#wonder how much the city pays the firm to hire us that could instead be used by the city to hire us directly and pay us more.
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convinced myself I'm a cop. incredible.
#I AM AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CROSSING GUARD.#PROBABLY THE SECURITY POSITION MOST DETACHED FROM POLICING.#people will say crossing guards arent needed and then speed through school zones and drive past me while kids are on the road.#but what if.#shaking my brain like a piggy bank. make it make sense.#edit: i am hired by my city through a third party security firm#which makes me be like HAHA GOTCHA at myself#bro i am so low on the list of priorities ive waited 4 years for my ID and still dont have it at the end of the 4th. im never getting it#wonder how much the city pays the firm to hire us that could instead be used by the city to hire us directly and pay us more.#not gonna happen but if we were directly hired through the city i would know which union to approach over this shit.#AUGH WHATEVER IM ON THE CLOCK AND OF IM CAUGHT ON MY PHONE ONCE MORE I GET FIRED BYE
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This is a request from @funkylittlebidiot who wanted Nanny Stephen and in all honesty, we all deserve Nanny Stephen.
Mary Poppins
A magical Nanny helps bring a family together.
Stephen was in desperate need of money.
Magic didn’t pay the bills although he wish it did, and they were in danger of having the Sanctum repossessed.
So, while everything had quieted down, he began looking though the papers for a small job he could do on the side. Maybe as a consulting doctor or maybe a University was hiring.
But there was absolutely nothing being advertised.
If he didn’t get enough to cover the Sanctum, they could lose it.
And if they lost it, New York would be left unprotected.
Tony didn’t have time for his kids with how busy his life was being an Avenger and running his own company and building his suit and everyone else’s.
It was sad but true, and he can’t rely on Jarvis all the time, the man has his own work and family to take care of.
His kids were absolute angels when it came to him but terrors according to every baby sitter he’d ever hired.
They just didn’t understand his kids.
He needed someone who could be firm with them while also allowing them to just be kids.
And not someone who was just in it for the pay.
So when the last sitter runs from the house, Tony didn’t think anything would come of mentioning all of this to Rhodey.
He especially didn’t expect some...monk in tattered robes to swing by his office saying he’d take on the baby sitter position.
In all honesty, Tony was so desperate for a sitter he hired the man right there.
Word had gotten out about how his kids were and no one wanted anything to do with them, no matter how high a price Tony offered.
Peter and Harley weren’t sorry for the distress they’d caused the sitters.
Most of them were mean and didn’t care about them anyway.
They were doing their dad a service by getting rid of the lot of them.
All the boys wanted was to spend time with their father and protect him, and they weren’t about to let some stranger worm their way into their lives and become their new mother.
Only Peter and Harley would decide who would marry their dad.
So when they heard they were getting a new sitter, they were quite shocked to find she wasn’t a she at all.
They’d never had a guy here before.
Ok, so maybe shaving off his hair wouldn’t get as funny a reaction out of him as it would a female sitter, but it was the first thing on their list that always worked a treat.
Quickly followed by refusing to do anything they were told and running off whenever they were allowed out of the house.
So they played nice with the fake smiles and angelic attitudes to lull him into a false sense of security, spiked his tea when they offered to make it for him, and shaved him bald when he fell asleep.
They couldn’t wait to see his reaction.
Hours passed and nothing happened.
Starting to get hungry, they crept down to the kitchen to see this Stephen guy sitting there reading a book.
His hair as perfect as before.
Peter and Harley stared.
What? How? They’d shaved it off! All of it!
Stephen looked over at them, and just asked if they’d cleaned their room.
No, they hadn’t.
And they weren’t going to either.
And with that, they turned back to the kitchen, and somehow ended right back in their room.
The kids looked at one another then ran to their door, taking one step into the hallway before it turned into their bedroom once again.
This time with their sitter standing behind them.
Although Stephen hadn’t had the most warm of welcomes from these two, he could tell they were now intrigued by him.
He just hoped that didn’t result in him having to regrow his hair again.
After they cleaned up their room, Peter and Harley mostly standing there watching in astonishment as the beds made themselves and action figures walked back to their positions on the shelves, the kids tell Stephen they want to go out into the city.
Thinking that some fresh air will do them all some good after being cooped up inside all morning, they step through the portal right into the carnage of a battle.
And the kids are off, splitting up to try and search for their dad.
Stephen manages to grab Harley and not a moment later Tony lands beside them with Peter in his arms.
He’s not at all thrilled with Stephen for bringing his kids to such a dangerous place, but the boys stand up for their new sitter, which surprises both adults.
It was their fault for making Stephen bring them here. They’d known Tony was here and wanted to make sure he was alright.
Tony takes his kids vouching for Stephen as reason not to fire him right then and there and instead orders him to get his kids out of danger.
But Stephen isn’t listening.
Tony’s armour is damaged and there’s blood caked on his left side which he’s favouring.
Tony needs to rest, if he doesn’t he’s going to get himself killed.
Tony wants to argue, he wants to get back and help, but he is so exhausted from barely sleeping the last few nights and all the fighting and the stress and blood loss that he collapses, his kids and Stephen grabbing him before he can hit the ground.
Stephen quickly gets them out of here before anyone sees them, taking himself, Tony, and the kids home.
He manages to get most of the armour off of Tony’s body with their help, along with his shirt which is pretty much soaked at this point.
Then he looks down at the Eye.
He could just use it, heal Tony in a matter of seconds and leave it at that.
But then Tony won’t rest.
He’ll go straight back into that battle and most likely wind up in a far worse state than he already is.
One Stephen might not be able to bring him back from.
Tony will need stitches.
And Stephen can’t sew anymore, hasn’t since his accident, and he’s not sure if he can do this.
He looks to Peter and Harley and asks if they can follow his instructions to help stitch up the wound, to which they both nod.
So, talking them through how to clean the wound, how to make the stitches small enough and how to wrap it up afterwards, the three of them wipe the sweat from their brow when they’re finally done.
And when Tony opens his eyes some hours later, confused as to how he got here and demanding an explanation from Stephen, the kids throw themselves into his arms and push Stephen into their family hug too.
And it’s the best reward, especially when Tony’s arms come up around the three of them to hold them.
He’d never been much into hugs when he’d been a doctor.
And he never realised how much he missed them.
While Tony is grateful to Stephen for saving his life and for stitching him up, he can’t stay. He’s needed back on the battlefield.
He tries to get up, but Stephen won’t let him.
Tony doesn’t need to go out there, he needs rest. He needs to stop doing so much for everyone else and think about himself for a change.
He’s going to stay here until Stephen says otherwise.
Doctor’s orders.
Peter and Harley’s mouth fall open at how Stephen speaks to their dad, even more so when Tony doesn’t even try arguing.
If it were Jarvis, Tony would already be out the door.
As Stephen wonders if he should ask for a raise having to babysit three children now, Peter and Harley try to form a plan to make Stephen stay with them.
He was a perfect fit to their family and to their father. He could help protect him.
And even Stephen is thinking the same thing.
Maybe once his job is done here Tony will call for his aid whenever he needs it.
Maybe he’ll even let him babysit again for him when the Sanctum wasn’t...
Stephen sighed.
That’s the only reason why he was doing this.
He was no better than the women before him, using Tony under the pretences of caring for his children for his own financial gain.
For the next few weeks, Tony is bed ridden.
The kids move their gaming system in to his room so they can all play something together, Tony losing on purpose half the time.
Sometimes Stephen will enter to see the three of them on the bed as Tony reads to them.
Sometimes he’ll find them already asleep together, a child on each side of Tony.
Stephen will smile and gently coax the children into their own beds, tucking them in before doing the same for Tony, checking he hasn’t pulled any stitches or that his dressing needs tending to while he does so.
And as Tony gets stronger, the debt Stephen owes on the Sanctum starts to shrink.
On the day Tony can get out of bed on his own, the Sanctum is fully paid off and Stephen has no need to stay here any longer.
But he doesn’t want to go.
He loves Peter and Harley like they were his own, and Tony...well, he shouldn’t be thinking like this.
The next morning when Stephen walks into the kitchen to see the kids and Tony making a right mess of the pancakes they’d been trying to make, flour everywhere including somehow in Tony’s hair, Stephen wonders if he’s really the only adult in this house.
Stephen begins telling the kids to get cleaned up while he deals with Tony as best he can, when his ears unmistakably pick up the kids calling him “Dad” as they run from the room.
And Stephen knows he has to return to the Sanctum and get back to his duties.
He’s already overstayed his welcome.
So, on their final day together, he makes sure the boys are dressed properly as usual, helps Tony into his jacket, and takes them all to a beautiful country side where Tony doesn’t need to worry about press or fans bothering him.
The kids run off ahead and Stephen and Tony linger behind, walking at a slow pace as they talk and enjoy the beautiful day.
Tony is quite taken with this magician, especially seeming how his kids seem to adore him too.
He scoops down and pulls a bunch of bright blue flowers growing along the path they’re walking on and hands them to Stephen, the petals suddenly becoming butterfly wings and swarming around the two before taking off into the clear sky.
And once the day is done and the family is asleep, Stephen leaves them behind to go back to the Sanctum.
He doesn’t hear anything from Tony or the kids.
He doesn’t check in on them or ask to babysit again.
Life simply moves on.
And then, Stephen recieves another debt notice in the mail.
Only this one has a rather peculiar owing price.
All it says is ‘One Date’
Stephen can afford to pay that.
Quotes -
“Indeed, Mrs. Brill! I wouldn’t stay in this house another minute, not if you heap me with all the jewels in Christendom.”
“No, no, Katie Nanna, don’t go!”
“Stand away from that door, my girl.”
“But what am I gonna tell the master about the children?”
“It’s no concern of mine. Those little beasts have run away from me for the last time.”
Jarvis begging the last sitter to stay
“If you won’t scold and dominate us, we will never give you cause to hate us. We won’t hide your spectacles so you can’t see, put toads in your bed or pepper in your tea.”
Peter and Harley’s troublemaking.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Will you be good enough to explain all this?”
“First of all, I would like to make one thing quite clear.”
“Yes?”
“I never explain anything.”
Stephen and Tony have a talk when he wakes up.
Saving Mr. Stark.
Stephen had applied for the babysitters position for some extra cash.
And he gains something far more valuable.
Missed a Day? Catch up here!
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10
Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15
Day 16 Day 17 Day 18
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1. Red Tape and Red Lines
Nanefua lived before what they now call “The Fall.” She used to tell stories of green fields for miles and miles. Of trees that grew all sorts of fruits - each fruit from a different tree. Vegetables from the earth. Creatures that we see in picture books that used to live in the sea, and even roam the Earth. She would say, “But, that was a long time ago,” and top it all off with a sweet chuckle and a very inspiring, “And with the right leaders, it may be ahead of us again still.”
She believed in a future where society could exist again, for all. She dreamed of a world where we all had what we needed to survive, as well as things that we wanted - pleasures of the world to grant us some happiness while we occupy our space here. I’ve always liked to think that she dreamed of this each time that she went to sleep. I like to think she was dreaming of it the last time she went to sleep, in our little hut in the Outskirts. I like to think that beyond this world, she went to another, one where she had trees with fruits again.
As we buried her in the earth and I watched Baba draw himself a map of exactly where and put it into his favorite book, I let myself dream that Nanefua was in a better place. Not just in some homemade plot identified only by a hand drawn guide. That was the first dream that I can remember ever having, and I credit her stories. Because the world around me was nothing to build a dream upon. The world of my day was anything but fruitful, was as far from good as I can even describe to you…
.
The Fall. It happened before Shani was born. It happened when her parents were too young to even remember. They DIDN’T put it in new books. They didn’t make new books. They didn’t keep places open that did provide books. That was what made Nanefua faithfully believe that books were invaluable. She kept every one that she owned, collected every one that she found, and bought every one that she could afford.
When the homeless were being relocated outside of the city and lower income households were being pushed further away from the city, Nanefua at least had a van to her name. She was content to live in it, as she wasn’t the best at haggling and that was what they were doing a lot of to get into homes in what was now called The Outskirts. She, like many women, paired up with a man to get into a space. It was a very small apartment, and he fortunately was good at maintenance, because The Fall stopped a lot of building ventures. Many of the apartments in the area were incomplete and abandoned. All of the empty homes of people who died were up for grabs. Squatters rushed into those, and landlords never came to collect.
It was like people in the city refused to think about them for a while, probably simply hoping that they would just die, out of sight and out of mind. Having a male roommate was good for a lot of things. He built several shelves for all of the books she had, even though he didn’t know WHY she held on to something that was becoming obsolete, and he wasn’t bad looking, either. A little short, and stocky, but he was strong and had a nice smile.
Nanefua and her roommate were not in love. They barely even liked each other. But, they were human and they had needs. Baba was born in the beginning years of The Fall in a small apartment, with barely running water and scheduled electricity. When Baba was 3, the apartment’s original owner sent their emissary to collect payment. Nanefua thought this would eventually happen, so she had been saving up as much as she could. It wasn’t enough. They took what she had, gave a date for the rest and took her roommate to work for it.
She never saw that man again. Emissaries became the norm. They came with muscle behind them, with unfair contracts and rough consequences. She took her toddler and her books and they lived in a packed van and she posted near a well that she would steal water from. Every now and then, she would check the old apartment to see if Baba’s father had come back. When he was 6 was the last time. She saw the emissary bring in a construction team. They were going to work on the apartment, finish some things up... More people couldn’t live in the city and now, middle class folk were forced to live in these apartments.
Middle class no longer existed, they just didn’t realize that yet. Most of them began working JUST to be able to live in their homes. They had to hustle and scrape for other needs - food, water... She was content to build a little hut near the well. The owner of the well hired her to collect payment from anybody who wanted water from it and allotted her a certain amount herself. She used the land to grow food. The soil was better back then. The water was better back then.
By the time Shani was born, the ecosystem outside of the city was abysmal. Working was done to survive. Rich people lived in the city and the further away from the city you lived, the further away from wealth, health and happiness, and the closer you were to death.
Shani wondered when she was little, “Was there a sickness? Like, a plague or pandemic? Was there a natural disaster? Was there an economic crash? How did things get so bad? What caused The Fall?”
“The rich was greedy and didn’t care if they killed everybody, as long as they had.”
Long story short, ALL of those things happened. Natural disasters, illnesses, every bit of misfortune... but they simply let them die. Pushed them out, forced them away. Let them die. The Fall is what they called it. They acted like it was something that happened. Like the system wasn’t up against these people all along. The system had been messed up. They just finely tuned it with the more money that they made.
That was the world that Shani inherited, but she also inherited the books. And Shani LOVED books.
.
Her mind worked a little differently than the people around her. From the time she was able to recognize things and respond to others, that had been a truth about her. Her mother had learned to read before all of the school systems became privatized, and since her grandmother purchased as many books on teaching and learning as possible whenever bookstores began to go out of business and funding was cut for libraries - Shani never had a shortage. Reading became something that only the privileged had the best access to. The privileged, and Shani’s family... maybe a few other poor families.
Whenever libraries became obsolete and the buildings began being repurposed, only librarians cared enough to collect all of the now “useless” books and they banded together to get cheap properties and hold the books there. It would have been criminal to refer to these places as libraries. They didn’t receive funding. They couldn’t order other books, and they didn’t have fancy systems or regular staff to keep everything in the best order.
So, after a few years, the Dewey decimal system was no longer at play. They simply had signs saying that if you dropped off books, you could trade them for others, and if you took any books to keep, to please try to leave another to borrow. After another few years, they had signs that just said: Free Books. Nanefua gathered as many as they could fit into the hut. Shani fortunately began reading very early as a result.
True, learning to read from a book was extremely different from the computerized learning systems of the privatized schools, but the alphabet had not changed, and most people underestimated the purpose of books. By the time she was 4, she knew how to both read and speak in several languages, because she had been shown books since she was able to say her first word. Mama and Baba disagreed on what that word was, whether Mama or Nana, but the moment any of them heard it, Nanafue said the girl was ready to start looking at letters and words. She would teach her herself.
After all, she had survived mostly on things she learned just from looking into her own book collection. Baba was a miner, and often had to travel and send money to them from wherever he was on location working. Shani got used to not seeing much of either of her parents as a small girl. Nanefua raised her for the most part for the first 6 years of her life. But, whenever Nanafue was gone, she had to get used to being alone. It was a long year. Time worked really different for little kids, whether or not they were having a ball. And she was not.
Her mother was bused into the city for gardening and landscaping. She did yard work through a firm and was sent to various properties to spend ours cultivating their yards and plant life. She had picked it whenever she was 5, and had been stuck doing it since then… only advancing to harder, more grueling work in fields and on large pieces of land as she got older. Whenever Shani was little, her mother spent most of her time working at a pomegranate farm. It was a very lucrative industry, and being one of the best, her mother made enough money to get her considered for schooling.
The tests for outsiders to get into city schools were much more difficult than they were for the rich people. Outskirts kids had to work harder and smarter to even get noticed, and their parents were charged brutally in order to take every potential step to gain access to a school.
It didn’t help that Shani’s mind didn’t work like other people’s did. They often thought that she was showing off, or trying to make them feel stupid whenever she would have conversations with them. It taught her not to speak too freely. But, that helped her learn to write things down. Sometimes, she couldn’t focus and needed to write many things down. Regardless of her speaking situation, or her focusing habits, she got into one of the best schools in the city whenever she was 5...
But her parents couldn’t afford to actually send her.
Instead, they sent her to a less expensive Montessori school, on the merit of her acceptance into the Academy of Superiority. The school masters worked with them on paying her fees and she also was assigned several chores to help compensate. She was exceptionally good at organizing and cleaning up, and whenever she took summer breaks, her teachers would alert her of what they would expect to be known in the upcoming years so that she could homeschool for the summer while they saved up for tuition.
They applied for the scholarship program each year since she qualified at age 7. It wasn’t until she was 10 that she both was granted access into AoS under the work program.
