Did you name your novels or were they just ShoH 1, ShoH 2, ShoH 3, etc.? (If yes, can you also tell their names please?)

Hi there, thanks for the question! In my head they were Volumes 1-20-something--actually, if you’ll believe it, in my head for a long time I named the books after colors, and somehow kept track... but at some point I did put a formal list of potential titles together. I never used the “real” titles mentally, except for The Bridge of Bones, Fortress of the Dead, and the books in Series II and III: I still remember thinking of the first book in Series I as “red” and the second book as “orange”... 😬 And the files/scenes in each book were labelled “aaa”, “bb”, “++”. The more letters there were, the number of times the scene had been rewritten (so “a” was a first draft of the first scene in the book, and “aaa” was the same scene, but more polished... what was I thinking?)

Anyway, I had to go digging to remember my ideas for the titles of some of the earlier books, so please forgive any cringyness lol, I was pretty young when I wrote Series I! I also don’t know if these are all of the ShoH novels--these are just the main chronological ones, but there were some spin-offs and AUs that I don’t name here!

Series I: World Without End

The Witching Wheel 

Blood and Fire

Gunpowder Magic

Battle Mage

The Knife That Spoke

Oathbreaker

Shadowsight 

The Code of War

The City of Midnight

The Foundling’s Soul

The Silver Covenant

The Gates of the Earth

Child of the Stars

Series II: The Storm of the Worlds

The Thunder March

The Lightning War

The Conquered Sky

Series III: The Land of the Gods

The Eternal Sea

The Country Cloaked in Moon

Bridge Series: 

Fortress of the Dead

The Bridge of Bones

The Razor Crown

The God-King’s Sun

Series IV: The Naming of All Things

Harlequin

Valkyrie

Jeremiad

The Council of Kingmakers

Canticle of the Namer

The Blessed Isles

Read below if you want as concise of an explanation for these titles as I can provide!

In case you’re curious, Series I up until Battle Mage follows the protagonist, Arainia, as a young girl (I think 11 or 13) after the death of her mother, being sent to Solhadur amidst family conflict with her father and older sister, her various adventures there at school (meeting Red, Pan, Neon, etc.), graduating, attempting to join the Ket army (it’s complicated), and then deciding to join the Shepherds at around 18 or 19. She undergoes training in the academy, joins her squad (this is where Trouble, Riel, Chase, Halek, and the rest come in), and becomes a Shepherd officer alongside her childhood best friend Blade in Battle Mage. The Knife that Spoke and onward details various missions, investigations, battles, recruitments, and adventures that they all embark on as young adults into their twenties, with some books following different perspectives in the squad (Blade, Riel, Trouble, Chase, Halek, Red, Wintry, and Junoth [the last two not in the game] all get their turn narrating a book or at least a large part of one), with Shery, Ayla, Mimir, Lavinet, Tallys, Neon, Croelle, and many other characters featuring heavily. Around this time, civil war is brewing between the Elves, Ket, and certain factions of Mages, and Endarkened attacks soon begin to rise as the Order struggles to keep the peace. 

Series II details the outbreak of total world war that is essentially the Castigation in the game, with Western Norm kingdoms and territories suddenly and unexpectedly marching on the East--except in the novels, demons and demon armies are also involved, and the war is ultimately averted/ended in a truce as both sides finally unite to confront the Endarkened. It’s during this time period that Riel defects and seemingly betrays the group in favor of “the other side.” Blade is also seemingly killed at the end of the first book of this series and doesn’t reappear again until the third book, Arainia is captured and held as a prisoner of war all while thinking her best friend is dead, and it’s an upsetting time for everybody. Junoth also actually dies. RIP. Croelle pops in to save the day!

Series III details the aftermath of the war and a mission to find unoccupied land for displaced factions of soldiers, diplomats, traders, and civilians from the Norm territories (led by Riel), leading to a voyage across the Mirror Sea to explore the vast continent to the south of Blest, called colloquially “the Land of the Gods.” The second book in this series is also when Blade and Arainia FINALLY confess their feelings for each other and get together, and the big love triangle in the series is finally mostly settled. Oh, but things also aren’t perfect because the Order forbids relationships between officers (like they’ll actually be fired, not Blade’s lame rule in the game lmao), so they live in fear of being discovered because neither wants to quit being a Shepherd! Their hope is that Blade will be named Commander when the current one resigns, and then he can just... change the rule LOL. 

The Bridge Series has some companion novels that take place in between Series III and IV; Fortress of the Dead is Croelle-centric (this is when he informally joins the Order in the books) and The Bridge of Bones details some political bullshit and coups and conspiracies within the Order when its Commander dies unexpectedly and seemingly names a shady outsider (Edric) as the new Commander instead of Blade. The group is placed on different squads to split them up and prevent rebellion from brewing (it happens anyway), and it’s all very crazy. This is also when Lavinet sort of becomes a good guy, Shery becomes a badass, Shyf Cian first appears as the HR rep everyone hates, and this book is also pretty Chase-centric (he pretty much saves the day) and features a Mage serial killer, a psychopathic criminal syndicate leader, and an evil Changeling! I think it’s my favorite novel of the series. From what I remember, The Razor Crown and The God-King’s Sun are just super angsty for no good reason other than I guess I felt like writing a lot of angst--though the God-King’s Sun is also the first appearance of a true Autarch in the series. 

By the time we get to Series IV, the characters are in their thirties, settling into adulthood and their respective roles in life. Blade finally assumes command of the Order, Blade and Arainia get married, Halek and Wintry have a baby (Kana!), Halek turns 33 and has a life crisis, Arainia gets pregnant (and then kidnapped for a large part of her pregnancy lolll), Riel and Chase finally make reluctant peace, some other stuff happens, uh there’s some Mimir stuff in there, Red successfully makes a trip to another world, and Arainia gives birth to a Ket-Mage son in... I think it was either The Canticle of the Namer or The Blessed Isles. 

So... yeah! 28+ main novels, and I’m still going, just for me! 😂 I tend to write a lot of AUs of the series in my off-time, though sometimes the AUs are just “what if this took place in the same world but things are totally different--like what if they were politicians instead of Shepherds, what if the Shepherds functioned differently due to a different historical event occurring, what if the Castigation happened but it was Mages who instigated it, what if they were soldiers in a war 5000 years before the main series takes place, etc.”; or they take place in totally different worlds, like the characters as cops in a modern world that has cell phones and cars but also still has the Diminished races and magic somehow!

Thanks for your question, and for reading this long talk! 😅

An Uncrowned Tudor Queen, the Science of Skin and Other New Books to Read

https://sciencespies.com/nature/an-uncrowned-tudor-queen-the-science-of-skin-and-other-new-books-to-read/

An Uncrowned Tudor Queen, the Science of Skin and Other New Books to Read

England’s most notorious dynasty owes much to the trials of a 13-year-old girl: Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. On January 28, 1457, the young widow—her first husband, Edmund Tudor, had died at age 26 several months prior—barely survived the birth of her only child, the future Henry VII. Twenty-eight years later, in large part due to Margaret’s tenacious, single-minded campaign for the crown, she saw her son take the throne as the first Tudor king.

Margaret never officially held the title of queen. But as Nicola Tallis argues in Uncrowned Queen: The Life of Margaret Beaufort, Mother of the Tudors, she fulfilled the role in all but name, orchestrating her family’s rise to power and overseeing the machinations of government upon her son’s ascension.

