genuinely and legitimately when i see how so chronically incurious about the world some americans are i wish i could buy everyone a geoguessr subscription and every evening mandatory 15 rounds of Country Streak so you get to see how other people live

Possessed: Voodoo’s Origins and Influence from the Blues to Britney

Blissed-out, ecstatic union with our divine selves — we seek it at raves and rock concerts, and in the desert with the Burning Man. I try to get there when I’m jamming with my band — but I didn’t realize until I wrote The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu how much this longing relates to West African spirituality, and the Voodoo concept of possession.

Vodou (the proper Kreyol/Creole spelling of Voodoo) is a neo-African religion that evolved in the New World from the 6000-year-old West African religion Vodun. This was the religion of many slaves brought from West Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean.

Vodun was brutally repressed by slave-owners, yet its powerful beats, ethics and aesthetics endured. We owe our concepts of cool, soul and rock and roll to it.

The roots of rock are in a West African word for dance — rak. As Michael Ventura wrote in his important essay on rock music, “Hear that Long Snake Moan”:

The Voodoo rite of possession by the god became the standard of American performance in rock’n’roll. Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Jim Morrison, Johnny Rotten, Prince — they let themselves be possessed not by any god they could name but by the spirit they felt in the music. Their behavior in this possession was something Western society had never before tolerated.

Vodou possession is not the hokey demon-possession of zombie movies; it’s a state of union with the divine achieved through drumming, dancing and singing. It’s becoming “filled with the Holy Ghost” in the Pentecostal Christian tradition or attaining yogic bliss through the practice of kirtan, singing the names of God — Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.

In the Yoruba culture of West Africa, being able to connect with one’s inner divinity is called coolness (itutu). In Yoruba morality, generosity indicates coolness and is the highest quality a person can exhibit. In American culture, we say that nice person is cool, or that a musician “has got soul.” We notice “Southern hospitality.”

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade carried these ideas to the New World, particularly as slavers burrowed inward from Senegambia on the West African coast to the Kingdom of Dahomey, a Vodun stronghold.

Dahomey spread across much of today’s Togo, Benin and Nigeria and was heavily involved in the slave trade. Vodun practitioners were shipped overseas by the thousands when the Fon people of Benin conquered their neighbors, the Ewe, in 1729. Many Fon were also kidnapped and traded into slavery in exchange for textiles, weapons, brass pots, Venetian beads and other European goods.

Vodun is a Fon-Ewe word meaning God or Great Spirit. This supreme creator was represented as the giant snake Dan carrying the universe in its coils. Today, in Haiti and American Vodou strongholds like New Orleans, Dan is worshiped as Damballah, the Grand Zombie (the Bantu word nzambi means God). He’s John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling Kingsnake”.

Branching off from this almighty God-force are spirit-gods called loa. During Vodou ceremonies, a loa may descend the center post of the temple to possess or “ride” a worshiper who has reached a sufficiently high state of consciousness. The morality implicit in this is stated in the Haitian proverb, “Great gods cannot ride little horses.”

Vodun practices like drumming were definitely noticed by nervous colonists who had imported fierce warriors and tribal priests to work their farms. After a deadly rebellion in the South Carolina colony in 1739, the colonists realized slaves were using talking drums to organize resistance. The Slave Act of 1740 in South Carolina barred slaves from using “drums, horns, or other loud instruments.” Other colonies followed suit with legislation like the severe Black Codes of Georgia.

Soon, religious repression was in full swing. Slaves caught praying were brutally penalized, as this excerpt from Peter Randolph’s “Slave Cabin to the Pulpit” recounts:

In some places, if the slaves are caught praying to God, they are whipped more than if they had committed a great crime. Sometimes, when a slave, on being whipped, calls upon God, he is forbidden to do so, under threat of having his throat cut, or brains blown out.

Vodun practitioners taken as slaves to plantations in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, and Jamaica were also prohibited from practicing their religion. But enslaved Vodun priests arriving in the Catholic West Indies quickly grasped similarities between their tradition of appealing to loa to intercede with God, and Catholics praying to saints for intercession. By superimposing Catholic saints over the loa, slaves created the hybrid religions Santeria (saint worship) in the Spanish Islands, Vodou in Haiti and Candomblé in Brazil.

On Aug. 22, 1791, Haitian slaves revolted on a signal from Vodou priests, who consulted their oracle to determine which military strategies would succeed. The revolutionaries defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s army and declared independence Jan. 1, 1804, establishing Haiti as the world’s first black republic. Freaked by a successful slave revolt, the United States and Western Europe slapped economic sanctions on Haiti, turning the prosperous colony into an impoverished state that could no longer sell the products of its fields.

In 1809, Vodou arrived in the United States en masse when Haitian slave owners who had fled to Cuba with their slaves were expelled. Most relocated from Cuba to New Orleans, nearly doubling the city’s size in one year. Today, 15 percent of New Orleans practices Vodou, and it’s popular in other U.S. cities with African and Haitian communities.

Among the arriving Haitians was Marie Laveau. She became the leader of New Orleans Vodou practitioners in 1820 when she was elected the human representative of the Grand Zombie. (Former White House Social Secretary Desirée Rogers is descended from Marie Laveau.)

Laveau kept a python named Zombi, and danced with it on her shoulders while presiding over ceremonies. This image was appropriated, with other Vodou nods, for Britney Spears’s “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.

The sensationalistic 1884 book Haiti or the Black Republic by Sir Spencer St. John, slammed Vodou as an evil cult, with gruesome descriptions of human sacrifice and black magic — some of which had been extracted from Vodou priests via torture. It became a popular source for the Hollywood screenwriters who began churning out voodoo horror flicks in the 1930s.

The first musician to bring pop-Voodoo imagery to the stage was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who would rise from a coffin onstage with a bone in his nose. Hawkins had intended for his hit record “I Put A Spell On You”  to be a soulful ballad. But once the producer “brought in ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, we came out with this weird version,” Hawkins admitted, adding “I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death.” Hawkins kicked off the undead craze among rockers like Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson.  

Meanwhile, despite the severe repression, Vodun practices crept into Southern black churches.  Descriptions of black Baptist church services in the late 1800s and early 1900s depict the congregation dancing in a circle in a “rock” or “ring shout” as they follow the deacon, who bears a standard.

It was the deacon’s job to whip parishioners into a frenzy of fainting and speaking in tongues called “rocking the church.” The concept of a deity “riding” with a worshiper transferred to these Christian churches, where the cry “Drop down chariot and let me ride!” was often heard, as well as “Ride on!” and “Ride on, King Jesus!” This became the solidarity shout, “Right on!”

Blues singers fronting big bands, like Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing, copied the way church solo singers belted over the choir. The radio beamed this new “shouting blues” all over black America. It was picked up by country blues singers like Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker, who had moved to Chicago and used it with their new electrified bands. These, in turn, inspired rockers like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones

Africans brought here as slaves carried with them incredibly strong aesthetic, ethical and cultural values that not only withstood the shock of their forced transplantation to the New World, but transformed and invigorated it. Their influence made us uniquely American. It’s why we respond to that Voodoo beat.

Osamu, Bokuto, Oikawa and Sakusa forgetting an important date

requested: hc of osamu bokuto oikawa and sakusa forgetting an important date like an anniversary

This got a little sad, especially Bokutos one (I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop myself)... I apologize if it’s not as angsty as you wanted it though, but as I said, I don’t really like writing angst right now

Miya Osamu:

He normally never forgets important dates

Even for your 3 month and 9 month anniversary he made you your favourite meal and made sure you both were feeling all happy and in love

But now it was your 2 year anniversary, you were out of High School and things just began to be busy

Both of you were at university the whole day, both of you working simultaneously to get some extra money

And it was all just very stressful

You returned home earlier than him and set up the table, made a nice meal etc.

In the morning he was acting like usual, though you expected some more kisses and hugs in bed, but you brushed it off, thinking he was just tired then

When the door to your apartment finally opened you jumped up fromn the table and greeted him with a bright smile, expecting flowers or some other small gift because that’s what he usually does

But now he just looked tired, as his eyes scanned your face with a questioning look

In a matter of seconds you realized that he had actually forgotten and you couldn’t stop your stomach from dropping and the hurt expression on your face

“What’s wrong, darling?”

You gulp, fighting against the lump in your throat and tears forming in your eyes. “Happy anniversary, Samu.”

His expression immediately drops, all colour draining from his face. “Oh my god, Y/N, I’m so sorry-” he begins, but you wave a hand, still fighting against the pain. You wanted today to be something special, especially after the stressful time earlier this year.

It was fine, though. You were just really hurt right now. “Food is on the table.”, you manage to say before turning around and vanishing in the bedroom.

Osamu finds himself transfixed, not being able to move or even say anything after seeing your hurt expression. Eventually, he’s able to move again and he walsk straight up to the bedroom door, knocking.

He leans against it, talking and apologizing until you let him in after you calmed down.

You talk about it for a while, listening to each other and understanding, still being able to enjoy the rest of the night

Bokuto Koutarou:

Bokuto was never good with remembering things to begin with

He really tried his best, but sometimes it was just hard for him

And it was fine with you, you were never really one to set value on things like that, you didn’t like big celebrations to begin with, you were simply not that comfortable with that much attention

You had Koutarou to balance you out

But you thought at least with him your birthday could be something special, maybe he would even cancel practice for a day

But what you didn’t expect was no reaction at all on your birthday. No text waiting for you in the morning, no card or letter waiting on the table or in the mailbox. And when you got to school, all your friends were swarming around you, but Bokuto was nowhere in sight.

You didn’t even see him until after school, when you went to the gym to look for him. Of course you found him there at practice, concentrated on his attacks he was working on. Akaashi recognized your first, a welcoming smile on his lips.

He immediately joggs over to you, Bokuto not watching either of you as he was talking to his Coach. “Y/N! Happy Birthday!” Akaashi cheers and you watch how Bokutos head snaps in your direction, his eyes widened in shock and you realize that it was true. He forgot about your birthday.

You watch as he starts to sprint through the whole and pushes Akaashi aside, immediately grabbing for your hand. “Y/N, oh my god I’m so sorry.”

You pull your hands out of his grip, looking at him with an unmoves expression, though on the inside you were fuming. “Oh, really? Is that so?”

Bokuto begins to panic, his heart racing in fear. “Y/N, you know I’m not good at remembering stuff I-”

“We are in a relationship, Koutarou! How many times have you told me that I am the most important person in your life?” You freeze for a second, realizing that the whole gym was silent and watching as their captain was quivering in fear and panic. But that didn’t stop you from being hurt. Not today. “Maybe you should get your priorities straight, since volleyball is still more important.”

It hurts to say these words, but they are out before you can stop yourself. Bokuto reaches for your hand one more time, but you run out of the gym, tears already rolling down your face.

Bokuto finds himself in something even worse than his emo mode now, but he is determined to get out of it and get things right again, because he really can’t imagine life without you.

Oikawa Tooru:

Normally, Oikawa was the best boyfriend.

He was very considerate, always remebered stuff you didn’t, never made you uncomfortable and just always made you feel good about yourself

But since he was in Brazil, things have started to become more difficult, the different time zones and distance making it hard for both of you

But you made it work, somehow. Facetime and Skype were your life saviors and once you even managed to visit him and it was the best time ever.

But today, on your 2 year anniversary, you found yourself wondering if Tooru, for the first time since ever, forgot about it.

Of course, there was a 12hour time difference between you, but you still expected a small text or something like that. Instead, there was nothing.

And at first you were fine with it, since it was night time in Brazil and he was probably sleeping. But as it got later and later, you began to worry.

So without further ado you picked up the phone and called him and were surprised when he picked up immediately. “Hey babe, what’s up?”

You’re speechless for a second. “Oh, I was just wondering if something was wrong.”

“Oh, it’s just a really busy day why are you- oh.” The other end is silent for quite a while as Oikawa realizes why you really called. “Are you mad at me that I forgot? I’m sorry, I just got lost in all the work and training-”

“It’s fine, Tooru.” You sigh. Maybe this would have hurt a year ago but now you know him good enough to know he didn’t mean harm and that he was probably more hurt than you right now. “Just come home quickly, yeah? I cannot wait to see you again.”

You hear a relieved sound coming from his end. “Yes, I promise my love. I love you and I’ll call you in a few hours, is that all right?”

Sakusa Kiyoomi:

Sakusa has always been the more careful one in your relationship. He remembered dates and anniversaries very easily, though both of you never made a very big deal out of it. Maybe you went out for dinner or made a nice meal at home (which he preferred) and add in some extra cuddles and quality time compared to usual.

And it was fine like this, until he was gone for a good three weeks, travelling through cities for games. You couldn’t see ach other so you looked forward to him returning home, since it was also the day of your birthday and you couldn’t wait to have him back in your arms.

So when the door rattled as he got in you immediately jumped up and greeted him with a big smile. He took off his mask and just pressed you close to his body, for a second not caring about him bringing in all the germs. He murmured a few “I missed you”s into your hair but you were a little surprised when none of his words came even close to congratulations.

Of course you didn’t expect a lot, but usually some of these words and some extra kisses were his way of congratulating you. You felt a little stitch in your heart as you realized maybe Kiyoomi had forgotten about your birthday, being too busy with travelling and playing volleyball.

As he took a long shower you took the small cake you made out of the fridge and started to eat it with a small pout on your face.

When Sakusa returned and found you laying on the couch with the cake on your lap, literally stabbing into it with the biggest pout on your lips he has ever seen. And finally, it clicks and he feels so bad.

“Y/N...” He walks up to you, an apologetic look on his face. He just sits down next to you as he takes your hand in his and takes the fork out of your other one, spiking a part of the cake and feeding you with it.

“I know words won’t fix it, I just want you to know that I’m sorry. Are you very sad about it?”

You just sigh and look at him, leaning back. “I understand it was a busy day for you, so it’s fine.”

“It’s late now, but I prome we’ll do something fun tomorrow, I’ll even ditch practice.”

A Glimpse of Nanay Corazon’s Life In A Pandemic

Nanay Corazon listening attentively while her son, Desi Dee, talks about celebrity gossips during the afternoon.

Being a woman in her 80’s does not stop Corazon G. Hilario on living her life to the fullest. She likes to travel, explore and try activities, and just live in the moment. But when the pandemic hit the Philippines, her life turned into a cycle, like there is a schedule that needs to be followed. This is a glimpse of Nanay Corazon’s day in the life. 

Nanay Corazon being injected by Apidra, a fast-acting insulin used to control high blood sugar by Cristina, her daughter-in-law at 8 in the morning.

Although her life does not sound interesting to some, I chose her as my subject for this photo essay. Nanay Corazon is my grandmother from my father’s side. My grandmother from my mother’s side died before I had the chance to meet her, so she is my one and only, literally. My siblings and I are very close to her, she is one of those people that really influenced me while growing up. Even though she does not have an interesting profession, an awesome life, or an influential person, I decided to pick her. I wanted to show people the view of being with my grandmother. I wanted to show a glimpse of what happens to an 81-year-old grandmother who has an 86-year-old husband, 5 kids, and 11 grandchildren. I wanted to tell her story.

Nanay Corazon readying to take Ketosteril, a medicine tablet that is commonly used as dietary supplements with kidney problems which is one out of her eleven medicines to take.

