-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈ backbiting

⊹ character(s) - alhaitham, kaveh ⊹ word count - 1.1k ⊹ notes - gn!reader, fluff, jealousy, reader is part of the matra (alhaitham), reader is an akademiya lecturer/professor (kaveh), petname usage in kaveh's

⊹ katze's 500 follower writing cat-baret

ANON I HOPE UR SEEING THIS SORRY AGAIN FOR DELETING YOUR RQ!!! I hope I remembered it right and I hope you enjoy! also sorry if haitham is ooc it's my first time writing him! (ﾐዎ ﻌ ዎﾐ)ﾉ

⊹ Kaveh

Kaveh was pouting.

Not necessarily an uncommon occurrence from your lover, but you digress. He was clearly upset, and you weren't willing to let him stew in it any longer.

You approached him from his seated position at one of the desks in your lecture hall, sitting down in front of him to draw his attention. He always did like sitting in on some of your classes, but it seemed today's events had put him into a sour mood.

He grumbled a bit, cheek squishing into his palm as he looked away. As much as you wanted to assuage his worries with no shadow to your intentions, you couldn't deny how adorable he looked in this moment.

"My light, are you going to mope forever? What's got you down?"

"Pet names can't get you out of this one! I'm still mad!"

You reached out, pinching his cheek much to his abject annoyance. He swatted half-heartedly at your hand, holding his aching face once you finally let go.

You smiled just a bit.

"Was it because of Ardashir?"

"So you know his name, too, then," he mumbled quietly.

"Mm, so that is what it's about."

"Take this seriously!" Kaveh pouted, laying on the dramatics a bit thick. "I mean, does he not know that we're together?! He was all over you! I nearly leapt out of my seat when he tried to wrap his arm around your shoulder!"

You recalled that Ardashir did not, in fact, try to wrap an arm around your shoulder. He had stopped by to drop off a few course materials you had asked to borrow, nothing more. He was a tad closer and laid the flattery on a bit thicker than usual, however, so you could hardly blame your lover for getting upset.

Next time you saw him, you'd be sure to let him know to cool it. For now, you kept your attention on your boyfriend, brushing his blonde hair behind his ear comfortingly.

"Well, despite your fame, honey, I don't think most people in Sumeru care too much for who's dating who unless it interferes with or benefits their academics."

Kaveh turned away, still sulking. Your smile widened just a tad at that—he always got that way when he knew you were right, but given his stubborn nature, he could never fully relent victory in an argument to you or anyone else.

"I'll give him a stern talking to next time I see him, and I'll be sure to mention our relationship."

The blonde kept his eyes firmly trained on the wall, but you could see the way his sullen expression eased up.

"Or, better yet, we can 'bump into him' on our way to my next class. Holding hands and all. Let him see the competition he's got so he can reevaluate his chances."

As much as he tried to fight it, Kaveh smiled for just a moment, and you giggled lightly. He puffed out his cheeks, however, trying to hide his delight.

"Well, okay! I suppose that'll have to do for now."

"And I'll treat you to a drink tonight, too."

This time, your lover leaned into your hand, staring up at you cutely.

"You're so good to me... Sorry for getting upset."

You only kissed his forehead lightly, admiring the flush of pink adorning his pale cheeks.

"I'd do anything for you."

⊹ Alhaitham

Alhaitham does not get jealous.

He doesn't see the point in caring about who you talk to and what their intentions are. You both said you'd stay true to one another when you began dating, and he trusts you.

He doesn't participate in needless gossip or malice just because someone flirted with you a bit.

Well, not usually.

"That man isn't part of the Matra."

He says it factually, his voice cool just as it usually is. But after spending enough time with him, you can detect the barest hint of an edge in his tone.

You turn around to greet your lover, giving him a small smile.

"Ah, him? No, no. He's not."

"He's been spending a lot of time around your stations."

You giggle a bit.

"How would you know? Do you also spend a lot of time around my patrol routes?"

"Yes."

Right, Alhaitham was a difficult one to tease as always. Always so upfront and straightforward.

"I like to make sure you're doing okay, so I stop by now and then between work hours."

You smile again, patting his arm.

There was one way you could tease him effectively, though. And so, you continued to address his words for what they were at face-value—simple observations of someone you happened to speak to often.

"That's sweet of you. If I weren't so stretched thin across Sumeru City, I'd be visiting your office way more, too."

You noticed the twitch of Alhaitham's lips as you skirted around the topic of the man that just walked away once more.

Did he relinquish his dignity and just ask? Ask why that same guy kept loitering around you like a bothersome fly?

No. Alhaitham does not get jealous.

He won't entertain the situation, and he certainly won't entertain the slight smirk on your lips, the amusement you're surely gleaning from his shifting back and forth—

"So what's his excuse?"

Fuck.

"I think this is the only thing you're not as blunt as you'd like to be on, 'Haitham," you chuckled lightly, hugging his arm. His expression didn't change much, but he did grumble some such under his breath, his brow furrowing a bit. "Are you jealous?"

"There's no reason to be jealous, because when we agreed to start dating—"

"Yes, yes, I know there's no reason for you to be. He's only a colleague, after all, an acquaintance at best." You raised your own brow. "But I'm asking if you're jealous, not a reason to be."

"He was very close to you. Does he not know we're together?"

You beam, reaching up to pinch his cheek. He swats you away quickly, glaring half-heartedly, so you deign to take hold of his hand instead.

"Can you make time to come earlier tomorrow? If he sees me on the arm of the Akademiya's Scribe, I'm sure he'll be reluctant to push his luck any further. And besides, I'd been having a hard time trying to reject his advances anyhow. He's quite persistent."

Although annoyed at the notion that the man from earlier was bothering you in the slightest, Alhaitham seemed pleased all the same with your solution, brushing your hair out of your eyes with one hand while the other squeezes your hand.

"I think I can make time. No, I will make time."

You leaned into your boyfriend, chuckling again.

"Well, gee. Maybe I should get more men to flirt with me if it means you'll come rushing at my beck and call—"

The hand clasped around your own squeezed just a bit too tight, and you jolted.

"Ack— kidding! Of course I'm kidding! 'Haitham, ease up!"

Monday, April 5, 2021

Coming out of the cave: As life creeps back, some feel dread (AP) Dinner reservations are gleefully being made again. Long-canceled vacations are being booked. People are coming together again, in some of the ways they used to. But not everyone is racing back. For some, even small tasks outside the home—a trip to the grocery store, or returning to the office—can feel overwhelming. Psychologists call it re-entry fear, and they’re finding it more common as headlines herald the imminent return to post-pandemic life. “I have embraced and gotten used to this new lifestyle of avoidance that I can’t fathom going back to how it was. I have every intention of continuing to isolate myself,” says Thomas Pietrasz, who lives alone and works from his home in the Chicago suburbs as a content creator. Pietrasz says his anxiety has grown markedly worse as talk of post-vaccine life grows. He says he got used to “hiding at home and taking advantage of curbside and delivery in order to avoid every situation with people.”

Vaccine passports are latest flash point in COVID politics (AP) Vaccine passports being developed to verify COVID-19 immunization status and allow inoculated people to more freely travel, shop and dine have become the latest flash point in America’s perpetual political wars, with Republicans portraying them as a heavy-handed intrusion into personal freedom and private health choices. They currently exist in only one state—a limited government partnership in New York with a private company—but that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers in a handful of states from rushing out legislative proposals to ban their use. Vaccine passports are typically an app with a code that verifies whether someone has been vaccinated or recently tested negative for COVID-19. They are in use in Israel and under development in parts of Europe. But lawmakers around the country are already taking a stand against the idea. “We have constitutional rights and health privacy laws for a reason,” said Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, a Republican. “They should not cease to exist in a time of crisis. These passports may start with COVID-19, but where will they end?” Benninghoff said this week his concern was “using taxpayer money to generate a system that will now be, possibly, in the hands of mega-tech organizations who’ve already had problems with getting hacked and security issues.”

Facebook data on more than 500M accounts found online (AP) Details from more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers. The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is. The availability of the data set was first reported by Business Insider. According to that publication, it has information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses. Facebook has been grappling with data security issues for years.

In Myanmar, Easter eggs a symbol of defiance for anti-coup protesters (Reuters) Opponents of military rule in Myanmar inscribed messages of protest on Easter eggs on Sunday while others were back on the streets, facing off with the security forces after a night of candle-lit vigils for hundreds killed since a Feb. 1 coup. In the latest in a series of impromptu shows of defiance, messages including “We must win” and “Get out MAH”—referring to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing—were seen on eggs in photographs on social media. Young people in the main city of Yangon handed out eggs bearing the messages of protest, pictures in posts showed.

With Swarms of Ships, Beijing Tightens Its Grip on South China Sea (NYT) The Chinese ships settled in like unwanted guests who wouldn’t leave. As the days passed, more appeared. They were simply fishing boats, China said, though they did not appear to be fishing. Dozens even lashed themselves together in neat rows, seeking shelter, it was claimed, from storms that never came. Not long ago, China asserted its claims on the South China Sea by building and fortifying artificial islands in waters also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. Its strategy now is to reinforce those outposts by swarming the disputed waters with vessels, effectively defying the other countries to expel them. The goal is to accomplish by overwhelming presence what it has been unable to do through diplomacy or international law. And to an extent, it appears to be working. “Beijing pretty clearly thinks that if it uses enough coercion and pressure over a long enough period of time, it will squeeze the Southeast Asians out,” said Greg Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, which tracks developments in the South China Sea. “It’s insidious.”

Nearly 20 arrested in alleged plot against Jordan’s King Abdullah II (Washington Post) Jordanian authorities on Saturday arrested as many as 20 people and sought to restrain the movement of a former crown prince amid what officials called a threat to the “security and stability” of a country long regarded as a vital U.S. ally in the Middle East. Prince Hamzeh bin Hussein, the eldest son of the late King Hussein and his American-born fourth wife, Queen Noor, was told to remain at his Amman palace amid an investigation into an alleged plot to unseat his older half brother, King Abdullah II, according to a senior Middle Eastern intelligence official briefed on the events. The move followed the discovery of what officials described as a complex and far-reaching plot that included at least one other Jordanian royal as well as tribal leaders and members of the country’s political and security establishment. One official cited unspecified evidence of “foreign” backing for the plan. Biden administration officials were briefed on the arrests, which come at a time of heightened economic and political tension in a country long regarded as a bulwark of stability and an essential partner in U.S.-led counterterrorism operations.

Cairo’s mummies get a new home. And a grand procession on the way. (Washington Post) It was a parade unlike any other this city has seen. A procession of 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies streamed Saturday from downtown Cairo, where revolutionaries rose up to topple autocrat Hosni Mubarak a decade ago, to a new museum three miles away that represents Egypt’s future as much as its past. At 8 p.m., the mummies—18 kings and four queens—left the famed ochre-hued Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square, where they had rested for decades. They were each atop specially decorated gold-and-blue-hued vehicles resembling boats. Or perhaps the symbol of a winged sun, an ornament worn by Egypt’s ancient rulers and seen as providing protection. Each of the 22 vehicles was emblazoned with the name of the royal mummy it carried. The multimillion-dollar affair—called the Pharaohs’ Golden Parade—had been promoted for months. Egyptian authorities are seeking to attract tourists, a key source of foreign currency, and alter the course of an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic, Islamist attacks and political chaos in past years. The highly choreographed ceremony was also a nationalist vehicle to highlight Egypt’s place in history. The nation’s authoritarian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, who himself is often referred to as “a new pharaoh” for his ambitious projects and iron-fisted rule, presided over the ceremony.

Confronting late-stage pandemic burnout (NYT) Like many of us, the writer Susan Orlean is having a hard time concentrating these days. “Good morning to everyone,” she tweeted recently, “but especially to the sentence I just rewrote for the tenth time.” “I feel like I’m in quicksand,” she explained by phone from California, where she has been under quasi-house arrest for the last year. “I’m just so exhausted all the time. I’m doing so much less than I normally do—I’m not traveling, I’m not entertaining, I’m just sitting in front of my computer—but I am accomplishing way less. It’s like a whole new math. I have more time and fewer obligations, yet I’m getting so much less done.” Call it a late-pandemic crisis of productivity, of will, of enthusiasm, of purpose. Whatever you call it, it has left many of us feeling like burned-out husks, dimwitted approximations of our once-productive selves. “Malaise, burnout, depression and stress—all of those are up considerably,” said Todd Katz, executive vice president and head of group benefits at MetLife. The company’s most recent Employee Benefit Trends Study, conducted in December and January, found that workers across the board felt markedly worse than they did last April. The study was based in part on interviews with 2,651 employees. In total, 34 percent of respondents reported feeling burned out, up from 27 percent last April. Twenty-two percent said they were depressed, up from 17 percent last April, and 37 percent said they felt stressed, up from 34 percent.

The Best Kids Books Of 2018 To Help You Not Raise A Jerk

With everything going on in the world, parents have to make a lot of decisions about how they teach their kids about other cultures. Raising tolerant and accepting children is a complicated task, but a vital part of it is teaching kids to appreciate the differences among us all, and exposing them to it all at an early age.

