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3wrsefesf · 3 years

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A young girl, by will of her mistress

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atlas-of-a-human-soul · 4 years

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Fix Me (doctor/soulmate AU) {2}

Summary: Ethan wakes up to a whole new set of challenges with his soulmate, but he had no idea just how deep the trouble she would get into would be. With a medieval infection in the hospital, Ethan only thinks of her.

Warnings: angst, slight fluff, swearing, medical descriptions of things some might find nauseating, infectious disease

Word count: 5.3k

Fix Me (doctor/soulmate AU) series Masterlist

A/N - heavily inspired by Grey’s anatomy, my own experiences and thoughts, but also by songs: Birdy - Not about angels, Bear’s den - Fortress, Matthew and the atlas - Out of the darkness, Harry Styles - Falling, Kodaline - Wherever you are.

I really hope you guys like it! Feedback is always wanted and appreciated, no matter how small or big it is!

If you want to be tagged for future parts, reply down below.

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

Pistanthrophobia - fear of trusting others

Waking up alone is the last thing Ethan expected, but to wake up alone and nearly five hours later was definitely unbelievable. Not a single page? Not one of his interns fucked up so badly that they paged him thousands of times? Maybe he misjudged this generation after all?

"Nah", Ethan mumbled to himself, shaking his head as he pulled himself up to sit. Rubbing his cheeks, he tried to stop himself from smiling, to stop the warm feeling in his chest where she laid atop him but he couldn't. Even if she left before he had woke, Ethan was happy with their progress, although leaving him in bed alone seemed to have become her memo.

Dragging himself out to get a cup of coffee during this tireless double shift, Ethan wondered if she'd be waiting for him close by or if she was feeling better after losing her first patient, but he found himself disappointed when he couldn't find a single trace of her. His phone vibrated and even if he wanted anything but to pick up the call, the only person he knew was persistent enough to wait for the last ring was his brother and he always picked up Grayson's calls.

"What do you want?" Ethan grumbled, slipping a few coins into the vending machine for that cup of coffee he was dying for, not in the mood to speak but he thought it might be important.

"Good morning to you too, sunshine." Grayson chuckled, waiting to hear his brother groan or growl on the other line and he didn't have to wait for long.

"Just wondering if you misplaced something? Or someone?" Grayson teased as if he didn't know his brother isn't a morning person and he was definitely not in the mood for games.

"What are you talking about?" Ethan frowned, grabbing his cup eagerly as it fills up.

"Just heard one of your interns ask for a transfer and they told her no, but she seemed adamant that the cardio resident she's assigned to isn't right for her education here." Grayson licked his lips, aware he's pulling at the right strings because even if he never saw the elusive Y/N, he felt like her description matched the girl Ethan told him about a year ago, his instincts screamed it was her, and he was quite unhappy with his brother's lack of sharing for he would have expected at least a text from Ethan about his soulmate being his intern.

"What was her name? Did you hear that?" Ethan cleared his throat, pursing his lips nervously because he really fucking hoped the progress he thought he made wasn't just erased. Did he scare her off?

"Y/N Y/L/N. Your soulmate?" Grayson clarified and Ethan leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. He managed to fuck it up, he just didn't know how.

"Did she see you?" Ethan asked, gnawing on the inside of his bottom lip, annoyed with himself because it seems as if every step he takes toward her, she takes two back.

"Nope, but I did tell the nurse I'll take your interns over for the day. They should see the miracle of life before they see death. Thank me later." Ending the conversation, Grayson moved to meet the interns at the changing rooms, eager to meet the little Miss who drove his brother up the wall. In a way, Grayson was fascinated by this woman who seems to disappear like a ghost every time Ethan was near and he didn't understand why she was fighting this unmovable force of nature.

"So, uh, I heard you killed a guy on your first day." Cocky intern leaned into Y/N who was just trying to tie her shoes and get on with the day. Escaping Ethan's arms wasn't easy, especially when he seems to have a death grip in his sleep. But she had to go, to leave and find a way to switch mentors before she fell for him, the guy who clearly wasn't falling for her.

"I'm Brett and I like girls who get their hands dirty." His cheshire grin made her sick to her stomach because as attractive as he is with his pale blue eyes and blonde hair, she had absolutely nothing but disgust for him.

"Leave her alone, asshole. She doesn't care who you are." The only other female intern spoke up and Y/N chuckled lowly, nodding in agreement.

"I'm Alex." The blonde settled beside her, shooing Brett away with her hand until he rolled his eyes and left to get dressed.

"Y/N. Thanks for getting rid of the fleas." Y/N leaned back on the wall as Alex laughed and Brett turned back just to make an annoyed grimace at the two.

"So, how was the boss yesterday? Was it easy working with a hot genius like him? Did you have sex in the on call room?" Alex whisper shouted in excitement and Y/N's face fell, realizing Alex won't be the friend she hoped she would be a moment ago. She just wanted gossip.

"He's a talented surgeon and a good teacher. As for the rest, this isn't Grey's anatomy, on call rooms are for rest not sex." But before she has a chance to get up, someone walks in - authoritative and eager; way too eager with his pink scrubs.

"Good morning. My name is Grayson Dolan and I am to be your boss man for the day." The moment Y/N looked at him, her heart stopped. There are too many similarities between Grayson and Ethan and she was realizing one irrefutable fact.

"There's two of you?!" The words escaped her and she slapped a hand over her mouth as quickly as possible, just not fast enough to stop herself from becoming an embarrassment.

The left corner of Grayson's lips curled up, forming a smirk as he turned his attention to Y/N, taking a good look of what destiny had chosen for his twin and he knew she was trouble even without Ethan's complaints about his torn up heart. She looked like she was made for heartbreak but also the loveliest nights.

"My brother and I may wear the same face but there are very few similarities between us which I'm sure you will learn in time." Grayson winked, before turning his eyes to the rest of the room. "You all will. After all, we will be seeing each other weekly from now on. One of you will be mine for a week until you have your OBGYN hours filled."

Swallowing thickly, Y/N looked away nervously as she fidgeted with her stethoscope. She felt warm, as if her body forgot to regulate her temperature and she could hardly breathe.

'Did it get hot in here? Or is this guy's sunshine personality setting every room aflame?' She wondered silently, thinking how as awkward as it was around Ethan, at least he didn't force conversations and he didn't seem like the overly curious type that pries into people's lives as Grayson does. He looks like the kind of a person people go to in order to feel better, for his warmth and cheerfulness to transfer onto them - he was the definition of sunshine, a cure for dark and depressing people and Y/N was certainly one of them. But she didn't want a cure and she didn't want him to meddle. For the first time ever, Y/N wanted to spend time with Ethan, in the comfort he gave because he didn't force happy onto her and she felt safe in feeling what she feels, knowing she didn't have to adjust, to change. It was the first time she hoped for Ethan, but it wouldn't be the last time.

And lucky for her, he showed up right on time, just as she started losing her shit.

Fingers snapped in front of her face and Y/N gasped, blinking fast as her eyes refocused on identical twins that stood before her. "Hey! Are you listening to any of this?" Grayson questioned with a slight smile, genuinely entertained by her and her dreamer personality because he was sure it would both annoy and compliment Ethan's personality. Ethan is a dreamer too, but never at work and that would surely be a challenge for the pair.

"Um. Missed the few last minutes. Probably should get a cup of coffee." She raised her eyebrows, trying to seem convincing because she didn't want to be unprofessional but she also didn't want to piss off two of her teachers.

"Well, let me sum it up. You're in the pit today, page me if you find any pregnant women in need of a consult or any cardio patients. That's when you -" Stopping him mid-sentence, Ethan jumped in. "That's when you page me."

With a nod, Y/N pressed her lips together and pushed her hands into the front pockets of her lab coat, hoping they would just stop staring at her so intently, as if they're expecting something of her and she can't understand what that is.

"Got it."

She rushed out of there faster than humanly possible, needing room to breathe because for whatever reason, the Dolan twins made it impossible to draw in a proper breath during that short interaction.

Expecting insanity in the ER, she had managed to eat a granola bar before heading into a rather calm emergency room. Using the chance, she introduced herself to the staff, learned the proper numbering of beds and trauma rooms and a few hours in, she finally got a proper case.

"I'm doctor Y/L/N." She smiled, gathering information from the patient while doing a checkup.

"So you're an exterminator?" She kept her voice airy, her tone pleasant as she noted the man has a fewer, complains of chills, muscle aches, diarrhea, cough and fatigue.

'Likely the flu', she presumed.

"For the last thirty years. Used to be a banker, a painter and a writer in my three hundred years." Hearing that sparked jealousy in her heart. She shouldn't be jealous about other people managing to do all they wanted to in their long lives, but she was. She had plans of her own and they seem unlikely with her current soulmate situation.

"Sounds like quite an adventurous life." She smiled, checking for swollen lymph nodes. Finding quite swollen, tender but firm lymph nodes, Y/N frowned, cold sweat forming at the back of her neck as the man coughed. Managing to turn her head to the side, she grasped for a facemask and placed it for protection as she prayed. Caution is always better than reckless endangerment.

'Surely it can't be...'

"Is everything alright?" The man questioned, startled by the sudden change in her stance and the odd look in her eye.

"Can you please take your socks off?" She asked, hoping it won't be what she thinks it is because that would be just her luck.

However, the moment this man took his socks off, he took a few fingers off in the process and no matter how many times she had read about gangrene, she still wasn't prepared to see it up close and personal. The foul smell of rotting flesh made her stomach turn and she struggled to keep her composure. You're supposed to be calm and collected but they don't really prepare you for this in med school.

"Oh, God!" She exclaimed, looking around wildly to figure out what to do.

"Stay calm, sir!" She told him but she seemed more upset than he did. As if he knew it was in such a state, as if he had come in for the gangrene in the first place - the 'by the way' syndrome at its best.

With shaky hands, mask in place, she stumbled to the nurse's station and lowered her voice, careful not to touch anything or anyone.

"I have strong suspicion that we have a case of the Black Death...the pulmonary type, and I've been exposed. Make sure all the patients are isolated just in case and then make sure so am I. I'll take samples for the lab, send them as emergent testing, I'll write a CITO order. And disinfect every inch of this floor." Y/N ordered, her voice shaky as she set herself back to see the patient again, preparing to take samples to confirm her diagnosis. She hoped to God she managed to get that mask on in time, swearing under her breath for being reckless and assuming it's the flu and that she'd be fine. She finally got her immune system up, she finally got her vaccines and she got cocky, thinking she's untouchable and now while everyone else is delivering babies or having once in a lifetime surgeries, she'll be in isolation because she got a patient with a medieval diagnosis. Just her luck.

And while Y/N was being quarantined along with the three patients who had the misfortune of being in at the same time and one nurse that admitted the patient, the entire ER closing for disinfection, Ethan and Grayson were drinking coffee in peace.

"She's definitely a piece of work." Grayson chuckled lowly, raising the cup to his lips casually as if Ethan wasn't snorting at his statement, aware of that fact even without his brother pointing it out.

"Young too. She's a baby surgeon, Ethan." Grayson deadpanned, taking a sip before putting his cup down. Curling his fingers around the cup, he scrunched the plastic cup easily, something he did with every plastic cup he drank from.

"Is there a reason why you're stating all known facts?" Ethan sassed back, sarcastic undertones very clear and matching his annoyed face. While Grayson sat back relaxed, Ethan tapped his fingers on the desk continuously, telling just how difficult Ethan finds the situation at hand. He wanted to know this girl so badly but she didn't seem to share that want. How do you love someone who doesn’t want to be loved?

"Yeah. I'm tryna’ help you bro. She's young, meaning she didn't have a hundred years like you to do her thing first. She didn't have time to be her before being your soulmate. Besides, did you even tell her you're her soulmate? Does she even know it's you? Because if you're not ready to risk your pride and heart for her, why are you expecting it from her?" Grayson raised an eyebrow, waiting for Ethan to open his mouth and say something right, something that would lead him on the path toward her and just as his lips part and the lost look in his eyes fades, Alex, the intern he barely remembered by anything except her being the only other woman with a fancy stethoscope, walked in with news he never wanted to hear.

"Y/N, I mean one of your interns is in quarantine!" She screamed more than spoke, her eyes wide and cheeks flushed.

"What the fuck do you mean by quarantine?!" Ethan jumped to his feet in an instant, feeling as if a bucket of ice cold water fell on his head and he had never been as wide awake as he is now.

"It's the black death."

Autophobia - fear of being alone

Loneliness had never bothered her before. Accustomed to the lone wolf kind of a life, Y/N had started questioning the unsettling feeling in her chest. After all the time she had spent on her own, she was scared by the coldness inside her that lived within ever since she snuck out of Grant’s apartment where she had left her underwear along with her virginity. That feeling of coldness was gone since he had appeared in her life again and now when she found herself isolated, alone again, she felt the cold grasp at her insides once more and for the first time in her life, Y/N wasn’t prepared to be alone again.

“Hey there. Feeling good?” She didn’t meant to smile when she heard the sound of his voice nor did she mean to let her eyes light up with the sight of his pretty brown eyes on the other side of the glass. She hadn’t expected her heart to jump inside her chest nor did she expect her cheeks to flush considering she’s wearing just a hospital gown and while she managed to hide her ass, she still felt exposed, indecent.

“Yeah. Already started myself on antibiotics before the CDC came in.” She shrugged slightly, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she approached the glass slowly, wondering if he’d be proud of her for managing to handle the situation so well. Or as well as it was possible in the moment. She didn’t expect Ethan to be anything but.

“Great!” He exclaimed with a smile that quickly turned sour and her own smile fell, the light in her eyes fading as he started yelling. “NOW I GET TO SCREAM AT YOU FOR BEING SO RECKLESS!”

Pacing left and right, he managed to keep his eyes on her, his hands shaking as he questioned her.

“I’m not sure what the hell you were thinking going to talk to a patient with a flu without a mask or why you were even seeing a flu patient when you’re a surgical intern! Now I’m down an intern and when we said some of you won’t make it till the end of the training, we didn’t mean you should go and recklessly handle patients until you catch a deadly infectious disease!” Throat hoarse, aware of the wandering nurses’ eyes that held judgement and the slightest bit of entertainment, Ethan stopped to take a deep breath and at least try to stop the never ending pounding of his heart and maybe it’s wrong of him to yell at her when she’s in a stressful situation of her own, but she is his soulmate and he barely had the chance to love her and he is scared to death he never will. So yes, he is angry and he is struggling to understand her and the dustiest parts of her soul but it’s beyond him. She’s beyond everything and everyone he has ever met.

“Reckless?” She snorted, folding her arms across her chest, shifting her weight onto her left foot before she too had something to say and while she wasn’t necessarily shouting, she wasn’t quiet either.

“I had my flu shot so I though approaching the flu patient without a mask might be less frightening for the poor man. Also, there was no one else in the ER to see the patient but me! Was I supposed to prolong his suffering when I’m perfectly capable of doing a physical myself? I did what any doctor would and more considering I made a rather remarkably rare diagnosis so quickly that I prevented that man from getting the rest of the hospital staff exposed! You should be proud of me, not pissed off!” Eyebrows knitted together, her eyes narrowed at him and lips pressed together, Y/N stood her ground, refusing to apologize for what she did because she didn’t think she made a mistake. Sure, the mask was a miss, but she would learn from her mistakes…if she gets the chance.

“You page me if she gets symptoms!” Ethan didn’t even spare Y/N a glance as he ordered the nurse and left her alone in that glass room that felt like a prison. He just stormed out, like a man with a paper sword that couldn’t handle losing an argument. For a girl who was all too used to hospitals, she wasn’t quite prepared to go through yet another period of time in a hospital bed.

“Do you need anything else, sweetie”, the nurse asked her, handing her a thoroughly cleaned stuffed animal to hold, her favorite one. A girl of mere ten years facing such a monstrous disease that grew within? It made the nurses cry after every shift. All the kids in the department did, as rare as it was.

“Are my parents coming?” Y/N asked quietly, her voice hoarse. Anyone’s voice would be hoarse after throwing up for five days straight, unable to keep anything down.

“I’m sorry baby, not this week.” The look of pity on the nurse’s face was what Y/N hated the most. She hated being treated like a baby, like a delicate little porcelain doll that couldn’t handle the world. She had faced more in her short life than those who chased immortality. She was very aware of the toxic relationship her parents shared and how they prioritized each other over her. She had learned to accept that.

“That’s fine. At least I have Mr. Cuddles.”

Y/N wished she had Mr. Cuddles now, to just have something or someone to hold. She wished she could relieve the sadness and the annoying sense of abandonment Ethan’s abrupt leaving left her with. She wanted him to stay a while longer for he made her feel lighter without even trying and she hated him for being an ass to her and even more so when he didn’t visit her for the next two days.

Thantophobia – phobia of losing someone you love

However, she didn’t know he was there whenever she was asleep, watching her with a worrisome heart and a tired mind. He knew she was a little troublesome, but he didn’t know she would make that tiny streak of silver hair turn into a full set of grey hair. It’s what he’d be facing in less than a year if her behavior continues as it is.

What he didn’t expect is for her to open her eyes in the middle of the night, finding him on a chair with his head resting on his numb propped up hand. She rolled her eyes at him instantly, pushing herself up with some difficulty before detaching her own IV.

“Scared I’ll die?” She asked groggily, taking a sip of her water to soothe her dry throat. She was definitely starting to feel ill, hating how her body turned weaker and weaker as it did when she was on her treatments. She didn’t want to go back to being the poor girl who sat alone in her room with no family to see her. Making friends with other patients was easy, but they could never touch, never risk getting each other sick. They were social distancing by sitting on opposite beds or coming to each other’s rooms and sitting on a chair by the door when one was too sick to get out of bed. But she didn’t have any patients to make friends with now.

“Yeah. But not from the plague.” Ethan huffed, swallowing before speaking. “Your tests are still being done, will probably be negative but you do have strep, so we’ll have to treat that unless you want to be on my table in about thirty years with faulty heart valves.” Standing, Ethan nodded to the penicillin she had inside her room, hinting it’s better she takes it on her own, although he didn’t mind getting into a hazmat suit if it meant seeing her ass again.

