#and there may be an additional wednesday one thrown in there

[mikavlcs]

What stories are you currently working on? I'm really excited to read whatever you post, I just want an idea of what's coming!

Thank you in advance.

(this ask actually inspired me to write out summaries for these stories and add them to my masterlist ahead of time, so thank you for that anon!)

i'm currently putting my focus on these two stories!

Developments — After realizing her untimely feelings, Wednesday pushes you away, but the arrival of a certain dance proves that she may have made a fatal mistake in doing so. (Part 2 of Reverie)

False Meridian — Another Ghostface appears out of the blue and Tara will do whatever it takes to eliminate them before they hurt you. (Ghostface!Tara)

they'll be posted in that order because i'm already 4.5k words into the first one lol

if you see me tweak these summaries, look away

[crabdrabbles]

Here's Chapter 5 for @pricegazweek week! Chapters: 5/7 Fandom: Call of Duty (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Kyle "Gaz" Garrick/John Price Characters: Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, John Price (Call of Duty) Additional Tags: Presumed Dead, Blood and Injury

I know I'm a few days behind, but I should hopefully finish the remaining two chapters by Wednesday <3

“I expected... more from not just one– but two SAS soldiers.”

“Undo these ropes and I’ll show you exactly what we’re capable of.” Price spat, very much a spitting image of a large, and furious, animal. Gaz, who was kneeling beside him, remained quiet– but his eyes burned with a rage that matched that of his captain’s. 

Poor intel was part of the job, gaps missing in the portfolio, sending soldiers in blind– shit like that happened. It was Price’s entire job to adapt to any situation thrown at him– to change plans at the drop of a hat. To keep his men safe. There was only so much he could do when intel was not only flawed, but falsified completely. And Price had led himself and Gaz right into danger with little to no backup. 

‘Just routine.’ he had said to Ghost after his Lieutenant had asked if he needed him and Soap on standby. ‘We should manage just fine.’

‘Something doesn’t feel right about this, Price.’ Ghost had said as he poured over the copious amount of files and reports– months worth of investigations and surveillance. 

‘Intel’s from one of Laswell’s agents. I trust her judgement.’ SImon had looked like he wanted to say something more but Price had brushed it off. If it was important, then the mancunian would have spoken his mind without a second thought. He should have pushed him– pressed him to speak his mind because then maybe he and Gaz wouldn’t be stuck in this situation– at the mercy of some greed driven arms dealer. Even as they were climbing into Nik’s heli, Simon had that look on his face– the one that said something wasn’t quite right. Why didn’t Price ask? He had never had a problem listening to his men before, appreciating any input anybody had– he wouldn’t have shut Simon down. He would have brought all four of them on the mission if the Lieutenant was that worried. 

Although, that may have meant all of the team would have been captured instead of just half. Hindsight was a petty bitch and, if Price got out of this alive, he would have to have a stern word with her. And maybe Laswell, too, to watch her agents a little more closely. He flexed his hands, tensing to feel the knot wrapping around his wrists. If given enough time, some leeway, and a little bit of luck, he might be able to shimmy his way out of them. He just needed to keep Sergey talking. It must have been the bastard’s first capture, because the idiot had left most of their gear on in his haste to get them tied up and kneeling. Amateur.

“What do you want from us?” Gaz asked and Price’s eyes flicked over to his lover, worry flashing for only a moment before he schooled his expression back into a mask of fury. 

“Information.” The arms dealer, Sergey, said. Sergey was a sickly looking man– wiry yet fat in all the wrong places that made his body bulge in strange parts. He wore an ill fitting suit that was clearly too small for his size but also somehow managed to look too big at the same time. In all honesty, he looked exactly what one would expect when thinking of what an arm’s dealer would look like– right down to the untrustworthy moustache. Not to mention he looked like he was almost constantly constipated and, from the way he was holding the pistol in his shaking hand, he had never wielded a weapon before. Ironic– a man who had never sampled his open products that he was illegally shipping off to the highest bidder. Not one to get his hands dirty– but more than happy to dip them in blood. 

“What sort of information?” Price spoke up before Gaz could open his mouth back up. Attention on me, Price’s face screamed. Don’t look at him. Look at me. The more attention on him, the less likely that Gaz was going to be put in harm's way. Price could deal well enough with being tortured and interrogated– could handle it better than the sergeant. 

“Just a little bit of information, that’s all I want, and I’ll be happy to let you both go. And, depending on what you give, you may walk away with heavier pockets.”

Of course a man like Sergey would offer a bribe in exchange for information and freedom. Price expected that from someone who had never been told ‘no’ his entire life. If Price had taken every bribe thrown his way in the past 20 odd years, he would have been able to afford a private island with a complimentary private jet. Maybe one of those fancy yachts, too, so he could go out fishing in the ocean. With the amount of money he could have got, he’d be buying private islands for each individual fish he caught. 

“Cold of you to assume we’ll give you anything.” He continued slowly, clenching his hands into fists and straining subtly to fight the rope. His wrists would be red raw by the end of the night but if it got them out alive he’d take a bullet too for good measure. Just a little more…

“I imagine that you will. I can be quite… persuasive.” Gaz snorted to Price’s left and he sent a scathing look his sergeant's way. Antagonising the man holding the gun was the last thing that they wanted right now.

“And if we don’t?”

“I kill you both.” An emphasis on his words with a point of his pistol to Price. He was shaking, the metal rattling from his trembling. Jesus wept– had he ever even held a gun before? 

There– he could feel the ropes loosen ever so slightly, just enough for him to start sliding his thumb through. It would be uncomfortable and quite painful, but it was enough. 

“Then you get nothing.” Panted through clenched teeth, masking his pain for anger.  “Go on, then, shoot me.”

“No. I still need you, Captain. Your friend, however…”

Before anyone could do so much as blink, the gun moved to point at Gaz in all its shaking glory. Two clear shots rang out– followed by a body hitting the ground. Price’s heart kicked into gear– blood rushing in his ears, heart hammering against his ribs as if trying to jump out of his very chest in order to get to– 

Gaz.

Price stared at the motionless sergeant, eyes wide and every instinct in his body screaming at him to move– to check on him. A small puddle of blood was already forming underneath Gaz’s body. No. No, no, no, no–

“Gaz!”

Read the rest on AO3!

[vonpharma]

w[h]ip wednesday what im alive?

hiiiii. i got dumped and i am very sad and writing is not happening good. but i have like 17k of prosecutor sibs fic on the way that will be done, very soon, i think. here's some of that.

uhhhh miles and franziska in forced quarantine because miles faked sick and it worked but uh oh! franziska's actually sick! hijinks abound. not actually they mostly just annoy each other. here you go i love you.

Somehow, hours later, they are playing scrabble.

It’s past sundown, and Franziska is stubbornly still awake—though Miles can see the pull of sleep fighting her, bags hung heavy beneath her watery gaze. As the day drags she’s beginning to look more and more like a flower mid-wilt, but she is Franziska, and so Miles is forced to sit there and observe while she needlessly forces herself to stay upright, intent to prove a point to any forces that may be watching. Were it anyone else, he might have a speech prepared—about how prolonging rest will only prolong the illness too, about how he promises he won’t tell if she lays down, shuts her eyes for just a little bit. 

The clack of her slamming down another tile snaps Miles back to his senses, and he holds the urge to scream behind his teeth where it lives.

Truly, Miles never foresaw himself having to work out the needlessly complex logistics of something like this. Scrabble, he thought, was simple—you spell. Whoever spells better wins. And Franziska, in that regard, would be a worthy opponent—she was a child prodigy, after all, some days Miles wondered if she was born with a law book in her hand.

She clearly did not agree with him, though. Franziska had demanded, right off the bat, that they play in German—as Miles would have an unfair advantage if they played in English. It was obvious in the angry pink heat of her cheeks that she was not expecting him to flip the script on her, because he retorted that she would have the unfair advantage were they to play in German. 

So… they are playing in Denglish.

It’s going about as well as one might expect.

Miles stares down at the board, squinting at the mess of letters Franziska has seemingly thrown down at random. Zurückverfolgt, it says, and it has, somehow, cleared out her entire tray, netting her an additional fifty points on top of the—thirty-six?!—she’s already just pulled. When he raises his stunned gaze from the tiles, Franziska looks about as smug as he’d expect her to, arms crossed as she leans back in victory.

“That’s not a real word.”

“It is.”

Miles had the errant thought, as they were settling down to do this, that he should’ve flagged the elder von Karma down and asked him to fetch one or ten German-English dictionaries from the manor’s sprawling library. There was a military-grade walkie-talkie resting on the bedside table, it would only be a single button press, a short request—yet still, Miles cannot find the energy to do even that. 

Outside, with the sun having set, the chill creeps in through the aging windowpanes, beneath the outdated architecture of the manor. Franziska is wearing her comforter like a massive, regal cape, one that would make her look like a ruler of all she surveys were it not for the incessant shivering and sniffling. Miles, too, grows cold as the whirling flurries outside crawl beneath his skin, and it gets harder and harder to ignore that it is still December.

“It shouldn’t be,” Miles says. “This language is a pillar of the decay of society.”

“You are a pillar of foolishness,” Franziska retorts, “not to mention a sore loser.”

Miles takes a deep breath, trying so desperately not to envision the shape of his love for his sister as it grows smaller and smaller there in his chest. Perhaps that metaphor isn’t particularly fair—of course he still loves her, he just doesn’t have the patience for this right now. Interacting with anyone in the heart of winter is a chore, and that’s for mere minutes at a time. Being locked in a room for this long with someone as trying as Franziska, it would drive anyone insane.

And there is simply… no reprieve. Because they’re in quarantine, Miles has been commanded by the house’s patriarch to stay exactly where he is. He’s not permitted to even stick his head out the door to breathe anything else besides the same recycled air, feeling thinner and thinner by the minute with the amount of disease it must be carrying. The door might as well be nailed shut.

Franziska is gloating. Miles is staring at her, watching her lips move, but the overhead light is buzzing, it drowns out the noise of all else. That same buzz seems to itch in the space where muscle meets bone, Miles feels it like hundreds of tiny stormclouds beneath his skin. Steeling himself, he keeps his eyes on the floor, away from the walls as the space between them gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

He can’t breathe. 

