#but trying to coordinate with these contractors is the worst

[thesacredreznor]

for six months now I have been trying to get this work on my attic finished and finally I get a text out of the blue from Attic Guy saying “today? can we do it today” which like, fine. yes. I really need this done and it happens to be my day off. so I texted back saying today was good and asking what time and of course no response. it’s been an hour. I suppose I should just go ahead and cancel on my agility instructor but I am going to be so pissed off if I get stuck in contractor limbo all day and this work doesn’t actually get done.

I’ve been a homeowner for about a year and I can confidently say that I do not understand what possess people to remodel their homes. working with contractors is like pulling teeth. I have two (2) big projects that needed to be done this year and I literally never want to go through any of this ever again. the next time my house needs work done I would rather just move.

[doiefy]

ballroom extravaganza (m?) // kim doyoung, jung jaehyun // preview

The house on the hill has been a mystery for some time. Some say hell, most say heaven—but for the good and wicked alike, it remains a safe haven built by a faceless group known as the Seraphim, on a foundation of secrets they're willing to take to their graves.

For 27-year-old Jung Jaehyun trying to escape a family and job he hates, the manor is an easy distraction: wealth and extravagance where no one knows his name, and endless entertainment riddled with the type of danger he craves. But for the Seraph who catches Jaehyun's eye one late night, it's nothing short of home. Although held together by a twisted love and afflicted by paranormal activity, the mysterious inhabitants of the house are Doyoung's only semblance of family.

Whether by fate or sheer coincidence, the two are brought together to reevaluate the ground they stand upon, and the horrors buried beneath. And to come to the slow realization: their worst fears have been in front of them the entire time, rooted firmly in both their mortal bodies and broken souls.

genre: angst, paranormal, horror

pairing: kim doyoung x jung jaehyun (yeah i'm fully aware that you nerds don't read mxm but did I ask? no :))

word count: 4.2k preview, ~50k full fic

warnings: heavy language, blood and violence, minor character death, smoking. full fic includes alcohol, drugs, sexual content (not explicit smut but heavy references to/implications of rather intense sexual relationships. despite this, minors pls dni for everyone's sanity), some vague indication of undiagnosed mental conditions and stigma, generally this fic is pretty heavy but I've become desensitized as fuck writing it lmfao.

expected release: july 2023 at the latest or i will literally go insane

this was very much (and obviously) inspired by dpr ian's mito 2, from the general ✨vibes✨ to the chapter titles. absolute banger of an album, do give it a listen while reading. tag list available by dm/ask.

one: seraph

The skies begin to bleach red And the stars begin to fall.

AT DUSK, Seraph’s Hill was truly a surreal sight to behold.

It held the briefest moment between evening and night frozen in time. While the rest of the world darkened to a deep indigo, the property sat isolated, still bathed in a brilliant amber glow. All beige brick and polished marble, it seemed to cradle the sun’s remains between its soaring rooftops and overgrown balconies. It stopped the celestial bodies in their orbits, rewriting time, rewriting space and natural law, all in some vain attempt to retain a few more minutes of daylight. The fountains spewed molten gold, the gardens flashed iridescent colours, and the stone statues lit their wings ablaze. 

It wasn’t especially angelic or heavenly, despite its name. It was hardly coherent, if you stared at it for long enough: a strange mismatch of architecture styles, something vaguely between Mediterranean revival and neoclassical, with gothic fountains out front. The lack of coordination was all due to Leliel’s indecision at the time of its construction—so thought the estate’s various visitors. But as the original story went among the Seraphim, Azrael had murdered the original contractor, prompting the hiring of a second person to finish the job. 

On this particular evening, the pearly gates swung open for a black car. Behind the wheel, Kim Doyoung looked out across the property—he had one hand steering the vehicle, and the other hanging casually out the window with a cigarette stuck between two fingers. The gates closed behind him, silently, on well-oiled hinges. Even the automated clang of the lock was muted, so as to not disturb guests; peace was just another one of Leliel’s attempts to emulate paradise. 

He pulled the car up the driveway, making quick observation of the yard. There was no one in sight; no sign of his contact, and only a handful of familiar vehicles parked behind the west wing. He was to meet a man who had every ill intention against the Seraphim; and it seemed he had arrived too early. 

Most would feel restless at this point, either overthinking the entire ordeal or simply irritated by the notion of waiting, yet Doyoung was strangely calm. He parked the car, snapped the key out of the ignition, and hastily pulled the visor down to check his reflection.