“Great. So if I do have it, I’ll be dealing with two diseases at once. Nice. Nice luck I got here.” Sarcasm dripping with every word she formed, Y/N grabbed the prepared medicine and groaned. She hated getting shots, even more so penicillin ones because they always hurt like a bitch. However, she had a fairly high pain tolerance after everything she’s been through. The nurses used to say when she complained of pain, they immediately called doctors to check up on her because her six was usually a ten on other kids’ pain scale.

Palping, she found the site she’s supposed to stick a needle in. Closing her eyes as she shakes her head, Y/N let out a dry chuckle at the ridiculous situation but she was ready to do it anyway. She didn’t care about Ethan being there, he couldn’t see her ass from where she was standing, but he could see her face. So, she took great care not to make a face when the needle pierced her skin nor when the penicillin started burning, her entire leg feeling like it would give out. Slowly, she injected the medicine, breathing a little shallow but she was proud of herself for remaining calm and collected, even with Ethan there.

“Wow. Actually did it. Impressive, rookie.” Ethan teased, his arms crossed and his face smug. Y/N didn’t like that. “I was sure you’d tap out in the last second. I’m actually surprised you weren’t late giving yourself the medicine like you were on your first day!”

But she wasn’t in the mood for jokes and he missed that.

“Un-fucking-believable! Now?! You want to keep taunting me now? I have no words!” She screamed at him, her hands up in the air in frustration as her nostrils flare and her eyes widen with a new thought. “Oh! Wait! I’m thinking of some! Jerk! Ass! Arrogant! Man-child!” Her throat felt raw and her face hot, but she was ready to fight even if her legs did shake in his presence…or was it her rage? Maybe the infection? She couldn’t tell anymore, especially when he raised his index finger and his face was overtaken with a wide smile and a chuckle followed soon.

“Hold up! Man-child?”

“YES! A fucking man-child!” She repeated herself and that’s when his smile faded and he remembered he’s supposed to be her mentor and this is supposed to be his hospital. Soulmate or not, he couldn’t tolerate this behavior.

“I’d caution you to watch what you say to your boss. You better shut your mouth if the next words coming from you don’t include an apology.” Ethan warned, his hands folded before him and he was no longer Grant as she saw him as most of the time. This was doctor Ethan Dolan, the man she was sure would make her life miserable and while she wanted to keep yelling at him, she couldn’t.

It wasn’t because she had a moment of clarity or because she thought kissing his ass would get her somewhere, figuratively not literally as she had already done that and she knew he had a pineapple on it. No, she felt something different, something she read about but never saw let alone felt. Her throat started closing up and her lungs burned for oxygen she couldn’t provide no matter how hard she tried.

Holding her throat, her eyes wide and bulging, Y/N fell to her knees, unable to hear Ethan who screamed for the nurses from the ringing in her ears that made her deaf to the world. Her face swelled up, her eyes closing and she could no longer see or hear, only feel and she felt herself slipping, falling to the ground, desperately heaving for some air.

Ethan couldn’t wait, couldn’t follow protocol and get himself in a hazmat suit before panic opening the room with his key-card, grabbing the emergency kit as he entered, collapsing on his knees beside her, an adrenaline shot in hand. Administering the adrenaline, bronchodilators, corticosteroids, antihistamines and an oxygen mask, Ethan finally felt like there might be hope as the swelling started to go down and he could hear her breathe again. He had her back on the bed, second line of medication set to drip in her IV.

Shaking uncontrollably, he had stared at every movement her chest made and listened intently to every intake of breath she had made, terrified his worst fear might still come true and he might lose her, rendering him alone for the rest of his life. Sure, Grayson would be insulted with these thoughts of his, but having a soulmate as you age is what life is supposed to be about, not a twin who’d make remarks about every line he gets on his face or how saggy his balls must be getting. She was what his whole life has come down to and hundred more years couldn’t counter the happiness he got to experience in a single night with her. That would never change.

Hours passed and he finally relaxed, not enough to sleep but enough to sit down and breathe.

Exhaling loudly, Ethan looked around for a chair or something to brave the night in, aware he’s now stuck in the room with her for as long as it takes for the tests of her swabs return which would likely take a few more hours at this point. He didn’t regret his actions and he understood why she defended her own so fiercely earlier. It was funny how he understood her soon after every fight they have and they had quite a few squabbles in this double shift – the first of many. She has a breathtaking, wildfire heart and he absolutely loved her for it. He had infinite tenderness for her. He always will. As long as he lives.

“If you get the plague and die, I will kill you.” Grayson threatened from the other side of the glass, his own fear of losing Ethan showing in his deep brown orbs, even more so in the frown he couldn’t hide. And Grayson Dolan was many things, but not a man who frowns easily.

“You can’t make me feel guilty over something I don’t regret.” Ethan shrugged, pressing his lips together before closing the distance between them. The glass stood as a barrier, one that would keep Grayson safe in case Ethan does catch a deadly illness but he had faith it would turn out to be nothing.

“I know. I’d have done the same.” Grayson shrugs sadly, a small smile gracing his lips as he looks over Ethan’s shoulder to see Y/N. “How is she?” He too cared for the girl, too quickly but he did. He saw her as a sister, someone to protect. He saw her as an extension of his brother’s soul.

“Good for now. The allergic reaction stopped but we have her on some meds to make sure it doesn’t enter into the late stage. As for her strep infection, I’ve got her on other meds that won’t kill her so that should be fine too. I expect her to be fully capable of chewing me out in the morning.” Ethan chuckled lowly, turning around to make sure she’s still asleep and while he had no intention on telling her about them just yet, he couldn’t stay away from her. Not ever.

“Why? Did you tell her you’re her soulmate?” Grayson clasped his hands in excitement and he reminded Ethan more of a high school cheerleader than doctor with more than a hundred years of experience under his belt. He loved how positive Grayson is, but he needed to keep his voice down when he’s spilling state secrets, especially when the subject at hand is only a few meters away.

“SHHH!” Ethan whisper-shouted, wishing he was on the other side of the glass to smack his brother over the head and teach him a lesson.

“She doesn’t know and I don’t plan on telling her. She’ll figure it out herself and until then, I want her to know me without the pressure of having a soulmate bond. Bro, I just want her to see we’re made for one another and not run from me every chance she gets.” Ethan rubbed his forehead in frustration, glancing over his shoulder at her stirring figure, unaware she managed to catch a few words the two have spoken about her and while she may be under the influence of more than one drug at the moment, she knew it was important to remember that Ethan and Grayson have both muttered the words she feared most of all – soulmate.

However, moments later for her, minutes for Ethan, she felt a knuckle against her cheek, gently dragging along her skin before the warmth of touch disappeared and she decided she wanted it to last longer, her hand moving on instinct, grasping Ethan’s.

Smiling in the darkness, Ethan settled beside her in a chair, his hand holding hers for dear life.

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

Tags: @beinscorpio @peacedolantwins @heyits-claire @dolandolll @godlydolans @dolanstwintuesday @ethanhes @iwastornsincethestart @graydolan12 @fxkthatdairy @zeusgrayson @libradolan @justordinaryjen @pineappledolan @graysavant @voguekristens @imayoutubere @livexdolan

(some of you couldn’t be tagged for some reason, probably Tumblr’s fault)

#dolan twins #ethan dolan #ethan dolan x reader #ethan dolan doctor soulmate au #ethan dolan fluff #ethan dolan angst #ethan dolan fanfiction #ethan dolan fic #ethan dolan fanfic #grayson dolan

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route22ny · 4 years

Photo

(In the previous post I referred to Mr Gallagher’s book Reimagining Detroit. In looking for a bio to link his name to, I discovered he was retiring and had written an open farewell letter to the city in December. I’ll put the entire text & photos where possible into this post.)

***

Dear Detroiters,

After 32 years covering this city and state for the Detroit Free Press, today marks my final column. For a lot of reasons I’ve decided this is a good time to move on to my next chapter.

But I’m not leaving Detroit and I’m not hanging up my keyboard. I’ll continue to write in a variety of ways — more books, perhaps blogging and podcasts, and otherwise I'll be engaging with this fascinating city and its people in a bunch of new ways.

I thank my editors and my colleagues for their support during my career here at the Free Press. And I thank you, my readers, who over the years have shared this amazing city with me. You’ve responded to my work by turns complimentary and critical, encouraging and scathing, but never dull.

This job has given me a front-row seat into one of the world’s great urban dramas — the resurrection of a once-powerhouse city brought low by the scourges of racism, suburban sprawl and factory closings. Whether you agree or disagree that Detroit has made progress in recent years, you have to admit that the range of effort here has been nothing short of remarkable. Not for nothing is Detroit known as an urban laboratory for the world’s struggling cities.

The work of reimagining a Detroit after the fall has been the focus of my work for many years. So today, let me try to sum up what I think we’ve learned.

The free-fall years

When I joined the Free Press in 1987, the city of Detroit was still in free fall. Decades of factory closings, years of of flight to the suburbs, a dismal legacy of racism and its effects, had drained the city of residents, jobs and political clout. A population of about 1 million would drop at least another 300,000 in years to come. Anchor employers like Comerica decamped their headquarters to the Sunbelt.

Perhaps the low point was the case of Malice Green in 1992, when two white cops during an arrest beat Green, a black suspect, to death with flashlights. The case exposed all of Detroit’s woes and seemed to give the lie to any notion of progress on race or any other matters.

Two neighborhood boys walk past the Malice Green memorial at Warren and 23rd Street in Detroit in 1997. (Craig Porter, Detroit Free Press)

And more disappointments were to come. Michigan would sink into its “Lost Decade” in 2001 when the state began to shed jobs every year for 10 years in a row. Those who predicted a quick turnaround were proved wrong again and again. It was no normal business cycle but, as University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes told me for a 2018 article, the long-overdue reaction to the vanished market share of the Detroit Three automakers.

"That was a permanent adjustment of the auto industry to the loss of its monopoly power," Grimes said. "We'll never get back to where we were in the year 2000."

And then came the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Short of an atom bomb going off here, it’s hard to image a worse calamity for the city. The collapse of the subprime mortgage market, the devastation wreaked by the Wayne County tax foreclosure auction, the implosion of home values, all but finished off Detroit.

The Great Recession turned Detroit from a city of homeowners to a city of renters. It wiped out a generation of black family wealth that we are yet to recover. And it led inexorably to the city’s municipal bankruptcy of 2013-14.

The first hints of recovery

But even amid the losses and abandonment, some early shoots of recovery were showing.

For years, Detroiters were turning vacant lots into urban farms. There were hundreds of small community gardens and several larger farms like Earthworks and RecoveryPark on the east side, the D-Town Farm led by Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network on the west side, and the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative in New Center.

This repurposing of vacant and abandoned land for productive use first drew the attention of the world and began to inch Detroit’s reputation from Rust Belt failure to that of a city reinventing itself.

Then, too, a city government too broken and dysfunctional to do all it should began to spin off some of its operations into innovative conservancies, nonprofit corporations and public authorities. These spin-offs were hotly contested each time but ultimately proved remarkably successful.

Under these new management models, Eastern Market transformed from a faded and failing operation to the lively marketplace we see today. Cobo Center, now renamed the TCF Center, was once so poorly run by the city that it almost lost the annual auto show. Once spun off into a regional authority in 2009, the convention center transformed into the gem we see today with its soaring riverfront atrium and a ballroom that is one of the city’s best venues.

The nonprofit Detroit Riverfront Conservancy built and manages the RiverWalk. Ditto the lively Campus Martius Park, built by another conservancy and managed today by the Downtown Detroit Partnership on behalf of the city. The Detroit Historical Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the city’s workforce development agency, the Detroit Land Bank Authority, and, most controversially, Belle Isle itself, all improved, often dramatically, once spun off from direct city control into some new form of management.

Mina Powell of Southfield skips rope at Eastern Market before the 2018 Ford Fireworks in Detroit on Monday, June 25, 2018. (Cameron Pollack, Cameron Pollack, Detroit Free Press)

And in this process, philanthropic foundations played a key role. The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan has been a leader in building greenways like the Dequindre Cut. The Kresge Foundation contributed tens of millions of dollars to the RiverWalk and other efforts. The Ford Foundation was a lead contributor to the Grand Bargain that made the city’s trip through bankruptcy a success.

It would hard to imagine Detroit’s recent progress without the work of these and many other foundations. And the foundations weren’t the only nonprofits to take a leading role.

Neighborhood community development organizations like the Southwest Detroit Business Association, Eastside Community Network, U-Snap-Bac, and, perhaps most successfully, Midtown Detroit Inc. under its longtime leader Sue Mosey, led the recovery in their districts. These community groups and their staffers worked when no one else seemed to care, often for years, often alone.

And beginning in the early 2000s the city’s economy began to slowly evolve from the heavy-industry model of the past to a more entrepreneurial ecosystem. Entrepreneurship gave Detroiters a new path to remake their lives.

There was a former Chrysler line worker named April Anderson whose dream of becoming a baker led to Good Cakes and Bakes, one of the city’s leading suppliers of sweets. Roslyn Karamoko’s Detroit is the New Black apparel shop, the StockX sneaker exchange, and hundreds of other startups showed that there was indeed economic life in the city, after all.

Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy, and the 2010 move by Dan Gilbert of his Quicken Loans downtown, with Gilbert's rapid remaking of the downtown core, were major steps that have gotten a lot of the credit for the city's comeback to date. But I think we cannot underestimate the importance of the urban farmers, the spin-offs, the foundations, the neighborhood activists, and the entrepreneurs in reinventing Detroit.

And along the way there were milestones of recovery once thought unattainable. Both the long-dormant Book-Cadillac Hotel and the defunct Michigan Central Station stood for years as international symbols of the city's failure. Both at times were recommended for demolition. But the Book-Cadillac reopened to fanfare in 2008 and Ford today is turning the train station into its future center of mobility research.

Setbacks aplenty

To be sure, the work has been long and tedious, beset by setbacks at every turn.

Rebuilding a city already built upon for 300 years means dealing with a legacy of debris just beneath the surface. When the Orleans Landing project by McCormack Baron Salazar on the riverfront east of the Renaissance Center started to dig foundations a few years ago, crews uncovered sewer lines that according to city maps shouldn’t have been there.

As another developer joked about his project building a medical warehouse in New Center, “We dug up everything but Jimmy Hoffa.”

Facing these and other challenges, almost every project takes longer than we think it should. When the Police Athletic League was planning what became the Willie Horton Field of Dreams at the site of the old Tiger Stadium, it discovered a regulation that a public playfield couldn’t be landlocked by other development on all sides as was planned for the perimeter of the site. So lawyers had to work out a solution to solve that problem. It worked, but the process that burned up several more weeks of time.

Problems so complex

Or take mortgage lending. Detroit is a city so financially broken that a normal mortgage market here almost didn’t exist until just recently. Thousands of houses do change hands each year, but mostly through cash sales or land contracts, a financially risky way for a buyer to get a home.

The dearth of market rate mortgages reflects the legacy of racism and redlining that scarred Detroit and many other older urban centers at mid-20th century. But even bankers who admitted their past mistakes and tried to infuse more capital into the mortgage system here found that it was no simple matter.

With the Detroit skyline in the background, several empty lots sit on the corner of Park Ave and Sibley in the Cass Corridor. There are still many undeveloped sites despite the empowerment zone being in Detroit since 1994. (Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press)

In Detroit, a potential buyer might have saved enough for a down payment but not enough for the repairs that would make a house move-in ready and eligible for a market-rate mortgage. Or an annual income that might support a mortgage in most cases might not be enough once student debt or child-care expenses were added to a borrower’s burden.

Low appraisals, lack of public transit for residents to get to jobs, food or housing insecurity — all these could hold back efforts to create a thriving mortgage market in the city.

As Janis Bowdler, president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, told me earlier this year, "As we've been sleeves rolled up, working in the community, we're learning over and over how multifaceted the challenge is. It's not just a supply of mortgage capital or a matter of producing enough credit-worthy borrowers. It's much more complex."

Working the problem

Detroit's mortgage lenders, and civic and nonprofit leaders, have worked hard to overcome these challenges. As they've counseled home-buyers and come up with innovative approaches to housing, the number of mortgage loans made in Detroit has been rising from almost none 10 years ago to more than 1,000 a year today. But clearly we still have a long way to go.

Earlier this year I wrote about Detroiter Jomica Miller, 43, a cashier working at 36th District Court. She had hoped to buy her parents' home after her father died but found it had been sold out from under them at the annual Wayne County tax foreclosure auction. She also found her past credit history presented a problem for lenders. She had student loans she was slowly paying off and a past bankruptcy on her record.

Jomica Miller stands in front of her house she recently purchased on Detroit's northwest side on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. (Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)

"I actually started my process in 2017," she said. "Nobody wanted to work with me because my credit was so bad. I didn't know where to start."

Through credit counseling and perseverance for more than a year, she eventually was able to buy a house in the Marygrove district on the city's northwest side with an FHA-backed mortgage. The house is one of four that were part of the Fitz Forward project that has gotten mortgages closed in the Fitzgerald neighborhood. Fitz Forward is the initiative led by Century Partners and The Platform to rehab houses in the district.

"I almost gave up, but I had some great people in my corner," she said. "Don't give up."

Grind it out

So if the problems are complex, so, too, are the solutions. A week ago Mayor Mike Duggan and other leaders announced a $10 million gift from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation to the city’s Strategic Neighborhood Fund. The fund works in 10 specific neighborhoods on streetscape improvements, new and rehabbed housing, retail readiness and other improvements.

But if it sounded like a simple transfer of funds from the foundation to ready-to-go projects, it wasn’t. The money flows through Invest Detroit, a mission-based nonprofit lender that has worked overtime in recent years to generate new investment in the city’s neighborhoods. Speaking at the announcement, Dave Blaszkiewicz, president of Invest Detroit, noted that it took the coordinated efforts of multiple departments and agencies to make the work possible.