The latest installment in our series highlighting new book releases, which launched in late March to support authors whose works have been overshadowed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, centers on the matriarch of the Tudor dynasty, the oft-conflicting science of skin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s tragic past, the twilight years of Japanese isolationism and a Supreme Court decision with lasting implications for the criminal justice system.

Representing the fields of history, science, arts and culture, innovation, and travel, selections represent texts that piqued our curiosity with their new approaches to oft-discussed topics, elevation of overlooked stories and artful prose. We’ve linked to Amazon for your convenience, but be sure to check with your local bookstore to see if it supports social distancing-appropriate delivery or pickup measures, too.

Uncrowned Queen: The Life of Margaret Beaufort, Mother of the Tudors by Nicola Tallis

Margaret Beaufort had little reason to dream of the throne. The Wars of the Roses—a dynastic clash between two branches of the royal Plantagenet family—raged on for much of her early life, and more often than not, her Lancastrian relatives were on the losing side. Still, she managed to find favor under Yorkist king Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, embedding herself in the royal household with such success that she was named godmother to one of the couple’s children. All the while, Margaret worked to restore her son, Henry, then in exile as one of the last remaining Lancastrian heirs, to power.

Edward IV’s untimely death in 1483, compounded by his brother Richard III’s subsequent usurpation of the throne, complicated matters. But Margaret, working behind the scenes with the dowager queen Elizabeth and others who opposed Richard’s reign, ultimately proved victorious: On August 22, 1485, Henry defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field, winning the crown and, through his impending union with Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the warring royal houses after decades of civil war.

Nicola Tallis’ Uncrowned Queen details the complex web of operations that resulted in this unlikely victory, crediting Margaret for her son’s success without lending credence to the commonly held perception of her as a “religious fanatic who was obsessively ambitious on her son’s behalf and who dominated his court.” Instead, the historian presents a portrait of a singular woman who defied all expectations of the era, pressing “against the constraints imposed by her sex and society, [and] slowly demanding more and more control over her life, until the crown on her son’s head allowed her to make the unprecedented move for almost total independence: financially, physically and sexually.”

Clean: The New Science of Skin by James Hamblin

A shower a day does not keep the dermatologist away—or so James Hamblin, a preventative medicine physician and staff writer at the Atlantic, argues in his latest book. Part history, part science, Clean addresses the many misconceptions surrounding skincare, outlining a compelling case for showering less and embracing (figuratively speaking) the many naturally occurring microbes found on the skin. To demonstrate his point, Hamblin swore off showering for the duration of the book’s writing; as Kirkus notes in its review of Clean, “He did not become a public nuisance, … and his skin improved.”

The modern personal hygiene and beauty industry owes much to post-Industrial Revolution developments in germ theory, which identifies microbes as vectors of disease that must be destroyed or avoided. But certain bacteria and fungi are beneficial to the body, notes Hamblin in an excerpt for the Atlantic: Demodex mites, for instance, act as a natural exfoliant, while Roseomonas mucosa blocks the growth of another bacterium linked to eczema flares. And though parabens ensure the longevity of commercial products including deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lotion, these preservatives also eliminate helpful microbes, upsetting the balance essential to healthy skin.

“Ultimately,” writes Kirkus, “Hamblin argues for more skin microbiome research and greater biodiversity in all aspects of our lives, underscoring the value of pets and plants and parks to enhance our lives—and those that live in and on us.”

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

When Natasha Trethewey was 19 years old, her abusive former stepfather murdered her mother. This tragedy echoes throughout the former United States poet laureate’s work: In “Imperatives for Carrying On in the Aftermath,” she describes “how abusers wait, are patient, that they / don’t beat you on the first date, sometimes / not even the first few years of a marriage,” and reminds herself not to “hang your head or clench your fists / when even your friend, after hearing the story, / says, My mother would never put up with that.”

Gwendolyn Turnbough’s killing was a pivotal moment in the young poet’s artistic development, but as Trethewey writes in her new memoir, she avoided confronting painful memories of the murder for decades. With the publication of Memorial Drive—a searing examination of the author’s upbringing in the Jim Crow South and the disastrous second marriage that followed her white father and African American mother’s divorce—she hopes “to make sense of our history, to understand the tragic course upon which my mother’s life was set and the way my own life has been shaped by that legacy.”

As Publishers Weekly concludes in its review, Memorial Drive is a “beautifully composed, achingly sad” reflection on “the horrors of domestic abuse and a daughter’s eternal love for her mother.”

Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley

Tsuneno, the central figure in historian Amy Stanley’s debut book, was “the loudest, the most passionate” child of a 19th-century Buddhist priest named Emon. Restless and plagued by bad luck, according to Lidija Haas of Harper’s magazine, she endured three failed marriages before abandoning her tiny Japanese village in favor of the bustling city of Edo, soon to be renamed Tokyo. Here, she worked a variety of odd jobs before meeting her fourth and final husband, a mercurial samurai named Hirosuke.

In addition to presenting a portrait of a city on the brink of a major cultural shift—Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Japan and demanded the isolationist country reopen to the West in 1853, the year of Tsuneno’s death—the work conveys a strong sense of its subject’s personality, from her stubborn independent streak to her perseverance and self-described “terrible temper.” Drawing on letters, diary entries and family papers, Stanley revives both the world Tsuneno inhabited and the “wise, brilliant, skillful” woman herself.

To read Stranger in the Shogun’s City, writes David Chaffetz for the Asian Review of Books, is to “hear the sounds of the samurai trampling through the city, smell the eels grilling in tiny food stands, [and] see the color of posters for Kabuki performances.”

Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South by Matthew Van Meter

Journalist Matthew Van Meter’s exploration of Duncan v. Louisiana, a 1968 Supreme Court case that affirmed defendants’ right to trial by jury, is decidedly “timely reading,” notes Kirkus in its review. Arriving amid a global reckoning on police brutality and criminal justice, Deep Delta Justice demonstrates “how a seemingly minor incident brought massive, systemic change,” according to the book’s description.

The legal battle in question began in 1966, when Gary Duncan, a 19-year-old black teenager, was arrested for placing his hand on a white peer’s arm while attempting to de-escalate a brewing fight. Duncan requested a trial by jury but was denied on the grounds that he was facing a misdemeanor, not felony, charge of simple battery; a judge sentenced him to 60 days in prison and a $150 fine.

Duncan appealed the verdict with the help of Richard Sobol, a white attorney at New Orleans’ “most radical law firm.” As Van Meter writes in the book’s prologue, the two-year legal odyssey—reconstructed through first-person interviews and archival documents—eventually affirmed “the function of civil rights lawyers in the South and the fundamental right to a trial by jury” in all cases carrying potential sentences of at least two years.

#Nature

iv. yet another GBU/Rawhide scene

Rowdy’s POV. takes us up to just before the river encampment. 

The ache to be herding again, nothing more to worry about than moving cattle from one spot on a map to another spot, Rowdy wouldn’t have guessed he could want that back again so badly.

But that was simple, so simple he could go a whole day without words. Saluting and cow punching and tumbling down into prairie grass at night, tired enough he wouldn’t wake until the bugle blew. Hadn’t taken much thinking. It was towns where he got into trouble, generally.

Now this campsite isn’t a town, but he’s still in trouble up to his neck- no. No, he musn’t think that.

He should stay calm. That’ll keep Tuco happy- he’s noticed that much, the way that the bandito will soften words and cajole and even lie to smooth things over, until it gets to be too much and he yells with vinegar, the way he had at Pablo. Behavior like that makes no sense to Rowdy, it really doesn’t.

