. Physically and mentally. She was stuck in a bright metallic room with nothing but herself. Steel wall surrounds her figure as she huddled in the corner of the mostly dried blood-splattered room. She hugged herself. Comfort was nowhere to be seen... She wasn't safe in isolation from her mind. The terrorist organization has her confined to this premise. No matter how much she screams or pounds at the only exit, no one would respond. Well, she tried to scream, that is. Not a single sound came out of her voice box. The tattered and bruised Yuki that was once kind, gentle, and a good listener to everyone around her is reduced to a silent wreck thanks to Adrestia. Whatever poison or surgical techniques they performed on the unconscious woman... She won't be able to vocalize her thoughts, her concerns, her love, her sorrow... anything anymore. Yuki gave up. The woman's ears perked up when the door creaked open. Her brown eyes peeked over her crossed arms. Watanabe Mayu came back. The door immediately clicked close by another individual once Mayu had taken a step into the confinement. Partially bathed in another person's blood on her clothes, Mayu truly painted an image of a psychopath. A black collar around her neck, the woman barely blinked when she saw Yuki extend her arms out. She acted almost like a baby in need of a mother. Ironic considering the fact that Mayu had a hand solidly gripping a loaded revolver. However, everyone knew that the two would never wish harm upon one another. They've loved each other and still do. Watanabe just doesn't know if she's alive or dead in this state. 'Mayuyu... Oh, Mayuyu...' Mayu was the only person who could bring some sense of peace to the hacker. However, the guilt that weighed on Yuki's shoulders were heavy as she littered long kisses on her lover's cheeks. The raven-haired desperately tried to give as much warmth as possible to the present day Mayu. Usually, the officer would be annoyed by the close treatment as it's reserved for privacy, but it hurts that Mayu isn't flinching or reacting to this at all. Tears streamed down Yuki's face as she wrapped her arms around the armed woman. Both of their brown eyes had no life... A lifeless duo that barely clung onto reality. 'Why did it become like this?' Of course, Mayu has no way of knowing. She's not human anymore... A police officer who once specialized in the Special Regions Crime Prevention Office is now a murderer. She not only raised her revolver at innocent civilians, but she assassinated their comrades. Yamamoto Sayaka and Maeda Atsuko... Someone they once called their allies, their friends... it all went away weeks ago with a bullet to their chest. Mayu may have given them a quick death, but the fact that they're not in this world anymore destroyed Yuki. It wasn't Mayu's fault though. "Neh... Yukirin..." That tone. That voice. Unlike Kashiwagi, Mayu didn't lose the ability to speak. This was a chance for her to tell the official what's on her mind. She was given free rein on what to say. Freedom of speech isn't exactly one hundred percent true in the hands of this terrorist organization though. "I killed our captain." Yuki knew Mayu had pride and conviction to remain true to her ways. Yet the collar that Adrestia's leader snapped around her neck served as a torturing device. Poison contaminated the metallic band. Every single time the girl would raise objections to their beliefs, to the orders they shoved down her throat, to their harsh treatment and abuse with Yuki, the leader allowed the collar to release its chemicals into the officer. The excruciating agony that paralyzed the victim ran on till Mayu sobbed for death to relieve her. Of course, they weren't so kind. A quick antidote brought her to good health within an hour. Then, they shoved their idealisms... their moralistic values... and assassination orders upon the woman once again. If she were to object once again, she would be subjected to the same treatment. "I'm okay... I'm fine." The hacker saw it all since day one of their kidnappings. A date out in broad daylight at a park to take a break from their work turned into a living nightmare. Since Yuki holds no value to the terrorist organization, they simply used her as their pawn to keep Mayu in check. With the police officer's strict outlook on what justice means and why revenge can be justified, their eyes have rested on Mayu. Her ability to use the gun is a bonus to them as she can play the role of an "Executioner". Of course, knowing the ponytailed female, she outright rejected their offer only to undergo horrific treatments. Yuki was there to witness it all in her mute cries and sobs. It's as if Adrestia is training a pet... Like a broken pet to order and reward. Yuki tightened her hold around the crimson-stained girlfriend. When the wet cheeks pressed against her lover, Mayu expressed her opinion in a monotone voice. "You're crying? Are you hurt anywhere?" Hurt... Pain. Oh, Yuki felt pain much worse than the abuse she's been submitted to by the hooded terrorist leader. It's the crushing anguish of her heart being squished to oblivion by an invisible force. The sight of her lover succumbing to cruel punishments for staying true to her ideals and not aligning with the enemies'. The horror of losing her ability to speak. The urge to scream in terror as she frantically and desperately provided as much useless care to Mayu as possible. She buried her face into the gunner's shoulder. 'If only I was strong...' Yuki wasn't trained in the art of firearms like Mayu. Thoughts ran through her head about taking up lessons from her girlfriend. However, Mayu urged that it wasn't necessary. If only the hacker held her stance much stronger back then... Then she might've protected Mayu rather than become dependent on her. More tears ran down her face as she leaned forward, lips close to Watanabe's ear. Just like every single day, Yuki tried her best to formalize words that can be audible rather than incoherent airy whispers. "I'm... sorry..." Did Mayu hear that? Or was that just a figment of Yuki's hallucinations she's constantly had in this confined room that she was able to utter words to her lover? Either way, the curtain will soon descend upon the stage as Adrestia makes their final move. After all, it won't be long till New Year Eve comes around the corner.

[not-all-that-chic]

Gunpowder Blush

Jaebum x Reader [Police!AU]

“ On a normal day, I would find myself doodling away on my brightly colored post-it notes, daydreaming about my boss until Jinyoung chastises me about my lack of productivity.

Today, however, was not a normal day. ”

trans. | Your opinion is extremely important to me.

genre | Fluff, Smut, Drama

wordcount | 11.9k

warnings | language, gore, dirty talk, rough sex, male dom, degradation, exhibitionism, edging, masturbation, overstimulation

rec. track |  ♫ ♩

video | ►

in·frac·tion inˈfrakSH(ə)n

a minor or petty offense that may be proceeded against summarily, and without a jury.

misd. ⟨infr.⟩

"Oh my god!" The bullet is deeply lodged into his calve. I start to shake, becoming faint at the sight of his blood. He places his hand over the wound and squeezes it.

"Fuck!"

"What do I do?!" I panic and look around, eyes flitting everywhere impatiently, wishing the gods would come down and help me and him. "I need to call an ambulance or-"

"Run after her!" He growls at me. I flinch.

"Are you crazy?! You just got shot!"

"I'm not disabled! I can take care of myself! Don't let our suspect and one piece of evidence get away!" I hesitate to leave him. "I promise. I will be fine." His voice and eyes soothe my worries and my beating heart. I nod and run off in the direction she went, my adrenaline firing.

Luckily, she's rather slow and Mulgogi is slowing her down. She's already in her car when I reach her. Once she realizes the situation, she grabs her gun and shoots out her window, aiming at me. In her shakiness, she misses. But out of fear I duck and am effectively paralyzed. She drives away quickly and I can't do anything—

Her license plate! I memorize the numbers and letters. DCG4476. It's a black SUV with some flashy rims. I commit it to memory. Cursing myself, I feel terrible that I couldn't stop her.

I disappointed him. I suddenly realize he's hurt and run back, heart pulsating. In my moment of passion, I didn't fully asses the damage. Oh god, what if he bled out?! No, I shake my head. He'll be fine. He said so. I can't help fearing for the worst. When I return, he's in the same place, head leaned against the wall, hissing in pain.

Once I reach him, I slow down and land on my knees in front him. He opens one eye.

"I already called an ambulance.." Nodding, I hold my hands in my lap.

"Can I...?" Tentatively, he lifts his hand off the wound. Thankfully, it's bleeding, but not to the point of severe blood loss. The skin around it is torn and there is gunpowder entering the flesh. I almost gag.

"It was an old bullet," he tells me through grit teeth. I don't know know what it means, but it's nothing good, I know that much. I rip off the edge of my shirt sleeve and apply it to the wound, applying pressure so he won't have to. I frown at his condition, feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry..." He sighs. It only fuels my guilt further. "If only I hadn't kept the cat..."

"I'm sure there is cat hair on me and the rest of this house that will be enough for this case."

Lowering my head, I mumble, "If only I hadn't taken you to my house. You wouldn't be shot."

"Be quiet." He commands me, anger laced in his words. "This self-pitying attitude of yours is tiresome. I already told you I was fine. Why do you keep blaming yourself?" I can't even look at him.

"I don't know! I just do! I've always been like this." I choke. He lifts my head up, hand on my chin. His eyes soften, but there's underlying frustration there. He wipes my cheek with his clean hand.

"Don't cry. It doesn't help any."

"I'm sorry."

"There you go again. Do I scare you?" I blink owlishly at him and he wipes my cheek again. To my own surprise, I blush.

"No. U-um. You're really nice. Yeah..." He watches me sputter for words with tenderness. "I just feel bad for putting you in this situation."

"Then let's have an agreement. Tell me what it is that worries you and I'll tell you something about myself." His words... I realize what he's doing. Constantly, he checks my expression and eyes. He wants to get my mind off my obvious failure and fears at his own expense. However, it doesn't feel as if he's babying me. It's odd.

"Okay. Well um. I'm worried that I won't live up to your standards. And I'm worried that you'll get mad at me or be disappointed. I'm scared you'll think less of me. You hold me on a high pedestal and I don't want you to be disillusioned by my failures."

"You told me you weren't afraid me."

"I'm not!" I insist.

"Then why are you so afraid of me being disappointed?"

"I... I'm not sure." His eyes widen suddenly as if realizing something. Something in the air has changed. His hand lands on my hands.

"After hearing that..." I tilt my head. He shakes his. "It's nothing of importance. Just, you're not quite sharp when it comes to yourself."

"What?"

"Well, I'll tell you something about me," he changes the subject quickly. Although I want to ask him to explain himself, I don't want him to get mad or anything. He hisses when he adjusts himself.

I suddenly think back: when will the ambulance arrive? You would think someone being shot would be a priority! And although he's hiding behind his cocky attitude and comforting words, I can see him shift in discomfort.

"Okay."

"Around three years ago, I was still an officer."

"Really?!"

"Of course. You think I was born a Chief Inspector?"

"Well, no..."

"I really loved— and still love —being in the middle of the action. I was a part of the Seoul SWAT team." Mouth agape, I'm suddenly no longer shocked by his confidence and bravery. "Shocking, isn't it? Would you believe me if I said Mark and Jackson worked with me, too?"

"Mr. Tuan? Seriously?"

"We were on the same squad. I was our squad leader."

"Why did you leave?"

"I didn't leave. I was promoted to Chief Inspector for our division. I was going to stay, but the constant calls were wearing my body down." I nod. It's entirely impossible in my mind for someone so strong like Jaebum to ever get tired.

"And Mr. Tuan and Jackson?"

"When I stepped down, they came with me."

"Do you like being Inspector?" He shrugs.

"I don't have a passion for it. But it's my job now." He frowns. "It's peaceful, but I miss my SWAT team. When you become so used to those stressful situations, you start to miss it."

Before I can ask him to elaborate, the telltale sirens sound and I sigh in relief.

The days pass at a torturous pace. Even with my description of the car and the exact license plate number, nothing is happening. There's only one week until the court hearing and the lawyers involved can start their cases for their respective sides. I can only sit uselessly. At least today, Jaebum will be released from the hospital.

His recovery went well since he obediently took all the medicine he needed and ate plenty of food. I'm glad he didn't break any bones; just damaged a few nerves. I visit every day and I'm getting ready to visit again.

Over the three weeks he was resting, I'd like to think we became rather close. I feel like I've made a dear friend. Jaebum is a bit rough around the edges, but if you can weasel into his heart, he's a wise and gentle spirit. He loves cats, reading books and he has quite the appetite. I may have snuck him a few bags of cookies on occasion. I'm extremely thankful to have met him. I've learned a lot about him— and surprisingly —about myself, too

Since work is rather slow today, I decide to leave early.

Jinyoung smiles. "Going to see the Inspector off?"

"Yeah. Today's his last day." I return his joyful expression.

"You seem a lot more cheerful these days." He sends me a sly look, but I shrug.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Mhmm. Of course. Well, call me later."

"I will." Grabbing my belongings, I walk out of the office, but when I open the door, Mr. Tuan bumps into me. He grabs my shoulders to steady me.

"Oh! How's my special employee doing?" He grins and ruffles my hair. The contact doesn't send fireworks up my spine like it usually does.

"Pretty well. Thank you for asking, Mr. Tuan." A soft chuckle bubbles out of his lips as his eyes wrinkle. His expression isn't as cute as I remembered it.

"You know, you look so content and cute these days. What brought that on?" His compliment doesn't make me blush and revert into a blushing mess. I find myself laughing along with him instead. It's odd and somewhat concerning; for two years I've had a crush on my boss. I couldn't have possibly lost feelings so quickly.

"I'm not sure. I'm actually rather stressed with this case and Jaebum's recovery." He raises an eyebrow, confused.

"Jaebum? You're on a first name basis with him?"

"Yes. I consider him a friend."

"Oh? Isn't that... funny."

"Is it? I guess it's a little weird, but Jaebum is really nice and so intelligent. He's a great leader and he's brave. And funny." His expression becomes more and more gleeful with everything thing I say.

"You must really like him."

"Yes!" He chuckles and places a hand on my back.

"Then don't let me keep you! Tell Jaebum I said hi!"

"Yes, sir!"

I practically run those 10 blocks to the hospital. It was an important day for me and for the investigation. Once I reach the hospital, I grin. The receptionist has seen me many times and nods. The trek down the hallways makes me anxious. It's his last day. If anything I should be happy he's going to be released, but I can't shake something off, and I don't know what that something is.

I quickly find Jaebum's room and am greeted with the sight of two older people there. Quietly, I step into the room. Jaebum spots me first. He says my name: a wonderful sound. The two people turn around, at first wary, but then they seem happy to see me as well.

"Oh! How lovely to finally meet you, dear!" The word "finally" really sticks to me. She stands up and embraces me.

"It's nice to meet you. I'm so glad such a nice girl is taking care of our son." It suddenly hits me as Jaebum's father hugs me. His parents. My throat is dry, but I feel really warm knowing they already like me so much.

Jaebum watches us interact, his eyes looking like they will burst any minute. They seem to sparkle with unsaid emotions. Although he's rather stoic, I've never seen him so happy before and it makes me smile. I blush at his cute and unguarded expression. He looks like a child with his favorite pet.

"Meet my parents."

"It's nice to meet the both of you." For some reason, it never occurred to me that Jaebum had parents that loved and cared for him. I haven't seen my parents in— I don't even let the thought settle in my mind. My heart aches for him, who is so happy with his parents in the room.