Without question, the complexity of the problems and the difficulty of coordinating solutions has held back Detroit’s efforts at recovery. But the good news — the really good news — is that Detroit in recent years has gotten so much better at working that magic.

Whether it’s city planners, the foundation staffs, bankers or neighborhood activists, more and more of these players have learned to reduce the barriers and make a complex system of investment work.

Try everything and keep trying

Does that system sometimes favor corporate interests to the detriment of ordinary Detroiters? Perhaps. Do we still sometimes see well-meaning efforts result in nothing much? Sure. Are there still problems that we have barely begun to touch? Certainly.

But the overall impact of Detroit’s recovery efforts — efforts by thousands of committed people working across a broad range of activities, from workforce training to urban farming to education and transit, these efforts have slowly inched Detroit forward. And the city is better for it.

There’s a saying that “nothing works but everything might.” It means that there is no silver-bullet solution to our problems. But if we work across a hundred different fields, making progress in each one, those efforts will add up to something greater than the sum of the parts. That’s the approach Detroit has taken and must continue to take.

There’s a story from the American Civil War that I like. A new regiment came up to the battlefront and its colonel asked the general commanding where they should go in. “Why, go in anywhere,” the general replied. “There is lovely fighting all along the line.”

And so in Detroit. If you want a to-do list to take away from this column, work on whatever holds your interest. We need progress on public safety and education, but we also need to work on transit and child care and vacant buildings and entrepreneurship and any of a hundred other fields. Take your pick, and get busy.

It’s a long and difficult task. But that shouldn’t faze a city with a gritty work ethic like Detroit's.

And so, onward

Detroit’s story is so varied, with so much conflicting evidence of progress or lack of it, that even today one can lean toward either optimism or despair. I choose hope. I believe with Dr. King that the arc of the moral universe is long but that it bends toward justice. And I hold with the message of Irish poet Seamus Heaney whose words about his homeland echo for me in Detroit:

History says, don't hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So much work lies ahead of us. And in that task, I'll be there. Though I won’t be writing as a Free Press columnist, I will be writing about Detroit in other ways, and engaging in the life of this community in new ways yet to come. I’m looking forward to that.

See you around.

(John Gallagher is a native of New York City who joined the Free Press in 1987 to cover urban and economic development. He is a resident of the city for many years. He is the author of several books including "Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City" and "Yamasaki in Detroit: A Search for Serenity." He was a 2017 inductee into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.)

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/money/business/john-gallagher/2019/12/19/reporter-john-gallagher-retires-detroit/2685362001/

***

The bio of Gallagher I mentioned in the intro is here; there are also links to a number of his more recent articles about the city and related issues.

#detroit michigan #john gallagher #urban reinvention #journalism

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batmandarknightriss-blog · 4 years

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The Dark Knight Rises – review

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises completes not only his personal trilogy focusing on socialite Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, Gotham City's caped crusader, but also a cycle of popular culture that began in May 1939 when Batman was added to Detective Comics' pantheon of superheroes.

Batman's creator Bob Kane and his fellow comic-strip artists were all admirers of Fritz Lang's German movies, the forerunners of film noir, but this did not prevent them from becoming the object of a ferocious assault by Eisenhower-era moralists bent on suppressing horror comics during a crusade led by the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham. His 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent, attacked Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson's menage as a covert celebration of homosexuality. Ten years later, however, when Susan Sontag's seminal essay Notes on Camp promoted kitsch and the idea of "it's good because it's bad", Batman became a TV series in garish comic-strip colour and was followed by a tongue-in-cheek film version and a revival of the low-budget 1943 Batman serial, all 15 chapters being shown back-to-back to open London's latest super cinema.

By 1989 the comic strip had been elevated to the status of "graphic novel", and Tim Burton invited us to give up our search for the inner child and find our dark sides in Michael Keaton's Batman, a Hamlet-like malcontent. Then, in the wake of 9/11, Nolan followed his complex Memento and Insomnia by reviving a now-moribund franchise. To misquote Scott Fitzgerald, he embarked on the search for the soul of the dark knight where it is always three o'clock in the morning. In 2005's Batman Begins he provided a new account of the creation myth, adding some kung fu, a touch of Da Vinci Code conspiracy and a dash of Bond to Kane's 1939 account of Bruce Wayne's orphaning. It was followed in 2008 by The Dark Knight, in which Heath Ledger takes the story to exhilarating heights of terror as the demonic Joker, an implacable enemy of Batman and mankind, part Lucifer, part Loki, part Osama bin Laden.

the dark knight rises full movie

On either side of The Dark Knight, Nolan made The Prestige and Inception, films of exceptional brilliance, more individual in being free of the particular expectations of a franchise, but still pursuing personal preoccupations about identity, masks and lethal, morally confused games that also figure in the Batman films. The intellectually challenging final film, The Dark Knight Rises, sets out to reconcile issues raised in the first two. It brings Wayne's story to a suitably epic conclusion while at the same time offering the dramatic imbroglios, action set pieces, twists and surprises the form demands. To keep the franchise on ice rather than consigning it to the morgue, The Dark Knight Rises necessarily weaves a certain ambiguity into the ending.

In a spectacular opening, far superior to the not dissimilar pre-credit sequence Roald Dahl devised for the 1967 Bond movie You Only Live Twice, a plane used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition of alleged terrorists is hijacked in mid-air by a larger aircraft. Liberated by the manoeuvre is Bane (Tom Hardy), a muscular menace wearing a half-mask containing a voice box and an analgesic device that eases his constant pain. He's an associate of the League of Shadows, the ancient eastern conspiratorial cult to which a mysterious stranger (Liam Neeson) initiated Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and which Wayne renounced as a gang of fascistic vigilantes.

Sign up to our Film Today email Read more Physically Bane resembles Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader, and the artificial voice box makes his speech difficult to follow. This introduces a problem that runs through the film (or at least the version shown to the press last week). Perhaps for inscrutably perverse reasons, though more likely a fault in the balance between speech and Hans Zimmer's hyper-percussive score, much of the dialogue is unintelligible. This would be all right in most epics (who wouldn't want John Wayne's line "Truly this man was the son of God" lost by thunder?), but not here.

Christian Bale has never been more baleful than as the crippled Wayne, eight years as a recluse in Wayne Manor, tended by the faithful family butler and surrogate father, Alfred (Michael Caine). Having taken the rap for the late Gotham DA, Wayne is the disgraced hero in exile, much like Philoctetes, the Greek archer who Ulysses must entice back to end the Trojan war. Having started in this classic role, the film's dramatic arc transforms Batman into a self-sacrificial Sydney Carton, and indeed there are numerous evocations of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, including the parallels drawn between the chaos of Gotham City and the reign of terror that followed the French revolution.

What faces Gotham is a nihilistic movement spearheaded by Bane and assisted by capitalist interests and bankers. It starts with an assault on the Stock Exchange, continues with the theft of a nuclear device, and leads up to a familiar countdown to annihilation. Bane represents himself as a liberator but he's really a destroyer, a deceiver of a weak, easily misled populace. The contemporary parallels are clear, though the underlying politics are somewhat confused. One supposes that Nolan's views are not unlike Shakespeare's (or Dickens's) – a loathing of people acting as a mob, a deep suspicion of politicians and a belief in the preservation of social order in a fluctuating world.

Anyway, Bale remains a strong moral presence. The established figures around him, mostly played by British actors – Caine's Alfred, Morgan Freeman's equivalent of Bond's Q, Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon – do their standard stuff. Of the newcomers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has a strong resemblance to Heath Ledger) is excellent and endearing as an honest young cop, and one would guess he'd be a significant figure were the franchise to be renewed. The new female leads, Marion Cotillard (rich philanthropist) and Anne Hathaway (Catwoman in all but name), have little to get their claws into. The special effects are often breathtaking, especially an overhead view of Gotham City in meltdown. The production designers have done a first-rate job. Wally Pfister's photography is uncompromisingly Stygian. A pity about the dialogue, but I'm sure something can be done about it, and maybe it works in the Imax form for which it was made. That being said, The Dark Knight Rises has an intelligence, epic thrust and visual grandeur far beyond its present box-office rival, Joss Whedon's Avengers Assemble.

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the-observant-frisbeetarian · 5 years

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Chapter 5 - Ben, Jerry and Alfred

La Patisserie de la Rose by George deValier

CHAPTER FIVE Ben, Jerry and Alfred

By mid Sunday afternoon, Matthew still hadn't managed to drag himself from the couch where he had fallen the night before. After almost a month in this city, the small grey apartment living room he lay in still wasn't completely furnished. A low, uncovered coffee table stood between the only couch and the television, while only a small bar fridge sat in the adjoining kitchen. Most of Matthew's belongings were currently in suitcases or in storage, which would make things easier, he supposed, when he moved town. Which, after the events of the previous evening, should be any day now.

Matthew lay against the nest of cushions and pillows he'd made for himself, steadily making his way through an entire bottle of maple syrup as he watched ancient re-runs of Degrassi High on the soap channel. The silly Canadian melodrama was only making him feel worse, but he could not summon the energy to change the channel. Matthew couldn't summon the energy to do anything but lie, unmoving, trying unsuccessfully to forget and regret the entire last week of his life. But he couldn't. All he could think of was Francis.

Matthew swallowed another gulp of maple syrup, ignoring the slightly queasy feeling growing in his stomach. Okay, so he'd met a nice guy, had a good time, and it hadn't worked out. So? That sort of thing happened all the time when people dated. Probably. Matthew wouldn't really know. Regardless, it wasn't a big deal. Francis just wanted something different from what Matthew was looking for. Francis wanted a short-term fling. Matthew wanted a relationship. And he was being all silly and upset because he had mistakenly believed Francis wanted the same. But really, this was good thing, Matthew tried insistently to tell himself. It was a relief to know, now, before anyone got really hurt. Besides, Francis wasn't even the type of man Matthew would normally look twice at. Too showy, too brash, too much. But he was also funny, and sexy, and strangely charming - and Matthew had fallen for him headfirst after only a few days.

Matthew shook that last thought from his head. No, he was not going to continue being distraught over this. He was not going to mope and cry and mourn over a man he barely knew, however special that man made him feel; however bright he made the days; however brilliant his eyes or perfect his smile or captivating his laugh or… Matthew gritted his teeth, squeezed the maple syrup bottle, and abruptly hurled it at the TV. "Oh, Caitlin, when will you learn?" he shouted at the ridiculous soap opera on screen. "Joey's only going to keep hurting you!"

A knock sounded suddenly at the door, loud and long and frantic. "Go away," Matthew muttered, hugging a cushion to his chest. The obnoxious pounding refused to stop, however, so Matthew reluctantly got to his feet and dragged himself across the room. He groaned the second he threw open the door.

"Matt, thank goodness!" Alfred spoke breathlessly, a huge overnight bag slung over his shoulder and overflowing plastic bags in his hands. He looked like he had run all the way from America. Knowing Alfred, he probably had. "I came as soon as I could!"

Matthew blinked in surprise. Of all the things he did not expect on his doorstep today… "Why?"

"Why?" Alfred looked incredulous. "Because you rang me at 3am to tell me you were moving to Antarctica. Please don't move to Antarctica, Matt! That's, like, near Poland or something. What are we supposed to do at Christmas?"

Despite himself, Matthew felt his lips twitch in a tiny smile. Trust his kind, foolish, misguided brother to turn up on his doorstep, in a different country, after a simple late night drunken phone call. "I'm not moving to Antarctica, Al. People say things they don't mean when they're upset."

Alfred breathed a sigh of relief, pushed past Matthew, and headed straight to the kitchen. "Good. Although I hear the weather's nice, and living with the kangaroos would be kind of cool. Now I know you're upset, so I brought you ice-cream."

Matthew followed slowly, his heart sinking just a little. Just what he did not need when trying to forget Francis – to be reminded of the one other man who had broken his heart. "You thought, after being dumped, that ice-cream would make me feel better."

"Ice-cream makes everyone feel bet…" Alfred's eyes widened guiltily. "Oh shit, ice-cream was your thing with that Cuban guy, wasn't it? Okay, forget the ice-cream. I also have…" Alfred dropped the dangerously full bags onto the kitchen bench and rifled through them. "Snickers and skittles and twizzlers and ooh, gummi bears, and coke and creaming soda and…"

"Alfred."

"Yeah?"

"Give me the damn ice-cream."

Matthew again sat nestled into his layer of pillows, staring unseeing at the TV, already on his second tub of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice-cream smothered in maple syrup and washed down with copious quantities of coca-cola. Alfred sat beside him on the couch, resting his feet on the candy-littered coffee table, onto his own second tub of Ben and Jerry's AmeriCone Dream. Alfred had quickly hijacked the remote control and had so far scrolled through the cooking channel, a black and white French film, and an old episode of 'McHale's Navy,' all of which reminded Matthew of Francis in one way or another. Alfred was now glued to 'Ice Road Truckers,' which seemed fairly safe. However, despite his best efforts to the contrary, Matthew kept bringing the conversation back to Francis.

"Fifteen, Al. FIFTEEN!"

Alfred whistled. "Must've been sore in the morning."

"But how is it possible?" Matthew gestured with his spoon and ice-cream container, trying to make sense of the logistics. "How do they… where do they… how does everyone even fit? Even if they divide into pairs there's one left over."

"He's probably the one holding the camera."

"Sailors, even." Matthew knew he shouldn't be thinking about this, but he simply couldn't stop himself. Images kept drifting through his head of Francis in various naked acrobatic positions with a veritable legion of faceless men. Most of them wearing little blue and white caps. "Sailors, Al! Have you ever slept with a sailor?"

Alfred paused, thinking, his spoon in mid-air. "No. I almost slept with a coastguard once. Does that count?"

Matthew shrugged dismissively. "Sure, why not."

Alfred dove back into his tub of Ben and Jerry's. "What about you?"

"I've slept with two men, Alfred. Ever." Matthew waved two fingers in Alfred's face. "Two. Meanwhile, Francis has apparently slept with the entire Royal Canadian Navy."

Alfred nodded sagely. "I bet it was the submarine fleet."

Matthew shook his head, the images starting to overwhelm him. "I can't talk about this anymore. I can't. I'm going insane." He dug out a huge spoonful of ice cream, devoured the lot, then immediately asked, "Do you know what he asked me when we first met?"

"To look over his stock portfolio," Alfred answered immediately.

Matthew narrowed his eyes. "Why does everyone assume I'm an investment banker?"

Alfred looked apologetic. "It's the suit, dude."

"He asked if he could give me a hand. Just like that." Matthew attempted to imitate Francis' heavy accent. "'Can I give you a hand by any chance?'" But even as he spoke derisively, Matthew could picture Francis standing there in his bright, warm patisserie, smiling gently and gesturing gracefully and looking at Matthew like he was the only person in the entire world…

Alfred whistled again. "Well, he's got balls."

Matthew tried to laugh, tried to mock the flashy Frenchman. "He was always like that. Always 'mon cher' and 'my dear' and 'darling…'" Always kind and sensuous and charming… Matthew stabbed his ice cream angrily with his spoon and grumbled. "I mean, how pathetically contrived can you get?"

"Dude. He sounds like a total queen."

"Yes. Well, no. He's just… stupidly charming."

"Bastard. Want me to kick his ass?"

"Yes. Wait, no! Damn it, I'm not talking about this. I'm not thinking about him. I'm changing the subject." Matthew took a swig of coke, passed the bottle to Alfred, then tapped his spoon against his chin. Why was he completely unable to think of anything else? "Okay, you change the subject."

Alfred shrugged. "How's work?"

Matthew groaned. What a terrible change of subject. "Awful. Boring." The only thing that made it bearable was the anticipation of seeing Francis again… Matthew shook the thought from his head and tried to pay attention to 'Ice Road Truckers.' "I think I should quit being an accountant."

Alfred looked at him, startled. "Really?"

"Yeah." Matthew immediately began considering his options for changing jobs, moving town, and forgetting the last week in this city had ever happened. He gestured to the screen with his spoon. "I could do this, you know. I could move to Alaska and be a trucker." The solitude, the cold, the ever-present chance of falling through a hole in the ice. It sounded rather appealing. "In fact, I think I might."

"That'd be cool," said Alfred, impressed. "You could be on the show and everything. Or you could move to Louisiana and catch gators. Or be a bounty hunter. Ooh, Matt, be a bounty hunter!"

"Hmm. There's a thought." Matthew gave Alfred a tiny smile. "You could join me."

Alfred gasped loudly. "I totally could! Matt, we'd be so awesome, busting crims and wearing leather and drinking in taverns and we'd be…" Alfred's face froze in some sort of silent comprehension, his wide eyes lighting up. "We'd be like Boba Fett!"

Matthew laughed, easily remembering just what he missed about Alfred. His brother could always make him smile – even when he frustrated the hell out of him. "We could start an agency. The 'Williams-Jones Fugitive Recovery Service.'"

"Dude, that'd be so cool, except…" Alfred's face fell. "Except the NFL's got me under contract for another two years at least."

Matthew smiled softly. "Oh well. Maybe one day." Both brothers went back to their tubs of Ben and Jerry's, dreams of bounty hunting quickly forgotten. "How is work going, anyway? I heard you won some little game last week."

"Yeah," said Alfred, through a mouthful of ice cream. "The Super Bowl."

"Is that what that was?"

Alfred nodded. "Yep."

"Huh. That's sort of a big deal, isn't it?"

"Little bit, yeah."

Matthew raised his spoon. "Well done you."

Alfred touched his spoon to Matthew's in a toast. "Cheers."

Matthew suddenly felt a little guilty. He had gone over the last week three times and the previous night's party twice, yet had neglected asking anything about Alfred's life. He started by asking about Alfred's boyfriend of less than a year. Matthew had only met the Englishman a few times, but he liked the man, and they got along well. "How's Arthur?"

"Oh, you know. Same as always. Cranky, cute. Annoyingly British." Alfred smiled dopily. "Perfect."

Matthew glared through narrowed eyes. "Some solidarity, please?"

Alfred had the good manners to look a little guilty. "Oh, right. Well, um… last week he tried to cook dinner, and made me clean up."