But left alone like this, he has to take after somebody- well, Favor would tell him to be his own man but what kind of advice is that? Favor lived by it all his life, and all it’s netted him is a one-way ticket to his death with Wallace.

Tuco nudges him. “What’s the matter, don’t you like the soup? There’s plenty of it, you don’t need to steal out of my bowl this time.”

Rowdy flushes, deeply. It’d only been the once, an accident late at night on the road between the monastery and the Union camp, but Tuco seems to have guessed too well what it meant. How he’d found himself trusting this criminal, if only a little.

“Can’t say as I care for the company,” he says out loud; and marvels at how grown-up that sounds.

“Blondie, you know, I am friends with you- but I am also friends with him. So-“

“It doesn’t work that way, Tuco,” Angel Eyes interrupts, with a voice dry and cold as wind in the desert night. “He saw me hurting Favor. He can’t forgive and forget so easily as you can.”

Tuco snorts, looks pained. “I told you about this. One of these days, those exotic tastes would get you into trouble.”

“Hmm,” Angel says, sipping at his own soup. “Not as much trouble as all that, if Blondie’s still willing to lead us to the spot- what’s the situation now, tenderfoot? Now you’re out of that prison camp, are you still willing to lead us there without shooting anyone in the back?”

He doesn’t know anymore, what Favor would do. Try to shoot Angel for torturing a friend of his, maybe. The Colt revolver feels heavy against his thigh.

Rowdy looks around, aware that he’s stalling for time. Stops when he realises why.

“Can’t say as I’d try just at present. I wouldn’t care for your friends to reciprocate.”

- because he was a cowhand, and he does know how the feel of a campsite changes when there’s rustlers on the prowl, and he’ll be a jumping frog if there isn’t a man or six waiting out there.

Angel laughs at him, a long genuine sound. “All right, fellows. Come out and mind your manners.”

The men file in quietly, weapons in easy reach but not drawn. Help themselves to soup from the pot, as though this had all been planned out.

“Oh, not you people again,” Tuco says tiredly. “Angel, Angel- no. They left me to die! Seventy five miles from civilisation!”

“Now the way I reckon it, you ought to have seen that coming,” Angel Eyes says. “Letting word of that gold slip, what did you expect?”

“No worse a mistake than leaving that boy alive to gossip,” Tuco retorts. “What’s the matter, Angel, going soft in your old age?”

He’d almost swear, Rowdy thinks, that beneath that ironic exterior Angel’s wincing. “Blind spot. It was a mistake last time, too- all those damned oranges cost me a fortune.”

None of the others seem to understand what that means, and Rowdy certainly doesn’t; but he doesn’t need to grasp the words when he can see Tuco’s barely concealed rage, the way a brown hand tugs for a lanyard and then lets go. “Enough! I don’t trust you, I don’t trust anybody- I’ll make it there myself, and beat you all to the gold.”

“You’ll never reach it alive,” Angel says indolently. “There’s a Union-held river crossing in the way. I’m the one with enough rank to get us all past it-“

The bandito’s already picking up his pack, swinging himself over a horse’s back. “Then I’ll swim!”

“He’ll be dead before the week’s out. One less claimant for the gold, then,” Angel says dismissively over the sound of galloping hooves. “Don’t worry, Blondie, you can sleep very easy tonight. Just a few nice quiet lads who’ll make sure nothing happens to you, we’re trustworthy enough.”

In a war zone like this, Rowdy supposes, this probably is as safe as it gets.

Doesn’t improve his appetite for Angel’s soup, all the same.

*********

A few days later, the men start to disappear.

One while hunting for water, one keeping guard at night; clean bullet shots through the heart.

It’s not Angel Eyes doing it, at least. The man was napping in clear sight when the first death happened; and the way Angel responds to the loss, shutting up close and turning uncommunicative, that’s enough like Favor for Rowdy to cling close to him. Offering up wordless acceptable comfort, the way he knows how to do.  

It comes to him that this is more than just fretting. That he’s in mourning for Favor- well, at that he’s probably the only one left to do it, considering the wife who went north when Favor stayed south. There’s a kind of sharp hollowness to the pain that hits him every morning- a few moments of breathing in morning air, feeling himself freshly recovered from the desert’s ordeal- and then memory plows into him like an express train and he hurts all over again.

It’s not something he can even talk about, which just makes it ache all the more.

He wishes that Tuco hadn’t left so abruptly. The bandito was loud and reckless enough for any three outlaws, but there’d been an easy kind of trust between them. So the motivation had been selfish enough; that hadn’t made Tuco’s concern for him less real. Riding gently, letting time slip away from them and resting when they liked- he’d never enjoyed such easy laxness before, and the contrast with Angel’s briskly efficient leadership is one that shouldn’t bother him after Favor, but he can’t help some resentment.

With Angel, of course, they’re on a job again. At least he knows how to do that, though he’s not really being allowed to do it properly.

“I know how to scout. I was a ramrod for a whole year, I was good enough at that.”

“Blondie-“ and there’s a muffled sound that might have been an “hmm” or “m’boy” or anything, and Rowdy’s not sure which it is or how to respond. “You are, at present, worth your weight in gold. So unless you want to up and tell me the solitary secret that happens to be keeping you alive, I am taking pains to keep you as well guarded as possible.”

“Mortimer,” one of the men says, beckoning impatiently. “Get off your high horse and decide whether we’re staying the night in this town or not.”

“We’re staying. Blondie here wants a bath.”

Rowdy blinks. He does, in fact, want one- had mentioned that to Tuco in passing, how the next time he had a chance at a real tub instead of a sparing pitcher to clean with, he was going to jump in feet first. “…a deserted town left in ruins by shelling, and there’s a bath here?”

“Yes,” Angel Eyes says rather calmly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

The bath turns out to be a huge metal thing, filled with cool water, and it embarrasses Rowdy hugely to think that some hardened mercenary added all those fluffy bubbles just for him- but then, it’s kinder work than what they’re used to, probably. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

He strips down and sinks into it gratefully, very happy. Starts scrubbing comfortably, even has a go at whistling the Streets of Laredo-

then there’s a shot outside, and realising that his gun’s way off on the other side of the room, why he’ll never get to it in time-

“I’m armed,” Rowdy manages to gasp out as the shooter comes in- and then he sees who it is.

“In a bath, sure,” Favor says, almost humorously. “How was that going to work, Rowdy, planning to whip out a gun from under the bubbles?”

“Uhm.”

It’s hard for him to think. Surprised, glad to be sure, but anxious- Favor looks ghastly, he must have been through hell. And he would….he would like it better, if Favor would put that gun away instead of leaving it casually pointed at his heart.

“What happened?”

“Wallace is dead. I’m not.”

That’s terse. He’s hardly daring to stir- can’t even reach out and get his jeans, without showing off more of himself than he really feels comfortable with.

“I’ve been tracking this gang, picking them off one by one- those I can, that damned scout is impossible to get a bead on- well. You weren’t going to take them out all by yourself, were you?”

Rowdy’s not too sure how to say, that he hadn’t really been thinking about that at all. That even a seventh or eighth share of two hundred thousand had sounded fine, enough for anybody. “So it’s just us again, then?”

“That’s right. Put your clothes on, we need to get moving.”

It’s a small thing. Not even worth mentioning.

But he can’t help remembering that Tuco would have let him finish getting clean first.