It’s an otherwise unremarkable thing, just a bit of a squeeze in his chest that the air refuses to flow around properly. There’s a sense of coldness in his fingers, like he’s reached out the window and grabbed a handful of snow off the tree, tingling and hard to ignore. Experimentally, he balls a fist, relaxes. He does that a few times, trying to will the blood to warm his digits the way it’s supposed to. 

“—and acknowledge me when I speak to you, Miles!”

Miles hears her riding crop whirr past his ear before he feels it hit his hand. A hiss through his teeth is what follows, like his body can’t even find the energy to yelp proper. Any attempt to jerk away from Franziska is lost entirely in the way she gives chase—if he backs up, she’ll easily follow. This close, he feels the fever radiating off her like a space heater, made even more stuffy and suffocating by the way her angry words puff his hair into his face. 

The room shrinks, still. Franziska doesn’t seem to notice.

[umichenginabroad]

Quarantine, Movies, and Velociraptors?!

Hi everyone! I’m back after another week in Ireland. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I tested positive for COVID last Friday and had to be quarantined for 7 days. That being said, I don’t have too much exciting stuff to talk about this week. The beginning of my week was mostly spent writing an essay about the factors of emigration in Ireland from 1845-1922 which had to be turned in by Wednesday evening. I still had to quarantine on Thursday and Friday so I basically just slept in, relaxed and watched a few movies on Netflix that I’ve wanted to watch forever. Since finishing my 7 days of quarantine on Friday, I’ve caught up on laundry, stocked up on snacks, gone on a fair share of nature walks, and played a bit of pick up basketball. 

The quarantined COVID crew being extremely productive and working on essays over Zoom and not arguing about whether regularly drinking milk is weird or not. (Drinking milk is not weird)

Nature Strolls

After being cooped up in our rooms for several days, everyone that finished quarantining decided to get some fresh air and go on several nature walks. 

The COVID crew fresh out of quarantine

We explored nearly all of the nature trails on campus, frequently stopping to play cards (lots of BS and Egyptian Ratscrew). Luckily, the weather this week has been phenomenal for our mini excursions around campus. 

Some of the beautiful greenery showcased on the trails around UCD’s charming campus

On one of our walks, we discovered an empty pit surrounded by concrete walls and fencing. We honestly have no idea what the pit is used for, but we theorized that it was used to house Velociraptors in the early days of UCD.

Abandoned Velociraptor pit in the middle of the woods on UCD’s campus?!

Shortly after discovering the top secret Velociraptor pit, we were apprehended by the dinosaur authorities and thrown in a jungle prison. Okay not actually, but it would’ve been a lot cooler if that actually did happen.

Picture of me being held captive in the jungle prison that may or may not have just been some bars covering a drainage ditch next to the trail we were walking on.

In addition to our little expeditions on the trails around UCD, we also decided to walk down to the ocean and play more cards one night. The random beach that we found boasted a lovely view of Dublin Bay and was definitely worth the short hike from UCD. While we played cards on the beach, we were able to witness the tide swiftly creep up hundreds of feet before finally stopping a few yards away from where we were playing. 

View of Dublin Bay at high tide from the beach that we found 

Snacks

Being cooped up in my room for so long gave me plenty of time to contemplate what snacks I was going to snag as soon as I finished quarantining. I ended up splurging on two bags of brioche rolls with chocolate chips, a box of Frosted Chocotastic Pop-Tarts, six delicious chocolate chunk cookies, and two bags of bagels (with cream cheese of course) from the Centra on campus.  

Moments before a bagel feeding frenzy

Basketball

Not playing basketball over the course of the past week as well as watching the NBA Finals definitely reignited my desire to get back out on the courts, so that's exactly what I ended up doing today. We played for several hours before finally calling it quits and ordering some Domino’s for dinner. 

Movies

Being quarantined meant that I had tons of free time to watch whatever I wanted. Furthermore, since I’m in Ireland, I have access to some movies on Netflix that aren’t usually available in the US. On Thursday night, I watched Hustle, which is a basketball movie starring Adam Sandler. If you enjoy watching the NBA and Adam Sandler, you’ll definitely enjoy watching this movie. I ended up watching Inglourious Basterds on Friday which I thoroughly enjoyed , but it is a bit gory so it may not be for everyone. I spent Saturday night watching Fight Club which is another top tier movie in my opinion.

Anyways, that's it for this week's blog. Thank you all for reading. Until next time!

Dominick Thornton

Computer Science 

Big 10 STEM and Irish Studies at UCD

[earaercircular]

Europe is putting an end to the throwaway culture

With a new ecodesign legislation, the European Parliament and the member states want to put a stop to the destruction of surplus clothes and electrical appliances. Your other belongings should also last longer.

Unsold clothes all too often end up on the waste mountain or in the incinerator. Think of pieces from previous clothing collections or items that a customer has returned or returned after trying on and that can be destroyed cheaper than refreshed and repackaged. [1] The British clothing brand Burberry, for example, was criticized a few years ago after it announced that it had burned more than 33 million euros worth of unsold merchandise in 2018.[2]

All told, about 5.8 million tons of textiles (or roughly 11 kilos per person) are thrown away in Europe every year, the European Commission estimates. Only a quarter of that is recycled. The emergence of e-commerce has certainly made the problem 'widespread', says the Commission. That statement was supported by research from the Swedish University of Lund. It is not only wasteful, but also has a major environmental impact – in Europe, only food production, buildings and mobility have a greater impact on climate and the environment than the consumption of textiles.

Europe now wants to put an end to this. The European Commission had proposed last year that large companies should initially report on the amount of unsold goods they destroy (and evaluate the results), but the EU member states and the European Parliament are now immediately opting for a ban. The member states expressed their views on this at the end of May, and on Wednesday Parliament also supported a ban by tightening up the so-called ecodesign directive[3].

Also for electrical

It has existed since 2009 and so far has mainly focused on energy saving. The energy labels on washing machines and refrigerators are perhaps the most obvious example of this. According to the Commission, the introduction of the labels reduced the energy consumption of the appliances by about 10 percent. Under the Green Deal, the legislation is now being tightened and the number of targeted products has been expanded considerably to cover almost all physical consumer goods, with the exception of (animal) food, medicines and motorized vehicles.

A ban on the destruction of unsold clothing is only part of the bill. Such a ban must also be “immediately introduced” for electronic devices, says Sara Matthieu (Groen), who helped negotiate the position of the European Parliament for the Green group. Even if only one small part is broken, those devices end up on the scrap heap too quickly, it sounds. “A ban on destruction shows common sense,” she says. "Send the products to second-hand shops or give them a second life elsewhere."

Circular economy

In addition, Parliament asks the Commission to further investigate how many other consumer goods are not yet recycled and for which products such a ban can be introduced in the long term.

The aim of the new legislation is to further develop the circular economy in Europe. This will be crucial if Europe is to meet its tightened climate ambitions (to reduce net emissions to zero by 2050) and help to keep our heavy dependence on raw materials under control. But the European Court of Auditors – say the EU's financial watchdog – recently concluded that too little progress is being made. [4] The ambition to recycle twice as many materials in this decade as in the previous ten years seems like an 'impossible' task, it was said.

One of the Court's criticisms was that too little attention is paid to the design of the products, which often makes them difficult to recycle. The European Parliament now also wants to change that. Not only does it want the products to contain a minimum amount of recycled material, the manufacturers are also no longer allowed to 'limit' the life of a product by the way it is designed. An example of this (which was already introduced with another regulation) are batteries in smartphones. They can no longer be glued, so that they can be replaced more easily. Another example: non-coloured plastic is easier to recycle. That is why mushrooms are nowadays sold less often in blue, but more often in transparent containers.

Product Passport

In addition, manufacturers must help extend the life of their products by providing longer spare parts, accessories (such as ink cartridges, coffee pods, lamps, etc.) or software updates, and by sharing information on how the product can be dismantled and possibly repaired. All that information, along with data on which materials were used, their origin, environmental impact and whether or not they are toxic, will be collected in a digital 'product passport'. Matthieu expects that in due course there will be a kind of QR code on the products that consumers can scan to find the information. A 'recovery score' for electronic devices can also be included there, as France has already introduced (see insert) and on which the Belgian government is also working. "The aim is that consumers can make a more informed choice when purchasing," says Matthieu. "For the environment and for their wallet."

Now that Parliament has determined its position, negotiations with Member States can begin on final legislation. From next year, the Commission would then develop more concrete rules for 'priority' sectors such as textiles, furniture, iron and steel, chemicals and tires.

France gives a premium to patch your shoes

A hole in your sweater, a torn jacket pocket or the sole of your shoe that comes off… If you have that repaired instead of buying something new, the French government will pay the bill. This was announced by Bérangère Couillard, the French Secretary of State for Ecology. In concrete terms, this is a discount between 6 and 25 euros that is immediately deducted from the invoice for the repair. The French government has set aside a budget of 154 million euros for a period of five years. The environmental organisation Refashion[5] will manage the fund and bring together participating sewing workshops and shoemakers. The government wants to support the sector in this way and hopes that the measure will create new jobs.

Source

Korneel Delbeke, Europa maakt een einde aan de wegwerpcultuur, in De Standaard, 12-07-2023, https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20230712_96982658

[1] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/722179599996534784/towards-a-circular-and-more-sustainable-fashion?source=share

[2] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/720260226679488512/hms-answer-about-the-dumped-clothes-article?source=share

[3] The proposal for a new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, published on 30 March 2022, is the cornerstone of the Commission’s approach to more environmentally sustainable and circular products. The proposal builds on the existing Ecodesign Directive, which currently only covers energy-related products. https://commission.europa.eu/energy-climate-change-environment/standards-tools-and-labels/products-labelling-rules-and-requirements/sustainable-products/ecodesign-sustainable-products_en 

[4] Read also: https://www.tumblr.com/earaercircular/722262481602576384/european-court-of-auditors-sees-risk-of-not?source=share

[5] Refashion is the eco-organisation of the French textile sector (clothing textiles, household linen and shoes). It ensures, on behalf of the companies that put these products on the market, the prevention and management of the end of life of these items. At the heart of the sector's ecosystem, Refashion supports the transformation towards the circular economy and is at the service of the various stakeholders: marketers, collection and sorting operators, local authorities and public authorities, project leaders, citizens. . https://refashion.fr/citoyen/fr/point-dapport

[yhwhrulz]

Today's Daily Encounter Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Do Not Worry

"Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."1

With everything happening in the world around us these days, it is only natural for people to start feeling a sense of worry and anxiety. In the past two weeks there have been two shooting threats to our local school, and two local police officers were recently shot while on duty. In addition, I get frequent notifications about attempted kidnapping or robbery. It is easy for worry and fear to creep in! While these emotions and feelings are part of our human nature, we should never let ourselves be dominated by them.