"Sit down." Jaebum pats the chair beside him. I blush and do as he says. His parents get comfortable as his dad instantly goes to protest.

"You know how much he argued for us to not take that seat?"

"If only you would have heard him, dear! "No, Mother. I'm saving this seat. You'll see who she is. She's just like you." My goodness, he has never been so stubborn." I cover my face with my hands and stare at the floor. What did all of this mean? Why was Jaebum so eager to introduce me-

Oh no. I thought we were just friends! I guess he still has feelings for me. What am I supposed to do?! How do I reject— well? Suddenly the idea of rejecting him doesn't sound so pleasant to me. I don't want him sad. Plus, wouldn't he be a great boyfriend?

"What are you thinking?!"

There's a pregnant silence. Suddenly his parents burst into laughter. Jaebum shoots me a questioning look. Did I blurt that?

"What are you thinking?" Jaebum grabs my hand. My previous thoughts return to me and I gently pull my hand back. His eyebrows furrow.

"Honey," Mr. Im mumbles to his wife. He points to his watch. "It's nearly three." They both stand up and smile.

"Will you take care of our son? I'm afraid we have a flight back soon."

"Yes. Please take care of him. He's a stubborn and dumb kid."

"I'm not a child anymore."

"In my eyes you are. Let's go, honey." They come and kiss Jaebum on the cheek. He watches their backs.

"Have a safe flight." They wave me a goodbye, which I return, before exiting the room. I'm still in shock over my thoughts, his actions, his parents.

The past five minutes have been quite eventful.

"What is it?" Jaebum asks me, the sparkle in his eyes never leaving. It's so cute, but I try to swat that thought away. I can't possibly.

"Nothing."

"Tell me what's wrong." He grabs my hand again and my face bursts into a bright red. His touch is soft and when I look into his eyes, I'm trapped. They seem to have an intense aura that I've never noticed. I can't look away. And he has two little moles above his eye. His hair frames his face perfectly. Not to mention his strong nose. He looks like a Greek God. How could I only now notice?!

And his lips are very pink.

"I can't!" My thoughts culminate in a simple statement: I have fallen in love.

In the two years I've worked in this division, I've met and spoken with the Chief Inspector many times. I've had the pleasure of working with Mr. Im in the last month or so. And now the last three weeks to fall in love with Jaebum.

And now he has to carry this burden. I lower my head. Maybe he doesn't like me back. My brain tends to make up ideas that aren't real. I was probably delusional and making up fake scenarios in my mind where he liked me. Yes. That must be it. He just praised me because he admired my intelligence. He talked to me because I was his friend. How could I have been so blind, to lead myself on like that?

"You're doing it again." I can hear the disappointment in his voice. He lifts my head up. "Why are you crying?" Gosh and now he sounds frustrated and it's all my fault. Stupid me for getting too deep in his charm. He wipes my tears, but they don't stop. I start to hiccup.

"I-I'm so-rry!"

"I can't help if you're you like this."

I can't tell you! I want to say. It will ruin everything! I scream in my mind. I want to say it, but I'm scared.

He interlaces his fingers with mine and the other is dedicated to softly running through my hair.

"Come on, baby girl." My heart stops. Time freezes. I feel my whole body go limp and tense all at the same time.

"Stop crying." Heat pools in my body, threatening to burn me alive. My tears abruptly stop. He watches me.

"Speak to me. I know you're-"

"Baby girl..." I drift. For once, my mind is utterly empty.

"Yes? I said that. Do you want me to refer to you as something else?"

"N-no! I mean-well I! I!" Sighing, I gather myself. "Why did you call me that?" He rubs his forehead and smirks, amused.

"I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"You're sharp, but not when it comes to matters of the heart." He grabs my face and suddenly his lips are so close to mine I can't even think.

"Jaebum..."

"I'll kiss you, but only if you ask nicely."

I'm beyond embarrassment when I whimper my response. "Please." He obliges. His lips feel even better than they look. I want to bring him close and taste him even more. His hands are rough from his work, but it feels nice and sends a tingle somewhere I have no experience with. I'm ashamed of my own body's receptiveness to him.

He pulls away and I quietly whine. He smirks, but doesn't comment.

"I want to make sure you get it."

"What?"

"You're mine. You're my girlfriend. I told my parents as much." It's suddenly all too much for me. "Your crush on me was extremely obvious. I humored you at first, but now I like you." My ears feel tingly. His words touch me deeply. I've never felt so loved and needed in my life. I can't help my tears again. I feel like a huge crybaby, but it's not my fault.

"I want to t-tell you something."

"Go ahead."

"I know I'm really snotty and weak and I cry a lot-"

"You have a soft heart. Not a problem." I shake my head.

"Please listen, okay?" His expression becomes completely serious. Taking a deep breath, I go into the recesses of my mind, to a place I don't like going.

"When I was younger, I had a pretty normal childhood. My parents were normal people. I had normal friends. Everything was fine. Then, my grandmother on my dad's side died.

"My dad was really attached. Her death really affected him. He began neglecting me. He insulted my mom. He never used violence or got drunk, but he told me I was weak and dumb. He rarely came home and my mom dropped all that negativity on me.

"She would tell me how much she hated him. I still loved him and I tried to understand him. It was hard for me because I hated my dad for being the way he was and I hated my mom for hating him. I wanted to love the-" I felt a knot in my throat.

"That's in the past."

I go on, "Eventually, my mom divorced him, but it was hard for her and me. She had to work two jobs. Sometimes I felt like I had no parent. I was glad I had Jinyoung to support me. We went to college together. I would do anything for him. He helped me when I needed it the most."

"I'm proud of you for telling me this." He puts a hand on my head and I glow from the praise.

"I'm happy you're the first person to know. I trust you."

"Now it's my turn to admit something. This is the first time in my life I have ever been so invested in someone." His serious and straight to the point attitude sends a shiver up my spine.

"Jaebum..."

"I'm serious about you."

"I..." The words die in my mouth.

"You can doubt yourself, but never doubt me." He comes closer to me. My heart screams at me from within my ribcage. It wants to be let out. This pressure on my shoulders disappears and I feel light. My brain is telling me this is fine. I should do what I want to do and not worry so much. He grabs me and pulls me onto the hospital bed. I become anxious, but his confidence dispels my worries.

I like it. This relationship I've accidentally stumbled into. It's the most wonderful accident.

"Let me prove to you how much I need you, baby girl." The nickname has my heart flipping, but I feel red hot. I want him to make the burn go away.

"Please, Jaebum," I beg, already anticipating what's to come. His eyes close and he groans. His arms hold me on top of him. When he looks at me, he's engulfed in something dark. I nearly fall on him from the look of pure hunger on his face.

"Go lock that door."

I could promise with my faulty memory that I have never run and locked a door so quickly. And he remarks on this.

"Eager?" When I sit back near him, he drags me to straddle him. Shuddering, I breath with difficulty. He looks me up and down and I feel naked already under his intense staring.

A shaky, "Yes," is all I can pull from my parched mouth. His hands dig into my hips and he brings me closer, forcing me to rub my clothed pussy on his already growing erection. My face burns when he exhales. I'm overwhelmed.

"I don't know if I can be gentle if you look like that."

"Don't—do what you want with me." He suddenly yanks me down and my lips crash into his. The impact hurts, but his adept lips make me forget quickly. Jaebum bites my lips rather harshly and I wince. His hands explore my sides and land on my ass as he gives it a squeeze. I moan into his mouth and he practically eats it. He shoves his tongue in my mouth and I let him explore me. His tongue leaves me dizzy, like I'm drunk on his taste. I feel limp in his arms, merely enjoying the sensation.

I've never experienced something like this before. I feel an immense pressure in my lower abdomen and my clit pulses. Although I can't figure out anything with Jaebum kissing me and grabbing my ass, I am cognizant enough to know that I need more than just a kiss.

I— reluctantly —separate and blush at the trail of saliva connecting our lips.

"More..." I moan.

"You're so hot. Fuck." He obliges quickly. One of his hands travels down and into my pants. The contact of his rough finger on my clothed clit makes me moan shamelessly and bite my lip.

"You've never been fingered like this, huh? You want me to make you cum just like this?" His voice growls in my ear. My body shakes as I rest my face on his neck, breathing shallow. He slowly circles my clit with his finger, occasionally pressing onto it. It sends electricity up my spine and down into my stomach.

"Your panties are fucking soaked. Is this all for me, baby girl?" He rubs a certain spot, the directness of the stimulation hurting and making me moan. It's so much— too much.

"Yesyesyesyesyes. Oh fuck—" I can't speak; I just buck into his hand, finding purchase. He ups his pace, fingers relentlessly vibrating against my clit. I release a wanton moan and bite his shoulder. Sweat beads on my forehead.

"Moan for me. I want everyone in this hallway to hear you." My moans are needy and loud. I feel close. I'm not sure what close is, but the pressure on my clit and Jaebum egging me on with his words brings me deeper and deeper. Just when I feel like the burning is about to boil over—

He stops. I whine at the loss of contact, but he yanks my shirt off my body, taking my bra along with it. He latches his lips to a nipple and bites it. I cry out.

"Open your eyes and fucking look at me." I obey quickly and nearly cum on the spot: he's sweating and his hair is messy, but his eyes are alive with carnal and raw desire. He lasciviously licks that nipple before sucking it. My hands shake, but I prop myself up, making it easier for him. His eyes never leave mine. And I don't think he wants to stop looking.

Jaebum begins to slowly grind up into me. The sensation of his clothed cock rocking on my clit has me whimpering again: "Jaebum..." I feel his cock on me. There's no doubt he's just as turned on as I am.

"That's right. Moan for me, you fucking slut." The derogatory terms make my pussy clench. I moan as my eyes roll back. He sucks on my nipple and releases it with a pop before giving the other the same attention.

"Fucking love it when I call you names? I bet you do. You're so wet I bet if I touched your pussy now my finger would slip right in." Despite the lewdness of his words, I don't doubt it. I probably have soaked through my panties. Blushing at the thought I look away. Pain rushes into my body when I feel him twist my nipple.

"Did I say you could look away?" I whip back in his direction and his smirk goes straight to my eager cunt.

"N-no..." The dynamic change from sweet and caring Jaebum to this has me quaking with anticipation. I reach down towards his pants. His dick is poking me, already hard as a rock. My hands gingerly wrap around it and give a gentle tug. He throws his head back and groans, guttural. His face full of ecstasy makes me want to touch him more, urge him to make more of those delicious moans. I want him to just fuck me until I can't walk. I grow impatient. As if hearing my thoughts, he stops.

He pushes me off him and I blink with confusion.

"Well? Take your pants off." When I see him taking his shirt off I take it as my cue. At the speed of light, I take off my pants. I hesitate at my panties. Looking back at him, I gape at his body. The planes of his chest are smooth and slicked with sweat. His stomach looks built, but not too much. There are some hairs on his abdomen that lead down lower into his pants... I swallow my saliva.

"Like something you see?" My eyes flit back to his smirking face.

"I want to suck your cock." It catches him off guard and I surprise myself. Where did this confidence come from? He growls and gets off the bed, cornering me like a predator. I back up I until my back hits the wall. Jaebum places his hand on my head and shoves me until I kneel down. I look up at him, hands in my lap.

"Work for it, slut." Eyes wide, my hands make quick work of his belt buckle and pants. Dragging his pants and underwear down, my mouth waters once his cock springs out. It's red at the tip and angry, precum leaking out. I don't waste any time and give a few kitten licks.

"Shit..." he squeezes his eyes shut, hand on the wall, and I preen at his reaction. Motivated, I take half of it into my mouth, watching his reaction. He growls and grips my hair. I hollow my cheeks and suck, bobbing up and down on what my mouth can fit. His hand tugs on my hair, making me wince. Jaebum looks at me, sharing eye contact, and bites his lip.

"Bet you love having my dick in your mouth." I moan, sending vibrations to his cock. He grabs the back of my head and shoves the rest of it in my mouth. My nose touches his abdomen and when his cock reaches the back of my throat, I gag. I can't breathe. Tears well up in my eyes, but I force myself to relax.

Once I do, he relentlessly fucks himself into my mouth. I hold onto my complaints, but at the same time, I like it. Him using me as an object to reach his orgasm, it makes my pussy ache for him. He's using me to satisfy his needs. Every time he rocks himself my throat burns, but the roughness makes me wetter.

"Touch yourself," he says through clenched teeth. My hand is shaky as it touches my forgotten clit. The relief I receive is instant. Eyes rolling, I nearly forget Jaebum's cock in my mouth. I flick my wrist, abusing my clit with my middle and forefinger. The juices from my aching sex remind me of what's to come.

His pace doesn't relinquish for even a second. I can't even breathe. And his hands dig into my scalp and pull me any which way. Jaebum moans particularly loud and it makes my pussy throb. My fingers hiccup at the sound.

"Your throat is so warm— fuck! You're so dirty, fucking yourself while my dick is down your throat." I spread my legs more, eager for more. I shove my hand down my panties and shove a finger in my hole. He takes his cock out of my mouth to let me breathe, but I can only inhale once before he slams it back in. A tear rolls down my cheek. The pain and pleasure melt together to the point where I can't discern the difference.

My stomach clenches and I know this time that I'm near an orgasm.

"I'm gonna cum. So close—!" He grunts, barely able to speak. Whimpering, I feel myself climbing a hill. It builds and builds, threatening to burn me alive. "Come on, baby girl. Choke on my dick." On command, white-hot pleasure is searing through me and I close my eyes. My legs shake and my body falls limp, rubbing out my orgasm. He yanks my head back and takes his dick out of my mouth. Coughing, I grab my throat and breath in the air I was desperately missing.

When I open my eyes again, he's panting and working himself to his own release. I encourage him.

"Please cum, Jaebum. Cum all over my face." With one final groan, his seed releases onto my face and he closes his eyes, hand on his forehead. We both let our labored breathing mingle and slow as we come down from our highs. He wicks away his sweat before looking down at me. Smiling, I gaze into his eyes with adoration.

"Wipe that innocent look off your face. I'm not done with you yet." I'm unable to wonder as he suddenly picks me up and tosses me onto the hospital bed. He fully removes his pants and underwear. And then I'm suddenly reminded of where we are. We're about to have sex in a hospital room where anyone could hear.

"Jaebum, maybe we should stop." His hand lands on my clit and I gasp, breath hitching. He rubs me from on top of my panties and I feel myself building already.

"I want to taste you, but I can save that for another day." I can't manage a protest when he pulls my panties aside and shoves a finger inside. The moan that escapes me is so needy and lewd, I would be surprised if no one heard it.

"Oh, Jaebum!"