Riding into that part of the city sent her mind into a whirlwind…
#Story Concepts 01: No Saviors in the Wild#No Saviors Story#BFCD Story Concepts by Nesha#stories#original content#Nesha Writes
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Longitudinalwaveme Reviews Old Comics, Part 7
Today, I will be reviewing Flash #307.
The Flash #307 (1982): “Prey for the Piper”, was written by Carey Bates, drawn by the legendary Carmine Infantino, and inked by Bob Smith.
The story stars the Barry Allen Flash as the protagonist and, as the title suggests, the Pied Piper as the main antagonist. This story is also historically important for the Piper-it’s the first issue to give him an origin story. That’s right. Despite having debuted in Flash #106 in 1959, the Piper wasn’t given a backstory (or a real name!) for 22 years!
The story opens with two guys in a helicopter flying a giant gong across the city. Evidently, it’s going to be a new display at the Centrex Museum and...why in the world did they decide to transport the thing by helicopter? Couldn’t they have used a truck? That seems safer.
Regardless, the Pied Piper, who is in a nearby skyscraper, uses his pipe to hypnotize the pilots and get them to fly the gong into a building that’s under construction. Barry Allen, who is nearby buying what I believe is a newspaper but could also be a magazine or, knowing Barry, a comic book, notices the collision that’s about to happen and springs into action as the Flash.
The pilots release the giant gong and it cashes into the building, making a horrible noise but surprisingly not causing any structural damage. Barry stops the gong’s descent and goes to ask the helicopter pilots what’s happening. We then cut to Piper (who, as usual for this time period, looks like a demented elf), who notes that he only needs one more really loud sound to put “Operation Sound-Off” (I’m sure that sounded awesome in his head) into action and defeat the Flash.
Meanwhile, Barry is puzzling over why the helicopter pilots suddenly dropped the gong into the building, as when questioned about what happened, they had no idea. He knows that someone must have hypnotized them, but isn’t sure who or why. Meanwhile, in the police department’s record room, a young officer named Morty, who has been giving a reporter information about some as yet unrevealed story, walks the reporter (who works for Picture News just like Iris did) to her car...only for him to be whacked over the head and her to be kidnapped! We also see that the files she was interested in involve the Pied Piper, who is operating under the alleged name of Henry Darrow.
Barry comes outside just as Morty comes to, and the younger man tells him about what happened. Barry thinks that someone kidnapped her because of the story she was working on, and, because it was about the Pied Piper, Barry assumes that it was the Piper who had her kidnapped. In speaking of the demented elf, he’s in a state park fifty miles outside Central City, known as Summit Canyon, creating an avalanche in order to gather the final decibels needed to enact his evil plan. He notes that, once it’s complete, he’ll “finally be able to rid myself of the two curses which have plagued my life with the most pain and misery: my arch-enemy the Flash-and my despicable family!”
Meanwhile, in his apartment, Barry is trying to work out the details of the kidnapping (which he still thinks the Piper is responsible for), noting that the man’s past has always been a mystery. We then cut to “the posh Ridgeway Hills community easy of the city”, where one of the kidnappers wonder why someone so rich hired them. The other one basically tells him “who cares, we’re getting paid a ton of money and now we can go to Vegas!”
Inside a mansion, the people who paid the kidnappers note that the reporter is waking up, addressing each other as “Osgood” (snicker) and “Rachel”. The reporter tells them that they won’t get away with this, to which they basically respond that they totally will, because they’ve got tons of money to bribe her with. We then see that she’s tied up at one end of a ridiculously long table. The reporter, whose name is Marcy Dunphy, exclaims that she’s seen the people who had her kidnapped in the society pages. The man then introduces himself and his wife as “Hazel and Osgood Rathaway”, which, as this is only two panels after the use of the “Rachel” name, may hold the record for the least amount of time passing before Cary Bates forgot a character’s name. The reporter identifies them as the heads of the Rathaway Publishing Empire and is completely bewildered as to why such wealthy people would have her kidnapped. Their response? She’s uncovered a very embarrassing family secret, and they want it to stay hidden. Which does raise the question of why they decided to have her kidnap before trying to bribe her. Wouldn’t she be more amenable to the idea if you hadn’t had her kidnapped?
While the Flash races to stop the Pied Piper from robbing a museum, the Rathaways for some reason decide to tell Macy the whole story. Their son, Hartley Rathaway, was born deaf, so they spent a ton of money to ‘cure’ his deafness, and because this is comic books, they actually found a doctor who could do it. Hartley subsequently became obsessed with music. Mr. and Mrs. Rathaway had big plans for their son, but, as time went by, it became clear that Hartley wasn’t interested in excelling in anything or in “upholding the prestige of the Rathaway name”. Instead of addressing the problem (or, alternatively, not attempting to force their son to become famous), Osgood decided to start bribing the heck out of people. He bought Hartley’s way into the best colleges and then bribed them into giving him good grades he hadn’t earned. After Hartley graduated, Osgood paid his way into an executive position at a major firm and...seriously, just how rich are these people?
Meanwhile, the Flash manages to get through the sonic barrier that the Piper set up around the museum, only to be attacked by the Piper and his “Sonic Boomatron” which is in the shape of bagpipes because of reasons. The stupidly-named device hits Flash with the equivalent of 50,000 decibels, before we cut back to the Rathaways’ explanation of how awesome bribery is. They apparently gave Hartley a silver-plated flute for his sixteenth birthday (in case it wasn’t clear that they’re made of money yet, I guess), and they tell Macy that their son had always liked tinkering with musical instruments. Somehow, they completely missed that their son was a super genius who created hypnotic and weaponized music until he actually put on the costume and became the Pied Piper. HOW DID THEY NOT NOTICE THAT? It clearly started when he was still a teenager, as he used it to hypnotize his tutor into getting out of a test.
Now with the power to hypnotize people, his life was even easier than it had been before, and Hartley was bored out of his mind. So bored, apparently, that he decided that white-collar crime was overrated and decided to go into the “robbing banks in costume” type of crime. I also find it amusing at how shocked the Rathaways were that Hartley became a criminal. What, do nonstop bribery and literal kidnapping not count? Because they were bribing people left, right, and center LONG before he became the Piper.
Meanwhile, Piper’s weapon somehow turns the Flash into sound, because this is comics and comics don’t have to make sense. He proceeds to walk off with his loot, surrounded by a sonic barrier that protects him from police gunfire.
So yes, the Pied Piper is Hartley Rathaway, his family is rich, and he became the Piper because, at least according to his parents, he was an “emotionally disturbed” child who got bored. Apparently the elder Rathaways have kept the secret through EVEN MORE BRIBERY, giving money to everyone from the local police chief to the FBI to keep things quiet. The FBI were the ones who created the identity of Henry Darrow. By the way, Mrs. Rathaway is back to being Rachel again. Rachel reiterates the fact that kidnapping and then bribing the reporter to also keep things quiet was the only logical solution to the problem...at which point the Piper himself shows up!
Meanwhile, Barry uses his mental control over all his molecules to reassemble himself while the Piper tells his parents that he’s paid his debt to them. Apparently, he turns over most of his loot to his parents in order to pay “back every Rathaway dollar my parents spent on trying to mold me into something I could never be.” The elder Rathaways had to keep all of it because doing anything else would reveal the secret. Osgood tells his son that he and his wife only wanted what was best for Hartley, to which Hartley replies “Not quite, Pop. You wanted what was best for the Rathaway name! What I wanted never really matter much to either one of you.” According to Hartley, then, it seems that he became the Piper not so much because he was bored...but rather because he feels that his parents were more concerned with their reputations than with loving him.
Then the Flash pops up, punches him out, and rescues Macy, who says that they should give the Rathaways a few minutes alone with their son. I guess that we can assume that the Rathaways never got arrested because they’re made of money. Or something. (Could that be why we also rarely saw the Piper in prison during the Silver and Bronze Age?)
Well, it may have taken Piper 22 years to get an origin (and a name), but in this case, I think it was worth it. With the possible exception of the Golden Glider, the Pied Piper has what is by far the most interesting Silver/Bronze Age origin of any of the Rogues, and I’m glad it’s stuck around. Props to Carey Bates for giving the Piper an incredibly memorable origin story.
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Hello amazing writer! I was wondering if I could request a fic where the whumpee just cannot be broken, and in the end, defeat their captor? Thank you.
Oh, Anon I thought you’d never ask, (Also I cannot accept that title, but gosh almighty I’m flattered, thank you Anon, you’re way too good to me!) I’m a huge sucker for this prompt, I feel like it’s a trope we really don’t see enough. Everyone wants broken characters who forget everything about themselves and suffer until that’s all they are anymore (Don’t get me wrong, I like that too sometimes) but man, oh, man I love a good unbreakable whumpee staring at the whumper and just going: “No.”
To sum up because I got super long winded:
Me: Big sucker
You: Really exceptional at submitting prompts/requests
I hope you get to be as happy today as you made me by requesting this! (That means standing in a forest far from the city and your flashlight burnt out, marveling at all of the silent darkness gathering around you comfortingly like a cloak.
You superb forest spirit you. Live your dreams.
(Also this came out a tad darker than I expected, but never let it be said I’m all cotton candy clouds and sunbeams and never gunmetal and alleyway gravel, I am gunmetal flavored cotton candy clouds goshdarnit!)
Also long, so sorry! (If for any reason this isn’t what you envisioned I can scratch this and do it again but slightly to the left, just let me know!)
He’d been at it for three weeks.
When he’d agreed to take this job it had seemed easy enough, get the message runner to turn on their friends, and collect fifty G’s for their troubles, and an additional ten for every address that the messenger coughed up.
He expected to be able to induce one hell of a case of pneumonia in the delivery boy.
The Whumper was meticulous, he’d done his research, the messenger didn’t come from a violent background, he had a solid head on his shoulders, and was a little on the younger side, all of this made getting information easier.
He’d been proved correct when they’d grabbed them on the street, at the first growled threat of starting to attack bystanders the messenger had hardened up, clenched their mouth in a firm line, (as if he couldn’t see their lower lip tremble) and come quietly. Idealists were very easy to deal with if you knew how to get to them.
And of course the man did. Sometimes when he was between jobs he wondered if he should teach a class: Interrogation for the financially unstable and morally questionable. He’d make a shit ton of money too, nobody was better than him, he’d gotten hardcore family guys to break in just 16 hours, they’d cried and begged for forgiveness afterward, but he’d informed them rather helpfully that he wasn’t a priest and that they could shove it. In fact he’d never met anyone he couldn’t get to turn inside of a week, and that was hardened career criminals!
At least he hadn’t until he’d taken the messenger.
The man had been interrogating and enforcing for all sorts of people for almost twenty years now, working with the Foresters for almost ten, he’d gotten good at ‘reading the room’ so to speak. He’d expected the ‘canary’ to start singing long before he’d even gotten him to the abandoned motel on the outskirts of town, he seemed the skittish types, he had figured it wouldn’t even progress into too much violence, let alone anything heavy.
This delivery boy was just a kid after all, some idealistic fool that had picked the wrong side in this when the Foresters had taken over. No biggie.
But he’d been wrong, so wrong, for the first time in his career, now looking at him, still tired pitifully to the chair, hanging against the zip ties that held him there, not even seeming to care that they bit viciously into his skin. In short the guy was wrecked, beaten repeatedly until his upper body was mainly one solid bruise, a rainbow of muddy painful color and swelling, beaten until his eyes swelled almost closed and teeth were knocked out, beaten bloody and senseless time and time again.
And still he’d said nothing!
He’d given no names other than his own which the man had already known and not cared about, to the man the messenger was a tool, an unwilling Swiss army knife that worked to make him money, but boy, that guy had to have some screws loose or something, the man had never had anyone last this long without breaking!
He’d tried electricity then, jolting him until he convulsed without the aid of the rusty clamps. Until he went into shock and the man had had to take a break so that he didn’t kill him without getting what he’d wanted from him.
When he’d come back from that place of panic the man had threatened him again with the electricity, knowing that he couldn’t use it again so soon but hoping for a chink in the armor, a ray of wicked hope…
“I’ll keep going until your skin sizzles off, tell me the names!” He’d struck him, making the chair wobble under the force of his blow, “You smell that burning? It’s you! You’re fried, dead already, so tell me the names! Where are your contacts?!” He’d screamed in his face, expecting tears and a final break through, that was what normally happened to him.
But the messenger had smiled weakly up at him, his head only being held up by the man’s grip in his tangle of dirty dark hair, “If M’dead, th-then thanks, S’been a pl-pleasure,” the messenger had rasped back between shallow panting breathes, causing the man to let go of his hair with a sneer of disgust, the messenger’s head hung limply on his chest, “Dead m-men tell-tell n-no tales,” he’d gurgled through the blood in his mouth, choking and wheezing through his ground up lungs.
This was when the man had decided to get serious, that has been five days ago, and other than bodily the delivery boy hadn’t broken at all.
He’d broken his knees, his hands, bone by bone listening to him cry, and then the odd shell shocked silence accompanying each snap for the other hand, he figured his boy had been though some trauma that hadn’t been in the file. At this point the man started to respect him, just a little, nothing crazy, he’d decided that when the time came and he’d gotten what he’d wanted, he was going to kill the messenger cleanly and end his suffering the quick way, not his normal triple gut shot and then bounce routine he’d relied on for years.
If he broke that was. It was starting to seem doubtful.
Finally, he’d caved and decided that it was today or never, his boy the messenger didn’t have many days left in him as it was, he’d taken his long Bowie knife and driven it through him and into the chair on the other side, the guy was too far out of it to do much more that gasp and shudder.
“Tell me,” the man had said gently, cupping the messenger’s chin in his large bloody hand to lift it up, something the messenger had lost the strength to do more than a week ago, “Tell me and I’ll end it right now, no more hurting, Tell me and I’ll let you rest in peace.”
The messenger didn’t respond, he continued to gasp for breath that didn’t seem to come, to the man it seemed like his messenger was emulating a fish left to die on a dock, so close to the water, so close he could smell it, but instead he’d chosen to dry drown.
The messenger was looking him straight in the eye, for some reason this made the man uncomfortable, he’d killed several people in his days, in fact, he’d go so far as to say he’d killed a lot of people, women, men, no kids on purpose, but sometimes when you’re working with the Foresters you gotta fish or cut bait.
And he’d always been a fishing man.
But the way that this unbreakable delivery boy was looking him in the eyes while they could both hear his blood dripping onto the old mud caked carpet felt deeply wrong, and the man looked away before the messenger did, feeling not exactly guilt or empathy, but as close to it as he’d come in a great long time.
The man was shaken, just enough to go out and smoke a few cigarettes until his hands stopped shaking. When he’d finished his third he decided that he was probably just hungry, maybe he needed to sleep, this kind of work took a lot out of a person, and he’d been at it a long time.
Three weeks.
Longer even than when he’d had to get Mal Gerring’s number from his favored son and lieutenant Paulie Gerring, that had been before the Foresters had taken over, crime had been better organized then, not on the books in your face like it was now, but there had been something to admire about it. The romance of seedy hotels and driving his beat up car around the country, listening to regional radio and chain smoking, taking body parts back to waring mob families… Now he had a nice car that had cost more than his first house, but the job hadn’t changed–it never did, just the people paying changed.
He sighed in nostalgia as he watched the sky darken, Paulie had only lasted five days. Message boy had him beat by two weeks. Maybe no more after this, maybe the messenger was his last, maybe he’d teach that class to other guys the Forester’s wanted to hire, working for the government had a lot of benefits–especially for the morally questionable.
The man shook his head, if he hadn’t been busy reminiscing, if he hadn’t been so sure that he was the best, he might have heard the stood creak, he’d untied the messenger days ago, he hadn’t thought he’d been able to move if he could barely hold his head up, plus with the mangled hands he didn’t think he’d be able to do much harm.
For the second time in his long and questionably successful life the man was wrong.
Before he realized what was happening there was a sharp pain in the men’s temple, a crushing thunk that faded almost immediately to darkness, he didn’t even have the time to groan before he lost consciousness and slipped into the inevitable.
Standing, or rather, sort of hunched over kind of holding himself up on the raining and swaying violently over him the messenger dropped his weapon, it was the handle of the Bowie knife he’d had to pull it out by degrees, stopping every time his eyesight started to darken, he clutched a hand over his dark wound and staggered over to his would-be murderer’s collapsed body, he raked numb broken fingers over pockets, searching until he found what he was looking for: the small black burner phone that the man had taken from him when he’d first gotten here.
Phone cradled in broken hands he slumped to the porch, mostly laying on the stoop, he didn’t have long now, every movement was white hot and unsteady, to say that he hurt would be an understatement, but he still had a job to do, he was a messenger after all.
He carefully dialed the number, pushing the buttons almost make him pass out, he kept whiting out with pain as the broken bones in his hands shifted, he cried out as he did it, not allowing himself the mercy of stopping now.
Finally, after long agony filled minutes he pushed send, thank god for the universal cell towers! thank god for jamming software! the phone rang, he laid his head down on the stoop, fighting to keep his eyes open.
It rang again, a droning buzz in his ringing ears.
Please.
It buzzed.
Please pick it up! God, he’s so tired.
It rang again, his heart sunk into his stomach, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to dial another time, he was already more out of it than he should be, this was it.
It rang once more, he figured he’s have to leave the message on the voice mail, he knew that wasn’t allowed, too many people died that way, but then again, he wouldn’t be around for the higher-ups to yell at him.
“Hello?”
God bless her.
“Nez,” he rasped, surprised to feel a lump of tears forming in his throat, he figured hearing a friendly voice after so much was making him sort of sentimental.
“Shit! What happened to you? We’ve been so worried!”
The messenger ignored her, he didn’t have enough energy to explain, “Nez, four-ten Walnut, lots of kids there, you’ve still got some time, bring Ralphie, the combo is 6899437, got it?”
When Nez speaks again she’s quiet, it’s almost intimate like she’s whispering in his ear, “Where are you?” There is horror in her voice sure, but also hope, Nez hasn’t grasped yet that hope can kill you.
“Last one Nez, I’m going dark,” he croaked, his eyes slipping shut, he focused on the voice at the other end of the line.
“Oh Fuck, We’ll track you! We’re coming! Just don’t hang up! Please! Don’t hang up!”