If you’re not sure how to approach certain subjects like diversity, feminism, immigration and special needs, books can provide many teachable moments about the world they live in. Stories expose us to different places, people and lifestyles in a comfortable and entertaining way. They also allow children to put themselves in the character’s shoes and learn to empathize with people who are different.

Whether it’s representation for minorities or strong female leads, learning to be an ally for LGBTQ, immigrants, and disabled communities, or embracing body positivity, all of these books can teach your child about acceptance of themselves and respect for others.

We’ve rounded up some of our favorite children’s books that promote acceptance and tolerance — but remember, these books are just a start on the path to raising a kid who’s not a jerk.

And just so you know, HuffPost may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page.

1. Children’s Books With Diverse Representation

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - Representation

SEE GALLERY

2. Children’s Books About Immigration

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - Immigration

SEE GALLERY

3. Children’s Books About Feminism

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - Feminism

SEE GALLERY

4. Children’s Books With LGBTQ Representation

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - LGBTQ

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5. Children’s Books About Disabilities And Special Needs

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - Disabilities/Special Needs

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6. Children’s Books About Body Positivity

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - Body Positivity

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7. Children’s Books About Embracing All Differences

Books To Help You Raise An Accepting Child - Embracing All Differences

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Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/best-kids-books-of-2018_n_5be44ceee4b0769d24ca58d5

Migraine Treatment: Intravenous Micronutrient Therapy (IVMT)

Intravenous Micronutrient Therapy (IVMT) is an old treatment that is finding resurgence in helping some painful health conditions including fibromyalgia and autoimmune conditions.  Although it’s been used for a long time under the name Modified Myers Cocktail, it is not well known.  There is evidence pointing to its effectiveness in inflammatory and pain conditions as well as other common problems often comorbid with Migraine, yet it is still considered experimental.  Dr. Katz of Yale University and Dr Alan Gaby have collectively written most of the reliable information online about the therapy.

Migraine patients are usually aware that the vast majority of medications and techniques they will try to gain better management over their condition weren’t actually created to help their Migraines, but another health condition entirely.

We use medicines for blood pressure, depression, even epilepsy as we try to gain control over our lives again.  Sometimes these medicines are helpful, and sometimes they backfire.  Rarely, they can result in serious problems.

Reading the labels of these medicines is scary for most patients as they wonder, “Am I going to be one that has a serious problem with this drug?” or “Will this change my life for the better, or for the worse?”

IVMT is probably not typically used specifically to treat Migraine because not many doctors know about it.

What is IVMT?

IVMT is the therapeutic, regular and frequent infusion of micronutrients directly into the body.  These nutrients include vitamins, minerals, amino acids and anti-oxidants.  The purpose is to create levels within the body that normally wouldn’t be possible any other way than intravenously.

It’s not well understood why IVMT sometimes works for patients.  Some doctors think that particular patients have an inborn inability to process some of these nutrients properly and this can result in physiological problems with some of our systems including our immune system which controls inflammation.  Sometimes patients can’t tolerate the nutrients orally and may have absorption or other problems that make them deficient.  When it does work, it often results in significant results that can keep the patient off more serious and potentially harmful medicines.

IVMT is not commercially available.  It must be compounded by prescription and by a special pharmacy within a few hours of its use.  It contains several vitamins and minerals that have been found to be helpful in high doses as a preventive or abortive for some Migraine patients.

The recipe for IVMT is:

5ml Magnesium chloride hexahydrate 20%

3ml Calcium gluconate 10%

1ml Hydroxocobalamin (1000 mcg/ml)

1ml Pyridoxine hydrochloride 100 mg/ml

1ml Dexpanthenol 250mg/ml

1ml B complex 100 (Thiamin, Riboflavin, Pyridoxine, Panthenol, Niacinimide, Benxyl Alcohol)

Vitamin C 500 mgs/ml

20ml sterile water

Some reasons to consider IVMT

Intravenous magnesium is long known to be helpful in a number of health conditions, including Migraine.  In fact, we know that many Migraine patients are actually deficient in magnesium tissue levels.  Many patients are able to get their levels up by taking magnesium orally, but for those who can’t, regular infusions of magnesium are sometimes helpful for their Migraines.

Riboflavin (B2) is used by headache and Migraine specialists as a preventive for Migraine. Unfortunately, it can result in increased light sensitivity.

Niacin is used by some patients to help their Migraines.  Niacin in large doses can cause flushing that some hypothesize shunts blood to the periphery causing a reduction in pain for those with a vascular component to their Migraines.

The combination of B3, B6, magnesium and tryptophan are building blocks in the production of serotonin and are used to treat serotonin deficiency.  Serotonin is known to play a role in Migraine pathogenesis.

B12 is necessary for hundreds of chemical reactions in the body, and influences our metabolism. It’s also necessary for neurological health and maintenance of our nerves.  Low B12 levels can result in increased homocysteine levels which are found more frequently in Migraine patients than non-Migraineurs.

How is IVMT administered?

The pharmacy will custom mix IVMT into a small bag that is infused intravenously over a period of 30 – 60 minutes, usually in an infusion center or doctor’s office.  Another normal saline bag may be piggy-backed, and any remaining nutrients will be flushed into the patient before the line is removed.  Some offices prefer to use a syringe to slowly infuse the patient.  Patients with minor side effects are often infused over a longer period of time, or the nutrients are further diluted.

Protocol includes weekly loading doses for one to two months, followed by bi-weekly or monthly infusions thereafter.

Are there side effects?

Yes.  Anything with the potential to help us also has the potential to hurt us. Just because these are nutrients we eat in our food every day doesn’t mean they are safe in high doses.

Potential side effects include:

A sensation of spreading heat

Visual changes lasting from minutes to days

Hypotension resulting in lightheadedness, fainting

Vasovagal reactions (fainting without hypotension)

Low potassium

Anaphylatic reactions

Pain in the infused limb during infusion

Bad *vitamin taste* in the mouth during infusion

Transient bad *vitamin breath* and mildly increased body odor

Are there contraindications to IVMT?

Yes.  Those with potassium problems, certain cardiac problems, or taking specific medications may not be able to use IVMT safely.  Others will need smaller doses and stricter monitoring to be sure no side effects occur.  Just like other medicines, some patients will not be able to utilize IVMT at all.

Does insurance cover IVMT?

Sometimes.  Some companies will see the wisdom in treating with this fairly inexpensive, safe option vs. other more serious medications and treatments.  Still others will pay for the treatment so long as a doctor administers it, or during a doctor’s office visit, but only when the patient pays for the prescription.

How much does IVMT cost?

The cost of IVMT will vary greatly.  The actual cost of the ingredients is in the range of $5 – $25, however there is often a charge for the compounding if your doctor doesn’t mix them at the office.  Ingredients without additives or preservatives may be more expensive.  The infusion charge is often separate, as is the office visit.  There may be other charges as well.  Charges tend to be higher at infusion centers and hospitals.

How can I get IVMT?

A doctor must prescribe IVMT.  Although your own physician may not know about IVMT, you might want to start by asking about the process itself.  Asking to trial the process is often successful, but may take some time to implement if your doctor is unfamiliar with it.  It’s much easier if your doctor works in concert with a local compounding pharmacy or you can refer your doctor to another who is utilizing the protocol.  You can find a doctor who uses IVMT by contacting compounding pharmacies who are usually helpful when asked about doctors who prescribe specific compounded medicines.

This post " Migraine Treatment: Intravenous Micronutrient Therapy (IVMT)" was first appeared on migraine.com by Ellen Schnakenberg

If you are in Toronto, visit Dr. Amauri Caversan, ND. He offers various IV therapy drip treatments. Go check him out!

Women are dramatically outnumbered on the boards of directors for the nation’s biggest companies. California just passed a law trying to change that.

On Sunday, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 826, which requires publicly held companies based in California to have a minimum of one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. From there, women’s representation will have to increase: By the end of July 2021, companies have to have at least two women on boards of five members and at least three women on boards with six or more.

The law would mean 684 women would be needed for just the boards of the publicly traded companies that rank among the nation’s 3,000 largest — plus many more for smaller companies, Annalisa Barrett, a clinical professor of finance at the University of San Diego’s School of Business, told the Los Angeles Times.

But it’s not clear that hundreds of women will actually join boards in the state. More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law. Critics point out it might not pass legal muster if challenged in the courts. There are questions about how many companies in California it would apply to at all.

Even Brown seemed skeptical about the law’s long-term prospects, acknowledging “serious legal concerns”: “I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation,” he wrote in an accompanying message upon signing the bill. “Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, DC — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message.”

As if to eliminate any doubt about the message he meant to send by signing the law, Brown referenced the US Senate Judiciary Committee on his statement.

Brown is likely sincere in his desire for more gender diversity, Loyola University law professor Jessica Levinson said. “If this were a month ago, I don’t think he would have been as eager to sign the bill,” she added. “But he has to continue to show California is the capitol of ‘the resistance.’”

Still, the bill — which mimics requirements that European countries have passed to increase women’s representation in business governance — has already drawn attention to women’s underrepresentation on corporate boards.

“If nothing else, what this law is doing is increasing the visibility and awareness on the issue itself and the importance, and that is a win in and of itself,” said Serena Fong, the vice president of strategic engagement at Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on promoting women in business.

One-quarter of the publicly traded companies headquartered in California don’t have any women on their boards, according to the bill’s authors, California state Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson and Senate President Toni Atkins, who are both Democrats.

Nationally, women on boards are dramatically underrepresented: According to Catalyst, women make up about 20 percent of S&P 500 board seats. There are 12 Fortune 500 companies with no women on their boards whatsoever, and the number of Fortune 500 CEOs dropped by 25 percent this year, from 32 to 24.

Evidence suggests that having more gender and racial diversity in the boardroom is good for business. A Peterson Institute study found that the presence of women on corporate boards and in the C-suite may contribute to firm performance, and that among profitable companies, a move from no women leaders to 30 percent representation was associated with a 15 percent jump in profit.

Credit Suisse estimates that companies with more gender diversity in the boardroom see better stock market returns and valuations, and McKinsey found that the most gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to outperform their peers.

Amanda Packel, co-director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, cautioned that these findings can be overstated — a correlation between diversity and business performance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean causation.

“Companies that are more prominent and have better performance might be under more scrutiny, or are more focused on the issue, or are able to attract more women or diverse directors,” she said. “That being said, there is certainly a business case in terms of the need for diversity on the board, whether you can prove it in a regression analysis or not.”

But evidence alone hasn’t been enough to get companies in California to act. In 2013, Jackson sponsored a nonbinding resolution urging each public company to increase the number of women on its boards by 2017. But by December 31, 2016, less than 20 percent of them had followed the recommendation.

Some European countries, including Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and France, have quotas and fines requiring to add women to their boards. Norway in 2008 required companies listed there to give at least 40 percent of their director seats to women.

Aaron Dhir, an associate professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and the author of a book about boardroom diversity, has studied the issue extensively.

“Like the California quota, the Norwegian quota was hugely controversial, but the directors who I interviewed, most of whom were initially against it, it was only after they saw the law in action and actually experienced it that they actually changed their minds and warmed to the quota,” he said.

Norwegian companies came to understand that sometimes such a blunt instrument is necessary, given implicit biases, and diversity improved the overall quality of governance and decision-making.

Women and people of color have different life experiences and perspectives than white men who typically comprise boards, and that makes a difference. Quotas force companies to look outside of the normal places for diverse candidates who might not have the typical background for such a position.

“Companies expanded their one-dimensional picture of what a qualified board member should be,” Dhir said.

Because so many companies are headquartered in California — 377 of the largest 3,000 publicly held companies in the US are located there — the bill could make a difference if companies comply. But it could also face legal challenges.

More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law, according to the LA Times. The businesses argue that the law will “displace an existing member of the board of directors solely on the basis of gender” and that it focuses too narrowly only on gender instead of other aspects of diversity, including race and sexual orientation.

Successful equal protection challenges under the US and California constitutions could nullify the law: The government would have to prove not only that there is disparity in board representation among men and women but also that such a divide is a sufficient reason to create a special law for women.

“It makes a categorization based on gender, which is subject to increased scrutiny if the law is challenged, and it’s not 100 percent clear how that would play out,” Packel, from Stanford, said. “The state would have to meet a burden in terms of showing the reason that legislation is needed and why this methodology is necessary.”

There are also questions about whether it will apply to companies that are headquartered in California but incorporated elsewhere. (Most US companies are incorporated in Delaware for tax reasons.)

The “internal affairs doctrine” ensures the state in which a company is incorporated governs issues such as voting rights, dividends, and investor relations, Joseph Grundfest, a Stanford University law professor and former commissioner for the Securities and Exchange Commission, argued a recent paper outlining the legal case against the bill. That would limit the law’s application to just 72 corporations headquartered and chartered in California.

Most of those companies already comply with the bill’s mandates. But one doesn’t: Apple, which has two women on its eight-member board. Apple is one of the most recognized brands in the world and became the first $1 trillion publicly traded company in the US. Adding more diversity to its board would not be insignificant.