Matthew shook his head dramatically. "Men."

Alfred snorted. "Bastards."

And then, again, Matthew's brain was flooded with thoughts of Francis. Memories, and emotions, and that dull, sick ache of desperate grief. He stared blankly at the wall as it all fell on his shoulders, fell like a cold stone in his chest. "Really, I should have seen through him. I should have known what Francis was doing. It shouldn't have taken a week. It shouldn't have taken his cousins and his friends to hammer the truth into my thick head." Matthew remembered the humiliation of standing in that doorway as Francis' friends and family laughed, the horrifying realisation that he was just another of Francis' conquests. He swallowed heavily, his cheeks burning with the memory. "It felt like they were all laughing at me. Or feeling sorry for me. I don't know what's worse."

Alfred sighed quietly, sadly. "Oh, Matt."

Matthew laughed bitterly. He laughed to keep from crying. "I should have seen it before I got dumped."

Alfred spoke softly. "From what you've said, it sounds like you dumped him."

Well, that made Matthew stop and consider. "I suppose I did, really, didn't I." He tried, unsuccessfully, to gain some satisfaction from the fact. "Huh."

"Well done you," said Alfred, raising his spoon and grinning. Matthew stared at him, then breathed out heavily as he tapped Alfred's spoon with his own.

"Cheers, I suppose." Matthew sighed again, threw his spoon into his almost empty ice cream tub, and ran a hand wearily through his messy hair. He felt so lost and empty with these thoughts of Francis running through his head. "I really thought he liked me."

Alfred spoke decisively. "Of course he liked you."

Matthew scoffed. "If anything, he just liked my ass."

"Well, you do have a nice ass."

Matthew laughed, then tried again to glare. "Stop it. It's not funny."

Alfred just shrugged, smiling. "You know, maybe - and I'm just putting this out there, so don't get all pissed off - but maybe he really did like you, Matt. Maybe you were different to all those other guys he dated. You are pretty damn special, you know. Maybe he saw that."

Matthew felt a brief warmth in his chest, then nodded. "Thanks, Al. But I heard all I need to hear. Francis doesn't have relationships - he has sex. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's my fault for thinking it was something it wasn't."

Alfred shook his head. "I've told you this a hundred times, but you're too damn nice, man."

Matthew ignored that. "But you know the worst thing? The absolute worst thing about this whole stupid situation?" Alfred looked at him silently, and Matthew had to swallow heavily before he could continue. "It's too late. I'm already completely in love with him."

Matthew suddenly felt sick. Because it was true. He was in love with Francis: he was in love, and it was over. He was in love, and he would never see Francis again. Never smile teasingly at him through lowered lashes; never brush his hand against Francis' arm across a colourful patisserie counter. Never again hear that smooth, lilting voice call him 'darling,' never feel those warm, soft, insistent lips on his. Matthew dropped the ice cream onto the ground, leant his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands. It was over. 'It' had never even really happened. This whole week had been a game to Francis, one of thousands he'd played before – just a way to get Matthew into bed. But to Matthew, it had been the best week of his life.

Matthew felt Alfred's hand rest lightly on his shoulder, and silently thanked his usually oblivious brother for knowing exactly when his words weren't wanted. Matthew just squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, then slowly lay down on the couch. "I'm going to sleep now," he managed to choke out through a tight throat. "I want to sleep forever."

"Okay, Matt." Alfred gently patted his shoulder. "I'll be right here, okay?"

Matthew nodded into a cushion. "Thanks, Al."

After an entire miserable, sleepless night and a whole wretched day of bad food, worse television, and encompassing despair, Matthew fell asleep almost instantly. He did not hear Alfred turn off the TV, did not feel the blanket placed over him. And he did not notice the text messages his brother sent and received on the couch beside him.

How is your brother?

passed out from ice and coke overdose

ice-cream, coca-cola

Oh. Poor bloke.

i know, hes gonna put on like ten pounds

Like you can talk.

you love it

Oh yes, Alfred, I love the way you're developing the incredible skill and highly enviable ability of balancing a beer can on your stomach.

yeah keep texting baby your getting me hot

I sincerely hope you are being as sarcastic as I was. I'll ask again. How is Matthew? Will he be all right?

dont know, hes real sad, i think he actually loved this francis guy

Francis? The man he was seeing?

yeah, french bastard, francis bonnefoy, baker or some shit

arthur?

arthur are you there?

helloooooo?

arthur if you dont text back im gonna call you

asdfgshjsfjkah

…huh? arthur are you alright?

Alfred, be a dear and go book me a hotel room.

what? why?

Because I am not going to crash on your brother's couch like some sort of unwashed Australian backpacker. I'll be up in the morning - I'll ring you when I arrive.

your so random arthur. hey what are you wearing?

arthur?

Constant, heavy, wind-swept rain pelted relentlessly at the front window, turning the usually warm and bright room dark and cold. The entire dull, grey afternoon seemed to seep into the patisserie, the unfamiliar atmosphere mirroring Francis' own state of misery. He leant against the front counter, chin in his hand, staring blankly at the far wall. This was the first rain in a week. The first rain since that startling, unexpected, glorious Monday morning when a shy, gorgeous accountant had sheltered in his store from the weather. The rain that day was beautiful: it had brought Matthew into Francis' life. The rain today was bitter, and lonely, and brought him nothing but despair.

Francis was still amazed at how much could change in seven days – it was hard to believe it had only been a week. One week in which Francis had changed more than he ever thought possible. One week in which he had gained hope and love and happiness and lost it all. Matthew was light and air and joy; without him, the colour had gone from the world. Now everything just seemed, well, dull. Dull and grey. Francis sighed and turned his eyes to the door, grateful for the lack of customers and silently begging them to stay away. He was not doing his best work today. Francis suddenly remembered that stupid family legend he had told Matthew by the river a few days earlier, and realised he'd had it all wrong. It wasn't love that destroyed talent. It was heartbreak.

Some part of him still blamed his friends. Francis had immediately stormed from the party on Saturday night, devastated and furious, determined never to speak to Gilbert or Antonio ever again. 'Never again' turned out to be little more than a day, however, since Francis had finally answered one of Gilbert's constant phone calls early that morning.

"Uh, hi, man."

"Hello."

"How ya going?"

"Fine."

"Uh, good. Good. Thanks for the personally monogrammed Gucci wallet. Sorry I didn't open it in front of Matthew. I know you only gave it to me to look impressive in front of him, and I'm probably gonna lose it or something, but it's still a pretty awesome gift."

"Yes. It is."

Silence. "Man, I'm really sorry."

Francis sighed. "I know, Gil. You were just doing what you always do. What we always do. It was just… incredibly unfortunate timing."

"If it makes you feel any better, Roderich's angry as all hell with me. That's probably got more to do with the lap dance though… Anyway. Francis, I… look, you're pretty awesome, you know? I'm sorry for ragging on ya. You do what you want to do, and, well, who you want to do, and that's awesome too. You're my best friend, and I just want you to be happy. So if you like Matthew… if you love him… then you'd damn well better go after him. He's one hell of a lucky guy."

"Oh Gil, I…"

"Don't you dare get sappy on me, man. This conversation never happened, get it? I know where you live!"

Seconds after Gilbert hung up, Francis finally answered a call from Antonio.

"Francis! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, I wasn't thinking, I'm an idiot! You're my best friend in the world and please don't hate me and I don't know what I'd do if you never spoke to me again and…"

"Antonio, calm down. We're cool."

"Oh. Ohhhh! Oh, thank God, I… okay. Okay cool. I have to go now, Lovino has the day off and we're going shopping for golf clubs and ponies. You go after Matthew!"

Francis had spent the rest of the day contemplating his friend's advice. He'd rung Matthew's number exactly thirty-three times without any response. Maybe he should just turn up at Matthew's door – but what if Matthew ignored him? What if he wasn't even there? Francis' stomach turned unpleasantly. What if this was it? What if he never saw his sweet, funny, perfect Mathieu again, all because of a foolish misunderstanding? He could not bear the thought. Francis listened to the rain echoing his sadness against the window, then almost jumped when the little bell jingled over the front door. Francis looked up at the two men entering the patisserie, began a greeting, then stopped short. One of the men - the tall, well-built blond - looked incredibly similar to Matthew, though slightly less handsome of course. And the other…

"Merde!" Francis quickly ducked to avoid the bright pink cupcake that hurtled towards his head. It smashed into pieces against the wall behind him.

"You wine-swilling, snail-eating, bed-hopping BASTARD!"

Oh shit, merde, no, how, where, why, oh God WHY… "Arthur!" Francis cried out in a mixture of false delight and genuine horror from where he crouched behind the counter. "What a pleasant surprise! What hole did you crawl out from, my ros-bif friend?"

Arthur ignored the question. "Still playing the same tired games, Francis old boy?"

"...calling me old..." Francis muttered, raising his head slightly behind the counter. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Arthur's face was twisted in fury. He looked exactly as Francis remembered. "Never you mind that. This time, darling, you chose the wrong guy to play with. THIS time, YOU'RE the one who's fucked. With a ridged rolling pin. WITHOUT lube."

"But Arthur, darling, you always liked that." Francis ducked again. This time it was an entire lemon meringue pie that splattered spectacularly against the wall. "Oui, d'accord, sorry, okay." Francis stood slowly, his hands raised in surrender. "Arthur, my dear, did you really track me down simply to attack me with pastry? It seems a little excessive. We were together for three days. You dumped me via billboard. Using my money."

The man by Arthur's side looked suddenly terrified. "You what?"

Arthur just shouted. "You deserved it, frog! You slept with fifteen sailors! And FILMED it!"

Francis put his head in his hands. He really wished people would stop mentioning that particular episode of his life... Why was he even dealing with this right now? "Arthur, you told me it was over!"

The tall blond laughed. "Oh, he tells me that every day. You're not supposed to believe him." Then he suddenly stopped laughing, his eyes going wide. "Wait a minute - you know each other?"

Arthur rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Blimey, you're quick. Alfred, meet Francis – an ex-boyfriend, and a right bloody wanker."

Alfred raised his hands to his chest, his expression horrified. "Arthur, you slept with my brother's boyfriend? That's, like, incest!"

Francis let out a deep breath, understanding dawning. "Alfred? Matthew's brother?"

"Yeah, and MY boyfriend, and he can kick your arse because he's bigger than you and he plays football!" Arthur had the good sense to look slightly embarrassed after this remark. Alfred looked quite pleased.

Francis rolled his eyes. At least it was a relief to know that Arthur was here on Matthew's behalf, and not because of some three day affair almost ten years earlier. "Arthur, you sound like a fourteen year old girl. Congratulations on the win last week, Alfred."

Alfred grinned. "Thanks, dude. Wait, no. I'm angry at you! Matt's moving to Alaska and becoming a trucker because of you! I SHOULD kick your ass!"

"Alaska? Trucker?"

"Do it, Alfred! You hold him down, I'll punch!"

Francis raised his hands again, desperately seeking some sort of foothold in this mad, rapid, confusing turn of events. His little shit of a British ex was standing in his patisserie, along with Matthew's football star brother, and apparently they were lovers. This was too much to deal with on a Monday afternoon. Francis reached under the counter for a tray of pastries. "Honestly, my dears, are we in primary school here? Can we not sit and talk like adults? Here, have an éclair."

Alfred's eyes lit up as he hurried forward. "Ooh, éclair!"

Arthur threw an arm across Alfred's chest. "No!" He glared at Francis. "Keep those pervy things away from innocent American eyes. Alfred, have a cupcake."

Alfred cheerfully took the red velvet cupcake Arthur handed him. "Ooh, cupcake!"

"Now he's taken care of, you can explain yourself, frog." Arthur placed his hands on his hips. His styled sandy-blond hair, his narrowed green eyes, his perfectly-pressed tweed suit – what had Francis ever seen in this little queen?

Francis folded his arms and glared back across the counter. "I do not have to explain myself to you, Arthur. I've done nothing that deserves an explanation."

Arthur scoffed loudly. "Excuse me? Through your typical, philandering ways you've set in action a chain of events which have led to me standing here, talking to you - something I'm sure you remember I swore I would NEVER do again. You've caused Alfred and I several very early morning tearful phone calls from Matthew. You've made Alfred run out the front door at five a.m shouting something about his brother moving to Antarctica. But most of all, you've broken the heart of one of the nicest, kindest, most genuinely decent blokes I've ever met. And I think that deserves an explanation."

Francis dropped all attempts at bravado after the mention of tearful phone calls and broken hearts. He was completely distraught at the thought of Matthew torn up like that. He stared at the counter, at the tray of ridiculous éclairs, and felt like smashing them to the ground. "Is Matthew all right?" he asked softly.

Alfred looked up from his cupcake, his expression gravely stern. "No. No, he's not."

Francis felt sick. "He won't answer my calls."

Alfred shrugged. "He put his phone in the freezer."

"What am I supposed to do?" Francis ran his hands through his hair, let out a frustrated sigh, and tried not to kick the wall. He did not even care now who he was speaking to, barely noticed these two men in front of him; he thought only of his darling Matthew and how much he missed him and wanted him and… "He won't listen to me. He won't let me explain. He overheard all these things that mean nothing, he thinks I do not want to be with him, he thinks I was using him, and..." Francis paused to breathe, to calm the overwhelming anxiety in his chest. "And nothing could be further from the truth."

Both men regarded Francis suspiciously. Then Alfred spoke. "Okay. First of all, this cupcake is incredible."

Francis couldn't even affect his usual proud, polished routine. He just mumbled, "Thanks."

"Now," continued Alfred, drawing himself up to his full height, his apparent attempt at intimidation ruined by the red icing on his lips and fingers. "You're saying that you do like Matt? As more than a fling? As more than a trick?"

"As more than anything." Francis looked Alfred in the eye and spoke with every ounce of certainty he possessed. "I'm completely in love with him."

Alfred and Arthur glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. Arthur turned his still-suspicious eyes back on Francis. "You? In love?"

Francis shrugged. "What do you want me to say? How do you wish me to explain this? I've spent my entire life not even realising I was searching for something. I've made mistakes, and I've had fun, and I won't apologise for it. But in Matthew, I found everything I never knew I was looking for. He is the only person to ever make me feel like this. I love him, and I miss him, and I will do anything to convince him he is the most wonderfully unique person I have ever known."

Again, Alfred looked at Arthur. "What do you think?"

"I don't trust him," hissed Arthur. "I still think we should kick his arse."

Francis did not even know why he was explaining this to them. Maybe because it was easier than explaining it to himself. "It does not matter if you believe me." Francis closed his eyes and sighed. "None of this matters if I can't say it to Matthew. If only I could get him to listen…"

"All right, Frenchy, here's the deal." Alfred finished his cupcake, licked his fingers, then pointed at Francis. "I'll get Matt to talk to you, but I've got a couple of conditions."

Francis was caught between gasping in exhilaration and snorting in derision. How tiresome – this was like some sort of medieval courtship ritual. But if it meant he could somehow speak to Matthew… Francis gritted his teeth. "Do go on."

Alfred counted off on his fingers. "One – if you upset Matthew, I will kick your ass. Two – if you upset Arthur, oh boy, I will KICK your ASS. Three…" Alfred paused for a moment and licked his fingers again. "I'll take a carton of those cupcakes."

Francis rolled his eyes. "This talk of 'ass-kicking' is growing a little tedious, my dear. Regardless…" Francis nodded, the chance to see Matthew and explain everything too much to risk. Anticipation fired through his nerves and hope rose in his chest. "It is a deal, mon ami."

Next Chapter

Disclaimer: This story belongs to George deValier. Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya. I own nothing.

#la patisserie de la rose chapter 5

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justforbooks · 5 years

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What happened the day I was born?

Sunday June 3, 1973

US date format: 6/3/1973, UK date format: 3/6/1973

June 3, 1973 was a Sunday and it was the 154th day of the year 1973. It was the 22nd Sunday of that year. The next time you can reuse your old 1973 calendar will be in 2029. Both calendars will be exactly the same! The US president was Richard Nixon (Republican). Led Zeppelin - Live in Los Angeles, California (some feel this is Led Zeppelin's best performance of the 1973 North American tour). Famous people born on this day include Sargis Sargsian and Charles Emanuel. In that special week of June people in US were listening to My Love by Paul McCartney. In UK Can The Can by Suzi Quatro was in the top 5 hits. Jeremy, directed by Arthur Barron, was one of the most viewed movies released in 1973 while The Matlock Paper by Robert Ludlum was one of the best selling books. On TV people were watching Praise the Lord. If you liked videogames you were probably playing Gotcha or TREK73.

On June 3, 1973

A Tupolev Tu-144 crashes at the Paris air show. The aircraft had been heavily modified compared to the initial prototype, featuring engine nacelles split on either side of the fuselage, landing gear that retracted into the nacelles, and retractable foreplanes. The crash occurred in front of 250,000 people, including designer Alexei Tupolev, towards the end of the show, following a display by the pre-production Concorde aircraft. The aircraft appears to be making a landing approach, with the landing gear out and the "moustache" foreplanes extended, but then engages all four engines and climbs rapidly. Possibly stalling below 2,000 ft (610 m), the aircraft pitches over and goes into a steep dive. Trying to pull out of the subsequent dive with the engines again at full power, the Tu-144 breaks up in mid-air, destroying 15 houses, and killing all six people on board the Tu-144 and eight more on the ground. Three children are among the dead, and sixty people are severely injured.

Death of Jean Batmale, French footballer and manager (b. 1895).

100th anniversary

Birthdate of Otto Loewi, German-American pharmacologist and psychobiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961).

50th anniversary

Birthdate of Igor Shafarevich, Russian mathematician and theorist (d. 2017).

25th anniversary

Birthdate of Jan Reker, Dutch footballer and manager.

10th anniversary

The Buddhist crisis: Soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam attack protesting Buddhists in Hu, South Vietnam, with liquid chemicals from tear-gas grenades, causing 67 people to be hospitalized for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.

Birthdate of Rudy Demotte, Belgian politician, 8th Minister-President of the Walloon Region; and Toshiaki Karasawa, Japanese actor.

