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rosethornewrites · 3 years

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Fics I read this week

Some of these may have been read earlier than a week ago, but I tried to keep it contained. Not sure I’ll keep this up, but I’ll try.

Finished:

Rated E:

the origin of change, by kissteethstainred, rated E

Lan Xichen said, “Time for regrowth and mourning is, of course, the most important. But there has also been a—frequent—discussion of marriage.” He paused to drink more tea. He almost seemed apologetic when he added, “Your name has been brought up often.”

“For marriage,” Lan Wangji repeated.

Except with Wei Ying in the picture, nothing goes exactly as planned.

Opportunity, by brooklinegirl, rated E

Lan Zhan is jostled slightly and he turns in his seat to see a harried-looking man squeezing in next to him. There isn't an empty seat there, and the bar is quite crowded. "Sorry," the man says, sounding out of breath. "I know I'm all up in your business, I'll move, I promise, I just—" He blows his breath out. "I'm going to lose this seat next to you, that dude over there has been eyeing it, and it's mine as soon as this guy leaves.”

Rated M:

Oxymoron, by feline_somnambulist, rated M

Jiang Yanli was in the kitchen. She hummed softly along to music being played somewhere else in the house, as she shuffled carefully back and forth from the prep table to the giant vat of soup. The house smelled like pork rib and savory broth. As always, she was beautiful in her element, a goddess of her domain despite the limp and the leg brace.

Her phone rang just as Jiang Cheng entered the kitchen. She saw him and smiled as she made her careful way to the phone on the wall-mounted charging station.

Jiang Cheng put the stack of paperwork down on a counter. He got to the phone first, picked it up. It was Lan Wangji’s number. He rejected the call and put the phone in his pocket.

“A-Cheng? Is everything okay?” Jiang Yanli asked, a frown creasing her brow. “Who was that?”

It Ends With the Beginning, by feline_somnambulist, rated M

They fight. They part. Jiang Cheng is hurt. Wei Wuxian comes to help. Wei Wuxian runs. Jiang Cheng is tired of chasing. They fight.

Until The End, by abCEE, rated M

"When I -- when I tied my ribbon around our wrists, I knew what I was doing and I privately honored it." Wei Wuxian's brows continued to meet as he tried to understand where the conversation was going until realization dawned on him. "Wa -- wait! Lan Zhan, is it what I think it is?!!" "It is usually done at the end of a wedding ceremony --" "What-" "But it could have been acknowledged as an engagement." "Lan Zhan!" He cannot believe what he is hearing now. "But my ancestor revealed herself --" "And we bowed… three times. We bowed, Lan Zhan!"

In which wangxian are married since the Cold Pond Cave incident, knows how proper communication works, and had confessed in the middle of the Sunshot Campaign. Things went spiraling up and down from there.

Rated T:

as it should be, by Sienne, rated T

Post-canon Lan Qiren time travels to before the Cloud Recesses lectures. The Cloud Recesses are quiet and peaceful, something his home hasn't been in years. ...In fact, it is too quiet and peaceful.

Judgment Day, by Grace_Logan, rated T

Cornered Wei Wuxian sees only one way out after cluing in on the Jin's plan.

Welcome To Gusu, by perkynurples, rated T

Deep in the lush forests of Gusu hides an aging resort that hosts dozens of children every summer for an unforgettable couple of weeks. It’s where Lan Wangji grew up alongside Wei Wuxian, and when his childhood friend (for the lack of a better term) surprisingly returns years later in the position of Senior Counsellor, seemingly hell bent on causing the same kind of mischief that got him kicked out of Gusu in the first place, but also taller, broader and tanner than ever before, Lan Wangji knows he’s In Trouble. Or, this fic has it all: longing looks over campfires, found family dynamics, ill-timed skinny dipping, teenagers inappropriately shipping their counsellors, camp weddings...

Therapy is a Performative Act, by cinder1013, rated T

“What does your dad think of your comedy?”

“Oh, he hates it, but it pays the bills and I need it to pay for my goddamn fuckin’ therapy.”

Jiang Cheng stumbles into being a stand-up comic and his favorite topic is dear ol’ dad.

sorry, i love you, by moon_thief, rated T

lan wangji was practically seething as he watched it happen. what kind of person could be so careless, unruly, undisciplined-

and then their eyes met.

oh. oh.

Tremble a Prayer, by cqlorphan, rated T

They kiss, and Lan Wangji regulates himself. There are no tears pricking at his eyes. There is no lump in his throat. His hands are undressing Wei Ying, and then Wei Ying’s hands are on his hands.

“What is it?” Wei Ying says, between kisses.

Even with Wei Ying back, Lan Wangji's sadness overwhelms him at times. He tries, and fails, to keep it from him.

The Quiet Work, by ShipsAreLaunching, rated T

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian get a summons for help from a minor clan in Gusu. When they go to investigate they find a horrible truth, and do what they do best.

Rated G:

Ink Stains Not So Ignored, by Preludian_Staves, rated G

Qiren found something that he still couldn't bring himself to ignore about his youngest nephew's husband.

I’d buy a big house where we both could live, by failed2be_chill, rated G

“Ah, so you want to play with the rabbits and enjoy their soft fur and silly little nose twitches while your poor husband toils in the heat of the day with hammer and nail doing exhausting manual labour. I see how it is. It’s a good job I love you, huh?” Wei Wuxian kisses his husband’s soft cheek.

“Mn, very good.”

---

Or, married WangXian embrace the practical and symbolic joys of home ownership. Domestic bliss.

Family, by Speechless_since_1998, rated G

Jiang Cheng blinked as his brother while he played with the baby he was holding.

He hoped he had misunderstood, but he had proof that it was true right in front of him.

So he did the only sensible thing that came to mind, "Wei Ying, what the fuck ?! '

"A-Cheng, language!" Shijie scolded him with a stern look.

"A-Jie, you can't really accept such a thing!"

"Why not? He is so cute!" she said, making funny faces at the child, totally in love with him.

Was it possible that he was the only one with a bit of mental sanity left?

A Lonely Guqin (No More), by Asphodel_Meadow, rated G

Wei Wuxian is the first person who makes Lan Wangji want to have a duet.

piercing, by escapingaugust, rated G (read the tags)

Stolen Midnights, by hinotoriii, rated G

There are nights where sleep eludes Wei Wuxian. Where the demons of his past are too loud in his mind, reminding him of that which he could never forget, second life or not.

Unfinished:

Not Rated:

Disclosed Regrets, by zLanWuxian, Not Rated

The majority of the cultivation world are pulled into a room that suspiciously resembled the burial mounds. (Their golden cores were sealed too. As to why, nobody knew.)

They are invited to watch Wei Wuxian's life.

What will they do when they find out everything they believed was a lie?

(Or: The characters of Mo Dao Zu Shi watch Mo Dao Zu Shi)

Rated E:

Where You Fell, by Sweet_William, rated E

Years ago, Lan Wangji was a Senior in high school, readying himself for graduation and the coming years studying at the Gusu Lan Institute of Music. Everything in his life made sense, from his role in his family, to a future as a classical musician. The only thing that didn’t fit was the sudden epiphanies he had about himself brought on by his bothersome and flirtatious classmate, Wei Wuxian. When the growing attraction and friendship was cut short by the other boy’s disappearance, he mourned what could have been, but ultimately had to move on. What he didn’t know was that fate would bring them back together again one day, or the reality of how far apart two lives can diverge, how some can find peace and prosperity, while others can fall farther than he ever imagined.

A Narrow Bridge, by FrameofMind and Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle), rated E

Once, Lan Wangji made a choice to step aside. Ten years after Wei Ying’s death, he finds a way back to choose again.

Setting fire to our insides, by StarsAlignNomore, rated E

Lan Wangji dies after the thirty-third strike. Lan Xichen does not handle it well.

*fleabag voice* This is a fix it.

Rated M:

Live Again, Love Anew, by kkanime5555, rated M

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian finally speaks up.

“Mn.” Lan Zhan hums to show he’s listening.

“I think we traveled back in time.”

...

“I’ll go, Lan Zhan. I’ll come to Gusu with you.”

-----

Or,

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are soulmates and, upon Wei Ying's death, they are sent back to when they first met as kids on the streets of Yiling. From there, they both are taken to Gusu, where they are raised together, gradually learning of their shared feelings and finding out the mystery of who sent them back in time and why, all while planning how to save the world, preferably with all their loved ones left alive.

A Torn Red Ribbon, by shiroakuma, rated M

The night before they marched into the Nightless City, Lan Wangji was invited to join Wei Wuxian in his tent.

Unbeknownst to him at that time, it became their last real conversation.

In which, a resounding victory against the QishanWen Sect is won seemingly at the cost of Wei Wuxian's life. Lan Wangji still spends some time being heavily injured. Lan Xichen tries to pick the pieces left behind by the war. The Jiang Sect is renowned thanks to the revered Wei Wuxian and the cultivation world is plagued by unknown forces while Lan Wangji meets with Wei Wuxian in his dreams.

Sacrifices Made with Blood, by NocturnalFriend, rated M

Lan Wangji knew it was too late, there was too much blood on Wei Ying's hands already. Still, if he asked his brother for help, surely. There was a way to rescue the man who held his heart?

Or: Trust is not easily given and all to easily shattered. Lan Wangji learns this in the worst way, when Lan Xichen gives into the demands of the cultivation world. Although nobody could have predicted the whims of fate, giving them another chance at righting things.

What makes you sing?, by Fictio, rated M

Madam Yu was never known for her matchmaking skills but she was known for her inherent meddling. Though it still came as a surprise, when on one fine Saturday afternoon, she called Wei Ying and set him up for a blind date.

There She Rose, by Aiiiru, rated M

Many years had passed yet whispers and gossips about YiLing Matriarch still stayed alive like unruly weeds refusing to die.

"That damn Wei Wuxian must have cursed this year's harvest with 'unkillable' locusts" "But Wei Wuxian had died right?" "Didn't you know that her body wasn't found?" "I heard some cultivators saying that during the chaos, some people saw her leaving in a sword, flying away with someone else." "That must be the demon with whom she signed a contract, a female challenging three thousand or was it five thousand cultivators by herself? Hah!! She definitely has ties with evil creatures and ghosts." "I heard from my cousin in Yunmeng that YiLing Matriarch was born shameless." "Some say she was a male but took female form to seduce the ghosts of burial mounds and gain power by starting demonic cultivation" "Shhh! Don't talk so loudly! My cousin knew a man who loudly gossiped about Yilling Matriarch only to be cursed to death the next day"

Visitations, by Vir_Abelasan, rated M

"Wei Ying-" Lan Zhan says, stutters, "I'm sorry."

And now Wei Wuxian sees it, the red rimming Lan Zhan's eyes, the rumpled edges of his blazer. There is an old, familiar urge for him to reach over, to hold Lan Zhan's hand and smooth his hair, to tell him that everything will be fine.

"We're all a bit sorry about this, I think," he says instead, and finds that he means it. For Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji and everyone else in that Guanyin temple, the pain must be unbearably fresh, like skin just flayed open. But Wei Wuxian's chest had been cracked open a long time ago, his wounds licked and cauterized and sewn shut over five long years - Ever hurting, but a dull, constant ache, "It's really alright, Lan Zhan."

Five years after being accused of corporate espionage and losing everything, the Guanyin Scandal breaks open and Wei Wuxian finds a familiar face at his door.

Kiss My Wounds, Bless My Scars, by Pegunicent, rated M

When he is sixteen, Lan Wangji makes a choice. He becomes Wei Ying's bride.

Rated T:

the one where Jiang Yanli visits (and she's a fucking goddess), by ShippersList, rated T (part 4 of a series)

Wei Wuxian’s sister was a fucking goddess so it was a travesty she wasn’t being fucked like a goddess deserved.

Luo Qingyang decided to do something about it.

(Also, family feels and some plotting but that's beside the point.)

obscured in the shade of the willow, bathed in the light of the moon, by cloud_wanderer, rated T

Wei Wuxian leaves the Burial Mounds for the first time to attend his martial brother's wedding, and everything changes from there. (a.k.a. a universe in which Nie Huaisang schemes to thwart Jin Guangshan's plans and ends up saving Wei Wuxian and the Wens in the process)

Wei Wuxian meets Xiao Xingchen and helps found a sect in Yiling.

Inchoate, by Marinelifeclub, rated T

“Where would you even go once you left? Wait a few more years before leaving." persuaded Jiang Fengmian,

“Will I live to see that long?” Wei Wuxian whispered under his breath.

Jiang Fengmian felt cold at those words. He always thought his children would be the ones to heal the scars left by their mother on Wei Wuxian, but just the concise way he spoke about them, he knows that wasn’t true. Now his best friend’s son sat in front of him, confessing to not thinking he will live to see himself become a man. Cangse and Changze must be furious in their graves as the sweet smiling son they raised endured pain because of a jealous woman and a cowardly man. Sighing, he did the only thing he could to make things right and accepted the boy’s wishes.

At age 14, Wei Wuxian left Lotus Pier and never looked back.

Wei Wuxian leaves Lotus Pier and while things change something’s are just set in fate.