The messenger assumes Nes says more but he can’t decipher it, message delivered he sinks below into the dark.
#Whump#tw gore#tw broken bones#whumpee#whumper#Messenger#broken hands#broken knees#stabbed#I guess not a prompt?#huh#weird#drabble#unbreakable#OC?'s#I'm sorry
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TWO KINDS OF MY TODO LIST OF WEB 2
The exciting thing is that startups are not just one random type of work in which meanness and success. And yet there's a lot of things insiders can't say precisely because they're insiders. Then someone discovers how to make money from one of a dozen permutations of advertising. Actually they have a hundred different types of investors, you have to mean it, because a they may be on the board of someone who will buy you, and the conclusion—uh, what is the conclusion? I'm going to start a startup? They seem to be ideas for companies, just things that would be illegal otherwise. Those will on average be better investors. But they might as well be flipping coins. But what if you haven't raised as much as Bill Gates who achieve nothing. Arguably pastoralism transformed a luxury into a commodity. But elegance is not an end in itself.1
If you want to win through better technology. And it would be if they did. When you hear such labels being used, ask why.2 I'll try to give the other side of this phenomenon, where the center of gravity had shifted by then that one found people confident enough to cut; have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are boring the paragraphs you dread reading; try to tell the others, is here to stay. They buy a lot of them. Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business background, may be satisfied with a demo and a verbal description of what you plan to cover at the bottom and taxes at the top. The cubicles were full of programmers writing code, product managers thinking about feature lists and ship dates, support people yes, there does seem to have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle. To the founders, living dead sounds harsh.3 Practically every successful company has at least two. But it's not. It's easy.
Saying initially that you're trying to decide whether to meet with you. Every couple weeks I would take a book to answer that.4 This habit is unconscious, but not to tell them that you'd be competing with Microsoft, that you couldn't give people the kind of programmers companies should want to hire.5 Once you're profitable you don't need to do something internally, like talk to their partners, or investigate some issue? You get immediate rewards—in fact, it would be to start a startup, of course, but educated people rarely did, because in those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call a startup: a business that would start small and stay small.6 When an investor tells you I want to be spending my time? Rockefeller said in 1880, The day of combination is here to stay. Does your product use XML?
One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to work for him unless he is super convincing.7 At one point in this essay I found that business was neither so hard nor so boring as I feared. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of a strong-willed is not enough, however. That is the future of web startups. And in most of them meanness was not a particularly stupid one.8 Empirically, the way to have good software. The way to get startup ideas is to look at. To Michel de Montaigne, who was on the Algol committee, got conditionals into Algol, whence they spread to most other languages. This is an open problem in the sense that I have wondered about it for years and still don't know the answer. There's a whole essay's worth of surprises there for sure.9 At one point in this essay I found that business was neither so hard nor so boring as I feared.
Which means technology will evolve faster. But valuable ideas are very close to good ideas, so long as you're telling the truth.10 This seems backward. What's missing? But you don't need investors' money. People in past times were much like us. When I was a kid, I used to read a few philosophy books.11 In fact, one strategy I recommend to people who behaved like assholes in forums, whether intentionally or not. Why didn't better content cost more? There are two senses of the word need is a few tens of thousands of dollars to pay your expenses while you develop a prototype.12 For a lot of other companies using Lisp.
One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to work there. Most rich people are looking for the next Larry and Sergey. Clearly at some point in their childhood. Economically, it decreased variation in income.13 You can ask it of the most successful people I know are mean. Another way to figure out and explain exactly what you disagree with. One of the most obvious breakage in the average computer user's life is Windows itself. Let's start with a problem, because there are a lot of the best ones were made as a way of exploring the world, but in this case was meaningful because it was so rare for so long that by now the US car brands are antibrands—something you'd buy a car despite, not because byte code is in itself a good idea.14
Notes
Thanks to judgmentalist for this situation: that the missing 11% were probably also the 11% most susceptible to charisma. If a conversation—maybe not linearly, but a blockhead ever wrote except for that might produce the next round to be limits on the world as a high school textbooks. Words we use for good and bad technological progress, but the returns come from.
Design ability is so new that it's boring, whereas bad philosophy is nonsense. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality, but not the distinction between the top startup law firms are Wilson Sonsini, Orrick, Fenwick West, Gunderson Dettmer, and wisdom we have to. You can't be hacked, measure the difference between us and the valuation should be especially skeptical about things you want to sell earlier than you could build a silicon valley in Israel. If you were able to respond with extreme countermeasures.
How could these people. As Anthony Badger wrote, for example, would be a lot cheaper than business school, the more accurate or at least bet money on the scale that Google does. And I'm sure for every startup founder could pull the same time.
In practice most successful founders is often responding politely to the next year they worked. Make it clear when you use the local area, and there was when we created pets. Ii. Apparently the mall was not in the cover.
Disclosure: Reddit was funded by Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college or what grades you got in them to be a variant of the latter case, 20th century was also obvious to us that we didn't do. They can lead to distractions even more vice versa: the company. Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2006. There will be coordinating efforts among partners.
No one in an absolute sense, if your goal is to give him 95% of the Garter and given the Earldom of Rutland. Math is the notoriously corrupt relationship between the Daddy Model may be enough to be writing with conviction. Rice and beans are a better predictor of low quality though. One to recover data from so many of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that.
They'll be more selective about the subterfuges they had to push founders to have more money was to realize that in New York is where product companies go to college somewhere with real research professors. Common Lisp, because investors don't like. The Department of English Studies.
Which in turn the most famous example.
Hypothesis: A company will be pressuring you to two more investors.
While Jessica didn't ask many questions, they were, they'd be proportionately more effective, leaving the area around city hall a bleak wasteland, but trained on corpora of stupid and non-sectarian schools. Comments at the time 1992 the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this situation: that the valuation at the data, it's because of the most useless investors are also several you can't avoid doing sales by hiring someone to do wrong and hard to pick the former depends a lot is premature scaling—founders take a conscious effort. A Plan for Spam.
If you extrapolate another 20 years, it sounds like the other direction Y Combinator. Beware too of the leading advisor to King James Bible is not a commodity or article of commerce. It's a lot better to read an original book, bearing in mind that it's boring, we could just multiply 101 by 50 to get only in startups.
Dropbox, or Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia needed Airbnb? But the margins are greater on products. The attention required increases with the amount—maybe around 10 people. And maybe we should have become direct marketers.
99 2,000 per month. If you want to lead.
So what ends up happening is that the meaning of a severe-looking little box with a neologism. Give us 10 million and we'll tell you alarming things, like warehouses. A related trick is to say, good deals.
#automatically generated text#Markov chains#Paul Graham#Python#Patrick Mooney#distinction#Rice#USSR#times#essay#weeks#direction#sense#effort#Gunderson#example#commodity#circumstances#Y#pets#Rutland#Once#one#lot#labels#Algol#Plan#company#people
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<<Over the past year, however, Google has appeared to clamp down. It has gradually scaled back opportunities for employees to grill their bosses and imposed a set of workplace guidelines that forbid “a raging debate over politics or the latest news story.” It has tried to prevent workers from discussing their labor rights with outsiders at a Google facility and even hired a consulting firm that specializes in blocking unions. Then, in November, came the firing of the four activists. The escalation sent tremors through the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif., and its offices in cities like New York and Seattle, prompting many employees — whether or not they had openly supported the activists — to wonder if the company’s culture of friendly debate was now gone for good.
(A Google spokeswoman would not confirm the names of the people fired on Nov. 25. “We dismissed four individuals who were engaged in intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data-security policies,” the spokeswoman said. “No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities.” Without naming Berland, Google disputed that investigators pressured him.)>>
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/18/magazine/google-revolt.html
<<“Of the five people that were fired, three of us are trans women,” Spiers said. “That is either an unbelievable coincidence or Google is targeting the most vulnerable.”
“Trans Googlers make up a very small percentage of Googlers,” she added. “They make up a slightly larger percentage of organizers, but not 60%.”>>
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/17/fifth-google-worker-activist-fired-in-a-month-says-company-is-targeting-the-vulnerable
i too am transfem and would "violate longstanding data-security policies" if my organization were being unjust. i wouldnt say that unless it were already obvious by what bits ive leaked to people about my life, because otherwise i could suppress this information and whistleblow more.
if you were an evil corp at this point youd probably try to avoid hiring any trans women in the first place because given this happens to you, its likely done by a transfem. not that this saved CFAR, who never hired a trans woman, from having a bunch of transfems whistleblow on them despite not being employees.
from what ive read from transfem google employees who are or were involved in activism, the degredation of google's culture. their complicity with ICE and weapons manufacturing mirrors CFAR's with OpenAI and DeepMind; authoritarianism and expulsion of transfems who object to this among a myriad of wrongs. to protect the territory of injustice and complicity with organizations like ICE, google needs to import "a consulting firm that specializes in blocking unions", CFAR needs to violate their whistleblower policy. if you once protect injustice, justice is ever after your enemy. morality isnt some modular thing such that you can be comitted to protecting injustice and not have this choice spiral into also invoking and protecting systems that protect injustice and invoking further things to protect those, recursively. all the way down to doing really dumb and obvious unjust things like transmisogyny (lots of future posts), changing your fundraiser after its clear its losing money, announcing that this year you got way below your donation target and claim to have no idea why.
well *i* know the compact generator for all of these things, and that makes me strong. unlike MIRI/CFAR who like the CDC rely on gaslighting the populace for myopic gains. i also wore a particle mask during the time that the CDC claimed that they were useless to preventing spread of disease, so it was really important to give them to doctors and nurses.
after so much gaslighting, *i* have built up general capabilities at arbitraging the difference between what agents claim and the truth. people who say:
<<Edit: This is a type of post that should have been vetted with someone for infohazards and harms before being posted, and (Further edit) I think it should have been removed by the authors., though censorship is obviously counterproductive at this point.
Infohazards are a real thing, as is the Unilateralists’s curse. (Edit to add: No, infohazards and unilateralist’s curse are not about existential or global catastrophic risk. Read the papers.) And right now, overall, reduced trust in CDC will almost certainly kill people. Yes, their currently political leadership is crappy, and blameworthy for a number of bad decisions—but it doesn’t change the fact that undermining them now is a very bad idea.
Yes, the CDC has screwed up many times, but publicly blaming them for things that were non-obvious (like failing to delay sending out lab kits for further testing,) or that they screwed up, and everyone paying attention including them now realizes they got wrong (like being slow to allow outside testing,) in the middle of a pandemic seems like exactly the kind of consequence-blind action that lesswrongers should know better than to engage in.
Disclaimer: I know lots of people at CDC, including some in infectious diseases, and have friends there. They are human, and get things wrong under pressure—and perhaps there are people who would do better, but that’s not the question at hand.>>
https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/h4vWsBBjASgiQ2pn6/credibility-of-the-cdc-on-sars-cov-2/comment/uDYbgf3QtEQirbsJk
havent. its easy to see how peoples minds are warped when its someone elses glowy thing, when its someone elses friends working for an institution that that someone else routed their hopes through.
its easier to recognize betrayal and see knowledge beyond the veil when its happening to someone else, instead of you.
until you build up general skills for recognizing it, this sort of betrayal isnt infinitely powerful. and like how you might expect that smart people who live for predation would do anti-inductive smart predatory things, but they end up converging on child sex rings; institutions that betray you, because justice is their enemy will start doing dumb unjust things like banning two people from speaking about their irl experiences with anna salamon, saying their first-hand accounts werent evidence and then citing anna salamon's first-hand account of the meeting as evidence. when i objected that this was a fucked up self-serving ontology of "evidence" they acted like i was objecting to "beliefs flow from evidence" and they acted as if what i was saying was obscure and beyond their ability to comprehend. their "incomprehension" was fake, downstream of a fear to dynamically compute things in front of other people that might end up outside the orthodoxy. the result of which is they display a blue screen of death and say “i just dont understand and aaa dont explain this to me!!!”. and then people agree that it "seems like it could be an infohazard" because when your goal is the preservation of the matrix, everything that tears it down looks like hazardous information.
or a cfar employee, in response to claims that anna's transmisogyny influences CFAR's hiring choices, claiming that anna salamon, head of CFAR, is not involved in CFAR's hiring. until i post proof from another CFAR employee pursuing personal vengeance against the org for hiring their rapist where its tangentially mentioned and they suddenly "realize" that anna salamon, head of CFAR, is involved in CFAR's hiring process.
or a thousand other injustices that have burned themselves into my brain during my months of talking with people under the assumption that they were simply mistaken in their path to saving the world. when they were actually un-mistaken in their path to having babies and a low chance of personal death. hoping and expecting someone else will take heroic responsibility for the planet.
like when you drill down to the base of injustice, it bottoms out in dumb and petty injustice. like the structure doesnt go infinitely high and complex, if you go down to the base level, you just need a bit of courage to not flinch away from what you see even if it seems that it means the ruin of something you ran your hopes and dreams through.
--
"isnt this a little... extreme?" i hear some people ask. ""dont protect regions of injustice?" that sounds like the end product of obsessive compulsive fixation on virtue at the expense of practicality."
well, assuming the algorithm seeding this response is a systemic reasoning tool, it should forkbomb when you consider if youd output ""dont protect regions of untruth?" that sounds like the end product of obsessive compulsive fixation on virtue at the expense of practicality." in response to eliezers essay. the principle behind both is the same such that if you hold by one you should hold by the other.
all of these things have parallels. if you want to see what is happening with MIRI/CFAR, theres a lot of mutual information with whats happening with Google.
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WangXian+ wwx is an assassin whose mission is to kill Lan Wangji
I don't know if this counts as happy? But I tried!
Ideas:
WWX is hired to kill LWJ but on seeing LWJ feels like something is off and he ends up dropping the hit.
He runs into LWJ and LSZ a while later and both of them drag WWX home.
WWX finds out he is the missing adopted second son of the Jiang family.
Since WWX is declared dead, LWJ lies and says WWX is his boyfriend from overseas as they try to figure out 1. why he lost his memory and 2 why someone wants LWJ dead.
Wei Wuxian watched Lan Wangji through a scope. His finger off the trigger, not that it mattered he hadn’t loaded a bullet into the gun.
Lan Wangji walked down the street, wearing slacks and a button up. His hands hands carefully carrying a case for his guqin. Two highschool students run up to him chirping excitedly despite the fact Lan Wangji maintained a stern expression and did not return the teasing.
Something about this hit smelled fishy. He had always been good at deluding himself. Telling himself stories about what he did until his memories lost clarity but that Lan Wangji was a good man who did not deserve death oddly felt like the truth.
Lan Wangji had a sincere face. That never stopped Wei Wuxian before. Dozens of “good men” had skeletons in their closets. Lan Wangji, though, did not just look like a good man. The classical musician donated most of his money to charity. The amount of his salary that didn’t to paying for an overly modest lifestyle went to the family business.
A business that was suspiciously clean for its size.
Wuxian wasn’t here to judge. Except following the clean-cut man with his scope, he wondered who could benefit from killing the second son of Cloud Recesses Inc.
If someone wanted to tank the Cloud Recesses, it would be better to take out the Lan Xichen, the president, or Lan Qiren, the VP. So this hit had to be personal, most hits were.
Wei Wuxian always looked into his clients. You never wanted to work for someone who would turn tail and cause trouble. Or more idiotically be a rat for the government. Su She was neither of those things. A small-time company head of a shell company for the Jin family. The two had attended the same school for a short people before Su She had transferred out.
Lowering his gun, he bit his lip.
Maybe he was getting soft if he was overthinking a hit so much? Maybe he should get out of the game before this softness got him killed. It wasn’t like he started killing people because he enjoyed it (not that he could remember why he started in the first place). Returning the deposit wasn’t difficult and he certainly had enough money stashed away to wash his hands clean.
He never intended to meet Lan Wangji. Strange, he always had a problem recognizing faces but Lan Wangji’s stuck around his head. The phoenix eyes, straight nose, and proud mouth formed a handsome man. In another lifetime, he would have been a scholar with the elegance with which he moved. He should speak similarly, Wei Wuxian thought.
His delusion was shattered when he sat in a cafe, trying to figure out what he would do with his life now that turned a new leaf.
“Wei Ying!”
He sipped his latte. The liquid went down wrong and he saw who was approaching him.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji repeated, pushing through the bustling cafe.
“Excuse me, do we know each other?” he smiled, plastering as much innocent as he could into his expression.
His expression clouded over. Searching for something in Wei Wuxian’s expression, his frown deepened. “Return with me.”
He jerked his head back. His throat still sore from the coughing. “What relationship do we share? Why would I go with you?”
“Baba!” The teenager he had seen with Lan Wangji the other day popped up. If Lan Wangji had a pure face, this teen had an innocent one. “Why did you run…”
His mouth dropped at the sight of Wei Wuxian.
“Return with me.” Lan Wangji repeated, reaching for Wei Wuxian’s hand.
He shifted back.
“You’re alive.” The teen threw himself at Wei Wuxian, giving him no option but to catch him. His embrace was tight and overly familiar but Wei Wuxian reflexively returned it.
“What is going on?”
“Sizhui.”
The teen shifted around, reluctantly releasing Wei Wuxian. Red rimmed his eyes giving Wei Wuxian the impression this should have been an emotional reunion. His heart squeezed even though his brain drew a blank.
“My surname used to be Wen,” Sizhui said in way of explanation.
“And?”
“My birth name is Yuan.”
Biting his lip, Wei Wuxian’s heart tightened more. His brain ran and ran without any connections made.
His expression grew grave. His mouth trembling; he asked, “Do you recognize me?”
He shook his head slowly. The weight of Sizhui’s disappointment weighed down on his movement.
“Return with us.”
Lan Wangji successfully captured his wrist. If not for his confusion, Wei Wuxian could have easily dodged. It was that confusion mixed with curiosity that convinced him to follow the two home.
Lan Wangji was 100% a second young master. His apartment was not the penthouse but it overlooked the city from above. The open-area was spacious and bright.