"Look at you. So fucked out and I've barely done anything. Are you sure you want to stop?" At the unforgiving pace he's fingering me, I can't even think. He smirks and adds another finger. My moans grow louder and more desperate. I arch into him, my breasts grazing his chest.

Jaebum leans down and sucks a huge hickey on a random spot on my neck. With his free hand, he takes a nipple between his fingers and pulls it. The searing sensation clouds my judgment. His fingers hit a spot that has me nearly screaming in his ear. He adds another digit and scissors me sloppily. My juices coat his fingers and I can hear how he fucks me, so hard and fast and without mercy. The familiar heat grows in my stomach and he continues to move around inside me. My vision grows blurry by the second.

"Oh god! P-please! I'm so close!" At that, he abruptly removes his fingers with a growl. I want to yell at him for continuing to tease me, but he flips me over and slams his cock into my pussy. A scream rips from my throat and he moans in tandem. The force of the impact has me gripping the bedsheets in a vice.

"Holy fuck! You're dripping. Your pussy swallows me so good, baby girl." I whimper, the stretch hurting my virgin hole. And he notices, just letting his cock settle inside me. He growls and squeezes my hips hard. The grip he has will definitely leave marks, but for now, it only fuels my libido.

"It's taking every ounce of my self-control to not pound you into this bed." I wiggle my ass, telling him it was okay, and he slowly thrusts into me. It hurts for a little, but then I find myself wanting more.

"Faster." Once he hears that, he takes his cock out and shoves it back in. He sets a steady pace. His breath is shallow, but he doesn't slow down for a moment. The idea of getting fucked doggy style never appealed to me, but the way his cock naturally curves into me makes me want to convulse. It's so good— too good.

"Say my name," he whispers lewdly into my ear.

"Jaebum." The idea of someone possibly hearing our moans, my screams, the intermingling of our pleasure only takes me higher.

A sharp pain on my ass suddenly wakes me from my stupor. Moaning, my toes curl in response.

"Fucking scream it like you were earlier."

"Jaebum!" He smacks my ass again and I hiss, but I'm seeing stars. His hand rubs the spot and I whimper.

"This is fucking amazing. Your pussy was made for my cock." His filthy words make my pussy clench around him. I feel myself getting closer and closer. He pushes my head down onto the bed. I raise my ass and spread my legs more, allowing him to reach deeper and deeper. The bed rocks back and forth at the force of his thrusts.

Jaebum spreads me open and suddenly reaches a spot that has me screaming. And he hits it over and over again. I pant and moan, so close I can taste my orgasm.

"Are you enjoying this? Knowing someone could walk by and hear you moan like the bitch in heat you are." My eyes roll to the back of my head.

"I'm close! I'm gonna cum!" He picks up his pace and slams into me. My hole is dripping with my juices and the sweat coming from us both. His hand reaches for my hair and pulls me up.

"Then do it. Cum!" My body feels like it's on fire. Even my throat is raw from screaming. "I want your filthy cunt dripping. Cum all over my cock like the cock slut you are." The force of my orgasm hits me like a freight train. With that last sentence, I feel myself falling over the edge. My body convulses and my wet pussy contracts around Jaebum's dick.

He still hasn't cum yet, so despite how tired I am, I try to help him reach his own. "Come on baby. I want you to cum inside my pussy. It's so wet for you." He moans loudly and speeds up— I didn't think it was possible —and my clit protests at the overstimulation. It hurts.

"Fuck. You're so hot. So hot. So wet. I could fuck your little pussy and never get tired." He leans over me, breath fanning on my neck. I turn to see his face, and I nearly cream myself. His fucked out and blinded by pleasure expression. His eyes are blown so wide they look black. They're clouded and lost in the ecstasy and I want to cum again. Jaebum bites down on my neck and I moan.

"Oh, baby—please!"

"Cumming again? Can't get enough of my cock, huh?" My eyes close and I feel his cock pulsing inside of me. "Scream my name. I want to hear it from that pretty mouth."

"Please cum inside me— on me I don't care just fuck me harder!" With one particularly hard thrust, I cum again. "Jaebum!" If no one in the hospital heard me the first time, then they could hear me that time. A loud moan falls from his lips as he leans over me, his frame swallowing mine. Jaebum thrusts a few more times and he follows, pulling out and cumming all over my ass and back.

He falls beside me and stares into my eyes. We slow our breathing and lie there peacefully, just watching each other. His fingers brush the sweat-matted hair from my face.

"You look so beautiful." I glow from his compliment and smile. He returns it and I blush, in awe of how beautiful he looks when he smiles. The edges of his eyes wrinkle as his eyes disappear beneath his eyelids. I've never been so happy just watching someone smile. And it makes me curious.

"How can you smile so cutely after you just got done mercilessly fucking me?" Jaebum laughs loudly, his mouth opening wide like a dinosaur. I feel my heart pound at how endeared I am. His laugh dies down and he looks at me in worry.

"I didn't hurt you at all, did I?"

"No. I really liked it..." Face burning, I hide behind my hands. Arms envelop me as I get pulled into his chest. He gently rubs my back and kisses the crown of my head.

"I'm glad." There's a warm silence the fills the air, but I feel myself enjoying it. In his arms, I feel so at ease, so at home. It's like a belonged here all along. To think I was afraid of him before. There's nowhere more safe for me than here with him. And I will never doubt that again.

"Why can't I come with you?" I bite my lip. He closes his eyes, arms crossed.

"It's dangerous. Did you forget that I'm still healing from when I got shot? Or did that casually slip your mind?" His tone is hard; he won't be budging anytime soon. Fiddling my fingers, I look up at him. He returns to looking at the file on Mr. Jung's mistress.

What if Ms. Kim shoots him again? What if this time it's fatal? Sweat forms on my forehead. I feel too attached to him. I've come to depend on Jaebum's resilience and unbreakable will.

Face taut with worry, I reach forward. I feel him tense once my arms wrap around his midriff.

"Please, Jaebum. Don't risk your life." Jaebum places a hand on my head to comfort me.

"You know I can't promise something like that, baby girl."

"Lie to me a little?"

"You know I don't like lying, either."

"Then make sure to catch that bitch and put her where she belongs." He bursts out laughing and I retract myself. His laugh makes me smile, too.

I will never doubt him.

He's been gone thirty minutes. And these 30 minutes have been hell on Earth for me. I can't stop gnawing on my pen and scribbling little tornadoes on my sticky notes. I've watered my cactus and poked myself a few times in my shakiness. Jinyoung isn't even here to calm me down, having gone with Jaebum along with a few more officers. My toes feel sweaty and cold all at once. I've taken six trips to the break room to drink water.

I stand up, about to take my seventh.

"Hey!" Mark calls my name, urging me into his office. I anxiously stand in front of his desk.

"Yes?"

"Your pacing is making me anxious," he smiles.

"Sorry. I'm really worried."

"I know you are, but you have to calm down. Jaebum has done much more dangerous things." I frown and look at the ceiling, holding back— some extremely childish, dumb, stupid, irrational —tears. It makes me frustrated with myself. Curse my own overthinking and my own anxiety. Without Jaebum or even Jinyoung, my emotions control me.

I hear Mr. Tuan sigh. "Jaebum would kill me, but I think if you don't see him yourself, you might faint and die yourself." At once I return my eyes to him, shocked. Is he insinuating...

"Mr. Tuan?"

"I believe Jinyoung left his police car in the lot. You know where the keys are, right?"

He is!

"I won't be covering for you. It's my position on the line," he tells me sternly. Nearly vibrating in a mixture of anxiety and joy, I bolt out of the office.

"Thank you, sir!"

He shakes his head and leans on his desk.

Once I get to the parking lot and plop into Jinyoung's car, I review the floor plans of Ms. Kim's house. She was a stupid criminal without much foresight. Her house is only three miles from the station. Which only increases my anxiety.

Forty minutes since Jaebum left. Anything could have happened. In the blink of an eye he could— I literally shake my head and throw the papers down before gripping the wheel. Calm down. Don't doubt yourself. Jaebum will be fine. He probably already apprehended her and has Mulgogi safe elsewhere.

I try not to let the dark cloud engulf me, but I can't control it.

And even if I called her foolish for not having any foresight, it didn't occur to me to bring some kind of weapon. When I encroach on her apartment, I find that there isn't anyone here. Not a single police car in sight. Eyebrow raised, I park in the lot and blink. I grab the papers from the passenger's side.

I'm in the right place.

The apartment is on the second floor: 297B. However, her car is nowhere to be seen. As a matter of fact, there isn't even one car in the lot. It's peculiar... very much so. The area isn't off limits to the public, really.

...What's going on?

I watch the police car pull into the lot, silent, just how I asked. Exhaling through my nose, I watch the apartment door. All clear thus far. Everything is going smoothly. We can take the cat still, for confirmation of what we've been told.

"They've arrived, Jaebum," Jackson tells me quietly. I nod.

After getting the inside from HQ that this was, in fact, an insurance fraud from a gang, we were forced to stay far from the apartment. To think that Kim Sungjeong was involved in this. Mr. Jung was a poor fool, tricked by a foxy escort. All just a convoluted ploy to take his money before killing him, not leaving a trace.

Tsking, I keep my radio near.

"I have a message for you, Inspector." I bring it to my face in an instant.

"Identify your station."

"Infiltration unit."

"Receiving well, report."

"My location is on the corner of Chigo and Gomae."

My blood becomes cold. That's near here. As in almost arriving. As in not here yet. As in, that car is not the infiltration unit.

"WHO THE FUCK IS IN THE PARKING LOT THEN?!" Jackson flinches from beside me, catching onto the problem quickly.

"Uh, sir-"

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING?!" I can't even think about using code. That person is endangering their life. My heart is pumping. There doesn't need to be any more casualties— fuck, or deaths —than there's bound to be. This is gang on police force warfare. It's no longer a case of matricide. Leaning forward, I try to make out the police car number from the lot we are situated.

I can't concentrate; my vision is shaking.

"Jackson read that."

"It looks like...394." A three hundred series. Those belong to Mark's station.

"Fuck!" I slam my hand on the steering wheel, patience wearing.

"Don't get anxious, JB. Losing yourself won't help."

Practically growling into my radio, "Infiltration unit, relay a message to Lookout unit."

"Transmission completed, on standby, sir."Every second I sit is a second of building danger.

"Well?!"

"Relaying message... It's Jinyoung's."

"What..." I furrow my eyebrows. Jinyoung didn't take his car.

But my words, thoughts and breath stop in my throat.

I recognize those dainty hands and blue, pencil skirt even from a distance. My stomach drops to my feet once she is fully outside of the car. I'm so livid, livid at her stubbornness and lack of faith in me and the squad. Now she's in danger.

"Damn it all to fucking hell—fuck!"

Grinding my teeth, I grab my radio: "Going in, all units within radius."

Swinging the car door open, I sneak across the street to avoid revealing Jackson's position. But once I'm in the open parking lot I sprint. And she turns around, having the nerve to look shocked.

"Jaebum?" He grips my shoulders, anger pressed on his face.

"Do you know what you've done?" My shoulders begin to hurt from his harsh grip.

"Jaebum, you're hurting me..." I flinch. He softens and releases me. Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair, visibly trying to calm down.

"This isn't just a murder. Yes, Ms. Kim killed him, but she's an escort."

"What?"

"She's working for the Jajusaeg Nun gang as an escort. This was an insurance fraud and murder to steal Mr. Jung's money and frame his wife. That cat is the difference from an innocent woman being freed or locked up for life. Here." He gives me the papers with all the information they've gathered. I feel myself start to shake. Just what have I gotten myself into?

"Right now, we're in danger. For all I know, there's a sniper or something on our heads. This is gang on police warfare. Just being open in this parking lot is a risk. Let's move," he tells me as he grabs my hand and walks us near the apartments.

God. I'm so stupid. My knees barely hold me up. I don't really care if I die, but Jaebum... he's risking his life just by coming out of hiding to get me. I look up at him. Why can't I listen to him? He's always right. Not once has he steered me wrong and yet I'm here, putting our lives and potentially the rest of the officers' at stake. And I'm supposed to be a genius.

"Stay strong." He squeezes my hand. "I'm here. As long as you stay calm, we can figure out a safe way of getting what we need without anyone getting hurt."

And we are at the door of her apartment. My breath hitches. "Alright, I need you to crouch by the door and keep your eyes on our surroundings. If I scream, don't come inside-" I nearly choke on the knot in my throat. "-And report into my walkie-talkie. Jackson will be parked at the drugstore, tell him to bring back up." He unclips his walkie-talkie and gives it to me.

And then he takes his gun out of his holster. I only now notice how dizzy I feel and just how badly I want to turn back time to before I came to this lot. I hear him remove the safety. I steel myself. I have to. If not for myself, then for Jaebum.

He twists the knob; it's already open. His expression hardens. If anything, the fact that the door is open is worse than it being locked. They're expecting us.

"Seoul police. Come out now and no one will get hurt. We can settle this peacefully. This is your only warning."

The silence is deafening.

I could hear the creaking of the door, Jaebum's breathing and droplets of water from something leaking. My stomach flips when Jaebum starts walking in. I stare at him, eyes flitting wildly, hoping he'll feel my fear and return.

He doesn't and just continues deeper into the apartment. Once I can't hear his steps or breathing, I begin a mental scan of the apartment.

The walls are a white color with some overlapping paint, a sign of a poor paint job. The door has splintering wood; it has seen some wear and tear. It's surrounded by bushes and trees. A trail leads into a wooded area near the complex. It isn't a constructed trail, it's as if multiple people have gone back and forth through it. I take note of it mentally.

Outside of the apartment, there is a welcome mat. Oddly enough, the bristled mat has a wet spot. With curiosity overwhelming me, I swipe it with my finger. A clear, semi-sticky liquid. And then I bring it to my nose.

Kerosene.

I bolt out of my spot on the ground and see a small, almost invisible trail leading inside the apartment. Panic sets in and I throw what Jaebum told me to the wind. Running into the apartment, I look around the living space, my eyes and mind overwhelmed by the information overload.

Bags— black, full bags —litter the ground. It's obvious what is inside. On the counter, there are at least 7 pairs of keys. I grab a pair with a single key— likely the apartment key —and put it in my skirt for later. There's a recently used ashtray, the tip of a cigarette releasing the most minute traces of smoke. Ms. Kim never smoked. And the couches had stains.

Without a moment to think, I hear a gun cocking. I close my eyes and swallow my fear, emotions, everything.

A strange voice in my ear, "Should have listened to Mr. Strong Policeman, girly." My breathing picks up. "Scared, huh? Won't you turn around for me." I slowly do as he says, taking a moment to sneakily stuff the walkie-talkie into my sweater. It's a man I've seen on tv plenty of times. My expression morphs into fear.