As Christians we have the certainty that God is faithful. He will provide all we need according to His will when we seek Him first. He cares for us and calls us to cast our anxiety (worry) on Him. Let us choose to trust the One who holds the future and may we actively live out our faith by being a presence of peace to others.

Suggested prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, during times of uncertainty I choose to seek you first above all else, knowing that you are with me and you care for me. You alone are my Rock and I trust in you. Even when times seem uncertain, you remain our steadfast foundation and hold the future in your hands. I praise you and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen."

Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV).

Today's Encounter was written by: Crystal B.

NOTE: If you would like to accept God's forgiveness for all your sins and His invitation for a full pardon Click on: http://www.actsweb.org/invitation.php. Or if you would like to re-commit your life to Jesus Christ, please click on http://www.actsweb.org/decision.php to note this.

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When copying or forwarding include the following: "Daily Encounter by Richard (Dick) Innes (c) 2005-2023 ACTS International.

[disillusioned41]

Right-wing political advocacy organizations bankrolled by wealthy Americans and large corporations are reportedly mobilizing against a bipartisan agreement to boost IRS funding by $40 billion, money that would go toward cracking down on rich tax cheats who have benefited from the Republican Party's gutting of the agency in recent years.

The proposed increase in the IRS budget—which was cut by an estimated 20% between 2010 and 2018—is part of an infrastructure package negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators and President Joe Biden, who had originally pushed for $80 billion in additional IRS funding over the next decade.

The $40 billion boost proposed by the bipartisan group is presented as a way to "reduce the IRS tax gap," the difference between taxes owed and taxes actually collected by the federal government. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggested in May that the gap could be as large as $7 trillion.

As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, the IRS provision of the bipartisan infrastructure plan "is drawing opposition from well-funded conservative groups, which are strongly opposed to expanding the reach of a tax-collection agency that they long have alleged is politically motivated."

"Among the conservative groups spearheading the opposition are the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, FreedomWorks, the Conservative Action Project, and the Leadership Institute," the Post noted. "They are preparing a letter that warns Republicans should not negotiate with the White House unless they agree to 'no additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service.'"

The groups are expected to send their letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has yet to endorse the bipartisan framework and has threatened to give his Democratic counterparts a "hell of a fight" over their infrastructure priorities—an indication that he could be open to the conservative groups' appeal.

Last month, McConnell blamed "somebody at the IRS" for leaking the tax returns of some of the wealthiest people in the U.S. to the investigative outlet ProPublica, which used the documents to publish a series of stories detailing pervasive tax dodging by the rich.

"Our tax returns are, by law, confidential because of just this kind of shenanigans," McConnell said in an interview. "These people ought to, whoever did this, ought to be hunted down and thrown into jail."

Deep cuts to the IRS budget over the past decade have resulted in a sharp decline in enforcement, a trend that has principally rewarded the wealthy and large businesses. Between 2010 and 2018, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, IRS audit rates for the biggest U.S. corporations and American millionaires fell by 51% and 61%, respectively.

In 2019, ProPublica reported that due to inadequate funding and resulting staff shortages, the IRS "now audits poor Americans at about the same rate as the top 1%."

Well-heeled conservative organizations have long opposed any effort to remedy the harms caused by Republican-led budget cuts at the IRS. In May, Politico reported that right-wing groups "launched a campaign of TV ads, social media messages, and emails to supporters criticizing [Biden's earlier] proposal to hire nearly 87,000 new IRS workers over the next decade to collect money from tax cheats."

"So you're telling me they're against catching tax cheaters?" Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) mockingly asked in response to the right-wing campaign. "Pretty bold move, GOP."

According to the Post, the organizations leading the latest effort to prevent an IRS finding hike "include those that have received funds from major conservative donors, including the Mercer Family Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation and Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that gives to conservative and libertarian causes."

"One signatory of the letter, Phil Kerpen of American Commitment, worked for five years at Americans for Prosperity, the main political arm of the influential Koch network," the Post reported.

[ayearinfaith]

𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟳𝟯: 𝗢𝗱𝗶𝗻 “I know that I hung on a wind-rocked tree/nine whole nights/with a spear wounded, and to Odin offered/myself to myself/on that tree, of which no one knows/from what root it springs./Bread no one gave me, nor a horn of drink/downward I peered/to runes applied myself, wailing learnt them/then fell down thence.” - 𝘏𝘢́𝘷𝘢𝘮𝘢́𝘭, stanza 138-9, as translated by Benjamin Thorpe Odin is the chief of the Norse gods, known in other Germanic languages as Woden, Wuotan, and the like. He is the namesake of the English weekday “Wednesday”. His name means “lord of the frenzied”. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝗱 The earliest records of native Germanic religion, with Odin as chief deity, come from 1st century Roman records. The Roman’s took after the Greek tradition of conceiving the gods of foreign peoples as different versions of their own. Thus, the Roman’s refer to Odin as the “Germanic Mercury”. To those familiar with Roman and Germanic lore, this may seem an odd comparison. Odin is the chief of his pantheon, associated with wisdom, warfare, and magic, while Mercury is a messenger god associated with healing. Understand, the options were limited: the major gods Jupiter (storm and sky) and Mars (war) were already clear choices for Thor (storms) and Tyr (war). In fact, the Romans may have unwittingly stumbled upon a peculiar feature of Odin; he doesn’t seem to fit in the Indo-European religious family. By contrast, Thor, Odin’s son, has readily apparent cousins all across the Indo-European spectrum (ex. the Greek Zeus, Hindu Indra, Slavic Perun), all members of the Sky Father archetype. There is a commonly accepted etymological link between the name of the clan of gods to which Odin belongs, the Æsir, and a Hindu denomination of supernatural being, the Asuras. Both words are generally thought to come from a common Indo-European root meaning something like “life force”, though there are also theories that the root is actually a loan from the Uralic languages (ex. Finnish, Hungarian, Udmurt). If true, it could imply that Odin, and the two-clan division of Norse gods, is actually a loan from Uralic cultures, and it would make Odin a closer relative of the Finnish Väinämöinen than any other European divinity. The slow to Christianize Scandinavians also made a connection of their own, comparing Odin’s self-sacrifice on the world tree (more on this later) to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 𝗪𝗶𝘀𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗿 Modern attributions often give Odin the title of “god of war”, though that would more accurately fall to a separate member of the same pantheon; Tyr. Odin presides over many forces including magic, poetry, battle, and death, but above all he is mostly renowned for the seeking and dispersal of wisdom. Some of the most striking imagery of Odin is related to this. His single eye is the price paid in order to drink from the well of wisdom. His ravens keep him aware of all things happening in the world. Even the world tree is named for this: “Yggdrasil” is “Odin’s (Ygg is one of his many names) Horse”, horse being a common allusion to gallows. This is a reference to one of the more striking scenes of the Norse canon, in which Odin hangs himself, after impaling himself on his own spear, from the world tree for nine days in order to die and gain the knowledge of the dead. Knowledge of the dead, in this context, is specifically that of runes, which in Norse culture are both emblematic of writing (and thus academia and poetry) and also of mysticism. Odin’s use of magic is in itself indicative of his dedication; the use of magic was considered a feminine trait and Odin, the divine patriarch himself, is willing to disrupt cultural norms for knowledge. One of the major sections of the poetic 𝘌𝘥𝘥𝘢 (a primary source of Norse canon previously covered in this series) is the 𝘏𝘢́𝘷𝘢𝘮𝘢́𝘭, “Words of the High One (Odin)” which is a series of proverbs and poems attributed directly to Odin, intended as educational philosophy. 𝗜𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘆 Odin is traditionally depicted either as a general on his horse or a cloaked wanderer. This second depiction, as a bearded man with a wide brimmed hat and a staff (representing either his magic wand or spear) full of wisdom and obscuring his true power, may seem familiar to readers of modern fantasy as a textbook wizard. This is not coincidence. Most modern versions of wizards borrow heavily from one specific wizard: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Gandalf, who was inspired by the wandering Odin. Odin has a host of animal companions, the aforementioned ravens, Huginn and Muninn (lit. “thought” and “memory” who bring him news, the wolves Geri and Freki (lit. “greedy” and “ravenous”), and the eight-legged, and thus twice as good as regular, horse Sleipnir (lit. “slippery”). In addition to the animals, Odin is also often depicted with the preserved head of the god Mimir, also a wisdom god, with whom Odin consults. Odin wields the spear Gugnir (lit. “swaying”), which could hit any target it was thrown at and possesses a gold ring, Draupnir (lit. “dripper”) which replicated itself nine-fold every nine nights. The numbers three and nine (aka. three groups of three) were considered sacred in ancient Germanic cultures, which is likely the source of one of Odin’s most recognizable symbols, the valknut, which depicts three interlaced triangles. Image Credit: Odin som vandringsman (“Odin in the guise of a wanderer”), Georg von Rosen, 1886.

[thelittlestcheshire]

On her bed in a little black box, Alek left Ches her favourite Ramage 18-karat white gold diamond, Buccellati earrings. Layed carefully over top of the earrings was a tiny note which read:

“For that time me, you and Lulu played dress-up, I always thought these looked better on you. Some diamonds for a diamond. I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

Received: Wednesday, May 26th

The closer to finals they got, the more stressed Ches became, and the more she’d hid with Elliot. Perhaps that only made it easier for people to leave things in her room without her noticing until she arrived back, either to stay in her room for a time or to restock her overnight bag. At first, she’s too busy trying to ditch her textbooks on her desk to even notice there’s a new addition on her bed, but after she has a moment to breathe, she notices the black box and the note on top, and she smiles a little as she reads the note, the memory, a reminder of a simpler time.

But when she opens the box, her jaw drops. These were one of Alek’s favorite pieces, and she knew it. Why was she trying to part with them? Sure, she appreciated them, and the thought, but she needed to make sure that Alek knew that they were good. This was too rich for an apology in general, but especially over something she’d already forgiven her friend over. Immediately she’s reaching for her phone to call Alek, frowning as she hits voicemail.

“Hey babe, can you give me a call when you have a moment? I still owe a truckload of brie, plus I need some time with my favorite goddess. Anyway, I found what you left for me in my room, and they’re absolutely gorgeous. Thank you. I love you so much, and you have nothing to apologize for.”

