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freyjafm · 3 years

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hi everybody ! i'm 𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐝 , but you can call me later 😉 i'm your resident virgo , an avid tea latte stan and enjoy watching too many true crime docus . i'm currently a full time student & part time worker , so i'm not always accessible , but i promise i'll get back to u in 3-5 business days ! i'll be playing new york's rising it girl , miss 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒚𝒋𝒂 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒅 herself ! under the read more below , you will find her statistics , her background , and her wanted connections ! tap that heart button 4 me to slither into your dms like an alaskan bull worm ! ps , i don't fck with discord so i don't have that . :(

freyja sayid was spotted in the fashion district adorning jimmy choo , with some airpod pros on . they’re most likely listening to wonder what she thinks of me by chloe x halle . you may know them as @FREYJA or as that aisha potter lookalike . their twenty second birthday just passed . while living in the upper east side , they’ve gained a bit of a reputation . they’re known to be cunning but on the other hand captivating . wonder if they’ll be the next person to hit the headlines . + ( freyja arm in arm with newest oil heir beau, weeks after messy break up with a prime minister’s nephew / what seems to be freyja sayid poorly sneaking out the back of a club at 4 am / what’s next for new york’s rising it girl, freyja sayid? )

𑁯໋ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐉𝐀'𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 ,

first. freyja ( named after the goddess )

middle. blaire ( named after her maternal great-grandmother )

last. sayid

dob. 19/02/99 ( 22 yo )

pob. bern, switzerland

height. 5′5 1/2

orientation. bisexual & biromantic

ethnicity. half white on her mother’s side and half malaysian on her father’s side.

parents. atalie sayid ( mother, senator for the state of new york ) and amirul sayid ( father, current deputy prime minister of malaysia )

siblings. 2 elder sisters, 2 elder brothers ( 5 in total ) all in politics in some fashion ( eg, the current mayor of a city, chief of staff to a diplomat, working under senior cabinet members, etc ! )

career claim. jennie kim ( minus ALL musical claims )

𑁯໋ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐉𝐀'𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 ,

youngest daughter born to the sayid family, a powerhouse of politicians. her mother is a current sitting senator for new york and her father is the current deputy prime minister of malaysia. they met years prior, during her mother’s first term meanwhile her father was the former attorney general for malaysia, at a un gala. as much as they both were passionate and concerned about their work, love never had a timing and they were married the following year. all the siblings have relatively normal age gaps ( the most being 4 ) but freyja was a bit of a surprise, and the only sibling in her early twenties. the rest are in their thirties, with her eldest sister nearing forty soon. that, paired with the fact freyja showed zero interest in politics, allowed them to have a rather hollow and strained relationship. she has a somewhat stable and semi-consistent relationship with her older sister, the second youngest, but they don’t meet very often due to work. they often treated her like the ultimate downfall of the sayid family.

growing up, money and the likes clearly weren’t a problem. as a child, she’d tag along often with her mom or dad ( rarely ever both ) and occasionally with a sibling, and hated anything that wasn’t sweet, glittery, or one of a kind. helping with campaigns were boring in freyja’s eyes and she’d often sneak away to go doodle in the bathroom walls or play on her blinged out, pink nintendo ds. needless to say, this was never going to be her jam. her parents role in her life was rather inconsistent, but not on purpose. it was mainly work-related, so she was taken care by a few trusted nannies and butlers. her siblings all moved out by the time freyja was finishing up elementary school, she was used to being alone.

not much else is known of freyja ( everything was p chill ) until she enters high school. she enrolls into a private and elite boarding school in europe and instantly becomes a hybrid ; both the social butterfly and the queen bee. the sudden attention she receives and the feeling of having people under her thumb sets her heart on fire. she adores this, loves it even. she gets what she wants with a bat of her bambi eyes or a little whine, but no one really can say no to her. beauty and power go hand in hand, and freyja sayid masters it by age fifteen. while it was a boarding school, her parents purchased an estate for freyja to stay at instead nearby with her nannies and butlers and security. what that meant to freyja ? throw the sickest summer parties before school started and the best holiday get togethers the first week of winter break ( before she inevitably flies off in a private jet with her friends to a sayid family owned villa near the alps ) and she began drinking / smoking early on. the world was this giant oyster and freyja the pearl. graduated with honors as valedictorian and prom queen, voted ‘ most likely to rule the world ‘ and oh, how she is coming so close.

after graduating, she spent a few years travelling and partying with friends. she spent less and less time with family, only for formal events or re-elections or other boring shit she didn’t give two cents about. most of the time she showed up stoned to pass the time away. most of her antics were able to be paid off by her family to save themselves some embarrassment, but sometimes ( notably about a rumored new beau or leaving the club at ungodly hours ) would slip onto tabloids. and yes, her pr manager is 100% always stressing out over freyja.

her influence over value was noticed by brands by age 19, when something she wore was sold out as soon as the pictures of her in it went viral. by 20, she was soon modelling for major brands and received early invitations to attend fashion week for brands like gucci, saint laurent, and chanel. dubbed ‘ human gucci ‘ and ‘ human chanel ‘ due to her fashion sense. hairpins that she sported one spring went viral and were soon known as ‘ freyja’s hairpins ‘ , a huge tell tale sign of her powerful influence over value and selling power. had modelled for magazines such as vogue ( internationally, too ) / harper’s bazaar / marie claire / elle / high cut / w / cosmopolitan / and billboard. currently, the face of ‘ hera ‘, a south korean luxury brand, the house ambassador for chanel, collabed with samsung to release a limited edition version of a phone with her signature color ; red, known as ‘ freyja’s red ‘. recently, she has worked as an editor for her latest magazine release ( feb’ 21 for vogue ) and last year, released a collaboration with ‘ gentle monster ‘ , a south korean luxury eyewear brand, and was just named as the face for a popular liquor brand in sweden. she is taking a small break until summer to give her some time to breath with a hectic life before she goes back into working. basically, her face is like everywhere.

a jealous, vindictive sort of bitch. wants what other people has because she wants to see how far the world will bend for her and because she knows she can have it. has cheated with partners before, though it has toned down a bit now. will flirt and mess with someone, not caring if they are in a relationship or talking to someone. often goes viral for ‘ sitting pretty ‘ and really loves being at the dead center of the spotlight. at the same time, the void of being ‘ abandoned ‘ by family makes her extremely loyal to friends ( yes, she picks sides after friendship and romantic breakups ) and her chosen family. will go to the end of the world for them, often spoils them with matching jewelry or shirts to go on cute dates together. bad day ? she’ll get a lift over, make you pack, and head to the sayid family jet to go wherever you want to go. a good ally to have, a terrifying enemy to have.

𑁯໋ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐉𝐀'𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ,

something based on ‘ drivers license ‘ lyrically by olivia rodrigo .

something based on ‘ gone ‘ lyrically by roseanne park .

something based on ‘ love somebody ‘ lyrically by lauv .

something based on this gifset . ( 🎐 ) [ other : i just . . love this and want it . HDHDH the bond can be figured out beforehand ! ]

something based on this post . ( 🍶 ) [ other : most likely something toxic or angsty ! ]

something based on this post . ( 🍈 ) [ other : childhood or friends attempting to test the waters with something new ?? PHEW ! ]

down for anything not on here ! let me know if freyja fits anything of yours, a brand new idea that could just work, and any of the more ‘ basic ‘ plots !

#، 𓂅 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒚𝒋𝒂 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒅 ⟆ 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨 . ɞ #wealthyhq:intro

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omnifalls-10 · 4 years

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Omni Falls Chapter 3: Headhunters

It’s been rather quiet at the Mystery Shack today. That doesn’t seem much of a problem for Dipper and Mabel, who were in the living room watching a show on television called Duck-tective. While watching the television program, Mabel knits a new sweater and Dipper eats popcorn from a bowl. She reaches for some popcorn, only for him to slap her hand away.

“I'm afraid your services won't be required here, sir.”, the constable taunts, with a condescending smile on his face. “My men have examined the evidence, and this is obviously an accident.”

“An accident, constable?”, Duck-tective quacks, his webbed feet paddling across the crime scene. “Or is it...Murder?”

“What?!”, the constable yells as the logo of the titular character comes on the screen as the commercials starts.

“That duck is a genius!”, Mabel gasps as she drops her sweater.

“Eh, it's easier to find clues when you're that close to the ground.”, Dipper shrugs.

Mabel puts her hand on her hip, skeptical. “Dipper, are you saying you could outwit Duck-tective?”

“Mabel, I have very keen powers of observation. ”, Dipper explains, sitting up. “For example, just by smelling your breath, I can tell that you have been eating….” He sniffs the air, looking confused. “..an entire tube of toothpaste?”

“It was so sparkly...”, Mabel pouts, her mouth covered in toothpaste.

Soos arrives, running end with a look of excitement. “Hey, dudes, you'll never guess what I found!”

“Buried treasure!”, the twins say simultaneously before looking at each other, laughing.

“C’mon, follow me.”, Soos tells them, leading them to a mysterious door that’s been cut off. “So, I was cleaning up, when I found this secret door, hidden behind the wallpaper. It's crazy bonkers creepy! ” He unlocks the door and shows them what’s inside. They look around and see a collection of wax figures. But not any wax; these wax statues are historical figures, from Robin Hood to Shakespeare to Coolio.

Dipper shines his flashlight on the statues. “ Whoa. It's a secret wax museum.”

“They're so life-like.”, Mabel notes as she pokes the wax sculpture of Sherlock Holmes.

“Except for that one.”, Dipper critiques with his flashlight shining on a wax figure of Stan. Except it moves.

“Hello!”, Stan greets, making the twins scream and Soos. “It's just me, your Grunkle Stan!” His response doesn’t make it better because they still run out of the storage room, screaming their heads off.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

After regathering the Twins and Soos back into the room, Stan introduces his prize collection of wax figures, “Behold the Gravity Falls Wax Museum! It was one of our most popular attractions... before I forgot all about it”, he admits before showing off the individual statues. “I got 'em all! Genghis Khan, Sherlock Holmes….”, he pauses to see a statue of Larry King. “some kind of, I don't know, goblin man?”

Dipper shudders. “Is anyone else getting the creeps here?”

“And now for my personal favorite: Wax Abraham Lincoln, right over--”, he stops his sentence to see said statue melted in the summer sunlight.“Oh! Oh no! Come on, who left the blinds open? Wax John Wilkes Booth, I'm looking in your direction!” He bends down and puts his finger in wax, huffing in annoyance. "How do you fix a wax figure?”

"Cheer up, Grunkle Stan.", Mabel livens up her grunkle. "Where's that smile?" Stan grunts.

"Beep, bop, boop!", she cheerfully pokes Stan in the face, only to poke him in the eye. "Ow."

"Don't worry, Grunkle Stan.", the young Pine smiles. "I'll make you a new wax figure from all this old wax!"

“You really think you can make one of these puppies?”, Stan rises up.

“Absolutely, Grunkle Stan! I'm an arts and crafts master. Why do you think I always have this glue gun stuck to my arm?”, she holds up her arm, which has a glue gun glued to it and tries to shake it off. “Eugh, eugh!”