Blurred Lines - part vi

Blurred Lines MadaSaku Rated T

part i      part ii      part iii      part iv      part v

part vi

The burn of hard alcohol seared Sakura's throat as she pounded back a shot of whiskey. Her glass clinked loudly against the counter as she set it down with more force than necessary and she grimaced against its strong taste before her gaze sought out the bartender again, only too ready for another shot. The effects of the alcohol were already raging through her system, making her feel light and fuzzy around the edges, but it did little to help her mood. Or her temper.

She was angry – beyond furious – but rather than take her fury out by doing something more productive and healthy like a responsible adult, she had marched herself into the very bar she used to frequent with her old partner and ordered a shot of cheap whiskey, something – anything – with some kick. That had been half an hour ago and though she'd had enough alcohol to mostly impair her motor functions, she hadn't had enough to cool her simmering anger.

Tapping her nails obnoxiously against her glass in the hopes to capture the attention of the man behind the bar, Sakura glanced up at the television screen above her only to still her impatient fingers as a preview for the nightly news interrupted the sports game that had been playing. Even without the sound, the familiar picture of her agency's deputy director was enough to let her know what they were reporting as she felt her chest warm with renewed vengeance.

"Another?"

"Yes," Sakura said sharper than she intended, her gaze still glued to the screen.

Normally she would have apologized at being so short with someone who was not the source of her irritation, but she just couldn't bring herself to say the words as she read the caption below the news anchor: 'Deputy Director Danzo dies at age 74'.

It was only because the information hadn't been fully released to the public that it didn't say 'murdered'. The high-ranking member had been found dead in his home earlier that afternoon from what had been originally believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They would have ruled it a suicide if not for the fact there had been a calling card on the table next to him – quite literally. A single, clean business card had been left behind with nothing written on it; only a picture of a tradition Japanese fan – the symbol of the Uchiha Clan.

Sakura had no doubts Madara was behind the act, that he had ordered the assassination if he had not orchestrated it himself, and the concept that he had struck her agency left her furious, among other things. It seemed that perhaps she didn't know him as well as she had thought she did.

An unconscious glare settled upon her face as the bartender topped off her shot glass again. She reached for it immediately and, just like the rest, threw it back quickly with a slight hiss before she dropped the crystal back onto the bar top as loudly as before. Her finger traced the rim as she stared without seeing at the empty glass, inwardly debating whether she should head home for the night or continue to drown her anger.

Her decision was made before she even fully asked herself the question.

Casting her gaze down the bar, she sought out the bartender again as she felt someone slide into the seat next to her. Absentmindedly she side-glanced at them only to grow rigid as she recognized that mane of silky hair, the aristocratic features, and those eyes of volcanic glass. Madara. Her anger roared.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she spat.

"I came to see you."

"You have some nerve showing your face after what you did today."

He was unfazed by her venom. "The events of today are exactly why I'm here, Sakura," he said calmly. "I need to speak with you."

She scoffed lightly as she suppressed the urge to swing her fist at him. She wasn't entirely sure she was sober enough to make contact and so she purposely cold-shouldered him as she resumed impatiently tabbing her fingers against her glass, her expression murderous. "I don't care what you have to say," she hissed. "Get out of my face before I put a bullet through yours."

Silence briefly met her words as she felt his gaze pierce through her. She could feel him studying her, observing her; then he spoke, his tone that of genuine surprise: "Are you drunk?"

With a roll of her eyes, Sakura turned back to him to match his mildly stunned expression with an annoyed one. "I am in a bar, not that it's any of your concern."

"Of all days to get plastered," he murmured with an impatient sigh. Then he took a deep breath – whether to calm himself or press upon her to importance of his appearance, she didn't know nor did she care. "Sakura," he began, his voice full of forced patience, "I need you to listen to me very carefully-."

"No, I'm not doing you any favors," she interrupted, her expression hard and unforgiving of both him and herself. "You think you can just stroll in here like we're on the same team or something, but we're not. You have your side and I have mine," she said harshly. "I've done enough for you. I should have said no when you asked me to arrest your brother-."

She wasn't given the opportunity to finish her sentence before Madara grabbed her by the arm in a firm grip and dragged her off her stool. It was the first time since she'd entered the bar that she'd stood and now that she was back on her feet, she realized just how intoxicated she was as she was dragged away from the rest of the bar patrons and into a more private, side hallway.

Her world felt off-balance and she stumbled as Madara stopped her to spin her around. Her back hit the wall with some force, but she quickly met his smoldering gaze with a glare. "Do not forget who you are dealing with, Sakura."

His dangerous tone sent shivers up her spine, but she didn't flinch away from him. "As if I could ever forget," she hissed. "You've wheedled your way into my life, manipulating me and pretending to be…" she trailed off, unwilling to name the term she had been warring with herself over for some time. "I don't know…and for what? So you could assassinate my agency's second in command and turn to me for help?"

Madara took a step towards her, his larger frame further trapping her against the wall, and effectively caging her around him, but she refused to acknowledge the way her body warmed in both fear and something else entirely as his tailored suit brushed against her and his familiar scent intoxicated her already hazy senses. With his proximity, she didn't miss the way the edges of his expression were hard in anger, but there was a shadow of something behind his gaze that was far darker and her breath hitched. She was suddenly only too aware of the fact she was unarmed, her gun left at home.

"I may have done much in my time, Sakura, but I never manipulated you into believing I was someone I am not. I am a murderer and a dangerous man, and if you chose to overlook that then that is of no one's fault but your own. But I did not come here to discuss your internal dilemma."

He stepped away from her then, allowing some distance to fall between them and she quietly released the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Slowly Sakura pushed herself off the wall, her gaze never wavering from his, before she ran her fingers through her tresses, both in an attempted to smooth down the locks and to shake the small tremor in hands. "Then what do you want, Madara?"

His hard gaze softened fractionally, but she could still feel the irritation radiating from him as he spoke: "Your honored deputy director, Danzo, was not as respectable as everyone believed him to be. He was planning a coup, intent on dismantling the task force designed to target and eliminate illegal arms being smuggled in and out of the country."

Sakura crossed her arms as she shot him an irritated and doubtful look. "And why would he do that?"

"For the same reason anyone does: money and paid loyalty," Madara answered, his tone strained as he suppressed his impatience. "He was looking to gain friends in some not-so-friendly places to assassinate key political leaders that had the ability to thwart his attempts to gain power."

"To gain power," Sakura repeated. She was still very much aware of the alcohol coursing through her system, but she cocked her head at him as she pretended to be far more sober than she actually was. "Danzo was a Deputy Director of one of the most important and influential agencies within this country. He was already powerful."

"Not more so than the Director," Madara supplied.

"And you think he was going to have Director Sarutobi Hiruzen, one of my agency's most successful leaders ever, assassinated?"

"I do not think; I know. I have irrefutable intel."

"What intel could you possibly have that is so credible-." She stopped abruptly as the pieces clicked together. She suddenly felt more clearheaded as her earlier suspicions returned and a heavy weight settled in her chest as she stared back at Madara. "You did kill Danzo, didn't you?" she asked quietly.

Madara was unfazed by her direct questioning. "He had information that I required-."

"So you tortured it out of him and then put a bullet through his head," she provided, her voice low.

His eyes were darker than the midnight sky as he observed her silently. She could sense his impatience and frustration simmering just beneath his cool expression and her heart began to hammer out a hard rhythm against her ribs as his gaze pinned her in place. "You seemed to have no objections to my actions before," he murmured quietly.

Sakura immediately tensed in defense. "Orochimaru was a kidnapper and murderer," she hissed.