Here We Go Again, by Alliandra, rated T

He looked over to where the swordswoman was still fighting, but her focus seemed entirely locked onto that fight so it was unlikely that she could have had anything to do with the energy drain. He was still wracking his brain for something else to do to assist, so this thing didn’t kill them both, but now he was feeling weak, dizzy and currently not far from helpless.

~~~~~~~~~~

It has been several months since the events at the Guanyin temple and Wei Wuxian is wandering around on his own. After he helps a stranger kill a very dangerous beast he uncovers what seems to be a conspiracy aimed at ending his life. He heads back to Cloud Recesses with his new companion in tow, looking to get Lan Wanji's help in working out what is involved.

Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling made a surprising discovery under Koi Tower that may well be linked to the threat against Wei Wuxian's life.

Can they all work together to find out what is going on and put a stop to it, before something disastrous occurs?

Nie Huaisang's Ten Steps to Fix The Fucked Up Reality, by cosmic_zephyr (ProudHaikyuuTrash)

1. Find the time travel array in the Nie library 2. Convince (manipulate) Wei Wuxian to use demonic cultivation to activate the array. 3. Transmigrate to the body of your 15-year-old selves with Wei Wuxian and Survive his wrath. 4. Come up with yet another exaggerated, slightly concerning, plan to save Lotus Pier, Dafan Wens and your brother. 5. Use Empathy to make the Wen siblings side with you in the mess that is soon to come. 6. Kill the main Wen family and make Wen Qing the new leader of Qishan Wen so innocent people are not killed. 7. Annoy the hell out of Lanling Jin just for funsies and also a political statement because Jin Guangshan can suck it. 8 Preferably, just for your own sanity, find a way to kill Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao. 9. Work with Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing to solve the sabre problem of the Nie clan. 10. Live a happy life with your brother alive and the cultivation world not being the huge fucked up mess in your own time-line. P.S. Matchmake the pining pile of disaster and gay aka Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji.

Aka canon divergence where Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian (and Lan Wangji) travel back in time and save the cultivation world.

Deal, by Rahar_Moonfire, rated T

Nie Huaisang wants revenge for his brother. He also wants his friend Wei Wuxian back. Lan Wangji left the Cultivation World after Wei Wuxian's death and hasn't been heard from since. It's a good thing Nie Huaisang has spies everywhere. He has everything he needs to put his plan into motion: the notes, the instructions, the "willing body," and the patience to pull it all off.

Now he just needs to be sure Wei Wuxian survives long enough to pick up Nie Huaisang's bread crumbs, solve the puzzle, and shatter the Cultivation World again. The only person suitable for that job is Black Jade of Yiling, the husband of the infamous Yiling Patriarch, Lan Wangji.

Rated G:

Hadn't gone as I planned, by hamlets_ghost, rated G (part of a series)

Lan Xichen leaves the Cloud Recesses with Wei Wuxian and Wangji to meet his mother.

He cannot stay.

[continuation of 'Hold on to your heart']

#the untamed #untamed fanfiction #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #CQL #mdzs

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health-is-in-you · 4 years

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From Enough 14.

Social rebel, counterfeiter, bandit, modern Robin Hood – the list of titles with which our anarchist comrade Lucio Urtubia was honoured is long. His life, which sounds like an adventure novel, is a mirror of the revolutionary movements in Europe in the second half of the 20th century. Lucio Urtuba passed away today (18 July, 2020). Rest In Power Lucio!

Lucio Urtubia was born in 1931 in a small village in Navarre and grew up in poor conditions. When he was called up for military service, he deserted to France shortly afterwards, where he worked as a bricklayer from then on. He came into contact with anarchist groups and met his political foster father: the legendary Sabaté, who organized the armed resistance against the Franco dictatorship from France. Forging documents, hiding underground fighters and illegal fundraising activities play a major role in his life from then on. Numerous resistance organisations, which have a base of operations in France or are looking for a place to retreat, benefit from his skills: Black Panthers, Tupamaros, European guerrillas. Lucio’s solidarity is with every act of revolt aimed at a more just social order.

In 1962, he proposed to Che Guevara, then head of the National Bank of Cuba, to flood the world market with counterfeit dollar bills in order to destabilize the US economy. The proposal meets little approval on the Cuban side, but the idea remains alive in Lucio. In 1980 he succeeds in his greatest coup: by printing traveller’s cheques from Citibank with a value of several million dollars he brings the then most powerful bank in the world on its knees.

But the list of his activities is not completed. Lucio is also a master of conspiracy, however, who manages to spend only a few months in prison in his not exactly law-abiding life. He breaks the silence at the age of well over 70. There is a book and also a movie (Watch here) about Lucio Urtubia.

Lucio, The Good Bandit: Reflections of an Anarchist Marie Trigona, Toward Freedom (05/06/2008)

Outspoken and charismatic, Lucio speaks like a true anarchist. When asked what it means to be an anarchist, Lucio refutes the misperception of the terrorist, “The anarchist is a person who is good at heart, responsible.” Yet he makes no apologies for the need to destroy the current social order, “it’s good to destroy certain things, because you build things to replace them.”

Lucio has old friends in the Southern Cone. Funds from the forgery operatives helped hundreds from revolutionary organizations exile and finance clandestine actions against the bloody dictatorships which disappeared ten thousands of activists, students and workers during the 1970’s throughout Latin America. In Uruguay, funds from falsified Citibank travelers’ checks funded the guerilla group Tupamaros, in the US the Black Panthers and other revolutionary groups throughout Europe.

During his recent visit to South America, Lucio stayed at the worker run BAUEN Hotel in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires. He was astounded by the accomplishments of the workers without bosses. At the BAUEN hotel, workers are putting into practice workers autogestíon or self-management. Self-management has been a mainstay of anarchist thought since the birth of capitalism. Rather than authority – obey relationship between capitalists and workers, self-management implies that workers put into practice an egalitarian system in which people collectively decide, produce and control their own destinies for the benefit of the community. But for such a system to work, participants have to be hard working and responsible, one of the most important attributes a man or woman should have according to Lucio. “The anarchist movement was built by workers. Without work we can’t talk about self-management, to put self-management into practice we need to know how to do things, to work. It’s easy to be bohemian.”

Lucio explains that his anarchism is based in his poor childhood in fascist Spain. “My anarchist origins are rooted in my experience growing up in a poor family. My father was leftist, had gone to jail because he wanted the automony of the Basque country. For me that’s not revolution, I’m not nationalist. With nationalism humanity has committed a lot of mistakes. When my father got out of jail he became a socialist. We suffered a lot. I went to look for bread and the baker wouldn’t give it to me, because we didn’t have money. For me poverty enriched me, I didn’t have to make any effort to lose respect for the establishment, the Church, private property and the State.”

In Spain, fascism persevered 30 years after the end of World War II. Hundreds were placed in jail for resisting the Franco dictatorship. Anthropologists have estimated that from the onset of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 to Franco’s death in November 1975, Franco’s Nationalists killed between 75,000 and 150,000 supporters of the Republic.

Lucio exiled to France where he discovered anarchism. He had deserted the nationalist army and escaped to France. Paris in the 1960’s was a bourgeoning city for anarchist intellectuals, organizers and guerillas in exile. It was there that Lucio met members from the anarcho-syndicalist trade union, Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (CNT). He was anxious to participate.

During his early years in France, Lucio met Francisco Sabate, the legendary anarchist and guerilla extraordinaire. At this time Sabate, otherwise known by his nickname “El Quico” was the most sought after anarchist by the Franco regime. French police were also looking for Sabate, who led resistance against Franquismo. “When I met Quico, I was participating in the Juventud Libertarias. They asked me if I could help Sabate, me an ignorant, I didn’t know who he was.” Sabate used Lucio’s house as a hide out. The young Lucio, listened to Sabate’s tales of direct action and absorbed whatever wisdom he had to offer, like methods for sniffing out infiltrators. “I met guerillas that put me on the road to direct action and expropriations. Sabate taught me to lose respect for private property.”

It was then that Lucio began participating in bank robberies. “There are no bigger crooks than the banks,” says Lucio in the defense of expropriation. “[This was the] only means the anarchist had, without funding from industry or government representatives to fund them. The money was sent to those suffering from Franco’s regime.” Student organizations and worker organizations received the funds to carry out grass roots organizing. In other cases the money was used for the guerilla actions against Franco’s regime, such as campaigns for the release of political prisoners in the nationalist jails.

To save the lives of exiles, Lucio thought of a master plan to falsify passports so Spanish nationals could travel. “Passports for a refugee means being able to escape the country and lead safe lives elsewhere,” he explains. Not only in Europe but in the US and South America, dissidents used false ID’s to lead their lives and direct actions.

In 1977, Lucio’s group began forging checks as a direct form to finance resistance. Lucio was essentially the “boss” of the operation-he made, distributed and cashed the checks. The checks were harder to falsify than counterfeit bills. Lucio thought they should target the largest banking institution in the world, National City Bank. The distribution of the checks went to different subversive groups who used the funds to finance solidarity actions. Lucio explains that “no one got rich” from the checks. Most of the funds went to the cause. All over Europe, these checks with the same code number were cashed at the same time.

Lucio’s master plan cost City Bank tens of millions of dollars in forged travelers’ checks. But many say a much larger sum was expropriated. City Bank was at the mercy of the forger, who had cost so much that the bank had to suspend travelers checks, ruining the holiday for thousands of tourists. At the time, people did not use check cards or credit cards. Lucio was arrested in 1980 and found with a suitcase full of the forged checks. In the meantime during Lucio’s arrest, Citibank continued to receive false travelers’ checks.

Citbank became worried. Representatives from the bank agreed to negotiate. Lucio would be released if he handed over the printing plates for the forged checks. The exchange was made, and Lucio became a legend for his mastermind plan. Although his life as a forger ended at 50-years-of-age, his life as an anarchist continued.

Lucio had always worked as a bricklayer. “What’s helped me the most is my work, Anarchists were always workers.” Lucio-bricklayer, anarchist, forger and expropriator has left a legacy like his predecessors. “People like Loise Michel, Sabate, Durruti, all the expropriators taught me how to expropriate, but not for personal gain, but how to use those riches for change.” At 76-years-of-age he does not apologize for his actions. “I’ve expropriated, which according to the Christian religion is a sin. For me expropriations are necessary. As the revolutionaries say, robbing and expropriation is a revolutionary act as long as one doesn’t benefit from it.”

#anarchist #anarchy #Expropriation #illegalism #anarchist history

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papermoonloveslucy · 3 years

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LUCILLE BALL: NUMBER 1, BUT STILL TRYING HARDER

July 29, 1974

Editor's note: following is the final part in a series of eight profiles on America's self-made women.

By PHYLLIS BATTELLE

“Success - whaddya you mean by that?” rasps Lucille Ball in that rowdy voice which strikes adoration into the hearts of Lucy lovers.

“If your concept of success is happiness in what you’re doing, in being a mother, in being a wife, then I’m a success. I’m also damned lucky that I have my health and guts life takes guts and that my work paid off.

“But if you’re talking of the kind of success that’s about dollars and cents, forget it. The real wealth is not out here in Hollywood. Its all highly taxable, honey, and who cares? Money has never been important to me. I hate looking at bills. I hate math. I’m a typical Leo: money-blind. What I’m saying is that not one of us out here has more than $25,000 to buy a stamp with!

“Pennies, Pickles Or Something"

So much for Lucy’s petty cash. Aside from stamp funds, she has assets: a million-dollar home in Beverly Hills, another in Palm Springs and an apartment near Aspen, Colo.; investments resulting from the sale of her Desilu Studios to Gulf & Western for $17 million in stock, her own Lucille Ball Productions Company: earnings from 23 years of “Lucy” series (now running in 77 countries); a percentage of “Mame”, the new super-movie musical; not to mention the proceeds from diligent work dating back to 1913, when she was two years old in Jamestown, N.Y., and spoke little pieces at the grocery store for pennies or pickles or something.

At 62, Lucille Ball Arnaz Morton is No. 1 - but still trying harder. (1) Husband Gary Morton says proudly, “Her work is an obsession and a labor of love, and as long as the public likes her shell never retire.”

Lucy recently did terminate her “Here’s Lucy” series, at least temporarily, but will hold her "business family” (about 500 staff and cast members) together while she produces TV specials. Now, she leers at her orange-haired image in a dressing room minor and says, “I’ve loved to work, always. I discovered very early that the way to please people was to make them laugh at me. So I appeared at church, school, Girl Scouts, anything and anywhere. Made the tickets, sold them, starred in my own shows. That seems backward now. That’s gone out. The business has been hanging itself, and the kids with it, by making stars and superstars out of strange, young people who don’t know their craft."

Drums And Records

An example, Lucy says, could be found in her own son, Desi Arnaz, Jr. "When he was nine, he was very good on drums. Used to beat them while the records played as background. He got a group together with a couple of kids at school Dino Martin and Billy Hinsche and they called themselves Dino, Desi and Billy. Then Sinatra heard them, and they made a record and had a hit.

"A magazine took off on them, and they went on tour. Poor waifs - thank God, they didn’t have any more hits. But it left its mark, this being made a star when you don’t know anything at all, and after two years it was damn hard for Desi and the other kids to get back to doing their homework."

That sort of "big payoff for mediocrity" was not what happened in Lucy's own youth. Her family in Jamestown was "lower than middle-class, hard working, had a truck garden and was never hungry."

Most Influential Man

Lucy's father, a mining engineer, died when she was four. (2) Her stepfather was the most influential man in her early life. To encourage young Lucy’s "flair," he took her to see Julius Tannen, a monologist. (3) “When I saw Tannen sitting on a empty stage in a dark theater, making people cry and then laugh - oh, it was magic, pure magic," she recalls.

At 16, she went to New York, where her stepfather entered her in drama school. "I found out how shy, awkward and unable to cope I was. The teachers put me down, said I had no talent whatever.” Lucy's blue eyes flash. “New York frightened me. Still does. You have to take me out of the hotel on a leash to get me on the streets of New York today. Being tall, lithe and well-sculptured, Lucy took up modeling. But then, almost tragically, she contracted pneumonia with complications and was bedridden for eight months. It took three years of convalescence before she regained complete control of her legs. At 21, through an agent, she was hired to become a Sam Goldwyn showgirl in Hollywood for an Eddie Cantor film, “Roman Scandals”.

Would Take Any Part

“Out here in California, I knew as much as the rest of the girls in movies, which was nothing,” she says. “The difference was I would take any part. I never sought to be a star. I didn't mind being typed. I wanted to be typed. One of the greatest thrills of my life was hearing a director say he wanted a Lucille Ball-type for a picture.

Of course, later it was different, she growls, "when they said they wanted a young Lucille Ball-type.

In 10 years as willing “Queen of the B movies," Miss Ball was out of work only two days.

In 1939 she met a young Cuban bandleader named Desi Arnaz, and they married in 1940. From the beginning, their marriage was a difficult venture: Desi toured the United States with his group, while she stayed in Hollywood making movies. Then Desi served in the army, while Lucy starred not in films but a popular radio series, “My Favorite Husband”. They split. They tried again.

Finally, in 1951, in a desperate move to keep their marriage alive. Lucy sold CBS on what, at the time, seemed an unlikely television series: "I Love Lucy.”

It was the beginning of greater professional success, but not the end of domestic upheaval. Their first child, Lucie, was born when her mother was 40; Desi was born when Lucy was 43. But the much-adored children were not to save the marriage, and in 1960 - tearfully, knowing her diligent efforts had failed - Lucille divorced Desi, citing his outbursts of temperament, instability and violence. Desi did not contest the action.

In parting, they split a $20-million television empire. They are better friends today - at arms length, with new matrimonial ties - than they were during the 19 years of marriage.

Today, Lucy’s sense of well-being with one-time comedian Gary Morton (who is executive vice president of her production company), is obvious and delightful.

"It s really a super life, grins Gary, living with a thoroughbred." Says Lucy, I guess its very possible to live without a good man. Possible, but no fun. To bake a cake is no fun without a man. It’s no fun to make a garden without a man to watch it grow."

Lucy also is, and always has been, a proud and over-protective mother. Is that bad? I don’t think so."

A Share Of Problems

But despite Lucy’s mother-hen" closeness to Lucie, now 22, and young Desi. 20, the Arnaz offspring have strayed into their share of problems. Desi and actress Patty Duke had a much-publicized affair when he was 16 (and Patty was 28); later he became engaged to Liza Minnelli, but that broke up last summer. Lucie was married in 1971 to actor Philip Vandervort, but the couple quickly split.

Lucy is convinced her daughter, who is featured on “Here’s Lucy," will be a star. “Lucie," her mom says, “has all the material of stardom - ability, inclination, vitality, intelligence, beauty, good sense and good taste.

“Wholesome Movies Alive"

In fact, one reason that Lucille Ball finally agreed after three years of rejecting the role to star in the movie “Mame” is that Gary convinced me it could keep wholesome movies alive for talented people like my daughter.

"This industry," Lucy shudders, “has turned into a sex-and-violence factory. The whole thing’s ugly, with thousands of ugly people ripping-off their clothes and ripping-off the public. If that’s what makes good box office, and if box office is what they mean by success, then success is out of kilter!”

# # #

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) The advertising slogan “We Try Harder” was developed in 1962 for Hertz Rent-A-Car company, who was perpetually number two in popularity to Hertz Rent-A-Car. Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett satirized the campaign on “The Carol Burnett Show” on October 2, 1967.

(2) Henry Ball, Lucille’s father, was actually a telephone lineman, not a mining engineer. One story had Hunt as the executive of a mining company in Montana. his death certificate listed him as a ‘laborer’.

(3) Julius Tannen (1880-1965) was a monologist in vaudeville. He was known to stage audiences for his witty improvisations and creative word games. He had a successful career as a character actor in films, appearing in over 50 films in his 25-year film career. He is probably best known to film audiences from the musical Singin' in the Rain, in which he appears as the man demonstrating a talking picture early in the film.

#Lucille Ball #Julius Tannen #Henry Ball #Carol Burnett #Avis #Desi Arnaz

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ghoestys · 3 years

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and this is ruby! my 4th and final muse! been wanting to use gayoung’s pretty face since she was in tempted and now that shes in true beauty it made me want to use her even more! and the content she gave us while playing yeo hajin? iconic this is ruby <3

STATISTICS

full name: ruby odette im nickname(s): rue, rubes, ro, odette, od, odettie age: twenty two date of birth: october 8th, 1998 hometown: tba! gender: cis female pronouns: she/her/hers religion: christian (raised, non-practicing) sexuality: bisexual & biromantic hair colour: brunette eye colour: brown height: 5'9″ tattoos: dainty colored lavender on her left ankle facing outward (ex) piercings: standard & upper lobe (both), forward helix & industrial (right), daith (left)

PROMPT + BLACKMAIL

a legacy and member of the yale's elite, they're twenty-two and a sophomore undergrad student majoring in law. they are as positive as they are negative.

● was caught with a dui and almost got her license revoked because of it, but she flirted her way out of the ticket and convinced the police officer to kill the report by giving him tickets to a movie premiere where she held a small role. background: this happened in new york after she was attempting to drive home from a party with her 3 model friends who were also all drunk. she was 20 at the time and should’ve also gotten in-trouble for underaged drinking along with driving under the influence, but she truly utilized her fame status and looks. luckily no one got hurt and the road was pretty empty so there wasn’t many cars, but it was still dangerous and irresponsible because if she wasn’t pulled over, then she would’ve hit busier traffic and something definitely would’ve happened. after being pulled over and saving her ass, ruby stopped driving and ordered a lyft to pick up her and her friends to drop them back to her apartment in new york.

● was convinced her father was having an affair with a news anchor, so ruby convinced producers, news channels, and everyone in the business to blacklist them from ever working and essentially ruining and ending the new anchor’s career. unknown to ruby, though, is that the news anchor was never having an affair with her father and it was actually colette who was having an affair with her father at the time. background: her relationship with her dad has always been rocky, but the minute she found out he was having an affair and cheating on her mom made ruby go batshit. she wasn’t sure who the person was exactly except for that her father was having an affair because she was overhearing flirty & secretive phone calls and was seeing bills for expensive gifts that her mother was never receiving. when ruby saw her dad meeting with a news anchor frequently, ruby automatically assumed that was the person her father was having an affair with and essentially ruined that new anchor’s career. the new anchor’s career ended very abruptly and ruby loved seeing it. she loved her mom and she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her- not her father and not the news anchor. unknown to ruby, though, is that the news anchor was never having an affair with her father and it truly was just business. ruby framed the wrong person and ruined an innocent person’s career for no reason.

ABOUT

family/upbringing/childhood

ruby’s family consisted of her father (randolph im), her mother (marissa im, nee byun), and her three younger siblings (edeline, brietta, and dominick)

her father, randolph im, is a top politician and was formerly a senator before being removed from officer and losing to his component- senator ahn. instead of being a senator, he’s apart of the house of representatives. other than being a politician, randolph also runs a loan business that’s not known unless you’re also apart of the top 1-10%. since they have so much money, he doesn’t mind giving out loans to those in need, but he always expects something in return (like a vote or an endorsement) and he always expects being paid back in time with interest included. if he doesn’t get his money paid back in time, then he’s a loan shark who sends his henchmen to do all the dirty work for him.

her mother, marissa im, is a house wife who happily takes care of her kids.

the family is as tight knit as it can be. it’s not hard for them to act loving and family-like infront of the media because that’s how they are everyday. they have their tense moments like every other family does, but they’re healthy for the most part.

healthy until it involves ruby and her father. these two are constantly butting heads and always arguing over something. maybe it’s because she’s the eldest daughter or maybe it’s because she doesn’t support her father’s shady loan business. she just doesn’t like him and the only time you’ll catching her supporting her father’s political career is when it’s family involved and her presence is required. other than that, ruby is typically absent from whatever political campaign her father does.

ever since ruby was a toddler, she loved the spotlight and performing. she loved acting and she loved when the cameras were on her whether it be for performing something or posing for something. since her mother noticed this, she was quick to put ruby in auditions for acting and modeling and since ruby was a natural, her acting and modeling career began at a very young age. she acted in children’s shows, movies as the younger version of a character and modeled for campaigns and spreads for brands like guess kids.