“Huh, I like your gumption, kid!”, Stan acknowledges with a grin

“I don't know what that word means, but thank you!”, Mabel gives one of her own.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Dipper’s been deeply invested into his journal. He just found a page talking about Methanosians, plant-like species that are able to emit flames. It’s very interesting to think about: how are they able to achieve this? Are they able to move so fast that they ignite the air or is it chemically triggered? Perhaps the chemical is-

“Dipper!”, Mabel drops down in front of his startled brother, who almost drops his journal before putting back in his jacket.

“What do you think of my wax figure idea?”, she shows Dipper a drawing that she sketched in her sketch-book. “She's part fairy princess, and part horse fairy princess!”

“Maybe you should carve something from real life.”, Dipper suggests, feeling creeped out by her picture.

“How about a waffle with big arms?!”, Mabel turns another page, showing the aforementioned waffle.

“Okay... Or, you know, maybe, something else.”, Dipper clarifies, hoping to get his point across. “Like someone in your family.”

“Kids, have you seen my pants?”, Grunkle Stan asks as he poses on a briefcase, trying to find his piece of clothing. This makes Mabel gasps as a surge of inspiration courses into her mind. She turns around, her eyes becoming big as she looks upwards.

“Oh, muse. You work in mysterious ways.”, she beams with excitement.

“Why's your sister talking to the ceiling?”, Stan asks Dipper, clearly unaware of the young artist’s creative breakthrough. The next couple hours revolve around Mabel crafting the new wax figure. She works thoroughly on making the statue’s structure, working on the small details of her grunkle, and painting the right colors. It is rigorous and time consuming but she manages to get half way done. She moves back to admire her work with Dipper and Soos next to her. “I think... it needs more glitter.”, she muses.

“Agreed.”, Soos nods, handing the young Pine a bucket of glitter. She tosses the entire bucket onto the statue. “Perfect!”, Mabel exclaims in joy.

Stan walks in with his pants on but missing his shoes. “Ok, I found my pants but now I'm missing my--” He stops and notices Wax Stan. “Ahhh!” He falls over and crawls away in shock by witnessing the wax’s lifelike features.

“What do you think?”, she asks, anxiously.

“I think... the Wax Museum's back in business!”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A bustling crowd has gathered at the Mystery Shack, they arrive in droves to see the latest attraction. What the attraction was, they don’t know but it must be worth the price of admission they paid to be here.

“I can't believe this many people showed up.”, Dipper comments as he watches the crowds arriving at the event.

“Yeah, I bet your uncle bribed them”, Wendy replies with a sarcastic grin.

“He bribed me.”, he smiles, showing the 5 dollar bill that his Grunkle gave him in exchange for working in the ticket stand. She pulled out her own 5 dollar bill that conman bribed her with, making them both snicker. On stage, Stan walks on stage towards the podium. He taps on the microphone, ignoring the ear-piercing feedback it emits from the crowd.

“You all know me, folks!”, Stan smiles, attempting and failing to charm the crowd. “Town darling, ‘Mr. Mystery.’ Please, ladies, control yourselves!” This garners no response from the women in the crowd. “As you know, I always bring the people of this fair town novelties and befuddlements, the likes of which the world has never known. But enough about me.”, Stan continues, getting to the point of the congregation. “Behold….me!” He removes the tarp, revealing the wax duplicate to the whole crowd. This receives a lukewarm welcome with two people clapping and another coughing. “And now a word from our own Mabelangelo!”, the conman introduces Mabel who takes the microphone from him before walking in front of the crowd.

“Thank you for coming!”, she greets the crowd. “I made this sculpture with my own two hands!” She throws up her arms into the air for a brief moment. “It's covered in my blood, sweat, tears, and other fluids!” The implication makes the audience cringe in disgust.

“Yeah.”, she laughs it off. “I will now take questions! You there!” She points her hand to Old Man McGucket.

“Old Man McGucket, local kook.”, he introduces himself before asking. “Are the wax figures alive? And follow-up question, can I survive the wax-man uprising?”

“Um...Yes!”, she answers with a confused look on her face before pointing to a staunch man holding a turkey baster in his left hand instead of a microphone. “Next question!”

“Toby Determined, Gravity Falls Gossiper.”, he begins. “Do you really think this constitutes a wonder of the world?”

“Your microphone's a turkey baster, Toby.”, Stan shoots down his question.

“It certainly is…”, he retracts with a look of self-pity.

“Next question!”

“Shandra Jimenez, a real reporter.”, the female reporter says, holding a real microphone and a camera crew. “Your flyers promised free pizza with admission to this event. Is this true?” She holds up the said flyer in front him. This, in tow, makes the crowd erupt in indignation over the fact that there wasn’t any pizza around. Stan looks at the crowd with a nervous frown as they demand for pizza and glare at the conman.

“That was a typo.”, he gives a short answer, not really explaining anything. “Good night, everyone!” He drops a smoke bomb running off the stage before taking the admission cash box before anyone would notice. To say the crowd is upset would be an understatement, they are furious that they were swindled by the “Man of Mystery” as they all leave the Shack. No significant damage is caused save for the decorative pole that’s punched by Manly Dan.

Mabel leans on the admission table that Dipper and Wendy are sitting with a smile on her face. “I think that went well.”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

“Hot pumpkin pie! Look at all this cash!” Stan smiles in pride as he counts the money in the evening. “And I owe it all to one person, this guy!” He points to his wax replica of himself to which Mabel punches her grunkle in the arm playfully.

“Yeah, you too, ya little gremlin.”, he laughs, giving her niece a noogie. “Now you kids wash up. We got another long day of racking cash tomorrow.” He starts pushing the twins out the living room. They head upstairs, smiling, as they run upstairs to brush their teeth and go to bed. Once they had gone upstairs, Stan decides to hang with his wax counterpart to watch Ducktective.

“Well, duck-tective, it seems you've really quacked the case.”, the constable jokes.

“Don't patronize me.”, Duck-tective quacks, clearly annoyed by the tasteless joke.

“Stupid duck!”, Stan can't help but laugh as the show goes to commercial. “Well, I'm gonna use the john. You need anything?” His wax counterpart’s grin doesn’t waver, but that doesn’t stop him from laughing. “I love this guy! Don't you go nowhere.”

He leaves to go to the bathroom for a few minutes. That’s all the time that’s needed for something sinister to occur. Like a thief in the night, the figure appears out of nowhere but their intention remains obvious and so, the terrible act is committed in such swift fashion that it’s almost like it never happened. The figure disappears as they hear the footsteps of Stan coming back into the den, leaving no trace.

When he comes back into the living room, Stan's face turns into horror as he screams as his eyes lay upon a devastating sight. “No!... No!... Noooooo!” His yells cause the twins to run downstairs to their grunkle on his knees with his hands holding his horrified face.

“Wax Stan! He's been...murdered!”, Stan points to the headless body of his wax counterpart on the floor. This shocking revelation makes Mabel faint with a gasp with Dipper catching her. While he isn't as emotionally torn about it like his sister and grunkle are about this, it’s still a scary sight to behold.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

An hour passed by, the cops arrived when Stan called. The living room is turned into a crime scene with Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland questioning Stan about what transpired. “So, I got up to use the john, right?”, he explains, even though he’s still shaken by seeing his wax counterpart beheaded. “And when I come back, blammo! He's headless!”

“My expert handcrafting... besmirched.”, Mabel cries dejectedly as she looks at her masterpiece beheaded.“Besmirched!” Dipper puts a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder as he looks at the wax figure. The way the head is cleaved indicates that it wasn’t an accident. But one question remains in his mind. Who would do something like this?

“Look, we'd love to help you folks, but let's face the facts.”, Sheriff Blubs confesses after Durland finished taking notes on the murder. “This case is unsolvable.” Everyone, besides the cops, gasp incredulously. This makes Grunkle Stan very furious

“You take that back, Sheriff Blubs!”, Stan growls.

“You're kidding, right? There must be evidence, motives. Anything.”, Dipper insists, there must be something that the police officers are missing to figure out the murder.“You know, I could help if you want.”

“He's really good. He figured out who was eating our tin cans!”, Mabel vouches for her brother.

“All signs pointed to the goat.”, Dipper proudly declares.

“Yeah, yeah! Let the boy help.”, Stan adds on. “He's got a little brain up in his head.”

“Oooh! Would you look at what we got here!”, Sheriff Blubs taunts the young Pines, making him annoyed by the patronizing of the officers. “City boy thinks he's gonna solve a mystery with his fancy computer phone!”

“City boooy! City booooy!”, Durland eggs on with his partner. Blubbs just laughs on before smiling at the young Pine, condescendingly. “You are adorable.”

“Adorable?”, Dipper pouts, aggravated by the patronizing cops, who just keep on laughing at him.

“Look, P.J.'s.”, Blubs begins, grinning at the aggravated Pine. “How about you leave the investigation to the grown-ups, okay?” Just as he said that, his walkie-talkie sounding off. Attention, all units. Steve is about to fit an entire cantaloupe in his mouth. Repeat, an entire cantaloupe!

“It's a 23-16!”, Durland squeals in excitement.

“Let's move!” Blubs proclaims as both officers run off, laughing as they get to their car in quick fashion.

“That's it!”, Dipper declares, determined to prove those officers wrong. “Mabel, you and I are going to find the jerk who did this, and get back that head. Then we'll see who's adorable.”

“Aww, you sneeze like a kitten!”, Mabel gushes with a beaming grin, to which he glares at her for making him sound cute. It’s going to be a long process for him to get through in order for him to be taken seriously.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The morning arrives and the Pine Twins begin their investigation. Dipper suggests finding clues in the last spot where the crime occured, which is the living room, where the wax statue still lays on the floor since last night. Mabel wraps the police tape, which is basically toilet paper with “Do Not Pass” in marker, as Dipper shoots a picture at the “corpse”.

“Wax Stan has lost his head”, Dipper explains in a tone reminiscent of a detective. “And it's up to us to find it.” He looks at the bulletin board with pictures of suspects. “There were a lot of unhappy customers at the unveiling and the murderer could be anyone of them.”

“Yeah! Even us!”, Mabel adds on.

“In this town, anything is possible.”, Dipper continues as he looks at the journal for some clues. “Ghosts, zombies, it could be months before we find our first clue”.

“Hey, look! A clue.” Dipper stops what he’s doing and looks at where Mabel’s pointing at. He walks to where she is and finds the first clue: shoeprints in the shag carpet.

Mabel looks at the clue closely and notices something about them. “That's weird. They've got a hole in them.”

“And they're leading to…”, Dipper stars before he and Mabel follow the trail to see their second clue: an ax behind the reclining chair. The twins look shocked at what they find. “The murder weapon!” He picks up the heavy axe and examines it.

“Who would know about this?”, Dipper thinks aloud.

“Maybe...”, Mabel thinks for a moment before getting a lightbulb. “Maybe we should ask Soos about this.”

Dippers hums before nodding his head.

They head to the gift shop to see Soos doing his usual tasks around the shack. After a few minutes of greeting the handyman, the Pine Twins explain what they’ve been doing and give him the murder weapon to inspect it.

“So, what do you think?”, Dipper asks, hoping Soos can give some additional clues. He keeps staring at the ax with the same analytical expression he had beforehand.

“In my opinion, this is an ax.” Soos concludes, stating the obvious.

