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itzagothamcitysiren · 4 years

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Welcome to the Family

So this is just a little one shot I wrote like a month ago but never posted. I wanted to write something about Bruce and Alfred and how they saw Halley and Jay’s relationship early on and I think it came out pretty cute :)

Also, do I picture my Batman as Batfleck? Not exactly. I wish I could’ve seen more than what we got, (not even going to talk about Justice League here). I like how Affleck looks because he looks a lot like the Batman Animated Bruce, WHICH is MY Batman. Kevin Conroy is my ideal Batman. Is voice is just perfect and that version of Batman is my all time favorite.

Also I love Jeremy Irons and hope we get more of him as Alfie.

Watchful Eyes

People didn’t call Batman a master detective for nothing. His track record alone for turning clues that at first and even second glance, looked like nothing into something attested to that fact. Batman didn’t just beat up bad guys in the dead of night or lock away crazed psychos day in and day out. Batman was hands down one of the sharpest minds out there; Bruce Wayne, in Alfred’s opinion, was on the other hand was another story entirely. Granted, Bruce Wayne and Batman were technically one in the same, Alfred would argue. Alfred Pennyworth knew Bruce had a one of the greatest minds but god willing, he could be so oblivious that the butler would sometimes question where he went wrong when raising him.

Alfred wasn’t surprised that he had picked up on it first, Bruce being so consumed with his nightlife and keeping up the image and lie that was the one the public thought he had, along with running a billion dollar company, the poor man would probably forget how to properly dress himself in the morning if Alfred hadn’t already laid his clothes out for him. So when Alfred started noticing the two youngest of the household sneaking around and spending the night locked up in either’s room, it came to no surprise to him that when he mentioned it to Bruce that the man looked up to him clueless.

Alfred tried to give him some sort of break for being so late on the pickup though. Jason wasn’t like Dick in the slightest. The former Boy Wonder had been so open about his emotions and life, where it was a miracle if Alfred got an answer to a simple question, such as, how was school today? Alfred still remembered when Dick had come rushing out of school one day after asking this nice girl in his class out on a date. He remembered the boy barely able to stop gushing about while he served him and Bruce dinner that night.

That had also been another factor that caused Alfred not to be surprised. Bruce busied himself a lot more than he did back then. Alfred often found himself chastising him over that fact, not excusing such behavior, but understanding why. Alfred hated nagging but he made sure it was known to him that he wasn’t just Jason’s and now Halley’s mentor, but their father figure and he should start acting as such. He made it mandatory recently that Bruce at least show up to three dinners a week.

He was pleased when Bruce had started taking the initiative to spend more time with them. Bruce began showing more of an interest in their lives, taking part in Jason’s love of film and having occasional movie nights with him. He also took Jason to his first baseball game, overhearing how the boy had always wanted to go. He also made it known how proud he was that Halley had decided to take part in her school’s journalism club after doing well in the class. There had been more than a handful of times where Alfred caught him reading one of her articles that were in the school paper. But even with taking more care in their lives, Bruce Wayne still hadn’t picked up on what had been so clear for the past couple of months.

“Together?” Bruce muttered, staring at the couple in question that stood off on the training mat, sparring.

“Yes, Master Bruce, together; as in a couple.” Alfred’s dry voice repeated, still quiet enough so the two couldn’t hear him but loud enough for Bruce to hear him clearly. “Like you and Miss Kyle, but more consistent and not as turbulent.” He compared, never failing to show up his own brand of humor.

Bruce slowly raised his head to look up at the man, clearly not amused by his jab but not daring to defend himself; his statement was true after all. Trying not to think of his own mess of relationships, he turned his attention back to the pair, the detective in him now getting to work.

It’d been nearly a year since Halley had officially joined the family and the change she brought to the manor had been apparent to him. After everything settled, getting back to their normal, he did note a shift in his ward. He wasn’t as aggressive, he listened more and didn’t go out of his way to test Bruce. He still had his moments, but Bruce knew he was still learning and like how Bruce was still getting over his own childhood, so was Jason. But as he already observed, he was getting better.

Even Halley was getting better, Bruce noted. She never had the issue’s Jason had, molding into the nightlife of a Gotham vigilante quite seamlessly. Bruce meant more so that she started acting more like a normal teenager. She began hanging out with a group of friends, Jason of course joining her eventually. The change of her wardrobe was noticeable as well, Bruce seeing her no longer trying to drown herself in baggy sweaters.

Bruce knew the changes in them were mostly influenced by the other but he didn’t think it was because of some secret relationship. He just thought it was because of having someone the same age, with the same life experiences; something like that was really rare to find and of course having someone like that would affect the way you act. He felt himself falling back into the chair, as he thought, now picking up on the fight laid out before him.

He wouldn’t even call it a fight anymore.

Between Jason’s lingering touches after deflecting a blow and Halley’s light jabs and prodding, Bruce deduced that they weren’t even seriously trying to train; they were playing, just like how Batman and Catwoman did. Like always, Alfred was right and Bruce could only feel himself ponder even more as Halley easily flipped Jason over her shoulder, giggling as he hit the mat with a grunt and a pout.

Why hadn’t they felt like they couldn’t talk to him about it? He wasn’t mad, maybe a little concerned, not wanting anything to affect them in the field but he wouldn’t not allow it. He would of course set restrictions, knowing that they were still in fact teenagers who lived in very close proximities of each other and just knowing how Dick had been with girls around their age, he just wanted to make sure they were being smart.

“Why are you just now bringing this to my attention, Alfred?” Bruce looked back up at him.

“I was giving time for them to come to us themselves or for you to at least notice. I may be a patient man but there are far too many secrets under this roof.” The older man shrugged his shoulders, giving Bruce a look.

Taking another look at them, Bruce hummed in agreement. It never did hurt to be too cautious, as Alfred hinted. But it also never hurt to put a little trust in people as well and coming from Bruce, that meant a lot. He wasn’t one to easily trust and was always over analyzing people’s motives and making contingency plan after contingency plan. He felt his mind instantly going into the motion of making one for this exact situation but seeing the smile that Jason gave Halley as he was the one to flip her to the ground made him stop all thought.

They didn’t trust him enough to talk to him about this and Bruce couldn’t help but feel dejected. In their line of work they needed trust, they’d be left in the battle blinded if they couldn’t trust each other. And the fact that they didn’t trust him didn’t sit all that well in his stomach. Would he be watchful? Yes. Would he still plan in the case of something between them goes wrong? Yes. But would he wait until they came to him when they felt ready? Of course, because not only was he Batman, he was also Bruce Wayne and Bruce Wayne cared about his kids.

#batman fanfiction #batman x batsis #batman x daughter #batman x oc #bruce wayne #bruce wayne x daughter!reader #bruce wayne x batsis #alfred pennyworth #alfred pennyworth x batsis #batfam x batsis #Batsis #batboys x batsis #batboys #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd fanfic #Jason Todd #Jason Todd as Robin #jason todd x oc

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minlucent · 5 years

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standard exploit (m)

➾ pairing: reader x kim taehyung

➾ word count: 2.7k

➾ genre: smut, pwp but what’s new tbh, ceo’s son!au

➾ warnings: explicit sex, choking (breath play), degradation, fingering, overstimulation, unprotected sex, dirty talk, mild drinking of alcohol,

➾ summary: your plan to get info on the scandal surrounding a big company goes differently than planned when you meet the ceo’s son

➾ a/n: um this fic got deleted for some reason so im reposting!! pls don’t let this flop my dudes // side note: i in no way am trying to say that journalists sleep with who they are reporting on to get information,, I am sure they are all hard-working individuals who are respectful and considerate. This is just my mind being dirty and looking for anything to make even the slightest bit of a plotline

You pretty much had one goal in mind; get the information you came for and get out of there; as a journalist, you didn’t want anyone to know your approach and get the information before you. You didn’t want to come off as a scouter for information, because Mr. Kim, who was celebrating the 10th anniversary of his company tonight, would obviously not tell you anything. If you acted innocent, like you were just at the grand ballroom of his mansion for a good time, he wouldn’t think twice about opening his mouth and spilling what you so desperately needed.

Your editor was keen on you getting this information but wasn’t as excited about the methods you planned on using to get it. You had been working as partners for years, and he knew your ways, but although he knew that ethically, it wasn’t professional, it got the job done. He often just turns a blind eye at how you get the information from the source. After all, that’s why your organization is the most renowned in news; you break the stories that need to be told. With the flow of your words, you made empires and monopolies fall, just because you understood how men in power worked.

The dress code was simple: formal, but professional. You put on a simple, pretty black dress that was short but long enough to leave some to the imagination, high black pumps and some pretty red lingerie. To top off the sultry look you were going for, you painted on a deep, blood-red liquid lip, as you peered in your bathroom mirror, blotting your lips with a tissue, you decide to make things a little risky for the night. Maybe you should forego the bra today.

You had a professional invite to the event, due to your position at the notable newspaper. You entered the elegant ballroom, lavishly decorated, and began to blend into the crowd. Men in charge of multi-billion dollar companies are easy to seduce, and you knew that you could easily get the information you needed with the bat of your eyes.

You spotted the CEO, Mr. Kim, talking a young man, who was looking rather bored you might add, that you’ve never seen before. He was stunning, with perfect facial features and a great build. Perhaps rather than getting what you need from a middle-aged man, you could get to know the handsome man better. Killing two birds with one stone.

Perhaps you were staring, because he suddenly turned away from the conversation with the CEO and locked eyes with you. You immediately looked away, cursing to yourself as you didn’t want to seem too obvious in your intentions.

You made your way to an empty standing table and looked back to see the same man walking towards you, two glasses of champagne in hand.

“No bra? Not very professional if you ask me.”

You looked down, shocked that he could tell so easily, but once you saw your nipples were hard and visible under the dark dress, you shook your head, laughing at yourself. “Formal dresses these days make it difficult to wear a bra with them,” was all you responded.

“Fair enough. I’m not complaining.” He held one glass of champagne out for you as he began to sip on the other, but you took the one that was against his mouth for yourself. He raised an eyebrow at you, “The other one wasn’t drugged, I promise. I’m Taehyung by the way.”

“A woman can never be too safe,” you shrugged. “I’m Y/N; nice to meet you. So, I saw you talking to Mr. Kim, the man of the night.”

“Ugh, don’t praise him like that. My father is not half the man the media builds him up to me.”

His father is Mr. Kim? You knew he had a son your age but you didn’t expect him to be this handsome. However, thinking about it, they do have similar features. There are many striking similarities.

You tried to hide your excitement; this is exactly what you wanted. “Not a very proud son, huh?”

“That’s one way to look at it,” he shook his head. “I should probably stay quiet about it though, or else I’ll get banned from coming to events like these. I can’t miss out on the drinks.” He downed half the glass. “No, but really, I’m only here for him to look like a wholesome family man, nothing else.”

You were slightly shocked how easily he was spilling his opinion on his father. Was he already drunk? You really didn’t expect things to go this easily.

You were pulled from your thoughts when he cleared his throat. “Don’t act so innocent. I know who you are and what you do.” You widened your eyes, slightly taken aback. You opened your mouth to defend yourself when he spoke again. “You’re Y/N Y/L/N. You flirt and seduce men to get them to spill information about their companies and end up destroying their career, but I seem to be the only person who knows that. Or, people don’t want to admit they so easily fell for your feminine wiles and told you everything you needed to know.” You felt your face get red and look away. You feel his hand on your jaw, making you look directly at him.

“Don’t worry. I’m not judging. In fact, I would love it if you would get your latest story about my father by working with me,” he raised his eyebrows and smirked at you, accentuating the word, giving it a double meaning.

You grinned up at him. “Oh really? You know, once I publish the story, his career will be ruined. I’m able to do that easily. My name is very reputable. And I’m sure I can do more than just work with you,” you teased back.

“I know. I don’t approve of his methods. The way he profits off of others is despicable. He’s rude and inconsiderate towards anyone who he sees as below him; I’ve tried to get him to step down countless times.” His hand trailed up your arm, “And this way, I get to spend a night with a gorgeous woman and expose how he cheats all of his clients and workers without getting my hands dirty. As long as you don’t mention my name in the article, I’d say we have a pretty good deal; I saw the way you were staring at me. I’m sure you want me to have my way with you, don’t you?”

“You read my mind. But, I think we can save the business side of things for tomorrow, what do you say?”

His hand, firmly planted on the small of your back, led you up the stairs and through a long hallway. No words were spoken as he led you to the room at the end of the hall; you don’t wait more than a second before you turned on the lights and put your hands on his collar and are pulling him towards you. His large hands grope your ass and he backs you into the room until your legs hit the bed and you fall back. You grin up at his figure standing above you as his hands roam your body; slowly, his lips are lowered to yours as he wraps his arms around your waist. Taehyung has one hand grasping your waist while the other slowly moves up to your chest, to your throat.

He only touches the skin lightly, let you moan and reach for his wrist; covering his fingers with yours, you squeeze his hand over your throat as you gasp, “Choke me.”

He curses as he does as you ask, closing his fingers around your throat while he pushes up the skirt of your dress. “Tsk, tsk. You’ve soaked yourself, huh? You’re a little whore aren’t you?” He doesn’t expect an answer as he takes two fingers from his free hand and rubs the wet spot on your soiled panties. You whimper as he plunges his fingers basically inside of you while ruining your fine lace lingerie. You feel your hips rut up against his fingers, but he stands in between your legs and presses his thighs into yours, keeping you pinned to the bed.

You feel the desperate need to have his fingers inside of you and without words, you are begging him to take off your panties and finger fuck you mercilessly. Your eyes meet with his and you just know he can see the desperation in your eyes; with you rutting your hips up, trying to get any sort of friction, he smirks down at you.

“Such a needy little slut. But don’t worry, I’ll give you what you want,” he leaned down to press his lips onto yours, sliding his tongue between his lips as his hand pulled the panties down your legs. You felt one finger probe at your core, swirling around to gather your wetness; he applied just enough pressure to get you going without any relief.

You whimpered into his mouth as he dipped the tip of his finger inside you. You tried to rut up into his hand to get more of his finger but he held you down. He broke the kiss, “Be patient baby… I don’t want to rush this. I want to have you under me for as long as possible.” You frowned up at him but you were obedient in his wishes, doing just what he wanted to please him. “That’s my good girl,” he smirked as his eyes bore into yours.

He pushed his finger into you completely and massaged your walls, making you groan in pleasure. “Such a good fucking girl,” he murmured as he slipped another finger in.

“Oh, fuck!” You gasped out and sat up straight on the bed from the sudden rush of pleasure as his fingers pounded into you. You felt yourself getting wetter and wetter with each flick of his wrist, your pussy getting warmer and more swollen by the second.

“You like that? You like when my fingers fill up your cunt?” All you could do was nod as you pulled his face to yours and kissed him. He grinned down at you as he pulled away, making you whine. “I wanna hear you say it.”

“I love it, I love it when you fuck my pussy with your fingers. Please, don’t stop.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he smirked at you as he slowed down his pace, looking for your g spot. When your hips twitch up, he knows he found it. He focused on that one spot and kept thrusting into it.

You felt the heat build up in your stomach and you knew you were getting close. You felt the hand that was placed on your hip move down to your clit, which he began to rub in slow circles, making you cum immediately. Your legs began to shake as you arched your back, cumming on his fingers.

“Mmm, Taehyung, fuck. You make me feel so good.” You pulled away from his fingers and sat up on the bed, scooting back to have your back against the headboard. “I want my pussy to be overflowing with your cum.” You spread your legs wide for him, giving him the perfect view of your pussy.

“So needy,” Taehyung chuckled, undoing his dress pants and stripping naked in front of you. His hard cock was gigantic, up against his abs as you could visibly see two huge veins go along the length. You licked your licks and took the same opportunity to pull your dress over your head and toss it into the pile of clothes.

He crawled onto the bed and spit onto your sopping cunt, making your pussy even more wet. He began to position himself in front of your entrance before slowly beginning to push into you. You gasp as you feel his dick sink into you. The head of his cock stretched you deliciously, then the rest of his length sank into you slowly. It was when he was halfway in that you began to feel the marvelous burn as his long and thick cock stretched your walls.

He feels you tense up as he gets deeper; you weren’t expecting him to be that big. “Hmm, you’re doing so well baby girl, taking my cock perfectly. You’re so wet, I’m sliding right in. That’s it.”

Once he bottomed out your felt your muscles relax, as his hips pressed into yours, his cock buried deep into your womb. You don’t think you’ve felt anything so deep before. Taehyung let out a groan as your walls squeezed around him.

Taehyung pulled back almost completely until just the head of his dick was still inside you. He slammed into you, his hips snapping roughly until he was balls deep. You whimpered at the sharpness of his thrust, but that didn’t stop him. He continued pounding into you, pulling out most of the way before ramming back in. You were glad that you were flat on your back because there was no way your arms or legs could support his harsh actions.

“Mm, fuck, I’m so deep. You feel so good. My little cockslut,” his sentences were short and gruff as he didn’t let up on his pace. “Such a good whore,” he growls as his tightened his grip on your waist.

“Your sopping cunt is still so tight, fuck.” He places his hand on your stomach where he sees this cock bulging, “You can barely handle me. If I go any harder I might tear you in half.”

“I can take whatever you give me,” you mutter, but barely able to open your eyes due to the amount of pleasure you are receiving.

“I doubt that baby. You can barely breathe correctly,” Taehyung pants, ramming into you, “I’ll fuck you so, so good baby. You’re gonna cum and soak my dick like a needy bitch.”

“Yes, please use me, oh my god,” your eyes are squeezed shut, your voice rising in volume as you feel your orgasm approaching.

“Hm, you like being used? Like a bitch in heat?”

“Yes, please fuck me, I’m so close. Please, don’t stop,” you beg, trying to focus on the way his cock feels inside of you, brushing against your g spot.

Taehyung didn’t need to be told twice, as his hand moved down to your clit, rubbing in so perfectly that you were sobbing. “That’s right, cum all over my cock. Let everyone downstairs know who is fucking you, who’s cockslut you are,” he was commanding as his hips rammed into yours deliberately rough to match his words.

You felt the pleasure in your stomach boil over, as the most powerful orgasm you’ve ever felt washed over your whole body. You’re in complete bliss until you feel Taehyung going even harder, continuing to thrust into you and rub your clit.

You whine, feeling tears form, “I’m too sensitive. I can’t.”

“You can and you will.” His lips lowered to your ear, “You feel so good cumming on my cock, I want you to milk my dick until you’re sobbing like the cockslut you are. Can you cum again baby girl? For me?”

The only thing you can do is nod, letting him pound into you and rub your swollen clit until you let the overstimulation turn into another orgasm, cumming for him the third time of the night. You’re exhausted, just laying there and letting him use your body as a fuck toy to get off as he continues to slam into you.

“God, you’re such a good fucking girl, letting me use you how I want. You must love this cock,” he finally cums inside of your pussy, filling you to the brim. “What do you say we go back downstairs and let this cum drip out of you? Let everyone know who claimed you?”

The man barely gave you a minute to rest before he got dressed and put your panties in the back on his dress pants. “We should go down before my father realizes I’m missing. Let’s round two after the banquet.” You grinned at him as he helped you get dressed and led you downstairs, where someone will definitely see cum dripping down your leg.

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colorfullfalls · 4 years

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Appreciated

Summary: An American assistant catches Kylo Ren's eye at a United Nations conference.

Kylo Ren did not appreciate Earth. The people were unaware of his power, of the First Order's power. He was undoubtedly taking over Earth whether it was liked or not. He didn't care. He was free to do what he pleased without anyone to stop him. The UN gathered to discuss the issue of what to do, if war was even an option. Kylo Ren was amused by Earth's citizens for thinking they had a choice. Even if there was a war, the First Order would dominate within hours. His light saber would kill any of these fool within seconds. The conference was held in the United States, tense anxiety looming over each member like a cloud. Kylo smirked at the intimidation of his starkiller hovering in the sky. One wrong move and he would wreak havoc.

His knights surrounded him as he walked through the streets earlier that day taking in the new scenes of the world that would soon be theirs. Women moved their babies away from the crew, men hesitated to keep walking, and kids pointed and whispered in awe. Attention that was not completely negative was foreign to him. Other world's would scream in fear and hatred as soon as their ships landed. But at the same time, Earth was so very unaware how things go when it came to him.

Washington D.C was busy as people filed into the House Chambers for the primal meeting. Kylo pushed past a few representatives of Spain as he walked in, his build larger than anyone else's. He rolled his eyes. This was all unnecessary to him, but he let them have their fun. Tomorrow he would take what was his. What was owed to him for his shitty upcoming with Luke.

He leaned against the back wall as the meeting began. Everyone in the room was dressed in suits or pant suits or even dresses. Clothes here were much different than he was customed to. Listening was no priority of his because this damn gathering was equal to a child's birthday celebration in his eyes. Meaning that nothing was going to be accomplished.

You slipped in beside him holding five coffees on a tray. You glanced at the beast beside her but kept going. You could not afford to deliver cold coffees during such a crisis. Your job depended on it. American representatives took the coffees wand practically shooed you away without a single thank you. Shoulders sagging, you went to walk back out to grab their sandwiches.