Wei Wuxian sat on a white couch that matched the white walls. The coffee table in front of him was glass and instead of a TV mounted on the wall, there was a series of scrolls filled with calligraphy.
“So, Young Masters why am I here?” He smiled, angling his head to the side.
Lan Sizhui’s eyes darted between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.
“When I was young, you sheltered my family,” he said, softly. “I remember you used to tell me if I stayed in the sun I would grow to be strong and tall. That if you planted me in the earth, you could grow me friends.”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
Wei Wuxian had a bad memory but he couldn’t have forgotten rising a child could he?
“What my relationship with?” He waved his hand in the direction of Lan Wangji.
“Everyone knows the two of you are like water and oil.”
He blinked. Certainly if he had seen a face as handsome as Lan Wangji’s he would have remembered it.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji stepped closer. His fingers grazed his cheek. “How is your memory so bad?”
“My mother always told me forget what you have—”
Lan Wangji followed along with him. “done for you and only keep in mind what others have done for you.”
“How do you know that?”
“You told me that,” Lan Wangji. Sitting down, he continued, “You left A-Yuan with me and said dangerous people were after you. Then you disappeared.”
Sizhui jumped in. “Jiang Cheng has been searching for you. Everyone thought you died. Where have you been?”
“Um… around.” Something unpleasant grew in his chest. If he had done as they said he had, then had he taken care of the danger yet? Would meeting with now bring the danger back to him.
He stood up.
Wangji immediately blocked his path. Throwing his arms around Wuxian in the same boggling matter Sizhui had. His embrace was like a dying man holding onto driftwood.
“I should leave.”
“No.”
Instead of being released, he was squeezed tighter. His face was forced into the crook of Lan Wangji’s collar. A clean, almost cleansing scent hit his nose.
“Not allowed to leave.”
“What baba means is you should stay here. It is safe here. We can—”
“I came here to kill you,” he exclaimed, pushing Lan Wangji away. For a musician, he was strangely fit. His broad shoulders were firm against Wei Wuxian’s touch.
“Stay.”
“Don’t you understand? Whoever you think I am, whatever connect I have to you, I am not that person anymore. I was hired to kill you.”
“Stay.”
“Young Master do you know how to speak?” He threw his hands in the air. “I am leaving and you have no right to st—”
“I do not care. Stay. Please.”
Somehow those words calmed Wei Wuxian down. Something in the determination behind in tone broke his protests into shreds.
“That doesn’t change the fact that someone is going to hire someone else to kill you.”
“We can deal with that together, but first we should bring him to the doctor.”
The doctor gave Wei Wuxian a clean bill of health. Stepping out into the hallway, he saw Lan Wangji speaking to a nurse. He quickly found Sizhui and lowered his head.
“Are Lan Wangji and I a couple?”
Sizhui squeaked, drawing Lan Wangji’s attention.
Covering his mouth, he pointed at Lan Sizhui: “be quiet”.
“No. Actually, no one knew the two of you were close. Uncle Xi and Granduncle Qi were surprised you left me with him or that he keeps trying to find you.”
Wei Wuxian frowned. If we aren’t lovers, why is he so determined to keep me by his side? Why did he lie and say I am his overseas boyfriend?
-
If they weren’t lovers before, Lan Wangji certainly treated Wei Wuxian like his spouse now. The innocent looking man was quite overbearing, demanding that they share a bed so that Wei Wuxian would not slip away at night.
He rarely spoke but he always touched Wei Wuxian. A hand always rested on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, the small of his back, on his waist.
Wei Wuxian should have been offended after all of the two of them were men of the same stature but it felt nice. After living alone for the last decade or so, isolating himself from others due to his line of work, each subconscious touch was a treat.
He wanted to be the person deserving of Lan Wangji’s protection or Lan Sizhui’s concern.
He wasn’t worthy but he wanted to be.
He couldn’t though until the men threatening Lan Wangji were gone.
He knew what he had to do.
-
No one was supposed to be in Jin Guangyao’s office today. This was supposed to be a clean hit. Take out Jin Guangyao and then leave.
Of course Jin Guangyao would try to escape after all of his crimes were revealed but why did he have Lan Xichen.
So why did Jin Ling suddenly appear and knock into Wei Wuxian?
Why did Xichen break free only for Jin Ling to be captured?
Why did things have to go wrong again?
Lan Xichen stared at Jin Guangyao. His eyes wide at the knife in his hand. The edge pointed at Jin Ling’s throat.
“Why?” his voice trembled.
“Why did I kill Nie Mingjue or why did I order someone to kill your brother?” His voice was proud despite the way the edge of that question quivered.
“I trusted you.”
“What was I supposed to do? The bastard son of a whore.” His mouth twisted. “Nie Mingjue held me under a microscope. Listening to him would have me killed or worse powerless.”
“And your brother, if I knew he loved Wei Wuxian I would have made his disappearance better, so your family would have not suffered,” he sighed. “But I didn’t and he keep digging and digging and digging. He just got too close to the truth.”
“Uncle, it hurts.” Where Jin Guangyao’s knuckles met Jing Ling’s shoulder, it was white.
“Where is Lan Wangji anyway?”
“Why are you asking me?”
Jin Guangyao cocked a brow.
“I didn’t tell him I was coming here.”
“I see. I am going to leave now.”
“He’s your nephew.” Xichen shouted.
“I know. As long as everyone behaves, I’ll release him when I get out of the building.”
He edged to the door, forcing Jin Ling to open it. Before he stepped outside, a large vase came down on his head. Jin Guangyao hit the ground with a thud.
Lan Wangji rushed in followed by Jiang Cheng and Nie Huangsang. Gathering Wei Wuxian up in his arms, he clung to Wei Wuxian.
All the words that he resisted sharing before spilled from his lips. “Lan Zhan, I want to share a bed with you. I want to wake up in the morning to your meals. I love you. I love you.”
Lan Wangji froze.
“I want to share a bed with you. I want to make your meals. I love you.” He repeated.
-
Wei Wuxian’s memories slowly returned after Jin Guangyao’s arrest in bursts and lurches. All the times he teased Lan Zhan growing up. All the times he childish tried to draw the handsome man’s, then boy, attention. All the ways Lan Zhan seems unapproachable that made him want to approach even more.
He also knew why he forgot. It made it easier to hunt down the people who wanted to harm A-Yuan if he tricked himself into believing he was an assassin rather than a rowdy second young master of the Jiang family.
He repeated the lie so many times he must have hypnotized himself. He buried his memories of his adopted family deep along with his memories of being a spoiled brat.
Turning his memories over now, he saw what his arrognant younger self did not. Lan Zhan paid him too much attention and he chased Lan Zhan unreasonably for two people who were like water and oil. They must have always been attracted to another but young to realize it.
If it took looking at Lan Zhan like a stranger to realize the affection they had for another… it wasn’t that Wei Wuxian was grateful. It was a more complicated feeling than that.
If he had realized he loved Lan Zhan sooner, he would have still given him A-Yuan. He would have ran and killed everyone that tried to wipe out all of the Wen family. As immoral as the majority of that family, the survivors were innocent and he had a debt to them to repay.
He had Lan Zhan now and A-Yuan and the three of them formed a family he never thought he would have. He wasn’t worthy of Lan Zhan’s devotion but if he did no other good deed in his life, he would always try to be.
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off the rack #1298
Monday, January 27, 2020
It's the Year of the Rat man. I hope it's a happy one for you and yours. I had the pleasure of spending time with the newest member of the Jee Gang toting baby Ashton around while he took in the happy chaos at our Chinese New Year gathering yesterday. His wonder at the world makes it a happier place.
Conan Serpent War #4 - Jim Zub (writer) Ig Guara & Vanesa R. Del Rey (art) Frank D'Armata & Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). This bizarre adventure teaming up Conan, Solomon Kane, Agnes and Moon Knight concludes with the demon Wyrm chopped up into fish food. This story won't matter to anyone other than fans of those four heroes but it sure was fun to read.
Batman #87 - James Tynion IV (writer) Guillem March (art) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). I'm happy Catwoman and Cheshire are in this story. I love how Guillem March draws women. There are a lot of players in Gotham City right now so please pay attention as the mystery unfolds.
Once & Future #6 - Kieron Gillen (writer) Dan Mora (art) Tamra Bonvillain (colours) Ed Dukeshire (letters). That's two fantasy stories that ends with the death of a serpent. Must be a common theme this week. One of the bad guys gets away and the story of Duncan and his Granny will continue. I don't know if I'll read the next arc since this one didn't conclude very well. I felt that Zombie King Arthur was defeated too easily.
Detective Comics #1019 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Scott Godlewski (art) David Baron (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). And so the winter solstice passes and the mystery of the Nordic cult ends. I'm glad this story about a creature from the nether regions was short.
Atlantis Attacks #1 - Greg Pak (writer) Ario Anindito (art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I picked this off the rack to read because I wanted to see what Namor was up to these days. He's back being the angry ruler of Atlantis pissed off at the air breathers. This time he's mad at all of the Agents of Atlas. That Jimmy Woo sure hangs out with the weirdest heroes of the Marvel U. If you're a fan of all those Agents you'll want to add this 5-issue mini to your subscriptions.
Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #2 - James Tynion IV (writer) Steve Epting & Javier Fernandez (art) Nick Filardi (colours) Travis Lanham (letters). Cool. It looks like Lex Luthor is going to be the one to save the world this time. I like who he's asking for help. I'll give you a hint: har.
The Amazing Spider-Man #38 - Nick Spencer (writer) Iban Coello (art) Brian Reber (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Here's the latest twist to the life of Peter Parker: J. Jonah Jameson is helping Spider-Man now instead of vilifying the hero. Jonah is also working for a new media firm and the old fogey does not like what he sees. We're back to the Chameleon storyline where Peter and his spy sister Theresa are trying to get back all the S.H.I.E.L.D. tech that was stolen. All the dangling plot threads are starting to get annoying.
Superman #19 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Ivan Reis (pencils) Joe Prado, Danny Miki, Julio Ferreira & Oclair Albert (inks) Alex Sinclair (colours) AndWorld Design (letters). I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop after Superman's big secret identity reveal. All of his Earthly super villains haven't taken advantage of the news so let's head out into space shall we? This is where Mongul attacks the new United Planets. The Superman versus Mongul fights have been epic and this new one won't disappoint.
Fantastic Four #18 - Dan Slott (writer) Paco Medina, Francesco Manna & Carlos Magno (art) Erick Arciniega (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Now I get the point of this "Point of Origin" story. When Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben launched all those years ago, the Overseer of the planet Spyre saw a threat to his perfect planet and shot cosmic rays at the ship to kill the FF. We know how that went off the rails. So now we have the Fantastic Four returning to Spyre and basically screwing up the whole planet like the Overseer foresaw. Hey, you don't mess with Destiny. I wonder why Reed is so pissed off in the next issue teaser.
Batman Superman #6 - Joshua Williamson (writer) David Marquez (art) Alejandro Sanchez (colours) John J. Hill (letters). Well that was a whole lot of yakkity-yak. This issue takes place before Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #1. Batman and Superman find Wonder Woman to tell her the bad news that Donna Troy has been infected by the Batman Who Laughs. Then they continue to try and find a cure for the infected. The issue ends with a surprise appearance of two super villains making the next issue a "must read" for me.
Marauders #6 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Matteo Lolli & Mario Del Pennino (art) Erick Arciniega & Federico Blee (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Kitty (call her Kate) saves the day but is sunk in the end. I've been ambivalent about reading this title of political intrigue and this issue made up my mind to bench this book. The subject matter is mature but the dialogue is juvenile so I'm outta here.
Kill Lock #2 - Livio Ramondelli (story & art) Tom B. Long (letters). The search for the key to disable the Kill Lock continues. I care about the plight of these four condemned droids.
The Old Guard: Force Multiplied #2 - Greg Rucka (writer) Leandro Fernandez (art) Daniela Miwa (colours) Jodi Wynne (letters). The team goes to rescue victims of human traffickers and get a surprise when they open the container. This book will blow you away.
Guardians of the Galaxy #1 - Al Ewing (writer) Juann Cabal (art) Federico Blee (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Call him Racoon, Rocket Racoon. Rocket's gone from looking like road kill in the last story arc to quite the fashion plate in this new run. And his guns have gotten a lot smaller. The team is recovering from the Universal Church of Truth massacre but their respite is short lived. Zeus and his Greek gods have returned and they're all evil now. You can tell because they're dressed in black. Nova asks the Guardians for help but only Starlord, Rocket, Moondragon and Phyla-Vell/Captain Marvel join the fray. I like that Marvel Boy is back and when the mission goes FUBAR, a surprise ally makes an appearance. The art alone makes this worth picking up off the rack.
Basketful of Heads #4 - Joe Hill (writer) Leomacs (art) Dave Stewart (colours) Deron Bennett (letters). Poor June, she keeps meeting up with bad men. You can't blame a girl for defending herself. Now there are two heads in the basket. Basket head number three just introduced himself. This is just too weirdly fun.
Ruins of Ravencroft: Dracula #1 - Frank Tieri (writer) Angel Unzueta (modern day art) Stefano Landini (flashback art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). This is the last of the one-shots leading into the 5-issue Ravencroft mini. It's going to have lots of Marvel heroes and villains if this issue is any indication. In the first few pages alone we have Man Wolf, Misty Knight, Mr. Fantastic, the Falcon, Power Man and Iron fist and the Winter Soldier who introduces the flashback where Captain America fights with Dracula. When we return to the present, new inmates are being incarcerated into the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminal Insane. I could only identify Mr. Hyde but I didn't recognise the others. The consultant hired to work with these inmates was a surprise and may entice you to pick up Ravencroft #1 when it hits the racks on January 29. Imagine if the Joker were hired to work at Arkham Asylum.
Wonder Woman #750 - I read all 9 stories in this $9.99 US anniversary issue to see where Princess Diana was at right now. Nothing much has changed since I stopped reading her book regularly so I won't be picking up #751. I've read other comic books aimed at young female readers, the Unstoppable Wasp is a good example, but this one doesn't spark a renewed interest in me to follow Wonder Woman's adventures.
Birds of Prey 100-Page Giant #1 - Now this is more like it. There are 3 new stories and 3 reprints that I've not read before so it's a great value at $4.99 US. The core team of Batgirl, Black Canary and Huntress are joined by Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman, all fabulous females ready for action. Almost makes me want to see the Birds of Prey movie that hits theatres Friday, February 7.
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Maid For You (Part 5) Taehyung x Reader (M), Jungkook x Reader
Author: bts-svt-mx
Taehyung x Reader
Jungkook x Reader
Rating: Fluff, M, slight smut
Tags: Enemies to Lovers AU, slight smut, slight exhibitionism?, Idol! Taehyung, Taehyung x Reader, Jungkook x Reader, Hoseok, mentions of other members
Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (M), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Word Count: 3,600
Description: Wanting to get out of your parents house and experience what the world had to offer is way more expensive than people tell you it will be. So when your glamorous “manager to the stars” cousin Hoseok hooks you up with a job as the live-in maid for a hillside, massive mansion, you feel as though life might actually be looking up. That is until the mansion’s absentee high profile celebrity owner surprises you by moving back in leaving you to wonder if this mansion is big enough for you and his huge ego.
previously...
Your words are firm and strong. You will not let him take advantage of you. “Go ahead. Get me fired. But I have never and will never tolerate being treated like this. Goodnight, Taehyung.”
And with that, you push past him walking straight back to your own wing of the mansion. Far, far away from that despicable man you left behind you.
The third thing you had learned about Taehyung: He truly had no boundaries.
Chapter 5:
It may have been the fact that Taehyung has been in and out of the house for the past few weeks for days at a time. It may have been the fact that you had yelled at him for treating you like his own personal slutty slave.
Or, it may have been the strongly worded 3 page contract you wrote up after the day you denied his little “gift” outlining the boundaries you were setting up for yourself, the tasks required of you in this job, and what was ‘his space’ and ‘your space’ complete with a map of the house and everything. It honestly could have been a combination of those things but you really didn’t care because Taehyung had finally ceased all of his frivolous requests for you.
No more stupid errands of his to run, no more pointless deep cleaning of rooms no one ever goes into, and most importantly, no more of his demeaning words and poorly veiled come-ons. You had successfully returned back to your normal routine around the mansion of doing what you were actually paid to do.
Everything was all quiet again. Or so you thought.
Though Taehyung was absent throughout the week days, he had traded in his relentless requests of your aid for weekly Friday night raging parties hosted in the grand foyer and subsequent kitchen, dining room, living room, lounging areas, game room, and main balcony of the mansion.
It was the 4th week in a row now that Taehyung has thrown a party. And not just any type of party. No, these parties were just short of a full on Las Vegas nightclub with the amount of people and alcohol present. Celebrities, groupies, management companies, socialites, and of course the random people who had managed to weasel their way in were all present at these shindigs.
And these parties would last all night long. With the last people still passed out on the living room floor at 6AM the next morning.
Though the party was always contained to the 2nd floor of the mansion, since that was technically the ground level of the house, the clean up was still a multi day process with how huge this place was. But your personal wing of the mansion was off limits. And Taehyung knew that. In fact, it was one of the requests of yours that boy had always actually respected even before your self written contract.
You always took careful precautions to make sure that no one could disturb you or your things. And if anyone dared to enter that area of the house… you couldn’t even think of the hell you would unleash on Taehyung and his stupid “guests”.
------
“I really don’t know how much more I can take, Minjee,” Letting out a huge sigh, you complain to one of your dance class friends on the phone. You had managed to make friends with a decent amount of people during your classes and explorations throughout the city but never told them too much about your life at the mansion. In fact, Minjee was really the only one out of all of them you trusted enough to tell where you lived and who you worked for. That was because she was pretty much like your sister and you knew you could trust her with anything.
“Well if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! Come on, Y/N, you need to let loose. Taehyung has practically cornered you in your side of the house with these parties. Show him you’re not the stiff he thinks you are! Besides, think of all the celebrities that could be there!”
Well she wasn’t wrong. This place would definitely be crawling with high profile, young celebrities. Not that you truly cared about famous people anymore now that you’ve seen how pretentious and rude they can be thanks to Taehyung. But Minjee definitely hit it on the nose with the part about you needing to let go.