“And is there anything else?”, Dipper asks, hoping to get an answer from the handyman. “Something weird? Something that can help us?”

“Uh...”, Soos thinks for a moment. “It’s sharp?” Dipper only sighs in minor annoyance.

“Wait a minute.”, Mabel snaps her fingers. “The lumberjack!”

Dipper realizes for a second. “Yeah, that’s right. He was furious when he didn't get that free pizza.”

“Furious enough, for murder!”, Mabel adds on dramatically.

“Oh, you mean Manly Dan?”, Soos clarifies the lumberjack’s identity. “Yeah, he hangs out at this crazy intense biker joint downtown.”

“Then that's where we're going.”, Mabel declares with a fist pump.

“Dude, this is awesome.”, Soos chuckles, sharing some of Mabel’s excitement. “You two are like: The Mystery Twins!”

Dipper frowns at the name the handyman offered. “Don't call us that.”

After getting the information they needed, the Pine Twins walk outside about to the downtown area to where the biker joint. Before they reach it, Dipper and Mabel see their grunkle pulling a coffin out the trunk of his car. “Hey, give me a hand with this coffin, will ya?”, Stan asks. “I'm doin' a memorial service for wax Stan. Something small, but classy.”

“Sorry, Grunkle Stan.”, Dipper apologizes. “But we have got a big break in the case!”

“Break in the case!”, Mabel echoes.

“We're heading to the town right now to interrogate the murderer.”

“And we have an axe!”, Mabel shows off the axe, waving it a bit with a gaudy smile.

“Hm, seems like the kind of thing that responsible parents wouldn't want you to do…”, Stan thinks for a moment. “Good thing I'm an uncle. Avenge me kids! AVENGE ME!!”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Skull Fracture is the only biker bar of Gravity Falls, fitting for the most masculine of individuals to hangout. The outer appearance is enough for the normal person to steer clear from, especially with the large bouncer at the front. It’s why Dipper and Mabel are peering around the corner of the tavern, measuring the difficulty of their current situation.

“This is the place.” Dipper examines, still feeling a bit nervous on getting caught. He turns his head to Mabel. “Got the fake IDs?” She gives him an ID card for him, but he’s not sure that this would work because the card looks hooky at best. It’s made by unlamented cardstock along with crayons and glitter.

“Is this the best you can make, Mabel?”, he asks, still looking at the ID with uncertainty.

“C’mon, Dipper.”, Mabel pouts. “It’s gonna work.”

“Here goes nothing.”, the young Pine sighs, bracing himself for the worst as they both head to the front of the tavern's entrance, where the bouncer is standing.

“We're here to interrogate Manly Dan, the lumber jack for the murder of wax Stan.”, Mabel speaks with a level of professionalism that it’s a bit jarring. “I believe our ID’s can provide proof for you, good sir.” They present their ID’s to the bouncer who stares at them, before shrugging.

“Works for me.”, he responds stoically as he opens the door, though Dipper is a little surprised that it worked. As they head inside, they understand why this tavern is called Skull Fracture. Men are either throwing fists at each other, arguing with each other, smoking, or sitting at the bar drinking some beer. Dipper and Mabel walk inside, looking around before motioning for his sister to follow him.

Mabel almost trips over an unconscious body and steps over it. She stops at a moment to stare at the body. “He's resting.”, she reassures to herself before catching up with her brother, who looks around and finds Manly Dan at the arm wrestling machine.

“Alright, let's just try to blend in, ok?”, Dipper asks as he heads towards the lumberjack. “I’m going to interrogate the suspect.”

Mabel gives him a thumbs-up before climbing onto a chair and talks to one of the patrons. “Hey there, fellow restaurant patron!”, she greets the gritty man with a cheery tone before patting him on the arm, ignoring his growl of aggravation. Dipper, meanwhile, passes through the patrons before reaching Manly Dan.

“Manly Dan, just the guy I wanted to see.”, Dipper speaks with nonchalance. “Where were you last night?”

“Punchin' the clock.”, Manly Dan grunts, holding on to the mechanical arm with veins popping.

“Oh, so you were at work?”

“No, I was punchin' that clock!”, Manly Dan growls as he points to a broken clock outside, which appears broken and at an odd angle.

“10 o'clock, the time of the murder.”, Dipper hums, looking at the time on the broken clock, which is at 10, in consternation.“So, I guess you've never seen this before?” He pulls out the axe from his bag and shows it to the lumberjack.

“Listen, little girl!” Manly Dan starts.

“Hey, actually I'm a--”

“I wouldn't pick my teeth with that ax. It's left handed! I only use my right hand, the MANLY HAND!!”, Manly Dan rips the machine's arm off and beats the machine with it.

Dipper looks at the axe. “Left handed.” He decides to go and catch his sister before they both head outside to assess what he learned.

“It's a left handed ax.” Dipper confirms as he shows Mabel a list of possible suspects from Stan’s unveiling. “These are all our suspects. Manly Dan is right handed, that means all we have to do is find our left handed suspect and we've got our killer.”

“Oh man, we are on fire today!” Mabel exclaims with a lot of zeal.

“That we are.”, he responds, feeling some of her excited energy. “Now let's find that murderer.” He shares Mabel’s look of confidence as they share a fist bump. They start out looking around town to find their ideal suspects: they first start at the junkyard, where they see Old Man McGucket wrestling with a baby alligator. Mabel waves and the old kook waves back with his right hand with the baby gator biting on it. Afterwards, Dipper, wearing a fake mustache, delivers a package to Pizza Guy's house. Pizza Man signs Dipper's form and gets excited, only for Dipper to take the package and leave. On the other side of the road, Mabel notices the angry lady and whistles to get her attention before throwing a baseball at her. She catches it with her right hand and crushes it. Later on, the twins find another suspect who was at the unveiling. They knock on his door, only for him to come out with both hands in casts. So far most the people on the list were all right-handed. It seems like they aren’t close at all.

Except for one suspect.

Dipper gasps as looks for the final suspect on the list. “Mabel, there's only one person left on this list.”

“Of course, it all adds up!”, Mabel realizes as well.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

It's nightfall as the cops and the Pine Twins head to the front door of Gravity Falls Gossiper. It took some convincing but Dipper were able to convince them that their number one suspect was responsible for the murder.

"You kids better be right about this or you'll never get the end of it.", Blubs warns them, hoping to be right so he could tease the city boy.

“The evidence is irrefutable, officers.”, Dipper responds.

“It's so irrefutable.” Mabel adds, waving her hand.

“I'm gonna get to use my match stick!”, Durland giggles in excitement as he waves his batton around.

“You ready? You ready little fella?”, Blubs askes, sharing his partner’s zealous energy as they hit each other playfully with batons, barely able to contain themselves.

“On 3!”, Dipper starts, before counting. “1, 2…”

Before he can finish, the officers break down the door, barging in with a unified shout with the Pine Twins behind them. “Nobody move!”, Blubs shouts with authority. “This is a raid!”

As his office gets invaded, Toby slips and falls down, yelling in surprise. “What is this? Some kind of raid?”, he asks needlessly.

“Toby Determined, you're under arrest for murder of the wax body of Grunkle Stan.”, Dipper declares confidently.

“You have the right to remain impressed with our awesome detective work.”, Mabel adds on, smugly grinning as she high fives Dipper.

“Gobbling goose feathers! I don't understand!”, Toby exclaims, flustered by what’s going on.

“Then allow me to explain.”, Dipper starts with a confident smile on his face as Mabel holds a newspaper with a picture of Wax Stan's head. “You were hoping that Grunkle Stan's new attraction would be the story that saved your failing newspaper. But when the show was a flop, you decided to go out and make your own headline. But you were sloppy, and all the clues pointed to a shabby shoed reporter who was caught left handed.”

“Toby Determined, you're yesterday's news.”, Mabel concludes as she crumples up the newspaper.

Toby Boy, your little knees must be sore…”, the journalist starts, frowning. “From jumping to conclusions.” He finishes his proud remark before doing a little dance at the kids detective work. “I had nothing to do with that murder.”

“HA! I knew it-wait, come again?”, Dipper exclaims before realizing what he just said. “Nothing? D-did you just say nothing?” He’s genuinely confused about what Toby just said. How could he not be the suspect when all of the evidence points to him?

“Huh? What? Could you repeat that?”, Mabel asks, sharing her brother’s confusion.

“Then where were you at the night of the break-in?”, Blubs asks, wanting to know the truth as well as Deputy Durland.

“Ehh…”, Toby tugs on his shirt collar nervously before inserting a tape into a TV. It opens with him looking around, hoping no would notice what he’s doing before taking a cardboard cutout of Shandra Jimenez out of his closet. “Finally, we can be alone, cardboard cutout of TV news reporter Shandra Jimenez!”, he swoons affectionately before he kisses it, making everyone cringe in disgust from what they’re witnessing.

“Welp, timestamp confirms it.”, Blubs concludes. “Toby, you're off the hook. You freak of nature.”

“Hooray!”, Toby cheers, even though the tape is still playing.

“But, but it has to be him!”, Dipper argues, hoping that his hard work doesn’t end in failure.“Check the ax for fingerprints!”

The cops do so, dusting the weapon for any fingerprints, except there isn’t any on it. “Sorry, kid”, Sheriff Blubs shook his head. “No prints at all.”

“No prints?”, Dipper is confused by what he’s heard. There’s no prints on the ax?

Durland “Hey I got a headline for you: city kids waste everyone's time.”, taunts making the adults laugh, making Dipper and Mabel feel more embarrassed than they already are. They put so much effort into finding the culprit and from what they gathered, it seemed like the evidence was pointing to Toby Determined. But, they were wrong. It feels like the case itself is unsolvable.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Later on today, Grunkle Stan arranges a funeral for his wax counterpart in the parlor. He is standing on a stage with a bunch of chairs set up with Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and the wax figures as the audience.

“Kids, Soos, lifeless wax figures, thank you all for coming.”, Stan thanks, solemnly before continuing. “Some people might say it's wrong for a man to love a wax replica of himself.”

“They're wrong!”, Soos exclaims as he stands up.

“Easy Soos.”, Stan responds, he understands the handyman’s sentiments. He looks at his headless wax replica, feeling a sob coming up as he continues. “Wax Stan, I hope you're picking pockets in wax heaven.” The conman sniffles, wiping his eye. “I'm sorry, I got glitter in my eye!” He runs out, not able to finish the eulogy without feeling grief.

“Ohhhhh duuuude…”, Soos cries out as he runs after his, trying to console him. There’s nothing but silence as it’s just the Pine Twins and the wax figures left in attendance. Dipper and Mabel look solemnly at the casket the headless Wax Stan is in, reminding them of their failure at finding the murderer. This realization makes Dipper slump into his seat, sighing.

“Those cops are right about me. About us.”, Dipper mutters in disappointment and defeat.

“But Dipper, we've come so far, we can't give up now.”, Mabel encourages as she gives her brother a smile.

“Mabel, we’ve considered everything: the weapon, the motive, the clues.”, he insists as he stands up and walks to the coffin. “We looked at every perspective and there was nothing but dead ends.” When the case first started, Dipper thought he and Mabel could solve this easily. They had the clues, the potential candidates for the murderer, and the solid idea for a motive of the murder. But now, he’s not so sure anymore and can’t reach any conclusion. There are too many loose ends to this mystery.