It wouldn’t be until later when Ches understood why Alek had given her the earrings when she couldn’t find her friend anywhere, and Christopher was mysteriously missing. When Alek wouldn’t pick up her phone, no matter how many times she’d called her friend and texted her. When she wasn’t back in time for prom, and Isaac had to attend alone. Even after it was determined they went willingly, she doesn’t stop trying to reach out just in case at some point she’d get ahold of them. Sometimes when she missed Alek, she rereads the note, thankful she hadn’t thrown it away and stares at the earrings. A small piece of her friend that had seemed to become more cherished and precious as the days went by. No matter how much she wished for her friend back, it’s not her when her phone buzzes, or when someone knocks on Ches’s day.

While the jewelry couldn’t fill the Alek-shaped hole that seemed to hurt the more the days went by, the longer that Ches’s prayers for her friends’ safe return seemed to fall on deaf ears. But it was something she was holding onto in the meantime, an object that brought her peace in the same way that the necklace from Zander, and the ring on her finger that paired Elliot’s did. Alek had known what she was doing when she’d given Ches something to wear, with how much she’d clung to her sentimental jewelry.

Maybe she’d trade them for Alek to just come home safely, but in the meantime, she was thankful she had them.

[afafaefse]

The old man had a compelling impulse to quarrel

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[tohellandbackanthology]

holy crap we’re 51% funded: announcing the Community Book program!

Hi folks! The whole To Hell + Back team has been utterly blown away over the last couple of days by the response you guys have had to the launch of our Indiegogo campaign and the support you’ve shown our little (big) book--we’re 51% funded after less than 48 hours online, which is beyond our wildest dreams for a self-indulgent fan project we dreamed up in a backyard over some chocolate almonds!

(Not sure who we are or what this project is? Check out our Indiegogo page here!)

We are well aware that given current global events, many people are understandably concerned and/or uncertain about their personal finances, and may not have expendable income to contribute to our crowdfunding campaign while it’s running even if they very much want to own a print copy of To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology. With this in mind, we’ve had a handful of extremely thoughtful & generous members of our fandom approach us asking how they might be able to purchase additional copies of the print books through our fundraising campaign, and then have us gift them to fellow fans who are experiencing financial hardship. Amazing, right? We certainly thought so. 

After much careful thought and discussion between ourselves about how best to make this happen while remaining totally committed to both fairness and transparency, we’ve worked a little behind-the-scenes magic and would like to present to you the To Hell + Back Community Book Program (or CBP for short)!

Community Book Program? “What is that?” you ask

Essentially, the Community Book Program has been set up as a special set of perks and add-ons right on our Indiegogo page that will allow people to not only buy Community Books to gift to other cash-strapped fans (that they may not necessarily know personally), but to pay for shipping to them as well by choosing a Community Ship add-on that allows the buyer to select whether that book goes to someone in Canada, in the United States, or somewhere else around the world. The Community Books perks and add-ons will be available for purchase until end-of-day Wednesday May 6th, 2020.

For buyers and donators, there are two different ways to provide Community Books:

Number 1: To access the Community Books perks directly, please go here, select either the one or two book option with the gorgeous black-and-white promo art by @kayrosebee​, click “get this perk”, and proceed to checkout! Once you’ve clicked “continue to payment”, you will then be asked to agree to the Terms of Use, and click “continue to payment” again. The next page that loads is where you can choose add-ons. If you scroll down below the pink Checkout button, you will see a section entitled “Perks you may also like”, and you can select “add perk” for your choice of Canadian, US, or International Community shipping for the books you are donating. Please ensure that you are purchasing adequate shipping for your selected number of books! 

Additionally, please note that in order to check out with option 1, you will be asked to put in your mailing address--don’t worry, we will know to disregard these ones for Community Books when it comes time to ship, and we will be creating unique shipping labels specifically for the lucky recipients. They will not ever see any of your information. Your privacy is paramount to us.

At this add-on stage, you may notice that you have the option to purchase either one or two more additional Community Books, as well as shipping for them. You can purchase up to 4 Community Books total this way, as otherwise Indiegogo will not allow you to check out with multiple regular perks at one time. If you would like to purchase more than 4 CBP books at a time, please contact the mod team directly so that we can assist you with this.

Number 2: If you would like to purchase a perk for yourself but also donate books to the CBP within a single transaction, please go to our Indiegogo page, select the perk you want for yourself, click “continue to payment”, and then follow the instructions above to get to the add-on screen! From there, you will be able to add on either one or two Community books and the corresponding Community Ship option of your choice. Again, please ensure that you are purchasing adequate shipping for your selected number of books! 

If you are one of said cash-strapped fans who would like a chance to get a print copy of the To Hell + Back anthology that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to, we strongly encourage you to enter the Community Book draws (US residents link) (Canadian residents link) (International residents link) before Wednesday May 6th 2020! 

Limit of one entry per person please--multiple entries for the same person will be deleted! We will randomly draw names and announce winners on Saturday May 9th, 2020. The number of names selected from each of the 3 draws will be based on the number of Community Books that have been purchased for each of the 3 shipping destinations by the May 6th deadline. If you are the lucky winner of a Community book, we will contact you via email to obtain your shipping information...yay!

Finally, please look below to read a little FAQ we’ve put together that we hope will help answer some of the most common questions we think we will get about the CBP!

Community Book program FAQ: 

Q: Why are the Community Ship options listed as costing $1.00? 

A: For a few reasons--first, because Indiegogo will not allow us to create a perk that costs zero dollars. If we could have, we would have! 

Secondly, we wanted to find a way to make sure the considerable costs of shipping would be covered for Community Books in a manner that would a) not artificially inflate our fundraising total, as shipping costs are calculated separately, and b) not require the person donating to know the name or the address of the person the book will be going to, since they won’t have that information at the time of purchase. The shipping price of the $1.00 perk will be included at checkout.

Q: What if I want to donate a book directly to someone I know and not have them participate in the draw?

A: That is incredibly sweet of you! We recommend that you either:

1. Do a separate transaction: purchase a perk and put in your friend’s address 2. Purchase a perk that includes multiple books, or 3. Purchase a single-book perk for yourself and make use of the “one extra print book” add-on before you complete your purchase. 

Please note that if you choose option 2 or 3, please be aware that all books included in your order will be shipped to your address, and that you will be responsible for any additional shipping costs required to get your donated book to its final destination.

Q: Why can’t I just order a book for my friend and make special arrangements with you guys to ship it to them? 

A: Listen, we totally get how that seems like it would be a simple thing from the outside, but if this anthology project reaches its fundraising goal, we are already about talking 500+ physical books plus merch that our team (who also have full-time jobs! School! Other hobbies! One very cute kid!) will have to sort, pack, label, and ship come October 2020 (fingers crossed!). 

In the best interest of getting our supporters their products in a relatively timely fashion, of our vital need for administrative organization, and of our general sanity, it is very important to us to be able to streamline that process as much as we possibly can. It is our sincere hope that the fewer exceptions we have to handle, the fewer mistakes we will make...and we just want everyone to be happy!

Q: What if I’m looking to donate something in an arrangement/quantity that isn’t covered here? 

A: Please contact us directly to pitch your idea or concern! We are happy to chat, and the worst we will say is, “sorry, no, we can’t do that!” (And then probably say “sorry” three or four more times...have we mentioned that 6 of 8 of us are Canadian?)

Q: What if your anthology doesn’t meet its fundraising goals? Do the CBP draw winners still get books?

A: If To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology does not meet its fundraising goals, all money given to the campaign gets refunded directly back to our wonderful supporters, and the print books do not get printed. This means that if that is what happens, then no, unfortunately the draw winners will not receive print books. Nobody will, and we will be sad. That being said, at the time of writing we are already halfway funded! We are very hopeful that our crazy dream of a print anthology will become a reality!

Q: Can I purchase a Community Book without also purchasing Community Shipping?

A: Technically you can, yes. We’d like to strongly encourage you not to do that, and ask you to consider that we want to put these books directly in the hands of as many Dean/Cas fans as possible. Paying for shipping in tandem with the Community Books ensures that we can make that happen, and that more of whatever money is left over after all of the books have shipped and the project’s expenses have been paid can go directly to our charity of choice: WISH Vancouver. If any Community Books end up orphaned (ie, are purchased without shipping), they will likely become part of a giveaway that happens after the fundraiser has closed for good. 

This FAQ may be added to as more questions arise, but in the meantime, your trusty mod @justholdingstill​ has thrown down the gauntlet by purchasing the very first Community Book with International shipping...woo!

[ktxae]

Wednesday 17/02/2021

Writing is something I adore.

Under my bed are three huge shopping bags that contain every diary and journal-type notebook from the age of 10 onwards that I hoarded to examine my progress over the years, convinced I would make it onto a bookshelf before I was 16. I’m currently eighteen now and sitting here in my bedroom during a pandemic with little to no money, let alone a book deal, but I still have the joy of seeing a ten year old Kates thoughts on how she was gonna make it big while also bitching bout how her 4th class teacher is a complete monster for making her do long division.

What a simpler time it was.

With Covid, I think it’s very easy to forget the things that brought us that joy, the joy you can only equate to a child learning their passion. And why would we remember? We don’t exactly have anything reminding us of it right now. You turn on the news and you see a new amount of deaths, a new amount of infected. People are out of jobs, children don’t know what is happening with school and their course - here in Ireland we don’t even know if we can sit our final exam that determines us getting into college. A grandparent gets sick, a high risk loved one dies. Those who can’t cope with it have no choice but to stay inside and those who struggle with mental illness have to grit their teeth ad just sit tight through that bad days along with everything else that has been thrown into the mix, and I’m sure the troubles get worse with the worse your position may be.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know for myself, mentally this has been a struggle. I don’t think anyone who struggles with mental illness finds this period easy, and this is coming from someone who - although struggles with a number of issues - still has certain privileges such as the roof over my head and money to keep myself and my family going at a comfortable pace, something many people with my issues may not have. I’m one of the luckier ones and while I feel like it s very important to recognise the privilege I have, it is also important to acknowledge that this has not been easy on anyone. It’s very unpleasant to feel like the joy has been sucked out of most things in life.