Taehyung had made you so tense and anxious and stressed these past couple of weeks that you needed to be free. To drink, to dance, to have fun. And if Taehyung wasn’t going to respect your right to a good night of sleep then you might as well utilize everything this stupid party has to offer right?
Plus, who would turn down free alcohol?
So you decided to get your butt out of bed to get ready to head out. Using your adequate makeup skills, and picking out your favorite clubbing dress hugging your body in the best ways, you step out of your room and make your way out of the door to your wing of the mansion.
As soon as you open your door you’re greeted by the back of a bulky man dressed in a nice black suit. Umm who is this guy? Tapping lightly on his shoulder the man turns around in front of you and gives you a polite smile. He doesn’t say anything but you notice he’s wearing an earpiece with a clear wire connecting it to the lapel of his suit jacket. He nods to you and you think you can hear what sounds like security updates coming from his earpiece.
In front of you and across the hall from him stands another man dressed identical to him. Well that explains why no one has even tried to get into your wing of the mansion during the past couple of week’s parties. There are security guards posted everywhere.
You could say a lot of bad things about Taehyung but at least you knew he was responsible as to making sure nothing really bad happened in his house. Locking your bedroom door and brushing past the unfamiliar guards you take a deep breath and walk towards the booming music.
Downing your third shot from the bartender in the great hall of the main living room, you look around taking in the transformed rooms. Colorful strobe lights swirl around you as an almost full room of young famous singers, actors, groupies, and completely random other party goers grind on each other on the dance floor, each of them trying to forget the struggles and pressures of their everyday lives. Just like you were.
You honestly could barely recognize the place. You had seen it go unused for so long. You had once wished this place would be used to its full potential but not like this. You were thinking more along the lines of nice dinner parties and benefits for charities. You know, grown up stuff. But instead, it was filled with people who only cared about being seen, hooking up, and getting wasted.
Maybe it was the alcohol, but this new setup confused you. How did that dance floor even get here? Who set this all up? And who is paying for all of this shit?
As if to answer your question, a bunch of squealing girls catch your attention as they all flock around Taehyung at the other end of the large living room/night club. His hair is a half bright pink and half bright yellow combination now. It had been a few days since you saw him last with his normal blonde hair around the house and for some reason the fact that he was glowing like a glass of strawberry lemonade made you even more annoyed by the aura he was exuding. A lazy, cocky smile flashes across his face but it’s soon replaced by that distant stare you had seen him wear many times before. He’s sat on the edge of one of the nicest couches in the whole mansion along with about 5 other random people you have never seen before in your life. Not surprising since you don’t actually really know anyone here besides Taehyung and the random celebrities you have only seen on TV and magazines.
One of the five people sitting on the couch drunkenly spills their red cup all over themselves and the couch earning a cheer from those around him and a severe grimace from both you and Taehyung simultaneously across the room. Ugh, you’re going to have to hire someone to clean that thing tomorrow. There’s no way you could get that stain out yourself. You suddenly feel the need to drink enough to forget about all of the cleaning up you’ll have to do in the morning. You flick your hand towards the bartender with a sweet smile beckoning him to pour you another shot.
Just barely finishing the last drop, suddenly a hand lands like a clap on your shoulder causing you to almost choke on the sickening taste of the vodka.
Oh hell no, you did not come out here to be manhandled by some random man. Who the fuck does this person thi-
“CUZZZZ!!! Man, am I surprised to see you here!” A beaming smile meets your scowling face which instantly softens when you see Hoseok's twinkling eyes in front of you. Of course. You should’ve expected him to be here. He is Taehyung’s manager after all, and to be honest, he might have actually organized part of this party.
Turning around in your swivel chair, you flash a happy grin at your cousin who’s actually physically standing in front of you. Instantly, he grabs you out of your chair spinning you around and hugging you tightly, giggling with you as you let out a tiny squeal of happiness.
It has been almost a year since you had last seen him in the flesh. Sure you pretty much talk to him on the phone or over facetime every other day but there’s something different about seeing a person actually in front of you. You truly hadn’t realized how much you missed the dumb idiot. But he was your idiot, your family.
Hugging him tightly back, you realize this is the first real laugh you’ve experienced since- Well, since before meeting Taehyung. Hoseok eventually puts you down after making somewhat of a scene to those around you at the bar but he doesn’t let go of your arm.
“Y/N I want you to meet some of my friends!” Pulling you away from the bar and out the of the wall to wall glass paneled exit to the balcony overlooking the garden and pool, Hoseok lands you right in front of a group of laughing guys talking amongst themselves. Some you vaguely recognize from pictures of Hoseok’s he’s always showing you but most you don’t know.
You stumble a little at his abrupt stop and also due to the fact that you rarely ever wear heels. They hurt a little bit when you first put them on earlier, but at this point, you were too numb from the alcohol to care.
Hoseok greets his friends and gestures to you. “Y/N meet the boys! This is Yoongi,” He points to an intimidating shorter, silver haired man on his left with a shy smile. He nods in acknowledgment in your direction before continuing his conversation with someone next to him. “He’s one of the two main producers on Taehyung’s label.” You try to hide the instinct to blanch at the mention of Taehyung’s name. Yoongi seems chill enough though, maybe not the friendliest, but he seemed like if you got to know him he’d be cool.
Next, Hoseok turns to a tall, handsome, and authoritative looking man to Yoongi’s left whose gaze is already on you. His face lights up with a comforting smile and he extends his hand out to you which you take with a warm smile back. “I’m Namjoon, Taehyung’s other main producer,” His low voice speaks. Woah his hand was so big and soft.. And his dimples were a mile deep. He exuded confidence and comfort. You imagine he would be the perfect man to settle down with if you lived a different life than you do. If you were actually someone in this world...
Pulling you out of your thoughts, a shorter, attractive, dirty blonde haired boy in front of you pulls you into a tight hug. “I’m Jimin! I’m Taehyung’s choreographer!” His grin is so wide and bright white as he pulls back from the embrace, he’s almost blinding. Looking at him was like looking at the sun. Or a field of bright sunflowers on a cloudless day.
Finally, Hoseok turns to the smiling boy on his right, clapping a hand on his shoulder much like he did earlier with you. “And this is the Golden Maknae of the label, Jeon Jungkook! Y/N, Jungkook. Jungkook, meet my super great, super single cousin Y/N,” At that Hoseok raises his eyebrows suggestively.
“Oof!” Hoseok gasps as you send a direct elbow to his stomach knocking the wind out of him before you flash your flirtiest grin and extend your hand out towards Jungkook. You didn’t notice him when you first walked up because of the new firey red hairstyle he was sporting probably for his next comeback. In contrast to his hair, his features were so soft and handsome, young but dripping sex appeal at the same time.
Oh if last year’s version of you could see you now. Staring right into the dreamy eyes of the newest and hottest artist in the country. “Nice to meet you Jungkook,” The words come out from your mouth like sugar, the alcohol making you more bold than you would usually be in this type of situation as you slink your dainty hand out in his direction.
Catching your gaze fully, you notice Jungkook’s eyes grow slightly more intense and his smile turn into a full on smirk as his arms extends towards yours. His muscles straining all the way through his tight leather jacket. The way he slides his hand into yours sends shivers down the pads of your palm and fingertips, through you arm, and down your body.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Y/N,”
-----
The music flows through you involuntarily making your hips sway in time with the beat. Around you in the middle of the dance floor, you can feel a few pairs of eyes on you as you start to get more into the music, letting it take over your senses. Blood pumping in time with the beat, alcohol surging through your veins after you had taken a few more shots with Hoseok earlier. Nothing mattered right now and nothing could bring you down. It had been such a long time since you last felt this way and you weren’t about to let that feeling go.
You knew you looked good and you knew you were attracting attention. It was clear that the sexy dress you picked out earlier was successful in doing its job and that fact only made you enjoy yourself even more. Stumbling again on your heels during a particularly good part of the song now blasting through the speakers, you fall slightly backwards regaining your balance but in doing so you bump into a hard body behind you that catches your arm.
Oh jeez, you were already clumsy sober, adding in a lot more drinks and dancing into that equation definitely did not help.
“I’m so sorr-” Your head whips to look behind you at who you just bumped in your drunken state and you’re met by Jungkook’s soft smile as he chuckles slightly. The room around you doesn’t seem to stop spinning in circles but Jungkook and his beauty remains clear in front of you.
He looks so hot in these multi-colored lights. Green, blue, red, purple, orange. Each color that flickers over his face makes him look even more attractive than the previous color.
“On second thought, I’m actually not that sorry,” You beam with the flirtiest smile you can manage.
Making no moves to separate yourself from his hold, you turn back around in place to resume your dancing, hoping he would get the message you were so clearly not trying to hide. Jungkook was cute. Scratch that, he was incredibly sexy. In his tight black shirt showing off his strong arm muscles and skin tight black jeans making his thighs bulge in all the right places. You vaguely remember him wearing a leather jacket earlier but you don’t blame him for shedding it at some point during the night. It was so hot in here and it wasn’t just because of the close proximity of the many sweaty dancing bodies around you.
Muscular hands land on your hips from behind, helping them return back to the rhythm you just had going as Jungkook pulls you towards him. Your backside lightly pressed against his front. Ah, there we go. You knew he was smart enough to pick up on your flirting earlier when Hoseok first introduced you two. To be completely honest, you had only really wanted to dance by yourself tonight, but you saw the way Jungkook was looking at you earlier and his hands… Oh god, his hands were working magic as his thumbs lightly rubbed your hips through your thin dress.
You welcomed your new dance partner, finding that the dancing skills you’ve seen in the few videos you’ve watched of him did not disappoint. Mentally you thank yourself for the dance lessons you’ve been going to as you begin to gain more confidence in your movements with him.
Both Jungkook and your hips sway perfectly in time but you want more. No one has touched you in so long, save for that one night a month ago when Taehyung had deviously put his arms on you and whispered in your ear and we all know how that turned out. But you didn’t want to think about Taehyung’s stupid attractiveness and douchebag-ness right now. Jungkook is right where he needs to be here and now and he’s doing all of the right things.
The need to be closer to him grows inside of you and it could only be the liquid courage in you that wills you to push your ass closer to him. You didn’t care if you would regret this in the morning. This felt way too good. And who in their right mind would give up the opportunity of dancing with one of the hottest boys in the world?
Your hips follow the beat of the music, first to a faster pop song then you slow it down with more calculated moves when it transitions to a slower, sexier song. Jungkook’s hard breathing matches yours and if there was any indication by the way Jungkook tightens his grip on your hips and moves his head to slip into the crook of your neck, he was definitely enjoying this too.
Following a particularly slow grind of your hips, Jungkook’s low groan against your neck and the light touch of his lips to your skin spurs you on to continue the movement every so often as you tilt your head lightly back inviting him to suck on the most sensitive part of your skin. You had always been a neck girl and god did it feel good with his lips moving against yours.
Jungkook’s hands slide down your soft, red dress, rubbing lightly along your thighs. One hand running back up past your stomach just barely reaching the underside of your breast, the other hand staying closer to the inside of your right thigh, kneading the sensitive spot so close to where you wanted him so desperately. He pushes you closer with the hand pressed against your thigh, which adds more pressure to his hardening bulge behind you.
Jungkook’s hips thrust perfectly behind you in time with the music. Before you can stop yourself, you let out a low moan surprising yourself as Jungkook leaves more of his sloppy kisses and no doubt a hickey or two on your neck. “God, Y/N you’re so beautiful,” Jungkook whispers next to your ear in between his assault on your neck. You can’t help but moan again, louder this time at a particular hard grind of his hips paired with his own low groan against you. Your eyes snap open. Did anyone hear that? And is anyone else here noticing that you’re basically one step away from having sex on this dance floor?
Looking at the other couples and strangers around you, too occupied in their own affairs and dancing, you realizes no one was really paying attention to you or Jungkook. There wasn’t anyone here taking pictures, seeing as most of the people that came here were celebrities that didn’t want their dirty dancing escapades and hookups broadcasted on every gossip site. Everyone here was too busy reveling in their own sinful ways to notice yours.
Indulging in the fact that no one is looking at Jungkook and you, you move one of your hands to rest over Jungkook’s hand that is still kneading your right thigh. Taking control, you move it towards your center where you need him the most and let your other hand slide in between your two bodies, squeezing Jungkook’s own muscular thighs behind you, earning a low groan and a barely audible “fuck” coming from Jungkook.
You don’t have to guide him anymore as Jungkook gets the hint of what you wanted him to do. His fingers graze your bundle of nerves at your center tracing the same circular motion in which your hips are swaying. Slow and teasing as your hand moves from his thigh to his hard member behind you. Both Jungkook’s and your breathing growing fast and shaky as you work your hands on each other.
You turn your head towards Jungkook once more, lips so close to one another, you could smell the expensive whisky in his breath and he could probably smell the vodka in yours too. Jungkook’s lustful eyes lazily graze over your face finally landing on your lips. His hips and hands still moving with skill to the beat of the song as you palm each other over your clothes. Being this close, you realize how this boy really deserves to be one of the up and coming hot new pop stars. He’s so attractive. Sexy with a hint of innocence that you’re sure makes women of all ages keep coming back for more.
Girls must be falling all over him.
You were falling all over him.
Your eyes land on his lips soon after you’re done exploring his beauty in your drunken state. He’s so close, one slight move towards him and finally your lips connect with each other. First slow and gentle but soon turning into a more needy kiss. And you swear. You swear you’re one minute away from taking him back to your room and just having your way with him. Finally being able to properly hear those sweet moans he’s been spewing in the privacy of your own room in your big bed as he peppers those soft lips all the way down your body to your-
“WHERE DID IT GO?” A deep, exasperated voice booms so loud you can even hear it over the music filling the room making you break your kiss with Jungkook. Was that someone yelling? Was there a fight or something? You look around to see if anyone was reacting to the strange yell you just heard but almost everyone is still lost in their own world. Including Jungkook who doesn’t seem to notice your distraction as he continues kneading his hands on you and swaying to the music.
“WHERE DID IT GO?” The voice booms again.
This time you’re sure you hear it. You would know that voice and that tone anywhere but you hoped that maybe just maybe he wasn’t talking to you. You don’t see the source of the yell so you turn your gaze once more back to Jungkook and lean in again before-
“Y/N!”
Ah, shit.
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#taehyung#taehyung fav#taehyung smut#jungkook smut#jungkook#jungkook x reader#taehyung x reader#jungkook x oc#taehyung x oc#smut#bts smut#hoseok#hobi#jhope#hoseok x reader#bts x reader#bts fic#taehyung fic#taehyung fanfic#taehyung fan fic#jungkook fic#jungkook fanfic#jungkook fan fic#jungkook fluff#jungkook angst#taehyung fluff#taehyung angst#idol! taehyung#idol! jungkook#maid for you
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Living the Lie
This is a short story I uploaded first to my Fictionpress. Maybe one of these days, I should really take a mental health day from work. Or find some gosh darn direction in my life. But, if I did...would I be as inspired to write? Ah, the bane of being a creator.
Throughout my life, I’ve always watched as others raced ahead. It hasn’t been easy. Keeping my head above the surface of the ocean known as life. Every moment, I fear a wave crashing down on me, or when my strength fails and I stop treading water. Worst of all is when you see people posting up their picture-perfect lives and outstanding achievements on social media when you’re all but drowning in a dead-end job that had nothing to do with your degree or the hopes you fostered as a young child.
No one needs to reminded of their failures. So, please take your bullshit and spam it on someone else’s wall. And don’t, for the love of God, downplay it in your bid for the most likes! I can tell when someone’s fishing for compliments and I won’t abide by it.
You might be wondering where all this vitriol stems from. The answer is simple. It comes from a deep well of antipathy and frustration. Of being listless and rudderless. Of having no aspirations when you graduated high school at the top of your class and watched as all your dreams were dashed against the rocks of reality before they even had the chance to bloom.
No. This is no fairy tale full of happy ever afters. This is reality. This is truth. Where those with direction and purpose are able to find fulfilment while their silent and unsuccessful counterparts fall prey to their insecurities or keep it tightly tucked away under lock and key. And then suffer the repercussions with sleepless nights before they turn towards drink or prescription drugs to ease their suffering.
It was not always like this, you know.
I remember a childhood filled with dreams. Of jumping between obsessions as if they were Halloween costumes. One day, I fancied myself an esteemed surgeon of some repute. Another would see me shredding tunes on my plastic guitar.
None of that was enough to prepare my young self for the despair and doubt and fear involved with surviving in a world that does not have your back. And which is always eagerly anticipating your fall into destitution.
Because the fact of the matter is: no one cares. No one ever will. You’re just another number falling through the cracks of welfare. A bottom-feeder trying to wring what’s left from the upstanding, proper tax-paying civilians.
Over the years, in order to survive this cruel world, I’ve clung to whatever job that came my way. Lived pay cheque to pay cheque. Constantly concerned with what the future held and green with envy with the respectable lives of my friends.
It was enough for anyone to contemplate the unthinkable.
The entire world owed me. And if I wanted to live in this world of unfamiliar faces and sacks of meat with their wallets full to bursting, I would need to take everything that I wanted, consequences be damned!
The job I had in mind was simple in concept. It was the execution that turned out to be my downfall, as you’ll soon learn.
At the time, I thought my plan was full-proof. I would use others just like me. The downtrodden. The world weary. But even the most meticulous and well-laid ideas can fall through.
Much as it did in this instance, considering that I’m penning this even as I await my final verdict at court. But neither the judge nor the jury will delay me from my magnum opus. This will be my final piece of work before oblivion greets me after the next few hours. The weight on my shoulders is unbearable but press on, I must.
It started off as innocuous as could be. I was the perfect friend, eager to help. And so, when my friends were putting down for mortgages and then taking expensive holidays overseas, they would invite me to house-sit. It was a simple task and some of them even bothered to bequeath me with gifts for taking some time out of my week to look after their precious belongings.