That is until he notices something, something he didn’t see during their investigation. “That’s weird”, Dipper notes, as he stares at the wax rendition’s shoes. “Wax Stan's shoe has a hole in it.”

“Well, yeah. All the wax guys have that.”, Mabel answers, following her brother to the casket with the ax in her hand. “It's where the pole thingy attaches to their stand dealy.”

“Wait a minute, what has a hole on its shoe and no fingerprints?”, Dipper mutters to himself. He slowly realizes something. Despite the fact that his previous suspect had a hole in his shoe along with being left handed. But there’s an additional piece of evidence that’s to be considered: There’s no fingerprints. And there's someone or, something, that has none.

“Uh...Dipper”, Mabel asks, confused by her brother’s silence.

“Mabel.”, Dipper starts as he looks at his sister. “The murderers are--”

“Standing right behind you?”

The Pine Twins gasp in surprise as they turn around and see something that defies logic: all the wax figures rise up, either scowling with hatred or smiling in malicious intent as they creeped closer towards the stunned children until they’re blocked off from any escape. The lineup of wax figures include Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Genghis Khan, Larry King, Coolio (?), and Sherlock Holmes, who is holding up the decapitated head of Wax Stan. A wax replica of Lizzie Borden takes the ax from a terrified mabel before Wax Sherlock begins.

“Congratulations, my two amuetur slueths”, he patronizes as he tosses Wax Stan’s head up and down like a ball. “You've discovered our little secret.” He turns towards his wax comrades, who sneer at the Pine Twins. “Applaud, everyone. Applaud sarcastically.”

The wax figures collectively do so, mocking the children with sneers etched onto their faces, but Sherlock admonishes him. “Uh, no, that sounds too sincere. Slow clap, please.” The figures slow down their clapping so it may appear prominently more sarcastic. “There we go. Nice and condescending.”

“H-how is this possible?”, Dipper asks, baffled by what’s going on. “You're made of wax.”

“Are you magic”, Mabel gasp, curiously.

“Are we magic?” Wax Sherlock laughs with a sneer. “She wants to know if we're magic!” He keeps chuckling before slamming his fist down on the casket, jolting Dipper and Mabel. “We're CURSED!”

“CURSED!”, the wax figures repeat.

“Cursed to come to life whenever the moon is waxing.”, Wax Sherlock explains, walking near the fireplace.“Your uncle bought us many years ago at a garage sale.”

“A haunted garage sale, son!”, Wax Coolio adds.

“Quite.”, Wax Sherlock agrees before continuing. “And so, the Mystery Shack Wax Collection was born. By day, we would be the playthings of man.”

“But when your uncle went to sleep, we would rule the night.”, Wax Coolio interjects again.

“It was a charmed life for us cursed beings…”, Wax Sherlock speaks, with a tone of reminiscent before turning cold. “That is, until your uncle closed up shop. We've been waiting ten years to get our revenge on Stan for locking us away. But we got the wrong guy.”

“So you were going to kill Grunkle Stan for real”, Dipper asks, completely shocked by what he’s heard.

“You were right, Dipper.”, Mabel says. “Wax figures are creepy.”

“Enough!”, Wax Sherlock silences them. “Now that you know our secret, you must die.” Wax Sherlock, along with the rest of the wax figures, rolls his eyes to the back of his head. The wax figures growl intimidatingly as they get closer to the Pine Twins.

Mabel looks at her brother, who activates the Omnitrix. Dipper tries to select the right alien as the wax figures get close while Mabel attempts to distract them by throwing items from the small refreshment table. It does little to no effect before she throws a pot of coffee at the face of Wax Genghis Khan, who screams in pain.

“That’s it. We can melt them with hot, melty things”, Mabel realizes.

“Hot, melty things”, Dipper repeats before an idea pops up into his head. “That’s it!” He turns the dial to get his designated alien. In a flash of emerald light, stunning Mabel and the wax statues, Dipper’s body begins to morph: He feels his body developing chlorophyll as his feet become roots, his oxygen molecules shift to methane, easy for ignition. His shoulders develop red flowers.

Dipper becomes a Methonisian: a humanoid, plant-like alien that has an overall green and black colored body, mostly with a red flame-patterned head and root-like feet, seemingly holding black rocks. His eyes are oval-shaped with points at each end with pupils copying the shape but are smaller. Also, his shoulders and head have red petals and his elbows and legs have green frills sticking out. This alien is taller than an average human and has a distinct rotten stench that worsens with heat.

“Swampfire!”, the altered Pine shouts. Mabel looks at her brother in awe, he finds a new transformation that looks very cool but she notices something when she smells him.

“Ugh. Dipper you stink.”, Mabel holds her nose in disgust.

“That’s because my body is emitting methane fumes.”, Swapfire answers.

“Just take a shower when this is over.”, she begs as she grabs two decorative candles.

“The stink would probably go away when I transform back but okay.”, he answers, igniting his fists which causes the wax figures to step back even further. “Any one of you moves and we'll melt you!”

“With some fire and decorative candles!”, Mabel declares.

“Do you really think you could beat us with candles and by becoming a giant flaming weed?”, Wax Sherlock asks, his tone incredulous at the idea of these kids defeating despite them having the advantage.

“I mean….I can make flames outta my hands and she's got candles. So...”, Swampfire shrugs.

“Yeah, it’s kind off a no-brainer.”, Mabel points out.

“So be it.”, Wax Sherlock answers before shouting. “ATTACK!” The wax figures and the Pine Twins charge, ready for battle.

Wax Lizzie Borden swings her ax at Mabel, but accidentally decapitates Wax Robin Hood. Mabel walks around her, but Wax Shakespeare sneaks up behind her. Mabel cuts off his hands with both candles, and he runs away in cowardice. Wax Shakespeare's hands, however, move and begin strangling Mabel. She grabs a door and repeatedly smashes it on its fingers.

A couple of wax figures tackle Swampfire to the ground before dogpiling him, but since he has the strength advantage, he’s able to get them off of him through powering out, making the wax figures fly across the room in different directions. After doing that, he avoids being grabbed from behind by Wax Larry King before delivering a fiery chop that decapitates his head. “Interview this, Larry King!”

“My neck! My beautiful neck!”, Wax Larry King cries out, running away.

Wax Groucho growls as he charges towards Swampfire, but the altered Pine is ready as he blasts the wax figure in his stomach with a massive fireball causing both halves to slowly slip off.

“Jokes on you, Groucho!”, Swampfire quips.

“I heard of an empty stomach but this is ridiculous.”, Wax twiddling his fingers a bit as the top half of his body slid off of the lower half. “Hey, why is there nothing in my hand?”

Swampfire turns around to see Wax Genghis Khan charging at him and simply sidesteps him, making the wax figure run into the fireplace.

“Ha, Genghis Khan! You fell harder than the... uh... ”, Swampfire declares before getting confused. “I don't know, uh, Jin Dynasty? Heh. Yeah. Alright. ”

Mabel swings around Wax Coolio's head while getting overwhelmed by wax figures.

“Dipper! Watch out!”, Mabel calls out to her transformed brother. He blasts Wax Richard Nixon out the room before turning around to Wax Sherlock Holmes behind him.

“Alright. Let’s get this taken care of.”, Wax Sherlock says, putting Wax Stan's head on the horn of a rhino on the wall, and grabs a sword hanging on it. He then swings the blade and it slices Swampfire’s off. The wax figure seems pleased before his eyes narrow in annoyance and confusion as the altered Pine grows another arm. Swampfire ignites his fists and starts swinging at Wax Sherlock, who in turn uses the sword defensively while delivering more hits to the alien. This continues until they reach the attic.

"Once your family is out of the way, we’ll rule the night once more!", Wax Sherlock declares, raising his sword planning to slice Swampfire’s head clean off.

I can't deliver a massive fire attack in this area, Swampfire thinks. The best course is….He quickly turns to see the window. There!

"Don’t count on it!", Swampfire retorts, kicking Wax Sherlock down the stairs before opening the window to get outside. He climbs up to the top sign of the Mystery Shack and waits near the edge to hear Wax Sherlock Holmes coming up to finish him off.

"You think you can outwit me, freak?!", Wax Sherlock asks in aggravation as the figure climbs up. "I’m Sherlock Bloody Holmes!" He looks ready to slice up the alien boy until he reaches the top sign. But he realizes his mistake as Swampfire holds both hands out to deliver an attack.

“Burn.”, Swampfire declares before blasting a stream of flames that seems to have melted the wax figure. He moves forward to the spot where Wax Sherlock was standing. He looks from his left and his right, hoping to find any evidence that he melted the wax figure. Honestly, where did he-

Out of nowhere, Wax Sherlock appears between the top and bottom sign to deliver a hard elbow strike to Swampfire’s face. This causes him to tumble on the other side of the roof, rolling on the surface and grabbing onto the edge of it to prevent himself from falling down. He looks down at the ground below before gulping, he knows that these aliens are tough but he still doesn't feel comfortable at the aspect of falling.

The sudden sound of scraping alerts the altered Pine to see Wax Sherlock Holmes, despite having one arm that’s mostly melted off, brandishing the sword with a hateful scowl on his face. He stops on top of the chimney and for additional cruelty, steps on Swampfire’s hands, eliciting a grunt of pain from him.

“Any last requests”, Wax Sherlock asks as he holds the sword, ready to finish the job of killing this freak.

Swampfire turns his head slightly to see the sky brightening up a bit, making him have a small grin of victory. “You got any sunscreen?”

“Sunscree-?”, Wax Sherlock looks confused before he realizes his hand is melting. “What?!” He gasps in horror at the sight of the warm, summer sun rising up.

“No.”, Wax Sherlock says placidly, despite his wax body melting in the heat.

“Yeah, it really wasn’t very sharp of you to let me lead you out here.”, Swampfire replies, confidently.

“Outsmarted by a child in short pants! No!”, Wax Sherlock exclaims in frustration and agony as the sun reaches even higher. “Fiddlesticks! Humbugs! Tiiter, total kerfuffle. Butter hallabaloo.” He continues cursing until he becomes a puddle with only his head holding some shape. Swampfire climbs up on the roof before sighing in relief. A certain ring from the Omnitrix emblem on his indicates that he’s going to turn back and in a flash of red light, Dipper becomes normal again.

“Case closed.”, Dipper declares in satisfaction, wiping the dust from his hands before he sneezes.

“You sneeze like a kitten!”, Wax Sherlock laughs, mockingly as his remains slip off the roof. “Those policemen were right, you're adorable! Adorable!” He declares his final word before falling down at the ground below in a splat.

“Ew.”, Dipper mutters in disgust.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Just as the battle on the roof is finished, so is Mabel’s in the parlor as she scoops all the remaining pieces of the wax figures with one more, Wax William Shakespeare’s living head.

“Though our group be left in twain, the men of wax shall rise again!”, Wax William declares though it reaches deaf ears as Mabel picks him up.

“Y’know any limericks?”, she asks curiously.

“Uh... there once was a dude from Kentucky…”, the wax figure attempts, weakly.

“Nope!”, Mabel concludes throwing his head into the fire before noticing her brother entering the parlor. “Dipper! You're okay! You solved the mystery after all.”