What is my point to all this? Why come on here and state the obvious; that ten year olds write very cringe diary entries and that none of us are Covids number one fan? I think now more than ever, we need that thing that gave us joy, so much joy that we could jump up and down as children. We need our passions, our obsessions because we deserve to take joy in something. I have loved writing since the moment I could pick up a one as a child and despite my cringey diary entries about the ever so dreadful trials and tribulations of 4th class I know I have gotten better. I can see it in everything I write for myself, every essay that a teacher returns to me with a percentage that's just that bit higher than the last test. I see it as I write my girlfriend yet another love letter and see her beam just a bit brighter as she reads it because I have found another word, phrase, quote, comparison to truly capture how much I love her just a little bit better than the last time I tried. I see it when I’m out people watching and I catch a moment between two people that I just ache to write about until I can claw my hands around my pen and attempt to capture the feeling it evoked within me. I see it when I feel myself grow passionate about something, oh so passionate that if I don't let my thoughts pour out of me so much that I just may burst. I know I have gotten better at writing and know I love it with each bit of additional passion and drive to do it I spot within me. And I love it, I absolutely love to write so why not do it during this god awful time?

This blog can be a guilty pleasure for me but I fully intend to exercise my writing abilities on here. I want to keep this for the things I love, the routine I wish to maintain during these difficult times and something I hope others can take joy in too. Lets face it, however guilty this secret pleasure may make me feel, you can’t deny we all want our blog to gain a little attraction. No matter how little though, I will continue to write as I want to do this to maintain whatever little happiness we can squeeze out of the very...unique times Covid has brought upon us, and I recommend you all do the same. Painters; create something beautiful. Singers; belt the notes that send a thrill through your body. Go on that walk you’ve been putting off, tell that person you love them. Because at the end f all of this, I think its safe to say Covid has taught us to appreciate what gives us pure childish joy.

[bbbarneswrites]

Small Places

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Don’t they say that after a storm, there’s always calm?  Genre: Romance/fluff Rating: T Warnings: Swearings, mental health issues 3,809 words

Notes: Here we are with a new piece after all these months! The songs we got for this one are The Moon by The Swell Season and Cellar Door by Angus & Julia Stone. Hope you guys enjoy it! Feedback always welcomed! <3

The small studio stays right in the heart of Brooklyn, surrounded by themed bars, bright restaurants and a crowd of millennials that makes him cringe every once in a while.

It’s a shoebox.

A bed that fights for space with a small couch, a kitchen that can be sized by two of his steps alone and a cramped bathroom with a bathtub that he honestly can’t fit in. But be as it may, Bucky has never been in a more comfortable, warm and welcoming atmosphere.

A bed with polka-dotted, fluffy blankets, a couch with bright colored and quirky pillows, a kitchen with a line of gifted succulents by the counter and a bathroom with filled shelves of sweet smelling products.

Pictures on the walls, sketches and love notes hung to the fridge, shared clothes thrown over in little corners.

Everything is so lively and familiar—it feels like home outside of his home.

The four walls of your little studio have been witnesses to so much. Whispered love confessions, frantic murmurs of comfort, quiet pleads in between moans, anger filled little lies, and the list can only go on.

There’s a Friday night.

Discarded containers of take-out on the coffee table, and maybe a carton of Ben & Jerry’s forgotten around after a fight over the last spoon. Netflix midway through a random episode of Stranger Things because yeah, Bucky has a growing crush on Winona Ryder. Peace fills up every fiber of his being, and looking down to the sight before him, things can’t feel more right.

“Your heart is beating so fast.” You mumble quietly, chin leaning up to rest upon his chest. A flesh arm tightens around your frame, and a lazy grin grows on your lips. “Are you nervous being around me, Bucky?”

The lightness laced to your voice is familiar, a tone he’s heard many, many times within the warmth of a shared trustfulness.

A smile curls up his lips. Even then, the sound never fails to make Bucky content and happy.

“I’m always nervous around you, baby.” He jokes, a gentle kiss pressing to your temple that earns a happy hum from your chest. “You’re way out of my league.”

Bucky’s smile widens with a muffled whine of protest, and his vibranium hand reaches out to push a strand of hair away from your eyes when you shift on the way-too-small couch. With your face still buried to his chest, there’s no space left between both of you. The fluffy hem of your socks tickles his legs and the skin of his tummy rise up in shivers under your fingers.

Meanwhile, Erica Sinclair goes off about capitalism on TV.

Despite the length of your relationship, a small part of him still gets surprised over moments like this.

Soft fingertips reaching out to his marred left shoulder, a light touch to trace the harsh and old outlines of his scars, by now the only ugly looking, physical reminder of a time of his life that’s best left behind to be buried and forgotten.

With a little giggle escaping from your mouth, Bucky halts his thoughts to focus.

“You’re cute.” You wink playfully, biting your lower lip to hold back another laugh. His cheeks instantly flush a little under the fairy lights of your walls. “This little scar here looks like a stick figure.”

The touch feels nice as your index finger brush over a particular spot near his collarbone. Though he’s observed every single detail of the marks in several occasions, more than enough to make him very familiar with its designs, he immediately takes your hand with his own. Wrapped fingers together, you guide him through his little stick figure.

It’s a little joke, he knows, but Bucky still grins as you make him trace the funny lines of a quirky drawing to his own skin.

And when you tip his chin with your thumb a moment later? Warmth radiating from your body pressed up to his? And lips sweetly meeting his own?

That’s his peace.

There’s a Wednesday morning.

After arriving from a mission, sore muscles and half-healed scabs, Bucky just couldn’t see himself going back to the apartment he shares with Sam—especially after a two week long mission, taking in everything that his partner had to say. And trust, Sam Wilson has a lot of things to say.

To top of it all, he’s missed you.

Missed your laugh and your kisses and your touch. The way you tuck his hair behind his ears, the plush of your lips to the base of his neck. Your cuddles and your warmth and your care. Two long, painstaking slow weeks.

The place is warm as he steps in, slits of moonlight escaping through your blinds. Coming home to you feels right, takes off an edge from his heart, as if everything is right in the world again.

Only silence as Bucky slips under the blankets.

Bleary eyes barely taking him in.

And a happy but tired hum before a familiar frame cuddles to his side.

Sleep welcomes him right in.

Any person that lives in New York can easily list a series of upsides and downsides to coexisting in a studio apartment this small. An upsidde is that you can see and hear everything and the downside is that you can see and hear everything.

White numbers cover up your face on the screen of his phone as it marks 3:36AM. The shuffling and clashing in the kitchen isn’t unusual except for the late hour. Barely four hours of sleep later, and Bucky’s watching a pajama-clad you pour chocolate into a bowl through squinted, heavy eyes.

“Think I need to put you on a sleep schedule.” He murmurs. The sound is low but enough to make you jump on the spot, turn around with a scowl that makes him chuckle. “Come back to bed.”

The tense features of your face melt into a mix of worry and dejection.

“I can’t!” You cry, hands coming up to cover your face in frustration, words all muffled. “I promised I’d bake brownies for the book fair but I was so tired and I meant to take a nap while waiting for you but I just slept and now I woke you up!”

It takes two steps until Bucky has your frame into his arms, a perfect fit that rises butterflies in your stomach after the two, very long weeks. With vibranium fingertips brushing along your cheeks in a gentle caress, every negative feeling slips away.

“You were waiting for me?” Bucky pulls back a little, enough to see you pout through a nod. A loving smile grows easily to his mouth right before a gentle kiss to your lips. “I love you.”

Brownies are made in record time with two sets of wandering hands.

And are successfully sold out by two excellent sellers.

There’s a Monday afternoon.

Clouds are looming over the city. Cold, bitter winds singing loud enough outside. The first few signs of fall can be spotted by a quick walk in the neighborhood by now, trees turning into different shades of brown as pumpkin orange starts to pop everywhere.

Back to a few hours earlier, Bucky begrudgingly kisses you goodbye at the cramped doorstep, fixing your heart-shaped earmuffs with a wish of a good day at school. No paperwork or assignments under his name for a change, the place shelters him from any unexpected Avenger responsability, and he’s more than glad to wait home for you.

Separated dirty clothes, clean dishes back to the cupboards, made-up bed with fresh sheets, organized books and trinkets and papers for the small study table.

Homecoming isn’t as comforting.

Between quiet sniffles, red-rimmed teary eyes and angry huffs of frustration with the addition of a warm tea cup, Bucky cuddles you up to his lap until peace has settled again.

“You gonna tell me who I’m killing tonight?” He jokes half-heartedly, chest a little bit lighter as you giggle quietly, offering a slap to his arm. “Just say the word and I’ll do it.”

A single look from you and his heart swells with affection, the feelings hidden behind the simple act never failing to leave him speechless, wondering if there’s another shoe to drop.

There’s always another shoe to drop in his life.

“You don’t do that anymore, remember?” You say softly, a smart smile playing on your lips that’s followed by a tired, but now content sigh. “I’m okay, promise. Just a bad morning in school that wasn’t expected.”

Hands brought closer together and a kiss pressed to your knuckles by his lips.

Bad days take no excuse.

“Okay, doll.” Bucky frowns, eyes squinted in pretend suspicion as he smirks. “You really sure though? I can call Sam.”

“I’m sure, goober.” You roll your eyes through a laugh, instantly leaning closer until his lips are brushing to your own. “It’s all better now with you.”

Seventy years of a missed life, most of which he’s spent nearly under seven feet underground, locked up like an animal and abused for selfish power. Ruthless damage to every inch of his being, every sliver of hope taken from him without permission for decades. Now, eight years after a seeming never ending storm, Bucky finds reason in all of this.

It feels good to know that she’s with him too.

And if the day ends up to both of you curled up in the back booth of the diner down the street, ordering a late night breakfast with pancakes and eggs and bacon, then it’s a good day after all.

There’s a Thursday night.

The day has been slow in the apartment given your day-off from school. Silence and a few movies on Netflix are your companions, except for the visit of your friendly neighborhood stray cat, Alpine, who climbs up to your windowsill every day without fail. Bucky is usually the one who feeds him, and mostly the one who’s unofficially adopted the kitten.

A pause here for a quick, improvised meal between homework, another pause there for a bath under glittery bath bombs.

Being away from him is normal.

His missions can last to mere hours to unexpected months. Living within the job is basically the norm, all with recruits training, team meetings and securing duties. Your classes are demanding, both physically and mentally. It never ends and never leaves you, always something to be started or done back home.

Either way, anxiousness never leaves you in a week like this.