The goal was to look effortlessly presentable for this meeting, and not like he had been on the road for several hours. Unfortunately, the black eyes that stared back at him from the mirror harboured exhaustion. The smoke spilling from his lips made for an even harsher appearance, leeching the colour from his cheeks and adding grey streaks to his long locks of jet hair. Someone had once told him he was a visually conflicting person: all soft curves dressed in angular shapes, fair skin marked with black tattoos, a gentle voice paired with an intense gaze. He understood now, their reasons for confusion, and how his strange sense of fashion could be disadvantageous at times like these.

He combed his fingers through his hair and tied it at the base of his neck—as well as he could, anyways; it was still too short to stay in place for too long.  A bit of cream to soothe the dry patches of skin on his hands, then the cheap cologne he kept in his bag, to mask the potent smell of gas and blood. The cigarette met his lips one last time before he climbed out of the car and crushed it underfoot. 

“There you are.”

Doyoung turned, his back meeting the side of his car as he searched for the source of noise. Confusion took him a moment later, when he registered a woman’s voice and a soft silhouette on the wall—dusted with the golden rays of sunset, harmoniously one with the gentle autumn breeze. She stepped out of the shadows in a flash of long, silver hair and silver jewellery. With mean eyes and a deep crease in her brow, she must have been in her early, if not late, thirties.

This certainly wasn’t who Doyoung had agreed to meet with.

“I’m sorry?” his voice came out relaxed, almost a little slurred. There was a long pause before he spoke again, this time tired. “Prince Seir sent you?” 

“Foolish boy,” the woman murmured; her speech was so unnecessarily dignified and irritating, but Doyoung said nothing of it. He wouldn’t bother.

Instead, he mustered a wry grimace. “You are Prince Seir, then.” He gave a curious tilt of his head. “Why waste so much of your time convincing me that you were a man?”

“You lot who frequent this hellhole don’t seem like the type to take a woman seriously,” she snorted, throwing her head back. Her silver hair cascaded down her back, catching moonlight between each individual strand. “The women here are treated like whores and servants, isn’t that right? You likely call them to your room for entertainment.” 

Doyoung scoffed. “I don’t care for women, ma’am. Never have.” He paused, realizing how that must have sounded to her. “I’m not interested in women.” It didn’t seem to help; she pointed an accusing finger at him. 

“You’re really something, boy.“

“And you’re a bitch who’s wasting my time, despite my trying to take her seriously. Now, are you going to give me a job? Or will we be here all night?”

The woman stared at him for another long moment, clearly enraged. Doyoung almost wondered if he was hallucinating—her figure seemed to phase in and out of existence, and her deep anger was so out of place on a set of soft features. She could’ve been a trick of the light, a product of the disturbed mind; and Doyoung could wake up stoned and piss drunk, nowhere near the current scene. It wouldn’t have been the first time. 

At last, she spoke. Paired with a deliberate, impatient gesture of her hand came the words: “Come with me.”

Doyoung obliged, following her out of the lot. They walked wordlessly up a gravel road and past a gate, into a garden. It was surrounded on all sides by white walls and arched windows—the centrepiece of the property. Eden was a stunning display of wealth and beauty. 

Lanterns dangled from every rooftop, flanking tall, white columns. Water spilled from a colossal arrangement of natural stone. Twin paths of interlocking stones circled the pool, splitting at a particular junction where they then lead to several smaller courtyards. Each alcove housed a statue and overflowing pot of vibrant flowers that climbed up the walls on twirling stems. Doyoung paused before a marble statue of a young maiden and dropped a single coin in her basket, as had become customary. Supposedly Israfel had started the tradition after waking up hungover at her feet. 

But the silver-haired lady ahead of him didn’t seem to know this; and even if she did, she didn’t care. Seir snapped her fingers impatiently, and Doyoung hurried to catch up.

They arrived at an alcove on the opposite side of the space, and were greeted by a stone king on his throne. He stared down at them unkindly, his fist tight around his scepter. Without hesitation, the woman reached for his crown, stuck her hand within the circlet of stone, and pushed. The back wall of the alcove, covered all over with ivy and wild begonias, quivered. Then with just the slightest resistance, it swung inwards to reveal a dark tunnel. 

The woman fished a flashlight out of her pocket and switched it on. “The Seraphim’s lair.” She gave the stone king a patronizing pat on the shoulder, then sneered at him in contempt, “Hidden behind a statue of a king. A little too on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” Doyoung muttered wryly, and followed her into the tunnel. 

With a bit of effort, they replaced the wall, though Doyoung thought it was an issue of little importance; at this hour, most would be far too intoxicated to notice.