Still, if the law does stand, there is also a chance that companies will just pay the fine and move on — a few hundred thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for a lot of companies, particularly Apple.

“I do think for big companies, it could be like any other fine, where it’s just the cost of doing business,” Levinson said. “But for smaller companies, this is a big hit.”

Waiting for boardrooms to eventually become diverse will take a long time: the Government Accountability Office in 2016 estimated that women in S&P 1500 companies will reach parity with men in 40 years.

Grundfest argues that shareholder activism, not a state requirement, is the way to get more women on boards. Essentially, that means big funds insisting the companies they invest in having diverse boards, engaging with companies to increase diversity, and potentially withholding votes.

Levinson, from Loyola, said the California law is “government overreach” and what matters more is corporate culture. “It feels like kind of a sledge hammer when you actually need a thousand tiny little stitches,” she said.

There are some institutions that have taken more of an interest in diversity as of late, including pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS and investment giants State Street and BlackRock. And the #MeToo movement has also brought attention to the issue of women in corporate America.

“The bottom line is, we need to make [board diversity] a reality, and the only way you make it a reality is if the marketplace demands it,” David Katz, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City, said.

Still, waiting for the markets to come around and corporate culture to change isn’t exactly a satisfying answer for women who want more equal representation now, not when they’re old or dead. The fact that women need to make an evidence-based case for their inclusion on boards, in some ways, proves the point.

Nobody asks the opposite question, said Fong, the Catalyst vice president: “Where is the business case for keeping a board all white and all male?”

Original Source -> California just passed a law requiring more women on boards. It matters, even if it fails.

via The Conservative Brief

Stephen Leask (Dewey Finn) and the Cast of School of Rock the Musical. Photo by Tristram Kenton

This evening (30th December 2017) the West End production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock – The Musical celebrated 500 performances at the New London Theatre. The kids and adult cast gathered on stage before the milestone performance to celebrate the show’s achievement.

School of Rock – The Musical opened in the West End in November 2016 to rave reviews and has since been the recipient of multiple theatrical awards, including the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music. School of Rock – The Musical is currently booking until 13th January 2019 and in 2018 will continue its nationwide kids’ auditions Leeds, Bristol, Manchester and London.

Based on the iconic hit movie and with a rocking new score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, School of Rock – The Musical follows slacker and wannabe rock star Dewey Finn turn a class of straight-A 10-year-old students into an ear popping, riff scorching, all-conquering rock band! Dewey poses as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school to make ends meet, and when he discovers his fifth graders’ musical talents, he enlists his class to form a rock group and conquer the Battle of the Bands. As Dewey falls for the beautiful headmistress, can he and his students keep this special assignment secret as they learn to fully embrace the power of rock?

The kids and adult cast gathered on stage before the milestone performance to celebrate the show’s achievement.

Based on the smash hit 2003 film of the same title, School of Rock features music from the movie, as well as new music written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Glenn Slater and a book by Julian Fellowes. School of Rock – The Musical is directed by Laurence Connor with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter, set and costume designs by Anna Louizos, lighting design by Natasha Katz, sound design by Mick Potter, music supervision by John Rigby with Matt Smith as musical director.

School of Rock – The Musical is produced in the West End by Andrew Lloyd Webber for The Really Useful Group and Warner Music Group & Access Industries with Madeleine Lloyd Webber as Executive Producer.

LISTINGS INFORMATION New London Theatre, 166 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5PW Dates: currently booking to 13th January 2019 Running time: approximately 2 hours 30 minutes including interval

School of Rock – The Musical (Original Cast Recording)

http://ift.tt/2CowEXl London Theatre 1

Vera got stuff done: Lessons in leadership for a changing Portland

1972 campaign flyer for State Representative District 8, Vera Katz’s first elected position. (Portland State University Library Special Collections)

Sarah Iannarone is the associate director of First Stop Portland and a former candidate for Portland Mayor. She lives in east Portland.

Former Portland Mayor Vera Katz died last week at age 84. Three time Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives who went on to serve three terms as Portland Mayor, Katz’s reach was extensive. Part legacy leaver, part urban legend, Katz’s persona looms as large in Portland’s civic imagination as her accomplishments.

As someone born the year Katz was first elected and somewhat removed from state and local politics during her tenure, I’m not suited to eulogize her. Rather, I offer a few lessons gleaned from her leadership and thoughts how we might apply them today.

When I arrived in Portland in 1998 — one of those twenty-somethings allegedly looking to retire — Katz was just beginning her second term as Portland mayor. I’d rented a one-bedroom basement apartment in the Historic Alphabet District for $500 (remember those?) and my living room windows looked directly onto the front stoop of Katz’s 1890 Victorian. At the crack of dawn on workdays (which included many Saturdays and even some Sundays), her distinctive voice would ring across the yard with a warm greeting to her driver followed by a quickly barked roadmap of the morning’s activities. She wouldn’t get home until usually well after dark. I didn’t know then why my neighbor with the New York accent had no time for small talk on that stoop; I knew only that she seemed important and powerful, a bit of workaholic even, and that she never drove herself anywhere.

Lessons from Vera

Urbanism is a practice not a vision.

Leadership requires chutzpah.

Lead like a mother.

Ten years later, I found myself her neighbor again. This time, I knew who she was. Having wrapped up her last term as Portland Mayor, Katz occupied an office part-time at Portland State University as a Visiting Fellow in the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies alongside College of Urban & Public Affairs Dean Nohad Toulan. I was just beginning my tenure down the hall from her there with the First Stop Portland program, where I’d been assigned the task of assembling Portland’s sustainability story and building a “green brain trust” of local experts to share their firsthand experiences with policymakers from around the globe. A good chunk of my work entailed translating step-by-step how Katz & Co. had transformed Portland from a parochial backwater into a sustainability mecca now famous for its climate action planning, downtown redevelopment, investments in transit and cycling, and culture of citizen engagement. In the decade since, hundreds of mayors and their emissaries have traveled from around the world to study Portland as a “model city.”

Katz oversaw Portland through the 1990s and into the aughts, a period of sustained growth and prosperity. She was instrumental in many landmark projects, notably revitalizing the Pearl and South Waterfront districts and connecting them by streetcar and aerial tram. She oversaw bicycling and walking investments including Portland’s “Yellow Bike” share program and construction of her eponymous Eastbank Esplanade. Even the new Tilikum Crossing, coming online long after her time, bears her imprint. By one project designer’s account, original designs had the towers much taller than built: it was Katz who’d insisted on scaling them down lest our moderately-scaled city risk “ostentation.”

“For better or worse, Katz was an orthodox urbanist who believed that good design was a pathway to livability for the average Portlander.”

For better or worse, Katz was an orthodox urbanist who believed that good design was a pathway to livability for the average Portlander.

Which brings us to Lesson #1: Urbanism is a practice not a vision. People talk about how visionary Katz was but I’d argue her ideas about what would make Portland livable were informed less by Utopian ideals of the great city and more by her experiences growing up on the streets of Brooklyn. Like Jane Jacobs, who also spent many formative years in mid-century NYC, Katz was intimately familiar with dense, walkable neighborhoods connected by mass transit and understood the dynamics by which human-scale design fostered community. Rather than maintaining some fixed image of what Portland might look like twenty years down the road, it’s likely Katz had internalized the relationship between urban form and urban life and the importance of infrastructure to connect them. It was from a practical position then, not an idealistic one, that she midwifed Portland’s first high-density urban neighborhoods to accommodate the demographic shifts she astutely predicted would shape the city’s future. Katz once proposed capping of I-405 for development and was vocally opposed to urban freeway expansion.

If Katz were mayor today, she’d likely talk less about building lanes on I-5 at the Rose Quarter than about building high-density housing in inner eastside neighborhoods from OMSI to Albina, connected by the Esplanade and streetcar. Katz knew quality of life in a city was directly related to the quality of its neighborhoods.

At a celebration of life this week for Doug Macy, a pioneering designer who was also influential in shaping Portland, one of his eulogizers shared that he was fond of Goethe’s, “Dream no small dreams for they stir not hearts of men.” Even if Katz wasn’t familiar with this quote, she certainly lived it, which leads us to Lesson #2: Leadership requires chutzpah. When people talk about Katz’s style, they describe her moxie, brazenness, and assertiveness.

“Collaboration is where Katz’s leadership really shines… she cared less about asserting ‘power over’ and more about building ‘power to.’

On the week of her passing, we repeatedly saw words like “force of nature” “indomitable” “tenacious” “tireless” and “bold.” A long-time champion of gay and women’s rights, Katz’s passionate activism was the precursor to her entering politics, according to her son, Jesse. As legislator and then mayor, Katz’s chutzpah meant she swung for the fences — understanding all too well that thinking big and taking risks sometimes meant striking out. Katz suffered losses — such as failing to bring Major League Baseball to Portland or reforming the commission form of government — but she was rarely defeated. Given the current pace of Portland’s growth and increasing uncertainty from D.C., Portland’s leaders at all levels would be well served to emulate Katz’s chutzpah — taking more risks, failing with grace, and committing to big, bold ideas rather than equivocating in the name of consensus building.

Speaking of bringing people together to get things done, collaboration is where Katz’s leadership really shines. I read several times last week that Katz was intentional about the “feminization” of her politics — she cared less about asserting ‘power over’ and more about building ‘power to.’ It’s not coincidental that Portland’s last multiple-term and arguably “last successful” mayor approached the job less as a manager or executive than as an activist and mother. Which points us directly toward Lesson #3: Lead like a mother.

There’s been a lot of talk among Portland’s leadership lately about cross-sector and intergovernmental collaboration to address some of Portland’s more pressing problems, including our housing crisis. Make no mistake, Katz was masterful at creating effective partnerships. But Katz knew, as all mothers do, that consensus can be overrated — ask anyone who’s thrown a toddler birthday party how much consensus matters to a successful outcome. Mothers also know that conflict is a part of daily life; rather than working to avoid it, mothers spend their time filtering it, shaping it, and directing it to get everyone where they need to go. Whether instinctual or learned (likely a combination of both) Katz recognized that leadership doesn’t end once everyone’s around the table and she was rarely preoccupied with arriving at consensus. She demonstrated that for politicians to lead effectively, they needed stir emotion in their community, to shape the collective impulse that would move them in the same direction toward a common goal. Good leadership, Katz taught us, inspires bold vision; it doesn’t stem from it.

Which brings us to that inevitable paradox wherein our successes create new challenges. Katz’s greatest contributions to our city, the investments in compact, walkable neighborhoods connected by transit that she championed to improve the lives of average Portlanders, have ultimately priced many of them out. The 400 square-foot apartment I once occupied on NW Johnson now rents for $1500 a month; that Victorian next door would sell for around $1.3 million. Many Katz fans probably bristled as the Washington Post assigned her responsibility for turning “Portland into a hipster haven” — feeling it was callously ‘too soon’ but also knowing, to some extent, that it’s true. Furthermore, Katz’s brand of downtown-centric urbanism meant that while livability (and property values) increased for many Portlanders, those outside the tidy grid of the central city were largely left out of the equation. Despite adding significant housing units in her time, no one benefitted on Katz’s watch as much as real estate developers, who experienced a windfall from the global forces transforming urban industrial space for the emerging knowledge economy alongside a pro-growth mayor with a proclivity for PPPs (public-private partnerships). One East Portlander recalled Katz cutting budgets to services in his neighborhood while downtown was redeveloped under intense public subsidy: “It was the first time I witnessed wealth extraction from the working class to the wealthy.”

Sarah Iannarone.

Today, the everyday urbanism Katz tirelessly championed on behalf of her beloved Portland has worked well for some residents, but has become a tool of increasing inequity and exclusion for many others.

While Katz is spoken of today with respect verging on reverence, it’s important to remember that she was very much a product of her times. The last mayor to govern Portland prior to the internet era, her decisive yet often contentious action escaped to some extent the incessant scrutiny and popular commentary today’s elected officials face. The increasing inequity, displacement, privatization, and thinning of the social safety net that gained a toehold on Katz’s watch has intensified with every mayor since and is bifurcating cities worldwide, including Katz’s hometown of Brooklyn, which finds itself reeling from gentrification of a magnitude that Portlanders can barely imagine.

These prevailing patterns of urban development are global; no cities are immune. So how can these place-based lessons in leadership from the Katz era remain relevant in a rapidly globalizing Portland? As our city, like so many others, finds itself increasingly divided, we must shift Katz’s focus on quality of life away from the project of urban development toward tackling injustice in our city. We must apply an equity lens relentlessly to Katz’s everyday urbanism, recentering our neighborhood investments away from urban design and toward human rights. We must channel Katz’s chutzpah and courage as we make hard, sometimes unpopular decisions around redistribution of wealth and power in our city and region. Finally, we must continue her legacy of feminizing our local politics, dismantling oppressive power structures and innovating diverse and inclusive institutions to help us adapt sustainably and prosperously for our common future.