"You..."

"I like that expression. I would gladly explore some more pretty faces, but I don't have time."

I only now notice Jaebum, who is silent as a lamb. He's perfectly fine, not a scrape on him, but then I notice why: he's staring at the lighter in Min Yoongi's hand. The notorious pyromaniac of Seoul's biggest gang. And he knows he has the upper hand.

"You have something I want." Yoongi suddenly grabs my throat, squeezing.

"W-what-?"

"Those papers! Give them to me." He lessens the pressure on my windpipe.

"I won't- give them to you." Jaebum tries to creep on him, but Yoongi flicks the lighter on.

"I hear you. Sit the fuck down like the dog you are."

Jaebum scowls.

"Growling like a mutt. Sad," Yoongi shakes his head. Then he returns to me. "Well, if that's the case, I guess I'll have to take you and the papers with me. Hm? How about it?" I shake in fear.

Yoongi twists me around and uses me as a shield. Jaebum raises his gun in that instant. Despite knowing Jaebum wouldn't shoot me, I feel lightheaded as I stare down the barrel of the gun.

"Don't shoot your girlfriend. Let's be civil." The lighter is flickering near my face.

"It was never civil."

"God, you're so fucking annoying. I need to take my leave." He drops the lighter directly on one of those kerosene lines and drags me along with him and outside of the apartment. The apartment very nearly bursts into flames. I watch on in horror.

"JAEBUM!" My throat rips out an agonizing scream. Yoongi pulls my arm almost hard enough to pop it out of its socket. We go into the forest, through that exact path I felt suspicious about earlier.

As I continue to distress in silence, Yoongi rolls his eyes.

"Stop whining. I wish it was that easy to kill that guy." I stare at his back as I follow him. He casually juggles the lighter in his hand. His pants are loose around his lanky legs. But something catches my eyes about his gait. When he walks, he puts more pressure on his left leg.

It's no wonder he didn't try running from us as soon as he saw us. Or... did he know I had the papers? Speaking of, he lifts them up to read them on occasion, as if to absorb the information.

We soon appear in an area littered with cabins in several states of disarray. As we climb the steps of a cabin, I notice bullet holes in the walls and sections of frayed wood. I shiver, knowing that was a sign of Min Yoongi's activities.

He slams the door open and announces himself, "I'm here! And I brought the police info!"

I stand near the door, touching the wood with my fingers. It gives a little. The building is old and judging by the frayed wooden posts outside, would easily burn if the dry wood caught fire.

"Hey. Get over here. Can't have you running off." After I return to his side, a tall man appears.

"Good. I think we— Who is this?"

"Oh, her? Just some police girl. She was with Jaebum."

To think I'm in the middle of a gang's nest, standing in front of the rumored leader. It sends chills up my spine. I could die at any moment or be subjected to anything they decide to do. Namjoon eyes me with curiosity.

Yoongi hands him the documents and he looks through them absentmindedly before turning to me.

"What should I do with you, hm?"

"If you don't mind, I actually had something in mind."

"What?"

"Jaebum seemed real keen on keeping her alive. Maybe she has some value."

"I'm following."

"We could lure him out, rile him up and BAM—!" He flicks his lighter and stares at the flames before turning to Namjoon.

"As much as I like the idea of getting Jaebum off our backs, with these papers in hand, we have enough to settle Sungjeong's court case."

"Ugh. So boring."

"We can leave this area and find a newer and better hideout. Let's not get greedy."

"Fine." Yoongi crosses his arms. "So what do I do about her?"

"Make sure she doesn't get into trouble. Otherwise, it's not my problem." Namjoon leaves us in the entrance alone. Yoongi glares at me.

"I don't really care what you do around here. You don't seem real bright, though, so let me give you some rules." I flinch when he gets close to my face.

"Don't run off. I'll find you and you won't like it. Don't go snooping where you don't belong. Don't come into my room." I can only nod as a twisted smirk morphs into his face.

"Good."

God fucking damn it.

"Damn it all! Fuck!" I punch the hood of my car, growling. Jackson is talking to the SWAT unit, who are prepared to search the area and take prisoners.

But who's to say I won't go in there myself.

"Piece of trash, Min Yoongi." He stole the most important papers in our repertoire. Those documents had more than enough evidence to convict Ms. Kim of the crime. And the incredible bonus of locking up some Jajusaeg Nun gang members for assisting a murder.

And now they can trash them. Throw them away and throw away any case against Ms. Kim.

My little mouse isn't safe either. They could be doing anything and everything to hurt her and I can't do anything to stop it.

"Don't look so down, Jaebum." A hand lands on my shoulder. I turn to Jackson's face.

"She will be okay."

"How do you know that? You don't. She could die and an innocent woman could be locked up. There's so-"

"Always the pessimist. What happened to the JB that loved drinking with me and sneaking itching powder into the squad captain's boxers?" I laugh. Then I get worried all over again.

"It's in my nature to worry about things outside of my control."

"Maybe put more trust in her. She's smart. You say it all the time."

"Sir," Jinyoung comes up behind me. "The SWAT team will move in as soon as they are ready." Teeth clenched, I close my eyes and try to find some patience.

"We can't afford to wait so long!"

At this point, I can't even find it in myself to care about the gang, or the case or any information.

I want my little mouse safe and in my arms.

I may be very obedient at work, but these people are not my bosses. It's entirely out of character of me to be so bold, but my desire to please Jaebum overwhelms my sense of danger. Pathetic, I'd say.

So the moment I saw an opening, I took it. With Min out and about doing whatever it is he does, I explore the huge cabin.

The house is barely livable and there aren't any decorative or personal items to be found. I suppose gang members don't care for trivial things like that. The floors are old and I cringe and pray every time they creak.

I hear stomping down the hall and gasp, flitting my eyes to find somewhere to hide. The walls— the floor— the couch— the walls-! Nowhere!

Then I try to look as natural as possible. The gang is pretty big, I'm sure they won't notice a new person? But I'm still in uniform! As I panic, the stomping grows closer and the floorboards get louder.

A bright idea— a figurative lightbulb appears above my head —formulates. I remove my jacket and wrap it around my waist and rip off my name tag and division badge.

Just in time, a tall, thin man spots me as he comes into the hallway I'm in. He smiles and looks me up and down. His welcoming expression instantly sets me at ease.

"Hello! I'm sorry, but I can't recall who you are..." his face is long and he looks comfortable, as if he's not in a gang.

"Oh." I steady my voice, "I'm a new member. Yoongi brought me in today."

"Oh! That's nice. I'm Hoseok." I introduce myself and shake his hand.

Then another brilliant idea pops into my brain.

"Actually, Namjoon wanted to see me. Can you tell me what hallway his office is?" He raises his eyebrow.

"Really? Are you sure about that, little lady? Namjoon doesn't see anybody. And a newbie? Definitely not." He crosses his arms. "You better start talking," he warns, any semblance of kindness gone.

Although I'm sweating and my heart is pumping, I force myself to swallow.

"It's about Sungjeong. Yoongi actually found the police papers. I think it's about that."

To my relief, Hoseok is calm again. Smiling, he pats my head.

"Don't scare me like that, Missy! I thought we had an intruder. Yes. That's true. I just got informed about that."

"Yeah..."

"Alright. Follow me!"

I nearly can't believe my plan worked so well. Hoseok motions me to follow him down the hallway he just came down. Then he points to a big oak door at the end of the hall.

"Namjoon's office is that fancy door down there. I have somewhere to be. If you get lost, ask for me." And just like that, he's gone.

Shaking my head, I walk down the hall. As if it was that easy. Such simpleminded gang members. As I near the door, I press my ear against it. Nothing. Not even a pen writing.

Taking in the hall, I notice a huge plant beside the door. For the most part, the hallway is bare with the exception of the plant.

Testing my luck, I knock on the door and dash behind the plant.

Again, nothing. No one is in there. However, when I go to twist the knob, it's locked. Obviously. But a police force member must always be prepared. I grab a thick Bobby pin from my hair and easily unlock the door.

You would think a gang leader would have a more secure office.

I sneakily enter before locking the door. The office is impeccable, documents filed on all the walls. It almost looks like a police file room. This gang leader is obviously very intelligent and organized. Being too curious for my own good, I look through the files and find so many interesting things.

Drug deals, theft, auto theft, assassinations and everything under the sun. These people were serious. As much as I could take in all this information, I need to be fast. I pull out my phone and take pictures of everything and a few odd documents.

Despite Namjoon's capabilities as a gang leader, his greatest flaw was underestimating my own intelligence and cunning.

Okay, maybe I'm stroking my ego a bit, but I've finally used my intellect for something useful!

I walk around and find the document very easily. It's right on top of his desk, some glasses beside it. He was looking at it earlier. Not wasting another moment, I fold it up and shove it into my shirt. When I leave the room, I lock it again.

No one is in the hall. Until I hear stomping again, but this stomping a lot more aggressive and with an odd gait.

Min Yoongi.

My heart sinks. He finds me and his expression is absolutely livid.

"Why did I know you would be trouble?!" He glares at me and I come forward, awaiting whatever he decided to do. A hand appears around my throat, squeezing. My vision turns black.

"L-let go..."

"Sorry, not really." And then he squeezes more, some strange sense of satisfaction in his eyes. I can feel my eyes almost rolling back. Blood rushes to my head.

"You've caused me a lot of issues. What should I do to show you your place?" My body grows numb by the second, but just before I black out, he releases my neck to let me breathe. I instantly collapse and breathe deeply to regain the air I lost.

"You can't be left in here. You're going in the shed." The man grabs me by my wrist, grip hard and yanks me up.

Shed?! My blood runs cold at the idea. I have to escape. Somehow I have to. The halls are empty, the floors are creaking. Yoongi's grip is impossible to get out of. We twist around so many corridors that I can't even focus on where we are.

One of my hands is free though. And he has a limp. His lighter is hanging slightly out of his pocket.

That's my best chance. I look at the back of his head, but he's so livid and focused on where he's taking me that he can't concentrate on anything else.

Hands fast, I take it out of his pocket. I flick on the flame and throw the lighter on the ground, the augmented flames of his lighter easily catching the dry and old wood on fire. He falters and trips on his injured leg.

"Fuck!" The flames grow easily. Yoongi grabs his ankle and growls at me. I dash down a random hallway.

"Get back here!" Surely his screaming alerted someone. But I can't think about that.

My goal is an exit. I keep running, adrenaline pumping. It feels like a maze, but my mind is in hyper-focus, eyes scanning and taking in my surroundings quickly. I've never felt so much mental clarity. I pass an area I recognize. Instinctively I go through an entryway and before me is the main entrance. It feels so close.

"I knew it!" The voice is familiar. Taking a quick glance behind me, Hoseok is standing there, but I only keep running.

"Get back here!" My nimble legs carry me out of the house, off the porch, into the woods. The walking trail making it easy to follow.

But I can hear the grass moving around right behind me. Hoseok is fast and catching up. You can only run so fast in uniform.

"You're so fucking dead when I catch you!" My heart and blood are pumping in my ear. I can't think.

I don't think.

I only run.

The walk that seemed so long when I was with Yoongi earlier is nothing now at the speed I'm running. My jacket is pulled off my waist. Tears fall freely from my face. Hoseok is right there.

"Stop now and I won't hurt you too badly!"

I can't. I can't stop now. Not when I'm so close. The trees are thinning and I can see the parking lot. Thank goodness. Only a little more and I'm safe.

But to my horror, Hoseok tackles me to the ground. We struggle against each other to gain control of the situation. He punches me in the stomach and I cough, wretching from pain. Some blood spurts from my lips. Taking advantage, he pins my legs beneath him. Every time he reaches for my hand or arm I bite his hand hard and we go back to struggling.

Then I remember: the house key.

I spit on his face, the blood covering his eye and distracting him for an instant, but that's enough. I rapidly pull it out of my skirt and as Hoseok pins my left arm, I shove the key into his side. He doubles over in agony and I take the opportunity to push him off and run into the parking lot. It's empty, but I remember Jaebum's words.

"Jackson! The drugstore!"

In a mad dash, I jay-run across the street— a few cars honking at me as I nearly get run over —to the parking lot full of police cars and even a SWAT team vehicle. I nearly cry from joy when I see Jaebum leaning against his police car, back turned.

"Jaebum!"

He turns around so fast, disbelief written all over his face. But it morphs into relief and joy. His arms open and I slam into him.

"You're safe. Thank God."

Once I'm in the safety of his arms, I fall down to the concrete. My adrenaline is gone. Jaebum follows and cradles me, running his fingers through my hair.

And everything hits me all at once. Tears stream down my face. He whispers nothing of importance— but extremely comforting —into my ear.

I was in a gang's hideout. I was kidnapped by a pyromaniac. Who knows what he was going to do to me in that shed. And Hoseok, he was ready to kill me.

He continues comforting me until my tears dry.

"It's okay, baby girl. You're okay. I'm glad you're here. You're amazing. You got out by yourself. I'm so proud. You deserve to rest." Jaebum begins to reach under my legs to pick me up, but I stop him by pulling the papers out of my bra.

I have to get this off me before it falls into the wrong hands again. He takes them into his hands.

His eyes are wide as he asks, "The documents? How?"

After calming down, I sigh and clear my throat.

"I tried being bold for once. One way or another I had to try or I would die in the process, so I went into Kim NamJoon's office and took as much as I could."

Then, I grab my phone and show him the pictures, his expression more amazed with each one. He turns to me, surprise melting into unbridled pride.

Jaebum grins, eyes crinkling and eyes sparkling. It sends a warmth into my chest.

"You're amazing, baby girl. I always knew it." I look down sheepishly. He places his hand on my head.

"With this, we can clear Mrs. Jung of her name, arrest Sungjeong and get the justice everyone wants." He looks at the photos again shaking his head in shock.

"And this... I don't even know, but there is so much here. Maybe we can finally get some leads on the Jajusaeg Nun gang."

After turning off my phone, he looks me deep in the eyes. He takes a deep breath and shoves me back into his chest.

"Jaebum?" I return his embrace.

"You are something else..."

"I love you," I mumble. And that's the truth. I can hear him smile— as peculiar as it sounds.

"I love you, too." He sighs, "I'm so glad you're safe. That's what's more important to me." He grabs my chin and tilts my head toward him. I blush furiously, our breaths lingering. Until he finally brings my lips to his.

My eyes close. Just taking him in. I've never felt so safe anywhere else. Our lips meld like the colors mixing on a watercolor painting, a beautiful mess that creates a new color. The feeling of his lips doesn't get hot like the day at the hospital.

It's soft and full of promises of the future.