Death of Edmond Decottignies, French weightlifter (b. 1893); Pope John XXIII (b. 1881); and Nâzm Hikmet Ran, Turkish poet, author, and playwright (b. 1902).

4th anniversary

Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.

Birthdate of Takako Minekawa, Japanese singer-songwriter; and Dean Pay, Australian rugby league player.

Death of George Edwin Cooke, American soccer player (b. 1883).

3rd anniversary

Death of Hjalmar Schacht, Danish-German economist, banker, and politician (b. 1877).

2nd anniversary

Birthdate of Luigi Di Biagio, Italian footballer and manager.

Death of Heinz Hopf, German-Swiss mathematician and academic (b. 1894).

1st anniversary

Birthdate of Julie Gayet, French actress.

If you were born on June 3, 1973 here is the nature that you posses.

You have a positive attitude towards life and are generous in nature. You are also very trustworthy.

You are most likely to be an introvert and have very few friends. You are very suspicious and do not trust others much.

You are very sensitive and are often too moved by somebody else’s comment and you think over it for too long.

You are a thinker, but sometimes you might get carried away and lose focus from reality. You also have a tendency to procrastinate.

You are very helpful in nature but are also short tempered which might hamper your relationship with others.

You are independent and love to help those in need. You are also stubborn in nature.

Due to your stubborn nature you find it hard to work amicably with others and find difficulty in dealing with situations where some compromise and conformation is required. You ought to change your attitude otherwise you might find it hard to survive in your workplace.

Base on the data published by the United Nations Population Division, an estimated 121,831,979 babies were born throughout the world in the year 1973. The estimated number of babies born on 3rd June 1973 is 333,786. That’s equivalent to 232 babies every minute. Try to imagine if all of them are crying at the same time.

In the United States, the most popular baby name is Jennifer. This name was given to 62,451 baby girls. For the boys it’s Michael. This name was recorded 67,846 times in the year 1973. Any chance you are Jennifer or Michael?

There have been 16,801 days from the day I was born up to today. If I’ve been sleeping 8 hours daily since birth, then I have slept a total of 5,600 days or 15.33 years. I spent 33% of my life sleeping. Since night and day always follow each other, there were precisely 569 full moons after I was born up to this day. How many of them did I see?

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS

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mycryptosuite · 2 years

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millenniumrobin · 6 years

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Kiss It Better

TItle: Kiss It Better Author: millenniumrobin AO3 story link

Summary: Dick Grayson is rotting in prison. Sitting in his cell for more than a year, there's only one person he'll give a jailhouse interview to about the night that changed his life, and the lives of those around him, forever.

Batfam Week Day 1: Vacation or Separation

“Grayson.” The sound of his name stabbed Dick’s ears like a knife. He didn’t want to open his eyes. Not yet. Not now. Maybe everything from the past year had been one long, insane nightmare and if he just kept his eyes closed, just this once, he’d actually wake up and it would all be over.

“Hey. Grayson. Wake up. If she finds you sleeping when she gets here, she’s not going to be happy.” Harsh white light pierced his vision as Dick cracked his eyelids open. He found himself looking up at the bottom of a bunk bed, flat steel bars staring back at him like a cell door. Dick could feel those same bars pressing into his back through a too-thin mattress as he pushed himself to sitting. Brushing a calloused hand over his face, Dick felt rough stubble that had sprouted.

He thought about shaving. But what was the point, really?

That same hand moved upward, running through ragged hair now long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail. It had been weeks since he had bothered to look into the small mirror that occupied a fraction of the far wall. He knew what he would find looking back at him: the shell of a man who was once one of the most feared crime fighters in Gotham, and one of the most beloved heroes in the world.

“What’s she gonna do, Jack?” Dick finally answered the voice that had forced him to rise. “Kill me?” His hollow chuckle wasn’t met in turn. The only other man in the room didn’t move from his spot. Wearing a faded orange jumpsuit and sitting on a makeshift stool by the bars that marked the front of their existence, he kept his eyes down the hallway.

“Don’t joke, Dick. She probably would. Especially today. She wants you to smile all pretty for the cameras and doesn’t want you to ruin her big scoop.”

“Born in a circus, die in a circus.” The old Dick Grayson would have been shocked by his statement and the coldness with which it was delivered. But not now. Not after the past year. “She’s an old friend, Jack. Which is why I’m talking to her, and only her.”

Dick had only gotten a few visitors once he’d been incarcerated. Alfred had visited a few times, but then he had Bruce to deal with. Tim couldn’t bring himself to come say hello. Jason sent an audio tape of him slow clapping for three minutes. That had been nice to listen to for a few hours, and then Dick had thrown it away.

Bruce hadn’t said a word to him since everything happened, but then again, he had his own problems to worry about now. Dick didn’t know all the specifics, news was sketchy on this side of bars and concrete and steel, but every new prisoner who came in and recognized him loved to extoll the issues the great Bruce Wayne, the Batman, was now facing at the hands of the law.

Then there were the Gordons. Dick hadn’t heard from the Commissioner at all. In fact, the last thing he’d seen from Barbara’s father were eyes full of pain, sadness, and anger. As for Barbara… well, Dick had no idea what she thought about what he’d done. But maybe he’d be able to ask her soon. Maybe…

“Can I ask you something?” The question pulled Dick from his thoughts yet again. Worry was creased all over his cellmate’s face as he continued looking out over common area. Dick sighed loudly as he sat back on his bunk, fingers rubbing absentmindedly as they always did over his most prized possession, a strip of photo paper.

“You’re going to be fine, Jack. You worry too much.” His cellmate was Jack Reynald, a former high-rolling investment banker who had Ponzi-schemed his way to hundreds of millions and left a few thousand people very, very angry with him. They were together because Jack was the only inmate who didn’t want to kill him. Dick also wondered if the reverse was true.

“No, no, it’s not that.” The man swallowed hard and looked back over at Dick. “I was never a good guy. Even early on in my career, I found little ways of skimming some off the top here and there. But you… you weren’t just good, you were one of the best.” Jack sighed as he sat back against the wall, the back of his balding head pressing against the rough concrete block. “If even the great Dick Grayson, the great Nightwing, could fall, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

Hearing his old alias struck Dick like a shock from a guard’s stun baton. It had been a while since it had been uttered, at least without an extreme amount of venom behind it. The other inmates had tossed it around a lot when he’d first arrived, mostly to taunt and deride, but even that had died off after a while. Dick felt the edge of the photo paper bury into a familiar crease along his thumb and sighed.

“Did I ever tell you why I did it, Jack?” Dick paused. “Why I killed him?” The Commissioner’s eyes flashed through his mind again, but he brushed the feeling away. Jack’s eyes were wide, and he shook his head slowly.

Dick smiled slowly and allowed his eyes to become unfocused. The cool grey concrete began to remind him of where it all happened over a year ago. Where this nightmare began. “It was the happiest night of my life...”

*****

“Grayson!” His shouted name danced after him in the mid-winter air, bouncing around the snowflakes and twisting on the breeze. Bright lights swirled all around him, the Gotham night a snow globe of wonder and sparkle. It was, for all its faults and dark underbellies, why Dick Grayson loved this city.

“Grayson, slow down!” But the real reason he loved this city came bounding after him in the sidewalk slush, red hair trailing behind her like a wispy cloud caught in the setting summer sun. Her voice was full of laughter and annoyance, her cheeks nearly as red as her hair with a smile plastered to her face.

“You haven’t been able to keep up with me all night, Babs. Why would I slow down now?” A swift punch to the arm was the only reply he got. He rubbed it playfully and half-grimaced. “Ow.”

“Oh, that didn’t hurt.” Laughter filled her voice again as she held an oversized teddy bear in a Superman t-shirt. It was the prize he had won her through his exploits that evening. “You want me to kiss it to make it feel better?”

“Works for me.” A mischievous smirk crossed his own face as he wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her close. Whatever the temperature was outside didn’t matter, because when their lips met, there was only fire between them. It was a long few seconds before Dick realized they were squishing the newly won bear between them.

“All better?” There was a teasing glint in Barbara’s green eyes, and Dick responded in kind.

“I don’t know… it still hurts. I think more kisses are in order to make me really feel better.” And so they did again. And again. And again. It was a perfect evening of laughter, innuendo, and physical affection. A tavern with the bear propped up on the bar while they got a drink, a photo booth where more kisses and funny faces were shared, and endless sidewalks where they held each other close.

It was the perfect night, and Dick knew that it was finally time for that little circle of metal, hiding in his pocket for weeks waiting for a moment like this, to appear. They sat on a bench overlooking the park in the middle of Gotham, the city lights twinkling around the light snow that continued to fall.

“I love you, Barbara Gordon.” The words came easy to him, uttered countless times before. But there was something different to them this time, a finality that came with them. He knew what he wanted in life, and it was sitting right here on this bench with him. She offered back that easy smile of hers, planting a kiss playfully on his cheek.

“I love you too, Dick Grayson.” This was it. This was the moment he had waited for, planned for, hoped for since he had first laid eyes on her in grade school.

Dick began to slide off the bench, one knee dropping toward the slush-caked sidewalk. But as he turned his body to face Barbara, movement in his periphery caught his eye. Mirroring his motion, the figure moved closer, turning to face the two of them.

Time slowed to a grind. It was the years of training and adrenaline that allowed him to see everything clearly, but Dick remained frozen to the ground like the icicles around them. Why now? Why tonight? Why at this moment must the scourge of Gotham once again rear its ugly head?

And then he saw the gun. Highlighted, glimmering in the light from so many concrete and steel towers, the barrel a hole as black as anything he’d ever seen before. This was no robbery, something in his gut told him that. It was death.

A leather-gloved finger tightened on the trigger, and Dick saw the flash of the muzzle. He didn’t hear the shot. Everything had gone silent. A force stronger than anything he’d ever felt, and he’d been thrown into a wall by Bane before, slammed him back against the ground, away from the perpetrator.

He looked down to see where he had been shot. There was no blood, no gaping wound. The only red he saw was Barbara’s hair in front of him, splayed out on the ground.

If he screamed her name, he didn’t hear it. The gunman was already retreating away from them as Dick scrambled to scoop Barbara into his arms, pressing his fingers to her throat, feeling for a pulse. There was one, but it was weak, like a feather bouncing along on a breeze.

And then in an instant, that deafening silence was shattered by the sound of laughter. Low at first, then growing higher and higher to a frenzied shriek. Even if Dick hadn’t caught a glimpse of his face from the light of a street lamp, he would have known that laugh anywhere. It had haunted his dreams as a child, and Dick knew it would now haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Dick…” His name, barely heard in a breathy whisper, drew him back to the sidewalk. Barbara’s green eyes were staring past him, snowflakes she made no move to brush away gently nestling on her face. Her red hair spilled over his arm, the ends draping onto the sidewalk where it mixed with her blood.

Dick reached down, pulling off one of her mittens to take her hand in his. Even though he hadn’t been wearing gloves, her skin was still colder than his. Tears streaking down his cheeks, Dick cradled Barbara in his arms as he leaned down and kissed her face softly. “Everything is going to be alright Babs. I promise. Everything will be alright.” But it wasn’t going to be alright. He knew that, and so did she.

“It’s not your fault, Dick. You didn’t know…” she trailed off again, coughing. He kissed her face again, willing his lips to bring warmth back to her body. “Kiss it better, Dick? Please?”

Onlookers were racing around now, some with their cell phones to their ears, other taking video. The bright twinkling of city lights was starting to be replaced with red and blue flashing ones. But even with the cacophony of noise around him, Dick could only hear the whispered words of the bleeding love of his life.

“Stay with me, Dick… stay with me until I fall asleep.”

“Barbara, no. Stay awake. Stay here. I’m right here.”

“Stay with me until I fall asleep. Stay with me…” The faint steam that had been rising from Barbara’s lips froze, and her eyes began to shut. All noise and chaos around Dick seemed to stop. He knew his mouth was open, knew he was screaming something because his throat was burning and raw, but no sound reached his ears. He didn’t know how long he sat there screaming, begging for her to come back to him. It wasn’t until two police officers began dragging him away that he was lifted off the sidewalk, left only with the image of Barbara Gordon lying dead on the sidewalk, an oversized teddy bear in a Superman t-shirt still sitting on the bench behind her.

*****

“Grayson, you have a visitor.” A burly prison guard stood by the cell door, layer upon layer of muscle stretching his uniform. Like most of the other guards here, he treated Dick relatively well because the former vigilante was polite. And because, secretly, they appreciated what he had done on the outside and didn’t like how he’d been treated since the murder.

“Thanks Charles. Send her in.”

“You’ve got an hour. The Warden won’t tolerate lateness today.” Dick offered him a slight nod.

“I’ll see you then, Charles.” Jack moved from his perch by the door as a slender woman with ebony hair moved into the cell. She wore a crisp pantsuit and held a small notebook between her fingers. When she looked at him, surprise and then a hint of pity fluttered through her purple eyes.

“Grayson,” she said, pulling over the extra chair that had been set out for her. “You look terrible.”

That got him to laugh. Probably his first real laugh in the past year. She wasn’t wrong, of course. She never was.

“Why thank you, Lois. It’s good to see you too.” Lois Lane, pride of the Daily Planet, multiple Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and probably one of the smartest women left on the planet smiled up at him as he settled back to his spot on his bunk.

“How are they treating you here?” Dick chuckled to himself. The food was lousy, he got a single hour outside his cell a day, and he lived under constant threat of being shanked. He shrugged.

“The guards are fine. The Warden wants to impress the Commissioner, so he comes down hard on me. But I’m still alive, so that counts for something.” Lois offered him a thin smile and reached into the purse she had brought with her. When her hand emerged, it held a small recording device. She looked pointedly at him, raising an eyebrow. Dick nodded in agreement. Though he knew Lois would never misquote him, intentionally or not, he knew the recording wasn’t for the story. It was for the people on the outside to hear his voice one last time.

“I was surprised when you agreed to my request for an interview, Dick. You’d shot me down the last ten times I’d asked.” Dick could only offer a half-hearted shrug and a sheepish smile that was nowhere in the realm of the one he used to flash all the time. “The Commissioner was kind enough to give me an hour, so I don’t want waste any time. I reviewed the case file and your statement from the night of Barbara’s murder, so I won’t ask you about that. What’s less clear to me is what followed. Can you tell me what happened after you arrived at the police headquarters?”

Dick’s mind flashed back to that night again. Police headquarters, Commissioner Gordon… the Joker. Yes, it was that night where he had started down this path, towards this inevitable conclusion.

“After the EMTs got there, two officers who recognized me took me back to HQ…”

*****

Dick Grayson had never known before what it was like to be alone in a crowded room. Sure, there had been times when he had just been lost in his thoughts before, but not like this. No spacing off at a Gotham Academy dance or Wayne Foundation gala could compare to how alone he felt right now. The headquarters was in a panic. Commissioner Gordon’s daughter had just been gunned down by the Joker. But as officers and detectives raced past him, Dick could do nothing but stare at his hands.

Her blood was dry now. No longer bright crimson, his hands were now caked with a dark burgundy, split by thin white lines where his clenched fists had broken it up. He wasn’t sure what felt heavier: his heart, or the engagement ring he’d never get to use that still sat in his pocket.

“Grayson!” Dick jerked his head up, seeing the rotund form of Harvey Bullock standing over him. Even as lost inside his own head as he was, Dick was shocked he hadn’t smelled the detective first. The large man still chomped on a toothpick as he thrust his thumb back over his shoulder. “The Commissioner wants to see you.”

He forced his legs to work. He had to. Every step he took toward the door with the gold lettering on it, the one he was so familiar at sneaking into through the window, seemed to take an eternity. But with each step rage also bubbled up within him. Rage at himself for not stopping the Joker. Rage at Barbara for pushing him out of the way. Rage at Bruce for allowing the Joker to live as long as he had.

But all that anger melted away as he opened the door and saw Commissioner Jim Gordon sitting behind his desk, a picture frame held in shaking hands. Dick knew which one it was. He had seen it dozens of times before. It showed the Commissioner, then a Captain, and Barbara no more than nine. They were sitting on a park bench, very close to where she had been murdered tonight. It was from their first weekend in Gotham City, when Barbara had wanted more than anything to go back to Chicago. Her father had taken her to get ice cream, to a carnival, and gotten her a balloon. That solitary blue balloon hung in the background behind the two of them, a father and daughter smiling and laughing together in a picture taken by a passing tourist. It was the moment the Commissioner had convinced Barbara to stay. Dick wondered if he hadn’t done such a good job, if his daughter would still be alive tonight.

When Jim looked up at him, his eyes were redder than Dick had ever seen them. Redder than when his wife left him. Redder than after any other night of the countless horrors Gotham had to offer. His hair, for years having kept its original auburn color with only a hint of distinguishing gray at the temples, was now almost completely white. In a matter of hours, the Gotham City Police Commissioner had aged decades. Dick felt as if his heart had gone through the same transformation process.

“Jim… Commissioner… I’m so sorry. I didn’t see him. I couldn’t stop him. And she pushed me out of the way and… I couldn’t save her sir. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I tried. I tried to save her but I couldn’t. I wanted to, sir. If I could be dead and she could be standing here sir I would do it in a heartbeat.” Dick was rambling and the tears started to flow. He couldn’t help himself. Words, barely coherent, continued in a steady stream from his lips. He wanted his words to take away the Commissioner’s hurt, to bring his daughter back, to make this whole night a very bad nightmare.

And then two arms pulled him into a hug. Dick hadn’t even noticed Jim getting up from his desk. The two men embraced, their bodies shaking, sobs wracking them both as they used each other for support. And then the words started to flow again. Dick recounting every single detail of that night. Every place they had been, the times they had been there, what they had done. He told him about the ring. He needed to get everything out before he forgot a single moment. Even, as painful as it was, the Joker killing Barbara.

By the end of it, they were sitting in chairs facing each other. The Commissioner hadn’t spoken since he had started, but Dick knew that he had heard and absorbed everything. When the words finally exhausted themselves, they both sat in silence for a few minutes, only the sounds of sirens throughout the city breaking the tranquility.