Nearing a certain date on the calendar, Bucky’s plagued by restless nights.

It feels like a sore spot in his body, one he knows all about it but still can’t help but be upset at, poking and prodding around as a way to remember it. Despite knowing his best-friend way too well, Steve’s choice wasn’t one taken lightly back then.

The reasoning is fair and understandable but it doesn’t lessen the bitterness of a brief meeting after a six year long disappearance.

Not much can be done by now, but two years after Steve’s official death, Bucky still plays what ifs in his head. 

After gentle coaxing in between kisses in the night before and encouraging hugs and squeezes in the morning after, Bucky spends the whole day back at the compound, a scheduled therapy session set to the calendar of his phone.

When sunlight falls to a sheet of night stars, familiar but heavy steps sound like music to your  ears.

A random song playing through your laptop and slow beats welcome Bucky home.

It takes a single look at you until he’s sighing relieved, hauling your frame up to his arms in the middle of the small kitchen, where you both barely fit in during busy mornings with shoulder bumps and mumbled but playful complaints.

Sure it has been a pretty nostalgic day but nothing beats being right there.

“You smell good.” Bucky says, an almost shy mumble against your hair, his arms gently tightening around you. “Peach?”

The easy but definitely familiar guess makes you smile instantly. Heat rises on your cheeks, your chin rests on his chest as your eyes look for his own, very blue, very alive compared to a few hours back. Golden detailed fingertips brush your cheeks and a content hum escapes from your lips instantly.

“That bathbomb you gave me, remember?” You smile, voice sounding small and equally as shy until Bucky tips down, his lips meeting your own in a featherlike kiss that makes you sigh. “How are you feeling?”

Bucky smiles, crinkles forming in the corners of his eyes and then, the smooth sway starts. Finding rhythm with the slow beats still playing background, you can’t help but feel your chest lighter. In that moment, neither of you need to share words to know, he doesn’t need to tell you about his session for the feelings to sink.

Despite any doubt and above any insecurity, being right there feels just right.

It’s not his day and age. For a long time, he was nothing but a misplaced piece of the universe. Then without his best-friend, just an unknown face for the team to swallow.

Not anymore.

There was a time of misplacement and sure, he no longer has Steve on a back-up call but life has given him good things. Good people. Sam and Wanda. Love. You. And in that moment, after a long day of reflection, Bucky just feels thankful above any odd feeling.

“Feelin’ great.” He muses. It’s genuine and it makes your smile widen upon his accent slip, only cut short by Bucky’s lips briefly meeting yours again. “Thank you.”

Background music switching to an upbeat song and the shared slow, careful sway doesn’t change.

“What for?” You frown, wide eyes flicking between confusion and amusement through a quiet, huffed laugh. A beat until you look up through your eyelashes, and a sheepish shrug. “I haven’t done anything.”

Bucky bites back the reply—you’ve done everything and more, you’re everything—words for another time, other plans, a day with a better start. After all, he’s not going anywhere.

This is his place now.

And in the end of the day, that’s all it matters.

There’s a Saturday afternoon.

An array of long dresses and skirts mix-up with button-ups and printed ties on the bed, make-up and skin products all over the cabinet. The sun slowly lies down to a soft hue of orange that paints the bedroom space, and the off-beat singing coming from the bathroom makes you smile every now and then.

A coat of lipstick to the lips, mascara to the eyelashes. A well-placed hair pin to the side of your hair. Out of the bathroom Bucky gets, black suit and tie in place, not a wrinkle on sight to the white button-up shirt. The singing turns to a faint humming.

Short hair, trimmed beard. His blue eyes are alight. Positively beaming.

It’s just a few hours to go until the big event starts—Mr. and Mrs. Wilson anniversary, which they’re celebrating with one big ceremony to renew their vows with their children present. Bucky, much to Sam’s feigned dismay and Darlene Wilson’s stubborness, is now considered one of them.

In the very few opportunities you got to meet Darlene, she was nothing short of sweet to you and incredibly motherly to your boyfriend. Not much is needed to see how happy Bucky is to be participating in their day, and you can’t help but beam right back at him.

“Looking so handsome!” You grin, watching through the mirror as Bucky sits on the bed, shiny black shoes set on the floor. His lips are holding back a smirk. “I mean it, Bucky! This hair? I’m marrying you.”

At the words, Bucky looks up.

Between the Blip, his missions, your classes and whatnot, neither of you ever discussed the possibilities of a long-term future.

Have you both thought about it, though? Absolutely.

“You’re gonna get me in trouble.” Bucky sighs. Quickly settling into his shoes, a crooked smile curves up his mouth as he stands up, gentle fingers around your satin clad waist. “You’re so beautiful. I’m a lucky bastard, aren’t I?”

It feels like your brain instantly turns to mush over his words, and your tongue stumbles to find proper words to reply his sudden sweet outburst. Heat spreads through your neck and cheeks as you lean back against his chest, feeling Bucky’s arms wrap you completely with such warmth like home is supposed to feel.

Watching your reflections through the mirror, you can’t help but think how comforting the situation is, even if it can look silly to anybody else. How comforting is to see you with him, the changes, the little quirks that remain the same after a straight up mess.

How funny is it that you want to turn your little comment into reality?

How funny is it that Bucky wants that moment of certainty to freeze?

“You’ve got to help me with something.” You break the silence, smiling shyly before reaching out to the small jewelry box sitting on your make-up cabinet. A silver necklace with a studded little star is pulled out. “Please?”

Smart fingers wrap the necklace around your neck with ease, the touch of vibranium rising shivers to your skin as Bucky closes it with a little kiss pressed between your shoulder blades.

There’s that little moment of silence again until a sigh escapes from his lips, a beat of hesitancy rushing through his body before he’s fishing for the black box in his pocket. A box he’s been carrying for way too long now, just waiting for its buyer to build up the damn courage because that’s all it takes.

I mean it, Bucky! I’m marrying you.

“I’ve got something else for you to wear tonight.” Bucky says. Heart pounding violently through his chest, so much he thinks you might hear it, but voice sounding as light as ever under your curious eyes. “I—I’ve had it for a long time now. And I know it might not be the perfect moment but you just said you’d marry me.”

Turning around to face him, your mouth immediately falls open. Chest to chest, your eyes searching for his. And ss Bucky lifts the little velvet box and flips it open so, so easily with his metal thumb, your choked, disbelieved laugh fills the room.

The ring is beautiful.

No fancy stones, just a simple, silver band formed to wrap around a finger with its two ends meeting together on the top.

Both of you kept meeting each other over and over through accords, battles and sudden disappearances.

It’s meaningful enough to make your heart beat faster.

“You can’t be serious. Are you?” You ask dumbly, a silly smile soon growing on your lips as Bucky gives a playful glare. “You are. Holy shit, Bucky!”

“You aren’t sayin’ yes, baby doll.” Bucky jokes, starting to feel jittery with nerves despite a small grin. Under the anxiety and accent slip, he’s just loving to see how positively astonished you look. “I’m sweating under this suit and it won’t be good for—”

Red lips crash upon his in a rush, your fingers fisting the lapels of his suit so hard that Bucky almost stumbles on his feet, making him pull your body flush against his own. He’s sure your fingers are wrinkling his jacket just as much as his metal ones are wrinkling the delicate fabric of your dress. And your make-up, thank God, you’re wearing the smudge-proof lipstick.

There’s no time to breathe between quick, several pecks and a gasped but definitely excited reply.

“I am saying yes!”

There’s another Satuday afternoon.

A pair of booted feet walks through the tight hallway of the shoebox apartment, laughter completely filling the place as a pair of heeled feet bumps the wall in a funny noise.

The white sandals are a perfect match for the white mini dress, its hem flowing over very familiar thighs, showing a little too much because the position—or general space really, isn’t the best. Turns out that despite your skepticism, Bucky can carry you in bridal style through the cramped space. Even though, you can easily spot a stain in the back of his blazer because of a knocked vase. 

It doesn’t really matter.

As Bucky puts you down, your heels are kicked off and you immediately reach out to the memory board on the wall, pinning up a marriage certificate like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

When you turn around, Bucky is sitting by the edge of the bed just like one week ago, but now sans apprehension of an insecure man.

“We’re married!”

The gleeful tone of your words make him smile right away, pulling you closer with a gentle tug until you’re standing between his legs. Towering over him, your hands cup both of Bucky’s cheeks, thumbs brushing over the sharp, stubbly cheekbones. Your heart swells in your chest, happiness and love and calmness, because everything about the day really had been simple.

A city hall wedding with Sam, Wanda and Sam’s parents as witnesses, exactly a week after their own second wedding. Very simple and easy, as the decision of marrying each other had been.

“You’re officially a Barnes.” Bucky grins, hands brushing down the back of your thighs. Gentle fingertips under the hem of your dress, he silently urges you to sit on his lap. “Told ya, got me in trouble.”

“You say that as if you didn’t want to marry me.” You scoff playfully, wrapping your arms around his neck as settling down over him. “You can’t fool me. I totally noticed you were nervous back there.”

Not bothering to deny your words, Bucky shrugs. Even though he was nervous, it doesn’t really matter. Wrapped up in each other, surrounded by the quietness of the apartment, all he cares about is you.

A little kiss pressed to your neck.

“Well, you’d be nervous too if you were marryin’ the prettiest girl in the world.”

A laugh and a little kiss pressed to his nose.

“Well, I was nervous marrying the prettiest boy in the world.”

And then—Bucky’s lips are meeting yours in a soft kiss that swallows a sigh, hands steady and gentle around your waist as he dips down to the bed under your body. It feels like you’re both back at the ceremony again, high on your love and completely unaware of everything that isn’t each other. And he kisses you once, twice, three, four times.

Just enough to ground him, to remind him that this is what his life came to.

Don’t they say that after a storm, there’s always calm?

Yeah, well. This little shoebox apartment in the heart of Brooklyn.

This might be just it.

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Wednesday 29 May 1839

7 40/..