Kylo watched the encounter with confusion. They took the coffees without even looking at you, and you were somehow okay with it? His people served him but that's because he was in charge. He didn't say thank you, didn't need to. But these low lives? What possible status could they have? One among hundreds at a meeting. Earth was odd because it was divided, different leaders ruling different areas. In his eyes it made Earth weak.

You were breathtakingly beautiful. Short hair framed your face, cascading to rest right about the shoulders. You looked unbelievably kind with your soft smile even though you just got treated like scum. You looked like a woman who should be Queen of a prosperous planet, not an unappreciated assistant of sorts.

"Come here." Kylo's voice caught not only your attention, but also the people's around you. Your eyes adverted to him, ghostly pointing a finger at yourself in confusion.

"M-me?"

"Yes, you, come."

You sheepishly trudged over, terrified that the Supreme Leader would kill you. His hair fell over some of his face as he looked expectantly down at you. You went to kneel in front of him but his gloved hand grabbed your bicep.

"State your position."

"Assistant, sir."

He clicked his tongue in amusement at you calling him sir. Such a beauty in a shitty place. Your voice was soft and unsure. It made his hard exterior slightly melt away. His mother once told him when he was a young boy that you only truly fall in love once. That your soul only binds completely with another one single time. Woman usually were not that desirable to him. He would have sex with them but he never cared about them. He was already interested in you.

"Seems beneath you. Follow me."

You swallowed heavily at the order, but before you could protest his knights were crowding behind you. A silent demand that you comply to their leader's wish. You sighed. Today was simply not your day. A black ship was parked outside in the yard, white armored Storm Troopers surrounding it. They stared at you earlier when you had walked past to deliver coffee. Not friendly folks, you presumed. Kylo waved his two fingers and his guard dogs shifted, allowing a clear path to the entrance ramp.

Kylo walked in first and turned around, leaning against the wall. Apparently that was his usual. Yet again his fingers moved to signal his knights away. They nodded their heads and in synch left down the ramp to guard themselves. His dark hair flowed slightly against the light breeze.

"Earth is a pitiful thing." He declared, "Technology is far behind other planets, no alien species habitat the area, and the people here? They are senseless. My troops could destroy this place."

You sighed, "I am not a leader. I cannot discuss terms with you. Leaders are in the room you just took me out of."

He rolled his eyes at your lack of understanding. He wanted you to understand that he was tolerating Earth for the day, but he wanted to more than tolerate you.

"I do not wish to discuss terms with you." Your eyes snapped to his. You had been in many situations where you had zero power. You were to listen and do what was told because the people you work for are above you. In charge. While you work your ass off and still are struggling to announce yourself as a successful woman. Again, Kylo Ren was way way way above you on terms of authority. Being an assistant woman on Earth is no comparison to the handsome and aggressive man before you.

"Why then...?"

"Why what? Say it." His voice was demanding and goosebumps traveled down your arms and surely to your legs too.

"Why did you bring me here? Oh no.. am I going to die to set an example? Of course this is the karma for not picking up that Hitchhiker the other day. Paranoia is what gets me killed... Mom would be proud." You rambled to yourself, hands running down your face in frustration.

Kylo shook his head no, not liking that you assumed the worst of him, "I am not killing you. Tell me your name."

"Y/N."

He hummed in appreciation of your name, never hearing it before. It somehow suited you perfectly. He nodded, "I'm Kylo."

You nervously barked out a laugh, "Yes. Kylo Ren. I am aware of that, infact the whole world is. Did I do something to disrespect you earlier?"

"You were disrespected."

This took you by surprise. The lethal Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, Han and Leia's only heir was pressed at how you were treated by your asshole bosses. Being a moderately pretty woman gained you attention from time to time, but catching his eye was beyond you. Unknown to you Kylo was reading your mind. It was easy to slip into.

Kylo was stunned that you referred to yourself as moderately pretty. In his eyes you were the most beautiful being his brown eyes landed on. Maybe it was his Mother's tale about soulmates that was getting to him. He considered this very carefully. He did know you or your soul, but could the force be giving him a hint that you would be his one life partner? Either way he was not letting you rot here.

"Not really. It comes with the job because that's how things work around here." You retorted, glancing outside to see people looking in at you. An elderly man stood on the skirts of the lawn, worrying that you were in harm's way. You offered a wave followed by a thumbs up and it was enough because he continued on.

"Do you think you deserve to be treated as such?"

"I'm a hard worker but so are millions of people who get the short end of the stick."

Kylo rolled his eyes and pointed outside, "Blowing this place up may be considered a favor. This is the supposed greatest country's capital and there are homeless here."

"Anyone can be poor anywhere. Earth has it's flaws, sir, but I can assure you that there is good here." You crossed your arms in a defying manner. This was your home.

"Good and bad are not definite, both coexist in a complicated manner. Whoever disagrees is an imbecile." He snarled, hand hitting the wall in anger. Both at you defending Earth and for not listening to him.

How could you defend a planet that was full of selfish pricks who were living lavishly with billions of dollars while more poor swarmed the streets than flies. Kylo took care of his people once they were under his rule. The First Order elegantly supported struggling citizens according to need. Earth seemed like a waste of his time. It only infuriated him at how poorly it was doing.

"What do you want from me?" You quietly asked. Escaping was impossible. Troops surrounded the ship and Kylo Ren was said to be stubborn.

"Power comes with loneliness, Y/N. Consulting with my officers leaves me in a position to be weak. Being weak revolts me. As beautiful as you may be, you are weak."

You scoffed in disbelief, "Excuse me?"

His body moved to surrounded yours like a lion going after a gazelle. His body pinned you, hands rested close to your head against the solid black wall, "You are weak. You take shit from worthless money makers with no true value. Earth raised you this way. But I am here to change that. You will be more."

"More?"

"Yes. We can help one another. For you, I will give you power. No longer will those beneath you take you for granite." His voice was stern like he had all the answers in a tiny book that only he had access to.

"Yeah? What about you, Supreme Leader?"

"Glad you asked. I need someone to confide in without the risk of being overthrown. The force within me senses trust and loyalty. Simply words are what I require from you."

Compromises rarely proved helpful in your case. Set backs always trailed along with them like a loose string on an old sweater. Untangled until nothing but scraps were left. Kylo Ren was a snake. A successful murderer who worked for his cause alone. But what did you have to lose at this point? Your family shut you out after you moved away, you were really too busy for friends, and certainly busy enough to not have a significant other. Leaving Earth behind did not sound that bad. Not when what was offered was appreciation in turn for treating a someone like a decent human being.

"Okay. On one condition."

Kylo's head leaned down so that he was looking into your eyes, "Go on."

"Protect Earth instead of destroying it. I'm not dumb, this place has shitty people but there are simple pleasures that I want maintained. Old tribes, trains, caramel candy, the cultures, high school baseball games, fireworks, cows in pastures, and dogs. Dogs are so very sweet and we don't deserve them. Just please..."

Kylo leaned away from you, crossing his strong arms over his chest. Your eyes tried to look as pleading as possible. He didn't want to give in. Earth was pretty annoying and it being wiped out of the sky would please him to an outrageous extent. But the way you were asking so nicely with every ounce of his heart, he contemplated it. Not to mention that it meant he would finally have someone to talk real conversations with.

"Deal."

#kylo ren imagine #kylo ren

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Justice League Task Force #1 (1993)

Martian Manhunter looks like he's doing the most painful Boob/Butt Showcase ever attempted.

I know J'onn J'onzz's entire body is supposed to be facing forward on this cover but it really looks like he's turning all the way around at the waist. If there's any character that could successfully do that, it's Elongated Man. And also Martian Manhunter. So I'm less worried about J'onn's stance than I am about Gypsy's torso. Unless it's her ass that's the problem. Maybe the entire problem with this cover is simply Sal Velluto. This seems to be the only issue of this series that I own. That's good because the cover art by Sal is not promising. Also, I don't recognize any of the names in the creative team. Was this one of those "Let's give some new talent a project nobody at DC really cares about" kind of deals? It would seem that way judging by the roster. Even though Martain Manhunter was the backbone of the Justice League for many years, he's still kind of a nobody, nothing, bottom-of-the-barrel hero. And Gypsy?! You can't even say her name anymore without somebody canceling your shit. I don't have any complaints about The Flash because I have to save them for the members of the team on the back cover.

Ugh. Aquaman and Nightwing! The worst! Even worse than those two in the corner, Amanda Waller's younger sister and Alfred Hitchcock in a toupee.

Some of you younger jerks might not remember a time when Nightwing sucked. He fucking suuuuuuuucked. The absolute worst. He was like when you're wearing boxers and the tip of your dick pops out of the pee gateway and starts rubbing on the inside of your Levi's. He was like when you take a shit and you feel the loss of the turd's momentum right at the end and you just know you're going to have a huge hanger and probably a good inch or two of shit still up in your asshole which you'll be dealing with for the rest of the day. He was like when you're a guy and having a really good sex dream and suddenly you realize it's a dream and if you complete the act, you're going to have a huge mess to clean up and then you wake up because your brain is all "I don't want to clean up the mess!" but you're all, "You stupid brain! I was getting laid!" Man, he was just awful. And Aquaman was worse! This issue is called "The Tyranny Gun" and I'm pretending I understand that. I'm just nodding my head and enthusiastically saying out loud, "Yeah! Yeah! A gun! That shoots tyranny! Get fucked, motherfuckers!"

I get that J'onn J'onzz is probably an approximation of his real Martian name but I wouldn't call it "convenient." John Jones is his convenient name!

Martian Manhunter has been tracking down French separatist terrorists who want Quebec to secede from Canada. Yeah, okay, 1993. What an innocent time! This plot sounds like the plot of a slapstick comedy. The French version of Stripes. Why the fuck would a bunch of French people want Quebec to secede from Canada?! As if it's not already practically France anyway! I'm sure they're angry that some people fuse English words with French words, sullying their perfect fucking language. I'd be more apt to believe the Dungeon & Dragons Club in my junior high school had been running dog fights after school. You might be thinking, "That's not that ludicrous!" But then you didn't see the absolute nerds in my Dungeons and Dragons club.

I don't know why that one kid's face was blacked out by the Year Book Staff. Maybe he was so handsome he made the other guys feel bad. Or maybe...maybe he was the lead guy running the dog fights?!

As Martian Manhunter is roughing up the Quebecois terrorists, he thinks, "'Politically correct' murder." What does that even mean?! Is he suggesting French Canadians think it's okay to murder as long as you murder somebody who isn't French? Does he think Canadians murdering is politically correct? Trying to parse that statement is reminding my brain what it was like to read an Ann Nocenti script. Martian Manhunter pats himself on the back (which he can do because he has every super power in the book including Plastic Man arms) for stopping the French terrorists. He's proud that in a world with little justice, he can provide some of his own. I mean, sure! It's easy to create justice when you're the only one you have to consult in the justicing of things. Technically, I think that's called authoritarianism. But I suppose if enough people can agree that what you did without any input from anybody else at all was a decent thing, you can get away with doing it over and over again. Like Superman and sort of like Batman. I say "sort of like Batman" because I think a lot of people hate the way Batman acts and Batman just doesn't give a fuck. Meanwhile, some government types in Washington need a new Suicide Squad. But different! One composed of heroes that don't ask too many questions instead of dangerous criminals who do ask lots of questions but also know that they can have their heads blown off at any second. They need these heroes to help keep a leader of an allied nation in power. The leader has a habit of murdering political rivals so the United States doesn't want to be seen helping him. So they need a covert team of super heroes to defend the bastard. I guess those heroes will be Martian Manhunter (because he doesn't really understand Earth's ways and if you point out he's creating justice, he'll jump at the chance), Aquaman (because he needs the money), Nightwing (because he needs to prove he can make it on his own without Batman), The Flash (because he's kind of dumb, especially when it comes to politics), and Gypsy (because she can hide well, I guess).

The comic includes a Justice League Task Force membership card which I never filled out and removed.

You can tell I didn't buy into this whole government Justice League bullshit because I didn't fill out the card and stick it in my wallet for years. And I didn't not do it because I was 21 at the time! I carried around my Elfquest Fan Club card and my Wizardry Baltec's Trading Post charge card from Wizardry IV until the day I stopped carrying a wallet that closes with Velcro (that was probably in my late mid-twenties!). Hannibal, the Alfred Hitchock in a toupee looking guy from the back cover, is the man chosen to lead the Justice League Task Force. He approaches Martian Manhunter by walking into his apartment uninvited. Martian Manhunter, knowing that every cop is just looking for an excuse to shoot him with a flamethrower, acts like it's no big deal that this guy intruded on his privacy. Hannibal tells Martian Manhunter that the government needs a strike force that could save millions of lives and Martian Manhunter blurts out, "Justice!" Then he composes himself and he's all, "I'm probably in. But tell me about it first. And don't lie! I'll know if you're lying! I have all the super powers, remember!" Meanwhile in London, Justice League Europe are fighting a sewer dinosaur.

I've eaten enough sandwiches in a dark room to know Dr. Light is wrong.

Sometimes I'll read a comic book like Watchmen or The Sandman and proudly think, "This is why I read comic books!" And other times, I scan a panel of Dr. Light bending over so that you can see her lady package and I shamefully think, "This is why I read comic books!" Dr. Light is upset that Justice League Europe eventually has to kill the sewer dinosaur. But Flash is all, "It killed a bunch of people! No one ever said being a hero was full-time fun." (The second sentence of that quote is exact. I know I used quotes so you would think the entire thing was exact. But I like to embellish sometimes.) So according to The Flash, killing people for justice isn't fun. He should get that message across to American gun owners. They're all salivating looking for an excuse to murder somebody.

It's canon! Aquaman smells like shit!

Hannibal calls up Justice League Europe and he's all, "Martian Manhunter needs Aquaman and The Flash for a UN sanctioned mission!" But The Flash, who I thought would be the easiest pushover, is all, "I don't like being told what to do and just going to do it! What are we, a bunch of trained monkeys?" (Again, the second sentence is an actual quote!) But Aquaman is all, "You said it yourself! This isn't always fun. If we're needed for a vague mission where we're doing the work of the United States Government to protect the interests of shadowy men and multi-billion dollar corporations, who are we to refuse?" And The Flash is all, "You're right! Well argued! I am a trained monkey! Let's go!" Martian Manhunter recruits Gypsy in the middle of a shopping spree that's totally not a racist stereotype at all. I don't think. Maybe it is. It was 1993! Nobody knew gypsy was a slur even though if you somebody said "gypsy," everybody in the room would immediately picture the exact stereotype. You'd think we would have realized how that's like the epitome of being racist. It really made it tough on young lazy girls to put together a quick Halloween costume when everybody realized how terrible we all were. At least as a guy, we were able to get away with being hobos and tramps a little bit longer! Gypsy agrees to work on the Task Force because she needs money and a place to stay and maybe a new moniker. The team decides they're ready to go because they can't get Batman. But that's when Nightwing comes in through the balcony window and says, "Will I do?!" And everybody goes, "Aww. Batman would have dropped through the skylight!" Nobody wants to work with Nightwing because he's not in the Justice League. But Hannibal is all, "Oh, you're working with him! And that's not the only thing you're not going to like to hear! Because your job is to protect a despot and a tyrant! You need to make sure a bunch of people on some shitty island keep their terrible living conditions!" Gypsy, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, and Aquaman all make sour faces and do face palms. But Nightwing is all, "Yes! Let's do this! Suck it, Batman!" Justice League Task Force #1 Rating: C. It's as average as a comic book about a super hero group doing the terrible work of the government. I suppose that isn't always average since Suicide Squad was really good. But then they weren't heroes and they were forced to go on terrible missions. So that's why that worked. I don't see how forcing Justice League members to do terrible things in the name of the United States government is a good idea for a book. That's probably why I never purchased Issue #2!

#Justice League Task Force #DC COmics #DC #Martian Manhunter #Gypsy #The Flash #Nightwing #Aquaman #David Michilinie #Sal Velluto #Jeff Albrecht

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monkytown · 4 years

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The movie ‘Irresistible’

Hi’.

I have to rant a bit about the movie and I’ll use that little lone corner of the internet to do that. Hopefully disturbing noone in the process.

For those who didn’t get the movie��s point, the US electoral system is insane. It is in eternal campaign mode and spends ~$5-6 billions dollars every two years just to promote a brand. People like Greg, from Dawn Somewhere, conclude from there that politicians are corrupt and disconnected.

But.

Try and put yourself in that consultant’s feet, but you want to help that town. What do you do?

I’m not talking about thanking Evan or remembering is name if it is his name, as the filthy viewer I am I quickly wrote him off as background prop. I’m not talking about being a good tourist and asking if the kitchen is still open and stuff. I am talking about how you would be the hero, not the villain, in that story.

What would it take to help that town?

The movie’s answer is to spend the election money on the town itself. A point Billy Bob from Mudpot hammers to the donors at the EvilRich mansion. So, how much money do you have? Around $1 million dollars. Which the movie tells you is a bit above the town’s target. Just spend that on the town and you get the shiny and green happy ending, job done.

Well, no.

All you have done is put a bandaid on a town that will still die. It was on life support with that military base (if I paid enough attention) and the private market ain’t gonna miraculously replace it. As, again, Billy Bob said, it ain’t coming back. You effectively gave charity to maintain it in an eternal state of poverty, good job. Be proud. Also, you have ten thousands other Mudpot needing that charity and that’s already above the ~$6 billions spent at the federal level. And then! You still have a whole other bunch of issues to solve. Pricetag for fixing the infrastructure? Above $1 trillion. To everyone’s shock, charity falls short.

So why would you, as the glorious hero even bother to go to Mudpot convince Billy Bob to challenge the beloved mayor? ‘Cause a mayor is powerless, the budget remains the same and poor people are trapped in poverty. Even if your Billy Bob wins, it will only let the other party say “see? see? You elected that brand and you are not better off, but now gay frogs are in your kitchens!” You are effectively shooting yourself in the foot here.

The reason is the ‘50 States strategy’.

That is the current democratic strategy, to compete everywhere possible. And it is a game of attrition as both parties, no matter what people think, have limited amounts of money. It is about outspending the opposite side where it counts. So what you are actually trying to do in Mudpot with your Billy Bob, by getting him elected, is get those same people to also vote for your brand upwards and therefore win Wisconsin, and other States, and have your brand in power. Why? Because without that condition filled you won’t be able to enact the $1 trillion infrastructure plan desperately needed (and insufficient by itself) to save Mudpot and its ten thousands other peers. And you are seeking to achieve that either by having Billy Bob win or by having the other party waste money in this irrelevant race so that you can win elsewhere. It’s math.

Now why can’t you simply elect Billy Bob and then work with the other party to get that $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed?

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THIS PAST DECADE?!

And we go back to hyperpartisanship and what I call the ‘rush to the extremes’. You have problems and the status quo can’t solve them (some would say the status quo is causing them). So people move to more radical options. And more radical. And more radical. And “suddenly” you have Trump.

Understand that this hyperpartisanship isn’t something top-bottom. It hasn’t been evil corporations and corrupt politicians conspiring to brainwash 40% of the population. No. It has been far more bottom-up. Democrats were winning elections until they defended civil rights and suddenly they couldn’t get votes in the south / countryside anymore. So they started representing those who would vote for them: cities and such. Meanwhile republicans were losing elections until they realized the countryside was up for grab. So they started representing those guys and the 538 has a lovely article on that. Sure, you have Fox News and MSNBC and whatnot, and think tanks making talking points for people to use and all that. But. The Tea Party came from the base. Trump certainly came from the base. And all the pushes towards progressivism among democrats definitely came from the base. Parties move according to who is willing to vote for them.

The hyperpartisanship that has been gridlocking Congress isn’t coming from representatives. Those representatives are perfectly representing the will of their voters. Voters are intently gridlocking everything by trying to brute-force it.

And why are they? Because the status quo resulted from compromises across parties. You can’t rant about the status quo and ask for compromise in the same breath, it is nonsensical.

So.

Back to Billy Bob from Mudpot and his need for $700k to fix whatever ruin is left in his pit of poverty. What do you do?

You, as the republican/democratic hero, need him to forget gay frogs and vote your brand so you can break the gridlock and unilaterally pass your agenda. It might require a Constitutional Assembly, you don’t know and you don’t care ‘cause you have no alternative. You need to save that town. You need several bills passed at the federal level to save ten thousands Mudpot.

You will tell ten thousands Billy Bob to run in the hope to get the majority needed, not just on paper but in practice, to save Mudpot. And if you fail, what can you, as the hero, do for the town? Nothing. You can come back, say you failed, and that you can only retry two years from now. Because gay frogs. There you go. You, as the hero, are the villain, and everyone hates you for being so corrupt and disconnected.

Why do I feel the need to rant about it?

Because everyone knows the problem but noone can come up with solutions (because gay frogs) and so it’s easier to just scapegoat the leaders, say they are corrupt and disconnected when, even if they were innocent and in-touch, they would be just as powerless, and forced to act exactly the same way because otherwise Mudpot dies.