— Sarah Iannaorone, @SarahforPDX

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hi, I'd like to visit the cat cafe with dan heng. we want to play with a orange tabby cat, and we would like to order coffee <33 congrats for reaching 500!! take ur time in working on this request!!

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈ back home

⊹ character(s) - dan heng ⊹ word count - 437 ⊹ notes - gn!reader, fluff, reader is part of the nameless but did not join the belobog mission

⊹ katze's 500 follower writing cat-baret

hi there !!! thank you for the request and for the kind words! I hope you enjoy your little "cat cafe date" with dan heng ^w^

"Hey."

The first thing Dan Heng hears when he returns to the Astral Express is none other than your voice, and he couldn't be happier.

Though Pom Pom had immediately begun chatting with March 7th and the Trailblazer about their recent expedition, and though he was sure Himeko had mentioned something to him in passing, everything had been blocked from his mind until he finally saw your face.

You're in the same place as always when you're waiting for him to return.

Relaxing on his makeshift bed in the archives, a rare traditional book held in your hands as he slides the door open.

Dan Heng doesn't say anything in response. He merely walks over to your side, slumping into your arms which are already open for him, book set to the side.

"'m home."

"Tough one, huh? I heard Himeko providing assistance. I wish I could've gone down there myself. Are you hurt?"

"It wasn't so bad. I'm fine. I wouldn't have let you come anyhow, though."

"Right, right," you chuckled fondly, brushing the man's raven locks from his eyes as he pushed his face into your neck, relaxing as he inhaled your scent.

You had received more than a few wounds protecting researchers at the Herta Space Station from the Antimatter Legion, and Dan Heng had been particularly fussy over your condition.

It wasn't often that he showed palpable concern for anyone, so you were sure to follow his wishes and stay on the Express for the Jarilo VI mission—as much as you did want to be by his side.

Still, he seemed pleased that you'd spent time recovering, and so you figured it was worth the tradeoff.

You pressed a gentle kiss to the man's forehead, watching his face scrunch cutely in response. Giggling, you nudged his shoulder.

"Well, how does a nice, warm bath sound to you? That planet sure looked chilly."

Dan Heng only manages a slight murmur of approval, eyes droopy as you lead him to the bathroom.

The two of you soak up in the sudsy water before long, and you take your time massaging the stress from his muscles. Though he often played off the more difficult missions as no sweat, you were always privy to the way he practically collapsed into his makeshift bed after a trying trailblaze.

So, you'd be sure to pamper him as much as he needed, at least for today.

And as he slowly drifted off in your arms, slumping at the soothing rhythm of your hands washing his hair, you're more than happy to be the one he calls home.

Stopping the opioid crisis in the womb

Knoxville, Tennessee (CNN)The sound of a heartbeat pulsates through the air, and a grainy image of a baby flashes on screen. Jessica Hill smiles from her chair in the ultrasound room.

Gathered around are her doctor, nurse and best friend.

They are all eager, anxious, excited -- and worried about the health of the baby. In that way, this ultrasound is like most.

But what's happening in this room is anything but routine: Jessica, 28, is hooked on opioids and detoxing during pregnancy. Dr. Craig Towers is the pioneering -- and controversial -- obstetrician shattering the common medical belief that this approach could lead to the death of the fetus.

Moments earlier, Jessica's baby underwent a stress test to see how she was progressing, a way to make sure the stress of detoxing is not harming the child. "She didn't like it at all," says Jessica, who is in her 35th week of pregnancy.

"It means that she's paying attention to what's going on," says Towers, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies at the University of Tennessee Medical Center.

Jessica admits to making many mistakes, but here, she is making what she says is the best choice of her life: getting clean for her baby. She also has an 8-year-old son who has been raised by her mom. She hopes detoxing will further heal their relationship.

A tattoo above her heart reads "From pain comes strength."

Tell us your story of how you or a loved one is working through an addiction to opioids or other painkilling drugs, from successes to struggles. Text/WhatsApp us at +1-347-322-0415

She wishes she could lean over her belly, put her lips by her daughter's head and whisper to her about life lessons. "I'm working on building our relationship and trying so hard. I mainly want her to know that I won't make those choices any more."

Jessica marvels at the screen. "Is that her little face?"

"Yeah, that's a cheek," Towers says.

"She's got chubby cheeks," Jessica replies.

When Jessica first came to Towers four months ago, she was taking a standard opioid-based maintenance medication, called Subutex, meant to keep her from getting her fix from the street. She had been told at a drug maintenance clinic that detoxing would kill her fetus.

When she went to a doctor who she hoped could deliver her child, Jessica was humiliated. She had informed the doctor she was taking Subutex to tamp down her urge for painkillers. The doctor, she says, told her they don't "take irresponsible patients."

"I was just so upset, because they just shunned us away," she says.

The maintenance clinic then referred her to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Jessica first visited a doctor at the hospital's prenatal clinic in December and was introduced to Emily Katz, the substance abuse coordinator in Towers' office. Katz saw a young woman who needed help -- but, more important, wanted help.

"We snatched her up," she says. "There was just a spark in her. When I told Jessica, 'I think we can help you,' tears just streamed down her face."

It's now mid-March. Towers has weaned Jessica off the medication slowly, with Jessica making the hour-long trip from her home in Morristown to his office every two weeks, almost always accompanied by her best friend, Stephanie Moore. Today, Stephanie chimes in with cheerful jokes about the baby's stubbornness, similar to her mother's.

In between visits, Jessica texts and phones Katz, who was motivated to help others after her brother died of an overdose. The two have become so close over the months that both say they're like twins separated at birth. Jessica has nicknamed Katz "Nurse Barbie" for her attractiveness and her straight blonde hair.

On this day, Katz quietly observes during the ultrasound, making her show of support by just being there.

Jessica went completely off the opioids over the past week, a critical juncture during any detoxification. She suffered through diarrhea and other ailments. Only once did she give into her urge, taking one Subutex pill. "It sucks," she says.

In those down moments, Stephanie and Katz remind her why she's going through this: that the struggle is worth the pain.

But even with all that Jessica has endured, there's no guarantee her baby will be free of the violent tremors and excruciating pain that marks those born to addicted mothers. About one in five women who detox in Towers' program still sees her baby suffer withdrawal after birth, depending on how early in pregnancy the mothers were able to become drug-free and how their bodies metabolize the opioids still in their systems.

Towers assures Jessica that her baby will be safe if she continues to not use. With the due date a month away, he says he wants to begin seeing her twice a week to make sure she stays on track.

Her pregnancy was not planned, and Jessica worries that child services could take her daughter away because of her history of drug abuse.

"The only way they would take her from you is if you were using something off the street or if there's something in your drug screen that wasn't prescribed to you," Towers says. "That's why I just want to see you a lot, make sure you're doing OK, and if there's any issues, we prevent a relapse."

The next few weeks will prove critical. Jessica will lean on this supportive cast: the doctor, her best friend and "Nurse Barbie."

Towers knows all too well what's at stake. Three days earlier, an expectant woman who he hoped would enroll in his program was found dead of an overdose, the first such death this year in Knox County.

Concerns over relapse risk

Every 25 minutes in America, a baby is born in withdrawal from opioids. They shake violently, vomit constantly and scream incessantly. Upon arrival in this world, one of the first things the newborns are given is an opioid to lessen the intensity of their shakes.

Delivery rooms have become overwhelmed, especially along the Appalachia corridor stretching from Ohio and West Virginia into Kentucky and down to this northeast corner of Tennessee. The average hospital stay for a baby suffering withdrawal lasts about 17 days, costing more than $66,000 per child, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tennessee alone experienced a 15-fold increase in babies going through withdrawal from 2002 to 2012. And the numbers have continued to rise.

How to treat these babies has become a matter of urgency among doctors, clinicians, researchers and social workers. Are we failing these newborns? What are we not doing that we should? Can more be done on the front end to prevent the shaking and vomiting?

Almost everyone agrees that the nation must tackle this issue with a comprehensive approach. But the opinions on what to do vary. Long-standing guidance from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on detoxification during pregnancy has been this: "Withdrawal from opioid use during pregnancy is associated with poor neonatal outcomes, including early preterm births or fetal demise, and with higher relapse rates among women."

At a summit on prescription drug and heroin abuse in Atlanta in April, participants from across the country discussed the increasing number of babies going through withdrawal and how to best care for them and their mothers. Experts stressed the need for better treatment programs for pregnant women, especially in rural America.

Detoxification during pregnancy wasn't considered a viable policy approach at the conference. Some experts said it would be careless -- even reckless. Even if detoxing were medically safe, they said, the risk of relapse was too great, putting newborns in danger as soon as they went home.

"My biggest worry about detoxing in pregnancy are rates of relapse," says Dr. Stephen Patrick, assistant professor of pediatrics and health policy at Vanderbilt University and an attending neonatologist.

Recent studies have found that women who use opioids have a 40% to 70% rate of relapse, Patrick said. He said he admires Towers' work to try to improve outcomes, but there are too many "questions about detoxification and pregnancy."

"I would never say that detoxification may not be the right thing for an individual woman, in the right setting with the right supports," Patrick added. "It's just that overall, I find it worrisome because of relapse rates."

One couldn't help but wonder: Why would a doctor stake his career on something so risky?

'We can win'

Towers, 62, never expected to be a trailblazer in this field. He'd followed the protocol for nearly four decades: Never detox an expectant mother because of the possibility of "fetal demise," the clinical term for a stillbirth.

But about the time he arrived at the University of Tennessee Medical Center seven years ago, the opioid epidemic hit. Women kept asking why they couldn't detox during pregnancy.

He looked into the research, expecting to confirm everything he'd followed for years. "To my surprise," he says, "I found it came from two case reports."

Those two cases in the 1970s set the course for doctors to advise against detoxification. Towers dug further and found that five other, mostly overlooked studies involving about 300 women had been done over a 23-year period beginning in the 1990s. Each indicated that detoxification didn't pose a risk to the fetus.

He embarked on his own study and found detox to be safe. "Over the last six years, I've detoxed more than 500 women without a loss," he says. "There really is no data in the literature to support that detoxification will kill the baby. Like I said, it came from a propagation of two single case reports in the literature in the 1970s."

Detoxification, he admits, is not for every woman. His patients have horrific back stories that too often include rape, physical abuse and generational addiction. "Each case is complicated," he says. "We never coerce anybody or shame them into detox. The patient has to be interested in this. Otherwise, they're not going to succeed."

Like others, Towers worries about relapse. When he started his detoxification program, the rate of relapse among the participating mothers was more than 70%, compared with 40% and 60% for all people in addiction treatment nationwide.

Four years ago, he hired Katz so women could stay in constant contact with his office throughout their pregnancies and for eight weeks after they leave the hospital. He hopes to increase that supervision time to six months to a year. But already, he says, the rate of relapse since adding the behavioral health component has dropped to around 17%.

Not a single woman has fatally overdosed after going through his program. "Knock on wood," he says.

He gives speeches across the country to spread the news of his research, and he meets with insurance companies in hopes they will pay for it. To deny women who want to get clean the opportunity to do so is wrong, he says, especially as they enter the crucial role of becoming a mother.

"This is a treatable disorder, and we can win," he says. "Hopefully, one of these days, we'll change the protocol for the country. We just have to continue plugging away."

And shouldn't the medical community try to stop generational addiction in the womb, he wonders, rather than allowing the cycle to continue?

CNN asked to follow one of Towers' patients during the detoxification process. Jessica agreed to share her story, but only in the confines of his office. She didn't want to draw attention in her small town and wanted to protect her son from cameras.

"The main thing I want people to know is to take my testimony of where I was to where I am now," she says. "And maybe if it can help one person make a better decision, then it would be worth it."

She calls Towers' office a "godsend" for getting her on the road to sobriety, something she says she could never do on her own. When she first came to his office, she was taking 8 milligrams a day of Subutex. Some days, she took twice that amount.

She'd been told that her baby would die if she tried to detox, so she was following the maintenance therapy program prescribed to her by the previous clinic. She wept when Towers told her that if she stayed on that level of Subutex, her baby might suffer withdrawal in the weeks following birth.

"I told him I wanted to be off of it, but I just didn't know how to be off of it," she says. "That's what started the whole thing of him helping me."

Jessica works in an assisted-living community. She likes helping the elderly, speaking with them and hearing their life stories. She's pushed through days of feeling horrible and the terrible loneliness brought on by detoxification.

"It's always that wage of war in your mind -- that you feel so crappy. It's so hard to try and do the right thing," she says. "You have those thoughts of, 'why have I done this?' "

Her friend Stephanie has talked her off the ledge in moments of desperation. "When I want to make a stupid decision," Jessica says, "she yells at me."

"I have a really good support system, but I had to choose to walk away from all the negative people in my life."

Jessica has lost more than 10 friends to overdoses in recent years -- a stark reminder of the need to stay sober.

Two 'great childhoods' diverged

Jessica and Stephanie met at church 21 years ago. Jessica was 8; Stephanie was 9. Stephanie immediately stole Jessica's Bible, starting their relationship off with a tussle.