Nanay starts her day by getting pricked by a needle. Since she was hospitalized last year, our family took precautions on her health. Her food intake, medicines, blood sugar, and blood pressure are needed to be written down for her doctors to see every check-up. Every morning, Cristina, her daughter-in-law who is taking the role of her nurse, gets her blood sugar and blood pressure before breakfast. Today, her blood sugar was above normal, so she needed to be injected by Apidra, an insulin to control the blood sugar.

Crispy pandesal stuffed with coco jam held by Nanay Corazon for her breakfast.

After her morning check-up, Nanay proceeds on taking her breakfast. Since her food choices are limited, her breakfast is mainly pandesal with either coco jam or anchor as her palaman. Every morning, she needs to take 11 medicines. Most of the time, she eats breakfast in peace, just like today.

Every Tuesday and Friday, Nanay burns laurel, a bay leaf, that has her dreams and wishes written on it. Today, she performs this activity. Her dreams often have topics. Today, it is her dreams about her one and only daughter, Grace. Since the leaf is small, she needs 10-15 leaves. After writing, she burns all the leaves on a candle and compiles all the ashes. She puts all the ashes inside a tissue and lets someone discard it outside. For it to work, she says that it should be discarded while facing the sun. Sometimes, she is the one who throws it during her morning walk, but most of the time, she lets someone do it.

Nanay Corazon burning leaves of laurel, a bay leaf, which were written with her dreams, then compile the ashes inside a tissue, and throw them while facing the sun. She believes that this act will make her dreams come true.

To kill time before tanghalian, Nanay likes to watch Youtube. Her current favorite Youtuber is Mahal, a Filipino actress and entertainer. When I asked her why she likes her content, she said that it brings her joy. “Ayoko kasi ng mga nakakatakot, yung mga nakakagulat na palabas. Gusto ko yung masaya lang.” Her son, Desi Dee, likes to watch movies on Netflix which are mostly vampire and zombie movies. Since they live together, Nanay has no choice but to watch what her son watches even though most of the time, she hates this genre. Fun fact though, Nanay is a huge AlDub fan. When there is no new content from Mahal, she likes to watch clips or gossip about the love team, and everything related to Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza.

Just like her breakfast, her food during tanghalian is also limited. You often see her with the same meal every day. Today, her meal consists of daing na bangus paired with soup. During the afternoon, she needs to take three medicines and get her eye drops because she tends to have a red eye, just like Kaneki Ken from Tokyo Ghoul. She says it does not hurt though. Most of the time, she watches Eat Bulaga, a noontime show, while eating. Watching this show is a daily occurrence for her since she is a fan of Maine Mendoza. Her favorite segment is, “Bawal Judgmental”.

Nanay Corazon eating her meal for the afternoon which consists of: daing na bangus, one and a half cup of rice, soup, and three medicines.

Before going to bed for the afternoon, Nanay makes sure to do her business in the bathroom. Since she has trouble doing everything by herself, her son, Desi Dee, helps her when she goes into the bathroom. Today, she needed to wash her body to freshen up. She only washes her body 2-3 times a week. After that, she goes upstairs and kills time, again watching Mahal on her tablet.

Nanay always says she is not allowed to sleep during the afternoon. Whenever she sleeps, it affects the result of her blood sugar or blood pressure, so she tries not to sleep in the afternoon. Watching Youtube on the television keeps her awake till Cristina comes before the evening. Since Mahal is her favorite content creator now, she is indeed awake the whole afternoon.

After washing her body, Nanay Corazon goes to her room and watches her favorite vlogger, Mahal, in her tablet to kill time in the afternoon.

Cristina often goes every 5:30PM to conduct her “afternoon check-up” in Nanay. Just like what she did every morning, she gets the blood sugar and blood pressure of Nanay. They often talk to each other about everything, really. Their topics revolve on gossip, news, politics, and food. 

Killing time again before her evening meal, she watches Youtube. Sometimes, I do encourage her to watch other content. Nanay is also a fan of volleyball. Before discovering Mahal, she watched volleyball matches of different leagues from Premier Volleyball League (PVL) and UAAP. One time, I recommended to her a match between France and Brazil in Volleyball Nation’s League (VNL). She spent her whole afternoon watching matches in VNL and Olympics after that. Her favorite women volleyball player is Alyssa Valdez. She watches her live matches on television during her UAAP era, even when she graduated and played in other leagues.

Nanay Corazon getting her blood pressure and sugar by Cristina, her daughter-in-law, who will determine if she needs Apidra and her meal for the night.

For her evening meal, one food was added to the group. Chicharap, a food from Chowking, together with daing na bangus, and the same soup from the afternoon, was her meal for the night. Every night, she takes three medicines. She eats in her room every night since it takes too much of her strength to go downstairs. I observed that her meal consists of the same food throughout the day. I asked if she was getting tired on eating the same meal every day and she said, “Wala akong choice eh, kailangan ayan ang mga kainin ko. Marami kasi akong bawal kainin.” She spent the rest of the night watching Youtube till she felt sleepy.

Nanay Corazon sitting at her arinola, or chamber pots, while watching the television in the evening.

One of Nanay’s hobbies is gambling. She plays the card game which they call “kuwaho”. Before the pandemic, they gamble most of the time. When they are on a roll, it continues up to 2-3 days, none of them having any sleep. Nanay switches with whoever is available in the family though, since she is too old. Playing “kuwaho” is normal in the family, even us kids know it. They taught us how to play in case no one is available to play now, or someone has an emergency.

Nanay also likes to travel. She often goes to Tagaytay to buy and eat food with the family. Before eating though, we pray in the Pink Sisters Convent. Sometimes, I think the sisters know her already.

Nanay Corazon watching television while eating her meal that consists of: daing na bangus, one cup of rice, soup, chicharap, and 3 medicines for the evening.

These are the two hobbies entertaining her before the pandemic. When the COVID-19 started and she was hospitalized, things drastically changed. Everything is limited for her. She has this schedule that needs to be followed every day. She cannot do the things she loved before anymore.

Nanay Corazon is just one of the millions of lives that suddenly changed because of the pandemic. Although she has no choice but to stick to her daily routine and drink 17 tablets per day, she said that she is still thankful that she is alive and healthy at 81 years old. “Nagpapasalamat ako sa Panginoon dahil wala na akong nararamdaman na sakit. Kahit ang dami kong iniinom na malalaking gamot, maigi na ito dahil para din naman sa akin.” 

Title: Battle Royal: America's Ass Vs. England's Ass {Headcanon Kinda}

Warnings: Switched up Headcanon Format, Many Words

Words: 1.7k

Summary: You’re a famous celeb and have dated both Chris Evans and Henry Cavill. The public loved to see you with both, and some were divided between who they preferred you with. You’ve always remained silent over the dispute. Both men have not been quiet with calling you “the love of their lives”. This fuels the debate and the perceived rivalry between the two. The topic comes up when you’re invited to the Jimmy Fallon show.