"And Danzo was a corrupt politician and traitor to his country."

"Then what do you care?" Sakura retorted. "His crimes have no effect on you or your organization-."

"On the contrary, it does," Madara interrupted sharply. "Because the very criminals Danzo was aligning himself with, are people I cannot afford to have power or leverage within this country."

Against her wishes, Sakura felt herself grow curious. She tried to fight back her questions, her interest, but the words slipped off her loosened tongue before she could stop herself, "You're the leader of the Uchiha Clan; your criminal empire is known on every continent. Who exactly is capable of threatening your family into action?"

Her question hovered heavily in the air as Madara's eyes narrowed menacingly. Even in her intoxicated state, she could feel the dangerous waters she was wading into, but if there was one thing she had learned in her experience with dealing with Uchiha Madara, it was if one wanted answers, one could not back down no matter how much he redirected or threatened.

And so, she met his murderous gaze evenly and eventually, to the relief of her pounding heart, Madara relented. "There is another 'criminal empire', as you so termed it, in the west run by the Senju Clan. We have been in conflict with them for many decades. It was their leader, Senju Hashirama, that Danzo was attempting to align himself with and had they been successful, not only would your agency have fallen into the world of corruption, but my clan would have been forced into war as well."

Sakura suddenly understood why Madara had left a calling card with Danzo's body, but whatever reply she was preparing was cut off abruptly as the swinging door at the end of the hall was pushed open. A waitress came through with a stack of plates on her arms, obviously just having come from the kitchen, as she walked down the hall and towards the rest of the bar. She nodded politely at them, obviously uncomfortable with having interrupted their private conversation, and it suddenly struck Sakura that they looked more like an arguing couple than a federal agent and notorious criminal discussing national security.

The thought made the uncomfortable weight on her chest return and she leaned back against the wall for support as nausea briefly overcame her. It felt like she couldn't breath as her emotions twisted and knotted together behind her ribcage.

"Is any of this true?" Sakura asked quietly after her sickness passed.

Madara's gaze returned to her as the waitress disappeared into the bar and she took some comfort in finding his expression unreadable; it was more bearable than the cool anger. "Yes. However, Danzo was just as stubborn as was rumored and he was unwilling to admit to everything," he explained, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

She froze in shock before she felt her rage warm again. "Are you telling me that you not only murdered my agency's director, but you did so without evidence?"

"You will come to find in the criminal world, Sakura, that word-of-mouth is the only evidence needed. It is how we survive," he told her indifferently.

She felt a large lump settle in the bottom of her stomach. His obvious lack of remorse shook her to her core and reminded her for the first time in months exactly who Uchiha Madara was and what it was that he did. She didn't know when she had come to have such a romanticized perception of him, but it felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head and she was seeing her whole world clearly for the first time since she could remember.

Swallowing thickly, Sakura held up her hands as though trying to give herself a physical barrier. "You should not have come to me," she said, shaking her head slowly. "You should have left me alone."

"Sakura," Madara sighed.

She tried to step away from him as he reached for her, but in her intoxicated and distressed state, she stumbled. She felt Madara wrap his hand around her upper arm to keep her upright, but she only attempted to jerk away from him again, wanting nothing more than to keep her distance, and he pulled her towards him until her back collided against the wall once more.

The moment her world stilled, she snapped her eyes opened to find Madara was all but pinning her down. His chest was pressed flush against hers as his face hovered inches from her own, their breath mingling. She could feel his body heat soaking into her as the noise of the bar faded and her world narrowed until it was just the two of them.

Her heart hammered against her ribs and her skin broke out into goosebumps as she realized just how intimate their position was. She could feel every inch of his body where it pressed into hers, from their thighs to their chests. His hands were warm against her arms and a pleasured shiver raced up her spin as he trailed his fingertips from her shoulder and up her throat until he cupped her jaw.

Gently he angled her face up to his as his thumb swept across her cheek in a soft caress. There was a softness about his expression and a tenderness in his gaze she hadn't seen before and she closed her eyes as he slowly bent his head towards hers–

"Don't," she breathed, her voice that of the barest of whispers.

Madara froze but she didn't dare open her eyes.

"Please…don't."

A lifetime passed before she finally felt his grip loosen before it disappeared completely. She thought she felt his fingertips trail across her jaw a fraction of a second longer, but with how tightly wound she was, she couldn't be certain and it was a moment more before she finally cracked her eyes open.

Madara was standing only a step away, his expression and gaze void of any emotion as he watched her, silently waiting for her to make the next move. She was nearly shaking as her emotions twisted and warred within her, but her gaze was unwavering as she made her final decision.

"I can't do this anymore. I'm done."

There was no tremor nor quaver in her voice as she spoke. Her words came out strong and unyielding even though they were quietly spoken, and for a long minute, she believed Madara was going to say nothing as his dark, fathomless gaze bore into her.

Then he nodded, his expression indecipherable. "Very well. Be careful, Sakura," he murmured gently. "You may come to find that, perhaps in some instances, we are on the same side."

There was no tone in his voice, only his smooth tenor as his obsidian eyes kept her pinned to the wall. He seemed to be studying her, attempting to come to terms with something she didn't know but after a long, silent moment he nodded politely at her before he stepped away and gracefully made his exit without a backward glance.

She watched him go without a word, watched his familiar figure disappear into the crowd until he was visible no more, but even then she did not return to her stool as she tried to convince herself the pain in her chest had nothing to do with Madara; that her heart was not breaking. Her heart was not breaking.

Her heart was not broken.

tbc…

For

 the queen, I’ll try my best (seriously tho why are you so nice? Like ???? how ??? Queen Luna is so freaking amazing)

AND NO IT’S REALLY NOT YOUR FAULT ADS:DLFJK omg

That really does sound fun! (lowkey jealous lol) hope you have a fantastic time!

Thanks! And, well, I was thinking of a very neutral blue-grey color scheme because it’s Ilumi, but then that also feels weird because of his green outfit? (like sure he has different oufits too but that weird green needle suit is the most well-known. Like, it’s the thing cosplayers always wear, the one he’s drawn wearing in most of the fanart…)

Illumi has his eyes on you

(this is probably true)

Do you think Kikyo and Silva (Mr. and Mrs. Zoldyck) ever bothered to teach that to him? They must have encouraged it. From a clip I watched recently it seems that Silva knew about the needle Illumi put in Killua’s head and was pretty much cool with it(…)

He’d drag Armin along with him. If Armin’s genius somehow wasn’t enough to put him into the top ten, Illumi’s really not above using Dead Eyes Intimidation + Zoldyck connections to make sure he’d get there…and then the needle would make sure Armin would never, ever dream of joining the Survey Corps or the Garrison.

That’s extremely accurate XD

Also, look at this cut exchange from Cabinet Battle 2:

Jefferson: Can you do me a favor?

Hamilton: Depends. I can try.

J: Can you tell Angelica Schuyler I said hi?

H: She’s never mentioned you.

J: She’s not the type who shares. But since you’re so interested in foreign affairs…

(Ouch.)

Yes, Eliza’s awesome ;-;

Well, the word got around, they said, ‘This kid is insane, man!’

Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland

‘Get your education, don’t forget from whence you came and

The world’s gonna know your name.

What’s your name, man?’