And yes, politicians profit from it. What would you do in their place, when you’re powerless and about to lose your job, other than give up? And yes, corporations profit from it. What would you do in their place, when you are told to make money at all cost or die? And yes, no matter what Jon Stewart says, even the poor would want to profit from it, that’s your Moira from Radio Skyline.

What is most frustrating however is that I am Swiss. I experience direct democracy. And while you might not like the result, direct democracy avoids such gridlocks. Brexit? Initiative, bam, done, a decade of decay spared. A wall? Initiative, bam, turns out the majority of the US isn’t racist after all. Trade war? Initiative, bam, now Joe Biden is forced to suicide the country to get an elusive deal. M4A? Initiative, bam, still not happening because Switzerland tried four times and it’s the middle of Europe and we still said no.

Politicians and corporations didn’t create this insane US electoral / political system. They sure adapted to it, but they had to adapt, because eventually it is just a collective suicide over gay frogs.

And neither you nor Billy Bob from Mudpot, with his $4.5mn scam, ain’t gonna change that.

#Irresistible #politics #Jon Stewart #gay frogs

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encephalogos · 5 years

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The Art of the Temper Tantrum

I wrestled with what I could write about as far as negotiations go for this post. I generally try to avoid situations that involve distributive bargaining. I don’t like the feeling of haggling over a price. Perhaps this is a reductive view of negotiation, but it’s the view that I’ve held prior to this class.

However, one negotiation has captured my attention. Like the gravity well of an absurdly racist black hole, my thoughts are pulled and warped by the basic fact of Trump’s presidency. And who better to examine than an artist of deals to study the elements of negotiation? Let’s talk about the government shutdown.

A Timeline of Events

Pulling from USA Today, the following timeline addresses the major events leading up to and through the government shutdown.

December 11, 2018: Donald Trump states that he needs $5.7 billion for a border wall and threatens to shut down the government to get it. This is the main impasse of this negotiation.

December 20, 2018: A short-term spending bill from the Senate gets rejected by Trump for not including $5.7 billion for a border wall. The Republican-controlled House adds the requested money, forcing the bill to go back through the Senate.

December 22, 2018: The federal government shuts down as the Senate fails to pass the modified spending bill.

January 2, 2019: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer meet with Trump, leaving negotiations at the same impasse.

January 3, 2019: Democrats take control of the House and proceed to pass measures to reopen the government. Trump refuses to sign them.

January 4, 2019: Trump presents his BATNA: declaring a national emergency to appropriate funding for a border wall.

January 9, 2019: Pelosi, Schumer, and Trump meet with no agreement. Democrats are willing to offer $1.3 billion towards building a border wall.

January 10, 2019: The House begins passing smaller measures to reopen specific federal departments. A closed door meeting occurred with no progress in negotiations.

January 19, 2019: Trump makes an offer to reopen the government. It is immediately rejected by Pelosi and Schumer. The offer includes $5.7 billion for building a wall, additional funding for various security measures, and an extension to DACA for 3 years. It is unclear at this point if Democrats would still offer $1.3 billion.

I’ve omitted some salacious details that don’t directly trace the back and forth on the question of funding a border wall for the moment.

Who’s the Play?

This negotiation has been defined by an impasse surrounding the question of funding a border wall. Notably, the precise nature of what would be built with this money has shifted with time. What started as a continuous, 2,000 mile concrete wall has become a slatted steel fence, a series of smaller walls, or walls plus boosting other security measures in place. Regardless, Trump’s reservation point is a spending bill that includes $5.7 billion for building...something on our border with Mexico.

The reservation point for Democrats is harder to pinpoint. On January 9 their reservation point appeared to be $1.3 billion for the border wall. That was 6 days after Democrats took control of the House. And now, 29 days into a government shutdown, that dollar amount hasn’t resurfaced. The Democratic position in the negotiation evolved over the course of the process. Earlier, they had to negotiate with a much weaker BATNA because they lacked control of the House. As frustrating it was for me to see them offer any concessions, it may have been the stronger strategy if their actual goal was to draw out the process till they could claim the House.

If Trump ever stopped being “proud” of the fact that he shutdown the government, his BATNA would be to declare a national emergency. As with the reservation point earlier, the Democrat’s BATNA is harder to pin down. I have read arguments that Democrats could attempt to sue Trump should he declare a national emergency. It's also unclear if Trump can in fact get the funding he wants via national emergency. Depending on all the other actors in this delirious political drama, perhaps bringing articles of impeachment would be the optimum BATNA for Democrats. Timing impeachment with an unprecedented presidential power play could prove advantageous. Part of what makes analyzing this negotiation scenario difficult is that it intersects with questions of party strength and public appearance. I would argue that if the border funding dispute is the main conflict, the secondary conflict is about not establishing a precedent of presidential bullying.

Rationality and Bias

As Senator Angus King put it, “[Trump’s] idea of negotiating is to say ‘Here’s what I want. I’ll give you nothing.’” His negotiation strategy is to simply not negotiate. Bazerman would describe this as competitive irrationality, where Trump has escalated his commitment to his position past the point of debate. This is the purest form of choice supportive bias, where he made a strong claim and now is compelled to reinforce that claim. I think part of this compulsion stems from the influence of choice supportive bias. I think it can also be traced to how Trump views negotiations in general. I started this post talking about distributive bargaining because I think Trump views all negotiations as distributive interactions. He can’t conceive of the other side getting what they want without him losing.

If that’s true, then are Democrats guilty of the same choice supportive bias? Are they being swayed by the same competitive irrationality? I don’t think they are. The border negotiation could be handled as an integrative bargain; the source of the impasse isn’t related to a lack of money. But an integrative approach requires both parties to enter into that negotiation with good faith. Trump’s unwillingness to offer anything in return undermines the basic premise of a negotiation: that both sides share a bargaining zone where exchange is possible. So the Democrats have no motivation to offer a concession when they can be reasonably sure they will get nothing in return. Bazerman argued against provoking irrationality and bold statements from an opposing party. But what if that party has already made their biggest move? And what if part of the negotiations are happening in public?

Some of the details that I have omitted so far gain a new meaning in this context. For example, Pelosi told Trump to either submit his State of the Union address in writing or to postpone it since the government couldn’t fund adequate security. This could be seen as antagonistic and unproductive towards resolving the current impasse. But, if the larger goal is to undermine his 2020 candidacy, then provoking more irrational behavior and pushing him to declare a national emergency serve to further erode the facade of a competent, powerful man he wants to project.

Lessons

Choice supportive bias is hard to fight because we like being right, and we instinctively want to trust the previous choices we’ve made. Going back on a choice means that at some level we doubt our own good judgment. I need to be mindful of the reasons that lead me to continue to defend a choice. Can I articulate clear points to myself about why a choice or request was correct? If I can’t, I owe it to myself to be honest about what that choice represents for me. Similarly, I need to listen to the other party in a negotiation. If they are irrationally defending a choice, I need to understand why. Just because its “irrational” doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason why they are doubling down on a choice.

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starcchild · 2 years

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(Some more ikau Carterio coming right up! I wrote it today between homework bit by bit and somehow it ended up being a little longer? But these two omg omg. I imagined this taking place like the day after/a couple days after the first one ;w; I can’t. My soul?? Sold.)

((midge edit: added a readmore, cw/tw for abuse))

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The footsteps were lighter this time, and Carter knew they didn’t belong to Stane. No, it was not him. She wasn’t feeling the Earth shifting beneath her feet with sheer panic. However, someone was approaching. She placed her earbuds aside. She could no longer enjoy music, not like she used to. When she looked up, she saw him. The boy. Quentin Beck. His expression was surprised when he saw her, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Um… Stark.” He nodded as a greeting. “Am I disturbing you?” he asked. “C-Carter. No, you- you aren’t.” Carter replied. “Did he let you keep the dog?” Carter looked down. She finally thought she could have not only a pet, but a friend… but the dog was not safe. Not with Stane around. “No. But- but Rhodes said he- he will find a good- good home for- for him.” Quentin nodded and let out a deep sigh. “That sucks. Dogs are awesome. I prefer cats, but dogs are pretty cool.” “I- I wanted to thank you- you.” Carter said. “For- for that. Not- not everyone has the- the courage to- to stand up to- to Stane.” Myself, for example, she thought, despite the fact that she had been brave enough to defend the puppy and Quentin. “He’s a sick fuck,” Quentin let out, before covering his mouth with his hand. He wasn’t supposed to say swear words near her. Although, from what he had witnessed, she heard plenty when Obadiah was angry. “I… I wanted to thank you, too. That’s why I was looking for you now. Thank you. Really.” Carter nodded as a response, and Quentin scratched the back of his neck before pointing at the earbuds. “You like music?” “It- it helps me. But- but now I- I can not- not really enjoy it any- anymore.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, forcing herself to stop talking. He didn’t care. Only Stane cared about her, or so he said. “I… I could help you with that.” His eyes were focused on the floor. Carter looked up at him. “You- you mean it?” Quentin nodded and approached her. He sat down next to her, not too close, something she appreciated as she valued personal space. “Have you tried to… um… change your settings from stereo to mono?” he pointed at his ears to add emphasis to his question. “What? No- no.” “Do it.” Carter hesitated. She didn’t have much faith, but after a few seconds, she did as he said. It was nice to talk to someone close to her in age about fun things like music. “With stereo mode, the sound is divided between both earbuds. If you change it to mono, a single earbud will play all of the sound.” Quentin explained, the corners of his mouth pointing slightly up. “Well, both will, but it will be possible to listen to music properly using only one.” The more he spoke, the more visible his enthusiasm became. Clearly, he was proud of himself for knowing stuff. Carter wondered if it had something to do with Obadiah making him feel worthless, although she already knew the answer; not only because of what she witnessed at the cafeteria, but because Obadiah made her feel that way. “Done- done,” Carter said as she finished changing the settings, and put the earbud inside her ear. Grabbing the other one, she offered it to him. “Wanna- wanna share?” Quentin looked as perplexed as if she had just offered him billions of dollars. Blinking, he nodded, grabbing it and shoving it into his ear with so much eagerness, it was almost funny. From that reaction alone, Carter knew that he didn’t feel included very often. Obadiah had called him a loony. Carter was already too familiar with bad mental health, and the heavy stigma around it. No one wanted to be friends with those who were misunderstood, and in her case, she believed she didn’t deserve friends. Her thoughts were starting to hurt, so she focused on playing some music. When she did, playing one of her favorite songs, she couldn’t believe how well she could hear it. Her eyes went wide, and she looked at Quentin. He nodded with a chuckle. “Cool, right?” “How- how do you- you know so much?” Carter wondered.

“I love technology,” Quentin replied with a shrug. “Why?” Carter lowered the volume of the music in order to hear him. As eager as she was to enjoy music again now that she could, she realized she didn’t mind to wait if it meant they could talk more. “I love how much it can help people. That face you made,” he pointed at her “I want that, I want to see it on everybody. I want people to realize that their lives are better because of technology. And hopefully, one day, because of me.” He looked down and played with the zipper of his jacket; Carter noticed it was broken. “I just want to feel seen.” Me too, Carter thought. Her heart sank, and she felt a strong urge to pat him on the shoulder, but she stood still. She wanted to be seen and heard, to feel valid, important. But the only person who made her feel like that was gone, and now her world was cold, in contrast to the warm tears burning in her eyes, desperate to pour. “Is the music still going? I don’t hear it,” Quentin’s sudden, curious voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and she quickly wiped her tears using her sleeve. “I- I wanted to- to listen to what- what you were say- saying.” “…You’re kidding me?” “No! Why- why would I?” Carter frowned. Quentin looked away. “People don’t usually listen when I talk. You heard Stane. Most adults think I’m a loony.” He shifted and briefly glanced at her. “Why the hell would you listen to me?” “Because- because nobody listens to- to me.” Now it was Quentin’s turn to feel his heart sinking. Fuck. Say something comforting. Say something comforting. Now! “People suck.” Good job, idiot. “Um, not all of them, though. That’s why I want to help people. There’s cool people, too.” He paused. “You’re cool.” Carter’s head snapped up and towards him. “You- you think I- I’m cool?” “You're fucking cool. You listen more with one ear than most people do with two.” He shrugged. “That’s cool.” “You- you are- are cool, too.” Carter smiled. She smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time she enjoyed a conversation. It had probably been with her father. “Thank- thank you for help- helping me listen to- to music again. This- this is great.” “Yeah, I am pretty great.” Another proud expression, more exaggerated this time. It made Carter laugh. “You’re welcome, Star- Carter.” He corrected himself, remembering what she said earlier. Carter liked to hear her name like that. Said in a casual manner, by a kid who treated her like another kid. Not a celebrity. Not Tony Stark’s daughter. Not a poor little soul. Not someone inferior, worse or better. Just an equal. Just two kids talking. “Well,” Quentin got up. “I gotta go. Enjoy your music.” He walked away, but stopped and turned around. “Um… if Stane happens to use lip balm, hand it over to me when you can. I might find a way to add glue to it.” Carter laughed. Again. He chuckled in response, before waving his hand at her. She waved goodbye in response. Alone, she turned the music up, a bright smile on her face because she could hear it. She could hear it. And it was cool.

——

((DFGJHDFSGJ !!!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!

honestly, Carter’s just like a puppy rn sdfgjhgdsf - like, friend? Friend! Friend! and it’s adorable dfshjdsf

but I just !!!!! I love this so much!!! ;a; Them letting each other talk and actually listen to what the other has to say? Him helping her listen to music again? Him getting her to smile again? To laugh? Hell yeah!!! Like, I can’t even begin to explain how much having a friend like him from early on would’ve helped her so much in the main ikau - just to have someone her age to hang around, because she didn’t have that in school, would’ve done wonders with her mental state, even if they end up drifting apart for a few years by circumstance

also, the music thing just made me think that, going on the idea they drift apart and meet up years later when they’re young adults, he just greets her by asking her if she remembers to keep her settings to mono vs stereo, and her being rather baffled by that sort of thing before turning to see him and immediately remembering who he is sdfghjksdf - like, give me a bit and I might write something for it! Probably nothing long, but I definitely wanna get that out dsfhjdfs

#anons #carterio au #ooc save #abuse tw #long post #ground control (ooc)#submission #ikauv; im not the one who wants to hurt you

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theeurekaproject · 4 years

Text

Mortuus Reginae

“I will never understand your insatiable desire for attention.” “I will never understand your propensity for completely unnecessary insults.” “It’s just banter. You’re oversensitive.” “Banter is tasteless.” “Who are you, the Imperatrix of Eleutheria?” “Yes.”

Andromeda groaned. “Fine. I surrender. I still don’t get why all of this is needed, though.” Acidalia’s landing had been as theatrical and overly dramatic as she could possibly make it; the Revelation’s white exterior glimmered in Base Alpha’s fluorescent lighting like a beacon that screamed I’m Acidalia Cipher, come and get me. That ship had top-notch cloaking systems, but the extravagant flamboyance and beauty of its design made them kind of moot; sure, enemy ships couldn’t track it from a distance, but anyone with eyes could see the massive white mansion-with-an-engine hovering in front of them. If Acidalia had gotten ambushed and murdered on her way back from her impromptu journey to Mars, Andromeda wouldn’t have been the least bit sympathetic.

Then again, she wasn’t too sympathetic of Acidalia on a day-to-day basis, anyway—but Acidalia didn’t to know that. It was really better for her and everyone else if the Imperatrix Ceasarina continued to think of Andromeda as her right-hand-man, and honestly, there was no harm in that; they were on the same side, and they were brilliant leaders with levels of genius the rest of the movement could hardly hope to aspire to. If them getting along meant that Andromeda had to continue to pretend that she actually enjoyed spending time with this insufferable, melodramatic, over-glorified princess with more money than God, then so be it. She’d met worse people before.

Still, she grated her teeth a little bit as Acidalia’s face came into her field of vision. Maybe it was Andromeda’s high-definition cybernetic eye that made Acidalia look more annoying than she actually was… or maybe it was just her obnoxious, holier-than-thou personality.

Well, her absence had been nice while it lasted.

Acidalia was dressed in a long, sweeping dress intricate enough to be a wedding gown, because of course she was. If marriage was still a thing in Eleutheria, she’d have looked exactly like a bride. A delicate, sheer veil was draped over her perfectly-curled hair—a symbol of mourning that wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who didn’t know her intimately enough to understand that she was exactly the type to still use mourning veils, but only when they were bleached white enough to match her style. Andromeda almost wanted to ask what the point of a bleached-white mourning veil was—didn’t its brightness kind of defeat the purpose?—but she already knew the answer; like everything else Acidalia ever did, it was for the aesthetic.

“You look absolutely ridiculous,” she snapped, motioning to the veil. She realized suddenly that it was topped by a pearlescent quartz tiara studded with diamond flowers, and mentally facepalmed.

“My brother is dead,” Acidalia said cooly. Next to her, David Seren shot Andromeda an ugly glare. She’d have told him to stuff a sock in it if his daughter wasn’t standing right next to him.

“Then I guess we’re on even footing,” Andromeda shrugged.

Acidalia’s expression didn’t even change. “You never had any brothers,” she said.

“And now you don’t, either. See?” The see? at the end was unnecessary, but being patronizing felt good, and Andromeda had no time for this type of sentimental bullshit. Acidalia may as well have weighted herself down with six feet of black crape like the widows of old. Leave it to the Imperatrix to turn the death of a seventeen-year-old—who was, naturally, in no way special in any sense of the word when his relationship to Acidalia was removed from the picture—into a whole big elaborate production combined with a fashion statement.

Acidalia’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You know that witnessing a sibling’s death and being born an only child are two objectively different things, Praetor.”

Andromeda groaned internally at the use of her title, which Acidalia only used when she was trying to be quietly passive-aggressive. It carried the same weight as a parent referring to their child by her first, middle, and caste name all at the same time, and she had a sudden flashback of hearing someone yell Andromeda Amalura, Labora! and knowing she was in trouble. When most people called her a Praetor, she felt powerful—it was the highest military rank anyone in the Revolution could achieve, and she was quite proud of it—but Acidalia managed to make it seem infantilizing, and perhaps the most infuriating thing was that Andromeda responding to it would only make her look more childish.

“Everyone here has lost someone,” she said, hoping she was coming across as stern instead of angry. “You know how many seventeen-year-old boys die on a daily basis? T wasn’t special.”

“Every person’s life is special,” David Seren said with faux-fatherly wisdom.

Andromeda rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m so very sorry for not dropping everything to mourn some random kid who was exactly as special as every other random kid who ever dropped dead. It’s almost like I don’t place any extra value on his life just because he was related to a powerful woman… or I thought that’s what you wanted? Unless nepotism is acceptable now.” “I never said that. Stop putting words in my mouth—“ “She’s right, David,” Acidalia interrupted, sighing. “More people are going to die if we don’t start coming back from this, and none of those soldiers’ lives are inherently more valuable than T’s was. If he were still alive, he never would have wanted more boys being sent off to their doom because the leadership couldn’t get its lives together.” David’s expression softened, but he still didn’t look entirely too pleased with Andromeda, who decided not to dignify him with a response. She could not possibly care less about the opinions of a random Martian farmer—or secretary of agriculture, whatever the hell that was—when it came to her relationship with Acidalia and her job. “Okay,” she said briskly. “Now that we’ve got that conversation over with, we should probably focus on the imminent military threats, which are much more important to me personally than the death of a guy whose body we can’t even recover. Anyone else agree?” “Yes,” Acidalia said, “but you don’t have to be so crass about it.” “More like you don’t have to be an asshole about it,” murmured a random girl Andromeda had never met before in her life. She was about to retort, but Acidalia said softly, “she’s just being pragmatic, Athena.” “Why do you defend her?” David asked.

“Because her heart’s in the right place, and she’s a military genius.” Andromeda smiled. That’s more like it.

“Can’t argue with that,” David said, “but—“ “No buts,” Andromeda interrupted. “We’re going to the Scorpio. Move.”

***

The Scorpio was the exact opposite of the Revelation in every way, and that was just how Andromeda liked it.

It always astounded her how this military ship—a ship that was pretty much held together with duct tape, no less—managed to be more welcoming and human than the most expensive cruiser the entirety of the solar system had to offer. The Scorpio was a monument to Andromeda’s achievements, but it was organic, living, full of humanity—not some stiff white statue dedicated to short-lived Imperial beauty. She loved it like she’d love her own child—if she liked children, which she didn’t—and she felt that the affection was well-deserved; this ship had seen so many battles and bore so many scars on its steely black hull that it practically warranted its own Purple Heart.

Acidalia, of course, didn’t see it that way. She hated the Scorpio, but she was too infuriatingly polite to say so, and Andromeda didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

As they crossed the threshold of the ship, Andromeda felt everything in the left side of her body settle. Her cybernetics liked this place, and they had enough of a mind of their own that Andromeda thought it best to keep them happy. Human or otherwise, she was more than ready to grant rights to the systems that controlled her labored breathing and the pulse of her overworked heart (hearts? She’d lost track of her organs years ago—they were too numerous and fickle for her to remember any of them, anyway.) The mechanical half of her brain emitted a surge of dopamine, or something like it, in the same way a cat purred in contentment, and Andromeda’s organic mind had to agree with it—the Scorpio was home.