due to her career being a success at such a young age, ruby never experienced “real school” and was homeschooled her entire life. when she was on set for tv shows where she had to act in a school setting was basically her only experience as a student in a “real school”.

although her siblings would grow up differently (attending private schools instead of homeschool), ruby never minded this and never felt like she missed out on anything because she still learned how to socialize and got to act out wtvr she was possibly missing out on

career/college/the elites

luckily, as ruby got older and went from being a child to a pre/teen, her career didn’t stop and just kept growing. she filmed some tv shows and mostly focused on movies. when she turned 16/17, that was when her modeling career began to become more prominent because she was “old enough”, looked old enough, and was taller. she was having fun, living life, and traveling the world.

since she was a politician’s daughter, she was getting tutored on information about law and politics by the time she was 13. she had interest in law especially so she could spite her dad by telling him what he was possibly doing wrong, but also so she could negotiate her own contracts and understand what’s being said during the meetings. as a minor, she can’t sign contracts without a guardian but she sat there at the meetings feeling lost and wanted to know what they were saying.

although she loved spotlight when she was younger, by the time she was twenty she was starting to get over the fame. her career was successful, but she was starting to see and feel all the negatives that came with fame (especially in the modeling world where they criticized her looks often) and simply wanted out

when she turned 21, as a gift to herself she decided to take a break from her career/the spotlight so she could attend school and actually get a degree in law so she truly could negotiate her own contracts and understand all the legal terms being used during those meetings. she applied to yale and luckily she got accepted (mostly due to her career and philanthropy and because of yale being her father’s alma mater).

her father was a member of the yale elites, which makes ruby a legacy so that made her entrance into the organization very easy.

she still does modeling when she has the time, but her acting career is on hiatus until she finishes her bs in law.

don’t really know where to put this, but her stage name is odette im (her middle name) and only those that actually know her like friends & family call her ruby. she prefers to be called ruby because it’s her actual name, but professionally and in the tabloids she’s known as odette. she will still respond if you call her odette in a non-professional setting and honestly if ur muse met her while she was working then they probs know her as odette

personality

out of all my muses, i think ruby is the most genuinely nice one with no ugly intentions. silvia used to be like this, but silvia was also just willing to do shady things versus ruby who only does shady thing when shes truly hurt or angry or doing it for someone she loves (like ruining a person’s career to avenger her mom)

like taking care of people because shes an eldest daughter but also loves being taken cared of much more. whenever she’s being babied or treated as the youngest she’s happy because she’s used to have to take care of other people instead of herself

is honestly tired of the constant spotlight because she experienced it for so long, so think she’s more lowkey now except for those moments when shes modeling and partying at extravagant places and cities

believes honesty is key and the biggest way to lose her as a friends is to lie to her. she grew up away from the political setting, but it was still something she was apart of nonetheless and she knows how shady that area can b. knowing this, she tries to b as honest as possible and likes to hold people at a very honest level too like pls just be real with her and she’ll be real with u

doesnt mind talking about herself because thats what shes used to (her having to do interviews n shit all the time makes it easy for her to talk about herself)

basically an open book and even tho shes an award winning actress, shes terrible at hiding her real emotions infront of people who know her on a non-superficial level

can be very superficial with others due to her job and having to present herself a the best possible version of herself, but shes usually genuine for the most part like. if ur her friend then ur her friend she wont treat u like a professional associate or wtvr like??? does that even make sense

probs actually enjoys philanthropy work so shes involved n shit

can cook because she was the eldest daughter and also because she had to take care of herself while being in different cities by herself bc she couldnt eat out everyday

cant bake for shit tho like.. that shit is just not her thing. cant even make box brownies

fiercely loyal to those she loves and will legit do anything to protect them. also loves spoiling her friends bc like. if she has the money for it y not

WANTED CONNECTIONS IDEAS

someone that her father loaned money to! ruby is aware of her father’s business and is also aware of the clients because her dad doesn’t keep it a secret within the family. maybe your muse borrowed money and still hasn’t paid her father back for the loan so now the father found out information about ur muse and is holding it against them. ruby could be aware of this and attempt to help you-- if the muses get along tho :)

someone she met thru work! whether it be thru acting or modeling but i think that’d be so fun!! could be a good experience where they became friends or maybe they’re rivals in their careers that the media loves to put against each other. maybe they were even costars who didn’t get along, but the media loves making them out to be bffs!

bffs! friends! close friends!

enemies! betrayals! negatives!

cousins! because why not!

romance! ex flings! flirtationships! someone who leads her on!

ruby isn’t the type to do fwb or non-attachment style relationships because she gets attached to people very easily. with her job shes constantly surrounded by people and while she loves traveling, it can get very lonely. if she fell in love with u then she fell in love with u genuinely and whole heartedly. i think of all my muses, she falls in love the easiest

#intro

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 4 years

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Okay, if it's too much, don't answer that's fine. I'm not American and I've read so many different things about the political stuff that's going down over there, some saying Biden is the same as Trump, some say he's even better than Bernie. I got not clue how to sort that Joe Biden guy, sooo... Could you help us non Americans out a little? So far it's just looking like everyone is standing around a dumpster fire, shouting stuff that's not really comprehensible

Jesus Christ this was something to wake up to this morning. I’m gonna be honest, it’s not my job to educate you or anyone else on this matter, you’re all adults (supposedly, I’m doubtful about a lot of you) and Google exists. But I also understand that it can be intimidating to dive into the wide world of the internet and it feels easier to ask someone you trust or feel that you know, so I’ll do my best to be concise and explain.

Everyone is standing around a dumpster fire shouting stuff that’s not comprehensible because people, my darling, are idiots.

“No, Mads, people aren’t idiots!” A person is not an idiot. But people are. Put us in a group and we’ll happily self destruct in the most spectacular fashion possible.

Biden is nowhere near the same as Trump, people just live in an echo chamber and refuse to look at the facts. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how awful Trump is. It baffles me that people are saying Biden, who happily supported Barack Obama and played second fiddle to him for eight years, is the same as the man who’s putting children in cages.

Here is a breakdown of Biden’s policy plans should he be elected. Very different from Trump’s, as you can see. To quote this post here:

“It's important to be critical of political figures, especially during a primary election. Joe Biden has been in politics for a very long time, and his record is by no means spotless. There's lots to criticize, politically and personally. But having Biden in the big chair instead of Trump changes the entire game.

Look at it this way: if Joe Biden wins, a democratic Congress gets a clear path to passing real, lasting progressive laws. If Joe Biden wins, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets to retire, and be replaced by a young firebrand who will make Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh's lives a living hell for the next 40 years. If Joe Biden wins, all of the horrible executive orders Trump has enacted are gone, on day one: family seperation, abortion bans in VA hospitals, EPA funding gutted, global warming denial in NOAA, removal of LGBT+ protections, all GONE in January 2021. If Joe Biden wins, all the Trump shills in the government disappear: I'm talking about new people in the CPB, the Justice Department, the FTC, and everything other federal agency. With Biden instead of Trump, we're going to be fighting for Medicare for All vs. Obamacare, instead of Keeping Obamacare vs. Stripping Away Any Kind of Federal Insurance. We're going to be fighting for the Green New Deal vs. Having a Functional EPA, instead of Gutting The EPA or Having No EPA At All. The fight is way different, and we get to pull the conversation further left - where it belongs.

This election is just as much about getting rid of the Republican stench in the Oval Office as it is electing a particular person. So yeah, be critical of Joe Biden, but please don't lose sight of what President Joe Biden would actually look like versus President Trump.”

People seem to be forgetting that when you vote for president, you are, supposedly, not voting for One Supreme Leader Who Makes All The Decisions Ever. Putting Biden in the Oval Office is more about putting in a man who will pass the laws that a liberal, democratic Congress will put in front of him. A man who will actually listen to his advisors. It’s about putting in someone who won’t appoint a bunch of judges that will screw over everyone for the next, oh, three decades.

I don’t want Biden in office. I wanted Elizabeth Warren, for fuck’s sake. Whose policies were the same as Bernie’s, by the way, for all you bros out there who say you aren’t sexist. The last thing I want is another old white man, for the love of whatever you worship. But the idea that someone who supported and worked under someone like Obama is somehow the same as a Neo-fascist egomaniac is... ridiculous. It’s truly ridiculous. Not that Obama was perfect, far from it, but under his presidency we were making progress on things and my God, I wasn’t scared for the lives of just about everyone I know.

As for Biden versus Sanders, the argument that Biden is better stems from the fact that while Sanders has helped move the party left with his presidential campaigns and he makes pretty speeches, he hasn’t actually done anything in all his time serving as an elected public official. If you actually go and look at his track record, he hasn’t passed many laws or helped enact a whole lot of others. Everyone’s making a big deal about how he “saved millions of lives” with his big speech but actually, sorry kids, politics are not Hollywood and you don’t save the day by making a speech and miraculously everyone votes on something. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and Schumer actually talked to people, convinced them on it, and got the votes that secured the unemployment bill being passed, and that’s what saved lives, not someone yelling (no matter how passionate or eloquent their yelling is).

It’s great to yell about how the system is corrupt etc but you have to actually follow those words with actions, and Sanders, historically, is not good about compromising, working with others, reaching out to others, being on a team. And that’s exactly what you need to be able to do in politics to get anything done. There’s an episode of Leverage called “The Gimme a K Job,” where Sophie spends the entire time running back and forth between politicians getting them to compromise and quid pro quo for one another so she can get them to vote on a law. I recommend watching it. The situation is played for laughs, but it’s also brutally honest. You cannot get anything done in politics (or in a lot of things in life) if you aren’t willing to work together and bargain and give some to get some, and Sanders isn’t, and that’s not good.

Now, Sanders has done a lot in his presidential campaign to move the Dem party left and he’s really stirred up younger voters, and those are both good things. If you look at Biden’s policies in the post I linked, you’ll see a lot of them are more liberal than most people expected, and that’s probably because Biden and his team saw everyone supporting Sanders’ policies and went, “oh, okay, this is what the people want.” Which already shows that Biden is willing to listen to the people more than Trump and his party are.

And then there’s the more personal side of things. Sanders really left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth because some of his supporters were so extreme in their support of him, to the point of acting like he’s the only person who could possibly save us, when honestly that’s not how democracy (or socialism, frankly) works. The whole idea is that all of us, working together as a movement, are what makes change. The people all standing up together and demanding that lawmakers do this, that, and the other thing. Sanders extremists, known as “Bernie Bros,” acting like Sanders is their One True Savior has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. In my experience, people don’t like being shouted at and told they’re idiots. And in my experience, one single person isn’t going to save you. And nobody’s perfect so furthermore acting like someone is perfect is only going to annoy everyone else around you and set you up for disappointment down the line.

There are a lot of people out there feeling attacked by Sanders supporters, and so frankly, they’re glad to see the back of him and throw support behind Biden, because they’re just sick of dealing with his extremist followers.

If you want to tear the system down completely then gold star to you, but the fact is otherwise you have to work within the system to change it. And I don’t see any of these people yelling on the internet actually doing the work to organize a revolution. It’s fun to yell about your opinions, it helps you feel better, it helps you feel powerful and heard. But the real work is done in volunteering, in protesting, in running for local offices, in doing research and then voting for your mayor, your governor, your senator, your state representative. Those people, as the COVID-19 epidemic is proving, actually often have more direct power to help or harm you than the President does.

People have more power than they think, but they’re just refusing to use it, and they’re refusing to think critically and to do research on the policies of candidates. I’ve seen people calling Biden a “serial rapist,” for crying out loud, which, whether he assaulted a woman or not, is not true. That’s like if I killed one person and suddenly everyone was calling me a mass murderer. People like to exaggerate, to bloviate, and to think in black and white. It’s disappointing, but true.

One final thought, for both you and actual Americans: look at how non-Americans are viewing the United States election. We are not the center of the universe (although we like to pretend we are) but we do have a huge impact on the global stage, and other countries are begging us to elect someone other than Trump. You want to claim we’re not the stereotype of the selfish, self-centered American? Than put your money where your mouth is and look at the non-Americans who are asking us to please, please, please elect someone else. Do it for them, if nothing else. The world is bigger than just us.

Biden isn’t perfect. One could argue one way or another on the Sanders v. Biden debate. It really depends on your personal opinion. But when it comes to Trump v. Biden, it really shouldn’t be rocket science. One of them has allowed racism, sexism, and xenophobia to thrive. He’s literally responsible for thousands of deaths (and counting) through his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s backed us out of the planet-saving environmental agreement that everyone else agreed to. He’s enabled corrupt, selfish politicians to have their way. He would appoint judges that will strike down everything from refugees to abortion rights. He’s destroyed our international relations, nearly started a war, and I actually don’t think he knows how to read.

And his name’s Trump.

That’s the difference.

#mads answers things #politics #this is the one and only time I am explaining this #all other questions will simply get a link to this post #yokoo-chan98

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raywritesthings · 4 years

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Not Set in Stone

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Cisco Ramon, Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, Thea Queen, Quentin Lance, Felicity Smoak, John Diggle, Iris West, Samantha Clayton Pairings: Eventual Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Before the Flash and Arrow teams return home from defeating Vandal Savage, Cisco's powers warn him about an event in Laurel's future. The limited knowledge of this possible future has a ripple effect all of its own. *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN, links are in bio*

Things were winding down at the farmhouse now that Vandal Savage was little more than ashes. Cisco wished he could enjoy the victory, but he was too busy watching Kendra standing with Carter across the room as they talked to Barry and Oliver. Cisco was pretty sure he was officially dumped, even if they hadn’t had the conversation yet.

Before he could get too deep into his wallowing, however, a voice pulled him out of his musings. “Hey, Cisco, can I ask you a favor?”

He looked up and to his left. Laurel stood there, and a part of him still had trouble believing someone as awesome and gorgeous as her would give him the time of day. He’d thought the same about Kendra, too, and look how that had turned out.

“Sure. Uh, step into my office?” He suggested, gesturing towards the far less crowded hall. She nodded with a smile and followed him.

“So, I don’t know how much any of the others may have said, but my sister is back. Sara.”

“The Canary?” When Laurel nodded, Cisco’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But, I thought she was dead.” Caitlin had run a DNA test on the murder weapon and everything.

“She was, but there was this magic that I used to bring her back,” Laurel explained. She seemed to sense he was pretty bowled over by that news, for she quickly added, “And it can’t be used anymore, so it doesn’t really matter, but the point is she’s struggling to figure out what she wants to do with her life now. She had trouble suiting up in the field. Her old suit, I think it reminds her of her life with the League and that makes it harder.”

“Okay,” Cisco agreed, still at a loss.

“I wanted to see if you could make her something new, like how you did for Oliver.”

Oh. That was better, much more familiar territory. “Yeah, totally. I mean, I’ll need measurements and idea input and stuff, but I can get on it. Might not be done in time for Christmas.”

“That’s okay,” Laurel assured him. “She’s traveling right now, so I’d just like to have it for the next time she visits.”

��Great.” He was excited just thinking about a new project, and it helped distract him from his romantic woes.

“Okay, do you have an estimate on what that might cost?”

He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I just bill STAR Labs for the materials. Barry should probably get on that, though.”

“Alright, well, thank you so much.” Laurel smiled again and offered a hand to shake on it. He grinned back and took it.

Then the whole world shifted around him.

Everything became tinted that blue color he associated with his visions, and Cisco gasped at the sudden transition. Then he nearly did again when he was able to focus enough to see what was in front of him.

Laurel, on the ground, an arrow embedded into her abdomen through the jacket of her Black Canary suit. Blood trickled out of her mouth as she barely kept herself sitting up with a hand braced on the concrete floor.

And the arrow, even with the blue haze that covered everything, was green.

He jolted back to himself, gasping for breath.

“Cisco? Are you okay?” Laurel’s other hand was on his shoulder as she watched him with concern. He gripped the hand that he still held even tighter as his head shook.

“No. Oh, no, no, that can’t be possible.”

“Cisco, talk to me.”

He stared back at her. How did he even try to explain? What would explaining do? “I- I vibed just now. With my powers.”

“Your powers?”

He nodded. “They let me see things. Like on other Earths or in the future. I… I may have just seen the future. Your future.”

Laurel took a moment to process that information. “Something tells me it wasn’t good.”

Cisco shook his head, his eyes stinging. His throat threatened to close up just thinking about it. If that was the future — Laurel dying, her own teammate’s arrow the murder weapon — why was he shown it? Why did his visions always seem to herald some kind of doom?

Some laughter came from the main sitting room. The room where Oliver was. His breathing picked up just realizing that fact. Cisco pulled on Laurel’s hand to lead her further back into the house. They ended up in the kitchen.

“Okay, okay, if I saw it, then it has to mean something. I have to be able to do something about this, to fix it or- or I don’t know…”

“Maybe if you told me what happened in the thing you saw, we can figure it out together,” Laurel suggested.

“I really don’t want to,” Cisco said. “But okay. What I saw was, I think, you dying.”

Laurel sucked in a breath, her eyes wide. But she didn’t scream, didn’t cry. “How did it — does it… happen?”

“You were, or will be, in some kind of fight, or you were wearing your suit at least,” he told her, his voice hoarse. “You get stabbed by an arrow. Right here.” He placed his hand on his abdomen, closer to the right. “You were struggling to breath, it was- it was horrible. And the arrow… it was Oliver’s.”

Laurel’s face drained of the little color it had left. “No.”

He blinked to try and clear his blurry vision. “I don’t like it either, but that’s what I saw.”

“Did you see him?”

“No,” he admitted reluctantly.

Laurel’s chin raised, defiance in her eyes. “Then I refuse to believe it. Oliver would never.”

“He’s put arrows in people before,” Cisco couldn’t help pointing out, wilting under the sharp look Laurel threw him.

“He’s changed. And even in those days, he wouldn’t have done something like that. He was never cruel.” Laurel licked her lips and paced the tiny space in the kitchen. “It could be an imposter. That’s happened to him before. Or, worst case scenario, he’s drugged like Thea was last year. That’s the only way Ollie would ever do something like this.”

“We got to figure out how to stop him,” Cisco decided. “Or how to stop that happening to him,” he amended to avoid upsetting her again.

But Laurel just looked at him, lost. “Can we even do that? You said you saw the future. Doesn’t it have to happen?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I mean, it can’t be, right? What’s the point of me having these powers if, if I can’t do anything with them? Save people?”

“Cisco, it’s not your job to save me,” Laurel said, watching him with compassion.

“But I—”

Footsteps and a shadow falling into the room caused him to snap his mouth shut, and he was grateful a million times over that he had. Oliver stood in the kitchen archway.

“I was just getting some water,” he said, nodding to the refrigerator over Cisco’s shoulder. “Was I interrupting something?”

“No.” Laurel said right away. “Um, I was just asking Cisco for some help with a present for Sara. Let me get that water for you.” She turned to the cabinets to search for a clean glass.

Oliver shifted one step further into the room. Cisco placed himself in between him and Laurel, shaking in his shoes with both anger and fear.

In an out-and-out fight, he could never hope to do anything against Oliver. The man had held his own against Barry while the speedster had been in a meta-induced rage, for crying out loud! But was that going to stop Cisco from trying? No.

Oliver eyed him for a moment, his expression unreadable. Did they really even know each other? Did Cisco really know what he might be capable of? Laurel trusted him, but was that trust unfounded given what they now knew?

“Here.” Laurel’s hand landed on his shoulder as she moved around him to give Oliver the water glass.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” And he didn’t know how Laurel continued to keep smiling at the man she’d just learned would have at least a hand in her potential death — except Cisco knew that look in her eyes, of watching someone slip away from you to stand with someone else across the room. Of pretending to be happy with all the rest. Cisco had worn that very look barely twenty minutes ago, even if it felt like a lifetime from now.

She loved him.

As Oliver disappeared through the archway, Laurel turned back to Cisco and spoke in a hushed tone. “We can’t tell anyone else what you saw.”

“But they should know if he’s—”

“We don’t know what Oliver will do. It’s an unsubstantiated claim based on circumstantial evidence. It would destroy the team, disrupt his campaign and throw everything we have all worked for the last four years into question.”

“But it’s your life!” He barely managed to keep his exclamation to a whisper.

“So it’s my choice. Please, Cisco. At least until we can learn more.”

She was begging him with her eyes, and what could he really do? March into that sitting room and declare they throw Oliver in the pipeline? He’d look as crazy as Barry had when locking up Jay. His shoulders slumped. “Okay.”

She gave him a last, strained smile and disappeared through the archway, going upstairs as opposed to joining the others in the sitting room. Cisco’s eyes narrowed as he noticed Oliver following Laurel’s movement before Felicity got his attention again.

Laurel would never believe Oliver capable of striking the killing blow, so it would be up to Cisco to look at this objectively and make the necessary precautions. They’d just prevented history from repeating itself by saving Kendra and Carter tonight.

Now it was up to him to change the future.

---