Note: So, I’m going to do this one a little/a lot differently. Not sure how it’ll work out but let me know what you guys think. I really liked doing this style.Thank you, guys, for reading!! Slightly Interactive.

~~~~~~~~~

Jimmy: Tonight we have the beautiful, talented and alluring Y-F-N & Y/L/N. Welcome her out everyone.

 The audience applauds and cheers as you walk out from backstage. You enthusiastically wave to them and approach Jimmy who meets you halfway with a hug. He thanks you for coming on and compliments your outfit as he walks you to your seat. Before you sit your turn to the audience again and wave.

 The applause slowly dies down and you get comfortable ensuring that the thigh-high split in your dress doesn’t inappropriately show too much.

 Jimmy: Wardrobe malfunction?

You: Ha! I’m trying my best to prevent it. Whoo, okay, I’m good yall. I promise no crotch slips here.

 The audience laughs.

Jimmy: Have you had many crotch slips?

You: Nope. I’ve been lucky enough to never have any slips of any kind.

 The audience now claps and cheers as you nod your head.

Jimmy: Good. You look great though.

You: Thank you.

Jimmy: How are you? I hear it’s been a busy few months for you.

You: Yes, busy, busy, busy.

Jimmy: Are you filming, recording? What’s going on in the life of -F-N & Y/L/N?

You: Uh, not much. I am pretty boring Jimmy. I work then I work some more and to top it off I work.

Jimmy: All work and no play is never any good.

You: Well, sometimes it has to be that way. If you play too much you never get anything done.

Jimmy: True, but if you’re always working you miss out on the fun you can have by playing. There should be a balance.

You: You’re right. There should be a balance. Unless you’re me.

 The audience laughs some more.

 Jimmy: You’re a whole different breed huh.

You: You said it, not me.

 You shift in your seat still keeping an eye on the split at your thigh and the way your legs are crossed. You laugh to yourself.

 You: No, but I was filming in Brazil, we just wrapped last week so that was fun.

Jimmy: Brazil? Wow, exotic. What kind of movie?

You: It’s an action flick, I play a badass woman who doesn’t need a prince or a savior and is, in fact, the savior. It was a great role. I had a lot of fun.

Jimmy: That sounds like a good role for you. You’re a badass.

You: Damn right I am!

 The audience cheers and claps at your enthusiasm. It makes you laugh.

 Jimmy: All the tabloids and fans seem to think so too. You have such a huge fan following. Your Instagram has well over two hundred million followers and it’s growing every day. That is incredible.

You: It is. I have no idea why they follow me. I’m so boring.

 You laugh out loud because it’s true. You post pretty random things, outfits, set pictures, inspirational quotes, astrology, makeup, pictures of yourself, and things of that sort. You’d always been fascinated by how the whole fan and following thing worked.

 Jimmy: You say boring and we see you doing luxurious things like sipping mojitos in an infinity pool with this as your backdrop.

 Jimmy shows a snap from your Instagram and you snort laughing.

 You: Wow, I didn’t expect that.

Jimmy: Or you on a private jet getting pictured as you sleep.

 Again, another snap from your Instagram account comes up. You shake your head.

 Jimmy: And my favorite one, the view from your cabana in Brazil.

 A third picture is shown and the audience “oohs” and “aahs.” The way they do it makes you laugh even harder.

 Jimmy: Come again about being boring.

You: Okay, with the exception of those, I am pretty boring.

Jimmy: Right. Another two exceptions are who you date, for instance, these two incredible specimens of DNA.

Chris Evans and Henry Cavill’s pictures come up on the screen behind you and the audience erupts in applause and whistles. You do your best to remain stoic.

 Jimmy: For the record, you’ve dated them, or dating them--.

You: Dated. Past tense.

 The audience then boos you. You widen your eyes at them and clutch your invisible pearls.

 You: Wow, how quickly they turn on you.

Jimmy: They love them some Captain America and Superman.

You: I can understand why.

Jimmy: So, who did you date first?

You: Uh—I don’t think that’s important.

Jimmy: Was it an amicable split? Are you all still friends?

You: Yeah. It’s just one of the things that happen, things wear their course and things wore their course.

Jimmy: I can understand that. What do you think about the tabloid and fan fodder about the three of you?

 You chuckle because you knew this would come up. You’d somewhat prepared for it.

 You: I think it is what it is.

Jimmy: They’ve actually begun picking sides as to who they preferred you with. As for tonight, there is an equal split. Me myself, I’m torn you looked amazing with both, and they both looked happy with you.

 You shrugged and pinched your lips together unsure what to say. What did you say on a tv talk show when someone brings up your two exes and how your relationship was especially with all the interest in it?

 Jimmy: They’ve been given nicknames too. Chris is America’s ass a nod to the Marvel movies he’s been in and Henry is England’s ass because he is British. They call it the battle of the asses, whose is better? I’d rank it right up there with GOT’s Battle of The Bastards.

 You couldn’t keep your laughter in any longer. Your laughter made the audience laugh and soon everyone was laughing.

 Jimmy: So, whose is better, Y/N?

You: Wow, you’re kidding Jimmy. Who can choose? Look at them.

 The image on the screen came to a close of up both men standing to the side. Both of their asses were amazing, you remembered them well. Henry had a full, shapely ass that was incredibly toned but still felt soft to the touch. Chris has a very well proportioned ass for his slim frame and it was also quite toned and curved. You’d loved touching them both. You got lost in your memories for a few moments before you shook your head. The audience was whistling and Jimmy was giving you an all-knowing look.

 Jimmy: Was someone reminiscing?

 You laughed and shrugged.

 You: You know what they say, Jimmy. With great asses come great responsibility.

 The audience erupted with laughter again, as did Jimmy.

 Jimmy: You had quite the responsibility then.

 You laughed again and covered your mouth hoping to silence it.

 Jimmy: If you had to choose, could you?

You: Nope. Why would anyone? The best of both worlds, American and European.

Jimmy: America’s ass has a ring to it.

You: As does England’s ass.

Jimmy: From the rumors, it looks like you don’t have to choose.

You: Rumors?

Jimmy: For one the supposed rivalry between the two men.

You: Don’t believe everything you hear or read.

Jimmy: And what about both men having openly said that you’re the love of their life and still hold you in the highest regard.

 The audience clapped and cheered while you sat there pinned to the seat as embarrassment crept through you.

 Jimmy: What do you say to that?

You: Uh—um—well, love can be multiple dimensional and cannot be quantified so it can mean many things. I consider Henry and Chris to be amazing men and want nothing but the best for them.

Jimmy: Very diplomatically said. Do you see getting back together with either of them in the future?

 Again, you were caught off guard and you graciously smiled and shrugged.

 You: Who knows what the future holds. Life is a journey not set in stone.

Jimmy: -F-N & Y/L/N everyone. Thank you so much for coming on.

 The audience’s applause followed you out as you walked backstage to take a breath. It had been almost two months since you’d thought about yours and Chris and Henry’s relationships. It was something that took great effort. You took the movie in Brazil to get away from them and clear your head and for the most part, it worked. It also made you realize how much you missed them both.

You missed them both for different reasons and the fact that you were broken up didn’t seem to matter now. You’d almost caved and called them but you knew you couldn’t. It was your fault you were broken up in the first place.  

Two days later as you were going about your day handling business your mind again went back to Henry and Chris. The interview with Jimmy aired the night before and watching it again really had you reminiscing about the past. Your friends texted and teased you about the interview about how awkward you were but how well you played it off. It was true, you were awkward. 

As you got into your waiting car and made your way to your next engagement your phone went off with a message. 

MSG Henry: I’ll be in town tomorrow for a day or two. Do you want to grab tea? Maybe we can talk?

Your jaw dropped. You hadn’t expected to see his name pop up on your phone ever again, not after what he’d said the last time you spoke. You were frozen in your seat unsure what to say.

After a few minutes, you began typing a response when another message came in.

MSG Chris: I saw you and Fallon last night. I feel like we should talk. I’ve been thinking about you. Can we meet up and talk?

“Fuck!” You didn’t know what to do now, especially after what you did and how things ended. You couldn’t be the bad guy again.

Hurricanes in Brazil

Hey, loves, it’s been a bit. Here’s a one shot as an apology and a present. 

--

It’s strange, this hour of night. Yosano doesn’t quite know what to make of it. It’s the in-between time, when the clocks slow and every heartbeat drags on, that liminal space between evening and early morning. 

Yosano knows liminal spaces all too well.

The border between life and death is a thin one. A veil made of the finest gauze, hung like a curtain between two entirely different worlds. Someone out there saw fit to give her the power to pull people back once they fell through. 

No, not when they fell through. She can pull them back only once they have a foot past the door, pitching forward into the great darkness beyond. Yosano can only pull them back when they enter the liminal space she alone can control. Or, if she chooses it, let them go entirely. It’s not yet a choice she has had to make, but she knows it will come. One day, she will be faced with a patient that she will allow to go gently into that good night. She will be faced with a patient she cannot save. 

She always figured it would be Dazai. After all, he is the one man on earth for whom her fingers slip off of him like water on a duck’s back. If Osamu Dazai ever makes it to her liminal space between worlds, she will have to watch him walk calmly through. 

Tonight, however, it seems like Osamu Dazai gets a reprieve. 

A man in a tuxedo with buzzed hair and blacked-out glasses stands at her door. “Yosano-sensei?” he asks when she opens it, still in her work uniform. It’s paperwork day, and she had been up late filling out acquisition forms for medical equipment she would rarely use. She isn’t even tired, thanks to that miracle coffee Kunikida is so good at brewing. 

She looks the errand boy up and down, taking in the wire earpiece and the shoddily concealed gun at his hip. “It’s time, then?” she asks, tilting her head, and he nods, visibly sweating. 

The golden butterfly in her hair feels like a weight on nights like these. 

Yosano nods back at him. “Wait,” she tells him, and disappears inside the Detective Agency. She steps inside her office and closes the door with a sigh. She allows herself one more deep breath. Then she surveys the room, opening her carpet bag and tucking supplies into the many pockets. A clean pair of scalpels, several rolls of bandages. A heart rate monitor. A stethoscope. Her ability may pull people back from the brink of death, but she is still a doctor. 

The last thing she puts into the bag is a nondescript manila folder. Most of her folders are thick, stuffed full of yellowing paper. This one contains only a few papers, all in her handwriting rather than a secretary’s or an assistant’s. She zips up the carpet bag and locks her office behind her. When she opens the door of the Agency, the errand boy is still there, nervously tapping his foot. “Ready?” he asks, and she smiles at him. It’s less of a smile and more a flash of bared teeth behind red lips, and she savors the expression on his face as he pales. 

“Lead the way,” she purrs, and the man discreetly wipes his hands on his jacket before walking down the stairs in front of her. She follows, both hands clasped around her carpetbag, reminding herself to take slow, deep breaths. She knew this day would come, anyway. It just seems a bit too soon. 

He leads Yosano to a car with tinted windows. He opens the door, gesturing for her to step inside. She smiles again, watching him flinch, and produces a stiletto knife with a flick of her fingers. “No funny business,” she says sweetly, and watches his throat bob as he swallows. 

It could have been a scalpel, she muses, getting into the car gracefully. Perhaps that would have scared him more. His boss had been the one to teach her that particular trick, anyway. 

The door is shut behind her and she doesn’t seatbelt herself. She would be a fool to deliberately restrain herself in a Port Mafia vehicle, driven by one of their lackeys. The stiletto knife disappears back into her sleeve with a twist of her lips and a flourish of her fingers, and the errand boy gets into the passenger seat. Another errand boy is behind the wheel, and he starts the car up without a word. It’s not a long drive, Yosano knows, but she crosses her legs and stares out the window anyway. The moon is full and fat in the sky, hanging low with the weight of all the dreams it must be having. A cloud scuds past. 

A few minutes later, the car pulls up to the sidewalk of the tallest Port Mafia highrise. The man in the passenger seat unbelts himself, then opens the door. He steps out, and a second later, her own door is opening. Yosano uncrosses her legs, grasps her carpetbag, and emerges into the half-light of the evening. 

She’s unimpressed with the sumptuous lobby of the Port Mafia’s headquarters. After all, she’d spent hours huddled behind rubble, trying not to get blown to bits by that lemon scientist’s explosions. She thought, rather bitterly, that it looked better when jagged concrete took over the entryway and flames bloomed in the open air. 

She is led unceremoniously into an elevator. Close quarters makes Yosano wary, but the errand boy does as he was likely told and takes her up to the very highest floor. The elevator opens into a large, well-appointed office, with a wall of glass instead of concrete. The view looks out onto the entirety of Yokohama, the bay glittering under the stars. It’s gorgeous. 

Yosano hates it. 

She flicks her fingers at the errand boy, impudent because it is her right. “I can find him myself,” she says dismissively, and doesn’t wait to entertain his sputtering protests. She has never been in this office, never stood petitioner in front of that mahogany desk. She still feels like this place, stained with old blood and secrets, is as familiar to her as her own two hands. She leaves the errand boy behind and lets herself into a room adjoining the office. 

“Mori-sensei,” she says, dropping her carpet bag onto a dresser. 

“Yosano-kun,” greets the man in the armchair facing the window. His back is to her. What arrogance, she thinks, to turn his back to an enemy as formidable as she. 

“You called?” she says sweetly, and leans against the door. 

“To ask a favor,” he agrees. “Come closer, won’t you?”

She lets her mouth twist into a wry smile. “Where’s Elise?” she asks instead, and the man in the chair lets out a low, rusty chuckle. “Elise-chan,” he says fondly, with a touch of wistfulness that makes Yosano bristle. “I’d summon her, but it would take too much energy.”

“I don’t believe you,” she says, and he chuckles again. “Do as you will, Yosano-kun,” he says, just as tired and fond. “You always have.”

Yosano is tempted to pick up her carpet bag and leave, errand boys and their sloppily concealed guns be damned. But something stops her. Some old thread of attachment, some perverse sense of duty. Her hands curl into fists, then relax. The gold butterfly is a comforting weight. She is not helpless here, she reminds herself. She never will be. 

She walks forward, then, does as she’s bid like the obedient dog she used to be. She takes enough steps that she stands abreast of his chair, and can see his face in the light from the small window. It’s significant, she thinks, that he meets her in this adjoining room, with its small window and dresser and comfortable armchair, rather than his office. Or perhaps he is just manipulating her again. It doesn’t matter. 

She takes his measure then, and what she sees wakes up the old, conflicted bitterness. Mori-sensei looks old. Old and tired and sick in a way she has never seen him, even when infected with a virus that would claim his life, the President’s, or both. Mori-sensei has always been a pillar of unflappable strength, and she sees him now shrunken and still in his armchair. 

Mori-sensei has always had an uncanny stillness to him. When he observed her, she felt like an insect under a lamp. Just another thing to be taken apart and dissected, another thing for him to see through and understand. Now he is still out of exhaustion, and part of Yosano, the part that burns fierce and bright and full of incandescent rage, is pleased. It says that she should be laughing, because while Mori-sensei grows old and decrepit, she will not die. She cannot die, says this bright thing, and that is the only beautiful part of this world.

There is another part of her, and it is a cold and desolate wasteland. It feels nothing at the sight of the man slowly wasting away in his armchair. She is judge, jury, and executioner, it whispers, and asks her what she does next. 

Yosano unzips her carpet bag and pulls out a stethoscope, then a pen and her manila folder with all the notes she has on Mori-sensei’s medical history. “You old fool,” she says, with that same fondness he says her own name with. “You old fool.”

She runs through a standard physical examination, not speaking save for the routine questions she always asks the Agency members when they come in for their tri-yearly checkups. What she finds makes her gnaw at her lip, knowing she will probably get lipstick on her teeth. From what she can tell, there is nothing physically wrong with him. But he’s thin, far too thin, and his skin sags from his bones in a way that looks wrong to her doctor’s eye. 

“Well, doctor?” asks Mori-sensei, raising an eyebrow.

Yosano clicks her pen and twirls it between her fingers, thinking. “Accelerated aging,” she muses. “This isn’t a disease.”

“No,” Mori-sensei agrees, his mouth quirking up. 

“An ability?” she asks, and he nods. “He was taken care of,” he tells her, “but there’s nothing to be done.”

“Not even Dazai?” she asks, twirling the pen again, and Mori-sensei’s eyes, as flat and dull as buttons, crinkle into a smile. “He informed me that he is going on a long vacation overseas,” he replies. “My operatives say he’s gone completely off the map, nowhere to be found.”

“Explains why his work partner has been drinking half the coffee he usually consumes,” Yosano says dryly. “I was worried about his blood pressure. Chronic hypertension, you know.”

“I can imagine.”

Yosano clicks her pen twice. “You aren’t there yet,” she tells him. “Your errand boys jumped the gun.”

He tilts his head, waiting for her to continue.

Yosano activates her ability, and butterflies burst from her arm in a riotous mass of fluttering red and black. For a moment, they fill the air and block out the moon. Then they alight on Mori-sensei’s shoulders, but do no more than flap their wings slowly in the cool air of the study. “You’re not on the threshold, Mori-sensei,” she says. “There is little I can do at this juncture.”

Mori-sensei watches the slow flap of the butterflies’ wings, his face turned away from her. “You have a reputation,” he says. 

“For what?” she asks, and banishes the butterflies with a flick of her fingers. The insects vanish into wisps of once-was-es and could-have-beens. 

“You’ve never been patient, Yosano-kun,” says Mori-sensei, and it somehow feels like chastisement even though she is a grown woman who has fled far from the stretching shadow of his reach. “I hear you bring your soldiers to the threshold yourself, rather than wait for them to meander their way there.”

“They’re not my soldiers,” she snaps, stiffening, and he waves his hand in apology. “Your coworkers,” he says, with audible disdain. 