“Take your shoes off,” she called to the crowd behind her. (Why were there so many people here? she wondered. Acidalia and David, of course, and David’s teenage daughter—but who had invited two Scientias, a mutant cantrix, and a random AX-class to this meeting?) Nonetheless, they all complied, even Acidalia—who, Andromeda noticed with annoyance, was wearing ridiculously tall high-heeled shoes that probably cost more than this entire base. She zoomed in on one of them with her left eye and saw diamond fire flickering in the center of each tiny gemstone—yep, those shoes were definitely worth somewhere in the millions to billions of dollars. And Acidalia had just casually tossed them to the side like they were $10 clearance pumps she bought from a department store. Of course she did—if a single jewel broke, she could have a dozen new pairs made for her by tomorrow, each more diamond-studded and more valuable than the last.

“You seem frustrated,” Acidalia said, deliberately non-confrontationally.

“Yeah, well, I’d like to get this show on the road before all of Terra gets invaded by blue alien fish people,” Andromeda replied pointedly. She couldn’t do much, not when Acidalia was mourning a brother and dressed like an overgrown flower girl—anything Andromeda could possibly say would make her look like an asshole. If there was anything Acidalia excelled at, it was delicate, verbal manipulation, and she would have everyone convinced she was the victim within thirty seconds of being insulted. So Andromeda had to speak like a military commander who was worried about her movement instead of an irritated peer who didn’t like the notion of spending millions of credits on shoes, and nobody would judge Acidalia at all. Such is life—or, as Acidalia herself would have said, c’est la vie (because of course she spoke fluent Francogallicus, a language that had been dead for over ten centuries. Again, aesthetic.)

Andromeda shook her head, trying to clear it. She was a Praetor, above all—and that meant that, unlike the Imperatrix, she actually had to do things other than flee from danger and look pretty on camera. She couldn’t afford to be thinking like this any more than Acidalia could afford to grieve for her dead family. There was danger in the upper atmosphere and work to be done, and rationality and logic had to rise above anger and resentment, at least until the threat was gone.

She sat at the head of the table and pressed the big metal button at the center, changing the windows from translucent to opaque. The Scorpio was one of the most technologically advanced starships in the galaxy, and she could easily replace every mechanical switch with sleek holographics, but there was something visceral and satisfying about physically changing things with her fists, and exposed wires and motherboards scared her guests more than plastic and glass ever could. At the clicking sound of the button, the Cantator jumped, and Andromeda felt a wave of sympathy for her—she’d been like that once, too, in another lifetime.

Acidalia sat at her right hand side and David at her left, and that probably meant something, etiquette-wise, but Andromeda had no idea what it was. The others arranged themselves around the three seats of power awkwardly, like they’d never been in this type of situation before—save for Cressida Seren, who sat right next to her father with an air of arrogance and immediately started examining her fingernails in the universal sign of “I’m bored.” Andromeda surveyed them all from left to right: a very clean-cut looking Scientia with short ombré gray hair and understated makeup, a significantly more disheveled Scientia with a bored smirk, a frightened and clearly genetically modified Cantator, and a soldier boy with tears in his eyes. “First order of business,” she said, “who are these people?” “David Seren, Cressida Seren, Carina, Athena, Lyra, and Ace,” Acidalia said, rattling off the names like an Auctor teacher would say words on a spelling test. “David is the Secretary of Agriculture on Mars, quite obviously, and Cressida is his daughter. Athena and Carina are both astrophysicists who risked their lives to warn me about the assassination attempt staged by Cassiopeia. Lyra is a new recruit who accompanied Ace to Mars as a plan to safeguard him from Alestra, and Ace is my late brother’s best friend, who saved me at the coronation. Each one of these people deserves to be commended for their bravery—they’re risking everything they’ve ever known just by being around me.”

Andromeda looked at them again. None of them looked particularly brave, and she was about 75 percent sure that Athena had stolen good sticking out of her pockets. Cressida was already scrolling through a Martian social networking website on her metadit, clearly not paying attention to anything that was being said, and Carina was rubbing the back of her neck like she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. There was a decent chance that Acidalia had simply taken a personal liking to them and exaggerated their backstories for their sakes, but Andromeda decided not to question that—after all, these six strangers were the only people on the planet who knew Acidalia was alive, and that would be supremely important later.

“Okay,” Andromeda huffed. “I’m assuming you’re all trustworthy, right?” It really didn’t matter if they weren’t—this meeting wasn’t exactly a secret. Acidalia nodded, though she did glance quickly at Athena’s overflowing pockets and shot Andromeda a look that said, leave it be.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” Andromeda continued. “So, second order of business: we might be getting invaded by aliens.”

If that news surprised Acidalia at all, she didn’t show it, but everyone else around the table jumped—save for Cressida, who had transitioned from Martian social media to a cheap mobile game with lots of flashing lights and obnoxious noises. “What do you mean?” David asked.

“I mean that the interstellar mermaid gladiator people who have been orbiting our planet for decades have finally made landfall,” Andromeda said. “Look.” She pulled up a map of Appalachia City and pointed to a glowing dot that hovered somewhere around the Imperial District. “That ship isn’t Terran or Martian, and the signals I’m getting from it are showing me that it belongs to the Mira.” “How many are there?” Acidalia asked, concerned. “Just the one, but that could change. We’ve been on even footing for a while, but now that our army is fighting itself, I think they’ve found the chinks in our armor. This might be their opportunity to land.”

“Well, have they deployed any weapons?” Acidalia asked, “or done anything to indicate they want to harm us?”

“They’re Mira, of course they want to harm us.” “But they wouldn’t have sent just one ship if that were the case, would they?” Acidalia tilted her head in a pointed way, not exactly self-satisfied but close to it, and a surge of anger shot through Andromeda’s body again. She was so infuriatingly good at being eruditely snobby without making herself snobby at all, and it bothered Andromeda because she knew damn well that her level of politesse was simply not high enough to counter Acidalia’s. It didn’t matter what she thought or said or did, every conversation she could possibly have with the Imperatrix Ceasarina would wind up making her look like an imbecile and Acidalia like an eloquent space queen.

“We don’t know,” Andromeda said, gritting her teeth. “They sent us a message, but I don’t trust it.” “Play it for me,” Acidalia said.

“It’s written. Like an email.” Andromeda pulled it up anyway and handed it off to Acidalia, who read it quietly for a few minutes. It was nothing remarkable—mostly it was an extraordinarily generic statement about wanting to meet with an Eleutherian diplomat, the type of thing any sovereign would send to another leader in the hopes of forging some kind of political relationship. If it hadn’t come from an alien civilization Terra had been in a war of attrition with for the past God-knows-how-long, it wouldn’t have rung any alarm bells.

“Well,” Acidalia said, “they definitely know just what to say. This entire letter is written in Roman Latin too, did you notice that?” Andomeda hadn’t noticed that, but now that she was looking right at the words, it was obvious—the grammar was perfect. Eleutherian Latin didn’t even bother with any sort of grammar as long as the speaker could get their point across, but Roman Latin was fancy and full of itself, with complex systems of declensions and phonemes and other linguistic words she could only half-remember. Not even the Imperials spoke in Roman Latin outside of very, very formal events, none of which Andromeda was privy to, and even then it was purely ceremonial—nobody actually put effort into speaking in that archaic dialect of a dead language. And yet, the Mira had put in all that effort.

“How would they even know what ancient Romans spoke like, anyway?” Athena asked, voicing what Andromeda was thinking. “Nobody even talks to the Mira. The cultural exchange between us is like, zilch.”

“Well, it’s not quite zero,” Acidalia replied, “as we do know some things about them… namely that they’re significantly weaker than us physically, and also much more aggressive, it seems. But that’s all stereotypical and based on the experiences of a few men. They don’t like to take prisoners and they most certainly don’t like to be prisoners, so contact has been limited, to say the least. I do wonder why, out of all things, they would choose to learn an extremely antiquated form of Latin. Perhaps it’s for the sake of getting our attention?”

“If they wanted attention, why are they just sitting there quietly?” Andromeda pointed out. “I think they’re trying to lure either you or Alestra there, and then kill you. I mean, think about it: they have the perfect opportunity now. Eleutheria is tearing itself to pieces, you and your mother are both desperate to get the upper hand, and they’ve managed to breech our defenses, land in our capitol city, and bring a whole ship with them—not just a tiny fighter. If they want to occupy Terra, this is a good time. All they have to do is bring in their army and clear us out, and that starts with the leadership.” Acidalia frowned. “You may be right.”

“Aren’t I always?” David rolled his eyes. “I think you’re being a little pessimistic here. They aren’t doing anything just yet—I think they might genuinely want to talk to us. If they want Acidalia dead, why haven’t they hunted her down already?” “Because she’s in one of the most secure places on the planet? Not even the Nova have access to this base, and they’re just as Terran as we are. The Mira are aliens. How could they possibly find it?” Andromeda said. “They’re just waiting for Acidalia to come out of the woodworks.” “Doesn’t the entire planet think Acidalia’s already dead?” David asked.

Oh, right, Andromeda thought. Shit. With the Imperatrix sitting right here in front of her, she’d completely forgotten the fact that Alestra had announced the demise of her daughter to the entire planet just a few hours ago.

Acidalia sighed. “Do we know how much the Mira know? Because that could change everything. If they think I’m dead, then they wouldn’t be trying to kill me, and they’re not after Andromeda, either, because they have no idea she exists.” “Don’t know she exists?” David said incredulously. “Isn’t she like your equivalent of a general?”

“Yes, and I am a very, very, very secretive general,” Andromeda replied. “If a job is well-done, people won’t even realize that it was done in the first place. You know how many ‘accidental’ deaths were a result of me?” Her mechanical arm sprang to life, LEDs blinking like sleep-clouded eyes, and she flexed her hand to show off the metal. “I’ve got built in tasers and brass knuckles, plus a cybernetically reenforced steel skeleton. I’m about seven times stronger than the average man, and just as fast. I can beat someone to a bloody pulp and be gone before anyone saw me, and in case I need a little more subtlety than what a cyborg soldier can offer, I have the whole damn Revolution underneath me—including the spies. I can do whatever I want and nobody has to know.”

David looked nervous. “Great,” he said, sounding forced. “That’s… cool.”

“And,” Acidalia continued, “they have no reason to want anyone else dead, either. I mean, they could be targeting Alestra, but again, why wouldn’t they just kill her? We know she’s not buried in some hidden Nova base—she was giving a speech about my ‘unavoidable and tragic accidental death’ a couple of hours ago, and she was standing right on the palace balcony. Surely they could have killed her then if they wanted to really cause chaos.”

“There’s still Mars,” David said. “What about Arlen Tycho?” “Do you really think they give a shit about Mars?” Andromeda laughed. “Come on, man. It’s Mars. Not even Martians care about Mars. Besides, we all know the presidents are all doomed. Didn’t the last guy die in office after he was rude to Alestra in public?” “Last four,” Acidalia corrected. “And their vice presidents shortly thereafter. I believe President Tycho was… President pro tempore of the Senate? He was third or fourth in line; my mother murdered all of his predecessors.”

“Jesus,” Athena huffed. “I never imagined the bureaucracy could be so exciting.”

Before David could respond to that, Acidalia effortlessly inserted herself back into the conversation, interrupting so fluidly that it didn’t feel like she was interrupting at all. “Either way,” she said, “I think we’ve come to the conclusion that they don’t want to kill us. I think we should send a diplomat.” “Or we could nuke them to death and forget the whole thing,” Andromeda shrugged.

Acidalia practically gasped. “Have you gone mad? That’s what landed us in this war in the first place.”

“What?!” Andromeda snapped. “It’s an effective display of power, at the very least. It’ll show them we mean business. And, for the record, they have committed a crime—they’e trespassing on Imperial territory without permission.”

“That is absolutely 100% not a nuke-worthy crime,” David said, as if Andromeda would ever care about his opinion at all.

“I just think that sending a diplomat to this is dangerous and ridiculous,” Andromeda said. “Who knows what they want? It’s an eat-or-be-eaten world out there, literally. They kill us or we kill them.” “Not everything has to come down to that,” Acidalia replied. “But I do agree that this is a mine field. This situation that calls for civility and grace, not nuclear bombs and indiscriminate murder. So, if we do send a diplomat, I propose that I go myself.”

A chorus of questions acme from the rest of the table. “You can’t do that,” David said. “It’s too risky, and we need you.” “But it’s a power play, and it gets them on our side,” Acidalia argued. “Look at it this way. They’re currently staring at a war-torn city on a planet they’ve thought of as backwards and barbaric for the past few centuries at the very least. They don’t see a noble cause fighting against tyrannical overlords; they see two equally bad warring factions killing each other in a brutal and bloody civil war. But if we could get them to see us as friends and my mother as the enemy, two things happen: one, this war of attrition might end and they’ll stop trying to hurt Terra, and two, we gain someone on our side, backing us up. But imagine what would happen if my mother got to them first. Either she kills them all and makes them angrier than ever, and all of Eleutheria falls to pieces because divided we fall, or she gains an ally. Both are bad.” David groaned. “I hate that you’re right about this." “And,” Acidalia continued, “if I go myself, that immediately shows them that Alestra—and, by extension, the Nova—is duplicitous, manipulative, and all-around untrustworthy. What better way to showcase that than by proving that they lied about the death of an enemy leader? The Mira aren’t dumb, and I’m sure they’ve had their suspicions for a while, but this will confirm them. And, hopefully, we can make them sympathetic to us. But it’s going to take an expert politician to navigate this, which is why I propose that I go. Not to sound arrogant, but—" Andromeda started playing white noise in her ears and promptly stopped paying attention. Whatever Acidalia was about to say after that but was not worth listening to—she’d learned that much. Listening to her talk about how good at politics she was was could bore any sane human being to tears, and it was especially grating to Andromeda, who had to put up with it almost constantly. She waited until Acidalia’s sparkly red lips stopped moving, then returned to the conversation, hoping nobody had noticed her brief vacation from having to listen to the Imperatrix talk. Honestly, though, even if they had, she wouldn’t care.

“I still think this is inordinately risky,” David said. “Even if they’re benevolent towards Acidalia, and that’s a big if, what if they also just genuinely want our planet for their own? It’s not like we can do anything now when the whole Earth is divided in two.”

“We can still nuke them,” Andromeda said again. Next to her, Acidalia rolled her eyes in annoyance. “What?” Andromeda asked. “Got any better solutions?”

“Yes. Diplomacy.”

“And what if they kill you?” “The planet already thinks I’m dead. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. It matters to the Revolution.”

“You’ll get over it.” “The scientists won’t.” Acidalia sighed, looking very overburdened, and stared off into the distance—or, at least, she tried to. It would have come across as less spacey if she wasn’t looking blankly at the Scorpio’s opaque windows. “That’s true,” she admitted, her voice soft. “But they could learn.” “They won’t learn without someone to teach them,” Andromeda said, hoping she looked more enthusiastic than she felt. She had seen this type of thing before in dozens of people; one person died and suddenly everyone was borderline suicidal. Acidalia, for all her high-and-mighty queenliness, was not as immune to grief as she thought she was.

“You are right,” Acidalia said, “but they aren’t going to kill me. I’ll go, and I’ll take a guard and an entourage. It would look suspicious if I showed up alone, anyway—I want them to see me as a legitimate leader ousted from the palace, not a bastard rebel out for blood because my pure-bred little sister is getting the throne. Why doesn’t David come with me?” David sat up straight as a board, looking panicked. “What? Me?!” “You’re much physically stronger than I am,” Acidalia said, “and I can’t exactly bring anyone else, seeing as no one has any idea I’m alive. I suppose I could reveal myself now, but I’d rather stay silent and make a big show of it later—that way, if I should die before the victory comes, nobody will have known I was alive to begin with. As it stands, I’m a martyr and the Revolution is mourning me—they’ll fight harder than they ever have before, because it’s personal this time, and they’re angry. So guards are out of the question..” “But its been years since I was in the army,” David stammered. “I’m not as tough as Andromeda, and I’m not a real a politician like you.” Andromeda snorted. “You’re the minister of farming on a planet known for its farms, how is that not political?” “Secretary of agriculture,” Acidalia corrected. “But she’s right; you are a politician.” “In name only! Mars is a meritocracy built around a computer program created a thousand years ago by some religious fanatics; the only reason I ever got power to begin with was because the whole internet thought my baby daughter was cute and that drove up my social points so much that my boss named me as his successor, and then my boss got shot and here I am. It was all just luck! Besides, nobody in the Martian government does any actual work—the Algorithm runs everything, we all just stand there and look handsome.” Beads of sweat poured down from his curly hair into his unshaven stubble, and Andromeda wondered not for the first time where Acidalia was even finding these people. David Seren was like a bad one-credit-store, off-brand version of someone respectable—what help could he possibly be? And it wasn’t like anyone else here would be useful, either—both of the Scientias seemed absolutely clueless, Cressida was still playing on her phone, and Lyra and Ace looked too sad to serve any real purpose.

Fucking fantastic. We’re supposed to be meeting aliens and this is the team we have? When Andromeda was sixteen, she’d escaped from a jail cell with a crack team made up of four stim addicts and three separate men who had been arrested for public indecency, and every single person in that little cohort still managed to be more competent than any of the supposedly high-ranking, important officials standing around blankly right now. Andromeda had never felt smarter—probably because her IQ drove the mean of the people in this room up by at least ten points. She couldn’t possibly let all of these morons go off to meet the Mira alone—with her luck, they’d all manage to stumble into the path of an asteroid or fall off a cliff or meet some other hilariously unlikely and horrible fate, because the universe just didn’t seem to like them very much.

“You know what?” Andromeda said. “Fine. Fine. We’ll go talk to the Mira, and David can stay on the ship and wait and see if they want a Martian representative before he gets off. And we can bring this disphit—“ she gestured to Ace—“because one immune is better than nothing. As for the rest of you, do what you want—just be quiet about it. And I’m coming.”

“You?” Acidalia asked, alarmed. “We can’t have the both of us go; it’s far too risky. We’re putting all of our eggs in one basket, and there is no designated survivor or line of succession here. They think I’m already dead, but you—you’re one of the biggest assets we have, we can’t lose you and me both.” “Well, if I don’t go, all of you are going to get your asses kicked,” Andromeda snapped. “I mean, look at you. Acidalia, you’re an excellent shot, but you’re a twig. You got all cut up just from Ace trying to protect you—imagine what you’d look like if someone really wanted to hurt you. And these other people are, what, Scientias? Cantatores? They’re not made for fighting. The only physically strong people here are Ace and David, and even David might be pushing it a little with that dadbod. You need someone to smash those blue fuckers’ skulls in if things get dangerous.”

“I have smashed plenty of skulls in throughout the course of my life, for the record,” Acidalia said, “but if you’d like to accompany me, I have no real qualms with that. I’m just concerned that both of us will—“ “‘Both of us die? Anyone who wants me dead will have to fight me first.” Andromeda flexed her metal arm. “No offense, but carbon nantoubule bones and steel muscle are a little harder to break than weak-ass myoblast fibers covering osteoporotic calcium bones.” “I am not osteoporotic, my ancestors were just accustomed to lower gravity—“ “Doesn’t matter, the point has been made.” Andromeda leant back and put her feet up on the table, partially to establish her dominance in the room and partially to show off her fancy new 3D-printed, custom-made metal prosthetics. Noir-black titanium alloys just seemed so much more intimidating than pasty pale flesh and blood, and they were prettier than the brusied, burnt skin that used to cover her body. “I’m going with you.” Acidalia looked like she wanted to protest, but she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed her words and looked down at the holographic pinpoint representing the starship, examining it with uncomfortable closeness. “We should leave soon,” she said finally, “before they assume we aren’t coming. I’ll draft a response to their letter.” “Sounds good,” Andromeda said. “And as for the rest of you people, do what you want. Nobody here cares if you live or die, so you’re free to make your own decisions.”

Ace and the girls at the table looked at each other, semi-alarmed, as Andromeda strode away. It must be freeing, she thought, to live like that—to be a teenager with no real connections to anybody and no responsibilities. She’d never had the luxury of freedom; her entire life had just been falling from one type of slavery into another. Being a wage slave to the Revolution was better than being an actual slave to the Eleutherian government, but it still wasn’t true freedom the way she’d always envisioned it—she was still trapped here, forever working. Serving the state and serving a master were not entirely different things, especially when she still had to put up with people as dumb as David Seren and as infuriating as Acidalia Cipher. And sure, this job allowed her to use her strategic mind a little more, but what was even the point if she wasn’t allowed to play with her favorite toys? Nuclear bombs were horrific and useful, and they seemed about as appropriate a response to an alien landing as anything else.

But Acidalia said no, and that meant no.

Andromeda tried not to think about her as she stormed off down the landing ramps. Acidalia would get her dues someday, when she tried to fix some problem with friendly diplomacy but her enemies brought guns to a knife fight. Then she’d be sorry—sorry that she hadn’t listened to Andromeda, the military genius who’d won every war she’d ever fought, and sorry that she’d been so inordinately idealistic about war, where everything is fair and the victors make the only rules long after the fight has ended. Andromeda played with fire, but she did it well; Acidalia just sat there surrounded by gasoline and matches, wondering what she should do.