When my mind is a mess, he is there to add to it. But he's there to put an order to my whirlwind. When I want to put myself in my hole, he crawls in with me. He brings a ladder though. When my heart is on fire, he stokes the flame. But he's always ready to put it out.

He is my balance, but he is also my gunpowder.

[ashxpad]

LAPD Collects Social Media Info of Civilians to Conduct Mass Surveillance

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has directed its officers to collect the social media information of every person they stop and interview, which could be used to surveil targetted groups en masse according to a new report.

According to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice, LAPD officers have been instructed to collect this information from civilians regardless if that person has been arrested or even accused of a crime.

The practice, which the Brennan Center found was not being reproduced by any other police department in the country after reviewing 40 other police agencies in the United States, is a method by which the leadership of the LAPD is ordering and authorizing its officers to engage in extensive mass surveillance of social media without any oversight.

Additionally, the Brennan Center reports that at the beginning of 2021, the LAPD added a new tool called Media Sonar, which can build detailed profiles on individuals and link them together using social networks. The Center argues that this along with the requirement of its officers to collect social media information greatly expands the police organization’s ability to conduct wide-ranging social media surveillance.

“This has serious implications for people’s privacy and First Amendment rights, especially for communities of color and activists,” writes Mary Pat Dwyer of the Brennan Center. “Social media surveillance can facilitate surveillance of protest activity and police presence at protests, which can chill both online and offline speech. Further, the highly contextual nature of social media also makes it ripe for misinterpretation.”

The Brennan Center has released documents it has obtained over the course of the last several months that show the practice as part of its goal to increase transparency and accountability for how the police in Los Angeles are monitoring civilians on social media.

As noted by The Guardian, the LAPD added “social media accounts: as a line on the physical field interview cards the department uses in 2015.

“Similar to a nickname or an alias, a person’s online persona or identity used for social media… can be highly beneficial to investigations,” the previous LAPD chief, Charlie Beck, wrote.

The practice of collecting social media information has largely gone unnoticed and the scale by which the police department uses that information is also likely largely unknown by the civilian population.

When the department obtains a social media handle or name from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or others, the organization can then use that individual’s public connections to form a link between specifically targetted groups.

The Brennan Center reports that there are few limitations to offset the broad authority the LAPD gives its officers to track and surveil social media accounts. Officers do not need to document the searches they conduct, their purpose, or their justification. They also do not need to seek supervisory approval and there are no standards for the types of cases that would warrant oversight of social media accounts.

“While officers are instructed not to conduct social media surveillance for personal, illicit, or illegal purposes, they seem otherwise to have complete discretion over whom to surveil, how broadly to track their online activity, and how long to monitor them,” Dwyer reports.

The LAPD encourages its officers to engage in social media “listening” which is broadly defined as the “continuous conduct of searches of content on the Internet for any discussions, posts, videos, blogs, and online conversations about the Department or other topics of interest to the Department. The purpose of listening is to discover what is being said online, raise awareness about the community, and put oneself in the position to correct false information or rumors.”

There are no limits that are placed on the scope of this continuous monitoring, and there is no oversight to determine if any monitoring is deployed in an inappropriate manner or discriminatorily.

Media Sonar, as shown in a snapshot below obtained by the Brennan Center from the LAPD, improves on the police department’s ability to track and surveil civilians through social media.

Source: The Los Angeles Police Department via The Brennan Center for Justice

The point of Media Sonar, according to the report, is to “address a potential threat or incident before its occurrence.”

The LAPD has requested federal funding to help pay for Media Sonar, which it says will be used for “terrorism prevention” but there are those who fear it will be used against protestors, according to The Guardian.

“The broad use of social media and the lack of oversight accompanying it, as these new documents put into high relief, is a matter of significant concern,” Dwyer concludes in her report. “Law enforcement should not have a free pass to broadly trawl the internet without accountability or oversight.”

Image credits: Unless otherwise noted, all photos licensed via Depositphotos.

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[maya-spirit1]

​ ​The Only Way To End “Rape Culture,” Is To Spiritually Awaken

When problems are not acknowledged, they don’t go away. Our society has a long history of denying difficult realities such as, poverty, wars, discrimnation, abuse,climate change, gender inequality, and many more. It’s a human response to want to avoid painful and difficult emotions or situations, yet ignoring them only makes things worse in the long run. For example, denying the fact climate change is getting worse, does not lead to less flooding, earthquakes, fires, or pollution. On the contrary, it only increases the severity of all of these problems until they reach a point in which they can no longer be ignored. When it comes to the issue of “rape culture,” the fact humanity has pushed away this “behavioral pandemic,” of sexual abuse/assault, incest, date-rape, spousal rape, sexual harrasement, and stalking, has only led to the majority of people, especially women, getting hurt. If more people had the confidence to admit they have survived some sort of sexual violence, you might discover that almost anyone who is around you is a survivor. When the MeToo movement sparked momentum in 2017, I was incredibly surprised to have discovered so many people in my community of friends are survivors. However, the movement is slowly weakening because the nature of humans’ need for denial of bad things, which can be compared to the current Covid19 pandemic, as some people claim is a hoax despite the much clear evidence proving it’s real- the only reason these people deny it, is because they don’t want to deal with it.

Denial hurts all who are involved because we are all spiritually connected, when I deny your pain, I also deny my pain. Even after the progress the MeToo movement has brought by raising awareness, and leading public conversation about sexual violence, it is still a subject most wish to avoid, and not enough is being done to improve the way survivors are treated by the judical, medical, and mental health systems. Most people have no idea how abusive these systems can be towards survivors worldwide. The judicial system harshly judges survivors and blames them for the assault even in cases where there is a significant amount of evidence in support of the survivor’s report. Yet, statistically 97 % of rapists don’t even spend one night in jail or get any kind of punishment, every 73 seconds and American is assaulted, 1-6 women is a survivor of rape or assault - according to Rainn organization, which works hard to overturn these devastating statistics. Sadly, the judicial system is not the only one that is failing survivors, the medical and mental health system express a lot of bias against survivors as well, and unfortunately many times they do more harm than good. Those bias opinions are part of victim blaming - every time a doctor or a mental health professional judges a survivor based on the fact they have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and as a result decides to not take their medical concerns seriously; thinking that whatever pain and imbalance is just anxiety, they fail survivors who actually have real medical conditions that are being neglected and can put their life in danger.Nonetheless, most survivors are at risk for heart, and lung disease, as well as autoimmune disease as a result of the long term trauma. Medical and mental health professionals also hurt survivors by being insensitive when examining them - truly all doctors must be trauma trained so they treat all patients as full human beings, as opposed to just items on their schedule. Of course they are many great medical and mental health professionals, however there are many that are brutal.

My friend Anna who was raped had told me that after her assault cops showed up on her door, not to help her, but to arrest her. Her rapist; ex-boyfriend, had told the police that she was suicidal. The cops with no further notice had taken her in with no questions, and without any attempt to investigate her rape elagations. Due to the psych depratment being full the police kept her in the precinct for a night until they had committed her to the psych deperatment against her will, while still refusing to take her rape elegations seriously. Meanwhile as you can imagine rape evidence have been destroyed since Anna has been locked up in the psych deprtement for two weeks where she was emotionally abused, neglected and ridiculed. The justice system, the police, and hospital not only failed her, but traumatized and hurt her even more. All they had to do was listen to her, and file her rape elegation report.

Hospitals in general are very oppressive and abusive toward women, especially young women, and women of color. I once had a kidney infection, I was in immense pain, I was crying in agony. The doctors at the hospital wanted me to do a pelvic exam - I refused to do so due to my traumas, they tried to force me, and said if I don’t do a pelvic, they won’t check me at all. I stayed with much pain, all the staff was abusive to me, treating me like a criminal even though I am one of the most gentle people I know. After a night of humiliation, neglect, and threats by doctors that were supposed to help me. I took a cab back home, and contacted my GYN, she immediately figured out what was going on and sent me antibiotics - I was fine the next day and led a meditation group in the park. I was treated like a mentally ill criminal just because I was a woman with reported PTSD, while I had an acute kidney infection that was causing so much pain it went down to my legs because it was spreading. Without my GYN wise and quick decision, my life could have been in danger. The bias and insensitivity towards survivors must stop! When a rape survivor arrives at the hospital or at a doctor soon after attack, or years later, she must get most compassionate care because how she is treated by the people that are menat to help her has role in how fast she will heal - gentle support is essential - tough love is not love. To end “rape culture” we must raise our boys to be more gentle, instead of telling our girls they need to be tougher. Girls are tough - they are managing in a society that constantly judges them, undermines them, insults them, and disrespects them since the beginning of time.

This terrible reality can only change with education, and awareness. Most people have no idea how badly survivors are treated by the systems. Also, because of victim blaming within and outside the systems, survivors are reluctant to report sexual crimes for fear they will not be believed as often happens. No matter what a woman was wearing, drinking, or saying before, if she said no, it means no. With lack of trust in the systems, the statistics for sexual assault, rape and abuse are much higher than studies show. If we consciously start to spread the message to stop victim blaming, and if we truly tap into our soul and imagine how it might feel for a survivor who is being hurt twice, by the perpetrator, and by society, maybe they will think twice before they question a survivor, what she wore, or how if she fought. Awakening means becoming aware, and we need to inform and educate doctors, nurses, lawyers, cops, detectives, teachers, and common people about the facts of sexual assault and abuse; a dark alley it’s not the common place where these crimes happen, it is more common within one’s family or community, it doesn’t matter what the survivor wore, sexual violence survivors have broken memories as a normal brain response to an abnormal circumstances,discrepancies don’t mean a survivor is lying - it means they are traumatized. All that and more are the truth most people ignore.

Another element that must happen in order to awaken humanity towards reality is gentle discussions about acceptance. As long as our society refuses to accept that true evil exists, nothing can change. This denial is what is preventing the healing, which is why I offer gentle discussions about our own private fears to confront our own demons, so we may accept the fact all humans have demons, and some can have very dark ones. By demons I obviously don’t mean real demons, I refer to what they represent: fears, illusions, and emotions like greed, jealousy, lust, or vengeance. These emotions don’t have to be destructive, but they can’t be if we ignore them until we can no longer contain them. Sometimes people blame survivors just because they were not able to get justice for themselves, or because the truth about how evil this world can be, breaks their bubble, and they rather attack others than to accept reality. If we gently start discussions and support each other in confronting our own demons, I truly believe we will become a more compassionate, and powerful society that can put an end to rape culture, and patriarchy, but the work of the whole start within. As we heal ourselves, we energetically raise the consciousness that allows others to heal and awaken as well. Mindfulness and meditations is a tool to connect with source, discover our strengths and weaknesses, and grow.

As I mentioned in other posts, everything starts with education, and awakening in its most basic form means, “soul learning.” My wish is for humanity to learn the truth about what this life really means, and how we can live it better, how we can love ourselves, and others better, how we can accept our journey more as we accept the journey of others, and most important accept each other’s experience and pain - when we can do that we could stop victim blaming, and end rape culture.

.

[wsmith215]

George Floyd protests continue, pressure mounts on police and President Donald Trump

  11m ago Minneapolis City Council to hold emergency meeting on police department’s future

The Minneapolis City Council is holding an emergency meeting Friday afternoon to discuss the future of the city’s police department.

CBS Minnesota reports the council will get an update on the Minnesota Department of Civil Rights’ investigation into MPD, and will vote on a court order demanding immediate changes.

Council President Lisa Bender and member Jeremiah Ellison tweeted Thursday that they plan to dismantle the police department.

Yes. We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety. https://bit.ly/3dzN7Yc

— Lisa Bender (@lisabendermpls) June 4, 2020

The city’s school district, the University of Minnesota and other agencies, organizations and businesses have severed ties with the department in the past 10 days since George Floyd died while being arrested.

  25m ago Dallas County is providing protesters with masks and hand sanitizer

Texas’ Dallas County is giving people protesting in its streets masks and hand sanitizer donated by the Dallas Mavericks, CBS DFW reports.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins is also advising protesters to stay six feet apart during demonstrations, and encouraged people to look for alternate ways to have their voices heard, worried they may inadvertently hurt the communities they aim to help.

“I think what you’re doing is an important thing. Again, if you could find a way to do it outside of a large crowd because of COVID because we know it is disproportionately affecting communities of color, please find a way to do that,” he said.

With a single-day record of 285 new COVID-19 cases in Dallas County on Thursday, Dallas’ City Manager T.C. Broadnax also expressed concern.

In a statement he urged “anyone who has been in close proximity of these large crowds to get tested at one of the city’s drive-thru community-based testing sites.”

  53m ago NFL stars call on league to condemn racism and systematic oppression

Patrick Mahomes, Saquon Barkley and Michael Thomas are among more than a dozen NFL stars who sent a passionate video message to the league about racial inequality. The 70-second video was released on social media Thursday night and includes Odell Beckham Jr., Deshaun Watson, Ezekiel Elliott, Jamal Adams, Stephon Gilmore and DeAndre Hopkins, among others.

Thomas, the New Orleans Saints wide receiver who has led the league in receptions the past two seasons, opens the video with the statement: “It’s been 10 days since George Floyd was brutally murdered.” 

The players then take turns asking the question, “What if I was George Floyd?” 

They demand the NFL state that it condemns “racism and the systemic oppression of black people. … We, the National Football League, admit wrong in silencing our players from peacefully protesting. … We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.”

  7:49 AM NYC mayor says “This is NOT acceptable” after deliveryman detained under curfew

Protests were held for another day in New York City on Thursday. Police started handcuffing about a dozen demonstrators on Manhattan’s Upper East Side less than an hour after the city’s 8 p.m. curfew started. 

Social media video from the Upper West Side also showed officers detain a food delivery worker on the job, CBS New York reports.

The worker can be heard saying, “Are you serious? Look, look, look. I’m not even doing anything.”

“It tells me on the app that I can show you guys something,” the worker said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio responded on Twitter overnight, saying, “Just got off the phone with @NYPDShea after seeing the troubling video of a delivery worker arrested by police while doing his job. This is NOT acceptable and must stop. Food delivery is essential work and is EXEMPTED from the curfew.”

Just got off the phone with @NYPDShea after seeing the troubling video of a delivery worker arrested by police while doing his job. This is NOT acceptable and must stop. Food delivery is essential work and is EXEMPTED from the curfew.

— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 5, 2020

Police said the worker was released after his credentials were verified.

The food delivery app DoorDash said it’s working with city officials to determine what happened, adding, “Essential workers must be able to complete their work and feel safe and secure while doing so.”

The NYPD says approximately 200 people were arrested Thursday, many of them people who were continuing to march after the city’s curfew, which is aimed at containing violence and looting seen amid protests over George Floyd’s death. 

  7:20 AM 2 National Guardsmen injured by lightning strike during George Floyd protests in D.C.