But soon, a friendship blossomed. They sang in a choir in their hometown of Morristown and took up leadership positions in church. Through youth group, they went on vacations to places like Destin, Florida, and Dollywood.

Stephanie, the petite one, often ended up underneath her sleeping friend in the backseat on road trips. "She was always like that," Stephanie says, holding up photographic proof.

Morristown is a picturesque American landscape in the northeastern corner of Tennessee, where the tops of mountains dance with the clouds and where US and Tennessee flags fly on telephone poles along Main Street.

Places like the Timeless Elegance Tea Room occupy space near the Jersey Girl Diner downtown. Steps away, the Village Gunsmith Gun Store anchors a corner. A sign posted along a country road advertises "Angus bull for sale."

It was an enjoyable youth. "We did everything together," Stephanie says.

Adds Jessica, "We really had great childhoods."

But their lives took disparate paths. When Jessica was 14, her father died, sending her into a spiral. She began hanging out with 30-year-old meth users. Without even realizing it, she had begun an addiction.

Stephanie remembers visiting Jessica's home, watching her zoom around the house with a vacuum cleaner, sweating up a storm, zonked out of her mind. Stephanie opened one of Jessica's makeup kits and found a meth pipe.

"That's when I realized that we're probably not on the same path," Stephanie recalls.

They drifted apart in high school. Jessica became unrecognizable. She was manipulative, cunning, deceitful. She pushed away everyone who loved her.

Her mom had always been her rock. But Jessica wrecked that relationship. She had an unplanned pregnancy when she was 20. Her mom has essentially raised the boy. By 22, Jessica's relationship with her mother "was gone."

"She was so scared that she was going to get that phone call," Jessica says, crying.

Her meth addiction had only grown. She'd take anything she could get her hands on.

Three years ago, she underwent back surgery and got hooked on opioids at warp speed. She'd go through a month's worth of prescription pills in a week and scramble to feed her habit for the rest of the month. She couldn't hold down a job.

"I couldn't do anything but be strung out, pretty much," she says. "It just grabs a hold of you, and you lose sight of reality -- and before you know it, it's just too late."

The opioids provided a high like she'd never felt. Like many who get hooked on painkillers, she eventually graduated to heroin, overdosing twice.

"I just wasn't me. You could look at me and see I wasn't there," she says. "They took my life away. They took my soul away."

She ended up homeless and, at one point, was raped. "It was just horrible," she weeps.

Jessica has worked to repair her relationship with her mother -- something "that I've missed since I was 16 years old." Her mother is supportive of the pregnancy and says she's excited for the birth of her granddaughter. "She's my No. 1," says Jessica.

Jessica has restored her relationship with her son. She wears a necklace he gave her; on it hangs an infinity sign and the word "Mom."

"I put him through so much, so much. My mom pretty much had to raise him because I couldn't step up."

She hopes that will never be the case with her daughter.

At one of her son's football practices last summer, she ran into Stephanie. They realized just how much they missed each other. Their old friendship was rekindled.

Jessica was in Stephanie's garden when she learned that she was pregnant. Jessica cried, thinking there was no way she could care for the child. Stephanie, who has a son about the same age as Jessica's, reassured her that the child would be her greatest blessing.

Stephanie accompanied Jessica to the first ultrasound. When the two heard the heartbeat, they knew they couldn't abandon the pregnancy. She and Stephanie would make the journey together. "I see this baby as mine, too," says Stephanie.

Stephanie says Towers' work has been transformative: "I have my best friend back, and I would just like to keep her."

The two got tattoos on their feet not long after Jessica began her journey to get clean. Their choices reveal the yin and yang of their friendship.

"You keep me safe," says Stephanie's tattoo.

And Jessica's: "You keep me wild."

'You got to want it, too'

Jessica sits down in a small office with Katz to have a heart-to-heart talk.

The nurse stays in near-constant contact with 80 women in the high-risk unit. They text, email and talk by cell phone at all hours.

"We're not going to judge them for their past," she says.

Katz tells each woman about her brother, who died in 2009 from an overdose of methadone and other drugs. He left behind an 18-month-old boy. The pain of that memory still brings tears eight years later. She promised her young nephew that something good would come from his father's death.

When she heard that Towers needed help, she knew she had a new purpose in life.

"I treat each one of these girls like they're my sister, like they're my best friend, like they're my daughter," she says, "because we have a common denominator.

"Every day, this is my passion that I get to sit before these girls. I share my testimony, and they get to share theirs. That relationship builds trust more than just nurse to patient. It's more than that."

Jessica confides that she took 2 milligrams of Subutex the day before. "I wish I wouldn't have even broke down yesterday, but I just couldn't do it," she says.

Katz looks her in the eyes. "I know, it's hard," she says.

Stephanie braids Jessica's hair to pass the time. They tell the nurse they've been friends for more than 20 years, with major ups and downs. "It's good now," Jessica says.

She hoped to avoid a cesarean section, but in the end, a vaginal birth was not an option. The C-section has been planned for shortly after noon. Jessica can't contain her giddiness. "I've been picturing what she might look like," she says.

"I'm nervous. I'm just ready to see her," Jessica says. "It's been hard, but it's probably one of the best things I've done. For sure."

There's a chattiness about the room. Jessica debates her mom: What football team should her son play on?

There's paperwork galore to be signed, too.

Katz pops into the room. Jessica greets her with a joke: "Where's Dr. Towers at? I was about to yell at him if he didn't let you come."

The two laugh. The night before, they weren't laughing. Consumed by an overwhelming sense of impending motherhood, Jessica freaked out. She called Katz from a different phone than usual. Katz was at dinner and let it ring because she didn't recognize the number. Immediately, a text pinged Katz's phone: "This is Jessica. Call me."

Knowing that a fragile state can lead to relapse, Katz stopped what she was doing. "I can't do this," Jessica told her. "I'm not ready."

Katz spoke gently and talked her down. She told Jessica that she was ready and that she could do this. It was mostly a fear of the unknown -- a vulnerable expectant mother needing someone to speak with in the moment.

Says Katz: "I told her, 'You're not going to back out now.' "

A stream of nurses and medical professionals comes and goes in Jessica's room. She'd hoped that both Stephanie and her boyfriend could both be in the operating room for the delivery. But Towers breaks the bad news: She must choose only one. "I tried, but there's not enough space," he tells her. "You can be mad at me."

He encourages her to pick the most supportive person. Smiling, Jessica says, "If they fight about it too much, then my mom is going."

She ultimately chooses her boyfriend, saying she can't deny him the right to see the moment his daughter is born. Soon, Dad-to-be is a ball of nerves. He has to leave the room when her IV is inserted; how's he going to handle when her belly is sliced open?

"You better not pass out," Jessica warns.

The nurse tells him a drape will block the view. "Just sit there and look at her, not to the left or right," she advises.

He nods, climbs into Jessica's bed and kisses her. Mom and Stephanie crowd around, and a final selfie is snapped.

At 12:44 p.m., Jessica learns that it's time.

"I'll see you in a minute," Towers says. "You're going to do good."

Her mom says, "You got this, honey."

"Good luck," adds Stephanie.

Jessica gets wheeled down the hall to the operating room. On a whiteboard is a message stating today's goal: "Healthy mom & baby!"

Welcome, Jayda Jewel

Towers paces outside the operating room, dressed in blue scrubs and a surgical cap. He removes his wedding band and ties it around the drawstring on his pants. He tapes his surgical mask to his face so his glasses won't fog up.

Inside, Jessica has been given a spinal tap to numb the pain. Surgical drapes cover Jessica's body, and the room is abuzz with organized chaos.

Katz pauses outside the room. She prays for God to be with Towers and to give Jessica the strength to get through the surgery and for the child to be born healthy. Then she heads into the room.

"You're doing great, Jessica," says Dr. Kim Fortner, a member of the medical team. "We're all right here. It's almost over, OK?"

A look of excruciating pain spreads across Jessica's face.

"Think about her sweet baby cheeks, Jessica," says nurse Kirby Ginn.

Moments later, at 1:32 p.m., a beautiful baby girl with chubby cheeks and a patch of brown hair emerges. Jayda Jewel Hill lets out two loud screams.

Towers and his team quickly clean her up and swaddle her in a blanket adorned with teddy bears. She weighs in at 6 pounds and stretches 17 inches.

"Are you ready to see her?" the nurse asks.

"Yes, ma'am," Jessica replies.

Her daughter is placed across her chest. Jessica cradles her with both hands, her right hand patting her back.

"Aww," Jessica says.

"She looks great," Towers says.

The baby coughs a few times, worrying Jessica.

"Why is she coughing like that?" she says.

Caught up in the moment, the father seems to miss the question, asking a nurse to take a photo of him with his daughter.

He clutches the swaddled newborn and leans in next to Jessica's face -- the birthing room in the era of social media. "Hi, little gorgeous. Hi there, beautiful. Look, there's your momma," the gleeful father says.

The baby coughs a few more times. "Is she OK?" Jessica asks.

Towers explains that the baby sucked in amniotic fluid during surgery. The fluid will be removed from her lungs; it's nothing to be worried about, he assures her.

Katz leans in and holds Jessica's right hand. She tells her to stay strong, that her daughter is healthy. She tells her the baby is going to be taken away to be observed in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Just before stitching Jessica up, Towers uses a non-opioid drug similar to novocaine to dull the pain for 24 hours. Jessica also receives Tylenol IV and an anti-inflammatory drug, Toradol.

"She's hoping to not need any pain pills," he says. "It is major surgery. Your abdomen is open, so it hurts."

Anything to avoid relapse.

Bucking the trend

Less than 24 hours after the birth, more than 150 doctors, nurse practitioners and other health officials from across East Tennessee gather in an auditorium at the UT medical center.

On stage, Towers steps through a slideshow presentation of opioid use disorder in pregnancy. He reels off stats from the CDC: From 2000 to 2015, more than half a million people died from drug overdoses, including 183,000 people from prescription opioids. "Unfortunately, we're only getting worse," he says.

In Tennessee, he notes, three people die from overdoses every day. He talks about his findings, of the women who've detoxed in his program. "We're bucking the trend," Towers says.

"I'm passionate because I just believe it's the right way to do medicine," he says. "We don't always succeed. I don't know anyone who succeeds all the time when dealing with addiction. But my passion comes from the ones that we've delivered that don't have (withdrawal) and the look in the mother's eye when they say, 'You saved my life.'

"I don't think you can get any better response from a patient."

Shortly after the speech, he takes an elevator to the third floor and visits Jessica and her baby. Jessica sports a pink T-shirt that says "Don't want to be here."

"We want to be home," she says.

Jayda Jewel, nicknamed JJ, looks like the perfect child, with big eyes, content in her mother's arms. She shows no signs of withdrawal, although symptoms can take a couple of days to appear.

Jessica hugs the doctor. "I couldn't have done this without you and Emily," she says.

Outside Towers' presence, Stephanie repeats that sentiment, telling Jessica, "You're so lucky you got him."

"If it weren't for this baby, you might not have got off Subutex ever."

Over the next several days, Jayda Jewel exhibits no signs of withdrawal, but Jessica's pain intensifies. She's given three Vicodin pills, an opioid painkiller. The typical C-section patient gets 10, Towers says.

Jessica had hoped to be given an opioid blocker called Vivitrol, which can resist the urge to use for up to a month. But to get it, her system must be clear of opioids for seven days. Towers expects to be able to give her the medicine in her followup appointment. "She felt bad about that," he says.

But still, she succeeded. Her baby was born healthy.

Four days after the birth, Jessica straps Jayda Jewel in a car seat in her hospital room and then climbs into a wheelchair to be escorted out of the facility. Mom and daughter head down an elevator and out the front door.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

Towers and Katz meet them at their car. Jessica places her baby inside and turns toward them.

"We made it," Jessica says, wrapping her arms around her "Nurse Barbie." "I love you."

"I love you, too," Katz responds.

Then Jessica hugs Towers again.

The car soon disappears around the corner, onto the highway and off to their hometown. Together, mother and daughter begin new lives.