Whatever. There was a time for diplomatic relations and a time for mushroom clouds, and Andromeda would be getting her way soon. If there was anything her life had taught her, it was that there are some situations where violence is the only answer—and if this war continued on the trajectory it was heading towards, it would be time for mushroom clouds very soon.

#on the edge of eureka #POV Andromeda #Acidalia #Andromeda

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megacircuit9universe · 4 years

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Relative Charisma & the Incel

WED SEP 30 2020

So the first of three debates between Trump and Biden happened yesterday, and it was... as CNN’s Jake Tapper so aptly put it, “A hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.”

I didn’t see it, because I was at work, but I’ve heard enough sound bytes, and seen enough post debate coverage to know that... history will remember this one and play back those clips for centuries to come... of Trump, behaving like an angry, wounded animal.

For some context, despite my last entry, in which the indy left media (TYT mostly) was crying that Biden was losing the election, based on two stand alone polls that had Trump up a tick in two states... Biden’s lead in those and all other states is actually holding, or slightly growing.

I should disclose that my information is coming from an independent YouTube polls analyst whom I’ve come to trust over the past few years. There are many such channels on YouTube, but this guy eventually won me over, because he’s thorough, transparent, always has receipts, and pretty good at calling trends, while keeping expectations grounded in reality.

In my experience, news outlets... be they mainstream media, or indy news sources, only present polling data that they can sensationalize.

Right wing media just deny reality and convince their viewers all news of Trump being behind is fake. But Mainstream media always wants you to think it’s a dead heat... because that gets ratings. Meanwhile, the indy left news wants you to think Biden is losing, to fuel more activism and more participation.

And none of this is the subject of the entry at hand, but... it’s important to get this out of the way as we move into October, when the polling data is really going to be indicative of what happens on Election Day.

I vetted a lot of different YouTube analyst channels and settled on the one I have, because... I trust this guy.

So... when I sit here an say that Biden has a significant lead in all critical states, has several paths to 270, is ahead in national polls, etc... I’m getting that from a trusted source. It’s not just me being blindly optomistic based on some things I happened to pick up here and there.

Okay...

Back to context for Trump behaving like a wounded animal in yesterday’s debate...

On the one hand, yes, Biden is still way ahead, and looking like he’ll be the clear winner... which I’m sure Trump doesn’t like. But on the other hand, Trump was also deeply humiliated this past Sunday when The New York Times published a bunch of his tax returns... going up to 2017 and 2018, when he was, of course, President.

And the story reveals that he’s drowning in debt, and has been for quite a long time... with most of it being owed to mysterious unknown parties... which is a security concern. It also exposed how little taxes he’s paid... which may or may not be tax evasion, technically, but is not a great look for a populist President.

Quick sidebar here... Presidential tax returns are never normally news, because all Presidential candidates since Nixon have willingly published theirs upon declaring their candidacy... until Trump.

So it’s not like he’s being singled out by the New York Times for exposure of his private business.

On the other hand, the tax returns weren’t exactly a bomb shell. More like a fizzling sparkler. No personal check from Putin, with, destroy democracy, written on the memo line.

Yeah, he pays almost no taxes, but... we already knew that’s par for the course for all billionaires. It’s kinda the reason the progressive left exists.

But in terms of context for Trump being a wounded animal... it’s the drowning in debt thing he never wanted to go public. For Trump... it’s an unspeakable humiliation, like getting pantsed in public, only to reveal that you like to wear Wonder Woman Underoos or something.

It’s a massive blow to the image he’s created for himself, and defended so dearly... of being a legitimate billionaire, who used his shrewd instincts, and financial brilliance to amass deep pockets of untouchable wealth... self proliferating, tax free, multi-generational wealth.

Instead, he’s just an idiot, billions of dollars in debt, forcing the US government to pay millions to his Mara Lago resort, for hundreds of golf outings (around 200 to date) and he’s still in the red... at Mara Lago! Forget his other debts and failing ventures!

A quote from Iron Man 2 is very apt, here...

Ivan Vanko : [laughs] If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, the sharks will come. All I have to do is sit back and watch as the world consumes you.

That was Ivan’s rationale for attacking Tony Stark at the racetrack. It’s also been interpreted as a foreshadowing of the scene in Infinity War, several years later, where Tony Manages to punch Thanos hard enough to scratch his cheek and get a single drop of blood out of the mad titan.

Here in 2020 reality, the New York Times did get that single drop of blood... on Sunday.

And going into his first debate with Biden... who has been stubbornly leading in the polls all summer long... Trump was so furious, he could not keep his composure.

And this, at long last, brings us to the matter of relative charisma.

I’ve talked about it several times in the past, saying that, if you want one simple rule of thumb for predicting the next president... it’s that, whoever has the most relative charisma will win the election.

Relative, in this model, meaning... relative to the opponent.

A great example of this would be George HW Bush (Bush1) who had way more charisma, relative to stodgy, stuffy, Michael Dukakis, in 1988. But four years later, the same George HW Bush, looked himself, quite lacking in charisma compared to his new opponent, Bill Clinton.

It’s happened in every election of modern times. Carter had more relative Charisma than Ford, but far far less relative charisma than Reagan... and on and on back to FDR.

It was also, obviously true that in the match up between Trump and Hillary Clinton... Trump had all the relative charisma. PT Barnum levels of charisma!.. as the happy, quippy, rude, outsider... to her... boring gramma persona saying, “Pokemon Go to the polls!”

And early this year, during the primaries, when Bernie Sanders was still in the running, I said several times that Trump would, “mop the floor,” with Biden in a debate.

But... that was before Covid19... and 200,000 dead. Before record unemployment and record evictions. Before the Black Lives Matter movement caught fire in the streets, facing off with fascist police with tear gas and batons all summer. Before Biden sailed through all the insanity, staying ahead of Trump in the polls, to get the nomination.

And it was before Trump, in recent months, sent thugs to kidnap protesters in Portland, threatening all other democratic cities with the same, began knee-capping the post office, was exposed for calling our soldiers suckers and losers, refused to accept the election results if he wasn’t the winner, refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power unless we, get rid of the ballots, and... was exosed as swimming in debt.

So in Tuesday night’s debate... while he did try his level best to mop the floor with Biden... Trump came off as... well, an incel*.

We all, sadly know how incel’s debate, having suffered them like a bed bug infestation in every comment section on the internet for the past ten years, and in last night’s debate... Trump was, incel personified!

Moderator Chris Wallace, of Fox News, even gave Trump the chance to back away from the event horizon of the black hole that is at the heart of incel culture, by asking him to simply denounce white supremacy.

And not only could Trump not denounce white supremacy... after dancing around the quesion, he wound up saying that a group of white supremecist incels known as the Proud Boys, should, “stand back, but stand by!”

In other words... he’s not only banking everything on the incel vote... he’s calling on the incels to join Beta Force, and be ready... to intimidate voters in person on election night... and to create mayhem when he loses.

Please stand by, incels... but you understand, this is not a paid gig, right? I’m kinda tight on money right now, so you’ll need to be fighting for me out of the prematurely ejaculating spite in your sexually inadequate hearts!

The point here, is that the question of relative charisma between Joe Biden and Donald Trump has finally been answered.

Incel vibe, is not charisma. It’s the opposite of charisma. It’s a combination of wounded spite, bitter frothing at the mouth, and indefensible stupidity... all the things that make normal people want to puke.

So, while Biden may not have much in the charisma department... he does have a few charming attributes above the base line for a decent human being capable of empathy and logic.

And in a match up with the Trump of October 2020... that means, Biden has all the relative charisma... and he now has it on lock down.

We can talk soon about Trump’s incel chances of stealing the election by incel force, and the true threat that his army of incels present to our democracy, but for tonight... Trump is an incel... and incels have zero charisma.

I’m going to bed.

*Incel is a portmanteau for, Involuntarily Celibate.

It refers to straight, cis boys or men, most often white, from 15 to 35 who, despite deeply craving to engage in sexual activity with counterparts of the opposite sex, fail to attain it. Such males believe they are entitled to sex with the partner of their choice, and are thus baffled and aggrivated by their inability to obtain it consentually.

Incels are characterized by their extremely toxic interactions, which go beyond the mysogyny one might expect, to encompass all of society. For, in their mindset, it is not simply women who are to blame for their lack of sex, it is the entire framework of society... and that framework is also to blame for every other wish they perceive as being unfairly denied to them.

Incels resort to harassment, often thinly veiled as debate or argument, in order to torment those (most) who will not recognize their entitlement, and dream of reforming the societal order, such that their bullying rules the day... often waxing nostalgic for imagined times in the past when men such as themselves ruled without question.

They are thus, quite attracted to all forms of fascism, including, but not limited to white supremacy.

In the modern day, incels are widely regarded as a scourge, and considered by nobody outside their circle to have anything resembling charisma.

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Headlines: Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Chaotic first debate (AP) The first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden deteriorated into bitter taunts and near chaos Tuesday night as Trump repeatedly interrupted his opponent with angry — and personal — jabs that sometimes overshadowed the sharply different visions each man has for a nation facing historic crises. There were heated clashes over the president’s handling of the pandemic, the integrity of the election results, deeply personal attacks about Biden’s family and how the Supreme Court will shape the future of the nation’s health care. The two men frequently talked over each other with Trump interrupting, nearly shouting, so often that Biden eventually snapped at him, “Will you shut up, man?” Over and over, Trump tried to control the conversation, interrupting Biden and repeatedly talking over the moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News. The president drew a lecture from Wallace, who pleaded with both men to stop talking over each other. Biden tried to push back against Trump, sometimes looking right at the camera to directly address viewers rather than the president and snapping, “It’s hard to get a word in with this clown.”

Mail delays (Washington Post) By a two-to-one margin, a poll of 1,929 Americans conducted in August found that respondents rejected the idea that the Postal Service should be “run like a business” in favor of running it like a public service, a belief prevalent among half of Republicans, 69 percent of Independents and 82 percent of Democrats. Recent slowdowns in the service have not gone unnoticed: among those polled, a little more than half said mail takes more days to arrive than it did at the same time last year, 42 percent said mail comes later in the day, 37 percent said there’s less mail delivered than usual, and 17 percent said the recent changes have caused a “major problem” for them.

3 Killed in Fresh Wildfires in Northern California (NYT) California’s famed wine country, already suffering an economic blow brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and covered in smoke for weeks, is on fire again. The state’s losses were mounting on Monday as two new wildfires burned out of control, killing three people in Shasta County, the sheriff said. And in wine country, the famous Chateau Boswell winery was gone, a community of tiny homes for homeless people has burned, and an untold number of houses were feared lost. The two fast-moving blazes, the Zogg Fire in Shasta County and the Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma Counties, are uncontained and had burned more than 67,000 acres by Monday night, prompting new evacuation orders for thousands of people as the year’s grueling wildfire season wore on.

New York City Faces a Financial Abyss (NYT) The unemployment rate in New York City is 16 percent, twice as high as the rest of the country. Personal income tax revenue is expected to drop by $2 billion this fiscal year. Only a third of hotel rooms are occupied, and apartment vacancies in Manhattan have hit a peak. New York, more than any large city in the world, has been forced to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak’s dual paths of devastation: The virus has killed 24,000 people in the city and has sapped it of hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenue. Numerous economic indicators suggest that New York City will face an extended financial crisis, the likes of which has not been seen since the 1970s. The city has already slashed spending to make up for billions of dollars in lost tax revenue, but it may lose billions more. Shootings are on the rise, some New Yorkers are fleeing for the suburbs, businesses are reconsidering their need for office space—structural changes reminiscent of those that preceded the city’s 1975 fiscal collapse, some budget hawks say. “We’re on the verge of a tragedy,” said Richard Ravitch, the former state official who helped engineer the rescue of New York City’s finances in the 1970s and thinks this crisis is worse. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to the city.”

Pandemic Drives Hike in Opioid Deaths (NYT) In the six months since Covid-19 brought the nation to a standstill, the opioid epidemic has taken a sharp turn for the worse. More than 40 states have recorded increases in opioid-related deaths since the pandemic began, according to the American Medical Association. In Arkansas, the use of Narcan, an overdose-reversing drug, has tripled. Jacksonville, Fla., has seen a 40 percent increase in overdose-related calls. In March alone, York County in Pennsylvania recorded three times more overdose deaths than normal.

We make the rules, Portugal tells U.S. after China threats (Reuters) Portuguese leaders have criticised U.S. ambassador George Glass after he said they must choose between the United States and China or risk the consequences. Glass told the newspaper Expresso at the weekend that Portugal had to pick between its American “friends and allies” and its “economic partner” China. He described the country as a “battlefield” between Washington and Beijing. Portugal could expect consequences related to security and defence if it choose to work with China over the United States in developments related to 5G networks and others, he said. In response, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva told Lusa news agency: “In Portugal the decision-makers are the Portuguese authorities, who decide which are Portugal’s interests”. China looped Portugal into its Belt and Road initiative in December 2018 and in recent years Chinese companies have invested about 10 billion euros in the country, making it one of the biggest recipients of Chinese investment in Europe.

Azerbaijan and Armenia reject peace talks as Karabakh conflict zone widens (Reuters) Armenia and Azerbaijan accused one another on Tuesday of firing directly into each other’s territory and rejected pressure to hold peace talks as their conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh threatened to spill over into all-out war. Both reported firing from the other side across their shared border, well to the west of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region over which fierce fighting broke out between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces on Sunday. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, speaking to Russian state TV, flatly ruled out any possibility of talks. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told the same channel that talks could not take place while fighting continued. Further fuelling tensions between the two former Soviet republics, Armenia said an F-16 fighter jet belonging to Azerbaijan’s close ally Turkey had shot down one of its warplanes over Armenian airspace, killing the pilot. Dozens of people have been reported killed and hundreds wounded since clashes between Azerbaijan and its ethnic Armenian mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh broke out on Sunday. Nagorno-Karabakh is a breakaway region that is inside Azerbaijan but is run by ethnic Armenians and is supported by Armenia. A descent into all-out war could drag in regional powers Russia and Turkey. Moscow has a defence alliance with Armenia, which is the enclave’s lifeline to the outside world, while Ankara backs its own ethnic Turkic kin in Azerbaijan.

Moscow to keep school kids home 2 weeks in October (AP) Moscow authorities are extending school holidays by a week amid a surge of new coronavirus cases. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Tuesday ordered all schools to go on holiday between Oct. 5-18 and urged parents to keep their children at home during this period.

In Proud Corners of Afghanistan, New Calls for Autonomy (NYT) BAZARAK, Afghanistan—His face juts alongside the single-lane roads carved into the remote and forbidding Panjshir Valley, and looms over twisted hulks of Soviet tanks and the patchwork of cornfields. Seemingly everywhere, billboards carry the image of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the admired and assassinated military commander from this region, and quotes that testify to Panjshir’s pride and willingness to go it alone. One reads: “Dependency is a disgrace.” The Panjshiris, who are known for holding off the Soviets in the 1980s, protecting their remote and forbidding valley from the Taliban in the 1990s and helping lead the opening salvos of the U.S. invasion in 2001, find themselves once again drawn toward defiance. This time, the struggle is against the national leadership in Kabul. The restiveness in Panjshir, where many are outraged by the effort to make peace with the Taliban, is raising fears that the province and other regions might take up arms and try to force more autonomy for themselves, in an echo of the early days of Afghanistan’s warlord era. There are also growing concerns that as they did in the past, Panjshir and other breakaway places will more actively court regional actors like Russia, India and Iran for cash if the government in Kabul appears to weaken further. Panjshiris “don’t see themselves in the government anymore,” Mohammad Amin Sediqi, the deputy governor of Panjshir, said from his desk in Bazarak, the provincial capital. “We fought for a better Afghanistan, and now we’re stepping back and watching history repeat itself,” he added. The people of Panjshir, who are mostly of the ethnic Tajik minority, simply “don’t trust the government anymore,” said Mohammad Alam Izedyar, the deputy head of the upper house of Parliament who represents Panjshir. “The government isn’t going to resist for long and be able to defend its people.”

Amnesty Int’l halts India operations, citing gov’t reprisals (AP) Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said Tuesday that it was halting its operation in India, citing reprisals from the government and the freezing of its bank accounts by Indian authorities. Amnesty International India said in a statement that the organization had laid off its staff in India and paused its ongoing campaign and research work on human rights, alleging that Indian authorities froze its bank accounts on suspicions of violating rules on foreign funding. The statement said that the authorities’ actions were “the latest in the incessant witch-hunt of human rights organizations” by India’s government “over unfounded and motivated allegations,” and that the group’s “lawful fundraising model” was being portrayed as money laundering because it has challenged the “government’s grave inactions and excesses.” Amnesty India’s executive director, Avinash Kumar, said the accounts were frozen as a result of the group’s “unequivocal calls for transparency in the government” and accountability of New Delhi police and the Indian government regarding “grave human rights violations in Delhi riots” and Indian-administered Kashmir. The rights group regularly accuses Indian authorities of committing human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir and has released multiple reports on the raging conflict in the region.

Dark days ahead for Lebanon (AP) The past year has been nothing short of an earthquake for Lebanon, hit by an economic meltdown, mass protests, financial collapse, a virus outbreak and a cataclysmic explosion that virtually wiped out the country’s main port. Yet Lebanese fear even darker days are ahead. The country’s foreign reserves are drying up, the local currency is expected to spiral further out of control, and incidents of armed clashes between rival groups are escalating. Bickering politicians have been unable to form a government, putting an international bailout out of reach. The country risks slipping into chaos. “Absent a major change in either side’s political calculations, the coming weeks will see continued stalemate, a caretaker government that lacks the capability to implement any serious reforms, and an acceleration of the economic collapse,” said Mike Azar, a former Johns Hopkins SAIS professor of finance.

Aid group warns that 700,000 children in Syria risk hunger (AP) An additional 700,000 children in Syria face hunger because of the country’s badly damaged economy and the impact of coronavirus restrictions, an international aid group warned Tuesday. Save the Children said the new figures mean that in the last six months, the total number of food-insecure children across the country has risen to more than 4.6 million. After nearly a 10-year conflict that killed some 400,000 and displaced half the country’s population, Syria’s economy has been badly harmed by the war as well as by widespread corruption, Western sanctions and a severe economic and financial crisis in neighboring Lebanon. The local currency crashed in recent months making it more difficult for many Syrians to buy food. The spread of coronavirus in the war-torn country has worsened the situation.

Kuwait ruler, longtime diplomat Sheikh Sabah, dies at age 91 (AP) Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, the ruler of Kuwait who drew on his decades as the oil-rich nation’s top diplomat to push for closer ties to Iraq after the 1990 Gulf War and solutions to other regional crises, died Tuesday. He was 91.

#headlines #news

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strike-back-now-info · 5 years

Link

Remarks by President Trump to the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Issued on: September 25, 2019

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-74th-session-united-nations-general-assembly/

United Nations Headquarters

New York, New York

September 24, 2019

10:12 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders:

Seven decades of history have passed through this hall, in all of their richness and drama. Where I stand, the world has heard from presidents and premiers at the height of the Cold War. We have seen the foundation of nations. We have seen the ringleaders of revolution. We have beheld saints who inspired us with hope, rebels who stirred us with passion, and heroes who emboldened us with courage — all here to share plans, proposals, visions, and ideas on the world’s biggest stage.

Like those who met us before, our time is one of great contests, high stakes, and clear choices. The essential divide that runs all around the world and throughout history is once again thrown into stark relief. It is the divide between those whose thirst for control deludes them into thinking they are destined to rule over others and those people and nations who want only to rule themselves.

I have the immense privilege of addressing you today as the elected leader of a nation that prizes liberty, independence, and self-government above all. The United States, after having spent over two and a half trillion dollars since my election to completely rebuild our great military, is also, by far, the world’s most powerful nation. Hopefully, it will never have to use this power.

Americans know that in a world where others seek conquest and domination, our nation must be strong in wealth, in might, and in spirit. That is why the United States vigorously defends the traditions and customs that have made us who we are.

Like my beloved country, each nation represented in this hall has a cherished history, culture, and heritage that is worth defending and celebrating, and which gives us our singular potential and strength.

The free world must embrace its national foundations. It must not attempt to erase them or replace them.

Looking around and all over this large, magnificent planet, the truth is plain to see: If you want freedom, take pride in your country. If you want democracy, hold on to your sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation. Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first.

The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.

It is why we in the United States have embarked on an exciting program of national renewal. In everything we do, we are focused on empowering the dreams and aspirations of our citizens.

Thanks to our pro-growth economic policies, our domestic unemployment rate reached its lowest level in over half a century. Fueled by massive tax cuts and regulations cuts, jobs are being produced at a historic rate. Six million Americans have been added to the employment rolls in under three years.

Last month, African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment reached their lowest rates ever recorded. We are marshaling our nation’s vast energy abundance, and the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. Wages are rising, incomes are soaring, and 2.5 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty in less than three years.

As we rebuild the unrivaled might of the American military, we are also revitalizing our alliances by making it very clear that all of our partners are expected to pay their fair share of the tremendous defense burden, which the United States has borne in the past.