Two National Guardsmen were injured after suffering the effects of a lightning strike near the White House on Thursday, officials said early Friday. CBS affiliate WUSA-TV reports the two service members were struck shortly after midnight within the Lafayette Park perimeter, where protests over the death of George Floyd continued for a seventh day.

Both of the officers were taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, D.C. Fire and EMS officials said.

Shortly after midnight, #DCsBravest received a call for a report of 2 military personnel suffering the effects of a nearby lighting strike within the Lafayette Park perimeter. Both were transported with non life threatening injuries. pic.twitter.com/JvwRIHk74k

— DC Fire and EMS #StayHomeDC (@dcfireems) June 5, 2020

WUSA reported that the stormy weather cleared out many protesters, but some remained through the downpour in the area of Lafayette Square past midnight.   

  6:59 AM Activists paint Black Lives Matter sign on road by White House

Activists were busy Friday morning painting a giant “BLM” sign, for the Black Lives Matter movement, across 16th Street in Washington D.C. — right near the White House — as seen by reporter Matt Gregory of CBS affiliate WUSA TV. 

Artists painting “Black Lives Matter on 16th street. City has cleared the street till it’s finished. #DCProtests #getupdc @wusa9 #dc pic.twitter.com/diulqI8SnA

— Matt Gregory (@MattGregoryNews) June 5, 2020

Gregory said city authorities were keeping the road clear of traffic to let the painters finish.

A chain-link fence was erected around the White House on Thursday, effectively widening the security perimeter around the executive mansion after several nights of violent clashes between protesters, police and National Guard members.

The Trump administration has defended the forceful clearance of peaceful protesters from a park near the White House to enable Mr. Trump to walk to a nearby church for a photo-op this week. Meanwhile, photos of unidentified, armed officers donning face shields and protective gear standing guard near the White House have raised concerns among Democrats, who’ve warned the lack of identification could deny victims the ability to hold officers accountable if they engage in misconduct.

  6:44 AM Breonna Taylor’s neighbor sues police, says officers sprayed gunfire with “total disregard” for life

A neighbor of Breonna Taylor, the black woman shot to death in her apartment by police in March, has sued the police involved in the operation for firing “blindly” and sending rounds flying into her home, the Louisville Courier Journal reported on Thursday.

Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend when a trio of armed men smashed through the front door. Gunfire erupted and Taylor was killed. The three men turned out to be plainclothes police detectives of the Louisville Metro Police, one of whom was wounded in the chaos and violence that night.

Taylor’s death, along with the subsequent death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has fueled the protests since his death in Louisville and across the country.

According to the Courier Journal, the lawsuit filed in May by Taylor’s neighbor states that the three officers involved in the raid, after being confronted by Taylor’s boyfriend who opened fire first, believing the three men to be intruders, then began to “spray gunfire into Chelsey Napper’s apartment with a total disregard for the value of human life.”

Louisville police accused of using false information to obtain no-knock warrant for Breonna Taylor’s apartment

“A bullet that was shot from the defendant police officers’ gun flew inches past Cody Etherton’s head while he was in the hallway of Chelsey Napper’s apartment,” the suit states, referring to a man who was in Napper’s home at the time.

The suit claims rounds from the officers’ guns hit objects in at least four different parts of in Napper’s house, shattering a glass door.

  6:08 AM Congresswoman: Police reform package will be about “accountability”

Police reform legislation being drafted in the House will focus on “accountability” for officers, says Congresswoman Karen Bass. Bass, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, talked about the legislative package currently being written in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the protests against police brutality which have roiled the nation.

“The number one issue in policing is police accountability,” Bass said in an interview with CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett for this week’s episode of “The Takeout” podcast. She said she expected the final legislation would include several bills, such as Congressman Hakeem Jeffries’ proposal to ban police chokeholds.

“I’m inclined to push the envelope as far as we can because we have a moment now,” Bass said about the final proposal.

  5:44 AM Few arrests, mayor heckled, but a much more peaceful night of protest in New York City

The latest night of protests in New York City sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police was markedly calmer. Protesters again stayed on the streets past 8 p.m., in defiance of the citywide curfew that’s set to remain in effect through at least Sunday.

The city saw fewer violent clashes than in days past. But several videos posted to Twitter on Thursday night showed police aggressively confronting peaceful protesters — often resulting in arrest — in the Bronx and elsewhere. In other places, police watched but didn’t immediately move in, or made orderly arrests without the batons and riot gear of previous nights.

Earlier Thursday, a memorial service featuring Floyd’s brother Terrence Floyd was held at Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza, where the night before police had used batons and pepper spray on protesters who remained after curfew, videos show.

People walk over the Brooklyn Bridge following a memorial service for George Floyd, the man killed by a Minneapolis police officer in late May.

/ Getty Images

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea has defended his officers and the department’s overall use of force.

Mayor Bill De Blasio was booed and heckled at Floyd’s memorial. The mayor had previously praised the police for using “a lot of restraint” overall, but added that “if there’s anything that needs to reviewed, it will be.”

  5:41 AM Floyd’s “heinous murder” prompts South Africa to launch “Black Friday” campaign

South Africa’s ruling party says it is launching a “Black Friday” campaign in response to the “heinous murder” of George Floyd and “institutionalized racism” in the U.S., at home, and “wherever it rears its ugly head.”

A statement by the African National Congress says President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday evening was to address the launch of the campaign that calls on people to wear black on Fridays in solidarity.

The campaign is also meant to highlight “deaths by citizens at the hands of security forces” in South Africa, which remains one of the world’s most unequal countries a quarter-century after the end of the racist system of apartheid.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, a South Africa leader who was involved in the struggle to end apartheid and is now an Under Secretary General of the United Nations, spoke with CBS News’ Pamela Falk from Johannesburg this week about the protests and where they might lead.  

#MUSTView

CBSNews spoke w/Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka ⁦@phumzileunwomen⁩

“A knee on a man’s neck that kills the man is like the virus which is like a knee on the necks of black American people which is killing them.

..they are really under a pandemic of racism”

Johannesburg pic.twitter.com/GIphyybF4P

— Pamela Falk (@PamelaFalk) June 3, 2020

“People are feeling exhausted about us talking about racism. Try living it to know how exhausting it is to live it,” she said. “Those who cannot take talking about it, they haven’t lived it to know how much that it eats you from within. So, we need to make sure that we create conditions that will make people feel and touch the changes that are coming into their lives.”  

–CBS/AP

  5:39 AM Kanye West joins protest calling for end to Chicago Public Schools’ contract with police

Kanye West was in attendance Thursday evening for a protest rally in solidarity with George Floyd, who died at the hands of Minneapolis police last week. The rally was organized by activist and onetime mayoral candidate Ja’Mal Green. It is intended to protest the $33 million contract that Chicago Police has with Chicago Public Schools.

The protest began at the Chicago Public Schools District Office and proceeded to Chicago Police Headquarters. West did not address the rally and only marched briefly. He wore a hoodie and mask and walked along with hundreds of people. 

As CBS 2’s Charlie De Mar reported, there have been calls for West to speak out and have more of a voice in recent days.

He has made a $2 million dollar donation to support the families of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. Taylor was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police in March, while three white men are charged with shooting and killing Arbery while he was jogging in Glynn County, Georgia.

–CBS Chicago

  5:38 AM Dallas police make it “duty of every employee” to intervene if excessive force used

Dallas Police Chief Reneé Hall has put a new rule on the force’s policy books making it “the duty of every employee” who witnesses the use of physical force “being inappropriately applied” or used longer than necessary “to either stop, or attempt to stop” the action in question.

A statement released Thursday by the Dallas Police said the new “Duty to Intervene” order was implemented by Chief Hall, “to create a culture where what happened to Mr. [George] Floyd does not happen again.”

“Millions watched a Minneapolis police officer suffocate Mr. George Floyd to death by applying pressure with his knee on the victim’s neck for nearly 9 minutes. His fellow co-workers either assisted or stood by and watched Mr. Floyd take his last breath. Had the officer’s partners intervened, the outcome might have been different,” the police said in the statement.

Dallas man says he was hit in eye with “non-lethal” police round at George Floyd protest

  5:16 AM Kansas City announces reforms to police procedures, but embattled chief staying put

Kansas City is reforming police procedures after criticism from black organizations about police conduct during nearly a week of protests as well as long-standing tension between the department and minorities, the mayor announced Thursday.

A coalition of civil rights organizations demanded Wednesday that Police Chief Rick Smith be fired. But Mayor Quinton Lucas said Smith would remain “as we weather our current crisis and also as we continue to address our issues related to violent crime and the high number of homicides in Kansas City.”

Lucas said after a closed meeting of the Kansas City Police Board of Commissioners that the city would ask an outside agency to review all police-involved shootings; create whistleblower protections for officers; end a department policy of not sending probable cause statements to prosecutors in officer-involved shootings; review officers’ use of tear gas and projectiles; and provide updates to the city council on the department’s community engagement efforts. 

A demonstrator confronts police officers during a protest on May 31, 2020 in Kansas City, Missouri, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota while in police custody.

Jamie Squire/Getty

Lucas said he hoped a review of tear gas and projectile use would lead to a new policy in the near future. 

The city announced Wednesday that $2.5 million in private funding has been donated to buy police body cameras.  

  5:14 AM Tacoma mayor says officers involved in black man’s death should be fired and be prosecuted

Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell issued a statement Thursday on the death of Manuel Ellis, confirming the four officers involved in his arrest had once again placed on administrative leave. Ramsdell offered his “most sincere condolences” to Ellis’ family and friends. Ellis, a 33-year-old black man, died on March 3 in handcuffs while being restrained on the ground by Tacoma police. 

He was found to have died of respiratory arrest due to hypoxia due to physical restraint, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office, which ruled his death a homicide.

Speaking Thursday night, Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards called for the officers involved to be fired and said they should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”  

In a 12-minute police radio recording taken the night of Ellis’ death, he can be heard at one point saying, “I can’t breathe.”

“Our hope is that any investigations bring with them answers for everyone involved,” Ramsdell said.”I would also like to recognize the compassion and empathy our community has shown during this difficult time. We hear your anger, frustrations and hopes. I want you to know we continue to be committed to engaging with you on topics of safety, community policing and race, so that all people feel safe in Tacoma.”  

Death of black man in Tacoma police custody ruled a homicide

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[piermanwalter]

What if The Clone Wars had an eighth season?

In an alternate reality, George Lucas showed up to a meeting with Disney executives two hours late while drunk, pantsless, brandishing two stolen live pet chickens like Uzis, and covered with mysterious geometric bruises, forever ruining the rapport between the two companies, preventing Disney from purchasing Star Wars. 

As a result, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show is not cancelled and I think these are some of the episodes that will be created. 

THE FILLER EPISODES

“I don’t care that you fools see me as weak if it means that I will see you drowning in your own arrogance.”                                                                          The show sort of raises the stakes by having General Grievous be brutally competent in an early episode, but he gets beat as easily as usual in later episodes, so there isn’t much point.

“HOOOOO YEAAAAAAH!” *sound of four Z-6 rotary blasters being fired at once by one man*                                                                                                 There’s an episode with absolutely no story or coherence solely focussed on Plo Koon and the 104th and it’s rad as hell.

“I think I’m a bad person if this is what I want.”                                          Katooni and friends try to show off in front of Jedi so that they might be chosen as Padawans, but when they are thrown into a real combat situation, they realize how terrible the war is and give up.

“Relax, friends! Judging by how well things are going, I think that only two of us will die! Pretty good, no?”                                                                                 Obi-Wan returns to his Rako Hardeen persona in order to team up with Hondo and Boba Fett to scam a fortune out of a Hutt crimelord, Grabo the Prosperous, freeing his slaves in the process. 

“BUT DESPITE ALL SETBACKS, THE REPUBLIC CONTINUES TO BRAVELY DEFEND- argh! Stop! HELP ME!”                                                                      The opening bombastic narration of this episode is cut off when the Separatists KIDNAP THE NARRATOR HIMSELF, a Republic newscaster/propagandist and the police of Coruscant have to rescue him. Tan Divo is there, no matter how hard everyone tries to get him to go away.

“Excuse me, sir! I can tell these are not truly Sluissi emeralds from their lack of diffracting lustre! Give me back my credits!”                                                       C-3PO and R2-D2 do some mind-numbingly boring errands for Padmé because there has to be at least one per season for some reason.

THE MERCHANDISE-DRIVEN EPISODES

“Oh no. That’s too many wheels.” “WAY too many wheels.”                                 A show producer accidentally puts in an order for many incredibly bizarre clone vehicle toys, and as a last ditch marketing attempt, a funny, heartwarming episode is made starring a new clone, Rotor, who is not a soldier, but he works in weapons and vehicles R&D. 

“That’s right, boys. I’m dressed to kill.”                                                           Aayla Secura, Adi Gallia, and Shaak Ti infiltrate an elite fashion show disguised as models in order to protect Senator Orn Free Taa, while Aurra Sing, Latts Razzi, and Asaji Ventress, also disguised as models, try to assassinate him. 

The cruddy, mediocre Republic Heroes game gets rebooted using the Battlefront engine. Because executives are imbeciles and believe that no human being in existence wants to buy a story-based FPS, an entire 3-parter, starring Cad Bane, is made to promote the game. It’s basically Casablanca with explosions.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. What do you mean by ‘How’re yer shtil alive?’ You imbecile. ‘Hurr how im gonna kill dat shkakoan? Oh im genius put the high presser lovin’ critter in a high presser.’ The best bounty hunter in the galaxy. Incredible.”                                                     Cad Bane is doing great, until he finds one of his many enemies, Kul Teska, in his favorite bar, despite having personally killed him years ago. Most of this episode is flashbacks composed of in-engine cutscenes lifted directly from the new game, but the animation is good enough that it’s almost impossible to tell.

“Get out of my way. I can’t shoot through you, nice as that’d be. Why you gotta be so damn huge?” “I was a preposterously fat youngling.”                                                                                                      Cad Bane gets a job assassinating Black Sun Vigos for Grabo the Prosperous, the same hutt that got scammed eight episodes ago. Unfortunately, Kul Teska had the same idea and the two of them are forced to work together. Cad Bane hates his life and Kul Teska is mildly amused. This episode is full of crazy action, colorful characters that die after ten seconds of screentime, and petty bantering. Bane finds himself not hating his nemesis as much.

“With luck, I will never see you again.”                                                          Grabo doesn’t uphold his end of the deal, so Bane and Teska put their rivalry on hold to scam him a second time before barely escaping with their lives. Cad Bane decides being a misanthrope loner is a waste of time and asks Teska if he wants to continue being a team. Kul Teska reveals that the only reason he agreed to the gig was to make enough money to get a ship to go back to his home planet. And then he leaves forever. Cad Bane spends the last minute of the episode drinking himself into oblivion.