Kuroiwa is very much dead. Wonder how Takeomi’s gonna feel about this…first Yoriko, then his dad…;-;

Awww, at least you have tumblr friends? *hugs* and tbh I don’t have any fellow manga/anime fan friends over here either (though maybe that’s just because I don’t have any friends here at all lol)

Please join me in HxH hell. Please. I- I need someone to sob with me because I’m only like seven or eight volumes in and I just met Chrollo and omg please I have literally 0 friends in the HxH fandom (jk jk, just the fact that you listen to me rant out my favs is enough for me. TYSM for being such a queen <3)

And actually, it’s nowhere near as bad as TG or AoT! Like, it has emotional moments, but there aren’t that many character deaths? Like, sure, people die, some favs die, but so far it’s still reasonable and nobody seems to be rage-quitting the manga because of pointless angst.

Chrollo always looks good but yeah, that last style does uit him really well :)

Ging is horrible, but like you said, at least he tries and acknowledges that he’s a bad parent. In his own way. I mean, the whole journey to find him was something he designed himself to help Gon grow as a hunter (though that also connects to Ging’s slightly problematic habit of treating Gon more like a hunter to train than a child to raise…)

Excuse me Queen Luna do not compare yourself to this trashcan. He doesn’t deserve it.

I haven’t even met Pouf in the manga yet and I kinda love him.

ALL THE HAM/ELIZA FEELS.

I’m sad to say I did not cry at all during Hughes’ death/funeral. I felt a lot of pain but the tears just didn’t come OTL

I’m glad you appreciated the puns ;) (Seriously though seeing the blog back is so exciting <333)

Also: I will now send you some pics of Chrollo’s troupe members (AKA his loyal fellow criminals he’s so proud of them all), and of Ging’s student (Gon’s father figure), if that’s ok?

And I might gift you a surprise fic soon…I promise that it won’t be too angsty. Really. I would never lie to the queen :D

Last thing- is it ok if I rant more about OCs sometime? Mainly about the Love Interests for that Otome Game I mentioned a while ago (the thing I was trying to write a script for)…I’d just like some opinions on the LIs *Lenny Face*

Hi i’m back and ready to die.

I hate school, have I ever mentioned that?

Anyway, lately I’ve been losing my motivation for everything basically and that includes coming onto Tumblr, and I was wondering, do you have any app that has an instant messaging system? This is nothing against you personally, but my replies will be really slow, since I don’t even turn my computer on much these days… In fact, I feel incredibly guilty that I take so long to answer, I just don’t have the motivation…

On a happier note, I finally watched Civil War! And I ship Stony.  My heart is not okay.

Um what else happened… Norway is absolutely beautiful? It’s a place where fairytales would take place, especially the fjords. And I also saw a ton of Thor statues lol

I’d scream if Illumi had his eyes on me. If I’d have the time to before dying that is.

While we’re on HxH, that picture of Hisoka you sent me is just mmmmmm nice abs  He looks less trashy with his hair down. 

well fuck kuroiwa is dead… 

oh god trust me id be a shitty parent. a very very shitty parent. there’s a reason why i don’t want kids and the pain of giving birth is only a small part of it. not to mention i don’t have the patience to deal with a small human who can only shit or cry.

gah i know there was something else i wanted to tell you but forgot hnnnngh

uh well, ive returned to tg, so much about quitting. as long as my sweet sunshine is present, I’ll come back at any time. i just sincerely hope it is actually him and not a fake. 

oh yeah, ive started rereading soul eater! it’s a good manga, you just have to get past the first 2-3 volumes for it to get good. the initial parts are pure ecchi. 

i might spam the blog w some pictures of norway later ^^;;

sorry for the short&all over the place response, I’m just so so tired, even tho it’s only been one week of school. I blame my period.

Anyway, the next one will be longer, I swear!  I hope you’re not too mad…

[edit:] I REMEMBERED WHAT I WANTED TO SAY

I SAW BOOK OF ATLANTIC. LIZZY. MY BABY. SHE FINALLY GOT HER SCENE IT WAS BEAUTIFUL ALSO UNDERTAKER. DAAAAAAAAMN

oh and i’ve gotten around to watching Death Note and it casually broke my heart. good to know, good to know.

The Superpredator Myth: It’s Still Alive Behind Bars

There is a strange parallel between the history of the so-called “superpredator” and the conception of “dope fiends.”

Not too long ago, “superpredator” became the favored word of some criminologists to describe the emergence of what was considered a dangerous threat to public safety in the U.S. A ruthless criminal concealed within the body of an adolescent male, he was often black, and his habitat was the inner city.

Violent criminal conduct was a unique, and terrifying, behavioral characteristic of these young beasts. When captured, the mantra “Adult Time for Adult Crime” supported sentencing them as if they were just as culpable as their fully matured counterparts.

Similarly, a much older phrase, “dope fiend” came back into use to describe those superpredators immersed in the world of illicit drugs. The stereotype was just as brutal: He (usually a he) was conceived to be a hedonistic, nihilistic hybrid, usually having dark skin, who sometimes spoke with a Hispanic accent.

Committing crimes to support his narcotic addition was a favorite pastime. And just as in the case of violent superpredators, he was the target of the “tough on crime” policies that sent so many young black men to prison in the 1980s and 1990s for long stretches of confinement.

Fast forward to 2019.

Now, there’s a broad consensus among criminologists that the so-called superpredator is better understood as a youth whose crimes more often than not reflect transient immaturity rather than irreparable corruption, and whose skin complexions encompass the color spectrum. The U.S. Supreme Court and last year, the Washington State Supreme Court, relied upon the attendant neurodevelopmental research findings to invalidate some of the harshest penalties for the kinds of juvenile offenders once written off as unreformable superpredators.

Even heinous crimes committed by young people are now viewed through a prism that mitigates their culpability.

I was once in the superpredator category myself. I received a life-without-parole sentence for my involvement in a murder at age 14—a crime that I have regretted ever since.

But the courts’ new approach gave me—and many others in similar situations—a path for hope. My sentence was amended retroactively, and I was given an opportunity to be freed. I received mercy.

But the stereotyped “dope fiend” version of the superpredator still stunts the lives of thousands of inmates in U.S. prisons today who were sentenced for crimes committed when they were young—despite a growing body of research that has made that version anachronistic.

For one thing, opioid addiction is no longer, sadly confined, to the poor young person of color.

We all realize that the opioid epidemic in America has destroyed the lives of soccer moms and rural white teenagers just as much as it has youths in the inner city.

The broad consensus that dealing with this crisis requires a public health approach rather than criminal justice machinery has spread to policymakers at federal, state and local levels.

But not to prisons.

All too often, these ameliorative approaches are only being implemented at the front end of the criminal justice system. Unlike former superpredators such as myself, mercy has yet to be applied retroactively to the sentences of opioid addicts imprisoned while they were young. Their lives are untouched by the contemporary recognition that their crimes were not simply a product of free will, opportunity and a rational calculus.

The case of Corey Irish provides one illustration of why such former drug “superpredators” should receive relief—notwithstanding the fact that their crimes occurred long before overdosed bodies began to pile up in refrigerator trucks from West Virginia to Ohio.

Drugstore Robbery

Late in the evening of April 23, 2007, in Tacoma, Wash., Daniel Garibay was just about to turn away from the customer he finished serving through the drive‑through window at Walgreen’s pharmacy when he heard a loud thump on the floor behind him.

He would never forget the sound.

“I mean, I’d never heard something like that,” he testified, according to trial transcripts.

The sound was Corey Irish landing on the floor after he leapt over the counter. The young man immediately began demanding drugs by their generic and non-generic names.