Laurel didn’t sleep at all that night, a fact she thankfully managed to conceal from Thea who was sharing her room in the farmhouse. If Thea had asked about it, she wouldn’t have known what to tell her.

How did she even begin to describe knowing she was going to die?

She didn’t know much about how these metahuman abilities worked, but they seemed to be accurate. If Cisco had seen it, was there any real way of avoiding it? Or was he just saying they could prevent it to try and give her some false hope? Laurel wasn’t sure if she wanted that or not.

The team packed their things back up and waited for Oliver, Barry and Cisco to return from seeing Cisco off. Cisco was almost dogging Oliver’s steps as he approached them at the van, and Laurel gave a little warning shake of the head. Oliver was far too trained not to pick up on repeated aggression like that, and she didn’t want Cisco getting in trouble over all this — not that she thought Oliver would hurt him. She couldn’t see Oliver hurting any of them, so how could that vision be real?

“We ready to go?”

Laurel nodded along with the rest of them and got in the van. She tuned out the conversations being had, trying to think her options through.

She might be dying soon. She needed a will. Did she have much to leave people? There wasn’t much she really owned beyond clothes and her car.

Her lease. Thea needed to sign on in order to keep the apartment after. She’d have to make up some sort of excuse as to why she was asking her friend to do so now. Something that didn’t make it sound like she was getting her affairs in order so Thea wouldn’t wind up homeless once she was gone.

It occurred to her halfway into the drive that Oliver didn’t look to be contributing much to any talking in the van, either. His gaze was turned towards the window, watching the scenery pass as John drove on. What was he thinking about? Did she even dare to ask?

They returned to their daily routines back home, and Laurel did her best to pretend nothing was wrong all the while preparing. She took a lunch meeting to get her will officially filed. She attended a couple AA meetings with her dad to check up on his progress and make sure he was sticking to it. She started leaving detailed notes about each of her cases, for whoever might have to pick up the pieces of her job and her life after her.

Every time she suited up with the others now, a tiny voice asked in the back of her mind, Is it tonight? Am I going to die? She forced herself to ignore it. Forced herself to ignore the flutter of fear that went through her every time she passed by the line of newly hardened arrows on a table in the base, green tips pointed upward.

It couldn’t really be him. There had to be some other reason or person involved. By the time she was racing down the streets on her bike or in the thick of a fight with her tonfas and her fists, it was barely a thought in her head. It was the only time she could truly let go of that thought and just be.

And then the others were all abducted at Oliver’s holiday party and Malcolm arrived to play the Green Arrow’s double to help rescue them.

It could be him. Laurel’s heart thudded in her ears as she finished suiting up, watching Malcolm every second out of the corner of her eye. Was he really here to help, or was he about to betray her for the final time?

But it didn’t come. Malcolm helped them, and all her friends were safe. Back at the Bunker, they regrouped as a team.

“I’ll have to thank him,” Oliver noted and stopped there. Laurel didn’t know what to think. Was her thanks implied or just not deemed necessary?

She turned away and walked off to the empty side room, ignoring the confused or surprised looks of her team members. It wasn’t that she did this for thanks or for credit — but was it so hard for him to acknowledge when she actually did something right? He’d promised to be a better friend, but here she was wondering already if that promise was sincere. If he was supposed to kill her…

No. Laurel gave a sharp shake of the head. She couldn’t let herself give into those doubts. Oliver was a good man. He was the man, God help her, she still loved; broken and jagged and ill-fitting as they had been, he held her heart in his hands, not her life.

And of course he was the one to follow her to where she’d retreated. “Laurel?” Oliver stopped just a couple of feet from her. “Was there something wrong?”

“No. It’s just—” She shrugged. “Malcolm wasn’t the only person there tonight, you know?”

Oliver’s head bowed as his eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “He wasn’t. You’re right, I — thank you,” he said.

Laurel’s lips pressed tight together, trying to force a smile. It was stupid, dragging it out of him like this.

“Are we okay?”

“You should get Felicity home. She went through a lot tonight.” John and Thea had as well, but the former would likely only let his wife in on any fear or vulnerability leftover, and Laurel would see to the latter. She marched past Oliver to do just that, skirting around him with a wider berth than necessary.

“I know it wasn’t easy for you to work with him after everything,” Oliver said, making her pause in the archway for a moment. “So really, thank you.”

Laurel looked back at him. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the people I love safe. Just like you would.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, and she couldn’t detect even the slightest hesitation or deception. She wanted to believe that wasn’t just naivety on her part.

Laurel left and was barely home with Thea for an hour when they got the call from Oliver that Felicity had been hospitalized after an ambush on the couple’s car. They went to join him, but Oliver hardly seemed to want to be there. He was manic in his need to see Darhk pay, making reckless decisions and risking the progress they’d made in bringing peace to the city, in working together as a team. She couldn’t believe he’d broken Machin out without even talking to the rest of them so they could show him just how badly that could go wrong.

“And when your master plan doesn't work, you just sent a murdering psychotic back on the streets,” she told him.

Oliver advanced a step, his face thunderous and eyes flashing and she—

She couldn’t help it. She backed away. She wasn’t in her suit, there was no bow and arrow in his hand and it was Oliver. But had she finally gone too far, pushed this strange contentious thing between them, stood in defiance too many times?

He froze, his shoulders dropping back, his fists unclenching. “Laurel?” Something like hurt, like fear of his own took over his features.

“What’s going on?” John’s voice seemed to startle both of them, and Laurel realized she’d completely forgotten what they’d been fighting about.

“I… you tell him.” She rushed out of the room, wiping at the few tears that managed to slip past her eyelids.

How could she have really thought that? In all their fights, in all the various ways Oliver had ever hurt her, had he ever struck out at her physically? She was losing control, too much knowledge of her own impending future clouding her common sense and making her jump at shadows. She needed to get a grip. The team needed her, for however long she could be with them.

And she didn’t want anyone thinking she couldn’t handle this life; however it ended, being the Black Canary was the one thing that kept her going when everything else seemed to fall around her. They’d have to kill her first to ever take it away.

So Laurel managed to regroup in time to take care of Machin with Speedy and Spartan while Oliver finally went to see his fiancée in the hospital. She told herself to live in the moment and forget about the future for now. No more living in fear.

And then, of course, her sister came back just in time to turn everything upside down for her.

“Time travel. I can’t believe we’re talking about it like it’s actually real.” Seeing the future was one thing, but being able to go there and interact with it?

What if Sara could go to that day that was waiting for Laurel? What if she was the key?

Yet she still couldn’t say when it would happen. She’d be sending her sister on a wild goose chase if she told her what Cisco had seen, and what if there was nothing she could do? She didn’t want Sara blaming herself for Laurel’s death the way their father had blamed himself all those years Sara had been away thanks to the League.

In that same vein, it would be better that Sara was as far from here as possible, so she couldn’t feel it was her fault. “I think you should go.”

She couldn’t ask Sara to stay. She never could, and Laurel didn’t want to be treated as some invalid on her deathbed. She didn’t want to keep Sara to herself if it meant the pallor of death hung over all their final memories. So she gave her the suit she’d asked Cisco to make and sent her to find herself. It was the best thing for her sister. It was all she could give her.

She hoped it was enough. For Sara, for the others. She hoped she was doing the right thing for them.

---

Barry wished he knew what had gotten into his friend.

At first he had thought Cisco was acting strangely thanks to being left behind by Kendra. Now that he and Patty had gone their separate ways, he could relate even. But Cisco’s behavior spoke of more than a broken heart.

The engineer had been keeping late hours. Now that Barry was in charge of the running of STAR Labs, he noticed things like that more and more, when he bothered to look at the papers. Cisco had also been ordering a lot of textiles, which told him he was working on at least a fair number of extracurricular projects.

But what really had Barry concerned was the sheer mania Cisco had exhibited earlier today when they’d been working against the clock to save Dr. McGee’s life. When Barry had gotten to her, averting the death Cisco had foreseen, his friend shouted for joy so loudly Barry had been tempted to take the comm out of his ear.

Of course, he was glad that Dr. McGee was still with them, too, but he suspected there was something more to it than that. Especially since Cisco was right back to feverishly working away.

Cisco had rigged something like those machines that fired baseballs for people to practice hitting. Only instead of baseballs, this machine fired arrows straight into a mannequin torso wearing a black bodysuit. Previous models stood in the background, testament to repeated failures.

“Damnit!” Cisco smacked his fist against the wall as the latest arrow pierced the material the mannequin was wearing.

“Uh, dude?” Barry asked, feeling he’d seen enough to warrant stepping in. “What’s going on?”

“Testing some designs.”

“Okay, well it’s getting late.”

“I’m fine, dude,” Cisco said, his voice terse as he moved the mannequin to the side to join its fellows.

“I’m not sure you are.” He took a couple steps further into the room. “You should get some rest.”

“It can wait.”

“Cisco—”

His friend whirled around to shout at him. “It has to wait, Barry! We- we changed time today without time traveling and that is huge, and I have to figure out how to do it again because if I don’t? Laurel’s going to get killed with a green arrow!”

“What?” He couldn’t have heard that right.

“I vibed. Last time we all met up, Laurel was talking to me and we touched hands and I vibed that she was… she’s going to die, Barry.” Cisco’s eyes were red-rimmed and his voice wavered badly. “Unless I stop it, he’s gonna kill her.”

Barry shook his head. “Not- not Oliver. You didn’t see him. Right? It wasn’t him in the vision.”

“I didn’t see anyone else. But it was his arrow, man, I know it was.”

Barry sat hard on the end of the table Cisco had covered in spare materials and notes. He just couldn’t believe it. Oliver wasn’t the killer he had been, and even then he had never killed someone as good and loyal as Laurel. His friend had just discovered he was a father; he would be doing everything he could to be the kind of man William could look up to. So how could this be?

“Walk me through the vision. Everything you remember seeing. What did it look like?”

“I don’t know. It was kind of… gray? I think the walls and everything were concrete.” Cisco walked over and sat beside him, one hand dragging through his hair as he concentrated. “But there was something else.”

“Another person?”

“No. But I think it might have been a sign on the wall. Something- something about a security level?”

“Just focus on that, forget about Laurel or the arrow for a second,” Barry encouraged him. He was sure that was all his friend would have been concentrating on when he first had the vision, and likely the subsequent nightmares. “Is there something else in the room?”

Cisco’s eyes were squeezed shut. “Maybe… a table. Like in a cafeteria. There’s some weird statue-thing sitting on it. That’s all I got.”

“Okay… you don’t see a time or a landmark or anything?” When his friend shook his head, Barry blew out a breath. “So this could happen any time.”

“Any time they’re both out in the field, yeah.”

“Who else knows?”

“Just Laurel.”

“Just — dude, you told her she was gonna die?”

Cisco stood back up just seconds after he did. “Well, I wasn’t exactly able to hide my reaction to seeing her die when she was standing right in front of me, okay? These powers — I barely understand how they work and it’s rarely in any kind of way I want. I’d rather have not seen it at all, but I don’t get that option!”

He knew that, and he knew blaming Cisco was useless, but God, imagining going through life with an imminent death sentence hanging over you… what did Laurel have to be feeling right now?

“Has she told anyone? Her family? Oliver?”

“Why would she tell him?”

“So he can figure out how to keep it from happening?”

“We don’t know that he’s not the one who’s going to do it,” Cisco pointed out darkly. “Telling him might just be like some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“She really thinks he would?” Barry considered Oliver a good friend, and he believed in him. But Laurel was his teammate, worked with him every day. He actually didn’t know how long they’d known each other, come to think of it. If she really thought it was possible, what did that mean?

But Cisco gave a shake of the head. “No, she’s with you. Thinks there has to be something else, and that’s why she doesn’t want him to know. She’s more worried about him than herself,” he said, hitting his palm with his fist in frustration.

“Wow.” He’d had no idea Laurel cared that much for Oliver. If he found out tomorrow that one of his friends might be implicated in his death, would he have that same capacity for care, even over his own life? Maybe if it was someone he loved; after all, he had forgiven Patty with hardly a thought for trapping him with the B.O.O.T. while she went after Mardon.

Did Laurel love Oliver? His head felt like it was spinning with all these new revelations, and Barry knew even one secret more than everyone else: William. Had Oliver told anyone else? Who all knew what?

Whatever anyone knew, the thing he knew right now was that Cisco looked dead on his feet. “Look, I get how important this is. But you’re working yourself into the ground. Get some rest, and we can attack it from a whole new angle tomorrow.”

Cisco sighed in defeat. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I just don’t want…”

“None of us want that,” Barry assured him. Certainly the Oliver he knew wouldn’t. “And we won’t let it happen, alright? Just like with Dr. McGee.”

His friend nodded, looking heartened, before he left the workroom. Barry’s gaze swept over the skewered mannequins, his lips pressing tight together. What were they actually going to do?

There was very little that could stop an arrow once it was fired at a person, provided they weren’t a metahuman with some kind of exoskeleton or invulnerability. The best way to protect Laurel would be to figure out precisely where and when the vision Cisco had seen was to take place.

Despite his own advice, Barry found himself tossing and turning alone in his bed as he thought it over. He wasn’t sleeping well without Patty there to wake and calm him from his nightmares about Zoom anyway, so he told himself it was probably better to put his mind to use.

A concrete room, with cafeteria-style tables and a sign about a security level. Barry wasn’t an expert in Star City geography or its landmarks, but something about Cisco’s description stood out to him, made him feel like it meant something. Maybe one of the others would have a better idea.

But how many of them could they tell? Did knowledge of Cisco’s vibes pose the same risk as knowledge of time travel? And if he told one member of their team, it was likely to get out to the rest.

If he could just talk to one person, like his dad…

And it hit him suddenly why the place Cisco had described seemed familiar in some way to him. He had been there countless times throughout the years, ever since he was eleven and his father had been wrongfully imprisoned.

Barry sat straight up in bed.

“It happens at Iron Heights.”

---

Oliver didn’t know what the right decision to make anymore was.

He had agreed to Samantha’s ultimatum because it was the only way for him to get to know his son. He had proposed to Felicity because it was the only way to keep her from thinking he was having second thoughts about moving their relationship forward. No matter that he should be happy, having just become a father and a fiancé, he found himself plagued by a sense of unease. And the source of that unease had shocked him.

Laurel.

He couldn’t quite pin down when it had started. Around the holidays, he thought. Laurel had grown tense and withdrawn; her usual smiles seemed strained and she’d stopped seeking him out for partner training, turning to John or Thea instead. He’d been so caught up in his own adjustments since learning about William that it had taken some time for these changes to register in his conscious mind, and it had taken their argument about Machin for it to really break through.

The way she had taken an involuntary step back from him, her sharp gasp of breath and the widening of her eyes — he had only ever been faced with that look from her once before; when she had stopped him from beating a man to death in Iron Heights prison. It was fear.

He hadn’t known what to do, a rash, ill-thought out retort dying on his lips as he’d realized she was afraid of him. When had that happened? And why?

Did she somehow know his secret? The affair he had never disclosed? Was it making her question him? His very character, his intentions?

He couldn’t stand the idea. Lord knew Laurel had every right to doubt the efforts he was trying to make to better himself for his city and for his loved ones. But she had always put aside her own hurts to encourage him; at her best, she had always believed in him before. Was this just one hurt too far?

Guilt kept him awake as he lay on the couch in the loft, Felicity needing the bed to herself with her condition now that she had been released from the hospital. He just couldn’t see an easy solution to this. Telling Laurel the truth on his own might restore her faith in him, but it broke Samantha’s ultimatum. Leaving things be meant losing his oldest friend and possibly destroying the team’s functionality.

The thing was, he was so sick of always letting her down. He still felt the bitter sting of her words from almost a year ago: it’s hard to remember a time when I was ever in love with you.

He wondered uneasily for a moment why that hurt so much. It wasn’t as if he would want Laurel to be in love with him still while he was with someone else. She deserved to be happy someday. She deserved so much better.

He found himself rising from the couch and stepping into his shoes, grabbing the keys to his bike from the pocket of his coat on his way out the door. His decision was made.

It was late, he knew, but he also knew Laurel tended to stay up past even their forays into the field in order to catch up on work from her day job. She had always been that way. And people wondered when he slept.

Sure enough, Laurel answered the door in a baseball tee and pajama pants. “Oliver?” He was glad to see it was mostly confusion on her face rather than the fear from before. “Is everything okay with Felicity?”

“Yeah. She’s fine. Resting, but as fine as she can be, considering.” He was let into the front hallway and studied Laurel as she closed the door. “I guess I’m wondering if we’re okay.”

She tensed, and her voice was carefully light as she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Things have been different the last month or so. And I think I know why, and I’m sorry.”

Her face scrunched up for a moment. “You’re sorry?”

Was that so hard to believe? He turned, walking a little into the living room while he figured out just how he was saying this. “I am. It wasn’t fair to you. It never was, and I know I should have just been honest all those years ago—”

“Ollie, wait. What’s this really about?” She’d followed him and looked just as confused as he felt.

“Then… you don’t know?”

Laurel shrugged. “Safe answer when it comes to you is yes.”

He winced. Now he’d really done it. Laurel didn’t know about William, but she had to be incredibly curious as to why he’d brought up the past. And her not already knowing didn’t change the reasons why he’d felt compelled to tell her. “You might want to sit down,” he said quietly, eyes on her rug.

“Okay…”

He pursed his lips together, and began, “Do you remember Samantha Clayton?”

Laurel blinked. “Yeah. She went out with everyone to the clubs a few times, why?”

“One of the times she was there and you weren’t, we…” He hated himself for being unable to just say it. He was a damned coward, no matter how many people he saved at night.

Laurel’s breath caught, and he saw her blink back the shock and the pain. “I see. Why tell me now?”

“I should have told you years ago. It wasn’t fair to pretend it never happened, especially because — I’m a father, Laurel.”

It was the first time he’d truly gotten to say the words out loud. Barry had told him and Samantha of course had already known.

“How’d you find out?” He was sure she was using the questions as something different to focus on rather than the betrayal she had to be feeling.

“I ran into her when we were in Central City. She’s been living there, since… well, I was always told that she’d lost the baby, but it turns out my mother paid her to tell me that and then move away.”

“Oh, Ollie.” She half-stood. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know what to think about that. I mean, Lord knows the person I was then wasn’t ready. But why couldn’t she have told me when I came back? When she could see that I’d changed? I — I‘ve lost almost nine years with him.” He knew he was ranting and that she was the last person who deserved to have all of this unloaded on him. “Or why couldn’t she have just left me to pick up the pieces of my own mess? I would have stayed home and never taken Sara on the Gambit.”

“But your son would have been made into a spectacle,” Laurel pointed out, the same as his own inner voice did. “Considering how much you’ve struggled with being your father’s son all these years, I’d hate to have watched him grow up under a scandal like that.”

“William,” he murmured to his toes. “That’s his name.”

“What are you doing about William now? Has Samantha agreed to look at custody arrangements?”

He shook his head and sank wearily onto the other end of the couch. “She wants to be sure that I’ve changed my ways before even telling him, and she asked me not to tell anyone in my own life. Barry knows because I had him run the paternity test.” In one version of time, at least, or so he’d been told.

“Then why tell me? You’re risking your chance with him.”

“I know. But you deserved the truth.” He finally forced himself to meet her eyes; they were shining in the lamplight, and he knew that was from her holding so much back. “I want to be in William’s life, but I want to teach him to be better than me, too. If I can’t be honest to a woman I wronged and who is kind enough to still consider me a friend, how can I be the kind of father or role model he needs?”

Laurel reached across the space between them and took his hands. He watched her lips press tight together as she swallowed once, then said, “You’re more than that. You’re a hero. And one day, William will know that.”

He gripped her hand tight in his, so much feeling in his heart he worried his chest might burst. Relief, regret, gratefulness and, beneath it all, an old, bone-deep longing, so raw and so powerful it took his breath away for a moment.

He forced himself to let go and push the feelings back down, clearing his throat with a gruff, “Thanks.”

“Thank you for being honest,” she returned.

“I am sorry.”

Laurel’s lips pursed, a smile that hadn’t quite made it. She drew back and waved a hand over herself. “Hey, ancient history, right?”

There was a warble in her voice that made the joke fall flat. Oliver knew he should go. She was putting on a brave face so he wouldn’t have to see the hurt he had caused. But he couldn’t help this strange need to be there by her side, to help ease the pain he himself had brought on her.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Maybe just some water,” she said after a moment, her gaze far away.

Oliver got up to get it, glad to have some space to himself in the kitchen for a moment. He still didn’t understand; if Laurel hadn’t known about William, then what was going on between them? Why did her mind seem to be somewhere he just couldn’t quite reach her?

He got the glass down from the cabinet she kept it in, his motions as familiar as if he were in his own kitchen he knew the place so well. It was a comfort, being here and opening up to her like this.

Oliver couldn’t help questioning Barry’s warning about Felicity's reaction in the original timeline. Surely if Laurel, who would have had every reason to hate him, scream and throw him out of her home, had handled the information with such grace and compassion, his own fiancée would do the same. Felicity loved him as he did her, so why wouldn’t she be understanding? He would talk to Samantha tomorrow about having told Laurel — he could hardly see how she could object considering Laurel had been involuntarily involved in even a tangential way — before asking her again about telling Felicity.

Just as he had decided this, there was a whoosh of air out in the sitting room, and then he heard none other than Barry’s voice. “Laurel! Great, I caught you awake. Listen, I think I figured part of the vision out.”

“The vision?” He heard the creak of Laurel’s floorboards and had a feeling she’d just stood up. “Cisco told you?”

Oliver frowned. What vision was this? What did Cisco and Barry know? He crept out to the hall on the balls of his feet, minimizing the sound it made.

“It kind of slipped out. But he described some of the surroundings, and I have a pretty good idea of where it’s supposed to happen: Iron Heights.”

He peered around the corner. Sure enough, Barry was gesturing excitedly as he talked, but Oliver was forced to momentarily duck behind the wall again as Laurel’s nervous gaze flickered in his direction.

“Okay, but Barry, wait—”

“As long as we keep you away from there, you’re not going to die!”