THE PLOT EPISODES: TOO SERIOUS FOR DIALOGUE QUOTES (Come up with your own. I’m out of ideas because the opening paragraph is the most amazing thing I’ll ever write and this post is too long already.)

There’s an episode about Ahsoka dealing with an existential crisis after being abandoned by the Jedi Order. After struggling with her beliefs that only Republic soldiers are allowed to be heroes, her desire to help others is too strong and for the first time on this show, she kills a tyrannical Republic general and allows the droid army to move in because innocent people would be legitimately better off this way.

Narrated from the perspective of Darth Sidious, this episode shows his daily life, switching from persona to persona, thinking about the best way to exterminate an entire race while smiling and shaking their representative’s hand and consoling depressed politicians so they become so overconfident that they get themselves killed. It’s a parody of the Robot chicken parodies, but manages to be utterly terrifying. 

It’s Life Day. This episode is a bunch of vignettes about how different people celebrate. The clones scrape together some cash in order to buy a feast at their favorite cantina. Padmé is at a fancy gala but wishes Anakin was there. Cad Bane gets an unmarked crate filled with terrifying custom weapons thrown through his window. There is an underlying plot about the clone troopers investigating the spooky rumors of Order 66.

The first of a 3-parter, Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting to escape worker drones on Cato Neimoidia and have a disagreement over whether to kill everyone because they are mindless insects, or to spare them. Obi-Wan never allows Anakin’s plans to be put into effect, leading to Anakin becoming more and more frustrated until he deliberately allows Obi-Wan to get shot. Now in charge, he puts his murderous plans in action, which worked extremely well and they escape. Obi-Wan is extremely grateful that Anakin rescued him, completely unaware that he wanted him injured.

Without Obi-Wan to veto his ideas and keep him in check, and Ahsoka to go with his plans so hard that he gets concerned and gives up for her sake, Anakin’s tactics grow more and more brutal, and he gains more and more public adoration for how effective he is. He tries to keep this hidden from Padmé, but she finds out anyway and they have a huge argument ending with Padmé realizing he was like this from the very beginning, from when he first slaughtered the Sand People, and she was too lovestruck to notice.

The first half of this episode is Padmé getting involved in banking intrigues with Rush Clovis yet again to avoid Anakin. The second half is Anakin trying to reconcile with her. The episode ends with them forgiving each other and getting back together, but Anakin is already being torn apart by his feelings of guilt, jealousy, and rage, foreshadowing his complete mistrust of everyone and his fall to the Dark Side in Episode III.

[bewarecreepercomics]

Showcase #73: The Coming of the Creeper! (Image Heavy)

The cover just says it all, doesn’t it? Everybody wants this guy. And by ‘wants’ I of course, mean ‘hates’. It’s not a bad cover; it has eye catching colors, it has no glaringly empty spaces, and it has our hero, doing something dynamic. That something being falling through the air, ripping up papers, while gunmen in wildly differing positions all over the city try to shoot him at this one, single moment.

Yeah, okay that’s a little goofy, but it looks cool.

The first page gives us some creepy imagery involving what becomes something of a theme in Ditko’s main Creeper story: Masks, false and hidden faces.

Our comic opens with a (literal) bang-

-As scientist Professor Yatz is kidnapped for ransom, and his assistant shot.

Smashcut to Jack Ryder destroying his own career on live television.

Two thoughts on this dialogue:

1. No Jack. Those two things are not the same at all.

2. As for police violence, well, my present-day self can see where this guy is coming from, but this was written in 1968. Let’s see, can we think of anything that might have been going on around that time that might get people looking more closely at the topic of police brutality?

...No, I couldn’t think of anything either.

So the network is rife with cronyism and Jack gets himself fired-wait, unemployment? Isn’t Ditko an Objectivist? Doesn’t he inject that into every single project he’s involved with? Aren’t they super not on board with social programs like that? Then again, even Ayn Rand had to get onto Social Security eventually, because it turns out the “If You’ve got Yours, Fuck Everybody Else” method of social policy is less solid than one might initially believe. 

Well whatever. Jack does the No-Job Jig, while dumping what I assume is his contract and...throwing up the horns? Get used to this bizarre gesture because our pal Steve Ditko cannot get enough of it. It is used three times on the page this panel comes from alone.

However, luck is with Jack on this day!

Turns out the head of security for the network likes the cut of Jacks jib, as well as his constant hand signals for rockin’ out, and hires him for the security team right on the spot. I have no idea if that is legal or not, but opportunity knocks, when one door closes another opens, yaddadee, yaddadoo.

A quick side note- Even though every single other iteration of Ryder ever written has him as a talk show host/newscaster/journalist, that panel of him snarking at the pacifist is the only mention Ditko ever makes of him being in that position. For the rest of Steve Ditko’s body of work involving him, Jack has a job in security.

He gets offered a pretty important job right out the door. Especially for someone who hasn’t even read the employee’s handbook yet. Taking over for his unfortunate co-worker in an...investigation into ties between the underworld and foreign communists...involving the forced ‘repatriation’ of communist defectors...

...at the behest of the C.I.A.

Hold on a sec.

Why is the C.I.A. leaving this to a nobody security team of a nameless tv network, in an unspecified city?

Guess it doesn’t matter! There is never a second word said about this. Jack, with his thirty seconds of security experience, takes the job immediately. Tasked with scoping out a party thrown by one Angel Devlin (Really?) and Major Smej (Really???) he heads out, only to be deterred by one missing fact: It’s a costume party, and his costume of ‘White Man With Terrible Fashion Sense’ just isn’t going to cut it.

I’m a little confused as to how a special order, an order you make specially, can have odds and ends left over, but okay, let’s see what you can throw together, Jack!

This box of odds and ends seems to contain a yellow zentai suit, matching makeup, a green wig, a sheepskin rug with the longest and straightest wool I’ve ever seen, and stripperific gloves, underoos, and boots. Uh, what kind of “special adult order” was this? Not that I’m judging or anything. We all have needs!

Also, Ditko never shies away from ass shots of this character. Ever. 

Cue instant mugging! Jack, you aren’t even the Creeper yet. You just now put that costume on. Why are you doing that? 

Oh look, time for an intermission!

...Okay...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Behold, our bad guys; Angel Devlin, and Major Smej. Further proof that if yor name sounds like anything (or is a tortured string of mostly consonants) you are destined for villainy. 

Jack does attempt to snoop around, but he is wearing a huge sheepskin rug and man-panties, so he gets called out pretty quick.

Here’s a little bonus cameo of the pacifist and the ex-boss, seen here as a teletubby and Judge Claude Frollo. Hi guys, we really needed to see you again.

In his complete lack of subtlety, Jack as been found out by several of the costumed goons that are strewn about the party. He gets into a fight that no one notices, knocks one of them through a secret door that no one notices, and ends up stabbed by a second foe. Does anyone notice? No. It is so unnoticeable in fact, that we have to be told it has happened. Probably the good old CCA in action.

This secret tunnel is exactly what Jack has been looking for, so he goes exploring. With a knife wound in his side. He also has to fight a few thugs while he’s at it. With a knife wound in his side. Are we sure he was really stabbed, or was he maybe lying to us?

Nah we can absolutely take his word for it that he was totally stabbed. You see? By the time he locates the abducted Professor, his completely bloodless knife wound has left him slightly winded!

But the dastardly goon who stabbed him went and did the sensible thing: instead of chasing after his wounded prey, he went and told his boss! Unheard of! They, along with their henchmen, start trying to pry open the conveniently jammed secret door.

Totally unnoticed by anyone else, of course.

To be fair, we don’t get much of the layout of this house. They could just be far away from any of the other partygoers. It seems like, as far as most of them are concerned, this is just a legit party. Our villains are fairly secure in their assumptions that nobody suspects a thing.

Giving us this nicely creepy panel. Good job. Aside from a small color mishap around the eyes, this panel looks extra good.

But while our villains are posing like they are in a Looking Sinister contest, they are apparently giving Jack and the Professor about a years worth of time to do stuff. 

Turns out the Professor isn’t wanted by the Reds just because he dared to leave home. He is a very talented scientist who has learned how to play, if not god, then certainly a demiurge with molecular physics, as explained(?) here:

Fearing that neither of them are getting out of this alive, the Professor decides tho burn his notes, inject Jack with an experimental serum that enhances strength, agility, stamina, and healing speed(which his captors didn’t confiscate for some reason), and implant his molecular rearrangement device into Jacks open wound.

Sure Prof! Just shove that right up into my perforated kidney! I’m sure everything will be juuuust fine.

They have enough time to do all of this without interruption, by the way. Not a single acknowledgement of pain from Jack in this entire time. This guy flies by the seat of his pants so hard that he has to wear his underwear on the outside.

Unfortunately, one of the goons Jack clocked on the way through the secret tunnel wakes up right about now.

Most unfortunate. Poor Professor Yatz was as good at bullet catching as he was at molecular physics. If only he’d had a device of some sort, something that could, I dunno, rearrange molecules to disguise him as one of those goons, so that he might escape. If only.

Jack re-clocks the murderous mook, and our villains, after eighty-four years of not being noticed, finally lever the hidden door open, only to be confronted with smoke and surprise fists as our hero escapes!

Behold! The quickest thinking henchman ever!

Somebody give that clown a raise!

The ruse works perfectly, especially since Jack manages to stomp on the pacifists head on his way out the window. Jeez Steve, we get it, you were pro-war. No need to rub it in.

Escaping into the yard isn’t much help for our hero, as he is still severely outnumbered, and, y’know, wearing one of the most saturated color schemes the Silver Age could offer. He does start to pull himself together though, noticing that his wound is practically gone, and that his appearance, as well as a few belts of cackling laughter seems to unsettle his opponents.

However, he gets a little too into the, uh, ‘swing’ of things...

...And accidentally pops a cop. Now, this gives plenty of setup for the police to have problems with him in later issues of the story-instead of the cops being corrupt, or disliking him for being a vigilante, or making them look bad, he full on assaults an officer of the law mere minutes after properly becoming the Creeper. He makes a very big mistake, and it mars his relationship with the police for the rest of his story. 

Switching back to just plain Jack, he manages to throw the cops off his trail, but also overhears that they have been unable to locate our villains. This clearly will not stand. A man has died here! And that annoying pacifist is still pontificating about violence! Unacceptable! Something must be done!

So Jack goes right back into Creeper mode because let’s face it, Jack is boring. Thus we are given my favorite panel in the entire issue...

Heck yeah. I love high contrast shading you guys.

Creeper tracks the villains and their remaining gang into the garage, which also seems quite a lot bigger on the inside. and manages to ambush them while making the most noise that he possibly can.

Raucous laughter is sneaky!

What follows is roughly seven pages of pretty good fight sequence, before the police finally hear what’s going on and get their blue butts in gear.

There’s action!

Thrills!

Spills!

Ass shots!

And the witty banter the Silver Age is famous for!

Heh.

When the police finally arrive, they find the corpse of poor Yatz, the defeated villains, and a fleeing Creeper. Jack manages to escape once more by ducking out of the pursuing officers line of sight and switching back to himself.

He does this all the time. It becomes a kind of running gag.

In the end, the cops bust that gang for good, the Creeper is given his eternal moniker, and both the underworld and the overworld finally agree on one thing.

They gotta, gotta have that man.

And so the comic comes to a close, with Jack cheekily declaring that he won’t let anybody know about Yatz’s revolutionary device, so that only a responsible person can use the power it holds.

Himself, of course.

Stay tuned, for as the comic promises, more Creeper is coming soon.

[piipes-blog1]

okay so i waited a few days because new blog = nothing shows up in tags. but then i sucked and have no excuse for the last few weeks. go me!! no, like seriously rachel, just gtfo. 

Name: Shiloh P I P E R  Age: 21 Birthday: September 3rd Birthplace:  Avenir Resides: Avenir Languages: english,  Dominant hand: left handed Smokes: no. Drinks: socially (light) Drugs: no Job: Record and Collectibles Trading Co. Living arrangements: currently piper lives with her mother in a small beach house north a short ways up the shoreline of avenir

PERSONAL

Foods: shellfish, baked goods, pasta, popcorn Drinks: root beer,  Color: blue fox, eggshell Season: winter Bands/Artists: lord huron

PHYSICAL

Ethnicity: caucasian Hair color: brunette Eye color: ebbtide blue Height: 5'5 Weight: 120 Build: curvy, petite. Voice: american (east coast)

PHSYCOLOGICAL

sleep habits: up with the sun and down with the sun. hobbies: riding her beach cruiser on the boardwalk, sun bathing, swimming, exploring eclectic shops, making jewelry with recycled materials (fish netting, ocean glass, bottle caps) [ image ] , [ image ] , [ image ] , [ image ] , [ image ] . fears: getting lost, worrying people.  likes: sand against her skin, rooftops, root beer floats, boardwalk fries, making bracelets and jewelry with netting twine and ocean glass.  dislikes: rude people / people lacking manners, litter on the beach, crowded streets. Diagnosis: re-occurring stomach pains (weak stomach) from child-hood poisoning, re-occurring bouts of lightheaded-ness 

Traits:

curious

timid

trusting

charismatic

BIOGRAPHY-ish

piper, born shiloh piper, was born just up the shoreline of avenir. it’s a place she’s known her whole life, though more familiar with the beachfront areas than she is with every corner of the town. for someone who’s lived in avenir so long, one would think she’d know the streets better than she does, but she finds it easier to get around if she sticks to rooftops sometimes, even if it’s just to get a vantage point on where she is. this comes in handy when she roams and gets herself turned around and distracted after a day full of picking through eclectic shops in the town. 

piper was raised by her mother alone, her father a fisherman passing through port and leaving her mother pregnant and behind. all she really knows is that she has everything she needs in her mother and in friends she grew up with or has acquired through the years. problems arose for piper and her mother when their neighbor started having an issue with piper running around their stretch of yard and beach. the little girl was just out to play but having a grumpy neighbor who couldn’t seem to damper the young girl’s playfulness only fueled the old man’s anger more. piper thought nothing of it when he came out into the yard one day and waved her in closer. she expected to be yelled at again for playing ‘too loudly’, but instead the old man started up conversation with her and seemed to be having a good day. charismatic as piper was, she joined him. it was late that night while she was in bed that the fever set in and was soon followed by stomach pains and throwing up. piper only declined through the night with her mother trying home remedies of medicines and baths to cool her, and by morning she was admitted into the avenir hospital. testing found that she’d been poisoned and with the high levels of bromethalin in her body, recovering took weeks before she was allowed to go home. an investigation was started into how the young girl had been poisoned but the case was opened and closed within days when police were called to the neighbor’s home for a welfare check. the old man was found passed away and bromethalin based products were found in his home. with no single cause to concern for piper in the care of her mother, life moved on. piper grew and though a bit more timid than the girl she used to be, she is very trusting and still clings to her charismatic nature. 

now twenty-one, piper works in a vintage shop in avenir full of collectibles, everything from vinyls to old instruments, the store is known for trading more than it is for selling and it’s where piper takes the opportunity to sell, or give, away some of the pieces of jewelry she’s crafted with recycled materials, 

[loudlytransparenttrash]

This Week Within Our Colleges

A female student’s nomination for director of student safety at Tulane University has been rejected because she called anti-Trump protesters ‘toddlers’ and denounced safe spaces in a Facebook post. One of her critics stated, “I don’t think someone is qualified for this position if they don’t value how I feel and my opinions as a student of color.”