1 5/..

very fine morning stood undressed writing – copy of Rooks coal loose paragraph for A- and stopped her long foolscap sheet letter to her sister F57 ½° inside and 74 ½° outside in the sun (fine air) at 9 ¾ - and breakfast in about ½ hour – then came upstairs – A- sat with me (in the blue room) finishing her letter to her sister and I wrote to ‘Monsieur Cusinberche aîné Rue St. Victor no. 27 à Paris affranchie’ and sent by George my letter to the P.O. and A- sent to hers to her sister at 11 40/.. and I having read over draft of Hinscliffe new agreement for the coal in the Flashes field adjoining the Crownest carriage road, A- sent it with note to P. and A. desiring them to have the agreement (indenture) ready for signing on Friday morning by H- at their office – to pay for ¾ acre per annum at the rate of £150 per acre by 2 equal payments 112.10.0/2 10 November and 10 May commencing 10th instant – term to expire 10 November 1843 – quantity supposed to be about one acre 2 roods or thereabouts – but to get what can be gotten of the low bed in that field – then (at 11 40/..) set A- to trace plan of the estate (for the colliery workings to be traced on) and I wrote letter for DB. to copy offering to furnish to the H-x gaslight and coke co. 550 tons of coal delivered at their works at 8/. per ton according to the times and proportions stated in their printed circular – dated Listerwick colliery and signed David Booth agent – went down to DB. at 12 5/.. and with him talking of the colliery etc. till 1 when he went to dine with the servants and I went to A- with her at her luncheon – then out with DB. at 1 5/.. – went with him to Listerwick – looked about there – saw his settling out of JO-‘s farm yard – went to Charles Howarth’s about his damages – he had had a fit on Friday – poorly but out – had been at H-x on Saturday – mentioned having a quart of milk a day, and sending them the cow to keep – yes! Mrs. Howarth said they could manage all this very well – then with JO. sometime – asked if he really would like to leave the farm – yes! if he and I could agree about the valuation – explained – I had no objection – would agree to what reasonable – JO. said he had never had a lease – he took Pump sometime before Pearson took Denmark – I expressed my surprise and my persuasion that he had had a lease but Mr. Briggs had lost it – I at liberty to offer the farm to Holt – afterwards talked the matter over to DB. – said there were £20 worth of cottages and I had thought of asking £80 for the place if Holt did not take it – DB. owned it was worth that – said the land was worth £60 and valued 27DW. Charles H-‘s land at £60 and agreed the land and buildings were worth £70 – I said I had a tenant in view – Empsall who had the Allen car – but this not to be named – said I would let Holt have the place at £70 and pay him £30 per annum for managing i.e. measuring off and looking after the colliery but I should never give him any more – in fact, he would not have much to do – all would be done in DB.’s name as my agent – If I let the colliery, he (Holt) had no chance

SH:7/ML/E/23/0054

of it – I had asked JO. if in case I let it I might bind the tenant down to get or pay for 4 acres a year – yes! I ought to do that or the tenant would not get 2 acres a year – thought if I bought Walshs’ coal, I ought to pay for 2 acres a year – then took DB. to Dobsons’ quarry – ruttly – then to Womersleys’ quarry – very thin – but the thinnest last baring would average 4 or 5ft. – then saw over Womersleys’ house – very neat – they have papered all the rooms – then to Mark Towns’ – 200 cube yard s of stuff I should be thrown up and a 6ft. high bur wall along the foot to make him a sheltered stack yard up against his mistal – then stuff could not be moved for less than 6d. a yard – DB. to think about it – as also about the alterations and addition of news-room at the Stump x Inn – then at Listerwick – Holt and Joseph Mann had been dialling all the afternoon for the WP. main gates – according told JM-‘s plan we should drive plumb board (up the hill) 300 yards from AP. and then 435 yards cross to WP. – I wanted to begin by driving north end (low surface side – towards Lower brea) from AP. and then board to WP. – no! could not do that – dib side – we should be fast in water – home at 7 – dinner at 7 10/.. – A- and I out at 8 ¾ to 9 ½ - at Listerwick, and sauntered back and came in at 9 ½ - coffee – A- read French – asleep – then till 11 ½ wrote all but the 2 first lines of today – very fine day – went into the cellar after dinner 1 champagne – each had 3 glasses – came upstairs at 10 50/.. at which hour F55 ½° inside and 45 ½° outside –

[live-long-and-time-warp]

An article published on May 15, 1986 in The New York Times on the race to try and save the first victims of Chernobyl.

“U.S. Doctors in Soviet Are Racing Nuclear Death”

For the last two weeks, Moscow Hospital No. 6, a nine-story brown-brick building on the outskirts of the city, has been the center of a desperate effort to treat the most seriously afflicted victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Soviet and American doctors and an Israeli specialist, using equipment and drugs airlifted from around the world, have raced against the killing effects of radiation exposure in an attempt to save the lives of 33 men and 2 women who spent the first hours after the April 26 accident within yards of the damaged reactor.

One of the American physicians, Dr. Robert Peter Gale of the U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Los Angeles, said that as of Wednesday evening 7 of the 35 had died of radiation and 28 remained alive. 

Higher Figure Reported

Tonight, Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in a nationally televised address that the death toll had risen to 9 - 2 killed in the original explosion and 7 who have died since of radiation. He said that ''as of today'' 299 people had been hospitalized with radiation disease of varying degrees. That figure was 95 more than reported by Soviet officials last week.

Dr. Gale said that based on his first-hand information and data provided by the Soviet health authorities, the death toll from the accident, including one person killed by steam burns and another hit by falling debris the night of the accident, was now nine and would probably increase.

The scope of the disaster, the worst in the history of nuclear power, presented the doctors with unique problems, the American physicians and the Israeli specialist said in interviews. Among the problems were these:

* The number of seriously contaminated patients urgently needing bone marrow transplants was greater than the total number of such transplants conducted in Soviet history and 10 times greater than major transplant centers in the West ever faced at one time. The destruction of bone marrow, the ultimate source of the body's blood and immune defense cells, is one of the most life-threatening consequences of exposure to intense radiation.

* Tissue-typing, essential to determining the level of radiation exposure and finding suitable marrow donors, was impossible in many cases because the radiation had already destroyed blood components, particularly the white cells essential to accurate typing. They said this forced the use in six cases of a marrow substitute extracted from the livers of aborted fetuses, a procedure known as a fetal liver transplant.

* Some patients, confronted with advanced medical practices for the first time, balked at receiving a transplant. Dr. Gale reported that the sister of one victim refused to provide marrow although she was the only ideal donor. Potential donors in London and New Orleans were alerted to stand by for emergency transplants but were ultimately not needed.

* Some patients were radioactive from having inhaled or swallowed contaminated particles, requiring special procedures to avoid harm to doctors, nurses and laboratory workers handling the victims, their tissue samples and body secretions and excretions. Two patients died from liver and lung failure produced by radioactive particles deposited in those organs, according to Dr. Gale.

* A number of victims were suffering from severe radiation burns and related skin problems, as well as stomach and intestinal decay produced by radiation exposure, complicating treatment, Dr. Gale said. He reported that spontaneous bleeding was also a problem because of the destruction of platelets, the blood's clotting agents.

* Without any preparation, Soviet doctors and medical practices were thrown together with Western physicians and traditions, producing not only an unlikely alliance but also one complicated by problems of communication, incompatibility of measuring standards and unfamiliarity with medications and clinical procedures. 

Soviet Doctors Unavailable

Soviet doctors were not available for interviews, and Western reporters were barred from talking with patients or visiting the hospital. Dr. Gale is scheduled to hold a news conference in Moscow on Thursday.

Dr. Gale, a specialist on bone marrow transplants, said that as of Wednesday 13 bone marrow transplants and 6 fetal liver transplants had been performed. He said that not all these patients remained alive, but he declined to say how many had died.

''This is the first event of this kind,'' he said. ''It's unprecedented to have this many transplants going on simultaneously. There's no place in the world that could handle something like this alone.''

Dr. Gale said plans for dealing with the medical consequences of a similar disaster in the United States were minimal. ''I am unaware of any planning by the Government or the medical community in the United States to handle victims of radiation exposure on this scale,'' he said. Lists of Potential Donors

Dr. Gale, who is 40 years old, is chairman of the advisory committee of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, a consortium of 128 transplant teams from 60 nations. The registry maintains computerized lists of more than 50,000 potential donors.

An intense, thin man with graying hair, the physician arrived in Moscow on May 2 at the invitation of the Soviet Government. His services had been offered by Armand Hammer, the American industrialist whose ties with Moscow date to 1921, when he was introduced to Lenin after helping combat a typhus epidemic in the Soviet Union.

Dr. Gale was joined several days later by Dr. Richard Champlin, a colleague at the U.C.L.A. Medical Center, and Dr. Paul I. Terasaki, a professor of surgery at the U.C.L.A. Medical School who is a specialist on tissue typing.

Also joining the group was Yair Reisner, a biophysicist from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, who developed techniques for preventing graft-versus-host disease, a tissue-rejection problem that often develops when marrow is transplanted from an imperfectly matched donor.

In his speech tonight, Mr. Gorbachev noted the assistance of Dr. Gale and Dr. Terasaki - he did not mention Dr. Champlin and Mr. Reisner - and thanked the foreign ''business circles'' that provided equipment and medicines. 

Lack of Israel Ties Disregarded

The Soviet authorities, disregarding the absence of diplomatic relations between their country and Israel and waiving normally stringent customs and immigration procedures, gave Mr. Resiner a visa when he landed at the Moscow airport.

''I didn't know what to expect,'' Mr. Reisner said. ''I thought they might send me back.''

Dr. Gale said the physicians were confronted with ''battlefield'' conditions at Hospital No. 6, the Soviet Union's leading center for the treatment of leukemia, aplastic anemia and other deadly blood disorders and immunologic breakdowns.

He said 204 victims of the Chernobyl disasater had been evacuated to the Moscow hospital, all suffering from radiation-related problems. ''They all received significant doses of radiation,'' he said.

The 35 most seriously afflicted, according to Dr. Gale, included reactor technicians and security guards on duty when explosions ripped through the power station at 1:32 A.M. on April 26, igniting fires, crippling the No. 4 reactor and spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere. Others included firemen and a physician who rushed to the scene, he said.

Dr. Champlin and Dr. Gale said the severest cases, which grew in number from 18 to 35 within days of Dr. Gale's arrival, had absorbed the full blast of radiation and radioactive particles released by the damaged reactor.

Dr. Champlin said the hospital, accustomed to performing one bone marrow transplant every few weeks -there had been a total of 20 such operations in the Soviet Union before the Chernobyl accident - was suddenly faced with the necessity of doing as many as 35 in one or two weeks.

The major problem faced by the doctors was the rapid deterioration of blood in the patients resulting from the destruction of their bone marrow. 