There was a shatter of glass, but it was only when water started seeping through his shoes into his socks that Oliver realized it had been from him dropping the glass in his hand.

He couldn’t have heard right, or he was missing something or he just misunderstood. Why would Barry say Laurel was going to die? She couldn’t.

In a flicker of sudden movement, his friend was standing in front of him, eyes wide. “Oh, God, I did not realize you would be here.”

Laurel appeared in his line of sight next, a hand over her mouth and her eyes glossy and wide. Oliver didn’t think he pushed Barry aside, but it was hard to say in his sudden move to reach her. His hands landed on her shoulders. “Laurel, what’s going on?”

“I…” Laurel drew in a shaky breath. “I was told by Cisco that I’m going to die. That I’ll be killed,” she amended. “I don’t know when, but probably soon.”

This had to be some cruel joke. Or a nightmare. It couldn’t be real.

But Laurel was real under his hands. Her pain and worry and the certainty in which she spoke told him this wasn’t some lie.

He looked back at Barry. “What happens at Iron Heights?”

His friend shifted, uncomfortable, then spoke towards the floor. “All Cisco saw was Laurel bleeding from an arrow in her side.”

“An arrow?” His stomach flipped, and a vision of his own — a reoccurring nightmare he’d had all of last year — rose to the forefront of his mind. Laurel in the place of her sister, dead on a table in the base.

“Not just an arrow,” Laurel spoke, barely above a whisper. “Cisco says… it looks like one of yours.”

“No.” In all his worst, darkest fears, nothing so horrible as that had ever crossed his mind. “It can’t- I would never—”

“I know. I know you wouldn’t,” she said, shifting one step closer, and he couldn’t believe that she could possibly be smiling at a time like this — except he felt her shoulders shaking and saw the relief in her eyes. “I know it’s not you, Ollie.”

He pulled her close without a thought, her head tucked under his chin and his hand running through her hair. He still had so many questions, but for now all he could do was hold her, wondering at how she had been carrying this burden practically on her own. She was so strong. Even the thought of losing her was enough to make his eyes water.

What caused them to spill over was the realization that she did still believe in him. She had overcome her fears, the very instinct to protect her own life, to keep working alongside him every day all while knowing what she did about the circumstances Cisco had foreseen.

Oliver gave a shaky exhale, his lips pressing to the top of her head for the briefest moment, and he felt Laurel’s hands clench the fabric of his shirt. She fit so perfectly here, he couldn’t ever imagine losing it much less being the cause. He had hurt her in the past — no matter what he did, he’d always seemed to hurt her — but by God, it ended tonight.

What was it they were missing? A copycat like the League last year? Someone else gaining possession of his weapons? He thought of Ra’s ripping the sword Oliver had chosen from his hands to plunge it through his side and shuddered. There was no way in Hell he could allow that to happen to Laurel. He would have to be dead first.

“Iron Heights,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder, his cheek brushing against Laurel’s hair. “Barry, you’re sure?”

Barry hung back rather than approach, watching them. “Without seeing the vision myself? No. But everything in Cisco’s description of the place matches up. He also mentioned some sort of statue thing?”

A statue in the prison. Something didn’t add up, but he couldn’t think of it. Probably because he was exhausted. Laurel didn’t look much better. He thought he might likely be the only thing holding her up soon if he kept rubbing her back in soothing circles.

“You should rest,” he told her softly.

She shook her head. “I have to clean up the glass first.”

“I’ll get it,” Barry offered immediately and was gone and back with a broom and dustpan in the blink of an eye.

“Come on.” Oliver noticed her socked feet and chose to scoop her up in his arms to avoid anything while Barry finished sweeping. As he passed the spare room, he had to be grateful that Thea had always been a heavy sleeper even before the late nights that came with patrols.

He only set Laurel down once they reached her room. “Will you be okay?”

“I will. I think I needed to tell someone, even if I’m worried.”

He could understand that better than most anyone, he thought. Having the truth out with her about Samantha and William just before this had been both relieving and one of the most terrifying things he had ever done.

She glanced up at him, raising a hand to cup his cheek while she implored him with her gaze. “Please don’t think, whatever happens, that this is your fault.”

“I won’t,” he promised. Maybe in another time, he would have thought that way. Been defeated before he even began. But it wasn’t his fault; it was his responsibility to ensure what Cisco had seen would never come to pass.

Laurel held his gaze for a long moment, and he thought neither of them dared to breathe. Then she withdrew and slipped through the doorway.

He shuffled back towards Barry, who regarded him with sympathy. “The less people that know about this, probably the better. It’s not exactly a science, but we don’t want to risk somehow setting things in stone.” At Oliver’s nod, Barry stepped up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll make sure Laurel’s safe, Ollie. Cisco thought he saw Dr. McGee die earlier this week but his vision helped us prevent it instead. It is possible.”

Hope, however faint, bloomed in his chest as he looked back at Laurel’s door. She could live through this. She could go on being with them. They still had time.

“Did, um, did something happen?” His friend’s question startled him, and Oliver turned with a frown towards Barry. “I mean, obviously the vision, but — you’re here kind of late. Is Felicity…?”

Right, Felicity. He needed to get back in case she had need for anything, though he thought the chances were slim considering most people were asleep at this time of night. “She’s at the loft. I should- I should go.”

“Yeah, me too,” Barry said, still scrutinizing him with the strangest look. But the speedster was gone in the next instant, leaving him alone in Laurel and Thea’s apartment. Oliver let himself out and made the solitary trek back to his own residence.

He called Samantha early the next morning to tell her the decision he’d made. “Laurel won’t share this with anyone, she’s not that kind of a person. But I should have been honest with her.”

“No, I agree,” Samantha said after a pause. “And if she wants to talk to me, you can pass on my number. I’ve always regretted that I didn’t apologize when I knew how much she — well, you’re a lucky man to still have someone like her in your life, Oliver.”

“I know,” he replied with solemnity, thinking of just how lucky he would be if they pulled this off. If they saved her.

There was another woman in his life, of course, and as he opened his mouth to ask Samantha for just the slightest bit more leniency, he heard that woman call down from the bedroom for assistance. “I have to go,” he said with some regret. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

Oliver hung up, his mind on the various futures he had been warned about. Could it be possible that Felicity’s reaction to learning the truth would be different than what Barry had seemingly experienced in the first timeline, just like Laurel’s fate would be different than what Cisco had foreseen? He felt hope for the latter, yet, as he climbed the steps to the bedroom he’d once shared with his fiancée, there was a sense of trepidation towards the former. If experience had taught him anything, it was that life was a series of choices. It wasn’t very often a person got both of the things they wanted.

What did it say that he already knew without hesitation which he would choose?

---

Felicity had always hated feeling like the odd woman out. In joining the team with Oliver and John along with now being engaged, she thought she’d never have to feel that way again.

And yet, here she was. On the outside looking in once again. Watching Oliver and Laurel.

Nothing had happened, from what she could tell. Laurel wasn’t that sort of girl to be the other woman, not after Oliver himself had cheated on her. They were just friends, and yet…

There was just a closeness that hadn’t been there for a long time. She didn’t know a better way to describe it. It seemed every time the group was down in the base, Oliver was working with Laurel on some aspect of her training. Strength on the salmon ladder, dodging and blocking, even catching arrows from midair!

He was using ones with foam tips for that purpose which he’d designed himself, along with a whole series of projects he had decided to take on for himself. “You know, I can work out the specs a lot faster,” she’d pointed out.

“I’ll run them by you. I just want to be sure.” Where this newfound interest in trick and non-lethal arrows had come from, she didn’t know, but he was honestly starting to remind her of the early days with his micromanaging tendencies. And with the whole Laurel thing.

Was this just his defense mechanism? Every time he got close to another woman, he started backing off and then would inevitably try to endear himself to Laurel again. He’d been pushing Felicity away before this latest turn, ever since they got back from Central, and if her mother hadn’t found that ring box who knew if they’d be here right now.

It wasn’t like he was ignoring the others when it came to training or teaming up in the field. She could just be exaggerating, letting insecurity get to her since her paralyzation. There was no proof of the suspicions she held, even if someone with Oliver’s track record didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

And then she heard it. Late one night, as she lay somewhere between sleep and waking, a creaking of the couch downstairs. His voice crying out.

“Laurel… Laurel!”

Felicity struggled to force her body to sit up. “Oh, he is so not dreaming about her while I’m literally upstairs,” she grumbled under her breath before calling as loud as she could, “Oliver! Oliver!”

It took a demeaning amount of time for him to make it up to the room, with bloodshot eyes and a deliberate slowness to his breath that spoke of having to calm himself down. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Not really. I heard you,” she said pointedly.

He winced and sat down on the corner of the mattress. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Wow, that was what he thought she was upset about? “Well, you should have maybe thought about that before you started dreaming about another woman.”

He startled. “Felicity, I wasn’t — it’s not anything like that.”

“Really? Well, if you have a good explanation for why you were literally screaming Laurel’s name, I would love to hear it.”

His lips thinned into a line. “It’s not something I can share safely right now.”

Felicity scoffed. “How convenient for you. You know, I’ve been trying to put up with the secretiveness lately, trying to believe better of you, but this is not going to work if you can’t be honest with me.”

“Felicity, wait,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I promise, when the danger has passed, I will tell you everything. But it is not what you’re thinking.”

There was danger? But they were all in danger, weren’t they? As long as Darhk was around. She wavered, some of her anger receding.

“Laurel is my friend, someone I will do whatever I can to protect,” Oliver continued. “And she is always going to be in my life. That’s something anyone I love should know.”

And she had known it. But, the more she thought about it, the more she just couldn’t help it getting to her. No matter what happened in Oliver’s love life, Laurel was going to be there. Felicity could marry him or leave him, and it wouldn’t change that. She was not the constant in his life; Laurel was.

“I think Alex was right before,” she said quietly, surprising herself. And Oliver, judging by the widening of his eyes. But she wasn’t one for backing off a position once she’d taken it. “There’s too much history and baggage between you two for me to be comfortable with, especially when it just seems to draw you back together like this.” Even if he and Laurel were both determined to keep things totally platonic, there was no ignoring the deep care and even love that was in the looks they exchanged every so often.

“Laurel’s a part of the team, and we need everyone,” Oliver reminded her.

“Okay, but in the future I am asking for you to partner with either John or Thea in the field and to let John or Thea train with her.” She squeezed his hand, which had gone somewhat limp in hers. “That is not an unreasonable request considering your past.”

His head bowed. “I know I don’t deserve your trust, but Felicity, I have to keep training Laurel. That doesn’t change my love for you. Please don’t make me choose.”

“Because you can’t decide?” What sort of a man couldn’t decide between his fiancée and his ex?

But when Oliver remained silent, she realized he was decided. Felicity drew back, her hand pulling away from his. “I need you to go. Right now.”

“Felicity—”

“Go!” Couldn’t he respect the fact that she was trapped here and couldn’t leave herself? Once the door shut behind him, Felicity let herself cry into her pillow. Why did it always end like this?

—-

Thea wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t exactly disapprove.

Oliver and Felicity had apparently decided to take a break, and Oliver was refusing to explain the reasoning behind it. This was frustrating John to no end, but Thea thought she’d found the cause in her mother’s finances.

Finding out she was an aunt was shocking, but listening to Oliver talk about his son when she’d brought her findings to him made her happy for him. He had always loved being part of a family and she knew he wanted to have his own one day. Though his prospects didn’t look good at the moment.

“Does Felicity know?” She guessed. It would be reasonable to expect the woman needed some time to process this information.

But Oliver shook his head. “No. And it is really not the time to tell her.”

Thea’s brow furrowed. “Then why the break?”

“We, uh, had a separate disagreement about something,” he told her. “Actually, the same disagreement Alex and I had last fall.”

It took a moment for Thea to realize just what he meant by that, but when she did she couldn’t help her eyes widening. “Felicity wants Laurel off the team?”

“Not that extreme,” he hurried to say.

Good, she thought, because if Laurel was to be kicked off the team then Thea would be going with her.

“Just… she wants me to keep my distance, or something,” he continued miserably. “I tried to tell her that Laurel and I aren’t like that, but she didn’t believe me. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Ollie?” Was he saying what she thought he was?

He studied his hands rather than meet her gaze. “Do you ever think about what it would be like to lose someone — a specific someone? When I try to imagine the people I couldn’t stand to lose, the one that would, would change a part of me forever and not for the good, there’s you.” He looked up and caught her eye for a moment. Thea tried to smile for him and took one of his hands. “There’s William, now. And… there’s Laurel.”

“But not Felicity?” She asked softly.

“Not because I don’t care for her,” he said, “but you and Laurel and John would stop me. I know that. If I lost Laurel or you, I don’t think I could be stopped.”

“What’s got you thinking like this?” She had to know. He could just be taking his and Felicity’s problems hard, but it seemed to be for reasons other than a broken heart.

“A few things. Darhk, for one. He took you all at the party because he wanted to get at my loved ones. By sheer luck, Laurel wasn’t there, and because she wasn’t in danger she was able to help me. I was able to fight back. And I guess it made me remember the first time I ever told Felicity I loved her.”

Thea raised an eyebrow which caused a wry half-smile. At least he recognized he was hardly making any sense.

“It was almost two years ago, right before the Siege. I knew Slade was planning to go after one more person, the person I loved. I also knew he’d planted cameras in the Manor. So, I took Felicity there and basically played out a scene.”

“So Slade wouldn’t target Laurel,” Thea realized.

He nodded, and his shoulders drooped. “I convinced myself that it wasn’t really a lie, and I- I wanted this with Felicity, I know that. But if she makes me choose between having her in my life or Laurel…” his head bowed once again. “What does that mean?”

Thea sat back, her breath leaving her in one big whoosh as she thought about all of this. “I think,” she finally began, “it means that, whether you still love her romantically or not, Laurel is important to you. More important than just about anything. Does she know about William?”

“I told her,” he admitted.

Thea threw a hand up for a moment. “Then I think that says it all, really, Ollie. Laurel’s the person you want involved in your life and in your family. And, truth be told, she would never make you choose like that.” As far as Thea was concerned, that settled the matter right there and then. “But you should probably stop worrying yourself sick about losing her. Highly doubt that’s going to happen after everything she’s stuck with you through.”

“I hope you’re right,” Oliver said, with a weariness that caused her teasing grin to fade. He rose from his seat. “I’ll ask Felicity if she wants me to stay as a carer, but if not I may need to make arrangements to move my things out of the loft.” Her brother looked at her again. “Thank you for letting me work through that, Speedy. I needed it.”

“What are little sisters for besides relentless teasing?” She asked. “And hey, I’m proud of you for facing these things head-on. I’ll support you whatever happens.”

“When did you ever get so wise?”

They shared a smile before Oliver left to have his talk with who Thea suspected would become his former fiancée. Thea, for her part, left for the apartment she shared with Laurel.

A part of her felt kind of giddy upon entering the place. She’d meant what she’d said about supporting her brother no matter what; that had included his engagement. But there was just something special about the idea of him and Laurel. Maybe it reminded her of happier, simpler times. Maybe she could picture their mom’s delight that she’d been right all along. Maybe it was just that these were the two people Thea held dearest in the whole world, and she wanted to see them both get a happily ever after. If it was together, so much the better.

So she practically skipped into the living room where Laurel sat at her desk, frowning over a pile of documents. “Hey.”

It took her friend a moment to look up, and when she did her smile was strained. “Hey, yourself.”

Thea paused. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just trying to figure out the best deal for selling my car,” Laurel said.

“Why would you do that?”

Laurel shrugged. “I don’t use it much. John tends to drive the team around, and I can always borrow my dad’s if I really need one for an errand. It’d just be kind of a hassle to hang onto.” Her friend flipped the folder she’d been looking through shut and turned fully around in her chair. “But how’s it going? You stayed kind of late to talk to Ollie.”

“Yeah, well, we had some family stuff to discuss,” she said with a significant look; Laurel clearly understood by the slight widening of her eyes followed by a nod. “And he wanted my advice on something.”

“Is it something he wants discloses to the rest of the team or a private matter?”

Thea shrugged. “You’ll probably find out sooner than later. I think he and Felicity are over.”

Thea considered it a very near thing that Laurel didn’t fall right out of her chair. “What?”

“Apparently Felicity gave him a bit of an ultimatum,” Thea informed her with a grin. She’d never quite been able to quell her inner gossip, after all. “Only she’s not getting the answer she was probably looking for.”

“It wasn’t about William, was it?”

“Nope.” She could only try to imagine Felicity’s reaction to learning about that one. “Turns out it had a little bit more to do with you.”

She watched Laurel freeze for a moment, a whole range of emotion flickering in her eyes as she asked, “Me?”

“Yeah. I guess all the training you guys were doing lately spooked her and she wanted Ollie to promise to keep his distance, and he’s not exactly prepared to do that.”

“But he- that’s not— I can’t believe him sometimes,” Laurel grumbled, standing roughly enough to cause her chair to rock back on two legs. Thea backed up in surprise. “Where is he?”

“Telling Felicity his decision.”

“I have to stop him.”

“Wait, what?” She moved in front of her friend before she could go for the car keys — the ones she had just been talking about getting rid of. “Laurel, there’s no reason to stop him. He decided you’re important enough to stand up for, and if that’s a deal breaker for Felicity then it might as well end now.”

“But he loves her.”

“So you don’t want Ollie to love you?” Thea asked, fixing her friend with a look.

“Of course I—” Laurel seemed to realize what she’d been about to say and drew in a calming breath. “I’m happy that Oliver cares about me enough to put his own relationship on the line, but he’s throwing away his chance to be happy.”

“Maybe he can be happy with just us,” Thea pointed out.

But Laurel shook her head. “He and Felicity have a future, he’s only wasting his time—”

“What do you mean?”

But Laurel clammed up, arms folding over her chest and cheeks paling. “I— never mind. You’re right, it’s his decision. I should get some sleep or something.” Laurel retreated back to her room, shutting the bedroom door with a snap.

Thea felt more confused than ever as she slowly crossed to the couch. What did Laurel think Oliver was wasting his time on? Her? But why would that be? Why did Laurel seem to think he and Felicity had a future together and that she and Oliver couldn’t have one?

But that wasn’t exactly what she had said, Thea thought, reconsidering Laurel’s words. She had merely said that Oliver and Felicity had a future. That could be together or apart. And by contrast, it was as if Laurel was saying she didn’t have one.

Thea looked over at the desk with its documents. Laurel was selling her car. Last month, she’d put Thea’s name on the lease after procrastinating on it for the better part of a year. She’d been cleaning some, too, organizing things and boxing them up as if to make them easier to pack up and move somewhere. All of these incidents when combined seemed to paint an image of a woman who was getting her affairs in order.

A cold chill went through her, setting deep in her heart. Was Laurel dying?

Tears stung her eyes just at the thought, try as she might to tell herself she was overreacting and jumping to conclusions. Laurel was just as healthy as ever, just as active in the field and in training, if not more so. She wouldn’t be doing those things if she’d received some kind of diagnosis, would she?

Unless she didn’t want anyone to know. She hadn’t said anything to Thea, and the others hadn’t been acting all that different — except Oliver. She’d chalked her brother’s strangeness up to finding out about William reordering his priorities, but what if it was more than that? What if Laurel had confided in him and now he was making the most of whatever time they had left?

Her tears spilled over. Thea felt totally unsure of what to do. Did she confront her friend? Pretend nothing was wrong? What was the best way to help her?

Ollie has been wrong; she didn’t feel very wise right now. She felt scared.

---

Quentin had learned over the years that there were few things more reliable than his gut. Detective’s instinct, honed from long nights on the case. And right now, his gut was telling him something was wrong.

The trouble was, he couldn’t see what. The impossible had finally happened; Darhk was captured. Even more than that, Oliver’s heretofore secret son had been rescued unharmed.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he was worried about what this news had to be doing to his daughter. Quentin had done the math in his head and knew this young boy, innocent though he was, was proof of Oliver’s less than honorable character from years past. Laurel had seemed unaffected when she’d come to his office to loop him in on the search for the kid, but he also knew better than most that his daughter tended to push everything aside to avoid dealing with the emotions of it. Until it became too much to ignore.

He went to her apartment, but found no one home. His next stop was the base. He found Diggle packing up for the night and Thea sitting in Felicity’s old chair — the latter having chosen to take a break from the team thanks to her and Oliver’s breakup, which he’d heard some about through Donna.

“Hey, is Laurel still in?”

“She and Oliver are talking,” Thea said, gesturing to a room off the side that she had been watching pensively until now. Quentin nodded his thanks and marched over there. Better for him to hear some of this for context if his girl needed comforting later on.

But Laurel’s voice was all business as he approached. “He’s being held in Iron Heights, and assuming our office can get a judge to deny him bail, that’s where he’ll stay until his trial.”

“Iron Heights,” Oliver repeated, something about the weight he gave the words making the very air sound heavy.

“I know.”

Quentin frowned at the worry creasing both their brows, the tension that seemed to fill the small space. “Know what?”

Laurel jumped and turned to face him, and Oliver tensed. “Dad! Um, we were just talking about Darhk.”

“Yeah, and I’d have thought there’d be a little more of a celebration going on here considering,” he replied. “How come it feels like I just entered a wake?”

“We’re just concerned about him having a backup plan,” Oliver said when Laurel looked to him seemingly for help. “His idol Mari broke, it has some ability to repair itself. If he can get a hold of the whole thing again, we’ll be right back where we started.” With a deliberateness Quentin couldn’t help noticing, the younger man took his daughter’s hand. “Our best bet is to figure out a way to separate the idol’s pieces as permanently as possible and remove Darhk from Iron Heights before he can instigate trouble that requires our intervention.”

“He say something about doing that?”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

“If we want to keep the idol’s pieces as separate as possible, we should get some of them out of the city, right?” Laurel asked. “I could take some of them to Central on a visit? But I don’t want to leave them with mom if it puts her in danger,” she added, worrying her bottom lips with her teeth.

“She would want you out of danger,” Oliver insisted, “but I think I have a different idea about Central.” He took out his phone and left the room.

Quentin stepped forward before his daughter could follow. “Honey, what’s going on?”

“Um, we have somewhat reliable information that Darhk might be able to stage something within the prison, and that if he does it could… I could get hurt.”