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new arrivals 2-8-17

stormy records

13306 michigan ave

dearborn, mi 48126 313-581-9322

hello friends of stormy!! holy hannah this week's update is gigantic!!we've got new releases by COIL, pauline oliveros, TERRY RILEY, jackie mittoo, LAWRENCE ENGLISH, nate young and so much more!!!  quantities are limited so call or email asap if you need something set aside for you!! great new used lps in stock now, and more coming for saturday. we will be putting out large batches of great newly priced items every saturday - so stop by to see what we may have for you!!

also - new stereo eqpt!!marantz tuner works awesome $250

philips turntable with new needle - works awesome $100

jensen or philips speakers - $75 per pair, but if you want a whole system and you buy the marantz tuner and the philips turntable, we will include a set of speakers at $50 twin peaks fire walk with me double red vinyl lp coming any day now - please reserve a copy by calling or emailing!! in local news - the M&M Cafe has reopened. please show your love and support by stopping by for a meal and a hug for elaine. in THURSDAY Forno, Carla Dal : You Know What It's Like   $21.992017 repress. LP version. Carla dal Forno presents her debut solo album You Know What It's Like, following time in cult Melbourne group Mole House and an earlier association with Blackest Ever Black as a member of F ingers and Tarcar. Her voice is an extraordinary instrument: both disarmingly conversational and glacially detached. It has something of the bedsit urbanity of Anna Domino, Marine Girls, Antena, or Helen Johnstone - stoned and deadpan - but it can also summon a gothic intensity that Nico or Kendra Smith would approve of. This voice is the perfect embodiment of dal Forno's emotionally ambiguous songs: their lyrics rooted in the everyday, observing and exposing a series of uncomfortable truths. "Fast Moving Cars" and "What You Gonna Do Now?" weigh up claustrophobia against loneliness, inertia against acceleration, doubling-down versus taking-off; the title track acknowledges the provisional nature of love and "real" intimacy, then decides to brave it anyway. By the time the startlingly sparse "The Same Reply" arrives, the sense of dejection is absolute. The vocal-led pieces are interspersed with richly evocative instrumentals. Smothered in tape-hiss and reverb, the seasick synthesizer miniatures "Italian Cinema" and "Dragon Breath" channel the twilit DIY whimsy of Flaming Tunes and Call Back The Giants. The drum machine and bassline of "DB Rip" are pure Chicago house, but then its dark choral drones nod to Dalis Car's dreams of blood-spattered Cornwall stone. "Dry The Rain" drinks from a stream of moon-musick that runs through Coil, In Gowan Ring, Third Ear Band, even the Raincoats's Odyshape (1981). Macchi, Egisto: Biologia Animal Vegetale 3LP $54.99New lower pricing. Triple LP box set version. Cinedelic records present a reissue of one of Egisto Macchi's major works, Biologia Animale e Vegetale, produced by Renato Pent. Biologia Animale e Vegetale was recorded in Torino in 1976 and originally published as double LP. Egisto Macchi, often remembered as a member of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, the historic Italian improvising collective (that also included Franco Evangelisti and Ennio Morricone, among others), was a major figure within the contemporary music field from the fifties to the eighties. The life path of Egisto Macchi seemed to be devoted to the multiplicity of aesthetic choices and musical expressions. While tracing his life and work, one notices an interesting duality based both on a very inclusive approach towards all kind of expressive needs and full control of the level of communication. A complex personality revealing the coherence of a man trying to connect elements usually kept separate; the inherent need for approaching different sources and the ability to be inspired by a wide range of intuitions. Macchi has explored and experimented in the field of sound and music without ever forgetting about his moral and civil engagement. His compositional work takes shape from the idea that music and arts should be able to create a symbiotic contact between the creator (composer) and the beneficiary (listener). All his work finds its origin in the need to integrate the sound language with the feeling of a new developing society. In fact music was just one factor in a more complex chain which included his humanistic and sociological engagement; a syncretic philosophical narrative and a symbolic tale revealing deep anthropological aspects. The 3LP box set is a limited edition of 600. The 3LP box set also comes as 180 gram vinyl and includes a download code. ZOS KIA/COILTransparent 2LP  $32.99Double LP version. Comes in a gatefold sleeve with a 12" booklet of unseen images and includes a download card. The entire Transparent recordings released for the first time, completely remastered from the unedited tapes. Zos Kia was formed by John Gosling (Mekon), John Balance (Coil) and Min - with guest Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle). Their one and only album, Transparent, was released on August 23rd, 1983 in a cassette only edition on the now defunct Austria label Nekrophile. They were the first released recordings of both Coil and Zos Kia. It was reissued years later by Coil (Threshold House/Eskaton). Includes two previously unreleased bonus tracks by Ake (pre-Zos Kia). The music on Transparent is genuinely unsettling and disturbing, with a more primal Industrial feel than the Coil album which followed; Scatology (1984). An essential insight into the very early work of these extraordinary artists and an undeniable link between Coil and Throbbing Gristle. YOUNG, NATERegression LP  $19.99Wolf Eyes' Nate Young's Regression series has provided some of the most compelling dread-electronics spewed out by the North American underground in years, with instalments released by Demdike Stare's DDS label and Aaron Dilloway's Hanson, as well as NNA Tapes and others. It all began back in 2009 with this first volume issued by Joachim Nordwall's Ideal label, an incredible set that's now being released on vinyl here for the first time ever. Young is one of those artists whose output is instantly recognizable, his take on primitive electronics is both innovative and unnerving, and in recent years has really dominated the stylistic direction pursued by Wolf Eyes. It's a kind of creaky, bare-boned deconstruction of classic horror scoring jolted by noise and industrial motifs, sounding somewhere between Demdike Stare's early work, John Carpenter, and Mica Levi's by-now-classic soundtrack to Under The Skin (2014). You could neither classify Regression as a noise record nor an ambient one, instead the synth dissections and tape treatments more closely reference early electronic music. "Trapped" offers little of the claustrophobia suggested by its title, although the continual woody knocking sounds and filthy oscillations do engender a sense of unease, while "Dread" brings to mind the Desmond Briscoe soundtrack to Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape (1972). "Under The Skin" returns to the more esoteric, intangible sound designs that characterized the album's opening, writhing around in a spluttering, tactile fashion that's at once sonically rather beautiful but deeply sinister, modulating through grisly synthesizer gestures while more textural, percussive sounds flood through dub-style tape delays. Young has an uncanny ability to make sonic extremes sound incredibly seductive, and this volume is perhaps the most engrossing exposition of that unique ability. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering. Edition of 500. VA: Britxotica! 3CD BOX on TRUNK $25.99  At last, all three killer Britxotica! LPs now available as a three CD box set. So that's 48 super rare and extraordinary exotic British masterpieces over three genre-defining albums. Britxotica! (pronounced "Britzotica") neatly describes an odd and yet undocumented pre-Beatles British musical scene where famed UK composers, as well as unknown singers and bandleaders, threw convention on holiday and went wild. For this very special box set Trunk have gathered the first three amazing and groundbreaking Britxotica! albums. Thought up and put together by legendary "smashing" DJ and co-creator of The Sound Gallery (1995) Martin Green and maverick collector Jonny Trunk, here are 48 incredible, unusual, inspiring, and super rare British tracks, set across these three magical and very different albums: Britxotica! London's Rarest Primitive Pop and Savage Jazz (JBH 057LP, 2015), Britxotica Goes East!: Persian Pop And Casbah Jazz From The Wild British Isles! (JBH 059LP, 2016), Tropical Britxotica! Polynesian Pop And Placid Jazz From The Wild British Isles! (JBH 062LP, 2016). So sit back, relax and let Britxotica! take you to musical places you have only ever dreamed of. Comes in a clamshell box; Each CD comes in a slipcase - a mini replica of the original vinyl LPs: the classic black and white Britxotica! post-war exotic style; Includes an eight-page booklet with comprehensive notes about the artists, bandleaders, and all the forgotten Britxotica! stars. Features: Lyn Cornell, Ted Heath, Allan Bruce, Rawicz and Landauer, Lucille Mapp, Sounds Incorporated, Nadia Cattouse, Brian Fahey, Tony Mansell and Johnny Dankworth, Reg Owen, Harry H Corbett, Laurie Johnson Orchestra, Edmundo Ros, Maxine Daniels, Cherry Wainer, Jerry Allen, Beverley Sisters, Chico Arnez, Stanley Black, Johnny Keating and the Z Men, Charles Blackwell, Philip Green and His Mayfair Orchestra, Kenny Day, Tony Osborne, Johnny Keating Kombo, Laurie Johnson, Roy Tierney, Ray Ellington, Frank Weir, The Sound of Ed White, Ron Goodwin, Geoff Love, Marion Ryan, Dick Katz, George Melly and Kenny Graham, International 'Pops' All Stars, Johnny Gentle, Kenny Graham, Betty Smith and The Malcolm Lockyer Group, Martinas and His Music, and Norrie Paramor. BEZOS AND THE WHITE BIRDS, KOSTASKostas Bezos And The White Birds LP+CD  $20.99"The first-ever compilation of 'Xabagies', the nearly forgotten Hawaiian-influenced music of 1930s Greece, focused on the compositions of Kostas Bezos and his ensemble White Birds. A world-class slide guitarist, political cartoonist, and sleepless Bohemian, Kostas Bezos created some of the most unique music of any era: surrealist guitar portraits blurring Athens and Honolulu, haunting tropical serenades, wild acoustic orchestras, and heartbreaking steel guitar duets. LP version includes a 28 page booklet with extensive notes by Tony Klein and Dimitri Kourtis, unpublished photographs, lyrics, obituaries, and a bonus CD containing 18 additional tracks. Mastered from original 78s by Michael Graves. Co-released by Olvido Records, edition of 1000." Oliveros, Pauline: Electronic Music Studio CD $17.99 "1 Of IV" and "Big Mother Is Watching You" were both made in the summer of 1966 at the University of Toronto Electronic Music Studio. "1 Of IV" was previously released in 1967, on Odyssey, alongside works by 2 other young composers - "Come out" by Steve Reich and "Night music" by Richard Maxfield. "Big Mother..." is a previously unreleased piece. The 3rd (and final) piece on this compilation was made at the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1965 and was first released in 1977 on the compilation New Music For Electronic And Recorded Media, released on 1750 Arch Records. The 3 pieces on this CD are all live experiments, which at the simplest level use either an array of oscillators and filters, a mixer and one spool of tape feeding a series of (variously set up) stereo tape machines. Long delay lines, pile ups of noise and rich sonorities are the stuff of this music. The third piece also uses samples taken from Pucini's Madame Butterfly. All 3 pieces on this CD are not included on the 12 CD boxset of early electronic music by Oliveros, released by Important Records. ENGLISH, LAWRENCECruel Optimism LP  $25.99LP version. "Cruel Optimism is a record that considers power (present and absent). It meditates on how power consumes, augments, and ultimately shapes two subsequent human conditions: obsession and fragility. . . . This edition owes its title and its origins to the wonderful text of the same name by American theorist Lauren Berlant. . . . In Cruel Optimism, I found a number of critical readings around the issues that have fueled so much of the music I have been making recently. Beyond her keen analysis of the relations of attachment as they pertain to conditions of possibility in the everyday, it was particularly her writing around trauma I found deeply affecting. It was a jumping off point from which a plague of unsettling impressions of suffering, intolerance, and ignorance could be unpacked and utilized as fuel over and above pointless frustration. When I made Wilderness Of Mirrors (RM 460CD/LP, 2014) clouds of unease were overhead. As I have worked through Cruel Optimism, what seemed an unimaginable future just a few years prior, began to present as actual. Over the course of creating the record, we collectively bore witness to a new wave of humanitarian and refugee crisis (captured so succinctly in the photograph of Alan Kurdi's tiny body motionless on the shore), the Black Lives Matter movement, the widespread use of sonic weapons on civilians, increased drone strikes in Waziristan, Syria and elsewhere, and record low numbers of voting around Brexit and the US election cycle, suggesting a wider sense of disillusionment and powerlessness. Acutely for me and other Australians, we've faced dire intolerance concerning race and continued inequalities related to gender and sexuality. The storm has broken and feels utterly visceral. Cruel Optimism is a meditation on these challenges and an encouragement to press forward towards more profound futures. Beyond the motivations forging the record, the process by which this edition was created was unlike many of my other records. Having worked largely alone in recent years, I wanted to shift away from that approach. . . . I count myself exceptionally fortunate to have been able to call on so many fine musicians in the making of this album. . . . I couldn't be more pleased to share Cruel Optimism with you." --Lawrence English, October 2016 Contributions in various forms from: Mats Gustafsson, Mary Rapp, Tony Buck, Chris Abrahams, Werner Dafeldecker, Norman Westberg, Brodie McAllister, Australian Voices, Vanessa Tomlinson, Heinz Riegler, and Thor Harris. VA - Where the Mountains Meet the Sky: Folk Music of Ladakh LPSublime Frequencies  $22.99Music from Ladakh recorded during the making of the film The Song Collector (2014) by director Erik Koto, with additional material recorded by Bill Kite in 1992. "Situated high in the Western Himalaya, Ladakh is one of the great cultural crossroads of Asia. For centuries, it sat at the hub of ancient trade routes that connected the Silk Road to India, Tibet, and Kashmir. Each year, once the winter snows had melted from the high passes surrounding Ladakh, its markets would buzz with merchants from throughout central Asia. They brought spices, wool, salt, and silk. They also brought their instruments and their folks songs. Over time, these diverse musical influences laid the foundation of Ladakh's unique folk traditions. Folk music became central to the daily life of the Ladakhis with song serving as an essential form of communication, documentation, and entertainment. This collection of songs is intended to offer a sampling of the range of Ladakh's folk music. These songs also celebrate one of the great folk artists of Ladakh, Morup Namgyal. Morup is an avid preservationist and during his 30-year career working at Ladakh's only radio station (All India Radio, Leh) he recorded a vast archive of Ladakhi folk songs. This collection of over 1,000 recordings was unlike anything else in Ladakh and formed a crucial link to a dying folk tradition. Tragically, it burned to the ground in 2002 when a fire raged through the old wooden radio station building. The loss was devastating, but Morup immediately set about recreating the archive. Five of the songs on this album, recorded in 1992, are among the handful of tracks to have been spared by the fire. Today, Ladakh's marketplaces bear little resemblance to the buzzing markets of old. Gone are the camel trains and merchants, replaced instead by Indian trucks belching smoke. Seemingly vanished too are the folk musicians, pushed aside by the synthetic beats of the latest Bollywood hit. But the folk artists have not vanished entirely, and if you wander beyond the blare of the latest pop song, you'll discover a folk tradition that, thanks to the efforts of Morup Namgyal and others like him, is alive, evolving, and poised to endure the challenges of modernization." --Erik Koto. LP comes with a full-size insert containing historic photos, song lyrics, and liner notes by Erik Koto. Riley, Terry : Descending Moonshine Dervishes  LP $26.99Beacon Sound present a reissue of Terry Riley's