Yosano looks at him, really looks at him, past the tired slump of his shoulders and the fever brightness of his eyes. Mori-sensei, still proud and arrogant while asking for help, she thinks, and it bolsters her courage. 

And, without meaning to, a breathless laugh escapes her. “They trust me,” she says simply. “They trust me to hold their lives in my hands and snuff them out like a candle, just enough that I can blow on the dying embers and bring them back.” She shakes her head. “You old fool,” she repeats. 

“And yet I’m putting my own life in your hands,” says Mori-sensei, watching her. “I would trust you with it.”

“Liar,” she says, almost fondly, and picks up her carpet bag. “Good luck trying to find Dazai,” she calls over her shoulder as she leaves, closing the door behind her.

— 

Somewhere in Brazil, a man with dark hair and dusty bandages sneezes. He checks his phone, then looks up at the sky. “Looks like rain,” he murmurs.  

So I’ve had the idea for this Hero rattling around for a good long while: 8-BIT, an ability set and playstyle inspired by classic arcade games; wall clinging and wall jumping Metroidvania style, pixelated fruit that heals you, extra lives for instant retrys, High scores, Bonus Stages, Power Ups oh my!

It took a long time to figure out what to do with their design, but I finally have, and now I can proudly say; Stats, Backstory and Bio, under the cut~

Real Name:  “???”  /  Nazim Tashkin-Ivanov

Alias:  8-BIT

Role:  Support  /  Job:  Damage Dealing Main Healer with Buffs

-

Hit Points:  225  /  Health:  75  /  Shields:  150

Primary Weapon:  Pixel Blaster

Ammo:  40  /  Reload Speed:  1.35 Seconds  /  Rate of Fire:  8.25 Shots per Second

Damage:  24  /  DPS:  198  /  Attack Type:  Linear Projectiles

Primary Fire, Pixel Blast:  Fire volleys of large multi-coloured pixels at enemies which scatter Pixelated Fruit upon hitting enemies. Pixel Blaster shots cannot headshot.  /  Projectile Speed:  42.5 Meters per second  /  Projectile Size:  0.45M

Secondary Fire, Charged Shots:  Take the time to charge larger shots, which inflict greater damage to produce higher healing Fruit. Charged Shots reduces rate of fire to 2 per second, taking 0.5s to charge a shot then firing it automatically. Charged Shots are larger at 0.6M and gain in speed as they travel to better hit targets at long range, but they also cost 5 Ammo each.  /  Damage per shot: 95  /  Maximum Projectile Speed: 85Mps

Special:  Enemies and enemy constructs or barriers hit by the Pixel Blaster drop Pixelated Fruit which 8-BIT and their allies can pick up to receive healing equal to a portion of the damage dealt. Pixelated Fruits are created 2 at a time and are scattered roughly ~5M from the point of impact, flying out and falling to the ground at 15Mps; a Pixelated Fruit is approximately 0.75x0.75M in size and slowly rotates in place while waiting to be collected, and can persist for up to 8s before disappearing. Pixelated Fruit will move towards damaged allies within a 10M range around themselves, moving at a speed of 5Mps + 10% of the lowest health ally’s movement speed, which they will prioritise. (Any ally can still pick up a Fruit regardless of who it is moving towards). Individual Pixelated Fruit healing is a percentage of the damage dealt to create both pieces rounded up.  /  Fruit Healing from Hitting Enemies: 75%  /  Fruit Healing from Hitting Constructs: 50%  /  Fruit Healing from Hitting Barriers: 20%

Ability 1, High Score!:  Create an AoE around 8-BIT which gives them and their allies within it a buff to their damage based on their total kills. Everyone within the AoE including 8-Bit gains a +10% Damage Boost, which is then further increased by +5% per kill attributed to each Hero in the AoE, divided by the number of Heroes inside the AoE, and rounded up.  /  AoE: 12M  /  Maximum Damage Boost (from Total Kills after Division): +90% (+100% with base +10%)  /  Duration: 8s  /  Cooldown: 16s from end of Use

Ability 2, Power Up!:  Target an ally and launch a Power Up a them, granting them a short lived boost to their received healing and damage dealt, as well as instantly healing them for a small amount (Not affected by the Heal Boost). Can hold up to 2 charges, but cannot be used on the same target again until 4s after its effects have worn off.  /  Healing on Use: 50  /  Heal Boost: +50%  /  Damage Boost: +20% /  Duration: 4s  /  Cooldown: 8s per charge

Ability 3, Wall Jump:  Holding Jump against a wall allows 8-BIT to cling to it, and on jumping again to jump away from it up to ~8M, and this can be repeated so long as there is a charge of Wall Jump available. Can hold up to 5 charges, a charge is used upon beginning to cling to a wall and starts to Cooldown immediately. While jumping away from a wall, 8-BIT experiences -25% less gravity for 1.5s, allowing for a minimal loss of height over larger distances.  /  Movement Speed: 8Mps  /  Cooldown: 4s per charge

Ultimate, Bonus Stage!:  Produce 3x as much Fruit per shot for a short time (6 pieces each still worth the original 75/50/20%), as well as increasing 8-BIT’s max HP, movement speed and rate of fire, and giving them infinite ammo for the duration. 8-BIT’s HP instantly increases to 350 upon use, consisting of 100 Health and 250 Shields, health and shields lost before activation are still missing, but shield regeneration begins instantly.  /  Speed Boost: +15%  /  Rate of Fire (Primary): 12 per second  /  Rate of Fire (Secondary): 3 per second (0.33s charge)  /  Duration: 10s  /  Required Charge: 2400

Passive, Extra Lives:  8-BIT has extra lives which they can use upon death to skip their respawn countdown and instantly reappear in spawn, receiving a speed boost and damage reduction to help them get back into the fight. Up to 3 Extra Lives can be held at a time, and one can be used anytime from the moment of death until 1s before respawning, but after one is used, it is put on a 20s Cooldown before another can be used. Expended Extra Lives are regained either after 90s without dying, or after dealing a combined 5000 damage and healing.  /  Speed Boost: +100%  /  Damage Resistance: -40%  /  Buff Durations: 6s

-

Ultimate Voiceline (Self & Enemies):  (MIDI Coin Sound Effect) Here Comes The Bonus Stage!

Ultimate Voiceline (Allies):  (MIDI Coin Sound Effect) Bonus Stage Unlocked!

Hero Select Voiceline:  Character Selected!

-

Home / Base of Operations:  Baku, Azerbaijan (Formerly), St. Petersburg, Russia (Formerly), Los Angeles, California, America (Formerly), Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (Formerly), Unknown (Currently)

Nationality:  Russian-Azerbaijani

Sexuality:  Gay  /  Gender:  Non-Binary Demi Boy  /  Pronouns:  He/They

Age:  22  /  Date of Birth:  14th of June

Height:  4ft 11in

Affiliation / Allegiance:  None

Backstory:  A world famous but highly reclusive E-Sports pro, 8-BIT is the reigning and un-defeated champion across 3 Major League Gaming titles.

Although famous, they are extremely private, refusing all interviews, changing their primary address regularly and intercontinentally, and always wearing an identity obscuring VR mask at all public and streamed events. No one even knows their real name, only going by 8-BIT at all events and on live streams.

While competitive E-Sports is their ‘Job’, their passion is actually retro arcade games, which they stream themself speed-running frequently between tournaments, to an equally large and curious fanbase.

The hunt to discover 8-BIT’s identity has become a well known topic across the E-Sports blogoshpere, with interest levels ranging from mild curiosity all the way to a few genuine stalkers going to extreme lengths to try and unmask the young champion. Despite this, 8-BIT has remained utterly anonymous, and has continued to attend E-Sports events and competitions undeterred.

hey ! i’m blossom, i’m sixteen, i go by any pronouns, i slept for sixteen hours last night. i’m on discord @ dios mio #2857 & here on any of my tumblr accounts. this is my re-introduction to my third character, andy ! read under the cut for about her and some wcs. FIND HER PINTEREST HERE.

( LANA CONDOR, GENDERFLUID, SHE/HE/THEY ) — ✧ that looks like ANDROMEDA ISLEY-QUINZEL! they’re the TWENTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD CHILD of PAMELA ISLEY & HARLEEN QUINZEL (ADOPTED). [ they are also an UNDERGRAD at paragon. ] i hear they’re DEBONAIR & GREGARIOUS, but tend to be CALLOUS & RANCOROUS. their file says that their power is PRECOGNITION.

tw : emotional abuse, parental abuse, emotional neglect, dissociation ( wording association ), death, blood ment, teen pregnancy ment

i / v.  ｢    background  !   ｣

andromeda bui was born to a second generation vietnamese immigrant straight into the lap of luxury, or something very close to that. her mother was a sixteen-year-old heiress with absolutely no plans to raise her daughter. she only ever gave andromeda one thing: her name. likewise, her father only ever gave her one thing as well: his curse.

andromeda, fondly dubbed andy, is raised by her grandparents. her grandparents are strict, proper people ; they don’t see eye-to-eye with this modern way of raising children. and, naturally, they are predisposed to andy. she was born synonymous with inconvenience, a stain on their family’s reputation.

because of this, she is raised as a tool. she is never given the simple luxury of insolence or rebellion. she’s forced into a box. do this, or do not be. they never miss a chance to remind her that they are saints for keeping her, and often speak of the possibilities if she does not follow their ways.

she is put into ballet at four years old as a sort of penance for her mere existence. and that’s all she’s good for, then. it’s the only way to get her the attention she wants. it’s the only way for her grandparents to regard her at all. ( what they never find out about: she draws, sometimes, between practices. just for herself. )

when andy is seven years old, she is sitting at the dinner table with her grandparents when she has very first vision. words spill out of her before she knows what she’s saying, asking her grandmother why her hands are covered in blood. two nights later, her mother, if she can even be called that, is killed in a car accident. her grandmother grabs her daughter when they arrive, pleading with doctors to do something they cannot, and andromeda’s prophecy becomes andromeda’s life.

her grandparents are not looking for a reminder. and they do not want andromeda in their home any longer. they throw around words like ‘ sent ‘ and  ‘ fear ‘ and ‘ khùng ‘ ( vietnamese: crazy ).

andromeda is put up for adoption the next day. she never goes to her mother’s funeral. and, in a way, she never moves on.

 when andromeda is nine years old, still in foster care, she wakes up in the middle of the night and walks two miles in the dark of gotham city, breaks into the home of the isley-quinzels, and sits in their living room until they wake up. she has no memory of the incident, but everyone involved thought it to be pretty hilarious when the first thing she asks is if she, also, could have some breakfast.

they fall in love with her as they wait for her guardian to pick her up. andromeda, then, is just a sweet, messy little girl. her smile is huge. her eyes are just a little bit sad. she tells them all about her without one key detail.

that’s how andromeda bui becomes andromeda rosalie isley-quinzel. it takes her a long while to tell them about her ‘ khùng. ‘ pamela explains this world of mutations to her, one she has only ever looked in on, barely even thought about. evidently, andy missed out on a lot that normal children, children who grew up as children, did not.

she grows up at her pace, then. goes to dance academy because she wants to, and nothing else. she takes art classes in her free time. never one to sit still, and never one to engage much in the gotham walk of life, either.

she comes to her teenage years with a flourish. she has it all. she is beautiful and interesting, and her personality sparkles. she is dubbed shooting star shortly after. it is during this period she meets the person she still calls the love of her life. they do not feel the same way. andromeda is still trying to learn to live with it.

she does this with other people. andromeda never learned how to properly treat people, so she does as she was taught  — like tools. serial dating is an avid hobby of hers. she’s never dated anyone besides her first for more than a week.

after andromeda graduates high school, she takes a gap year to travel europe. she calls it her forgotten year, but only to herself. she’s made up stories to ply people with, but for the vast majority of her time, she zoned in and out. separated from the things that grounded her, the thing growing inside her takes hold, she reasons. she wakes up in various situations: in a room filled with finished canvas, a cafe with pages of her calendar missing, walking to somewhere she does not know.

andromeda is quick, too eager, to blame her powers. it’s only natural. she’s been raised to fear them, it’s only second nature. and she’s never understood them. she doesn’t know their full power, their true colors.

( the truth : something much worse happened to andy during her time alone. she was by herself in europe. there was no one to check in on her, besides via cell, and it’s pricey, so even then she’s limited. )

she goes home. or the next best thing. paragon, a double major in art and dance. she keeps herself busy ; she does not want to go back to being a zombie. she wants to be awake. she wants to live her life outside of her powers.

though she does not know it, andromeda comes back changed. not just from experience, but on a biological level. she dismisses it, the difference in the way she carries herself.

her brother dies in january. she comes back to paragon just as this happens, and leaves again. this time : latin america. this time, she wants to forget. and forget she does. she doesn’t stay long, but she does not make peace with his death, either. she still feels like she should have known. and maybe, in a way, she did.

what she had expected. what she was looking for, in a way, happened. it’s worse, though. she remembers her plane to brazil. she remembers her plane back to new york. she does not remember anything else.

it’s been a very long time since andromeda has felt like herself.

she goes back to paragon, and when she does, her brother is back from the dead. she is too. andy starts living life again. she doesn’t tell anyone about what happened to her.

ii / v.  ｢    powers  !   ｣

her powers manifest at age seven, but it isn’t until age eleven that she finds out what they are. precognition is a weighted word. one people look in on, but never want for themself. they ask her to tell them fortunes, and read tarot and palms, and predict at the drop of a hat, but they don’t want to be able to do the same.

she compares it to going to the zoo. you like to look at the animals and interact with them, but you wouldn’t like to live there.

 before she could even call them her powers, before she even knew they were a mutation, andy was raised to fear her powers. they couldn’t be anything good. anything that predicted her own mother’s death couldn’t be good.

it doesn’t help that they manifest the way they do. sometimes, she will find herself speaking without meaning to of things she has no way of knowing. sometimes, she wakes up from dreams that are far from the normal weird. sometimes, she sees flashes of pictures outside her imagination’s reigns. sometimes, she sees people that she knows are not real. sometimes, she will walk places that she has no way of knowing. sometimes, she draws things and has no memory of it.

it’s like something is possessing her. even if she tried, she could not stop her powers. there was no medicine she was willing to subject herself to. andy thinks about being human, sometimes. andromeda’s life would be forever different if she just didn’t have the x-gene. it’s hard not to learn to hate her powers for it.

hatred and fear. the same two things her grandmother looked at her with that day. it sits heavy on andy’s chest. sometimes she feels like she can’t bear the weight of it.

she makes up for this in any way she can. andy sports her powers as a shining badge on her chest, but in the dark, they’re never there to guide her way.

iii / v.  ｢    work !   ｣

a double major in art and dance, the one thing andy lacks is free time. she’s equally committed to both, and if you can’t find her with her nose up some art history book, she’s in a dance studio.

andromeda is really just trying to stay busy, to a point. she’s utterly terrified about her forgotten time. she doesn’t want to forget anymore. she thinks that if she stays focused on her work, stays consumed by studies and friends, she’ll be able to keep being andromeda.

though people often comment on how she should have gone into drama ( ha, ha, ha ), andy’s passion for either of her majors has never dimmed. she thinks, to a point, that she should hate ballet. that it should only bring bad memories with it ; a farce to suffice for love she could not get. 

the truth: she’s good at it and that’s that. she likes dancing. she feels like herself when she is, and that’s all her criteria at this point in time.

painting, it’s the same. she always paints and draws in color. for a long time, her visions were only in black and white. but now, they too, have consumed that part of her life. her room will forever be littered with different projects of hers. her favorite jeans will always have paint stains in them that she can not get out. it’s apart of who she is.

iv / v.  ｢    personality !   ｣

she’s sunshine in human form, but not in the positive way. she’s the other side. violently bright. overpowering, at times. she’s the kind of girl that gets under your skin.

she has a reputation for being dramatic and a total player. people see her as ditzy. the ridiculous isley-quinzel girl. in truth, andromeda has had trouble being present. she’s still, in a way, trying to grow up.

she’s overly friendly and she makes friends of all types as well as enemies. she overflows, in a bit, unapologetic to a point. she’s not trying to be friends with everyone.

and it’s a good point to say that, truly, andromeda is burdened by the weight of her upraising. she was never taught how to properly treat people or be treated. she doesn’t understand people. she hides it well, but andy lacks a lot of what other people supply easily.

v / v.  ｢    wanted connections !    ｣

best friend ! someone who she gets along with more than complacent fakeness. someone who gets her a bit more than she’d probably like. someone who gets it.

exes ! she has literal LITERAL hundreds. a new one each week, she’s the type to string someone on, but when she’s doing it she devotes the passion of a thousand suns to every molecule of their being.

gotham kid ! a person who knew that interesting little human with the sense of naivety that only creeps up on her sometimes these days. whether she enjoyed their presence or not, or even knew them before becoming an isley-quinzel, there’s plenty to work with.

something precog-y ! maybe, for once, she got it right, or at the very least tried to forewarn. or maybe she played it for kicks and gave them a fake as hell psychic reading for shits and giggles. dealer’s choice.

An Opera on Separation - Chapter 8

Prologue | Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | CH. 8 | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Ch. 13 | Ch. 14 | Ch. 15 | Ch. 16 | Ch. 17 | Ch. 18 |

Summary: Nathan was arrested for the greatest corruption scandal in the political history of North America. Queenie and Zig do their best so Emily does not find out. Will they succeed?

Rating: T - Content not suitable for children.  Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 1726

Notes: Good evening, sweeties! We have a Madonna classic for today, so be sure to give it a listen.

Like, reblog, follow and subscribe to the taglist! Or send me an ask, a batch of cookies, the cure for cancer, what gives you.

Secret

Queenie was calmly having coffee and lounging on the couch on that fateful Monday morning. It was rare for her to watch TV in the mornings, as she was often caught up with something or another, but the long weekend kept Emily at home, and she couldn’t plan anything under such a close surveillance.

“Good morning, mom!” Emily called over from the bathroom, fully clothed for a new day at work.