At the center of our vision for national renewal is an ambitious campaign to reform international trade. For decades, the international trading system has been easily exploited by nations acting in very bad faith. As jobs were outsourced, a small handful grew wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

In America, the result was 4.2 million lost manufacturing jobs and $15 trillion in trade deficits over the last quarter century. The United States is now taking that decisive action to end this grave economic injustice. Our goal is simple: We want balanced trade that is both fair and reciprocal.

We have worked closely with our partners in Mexico and Canada to replace NAFTA with the brand new and hopefully bipartisan U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Tomorrow, I will join Prime Minister Abe of Japan to continue our progress in finalizing a terrific new trade deal.

As the United Kingdom makes preparations to exit the European Union, I have made clear that we stand ready to complete an exceptional new trade agreement with the UK that will bring tremendous benefits to both of our countries. We are working closely with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a magnificent new trade deal.

The most important difference in America’s new approach on trade concerns our relationship with China. In 2001, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization. Our leaders then argued that this decision would compel China to liberalize its economy and strengthen protections to provide things that were unacceptable to us, and for private property and for the rule of law. Two decades later, this theory has been tested and proven completely wrong.

Not only has China declined to adopt promised reforms, it has embraced an economic model dependent on massive market barriers, heavy state subsidies, currency manipulation, product dumping, forced technology transfers, and the theft of intellectual property and also trade secrets on a grand scale.

As just one example, I recently met the CEO of a terrific American company, Micron Technology, at the White House. Micron produces memory chips used in countless electronics. To advance the Chinese government’s five-year economic plan, a company owned by the Chinese state allegedly stole Micron’s designs, valued at up to $8.7 billion. Soon, the Chinese company obtains patents for nearly an identical product, and Micron was banned from selling its own goods in China. But we are seeking justice.

The United States lost 60,000 factories after China entered the WTO. This is happening to other countries all over the globe.

The World Trade Organization needs drastic change. The second-largest economy in the world should not be permitted to declare itself a “developing country” in order to game the system at others’ expense.

For years, these abuses were tolerated, ignored, or even encouraged. Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders, causing them to ignore their own national interests.

But as far as America is concerned, those days are over. To confront these unfair practices, I placed massive tariffs on more than $500 billion worth of Chinese-made goods. Already, as a result of these tariffs, supply chains are relocating back to America and to other nations, and billions of dollars are being paid to our Treasury.

The American people are absolutely committed to restoring balance to our relationship with China. Hopefully, we can reach an agreement that would be beneficial for both countries. But as I have made very clear, I will not accept a bad deal for the American people.

As we endeavor to stabilize our relationship, we’re also carefully monitoring the situation in Hong Kong. The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty, made with the British and registered with the United Nations, in which China commits to protect Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system, and democratic ways of life. How China chooses to handle the situation will say a great deal about its role in the world in the future. We are all counting on President Xi as a great leader.

The United States does not seek conflict with any other nation. We desire peace, cooperation, and mutual gain with all. But I will never fail to defend America’s interests.

One of the greatest security threats facing peace-loving nations today is the repressive regime in Iran. The regime’s record of death and destruction is well known to us all. Not only is Iran the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism, but Iran’s leaders are fueling the tragic wars in both Syria and Yemen.

At the same time, the regime is squandering the nation’s wealth and future in a fanatical quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. We must never allow this to happen.

To stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and missiles, I withdrew the United States from the terrible Iran nuclear deal, which has very little time remaining, did not allow inspection of important sites, and did not cover ballistic missiles.

Following our withdrawal, we have implemented severe economic sanctions on the country. Hoping to free itself from sanctions, the regime has escalated its violent and unprovoked aggression. In response to Iran’s recent attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, we just imposed the highest level of sanctions on Iran’s central bank and sovereign wealth fund.

All nations have a duty to act. No responsible government should subsidize Iran’s bloodlust. As long as Iran’s menacing behavior continues, sanctions will not be lifted; they will be tightened. Iran’s leaders will have turned a proud nation into just another cautionary tale of what happens when a ruling class abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches.

For 40 years, the world has listened to Iran’s rulers as they lash out at everyone else for the problems they alone have created. They conduct ritual chants of “Death to America” and traffic in monstrous anti-Semitism. Last year the country’s Supreme Leader stated, “Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor…that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.” America will never tolerate such anti-Semitic hate.

Fanatics have long used hatred of Israel to distract from their own failures. Thankfully, there is a growing recognition in the wider Middle East that the countries of the region share common interests in battling extremism and unleashing economic opportunity. That is why it is so important to have full, normalized relations between Israel and its neighbors. Only a relationship built on common interests, mutual respect, and religious tolerance can forge a better future.

Iran’s citizens deserve a government that cares about reducing poverty, ending corruption, and increasing jobs — not stealing their money to fund a massacre abroad and at home.

After four decades of failure, it is time for Iran’s leaders to step forward and to stop threatening other countries, and focus on building up their own country. It is time for Iran’s leaders to finally put the Iranian people first.

America is ready to embrace friendship with all who genuinely seek peace and respect.

Many of America’s closest friends today were once our gravest foes. The United States has never believed in permanent enemies. We want partners, not adversaries. America knows that while anyone can make war, only the most courageous can choose peace.

For this same reason, we have pursued bold diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. I have told Kim Jong Un what I truly believe: that, like Iran, his country is full of tremendous untapped potential, but that to realize that promise, North Korea must denuclearize.

Around the world, our message is clear: America’s goal is lasting, America’s goal is harmony, and America’s goal is not to go with these endless wars — wars that never end.

With that goal in mind, my administration is also pursuing the hope of a brighter future in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Taliban has chosen to continue their savage attacks. And we will continue to work with our coalition of Afghan partners to stamp out terrorism, and we will never stop working to make peace a reality.

Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are joining with our partners to ensure stability and opportunity all across the region. In that mission, one of our most critical challenges is illegal immigration, which undermines prosperity, rips apart societies, and empowers ruthless criminal cartels.

Mass illegal migration is unfair, unsafe, and unsustainable for everyone involved: the sending countries and the depleted countries. And they become depleted very fast, but their youth is not taken care of and human capital goes to waste.

The receiving countries are overburdened with more migrants than they can responsibly accept. And the migrants themselves are exploited, assaulted, and abused by vicious coyotes. Nearly one third of women who make the journey north to our border are sexually assaulted along the way. Yet, here in the United States and around the world, there is a growing cottage industry of radical activists and non-governmental organizations that promote human smuggling. These groups encourage illegal migration and demand erasure of national borders.

Today, I have a message for those open border activists who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of social justice: Your policies are not just. Your policies are cruel and evil. You are empowering criminal organizations that prey on innocent men, women, and children. You put your own false sense of virtue before the lives, wellbeing, and [of] countless innocent people. When you undermine border security, you are undermining human rights and human dignity.

Many of the countries here today are coping with the challenges of uncontrolled migration. Each of you has the absolute right to protect your borders, and so, of course, does our country. Today, we must resolve to work together to end human smuggling, end human trafficking, and put these criminal networks out of business for good.

To our country, I can tell you sincerely: We are working closely with our friends in the region — including Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama — to uphold the integrity of borders and ensure safety and prosperity for our people. I would like to thank President López Obrador of Mexico for the great cooperation we are receiving and for right now putting 27,000 troops on our southern border. Mexico is showing us great respect, and I respect them in return.

The U.S., we have taken very unprecedented action to stop the flow of illegal immigration. To anyone considering crossings of our border illegally, please hear these words: Do not pay the smugglers. Do not pay the coyotes. Do not put yourself in danger. Do not put your children in danger. Because if you make it here, you will not be allowed in; you will be promptly returned home. You will not be released into our country. As long as I am President of the United States, we will enforce our laws and protect our borders.

For all of the countries of the Western Hemisphere, our goal is to help people invest in the bright futures of their own nation. Our region is full of such incredible promise: dreams waiting to be built and national destinies for all. And they are waiting also to be pursued.

Throughout the hemisphere, there are millions of hardworking, patriotic young people eager to build, innovate, and achieve. But these nations cannot reach their potential if a generation of youth abandon their homes in search of a life elsewhere. We want every nation in our region to flourish and its people to thrive in freedom and peace.

In that mission, we are also committed to supporting those people in the Western Hemisphere who live under brutal oppression, such as those in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

According to a recent report from the U.N. Human Rights Council, women in Venezuela stand in line for 10 hours a day waiting for food. Over 15,000 people have been detained as political prisoners. Modern-day death squads are carrying out thousands of extrajudicial killings.

The dictator Maduro is a Cuban puppet, protected by Cuban bodyguards, hiding from his own people while Cuba plunders Venezuela’s oil wealth to sustain its own corrupt communist rule.

Since I last spoke in this hall, the United States and our partners have built a historic coalition of 55 countries that recognize the legitimate government of Venezuela.

To the Venezuelans trapped in this nightmare: Please know that all of America is united behind you. The United States has vast quantities of humanitarian aid ready and waiting to be delivered. We are watching the Venezuela situation very closely. We await the day when democracy will be restored, when Venezuela will be free, and when liberty will prevail throughout this hemisphere.

One of the most serious challenges our countries face is the specter of socialism. It’s the wrecker of nations and destroyer of societies.

Events in Venezuela remind us all that socialism and communism are not about justice, they are not about equality, they are not about lifting up the poor, and they are certainly not about the good of the nation. Socialism and communism are about one thing only: power for the ruling class.

Today, I repeat a message for the world that I have delivered at home: America will never be a socialist country.

In the last century, socialism and communism killed 100 million people. Sadly, as we see in Venezuela, the death toll continues in this country. These totalitarian ideologies, combined with modern technology, have the power to excise [exercise] new and disturbing forms of suppression and domination.

For this reason, the United States is taking steps to better screen foreign technology and investments and to protect our data and our security. We urge every nation present to do the same.

Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected, both abroad and from within. We must always be skeptical of those who want conformity and control. Even in free nations, we see alarming signs and new challenges to liberty.

A small number of social media platforms are acquiring immense power over what we can see and over what we are allowed to say. A permanent political class is openly disdainful, dismissive, and defiant of the will of the people. A faceless bureaucracy operates in secret and weakens democratic rule. Media and academic institutions push flat-out assaults on our histories, traditions, and values.

In the United States, my administration has made clear to social media companies that we will uphold the right of free speech. A free society cannot allow social media giants to silence the voices of the people, and a free people must never, ever be enlisted in the cause of silencing, coercing, canceling, or blacklisting their own neighbors.

As we defend American values, we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity. For this reason, my administration is working with other nations to stop criminalizing of homosexuality, and we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people who live in countries that punish, jail, or execute individuals based upon sexual orientation.

We are also championing the role of women in our societies. Nations that empower women are much wealthier, safer, and much more politically stable. It is therefore vital not only to a nation’s prosperity, but also is vital to its national security, to pursue women’s economic development.

Guided by these principles, my administration launched the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiatives. The W-GDP is first-ever government-wide approach to women’s economic empowerment, working to ensure that women all over the planet have the legal right to own and inherit property, work in the same industries as men, travel freely, and access credit and institutions.

Yesterday, I was also pleased to host leaders for a discussion about an ironclad American commitment: protecting religious leaders and also protecting religious freedom.

This fundamental right is under growing threat around the world. Hard to believe, but 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where religious liberty is in significant danger or even completely outlawed. Americans will never fire or tire in our effort to defend and promote freedom of worship and religion. We want and support religious liberty for all.

Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life. We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life. Like many nations here today, we in America believe that every child — born and unborn — is a sacred gift from God.

There is no circumstance under which the United States will allow international entries [entities] to trample on the rights of our citizens, including the right to self-defense. That is why, this year, I announced that we will never ratify the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which would threaten the liberties of law-abiding American citizens. The United States will always uphold our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We will always uphold our Second Amendment.

The core rights and values America defends today were inscribed in America’s founding documents. Our nation’s Founders understood that there will always be those who believe they are entitled to wield power and control over others. Tyranny advances under many names and many theories, but it always comes down to the desire for domination. It protects not the interests of many, but the privilege of few.

Our Founders gave us a system designed to restrain this dangerous impulse. They chose to entrust American power to those most invested in the fate of our nation: a proud and fiercely independent people.

The true good of a nation can only be pursued by those who love it: by citizens who are rooted in its history, who are nourished by its culture, committed to its values, attached to its people, and who know that its future is theirs to build or theirs to lose. Patriots see a nation and its destiny in ways no one else can.

Liberty is only preserved, sovereignty is only secured, democracy is only sustained, greatness is only realized, by the will and devotion of patriots. In their spirit is found the strength to resist oppression, the inspiration to forge legacy, the goodwill to seek friendship, and the bravery to reach for peace. Love of our nations makes the world better for all nations.

So to all the leaders here today, join us in the most fulfilling mission a person could have, the most profound contribution anyone can make: Lift up your nations. Cherish your culture. Honor your histories. Treasure your citizens. Make your countries strong, and prosperous, and righteous. Honor the dignity of your people, and nothing will be outside of your reach.

When our nations are greater, the future will be brighter, our people will be happier, and our partnerships will be stronger.

With God’s help, together we will cast off the enemies of liberty and overcome the oppressors of dignity. We will set new standards of living and reach new heights of human achievement. We will rediscover old truths, unravel old mysteries, and make thrilling new breakthroughs. And we will find more beautiful friendship and more harmony among nations than ever before.

My fellow leaders, the path to peace and progress, and freedom and justice, and a better world for all humanity, begins at home.

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the nations of the world. And God bless America. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

END

10:49 A.M. EDT

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tmmsradio-blog · 5 years

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Even with 56% saying, never voting for him again, Trump criticizes bipartisan border deal! | Via wapo.com

“I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled,” the president said. By Erica Werner , Sean Sullivan , Damian Paletta and John Wagner February 12 at 2:37 PM President Trump said Tuesday he’s not happy with a bipartisan border deal in Congress aimed at averting another government shutdown, but he suggested he could add to it to build his U.S.-Mexico border wall and predicted there will not be another lapse in government funding. “Am I happy at first glance? The answer is no, I’m not, I’m not happy,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he met with Cabinet members. “It’s not going to do the trick, but I’m adding things to it and when you add whatever I have to add, it’s all going to happen where we’re going to build a beautiful big strong wall,” Trump said. A number of Senate Republicans were cognizant of Trump’s uneasiness with the deal, but they also noted that he had stopped short of saying it was unacceptable. Trump spoke with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about the deal midday Tuesday, a person briefed on the call said, though the precise contents of the conversation could not be learned. Speaking to reporters after a closed-door GOP lunch, top Republicans cast the bill with over $1.3 billion for barriers as a down payment on Trump’s wall. “I’m hoping he will find this acceptable and sign the bill,” said McConnell. Sen. Capito ‘hopeful’ Trump will sign bipartisan border security deal Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said Feb. 12 that the bipartisan agreement to avoid another government shutdown is now in the hands of President Trump. (Rhonda Colvin/The Washington Post) Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) implored Trump to back the legislation. “Please Mr. President, nobody got everything they wanted in this bill but sign it and don’t cause a shutdown,” Schumer told reporters. Trump’s comments came a day after bipartisan negotiators struck a deal that would give him a fraction of the money he’s sought to build his wall, the issue that led to the record-long partial government shutdown that ended late last month. Lawmakers and Trump face a deadline Friday at midnight to pass new spending legislation to avert another shutdown. Trump said he did not want and would not accept another government shutdown, although he defended the one he already had. “I don’t think you’re going to see a shutdown. I wouldn’t want to see a shutdown. If you did have it, it’s the Democrats fault,” Trump said. “And I accepted the first one, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished because people learned during that shutdown all about the problems coming in from the southern border. I accept it. I’ve always accepted it. But this one, I would never accept it if it happens.” The bipartisan agreement announced late Monday by the top four leaders of Congress’ spending committees includes $1.375 billion for 55 miles of new fences along the border, short of the $5.7 billion Trump had sought for more than 200 miles of walls. It retreats from Democrats’ demands for stringent new limits on the ability of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to detain undocumented immigrants. Trump did not make clear by what he meant by suggesting he could add to a deal passed by Congress, but one option White House officials have strongly considered is to accept the money Congress appropriates for new wall funds, and then take additional steps using executive action to redirect billions of additional dollars. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said last week that he had already identified substantially more than $5.7 billion in other taxpayer-funded programs that could legally be reappropriated for building a wall. He didn’t identify what those programs were, however, and White House officials have acknowledged that any such step could invite a legal challenge. Conservatives have been attacking the deal reached on Capitol Hill, leading to concerns that a backlash from the right could derail it. But Trump’s remarks suggested the president might end up accepting it, if only grudgingly. GOP leaders are desperate to avoid another shutdown, after the last one forced 800,000 federal workers to go without pay for more than a month and cut into an array of crucial services from airport screenings to food safety inspections. Polls suggest the public blaming Trump more than Democrats for the shutdown. The shutdown ended when Trujmp reopened the government with a short-term spending bill that provided no new wall money but gave Congress three weeks to come up with a deal. That deadline arrives Friday night. Lawmakers pulled the deal together during hours of arduous negotiations at the Capitol Monday, after talks had collapsed over the weekend over the new Democratic demands over how many immigrants ICE can contain. But conservatives said the compromise fails to fulfill Trump’s promises. “No Republican should support this border deal charade,” conservative media host Laura Ingraham wrote Tuesday morning in a Twitter post. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter wrote on Twitter: “Trump talks a good game on the border wall but it’s increasingly clear he’s afraid to fight for it. Call this his ‘Yellow New Deal.’” In past negotiations, a conservative backlash has forced Trump into retreat. But McConnell welcomed the deal Tuesday, suggesting Democrats had backed down. “I look forward to reviewing the full text as soon as possible and hope the Senate can act on this legislation in short order,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. The president also renewed his threat of declaring a national emergency to circumvent Congress and use the military to build the wall, saying, “I’m considering everything.” Lawmakers of both parties oppose a national emergency declaration, and Senate Republicans fear they might have to vote on it in a vote that could embarrass the president. The deal reached Monday omits a strict new cap Democrats had sought on immigrants detained within the United States — as opposed to at the border. At the same time, it sets funding for the average number of detention beds maintained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at 45,274 beds, an increase from levels funded in the 2018 budget. Funding for detention beds had emerged as a flash point in the negotiations, since it has become a priority issue for both parties. Democrats aim to limit the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement activities, while Republicans are working to support or expand them. The two parties offered different spin on the outcome, with Democrats claiming that, because ICE now regularly exceeds the bed funding limits, the deal will result in a decrease. Republicans say ICE will have the authorities needed to maintain and increase existing detention levels. And even as conservative lawmakers and groups criticized the deal, immigrant advocacy groups also began to attack it Tuesday. Mary Small, policy director at Detention Watch Network, called the deal “an embarrassing defeat for Trump.” But she also said the agreement “makes morally wrong and deeply harmful concessions.” “In particular, this deal actual increases funding available for immigration detention by about 5,000 people per day, helping to grow the machinery of deportation and further heighten the risk faced by immigrant communities across the country,” Small said. Negotiators said that, with the president’s assent, there would be time for the legislation to pass the House and Senate and be signed ahead of the Friday midnight deadline when large portions of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, will run out of funding and begin to shut down. The deal would fund all government operations through the end of September, removing any more shutdown threats for the remainder of the fiscal year. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said he was not surprised by some of the resistance to the plan on the hard-right wing of the GOP. “I think it’s probably never going to be good enough for a lot of the folks out there,” said Thune, who is McConnell’s top Source: Trump criticizes bipartisan border deal but predicts there won’t be another shutdown Read the full article

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tfloosh · 7 years

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Hazardous

Look @thewhitegoddesshylia! I finished it!

Okay but this is long, like 7134 words long. But it’s 7134 words of vigilante!TP Zelda flirting with jewel theif!TP Link, and I’m so proud of it. Enjoy Zelink lovers!

For Zelda Harkinian, discovering that her parents had kept a secret lair hidden deep in the mountain their estate sat on was one thing. Finding out from her old nanny turned housekeeper that they had been planning to take to the streets as vigilantes before the plane crash had been a whole ‘nother jar of marbles.

At first, she had been a little offended that her parents hadn’t included her in their secret plans. She was an amazing gymnast thanks to years of lessons when she was younger, and she was fairly proficient at martial arts since her parents had insisted she learn to defend herself at a young age. Impa had assured her that her parents intended to include her in their vigilantism once they deemed it safe enough, but Zelda was still irrationally angry. She had every right to be, she told herself. They left their billion dollar company to their twenty-two year old daughter who barely had her bachelor’s in business under her belt, kept this potentially life altering secret from her for two years according to Impa, and they had left her. She was still young, still at the beginning of her life; how was she going to make it without them?