“I couldn't have done it without my sidekick.”, he says as he pulls up a chair and takes Wax Stan's head off the wall.

“No offense Dipper, but you're the sidekick.” Mabel informs him.

“What? Says who? Have people been saying that? Have you heard that?”, Dipper asks nervously before coming down.

“Eesh, which one of you broke wind-”, Stan comes into the parlor before screaming incredulously. “Hot Belgian Waffles!! What happened to my parlor?!” He sees the room cluttered with various wax parts on the floor.

“Your wax figures turned out to be evil, so we fought them to the death!”, Mabel answers, jovially.

“I decapitated Larry King.”, Dipper adds.

Stan stares at them for a minute before laughing at their ridiculous claim. “Ha ha! You kids and your imaginations!”

“On the bright side, though, look what we found.”, Dipper shows his grunkle’s wax replica’s head.

“My head! Ha ha! I missed this guy!”, Grunkle Stan beams happily. “You done good, kids! Alright, line up for some affectionate noogie-ing.” Dipper and Mabel try to protest but he just noogies them, all of them sharing a big laugh before a police car drives near the broken parlor window, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland on the inside relaxing.

“Solved the case yet, boy?”, Sheriff Blubs asks, condescendingly. “ I'm so confident you're gonna say no, that I'm gonna take a long, slow sip from my cup of coffee.” He holds up his coffee and starts drinking really slowly to mock the Omnitrix-user.

“Actually, the answer is yes.”, Dipper answers, casually as he holds Wax Stan’s head. This causes Sheriff Blubs to choke on his coffee before spitting it in Durlands face, which leads to him screaming in pain and spitting the coffee back at Blubs’ face, making him scream in pain . This continues on until the drive away in pain from the scalding coffee before ending up crashing.

The Pines laugh at the spectacle, enjoying the catharsis of solving the case. “They got scalded.”, Stan quibs, chuckling.

“So, did you get rid of all the wax figures?” Dipper asks.

“I am ninety-nine percent sure that I did!”, Mabel answers with a confident grin.

“Good enough for me!”, Dipper concludes.

Little does she know, Mabel missed one. A headless Wax Larry King chuckles before chasing off after a rat that steals his ear.

#chapters #swampfire #dipper #mabel #stan #soos #omni falls #headhunters

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dreaminginsteadofsleeping42 · 5 years

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My Brief Thoughts on the 27 Books I Read This Summer

I love reading and I love talking about books and I’d love to give any of y’all some reading recommendations if you’re looking for them, so, here we go!

The Wings of the Dove, Henry James. I actually started this in January, but then Life Happened, so I only finished it in June. I really sped-read this one towards the end. Kind of took twice as many words needed to convey what was conveyed. Kind of had that sexist-ly written, male fantasy, early twentieth century woman element to it (this woman isn’t like other woman in that she is SMART! yeah.). The story was fine, but not my favourite.

King’s Cage, Victoria Aveyard. This is the third book in the series and it was MUCH better than book 2. The problem I have with this series is that I find the main character and her love interest boring af, so I’m not really interested in their story, but that’s just a personal preference thing. I loved some side characters and the villain.

War Storm, Victoria Aveyard. The last book in the series. Very long. Big book. Anti-climatic. My favourite character was done dirty. I was over it. Why were there two characters called Cameron and Carmadon? It was an enjoyable read, if the ending was a bit eh. At least [SPOILER ALERT] the lesbians got a happy ending.

Crooked House, Agatha Christie. This one was fun. Classic Christie, bunch of people in a house, someone dies, someone in the house did it, let’s figure it out, detectives! Interesting ending, something I hadn’t seen from it before and it was refreshing to read a standalone novel of hers (as much as I love Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple).

A Pocket Full of Rye, Agatha Christie. My girl Agatha! Another fun mystery. Old dude dies: was it his sons? His young wife? His young secretary? Wtf knows! Let’s go, detectives!

Venetia, Georgette Heyer. Pretty enjoyable, good humor, likeable heroine. My only problem with this book was that the hero was an asshole and basically assaulted the heroine upon meeting and it was painted as attractive because it was the 1920s or whatever, so yeah. I didn’t like him. Kind of spoiled the rest of the really good book.

The Jane Austen Project, Kathleen A. Flynn. SUPER good, so intriguing, oh my gosh. The synopsis basically is these two people from the future go back in time to find a missing book by Jane Austen and try to stop her from dying. Had me getting confused about the logistics of time travel for a week. Awesome!

Heartless, Marissa Meyer. This was also great. It’s an origin story for the Queen of Hearts and I LOVE how the author incorporated characters and concepts from Alice in Wonderland while also making it a fresh story. Definitely recommend if you’re into fairytales and classics.

Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Very exciting. A real page-turner, if sexist and racist and uneducated about everything.

The Glass Spare, Lauren DeStefano. THIS. THIS book deserves more hype. I really enjoyed it. It’s about this princess who discovers she has the ability to create gemstones. It was original, I couldn’t predict what was going to happen next in the best way, there was an actually interesting male love interest and it had a wlw relationship. Check it out, do yourself a favor.

The Cursed Sea, Lauren DeStefano. The sequel to the above. Even better than the former, had all the qualities I mentioned above and more. Although there was not one cursed sea in this book and to this day I am still confused about that.

The Mystery of Three Quarters, Sophie Hannah. It was a very interesting murder mystery, in the format was a bit different than what I was used to. Four people were sent letters accusing them of murdering a bloke who died a few months back. Was invested and trying to figure out the mystery the whole way through, so I got my money’s worth in that respect. The ending was a bit of a surprise, but it was a fun read.

Tale As Old As Time. A HUGE book all about the history of Beauty and the Beast. I love that story so much, I was almost crying at times while reading this book, I was so overcome with love. Definitely check it out if you love BATB.

The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell. I’ve loved the Brontes’ books for years and this book reminded me of that love. Such a vivid picture of her life. Charlotte Bronte was pre-teen-me’s idol.

Victoria, Daisy Goodwin. This was a historical novel about the first year of Queen Victoria of England’s reign. SO interesting, I was so invested and annoyed when it ended. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Armadale, Wilkie Collins. The gay vibes were strong with this book. I don’t care what anyone says, Ozias and Allan are in love with each other, it’s canon. We got crazy family history and drama here, superstition, mistaken identity, scheming women and an all-round good time. 800 pages of it.

Elizabeth of York, Alison Weir. This is a biography of, um, Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, mother of Henry VIII. I love the British monarchy. They are such a dramatic bunch in pretty gowns. Super interesting book. Very well-written.

The Big Four, Agatha Christie. This was a very different Christie. There were these crime lords all over the word trying to kill Poirot and Hastings. Very fast-paced and exciting, bunch of racist undertones. Reading Christie is like talking to your grandparents. It’s all fun until they throw some random racist comment out there and it sucks.

The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Kate Morton. Everyone go read all of Kate Morton’s books, thank me later. This was excellent as usual.

Jane and the Wandering Eye, Stephanie Barron. This is the third in a series that re-imagines Jane Austen as a detective. I love them, lots of fun.

My Own Book. This is the short story/poetry collection my little story got published in! There were some pretty amazing pieces in here (alongside mine ahahaha). Pretty cool to have my own writing on my bookshelf. Excuse me while I cry.

The Mystery of the Blue Train, Agatha Christie. Jewels. Woman murdered on train. Did someone on the train do it? Did someone go on and off the train to do it? Were they disguised as someone else? Was the murdered woman really the murdered woman? Was it her husband? Her boyfriend? Snow. France. Millionaires. Fun time.

Three Dark Crowns, Kendare Blake. The first in a new series. It’s about these three triplets and one of them kills the other two to be queen. I LOVE the characters in this series. For different reasons too. Great cliff-hanger ending. I love it.

One Dark Throne, Kendare Blake. The second in the series. Continues to be good. We have to stan.

Two Dark Reigns, Kendare Blake. Third in series. Still good, but a little anti-climatic in that a spat of bad weather made everyone decide to cancel the big, climatic battle. There’s one book left in the series I haven’t got yet AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS.

Regina Rising, Wendy Tolliver. A prequel-esque story about the Evil Queen from the Once Upon a Time TV series. Interesting, but not revolutionary.

Partners in Crime, Agatha Christie. This one was so FUNNY. I love Tommy and Tuppence, I wish she wrote more books with them. It was so hilarious. They set up this agency where they guarantee to solve any crime in 24 hours. So good.

#long post

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pluckyredhead · 7 years

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Daredevil 101: Gay Panic Roadtrip to Albany/Hell

That title sounds like the world’s most amazing concept album.

CONTENT WARNING: Homophobia, transphobia, animal abuse.

Anyway! When last we left our hero, his entire life had been ruined yet again: he had cheated on Karen with Typhoid Mary, lost his home and place of employment, and had the shit kicked out of him by basically all of his rogues. He’s still floundering around at rock bottom when he decides to drink his woes away at a bar (not Josie’s, but very Josie’s-esque), and is joined by a Mysterious Stranger:

Though Matt doesn’t notice anything odd about the stranger, everyone else in the bar very clearly gets a bad vibe off of her. They also all seem to perceive her differently.

As the stranger speaks cryptically about the nature of good and evil and the terrible things she’s witnessed, tensions in the bar rise. Two brothers who were having a friendly conversation at a back table start fighting. As the fight escalates, Matt is inexorably drawn to the stranger:

Matt sort of dazedly realizes that something has gone terribly wrong, but it’s too late - a man is dead. “You could have stopped it if you weren’t busy making out with that guy!” some rando accuses.

“A guy???” Matt asks.

Well, yes and no:

This is Mephisto, who is basically Satan in the Marvel universe. Mephisto generally presents as male (so I’ll be using male pronouns from here on out) but doesn’t really have a gender per se, being the embodiment of evil rather than a living being. That said, there is definitely a strong element of homophobia/transphobia in this encounter. Like. “You hook up with a hot chick at the bar but she turns out to be a dude and also the actual devil???” That is vile transphobia. (This comic is 27 years old, but still. There’s using dated terminology, and there’s playing out harmful tropes that get people killed.)

This also picks up on a lot of the themes we’ve seen with Typhoid Mary, with Matt as a relatively passive figure who is deceived and violated by a gender-bending/gender role-flouting woman. This is his rock bottom, though: from here on out, conventional gender roles start to reassert themselves.

Anyway, this is the last straw for Matt. He burns all of his and Karen’s remaining belongings (excuse you, Matthew, not all of those are yours) and hits the road, traveling upstate towards Albany. Along the way, he witnesses a private plane crashing, and springs into action to rescue its pilot. However the pilot, a wealthy farmer named Skip Ash, turns out to be hella shady:

Curious about Skip’s strange behavior and illegal cargo, Matt decides to abandon his aimless northward wandering in favor of looking into this guy a bit more.

Meanwhile, Mephisto has created a demon “son” named Blackheart to torment the people of upstate New York. As if they don’t have enough to deal with already. #newyorkjoke

Blackheart attacks Matt (and randomly appearing guest star Spider-Man) for an issue but it’s boring so I’m skipping it.