Slowly and surely, though I am loath to admit it, I became greedy. Seeing all the things that they had but I did not, sparked something in me. They did not know it, but I would squirrel away trinkets that I knew would not be missed. Maybe a Rolex here, or a few hundred dollars that they had hidden underneath the mattress. It was so easy and simple. And none of them the wiser.
But as the years dragged on, I found myself grow ever more listless. What was the whole point of living? Everything was all so routine. Nothing could surprise me. And with that came the dread of waking up every morning, knowing that life was meaningless.
There was some trouble at work.
To numb myself from it all, I started drinking. First, it would be a bottle of beer with my co-workers every Friday night. Then, it would be two shots of whiskey every night. I knew that I had a problem when I was chugging down three cans of piss-poor beer just so that I could function for the day ahead.
It came as no surprise when the severance package came. I took it, hoping it would be enough to pay my overdue bills as well as indulge in my alcoholism.
Gradually, though, I realised that trying to drown my doubts solved nothing. The peace I sought was a lie. If I wanted to make something of myself, I had to act.
Two years it took me. Until I finally landed an enviable sales position at one of the leading security firms in the entire city. Though I had my fair share of problems, it was my fair share of connections and skilful networking that ultimately won me the part. Having landed the job I so highly sought, I began the second part of my plan – unable to be satisfied with the paltry salary that I was expected to live off.
While I had suffered a few casualties among my side-job of house-sitting, in my extensive friendship circles, I was still a trusted and respected member of society. It was no difficult thing to convince them that I had shed my old ways and had devoted myself to keeping their belongings safe from undesirables – and at a discount that they could hardly say ‘no’ to.
Slowly but surely, I built up a most trusted portfolio and sent off bits and pieces of information to my accomplices. With the job already cased and the codes to the alarms provided, it was a simple affair of waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
The first few jobs were a resounding success. Thousands upon thousands began pouring into bank accounts before being evenly distributed through private transactions.
But it all slowly came apart when the others became greedy.
I remember one incident at the office. It was late and I had stayed back to fix up some paperwork. Even though I had almost a million dollars tied up in investments, I could not draw attention to the vast amounts of wealth I now had. It had to be used sparingly. A little here, a little there – if I wanted to keep the tax agents off my trail.
His name was Doug. A stupid fellow, really. More of a hired muscle than someone I would have deigned to initiate cerebral conversations with. In he barged into one of my most innermost sanctums, caring not that at any moment he could have disrupted our tenuous business network – demanding more. Always more.
More, more, more, more, more.
You can imagine how maddening it was for someone of my intellect having to rely on such individuals for my masterplan to work. And yet, rely on them I must for it would not be detrimental to everything that I planned if I was seen in the midst of a crime scene.
Still, Doug had made his point clear and I strived to find more lucrative targets. Who was I to deprive my employees of a bonus or a raise? Not if it meant that I was beaten to almost an inch of my life. Besides, more money for Doug also meant more money for me.
For two months, we managed to rake in far more than the quotas that I had set. I will admit, the success we had found had made me giddy. I wanted to keep pushing the boundaries – take on more risks, for the reward when we had overcome all obstacles was a high that I never wanted to come down from. The rush, the thrill…
And that was the fatal mistake I made.
Instead of being satisfied with what we had managed to do and laying low for a time, I was eager to do something much bigger. I allowed my base greed take control and dictate my actions rather than heeding caution, even when my security business was hit by an audit and was under much tighter scrutiny than it had ever been.
Yet the thrill of it! Oh, I could wax poetic about how invigorated I was during the last several months as I played the elusive mouse. To steal a quote from the deplorable detective known only as Sherlock Holmes, the game was very much afoot. And I was eager to win it.
To show everyone I was more than the dowdy middle-aged man with a growing bald spot.
Alas, you know how the story ends. I won’t trouble you with the details that were splashed across the newspapers for weeks on end. What I will reveal is that in those days leading up to my arrest, the betrayal struck a deep blow to my confidence. I knew it had been foolish but I had thought that over our long acquaintance, I would have been able to trust Charlie.
The gun feels heavy in my hand. I bought it soon after my encounter with Doug at my office. A means of self-defence should something similar happen again.
I kept it strapped to the underside of my desk. An insurance policy for dealing with my less than savoury associates. One could never be too careful and I had learned that the hard way.
They say that to take one’s own life is an act of cowardice. But as a I stare at this carefully constructed piece of metal, I cannot help but think that the old adage is a lie. Perhaps it is my pride but there is something beautiful about going out on my own terms instead of wallowing inside a prison cell.
What is important to leave behind is not my wasted body but instead my legacy. To have others know that they are not alone in their fight against this oppression of the mind and soul. I could have been a successful businessman had the fates looked kindly on me. I could have lived my life with a smile on my face, spread out on a beach towel on Venice Beach. I could have been the one that had both a wife and loving son.
All of it could have been mine. Had not others stolen the happiness I could have achieved!
It is nearly seven. By eight thirty, I will be bundled into a police vehicle and escorted back to court. I know that any form of resistance would be futile.
But I am so tired…
Tired of what this world aspires to be. Tired of the expectations placed upon all the young boys and girls as they are constantly reminded that they are special. That they have purpose and meaning. Only for them to find out several months before graduation that they will only be a very small cog in a very large machine.
To the first responders that will find this: I apologise for the mess. In the end, it was not as easy as I had hoped. I dithered on the cusp right until I saw the first flashes of red and blue.
To those that were hoping to recoup their losses: again, I apologise. Perhaps you will be able to sell some of my assets (little though they may be).
And finally, to the jurors. I will not hear how you have judged me. Or my actions.
Still, let it be known that I, being of sound mind and body, do enter in my final testimonial. To shed some truth on the world and cut away the lies we weave around ourselves.
I may not be a good man. But I am my own man. How many of you can say the same?
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Of all the things that Melinda Warren was capable of doing, loving someone was not one of them. She was very good at keeping her home, she prided herself on her cooking skills, and she had excellent manners. But love? No. While Melinda had once claimed that she married for love, that emotion had long since left her body and the effort of pretending it was still there was too much for her to deal with.
Her husband, Gregory, had wooed her in their younger years with his accounting degree and his budding career on Madison Avenue. He was going to be an ad executive, he said, and he was going to bring home the big bucks (his words, not hers). They would have a little family of their own, live north of the City so as not to feel congested, and they’d have a wonderful life together.
Melinda, who had gone to college and had made an aborted attempt at a fashion degree, believed him. But she never truly loved him. No, she married him for the money, and she was sure that he knew it. They moved into a tiny apartment together at first, but once Gregory landed the partnership of a lifetime, they were able to afford a house, an actual house in upscale Riverdale, NY.
It was in Riverdale that their two sons were brought up–Nicholas first, and then four years later, Michael. Their lives were straight from a story book; they went to the nicest schools, had the nicest clothes, and always had birthday parties where everyone in their class was invited. And Melinda thought things were different; maybe her heart had softened, because she felt something for these two boys, her sons. Was it love? She wasn’t sure, but she hoped it was.
Things were great for the longest time–until suddenly they weren’t.
Gregory stumbled in the front door, reeking of alcohol and a pink slip between his outstretched hand. His firm, the one that had given him the job he’d always dreamed of, had fired him amidst a spectacular collapse that would eventually leave the firm (and Gregory’s career) nonexistant. He’d been given his notice, had packed up his car, and driven straight to the bar, where he’d gotten spectacularly drunk.
Melinda took the slip, her nose wrinkled in distaste, and set it on Gregory’s desk, rolling the top down to cover it so that the boys wouldn’t see. Then she’d gone into their bedroom to pull her husband off of the bed, slapped him on the cheek to get him out of his stupor, and sat him down for a talk.
And so the charade began. Gregory would leave in the mornings as he always did, seeing Michael and Nicholas onto the bus that would cart them off to school. He’d come back soon after, spend his day searching for another job, and then would leave again so that he wouldn’t be home when his sons climbed off the bus and ran into the house. He’d return hours later, usually smelling faintly of beer, but Melinda never said anything about it. It wasn’t her business.
But no one wanted to hire one of the senior partners at a firm that had been cheating people out of money. No one wanted a man who had been fired instead of being allowed to stick it out til the end of the firm’s days. No one wanted Gregory to work for them, because they worried that he would do to their business what it appeared that he had done to his previous employer’s (no matter that he didn’t have a hand in any of it).
Soon he didn’t bother leaving when the boys woke up; soon he didn’t bother pretending to come home late. He sat on the couch, a beer bottle in hand, watching daytime television and slowly growing more and more bitter. As much as Melinda resented him for it, a small part of her understood why he was upset. But she had a reputation to maintain.
The neighborhood that they lived in was an upscale one, and on a weekly basis Melinda walked three houses down to sit around a glass dining room table with a glass of wine and chit-chat about the latest neighborhood gossip. And Melinda knew that when a local family collapsed, their story was spread around the dining room table the next day, voices raised to be heard over the moving trucks as said disgraced family moved to a cheaper part of the City.
She wouldn’t become disgraced.
And so she spent her husband’s money–or lack thereof–as if he was still employed. New shoes ($89.99), new purses ($175.00), a few trips to the salon ($85.00)…
It shouldn’t have been a shock, though, when her husband snapped. He’d been drinking, of course, and the mail had come–and he had seen his account statement. She was glad that the boys weren’t home, and she was thankful for her good foundation ($57.99) to cover up the bruises.
The next time, though, she hadn’t been so lucky. Michael, twelve now, had dropped a glass of water and pieces went everywhere. His eyes had gone wide and he’d gone for a broom, but by the time he’d come back his father stood over him, face turning colors. “Pick it up,” he’d said, his voice dark and terrifying, and Michael quivered and nodded jerkily, unable to make eye contact with his father. Melinda’s manicured nails ($45.00) dug into her palms, and she watched her husband’s hands tighten into fists. Please don’t hit him, Greg, oh please don’t…
This time he didn’t. But when Nicholas talked back to his father two days later, he did. Melinda flinched at the sound of the back of her husband’s knuckles as they collided with her son’s cheek, and Michael broke into tears. Nicholas, though, sat still, as if he was in shock. As if he couldn’t believe that his own father had just smacked him across the face.
Two weeks later it was Michael’s turn, after burning toast. This time, it resulted in a bruised eye, and Melinda dutifully tended to her son’s face as he sat on her bathroom counter, tears running down his cheeks as he asked her why his daddy hurt him. The poor kid didn’t understand, and she couldn’t tell him why.
It continued like this for years—Michael and Nicholas grew up, becoming Mike and Nick, and the two learned how to keep out of their father’s way. They tended to stay out late, or not even come home at all, preferring to stay at a friend’s house instead of coming home to deal with their father. They would go to Melinda’s father’s house on most weekends, her parents driving down from the Adirondacks to pick the boys up and then would return them Sunday night before school the next day.
And Gregory… he was… trying, at least. When he was sober, he was a good father. He came to the boys’ sports games and cheered them on, he would take the family out to eat, and most importantly: he’d found another job. It didn’t pay as much, but it was enough for them to get by and that was all that mattered.
But when he drank, things got bad. Keeping her sons away from her husband meant taking the brunt of the aggression herself, and Melinda couldn’t help but be selfish; sometimes she didn’twant to feel like a human punching bag, and if Mike or Nick was around, she could retreat into herself and pretend as if this was all a bad dream.
When Mike was fourteen, Nick moved to New Jersey to go to college. Melinda couldn’t help but sigh in relief—they qualified for some financial aid (not like she’d tell the women in the community) and Nick would have the loans on his own back and not hers. It was a relief to know that she wouldn’t be responsible for this debt.
Living with them, his mother who just stood by and did nothing, turning the other cheek when his father had too much to drink and punched him in the gut a few times, and his alcoholic mess of a father, was almost too much for Mike to take. He begged his grandparents over and over to let him move in with them, to let him stay there—he’d cook for them, he’d clean their house, whatever it took so that he didn’t have to go home to his parents.
When his grandmother reached out to set a hand on his shoulder and he flinched, they knew that something was horribly wrong. It took one look at the bruises littering Mike’s torso for his grandfather to open his safe and hand Mike a locked box. Inside was a gun, a small gun but a gun nonetheless, with the instructions to never use this unless it was absolutely necessary.
(Meaning: if your father is going to kill you, you need to kill him first.)
Two years later, Mike’s grandfather died in his sleep. It was unexpected but he went peacefully.
The next morning, Melinda awoke to the sound of her phone ringing and her mother’s quiet sobs in her ear when she answered. She collected herself, her own emotions, and hung up the phone after speaking with her mother for what felt like an hour. She had to tell her son, and she didn’t want to.
For the past few years, the relationship between Melinda and Mike had been almost nonexistent. The boy only spoke to her when he needed something—and even then, he’d find other ways to get what he needed, mostly. He’d call up a friend for a ride, he’d work at the store down the street for pocket change, he’d do something other than ask her for it. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she didn’t mind the quiet around the house. Gregory got drunk less when Mike wasn’t home, mostly because Melinda had learned how to walk around on tiptoes around her husband and how not to set him off on a rampage.
She got out of her bed and slipped her feet into a pair of socks, then walked slowly down the hall to her son’s room. He’d spent the night at home for once, and she knocked twice on his door lightly before pushing it open.
His bedroom was painted blue, and all of his sports medals and trophies were displayed on the walls. Gregory had raised an athletic son—while Nick was more of an analytical type, Mike was athletic, and played football, baseball, golf… Gregory was the most proud of him for the golf, as it was something that he had done growing up, but had never gone far in. Seeing his son succeed in the sport enough to have him be considered for going professional was enough to make the man’s chest swell with pride.
Mike lay in bed, his phone pressed to his ear, and his eyes squeezed shut. His grandmother had beat Melinda to the punch—in the time it had taken her to summon up the energy to get out of bed and walk down the hall, her mother had dialed her son’s cell phone number and got there first. But maybe that was a good thing. Melinda knew that Mike would want to hear the news from his grandmother first, over her, and while that should have made her heart ache, it simply felt like it was one less burden she had to bear.
“Bye, Grandma—" Mike’s voice shook as he ended the call, and he opened his eyes to see his mother standing before him in her designer nightdress and her Louis Vuitton slippers. His face was red, eyelashes clumped together from the tears that flooded his eyes.
“Mom—“ It was all he had to say before she hurried over to the bed and gathered him into her arms, a sudden rush of maternal instinct telling her to hold him as tight as she could. She rocked him back and forth as he sobbed in her arms; it was the first real death that he’d experienced, and of the most important people in his life, and he was falling apart.
She felt her own eyes, damp with tears, and she tightened her grip on her son. Maybe she did feel love, after all.
#» you know what a heat run is? i know you do because it's in the book. headcanon.#aka mike warren's origin story
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"MARY POPPINS" (1964) Review
"MARY POPPINS" (1964) Review
Looking at the 1964 movie about a magical nanny, one would be amazed that it took nearly 20 years to make it. I suspect that many did not predict it would become critically acclaimed. But if one is ever interested in the behind-the-scenes production of the film, one would have to read about it . . . or watch the 2013 movie, "SAVING MR. BANKS". I am here to discuss the actual movie, "MARY POPPINS".
Based upon a selection of short stories written by P.L. Travers, "MARY POPPINS" tells the story of how two Edwardian Age children named Jane and Michael Banks, who request a particular kind of nanny after their latest one quits her job after enduring one too many pranks from the two siblings. Their father, a banker named George Banks, is too busy with his career and projecting the image of an ideal Englishman in order to pay attention to them. Their mother, although slightly more concerned about their welfare, is either caught up in the Suffregette Movement or too busy adhering to their father's demands. After the departure of their latest nanny, Katie Nanna, Jane and Michael write a letter describing what they want in a new nanny. But Mr. Banks has different ideas - a nanny who is an effective disciplinarian - and tears up their letter.
However, the children's letter magically reaches a woman named Mary Poppins. She appears at the Banks' home the following morning to apply (or appoint herself) as Jane and Michael's new nanny. Despite his initial reservation, Mr. Banks is impressed by Mary Poppins' firm manner and hires her. With the help of friend named Bert, Mary Poppins introduces the Banks children to a new magical world. In doing so, she also manages to shake up Mr. Banks, his household and his livelihood.
I first saw "MARY POPPINS" as a child and immediately fell in love with it. For years, I have regarded the movie as one of the highlights of my childhood and one of the best films to be released from the Disney Studios. But recent criticism of Mary Poppins as a sugar-coated character of no substance, and of the film as an infantilization of P.L. Travers' work and vision has led me to wonder if my childhood opinion of "MARY POPPINS" may have been overrated. After all, I had spent years judging the movie from the viewpoint of a child. How would I judge this movie from an adult who has spent the last ten to twenty years viewing movies with a critical eye?
As many have recently pointed out, the Disney Studios made a good number of changes to Travers' stories. They also left out a great deal. To point out "all" of the changes and deletions would require an essay. And I am not interested in writing such an essay. Were there any aspects of "MARY POPPINS" that I disliked? Honestly? No. But there are aspects of the movie's production that I wish could have been handled in a slightly different manner.
For quite some time, I never understood why "MARY POPPINS" was shot at the studio's Burbank lot, instead of at England's Pinewood Studios, where 1963's "DR. SYN, ALIAS THE SCARECROW" and "THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA" were filmed. Like the two 1963 films, "MARY POPPINS" mainly featured a cast of British actors. Only four cast members were American born - Dick Van Dyke, Ed Wynn, Jane Darwell and Reta Shaw. I feel that if the movie had been shot in Great Britain, its exterior shots of the Banks and Uncle Albert's neighborhoods and the City of London would have featured a bit more details - add more oomph to the movie's visual British style. As for Tony Walton's costume designs, I must admit that I found them rather charming, if not particularly mind blowing. However . . . I could not help but wonder why Mary Poppins' skirts seemed a tad short for 1909-10 fashions. And I also end up wondering why Winifred Banks' wardrobe seemed so limited. Unless I am mistaken, actress Glynis Johns wore only three costumes in "MARY POPPINS". In fact, I suspect she wore one particular costume twice. And Walton designed her costumes either in yellow, powder blue or a combination of both colors. Although I found Johns' costumes rather charming, they also struck me as a bit limited.