'First Job Was a Triage'

Without white cells to use in tissue-typing, selection of suitable donors would be almost impossible, Dr. Gale said. The condition of the patients also made it difficult to determine the level and kind of radiation exposure they had absorbed, and therefore what their chances of survival were with or without a marrow transplant.

''The first job was a triage,'' Dr. Gale said.

The process of determining which patients should receive transplants was complicated by the fact that a marrow transplant can itself often lead to death because of rejection, infections and other problems.

''We didn't want to give a transplant to someone who might recover on their own without one,'' Dr. Champlin said.

Radiation has a devastating effect on bone marrow, according to the American doctors, since it tends to hit hardest those tissues that divide and replicate most rapidly. Bone marrow cells produces billions of blood cells each day.

A marrow transplant itself is a relatively simple procedure, according to specialists. Marrow is aspirated from the donor by syringe, usually from the crests of the pelvis bones. After the marrow cells have been separated from the blood and other unneeded substances, the transplant is done by infusion into the recipient's veins.

Success, however, depends on an almost perfect match of tissue type between donor and recipient. Identical twins or siblings are the best donors. In addition, for at least several weeks after the operation and until the new marrow takes hold and starts producing healthy blood cells, there is a great danger of life-threatening infection from even the most minor germs. 

Matched With Sibling Donors

Some of the Chernobyl victims were quickly matched with sibling donors, and transplants were done by teams of American and Soviet doctors, according to Dr. Gale.

In six cases where tissue matching was impossible, the doctors turned to fetal liver transplants. Soviet doctors had fetal liver tissue for two patients, Dr. Gale said.

He reported that by chance he had attended a bone marrow transplant conference in Keystone, Colo., the week before the Chernobyl accident and knew from conversations there that tissue for four fetal liver transplants was in frozen storage in a foreign country.

He said the authorities in the country, which he declined to identify, had shipped the tissue to Moscow. 

Western Lists Checks

In several cases where tissue type was determined but suitable donors were not available in the Soviet Union, the computerized donor lists in the West were checked and potential donors identified in London and New Orleans.

In one case, Dr. Gale said, the Soviet patient died before additional steps were taken. In another, the intended recipient turned out to have suitable family members but refused to subject any to the surgical procedures required to extract marrow.

''We couldn't ask a foreign donor to do something the man's family wouldn't do,'' Dr. Gale said.

One of the most emotional moments, he said, came when the sister of a victim declined to be a donor. ''She said she didn't want to go under general anesthesia and that her brother was going to die anyway,'' Dr. Gale said. 

Final Decisions by Russians

He said final decisions about treatment were made by the Soviet doctors, who also did ''most of the hands-on work.'' He reported the Soviet team was headed by Dr. Angelina K. Guskova, the director of the hospital, and Dr. Aleksandr Baranov, the head of hematology.

Dr. Gale said he planned to return to Los Angeles this week but would fly back to Moscow next week. Dr. Terasaki left earlier this week, and Dr. Champlin said he would leave within the next few days. Mr. Reisner also expects to depart soon, according to Dr. Gale.

''I'm running out of steam,'' Dr. Gale said Tuesday.

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Article source: nytimes.com/1986/05/15/world/us-doctors-in-soviet-face-a-battlefield.html

[theanimeview]

Theory: The True Voice of Yusuke Urameshi

By: Casea Mhtar, @madamekrow​

Yu Yu Hakusho is ultimately my favourite anime, to the point where I can’t bear the thought of liking an anime more than it. For example, Berserk (1997) will be my “number 1” while Yu Yu Hakusho has exceeded the list altogether because its pedestal is just that high. That is the length I must go to secure a strange sense of balance for myself and stave off yet another identity crisis for a different reason. So you can probably imagine how much chaos was thrown at me when I found out that Yusuke Urameshi’s voice actor is completely different than the one I vividly recall when I found myself rewatching the series a few weeks ago. I have a memory of my sister and I watching a single episode she had taped on VCR and we would specifically watch the credits nonstop. We were trying to memorize the song (with great success, I might add).

At the time, there was still no means of listening to the ending theme anywhere other than its source. YouTube wasn’t really a thing, and even if it was we didn’t have access to the same databases we have today. So we watched that part over and over and over again. I remember etching each image into our minds, every lyric into our internal roster of songs as it played on repeat. The names kept popping up just as they did before the last and the voice actor of Yusuke Urameshi, my favorite character, was none other than Yuri Lowenthal.

I distinctly recall thinking “Yuri, that’s a cool name” to myself as his name came up again and again. Not to be rude, but “Justin Cook” just isn’t exactly a name that would elicit such a thought from me and, indeed, never came to mind since I am certain it wasn’t in the credits of my beloved Yu Yu Hakusho VHS. 

So, in my rewatching of the show, present-day me had the initial assumption that what was going on here was a perverse version of the Mandela Effect. However, looking into it now, I feel that completely waters down my experience and doesn’t actually explain what happened. 

I mean, I can’t simply ignore my recollection as being a false memory, as every Mandela Effect is reasoned away with. No. I needed to find true reasoning for this madness. 

For the sake of convenience and for the lack of a better theory, I will settle on there being an unexplained dimensional shift. Certainly, any reasonable person could argue that I made a mistake. I simply misread the credits, maybe even pulled that name from somewhere else. Or perhaps Yuri was Yusuke’s voice actor from a different dub! But that isn’t the case as seen in this YouTube video comparing EVERYONE who has voiced Urameshi. 

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So... Let’s say this was all a misunderstanding on my part. BUT THEN it didn’t just end with me incorrectly reading names in the credits over and over. I didn’t wrongly perceive the Funimation dubbing as being someone else and then call it a day. I was validated in my belief for a long period of time by outside sources.

.Hack//G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth (2006)

The overall series of .Hack// is a subject I will certainly indulge in more in the future, but for the purpose of staying on-topic, I shall restrain myself. The reason I bring it up now is because in 2006, when .Hack//G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth was released (I will always say it in full!), the protagonist--Haseo--sounded so familiar. I couldn’t quite figure it out until I saw who was credited with the voice acting. Out loud, in front of witnesses (if you count my birds), I said, “Yuri Lowenthal?. . . Wait, is that the voice of-”

I looked up his name to find he was-at that time-credited as the voice of Yusuke Urameshi. Quite a mistake that is since officially he is unlisted in the series yet multiple people around the world think otherwise, the same as me. Not only that, but updating all of Lowenthal’s pages to be credited with Haseo in addition to Urameshi. Many people had to review those pages, many people happened upon those pages and never bothered to correct them. That’s what really gets me. Sure, if my Ego was backed into a corner then yes, I can perhaps admit that my eyeballs had failed me and that’s all you’re gonna get out of me! Yet there is no copy I can find of him voicing the character online.

Could this be an example of lost media instead then? Well, no. Apparently not. Most anyone I’ve told about this believes I am confusing him with someone else. They may not remember “Justin Cook” at the top of their heads, however they are adamant about Yuri Lowenthal never, ever voicing Yusuke Urameshi. Because he didn’t... in this dimension.

Perhaps I truly am mixing him up his voice with a different character? Yuri Lowenthal is also famously the voice actor for Sasuke Uchiha in the english dub of Naruto. An extremely popular character from an anime that is surrounded by an enormous and ever growing fan base. The problem with that is, I’ve never watched Naruto. I didn’t even know Lowenthal was in any way a part of Naruto until I was somewhat adjusted into adulthood. When explaining my entire theory to a friend, I asked them if they can imagine the essence of an other-dimensional Yusuke within the voice of Haseo. 

“All I hear is Sasuke from Naruto,” They bluntly said.

I’ll be honest... That hurt more than it should have, but I swallowed my pride and looked into it since I’ve never actually heard what Sasuke sounds like.

What I begrudgingly find is that my friend was right. Again, this was the first time I had ever heard Yuri Lowenthal as Sasuke and I didn’t know that he was the voice actor until a few years prior. This entire ordeal leaves me feeling unnerved that there are so many loopholes being found in the False Memory Theory. It can’t be completely dismissed as large scale misinformation or misremembering. That is why I had to settle on the theory that there was some strange dimensional shift, even with how outlandish that sounds.

The Discovery

I don’t know when it occurred and I’m not sure how I missed it, but it happened. You would think being thrust out of your prior dimension, or being crammed into a different one, would have some sort of impact. Maybe that’s why I developed back problems during my teenage years, I can’t really say. All I can recall is the feeling of my stomach hitting the floor through the bottom of my feet when I finally found out. I was watching the DVD box set of Yu Yu Hakusho that my friend lent me and I could immediately tell something was not right. Yusuke didn’t sound anything like I remembered, the voice--the tone--was weird, his inflections were way off, it was all wrong! WRONG, I TELL YOU. So, to the internet I went only to find someone else being credited...

“Justin Cook this” and “Justin Cook that” appeared all over. There was even a video of him yelling “spirit gun” for a fan and I was still in disbelief! There was no way! This wasn’t possible! 

Apparently, in this dimension it is though, and that is a fact that I will have to live with for the rest of my life... or until reality throws me back to my own dimension. The knowledge that I will look crazy whenever I tell this story, as well as the reality that there could be more dubs out their with voices unknown. Not just voice actors, but entire animes—maybe video games, even people I thought I knew! Who knows what was left behind with Yuri Lowenthal as Urameshi! I don’t care to think about it too much. My heart is wounded enough I tell you. I already have a crippling fear of one day finding out my whole life is a lie—I don’t need to rack my brain about all of this as well.

In Conclusion,

Yuri Lowenthal was fantastic as Urameshi and I wish I could somehow put my memory into an audio clip for everyone to hear. Not so much to prove that he was better, but to solidify why my experience is very real to me. Though, if you did hear the Yusuke that I knew, I truly believe you would think it was pretty good at the very least. (Not that Justin is bad... just that it feels wrong to my beloved memory... sorry Mr. Cook.) On the bright side, Lowenthal is plenty successful and I am always rooting for him regardless. Sure, Justin Cook is my “number 1” Urameshi in this dimension, but the Yuri Lowenthal rendition that doesn’t exist in this world has exceeded the list all together in my heart. His pedestal is just too high.

What about those of you reading this? Do any of you have a similar experience? Maybe you also remember Yuri Lowenthal as Yusuke Urameshi! Let us know! (Let ME know! Please--I beg someone to find a copy if one exsists in this world. 😭) 

Happy Wednesday. I guess. Bye.