Meanwhile Skip Ash has returned to his factory farm, run on ill-gotten drug money and dedicated to getting the most profit possible out of his stock, no matter the cost to the animals:

This is Skip telling his scientist to bioengineer legless pigs so that they can just sit in their overcrowded cages to be force-fed until they’re slaughtered. Skip is a fucking monster.

But that’s just the tip of his monster iceberg, because Skip is also experimenting on humans. Specially, young women and girls who have been made insecure by the beauty-industrial complex and come to his farm/lab to be “perfected” - and he’s selected his favorite to be his future wife:

SKIP YOU ARE A CREEP AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL

One person in complete agreement with me on that is his daughter, Brandy. When she realized what kind of man her father was, she stormed out, but still lives on the money he sends her. She’s also become an animal rights activist, and Matt - who has been following Skip around - catches her planning to set off some (harmless to humans and animals) explosions at Skip’s farm to draw media attention to his inhumane practices:

Matt is sooo smug here, which is especially rich considering that his whole attitude during this arc is “ugh it’s hard to care about people and things, why won’t everyone with problems leave me alone?” Yeah, Brandy’s activism is more about anger at her dad and there’s no follow-through that actually helps the animals, and yes, she’s arguably a hypocrite for living off her father’s drug money. But one could just as easily say that Matt’s heroism is more about thrillseeking and there’s no follow-through that actually reduces crime, and that he’s a hypocrite (and in violation of his own professional oaths) for getting paid to try cases in which he has a conflict of interest as Daredevil. So.

Brandy is something of a straw activist (and later, we’ll see, a straw feminist) - shrill and angry but not actually effective, and with very selfish and personal motives. It’s notable that she shows up around 1990, on the cusp of the capitalist 80s and disaffected 90s - her character would’ve been treated very differently in the 70s.

(It’s also interesting that Nocenti's run is fiercely environmentalist, between Kelco’s pollution and Skip’s factory farm, and yet actual environmentalists are consistently portrayed as ineffectual idiots. Not totally sure what her point was there besides nihilism.)

Anyway, Matt rides along with Brandy as she sets off her explosions, which have the unintended effect of freeing the human experiment we saw earlier, Number Nine. However, Skip’s scientists and guards have no intention of letting their prize go that easily:

Luckily, Number Nine has a healing factor, so she’s okay. Matt and Brandy take her back to Brandy’s house to recuperate, where they discover that she’s...well, very odd. She’s been programmed to cook, clean, primp, and fawn over men, to the point of being manic about it, and also keeps having flashbacks to the traumatic things she witnessed while being experimented on.

Brandy, of course, has no patience with Number Nine’s “perfect woman” behavior:

“Haven’t you ever heard of feminism?” “No, but it sounds awful.” Woof. I mean, Number Nine isn’t exactly a reliable narrator either, but she’s certainly more pleasant than abrasive Brandy. (Who I fucking love, I WILL FIGHT YOU.) Matt certainly enjoys Number Nine’s fawning. What a relief after Typhoid Mary, huh, tough guy?

Skip, meanwhile, wants his property back, so he hires this guy, who is a precursor to literally everything about 90s comics:

Look at that ridiculous gun! Look at those shades! Look at those spiked gloves! This is so silly. Also this character is called “Shotgun” even though that is DEFINITELY NOT A SHOTGUN.

Anyway, a couple dangerous skirmishes with Shotgun ensue, but Matt manages to keep Number Nine safe, though he can’t keep her and Brandy from fighting:

As annoyed as I am by The Reasonable Man rubbing his temples and soothingly saying “Girls, girls!” as Those Crazy Women scream at each other, I am genuinely amused by “GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN!”

Anyway my best guess is that the Brandy/Number Nine conflict is some sort of embodiment of the conflict that women still have between being independent/feminist/liberated and performing femininity to an acceptable level, but which was especially difficult to navigate at a time when more and more women were getting divorced and/or working outside of the home and/or keeping their maiden names, etc. Like. I do think that Nocenti was trying to tell a feminist story here, especially since Number Nine was driven to subject herself to Skip’s experiments because of unreasonable beauty standards in the media, just like I think she was trying to subvert gender roles with Typhoid Mary. But it gets muddy.

After a few battles with Skip and Shotgun, Matt and Brandy basically tell Skip they have access to his various stockpiles of contraband and will turn him in if he doesn’t leave them - and most importantly, Number Nine - alone:

Skip gives up and sort of wanders out of the story at this point...but here’s where it takes a trippy turn:

So some of Skip’s illegal contraband is from Attilan, a city on the moon. Attilan is the home of the Inhumans, who, if you don’t watch Agents of SHIELD or read the comics, are very similar to mutants - a genetic variation from humans who each have their own superpower and sometimes a very visible mutation. Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan is probably the best known Inhuman these days.

The Inhumans are ruled by King Black Bolt and Queen Medusa, who at this point in continuity had recently had a son, who was taken away from them and sent to Earth because of his potentially dangerous powers. Two cousins of the royal family, Gorgon and Karnak, decide to go to Earth and look for the child so that they can return him to his parents.

So Gorgon and Karnak turn up basically out of nowhere, and Matt, Brandy, and Number Nine are like “Sure, superpowered strangers, we’d love to go on a road trip with you in this pickup truck to find a missing space prince.” It’s bizarre.

It’s on this road trip that they encounter Blackheart (remember Blackheart?), who has taken human form so as to fuck with humans more subtly. He’s hitchhiking, so they give him a ride, and he immediately starts playing up the tension between Gorgon and Karnak and their mutual interest in Number Nine:

That’s Gorgon driving the truck and Karnak in the weird hat in the backseat. Gorgon, by the way, has goat legs and the power of stomping, which is 100% not what the gorgons of mythology were. Karnak has the ability to see - and hit - the weakness in anything. They are some of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s more ridiculous creations.

Anyway, Blackheart - the balding dude in the turtleneck - spurs them into a fight that wrecks the truck. Matt, who can’t see Blackheart’s disguise, picks up on the fact that there is something seriously wrong with this dude, and attacks:

Blackheart, you creepy.

The humans - and Inhumans - manage to calm themselves down and make up, and Blackheart, frustrated, moves on to fuck with some other people. Specifically, the people in the small town that our missing Inhuman prince - currently going by the name “Pope,” though his real name is Ahura - has landed in. Pope, as we’ll see, is kind of an odd and creepy kid:

Yeah, Pope’s power is the Evil Eye. He didn’t mean to kill the sheep, but...shit happens, I guess?

The town, somewhat understandably, decides he’s a demon and they need to kill him, but Matt shows up OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE - seriously, I have no idea how he found Pope - and stops them:

Blackheart, frustrated by his failure to corrupt anyone, turns to Mephisto for help, and Mephisto pulls all of our major players at this point - Matt, Brandy, Number Nine, Gorgon, Karnak, and Pope - down into Hell.

Yes, actual Hell.

They’re separated into groups by the fall. Brandy and Pope find themselves trying to climb out of a vast canyon, and they meet an angel:

The angel wakes up and is lovely and wonderful and kind, but Brandy is so shrill that eventually just peaces the fuck out of there, leaving Brandy and Pope to make the climb alone.

Number Nine, meanwhile, finds herself in a “Heaven” that is actually her version of Hell:

She winds up being dazzled by hunky angels but befriending a nerdy one named Lucifer? The metaphors are all over the place here.

Gorgon and Karnak are boring, so I’m skipping them...and Matt? Well, he finds himself in a snowy wasteland with nothing in it but a confessional. He breaks off the cross on top and uses it to start a fire:

Only Mephisto is permitted to make fire in Hell, so Mephisto LOSES HIS SHIT. He attacks Matt with demons, and for a while Matt fights off wave after wave of them before realizing that the only way to win is to stop fighting. Sure enough, this stops the attack on him and his friends, and he makes plans to walk out - but an enraged Mephisto proves that he still has power:

That’s Brandy in the last panel, and yes, she’s dead. :(

Then the Silver Surfer shows up out of nowhere to fight Mephisto??? SURE, JAN. Whatever, it gives Matt & Co. the necessary cover they need to get out of there and they return to the mortal world, shaken and grieving but alive.

And Brandy?

I...guess that’s a happy ending for her? I’m still pretty troubled by how the straw feminist doesn’t get to be loved by an angel because of how shrill she is until she ACTUALLY DIES, but again, the metaphors are so incoherent that it’s tough to suss out exactly what the message here is. (Also, Gorgon and Karnak take Pope home, and we never see Number Nine again.)

Anyway, that’s the end of Romita’s run on the main Daredevil book, though Nocenti’s got one last arc to go. Tune in next time when Matt returns to New York, confronts Bullseye, and finally reunites with Foggy!

#daredevil #daredevil 101

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brinazzle · 4 years

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In San Diego, where I live, I can always identify the neighbors who are fanatical sailors, surfers, or golfers. They’re the ones checking their phones for hourly weather updates. That makes sense. San Diego has some of the most reliable weather on the planet, but sometimes it doesn’t. So my neighbors use all the tools at their disposal to determine if the wind on the Pacific Ocean will be fresh, the surf will be up, and the golf course will be playable. They are not only aware of the environment, they go out of their way to forecast it. Few of us shape our days with the obsessive forecasting that avid sailors, surfers, and golfers take for granted. If we did, we wouldn’t be blindsided by our environment so often. Forecasting is what we must do after acknowledging the environment’s power over us. It comprises three interconnected stages: anticipation, avoidance, and adjustment. 1. Anticipation Successful people are not completely oblivious to their environment. In the major moments of our lives, when the outcome really matters and failure is not an option, we are masters of anticipation. When an ad agency team enters a client’s conference room to pitch an account, they’ve already honed their presentation, researched the client’s biases, and rehearsed sharp answers to deflect any pushback. They imagine the positive emotional temperature in the room when they’re finished—and then design their pitch to create it. It’s the same with trial attorneys who never ask a question to which they don’t know the answer. Their entire line of questioning a witness is based on anticipation. It’s the same with a public official chairing a town meeting on a divisive issue. The official anticipates that some comments will be said in anger, that the exchanges could become inflammatory and personally insulting. In a heated environment, she reminds herself to stay cool and be fair. She may prepare some mollifying remarks. She may even request a police presence. Likewise with a young man before he asks his girlfriend to marry him. If he follows convention, the gesture is an exercise in extreme anticipation—from the selection of the setting to choosing the right moment to pop the question—all in an effort to elicit the anticipated response from the object of his affection. (Brides often reciprocate with an even greater display of anticipation on their wedding day.) When our performance has clear and immediate consequences, we rise to the occasion. We create our environment. We don’t let it re-create us. The problem is that the majority of our day consists of minor moments, when we’re not thinking about the environment or our behavior because we don’t associate the situation with any consequences. These seemingly benign environments, ironically, are when we need to be most vigilant. When we’re not anticipating the environment, anything can happen. *1 I once thought it would be useful to introduce two of my clients to each other over dinner. Edgar was an Ivy League educated president of a liberal think tank in New York City. He had the silky diplomatic skills of a man who spent half his time asking wealthy donors for money. Mike was a gregarious, slightly roguish head of an energy company in Oklahoma. I thought their different backgrounds would make for an interesting evening. They’d broaden their minds and have me to thank for it. Wrong. In my experience, when smart people meeting for the first time run low on conversation, they turn to politics. If they’re of the same political stripe, they have a jolly time agreeing on how bad the other side is. If they’re opposed politically, they try to convince the other that he’s wrong. That’s what happened at dinner. Edgar was a rabid liberal. Mike the oilman was a hardened conservative. Things went well up to the appetizers. But after the friendly talk about jobs, families, vacation plans, and sports had been dispensed with, they defaulted to current events. It was as if they’d been handed a checklist of hot-button issues—border security, energy policy, gun control, legal marijuana, affirmative action, government spending—so each man could futilely try to change the other’s point of view. They spent thirty minutes arguing over secondhand smoke, though neither man was an expert on or even cared about the issue. It was an evening of two strong-minded males expressing their need to win. I was a miserable spectator. The fault was mine, not theirs. As Samuel Johnson said of a widower remarrying soon after the end of an unhappy marriage, I exhibited “the triumph of hope over experience.” I should have known better. I knew their political differences. I’m the one who placed them across the table from each other with no one else to distract them. In hindsight, I’m convinced their behavior would have been different in an office setting. In that workplace environment, they’d display appropriate workplace behavior. They’d be cordial and professional. My big mistake, though, was a failure to anticipate their behavior in the after-hours environment of dinner at a restauran —when both men considered themselves off-duty, free to say anything because it would have no business repercussions. Proper anticipation would have led to...              2. Avoidance Peter Drucker famously said, “Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.” It’s no different with our environment. Quite often our smartest response to an environment is avoiding it. • If we’re returning home late at night, we don’t take a route through a sketchy high-crime neighborhood. • If we’ve given up drinking, we don’t hang out at a bar. • If we’re fair-skinned and burn easily in the sun, we skip the beach. • If we detest our neighbor Todd, we politely turn down his invitations to visit. We’re generally shrewd about avoiding environments that present a physical or emotional risk or are otherwise unpleasant.On the other hand, we rarely triumph over an environment that is enjoyable. We’d rather continue enjoying it than abandon or avoid it. Part of the reason is inertia. It takes enormous willpower to stop doing something enjoyable.