Descending Moonshine Dervishes, originally released in 1982. Recorded live in Berlin in 1975, and largely improvised, Riley plays a modified Yamaha organ with variable resistors to facilitate tuning in just intonation. This is a 50+ minute recording divided into two halves for vinyl. Terry Riley turned the music world upside down with his 1964 work In C, a revolutionary concept based on 53 modules that can be improvised upon by any number of musicians for an indeterminate amount of time over a pulsing C note typically played on piano or mallet. Performed live for the first time by Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnik, and Jon Gibson, it has since been performed by everyone from the Shanghai Film Orchestra, Adrian Utley of Portishead, and the Malian musicians of Africa Express (featuring contributions by Brian Eno and Damon Albarn). Though referred to as the "father of minimalism", the 81-year-old Riley has ranged widely in the intervening decades, deeply influenced by jazz, North Indian classical music, and a distinctly West Coast strain of radical spirituality - and in turn influencing practically everyone: The Who ("Baba O'Riley"), The Velvet Underground, collaborators The Kronos Quartet, as well as the legions of cutting-edge electronic musicians and contemporary composers making genre-defying music today. A resident of Grass Valley, CA, Riley is still touring the world. "Great for meditating to the cosmos" --Thurston Moore. Remastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri. . Riley, Terry : Songs For The Ten Voices of the Two Prophets  LP $26.99Beacon Sound present a reissue of Terry Riley's Songs For The Ten Voices Of The Two Prophets, originally released in 1983. Recorded live in Munich in 1982 using two Prophet synthesizers and voice, this album is a reflection of Riley's ongoing interest in melding improvisation, electronic music, and the raga vocal stylings of his mentor, Pandit Pran Nath. Terry Riley turned the music world upside down with his 1964 work In C, a revolutionary concept based on 53 modules that can be improvised upon by any number of musicians for an indeterminate amount of time over a pulsing C note typically played on piano or mallet. Performed live for the first time by Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnik, and Jon Gibson, it has since been performed by everyone from the Shanghai Film Orchestra, Adrian Utley of Portishead, and the Malian musicians of Africa Express (featuring contributions by Brian Eno and Damon Albarn). Though referred to as the "father of minimalism", the 81-year-old Riley has ranged widely in the intervening decades, deeply influenced by jazz, North Indian classical music, and a distinctly West Coast strain of radical spirituality - and in turn influencing practically everyone: The Who ("Baba O'Riley"), The Velvet Underground, collaborators The Kronos Quartet, as well as the legions of cutting-edge electronic musicians and contemporary composers making genre-defying music today. A resident of Grass Valley, CA, Riley is still touring the world. Remastered by Raphael Anton Irisarri. Includes original insert; Edition of 300. "His voice twists and curves in complicated arabesques, recalling Indian music, and especially the singing of Mr. Riley's colleague and teacher, Pandit Pran Nath, who is also associated with Mr. Riley's long-time friend LaMonte Young. The synthesizers create a hushed, meditative counterpoint of slowly unwinding melodies and cross-rhythms... the Prophet 5, a polyphonic synthesizer that is capable of rich viola-like sounds, is a winning instrument for Mr. Riley's improvisations. After years of playing a Yamaha electric organ, he has turned to the synthesizer, which theoretically offers an infinite assortment of sounds. Rather than take advantage of the instrument's ability to mimic vocal sounds and timbres, as composers like Jon Hassel and Brian Eno have done, Mr. Riley plays the synthesizer as a keyboard instrument, with a luminous sound and the ability to bend or inflect notes." --New York Times, Feb 1984 Ulrich Schnauss and Jonas Munk: Passage LP $29.99LP version. Passage is the second collaborative album from London-based synth-wizard Ulrich Schnauss and Danish producer Jonas Munk. 11 tracks of breezy, blissed-out electronica and colorful ambient. As the album title denotes, there's a sense of movement in the music these two producers create together: a Schnauss and Munk composition starts one place and ends up someplace very different - something that can only rarely be said about electronic music, which traditionally has focused its energy on texture rather than composition. Sometimes their vivid, expansive soundscapes feels like the sonic equivalent of gliding towards the horizon through a panoramic landscape on a train. One's perspective changes slightly when in motion from one place to another - continuously approaching new things and leaving others behind. There's a prismatic, multi-dimensional quality to these 11 tracks, likely stemming from the fact that these two producers each have worked with a wide range of styles and musicians throughout their 15+ year careers: Ulrich cut his teeth as a drum and bass producer in Berlin, before releasing a string of highly influential neo-shoegazy records on labels such as Domino and City Centre Offices. Since moving to London in 2006, he's been a member of bands such as Engineers and Longview and remixed artists ranging from Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys to Mojave 3, and since 2013 he's been a member of legendary band Tangerine Dream. While Jonas Munk initially became known to the post-rock and electronica communities via his Manual albums on Morr Music and Darla Records, he's also had his hands in psychedelic rock (he's a noted producer in the European psych scene and is in the band Causa Sui) as well as film soundtracks and experimental minimalism. Both Ulrich and Jonas, however, have the skills of seasoned producers to weave the multitude of influences together in a well-defined sonic aesthetic. The result is a compelling set of melodic electronic music that echoes the past, yet feels fresh. Cluster: Zuckerzeit LP+CD $26.992017 repress. Originally released in 1974, Zuckerzeit marked a turning point for these seminal German space rockers. Recorded shortly after their move away from the metropolis of Berlin, it sees some of the abrasiveness of their earlier material slightly diffusing. With the addition of proto drum machines and the producing talents of Michael Rother, their sound here - while remaining firmly in anchored in experimental territory - has more pop sensibility. Newly packaged with the CD of the album. Soares, Elza : Woman At The End of the World  CD $16.99Repressed; LP version. Septuagenarian Brazilian music icon Elza Soares teams up with the cream of São Paulo's avant-garde musicians for an album of apocalyptic, experimental samba sujo ("dirty samba") that tackles the burning issues of 21st century Brazil: racism, domestic violence, sex, drug addiction and global warming. The Woman at the end of the World is Elza's 34th studio album and her first to feature previously unrecorded material, exclusively composed for her. Voted "Best Album of 2015" by Rolling Stone Brazil after its domestic release, it will now be released worldwide by UK based label Mais Um Discos. Over a sprawl of distorted guitars, squalling horn, taught strings and electronic shards, samba is savaged by rock 'n' roll, free jazz, noise and other experimental music forms. A true legend of Brazilian music Elza has an incredible musical oeuvre that stretches back over seven decades mixing samba with jazz, soul, funk, hip hop and electronica, whilst her life story is a rags-to-riches-to-rags rollercoaster of triumphs and tragedies that has made her a voice for Brazil's repressed female, black, gay and working class populations. Her music career began in the late 1950s as she sung in clubs and hotels, sometimes being forced to perform off stage because of her skin color. The '60s was a career defining period with a run of classic albums for Odeon. After decades of hardships and artistic exploration, her latest muse is São Paulo's hyped samba sujo scene. Soares presents an album that walks a tightrope between post-rock and post-samba. "I knew this album would be a bold, modern sound" she says. "These songs are tense they do not allow you to relax". The album opens with "Coracão do Mar (Heart of the Sea)" with Elza reciting a poem from celebrated Brazilian modernist poet Oswald de Andrade. Title track "Mulher do fim do Mundo" uses carnival as a metaphor for the apocalypse and according to composer Romulo Froes "translates Elza's strength and indestructability". With The Woman at the End of the World, Elza forces the joy and sadness that personifies samba to confront the dirty truths of modern day São Paulo. Fjellstrom, Marcus : Skelektikon LP $23.99LP version. Includes download code; Edition of 500. Six years after his last album on Miasmah, Schattenspieler (MIA 013CD/LP, 2010), it's great to find Marcus Fjellström resurrected after several long years spent composing his audio-visual opera Boris Christ. Born out of shattered dreams and an obscured vision of the future, Skelektikon is a delirious yet lucid exploration of the farthest and most conflicted reaches of the heart, teeming with confusion, passion, and ghostly shadows. Being no conventional composer in any way, Marcus stumbles further down his musical domain of detuned orchestral (re-)arrangements and pain-inducing synth passages, arriving at a most unique and personal result. Where Schattenspieler gave way to noir filled alleyways, Skelektikon fills them with paranoia. It's the sound of limbo, of dancing amoebas, of deviant skeletons, nostalgia, and futurism, or quite possibly none of that. Inhabited by the bizarre and the beautiful, Marcus's music is a blurred yet encouraging representation of how you can never trust your own feelings - or eyes and ears for that matter. And yet, you can't shake the idea that the truth is to be found somewhere within this alien language, as delivered to us through the speakers. After the listener opens their eyes after the final track has dissipated, they shouldn't be surprised to find someone or something there, staring at us, in silent and unsettling knowledge. Skullflower: Black Iron LP   $26.99The inception of an audio trilogy concerning the Darkness of Aegypt: the shadow stuff from whence dark dreams come. The Triad: dark, light and the animating serpent power are delineated by the Egyptian Gods Set, Horus, and the Apep serpent. Volume one comprises of three received transmissions from the tunnels of Set via the physical envelopes of Matthew Bower and Samantha Davies operating as the occult cell known as Skullflower. The working, the concept, and guiding hand comes from Nashazphone, purveyors of artifacts, dreams and koans, who are currently re-creating and re-writing the myths and cycles of their native land. Mittoo, Jackie : Keyboard King $23.99LP version. Radiation Roots present a reissue of Jackie Mittoo's The Keyboard King, originally released in 1976. Jackie Mittoo's contribution to reggae music is immeasurable. Of mixed Indian and African-Jamaican heritage, the man born Donat Roy Mittoo was a gifted musician that played piano in The Skatalites at the age of 16. He was a very important part of reggae's evolution, having been a crucial member of the Studio One house band from its very foundation, being employed as the main keyboardist and musical arranger for an extended period, working closely there with Lee 'Scratch' Perry and countless other important figures, as well as relegating Leroy Sibbles to the bass. Although Mittoo migrated to Canada in the late 1960s, he frequently returned to Jamaica to record, maintaining his Studio One connection, and also issuing a sublime series of albums for Bunny Lee in the mid-1970s. The Keyboard King was first issued on Third World in 1976, and features Mr. Mittoo's delightful organ workouts, completely reconfiguring hits by John Holt, Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, and Bunny & Skully, among others. Pablo, Augustus : At King Tubby's LP $23.99LP version. Radiation Roots present a reissue of Augustus Pablo's Augustus Pablo At King Tubbys, originally released in 2005. The visionary musician and record producer Augustus Pablo made some of the most unique and individual recordings in the history of reggae. As with his friend and mentor, Jackie Mittoo, the man born Horace Swaby was of mixed Indian and African heritage, and although his middle-class background might have pointed him in a very different direction, the lure of Jamaica's sound system culture captured him at a young age, particularly after debilitating health problems saw him drop out of school. He began recording as a session keyboardist as the '60s gave way to the '70s, but everything changed when a school-friend introduced him to the melodica, a small plastic keyboard operated by a mouthpiece, which he used on seminal recordings for producer Herman Chin-Loy, credited to Augustus Pablo on the release. During the early 1970s, Pablo crafted melodica instrumentals for all of the leading reggae producers, scoring "best instrumental" for "Java" in 1973, and launching the Rockers label to showcase self-produced work at the same time. This multi-faceted compilation, first issued on Bunny Lee's Attack label in 2005, compiles memorable melodica interpretations of some of Lee's greatest productions, recorded over dub cuts of immortal numbers such as Cornell Campbell's "Queen Of The Minstrel" and John Holt's "My Desire". VA: Poco Loco LP $23.992017 repress. Ultra-rare gems extracted from 45 and 78 records released in the '50s and early '60s by obscure record labels. A unique mix of genres, perfect for a successful exotic party: tropicalypso, Persian cha-cha-cha, Latin and roll, Japanese rhumba, Hawaiian swing, Polynesian surf, Bahamian drums, Mexican monsters, and Brazilian exotica. The craziest compilation of music from all over the world. This comp collates a worldwide mixture of painfully obscure, crud-a-phonic dance craze platters from the '50s and '60s. A brilliant and bonkers concoction of exotica and international nonsense novelties. If you need something new to listen to after you've worn out yer Las Vegas Grind and Jungle Exotica records, then this is for you. This platter will liven up any party -- lurch-eriffic, tropical crazes and totally daffy mix-n-match foreign language tracks that'll make your eyes and ears alike pop just like corn. Long live the University of Vice. VA - Poco Loco in the Coco Vol. 4 LP  $23.99The craziest compilation of music from all over the world, Poco Loco in the Coco Vol. 4 collates a worldwide mixture of painfully obscure crud-a-phonic dance craze extracted from 45s and 78s platters from the '50s and early '60s by obscure record labels. A brilliant and bonkers concoction of exotica and international nonsense novelties - if you need something new to listen to after you've worn out your Las Vegas Grind and Jungle Exotica records, then this is for you. A unique mix of genres perfect for a successful exotic party: Arabian swing, cha-cha-cha, bebop, Singaporean garage ye-ye, rumble rock from Thailand, Mexican troglodyte garage punk, and more. This platter will liven up any party! Lurch-eriffic tropical crazes and totally daffy mix-n-match foreign language tracks that'll make your eyes and ears alike pop just like corn. Long live the University of Vice. Features: Abdul Alexi Freeman, Teddy Martin, Los Albinos, Billy Nash, Gaston Y Sus Thunders, Zhang Xiao Ying, Dany Maurice, Los Dorman, The Goyos's Cats, Les Kili-Cats, The Modern Orientals, Rosendo Ruiz Jr., Jack Ary, and Johny's Guitar. EL CLUB UPCOMING SHOWSremember - tickets are cash only. this saves us all the service charges!! lemuria wed feb 8th  $13.00delicate steve  thurs feb 9th  $12.00mike doughty  fri feb 24th   $18.00moon duo sat april 22nd  $13.00 Upcoming events at TrinosophesHappy new year everyone- it's going to be quite a year, guaranteed.  Lots of Feb and March to be added in the next week! every Thursday: Nick Schillace noon residencyThe second of this month-long residency! One of the finest finger-pickers in Michigan, Nick Schillace has the even rarer quality of being a strong musical artist. His guitar chops are always at the service of making good music and as stunning as they are, they never showboat.  Although he’s steeped in old-timey folkloric material, his own solo compositions are firmly in the big-eared Tacoma camp of John Fahey and company.   A founder of Lac La Belle and Duo Unduo, Nick’s played with numerous regional groups, from picking electric guitar with Indoor Park to comping banjo with Detroit Pleasure Society. Trinosophes is excited to be presenting Nick on Thursdays in January and February at noon. Free! 2/21 The Necks2/24 Mostly Other People Do the Killing   3/3 Baby Dee  4/15 Peter Evans Quartet 4/20 J@K@L4/21 Seraphine Collective presents R Ring, Split Single4/27 Poetry Slam Festival