“Good morning, honey. I made some coffee and pop-tarts.” She said, pointing to the kitchen. The pastries were on a plate on top of the counter, while the coffee was still on the pot.

The redhead went over to the breakfast ensemble and poured herself a cup and took a bite on a pop-tart. “Mom, I’ll be back late, okay? I have a date with Zig tonight.”

“On a Monday?” The older woman asks, finding it to be strange.

“He says he missed me this weekend, so we’re compensating.” She defended, not really caring either way.

The matriarch shook her head. “Youth these days. What do you intend to do? No self-respecting place will be serving tonight.”

“Netflix and chill is all the hype these days.” She shrugged. “Anyways, I’m running late. See you!”

Queenie rolled her eyes. “How stupid.” She grumbles. “Eh, whatever. More time to sell oregano to high school children.”

Turning back her attention to the TV, her amenities show had been interrupted for some news bulletin. That usually meant a shoot-out, and she was about to change the channel when she saw something that shocked her.

“… this morning, when the FBI unraveled what could be the largest corruption scandal on the history of the United Nations. According to investigations, diplomats and national entrepreneurs bribed World Bank analysts for more favorable reports on their lending proposals. This scheme might have favored the financing of such works as a subway line in Brazil, a water dam in South Africa and a refinery in Angola.

“Amongst the investigated, there are twelve Americans and nineteen foreigners of different nationalities. Five of them have already been arrested, including the recently-appointed Director, Nathan Sterling.

“Mr. Sterling is the youngest person to ever hold a leading position within the second largest financial institution in the world, after the IMF, and the first American diplomatic representative in exercise to be arrested for corruption.”

“Oh, crap.” She cursed, turning off the TV.

She couldn’t let Emily know that. Knowing her daughter, she would certainly want to drop everything to go to Washington in defense of Nathan, never mind he abandoned her with no explanation and no money.

Not only that would be humiliating and stupid, they also certainly couldn’t afford it. Money was tight as it is, they didn’t have the resources for a train fare to D.C., nor could Emily miss more work. And as much as a good sport Zig could be, he’d be an idiot if he didn’t take offence on his current girlfriend hushing four states over to attend to her ex-husband.

Speaking of which, she had an idea. Queenie looked up a telephone number online and quickly dialed it.

After four tones, a woman picks up. “Lydia Child High School. How may I help you?”

“Hello, this is Zigmund Ortega’s sister’s neighbor, Qu…” She caught herself and gave out a fake name. If Emily is nearby when he is summoned or answers her call, she might be suspicious. “Quinn Smith. Could I speak with him?”

“Could you state your business?” She asks.

“It’s about his mother. His sister had to rush her to an ER, and I need to talk with him.” The con artist responded.

That seemed to suffice for the woman. “One minute, please.”

Queenie tapped her fingers waiting for someone to pick up the phone. Some good minutes later, a man’s voice resounded. “Hello?”

“Zigmund, this is Queenie Rhodes, Emily’s mother. Do not say my name out loud.” She instructed. “I told the secretary I am your mother’s neighbor in California, Mrs. Quinn Smith. She’s supposed to have suffered a mild domestic accident, should anyone ask. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mrs. Smith, I understand.” He responded, unsure.

“Good. First things first, is Emily with you?” She asks, serious.

“No, ma’am.” He said.

“Listen, Nathan has been arrested. I only just saw on TV.” The matriarch says, calmly. “You cannot let Emily find out. You know how soft-hearted that girl is. She’ll want to hop on the first train to D.C., even if it’s about Nathan.”

“Of course, Mrs. Smith. I completely agree.” He echoes, and the woman smiles, victorious.

“Try to keep her away from the internet and televisions today. It shouldn’t be so hard to do on a school.” The blonde instructs. “By tomorrow they’ll stop talking about it and we all can move on with our lives.”

“Yes, Mrs. Smith, you should do it.” He responded.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Goodbye, Zigmund.” Queenie said and hung up the phone.

All it was left to do was hoping the boy would be able to keep that information from her naïve daughter.

“Damn!” Emily cursed under her breath. She had misplaced her cellphone that morning. She was sure she had it before leaving the apartment, though.

A knock on her classroom door broke her from her obsessive rummaging through her purse after the phone, in hopes it would just materialize on thin air. She looks up and the presence makes her smile.

“Are you ready for lunch?” Zig asks from the doorway, holding up a pair of paper bags. “I bought us take-out.”

“No, I can’t find my phone!” She bemoaned.

“Really? When did you see it last?” He asks, trying to be helpful.

The redhead thinks about his question. “I’m pretty sure I put it on my purse this morning before leaving home. I walked all the way here, then I met you on the hallway. Then I started my classes and I haven’t seen it ever since!”

He walks over her and places his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Em. There’s a software that will locate your phone, before we go out tonight we swing by my place and we can use my notebook to run it. You probably just forgot it at home.”

“Okay.” The woman sighs. “Let’s go have lunch. I’m famished!”

They walk over to the door, and while Emily tries to turn to the right, Zig pulls her to the left.

“Wrong way.” He says, smirking.

“What? The teachers’ lounge is that way!” She responds, confused.

“But we’re not going to the teachers’ lounge.” He fishes a keyring off his pocket and swindles it on his finger. “I asked Principal Jones if we couldn’t have lunch on the roof today and she was okay with it.”

She beamed. “Really?”

“Really, really.” He smirks back. “Let’s go before our lunch gets cold.”

Shortly before the couple reaches the stairs, they cross paths with the same Principal Jones they were talking about minutes early.

“Ms. Harper, Mr. Ortega.” She greets amicably and mischievously. “How nice to meet you. On your way to your impromptu date?”

“Yep!” Emily pops the ‘p’ in rejoice. “Thanks again for lending us the roof key.”

“Don’t mention it.” She dismisses. “You two remind me of me and my Brenda when we were dating. Oh, good times! Shame you just give up when you finally get married.” She muttered the last part.

“What?” The other woman asks, not having heard what she said.

“Nothing you should concern yourself with. By the way, Mr. Ortega, I’m very sorry to hear about your mother, I hope she’s okay.” The woman adopts a caring stance.

“Something happened to your mom?!” The redhead says, also very concerned.

He smiles, sheepishly. “She just tripped. She’s okay, and insisting Marie overreacted on driving her to the ER.”

“Well, falling can be dangerous to the elderly.” Mrs. Jones comments softly. “And, Ms. Harper, I’m sad on hearing about your ex-husband.”

“My ex-husband? What about…” Emily couldn’t finish her sentence because she was pulled over by Zig off to the staircase leading to the roof.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Jones, we’re on a bit of a time-crunch here. Bye!” He declared, while pulling his girlfriend away.

“See, Em, your phone has been at your place this whole time.” Zig says, pointing to the monitor. The blue dot of the geolocator blinking on top of her address.

“I could’ve sworn I had it when I left the apartment!” Emily says, surprised. “I wish I hadn’t stressed over it so much today.”

“The good thing is that you found it, right?” The brunet smiled at her encouragingly. “Will you wait me here for a sec? I’ll take a shower real quick so we can go out on our date.”

“Sure. Can I check my emails while I wait?” She asks.

He nodded and kissed her forehead. “No prob. I’ll be out on a sec.”

Zig waited for him getting to the bathroom before he did a small victory dance to celebrate his success. Between slipping Emily’s phone from her purse and shipping it back to her apartment, arranging a lunch date in which they would be completely alone and cockblocking the principal just at the right time, he really did it.

He succeeded on keeping Emily from finding out about Nathan’s arrest.

He had the most time-efficient shower of his life, and he raced through getting dressed. In a drop of a hat, he was nice and clean, ready to take the spoils of his efforts tonight.

But, as he emerges from his bedroom, Emily was out on the terrace, holding his cellphone. She was making a call, but he couldn’t make out what was being said on that conversation.

Zig was not left wondering long, because soon enough she hung up and returned into the living room.

“Zig, I’m sorry for using your cellphone without asking, but it really was an emergency.” Emily said, a little wide-eyed. “I’ll have to take a raincheck tonight, I’m so sorry. I’ll talk to you later.”

She picked up her purse from the couch and raced to the door, leaving the young man confused on her stead.

A few seconds after she leaves, his cellphone rings and he takes the call. “Hello?”

“You idiot!” Queenie barked. “She found out about Nathan! She’s going after him!”

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An Opera on Separation - Masterlist

Ten Things I Won’t Miss

I take a walk around the Ho Hoan Kiem for the last time.  It's been less than two months since I first set foot in Hanoi, and now I'm filled with nostalgia for the first days of my arrival when everything was a novelty.  I've grown accustomed to the language, to street vendors, tourists, to scooters swerving around me, crowded streets and little shops.  I can see why Lady came and stayed.  It's easy to stay here.  I shop for a few souvenirs then head to my favorite cafe in Hanoi; the Tous Les Jours!  I take a seat on the second floor, open my laptop and work while having one of their delicious pineapple bread.  The cafe has wi-fi and soothing golden lighting, while outside the window the blue sky gets darker with each passing minute.  The soft music is perfect and the staff is super friendly.  Today there are few customers besides me, and I appreciate that too. My only problem with the place, as well as most cafes in Southeast Asia, is that tea and coffee are served in such tiny cups.  In South America is the same thing; you ask for a cup of coffee and get a little sample.  They're rather proud of their coffee beans, but never want you to be satiated.  Instead, they dispense it like medication.  I miss the States' big mugs and free refills! I'm at the end of my summer internship, and I've loved being here.  However, there are a few things in Vietnam I will not miss.  Let's make a quick list, shall we? 

1) Probably the number one thing that really gets to me is the habit the Vietnamese have of clearing their throats and spitting on the ground.  This happens everywhere.  You're walking around the beautiful Ho Hoan Kiem lake, having the best thoughts conceivable to men, then you hear someone right beside you making a deep sweep in their throat and spitting its phlegmatic contents right on the path.  Gosh! I do avert my eyes, my ears, and all my senses as I find the habit deeply repulsive, but this seems perfectly normal and acceptable in the Vietnamese culture.  I want to ask them if you have to do that, can you at least spit in the nearest trash can?   Close related to that is their habit of picking their noses.  It's not that people all around the world doesn't do it, but there's a time and place for everything, which is a concept that evades the average Vietnamese.  Also, consider dropping the habit altogether and using a tissue instead.  

2) Poor sanitation. This is both a personal issue and a major social one.  I believe many people wouldn't want to visit Southeast Asia because they don't do well with a hole in the ground instead of a toilet bowl.  So, yes, my travels would have been much more pleasant if I could count on proper sanitation, but I also believe that these countries could get a major boost in tourism, and consequently in the economy if they just made sure that public restrooms were properly equipped and clean.  

3) Cutting in line.  This only happens when you're in line, so, it's not a constant pebble in my shoe, but when it does occur, it's unbelievably annoying.  How can anyone think that this is okay?  How do they feel when someone cuts in line in front of them?  I have talked to Vietnamese people about that and they laugh like it's a Vietnamese cute quirk.  It's not cute! A quirk shouldn't interfere with everyone else's schedule.  It's not that Vietnamese people are arrogant, because generally, they are not.  It's just that they don't put that much stock in this kind of social organization.  On this matter, China is quite different.  Even by visiting the Chinese embassy in Hanoi one notices that cutting in line is a major no-no.  Chinese people can be very rigid on a lot of things, not always sensibly, but in queueing they can teach Vietnam a thing or two.

4) No sidewalk to speak of.  Well, yes, there are sidewalks, but they're not for walking.  They're used primarily as parking spaces for scooters. If there aren't parked scooters, or if there's extra space, then people may walk.  But most likely, it's been already taken by tables and people cooking, eating, playing checkers, or fixing appliances.  If you're walking on the sidewalk at rush hour, remember that the sidewalk is free game, and you'll most often see a motorcycle rushing at or behind you.  The fun never stops. 5) Smoking.  This is something that surprised me.  I thought that smoking was in decline all around the world, but apparently, that's not the case in Vietnam -- especially among young people.  The Vietnamese young men and women seem unmoved by the disturbing ads on cigarette packages. Everywhere you go, there are people puffing away. What I find ironic is that most people use a mask on the streets to prevent contamination by air pollution but see no problem in lighting a cigarette.    

6) Trash.  Sometimes I think of Vietnam as a person with low self-esteem,  who just doesn't realize his potential and how precious he is.  That would explain why they don't care much about some of their beautiful beaches and parks.  That's not generalized, and Hanoi has many places well cared for, but in a beautiful beach in Phu Quoc, for example, there was plenty of trash, so that you had to watch where you stepped. The rule of thumb seems to be that, unless a place is considered sacred, like a pagoda, or classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, it doesn't require maintenance.  Therefore, if you visit the Temple of Literature, for example, you'll find it clean and well maintained, but if you take a walk around a small park or lake, it might be littered with empty bottles, food wraps, and dog feces.  

7) Toothpicking. After a meal, most people in Vietnam reach for the toothpick -- which is conveniently placed on the table -- to do some teeth cleaning.  Okay, this is a personal peeve of mine.  As a teenager, I worked as a dental assistant and that was something my boss hammered in his clients' minds; don't use toothpicks on your teeth, it does more harm than good.  The Carefree Dental site has the following to say about the habit: "...if you're not careful, you could be damaging your tooth enamel, lacerating gum tissue, and even causing a broken tooth... Additionally, aggressive toothpick use could damage the roots of the teeth, especially where the gums have pulled away from the teeth leaving root surfaces exposed. A broken splinter could also lodge itself in the gum, resulting in an infection if not removed."  I understand the drive to get food from between your teeth after a meal, but there are other ways, more effective, to do that, like flossing.  I also don't like the fact that this is done at the table, but that might just be me.  I'm one of those people who believe that a restroom is a perfect place to put yourself back to rights.  Especially if that restroom is well lit, has all the appliances and is clean. #see sanitation above.   Vietnamese people are notorious for bad teeth and oral hygiene, and I believe that toothpicking is only one more bad habit in a multifaceted issue. https://www.carefreedental.com/resources/16-dental-tips/153-10-bad-habits-that-are-hard-on-your-teeth

8) Unwelcome solicitation. Vietnamese people are very helpful and most of the time their help is quite welcome.  However, it can get annoying when you can't take a ten-minute walk without being offered at least five things.  It's fruits, hats, juices, food and, of course, rides.  There's a man leaning on a motorcycle at almost every corner, and every one of them asks if you want a ride.  That's also the case in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos.  It's nice to have rides easily available, but it becomes a pain when you can't go twenty steps without having to decline something.  There are also those who follow you for a little while, insisting.   If you do accept whatever they're selling, be ready to haggle.  Sometimes haggling is fun, especially if you're doing it for exercise and are not very interested in the product. But in that case, I'd rather spend my time in more interesting conversations.  When making purchases, I like straight-forward transactions. I prefer fixed prices and being able to count on finding the same product at the same price day after day.

9) Scarcity mentality.  The scarcity mentality is the idea that there's never enough to go around.  I use the word never instead of not, because the scarcity mentality subscribes to a sort of pessimism.  It's not that there isn't enough for today, but a constant belief that tomorrow there won't be enough either. Some people with this mindset are very selfish, believing that resources cannot be shared since more for you means less for me.  I'd not say that the Vietnamese is selfish, much on the contrary.  The people I met in Vietnam were very considerate and extremely generous, especially my supervisors and colleagues at The Gioi.  However, the notion of poverty is very present in the Vietnamese society's words and actions.  This is hard to explain, so I'll give a few examples: the tiny teacup at homes and cafes, as I've mentioned before, the scant toilet paper, narrow streets, tiny bathrooms, little water in the shower, bath towel about the size of an American hand towel, recycled water for many needs like washing dishes, flushing, etc.  Anyone who knows me knows that I dislike waste and truly believe we should use our resources more effectively.  My problem is with the mentality itself, with the belief that we don't have enough, the posture that everything is scarce today and tomorrow will be worse.  While I can't speak much about the economy in Vietnam, I do notice that people have money to eat out, to buy cigarettes, to go to the movies, and to travel.  And yet, that cultural restriction is often present, as though the resources are meager and must be carefully divided.   I have often compared Vietnam with Brazil, and on this too the similarity is astonishing.  I was away from Brazil for twenty-four years, and at my return, I was surprised by the size of things like soap bars, peanut butter jars, mayonnaise, jam, tomato sauce, shampoo bottles, and of course, teacups!  Do people eat or use less of a product because it's in a smaller package?  Or do we use or eat as much as we need, independent of the container?  Like Vietnam, Brazil also keeps and encourages a scarcity mentality.  In a culture with this mindset, goods are distributed as though from a parent to a child -- this is all you can have, Junior, so make sure it lasts, -- while in places with an abundance mentality, goods are spread freely, even if they are meager, with the trust that people will responsibly take what they need and nothing more.  In this case, people are treated like responsible adults and not like children who can't be trusted. 