He blinked. “What exactly does that mean?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t really say anything more than that.”

“Well, Oliver seems to know,” he pointed out. “Seems pretty worried about it.” And if Oliver was worried then that had to mean something worse was coming.

A rush of wind and crackle of light from the next room over drew his attention, and Laurel led them back out into the main room where they others stood around the Flash.

“Do you think this is the statue?” The Central City hero was asking.

“I know it is,” Oliver answered. “Which is why it has to stay broken. I need you to scatter the pieces, Barry. Nowhere with any significant meaning or ties to any of us. Just as far and as wide as you can run.”

“Oliver, are you sure we shouldn’t be keeping track of the pieces?” Diggle asked with a frown.

“If we know where they are, then Darhk could find out from spying on us,” said Oliver. “The goal is that no one can keep track of the pieces.”

The Flash nodded. “I can do that.”

“Thank you, Barry. I’ll owe you one.”

“Actually, I will,” Laurel said, stepping up beside Oliver again.

“Neither of you owe anything. Oh, but I was asked to bring this along,” the Flash said, picking up a box Quentin hadn’t noticed set on a side table. “A new suit. Cisco’s pretty confident in this design.”

Laurel took it from him, hugging it to her chest. “I’ll have to come out and thank him sometime.”

“He’d like that.” The Flash scooped up the broken pieces of the idol. “Scatter to the winds?”

“To wherever you can,” Oliver confirmed. The other hero nodded, and was gone in a Flash like his namesake.

Diggle gestured to the box still in Laurel’s arms. “How come Cisco made you a new suit?”

“I didn’t ask him to. I guess he just wanted to do his part.” She set it down, lifting the lid and smiling wide.

Oliver leaned in close, too, touching the material inside. “It’s good work. Sturdy.”

Quentin started to come forward to get his own look, but Thea’s timid voice seemed to cause them all to freeze. “You’re still gonna be out in the field?”

Laurel looked up. “Yeah, Speedy, of course.”

“Then… you’re not dying?”

Quentin’s mouth dropped open as he watched Laurel pale and exchange a panicked look with Oliver.

“What’s Thea talking about?” Diggle asked, giving voice to the question foremost in his mind.

“I, um…”

“Cisco had another vision,” Oliver explained, “warning us about something that might happen. But we’re taking steps to prevent it.”

“He saw Darhk killing Laurel,” Quentin said, his voice gruff. He’d known, hadn’t he? The minute he realized what a dangerous man Darhk was, the minute he had threatened Laurel’s life, he should have known he’d placed his own daughter on borrowed time.

“We don’t know for sure,” Laurel said quietly. “But the evidence seems to point that way.”

“Then we take care of him first,” Diggle said. “He brainwashed my brother for years. I’m not letting him take away someone else.” He walked up to Oliver and Laurel, placing a hand on her shoulder. “How long have you known about this?”

“A few- a few months,” she admitted.

“You could have told us. All of us,” John said with a glance towards Oliver. “We’re a team, and we help each other.”

“Cisco’s not sure how his visions work, if more people knowing is a bad thing or not,” she told him. “And I didn’t want to worry all of you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“And that’s why you put me on your lease and were looking at selling your car,” Thea murmured, almost to herself as she looked up at the ceiling.

As she said it, Quentin started thinking back through the months, too. Her seemingly random drive to make sure they got to AA regularly even amongst all the chaos in their lives, the sorrow on her face as he’d explained all the things he had done, both for Darhk and as a double agent against him, to keep her safe, the smile she had forced on at the tree ceremony when she’d watched Oliver propose. All the time she’d thought she didn’t have much left, and she’d spent it on others.

Laurel winced. “You weren’t supposed to notice that.”

Thea sniffled, looking even tinier than she normal. “Well, I didn’t, until you kind of implied you didn’t have a future. I thought you’d been told you had cancer or something.”

Laurel shook her head, moving forward to the younger woman Quentin knew counted as a sister in her heart. “No. And, hopefully, I’ll be okay now. I’m sorry.” She hugged Thea tight, and Thea held on just as much.

“We’re removing the idol from Darhk’s reach, Laurel will be wearing Cisco’s new suit instead of her old one, and I’ve taken some steps of my own,” Oliver outlined. “All designed to prevent that future from playing out as he saw it. It’s the best defense we have.”

“I’ll do one better,” Diggle added. “Lyla can probably get jurisdiction over Darhk, or convince the Feds that he’s too dangerous to leave just in Iron Heights. We’ll get him moved.”

Laurel looked back around. “Thank you, John.” As she said it, her gaze drifted in his direction, and the smile she wore slipped off her face. “Oh, daddy.”

“This would’ve been my fault. If Darhk has come after you.”

She crossed the room to him, already shaking her head. “We don’t know why he would’ve targeted me. It could be he’s planning to break out and I would be one of the people stopping him. This life… it is dangerous. If anything, this experience has made me confront that. I could die,” she said, looking him straight in the eye as she did. “But I know for certain now that if I’m not going out there as the Black Canary helping my team, I don’t really feel alive inside.”

“I want you to be safe,” he told her. “But... I know it’s more important you’re happy.”

She smiled before pulling him into a hug. He squeezed her to him, unsure if he could ever really let her go. Just the thought of losing her made it hard to breathe.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room when at last they separated. “Damn, I should’ve worn the waterproof mascara,” Thea joked weakly, earning a couple watery chuckles. “I’m just gonna fix this in the bathroom.”

“And I’ll call Lyla now,” said John, leaving the room as he took out his phone.

Laurel wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand as she headed back over to the table. “I really want to try this on,” she murmured, her hand running down the side of the box. “But maybe it’s best we call it an early night.”

“Yeah,” Oliver agreed softly.

“What did you and Samantha end up deciding?” She asked. “If you don’t mind…”

“No, you all probably need to know,” he replied. “Um, we both agreed that, that William’s safer the further away he can get from my life.”

“I’m so sorry, Ollie.” Laurel turned away from her new suit to face him. Quentin was surprised at the amount of compassion in her gaze. Sure, his girl had the most generous heart he knew, but news like this would have to take days if not weeks to really process to be able to have this kind of talk.

Unless she had had weeks. Had she known? This closeness he was seeing between the two; had Oliver finally stepped up to do right by Quentin’s family?

“It’s what I had to do. This life that I lead, it’s not something I can do and maintain a family or- or a relationship,” Oliver said, looking down.

“I think Thea would disagree,” Laurel pointed out, though as Oliver frowned she added, “Yes, right now William might be too young and vulnerable, especially with enemies who know your identity out there. Enemies like Malcolm, I might add.”

“You might,” he acknowledged with chagrin.

“But,” Laurel continued, “when he’s older, I think you and Samantha both need to talk to him and let him decide for himself what he wants to do. Let him make the choice when he’s ready.”

“I sent a video with Samantha for her to give him when he’s eighteen,” Oliver told her. “Telling him why I couldn’t be there for him. I hope he understands, that he can… forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Laurel brought one hand up to his shoulder. “Oliver, you and William were kept apart through circumstances beyond your control, and now you are making the best decision you can to protect him. You’re sacrificing more for this city than anyone should expect of you.” Her smile turned wistful. “I was trying to make sure everyone was okay before, well, whatever Cisco saw might have happened. I think I did a pretty good job except for you.”

“You’re here,” Oliver said. “So I’m okay.”

They didn’t seem to realize anyone was still in the room. That was, Quentin hoped Oliver had forgotten he was in the room if he was going to look at Quentin’s daughter like she was the most precious thing in the world.

He cleared his throat as the pair of them seemed to sway forward a little. Oliver froze and Laurel quickly stepped back, removing her hand from Oliver’s shoulder as if it had been burned. Good to know he could still return them to their young adult selves.

“Uh…”

“Look, I don’t mind exactly,” he began with a look to both of them. “But maybe take things a little slow, huh?”

Oliver’s lips pressed together as he looked down, and Laurel’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. Just doing his job.

Thea came back into the main area, looking around at them all. “What’d I miss?”

Quentin smirked and shook his head, turning and walking to the elevator. They could fill her in if they wanted. When they were ready.

---

He’d been worried about events in Star for so long, it took Cisco by surprise when things turned really hectic in their own neck of the woods.

Caitlin has been taken. He was so scared for his friend it was hard to even think sometimes, but he needed to because his other friend was in trouble, too. Barry had given up his speed in exchange for Wally, which meant that they were not just powerless against Zoom once again, but also that there was no one to fight the regular crime in Central City.

No one, that was, till their substitute came in.

“Wow, it’s great to meet you,” Iris said with a smile. “And that you’d come out here for this.”

“I owe Barry and Cisco a few favors,” Laurel explained with a smile. “And it’s better for all of us if we help each other out now and then. Next week is Oliver’s turn, since I’ll have to be getting back to work.”

“It hopefully shouldn’t come to that. Harry’s got a plan to give Barry back his speed,” Joe said. Cisco wondered if he just didn’t want Green Arrow hanging around their city.

“Well, I hope for Central’s sake it works.”

It didn’t.

Cisco ran down from the roof after transferring the lightning through their specially-built wand only to find the others mourning the charred remains of Barry’s suit. All of the others except Wally and Jesse, collapsed in the hallway, and Laurel, lying still by the machine.

He hurried to her side, panic rising as he reached to check her pulse. Just as his fingers brushed the skin on her wrist—

He was plunged into the blue-tinted world he associated with his visions. Cisco looked around, terrified of what he might see this time.

He ducked reflexively as a ripple of sound raced past him accompanied by a loud scream. The source was none other than the Black Canary, standing in a protective stance in front of Green Arrow who knelt on the ground. Cisco watched, amazed by the power her Cry now possessed, and it occurred to him he couldn’t see the choker he’d made around her neck.

The Laurel of this vision stopped her cry, turning to pull Oliver up from the ground. But Oliver remained kneeling, holding Laurel’s hand in his own as he took out a ring box.

Cisco found himself back in the real world, gaping as his mind caught up with what he’d just seen. Laurel groaned and turned over, not quite awake and aware.

“Cisco, is she okay?” Iris asked, a waver in her voice from her anguish over Barry’s disappearance.

But Cisco couldn’t help smiling as he answered. “Yeah. She’s gonna be just fine.”

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #cisco ramon #arrow #the flash #green arrow #black canary #my writing

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jq37 · 4 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 4

Skipper Thistlespring and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

We pick back up at The Swan’s Little Parade where rich people shenanigans are taking place. Gorgug breaks from the group to try and call Zelda. When she doesn’t answer, he leaves the saddest, sweetest apology voicemail ever. Lou breaks. Siobhan breaks. I break.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group gameplans. Adaine pushes back against the idea that they have to talk to Aelwyn. Her parents are also an option and Aelwyn is not a good person, no matter how hot Fabian is for her. They also check out the guest book from the hotel and see that Bill Seacaster has stayed there several times, always right after a Garthy O’Brien (they see that it happened a bunch while they were in jail and it was probably in conjunction with when Bill was supplying palimpsests). Fabian recognizes the name as a pirate and Cathilda knows they run the Gold Gardens which is a floating pirate casino/brothel.

Kristen tries to release Gorthalax but just confirms that, because of the curse, doing it without messing up Gorthalax is gonna be tough.

Sandra-Lynn goes to get Gorgug while Fig decides to careen the campaign into Crazytown and make herself Empress for Life of the same. She disguises herself as an old lady and tries to drop off a note giving her phone number as the new number of the cop she impersonated last episode (Detective Decker) so she can send a fully grown cop texts that would def get him Chris Hansen’d irl. Brennan decides that if she’s gonna keep making beds, she should probably lie in one of them for once and comes for her entire life in the funniest scene of the episode. No recap I could give can do it justice(links to clips here: x, x). Just know it ends with Fig running away and ditching her phone in a lake, which could very possibly have plot consequences if she forgets to replace her phone before she’s in a tight spot where it would be helpful and the absolute dumbest/funniest reason for a character death (I want to note that she did replace her phone technically, but with a huge, old, brick phone from Adaine’s jacket that can’t be as useful as an actual cell).

ANYWAY

Tracker creates a Moon Haven in the van which is basically like a dope pillow fort with the Sanctuary spell cast on it and TARDIS bigger-on-the-inside spatial mechanics. Once they’re inside the Moon Haven, Ragh finally feels safe to tell them what he knows--which he does telepathically via Adaine and the message spell to make everything extra safe. Here’s a rundown of what he tells them:

He saw Kalina on the night of prom after the big fight. She was talking to Jace (the sorcery “teacher”) and an elven woman who looked like Adaine in black robes--Adaine confirmed with a picture that it was her mother.

After being healed by Porter, Ragh started walking home and was stopped by Kalina who said she would kill his mom if he told anyone what he saw.

Ragh’s mom Lydia is also a half-orc barbarian. She was on a mission in the Red Waste (where the 7 Maidens have their Sophomore Year quest) and they found a soul gem that was leaking something bad. She put it in her chest to contain the evil but at the cost of her health. She’s now extremely sick and in a permanent, medically-induced rage to keep her alive. She refuses medical treatment because no one can ensure the evil won’t be released if they remove the gem.

His mom fucking slaps.

So that’s all deeply worrying. Adaine invites Ragh and his mom to live with them in the Haunted House and Fig offers to give them Dr. Asha’s number. Gorgug discovers the Van can become a boat which is convenient for the pirate-y things they have to do (the Golden Gardens is on the way to Falinel so they decide to stop there first). Fig has a heart to heart with Gilear while Adaine and Sandra-Lynn take first watch outside since the Moon Haven can only hold nine people. Adaine has to roll a wisdom save because she’s outside of the Haven’s protection and, even on a 16, the music goes all scary and she feels that something is in the tent with her outside. Something humanoid and her size with its knees to its chest. She senses that if she sees its face, something will happen to her and, instead of looking at it, she calls for Sandra-Lynn. By the time she shows up, the thing is gone. Fig assures Adaine that she’s not crazy or seeing things and, based on Adaine’s description, they’re able to deduce that it wasn’t Baron or Kalina.

In the morning, Gorgug is pretty bummed and asks everyone to call him Skipper. Kristen is very down and Fabian is very not. They discuss whether they should tell all of the information from Ragh to the 7 Maidens (no) and whether Gorgug should call Zelda (yes). They drive into the sea. Gorgug finally talks to Zelda who is not happy with him for the ghosting and unintentional thoughtlessness. She’s even less happy with him when she realizes he forgot to get the generator they needed to stay in touch long distance. They’re breaking up. Do I mean relationship-wise or phone-wise? You don’t know? Well that makes two of us (Thanks, I Hate It).

They’re at sea for two days and then make it to the floating pirate shipwreck city of Leviathan. Pirate adventures next week, y’all!

Detention

Fig for Trying to Seduce ANOTHER Middle-Aged Man

Listen, I’ll stop putting her here for this when she stops doing this. Not to mention, she invented a whole ass person (HILDA HILDA?????) when she’s just been told that nightmare monsters are being generated from lies. Fig, my girl. Ms. Faeth. Please. I’m begging you. Please.

Honor Roll

All of the Adults for Stepping Up

Every single adult in this episode was on fire. Fig confided in Gilear and he stepped up to the plate with a This-Is-So-Serious-I’m-Going-To-Use-Your-Actual-Full-Name, speech. Sandra-Lynn showed Adaine how to do some ranger stuff and jumped in to save her when she cried out. Cathilda was ready with warm milk and cookies she somehow was able to make in the van as soon as Adaine needed them. Sandra-Lynn also had a heart to heart with Fig and even Gorthalax, who’s still trapped in the ruby, gave Fig a spell slot back. And, of course, Ragh’s mom slaps.

Random Thoughts

Adaine and Fabian both being uber rich but being on the opposite ends of the rich people spectrum is hilarious. Adaine is a “Sleeping in a van? I’ve heard of that but I’ve never gotten to do it. This will be fun!” Rich Kid and Fabian is a “No turn down service? Hard pass,” Rich Kid.

I was happy that they brought Ragh along for comedy reasons but who knew he was gonna be so chock full of backstory and important story beats? Like, every good GM has a way of making whatever story path that was chosen seem like the only way the story could have gone and I’m sure that whoever was picked, Brennan would have made that seem like the obvious and essential choices but I’m very happy they picked Ragh. Him talking about how much he loves his mom was so adorable! I love that he’s a big, good, dumb boy now and I’m happy they invited him to live at the Haunted House. That’s def gonna be good for some shenanigans (also love that Adaine’s only stipulation was that he had to be nice to Zayn and he was so eager to agree).

Insane Ally Move of the Game: Deciding that Kristen genuinely doesn’t know Gilear used to be lunch lad at their school. Is Kristen even on the same plane of existence as everyone else. And then, later, “I worry about Gilear.” Do you really???

I totally forgot that Gilear was not only an elven diplomat but also a full on actual counselor. Makes it even wilder that he lost the job to Jawbone. Also, while we’re talking about him, I said we were gonna inevitably gonna get some more color on Gilear this season and we saw some of that in this ep when Adaine uses detect thoughts on him (which, btw, seems like a horribly invasive thing that people do very casually in this world) and we see that he gave up his career for Sandra-Lynn and then was wrecked when she cheated on him. Really puts a melancholy shade over his hilarious ineptness.

Another thing I figured we’d see soon and that we’re starting to see is Adaine speaking up on Aelwyn. Two times this ep she tried to steer the group away from Aelwyn and seemed more serious than her usual trash talk. As excited as I am for pirate adventures, I want to get to Falinel ASAP to see how this shakes out.

Also, on the mom front, wild that we found out that Ragh has a super dope mom in the same scene Adaine took another L and found out that her mom is also involved in this shadiness. Black robes are never a good sign. But I will say, just based on the story beats we’ve gotten, I’m not totally sold on the idea that she’s 100% bad--or at least that she doesn’t care for Adaine at all. I’m wondering if she wasn’t at school trying to find Adaine (possibly among other things).

“Every time you have sex it’s a gamble. You could lose your heart.”/”What happened to you on tour?”

Gorgug trying to let a full sized griffon land on his arm is hilarious. I love that. He’s so wholesome and dumb.

I love that when Emily was doing her Hilda-Hilda nonsense , turned into Detective Decker, and ran past the police house precinct, Lou was the only person who was on her wavelength and understood what she was trying to do while everyone else was like????

We find out in this ep that Van can control all the auxiliary functions of the van but not the actual driving, which is important to know before a sticky situation. On a more personal note, we find out that he was originally a planetar (second most powerful D&D angel) of Elysium, specializing in harmony, relaxation, and chill vibes and he got dumped and kicked out of heaven for sleeping through a call to battle.

We also get the cursed image of a van with hands which I knew was gonna be the shirt and lo and behold.

“Fuck Me.”/”When.” Y’all are the worst.

I love that Brennan mentioned Porter in Ragh’s flashback, fully knowing it was gonna trigger Emily.

Fig’s new plan is to get all of her parents in a throuple and I don’t even know where to begin with that tbh so I won’t.

@voxfantasma made a comment last week that Sandra-Lynn very well could have seen Kalina which is why she can she her in the photo--which is an offhand comment I made when I was talking about the rules of the photo last week--and Ragh’s reaction to the photo is making me move this theory back up to the top spot. I still wish they would show the photo to more people so we’d have more data for this.

I loved Fig tossing Fabian a bardic inspiration for a compliment even though he didn’t really need it. I also love that she has a rider in her rockstar contract necessitating gogurt be at all her shows for Gilear.

Adaine paranoidly casting water breathing on everyone at the slightest hint that they may have to go near water. Our girl is learning from the mistakes of the last oracle.

With the gang facing off against the Nightmare King and Brennan’s description of the thing in Adaine’s tent as being humanoid, about her side, and sitting in a sort of defensive way, I’m wondering it what it was was a manifestation of her own anxiety or something along those lines. Of course, it could just be a normal ass monster. Sometimes the scariest thing is your inner turmoil and sometimes it’s just a monster trying to bite your head off.

We also learn that Cathilda has a super wild adventurer’s life before she settled down to be a maid--so she knows what she’s missing and she’s fine with it--and also that she is paid ridiculously well, which makes me feel better about what’s going on with her. Also, her moment with Adaine and the cookies was so sweet. My notes for that scene say, “Adaine loves Cathilda and so do I.”

I loved Murph and Riz going equally Pepe Silvia trying to anagram out Garthy O’Brien (which is also what I was doing, especially since Brennan specifically spelled out the name). Cheers to Murph/Riz and Siobhan/Adaine trying to single handedly keep the story on track--both in and out of character.

There’s a part in this ep where Adaine Ray of Frosts Fig who immediately Hellish Rebukes her and that’s truly the kind of step-sister shenanigans I want to see from them as much as possible please and thank you. Also, like I said before, it was very sweet of Fig to reassure Adaine that she wasn’t just seeing things in the tent. Her catfishing middle aged men aside, she can be very empathetic when she wants to be.

Adaine cast (or tried to cast Friends) on the thing in her tent. And I think it’s very telling about her character that that’s the spell she would cast and not an offensive one. Not that messing w/ someone’s brain is a super chill thing to do or anything, but I think, “Maybe I can calm whoever this is and talk to them and we can get some information,” is a much more measured reaction than maybe, “Let’s blast this thing to kingdom come and ask questions later.”

“Man van is a boat, my boat is a van.”

Brennan lets Adaine roll w/ advantage to convince the Hangman to come with them on the Van (which he still hates) because she said, “Please” really cute which is the kind of arbitrary DM fiat that I love.

Adaine: We should tell them unless we’re being graded on a curve. (Savage.)

“Fig, she’s a maid. She’s not allowed to lie.”

All the skipper talk this ep got the Gilligan’s Island theme stuck in my head (never seen an ep but my mom watches it sometimes) so the next day I was getting dressed going “With Fabian, and the skipper too, the oracle, the PI,” to the GI theme song. Also, did not know skipper and captain were the same title until Fabian got all upset and I looked it up. Yet another piece of information I know because of some game (along with what a panacea is (Dragon Quest 9) and where the CDC is (Pandemic)).

Gorgug, being offered a virgin daiquiri: No thanks, I’m driving. (I’ve said this before: Zac low key has the best comic timing of anyone.)

When Riz is angraming, one of the things he ends up with is something about a “night yorb” which Brennan decided is a real thing that both the Hangman and the Van are very wary about. Having the Hangman constantly being like, “SPEAK NOT OF THE NIGHT YORB!” and the Van being like, “Seriously, don’t fuck with the night york,” was so funny and such nonsense. I can’t wait for the night yorb mini boss fight that has to happen now because of the rule of funny.

Gorgug comes down from his call with Zelda and everyone except for Fabian (and probably Ragh who cannon-balls off the boat w/ Fabian and they both have to be rescued by Sandra-Lynn) knows exactly what happened immediately. Aw, buddy. One of my favorite things about media where you have kids saving the world is you have relationship drama and also the world is ending and it all feels equally high stakes. I find that so funny but also it feels very representative of what high school was like, or at least what it felt like (minus the literal apocalypse, obv. Or maybe not. Idk what was going on at your high school).

Adaine continues lending out Boggy to anyone who needs him.

Also, Gorgug tries to build a cell tower with driftwood and parts from Adaine’s jacket. It’s not going super hot.

Both Adaine and Riz are podcast nerds and listen to This Solesian Life. All checks out. Their friendship is underrated.