After about a week of crying, attending boring board meetings to make her new position as CEO of the Harkinian Corporation official, and releasing her tension via punching bags, Zelda boldly declared to Impa that she would follow her parents’ footsteps and become a vigilante. She spent the next two weeks after modifying her mother’s intended costume and adding some of the gold accents from her father’s. Her parents had apparently already raided Harkinian Corp.’s technology division for toys and goodies, so Zelda didn’t have to worry there. There were grappling guns, various stunning devices, smoke bombs for a quick getaway, several nonlethal weapons, hacking devices, and even a state of the art detective’s kit filled with a fingerprint duster, tracking devices, bugging equipment, and evidence bags. Zelda left the detective kit behind for her first outing; she would work up to solving crimes, she figured.

Filling her gold utility belt with everything she deemed useful, Zelda donned her outfit and readied herself for her first adventure as the Loftwing, named after the mythical birds that protected Hylians in ancient times. It took her about an hour of jumping around buildings to get used to gliding with her cape, another hour of practicing to actually land gracefully, and then a solid three hours of waiting to catch two muggers and one drug dealer. All in all, Zelda felt pretty good about her first night out. It was exhilarating. A happiness she never thought she’d feel again after losing her parents had filled her. It was as if her parents were there with her, encouraging her, lending their spirits.

It didn’t take Zelda long to get addicted. Soon she was out every single night searching for bad guys and stopping crimes. Of course the police eventually caught on to her actions and branded her a public menace, but they quickly changed their tune when Loftwing ended up being the only person who could subdue the rampaging meta-human (‘cause what else do you call a guy who could turn into a wild boar at will) that attacked downtown Kakariko about two months after Zelda became the Loftwing.

After bringing the meta-human in, Loftwing’s public image became overwhelmingly positive, despite the grumblings of some older police captains and city councilmen. The newspapers had branded her Kakariko’s Golden Girl, and the mayor had even held a clichéd ceremony to give her a key to the city.

Life had been a fairly simple balance of signing important documents, attending board meetings, and patrolling nightly. That is until he came along.

Zelda had been about to turn in early from a rather uneventful night patrolling Kakariko when her scanners picked up an alarm going off at the Goron Jewel Refinery. An interesting target since most of the ore there was essentially worthless hunks of rock, but Zelda figured she should check it out anyway. It was easy enough to sneak in (something she would have to talk to the Gorons about), but the refinery seemed deserted. She carefully made her way to the room where the alarm was set off. The only thing noticeably different about the empty room was an open window a little too high for any normally motivated criminal. Whoever the thief was, they came here with a purpose.

Zelda continued to search nearby areas in the refinery. An outline of the building she had pulled up told her the storage room wasn’t too far; she headed in that direction. She opened the door and was instantly blinded by the bright fluorescent lights. It took a moment for the lenses in her domino mask to adjust, but by then the element of surprise was gone.

“You took longer than I expected, Loftwing,” a smooth, masculine voice called.

Zelda’s head whipped around, just in time for her to raise her arms and block the kick headed her way.

“You know this isn’t the best place to go jewel shopping,” Zelda grunted as she responded with a couple of punches and a kick of her own.

“Now who said I was shopping for jewels?” the man laughed as he disengaged her attack.

Zelda finally got a good look at the thief. He was slightly taller than her with wind swept, dark blonde hair and blue and red lines painted across his forehead and cheeks. His eyes were only white voids behind his mask, but his smirk was wide and cocky.

“We are in a jewel refinery,” Zelda raised an eyebrow. “Unless you really think you can make off with some of this machinery without being noticed.”

The thief simply laughed, “There technically aren’t any jewels here, only ore.”

“That’s not the best thing to make a ring out of,” Zelda quipped as she charged him to trade another round of blows.

“Never thought you’d be one for sarcastic comments, Loftwing,” the thief grabbed ahold of her leg as she spun to kick him. Zelda couldn’t break his hold, so she was stuck with her leg trapped against his shoulder. A mischievous smile spread over the thief’s face as he yanked her leg higher, causing Zelda to lose her balance and practically fall on him. Her hands fell to his shoulders, their faces inches apart, and she essentially stretched into a split against his body.

His grin darkened dangerously as he glanced down, “Flexible, nice.”

Zelda wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled with all her body weight to bring him to the ground, “You could at least try and stay professional, you pervert.”

“I prefer Shadow, if you don’t mind,” Shadow quickly broke out of her hold and both scrambled to get to their feet. “And you’ve kept me here longer than I intended, beautiful.” He swiftly dropped and swept his leg out to knock Zelda’s legs out from under her.

He ran over to where he left his bag of stolen ore, and gave her a cocky wink before declaring, “Catch you later, Loftwing.” He scrambled out of one of the storage room windows and disappeared into the night.

Zelda was still riling ten minutes later when the police finally showed up. She gave them a description of the thief and what he took along with his chosen codename of ‘Shadow’ before declaring she wouldn’t let him get away next time.

She took the next day off from work to train with Impa so she would be prepared for her next meeting with Shadow. She researched the type of ore Shadow had stolen and what it could be used for. She even looked up the markings that had been painted on his face to see if that would give her a clue to who Shadow was or where he came from.

And so Zelda waited. She kept an eye out for suspicious robberies and was always the first to respond to jewelry store break-ins for ten days before she met Shadow again.

It was at the Kakariko Natural History Museum. Zelda had chased Shadow from the Minerals of the Earth section up two floors and across the building to the History of the Sheikah Tribe exhibit.

“This is quite refreshing,” Shadow’s voice seemed to bounce off the walls, and Zelda couldn’t pinpoint his location in the exhibit. No wonder he gave himself the codename ‘Shadow.’ “Usually I’m the one chasing after girls.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Zelda called to the semidarkness. “I’m really only after those jewels you stole. Gonna add them to your collection of ore?”

“Trying to get me to reveal my evil master plan?” Shadow tutted. “Now that just won’t do, Loftwing.”

“As if a petty jewel thief would have any master plans,” Zelda taunted. She was so close to finding him. She just needed to keep him talking.

“Oh Loftwing, you wound me,” Shadow sighed dramatically. “You really only see me as a petty jewel thief?”

“I also see you as quite the arrogant ass if that helps,” Zelda smiled triumphantly as she rounded a corner to see Shadow with his back to her crouching behind a display. But it seemed the jewel thief was impossible to sneak up on. Shadow quickly turned to intercept Zelda as she ran toward him.

“I’m only an arrogant ass for you, beautiful,” he smirked as they sparred amongst the displays.

Shadow soon found her weakness; she was lessening the strength of her attacks to prevent damage to the exhibit, but it hindered her maneuverability substantially. So with a simple move that Zelda wouldn’t block for fear of breaking the display glass and harming the artifact within, Shadow had Zelda trapped face-first against the glass with her arms forced behind her.

“What’s your name?” he whispered into her ear.

Zelda answered with an attempt to kick his legs.

Shadow merely chuckled lowly, “Come on, beautiful. I only want to know your real name.”

“Like I would tell you,” Zelda said with as much acid as she could muster.

“Do you want to know why I led you here?” Shadow leaned down to rest his chin against her shoulder. Even with the pain in her arms, Zelda couldn’t help but notice how much of Shadow’s body was pressed up against her.

“It’s so we would be far enough away from the Minerals section to be undisturbed by the cops.”

Zelda gasped realizing he was right; the police would never come to this part of the museum when the crime occurred two floors below them.

“So we have all night alone,” his lips grazed her neck, and suddenly Zelda couldn’t breathe.

“Sheik,” she said, twisting her neck so he would no longer have access. “My name is Sheik.”

“Interesting name,” Shadow hummed. “Also the name of the ancient Sheikan warrior who protected the tribe during the Great War, so you’ll understand if I don’t believe you seeing as you’re trapped against a display describing his heroics.”

“Her,” Zelda panted, feeling far too hot with Shadow’s mouth so close to her skin. “Sheik was a woman.”

“Really?” his grip on her wrists slackened just a little. “You believe those old wives’ tales that Sheik was actually a woman?”

Zelda quickly broke his hold, flipping around and swiftly grabbing his wrists to stop his movement.

“Any intellectual who has actually spoken to a descendant of the Sheikah would know that Sheik was indeed a woman. A very badass woman, too.”

“Much like yourself, I presume,” Shadow flashed her a dazzling smile, but Zelda was ready this time.

“No more flirting for you, mister,” she dug out some industrial grade, nylon rope from her utility belt and tied his hands together. “Now are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to drag you straight to the police?”

“Will you let me go if I answer your questions?” Shadow countered.

“Of course not,” Zelda scoffed.

“Then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse, beautiful.”

Zelda didn’t like the smug grin that rested on his face. He had something up his sleeve, and she didn’t want to wait long enough for him to pull any tricks.

“I’m taking you down to the police,” she declared. But as she reached over to grab his wrists, Shadow hit her with a round house kick. Zelda fell backwards, hitting the back of her head against the display glass behind her. Her vision swirled. She looked up to see the hazy outline of Shadow waltzing toward her.

“I don’t have the time to waste breaking out of a cell, but it was a nice try,” he leaned down in front of her, but Zelda couldn’t make her limbs move to swipe at him. “I’ll just have to catch you later, beautiful.”

There was a slight pressure against the top of her head, and Zelda’s vision went black.

She was awoken by the police thirty minutes later. The detective on duty wanted to arrest her for trespassing, but once the security footage confirmed her story of fighting Shadow to regain the stolen gems, the detective reluctantly let her go free.

Impa checked her out once she got home. She wanted to call in sick to work again, but Impa advised her against it, stating that people might see notice a pattern if she doesn’t show up to work the day after every encounter Loftwing had with Shadow. So with no concussion to actually prevent her from going to Harkinian Corp. in the morning, Zelda reluctantly got up after three hours of sleep and dressed for work.

But Zelda could not keep her mind off Shadow. What were his plans? What was his motive? Where would he pop up next? Zelda was so consumed in her thoughts that she zoned out during two meetings with potential investors and had to continually ask her assistant to repeat herself whenever she was telling Zelda something.

Despite her exhaustion when she returned to the estate that evening, Zelda went straight to the secret lair to train with Impa.

“I think this constant vigilantism is causing you too much stress, Miss Zelda,” Impa said after their two hour work out. “It would be prudent for you to take a break.”

“Crime doesn’t take a break, Impa,” Zelda replied after she drank some water. “Besides, I can’t miss Shadow if he decides to rob another place.”

“Your desire to apprehend Shadow is clouding your judgement,” Impa fixed her with a stern look.

“Someone has to bring him in,” Zelda relied. “And the police certainly aren’t going to be able to do it.”

And so Impa reluctantly let Zelda go out on patrol, but only after getting her to promise that she would come in two hours earlier than she normally would.

Zelda hopped from building to building, making up her route as she went. Impa was right. Over the past two weeks or so, she had let Shadow consume her life outside of Loftwing, and she hadn’t even notice it happening. Was it because he was the first adversary she had come across that she couldn’t beat? Or could it be his cocky attitude? The way he was always incessantly flirting and how handsome he looked while fighting?

Woah, did she really just think Shadow was handsome? Where did that come from?

But before she could examine her strange thought train derailment, the police scanner on her communications unit reported a robbery at a jewelry store. Shadow was back to work quicker than she thought. Zelda made her way to the jewelry store, intent on paying him back for knocking her out last night.

She arrived at the jewelry store just as smoke started leaking out of the busted door, and Shadow was sneaking out via the roof. She followed him at a distance, hoping he would lead her to whatever hideout he probably used in the city. It was going well for about three blocks, and then he jumped over a fire escape, and she lost him. She walked to the edge of the building to see if he was down in the alley still running, but he was nowhere in sight.

“Yo! Loftwing!”

Or not.

Zelda turned around to see Shadow smiling mockingly at her. He gave her a tiny wave.

“I’m actually pretty glad you followed me away from the police. You see, I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Shadow thrust an accusatory finger in her direction, his smile furrowing into a frown. “Why the hell did you have to tie me up in industrial grade rope, huh? I couldn’t get it off myself and had to ask my neighbor to untie me, and do you want to know what I had to wind up telling her as an excuse? That my girlfriend left me high and dry while we were playing at bondage!”

Zelda snorted before collapsing in giggles. She had no idea what she had been expecting Shadow to say, but it definitely wasn’t that.

“And the worst part is,” Shadow continued ranting. “She gave me this knowing smile like it was a hundred percent viable excuse. I don’t even have a girlfriend, man!”

Zelda couldn’t stop laughing. Her knees already felt weak, and her cheeks were beginning to hurt from smiling. She let Shadow continue to rant for five minutes before she held up a hand to stop him.

“Oh my Goddess,” she breathed deeply to try and stop the laughter that was still bubbling up. “You’re serious, aren’t you? That’s probably the best thing I’ve heard in my entire life.”

“I’m glad my embarrassing life stories amuse you,” Shadow griped.

Zelda rolled her eyes, her smile refusing to fall from her face just yet, “You’re the one who turned around just to tell me this story.”

“So you would feel guilty,” Shadow crossed his arms defiantly like a pouty child. “Not so you would laugh at me.”

“Then your story shouldn’t have been funny,” Zelda retorted with a smirk.

“I demand compensation,” Shadow grinned slyly. “Tell me your name, and I’ll consider us even.”

“So that’s your angle,” Zelda’s smile fell. There went the light mood. She stalked over to Shadow and rather violently prodded him in the chest with her finger.

“First of all, you are a criminal. The fact that I tied you up does not deserve compensation of any sort. Secondly, my name would absolutely not be equal compensation for tying you up. And most importantly, I will never tell you my name.”

Shadow laced a frown over his features and rubbed the spot Zelda had poked, “I’m hurt, Loftwing. I thought we had a real connection, one that could develop into something more.”

“Really?” Zelda couldn’t resist a weak jab at his chest that he easily blocked. “You could have fooled me with the way you knocked me out last night. You know the detective on duty wanted to arrest me for trespassing? Not cool, Shadow.” She threw another punch with a little more power behind it.

Shadow dodged with a laugh, “So are we going to fight over who had the worst night yesterday? ‘Cause I really think my story is totally worse.” He retaliated with a simple right hook Zelda easily blocked.

“Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?” Zelda asked as she aimed a kick to Shadow’ stomach.

“Never, beautiful,” he laughed as they exchanged a few more blows. “It’s just a part of my charm.”

“I thought that was what the flirting was for,” Zelda snapped. Her punches were backed with more power, and Shadow actually grunted when one landed on his side.

“Awe, Loftwing,” he cooed in a way that would have been annoying if Zelda hadn’t interrupted him with a punch in the gut. “You aren’t jealous, are you? Come on, beautiful; you know I don’t flirt with anyone else when I try to escape. Not even the really cute cops, I promise.”

“Jealousy would imply actual feelings,” Zelda grunted as Shadow threw a particularly powerful punch her way. “And I don’t have any feelings for you.” A weird, twisty, churning feeling that had nothing to do with Shadow’s latest kick bloomed in her gut.

“That just means I have to try harder to wear you down,” Shadow chuckled. Zelda could swear he winked at her behind his mask.

“Oh that’s what we’re calling it now?” Zelda huffed as she sent another barrage of kicks at Shadow.

He blocked the kicks then swiftly wrapped his arm around Zelda’s waist and pulled her close to him.

“Why don’t we make this dance more literal?” he wiggled his eyebrows.

Zelda began to protest, but her hands were pressed against Shadow’s belt, or more specifically, the bag of stolen jewels clipped to his belt.

“If you want to dance with me,” Zelda whispered in the sultry voice she used on guys in college before she slapped them for being handsy. “You’ll have to score an invite to one of my parties.”

“So you throw parties?” Shadow chuckled. “And so the mystery grows.”

“Parties, galas, the occasional work dinner,” Zelda leaned in a touch closer. “But it’ll take more than that for you to see me without my mask.”

“Just wait until I sneak into one of your parties, beautiful,” Shadow winked behind his mask before pulling away from Zelda and back flipping off the building.

But Zelda didn’t feel the need to pursue, not with the bag of jewels in her hands.

The next day, Zelda was bubbly and smiling at everyone. She didn’t realize she was acting differently until her secretary asked her if she was alright.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Zelda smiled. “Just happy for no meetings today.”

“Well you do have a couple of small meetings, Miss,” her secretary smiled. “Just a lunch meeting with the president of the Kakariko State University Future Business Leader’s Association to talk about some internship possibilities for Association members, and then at two you have a meeting with the director of the Kakariko Humane Society to talk about their latest fundraising dinner.”

“See but those are easy meetings,” Zelda nodded as she took a sip of her coffee.

The young and peppy president of the Kakariko State University Future Business Leader’s Association nearly talked Zelda to death, and Zelda somehow agreed to come speak at their next meeting before she even knew what was happening.

And the director of the Kakariko Humane Society was really cute, so Zelda felt the need to buy an entire table for his fundraising dinner next week. She could guilt trip her board members into going with her if her friends couldn’t make it.

Needless to say, Zelda was in a pretty happy mood for patrol as Loftwing that night. She managed to finally get one of the drug dealers to reveal their source and stopped three robberies. She was just about to head in for the night when, surprise, surprise, Shadow dropped down in front of her with that Cheshire grin across his face.

“Have I told you, you have a beautiful smile?” he asked.

Zelda eyed him suspiciously, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well you do,” his smiled widened.

“Is there something you need, Shadow?”

“Oh, no not really,” his grin somehow widened even more. “I just wanted to see the famous Loftwing in her downtime.”

“I’m patrolling,” Zelda rolled her eyes. “This isn’t downtime.” She ran toward the edge of the building and jumped to the neighboring roof. But that wasn’t enough to shake her Shadow.

“You’re not fighting off criminals; that’s downtime enough for me,” he smirked as he landed gracefully next to her. He grabbed her by the arm to stop her from running off again.

“Well, don’t blame me if you get left behind then,” Zelda scowled. She shook off his hold and took off running as fast as she could, intent on losing Shadow in the jungle gym that was the skyline of Kakariko.

She circled around downtown and climbed the flag pole on the top of the courthouse dome.

“Is that the best you can do, beautiful?” Shadow called above the wind from the base of the flagpole.

“Are you issuing a challenge?”

“Only if you’re willing to participate,” Shadow smirked. “For a prize of course.”

Zelda slid down the flagpole, “I might be game, as long as the prize isn’t my name.”

“How about a kiss then?” Shadow raised an eyebrow. His expression was playful and teasing; Zelda couldn’t tell if he was entirely serious or not. It was a harmless bet. She would just have to win, and then it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Deal.”

Shadow’s smile spread to a full on shit-eating grin, “How about we name check points to meet up at. Whoever gets there first gets a point. Whoever had the most points at the end of the night wins.”

“Who gets to decide what the checkpoints are?” Zelda asked.

“We can switch off to make it fair.”

Zelda felt her adrenaline rising. The anticipation, the race, it was making her feel giddy in a way she hadn’t felt since she first donned her cape as Loftwing.

“So where to first?” she asked, already bouncing on her heels.

“Lady’s choice,” Shadow leaned in close enough that their noses almost touched.

Zelda surprised herself by not pulling away, “The old windmill on the edge of town.”

She sent Shadow a wink then leapt of the courthouse dome into the open air. She effortlessly glided down to an office building across the street then started to make her way to the old abandoned windmill she had set as the checkpoint. History books say it had drawn water for Kakariko when it was still but a small village, and really if it weren’t such an important historical landmark, the city would have torn it down years ago. Zelda made it there in good time and counted to sixty before Shadow landed behind her.

“One point for you, beautiful,” Shadow smirked. “Enjoy your lead while you can.”

“Where to next, Shadow?” Zelda attempted to roll her eyes but found she couldn’t thanks to the smile spreading across her cheeks.

“The Temple by the graveyard,” Shadow declared. “Not the super old, creepy one at the back. The top of the steeple at the Temple in the front. Our Ladies of Something and Someother.”

“It’s Hope and Love,” Zelda corrected, but Shadow was already off.

She quickly grappled to the nearest tall building in order to catch up to him. Zelda had never felt this alive in her life. She was almost glad Shadow had come to her tonight and proposed this game. She hadn’t had this much fun since before her parents died.

She climbed up the steeple of the Temple of Our Ladies of Hope and Love. Zelda was rarely on this side of town; there wasn’t enough crime to warrant frequent patrolling of the area.

“Nice of you to drop by,” Shadow suddenly dropped down beside her. “I only got here half a minute before you, so don’t worry. You didn’t lose by much.”

“I won’t be losing anymore, Shadow,” Zelda smirked. “Next checkpoint is the top of Old Main on Kakariko State’s campus. Know where it is?”

“I might have toured the campus once or twice or seven times while in grade school,” Shadow sneered. “You won’t be winning this round, Loftwing.”

“Then prove me wrong, handsome,” Zelda laughed as she jumped off the Temple steeple to glide to a building across the street.

She didn’t realize what she had said to Shadow until she was half way to Kakariko State University’s campus. Zelda almost stopped dead in her tracks. She called Shadow ‘handsome’ to his face. How could she have said such a thing? He was never going to let that go; Shadow was going to bring that up every time they ran into each other from now until eternity. She couldn’t face him again. But she also couldn’t lose this bet. She would just have to play it off, Zelda decided, pretend she said it to throw him off and give herself a lead.

But does that mean she actually meant it?

Her mind was still jumbled when she arrived at the roof of Old Main, Kakariko State’s academic building. No matter how thoroughly she thought it through, Zelda could not convince herself that she didn’t think Shadow was handsome.