10) Order and Progress. It could be the slogan on a flag, right? Oh, wait! It is! It's the slogan on the Brazilian flag.  And it doesn't work very well over there.  But, disappointment notwithstanding, it's a good slogan.  No.  It's a great slogan because you really can't have progress without order.  I'm sure if one day Brazil succeeds in attaining the first part of the slogan, the country will have no problem with the second. Order, or organization, allows us to take a full assessment of our surroundings. It's by organizing that we know the resources we have and can plan around what we don't have. While traveling in Southeast Asia I noticed that the absence of some basic structures -- sanitation, for example -- is not the result of lack of resources. Everything necessary for an efficient and pleasant rest stop, for instance, is already there.  The electrical wires in Phnom Penh is an example of that; apparently, the Cambodian capital expanded quickly and there was an immediate need for more and better electrical wires.  Instead of organizing and extending the existing cables, they haphazardly added more as demand increased so that now it's a tangle of wires which defy logic.  I can only imagine how electricians deal with that mess.   So, why can't it be organized?  I don't know.  Perhaps they have been dealing with bigger emergencies, putting out fires for too long, or maybe order is just not a high priority in the Vietnamese culture.  However, there are places where much thought and planning have been applied, like the Train Tien Plaza in Hanoi, a shopping center with all the organization and sophistication one can expect.  The airport, some hotels, stores and upscale restaurants show a stark difference to the facilities for the public, which have yet to benefit from the same kind of organization.

Lewis Hamilton – The Man Who Reached The Summit Of Formula 1’s Mountain

Akin to that mountain, which soars high into the skies, Lewis Hamilton stands tall amid jaw-dropping reactions in the firmament of FORMULA 1.

Lewis Hamilton Proud Of Record Achievement

It’s a sport to which Hamilton has given a decade and a half of his life. It’s a sport which has become second nature to Lewis Hamilton – a man born to race, someone we today cannot imagine the highest level of Grand Prix racing without.

The Brit was proud of what he and his team have achieved, saying ‘I think ultimately I’m just very proud of the job that I felt I was able to do today and the things I was able to overcome, but also the job we have done collectively as a team and it’s just reminiscent of the beginning when I joined the team, the decision I took to join the team and what we have done since.

‘I knew that we would win championships. Did I think we would win as many as we have? No. Did I think we would win this many races? Of course not. But it is a phenomenal time for us and the great thing is that it’s not just me that is living with the history, it’s the whole team and I think everyone acknowledges and realises how much they are part of it, so I feel incredibly grateful to my teammates.

‘To Valtteri, for being the contender he is, the team-mate he is, for pushing the team forwards – we’re generally rowing in the same direction whilst we are competing, and it’s been a privilege to work with him. So what a time to be alive.’

Lewis Hamilton Has Excelled Since Day 1

To a sport that demands excellence- Lewis Hamilton had nothing else but excellence on offer, arriving at the 2007 World Championship curtain-raiser: the 2007 Australian Grand Prix (18 March) where he earned a P3.

In so doing, Lewis immediately proved his mettle for his McLaren team. But was that easy to do- with Kimi and Alonso being at their devastating best back then? It’s anybody’s guess.

Thirteen years hence, as Lewis Hamilton finds his name against arguably the most amazing record in Formula 1- nothing’s really changed.

Back then- he was hanging out on or around the podium, scoring nine back-to-back (podiums) in his maiden year in Formula 1 alone.

A few hours back, he stepped onto the podium for the 161st time in Formula 1, he’d made history; a mighty one at that.

Just how many wins can the new record holder tally? Well he won’t say the sky is the limit, but he is prepared to keep working to raise the bar higher and higher for those set to follow him.

‘I don’t believe in the saying the sky’s the limit. It’s just a saying. It depends how much we want it, how much we want to continue to raise the bar and going by our history together, just the way we work, we don’t sit back on our results, we keep working, we keep elevating.

‘Every race feels like the first one. I don’t know how that’s possible after all these races but for me it does, just as challenging as the first, and I think there is a lot more for us to do. Especially as we’re in this crazy time of the pandemic.

‘We’re in a crazy time with having to also utilise our position as a business, as a leader in the business for inclusivity, for diversity, there’s a lot of work to do. So, that keeps me inspired.

‘My team-mates, who are continuously growing, my fans who are continuously learning through this process with us all, and our sport that is slowly changing, it’s a real special time.

‘I definitely sometimes wonder, you know, jeez I’m 35 years old. I still feel physically strong but you still wonder when is it going to tip over and lose performance but showing by today it’s not yet,’ added Hamilton.

Consistency Has Been The Key

The all-time win record is a piece of history every driver whether contesting in the sport or desperate to break through to the top flight in F1- would absolutely love to script.

As Lewis Carl Hamilton crossed the line and received the checkered flag at the very tricky and truly testing Portimao-bound Portuguese Grand Prix- he scored the 92nd win of his career, the most by any F1 driver – dead or alive.

In this clip, you can see Hamilton talking about this record-setting moment with none other than Martin Brundle.

But every sport needs a hero- someone who can prove himself to be Mr. Consistency, and blaze a trail for the others to follow.

Lewis Hamilton – 161 podiums, 92 race wins, 97 pole positions, 52 fastest laps, 6 world titles – is a humble and mild-mannered one.

2020 Portuguese Grand Prix, Sunday – Lewis Hamilton (image courtesy Mercedes-AMG Petronas)

He ain’t some flickering myth that’ll burn out or fade away (He’s here to stay).

Not when at 35, making the body endure the grind for fourteen long years, and about to claim a seventh world title. And maybe go even more!

And certainly not when you’re finding much younger guys- a little over half your age- in your mirrors only for you to ply phenomenal race craft to emerge unscathed in the end – (race after race, weekend after weekend).

But Hamilton, who’s proven himself to be statistically superior than even the great Michael Schumacher, must not dwell on the lot that passes easy judgement holding little to appreciate one’s journey.

Fact is- Lewis Hamilton won from pole again and not only that, ended up delivering the grand slam of the race, including the mark for fastest lap.

Dominant Display In Portugal

At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton briefly lost the lead a few laps since the start. It didn’t matter, however.

He was soon dictating terms from the very front of the grid with usual Hamilton-esque guts.

‘When I come to these races I never think of the numbers. I just never let it enter into my thought process. Today was really about… we’re at this track, it’s very, very smooth, you see the struggle we’re all having with the tyre temperatures, so towards the end of the race I was thinking about what I will and won’t say in terms of what is appropriate to say and not to say but ultimately it’s no secret, I think today was about tyre temperature.

‘I felt through the race that I was learning, lap on lap, more about the circuit. I was trying lots of different lines and discovering new lines that worked well. The wind direction was very, very tricky, I think, today, lots of crosswinds, headwinds and tailwinds and there were some positions that you could utilise to your favour and others that kind-of get in the way.

‘I think the key is the times when you have a tailwind, it’s minimising the loss through those stages. Set-up was something that I really focussed on. It was less about qualifying set-up, and more for the race set-up and I think today that enabled me to go one better, I guess, than before.

‘I just felt like I was generally getting faster and faster throughout the race – but I had to keep up the pace for these tyres. That was really the key,’ added the race winner.

But implicit in the journey of the most successful driver in F1’s history (race wins wise👏) is respect. That which he gives to his competitors on the grid. That which he himself earns as a result of feverish consistency.

It’s easy to lose ones head at the highest annals of Grand Prix racing. But very difficult to keep winning despite having at one’s disposal – the fastest or most complete car on the grid.

Hamilton Almost Faultless Throughout F1 Career

Why Hamilton must be respected is because despite having the best of both worlds- the most powerful machine and ample manpower- he hasn’t put a foot wrong in Formula 1.

This isn’t to say he didn’t err – there was the controversial pit lane entry despite the window not being open, and the ignorance of yellow flags in another event (earlier this season)- but Hamilton’s driver errors have been few and far between.

He did, as a matter of fact, collide twice with Albon (Red Bull) in the space of one year- starting with Brazil 2019 and then, the 2020 Austrian GP- but Hamilton won’t spin, won’t slide off the track and won’t self capitulate.

We’ve seen a magnificent champion in Sebastian Vettel make more errors than probably any other man on the grid in the past half a decade period; an onerous length of time during which Hamilton’s performances grew to the size of a shape-shifting beast: hard to ignore, even harder to beat.

Still, what would you put it all down to- these eight race wins in 12 starts in 2020? Isn’t it a precise combination of smooth race craft and next-to-faultless car control?

Hamilton The Ultimate Competitor

On top of it, Lewis Hamilton seems an athlete that just won’t budge; the more difficult the circumstances- the more he challenges himself.

Earlier this year, at the landmark British Grand Prix, Hamilton won with three tires, having suffered a front-left failure thanks to horrible delamination in the final lap of the race.

The bad news was, Max was closing in- just six seconds behind. The good news was- Lewis wasn’t going to give up.

In 2019, a year where perhaps Mercedes’ domination of the grid was arguably the most ruthless – the team winning eight back-to-back races- Lewis enjoyed the upper hand over Bottas until Verstappen’s race win at Austria halted the driver’s marauding charge.

It wasn’t Valtteri but Lewis who won four back-to-back races before Max’s mad run at Spielberg changed the narrative somewhat, the Briton picking up big wins at Spain, Monaco, Canada and France.

Yet, ever wondered why we credit Lewis Hamilton. Is it just the magnanimous success and that instinct for domination?

Perhaps suffice to say, there’s a Lewis Hamilton the benevolent observer who resides in the heart of the man who wants to and does drive like a champion all year around.

The Hamilton v Vettel Rivalry

At the 2019 Singapore GP- an event we’d have loved to see this year too- the warmest congratulatory message to the race winner arrived from the man who finished fourth.

As Sebastian Vettel, occupied in arguably his most important post-race interview was about to conclude, a warm tap on the shoulder arrived from behind.

As Vettel turned immediately to see who that was, he was greeted by the most affectionate smile from none other than his closest rival on the grid, one to whom the German had played too often the vanquished (than he’d have liked) in the previous seasons- Lewis Hamilton!

What a beautiful tiny moment that was featuring two guys who were daggers drawn at each other at Azerbaijan 2017, you thought.

But that’s precisely where we owe much credit to the fighting duo.

The sport, with every passing decade, has birthed new heroes and presented personalities.

But it’s very hard to deny that had Hamilton and Vettel not pushed one another to the absolute limit- evident closely in races like Hungary 2017, British GP 2018, 2018 German GP, 2018 Belgian GP, among a few more- we wouldn’t have seen two stars burning brightly in the F1 galaxy.

Stars who remember to respect one another despite occasional on-field scuffles.

That the two twinkle lends substance to a sport that can’t function minus its shining lights, one of whom has become a mighty planet.

He was once a kid, not even a boy who took to Karting pushed by his doting dad.

Today that same kid from Stevenage (who sat in a kart at the best of his father) has grown into a global icon despite all odds.

Little wonder then it’s Lewis Hamilton who says – Still We Rise!!

Take a bow champion. Take a bow.

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The Armourer and the Living Weapon, Chapter 16: Sanjay and Kishori

This chapter contains canon-level violence.

[AO3 link]

The brown-eyed woman raised her right eyebrow. "Oxton."

"Last name only? A bit formal for a waitress, don't you think?"

"Lena Oxton," replied said waitress in her formal black-and-whites, with a bit of a nod. "Mum." Her curly walnut hair - a reasonably convincing wig - bobbed a little with the rest of her head.

"Well then, Lena," said the older woman in her dark business suit - a bit out of place in the grandstand, but layered with enough of the right kind of jewellery to make it up - "why don't you be a good girl and see what you can do about a better version of this." She handed over a lightly-sampled vodka martini, which the waitress took and gracefully placed atop her tray. "I'll be out on the terrace - I'm sure you can find me."

"Right away, mum."

The woman turned back to her colleagues as Tracer slid away, through the crowd, drink on a small tray. "Any sign of 'em yet?" she subvocalised over comms hidden in her ear.

"Non, ma chérie," came Widowmaker's reply from the roof of the recently-rebuilt Maternity Hospital, less than a kilometre south. "If they're outside, I do not have them."

"They're here, somewhere. I've spotted the driver," came Oilliphéist's voice, from atop a fully-rented B&B on the hill to the northwest. "No sign of targets yet, though."

Trader handed the glass over to the Canadian bartender working with the English-speaking waiters. "She says she wants a 'better' one," and the mixologist nodded. "I saw. More vodka?"

"Given how she's been drinkin'? Probably."

"Gimmie a sec, there's a rush." She dumped the glass and queued a double as Tracer turned around and leaned back against the end the bar, coolly surveying the £11,000-a-seat crowd, a mix of celebrities, the 'rich,' and the actually-rich, some few actively caring about the Brazil Grand Prix - those, mostly out in the heat of the pavilion overlooking the track and pits - mixing with a larger number there more to party on their parents' money. The rest hustled and toadied, currying favour with all of the above.

All these bloody 'luxury grandstands' look the same to me, Lena thought, still scanning the glittering crowd, as her supervisor stepped up with tray full of cocktails. "Oxton, do a circuit. I'll take care of the outdoor delivery."

"Gotcha," she said, looking over the drinks. Damn, she thought. No mojito. As her supervisor vanished with the double martini, she leaned back to the bar. "Chloe, priority mix me a mojito for this tray? Please?"

"Why?"

"I've had a bloke on me for one, he's really annoying." A small lie, but only a small one, and she absolutely wouldn't do a circuit without Sanjay Korpal's favourite drink. "Heavy on the mint."

"Right."

"I have him," came Emily's voice in Lena's ear. "Oh, better - I have them both."

"Where?" breathed Widowmaker.

"Behind too much glass. Tracer, second tier, third window from the north."

Lena smiled at Chloe as she added the drink to her tray, and stepped back from the bar. "Thanks," she said, to both the bartender and her counterparts. "On my way."

-----

"I really don't know what we're going to do about this," Kishori said, as quietly as could be said as the F1 automobiles roared by, outside the windows. "The board is on lockdown, neither of us know why - and you're sitting here watching noisy antiques being driven around in circles."

Sanjay smirked, the right side of his mouth twitching up, as he watched the action on the track, actually interested despite himself. He wasn't sure what he liked about it - the noise, the smell, the chaos, everything so utterly unlike everything Vishkar stood for, at least, in theory.

"Reyes has always been volatile," he replied, eyes not leaving the cars tearing their way down the track. "This is not the first time his paranoia has run away with him."

"Half my agents have gone quiet. I don't think this is paranoia."

Sanjay shrugged, having seen it all before, when Akande went to prison. "I don't pretend nothing is going on. I just know the best way not to be involved is... not to get involved. It will blow over." He wondered whether what really kept him on edge was the possibility of a fiery crash and explosion. Even the qualifiers - like the race in front of him - were more than their fair share of dangerous, and his pulse quickened a little as two cars bumped tires during an attempt to pass.

"Boisson, madame? Boisson, monsieur?" A brown-eyed waitress with curly walnut hair and a fleet of cocktails stepped to the small serving table between and behind the box seats, and Sanjay looked back at the tray. "I don't suppose you..."

"English? Of course, my apologies," Tracer said in her carefully-coached French accent. "Cocktails, sir? Madame?"

"Water," said the older woman. "If you have it."

"Of course, madame." She reached forward and across, her hand on the back of the woman's chair, and placed a small cocktail napkin on the table, along with iced water. The small tracking device attached to her collar was as complimentary as the drinks, of course.

"You wouldn't have a... oh, is that a mojito?"

"Yes, sir. But if there is something specific, I would of course be happy to fetch..."

"No, I'll take that." He reached and leaned over to grab it himself, and Lena insured the tray toppled in a way that made it clearly his fault, the drinks cascading into their chairs.

"Oh, for... Sanjay!" Kishori glared at the other Talon board member, as she dodged alcohol, extracting herself from her seat.

"Monsieur, madame, I am so sorry, it is entirely my fault! Please, allow me..." She dabbed carefully with a large cloth napkin, leaning forward as she had with his viewing companion, tracker number two attached as had been tracker one. "It appears that for the most part the... damage is to the chairs. I will summon cleaning staff at once. Would you like me to bring your drinks to your outdoor box?"

"That," Sanjay said, embarrassed, "might be the best idea. Kishori?"

"My seat is soaked, thank you - I'll be outside." She picked up her glass. "But I'll take my own water."

"Very good, madame. Monsieur?"

"Just get me another goddamned mojito," he snapped.

"Vous avez renversé de la vodka sur, ah, I, there is a bit of vodka on your sleeve, here, I have remover..."

"He's fine," Kishori interjected. "Let's go, before you embarrass yourself any further."

"I will bring your replacement drink to you. Would you like an escort to the outdoor grandstand?"

"No," he snapped. "I know where it is. Extra mint."

"Very good, sir," she smiled contritely and bowed a bit, backing away. "I will bring you your drinks presently."

She watched from the bar - cleaning staff already alerted, replacement mojito queued - as the two Talon board members fussed a bit more at themselves, and at each other, before picking up and heading towards the terrace. "Packages en route," she subvocalised. "Trackers," not tracers, she thought, amused at herself, "in place."

"Your accent has improved," Widowmaker said, into her ear. "But you would not fool a native French speaker."

"Yeh, yeh," she subvocalised. "Good thing they're from India, innit. You got 'em?"

"Signals are clear and locked..." said the Widowmaker. "Movement tracking verified. Both trackers confirmed live and functioning."

"Nice work, luv. How much vodka you dump on him? He won't change before going out to the afterparties tonight, will he?"

"Nah - he'll be fine. Everything else ready?"

"We can go as soon as you slip away."

"Gotta get 'em their drinks first," Lena smirked. "Wouldn't want 'em t'go thirsty."