Once the wall had been pushed flush against the statue, they were swallowed by darkness. The flashlight did little against it, but Seir forged ahead with confidence, leaving Doyoung to stumble along. It was silent for the first few minutes, before classical music began to drift through the walls, adagio and mezzo piano. Snippets of conversation followed. There was a broken moan, and then a flirtatious laugh. Slow inhales. Satisfied exhales. Deep within the walls of the property, the pair bore witness to a multitude of illicit activities.

At long last, it fell quiet again. The ground began to slope downwards, steeper and steeper, until it reached a short flight of stairs. Seir paused at the bottom, feeling carefully along the wall for something. All of a sudden, a dirty yellow glow washed across the room—what looked like a storage closet, only about two arm spans across. Pinned to the furthest wall was an arrangement of photos and notes: the Seraphim, their names, images, details, entire floor plans for the estate in which they supposedly lived.

“What is this?” Doyoung asked. He was taken aback, to say the least, by the sheer amount of detail, not to mention the unknown motivations behind it all. He stepped forward to take a closer look, reaching instinctively for the photo that had slipped loose from the corkboard. The image of a striking man with black hair and eyes flashed before him, then vanished as Seir slapped his hand away. 

“Don’t touch,” she hissed. 

“I was looking.” 

“Look with your eyes. You’ll touch them soon enough.” 

“These are the targets?” Doyoung raised a brow, doing a quick count of the photos. Eight. “All eight of them?”

Seir gave a dissatisfied growl. “I did most of the work, didn’t I? How difficult could it possibly be for you to kill them, when all the details are so conveniently prepared for you?”

“I wasn’t complaining,” Doyoung snapped. “And I don’t doubt my abilities. I doubt your abilities in miraculously tracking down every last detail about the eight most mysterious men in the city. Forgive me when I say I’m skeptical.”

“That isn’t your concern as a contract killer. You have no loyalties, you’re paid to do as I tell you, not to refute—”

Doyoung snorted in disbelief. “I’m not allowed to be curious? Believe me, you’re not the only person who has been after the Seraphims’ true identities. This house is a mystery, and I want to know how you solved it.”

There was a beat of empty silence. Then the woman's lips curled back in visible disgust, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth. Her hatred was unmistakable. “Go dig through a shithole first, go get dirt under your fingernails, go whore yourself out to the most despicable scum of the earth, then maybe you’ll figure it out yourself. You have no idea what I’ve done just to get here.”

“Well, then I commend you—”

“Your praise won’t change my mind, boy.”

Doyoung frowned. So she was conceited enough to be condescending, but not quite enough to break at his praise. Fine. He could resort to other methods.

He turned his attention back to the Seraphim, noting their angelic names and dangerous appearances. No two looked the same—each visually unique on their own—yet when lined up one after the next, they began to blur into an indecipherable, melted concoction of facial features. Brown eyes and dark gazes. Grey hair, wild manes, red lips, stained mouths. Uriel scowled at him from behind a pair of red-tinted glasses. Matariel watched with immense judgement, as if her hair wasn’t white as snow and there wasn’t a thick layer of cream blush smoothed over her cheeks. 

“You’re missing one,” Doyoung noticed after a few moments—an obvious gap between Leliel and Uriel, and a name written in big, black letters: “Azrael.”

“He’s been dealt with,” Seir replied shortly. 

“Didn’t leave his photo up? X his eyes out with a red marker, maybe?”

“You talk too much,” she hissed in frustration. “And Azrael was the worst of them. A cold-blooded murderer. He killed my brother.”

Doyoung scoffed. “And you hiring me to kill eight people doesn’t make you any worse than him?”

“You have no idea what type of people they are. You have no idea what they do.”

He sighed, taking two steps back. The shadows parted for him, and the room fell incredibly still, incredibly silent—and it did so incredibly quickly. One second, the woman’s voice bounced back and forth between the walls, filling the entire space with anger and disdain. The next, she was barely a whisper. Standing about an arms’ length away from Doyoung with her back turned to him, she had become strangely small in his eyes. 

“I’m well aware of the things we do, dear prince.”

The silence wavered, trembling as metal appeared between Doyoung’s fingers. There was a visible refraction against the far wall and a shrill warning as something cut through the air. Then his left hand was on the woman’s shoulder and his right was drawing metal across the soft flesh of her throat. Her mouth dropped open in a silent scream, and her eyes bulged out of her skull.

“You killed an innocent man,” he murmured.

He let her crumble to the ground. 

The waves crashed. Crimson lapped at his shoes. The weapon hung limply at his side, dripping rhythmically, shimmering with molten amber. He watched the pigment seep into the dead woman’s hair; he watched the white strands float down the red river. Unconsciously, he let a string of curses spill from his lips, then reached for his lighter. What a mess.