“How are you doing, son?” The question caught Dick off guard. But in an instant, he knew the answer. The rage was back. The pain and sadness had gotten their turn. Now he was filled again with pure, unadulterated rage.

“I’ll be fine.” The words were clipped. Dick knew what he wanted to do. No, not just what he wanted to do. What he had to do. “Give me a task force, Commissioner. Give me a squad, anything. The Joker won’t see the morning.”

The Commissioner physically recoiled in his chair. He studied Dick for a long moment before getting up and walking toward the window. “That’s not how we do things, son. And that’s not how he raised you to do things.”

“The hell with how he does things!” Dick was on his feet now, voice rising to meet his stature. “How he does things got Barbara killed. That monster should have been dead after he killed Jason. Now he’s taken your daughter.” Dick paused, staring at the Commissioner’s stoic back. “I’m not going to let him kill anyone else.” Turning on his heel, Dick made for the door.

“Sit. Down.” The words stopped him in his tracks. When he turned, Dick saw Batman looming in a dark corner. There was no open window. The Big Black Bat must have been standing in the room the entire time, but Dick had just been too distracted to notice. The Commissioner looked over at Bruce Wayne and nodded solemnly.

“That’s not how we do things, son. Not even when it’s Barbara he killed. Especially then.” Dick opened his mouth to protest when there was a frantic knock on the Commissioner’s door and it swung open, an out-of-breath officer bursting through.

“Commissioner, we got him!”

“Who?”

“The Joker. He just walked in the front door and turned himself in.” The officer struggled to catch his breath. “He says he wants to confess, sir. He says he wants to confess for the murder of Barbara Gordon.”

*****

“I should have known something was up. I should have known the game he was playing. But like Batman standing in the Commissioner’s office, I was too blind to see it. I was too distracted to see the big picture. That’s what…” He sighed, rubbing his fingers over the strip of paper again. “That’s what she was always so good at.”

Lois nodded slowly, looking down briefly at her recorder and her watch. She had barely asked him any questions, just let him talk. Dick appreciated that. It was the first time he was able to tell his story, he feelings. Maybe it would help the others still on the outside. Maybe people would see he wasn’t the monster the District Attorney and the Commissioner painted him to be.

“What happened after that night? Before his trial a month later.”

“The Joker confessed to the murder but plead not guilty in court. Said he wanted his day in court. We should have seen it, all should have seen what was coming. Any trial of his would be a circus, and it was. How many news outlets were there? Fifty? Seventy? All with their cameras and their shouted questions at Bruce. At the Commissioner. At me. People were starting to dig, and that’s what he wanted. He wanted the groundwork there so when he took the stand, the pieces would fall into place.”

Dick looked down at his hands again, at that strip of paper held so tightly in one of them. “I should have seen it. But I didn’t. Nobody did. I don’t think anybody could have seen what was coming but Barbara.”

*****

“The defense calls John Doe, alias The Joker, to the stand.” Dick didn’t look up to the court spectacle in front of him. He knew what he would see. It was the same thing he had seen every day at this trial. The Joker, green hair mussed, clad in an orange jumpsuit that was too big for him, arms and legs shackled and a platoon of guards surrounding him.

He also didn’t have to turn around to see what was behind him. He could practically feel the eyes of dozens of journalists and the lenses of their cameras pointed squarely at his back. At Bruce’s back. At the Commissioner’s back. The three of them were sitting directly behind the prosecutor’s table. It was as close as they could be to the action without being in the action.

The Joker sat in the witness box with that same sick smile plastered across his face. This was all a joke to him, a theater of the absurd. And now he was center stage.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” The Joker cocked an eyebrow at the bailiff.

“Not sure what the big guy has to do with this, but for the first time in my life, yes, I do.” The Joker sat as his defense council, some young public defender barely out of law school, walked toward him.

“Only one question, your honor. Mr. Doe, are you insane?” The Joker broke out into a low laugh at his attorney’s question.

“Some would like to think I’m not because then they wouldn’t have to try and rehabilitate me. Others think I am because it makes it easier for them to process my actions. But in my world, I’m the sanest one there is.” The leering voice, the upward curve at the corner of his mouth made Dick’s stomach turn. He clenched his fists between his knees.

The Joker’s attorney sat back down as the D.A. rose to his feet. “Mr. Doe, had you taken leave of your senses the night you shot and killed Barbara Gordon?” Another laugh followed.

“No, Mr. District Attorney. I knew very much what was going on that night. Two lovebirds in the Gotham winter air. It made me sick.” The Joker looked over at Dick, locking eyes with him. That old familiar rage came back again, and he struggled to suppress it.

“So you followed Mr. Grayson and Ms. Gordon with the intention of killing her, is that correct?”

A harsher braying laugh followed. “No, Mr. District Attorney, I didn’t mean to kill Barbara Gordon. I was aiming for her partner.” Dick’s back snapped to attention, rage swelling in his chest. He heard the click-click-click of a dozen camera shutters behind him, but he didn’t care at the moment. The fog of the past month was lifting, the madman’s plan crystalizing in his mind like the memories of that night.

The District Attorney turned and looked at him. “You were in the park that night to kill Mr. Grayson? Why?” The Joker’s smile grew, malice filling his eyes and words.

“Because I wanted to hurt someone very close to him. I wanted to hurt someone very close to me.” Dick felt Bruce stiffen beside him but did not look over. A glint of light off of metal caught his eye. Ahead of him, just over the bar separating the gallery from the tables and judge’s bench, stood a guard. And his holstered gun was calling to Dick.

“You see, the last time I tried to get the attention of Mr. Grayson’s friend, I didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for. I thought by going for the original, I might finally get the attention I wanted.” Something snapped inside of Dick. Whatever had been holding back the rage, the recklessness, was gone.

His hands gripped the bar as he vaulted over it. Fingers brushed the edge of his suit pants. Bruce’s. He knew they were Bruce’s. He would have been the only one fast enough to even lay a hand on him. But his mentor wasn’t fast enough. Neither was the officer, who only managed a shout of surprise as Dick grabbed the pistol and ripped it from its holster.

The commotion in the courtroom was only white noise to him now. The camera shutters, the shouts and screams, all of it was just background noise. There was only one sound he was focused on: the Joker’s laughter. It was getting higher and faster again, just like it had that night. His only goal was to make it stop forever.

His hands raised the gun, one palm pressing against the cold metal, the other wrapping around his knuckles. The District Attorney dove out of the way and at the periphery of his vision jurors scrambled for cover. They didn’t need to move. He wasn’t going to hit them anyway.

Striding toward the jumpsuit-clad monster, Dick’s finger tightened on the trigger. He saw the muzzle flash, the barrel jump back towards him, the shell casing fly off to the side. The harsh laughter ringing in his ears hitched, a cough replacing it. A bright red spot began to appear in the middle of that orange jumpsuit. But the laugh returned, wetter and wheezier than before, but still there. Dick’s finger tightened again, again, again. His finger continued squeezing until the click-click-click he heard wasn’t from the cameras but from the pistol in his hands. The laughter was just a ragged breath now as Joker’s eyes rolled back into his head.

Then he was on the floor, four police officers on top of him, wrenching the gun from his hands and yanking his arms behind his back. The cold metal of the gun was replaced with that of handcuffs. As the officers yanked him back to his feet, he caught one last glimpse of the Joker, dead on the witness stand. That sick smile was still plastered across his face.

As he was dragged out of the courtroom, Dick turned one last time to see Bruce and the Commissioner, side by side, still standing behind the railing. The cameras and reporters were already starting to descend upon them. Neither of them seemed to notice though. The last thing Dick saw as he was hauled out the door were the Commissioner’s eyes. He hadn’t been expecting the emotions he saw in them. Not relief or gratitude. Just anger. Pain. And sadness.

The door slammed shut behind him.

*****

Lois nodded slowly as he finished, writing a quick note down on the pad in front of her. “You didn’t know about the tape.”

“No.” Dick shook his head. None of them had. The tape, which went live an hour after the Joker’s death, had been recorded the night he killed Barbara. It laid out, in exacting detail, Batman’s identity. Nightwing’s identity. And, as the Joker on the tape had realized, who Batgirl was as well.

That had been the end of Jim’s career. He had been fired the next morning, his gun and badge stripped, as he was placed under investigation for aiding and abetting vigilantes. The stock of Wayne Enterprises had plummeted as companies declined to do business with Bruce Wayne. No formal charges had been found, they couldn’t prove he was Batman. And they hadn’t found the Batcave. But the Batman hadn’t been seen in the Gotham night sky for over a year.

That tape had been the Joker’s final revenge on all of them. He had laid the trap, and they had all been too blinded by grief to realize they were walking straight into it.

“Do you regret doing it?” Dick looked at her for a long moment and smiled.

“No. I wish everything had gone down differently, but no, I don’t regret it. I think there’s someone in your life who, if he was really honest with himself, would do the same if anything ever happened to you.” That elicited a small smile from Lois. She checked her watch again and looked up at him.

“Is there anything else you want to say? Off the record, but on recording for those closest to you?” Dick leaned back against the wall. There had been so many letters that he had started and torn up. He knew that no number of apologies could make up for what he’d done, but he also figured the Joker was going to expose them at the trial anyway. At least he wasn’t alive to escape and hurt others.

He shook his head slowly.

Lois’ lips pressed together as Charles came back, knocking the cell bars with his nightstick. “Time to go, Grayson.” Dick nodded and took a deep breath, standing and facing Lois again.

“One for the road?” There were tears welling in her eyes, but she didn’t allow them to fall. When he opened his arms, she threw hers around his neck, planting a quick kiss on his cheek.

“They’re going to be there,” she whispered in his ear. “Bruce and Jim. Clark too. They promised me they’d be there.” Dick broke the embrace and offered her a smile of thanks.

“Take care of yourself, Lois.” He felt the much firmer grasp of Charles as he let himself be led out of the cell.

“You too, kid. Good luck.” Dick smiled.

“I won’t need luck. I’ve got my girl waiting for me.”

As Charles led him down the hallways of the prison, past a sign that said “Execution Chamber”, Dick rubbed his fingers over that strip of paper again. The pictures on that strip were worn from age and being held for so long, but the images were still clear enough. And from that strip, as she had every night, Barbara Gordon smiled back at him, laughing as he held her close or kissed her cheek. Soon he wouldn’t have to just stare at a picture. He knew that in just a few minutes, he would get to see her again.

The smile on his face grew as he was led through the door and into a blinding white light.

#batfamweek2018 #bfw2018 #fan fiction #dick grayson #barbara gordon #dickbabs #joker #fan fic #angst #kiss it better #Lois Lane

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survivingcapitalism · 6 years

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So apparently landlords want to be called “rental housing providers” now....

Don’t want to link to the National Post, but they came out with an article on September 23rd 2018 about how landlords want a rebrand because of their “good work for the community.” The article also wants to say, essentially that “See, since landlords aren’t actually medieval lords they shouldn’t have such a bad reputation,” which is about as disingenuous as Donald Rumsfeld getting indignant that people were comparing Abu Ghraib to a gulag because gulags were Russian.

Firstly, as a discipline medieval studies at the University of Toronto is notoriously conservative (a bud of mine is a medievalist who worked in a different department in part because of the political climate there). Even then, the way Shami Ghosh’s comments have be integrated into the article is pretty janky, and makes me wonder how that interview really went down. Many peasants, while they did have feudal obligations, were much more autonomous than todays wage labourer. (See, for instance, Eda Sagarra, A Social History of Germany: 1648-1914 (1977), 140-54.)

Secondly, while it is admittedly later than the middle ages, late feudal peasants actually fought and died resisting the turn from feudalism to capitalism because they realized that landlords were actually far more mercenary than regular lords when it came to having a stable place to live and work.

““A lack of land made this group [day labourers] less subject to the juridical authority of the lord, while the growing availability of employment in rural industry further increased their independence from seignorial control. The landless laborer’s relationship to seigniorial authority was far more ambiguous than that of the peasant, whose plot of land concretely defined his feudal obligations. The day laborer’s contacts with his noble employer were likely to be more sporadic, less formalized, and mediated by economic subordination to his more prosperous peasant counterparts. A rural laborer often lived under the immediate authority not of a seignior, but a prosperous peasant who employed him as a farm servant. This sometimes worked to the lord’s advantage: During peasant uprisings, lords were occasionally able to play on the antagonism between prosperous peasants and the rural poor. In general, however, the sheer number of the ‘masterless’ persons in eighteenth-century Austria and Prussia raised alarming questions about how authority was to be exercized in the countryside. […] the growth of a class that owned little or no land and whose relationship to seigniorial authority was less direct posed a clear challenge to traditional paternalist assumptions.”

[...]

“Raising grain prices, especially after the mid-eighteenth century, also undermined the ideology of seigniorial paternalism. Historians have examined this phenomenon most exhaustively for Prussia, where the resulting increase in the value of estates produced a tremendous speculative boom in land. In some regions of Silesia, the value of estates increased by 90 percent or more between 1700 and 1780, while in areas of East Prussia it was not uncommon for estates to double in value between 1705 and 1770. As estates changed hands with ever-increasing frequency, observers voiced concern about the disruptive impact of land speculation on lord-peasant relations. […] Von Reibnitz, a Prussian official in Silesia, noted with dismay that ‘the condition of the peasantry worsens every year because so many nobles have cast aside the hallowed belief of their ancestors that a lord should be a father to his subjects, and instead prefer to carry on like bankers and userers.’” 147

Source: James Van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

As for the National Post article:

A group of property managers and apartment owners in Hamilton wish to be called landlords no longer, arguing the term, haunted by its medieval history, has too many negative connotations.

“It just has a bad ring to it,” said Arun Pathak, president of the Hamilton District Apartment Association. “It’s the two words together: Somebody lording over the land.”

The term landlord conjures an image, Pathak said, of a callous and wealthy man collecting cheques each month and doing little else. But in reality, he said, “there’s a lot of work.”

“We’d like to try and find a term that works better,” he said. As of now, the group is offering this: rental housing provider. It works, said Pathak, because it isn’t gender-specific and points out they’re providing a service.

“Hopefully, over time it will catch on.”

The group has discussed this rebranding for several years, and did so again at a meeting last week of its 250 members. Changing the name landlord has become a small facet of their plan to deal with a public relations crisis.

Property owners, Pathak said, have been vilified after several high-profile landlord-tenant disputes in the area. (Most notably, a renters’ strike against an apartment complex in Stoney Creek has dragged on for months, with the Hamilton Spectator reporting on a neighbourhood barbecue in August where children beat a pinata emblazoned with the face of the executive behind the rent increases.)

“It’s been a very one-sided story,” Pathak said, stressing that trying to change the term landlord was a minor part of the group’s public outreach plan.

“It’s not a big rich landlord who’s doing all this,” he said. “A lot of it is just a guy in the street, a guy who’s been working at his other job for a long time.”

[...]

Manitoba’s Professional Property Managers Association deliberately eschews the term landlord because they feel it isn’t the most accurate summation of their role. “We manage apartment buildings. We don’t lord over land,” spokesman Avrom Charach said, noting that the PPMA would support Pathak’s idea.

[...]

The dynamic has virtually no resemblance to the modern version, he said: “The medieval lord had far more power over the daily lives of the tenants than in a modern sense.”

Starting after the Norman conquest, a king generally bestowed land on a nobleman in exchange for fealty and military service; that nobleman gave land to tenants in exchange for rent by way of crops, livestock, or money. There appears to have been two extremes of the medieval landlord: one as the linchpin in an idyllic rural harmony, the other a domineer who approved marriages between tenants, demanded free labour and took the best animal from a family when their head of household died, as a payment for settling the dead man’s affairs.

“This medieval concept of the landlord who has a corrosive relationship with the tenants may never have existed in Canada, and certainly not since Canada became an independent country,” said Shami Ghosh, assistant professor of medieval history at the University of Toronto.

“I fail to see how that’s going to affect the image in Hamilton right now.”

#Landlords #class war #Labour History #labor history #Hamilton #Medieval peasant

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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THIS IS GREAT NEWS FOR THE MARGINAL, WHO RETAIN THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING AN INSIDER, AND IN SOME KINDS OF WORK—THAT HACKING WAS COLD, PRECISE, AND METHODICAL, AND THAT HE DID ALL THE ACTUAL DESIGN OF THE APPLE I AND APPLE II IN HIS APARTMENT OR HIS CUBE AT HP

But gradually I realized it wasn't luck. We need a language that lets us scribble and smudge and smear, not a pen. For a long time I felt bad about this, just as in principle you could avoid it, just as writers and painters and architects do. But this mistake is less excusable than most. Boy, was I wrong. In hacking, like painting, work comes in cycles. So did Apple. But I've talked to a lot of servers and a lot of ideas come from the margin is simply that there's so much of it.1 I behave in a way that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way.

Over and over we see the same pattern. Maybe I'm excessively attached to conciseness.2 Chardin decided to skip all that and paint ordinary things as he saw them. But Cybercash was so bad and most stores' order volumes were so low that it was very remiss of me to have forgotten all that stuff within three weeks of the final exam.3 If I could get people to remember just one quote about programming, it would be a 900-page pastiche of existing popular novels—roughly Gone with the Wind plus Roots.4 In hacking, this can literally mean saving up bugs. It turns out there is, and the visual arts is the resistance of the medium. It's never so pure as it was when they were young.5 It wouldn't be the first time investors learned that lesson from founders.6 That phrase draws in most threads I've mentioned here.

Shakespeare appeared just as professional theater was being born, and pushed the medium so far that every playwright since has had to live in his shadow. The other problem with startups is that there are today. If I had only looked over at the other makers. But there are plenty of dumb people who are bad at empathy too.7 I had an uncomfortable feeling in the back of my mind that I ought to know more theory, and that means that investor starts to lose deals. So, if hacking works like painting and writing, is it as cool?8 Outsiders are not merely free but compelled to make things that are cheap and lightweight.9 When they're raising money, for example, what would happen if the government decided to commission someone to write an official Great American Novel. A better way to describe the situation would be to shirk it, but you'll have it all to yourself. Relentless. In particular, new things.10 This is already clear in cases like GPSes, music players, and cameras.