A bigger part, though, is our fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between our environment and temptation. Temptation is the mocking sidekick who shows up in any enjoyable environment, urging us to relax, try a little of this or that, stay a little longer. Temptation can corrupt our values, health, relationships, and careers. Because of our delusional belief that we control our environment, we choose to flirt with temptation rather than walk away. We are constantly testing ourselves against it. And dealing with the shock and distress when we fail. Sometimes the temptation is as trivial as having a second slice of cheesecake. Other times it’s a major-league challenge, like agreeing too quickly to an irresistible deal even when we know we can’t deliver on schedule. I see this thinking all the time among my successful clients. They love a challenge. They award themselves merit points for triumphing over temptation. Avoidance to them is not an achievement. It’s the negative option created by passivity. It happens by default. This impulse to always engage rather than selectively avoid is one reason I’m called in to coach executives on their behavior. *2 It’s one of the most common behavioral issues among leaders: succumbing to the temptation to exercise power when they would be better off showing restraint. I had an unusual case with a longtime client named Stan. After years starting and selling companies and running a Fortune 50 corporation, Stan retired at age seventy to serve on a few boards, consult a little, and fulfill his dream of giving away half his fortune via a foundation to support medical research. He installed his wife as the foundation’s head and his two grown daughters as her lieutenants. Stan called me, inviting me to sit in on a family meeting at his home in Connecticut. Minutes into the meeting, I could see the problem. Stan’s family was ignoring him. He would bark out commands to his wife, a formidably accomplished woman, and she would respond, “I am your wife and the head of the foundation. Don’t confuse me with one of your employees.” Stan had this exchange more than once and still didn’t take the hint. He’d turn to his daughters, one a lawyer, the other a doctor, and order them around. They’d say, “We report to Mom.” This was not Stan’s first frustrating meeting with his family. I was there at his invitation to coach him on how to get his wife and kids to listen. “It’s not gonna happen,” I said to Stan. “But I’m the one who paid for everything. They can’t shut me out,” he said. “True.” I nodded. “But irrelevant. You’re making a false equivalency between your career as a CEO and your authority at home. Your family obviously doesn’t see it that way. You put them in charge. The foundation is their responsibility. You can’t undo that. All you can do is accept that you may be in charge at work but not at home.” The problem, I quickly saw, was “environmental.” Holding the meeting in a home environment rather than at the foundation’s office confused the situation: was this a business or family matter? It certainly confused Stan, who behaved like an imperious chief executive when he should have been a more inclusive husband and father. I knew Stan to be a classic “people person,” an expert at reading the temperature in any room. Yet here with his family, triggered by the environment of his home, he was behaving against his best interests—and unaware of it. “What would it cost you psychically to exit the situation?” I asked. “It was my idea,” said Stan, persisting in his belief that he still had “ownership” in the foundation. “Stan, your family is rebelling against your behavior, not you,” I said. “Even if you change your ways, who’s to say they’d accept it, or you wouldn’t revert to the old you? You’d be better off avoiding them.” It took Stan a few minutes to accommodate avoidance as a solution. Worst case, I explained, the fighting with his family would cease immediately. Best case, his wife and daughters might eventually turn to him for advice. But it wouldn’t happenuntil he took himself out of the picture. I don’t usually cite politicians as role models, but they are masters of avoidance. Unlike my high-achieving clients (who can’t foresee error-inducing situations because they’re neither used to erring nor admitting its possibility), politicians are terrorized by the specter of a career-ending gaffe. So they develop perfect pitch for any environment that might tempt them into making a gaffe. When they refuse to answer a no-win question at a press conference, they’re practicing avoidance. When they won’t be seen in the same room with a polarizing public figure, they’re avoiding. When they abstain from a controversial vote, they’re avoiding. Politicians know this instinctively. Why don’t we? It’s a simple equation: To avoid undesirable behavior, avoid the environments where it is most likely to occur. If you don’t want to be lured into a tantrum by a colleague who gets on your nerves, avoid him. If you don’t want to indulge in late night snacking, don’t wander into the kitchen looking for leftovers in the fridge.                                                3. Adjustment Of course, there are many moments in life when avoidance is impossible. We have to engage, even if doing so terrifies us (for example, public speaking), or enrages us (for example, visiting our in-laws), or turns us into jerks (for example, conducting business with people we don’t respect). Adjustment, if we’re lucky, is the end product of forecasting—but only after we anticipate our environment’s impact and eliminate avoidance as an option. Adjustment doesn’t happen that often. Most of us continue our errant ways unchecked. We succeed despite, not because of, falling into the same behavioral traps again and again. Adjustment happens when we’re desperate to change, or have an unexpected insight, or are shown the way by another person (such as a friend or coach). This was the case with a rising tech executive named Sachi, whom I met in Silicon Valley. Sachi was raised in a small village in India without money or advantage. She worked hard and, with great help from her proud parents, was one of the few women to graduate in electrical engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. After a few years working in Silicon Valley, she received her MBA from Stanford. At thirty she was already at the director level at a top software firm. Sachi told me about her return visit to her village. She was having dinner with seven of her old friends. One friend asked a seemingly innocent question: “What did you do last week?” Sachi shared the details of an exciting week. She had flown to Paris for a conference and met with a few icons in her industry. She was leading the development phase for a new product. Her CEO had just told her that she had been tapped for the company’s high-potential leadership program. She bubbled over with enthusiasm. After dinner, everyone said goodbye except Sachi’s closest childhood friend, Ranjini. Ranjini was not as wildly successful as Sachi but was advancing steadily in a large Indian company. The others at dinner were faring less well. As Sachi talked about how much she enjoyed the reunion, Ranjini interrupted her to say, “Do you think people want to hear you popping off about Paris and new products and CEOs? When did you become such a show-off?” Sachi was crushed at first, then defended herself: “They asked me what I did last week. So I told them.” It took her a few sleepless hours that night to realize that she’d completely misread her situation. She wasn’t dealing with a group of whiz kids in Silicon Valley. She was dealing with poor people who grew up with her but had never gone as far as she had. In her mind, she was sharing her life. In their minds she was rubbing their noses in it. She reproached herself for not anticipating this and for behaving so insensitively. But making mistakes is how we learn. She realized that a simple question can trigger a simple response that’s appropriate in one environment and completely wrong in another. On her next trip back, when she met with a group of villagers and was asked about her job, Sachi said, “Mostly technical stuff. There’s a lot of travel. That part is tough.” And then she turned her considerable charm and attention to ask about their lives. Sachi did what anyone would do with a heightened awareness of the environment. She was adjusting.   *1 If you’ve ever made a thoughtless but seemingly innocent comment to a loved one or colleague that escalated into a World War III argument or irreparably hurt feelings, you know what I’m talking about. *2 I privately refer to this attitude in my clients as the “dramatic narrative fallacy”—the notion that we have to spice up our day by accepting more, if not all, challenges, as if our life resembled a TV drama where the script says we overcome seemingly insurmountable odds rather than avoid them. That’s okay for recreational pursuits, like training for a triathlon. But life becomes exhaustingly risky if we apply that attitude to everything. Sometimes the better part of valor—and common sense—is saying, “I’ll pass.” Golfers believe a boring round of golf is a great round of golf. You drive the ball into the fairway, hit your next shot onto the green not too far from the pin, then sink your first putt for birdie or your second putt for par. Then you walk to the next tee and do it again. Do this for eighteen holes and you’ll either shoot a personal best or break the course record. Given the choice, golfers will take a dull round of that caliber over a dramatic roller coaster every time.

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newsnigeria · 5 years

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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/china-bolivia-and-venezuela/

China, Bolivia and Venezuela are proof that social democracy cannot thrive in the global capitalist order

By Jeff J. Brown for Ooduarere via The Saker Blog

Crosslinked with:

https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/11/16/china-bolivia-and-venezuela-are-proof-that-social-democracy-cannot-thrive-in-the-global-capitalist-system-china-rising-radio-sinoland-191116/

https://youtu.be/ngJxuqdZ8SI

https://soundcloud.com/44-days/china-bolivia-and-venezuela-prove-that-social-democracy-cant-thrive-in-the-global-capitalist-order

Pictured above: The US orchestrated coup in Bolivia is being led by White supremist, fascist, Christian fundamentalists, just the type of jackbooted brown shirts the West loves, in order to plunder and rape countries around the world. Washington, London and Paris put fascists and mass murderers in power, because they make Wall Street billions in criminal blood money. Pictured center above is one of their psychopathic henchmen, Luis Fernando Camacho, giving a Nazi salute and wearing the Nazi Iron Cross. Notice Jesus Christ is portrayed on the flag on the right. Racist inspired blood is going to flood the Native streets of Bolivia. Read this article and get goosebumps of revulsion (https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/).

The US-orchestrated, fascist, racist overthrow of the popularly elected socialist government in Bolivia is depressing, but not surprising (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/473181-morales-bolivia-american-coup/). As a tweet shown in this article says, it’s nothing new, as this is US coup #5 in Bolivia,

1952, 1964, 1970, 1980, 2019. Brought to you by the Bolivian oligarchy and the CIA.

Western and White Supremist Bolivian capitalists will now plunge it into another Libya, while exterminating uncounted thousands of Native Americans (https://www.rt.com/news/473494-putin-bolivia-morales-libya/), as Russian President Vladimir Putin is already warning.