Azrael walked out of the room a few minutes later, picking blood off of his nails and bleeding smoke from the mouth. 

“You’re making a mess, Doyoung.” 

Doyoung looked down. Indeed, there was a trail of bloody footprints behind him: where he stood, they were pink marks against the glossy floor tile, and where the door opened to the hallway, they glistened bright red. Too distracted by his thoughts and the gruelling cleanup after Seir’s murder, he simply hadn’t realized. 

Now Johnny peered at him impassively from behind his desk—neither understanding nor upset, simply observing and strangely quiet. Doyoung could feel similar stares from the others around the room; though the other Seraphim were more forthcoming with their opinions, much more outspoken than their leader. Yuta sat in the corner, snickering in amusement and wiping at the red lenses of his glasses. Donghyuck waved at him mockingly. Jungwoo mumbled a pointed comment beneath his breath.

Scowling to himself, Doyoung stepped out of his shoes. He approached Johnny’s desk without them, and set the evidence down for his inspection: a clear plastic bag that held every photo, every paper, every piece of writing from Prince Seir’s wall. In his annoyance and carelessness while taking them down from the cork board, he’d torn several pieces and crudely taped them back together.

“How did you kill him?” Jungwoo crooned from where he sat, fanning his freshly-painted nails with a magazine.

Doyoung responded with only a finger drawn over his throat and a quiet correction: “Her. It was a woman.”

“And how did she manage to piece this all together?” Johnny asked; the room quickly returned its attention to him. He had laid the images out on the table, and was glowering down at them—as if flimsy, blood-stained papers still had potential to do harm. Perhaps they did; the notion of intruders and spies in their midst was hardly encouragement. 

“Ugh! That’s the photo on my driver’s license!” Donghyuck cut in, whining obnoxiously as he sauntered over, clearly and horrifyingly drunk. He reached for the two halves of his photo, only to have them snatched away by Johnny. 

“Enough,” the elder grunted, gently pushing Donghyuck into a chair and returning his attention to Doyoung. “Well? Do you know?”

Doyoung hesitated—he knew exactly who Johnny would blame if he told him—and he resisted the urge to look at the person in question. “She found the old service tunnel in the east wing,” he started, then paused to survey the leader for his reaction: Johnny narrowed his eyes, but said nothing for the time being. “She snuck around our quarters through the walls and installed cameras in the air vents. That was enough for her to get images of our faces and hear our names.”

“And what about you? She had never seen you before tonight?”

“No. I got lucky. The vents in my room aren’t part of the network in the east wing, and even if they were, I was out of town for a few weeks. She mistook Jeno for me while I was gone.”

Johnny’s jaw tightened. “And she had him killed.”

“Yes.”  

The revelation brought a deathly hush. Doyoung was right: they had gotten lucky. Had Seir hired any other person to kill them, had they been even a little less prepared, any one of them could have met the same fate as Jeno. 

“Mark,” Johnny sighed at last, locking gazes with the one person who had kept his quiet this entire time. “Come here.”

Mark obediently shuffled to his feet, rising out of the shadows. The expression on his face was already wounded, like he knew what was to come; and when he stood motionless before the leader with his head lowered, he took on the form of a child awaiting chastisement. For several moments, Johnny simply looked him up and down, all prior emotion having disappeared from his eyes. For several moments, the air hung still, as they all held back from doing anything they might regret. 

Then Johnny lashed out, striking Mark across the cheek with little remorse.

The sharp sound of contact rang through the room, snapping everyone back to attention. Yuta looked up, frowning. Doyoung tensed. Even Donghyuck seemed to sober, and momentarily quit his garbled whining. 

They all knew: Johnny didn’t get violent often.

“John,” Yuta said in soft warning, but it went disregarded. 

“This keeps happening, Mark,” Johnny said lowly, leaning forward against the desk so he could stoop a little lower and meet the younger man’s gaze. “Why is that? Did you forget what I asked you to do?”

Mark shook his head no—he remembered exactly what he had been told—but Johnny answered for him anyway. “I said we needed to tighten up our security. Any corridors we’ve stopped using, any rooms that could potentially give us away, I told you to block them off. So why haven’t you?”

There was a shaky breath. “Taeil said not to.” 

“Taeil told you that?”

Mark nodded slowly. “He still needs access to plumbing. And ventilation. So I made the corridor accessible on both sides, but only to us— I-I thought he told you—”

“Fine. If Taeil said not to, fine,” Johnny snapped. “But you can do better than some hidden fucking entrance behind a statue that anyone can find.” The pause that came directly afterwards conveyed an even harsher warning. His voice dropped in volume, not low enough to be inaudible, but enough to sound especially cold. “You disappoint me, Mark. You’ve disappointed me too many times. For your sake and the rest of our sakes, I hope this is your last.” 