“When he first jumped in, at first he asked for Percocet, Oxycodone, and Vicodin…then it seemed like he just wanted anything,” Garibay told the jury during Irish’s trial in Pierce County Superior Court.

He was stunned when Irish pulled out two trash bags and told Garibay to fill them up. According to Garibay, “They looked like forceflex bags. He told me which drugs he wanted, and then he asked me to put them in the bags after I opened the cabinet.”

Meanwhile, Irish’s accomplice, who stood guard over the other two employees after flashing a gun in his waist line and corralling them into the stockroom, kept apologizing.

“I’m sorry I have to do this, you know…Just be quiet,” Jeanelle O’Dell recounted the accomplice saying as he made her kneel on the floor.

‘He kept apologizing for what he was doing’

Mike Staten also recalled, “He kept apologizing for what he was doing, saying he wanted to be in and out.”

Back in the pharmacy, Garibay had moved on to filling up a third garbage bag that Irish made him get after the two that Irish brought with him were filled to capacity. Ten minutes elapsed from the loud thump Irish made when he landed behind the counter to when he finally lifted the bags filled with childproof bottles, summoned his accomplice from the stockroom, and began to leave with his haul of prescription narcotics.

The police arrived before the men escaped from the scene. Irish was arrested with the bags of OxyContin, Percocet, Valium and Vicodin, and everything in between. His accomplice fled empty-handed and was never apprehended by the police.

During the closing arguments of Irish’s trial, Sunni Ko, the deputy prosecuting attorney, rhetorically asked the jury, “Ladies and gentlemen, again, what do you think he was going to do with three bags of drugs? Do you think that he was going to keep them in his room and have it for personal use for the rest of his life?”

The notion that an addiction to prescription medication was powerful enough to make anyone do such a thing stretched belief. His intent was obviously to distribute the pills for profit, Ko argued to the jury.

The jury agreed.

At sentencing, Irish, who met the DSM-IV-TR criteria for opioid dependency, explained to the judge, “We wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. We just wanted some pills. And besides…I do pop pills, constantly. That’s why—not making excuses on any of that—but I mean, I do have a problem.

“Whether it was one bottle or 100 bottles I took, it was going to be a robbery anyway, so I mean, a thousand apologies, especially to the victims.”

His mother, a high school teacher, told the judge how she had tried to convince her son to get treatment before the crime occurred. His aunt, an assistant mayor, also implored the court, writing, “Corey needs the opportunity to enter a program where he can receive help for the drug problem and counseling to get to the root of his problems.”

The judge empathized with Irish’s family, but she had no sympathy for Irish.

He was sentenced to spend the next quarter century in the care of the Washington Department of Corrections—a prison term that exceeds the minimum sentence a defendant would serve for committing premeditated murder.

The Paradigm Shift

Criminal justice officials in Ohio probably would not be surprised upon hearing that someone tried to steal garbage bags filled with prescription pills from a pharmacy in a robbery. There, the opioid epidemic is so devastating that the foster care system has been overwhelmed by children who have become the detritus of addicted parents.

Tom Synan, Newtown Ohio’s Police Chief, has come to believe that addiction should no longer be considered a crime.

“It took 70,000 people to die before society shifted its opinion on opioid addiction,” he observed during a symposium sponsored by The Washington Post, headlined Addiction in America, The New War on Drugs.

Experts on substance use disorders who have tracked the etiology of opioid addiction would also see a familiar theme with respect to how Irish went from being a supervisor at a fabrication company to the perpetrator of a drug store robbery.

After suffering a back injury in 2006, he was prescribed OxyContin during a period when pharmaceutical companies where downplaying its addictive properties, financial incentives led doctors to over-prescribe opioid pain medications, and the naive failed to perceive the signs of misuse and abuse going on around them because addicts did not fit the stereotypical image of a dope fiend.

They resided in the heartland.

They worked and went to church on Sundays.

They weren’t dark-skinned and had no accent.

During the 12 years that have elapsed since Irish was confined, legions of young men and women went from pilfering their parents’ pills when they were teenagers and snorting them with friends to shooting heroin. Nurses have lost their jobs for stealing narcotics from their elderly patients. Countless men and women have lost custody of their children.

Let us pause for a moment to reflect on the crack epidemic, the policies it generated, and the character attacks on the addicts. Whether America learned from these mistakes or the socio-demographic and white complexion of many contemporary opioid addicts brought enlightenment with respect to this latest drug epidemic, I can only guess.

In any case, the criminal justice system is already bursting at the seams due to mass incarceration. It therefore comes as no surprise to me that officials have lost the appetite to use demonization and imprisonment as expedients for dealing with the opioid epidemic—especially since the problem exists within their own communities.

I can imagine policymakers deliberating about establishing drug courts, implementing diversion programs, and funding more treatment centers now that a drug epidemic is not confined to the inner city.

“These people need help. They have a disease. We can’t just lock them up and throw away the key,” I can hear them saying.

Left Out

But those still confined before these sentiments affected the criminal justice system are seemingly left out of such discussions.

Recall that retribution was warranted because it was believed that these people were driven solely by their criminogenic needs. Their addictions, in and of itself, manifested they had little interest in being a part of law-abiding society.

But that was the past. The scientific consensus that opioid addiction is a disease undermines the deterrent and retributive purposes of punishment in these cases, leaving only incapacitation for rehabilitation.

Regardless, those confined before this paradigm shift have got nothing coming. Far too many of them present unsympathetic images due to their current convictions and dark skin complexions.

But make no mistake about it: If 10,000 soccer moms were languishing in prison for pulling capers to obtain prescription pain medication, lawyers would be battling to get them executive clemency or, alternatively, judicial relief based on arguments that these new socio-medical findings satisfy the legal standard for newly discovered evidence and warrant resentencing hearings to present mitigating factors in support of reducing their prison sentences.

Jeremiah Bourgeois

That said, it remains a mystery how many years will pass before policymakers provide relief to those locked away in penitentiaries because their disease drove them to commit crimes to secure more—and more—prescription pain medication.

Until then, Corey Irish will continue serving out a sentence that exceeds the minimum term that is imposed on those who commit premeditated murder.

Jeremiah Bourgeois is a regular contributor to The Crime Report, and a recent graduate of Adams State University, where he earned an interdisciplinary degree in criminology and legal studies. Since 1992, he has been confined in Washington State for crimes that he committed at age fourteen. He is currently petitioning for release. Readers who wish to support him are invited to sign up here. He welcomes comments.