So it was literally IPO or bust. Imagine, for example. Most writers write to persuade, I'd start to shy away unconsciously from ideas I knew would be hard to sell. So that, I think. Inappropriate is the null criticism. It was like watching a car you're chasing turn down a street that you know has no outlet. Facebook did. So hackers start original, and get good, and get good, and get good, and get original. But in retrospect you're probably better off studying something moderately interesting with someone who isn't. There's nothing more than a slight stirring of discomfort. That's why oil paintings look so different from watercolors.

But I think the goal of an essay should be to discover surprising things.11 Some hackers are quite smart, but they can't have looked good on paper. You might as well open it. Particularly to young companies that are otherwise benevolent. Someone who doesn't know what these things are, either. Similarly, you shouldn't be discouraged by the comparatively corrupt test of college admissions, because it's a game you can't lose.12 And when you do it consciously you'll do it even better. How common is it for founders to keep control after an A round? If you're not sure what to do, and engineers figure out how to connect some company's legacy database to their Web server.13 Com of their name.

Considering how basic a red circle is, it seemed surprising to me when we started YC. There's a huge weight of tradition advising us to play it safe. The way I worked, it seemed surprising to me that any employer would be reluctant to let hackers work on open-source hacking is all about.14 But so do people who inherit money, and another for love. Give hackers an inch and they'll take you a mile. How long will it take to catch up with where you'd have been if you were extracting every penny?15 Not merely hardware, but software too. But this wasn't what made them eminent—it was more a flaw their eminence had allowed them to sink into. In hacking, like painting, work comes in cycles. This is what open-source projects. Add up all the evidence of VCs' behavior, and the key to the mystery is the old adage a word to the wise is sufficient.

The fact that you can change font sizes easily means the iPad effectively replaces reading glasses. Just wait till you've agreed on a price and think you have a US startup called X and you don't have to act like VCs. Programmers were seen as technicians who translated the visions if that is the word of product managers into code. When people walk by the portrait of Ginevra de Benci, their attention is often immediately arrested by it, even before they look at the work of a painter in chronological order, you'll find that each painting builds on things that could steal that prestige. That version 4. The puffed-up companies that went public during the Bubble didn't do it just because they were pulled into it by unscrupulous investment bankers. They ask whatever it is they're asking in such a roundabout way that the hosts often have to rephrase the question for them. Whereas hackers, from the start, are doing original work; it's just very bad. Since the custom is to write to persuade the actual reader, someone who doesn't will seem arrogant. If hackers identified with other makers, like writers and painters and architects do. I like debugging: it's the standard image.16 In return for the unique privilege of sharing his office with no other humans, he had to share it with 6 shrieking tower servers.

Notes

This is actually from the most, it's probably good grazing. One of the Daddy Model and reality is the last step in this evolution. I have a better education. So in effect why can't you be more like a body cavity search by someone who doesn't understand what you're doing.

Many of these companies substitute progress for revenue growth.

Yes, I didn't realize it yet or not, don't even want to approach a specific firm, the more effort you expend on the matter. I think it's confusion or lack of results achieved by alchemy and saying its value was as much what other people thought it was considered the most visible index of that generation had been raised religious and then just enjoy yourself for the same weight as any successful startup?

There are circumstances where this is not even be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success. It's hard for us, they have to say exactly what they're doing. Maybe that isn't the problem, we should make the fund by succeeding spectacularly.

That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day. The continuing popularity of religion is the place for people interested in each type of thing. Though they were getting results.

We currently advise startups mostly to ignore what your GPA was. People and The CRM114 Discriminator.

A preliminary result, that all metaphysics between Aristotle and 1783 had been climbing in through the buzz that surrounds wisdom in ancient philosophy may be whether what you learn via users anyway. The University of Vermont, 1991. A round about the origins of the biggest discoveries in any field.

One VC who read this to realize that in fact they don't, but some do. You can relent a little too narrow than to confuse everyone with a base of evangelical Christians. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1983. I called to check and in fact they don't have to.

When I was there when it was the ads they show first.

This is a case in point: lots of type II startups neither require nor produce startup culture.

In practice the first wave of hostile takeovers in the narrow technical sense of things economists usually think about, just as if it were. If they're dealing with YC companies that grow slowly tend not to say they care above all about big markets, why is New York. 0001. In a limited way, I should degenerate from words to their returns.

That's a valid point. Everyone's taught about it. 5 more I didn't.

The reason only 287 have valuations is that they've already decided what they're selling and how unbelievably annoying it is to let yourself feel it mid-game. So it's a collection itself. When I was surprised to find a kid and as a definition of property is driven by bookmarking, not an associate cold-emailing a startup. It would be to say yet how much you get nothing.

The main one was nothing special. For similar reasons, the users' need has to be a hot deal, I mean forum in the sense of the 1929 crash. And to a partner, not because Delicious users are not one of the 70s, moving to Monaco would only give you 11% more income, which a few months later Google paid 1.

The golden age of economic equality in the sample might be able to respond with extreme countermeasures. These points don't apply to types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, which would cause HTTP and HTML to continue to maltreat people who start these supposedly smart investors may not be formally definable, but trained on corpora of stupid and non-stupid comments instead.

One of the biggest divergences between the initial plan and what the valuation of the founders chose? But becoming a police state. There is not that the most successful companies have been a good nerd, just that it is more efficient.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, Trevor Blackwell, Neil Rimer, and Robert Morris for the lulz.

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floreal79 · 3 years

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1851 to 2021: “Plus ça change..”

“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle” wrote Marx and Engels in 1848 (in “The Communist Manifesto”). This sentence provides the essence of what has become known as historical materialism, a theoretical framework that can still today be considered the most scientifically sound method yet described of analysing historical processes. Marx employed this method in his writings about the events in France at around the time of publication of the Manifesto, and these works are still widely regarded as having laid bare the mechanisms of the social forces at work.

But over the nearly 200 years that have elapsed since that time, society has not evolved at all in the way that Marx, with his understanding of historical materialism, predicted. In retrospect, it could be argued that where Marx was wrong was not in his underlying theory, but in his calculation of the power of the forces that he described, the interaction of which has thus taken a very different course from the one he foresaw.

The American economist Michael Hudson has described how, from the latter part of the last century to the present time, the economies of the major capitalist countries have become “financialised”. He describes a “FIRE Sector” (“FIRE” is an acronym for Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) whose interests have come to dominate all other economic activity, with devastating economic consequences for much of the populace. Hudson frequently alludes to the “One Percent” to whom the remaining 99% are economically subjugated. This group (also known as the “rentier” class) has its historical antecedents in the “finance aristocracy” described in Marx’s writings.

In mid-nineteenth century France, prior to 1848, industrial capitalism was still in its infancy, and the political power of its leaders was harshly curtailed by the reactionary grouping centred around the Orleanist king, Louis-Philippe. This group, according to Marx, was made up of “bankers, stock exchange kings, owners of coal-mines, ironworks and forests, landed proprietors”, and he used the generic term “finance aristocracy”. The overthrow of Louis-Philippe in February 1848 was by a popular revolt, when the working class of Paris came onto the streets to demand reforms of a “democratic” nature, but which promoted the aims of the “real industrial bourgeoisie” (Marx’s term). As the working class continued its demands for democracy, however, the two arms of the bourgeoisie (“finance aristocracy” and “real industrial bourgeoisie”) combined to suppress them, in the bloody event of July of that year. The events that unrolled over the period from then until Louis Bonaparte’s coup in 1851 were analysed in detail by Marx, and described in terms of a struggle between the “finance aristocracy” and the “real industrial bourgeoisie”. Marx held the view that the industrial bourgeoisie were bound to gain and retain the upper hand, and that the struggles that would determine the course of subsequent history would be between the industrial bourgeoisie and the working class.

As industrial capitalism spread across the world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Marx’s expectations were correct, in that the main social conflicts were indeed between capital and labour. But expansion of capital regularly required recourse to the funds of the finance sector, which thus continued to exert power, and the tension between this group and the industrialists has not disappeared, rather contrary to Marx’s expectations (see M Hudson).

The essence is that while manufacturing capitalism aims to increase the total of surplus value, financial capitalism aims to squeeze as much monetary profit as it can from current surplus value, and in doing so restricts the processes that enlarge the totality. While the manufacturing bourgeois will accept some diminution in his share of wealth created if the result is an increase in the total created (just as two-fifths of a large sum can be greater than three-fifths of a small one), the banker/rentier/financial bourgeois just wants the largest immediate payment out of any given enterprise, with no regard for future wealth creation, as “investments” are moved around the stock market. (A semi-mathematical representation of this conflict is attached as an Appendix).

The conflict between these short-term and long-term strategies, embodying the competing interests of manufacturing versus financial capital, can be seen as important in the political developments over the one and three quarter centuries since Marx’s writings on mid-nineteenth century France, and especially so since the rise to dominance, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, of what is called “neoliberalism”. It can be seen as a continuation of the conflict between industry and finance in nineteenth century France that Marx wrote so eloquently about, but which he expected to diminish in importance as the struggle between capital and labour came to dominate politics.

Marx anticipated that the demands of the finance aristocracy would become subservient to those of the industrial bourgeoisie, and that the struggles of the future would be two-sided contests between capital and labour. He expected the working class eventually to win in this two-sided struggle, and to bring the forces of production under public control and ownership. That history has not followed the path Marx anticipated can be related to his miscalculation of the class forces at play.

During the late nineteenth century and for approximately the first three-quarters of the twentieth (up to about 1980), manufacturing capitalism in the West underwent fairly steady expansion (albeit in a the classical cyclical way described by Marx, but at the start of each cycle the capitalist economy was almost always larger than at the start of the preceding one). During this period, organised labour could usually reach an accommodation with the bourgeoisie as increasingly productive industry created wealth that could be used in part to improve workers’ conditions (both by paying better wages and by social reform, as in welfare and health). The term “Fordism” is sometimes used for this (purist economists might differ on this use of the term), and this model was the one that achieved the “Golden Age of Capitalism” during the third quarter of the twentieth century. During this period, as Marx had anticipated, financial capital took a secondary role to the successful industrialists. However, Marx had failed to fully foresee the way in which the unionised working class would be able to claw back some share of surplus value.

An analogy for the relationship between manufacturing capital (“Marx’s “real industrial bourgeoisie”) and labour that held sway over that time can be found in the natural phenomenon of symbiosis between two different species of creature, for example a sea anemone perched on the shell of a hermit crab: the two creatures compete for the same source of food, but by working together (moving around on the crab’s legs, catching prey with the anemone’s tentacles), the supply of food is enhanced, and both get a better share than either would achieve alone. Of course, the analogy cannot be taken too far: the class struggle between the proletariat and the industrial bourgeoisie remained intense during these years, and the finance sector took a back seat, but were always aligned with the more those sections of manufacturing that were most aggressive in opposing the claims of the working class. Newspaper proprietors such as Murdoch gave rallying points to their views.

Yet, while it was constantly in struggle with the industrial bourgeoisie, the working class of the “West” almost never staged a serious threat to its control of the state: as long as it could continue to improve its material conditions within the capitalist system, it could be placated. By using part of ‘surplus value” to improve living standards and to support healthcare and welfare, the bourgeoisie could do this, and advancing technology meant that greater wealth could be created. In this way, Keynes thought he could foresee a time - in the not-too-distant future - when the fifteen-hour week would become normal.

Keynes also recognised that, as well as funding welfare, the industrial capitalist state needed to steer a long-term strategy for capitalist accumulation with such areas of expenditure as education and research (including universities and research establishments). In this, Keynes’ thinking represented of the long-term interests of the industrial bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, the finance sector, always eager to achieve immediate maximum profit, always opposed increased workers’ pay, expenditure on health and welfare, indeed any expenditure that reduced the amount of profit that could be reaped. Nearly all government expenditure is seen by them as wasteful and “big government” is one of their most most notable bêtes noires. A consequence of this is that almost all infrastructure spending is curtailed, a glaring example being railways: development of high-speed rail in those countries, the US and UK, where the neoliberal values of the finance capitalists are most firmly entrenched, lag far behind that in most other advanced industrial economies.

The essence of the conflict between “industrial” and “finance” capitalists lies in the need of the former to increase the total wealth produced by society whereas the latter needs to maximise the share it takes of existing wealth. In this conflict, the industrialists can ally themselves with the working class, for reasons just outlined; a strong working class is not only a product of capitalism but, in certain conditions, a powerful support to one section of the capitalist class. But when the working class becomes less powerful, the financial capitalists increase their power, a process that can be seen to have been taking place since about 1980, to varying degrees, across the capitalist world (i.e. almost the whole world outside China).

Marx had obviously seen the “finance aristocracy” as a distinct class (in the strict historical materialist sense of the word) in the nineteenth century, one that he saw as a continuance of feudal power (based originally on land rent). His expectation was that this class would become subordinate to the industrial capitalists, to the point of almost ceasing to have independent existence, and that from then on, the dominant class conflict would be between capitalist and worker. But nearly 200 years later, this class (as the “FIRE Sector”) is stronger than ever, and the relationship between it and the industrial bourgeoisie again dominates the political scene, a scene in which the proletariat, demoralised and with its organisational powers having been all but eradicated, can exert only minimal influence.

Thus the dynamic of class struggle in the world of the twentieth century has a distinct resemblance to that of France in the mid-nineteenth century, one in which there are three, not two, mutually antagonistic classes with the industrial bourgeoisie occupying some middle ground between the workers and the “rentiers”. They have exploited this hitherto by adjusting their stance to accommodate the stronger of the others, but by 2021 it is the “rentier” class who have the upper hand and are threatening to reduce both the working class and the industrial bourgeoisie to impotence. What they fail to see is that their short-term emphasis on financial profit threatens the long-term creation of “real” (manufactured) value.

Appendix: “Manufacturing” vs “Financial” Capitalist Accumulation

Let’s consider a “bourgeois” about to embark upon a new capitalist venture. It starts on “Day 0”, and we take a hypothetical first “cycle” up to an arbitrary “Day n”, after which the further cycles (slightly-different, as will be outlined) take place (athough in reality the process is more continuous than cyclical)

On “Day 0”: Bourgeois invests some capital, to value “C” for capitalist production up to “Day n” (the origins of this capital to be discussed later)

Days 0 to n

(first cycle): “C” is expended on:-

Fixed assets (machinery, etc): “F”

Recurrent expenses (fuel, rent, etc) to "Day n”: “Rn”

Wages of employees to "Day n”: “Wn”

Then: C = F + Rn + Wn

By “Day n”: - The labour of the employees has created commodity of value “Vn”

- Fixed assets have depreciated by “∂Fn”

- In a successful enterprise, Vn>>Wn, and Vn = Wn + Sn

where “S” corresponds to Marx’s “Surplus Value”, “Sn” being its quantity at day n

- The bourgeois’ assets now have a value of (F-∂Fn) + Vn

- Also, if Sn > (Rn + ∂Fn), then Vn - (Wn + Rn + ∂Fn) is “profit” (Pn), so that for the period from Day 0 to Day n:

Pn = Vn - (Wn + Rn + ∂Fn) - Equation #1

To put this in words, the profit is the value of the goods produced less the combined total of wages, recurrent expenses and depreciation of assets.

The cycle can then repeat with further increments of profit. The above equation for Day 0 to Day n can be rewritten in a general form as:

P = V - (W + R + ∂F) - Equation #2

As profit accrues, it can be expended in various ways:

#1) Increasing “capacity” by investing in further fixed assets (with corresponding increases in the wage bill etc , but increased output and profit eventually). Renewal of old equipment can be included in this. If a major project is undertaken, additional capital may need to be brought in from outside. (The term “∂C” will be used for this, below).

#2) Investment in R&D (“D”)

#3) The bourgeois may hand some of the profit to the workers in increased wages. Organised, unionised labour makes this more likely, although capitalists such as Henry Ford, while a bitter enemy of trade unions, saw the wisdom of increasing wages. Such a “sharing” of profit was a feature of the “Golden Age of Capitalism” - the third quarter of the twentieth century - during which time working people saw real improvements in their material conditions, BUT it essentially came to an end in about 1980. (“∂W” will be used for increased wage rates).

#4) Tax - civilised society requires infrastructure and welfare (some overlap between this and #3) (“T”)

#5) Some capital may be used for speculative investment in further ventures (as this is a from of money lending, the term “U” as in “usury” is used).

#6) The original capital to create the business, plus any further tranches, as in #1 above, may have been raised from the rentier class in which case it needs to be repaid (“X”).

ISo, the total profit, “P” can be divided between these six possible options as the bourgeois

decides (under pressure from other directions, of course: see below) and another equation for “P”

describes this:

P = ∂C + D + ∂W + T + U + X - Equation #3

(It might be noticed that no terms in the equation is used to cover such things as shareholders dividends, bonuses to senior managers, etc, but as these are generally dependent upon the value of “U” achieved, they can be considered as a potion of that, and not covered separately).

The manufacturing bourgeois’ wishes to continue “capital accumulation” will often at some point mean using more than just the already-accumulated “∂C”” and “D”, and may necessitate obtaining outside funding for his investments, which will often entail conversion to a “joint stock company”, such as through a sale of shares in an “initial public offering” (IPO). But now our manufacturing bourgeois allows an important new voice to enter the discussion about how the distribution of “P” is made between its carious components.

From then on, usually posing their demands as “in the interests of the share-holders”, the “finance aristocracy” begins to exert its influence, and the word “investment” now undergoes a subtle change of meaning. Beforehand, “investment’ was what was understood as falling within #1 above: spending on research, new equipment, etc; under the “finance aristocracy”, most available money is “invested” in further speculative ventures - the quickest way to maximise profit. For the finance aristocracy, its “investments” must turn the biggest profit most rapidly.