“Johnny,” Yuta called his name again, this time sharply. “Lay off him.”

“When he learns his lesson,” Johnny replied through clenched teeth. “He could’ve gotten one of us killed. Hell, Jeno’s already—”

“You’ve put him through enough.”  

Watching wordlessly from the sidelines, Doyoung expected Johnny to snap—to round on Yuta the way he had with Mark, claiming to have done no wrong. He waited for the room to dissolve into chaos, as it often did. But to his surprise, Johnny stayed quiet. He averted his gaze, clenched his jaw, and held back the words that were clearly on his tongue. “You can go, Mark,” he said at last, his expression easing from anger to discontentment when he caught sight of Yuta on his right. “I’m sure you’re busy.” 

And to the rest of the Seraphim present, “You’re all dismissed. Doyoung, I’d like a word.” 

Mark shuffled out of the room with his eyes still glued to his feet. The rest hauled a drunk Donghyuck along, and Yuta brought up the rear; he closed the door on his way out, leaving Doyoung and Johnny alone. 

“You’ve been hard on Mark,” Doyoung said after a few moments, once the footsteps in the hall had faded away. 

“I’ve been hard on everyone,” Johnny corrected him. There hung an air of exhaustion around the angel of night, and it was clear as day. His hair hung in dark tendrils around his face. His complexion had gone uneven, dark around his eyes like he hadn’t been sleeping well. While he usually donned various silver accents and expensive accessories to blend into the crowd upstairs, his appearance tonight was rather plain. Doyoung had left town on business only two weeks prior; but this and the thick tension he witnessed earlier suggested things had taken a turn since then. 

“Should I be glad that I wasn’t here?” Doyoung asked, noting the collection of cigarette stumps in Johnny’s ashtray—it was normally empty.

And Johnny replied shortly, “I’m sure things were worse on your end.”

He wasn’t wrong; the red stains in the backseat of Doyoung’s car and the duffle bag he’d thrown in a bonfire were enough testament. 

“Well, the cleanup was rather—”

Johnny wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I don’t want details.” 

 Doyoung watched in mild amusement as the leader rummaged restlessly around his desk for something. “I’m worried,” Johnny said absentmindedly as he produced a new pack of cigarettes from the drawer. So the collection of black remains in the ashtray did belong to him, Doyoung concluded as he watched; it seemed Johnny had fallen prey to old habits. 

“About what?”

He was left waiting for an answer while Johnny fished a lighter from his pocket and raised it to the cigarette between his lips. 

“Everything,” came the delayed reply, flat and emotionless, tight with irritation. “Business has been getting worse. Guests are getting bored and leaving for good. Taeil’s gone off the rails too. He’s deaf to reason.”

“What did he do now?”

“He thinks he can solve all our issues with chemistry.” His face lit up with remembrance. “Right, don’t drink the tap water, he’s laced it with something.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again. Some sort of sedative. He thinks it’ll keep people soft and pliant and dumb enough to consider extending their stay. It doesn’t matter, because it won’t work. Now all of this—” Johnny spread his hands for emphasis. “—these people sneaking around the house and trying to unearth secrets that don’t exist? Strangers putting bounties on our heads when we’ve done nothing wrong?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re completely innocent.”

Johnny gave a bark of emotionless laughter; he couldn’t deny it. The drugs and illicit substances, Doyoung’s side hustle in contract killing, Taeil’s bloodied lab in the basement, countless other things that he had lost track of. All for the sake of found family, for the sake of the most important people in his life and for the sake of their collective sanity, he would allow it. 

“Tell me everything,” he said at last, resting his smoke on the rim of the bronze tray. 

“Everything about…?”

“This Prince Seir you met.” 

So Doyoung told him. He told him about the strange trails that had been left in dark corners of the internet and old clubs of a nearby town. They were subtle messages, sent by an individual who needed a “job” fulfilled on Seraph’s Hill. He told him about Taeyong, who had noticed a strange alias checking in and out of the estate every now and then, the same one Doyoung had seen online. Then about Jungwoo, who passed Doyoung’s name through groups and groups of distant associates, until it reached Seir herself—at which point she contacted him by email. 