The Superpredator Myth: It’s Still Alive Behind Bars syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

Grand Strategy

Grand Strategy Paper, The U.S. Approach to an Equitable World R. Spencer Oden December 10, 2017 GLS-350 Professor Radziszewski The post-World War II era has dramatically changed, since the Soviet Union, China, United States, Great Britain, and France were declared the victors. For instance, the membership of the United Nations in 1945, the year of the World War II ending, was at 51 states. In todays world, there are 193 nations that are members, with the last being in 2011, with the inclusion of South Sudan, and various observer states and other states. Hegemonic powers have also shifted and changed. There were two, the two nuclear states of the Soviet Union and the U.S., however since the 1990’s, Soviet Union’s dissolution has created a vacuum of the U.S.’s sole hegemonic power in the world. The purpose of the previous paragraph is to demonstrate the many changes that the world has experienced since the development of the United Nations, and more specifically, the U.N. Security Council. As the LA Times Editorial Boards expressed rather aptly, the “balance of economic and political power has changed significantly” since 1945. The powers considered to be the victors of World War II were included as members of the Security Council, as permanent members, or the P5. These P5 members wield massive power, with the ability to veto most resolutions that affect “security” around the world, as well as requiring all five P5 votes for any Charter amendments and the election of the Secretary-General. P5 members are so powerful that they can stop sanctions, penalties, or admonishments from the U.N. with a single vote, and stems form Chapter IV of the U.N. Charter. Having the power to avoid punishment, regardless of just, is a power few entities can enjoy in the world. These veto powers have also been viewed as impeding efforts to respond to disasters around the globe, such as Syrian and the Afghan-Soviet wars. Much has changed in the way the U.S. is perceived in the world, from 1945 until present day. Even in the United Nations, support for the U.S. policies and agendas have waned. Fellow allies of the U.S. have repeatedly voted against the U.S. Allies such as Germany and Japan, have only supported the U.S. approximately 50% of the time (55% and 50% respectively). This is in stark contrast to U.S. support in 1999, with Germany backing the U.S. 70% of the time. This could be as a global shift in the way the U.S.’s reputation is held. The times when the U.S. held uncontested and full support after World War II as the world’s rescuer has given way to the U.S. being too much of a policeman and attempting to involve itself in every facet of the world’s disputed, even internal disputes. With this downward spiral of support, globally, for the U.S., something has to be done. With allies surprisingly showing less and less support, it could signal that there needs to be changes done among the U.N. in order to encourage more cooperation and reversal of current trends towards the U.S. If not, other countries that traditionally have been our allies, could gravitate to other regional powers, such as the example of the Philippines growing closer to China, and spurning the U.S. alliance in 2016. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte very publicly stated his support for the Chinese and that he was moving away from U.S. alliance, in favor of China. Duterte stated that he “announces my separation form the U.S… both in military and economics. America has lost.” These comments come not long after the Philippines dispute with China for the islands in the South China Sea was ruled in their own favor, but that they’ve reduced the pressure on China. Duterte also stated that he could see himself realigning the Philippines in favor of Russia as well. Duterte’s comments reflect an extremely troubling and pressing international relations issue for the U.S., as well as security concerns. If the U.S. lost their alliance with the Philippines, the counterbalance to China in the region has been lost. The long alliance between the Philippines and the U.S. has resulted in great economic ties as well as U.S. military enjoying an ally, with several bases there. Combined military drills between the two countries are also a fair indication of good relations between countries. So there is the question of what to do to solve the U.S.’s issue here. Not only does the U.S. need to minimize the impacts against its sovereignty, but also needs to ensure that the other P5 members are on equal footing as each other, so as not to overbalance to one side, the political power within the U.N. In order to do this, a restructuring must take place with the P5 Security Council. If the U.S. is behind this proposition to reduce the amount of power and invulnerability of the P5 by shifting more power to other nations, this could be a great way to gain political capital, allies, and repair the U.S.’s reputation among the world and its allies. This could show the nations, especially those on the African continent, that the U.S. has their interests at heart, even at the sake of its own. The African continent is the fastest developing continent and the population is expected to explode in that part of the world. Getting a head of this development with this proposition will help sway those nations to the benefit, both economically and militarily, in favor of the U.S. Also, there needs to be an equitable say, from across the globe, from places such as South America and Africa that have no representatives on the P5. The security council comprises the 5 permanent members and 10 elected members. These 10 elected members are voted in 2 year terms and do not have veto power. Any change that affects the Security Council would have to be ratified by two-thirds majority of the United Nation member states and all five P5 nations. This could be a tall order, especially for those countries like China and Russia who view the P5 power as being a tool to hold off U.S. aggression and policy. However I believe the path towards a more equitable splits of power between the world, through the Security Council, is through pressure. With 142 countries becoming a part of the U.N. since its inception, there is quite a lot of counties that have never had a share of the equitable power. Every P5 nation has agreed that reform of the Security Council is needed, but have differed in their approaches to it. U.S., for instance, has sponsored Japan’s bid, and a more concerted effort of India’s inclusion. France and the United Kingdom both have similar visions, with the accession of Germany, Brazil, India and Japan into the council. China has opposed any bid by India and Japan, as relations between the countries have been rocky, at best. However, using a liberalism view of the world, we should use the Security Council’s own vision to obtain this, which is to work together to ensure world security and resolve disputes. This liberal approach is a dissolution of the permanent powers all together and an implementation of a 25 country, rotational and elective format. In this format, five spots are open for election every year, with members serving a five-year term on the council. On matters that are seen through the council, it would require a three-fifths majority, or fifteen out of twenty-five votes, to approve any measure. The rules for eligibility for election are a nation is not allowed to serve on council if they have previously served on the council within the last year, and it requires a rank-vote. For example, nation XYZ has been on the council from January 2010- December 2015. XYZ must sit out a year out of the council before seeking reelection. XYZ would be eligible for election for the January 2017 term. Reelection is had, with the non-council members, including those seeking election, voting with one vote each for their preferred nation. The top five non-council nations would be elected to the council. This would take power away from the select few nations in the world and distribute it. With this, most every country has an ability to have a voice. The one year “penalty” gap for reelection is used so that there isn’t one nation that is on the council continuously, which allows for an ability to push through legislation that may affect that nation, with out its influence in the council. This is done so, as an example of the current system, where due to the P5 veto power, many nations can readily escape any form of punishment. This is to allow the international community to police other nations. This is the solution needed to incorporate more of the world into a fairer and more involved aspect. Having a few countries InControl of all the power, with immunity, could make other nations lose faith in the United Nations and withdraw. We see already, with the International Criminal Tribunal losing respect any many African nations, as the tribunals have focused more on African criminals than any where else in the world. The U.S. would have to first, privately, petition its allies United Kingdom and France. Using pressure on them, as well as presenting this among the UN General Assembly, will quickly gain traction with every nation that is not a part of the P5. With the U.S.’s proposal, it will help catapult and repair the U.S.’s reputation as a world-leading nation and allow the U.S. to gain valuable political capital. This could also spare the U.S. any global retribution or animosity for being on the P5, when reformations of the council appear to be an “when” not “if” moment. This could also increase the opportunities for trade with African nations and encourage growth between them. This is a fair and equitable proposal and one that I believe that would gladly receive among the world, besides the P5. There is very little, I believe, that the P5 can do to resist the pressures of 188 other nations, and I feel that there will HAVE to be reformation anyway, with the dissatisfaction already directed to the Security Council. This proposal is a unique and novel idea, one that would not be able to be accomplished in the short-term. This solution relies heavily on the motivation of unrepresented nations and the pressure they’re able to use on the P5 nations. It would have to be implemented in stages, with stage one is the U.S. consultation with France and Great Britain. Second would be the proposal of the plan to the United Nations General Assembly, to allow for maximum visibility for the U.S. When this plan is ultimately rejected by the other P5 members, the third stage incorporates the U.S. networking with the nations of the world to apply pressure, either through economic or political means, or through a strike. The U.N. devoid of member participation is not a “United Nation,” and has little power. Therefore, I believe ultimately, that this movement would be a success. Bibliography Blanchard, B. (2016). Duterte Aligns Philippines with China, says U.S. has Lost. Reuters.com. Board, L. T. (2015). It's Time for Change at the U.N. Security Council. LA Times. Gardiner, N., & Schaefer, B. (2005). U.N. Security Council Expansion is Not in the U.S. Interest. The Heritage Foundation. United Nations Security Council. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/sc/about/functions.shtml