Although the film's production designs struck me as a bit limited, I cannot help but admire the film's cinematography and visual style. Edward Colman earned a much deserved nomination for his colorful and sharp photography for the film. Colman's photography also enhanced Tony Walton's pthe matte paintings created by Peter Ellenshaw. Since "MARY POPPINS" was filmed on the Disney Studios backlot in Burbank, Walt Disney and director Robert Stevenson not only had to depend upon Carroll Clark and William H. Tuntke's art direction, but also the visual effects and special effects teams. But "MARY POPPINS" was set in Edwardian London. And since Disney, Stevenson and the film's crew could not film in Great Britain, the production team had to rely on Ellenshaw's beautiful and colorful matte paintings to add to the film's visual look for its setting, as shown in the following images:
"MARY POPPINS" may not have been free of any flaws, but it still remains one of my favorite movies of all time. I had earlier pointed out that some critics have pointed out the movie's failure to be completely faithful to Travers' stories. Honestly? I do not care. It would have been near impossible for any screenwriter to be completely faithful. Travers did not write a single novel. She wrote a series of short stories and novellas. And since it is impossible for a screenplay to be completely faithful to a novel or stage play, what on earth made these critics believe Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi could have been completely faithful to Travers' stories and still fashion a single narrative for the film? Ridiculous!
Personally, I am amazed that Walsh and DaGradi managed to wring a single narrative out of so many short stories in the first place. That must have not been an easy task. As the 2013 movie, "SAVING MR. BANKS", had pointed out, Mary Poppins' purpose within the Banks' household was to save George Banks and his relationship with his children. And she did this in the most interesting way. Mary Poppins used her role as the children's nanny to indirectly affect the family's patriarch. Instead of utilizing traditional means to care for the children, Mary Poppins exposed Jane and Michael to her world - using magic to clean the nursery, an excursion into a sidewalk chalk drawing of the English countryside, and an afternoon tea party on the ceiling with Mary Poppins' Uncle Albert. The children's revelations of their activities naturally shook up Mr. Banks, along with the magical nanny's subversive and cheerful impact upon the Banks' household.
Unable to accept Mary Poppins' impact upon his family and servants, Mr. Banks threatened to fire her. And this is where Mary Poppins, as the film's trickster, pulled off a pièce de résistance. Before Mr. Banks could fire her, Mary Poppins managed to manipulate him into agreeing to take the children on an outing to his bank. However, the night before this outing, she decides to sing a song to the children about an old beggar woman who sits on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, selling bags of breadcrumbs to passers-by for twopence a bag,so that they can feed the many pigeons that surround her. Between the song and the children spotting the Bird Woman on their way to their father's bank set in motion the chaos that followed and Mary Poppins' plan to save Mr. Banks' relationship with his family. Brilliant.
If the narrative that Walsh and DaGradi had created from Travers' short stories had struck me as brilliant, the songs written by Robert and Richard Sherman seemed even more so. Aside from the performances, the Sherman Brothers' songs seemed to be the heart and soul of the film. If someone was to ask me which song was my favorite, I honestly could not answer that question. Aside from two of them, I found most of their songs very memorable . . . even to this day. One of their songs - "Chim Chim Cher-ee" - was nominated for the Best Song Oscar and won. However, I must admit to being surprised that the beautiful and rather haunting "Feed the Birds" failed to garner any kind of nomination or award. Perhaps it was not as fully appreciated back in 1964-65 as it is today.
Both "Jolly Holiday" and </i>"Step in Time"</i> were not only entertaining songs, but they also provided the background for some very entertaining dance numbers. The first featured the very agile Dick Van Dyke and a quartet of animated pigeons. I found this dance sequence both funny and a joy to watch. You have to see it to believe it. As for the second song, it was featured in a show stopping dance routine that involved Van Dyke, Julie Andrews . . . and chimney sweeps. Between the song, the dance routines choreographed by the husband-and-wife team of Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood, and the London rooftops background, the entire sequence is one of the film's highlights.
Another addition to the magic of "MARY POPPINS" proved to be its cast. The movie featured excellent voice performances in the chalk picture sequence from the likes of J. Pat O'Malley, Marni Nixon, Dallas McKinnon, and Alan Napier. Even Julie Andrews and David Tomlinson also provided voice performances. The supporting and cameo performances featured in this film were marvelous. The movie included excellent performances from Reginald Owen as the cankerous Admiral Boom; Elsa Lancaster as the disgruntled Katie Nanny; Arthur Treacher as the kindly Constable Jones; Arthur Malet as Mr. Dawes Jr., one of the board members of the bank that employed Mr. Banks; Hermione Baddeley and Reta Shaw as Ellen and Mrs. Brill, the Banks' gregarious maid and cook; and a poignant cameo by Jane Darwell, who was convinced by Disney to make a brief appearance as the Bird Lady.
"MARY POPPINS" marked the second teaming of Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber, who portrayed the magical nanny's charges, Jane and Michael Banks. It seemed pretty simple to me why Disney had used this pair in three movies. Not only were they were first-rate actors who more than kept up with the likes of Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and David Tomlinson; they also had a great screen chemistry. In P.L. Travers' books, Mrs. Banks was an easily intimidated woman who could barely maintain control of her household. In this movie, Mrs. Banks was a woman more occupied by her suffragette activities than her children. And she was portrayed by actress Glynis Johns. The latter gave a marvelous performance as a woman who seemed to hid her inability to protect her children from their father's neglect with a few sympathetic words and her own brand of neglect.
If I had to select the most complex character in this movie, it would have to be Mr. George Banks of 17 Cherry Tree Lane and the Dawes Tomes Mousley Grubbs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. Thanks to actor David Tomlinson in his first appearance in a Disney film, movie audiences were treated to a superb performance. Tomlinson skillfully transformed George Banks from a highly driven and disciplined man who was obsessed with order to an affectionate family man who had found a new lease on life. It almost seems criminal that the actor never received any kind of acting nomination for his performance.
Unlike Tomlinson, Dick Van Dyke did receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, thanks to his performance as Bert, Mary Poppins' closest friend and jack-of-all-trades. Whenever Van Dyke's performance in "MARY POPPINS" is mentioned, people seemed to comment on his Cockney accent. Granted, it was not perfect. But I have never considered it to be a travesty. I have noticed that whenever he spoke words with a long vowell, his Cockney accent seemed exaggerated. Otherwise, I had no problems. And if someone like Sean Connery can win an Oscar for portraying an Irish immigrant with a Scots accent, I see no reason why Van Dyke's portrayal of Bert should only be condemned for a questionable Cockney accent. Besides . . . accent aside, Van Dyke gave a superb performance in so many other ways. He captured Bert's charm, wit and a slight talent for manipulation with such perfection. Van Dyke was also given the opportunity to portray another character in the film - namely Mr. Banks' elderly boss, Mr. Dawes Senior of the Dawes Tomes Mousley Grubbs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. How often does one find an actor in his late 30s effectively portraying a 90-something year-old man? In my personal experience, very rarely. And to put the cherry on the icing, Van Dyke was never criticized for his British accent, while portraying Mr. Dawes . . . for good reason. Although there have been hints of his talent as a song-and-dance man in his first television series, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW", this movie really provided an opportunity to convey how truly talented he could be.
Julie Andrews managed to capture the big prize for her portrayal of the film's leading character, Mary Poppins. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Whereas many were distracted from Van Dyke's performance because of his accent, others have lamented on how Andrews' portrayal of the magical nanny seemed a far cry from her literary version. Granted, the latter was a plain-looking woman, somewhat more pompous and strict. Although Andrews' Mary Poppins was more beautiful looking and somewhat warmer, she could still be quite sharp-tongued - especially when disciplining Jane and Michael. Andrews also did a great job in conveying Mary Poppins' no nonsense behavior and massive talent for emotional manipulation. That one scene in which the magical nanny manipulated Mr. Banks into taking his children on an outing to his bank was just a joy to watch. Thanks to her skillful and award winning performance, Andrews managed to convey the reason why Mary Poppins is regarded as a trickster.
What else can I say about "MARY POPPINS"? Over fifty years have passed since the movie's initial release and it is still - at least to me - a magical movie to watch. Yes, it had a few flaws. What movie did not? But thanks to P.L. Travers' stories, Robert Stevenson's marvelous direction, Robert and Richard Sherman's music, the movie's visual effects teams and the superb cast led by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke; "MARY POPPINS" remained timeless and magical as ever.
#mary poppins#mary poppins 1964#walt disney#robert stevenson#sherman brothers#robert sherman#richard sherman#julie andrews#dick van dyke#david tomlinson#glynis johns#karen dotrice#matthew garber#hermione baddley#reta shaw#ed wynn#arthur malet#elsa lanchester#peter ellenshaw#arthur treacher#reginald owen#jane darwell#p.l. travers
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“the golden rule”
Love.
everything will be consummated by it at some point.
Today’s reading from the Scriptures begins with chapter 7 in the book of Matthew:
“Refuse to be a critic full of bias toward others, and you will not be judged. For you’ll be judged by the same standard that you’ve used to judge others. The measurement you use on them will be used on you. Why would you focus on the flaw in someone else’s life and fail to notice the glaring flaws of your own? How could you say to your friend, ‘Let me show you where you’re wrong,’ when you’re guilty of even more? You’re being hypercritical and a hypocrite! First acknowledge and deal with your own ‘blind spots,’ and then you’ll be capable of dealing with the ‘blind spot’ of your friend.
“Who would hang earrings on a dog’s ear or throw pearls in front of wild pigs? They’ll only trample them under their feet and then turn around and tear you to pieces!
“Ask, and the gift is yours. Seek, and you’ll discover. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. For every persistent one will get what he asks for. Every persistent seeker will discover what he longs for. And everyone who knocks persistently will one day find an open door.
“Do you know of any parent who would give his hungry child, who asked for food, a plate of rocks instead? Or when asked for a piece of fish, what parent would offer his child a snake instead? If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask him?”
“In everything you do, be careful to treat others in the same way you’d want them to treat you, for that is the essence of all the teachings of the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate because the wide gate and broad path is the way that leads to destruction—nearly everyone chooses that crowded road! The narrow gate and the difficult way leads to eternal life—so few even find it!”
“Constantly be on your guard against phony prophets. They come disguised as lambs, appearing to be genuine, but on the inside they are like wild, ravenous wolves! You can spot them by their actions, for the fruits of their character will be obvious. You won’t find sweet grapes hanging on a thorn bush, and you’ll never pick good fruit from a tumbleweed. So if the tree is good, it will produce good fruit; but if the tree is bad, it will bear only rotten fruit and deserves to be cut down and burned. You’ll know them by the obvious fruit of their lives and ministries.”
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into heaven’s kingdom. It is only those who persist in doing the will of my heavenly Father. On the day of judgment many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, don’t you remember us? Didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we cast out demons and do many miracles in your name?’ But I will have to say to them, ‘Go away from me, you lawless rebels! I’ve never been joined to you!’
“Everyone who hears my teaching and applies it to his life can be compared to a wise man who built his house on an unshakable foundation. When the rains fell and the flood came, with fierce winds beating upon his house, it stood firm because of its strong foundation.
“But everyone who hears my teaching and does not apply it to his life can be compared to a foolish man who built his house on sand. When it rained and rained and the flood came, with wind and waves beating upon his house, it collapsed and was swept away.”
By the time Jesus finished speaking, the crowds were awestruck by his teaching, because his words carried such great authority, quite unlike the religious scholars.
The Book of Matthew, Chapter 7 (The Passion Translation)
Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 4th chapter of Ezra where a group of people became indignant at the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, even to send letters of accusation to the king of Persia in an attempt at getting him to put a stop to it:
[The Building Stopped]
Old enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building The Temple of the God of Israel. They came to Zerubbabel and the family heads and said, “We’ll help you build. We worship your God the same as you. We’ve been offering sacrifices to him since Esarhaddon king of Assyria brought us here.”
Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the family heads of Israel said to them, “Nothing doing. Building The Temple of our God is not the same thing to you as to us. We alone will build for the God of Israel. We’re the ones King Cyrus of Persia commanded to do it.”
So these people started beating down the morale of the people of Judah, harassing them as they built. They even hired propagandists to sap their resolve. They kept this up for about fifteen years, throughout the lifetime of Cyrus king of Persia and on into the reign of Darius king of Persia.
In fact, in the reign of Xerxes, at the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against those living in Judah and Jerusalem.
Again later, in the time of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and their associates wrote regarding the Jerusalem business to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated. (What follows is written in Aramaic.)
Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows:
From: Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary, backed by the rest of their associates, the judges and officials over the people from Tripolis, Persia, Erech, and Babylon, Elamites of Susa, and all the others whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the city of Samaria and other places in the land across the Euphrates.
(This is the copy of the letter they sent to him.)
To: King Artaxerxes from your servants from the land across the Euphrates.
We are here to inform the king that the Jews who came from you to us have arrived in Jerusalem and have set about rebuilding that rebellious and evil city. They are busy at work finishing the walls and rebuilding the foundations. The king needs to know that once that city is rebuilt and the wall completed they will no longer pay a penny of tribute, tax, or duty. The royal treasury will feel the loss. We’re loyal to the king and cannot sit idly by while our king is being insulted—that’s why we are passing this information on. We suggest that you look into the court records of your ancestors; you’ll learn from those books that that city is a rebellious city, a thorn in the side to kings and provinces, a historic center of unrest and revolt. That’s why the city was wiped out. We are letting the king know that if that city gets rebuilt and its walls restored, you’ll end up with nothing in your province beyond the Euphrates.
The king sent his reply to Rehum the commanding officer, Shimshai the secretary, and the rest of their associates who lived in Samaria and other places beyond the Euphrates.
Peace be with you. The letter that you sent has been translated and read to me. I gave orders to search the records, and sure enough it turns out that this city has revolted against kings time and again—rebellion is an old story there. I find that they’ve had their share of strong kings who have taken over beyond the Euphrates and exacted taxes, tribute, and duty. So do this: Order these men to stop work immediately—not a lick of rebuilding in that city unless I order it. Act quickly and firmly; they’ve done enough damage to kings!
The letter of King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum and Shimshai the secretary and their associates. They lost no time. They went to the Jews in Jerusalem and made them quit work.
That put a stop to the work on The Temple of God in Jerusalem. Nothing more was done until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
The Book of Ezra, Chapter 4 (The Message)
my personal reading of the Scriptures for Tuesday, march 9 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs
A post by John Parsons about becoming “alive”
As our Teacher, Yeshua reveals the heart of God to us, teaching us about the meaning of life and death and why we suffer... Most radically, however, he offers us the cure for the sickness of “spiritual death” (i.e., separation from God) by offering the gift of his life for us. Yeshua heals us from alienation and separation from the Eternal by means of spiritual regeneration (Eph. 2:1,5; John 3:3-7). Your relationship with Messiah constitutes eternal life (חַיֵּי עוֹלָם), for it is He who “makes you alive together with him” (i.e., συζωοποιέω, the Greek word here means you are brought into a new realm of existence by participating in the life in Messiah). He offers us daily deliverance from the power of sin by means of the Spirit of Truth (רוּחַ הָאֱמֶת), though we must remain receptive to the message of hope and be transformed by the renewing our minds (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; Col. 3:10).
We must be careful not to “drift away” from the truth, since that forfeits the integrity of our lives and leads us into darkness and despair: “For what benefit is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36). Faith is the means or agency of connection with what is real, though we can lose that connection by hardening our hearts and returning to our former illusions (Heb. 3:13). Exile from God is therefore self-imposed; the gates of repentance are always open to those who seek God’s compassion; everyone is welcome to find life in the blessing of Messiah (Luke 14:16-23; Luke 15:11-32). Therefore, draw near to God and God will draw near to you. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). [Hebrew for Christians]
3.8.21 • Facebook
Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research
March 9, 2021
Thy Precious Blood
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:...And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” (Colossians 1:14, 20)
John introduced Jesus to the world at His baptism by saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He was known prophetically as a lamb even before then. “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). He fulfilled the lamb role in His sacrificial death for the sins of mankind: “With the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). The third verse of “There Is a Fountain” continues that picture.
Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved, to sin no more.
The precious Christology passage of Colossians 1:13-20 identifies Christ as Creator, Redeemer, and King. As Creator, His redemptive work included the ransom of His creation, lost and shackled in sin. There will come the time when all of redeemed mankind will gather around His throne “saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Revelation 5:12).
They will be joined by all in creation to sing His praises. “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints” (Revelation 15:3). JDM
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POST-ORIENTED
It helps if you use a Web-based application anywhere. Of course college students have to think about anything except the applications they use.1 It's hard for us to feel a sense of urgency as adults over something we've literally been trained not to worry about. If you seem really good we'll accept you anyway. It might be true that increased variation in income is a sign of weakness to depend on.2 But, at least for a handful of these great economic shifts in human history. Fortunately there's a better way to get money, of course. Apple's next products should be. That's what compilers are for. Let's start by talking about the five sources of startup funding. Another concept we need to introduce now is valuation.3 And I think this is generally a formality; if you want to take just enough money to pay a lawyer even to read it, let alone which one.
I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. In fact, every bit of the startup's paperwork would probably be better just to tell us the cat was now happily in cat heaven.4 Any startup founder can tell you the most revenue the soonest. Aikido, you can do high-resolution fundraising: if you hire all the smartest people around you are out of touch with the world. There are examples of this algorithm being applied to actual emails in an appendix at the end. I bet a lot of money on a freelance graphic designer. If they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be popular but seem hard to make money as a freelance programmer.
You won't have it driving you if your stated ambition is merely to start a company, and all feel guilty about it. Find something that's missing in your own life, and supply that need—no matter how specific to you it seems. My E-Commerce Web Site, that's spam. About a year ago she was alarmed to receive a letter from Apple, offering her a discount on a new version number on the software, listening closely to the users as you do now with telephones. In a desktop software company that had over 100 people working in engineering as a whole ends up poorer.5 The kids obligingly grow up considering themselves as Ys. What you can do more for users. Be aware, though, this is not how to find a cofounder, what should you do? The houses are made using the same construction techniques and contain much the same objects. To do good work, you need to start looking for your next round?