"'course not," Oilliphéist snickered.

"Very well. I will watch for your departure at the gate."

"See y'soon."

-----

[São Paulo Yacht Club, some hours later]

"I'm not going to waste any more time with this stupidity," Kishori snapped. "The cars are bad enough, now you want to go boat racing?"

"I don't expect you to come along for the ride. You're perfectly welcome to stay inside and be grumpy at potential backers."

"You promised ... ah," she dropped a small hologrammatic card, made a frustrated noise, picked it back up, and glared at it. Even at a distance, Tracer could clearly see the yacht club's logo. "This nonsense is a complete waste of my time. I am leaving."

Bugger all,, thought Tracer, now all in black with the wig long gone, backing the slightest bit away as Sanjay ran after his ally. "You hear that, luvs?" she asked, over comms. "She's leaving early. Should I track 'er?"

"No - stay with Korpal," the Widowmaker replied from her position in Parque Guarapiranga, across the water, but with an excellent view of the club's boat launch. "Oilliphéist, do you have her?"

"Not yet, but I certainly will," replied her counterpart, chuckling, from the playfields to the south.

"Are you tracking her?" clarified Widowmaker, dryly.

"Tracking signal clear and strong," Oilliphéist confirmed. "Mind if I have some fun? Different methods would cloudy the picture..."

"I cannot imagine you doing anything less. Go."

Tracer worried a bit at the idea of Emily letting herself have fun. "Don't let's make a mess, Oilliphést."

"Oh, Tracer, don't worry. I'll be careful."

"I don't mean, that, I mean, just..." She felt conflict rising inside her as opportunities began to realise themselves. "...don't draw it out."

"What do you... oh!" She heard a bit of laughter over the comms. "Don't worry! I'm not going to torture her - though it's not like she hasn't directed her own fair share of that. No, no, I'm just going to make it... interesting! For me. It's not as much fun without a challenge, is it?"

"Ricochet shot?" asked the senior assassin.

"Maybe! But we'll see. I'll improvise."

"As long as she goes down," Widowmaker stressed.

"I'm on mission, sweet. She'll go down."

"Perfect."

"I don't care!" Sanjay shouted, regaining Tracer's attention. "Just... send the car back to pick me up when you're done." Lena watched as he waved his arm after Kishori, frustration clear in the motion, before turning back towards the yacht club, where he presented an invitation to the tuxedoed man at the door.

"Don't suppose we've got one of those holograms?"

"I'm afraid not, cherie."

"Right. Long 'way 'round it is."

"Be careful not to wake the capybaras on the beach."

"I'll do my best, love."

-----

Tracer made her way all but silently through the wetlands to the club's south, dance music and boat engines masking her approach. Huh. Didn't think he was the thrill-seeking type, she thought, as she watched Korpal walk towards the boat launch. Is he actually going t' get in one of those?

As it turned out, he was not. Instead, he presented a small teleporter-like device, which projected a hardlight foil racer, similar in size and shape to the two traditional boats already in the water. She could see him grin and nod at other two pilots, who argued with him noisily, one in Portuguese, the other in Mandarin.

"Please tell me you're gettin' some of this," she said, quietly, in comms.

"I have a little of the Portuguese - I believe they're saying he cannot be an entrant, but he may demonstrate his, I think, toy?" She snorted. "From their tone, they have decided he is... gauche, I think."

Tracer smirked, but kept it quiet. "Looks like a closed cowl from here. Can you shoot through that?"

"Almost certainly, though it is difficult to be sure, with hardlight. It would be better if I could get him on the water, without so many close witnesses. He may have many enemies in this city, but it is still worth complicating any investigation, if we... ah, look."

"Yeh, I see it." Korpal guided his craft into the water, climbed aboard, the ship's cockpit sealing itself as he settled into the pilot's seat. He rolled the little boat, foils retracted, demonstrating that he could, and gunned the quiet - but not excessively quiet - engine. The Portuguese-speaking woman made a disgusted noise and walked away, back towards the club, but the other man laughed, jogged over to his racer, jumped in, and cast off.

The two boats roared towards deeper water, and the glittering crowd in the catering tent turned to look at the two sleek ships slicing through deeper water, matching manoeuvres one to one, and Tracer grinned, wickedly.

"...I've got an idea," she said, and, carefully but almost impossibly quickly, made her way to the second launch.

"I... hm, yes. You can...?"

"I can pilot anything, love," she replied, slipping into the Portuguese racer and casting off, following the first pair. "I think it's time for a boating accident."

-----

I knew she couldn't resist, Sanjay thought, grinning, as he saw the third racer, with its São Paulo Yacht Club flag, charging up from behind. Too much pride involved - so easy to manipulate. He gunned the hardlight engine, making it roar - an illusion, of course, the engine was all but silent, but appearances matter - and the São Paulo boat responded in kind, foils out, coming up on his port side, riding very, very close - and bumping, hard, hull to hull.

Oooh, playing rough? I like it, he thought, grinning and bumping back, before spinning round, already past the park, heading northeast, both carbon-fibre craft slower than his 'round the turn.

I'm faster in the straights, Lena thought, calculating. He's got the edge in manoeuvrability, but I'm faster. As she caught up, she shoved him west, port flank against starboard, hard. The Shanghai craft caught up as well, getting into the game, standing off just a bit before gunning past them on the starboard side, the pilot apparently quite happy to let the other two slow each other down. He reached the third buoy in the clear lead, and spun tightly and precisely around it, back down the temporary racing lane, off again before the other two could even get 'round.

"Enjoying yourself, cherie?" came Widowmaker's voice over comms.

"Honestly?" She grinned like a madwoman. "Yeh. I am. This is fun. Think you can do something about the SYC's steering?"

"I believe I can damage the starboard foil. If you could make that engine roar again..."

She did, and there was a little bit of an extra bang, but nothing that sounded like a gunshot, and the Shanghai Yacht Club-flagged craft slowed, veering just a little, slowing to compensate. The Vishkar and São Paulo craft closed, quickly, then passed, as the Shanghai pilot veered off the course, heading back towards the launch.

"I like that," Tracer said. "Ready for your shot?"

"I am, as always, ready."

"I'm gonna ram 'im again. See if you can nick his foil at about the same place?"

"I understand." As they rounded the southern buoy again, Tracer slammed her ship hard into Sanjay's hardlight craft, sending it west, towards the park, where Widowmaker waited, and fired, and Korpal's craft veered the slightest bit further to port, almost exactly at the same point.

He bhagavaan!, thought Sanjay, as his craft shook, and he moved to reset the foil. Something's in the water. Or is it that damned...

"Well, guess that's answered. I'm gonna hit 'im again. You ready?"

"Of course," the assassin purred, as Tracer threw her ship's prow directly into the Vishkar foils. Sanjay's ship flipped, rolling, and as he panicked, Widowmaker sighted, targeted, and fired, the hardlight canopy dissolving like so much candy floss in the water, and Sanjay Korpal's head with it.

"Perfect," she purred into comms, as Lena spun her craft around.

"I think we made a bit of a splash tonight, don't you?"

Widowmaker chuckled, darkly. "Agreed."

"Care to shoot this one's engine? It's combustible..."

"Acknowledged," she said, firing, seeing the craft catch fire, slowing, as light flashed from the cockpit and then beside her, copper eyes now glinting in what would be the darkness. "Oilliphéist, target one down. Check in."

"Oooooh, I saw," came Emily's voice, liquid, thick with ecstasy. "Beautiful. That was lovely work, hon. You too, Tracer - gorgeous."

"Thanks," Lena said, still grinning, for just a moment, before not. "I... I..." she shook her head. "Uh. How's your... target?"

"Oh, she's taken care of. A mugging gone bad, I'm afraid. The area around the track is awfully sketchy, and always has been... really, she shouldn't've gone back there on her own like that."

Emergency sirens blared in the distance, as the burning SPYC craft drifted, sinking, following the Vishkar boat underwater. "We should go," said Widowmaker, sternly. "Rendezvous point one, immediately, yes?"

"On my way. This has been the best date. I'm so happy."

Tracer's smile returned, as she replied. “Yeh. See you soon.”

Global Outlook Summer 2020

The pandemic has inflicted an enormous human cost across the globe. The response, which has involved governments’ imposing a range of necessary measures designed to combat the spread of the disease, has inevitably had a major impact on global economic activity. The most recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) outlook, warned, “The crisis will cast a long shadow over the world”. While IMF projections do suggest the global economy is likely to bounce back in 2021 as economic activity hopefully normalizes, the uncertainty caused by the pandemic is clearly placing huge pressure on economies all around the world.

The IMF’s economic assessment, published before Q1 GDP figures had been released, paints a bleak picture of economic prospects. The baseline projection, which suggests the world economy will contract 3% during 2020, assumes that in most countries, outbreaks peak during the second quarter before fading across the second half of the year, with business closures and other containment measures gradually easing. However, the IMF also suggested that a longer pandemic lasting into Q3, could cause a further 3% contraction during 2020.

 The IMF subsequently indicated a potential downward revision to its forecast after Q1 economic data for many countries came in below their already pessimistic assumptions. IMF Managing Director, Krista Lina Georgieva, commented: “With no immediate medical solutions, more adverse scenarios might unfortunately materialize for some economies. It is the unknown about the behavior of this virus that is clouding the horizon for projections.”

 Major benchmarks have rebounded from the lows reached in March as the pandemic tightened its grip. As lockdowns ease in some regions, economies tentatively begin to reopen. Governmental stimulus measures have provided some much-needed support. Markets largely shrugged off concerns over renewed tensions between the US and China, however, bleak economic data releases are still coming in.

 Europe

IMF data for the 19-country Eurozone, revealed growth across the whole bloc contracted by a record 3.8% in Q1. Both France and Italy, the second and third largest Eurozone economies, were plunged into recession, recording quarterly contractions of 5.8% and 4.7%, respectively.

 While the German economy performed less badly, it also fell into recession with growth in the January–March period declining by 2.2%. European markets have rallied as lockdown measures have been eased. The European Commission has proposed a colossal €750bn ‘Recovery Fund’.

 Switzerland

In April, the manufacturing and services PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) fell to record lows as business activity and demand evaporated. The unemployment rate climbed and exports dropped in April on narrow external demand. In the middle of May, a second phase of the easing lockdown measures were implemented, with a further lifting of domestic restrictions in June and the reopening of international borders in mid-June.

 The economy is expected to shrink this year as reduced incomes and unemployment suppress consumer spending. Government spending should lessen the extent of the downturn.

 UK

Data from ONS (Office for National Statistics), shows the UK economy contracted by just over a fifth (20.4%) in April – the largest monthly contraction on record. The OECD data highlighted that the UK is likely to be one of the hardest hit major economies, due to its service-based nature.

 This news understandably subdued UK markets, with the focus now turning to the Bank of England, to see what fiscal measures they may choose to implement. In the UK, optimism is high as elements of the economy start to reopen.  The Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey recently said that recovery would not be normal and there would be some permanent scarring, but “we see evidence of elements of that recovery starting.” Last month the Bank said that the economy could shrink by 14% this year but may bounce back with growth of 15% in 2021.

 US

As concerns about a second spike of infection surfaced in the US in early June, many global stock markets suffered their worst day since mid-March. Steven Munching, US Treasury Secretary, ruled out shutting down the US economy again. Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Chair, said the pandemic could result in permanent economic damage, indicating further stimulus efforts could be deployed. The Fed expects to hold interest rates near zero and to maintain its current rate of bond-buying. As consumer spending has reduced, job losses have mounted at pace.

 GDP figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that output in the US declined during Q1 2020. According to preliminary estimates, the world’s largest economy shrank at an annualized rate of 4.8%, the lowest recorded GDP figure since the nadir of the financial crisis in the final quarter of 2008. This contraction ended the US economy’s record expansion streak which had stretched right back to Q2 2014.

 Asia and emerging market equities

Output in China contracted during the first three months of the year, with the economy shrinking at an annualized rate of 6.8%. This was the first recorded contraction in the world’s second-largest economy since at least 1992, when official quarterly growth statistics were first published. The Chinese authorities have announced they will not be setting a specific growth goal for this year but will instead focus on stabilizing employment and ensuring living standards. This appears to be an acknowledgement of the significant challenges the country now faces with a struggling economy and rising international hostility due to the fallout from the outbreak.

 The Japanese economy, the world’s third-largest economy contracted at an annualized rate of 3.4% in the opening three months of this year; a second successive quarterly decline, thereby meeting the technical definition of a recession. Exports in the first quarter suffered their largest decline since the country’s devastating 2011 earthquake as worldwide lockdowns and supply chain disruptions severely hit shipments of Japanese goods.

 Asian equity market performances have been mixed as US-China tensions re-escalated. Emerging Markets equity markets have been supported by stimulus efforts from governments, with interest rates cut in several countries, including Brazil, India and South Africa.

 Commodities

Gold is currently trading at around $1,717 a troy ounce. The price has been supported by growing US-China tensions, buoyed more recently by fears of a second wave of infections. Brent Crude is currently trading at around $32 per barrel. The price has previously been supported by growing confidence that producers are observing commitments to cut supplies and as fuel demand picks up as restrictions ease, but more recently fears of a second wave have weighed.

 Looking ahead

Continuing uncertainties surrounding the future spread of the virus and the success of efforts to develop a vaccine and therapies to counter it, make it extremely challenging to predict the most likely path for the global economy over the coming year or so.

 The best investment strategy is to be prepared. A well-defined investment plan, tailored to your objectives, in line with your attitude to risk, that takes into account your financial situation, can help you weather market fluctuations. Market volatility is a timely reminder to keep your investments under regular review. We want to reassure you that we understand the challenges you may face and we’re here to support you. You can rely on our experience and knowledge; rest assured, through open and honest communication, we can guide you through any challenges.

  It is important to take professional advice before making any decision relating to your personal finances. Information within this document is based on our current understanding and can be subject to change without notice and the accuracy and completeness of the information cannot be guaranteed. It does not provide individual tailored investment advice and is for guidance only. Some rules may vary in different jurisdictions. We cannot assume legal liability for any errors or omissions it might contain. Levels and bases of, and reliefs from, taxation are those currently applying or proposed and are subject to change; their value depends on the individual circumstances of the investor. No part of this document may be reproduced in any manner without prior permission.

 The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future performance and past performance may not necessarily be repeated. If you withdraw from an investment in the early years, you may not get back the full amount you invested. Changes in the rates of exchange may have an adverse effect on the value or price of an investment in sterling terms if it is denominated in a foreign currency.

To get financial advice ask our experts.

  Read more:-  

https://chasebuchanan.com/global-outlook-summer-2020/

14 Seafarers Who Spent Weeks Without Pay And Faced Starvation Are Now Back With Their Families

Eight weeks in limbo, without pay and facing starvation, far from home in the Bay of São Sebastião, Brazil, 14 seafarers from Ukraine and Montenegro are finally back with their families thanks to the ITF. And they’re home with US$261,009 backpay in hand.

In July, Renialdo de Freitas reported that, as ITF Inspector in Brazil, he had made contact with the crew and was working with government authorities to recover wages.

We can now share with you the inside story on the trials and tribulations of the crew of the Srakane.

Image Credits: itfglobal.org

de Freitas first picked up an SOS from chief officer Nikita Pavlenko* onboard the Srakaneafter it arrived in Salvadore from Morocco in April.

“We drop anchor today (20 April), morning time,” Pavlenko emailed. “Five crew members have not received salary for six months and don’t want to continue job. All contracts finished. We await your help.”

de Freitas asked if the vessel had deficiencies so it could be detained in a Brazilian port under local laws and the Maritime Labour Convention. Pavlenko alerted him to problems with the crane, hatch covers and navigation bridge equipment.

The 34-year-old general cargo vessel had been stuck in Salvadore a month undergoing repairs and refuelling. Crew were anxious about supplies running low and money not reaching their families. Chief Officer Pavlenko was suffering migraines at the stress.

“My headaches are only increased every day. I constantly take pills,” he later wrote.

The Panamanian flag of convenience vessel next headed south.

“I’m monitoring the vessel’s position,” de Freitas wrote to the crew. “I am ready to contact the port authorities of São Sebastião. I have already advised Claudio Tarifa (Labour inspector, Brazil) the owner, and the port authorities.”

“I have asked for urgent measures to provide food/provisions to the ship.”

When the Srakane arrived in the Port of São Sebastião on 1 June, De Freitas drove four hours down to meet the crew.

Pavlenko says the captain threatened them not to say anything. The captain blamed the crew for calling the authorities.

The master was one of only two Croatians on board the ship, which is named after an island in Croatia’s Adriatic sea and owned by a Croatian company.

“I’m told they had a bit of a fight and Pavlenko locked himself in his cabin,” said de Freitas.

The ITF Inspector advised the crew to stay calm in the face of any further provocation or harassment, and not leave the vessel before their wages were paid.