“I’m feeling really bad and my van is a boat.”

“I was gonna be straight edge except for drugs,” gives me “Sober salad” energy.

The whole discussion about Kristen getting tracker silly putty for her birthday.

The Van was serving some serious Ned Flanders energy along with the Owen Wilson energy this episode.

Brennan does pretty good whale noises.

Only crit this episode is Fig with a nat 20 insight to know Gorgug’s conversation with Zelda did not go well. Which is something she’d crit on.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fantasy high live #report card

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lhs3020b · 5 years

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Boris And the Baddest of Bad Weeks

I promised an expanded entry on what’s going on at the moment in our national meltdown, so here it is...

Allow me, if I may, to walk back an earlier comment of mine. Some time ago, I was distinctly skeptical about the idea of an early general election. However, the situation has evolved. You see, there was one thing I didn't count on. I never imagined that Boris Johnson would be stupid enough to force nearly two dozen of his MPs out of his party.

That's right: I over-estimated his intelligence. Umm, whoops.

In my defence, what he did may well have been the single most utterly-stupidly self-defeating maneuver ever in British politics. The only sense I can make from it is that he's having a narcisistic breakdown. Actually, viewed in that very narrow light, perhaps it does make a little sense. If you've ever had the misfortune to have a narcissist in your life, you'll be aware that the thing they just can't cope with is any sort of rejection. The "no"-word tends to summon a meltdown - and of course BoJo faced a pretty major series of "nopes" from Parliament this week.

The other thing I didn't count on was that apparently yes, there actually are some things that some Tory MPs just won't do, even if the consequences of Not Doing The Thing runs to damaging their personal careers. This did come as a surprise to me - I'd assumed that blind partisanship and the desire for salaries would ultimately trump - or perhaps, Trump - all other concerns. But no, credit where it's due, it turns out that for at least 21 of them, there was a floor on the greed after all. Admittedly it's taken us three years of accelerating chaos to find it, but it was there.

The next factor that I didn't count on was that the opposition parties got their act together. Bluntly, there was no hint of this over the summer. The speed with which it happened has left me a little dazed. The earlier failure to call a Vote of No Confidence, the weird shenanigens over ludicrous Governments-of-National-Unity, the generalised infighting and chronic myopia ... just two weeks ago, it was not looking good. I was basically starting to quietly accept that we on the pro-Remain side were finally defeated, and worst of all, we'd been defeated mainly by our own allies.

Then the prorogue happened.

It's fair to say that it's already backfired. The obvious cynicism of the strategy, the naked contempt for all the institutions of British government, the sheer gall of it all - it was meant to energise the pro-Brexit crowd. Instead, it appears to have driven everyone on the soft-Brexit/pro-Remain aisle into a state of thermonuclear rage. And if there's one thing that can bring unlikely allies together, it's a common enemy. By pursuing his grandiose "oh look at me being so Brexity!" cock-strutting routine, Boris accidentally made himself into exactly that enemy.

The other factor was that the prorogue has imposed a sharp time-limit. Consequently, Continuity!Remain just doesn't have the luxury of descending into factional infighting. The deep irony is that putting us on a tight deadline has actually helped us. It's imposed a focus that just wasn't there even 10 days ago.

Meanwhile, as for the wider country, well, Boris's walk-about up north yesterday seems to have been a complete disaster. Random people were basically coming up to him to tell him that it had all gone wrong. Then there was that bizarre speech he gave in front of a captive audience of police recruits. It was just weird - proper delusion territory, and entirely-incoherent. I'd like to compare it to Trump, but at least Trump can manage a consistent theme. Johnson was just rambling. There was nothing there, except possibly a desperate plea for attention. A lot of the political journalists I follow are openly-speculating about whether BoJo was on drugs during the speech.

(And wouldn't that be the ultimate post-2016 banter-timeline twist? If the Prime Minister - the Prime Minister! - got busted for snorting crack?)

Meanwhile, BoJo's narc-meltdown has accidentally undone Theresa May's one significant achievement.

Contrary to what many people think, Theresa May did manage to thread one single needle. That was, she (mostly) managed to keep the parliamentary Conservative Party together. Granted a few MPs jumped ship to Change UK earlier in the year, but it stayed in single digits. There was no big split - and, significantly, the Change UK crowd got wet feet about no-confidencing her. The advantage of this was that Theresa May avoided having the Tories fall into what we might call the 1922 Trap. Here's what I mean by that: in the late 19th Century, the old Liberal Party was increasingly-split on the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. The tensions only got worse as time went on. Then Asquith went and delivered the First World War and precious little else of value. (He was notably-slimey on votes for women, and seemed uninterested in doing anything about the property qualification that 40% of men still faced. The cynic might note that Nick Clegg's behaviour is not entirely new.) Lloyd George tried to put the party back on its feet, but the damage was done. During the 1920s, the Liberals were openly-split. At elections, Liberals ran against each other in numerous constituencies. Because of the way first-past-the-post voting works, in practise this meant that Tories or Labour got elected instead. (A constituency has - say - 46% of the vote for any Liberal candidate, but two run. Each of them gets 23% of the vote. A.N. Other Party takes 24% and gets the MP's seat.)

Theresa May's political strategy - yes, she actually did have one - was predicated on avoiding having Tories run against other Tories at elections. Given their divisions, it was a narrow needle, but she mostly managed to thread it. Boris Johnson has gone and exploded that. You see, of the 21 MPs he's sacked from the party, several are saying they'll contest the next election as independents.

It's hard to know just how big a problem the 1922 Trap will be - but, their vote is already split with the Brexit Party. And even the most optimistic opinion polls have the Tories around 10pts down on where they were in 2017. They're already in minority in the House - how many votes can they afford to lose, really?

Meanwhile, there's a further problem. The Tories' drift to the political right may have taken them too far. They assume that their friends at the Times, the Sun, the Telegraph and the BBC can plaster over the cracks for them - but, can they? The media was full-throated for May in 2017, and she still lost her majority. The newspapers are hysterical and shriekier than ever - but, who reads them? I can't remember the last time I bought a physical copy of one of the main papers. I suspect that's true of many other people too. There are signs that the socially-liberal/financially-conservative chunk of voters are starting to decamp to the Lib Dems. Again, it's not clear how big this movement is - but, as I said earlier, how many votes can the Tories afford to lose? It's possible that they could be facing the nightmare scenario of a general election where the right-wing vote is split three ways (four, if you count UKIP's still-slightly-tembling corpse, though they're close to a rounding error now). If the next election was still certain to be in 2022, all this would be somewhat academic. Two and a half years is a long time, they could find a way to turn things around. All things being equal, I expect they would.

But then BoJo had his narc meltdown, didn't he?

The so-called government is now in absolute minority in the House. While their opponents can't currently agree on an alternative prime minister, nonetheless the anti-BoJo grouping now has a majority of 43. They can stop him doing anything. No legislation is going to go through this house. Finance bills are basically dead on arrival. I really can't see how he could pass any kind of Budget. And also, if he does anything at all to irritate the Opposition, they can no-confidence him any time they feel like it. Quite simply, he's on death row.

My guess is that they'll leave him be during the prorogue period. The logic here is obvious enough - let him twist in the wind. He's doing a great job of destroying himself, so let him get on with it. This way, when Parliament returns late in October, they can do the deed and it will look like a mercy-killing rather than a gang-land execution.

Hypothetically, there are four ways Boris could get off the hook:

1) He could resign. This would arguably save him some dignity, and just perhaps it might leave a little room to revive his future career. But, he won’t take this option. He’s a narc. They don’t voluntarily quit. (Plus, uh, much as I’d cackle if he was forced to quit, it just leaves his successor with the same set of problems that he failed to address.)

2) He could try to simply ignore the anti-hard Brexit law. The problem here is, it would give the opposition a prima facie grounds for an immediate Motion of No Confidence. He might get some love from the rightwing press, but the ultimate result would presumably be his removal and a new Prime Minister. It would be the most pointless constitutional crisis ever.

3) He could arrange to lose a motion of no confidence in his own government. This would arguably be constitutional, and might be a way to trigger an early election. But, it would a) look utterly-absurd, b) be an unprecedented thing to do and c) would also require him personally to face the House telling him to fuck off. I’m not sure that a narc is capable of that. Also, there’s the issue that, as we saw in 2017, there’s no guarantee that he could win a general election. I’m absolutely not sanguine about the risks of an early GE but a) that’s democracy and b) if he runs his campaign the way he’s running being PM then he could well end up roasted.

4) He could reverse the prorogue. On the one hand, un-proroguing Parliament would buy him some extra legislative time. On the other hand, his opponents have control of the House, and a wobble on the prorogue would make him look weak. There’s not much upside for him here, though it’s the most “conventional” of the four options.

Basically the TL;DR is that while he has some choices, none of them are good and all of them could cause him considerable personal pain. The opposition have set up a proper four-pronged Morton’s Fork for him. Which tine will he impale himself on?

As for Brexit? Well, one interesting detail is that the underlying political question seems to be open again. It hasn't quite gained mainstream traction yet, but apparently people are starting to ask whether Brexit is going to happen at all. The Labour Party's position has moved visibly toward hard-Remain, albeit grudgingly. The Lib Dems are having their time in the sun again (though, I suspect that glomming up Philip Lee may help them less than they seem to hope). I don't know that I think it's going to happen, but I can now imagine a situation where at the end of October, the anti-BoJo constellation No-Confidences him then pushes a quick revocation bill through Parliament. (The "party line" here would be, "We wanted a second referendum but this man's scheming hasn't left us enough time.") Again, not saying this is at all likely, but I think it is now a possible outcome.

And if nothing else, BoJo's supposed golden hour is turning out to be quite the nightmarish turkey - and isn't that just delicious?

#diary of a disaster #UK internal politics #Boris's bad bad no good week #hahahahaha

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sangriatimes · 5 years

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Nintendo Switch saves Valentines Day

Can you believe that we are almost half-way done with January? Maybe it’s just me and the countless hours I put into reviewing the latest titles for the Nintendo Switch...which is our focus point that can change the tide if you hit a hard spot this V-Day. Maybe you don’t have enough money for that dinner, movie and gift. Maybe you thought that restaurant you made a reservation at is more expensive than you though. Maybe you just started a new relationship but you still have some awkward silences that seem to kill the mood. Whatever the situation may be a Nintendo Switch can get you to second base and home plate...trust me.

So let’s look at some of the titles for switch that are great to play with that special someone. (Games are listed in no particular order; games are not based on ��)sales”; Games are mainly hidden gems)

1. Monopoly | 9.5 out of 10

Hear me out. I was one that grew up playing the original board game with my family and the overall appeal of the game was astounding, but I lost interest when I got older and noticed how long it takes to make everyone go bankrupt. ...but this is something...otherworldly. The first awesome thing you will notice when you pick up this title is the use of the Joy-Con controllers to shake the dice and throw them. Though this is still the same mechanic in spirit as its predecessor but with the newly animated boards populated by Mii’s and watching a living city grow as you play and add properties adds an entirely new respect for Money Bags. Our team lost track of time having so much fun with this one and before we knew it, we had seen 5 hours pass. (No one wants to play Monopoly for that long.)

2. Uno | 8.5 out of 10

Uno is another one of those games I grew up playing with family. When I purchased the game, I was expecting some sort of controller mechanic similar to Monopoly’s dice...but with cards instead...but I was let down. None the less, going into this, I didn’t even know that there were so many ways to play Uno besides the normal rules. Once again, I was amazed at how much more fun this was than the physical cards themselves. Rules like “Stacking. Where Player 1 can play a “Blue Draw 2″ card and Player 2 can counter play a “Draw 2″ card as well. ...but if Player 3 doesn’t possess a “Draw 2″ card, Player 3 then has to pick all 4 cards from the previous turns” was so exciting to try and there are many other ways to customize rules and play styles.

3. Super Smash Bros | 9.0 out of 10

I really don’t need to go into detail about this one. My only issue with the Smash series is I would really enjoy a multiplayer adventure mode or campaign. I was quite pleased with the full roster of characters though. Disclaimer: Make sure your partner isn’t a sore loser. We all know about SSB’s steep learning curve for beginners. “Don’t be a butt...”

4. Diablo 3 | 9.0 out of 10

I remember having this title on my old PS4 and being able to enjoy it on my PS Vita while I was in a relationship with someone who liked the game as much as I and we would both take our Vita’s to the restroom with us so we could keep the experience going. This title can definitely be used to understand the mindset your partner has by the way they customize their character and the actions they take in response to events. It’s a top-down action-adventure-role-playing-hack-n-slash (inhale.) It is a port of it’s original released on PS3 & 360...the price tag is still $59.99. That’s a deal breaker in my book.

5. NES Emulator | 7.5 out of 10

I honestly chose this one because of how many gamers I know and how 89% of them are males. This is something for those who don’t game to get their feet wet. The emulator is free on the eShop for a 7-day trial but comes with a subscription cost after. Pretty inexpensive for the titles they have. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Metroid, and many more. It even comes with special versions of some of the games which gives the player the experience of playing with Game Genie cheats.

6. 99 Vidas | 7.0 out of 10

Your probably thinking, “ Why is this even listed?” Well, just in case that partner your with doesn’t dig the 8-bit look or the low-res adventures of the NES Emulator and desires a little more action and has a fetish for Streets of Rage and Beat ‘em Up’s. Simply. The available characters are cool enough to get players to find a favorite out of them. ...so...that’s good!

7. Oh Sir...The Hollywood Roast | 8.3 out of 10

After seeing the Samuel Jackson clone named “Bad MotherHugger” who’s personality is totally canon, I had to dig deeper. If you didn’t play the prequel, you don’t need to. I honestly only used the first title to learn how to play. In this installment, you and a co-star face off on a movie set where your scenario is to insult the other the worst. It plays like a fighting game, complete with health bars, special insults, tag team insults and so much more. For the price it is, I was expecting something way less entertaining. Oh, and one point or another you will joke against a Deadpool copy...a less funnier Deadpool but funny enough.

Consider this the American version of The Office.

8. Oh Sir...The Insult Simulator | 7.8 out of 10

Obviously, this is the European version of The Office. I won’t say this is better than the sequel and I can’t say it’s worse either but I will say “I am an American...” What this game does is teach you how to layer your jokes and how lay the foundation for repetition in your topics to create combo’ s. I like to let the opponent bombard me with little weak jokes and build a super mean and super long insult that grants victory for only one joke. I call it, “The Kamehameha Effect!”

9. No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back

The third installment to the series hits the eShop and retailers in a few days and I am super excited to get my copy. If you aren’t familiar with the series, let me fill you in:

Travis Touchdown is the protagonist of all three games. In NMH1 we find Travis at his lowest moment in life. Jobless, hopeless and drunk, he runs into a mysterious woman who offers him employment with a sketchy syndicate group he knows nothing about. Luckily he had lost all his money by winning a bid at an online auction for a Beam Katana, his main choice of weaponry. Not long after, you find out you were hired as an assassin in a shady game by her higher-ups. Travis takes the job after being promised some passionate TLC if he can take out all 10 of the already top ranking assassins all over the world. Travis is a pretty simple guy. He likes mecha anime, luchador wrestling, old school video games, porn, sex, and sleeping on the toilet.

In NMH2, Travis finds out that after becoming the #1 ranking assassin in Santa Cruise, he finds out that he actually has hundreds of more assassins in a new ranking system where Travis is the lowest ranking.

This time around, Travis is joined by the father of one the assassins he killed in NMH1, and the co-op option is something that would have been outstanding to have in NMH2 but none the less the developers always deliver great content in their titles and this one will not disappoint. Couples will enjoy the kinky nature of the series for sure. It has been proven many times.

10. Broforce | 9.5 out of 10

Every wanted to play Super Mario Bros on NES but with guns? Ever want to change Mario for, let’s say...any huge action movie star from the 80′s, 90′s, 00′s? Ever wanted it to be a co-op experience with up to 4 players with local and online co-op? As a mercenary for the USA, you are sent to 3rd world contries to liberate them from the evil control of Satan and his hell spawn. Before that, you will have to fight through waves of kamikaze soldiers, war dogs, giant helicoptors, aliens (...from the movie “Aliens”) and much more. Along the way, you will recruit an entire cast of badasses. From Rambo to Robocop, you will find Chuck Norris, Neo, Blade, Bruce Willis, Terminator, Preditor, Machette, Michelle Rodrigez, The Bride (Kill Bill) & so many more including Mortal Kombats Raiden.

Very easy to pick up, very hard to put down.

11. Nidhogg 2 | 8.0 out of 10

2D-Side Scrolling Fighter. You start of with a sword. When you die, you respawn with a dagger. When you die, you respawn with a bow and arrow. Die again and respawn with an ax. Die again and respawn with your fist. This cycle will continue until you our your opponent makes it to the opposing end of the map. Maps are relatively small and consist of about 2 to 3 different frames. Sounds easy on paper right?

Tons of laughs to be had!

12. Tales Of Vesperia

If your looking for an in-depth RPG you both can play while she sits between your legs and you both focus on the Switch screen laying in front of you: this is for you two. The co-op system usually only functions when you enter battle. Player 1 will always be the one running around the world map but this is still fine if you keep an open-mind and communicate on decisions that impact the story and more. (Keep track of your own money.)

side-note: All Tales games are co-op in this sense, even the Super Nintendo picks.

13. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope

I’ve been a Harvest Moon fan since Super Nintendo and got my first copy on the N64. I know a lot of people see this game and hate the thought of a farming simulator but unlike it’s counterpart with the same name-sake; Harvest Moon is so much more. This can easily tame the craving for an adventure-rpg-dating sim with a very rich story and characters that actually grow on you. I have not had the chance to play this particular version yet, but I saw it was multiplayer and that sold me. If you want to try a good yet cheaper version, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature is by far, one of the best, next to Harvest Moon 64.

So there you have it, our picks of love for your love to love with their love! Honestly...I don’ t celebrate Valentines Day (poly-gang), but I love exposing partners to new things that they can enjoy together.

OUT!

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divulgacion-alternativa · 3 years

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Ben Ful Links | August 2/2021:

Source: benjaminfulford.net

This newsletter does not contain links.

Getting To Know The North Koreans

Notice to readers. So that I may take my annual sabbatical in the Canadian wilderness, the next several reports will be pre-written. They will focus on the history of how I got involved in fighting the Khazarian Mafia. Hopefully, this will help readers get a better understanding of what is happening now. Of course, if something really big happens, we will issue an emergency report.

The assassination attempts against me and the murder of many of my colleagues were part of a Nazi coup d’etat that took place in the U.S. after 9.11.2001. This Nazi faction, led by Fuhrer George Bush Sr., was a sub-group of the Khazarian Mafia. They were killing journalists as a part of an attempt to control the narrative, the story by which Western society was led. However, I did not figure that out until a North Korean princess showed me the evidence.

Here is how it happened. I was running into serious censorship at Forbes. This started after I had run the story about the murder of the banker, that I detailed in last week’s report, brought me to the attention of the people who gave orders to the Forbes family.

For example, a story about Citibank (a Rockefeller company) being kicked out of Japan because it was money laundering for gangsters was killed even though my source was the Japanese Finance Ministry speaking on the record. The last straw for me came when I found out that an anti-virus software company was making viruses. Forbes killed the story, telling me I was “unreliable,” when in fact the story was killed because Steve Forbes had been given $500,000 by the anti-virus company, according to a Forbes whistleblower.

In any case, I was sick of writing business pornography and decided my next career move was to shift to writing books. The hope was to have them made into Hollywood movies. So, I sent two chapters and an outline of a planned book to my agent in the U.S. The book would have described a systematic pattern of the murder of politicians, journalists, industrialists, etc. by politicians and gangsters who were part of the corrupt secret government that really ran Japan.

The day after I sent the book proposal, I got a call from Kaoru Nakamaru, who said she was a princess and a first cousin of Emperor Hirohito. She told me it would be a bad idea to publish the book. Obviously she was connected to people who were reading my mail, so I decided to meet her. When I asked her how she knew what was in my book proposal she said, “A Goddess told me.” (That Goddess would be Amaterasu the reigning deity of the Japanese security police).

When I met Nakamaru she said, “You understand all about the corruption in Japan but you know nothing about the real source, which is in the West.” She then gave me a 9.11 truth video. At the time, I thought “Oh my God, this is one of those anti-Semitic movies about 9.11 that I read about in the New York Times.” I had no intention of watching it but she kept pestering me until I did. That was the real red pill for me. It did not take a lot of fact-checking to realize 9.11 was an inside job. From a missile hitting the Pentagon without breaking the second-floor windows and leaving no plane debris, to a BBC reporter with Building #7 visible in the background saying it had already collapsed, 20 minutes before it actually did at freefall speed, the evidence was undeniable.

The real problem was wrapping my mind around how incredibly large a group would be needed to carry out a campaign like this. The implications were truly mind-boggling. It was only by looking at historical events that I realized such false flags were being commonly used as excuses to start wars.

For example, the sinking of the “innocent passenger vessel” Lusitania in 1914 was used as an excuse to demonize the Germans and get the Americans to join the British in World War I. It was not until a hundred years later in 2014 that the British admitted publicly the Lusitania was transporting arms and was, therefore, a legitimate military target. Historians note that ads in newspapers warned passengers prior to the ship being sent into the vicinity of German U-boats as a sacrifice.

In 2001, the people who controlled the U.S. were using 9.11 as an excuse to invade the Middle East (yet again).

In my still naïve worldview I figured that if people found out the truth, there would be a revolution. After I published front-page articles for major Japanese magazines listing evidence that 9.11 was an inside job, I held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan to present the evidence to the international media.