Hi! Congratulations on 500 followers!!!

I'd love to visit the cafe with Geppie and play with a white himalayan kitty. We would also like to order a glass of cider~

Thank you 💛

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈ could you be any more dense?!

⊹ character(s) - gepard landau ⊹ word count - 1.1k ⊹ notes - gn!reader, hurt/comfort

⊹ katze's 500 follower writing cat-baret

THANK YOU!! AND ALSO TY FOR BEING THE VERY FIRST CAT CAFE REQUESTER ANON!!! <3 I hope you enjoy your "cat cafe date" with geppie!!!! (=^･ω･^=) also sorry this got a LOT longer than I was expecting these are meant to be short but I doubt I'm gonna manage to keep them short LMAO

Gepard is a very courteous man.

Sweet, patient, and above all, cordial. Gentlemanly, if you will.

However, that can definitely get to be... too much.

Especially when you feel like you've been just about as upfront as you can...

Or perhaps not—but at the very least, you're obvious enough, even if unintentionally, but...

It starts to get ridiculous.

Gepard is close to you, but painfully dense.

He's started keeping you at arm's length, a polite distance to maintain between two friends.

Friends, and nothing more.

You can try all you want, but in the end, he continues to put up that front around you.

It starts to even get... uncomfortable.

Like he's intentionally beginning to step back from involving himself with you.

It wasn't always like this—before, he was as open and close with you as he could be.

Even his sisters didn't know some of the things he'd share with you.

However, now...

You went to see him after his shift?

Sorry, he was invited to a function with some other nobles. Can't disappoint his family, now, can he?

You were at his greenhouse helping take care of his flowers (and waiting for him in the process)?

He would try to tactfully avoid the space until he was sure you were gone.

And really?

It started to hurt.

"Gepard, you're being ridiculous."

"Hardly, Serval. If you thought about it from my perspective—"

"Geppie! Hey, Gepard!"

Your familiar voice rang in the Landau siblings' ears.

As much as Gepard wanted to whip his head around and rush over to you, ask about your day and see what you've been up to, he instead turned away.

He began to speed walk in the opposite direction, making a beeline for Serval's workshop.

And only his elder sister bore witness to the way your facial expression crumpled.

Serval tried her best to give you an apologetic glance, clasping her hands together as if to say, 'I'm going to figure this out for you!' before chasing after her brother.

"What was that?!"

"I already told you—"

"Gepard Landau."

The blonde stopped in his tracks, wincing at the use of his full name.

He turned to his sister's fiery expression, trying his best not to back down, but it was frightening—Serval could be scary when mad, and she was your friend, after all. There's no way she wouldn't be up in arms.

"I don't care about your crap excuses anymore! Y/N is clearly hurt by what you're doing, ditching them everywhere, avoiding them... They're going to be more hurt by this than any danger you could put them in! For Aeon's sake, it's not like they've ever followed you to the front lines!"

Gepard knew Serval was right. She usually was.

But if the Supreme Guardian could be lost to the Fragmentum... even if it was contained...

Gepard also knew his worries were groundless.

However, what he was most scared of was caring for you too much, only to have you taken away by an accident.

Or coming to find out that you felt the same way (truly, deep down, he already knew you did) only for something to make you dislike him.

Ironically, the thing he feared most was more likely to come to pass by his current actions.

Serval only sighed at her brother's conflicted face, rubbing her temple.

"Oh, my aching head... Just go to them, would you? Talk it out! I'm tired of seeing Y/N sad, and I'm tired of seeing you being a mope!"

"But I—"

"No buts!"

Before he could protest further, his sister had promptly shoved him right out of the front door of the workshop... directly in front of your waiting figure.

"A-Ah, Gepp- I mean, Gepard—" you stumbled over your words a bit, having expected the man before you to have hidden out in the workshop and for Serval to have greeted you instead. "Sorry, sorry, um, I'll get out of your way—"

"No, n-no, wait—" Gepard stammered himself, both of your cheeks slowly turning pink at the awkward contact. You glanced up at him at that, acknowledging the first words he'd really spoken to you in quite some time.

"Um..."

You both spoke at the same time, which only worsened your collective anxiety.

"Oh, you go first—"

"Ah, sorry, go ahead—"

You stopped at that, as did Gepard, and then, you slowly began to giggle. The blonde smiled fondly at that, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Really, I insist you go first."

"Okay..." You took a deep breath, fiddling your fingers as the mood soured somewhat again. "I was just... wondering if I did anything to upset you, or..."

"Never!" You jumped at the loud response, staring at the man as he cleared his throat, looking about ready to run for his life (and dignity). "You haven't, um, done anything of the sort."

"Right..." You stared a bit longer. "Then, why do you keep avoiding me? Do you just not want to be around me any more?"

"That's not it either! I just... um, listen, Y/N... to tell you the truth—"

"Good lord!"

Serval slammed the workshop door open, glaring at your duo with ferocity. It sent Gepard barreling into you, the blonde man catching you in his arms just in time to prevent your fall. You both stared up at the eldest Landau with wide eyes.

"He likes you, and you like him, so quit umming and ahhing outside of my workshop! Go on a date! I have a show tonight, so go!" The woman wasn't truly angry, but... she was definitely exasperated.

As she shut the door and stomped back inside, you could hear her muffled voice.

"So obvious! It's so embarrassing!"

Silence settled over the space, and then, you broke out into a slight giggle.

Gepard smiled soon after, chuckling a bit as the two of you began laughing more and more at his sister's loss of patience.

"S-She meant it?" you asked through tearful laughter, "Y-You actually..."

"Yeah," the man stammered a bit, his own chuckles subsiding as he tried to contain his embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry, Y/N. I just didn't know... if you felt the same, or if... I don't know, I was being stupid—"

You gave him a small smile, reaching down to clutch his hand tightly in your own.

"Yeah, you were. Next time, just talk to me."

"...Gladly."

"Now, about that date... Your treat?"

"I suppose that's only fair, considering how rude I was to you..."

"That's right! And I'll never let you live it down!"

Hello! Congrats on 500 follows, you deserve it! Can I visit the cat cafe with Gepard to play with a tortoiseshell munchkin + order a hot cocoa? You probably have a ton of other requests atm so feel free to pass!

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈ weathering the storm

⊹ character(s) - gepard landau ⊹ word count - 746 ⊹ notes - gn!reader, meet cute, reader is implied to be part of an affluent/noble family, soulmate au wherein you have a countdown on your wrist until you meet your soulmate (technically until you get within a close enough proximity to them)

⊹ katze's 500 follower writing cat-baret

hiii! thank you so much omg <3 (ﾐΦ ﻌ Φﾐ)∫ I hope you enjoy your "cat cafe date" with gepard, I had a lot of fun with this one!!

It was a cold day as ever on the ever-frozen planet where you resided, but for some reason, it permeated your flesh even as you ran through the Belobog alleyways.

The monstrous footsteps of the Fragmentum beasts were not far behind, and you were not keen to end your days at the flaming blade of the Shadewalker.

However, as luck would have it, you found yourself backed into a corner. You slumped to the floor, pressed against the stone wall.

As though reveling in your terror, the beast's footsteps slowed, brandishing its weapon menacingly as it prepared to swing the blade down upon your head.

You squeezed your eyes shut, preparing for the worst.

Then, a small chime resounded, and your eyes once again shot open.

Your soulmate counter... had reached zero.

As if on cue (or perhaps perfectly so, considering the way the soulmate counter seemed to interfere with fate itself), several Silvermane Guards had appeared, taking care of the beasts with no small measure of ease.

In the midst of them all stood none other than Gepard Landau, who was now right before your eyes. He had frozen the monster before you to ice, knocking it to the ground as it vanished into ash.

"Are you alright?"

A gloved hand reached for you, and you took it with just the slightest ounce of hesitation. A twinge of recognition shone in ocean blue eyes as he spotted you, but even if he acknowledged it, Gepard made no verbal mention of it.

"I'm... I'm okay."

Was... Was the eldest son of the Landaus your soulmate?

"That's good to hear."

His soft smile sent a shiver down your spine, but not the kind that the violent winters of Belobog instilled within you every day.

No, it was... warm. Oddly so. And it was accompanied by a distinct warmth in your chest, as well.

"Um... I—"

Before you could even get ahead of yourself, ask about the counter upon your wrist, the blonde had summoned over a combat medic among the ranks of his subordinates, asking him to patch up your scrapes.

You felt your heart drop a bit.

Right. There were so many guards here... Sure, you hadn't exactly "met" any of them in the same way as Gepard, but soulmate counters had been known to end after only close proximity, not necessarily a full meeting.

Any one of these guards could be your soulmate, and you hadn't a clue which.

"I'm sorry, you were going to say something?" Captain Gepard questioned kindly, still holding on your hand.

Some part of you dearly hoped that it was indeed he who was your soulmate... but with no way to check his wrist, you figured only to relent for today.

You could ask around later... You had friends in the Silvermane Guards. Surely, you could garner the names of the ones present, and discover which was your soulmate that way.

"No... no, no. I'm okay. Thank you very much for saving me."

"I was only doing my duty. Do you live near here?"

"Yes, I live close by."

Gepard nodded. "As much as I would like to ensure your safety myself, unfortunately I must stay and continue patrolling in case anyone else is in danger. I will send some trusted guards to accompany you, so please be at ease."

"Thank you so much."

And with that, you were led away from the kindhearted Captain, questions swirling in your mind, just waiting for answers.

—

"Sir, your wrist—!"

Gepard paused as his fellow guard spoke up, his eyes going wide.

His subordinate was most likely referring to the small gash left behind after the earlier scuffle, but something else had caught the blonde's eye.

Right in the spot where the Fragmentum monster's weapon had sliced his long-sleeved uniform open, his countdown lay motionless on his flesh, all numbers now at zero.

How long had it been as such?! Certainly not for too long, as he had obviously long since met every guard here—

It hit him.

The Captain whipped his head around at once, but you were long gone, likely already being escorted home by one of his many subordinates.

Despite the lack of surefire confirmation, however, Gepard was almost certain he knew precisely who you were. He tried not to let the heat rising to his cheeks show, lest the fluttering of his heart become obvious to all.

"...I suppose I should pay their family a small visit."