“Otherwise all of you could lose everything,” he wrote.

The crew made it clear they would take a stand.

“We are already tired of this mockery of our families,” one crew member wrote. “Many of our relatives require medicinal attention and we cannot even provide for our children.”

“Who else should we inform that our rights are violated, not only as sailors, but also as people,” he added, calling on the President of Ukraine for help.

Brazil has been a signatory to the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) since November 2019, and government authorities decided that on this occasion it was important to enforce it.

The Brazilian Navy helped resupply the vessel. A task force made up of officials from the ministries of Labour, Justice, Social Security, federal police and the Navy was put together.

The owners representative was given a deadline of 16 June. When that date passed, the ship was detained as a guarantee of the wages and other monies owed.

de Freitas then worked with the government prosecutor by video conference to help mount the case against the ship’s owners, managers and charterers.

The ITF was preparing to claim abandonment, abuse and poor vessel maintenance under the MLC.

After finding the men on board had gone without their salaries for between four and 11 months, Brazilian Labour inspector Claudio Tarifa reported serious violations of human and labour rights to the Ukraine Consulate General. She said some crew members had not even received their pay owed from previous contracts.

“There is no other way for the crew to try to provide for themselves and to honour the basic needs of their dependents,” Tarifa reported. “The unpaid crew member becomes vulnerable and fragile. There is no option, there is no way to get off the ship, there is no way to act.”

Back in the homeland of the majority of the seafarers of the Svkrane, the ITF was also making noise. ITF Inspector Nataliya Yefrimenko spoke out:

“Their employer is breaking their obligations, and that will be having a large impact on families back home who rely on those wages.”

The ship’s operator, Oceans Wide Ltd, and the employer pleaded financial difficulties due to the Covid-19 crisis.

While the pandemic has had a large impact on the global seafaring workforce and some shipping routes, most cargo has continued to move. The crew change crisis is affecting seafarers unable to join and leave ships – but it has not yet affected shipping companies or the supply of goods. In any case, the crew of the Srakane had gone unpaid for months before the pandemic hit.

de Freitas said the ITF was wary of letting employers ‘off the hook’ for cheating crew of their wages due to Covid-19. Under the MLC, if a ship’s owner cannot pay, then other parties including charterers can become liable.

The Brazilian authorities worked tirelessly to find a solution to get the foreign crew of the Srakane home, and paid their wages.

Then, on July 4, came a breakthrough. A local businessman, João Carlos Camisa Nova Junior, of agribusiness CBA Exportação de Produtos Agrícolas Ltd, agreed to sub-charter Seachois Ltd for the Srakane to ship soyabeans to Europe. This raised US$300,000 up front and was more than enough to settle the crew’s wages and repatriation costs.

Both he and charterer Seachios signed a Conduct Adjustment Terms – CBA signing as guarantor. Seachois then arranged to employ a local Brazilian crew to take over the Srakane, enabling a crew change to go ahead abd the Ukrainian and Montenegrin crew then able to fly home.

After repairs were made the vessel was released from detention. The Srakane was back in business ready to ship goods from Port of São Sebastião across the Atlantic to Europe.

As well as receiving all wages owning, each seafarer was provided their airfares, transfers, medical care, accommodation and meals for the journey. They also each received US$400 for any out-of-pocket costs on the journey.

Three crew suffering stress were the first returned home on July 18, alongside a cadet from Montenegro. The final 12 remaining seafarers followed on on 26 July and 30 July.

The second officer and captain of the Srakane are expected to disembark after the ship arrives in the next port.

Upon arriving in the Ukraine chief officer Pavlenko wrote to ITF inspector de Freitas back in Brazil: “Thank you very much for your huge efforts and titanic work…All crew received money.”

The men of the Srakane were home. And paid.

Reference: itfglobal.org

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Walnuts Quotes

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• A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree, the more they’re beaten the better they be. – John Ray • A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren? – George Orwell • Abraham Lincoln once walked down the street with his two sons, both of whom were crying. “What’s the matter with you boys?” asked a passerby. “Exactly what is wrong with the whole world,” said Lincoln. “I have three walnuts, and each boy wants two.” – George Sweeting • After-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm – hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut. – Paul Engle • ‘American Sniper’ is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question. – Matt Taibbi • Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a brown condom full of walnuts. – Clive James • Dad says that everyone invented baklava.” It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes. “Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets. – Diana Abu-Jaber • East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, whobuilt his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;MCato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present. – Henry David Thoreau • Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people […] I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming. – Bertrand Russell • God didn’t give me the ability to play the piano, or paint a picture or have compassion. But… he did give me the ability to crack a walnut with my hoo-ha. – Karen Walker • Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away. – Khaled Hosseini • How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up. – William Saroyan • I could eat black walnut all the time, it’s not a flavor of the week! – Herman Cain • I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life. – Charles R. Schwab • I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land – no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships – just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees. – Walt Disney • I have no ability to develop muscle tone. I could do situps all day and still look like a condom full of walnuts. – Dana Gould • I loved Christmas. We had a really great time. But there wasn’t – it was all – you had to be happy with, you know, an orange and a couple of walnuts, you know, in your stocking. – Nick Lowe • In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold. – Cherie Priest • In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. – Thomas Merton • It’s better to get the nutrients for healthy skin from food, not supplements. Salmon, walnuts, blueberries, spinach… lots of my favorite foods happen to be amazing for skin too. – Gail Simmons • I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, ‘Why?’ Why did I cause so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, ‘No, that’s not right.’ Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything. – Chuck Palahniuk • My wife Ann and I had been digging during the day, transplanting lilies from the front of this abandoned farmhouse back down the road to where we live. We finished. She was tired and laid in the grass. I took a picture. The house is now gone. The walnut trees have been bulldozed and burned. I saw this picture the other day for the first time in years and realized how photographing life within a hundred yards of my front porch had helped me focus on everything I cared about. – Larry Towell • On a grander scale, when a society segregates itself, the consequences affect the economy, the emotions, and the ecology. That’s one reason why it’s easy for pro-lifers to eat factory-raised animals that disrespect everything sacred about creation. And that is why it’s easy for rabid environmentalists to hate chainsaws even though they snuggle into a mattress supported by a black walnut bedstead. – Joel Salatin • On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered; Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee, Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. – William C. Bryant • One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It’s too much. – Jacques Pepin • Shrinking someone’s stomach to the size of a walnut with surgery is one way to battle obesity and diabetes and may be lifesaving for a few, but it doesn’t address the underlying causes. – Mark Hyman, M.D. • Some of us are sixty feet long with a brain the size of a walnut. – William S. Burroughs • Tariqah [The Spiritual Path] without the Sharia [Islamic Law] is like having a pistachio tree without the shell. Or a walnut, a walnut cannot grow on a tree without having a shell, and the food that you eat is inside the shell. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr • The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. – Vannevar Bush • The cross is like a walnut whose outer rind is bitter, but the inner kernel is pleasant and invigorating. So the cross does not offer any charm of outward appearance, but to the cross-bearer its true character is revealed, and he finds in it the choicest sweets of spiritual peace. – Sadhu Sundar Singh • The most overrated ingredients are garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. With garlic, it’s personal; I have never been that big of a fan of its flavor. As for extra-virgin olive oil, I do use it quite often but its ubiquity serves to overshadow many wonderful oils like pistachio, walnut, argan and even grapeseed. – Lela Rose • The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale. – Vera Nazarian • The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen… The world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut. – Gary Larson • The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. – Joanna Newsom • There rises the moon, broad and tranquil, through the branches of a walnut tree on a hill opposite. I apostrophize it in the words of Faust; “O gentle moon, that lookest for the last time upon my agonies!” –or something to that effect. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. – Jodi Picoult • To this day, I hate walnuts and I hate onions because on weekends when the walnuts and onions were in season, we were out there first thing in the morning and out there until the sun went down topping onions or picking walnuts. – Scott Brooks • Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it’s my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different. – Huston Smith • We do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut. – Wole Soyinka • we do not explain my husband’s insane abuse and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead. Your palms fold over me like knees. Love is the only use. – Anne Sexton • What kind of tea do you want?” “There´s more than one kind of tea?…What do you have?” “Let´s see… Blueberry, Raspberry, Ginseng, Sleepytime, Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Lemon and Honey, Liver Disaster, Ginger with Honey, Ginger Without Honey, Vanilla Almond, White Truffle Coconut, Chamomile, Blueberry Chamomile, Decaf Vanilla Walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey.” -“I.. Uh…What are you having?… Did you make some of those up? – Bryan Lee O’Malley • What’s wrong with men?” Tenar inquired cautiously. As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, “I don’t know, my dearie. I’ve thought on it. Often I’ve thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell.” She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. “It’s hard and strong, that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else, inside. – Ursula K. Le Guin • When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in rereading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn’t they matter most now? – Max Lucado • Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think. – Sylvia Plath [clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

Walnuts Quotes

Official Website: Walnuts Quotes

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• A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree, the more they’re beaten the better they be. – John Ray • A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays-when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren? – George Orwell • Abraham Lincoln once walked down the street with his two sons, both of whom were crying. “What’s the matter with you boys?” asked a passerby. “Exactly what is wrong with the whole world,” said Lincoln. “I have three walnuts, and each boy wants two.” – George Sweeting • After-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm – hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut. – Paul Engle • ‘American Sniper’ is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question. – Matt Taibbi • Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a brown condom full of walnuts. – Clive James • Dad says that everyone invented baklava.” It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes. “Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets. – Diana Abu-Jaber • East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, whobuilt his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods;MCato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present. – Henry David Thoreau • Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people […] I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming. – Bertrand Russell • God didn’t give me the ability to play the piano, or paint a picture or have compassion. But… he did give me the ability to crack a walnut with my hoo-ha. – Karen Walker • Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away. – Khaled Hosseini • How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up. – William Saroyan • I could eat black walnut all the time, it’s not a flavor of the week! – Herman Cain • I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life. – Charles R. Schwab • I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land – no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships – just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees. – Walt Disney • I have no ability to develop muscle tone. I could do situps all day and still look like a condom full of walnuts. – Dana Gould • I loved Christmas. We had a really great time. But there wasn’t – it was all – you had to be happy with, you know, an orange and a couple of walnuts, you know, in your stocking. – Nick Lowe • In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold. – Cherie Priest • In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. – Thomas Merton • It’s better to get the nutrients for healthy skin from food, not supplements. Salmon, walnuts, blueberries, spinach… lots of my favorite foods happen to be amazing for skin too. – Gail Simmons • I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, ‘Why?’ Why did I cause so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, ‘No, that’s not right.’ Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything. – Chuck Palahniuk • My wife Ann and I had been digging during the day, transplanting lilies from the front of this abandoned farmhouse back down the road to where we live. We finished. She was tired and laid in the grass. I took a picture. The house is now gone. The walnut trees have been bulldozed and burned. I saw this picture the other day for the first time in years and realized how photographing life within a hundred yards of my front porch had helped me focus on everything I cared about. – Larry Towell • On a grander scale, when a society segregates itself, the consequences affect the economy, the emotions, and the ecology. That’s one reason why it’s easy for pro-lifers to eat factory-raised animals that disrespect everything sacred about creation. And that is why it’s easy for rabid environmentalists to hate chainsaws even though they snuggle into a mattress supported by a black walnut bedstead. – Joel Salatin • On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered; Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee, Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. – William C. Bryant • One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It’s too much. – Jacques Pepin • Shrinking someone’s stomach to the size of a walnut with surgery is one way to battle obesity and diabetes and may be lifesaving for a few, but it doesn’t address the underlying causes. – Mark Hyman, M.D. • Some of us are sixty feet long with a brain the size of a walnut. – William S. Burroughs • Tariqah [The Spiritual Path] without the Sharia [Islamic Law] is like having a pistachio tree without the shell. Or a walnut, a walnut cannot grow on a tree without having a shell, and the food that you eat is inside the shell. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr • The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. – Vannevar Bush • The cross is like a walnut whose outer rind is bitter, but the inner kernel is pleasant and invigorating. So the cross does not offer any charm of outward appearance, but to the cross-bearer its true character is revealed, and he finds in it the choicest sweets of spiritual peace. – Sadhu Sundar Singh • The most overrated ingredients are garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. With garlic, it’s personal; I have never been that big of a fan of its flavor. As for extra-virgin olive oil, I do use it quite often but its ubiquity serves to overshadow many wonderful oils like pistachio, walnut, argan and even grapeseed. – Lela Rose • The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale. – Vera Nazarian • The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen… The world’s climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut. – Gary Larson • The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. – Joanna Newsom • There rises the moon, broad and tranquil, through the branches of a walnut tree on a hill opposite. I apostrophize it in the words of Faust; “O gentle moon, that lookest for the last time upon my agonies!” –or something to that effect. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. – Jodi Picoult • To this day, I hate walnuts and I hate onions because on weekends when the walnuts and onions were in season, we were out there first thing in the morning and out there until the sun went down topping onions or picking walnuts. – Scott Brooks • Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it’s my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different. – Huston Smith • We do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut. – Wole Soyinka • we do not explain my husband’s insane abuse and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead. Your palms fold over me like knees. Love is the only use. – Anne Sexton • What kind of tea do you want?” “There´s more than one kind of tea?…What do you have?” “Let´s see… Blueberry, Raspberry, Ginseng, Sleepytime, Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Lemon and Honey, Liver Disaster, Ginger with Honey, Ginger Without Honey, Vanilla Almond, White Truffle Coconut, Chamomile, Blueberry Chamomile, Decaf Vanilla Walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey.” -“I.. Uh…What are you having?… Did you make some of those up? – Bryan Lee O’Malley • What’s wrong with men?” Tenar inquired cautiously. As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, “I don’t know, my dearie. I’ve thought on it. Often I’ve thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell.” She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. “It’s hard and strong, that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, man-self. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else, inside. – Ursula K. Le Guin • When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in rereading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn’t they matter most now? – Max Lucado • Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think. – Sylvia Plath [clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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