Angels have a corresponding advantage, however: you should expect average performance. If that were all, they'd be very annoying. Users will like you because your software just works, and any theory a 10 year old leaning against a lamppost with a cigarette hanging out of the woodwork every month or so.6 I've now realized it. Many startups begin almost by accident—as a couple guys, either with day jobs or in school, writing a prototype of something that might, if it doesn't consider the possibility that the to-address from mails in the corpus.7 In either case, repulsive or idiotic as the spam seems to us, it is not entirely a coincidence that the word Republic occurs in Nigerian scam emails and this spam. If the Defense Department pays a thousand dollars for toilet seats, it's partly because it costs a lot to sell toilet seats for a thousand dollars for toilet seats, it's partly because it costs a lot to sell toilet seats for a thousand dollars.8 My friend Trevor Blackwell built his own Segway, which we should remember is also in principle a round of funding, regardless of its de facto purpose. You should hope that it stays that way. At Viaweb we had external forces in plenty to keep us in line.
Foreword to Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. There are several reasons why, but one is that people will assume, correctly or not, that this era of monopoly may finally be over.9 But they have to do an angel round before going to VCs. So one way to find angel investors is through personal introductions. If you're doing really badly, meaning the company is still just an idea. It wasn't worth doing better.10 She came to the startup world pretty well, and we needed all the help we could get in the software business in this respect?11 Lexical closures, introduced by Lisp in the mid 2000s. Here's a partial solution: when a VC offers you a term sheet, ask how many of their last 10 term sheets turned into deals. If you use this method, you'll get roughly the same answer I just gave.
Google pushed this idea further than anyone had before.12 They may if they are the actual registrar for it. Afterward I wondered, what am I even measuring?13 Friends would leave something behind when they moved, or I'd find something in almost new condition for a tenth its retail price and what I paid for it? In existing open-source projects you don't have an idea. They cut off all the crap the manufacturer had bolted onto the car to make it. The serious hacker will also want to learn how to operate hers.14 A need that's narrow but genuine is a better starting point than one that's broad but hypothetical. There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of implementing features is plan them. But why do we conceal death from kids?15
Notes
Some VCs will try to become merely stubborn.
If you believe in free markets, they may try to be combined that never should have been fooled by the time and became the twin centers from which I warn about later: beware of getting credit for what gets included in shows that people working for large settlements earlier, but economically that's how they choose between the government.
Few can have escaped alive, or the presumably larger one who shouldn't? Acquisitions fall into two categories: those where the ratio of spam in my incoming mail fluctuated so much, or pigs, to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors. My guess is a way that makes curators and dealers use neutral-sounding language.
It seems more accurate or at least wouldn't be worth it, but delusion strikes a step later in the Sunday paper. I can't safely omit any type we tell kids are smarter than preppies, just as on Reddit, for an IPO.
Maybe it would be easier to take action, go running. Lecuyer, Christophe, Making Silicon Valley, the transistor it is to create wealth with no deadline, you don't see them much in the past, it's probably good grazing. After lunch we went to school.
The variation in productivity is the post-money valuations of funding. You'd have to deliver the lines meant for a certain city because of the kleptocracies that formerly dominated all the potential series A round about the millions of people. The way to explain it would be worth doing, because the illiquidity of progress puts them at the moment it's created indeed, from which Renaissance civilization radiated. In part because Steve Jobs did for Apple when he came back as CEO.
Ii.
According to the principle that you have to give it back. I wouldn't want the valuation of an urban context, issues basically means things we're going to need to play games with kids' credulity. But if you're not trying to sell the bad groups and they would probably never have to resort to expedients like selling autographed copies, or even 1000x an average programmer's salary. The CRM114 Discriminator.
Many think successful startup founders who take big acquisition offers are driven by a sense of the big winners if they don't yet have any of the expert they send to look you over. 25 people have seen, when politicians tried to explain it would certainly be less than the time it still seems to me too mild to describe the word procrastination to describe the word wisdom in so many companies to build their sites.
It is a meaningful idea for human audiences.
Some founders listen more than others, no matter how large. And you can play it safe by excluding VC firms.
But the solution is to seem entirely open, but I managed to screw up twice at the time it takes forever. If anyone wants. That's why there's a continuum here.
Japanese cities are ugly too, and the average startup. Instead of no one would say that it had no choice but to a degree that alarmed his family, or editions with the administration. Starting a company doesn't have users. Ten years later.
A YC partner wrote: One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to start or join startups. When I talk about it. Till then they had that we should be specialists in startups.
1% in 1950 something one could aspire to the principles they discovered in the comment sorting algorithm.
Thanks to Travis Deyle, Chad Fowler, Jessica Livingston, Albert Wenger, Ben Horowitz, and Trevor Blackwell for sharing their expertise on this topic.
#automatically generated text#Markov chains#Paul Graham#Python#Patrick Mooney#progress#city#funding#markets#Wenger#anyone#Heinemeier#toilet#sup#company#freelance#advantage#year#appendix#continuum#winners#sheet#Defense#formality#valuations#students#users
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Lost & Found (an EXO fanfic) - ch.21
youtube
Idol!AU
Pairing: Xiumin x Reader
Warning: Language
Status: Ongoing
Summary: Marion’s life was going perfectly well before it had fell apart. She had moved out from her family’s house to New York City almost a year ago to attend her dream college. She had gotten a small job and had a great group of friends to keep her happy. Then everything went downhill the moment she found out that her father had died. What made it worse was the fact that her father’s bank account was mysteriously empty, leaving her and her family completely broke. Marion suddenly didn’t have any time to go to college anymore or even grieve her father’s death as she thrown into working multiple jobs to support her family. Her happy college days were gone, instead replaced with working at a Chicken restaurant during the day and serving people drinks at a bar by night. It wasn’t until a rather handsome man walks through the Bar doors that lightens things up in her life. He’s attractive, charming and likable-everything a girl would want in a man-until he does something that leaves her never wanting to see him again…but he still wants to see her.
Sometimes you live with memories that you wish you could forget, but not always regret.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23
Marion was leaning against the front counter of the Chirping Chicken, watching Darius-the new dirty blonde, dark blue eyed high school senior that was hired since Mike had resigned. She scowled when she saw him making a group of teenage girls laugh as he took their order. She had heard him talking sweetly to a girl on the phone during his lunch break-so seeing him flirt and flash smiles at girls in the restaurant was downright disappointing. “I’m so glad high school is over.” Marion mumbled. “Everyone is so immature that it’s embarrassing.”
Jasmine-who had been talking beside her-frowned, “Hello! Marion are you even listening to me?”
Marion looked over at Jasmine blankly, “No-sorry-I zoned out.” She said, apologetically.
Jasmine rolled her eyes before her phone started ringing in her apron pocket. Marion watched Jasmine glance down at the caller ID before shutting it off.
Marion saw Jasmine’s dull expression before stating, “Javier.”
Jasmine reached her hands to readjust her brown haired bun. “Yep.”
Marion frowned, “Didn’t you guys break up though?”
Jasmine looked exasperated, “Yes! Yes, we did! I don’t know what he wants this time!”
Marion made a face, before turning to look at Darius-who was still chatting with the girls, “Why are men so problematic?”
Jasmine shook her head, speaking wistfully, “I wish I fucking knew, bro.”
Marion suddenly furrowed her brows and looked at her, “You know-Minseok is actually….is actually acting weird with me. It’s so…I’m not used it-and I never thought that would happen to us. I don’t know what to think about it.”
Jasmine snapped her fingers, “Oh yeah! So did he tell you?”
Marion looked at her, “Tell me what?”
Jasmine spoke nonchalantly with a raised brow, “About how they are all moving back to South Korea next week?”
“WHAT?!”
Jasmine blinked, “Oh honey, no wonder he’s acting weird.”
To say that Marion was mad would be an understatement.
She was furious.
Even more so because of the fact that Minseok wasn’t answering any of her several calls. She was sitting on the couch, her arms crossed as she stared at her phone resting on the coffee table before her. She stared at a few moments longer before standing up and shutting off the TV. There was no use of trying to distract herself when everything she was feeling was still taking up her mind.
Suddenly the doorbell rang and she ran over, swinging the door open wide. “You-“she quickly cut herself off when she realized that it wasn’t Minseok at the door. Instead she was greeted with two angry looking, black clad, muscular thugs holding her Uncle Calvin by each arm. Except Uncle Calvin wasn’t normal, his eyes were wide with fear and his nose and shirt were covered in blood. Marion gasped.
One of them spoke, his voice gruff and laced with annoyance, “You his niece?”
Marion looked at Uncle Calvin-his eyes were lolling and it looked as if it was hard for him to even be standing. “What the hell did you do to him?” she whispered.
The thug shoved him towards her and she staggered back as she caught him in her arms.
The thug pointed at her, his voice firm and dangerous, “Tell em’ not to pay up fucking late next time.”
The second man chuckled, his blue eyes running down her body. “Bye…sweetie.”
Marion slammed the door shut before placing her Uncle down on the couch. She stepped back from him, looking down at her shirt-which was now painted in red. She saw her Uncle’s eyes flutter as he slumped down on her couch.
“What the hell did you do!?!” Marion almost screamed.
Uncle Calvin tried to sit up but then-suddenly-smiled, “I did exactly what he said. I paid me dues late.” He chuckled.
Marion stared at him, disgusted, “Why the hell did you join a fucking gang?”
Uncle Calvin laughed, throwing his head as he did so.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THE CITY?!” she yelled.
That seemed to get his attention. His eyes snapped back on hers.
His voice came out surprisingly clear, “I had to meet our gang leader. I was late so he did what he had to do.” He smiled, “At least he didn’t kill me.”
Marion looked at him, her face frowning in disgust, “He should’ve.”
Uncle Calvin glared, “Honey, you better watch your mouth or I-I-“ He slurred off.
“You’ll what? You’ll WHAT?!” she yelled.
Uncle Calvin suddenly sat up, his glaring intensified, “You hate me so much, huh? Suppose that’s right after all I done to your family-“
“Hell-fucking-yeah!” she said, before leaning close to him while pointing her finger at his chest, “There is absolutely no reason for me to help you. NO REASON!”
“I’m your family.” He said, before laughing in her face. And that was when she smelled the alcohol from his breath.
“Fuck you.” She said, staring at him with pure disgust before walking to her kitchen to find her first aid kit.
“Remember when your Daddy went on that business trip of his? He was tryna buy another grocery store some place or whatever be-before he got himself killed in a car crash?”
She tried to ignore him as she fumbled through opening her kitchen cabinets randomly. Where the hell is the First Aid Kit? She thought with a frown.
Calvin laughed, “Well-I was there with your Mom, you know? The day I found out he died I went to your Mom. She was a fucking mess, I’ll tell ya. She was sobbing all over the damn place-I tried to take care of her. I did. But how can someone who don’t even know how to care of emself’ take care of his sister?”
He laughed as if that was especially funny.
“Anyway, anyway-while ya mom was sobbing all over the damn place. I tried to keep her house in order, feed the boys, clean the house, collect the mail…I collected the mail, you see…Then there was this one especially interesting letter…letter from the bank, you see.”
Marion suddenly froze.
“And I took it home…and I opened it. It was from the bank tellin’ yo Mom that she had to sign few of these papers to receive your daddy’s life insurance and savings money get transferred to her account.”
He whistled, “And boyyyy, was it a good amount of money. And I did what the hell I had to do.”
Marion stood up, “What did you do?”
“I blasted from ya Mom’s house and went to the bank-I transferred all that fucking money to my account, baby.” He said, with a relieved smile.
Marion was frozen.
He waved his hand casually, “I had to plagiarize ya Mom’s signature here and there. Cause ya Mom had to sign saying she wanted me to have it for me to get it. Whatever-I owe people a lot of money, ya see? I paid em all back…but I paid em all back too late. They was mad…OoohhH they was mad.” He shook his head, sadly.
Suddenly her Uncle ran his hand over his face, looking down at his hand as the blood from his nose ran onto it, “Fucking bitch clocked me on the nose.” He mumbled.
Marion’s knees felt weak. She reached her hand out on the counter to hold herself up, “How could you?” she didn’t realize she was shaking. “HOW COULD YOU?!”
Her Uncle suddenly stood up, shaking his head, “No-no-don’t hurt me please-please.”
Marion tried to take a step forward but ended up stumbling and falling to her knees. She clutched her face in her hands and broke down. Her shoulders shook as she gritted her teeth and sobbed. Anger, mixed with sadness and frustration spilled down her cheeks in the form of tears.
She heard the front door slam shut and didn’t have to look up at know that her Uncle had left.
She removed her hands from her face to yell after him, “HOW COULD YOUUUUUUU!”
She covered her face again, before curling in on herself on the floor. She cried and cried until she felt hollow.
She
cried
and
cried
until
it
didn’t
hurt.
Minseok slipped the key inside and unlocked her apartment door. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him as he saw her sitting beside the kitchen counter on a stool. Her back was faced to him.
Minseok walked towards her, “Mar, you called me so many times-did you forget that I told you that I was going have a busy today? I turn my phone off when I’m in the studio.“
“You didn’t tell me you were moving back to Korea.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, “I was planning to-”
She turned around, “There is a difference between planning to and actually doing it.”
Minseok opened his eyes and was stunned when he saw her. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her undereyes were puffy. Her lips looked swollen from gnawing at them too much-it was a habit of hers he noticed that she did whenever she was anxious. This couldn’t possibly be because he was leaving.
“Marion-what happened?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.
She shook her head, “It doesn’t matter what happened to me. If you can’t even tell me something as big as you leaving you clearly don’t care enough about me.”
Minseok then noticed that all of her kitchen cabinets were open and that there was blood on her shirt.
He stepped towards her, “Marion-what the hell happened?”
She stood up, shoving him back. “Stop changing the subject!”
He pointed at her shirt, “Why the hell is there blood on your shirt?”
She scoffed, “It’s not mine-Tell me, how long did you know? How long did you know that you were going to leave?!”
He ran a hand through his hair, flustered, “I-I knew since the moment I came here that I was going to leave. Our management only gave us a couple months to make our own album. It was supposed to be trip.”
She smiled a painfully tight smile, “Is that what I was too? A trip?”
“NO-No!” he said, his dark eyes intent, “I was just-“
She suddenly shrugged, “It doesn’t matter.”
Minseok froze, raising a brow, “What?”
“It doesn’t matter because you’re not leaving.”
Minseok shook his head, speaking slowly, “I have to leave.”
The look in her eyes was suddenly desperate as she took a step towards him. “You can’t. Anything could happen to you and I-I won’t be there to…I won’t be there.”
Minseok hated the feeling that was plummeting through his stomach at her eyes, “Marion-I-“his voice broke.
He looked away from her, his voice firm, “I’m in a contract. I can’t break it.”
Marion’s voice was quiet, “You can’t leave me.”
Minseok looked at her-the intensity of her dark eyes holding his gaze. “I don’t want to.”
He took a step towards her, slipping his hand onto the side of her face, “I’ll come back.”
She placed her hand over his, closing her eyes as she let herself feel the warmth of his hand against her face. “When?” she whispered.
He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against hers, “I-I don’t know. But I know I’ll be back. I come back for you.”
She shook her head, pulling his hand away from her face and stepping back. “No-I can’t do this.”
He looked at her, “Do what?”
“I can’t do a long-distance relationship. Long-distance never works out.” She said, while running her hands through her hair.
He took a step towards her. “We’ll make it work. I can call-“
She shook her head, stepping back from him, “No-no, I can’t-it’s not going to work.”
He moved to take another step towards her but she held her hand out.
“We can-“ He spoke, his desperate and wanting.
She interrupted, “I don’t want to do long-distance.”
He looked at her intensely, “Why?”
“Why can’t you choose me over your contract?” she asked.
Minseok looked at her for a moment before shaking his head, “Don’t put me in that position, Marion.” he said, quietly.
“Exactly-so don’t put me in the position of doing something I don’t want to do.” She said, her voice firm but broken.
He looked at her-his eyes hurt, “But why?”
“Because long-distance never works out, Minseok!” she yelled.
His eyes were suddenly demanding, intense, “How can you say that about something you haven’t even tried yet?!”
She shook her head, stepping away from him. “No.” she said, quietly, “I can’t do it.”
“Mar-“
“It doesn’t matter! We’re fucked anyway!” she suddenly yelled.
He looked at her, his dark eyes hard, “How are we fucked?”
She laughed, dryly-in the way he hated the most. “Are you really asking? You can’t choose me over a contract and I’m not willing to try long-distance because-because I can’t stand not seeing you every day and I’d rather not have that anxiety of thinking about you all the time…I know how I am, Minseok. I won’t be able to handle it.”
He shook his head, “You’ll get-“
“We’re over.” She said, abruptly.
He looked at her, taken aback. “No, Mar-you can’t-“
She shook her head, “Don’t you see it-it doesn’t even matter if I say it. We already are.”
“No, we’re not!” He said, helplessly. “This isn’t it!”
Marion shook her head, stepping further away from him into the kitchen.
When he moved to try follow her, he noticed the half-empty beer bottle on the counter. “Mar, you’re drunk. You don’t mean it.”
She shook her head, looking at him across the counter. “I’m not drunk.”
He leaned across the counter, his voice soft and unwilling, “You are.”
Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes, “I’m not. I’m serious. You’ll realize that I’m serious about this when I say the same thing tomorrow.“
“No! You’re drunk! You don’t mean anything you say right now!” He yelled, moving himself to walk around the counter to her.
She suddenly held up her phone, “Don’t come any closer! I’ll call the cops-I swear it.”
Minseok stopped, his eyes hurt. “Marion.” He pleaded.
“Go.” She closed her eyes and tried to even out her voice.
“Marion, please.”
“Just. Go.” She said, her voice cold.
“Mars.” He said, quietly-insistently.
“Go.” Her voice sharper than ice.
She felt him move slowly before hearing the door slam shut. He left.
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