Johnny never interrupted nor spoke. He maintained the same posture in his chair and took occasional drags from his cigarette, never moving more than was required. Though he was quiet, he was hardly a good listener: unresponsive, horribly vague when he did react, always maintaining an overwhelming presence that loomed uncomfortably over Doyoung as he spoke. He felt as if he was talking to a brick wall, and at the same time, like the brick wall was staring into the very depths of his soul, passing judgement on every word that came out of his mouth. 

“You’re on the internet often, then, if that’s how you stumbled across her.” Johnny peered at him with intrigue when he finished. “Forums dedicated to us, online discussion about us… Tell me, what do people say about Seraph’s Hill?”

“A lot of bullshit.” 

Johnny was cross. “What do they say?”

“That we’re a house of mysteries. That it’s strange, how people can come in sober and ready to unearth our secrets, but always wake up wasted the next morning.”

“Doing drugs does that to you.” 

“The water tastes weird. The statues in the back gardens are creepy. The whiskey is fucking overpriced, and the blonde bartender is sexy. That kind of bullshit.” 

Johnny said nothing. For the next minute and a half, they listened to the gurgling of water in the fountains and the classical music from the ballroom. The hands of the clock behind them moved along without noise, but Doyoung heard ticking in his head. 

“Thank you,” Johnny said at last, and put his cigarette to the dusty metal of the ashtray. A steady stream of smoke escaped his fingers, fading to nothing. “You can go now.” 

Doyoung got up from where he sat, only to see his leader’s expression shift once more—almost like he’d remembered something important. There was a momentary pause, and he seemed softer. 

“It’s good to have you back, Doyoung.” 

He nodded in agreement; it was good to be home. 

On the other side of the property, moonlight fell between the iron gates of hell—illuminating the crimson streaks on the prince’s face, and guiding the two figures who escorted her. Her silver hair made glimmering lines on the concrete, and her broken body scraped haphazardly along the ground. There was no need to be delicate, so long as her innards remained intact for what was to come next. She passed into the underground, eyes wide and unmoving, frozen in their sockets. 

And a cloud passed over the moon. 

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a number of new steps his administration will take to try to get more Americans vaccinated and slow the spread of coronavirus, including requiring that all federal employees must attest to being vaccinated against Covid-19 or face strict protocols.

The new measures come amid a rise in Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the US. The vast majority of those individuals with severe cases of Covid-19 are unvaccinated.

"This is an American tragedy. People are dying -- and will die -- who don't have to die. If you're out there unvaccinated, you don't have to die," Biden said during remarks at the White House. "Read the news. You'll see stories of unvaccinated patients in hospitals, as they're lying in bed dying from Covid-19, they're asking, 'Doc, can I get the vaccine?' The doctors have to say, 'Sorry, it's too late.'"

In his sternest approach yet to pushing Americans to get vaccinated, the President bluntly argued that if you are unvaccinated, "You present a problem to yourself, to your family and to those with whom you work."

Biden said every federal government employee and on-site contractor will be asked to attest to their vaccination status.

Employees who have not been vaccinated "will be required to wear a mask on the job no matter their geographic location, physically distance from all other employees and visitors, comply with a weekly or twice weekly screening testing requirement, and be subject to restrictions on official travel," the White House said ahead of Biden's speech.

The federal employee vaccination requirement is not a mandate, officials have insisted, and most federal employees who do not get vaccinated will not lose their jobs as a result, CNN previously reported.

But the decision nonetheless marks a pivot away from encouraging Americans to get vaccinated in their own time and stepping toward placing the onus on unvaccinated individuals.

Other efforts the administration debuted Thursday to incentivize vaccinations included expanding paid leave for employees who take time off to get themselves and their family members vaccinated. Biden said employers would be reimbursed. He also called on states, territories, and local governments to do more to incentivize vaccination, including offering $100 to Americans getting vaccinated, paid for with American Rescue Plan funding.

"I know that paying people to get vaccinated might sound unfair to folks who got vaccinated already. But here's the deal: if incentives help us beat this virus, I believe we should use them. We all benefit," Biden said.

The President also announced that he is ordering the Department of Defense "to look into how and when they will add Covid-19 to the list of vaccinations our Armed Forces must get."

"Our men and women in uniform, who protect this country from grave threats, should be protected as much as possible from getting Covid-19," he said. "I think this is particularly important because our troops serve in places throughout the world, many where vaccination rates are low and disease is prevalent," Biden added.

All military and civilian Defense Department personnel will be asked to attest to their vaccination status, the department said Thursday evening. Those unable or unwilling to do so will "be required to wear a mask, physically distance, comply with a regular testing requirement and be subject to official travel restrictions," Jamal Brown, deputy Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.

The department is also considering adding the Covid vaccine to the list of required vaccines for military personnel.