Donna Hylton, feminism’s hero and icon who spoke to her adoring fans at the recent Women��s March is also a woman who spent 27 years in prison for kidnapping a 62-year-old man, starving him, torturing him and forcibly sodomizing him with a 3-foot steel pole before eventually killing him. She was paid to be a guest speaker at Manhattanville College to talk about how dangerous Donald Trump is and the impact of the fear resulting from the vulnerability to being deported because she understands what it feels like to be a victim and a mere prisoner. When a student asked why she refused to mention the crimes which lead to her incarceration, the student was shut down and told not to embarrass the murderer. 

Graduate student-teachers at Yale University have launched a hunger strike to demand that the school recognize their newly-formed union and negotiate a contract with it. Here’s the funny part - they have promised to substitute strikers as soon as they’re hungry or aren’t feeling well. Kind of making a mockery of real hunger strikes for real causes. 

A gigantic, colorful-haired trans “woman” in a denim vest began destroying a Trump sign and then turned her rage onto a little guy who made the huge mistake of mistaking her for a beastly man during a UC barbecue. When asked why she had vandalized the Trump sign, she responded by indicating that she doesn’t “believe in property.”

Robots are just as racist and sexist as humans, according to a recent study conducted at Princeton University that uncovered gender and racial bias in an Artificial Intelligence machine. According to the researchers, robots have always exhibited racist and sexist word associations, such as connecting women with families and households but not professionalism or careers.

A geology professor at Pomona College says she will prioritize non-white students, immigrants and low-income students for enrollment in a class. Unlike most Pomona classes, the course is offered on a permission-only basis. It was put in place simply to ensure that students majoring in a particular field of study are able to enroll in courses for their major ahead of others who take them to fulfill requirements. Linda Reinen, however, plans to use her approval authority to prefer students who aren’t white and aren’t from stable homes. 

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse students have protested the cancellation of a Hmong “language-heritage” course, calling the move “racist” despite historically abysmal enrollment. Students gathered to protest against the school, carrying banners that asserted “white supremacy is alive” and “UWLAX is racist."

A coalition of leftist groups at Harvard University spread hundreds of fraudulent letters across campus telling students their dorm mates had been “detained indefinitely” by the school’s Special Investigations Unit. On the reverse side, the flyer revealed that “this is not a real notice,” but expressed hope that “the unsettling nature of this notice allows Harvard community members to reflect on the reality of people who face these kinds of unwarranted disruptions of life,” and continued to list "facts” regarding blacks and Latinos being pulled over and shot by police and Israel’s supposed crimes against Palestinians. 

Students at Pomona College have published a letter demanding that administrators rescind their offer to hire Sociology Professor Alice Goffman because she’s white. The letter complains that the Sociology Department has not hired enough faculty of color to match the increased proportion of minority students. The collective of “Sociology students, alumni, and allies” open their letter by expressing their “anger” and “concern” regarding Goffman’s hire, calling it a “failure” to address the lack of professors of color on campus. They argue that because the majority (56.7 percent) of students in the Sociology department are now people of color, it is problematic for the department to continue hiring white people.

A Macalester College student organization referring to itself as “Stop White Noise” recently held a moment of silence to protest “the centrality of whiteness and Eurocentrism on campus.” “The intent of this action is to raise awareness of the space whiteness takes up in our classrooms and curriculum,” a website created for the organization explains. Initially, the protesters had intended to require only “white students and professors” to be silent, but ultimately decided against that approach because it would “put undue pressure on students of color” who “may be the only PoC” in class.” lol

Students at Hood College want a temporary display put up by the College Republicans chapter to be taken down early because they feel "threatened" by some of the "hateful" quotes from conservatives. The school's president issued a statement saying she shares the "anger and dismay" of those who have been "hurt by the messages." The display was originally intended to encourage discussion on controversial issues such as abortion and gender identity but is instead being met with criticism, anger and vandalism.

The San Diego State University student government voted Wednesday to keep the school’s Aztec warrior mascot, rejecting claims that the mascot is a symbol of cultural appropriation. One member of the student council became so angry over the vote, which was debated for four hours, that she immediately resigned from her post, while another shouted, “Do your damn jobs.” 

The office of BGLTQ Student Life at Harvard University has released a new school-sponsored guide telling students to “fight transphobia” and “get the facts about gender diversity.”The guide, which was distributed to students on campus, declares that “there are more than two sexes” and that “gender is fluid and changing,” adding that someone’s gender identity “can be affirmed and/or expressed in many ways,” and can even “change from day to day.”

A dean at Case Western Reserve University spoiled opening day for some Cleveland Indians fans by telling students that the team’s “Chief Wahoo” logo is oppressive and racist. Grover Gilmore admitted that he is a Cleveland sports fan but declared that he does not wear clothing with the logo and requested that students “consider the full impact on members of our community when choosing attire” and “the racism and oppression represented by the Cleveland baseball team’s mascot.”

A California State University at Fresno professor who was reported to the FBI for suggesting that Donald Trump should be sentenced to death has been placed on paid leave. Lars Maischak came under fire for stating that “Justice = The execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant” and “In order to save American democracy, Trump must hang, the sooner and the higher, the better.” Now, the school has announced that, as a result of his threatening remarks, Maischak agreed to be placed on voluntary paid leave for the remainder of the semester.

[axiolotl]

Raina, 87

Thank you Joel!!! I know it took me a while to do this, but I absolutely love Raina and I had to take some time to figure her and her whole situation out. 

>{Send me a prompt and a character!}

Title: Sometimes You Just Can’t Get Rid of a Drug Dealer

Description: Detective Raina Cornwell has had a really long day. She really just wants to get some dinner. But a drug dealer, a fish sandwich, and her commanding officer (who happens to be her dad) is going to make her day a lot longer.

Rating: Teen, for language. 

Read on Ao3, or below:

The second she smelled the fried fish, Raina was in its thrall, and nothing could stop her from getting a basket of Hesiat’s finest snack. After a long day of work and no chance to grab food, her stomach protested as she ran straight past the hole-in-the-wall fish joint as she chased down Frank Jung, the most prolific drug dealer in her district of Empyrea.

As her boots pounded on the pavement, she silently cursed Jung. She’d tailed him all day, following him to three different stops where he traded the most potent strain of ambrosia the planet had ever seen. Just when she had gotten close, a roving trader had tripped her and sprawled her across the street. The scene was enough to grab his notice, and the, “Sorry, Officer!” tipped him off enough to make him start running.

Along with his drug charges  he was resisting arrest and keeping her from a well-deserved crunchy, greasy dinner. Raina frowned and pushed herself even further forward, trying to make up lost ground as Jung’s figure grew further and further away on the boardwalk.

She could just shoot his leg and get the chase over with, but her infraction last month and a promise to her father kept her pistol securely in its holster. No, she would do this the old fashioned way — bodily assault.

Jung turned away from the boardwalk towards the city, the incline of the street slowing both of their paces.  They were both on par in terms of knowledge of the streets — he knew where he was going, how to try to lose her. But Jung was never a cop and a childhood hooligan, and clearly he had never tangled with her before.

Raina veered towards a building under construction, hopped right onto a hovering industrial lift, and aimed her holo-tool at the controls. A quick bypass she always had queued (useful for perp chases and the break room vending machine) gave her control, and she forced the platform to go up much faster than the manufacturers probably ever intended.

Once she reached the top, she hurtled onto the roof as building materials fell to the street below. As she spotted Jung still running on the main boulevard, she jumped from roof to roof of the tightly packed buildings of downtown, her legs following the same path that she’d been carving for years in high school. Building jumping was the most exciting thing you could do in Empyrea when she was a kid, before all the mining companies came and brought people and industry and tourists. The downtown was seen as historic now, the dense groups of buildings made to conserve energy seen as old fashioned as sprawling estates started dominating the colony.

Jung seemed to think he lost her, and he slowed to a jog, still looking over his shoulder as he moved. Yes, let your guard down Frankie, Raina thought evilly as she lunged over an alley, adrenaline rushing through her system as she saw the drop below her. She used to be told not to look down, but she always disobeyed, relishing the way her stomach dropped with fear. It was awesome.

Raina was on par with Jung now as he turned a corner onto a smaller side street, and she saw her chance: a thick cable hanging down from a store ahead. She made a leap that left her heart on the roof behind her, her hands just barely gripping onto the cable as she slid down. Her momentum pushed the cable far enough for her to land a couple of meters behind Jung, and before he could react, she did a roll to absorb the fall and tackled the drug dealer to the ground.

“What the fuck!” he yelled as she pinned him to the ground, forcefully taking his hands and cuffing them behind his back.

“Frank Jung, you are under arrest for three different charges of illegal drug trafficking,” Raina huffed out, her breath feeling much heavier now that she was no longer mobile. “And probably a lot more.”

“Fucking bitch,” he spit out against the pavement, squirming underneath her weight.

She started reciting his rights, standing up and hauling the smaller man next to her. He listened silently, his eyes angry, but his body clearly defeated from the long chase. Raina started leading him back towards the boardwalk — not as far away as it felt, though it always seemed like time stretched for longer when every moment counts. The walk after such an intense sprint felt good, and every breath relaxed her more as they made their way back to the beachside station.

The smells of the city reached her nose, now clear to her that the adrenaline rush created tunnel vision that only let her focus on her target.

Fried salbut wafted towards her and her stomach gurgled disgruntledly, her tunnel vision now focusing on dinner. She side-eyed Jung, who was now looking down and stomping along, clearly angry but compliant. She looked at the time on her holo-tool and, to hell with it, started making her way towards the source of her gluttonous desires.

A small shack of a restaurant sat squeezed between a real estate office and a thrift store, the Something Fishy! sign lighting up with garish colors, inviting locals and tourists alike to the temptation of their fried delicacies.

Raina stood outside, thinking for a second, and Jung looked between her and the storefront. “Why the hell are we here?”

“Because, Frankie,” Raina said, leading him to a thick pipe outside of the dirty windows of the restaurant. “I’ve been following you all day, and since you didn’t take a break, neither did I.”

“Fuck off,” he mumbled, but there’s no bite behind it. Raina tested the pipe by shoulder-checking it, and, satisfied, secured one half of the handcuffs to the pipe.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, standing tall over his hunched form. “And if you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll get you some fries.”

He spat on the ground as she walked away, and Raina gave him a pointed glare, made an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture with her fingers, and strolled into the store.

Every moment Raina had to wait on line, she felt like more and more of her soul was seeping out through every pore. She felt like her stomach was a hollow cavern that was caving in from lack of support, her very being imploding while she was waiting for her fish sandwich. Her eyes strayed outside the window every couple of moments, ensuring that Jung was still secured. He didn’t seem to be doing much, especially after she disabled his holo-tool.

Her order barely hit the counter when her number was called — she swiped it from the cashier’s hand, greedily stuffing a handful of fries into her mouth. She moaned probably a little too loudly, but did not shy away from the looks that the other patrons gave her — she only kept scarfing them down as she gathered her drink, condiments, napkins…

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside — someone was dragging Jung up by the collar. Raina rushed through the door, greasy paper bag in hand, a mush of fries still in her mouth as she yelled, “Hey!”

Her combative stature stopped the moment she saw that the figure standing over Jung was, in fact, the police chief of Empyrea.

“Detective,” Chief Davis Cornwell said, turning slowly towards her. “When, exactly, were you planning to bring Frank Jung into custody?”

Raina swallowed what was left of her fries and stood a little taller, feeling a little indignant. “He was in my custody. I was on my way back to the station. I just got a little…distracted.”

The chief raised an eyebrow. “Cornwell, I don’t care what happens — you catch a perp, you bring him straight back to the station. The arrest comes before anything,” Raina could probably recite the rest of his lecture from memory. “And your disrespect for the badge, and the people of this city by leaving a dangerous criminal unattended, is unappreciated.”

“And I apologize to the greater people of Empyrea,” she said, feeling indignant. “But should I not take care of my body so that I can greater serve them?”

“Raina, don’t give me lip.”

She continued, not heeding his warning. “I got Jung, he’s in my custody. I was going to the station, and everything was in control. I followed almost every rule in the book.”

“That’s enough,” he said, stomping up to her and swiping the bag of fast food out of her hand, and dunked it straight into a garbage can. “Your insubordination—”

“Hey! I was gonna eat that!” she almost growled, taking all of her will not to dig through the garbage to get her dinner back.

Fuming, he said, “Your insubordination will not be tolerated, nor will your ignorance of the law. That’s another infraction, Cornwell.” His face scrunched up in disapproval. “Have Jung back at headquarters within the hour, and then we’ll discuss the consequences of your actions.”

“But, Dad, I —”

“Within. The. Hour.”

Davis Cornwell turned away from his daughter, stalking back to his department hover craft, the anger radiating off of him in every step that he took.

Raina stood stiff, flexing her fingers in and out of fists as she tried to stop herself from punching the nearest wall. As far as she was concerned, she did the job — in a pretty kickass way, if she may add — she got the bad guy, she finished her two week investigation. The paperwork and formalities could come later. And the fact that her father couldn’t give one centimeter of flexibility for the best detective under his command, and especially his daughter, infuriated her to no end.

It was never enough for him. No matter what she did, who she caught, how far up the chain of command she got. It didn’t matter that she was the most prolific gymnast on the planet, or the best shooter on his squad. She would never be enough.

The fact that he disrespected her enough to throw out her food, reprimand her in front of a perp… Raina ran a hand roughly through her hair, deeply scratching her scalp, trying her best not to chase after her father’s craft and blow out the engine. She stared as he puttered away, hoping that he felt the laser beams of anger coming from her glare.

She heard a shift of movement next to her. “So, did you get me any fries?” Frank Jung said from his position on the ground, still handcuffed to the pipe.

Beside her anger, she gave a small laugh. “Fuck off, Frankie.”