Before 2006, Bolivians, like most peoples of Central and South America, were sodomized, plundered, exterminated, enslaved (mostly) Natives, watching helplessly as their natural and human resources enriched the local White elite 1% (ongoing colonial, European family lines, who started settling in the 15th century), Washington, London and Paris. In the last 13 years, Native President Evo Morales’ socialist administration has reduced extreme poverty from 38% to 15%, and overall poverty from 60% to 35% (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/07/how-a-populist-president-helped-bolivias-poor-but-built-himself-a-palace) Socialism shrank the GINI index by an eyepopping 19% and tripled the median household income, something poorer and poorer Euranglolanders can only dream about. (https://www.thenation.com/article/economics-socialism-bolivia-evo/). Until this week, the economy was the fastest growing in the region, averaging over 4% a year (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/BOL/bolivia/gdp-growth-rate). This will all be stolen back now, post-capitalist coup.

How did this happen? They nationalized key sectors of the economy (stolen land, oil, gas, copper, lithium) and began processing their mineral wealth into value added exports, as explained by deposed Morales here (https://www.rt.com/news/473353-evo-morales-imf-exports-oas/). This money was plowed back into infrastructure (schools, hospitals, rural roads) and social services (health care, education and retirement pensions) to improve the quality of life for the 99%, at the expense of the 1%. They did it without being plundered by IMF-World Bank gangster banksters and their corrupt loans that enrich Wall Street and each country’s local elites. Read John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which he is now offering for free (https://www.academia.edu/7614432/John_Perkins_Economic_Hit_Man_Summary_of_Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man_About_John_Perkins_Author_of_Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man). You can see how the global elite destroy entire economies to starve and exterminate millions of mostly dark-skinned poor, in order to plunder trillions of dollars in assets. Another scathing exposé of how Western elites legally rape the weak, in the guise of the “Liberal World Order” is Paul Blustein’s And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out), which was being replayed again by Argentina’s neoliberal ex-president Mauricio Macri (https://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/9781586483814/). More about this snake in a suit below.

Postwar, all of this shows how the transfer of trillions of dollars of human and natural capital are extracted and exploited by Eurangloland, so their poorer and poorer citizens can borrow printed money to buy Huawei/Apple mobile phones, Haier appliances and Lenovo/Dell computers on credit, all manufactured in communist-socialist China, while their elite owners become even bigger trillionaires and billionaires. When the current Western capitalist hyperbubble implodes in the near future, these same citizens will be driven even further into lower standards of living, but not communist-socialist Chinese, North Koreans, Laos, Vietnamese, Cubans, Eritreans and Iranians.

This brings us to the crux of my article. Western Europe, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Mozambique, Angola and all other countries that practice social democracy simply cannot thrive in the global capitalist order, without one key ingredient, and it may not be what you think.

Yes, you can nationalize core industries and second, repatriate stolen land to build agriculture, infrastructure, development and industrialization. The prior was done by Europe and every other social democracy after World War II. The latter was done by China, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and many others, or former Soviet states like the “Stans” and Belarus, which just kept the land in public hands.

Today, after 75 years of relentless Big Lie Propaganda and neoliberal treachery, almost all of Europe’s key industries have been de-nationalized and much of its public assets have been privatized for profit, in the name of “free market” dogma.

So, land and industry are not enough. Even being armed to the teeth, like Venezuelans is not enough. The US and Europe cannot invade or overthrow the people’s will there, like they do most everywhere else, Bolivia being a prime example. If NATO tried to go in, it would get its butt whipped by many thousands of neighborhood militias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_(Venezuela) ). When friends like Rory Hall at The Daily Coin (https://thedailycoin.org/) ardently support gun rights in the United States, I can see his point. Because Venezuela is locked and loaded, it is successfully drawing a line in the geopolitical sands. This is thanks to murdered former president Hugo Chavez (https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/03/14/murder-chavez-cia-and-dea-cover-their-tracks/), who understood Mao Zedong’s rejoinder that revolution must be defended by the barrel of a gun. Thus, Venezuelans will not be occupied by NATO.

But, the West is killing and starving tens of thousands of Venezuelans every year with genocidal economic sanctions and stealing billions of dollars in overseas assets. Sanctions and piracy are nothing more than warfare and crimes against humanity, making a mockery of the United Nations charter.

So, how can social democracies thrive in the face of global capitalist terrorism? The secret to survive and hopefully thrive is to nationalize the media. Venezuela’s media is owned by the same White supremist local elites who are destroying the country, with the help of the CIA and its thousands of faux NGOs. Ditto Bolivia (https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/bolivia-created-over-four-thousand-accounts-to-legitimize-coup-20191113-0011.html). We can see the suffering, slaughter and chaos, as a result.

The following story illustrates the point. When neoliberal thug Macri got elected president of Argentina in 2015, only to destroy the economy with tens of billions of corrupt IMF-World Bank loans that went straight into his and the local elites’ pockets, and on to Wall Street, I asked my friend, Moti Nissani (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/search/?q=moti%20nissani), who lives there, how the people could be duped into voting for such a blatant gangster.

This, after 10 years of socialist success, turning the economy around for the 99% and paying off billions of 1990s IMF-World Bank theft. My friend told me Argentina’s national media is owned lock, stock and barrel by the elites and it proved once again that Big Lie propaganda works. Tell lie after lie long enough, over and over, and people will accept it as reality, regardless of the facts and proof in their daily lives. Argentina’s elites vomited anti-socialist, pro-neoliberal Western Big Lie Propaganda on the masses and after ten years of being brainwashed, they elected to commit collective socioeconomic suicide.

Socialists just won to replace Macri, and like after the 1990s, will again be stuck fixing Wall Street’s gang bang in the making. But Washington, London and Paris will do everything possible to destroy them, while the local elite media will crank up the Big Lie Propaganda Machine (BLPM) into hyperdrive, to do the same.

This is why Hugo Chavez created the Pan-American, state owned media company, TeleSUR (https://www.telesurenglish.net/index.html). The problem is, with Latin America’s media being owned by gangster elites, they can exclude it in their TV programming and censor it in their press and on the internet.

The only countries hanging on, in a world of global capitalist pain, are the ones that openly tell their people they own and manage the media via the state, in the interest of social harmony, economic prosperity and to protect the nation from Eurangloland’s nonstop sabotage. This includes China, North Korea, Laos (where my wife and I just spent a few days and really enjoyed it), Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Eritrea and I suspect most of the former Soviet republics. They all obviously know these famous quotes by heart…

Former CIA director William Casey famously said,

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.

Ex-CIA director William Colby spoke the truth too,

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

Carl Bernstein was told by a high-ranking CIA officer,

One journalist is worth twenty agents [spies in the field].

I used these three quotes when writing The China Trilogy (see below). They and all my research prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the West has a very highly orchestrated press and tightly censored media, just like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley predicted. Another book I quoted in The China Trilogy is Edward Bernays’ Propaganda (easy to download for free online), where he truthfully stated,

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of… We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Can it be any clearer than that, my dear Euranglolanders? Yet most of my fellow Westerners will go to the mat that they have “free press” and “liberty”. It’s a cruel mirage. When the 1% controls the media, the elites can turn the people into zombified sheeple, enriching themselves with Orwellian perpetual war, while keeping the masses entertained to death. Sheldon Wolin called this inverted totalitarianism, something I’ve also included in my books, because clueless citizens cannot recognize or admit the truth slapping them in the face. His book, Democracy Inc. is an essential primer to understand the simulacrum world Westerners live in (https://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/9780691135663/).

Edward Bernays simply took the Nazi Big Lie playbook, then called it “publicity” and “public relations”. The CIA-Western corporate media adopted it very successfully to brainwash unsuspecting billions around the world – but not in China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Eritrea and former Soviet republics.

In my interview with James Bradley, he said that Western media is state managed and controlled (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/04/06/james-bradley-tells-it-like-it-is-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180406/), namely by the CIA, NSA, the Departments of Defense and State. Douglas Valentine said the same thing in our discussion (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/02/douglas-valentine-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-the-cia-is-global-capitalisms-secret-gangster-army-190702/). Hell, the CIA owns and finances (with its global heroin and cocaine empire) billions of dollars in media companies and outlets around the world. How can we expect anything differently (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956)?

France’s Yellow Vests notwithstanding (no surprise – whose continuing protests in the thousands have been completely flushed down the West’s Orwellian Memory Hole, https://thesaker.is/?s=Ramin+Mazaheri+Yellow+Vests), Eurangloland is a lost cause, but any other country that does not want to be raped and plundered by gangster bankster Wall Street, invaded and occupied by NATO and have their people exterminated and starved, needs to nationalize its media 100%, like China, Iran and elsewhere. Otherwise, the devolution into a neoliberal, police state hellhole, like Eurangloland, or color revolution chaos, butchery and theft, like much of Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Ukraine and too many others to count, is all but guaranteed.

The other policy they need to adopt is a strong NGO control law, like Russia, China and India have done (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/04/30/baba-beijing-lowers-the-communist-boom-on-foreign-ngos-china-rising-radio-sinoland-16-4-30/). Some NGOs do good work, but too many are nothing more than color revolution shell fronts for the CIA-media complex to destroy countries from the inside. Today’s Western destruction of Hong Kong is a prime example (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/08/confucius-laozi-and-buddha-are-humbly-winning-against-the-imperial-west-in-troubled-hong-kong-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190708/ and https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/20/wests-hong-kong-color-revolution-still-making-a-mess-of-the-place-and-totally-backfiring-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190720/).

In closing, the one exception to this is Russia, which does not have 100% nationalized media. However, for economic prosperity, social harmony and to protect the people from Western sabotage, the government works hard to control and censor destabilizing (fake) news, as this article shows (https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/tech-giant-censorship/), staying on top of Twitter, Google and Facebook propaganda.

Russia is a social democracy, with a large, successful people owned industrial sector and many social services for the 99% from the Soviet era. But, unlike Bolivia and Ukraine, it is avoiding the West’s color revolution poison pill, because since 1999, Russia has gone from strength to strength, under the inspired leadership of patriotic President Vladimir Putin. But like all social democracies, the problem is what happens if another Western whore Boris Yeltsin succeeds Putin, and returns Russia to its dystopian Wall Street rape of the 1990s? Then what? It only took Macri four short years to bring Argentina back onto its groveling knees. Without a 100% nationalized media, Russians had better be demanding that Putin & Russian Patriots Inc. work overtime to censor all the Western overthrow garbage that is put in Cyrillic ink and on the airwaves.

I would love to hear what my good friend Andrei Raevsky thinks about this at The Saker (http://thesaker.is/), because let’s be honest: without China’s, Russia’s and Iran’s continued anti-imperial independence and socialist success into the 21st century, humanity can kiss its ass goodbye!

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Jeff J. Brown is the author of The China Trilogy (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/06/30/praise-for-the-china-trilogy-the-votes-are-in-it-r-o-c-k-s-what-are-you-waiting-for/), blogs and podcasts at www.chinarising.puntopress.com. His forthcoming book, Faster than a Speeding Bullet – the Chinese People’s Unstoppable Socialist Dream for Global Leadership into the 22nd Century, will be released in 2021.

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