"Secretary (of Defense Lloyd) Austin will begin consulting our medical professionals, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to determine how and when to make recommendations to the President with respect to adding the COVID-19 vaccines to the full list of requirements for military personnel," Brown said.

The President on Thursday also called on school districts nationwide to host at least one pop-up vaccination clinic over the coming weeks in an effort to get more kids 12 and older vaccinated.

Responding to reporter questions after his remarks, the President said he didn't know yet whether the federal government had the power to require vaccines. "It's still a question whether the federal government can mandate the whole country" require vaccines, he said, adding that he expects the vaccines will be fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration by the fall.

But soon after the President's speech, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients told CNN's Wolf Blitzer the administration is not considering a nationwide Covid-19 vaccine requirement.

"That's not an authority that we're exploring at all," Zients said on "The Situation Room."

On Monday, the Justice Department determined that federal law doesn't prohibit public agencies and private businesses from requiring Covid-19 vaccines -- even if the vaccines have only emergency use authorization so far. Biden's aides had previously said they do not believe he has the power to require all Americans to get shots. But his oversight of the federal workforce, they believed, can be a powerful model to other employers considering their options on requiring vaccines.

But several groups representing federal workers across the government are already raising concerns about the requirement for their personnel, including groups representing federal law enforcement officers, IRS managers and members of the US Border Patrol, among others.

Other groups, like the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, have come out in support.

The goal of the requirement, Biden aides have said, is to render being unvaccinated so burdensome that those who haven't received shots will have little choice other than to get them. It's an approach being tested by leaders in Europe, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who required either proof of vaccination or a negative test at public venues. And some states, including New York, have also said government employees must either prove they've been vaccinated or be tested weekly.

The White House had previously indicated it would support private companies' decisions to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations, but Biden took it a step further on Thursday, saying that he'd like to see companies, states and schools move in the direction of requiring Covid-19 vaccination.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said Wednesday on CNN that health passes for the fully vaccinated, such as those used in parts of Europe, "may very well be a path forward."

But the President appeared to put that responsibility on businesses -- not the federal government -- on Thursday.

"My guess is that if we don't start to make more progress, a lot of businesses and a lot of enterprises are going to require proof (of vaccination) or you're not going to be able to participate," Biden said.

The prevalence of the highly contagious Delta variant in the US and low vaccine uptake have led to the federal government to take a number of steps to further mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

Zients told Blitzer that the FDA is certain that Americans don't need boosters right now, but it will continue to monitor the data.

"If they do decide that Americans need boosters, we are ready," he said. "We have the supply, and people will be able to get a booster shot -- if it's needed -- in a fast and efficient manner."

Earlier this week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended everyone -- including vaccinated individuals -- wear masks indoors in areas of substantial or high Covid-19 transmission. The agency also recommended masks for all K-12 children in schools, even those who have been vaccinated.

The Department of Veterans Affairs also recently announced it would require frontline health care workers to be vaccinated over the course of the next two months.

During his remarks on Thursday, Biden acknowledged frustrations over the nation's slow bounce back and the renewal of restrictions.

"We have the right plan. We're coming back. We just have to stay ahead of this virus," Biden said. "I know this is hard to hear. I know it's frustrating. I know it's exhausting to think that we're still in this fight. And I know that we hoped this would be a simple, straightforward line without problems or new challenges. But that isn't real life. (We're) coming out of the worst public health crisis in 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

The latest data from the CDC indicates that 49.4% of the total US population is fully vaccinated. And despite a previous downward slope in the pace of vaccinations, 389,963 people are now initiating vaccination each day, according to the current seven day average.

This is the highest it's been in more than three weeks, but it's still lower than the pace set by millions who were receiving shots every day earlier this year.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

The fallout from the story of Trump calling soldiers “suckers” and “losers” continues. Yesterday, Trump told reporters that military leaders don’t like him because they want to funnel work to defense contractors. “The top people in the Pentagon… want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy,” he said. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to spin this as Trump’s attempt to protect soldiers from “the military industrial complex,” a phrase Republican President Dwight Eisenhower used to warn against funneling tax dollars into military contracts. Trump then retweeted posts comparing himself to Eisenhower.

In fact, Trump has made military build-up and selling U.S. weapons abroad key to his foreign policy. His Defense Secretary, Mark T. Esper, is a former top lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, and last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared an emergency to push through $8.1 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after lawmakers of both parties objected to the sale.