“There you are,” Shadow called from the ledge of the dome that sat atop Old Main. “You sure took you time getting here.”

“Looks like my trick didn’t work,” Zelda fake-sighed. “Me calling you ‘handsome’ didn’t slow you down at all, did it?”

“Not in the slightest,” he slipped from the ledge he was sitting on and made his way over to where Zelda was standing. “But it did seem to trip you up.” Shadow slowly invaded her personal space with a smirk across his lips, but Zelda refused to step back. “Didn’t it, beautiful?”

He reached for a stray strand of brunette hair that was hovering in front of Zelda’s face and gently tucked it behind her ear. His fingers grazed the edge of her domino mask, and suddenly that out of breath feeling hit Zelda again. She stumbled backward, turning away from Shadow against her crime-fighting instincts.

“Where,” she began, but she had to take a deep breath before continuing. “Where to next?”

“The top of Harkinia Corp.’s headquarters,” Shadow said. Zelda knew he could clearly see the shock in her face. “What? Scared the tallest building in the city might have too romantic a view, Loftwing?”

“No,” she practically growled. “I’ll beat you there no matter what.”

“You better,” Shadow called keeping right behind her as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop to exit Kakariko State’s campus. “Otherwise I’ll start to think you’re losing this bet on purpose.”

His laughter still echoed in her ears even as she pulled away from him and made her way across the city to her own office building. She did so almost mindlessly; Harkinian Corp.’s tower was always her halfway point on patrols. She was sure she would beat Shadow there. And then she was going to punch him for the little stunt he pulled on the roof of Old Main. And maybe she would punch him again if he tried to pull anything else on the roof of Harkinian Corp. ‘Too romantic a view’ her ass.

Zelda was so caught up in her thoughts, that she didn’t notice Shadow in front of her until she was two blocks away from Harkinian Corp. Dammit. Letting Shadow get to the top of the skyscraper first was not an option. Zelda picked up her speed, pushing her grappling gun to its limits in order to hop from roof to roof quicker. But it wasn’t enough. She was seconds away from touching down on the roof of Harkinian Corp. when she saw Shadow saunter onto the rooftop. Zelda felt like screaming as she landed on the concrete roof.

“So close,” Shadow laughed as he traipsed over toward her. “Yet so far.”

Zelda shot menacing daggers from her eyes before she remembered Shadow couldn’t actually see her eyes behind her domino mask.

“I guess I should just show mercy on you and take my prize now,” he smirked. “Unless you wish to continue.”

“Ah, yes,” Zelda said harshly. She stalked toward him, meeting him halfway across the roof, and stopping close enough to make him lean back slightly. “Why don’t we make our next checkpoint the roof of Precinct 1? I’m sure the cops would just love you voluntarily landing on their building.”

“I think I’ll pass on that one,” Shadow clearly rolled his eyes even though Zelda couldn’t see it. “Let’s just call an end to our game, hmm? I won’t even kiss you if that’s what’s bothering you so much.”

Zelda narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Shadow. If she called off the bet with no kiss, Shadow would turn her words back on her claiming she had feelings for him, which she absolutely did not. But if she just gave in and let him have his kiss, well… she’d be giving in and letting him have his kiss. It was a lose, lose situation, and Zelda couldn’t see a way out of it at all.

“That’s not what’s bothering me,” she scoffed to buy herself some time to think. Then Zelda heard the distance wailing of sirens on the street far below them. That was strange; her emergency signal tracker hadn’t picked anything up. Her emergency signal tracker hadn’t picked anything up. She quickly examined her gauntlets where the communications unit was located.

“All of my comms are shut off,” Zelda whispered. How could she have not noticed until now?

“Loftwing?” Shadow stepped forward cautiously.

“Did you do this?” Zelda turned to him menacingly. “Did you shut of my comms so I wouldn’t be distracted from your stupid game?”

“No!” he gasped, leaping back as Zelda advanced on him. “I would never, Loftwing; you have my word.”

“Sad thing is, I don’t trust your word,” Zelda lashed out at him angrily. Her movements were sloppy and filled with rage, but she didn’t care. He had the opportunity to shut of her comm system when he grabbed her arm on that very first rooftop they met on. Shadow had prevented her from fulfilling her duty to protect Kakariko, to save peoples’ lives, to honor her parents’ memories.

Zelda froze mid-punch. She was lashing out at Shadow for all the attention she had focus on him and not the rest of her duties, angry at him for being the only criminal so far she had yet to bring in to the police, fighting with him when all he had really done was exist.

“I’m sorry,” she hung her head. She had let anger cloud her judgment; Impa would be disappointed.

Shadow seemed to hesitate for a second before quickly wrapping his arms around her and gently sealing their lips together.

Zelda was not expecting that. It was literally the last thing she thought she would be doing that night. But, damn, if it wasn’t the best kiss she’s had in her life. Not that she would ever tell Shadow that, especially after she decked him with a mean right hook when they separated.

“That was for not asking first,” she growled out. Zelda had to resist the urge to pull him back toward her for another kiss. Wow, where did that come from?

“So if I ask, can I kiss you again?” Shadow’s face lit up into a ridiculous smile.

Zelda was at the edge of the rooftop already. She slowly turned around with a coy smile and laughing eyes hidden behind her mask.

“Only if you ask nicely.”

Three hours later, Zelda was in her bedroom screaming into a pillow.

“I can’t believe I did that,” she howled to an apathetic Impa. “I let him kiss me. And then I told him he could do it again.” She screamed into the pillow again. “What is wrong with me?”

“You are attracted to him,” Impa stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But he’s a thief,” Zelda whined. “He steals precious jewels and ore, and this is bad; it’s hazardous.”

“Are you afraid you are compromised by your feelings?” Impa asked bluntly.

“I know I am, Impa,” Zelda rolled over to look her house keeper in the eye. “I spent practically the half night playing tag with him and barely helping anyone, and then I let him kiss me, and I enjoyed it.”

“But you found out where the suppliers are for all the dealers in the city,” Impa attempted to cheer her up. “Now you can focus on taking that down instead of Shadow.”

“That’s true,” Zelda nodded and rubbed her face. “Time to start investigating.”

Zelda spent the next week working, taking short patrols across Kakariko, and scoping out the drug supplies that were hidden in the mountains. The storehouses were so extensive, Zelda thought she might have to call in the help of the police department. But there wasn’t time for that now. Zelda had a fundraiser to go to.

Zelda put on her favorite dress, the sparkly purple one with the halter top and the slit that was just high enough to be sexy but not high enough to be called slutty. She was meeting a couple of friends from college and a few of the board members she managed to guilt trip into attending at the dinner. When she gracefully exited her car, Zelda was surprised to see the director of the Humane Society waiting for her.

“Miss Harkinian,” he offered his arm to escort her. Dang, he looked good in a tux.

“Call me Zelda, please,” she smiled as she took his arm, and they started walking. “You didn’t have to come escort me, Link.”

He chuckled, “I couldn’t let this evening pass without saying thank you to the largest donor here.” His smile faltered as he realized what he said. “Ah, shit no, I meant you gave the largest donation to the Humane Society, not that you are, like, physically large. You actually look stunning in that dress. Dammit, there went my suave first impression.” Link hung his head after his ramble. Zelda could only laugh.

“No, it’s okay,” Zelda couldn’t stop the small chuckles escaping her lips. “This is better; now we don’t have to be pretentiously formal with each other.”

Link smiled, “If you say so. Shall I show you to your table?”

“Yes, please,” Zelda smiled as their photo was taken. They walked to a table near the front center, and Link pulled out a chair in between Ashei, one of Zelda’s college friends, and one of the stuffy board members of Harkinian Corp.

“Don't be a stranger, Link,” Zelda winked as he left to entertain some more guests.

“You’re sweet on that guy, yeah?” Ashei leaned in close to Zelda and smirked.

“There’s nothing wrong with helping a good cause,” Zelda shrugged, hiding her grin by taking a sip of wine.

The fundraiser was quite the success. Link came back over to talk with Zelda at least three separate times, and he even escorted her out to her car when she left a little early so she could have a short patrol as Loftwing before going to bed.

“Feel free to call me if you ever need anything,” Zelda smiled, hesitating before getting into her car.

“I will,” Link’s eyes sparkled, and damn they were so blue.

“I’ll see you later then,” Zelda couldn’t stop smiling as she slipped into the car.

“Maybe quicker than you think,” he winked before closing the door for her.

“So I take it you had a good time, Miss Zelda?” Impa asked from the driver’s seat.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t comment, Impa,” Zelda tried to snap, but it didn’t sound right with a smile plastered across her face.

Later that night, Zelda was letting out her excitement by twirling across rooftops and flipping excessively when jumping from one place to another. It wasn’t until she heard clapping as she crossed one rooftop that Zelda felt mildly self-conscious of her movements.

“Lovely show,” Shadow called. “When should I expect your name in lights?”

“Give me five years and I’ll take the stage by storm,” Zelda laughed.

“Someone had a good night,” Shadow raised an eyebrow. “Care to share the juicy details?”

“I think the juicy details would only hurt your feelings,” Zelda sighed. “But if you must know, I met a guy.”

“Loftwing,” Shadow gasped, playfully scandalized. “Have you been cheating on me?”

“Oh no,” Zelda smirked. “This guy I actually like.”

Shadow comically threw a hand over his heart, “Now that hurts me deep, Loftwing. How would Link feel about you being so vicious?”

Zelda froze, “I never said his name.”

“Funny thing about Links though,” Shadow chuckled and reached up to his domino mask. “There aren’t all that many in the world.”

Zelda gasped as Shadow took off his domino mask revealing brilliant, blue, familiar eyes.

“You said I could call if I ever needed anything, right?” Link smiled. “Well I have a proposition.”

“How do you know who I am?” Zelda asked, still wary of the thief.

“I wasn’t one hundred percent sure until you reacted to my name,” Link smiled sheepishly. “But it was a silly thing really. When we played tag, you wore the same earrings as Zelda Harkinian when I met her for our meeting earlier that day. And then your smile is pretty unique, uh in a good way. As in it’s really beautiful, and ‘I could recognize that smile everywhere,’ you know?”

“We’re going back to my place,” Zelda declared. She started to stalk off the roof.

“I, uh, you need a ride?” Link called after her.

She turned, “You got one?”

Ten minutes later, Link was driving his motorcycle into the secret lair Zelda had been operating out of under her mountain estate.

He whistled lowly as he turned the engine off, “This is so much nicer than the back room of my shelter.”

“You have a shelter?” Zelda asked as she finally took of her own domino mask.

“Yeah, I own and operate the Kakariko Animal Shelter,” Link said as he stared around the lair. “It’s hilariously underfunded, and I had to take to stealing things from people who totally deserved it by the way so the animals in the shelter could get the proper care they need.”

“So what is this proposition you mentioned earlier?” Zelda stared at him, hands on her hips.

“Well, Shadow wouldn’t need to take to the streets stealing jewels if the KAS was funded by the charitable Zelda Harkinian, who recently found a passion for helping the animals of Kakariko at a recent fundraising dinner.”

“That sounds pretty plausible,” Zelda tilted her head to the side. “What would I get out of it?”

“A partner,” Link’s bravado faded once again. “If you want one, I mean, if you’ll have me.”

“Did you just ask me to be your girlfriend?” she couldn’t resist the tease.

“Only if you’re offering, beautiful,” Link smirked. For once, Zelda could see the mischievous Shadow in Link’s blue eyes.

“We’ll talk,” Zelda conceded. “But I’ll agree to your other conditions. I’ll help fund your animal shelter, and you can be my partner permitted you stop committing crimes.”

“Deal!” Link smiled enthusiastically.

They could hash out the details later, Zelda figured as she took in the huge grin on Link’s face. For right now, she wanted to get to know this lighter side to her Shadow.

#its super long guys #just warning you now #zelink #zelinkweek #zelink week #loz #tp zelink #twilight princess #flooshfics

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

Text

As Economic Toll Mounts, Nation Ponders The Trade-offs…

The White House is discussing easing social-distancing guidelines as early as next week amid a broader debate over how much economic loss the country can bear to save an unknowable number of lives threatened by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump has told people that he wants to reopen the economy as soon as possible but his interest runs counter to the advice of public health experts, including in the administration, who have warned that the guidelines remain necessary

Millions of jobs were lost within days and millions more are projected to vanish as whole industries grind to a halt, streets empty and people hunker down at home to limit the spread of disease. Trillions of dollars are projected to be lost in economic output; trillions have been wiped out in stock-market value; and trillions in government debt will be accumulated in the months ahead to help support households and businesses struggling to pay bills.

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” President Trump said in a tweet Monday morning. He went on to suggest he might dial back a federal push for the nation to practice social distancing for 15 days. “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

The social-distancing guidelines instructed all Americans to avoid nonessential travel, sit-down restaurants and gatherings of more than 10 people, among other steps. An administration official said the White House is discussing targeting the restrictions at vulnerable groups, such as requiring the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions to take greater precautions than younger, healthy people. Such a shift may not happen immediately after the 15-day period ends, the official said, adding that the White House is operating with a “high degree of caution.”

Meanwhile, governors and mayors nationwide have rolled out their own restrictions, shutting schools and many retail businesses.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday acknowledged the trade-offs and defended his administration’s decision to close all nonessential businesses and ban unnecessary gatherings of any size. “I’m very proud of the measures being taken to address the public health crisis. …But, I’m also very aware that it is unsustainable to run this state and run this country with the economy closed down,” he said at a news conference in Albany.

The stakes have rarely been higher for the nation: The risk of death to millions, and the cost of millions of jobs and potential bankruptcies if businesses and households can’t earn cash flow to pay their bills.

Private-sector economists project the toll of the crisis will include 5 million lost jobs and $1.5 trillion in lost economic output. U.S. stocks have already lost $12 trillion in value since mid-February, and globally losses have shredded $26 trillion from investor portfolios. Meanwhile an economic support package is being forged in Congress which economists estimate will double the federal budget deficit to nearly $2 trillion this year and possibly next, too.

At the same time, a widely cited study by Imperial College London warns the U.S. faces 2.2 million deaths from the virus if it does nothing to stop its spread.

The Senate fails to reach an agreement on a $1.3 trillion rescue package, Japan’s Prime Minister says the Tokyo 2020 Games could be postponed, and global markets look set for another turbulent week. WSJ’s Jason Bellini has the latest on the pandemic. Photo: Victor J. Blue/Getty Images

Lawrence Summers, a Harvard economics professor and former U.S. Treasury Secretary, said much of this economic toll would be hitting the U.S. even without government-mandated restrictions. Fears of contagion would likely be driving people on their own to avoid restaurants, airplanes and ballparks, even without government mandates, such as mandates in New York and California that people stay home.

“A large part of the dislocation is caused by the coronavirus and not by the policy response caused by the coronavirus,” Mr. Summers said. “I don’t think we need to turn this into a dollars-versus-lives thing at this stage.” He said the best choice was likely addressing the health risk, treating the economic damage, and then working to prevent future pandemics.

Easing the guidelines would run counter to public health experts who have said sustained social distancing is needed until the U.S. develops a vigorous testing regime to identify and isolate cases. The virus can be spread when people are asymptomatic.

There has been tension inside the federal government’s coronavirus team for months between the health experts and economic advisers wrestling with the trade-offs.

Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. surgeon general, said on Monday the federal guidelines were working, but that “the problem is that we really need more people to take this seriously.” He said on Fox News: “People, stay at home.”

Larry Kudlow, the top White House economic adviser, expressed concern about the economic effects of ordering Americans to stay inside. “At some point you have to ask yourself whether the shutdown is doing more harm than good,” he told CNBC. In a Fox News interview earlier in the day, he said, “We’re going to have to make some difficult trade-offs,” adding that he had spoken to the president about the matter.

Vice President Mike Pence, who is coordinating the coronavirus task force, has been working the phones and sounding out leading epidemiologists and physicians about how to craft a long-term national strategy, according to two people familiar with the discussions. His questions have echoed that of a growing number of Americans: When—and how—will this end?

Some are panning, and even defying, lockdowns as draconian. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to close beaches for spring break. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged President Trump to declare a wide range of business as essential to get the nation through the pandemic, including banks, hardware stores, plumbers, dry cleaners, taxis and laundromats, among others.

Even among scientists who study pandemics, some are starting to wonder about the cost of fighting the disease. Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota disease specialist, stunned some in the science community when he suggested letting people at low risk of serious disease continue working to keep the economy going.

“This is not like a Minneapolis blizzard that blows through,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s like a Minneapolis winter that lasts for months.”

The White House based much of its decision to urge social distancing—limiting people to small gatherings, shutting businesses and schools and ensuring people keep 6 feet apart—on the Imperial College London report this month that estimated 2.2 million deaths would occur without it, in addition to isolation of infected people and quarantines of their family members.

Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist who worked on the report, now is infected with coronavirus.

Key figures in the Covid-19 fight

COSTS

• $26 trillion global stock value lost since mid-February

• 5 million projected 2020 job loss in the U.S.

• $1.5 trillion projected lost U.S. economic output in 2020

RISKS

• 2.2 million projected deaths in U.S. with no action

PRICE TAG

• $2 trillion projected U.S. budget deficit in fiscal 2020

• $17.5 trillion current U.S. federal debt held by public

• $517 billion increase in Federal Reserve holdings, Jan. 29 to March 18

Note: Based on Wall Street Journal reporting, Federal Reserve, Treasury, Imperial College London, FactSet

Countries facing the same dilemma are responding in different ways. Italy gradually locked down parts of the country and now has closed all but essential services and ordered people to stay home except for work or health necessities. The U.K. government had avoided the strict measures taken elsewhere until Friday, when it ordered all bars, pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms and theaters to close. India on Sunday tested a nationwide one-day voluntary shutdown, in which people were asked to stay in their homes and most businesses were shut.

In the U.S., health experts have urged continued shutdowns until the country builds the ability for massive testing to identify and quarantine infected individuals. But the country is so far behind in its testing ability, with shortages of critical chemicals and supplies looming, that it remains unclear whether it could take months or even a year to implement the testing strategies that enabled Singapore and South Korea to contain cases while keeping major swaths of their economies running.

Economists say the brewing debate about the economic cost of fighting the coronavirus is a little like the global debate about climate change. In both cases scientists predict widespread human loss without action, but the action requires economic sacrifice.

An empty street in downtown Los Angeles. Private-sector economists project the coronavirus toll will include 5 million lost jobs and $1.5 trillion in lost economic output in the U.S.

Photo: apu gomes/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The critical difference between the climate debate and coronavirus is that the climate debate has already played out glacially for years. The consequences of the problem and policy responses are predicted to occur gradually in coming decades. With the coronavirus, these trade-offs are being made in just a few weeks, with the human loss and economic toll happening all at once.

“It is the same thing with climate change, but on a totally different time scale,” said James Hammitt, a professor of economics and decision-making at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

One corner of economics has developed tools that researchers say can help get at the scale of what the nation confronts. These “value of statistical life” measures estimate what people are willing to pay to reduce the probability of dying.

Economists derive the numbers from surveys and through inferences from individual work choices, for instance by looking at how much added compensation people demand for doing high-risk jobs like logging, deep-sea fishing or roofing.

Value-of-statistical-life measures are routinely used by the federal government to calculate the costs and benefits of a wide range of health and environmental regulations, which also come with trade-offs between public safety and economic cost.

W. Kip Viscusi, a Vanderbilt University economics and law professor and leader in these valuations, estimates the value of a statistical life at around $10 million. The number means a U.S. community of 100,000 people would on average pay $100 per person to reduce the risk that one person in the community would randomly be killed by some threat. The community is essentially paying $10 million to reduce the risk that one among it will die.

Even under normal circumstances, such measures are complicated by many factors. For example, should the life of a child be given the same value as the life of an octogenarian? How do you account for age differences for a disease that affects the elderly most? Is a life in Laos worth as much as in the U.S.? Most people would say a life in either country is of equal value, but the calculations are based on how much a person would pay to reduce the risk of death, and because incomes are lower in Laos than in the U.S., the statistical value of life there is lower too.

In this case, the unknowns are especially large, notes Joseph Aldy, a Harvard professor and former adviser to President Barack Obama. The mortality rate of the virus itself is unknown. Because testing has been especially sparse in the U.S., nobody knows how widespread it is in the population, or how aggressively it transfers from one person to another.

“It is hard to even assess probabilities,” he said.

Mr. Viscusi noted another conundrum. Economic dislocation causes its own health problems.

“Mortality rates rise after periods of unemployment and income loss,” he said. “Even if health is your only concern and financial costs are not considered, adopting prevention efforts that limit the adverse effects on income is important.”

The U.S. should be willing to bear substantial costs to overcome this virus, because it is something that can cascade out of control, said Mr. Hammitt at Harvard.

How much cost?

“I don’t know,” he said.

—Jimmy Vielkind, Michael C. Benderm Rebecca Ballhaus, Gwynn Guilford and Josh Mitchell contributed to this article.

Write to Jon Hilsenrath at [email protected] and Stephanie Armour at [email protected]

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/as-economic-toll-mounts-nation-ponders-the-trade-offs/

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