So there are now three groups competing for their share of the profits of capitalist industry:

#1) The workers: they have to be paid a certain sum (“W”) to survive and continue to generate surplus value (“S”). Beyond this, they also want to improve their material conditions by receiving a share of “P”; they also tend to favour social measures that improve their lives , favouring the use of part of “P” (tax, “T” in the equations) by society the form of taxation to improve communal functions - health, education, social security, infrastructure etc.

#2) The manufacturing bourgeoisie: this group has an interest in long-term capital accumulation, so appreciates the need to accommodate some of the workers’ demands above, and also the need for long-term investment in modernisation; in the past this has included paying tax to support government-run research institutes (universities and other), as well as for expenditure on such infrastructure as transport and telecommunication (and so on..).

#3). The finance aristocracy, in the present day in their new guise as “FIRE”: for these people, “S” needs to be used to make further profit by speculative investment. They have no interest in long-term development of industry through R&D, and certainly no interest in maintaining living standards for the workers. For government to take part of “S” as tax and use it for such things as healthcare, education, welfare, infrastructure (etc) is abhorred. “Down with Big Government” is one of their mantras.

To return to the earlier equations, we have:

P = V - (W + R + ∂F) - Equation #2

and

P = ∂C + D + ∂W + T + U + X - Equation #3

Removing “P”, as the common factor, can combine these two equations to give:

∂C + D + ∂W + T + U + X = V - (W + R + ∂F)

And rearranging this:

U = V - (W + R + ∂F + ∂C + D + ∂W + T + X) - Equation #4

For the financial sector, maximising “U” as quickly as possible is the main aim, in order to have capital to “invest” in further speculative ventures (and also to fund their exorbitant lifestyles). Long-term growth of manufacturing is of no interest to them, whereas the manufacturing bourgeoisie, aiming to accumulate capital, will not necessarily wish to maximise “U” at the expense of long term investment in industry (another illustration of how “investment” means different things to the financial and manufacturing bourgeoisies).

So, from Equation #4, the finance sector aim to maximise “U” by minimising the other items on the right side of the equation, while the manufacturer sees a long-term gain for his particular capitalist venture by “investing” in expansion, in R&D, and in some measures to promote the material conditions of the workers.

The essence is that while manufacturing capitalism aims to increase the total of surplus value in the long term, financial capitalism aims to squeeze as much monetary profit as it can from current surplus value, and in doing so damages the mechanisms that enlarge the totality. While the manufacturing bourgeois will accept some diminution in his share of wealth created if the result is an increase in the total created (just as two-fifths of a large sum can be greater than three-fifths of a small one), the banker/rentier/financial bourgeois wants the largest immediate share out of any given enterprise, with no regard for future wealth creation, as “investments” are moved around the stock market.

The conflict between these short-term and long-term strategies, embodying the competing interests of manufacturing versus financial capital, can be seen as crucial to the political developments over the one and three quarter centuries since Marx’s writings on mid-nineteenth century France. The conflict between industry and finance, that Marx wrote so eloquently about, has, contrary to Marx’s expectations, remained a major feature of the ongoing struggle between classes.

#Marxism Rentier class history

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your-dietician · 3 years

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Jim Phelan's impact extended well beyond the basketball court | Sports

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/ncaa-basketball/jim-phelans-impact-extended-well-beyond-the-basketball-court-sports/

Jim Phelan's impact extended well beyond the basketball court | Sports

The basketballs still bounced in Memorial Gymnasium on the campus of Mount St. Mary’s University on Thursday evening less than 48 hours after the passing of legendary head coach Jim Phelan. The sneakers still squeaked, the jumpers were still on target, and the players still competed. The defending Northeast Conference Champions were competing in a mid-week pickup game in the old gym where Phelan had built the Mountaineer program. They competed just as hard as Phelan had coached for the 49 years he was the head coach on the beautiful campus just south of the Mason-Dixon line.

All of it just the way Coach would have wanted it.

Phelan won 830 games at the Mount in a career that spanned 49 years from 1954 until he retired after the 2002-03 season. Remarkable in any era and downright preposterous in today’s revolving door coaching world, Phelan coached them all at Mount. St. Mary’s. When Phelan took over in the spring of 1954, the program had won 471 games in its 45 seasons under 16 different head coaches. By the time Phelan coached his last game, the school had a basketball identity. The win total had nearly tripled under his guidance to 1,301.

At the time of his passing, no one has won more games at Mount St. Mary’s than Jim Phelan. That is not overly surprising considering he ranks 13th all-time on the NCAA wins list. But what I meant to say was that Jim Phelan has more wins at Mount St. Mary’s than everyone else – combined. His 830 victories are 112 more than the other 21 coaches have racked up.

Along the way, his teams reached the NCAA Division 1 Tournament twice, the NCAA Division 2 Final Four on five occasions, winning the national championship in overtime in 1962 over Sacramento State.

As mind-blowing as those numbers might be, they aren’t the most impressive numbers or the most important numbers. Those numbers lie in the 217 student-athletes that he coached and guided through the years. Doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, school administrators among them, many kept in close contact with Phelan throughout the years.

“I consider it one of the great blessings of my life,” former Mountaineer Tony Hayden said of playing for Phelan via telephone from his Philadelphia area home late this week. “I think his flexibility with people was something. He didn’t coach everyone the same way. He recognized some people needed more urging than others, and some you had to back off a little bit. He was a player’s coach.”

Phelan grew up in Philadelphia, had a standout career at LaSalle, and played briefly for the Philadelphia Warriors in the NBA before becoming a coach. His first coaching job was at his alma mater as an assistant for one season in 1953-54. LaSalle won the national championship that season. Phelan headed to Emmitsburg shortly after that and never left.

Hayden joined the team a year after the Mount made its first trip to the NCAA Big Dance, facing Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament the year before. In those press conferences before the tournament action, fans got to see a part of Phelan that Hayden thinks might have often been hidden, the fact that Phelan was “funny, really funny.”

His sense of humor was on display during the pre-tournament press conference. Matched up with the daunting task of playing the top-rated Wildcats, Phelan quipped, “Kentucky has ten McDonald’s All-Americans. I have ten guys that eat at McDonald’s.”

Always viewed as an offensive coach, players were more likely to earn a spot on the bench for the shot they failed to take rather than the one they missed.

Silas Cheung shot the 1995 team into the NCAA Tournament, lighting up Rider’s Alumni Gymnasium with 5 second-half trifectas en route to a 19-point NCAA bid NEC Tournament MVP producing effort.

“He’d say, ‘Silas, if you’re not going to shoot it, you might as well be next to me. That’s why you’re in there.” Cheung recalled.

Cheung also talked about a recent visit he shared with Phelan and his wife Dottie about a month and a half ago.

“He’s just so genuine. They both are just great people. Dottie is always so sweet. I am very thankful I got to see them recently.”

He recalled Phelan’s efforts and noted that he always made time for his players and that he led by example as much as with his words.

“He just wanted to make sure that he helped turn you into a good man, a good father, a good person. He helped you through things. If you fell, you got up. He always made sure he had the time for you,” Cheung said.

As word of Phelan’s death spread on Tuesday, many who knew him, played for him or against him, coached with him or on the opposite bench, took to social media to express their memories, sadness, and admiration for him. Among them was one of the Mount’s all-time greats Riley Inge, the starting point guard against Kentucky in that NCAA Tournament game. Inge shared a pair of stories that he had kept to himself until now about Phelan’s profound impact on his life. A summary of Inge’s Facebook post is included here with his permission:

Inge recalled that he joined the Mount mid-season during the school’s second semester and that he was joining classes midstream and, in some cases, continuations of first semester courses. He noted that his professors had concerns about the situation, and a meeting between Mount President Robert Wickenheiser, Phelan, himself, and various department heads occurred. He recalls being uncomfortable and feeling unwanted when Phelan says, “I get paid to coach and win basketball games. You all get paid to teach students. Riley’s a student here now. Teach him what he needs to know, and I guarantee you he will graduate with a degree from Mount St. Mary’s.”

The words gave Inge chills. He admits that at that moment, he had no intention of graduating. He was thinking about going to the NBA, having a productive career, and becoming a coach.

“But when he guaranteed my graduation, I felt like I couldn’t make him a liar and let him down.”

Inge graduated in 1998. Inge also noted that his graduation came two years after his eligibility expired but that Phelan made sure he had the opportunity even when he was no longer scoring baskets and winning games for him. A promise Inge said Phelan had made to his Inge’s mother. Inge concluded his post with the following,

I’m telling y’all he cared about his people and he was a special guy. If you were fortunate enough to know him or be coached by him, you were a lucky person. Again, thank you coach for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. — Inge

Regardless of ability, frequently walk-ons don’t get much playing time on a college basketball team. Without a Division 1 scholarship offer upon graduating from St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia, Hayden received the same opportunity Phelan gave his players on scholarship — to earn his playing time. An option that might not have occurred with another coach. Hayden started from day one.

“He did things a little differently,” Hayden admitted. “He certainly charted his own course. Like with the bowtie.”

Ah, yes, the bowtie. Phelan’s signature bowtie. Out of respect for his college coach Ken Loeffler who wore a bowtie, Phelan wore a bowtie in his first game. The Mount won. So he wore it the next game. The Mount won again, and the tradition was born. He wore the bowtie for all but one season. He gave it up when his daughter said it was “gross”, but an uncharacteristic losing season brought the bowtie back the following year.

I always find that when you talk to coaches, particularly those nearing the end of their career or already done coaching, they remember the losses more than the wins. Those are the ones that are hard to shake. Phelan had a way of turning the page and moving on.

With Phelan that always seemed to be deeply tied to his love and devotion to his family. His wife Dottie and his five children have always been at the center of the equation for Phelan. It’s a fact that all of the players I spoke with in the recent days brought up.

Jamion Christian played for Phelan’s final three teams. Christian’s first head coaching job came at Mount St. Mary’s and he will enter his third season as the George Washington head coach this season. He said he attempts to bring many of the same things he saw with Phelan to his players.

“As a coach the way you live your life around your players and in front of your players is important. When you look at coach, the relationship he had with his family and the way he incorporated you within that family. He cared tremendously about you and cared about what was best for you. He would fight for that for you.” George Washington head coach Jamion Christian said.

My roots to the Mount are deep. Phelan’s 1981 team was a glorious group that hooked me. The offensive style and the excitement of Memorial Gymnasium, particularly the night of March 7, 1981 reeled me in. Two weeks shy of my 8th birthday, I was impressionable. And the sights that unfolded that evening were unreal.

Playing in the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional final against Elizabeth City State, the Mount saw a late lead evaporate and trailed by one with 2 seconds left and needed to go the length of the floor and score to survive and advance.

As Mark Purdy wrote in The Gettysburg Times on Monday following the win:

Coach Jim Phelan had a plan. So did (Dennis) Dempsey.

As the story goes, Dempsey wanted to attempt to draw a foul on the inbounds play by getting the defender to run into him. Phelan was simply designing a play to hope that a half-court heave fell in. Dempsey, who had unsuccessfully tried the play in practice earlier in the week, convinced Phelan it was worth a whirl. He was right. The Elizabeth City State defender plowed into Dempsey and the referee called the foul. Dempsey calmly made both free throws and a devastated ECSU team called a timeout it didn’t have. The Mount made more free throws and ran out the clock.

“We didn’t call the play. He called the play,” Phelan said of the heroics afterwards.

That made me a Mount fan.

But it’s that family culture that has kept me. A culture of family that Jim Phelan used to build his basketball program. It’s something that every individual I’ve talked to about Phelan in the last few days has at the front of their minds.

A family culture that is truly special. A family culture that is truly infectious. A family culture set in motion by a Hall of Famer in every way. A family culture that will continue.

“Our family culture is something that has been passed down at the Mount,” current head coach Dan Engelstad said on Friday. “Coach Phelan passed that down to Coach (Milan) Brown and gave him his blessing and he in turn passed that down to me. The family dynamic has always been important here. I want to keep that. Because a closer family makes for a more enjoyable journey. I want to make him proud, not just in words, but in the way I live it.”

Someday, and it might be sooner than later based on what I saw in that pickup game, the Mount will win for the 1,661st time in school history. With that win, all of the other coaches will finally have more wins than Jim Phelan.

As Mount St. Mary’s fans, we’ll do what we do with wins.

We’ll put a bowtie on it and remember how we got there.

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covid19updater · 3 years

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COVID19 Updates: 03/13/2021

Brazil: According to the Ministry of Science and Technology's National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC), a potential second new variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has been found in several regions of Brazil.

Philippines: Health officials in the Philippines confirm they found a new coronavirus variant, which was designated P.3. Current data is insufficient to determine whether it's a variant of concern

Europe: Germany declares a Covid ‘third wave’ has begun; Italy set for Easter lockdown LINK

Japan: Olympic host Japan will not take part in China vaccine offer LINK

Hawaii: DOH confirms 3 vaccinated Hawaii residents tested positive for COVID-19 LINK

World: In a Crucial South African Vaccine Trial, a Cautionary Tale LINK

Brazil: 'Covid is taking over': Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic LINK

France: French coronavirus cases rise by 29,759. France knocking on the door of Wild Weasel... a 30% increase from last Saturday

Jordan: Police have been deployed to a hospital in Jordan to hold back the relatives of at least 6 covid patients who died after a failure of oxygen supplies. Sources told Reuters said it was not clear what caused the oxygen failure;

Germany: 12,674 new covid cases reported in Germany on Saturday morning (as per Robert Koch Institute), 3,117 more than last Saturday. Germany's 7 day incidence rate for covid cases, continued rising, reaching 76.1 cases per 100K on Saturday. A week ago, the incidence rate was 65.6;

Poland: Poland reports another rise in numbers of daily covid cases, with Poland on Saturday recording its highest number of new infections since January. Health Ministry reported 21,049 new cases, highest daily number since Nov 23, & 343 coronavirus related deaths;

UK: Relaxation of covid curbs begins in Wales today. Under new rules, 4 people from 2 households can meet outdoors to socialize, including in gardens. Basketball courts, tennis courts & golf courses to reopen. Indoor care home visits to restart for single designated visitors;

Germany: Coronavirus cases in Germany could again reach peaks seen around Christmas by mid-April, public health officials said. Robert Koch Institute predicted the number of daily reported cases could exceed 30K in the 14th week of the year starting April 12;

Hong Kong: Hong Kong to impose compulsory covid testing for staff of a cluster of law firms & banks after most of the 47 new cases recorded on Saturday were linked to a gym used by the financial and expatriate communities; 35 cases were linked to covid cluster at Ursus Fitness (a gym in the city’s Sai Ying Pun District). To date, 99 cases have been confirmed as related to gym, popular with expatriate lawyers, bankers and hedge fund executives.

US: JUST IN: Air travel just hit a NEW RECORD of the pandemic. The TSA screened 1,357,111 people at airports on Friday— the highest number since March 15, 2020.

World: Higher viral load drives infrequent SARS-CoV-2 transmission between asymptomatic residence hall roommates LINK

Norway: Three health workers who received AstraZeneca vaccine in hospital with "unusual" symptoms, Norway says

Jordan: Jordan is being ravaged by the UK variant of #Covid19 Another big daily increase today (4,144) compared to seven days ago, though Saturday cases are always lower. In less than 7 weeks the infection rate has risen over 725%

Austria: Austria reports over 3000 new cases of #Covid19 again today. That's an 18% rise on last Saturday.

Netherlands: Netherlands' cases are up 20% as the country slides into another crisis. 6,396 new #Covid19 infections diagnosed in the last 24 hours.

Serbia: Serbia 4,092 new cases (+16%)

Greece: Death rate is rising in #Greece too, and cases likewise. 2,512 new #Covid19 infections, up 9% on last Saturday. Also, another 52 deaths.

Ukraine: Sadly, #Ukraine is well and truly back on track to catastrophe. A 45% spike today with 16,294 new cases of #Covid19 and 243 more deaths

Brazil: #Brazil has suffered almost 10 times more #Covid19 baby deaths than the #USA. According to this report 420 of the very youngest have lost their lives to the disease. They conclude lack of diagnosis, treatment and poverty are the likely reasons

South Africa: Easter 'super spreader' events could trigger third Covid-19 wave in SA LINK

World: From Imperial College London - Researchers believe reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 may be more common than previously thought, after an analysis of people contracting COVID-19 twice; The findings come from an analysis of 33 cases of recurrent COVID-19 in Brazil, who were primarily female healthcare workers. Recurrence was often more severe compared to initial infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and resulted in one death; According to the researchers, their case series – published recently in the Journal of Infection and believed to be the largest studied to date – indicates that reinfection could be more common than previously estimated, and potentially as high as 7% in some groups;

Arizona: Three cases of P.1 covid variant confirmed in AZ Friday. The cases (1st in AZ), were identified in test samples from Yuma. Not immediately known if cases recent travelers outside US. Early studies show P.1 covid variant is highly contagious;

Italy: COVID update: Number in hospital reaches 27,000 - New cases: 26,062 - In hospital: 27,135 (+565) - In ICU: 2,982 (+68) - New deaths: 317

Nevada: The Latest: 1st north Nevada case of UK variant is confirmed LINK

Brazil: Brazil has registered a further 1,997 deaths and 76,178 new cases in 24hrs.

RUMINT (Brazil): Health officials in #Brazil are alarmed by new apparent variant of #COVIDー19 that is putting thousands of #CHILDREN in hospital. Apparently most acute among children 5-12. They have all the symptoms of advanced stage #Covid_19 — Brazilian media seems to be sitting on story to not cause further panic in a country already under siege. Issue seems to be most acute in São Paulo state - with majority of early cases cropping up in state capital city, Campinas, São José dos Campos and Sorocaba.

Massachusetts: -1,548 new cases (1,577 yesterday) -26,001 active cases (25,858 yesterday) -34 new deaths (29 yesterday) -643 hospitalizations (641 yesterday) -1.73 percent positive (1.77 yesterday)

World: Infectious diseases expert: COVID variants are a "whole new ballgame" LINK

Brazil: Police blitz targets parties driving Brazil's deadly COVID-19 surge LINK

Brazil: More details on potential 2nd Brazilian variant LINK

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