It was only when none of them (with a few minor exceptions like rural Australian newspapers) reported the evidence did I realize that freedom of the press had been extinguished from the Western media.

Nobody at the FCCJ or in the Western press debated me or presented evidence showing I was wrong. Instead, all sorts of people I never knew suddenly started a systematic campaign of character assassination against me. The general story was that I was taking drugs, believed in UFOs, and had lost my mind. I was put on a black list and nobody in the English language press would work with me. Many editors told me they had been ordered by their bosses not to publish my stories.

Fortunately, I had published books in Japanese that sold well and provided me with an income. I was also introduced to a Japanese author by the name of Ohta Ryu. He explained to me that he had been approached by a group of Japanese who had studied Western power structures before and during World War II. He used the material they had provided to publish his books.

What Ohta said was mind-boggling at the time. It was talking about how the West had a secret government run by families like the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers. This may be common knowledge now but, at the time (around 2005-6) when I did an internet search about the Rothschilds, I found exactly one sentence about them on the entire web. It was from an Israeli chat room where one participant mentioned a rumor that the Rothschilds were involved in the formation of Israel.

As far as our reputed overlord David Rockefeller was concerned, he was number 300 or so on the Forbes richest list and considered to be a person of the past. I had to go back to the 1918 edition of Forbes to find out the real story. It turns out John Rockefeller the first had suddenly become poor overnight by donating all of his fortune (around $300 billion in today’s money) to a foundation. Once the money was in a foundation, the owners did not pay inheritance tax and did not have to disclose much information.

A paper trail led to over 200 foundations controlled by the Rockefellers that in turn controlled most of the Fortune 500 companies.

What I started to realize was that all the murders of Japanese politicians etc. were part of a Rockefeller & Co. hostile take-over of Japan Inc. One key man they used to carry out this operation was Heizo Takenaka, who was the Finance and Economy Minister from 2002-2005. While he was in this job, he dismantled the system of cross-shareholding where banks and companies owned each others’ shares. Takenaka forced all the banks to sell off their shares in Japan’s listed companies to foreign funds such as Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street & Banking. When I confronted him about handing over all of Japan’s listed companies to the Rockefellers etc., he squirmed visibly in his chair and was evasive.

However, the day after the interview, I got a phone call from an official at the Japan development bank who told me there was someone Heizo Takenaka wanted me to meet. So, I went to a downtown Tokyo hotel room where I met a person by the name of Shiramine who called himself a Ninja.

I recorded with his permission a conversation in which he offered me the job of Finance Minister of Japan as long as I went along with a plan to kill 90% of humanity. He said it was necessary in order to “save the environment.” Since war did not kill enough people the plan was to use disease and starvation to kill everyone off, he said. Shiramine added that if I refused the offer I would be killed.

To his credit when Shiramine met me and gave me this proposal, he also handed me a tape and told me to listen to it somewhere private. In this tape, he said the problem was the “elders of Zion.” I was also told by another Takenaka envoy that he handed over control of all the country’s corporations because Japan had been “threatened with an earthquake machine.”

The next day another person called me and said he wanted to meet me. Again, the meeting took place inside a downtown hotel room. This time it was someone from an Asian secret society known as The Red and The Green. He said they had 8 million members including 200,000 assassins who could help. This group also knew about the plan to kill 90% of humanity because they had secretly recorded a meeting at the Bohemian Grove where they discussed all of this.

Members of this group had long worked with Western secret societies, for example by supplying them with heroin from the golden triangle. However, it was the attempt to kill them off with SARS, a bio-weapon designed to kill Asians, that finally put them on a war footing.

You can imagine my shock and disorientation in running into all of this over the space of just a week. As someone who had lived his whole life in the official open world as seen in the public record, this was mind-boggling, to say the least. In any case, since I could not agree with a plan to kill 90% of humanity, I decided to go along with the Asian secret society.

At first, being a peace-loving journalist, I thought of ideas like maybe the Asian secret society could show 9.11 truth movies in Chinatown movie theaters. However, eventually, I had what I call my “Kill Bill” moment. In the movie Kill Bill, there is a scene where a female assassin (played by Uma Thurman) is in a desperate fight for her life with a one-eyed opponent. When Thurman plucks out her opponent’s eye, suddenly the fight is over.

What I realized was that most Westerners (like me) had no idea what their secret leaders were up to and would be appalled if they found out. The flaw of the secret Western government was that it was highly centralized. So, I advised the Asian secret society to “pluck out the eye.” I gave them a list of all the people who were members of the Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. I said if you target them, you can stop the planned genocide.

Later when the earthquake machine threat was made directly to me I responded that “you can’t stop assassinations with an earthquake machine.”

The other thing I suggested to the Asian Secret Society was that buying U.S. government bonds was worse than buying opium. “At least opium gives you pleasure but now you are paying them to kill you,” is what I told a top adviser to the Chinese Politburo.

In any case, the Asian Secret Society became mobilized. They threatened to kill the Western elite and also stopped buying U.S. government bonds. Thus the attempt to kill off 90% of humanity was stalled. This was the real background to the so-called “Lehman shock,” financial crisis of 2008, and the birth of the Obama administration.

However, the secret war had only begun. A lot of new players emerged from the shadows following these events.

Next week I will talk about how I met David Rockefeller. I will also discuss meeting such groups as the Black Sun, the Illuminati (in two flavors), the secret space program Nazis, the Russian FSB, and former MI6 head Dr. Michael Van de Meer.

Please stay tuned…

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brassash3 · 3 years

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Aaron, a 33-year-old from Stoke-on-Trent, utilized to utilize steroids but stopped after experiencing severe acne. 2 years back, he saw a YouTube video clip suggesting SARMs, "generally saying they have actually got dead-low risks and all the benefits of anabolic steroids". " I place on quite a bit of muscular tissue, I was really lean, I looked truly, actually great in a very brief time duration," he says. The results were less significant than when he would certainly taken steroids, however SARMs appeared much safer and the side effects less extreme. Aaron put one more order and took place to run three even more cycles. It needs to be noted that testosterone is not classified as an anabolic steroid-- as it is a normally happening hormone in the body. The issue with utilizing anabolics, is the adverse effects, nevertheless as long as somebody trains well the use of anabolic steroids is very effective.

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Beth McKenzie approved a two-year assent, as although the WTC agreed that her consumption of ostarine was unintentional, she might not definitively verify that her ostarine AAF resulted from infected salt tablet computers. A quick search on the UFC/USADA internet site discloses supports Wallhead's claim that the UFC has actually taken care of 6 ostarine cases during the in 2015 as well as 8 in overall. A search on the USADA site reveals 16 ostarine ADRVs in the previous year alone-- none of which entail UFC boxers. "They did offer me a 9 month restriction and also I get it, I comprehend it", he claimed. "Theoretically it's 9 months, yet they have actually been excellent to me actually.

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theliberaltony · 6 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Suneel Gupta had his bags packed, ready to go to Washington. It was the night of Nov. 8, 2016, and Gupta, then a tech entrepreneur, was itching to leave the Bay Area and begin a new job in the Clinton White House.

“I got asked to lead up Hillary’s Office of Science and Technology Policy for the transition,” he told me. “Literally election night, I’m watching the results come in. Watching them with my wife, who is nine months pregnant with our second daughter. The next morning, I’m supposed to be on a plane, ready to go … get my marching orders.”

He calls it the shortest job of his life.

Gupta is a computer programmer who has worked as head of product development for Groupon and Mozilla and founded an app-based preventive health care company with his older brother, the neurosurgeon and medical reporter Sanjay Gupta. The Clinton job was supposed to be the next step in his career. But instead of flying out, Gupta spent the next morning unpacking and figuring out what he should do next. Today, he’s running for Congress in Michigan’s 11th District, where he grew up and now lives — one of five Democrats vying for the opportunity to flip a seat that has been solidly Republican for the past 53 years.1

When Gupta tells this story, he presents his run as the logical next step. The Clinton transition job disintegrates in front of his eyes on TV … and yada yada yada … he’s a candidate for Congress.

It’s possible it would have felt that natural, that obvious, to him after any election year. But 2016 wasn’t just any election year for scientists. Between Gupta’s personal Point A and Point B, there’s been a whole atlas of cultural movement among scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians, drawing them out of labs and startups and into politics. Thousands of STEM workers and their supporters marched on Washington to protest funding cuts and what they saw as a lack of respect for scientific expertise. Some scientists took it further, forming a political action committee to train and raise money for “science candidates” — a broad category that includes people with experience in research science, science education, engineering and technology jobs. That pro-science PAC, 314 Action, counted more than 300 people with STEM backgrounds who ran or are running for public office at all levels of government — 66 for federal-level and gubernatorial seats. Gupta is one of those 66.

Science has never truly been separate from the political system that funds it and uses the tools it creates. But scientists have not traditionally pushed so hard to make that relationship explicit, or to be the ones in charge of it. In the past, said Shaughnessy Naughton, the former chemist who founded 314 Action, scientists have sort of believed that they could just put the facts out there and the evidence would speak for itself. Before this, it had been rare for scientists to get involved in politics. “But it’s clear now that politicians are unashamed to meddle in science. And the way to push back is getting scientists elected. We have to have a place at the table,” she said.

When Gupta tries to win the Aug. 7 Democratic primary in the Michigan 11th, he won’t be just a lone guy with a science background running for Congress — a single data point, if you will. Instead, he’s part of a much larger sample — dozens of people trying to grant science some political power. It’s not clear that a commitment to STEM will help him win, though, nor is it clear what happens if Gupta and other science candidates do make it into office. That could mean more evidence-based policy — or more well-intentioned newbie politicians absorbed into the same old political machine. It could mean newfound respect (and research dollars) for science. Or it could turn “science” into a dog-whistle word for “liberal.”

Nobody knows what the result will be. There’s a word for what Gupta is running in this election, and it’s not “campaign.” It’s “experiment.”

“Who are we as Democrats?” asks Lisa Dirato, a liberal activist and a research chemist. At her kitchen table, in a neighborhood of manicured lawns, gabled porticos and brick facades near Northville, Michigan, Dirato hashed out for me how she was going to make her decision for the primary. Usually, she said, Democrats are lucky to get one person to run, let alone a crowd. It was a rare experience to choose, rather than accept. And she had some specific qualities she wanted to see in her choice. “[Democrats] have empathy, we care about people and we believe government can make people’s lives better,” she said. “When I listen to candidates, that’s what I’m listening for.”

“Are you listening for science at all?” I asked her.

“Um. You know, not really. And I’m a scientist. That’s my day job,” Dirato said. “I can’t even tell you why.”

This is the first challenge that Gupta, and any science candidate, faces.

Whenever I spoke with voters in Michigan’s 11th District, they were all more concerned with the state of the roads we had driven on that day than with the technological decision-making behind that infrastructure.

Voters — whether in the Michigan 11th or the U.S. at large — don’t seem to view science advocacy as a primary factor in their vote choice. But it’s not for lack of respect for the sciences. For the past 40 years, while partisan divides have increased, the General Social Survey, conducted by the research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, shows that trust in science remained about the same and that the scientific community is the second-most trusted institution in the country, after the military. And you’d expect even more excitement for science candidates in the Democratic Party, whose voters, Pew Research data suggests, are a little more trusting of scientists and a lot more supportive of federal funding for scientific research.

In practice, though, the science candidates’ results have been mixed. Of the 23 federal-level candidates originally endorsed by 314 Action, nine have made it past their primaries (one ran unopposed), nine lost, and five primaries (including Gupta’s) are still to come. Results for unendorsed science candidates have also been muddled. And in an ongoing Gallup poll that asks about the most important issues facing American society, few of the issues identified are particularly science related. It’s pretty clear that science isn’t going to be a single-issue vote for the left as, say, abortion is for some conservatives.

Nevertheless, Gupta thinks there’s a good case for why voters should want more people with science backgrounds walking the halls of Congress. While driving between apartment complexes, delivering Meals on Wheels to housebound residents of Waterford, Michigan, he talked to me about the way Congress is called to make decisions and explore alternatives to problems — choices that often involve some level of technology. “To understand these alternatives and how they best serve the American people, you have to know what is happening underneath the covers and be able to ask the right questions,” Gupta said. “When you don’t have a Congress that’s informed, what ends up happening is that it follows the directions, very much, of the special interests.”

But whenever I spoke with voters in Michigan’s 11th District — whether they leaned Democrat or Republican — they were all more concerned with the state of the roads we had driven on that day than with the technological decision-making behind that infrastructure. That lack of interest in Gupta’s tech expertise might make it hard for him to win the primary — without it, there’s not much to make him stand out from the pack. “I don’t think he’s found a breakthrough issue yet that separates him enough from the other candidates,” said Bill Joyner, a former county commissioner who served in part of the 11th District and remains involved in Democratic politics in the area. Most Democrats I spoke to told me they were still undecided in mid-July. Recent polling commissioned by the Detroit Free Press placed Gupta in third, 7 percentage points behind the front-runner, state Rep. Tim Greimel.

But if he can win the primary, Gupta has figured out a way he might be able to make his science background work for him in the general election — not by appealing to science, but by tapping into a growing interest in outsider politicians.

Student science, technology, engineering and math clubs are friendly ground for Gupta, who has been visiting groups throughout the district for months. He’s after the young members’ votes, of course. But he’s also there in the hopes of inspiring the next generation of science candidates — during a visit to the Oakland Community College STEMulated Club in Auburn Hills, Gupta asked club members about whether they might run for office someday.

“I’m not a politician,” said Jaquan Brown, a computer science student who is spending his summer working on a project modeling wind patterns.

“Hey, neither am I!” Gupta replied.

That’s a message Gupta took everywhere — from that left-leaning college STEM club to an eagle-festooned room full of stone-faced retirees. “I’m not a politician, I’m a problem-solver.” To Gupta, science can bridge the gap between the left and the right — but so can dissatisfaction with political insiders. And while science doesn’t seem to be shifting elections, a general dislike for experienced politicians does.

What’s important in voters’ minds is that politicians haven’t held elected office before.

Incumbency is still the primary factor that determines whether a candidate will win an election, said Sarah Treul, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But when there is no incumbent running — as is the case in the 11th — Treul’s research shows that it’s increasingly likely that the person with the least experience holding public office will walk away with the prize. These winners are seldom total political novices. They’ve worked on campaigns or they had been activists, or even just big donors, in the past. That’s true for Gupta (a former White House intern under Bill Clinton and a volunteer for the Obama campaign), as well as several other Democratic and Republican candidates for the 11th District seat.

But what’s important in voters’ minds is that politicians haven’t held elected office before, Treul said. These kinds of candidates always did better with Republican voters than Democratic voters, but Treul’s data shows that, since about 2008, the percentage of primaries won by inexperienced candidates has increased substantially for Republicans. “Republicans have clearly capitalized on that, going all the way to the president,” she said. “Politician is a dirty word.”

The filthiness of professional politicians came up in many conversations that I had with voters in the 11th District, and both Democratic and Republican activists in the district told me they expected an outsider to win the general election. The last two people to hold this congressional seat were first elected to Congress as novices. So it makes sense that Gupta’s stump speech highlights his outsider status in multiple ways. He’s not a politician — he’s a problem-solver who knows how to use technology to create practical solutions for tough problems. He’s not a politician — he’s a job creator who ran a successful startup firm. He’s not a politician — the only PAC he’s accepted money from is 314 Action.

That could help him in a general election in a Republican-leaning district. Gupta told me he thinks it could help him even in the primary, though that’s less clear. Democrats don’t have as strong of an attraction towards inexperienced candidates — take Greimel’s lead in the primary as an example. But to Gupta, the real fight in American politics isn’t between Democrats and Republicans, it’s between average voters and the powerful special interests that professional politicians represent. In his vision, science and evidence are a thing the warring parties can agree on, and then use to fight the real enemy.

There are real-world examples of science being exactly the kind of cross-party bridge builder that Gupta wants it to be. On July 23, U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida introduced a bill to create a market-driven carbon tax as a solution to climate change. Curbelo is a Republican, and he’s a member of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus — 86 representatives, evenly split among Republicans and Democrats, all dedicated to advancing climate legislation.

If Gupta and the organizers of the March for Science were granted one wish from a bipartisan fairy, climate legislation championed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle would be it. But all the results of the politicization of science haven’t exactly been the stuff of scientific fantasy.

Science can polarize people, as well as bring them together. The 2017 March for Science exacerbated — rather than healed — partisan divides, according to a survey published in the journal Political Science and Politics by Matthew Motta, a postdoctoral fellow in the science of science communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “In the aftermath, conservatives became more negative towards scientists and the science community, and so did moderates. But liberals became more positive,” Motta told me. Conservatives were more likely to believe scientists were out for personal gain after the march; liberals, less likely.

While there is evidence that science can be a unifying force that all Americans trust, there’s also evidence that — particularly on specific issues — Americans increasingly have polarized ideas about who “science” serves and what “evidence-based” means. For instance, while the General Social Survey shows that overall public trust in science has held fairly constant since 1974, it also shows conservatives losing that trust. While conservatives once had the most trust in science, relative to liberals and moderates, they now have the least. Meanwhile, congressional voting records on environmental issues became significantly more polarized after 1990, with Republicans increasingly likely to vote against anything tainted green. And there is evidence of strong ties between science and the political left. Fifty-two percent of scientists self-report as liberal, for instance, while just 9 percent call themselves conservative. (Those numbers are even less balanced in some social sciences, like psychology.) And most political donations from scientists go to Democrats.

Science is a uniter. Science is a divider. Science is a political Schrödinger’s cat.

Matthew Wilk, a Republican activist from the Michigan 11th, told me that evidence and data do matter to the decision-making process among conservative lawmakers. He’d seen that when he was a member of the Northville School Board. He and other conservative lawmakers were hungry for data, he told me. But they didn’t necessarily want academics to interpret that data. They’d rather just get raw numbers and draw their own conclusions because they didn’t trust academia to play fair. “It’s seen as biased towards Democrats,” Wilk said.

The movement to get scientist-politicians on the ballot probably hasn’t helped that perception. The 314 Action PAC endorsed candidates for all levels of public office — from state legislatures on up — and every person they chose was a Democrat. “I wouldn’t say it’s an indictment of science that scientists are running more as Democrats,” Naughton said. “It’s an indictment of Republican Party platform. It’s a real shame.”

But it’s incorrect to think of Democrats as “good” on science and Republicans as “bad” on it, Motta said. Surveys show that, by and large, liberals are more supportive of scientific research funding. “But in many ways, liberals and conservatives don’t look all that different,” he said. “They just differ in which types of scientific conclusions they don’t accept.”

There’s knowing that science isn’t a partisan issue intellectually, though, and then there’s feeling it. Politics is more about the gut than the brain. Today, on both sides of the aisle, tummies are rumbling.

“Ironically, we’re in this mess because we allowed science to be politicized,” said Caroline Weinberg, one of the founders of the March for Science. “It’s a problem if what we’re doing to resist that is furthering politicization instead of reducing it.”

This is where Gupta’s attempt to intertwine politics and science becomes an experiment as much as a campaign. Gupta talks about the importance of sharing evidence and learning. But twice on the campaign trail, Democratic supporters brought up fears about genetically modified food that aren’t supported by scientific evidence. And Gupta didn’t correct them. Instead, he pivoted to related issues of food security and safety that were less controversial. Politics might not be the best place to use science to change things people know with their guts.

What you’re left with is a bunch of facts that don’t quite add up to an evidence-based path to political success. The American people really do trust scientific expertise. But having scientific expertise doesn’t seem to be a major factor in how they vote. Americans across the political spectrum still agree on science more than we disagree. But the same surveys show that partisan divides on science exist, and every time someone runs a political campaign using science as an issue, it could be contributing to a growing divide — making it harder for science to function as a nonpartisan problem-solver in the future. Science is a uniter. Science is a divider. Science is a political Schrödinger’s cat.

For now, all Gupta can do is hope the beast is alive and well when the box opens. Which, for him, means continuing to push on the idea that he’s not a politician. He’s something else, and he can bridge divides. It’s an appealing message, said Maggie Peyton, a retiree to whom Gupta delivered a Meals on Wheels lunch one afternoon. “You’re almost talking my platform,” she told him. Though she and Gupta disagreed on abortion rights, Peyton encouraged him in his drive to get special interests out of Washington and fight career politicians. She’s one of those voters who Gupta told me he sees as a Republican with an open mind. And as he walked away from her door, pushing a cart loaded with lunch trays, Peyton waved and hollered after him.

“Don’t let politics wreck you!” she said.

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