Trump’s about-face from boasting how he has built up the military to saying he opposes military build-up seems most likely to be simply another angle of attack against a story that is not dying. Yesterday, in The Atlantic, conservative columnist David Frum published a story titled “Everyone Knows It’s True.” Frum noted that while the First Lady, Cabinet secretaries, and Fox News Channel personalities have all insisted the story is false, the people who worked closely with Trump on military matters have remained resolutely silent.

Frum wrote, “Where are the senior officers of the United States armed forces, serving and retired—the men and women who worked most closely on military affairs with President Trump? Has any one of them stepped forward to say, ‘That’s not the man I know’? How many wounded warriors have stepped forward to attest to Trump’s care and concern for them? How many Gold Star families have stepped forward on Trump’s behalf? How many service families? The silence is resounding.”

Today, Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen released his new book. It, too, spoke of a disconnect between Trump’s public words and his private attitudes. “The cosmic joke was that Trump convinced a vast swath of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being,” Cohen wrote. “The truth was that he couldn’t care less.” “Everyone other than the ruling class on earth was like an ant, to his way of thinking, their lives meaningless and always subject to the whims of the true rulers of the world,” he said.

Trump’s apparent tendency to treat women as subject to the whims of others was in the news today as his attempt to get rid of E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit is threatening the rule of law. In 2019, Trump denied he had raped Carroll, a journalist, more than 20 years ago, saying he had never met her and suggesting she was making up the story for publicity to sell a forthcoming book “or carry out a political agenda.” In November 2019, she sued him in New York for defamation.

Trump tried to stall Carroll’s lawsuit, arguing that a president was immune from civil lawsuits in state court, but in August, a federal judge rejected his bid and allowed the case to proceed. Carroll’s lawyers have asked for a DNA sample to match against material on clothing she was wearing when she says he assaulted her.

Today, lawyers from the Department of Justice asked to take over the case, arguing that Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied knowing Carroll and thus should be defended by the DOJ, which is funded by taxpayer dollars. CNN legal analyst Elie Honig called this “a wild stretch by DOJ.... I can’t remotely conceive how DOJ can argue with a straight face that it is somehow within the official duties of the President to deny a claim that he committed sexual assault years before he took office.” He continued: "This is very much consistent with Barr's well-established pattern of distorting fact and law to protect Trump and his allies.”

According to University of Texas Law Professor Steve Vladeck, the argument that Trump was acting “within the scope of his employment” when he defamed E. Jean Carroll is an attempt to get the suit dismissed altogether, because the government itself cannot be sued for defamation. Slate’s legal writer Mark Joseph Stern called the move “shocking and profoundly disgusting… and appalling and irredeemable debasement of the Justice Department, a direct threat to the very legitimacy of an agency that is responsible for enforcing federal law.”

The corruption of the DOJ was in the news in another way today, too, as White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo that he has seen “additional” documents from John Durham’s investigation that spell “trouble” for former FBI officials who began the inquiry into the ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to investigate the FBI after the agency’s independent inspector general reported that the Russia investigation was begun legitimately (the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee agreed). "Additional documents that I’ve been able to review say that a number of the players, the Peter Strzoks, the Andy McCabes, the James Comeys, and even others in the administration previously are in real trouble because of their willingness to participate in an unlawful act and I use the word unlawful at best, it broke all kinds of protocols and at worst people should go to jail as I mentioned previously," Meadows said.

But observers were quick to note that the White House chief of staff should not have seen any documents in a pending DOJ criminal investigation. Meadows might be making up the story that he has seen such documents. He has been in the news before for a loose relationship with facts: he represented that he earned a four-year college degree when, in fact, he earned a degree equivalent to two years at a community college. Or his comments might mean the DOJ is coordinating with the White House. Neither is good news.

Three drafts of a report from the Department of Homeland Security reviewed by Politico today give some insight into the upcoming election. They warn that Russia is trying to spread disinformation in the U.S., saying that “Moscow’s primary aim is to weaken the United States through discord, division, and distraction in hopes of making America less able to challenge Russia’s strategic objectives. Some influence activity might spill over into the physical world and motivate domestic actors to violence.” The report predicts foreign cyberattacks on the 2020 election, focusing on the personal information of voters, municipal and state networks, and state election officials. It notes that “Russia already is using online influence operations in an attempt to sway US voter perceptions” and to drive down minority participation in the election.

Even more striking, though, under “terrorism,” the first draft of the report says “Lone offenders and small cells of individuals motivated by a diverse array of social, ideological, and personal factors will pose the primary terrorist threat to the United States. Among these groups, we assess that white supremacist extremists—who increasingly are networking with likeminded persons abroad—will post the most persistent and lethal threat” throughout 2021. They will use “simple tactics—such as vehicle ramming, small arms, edged weapons, arson, and rudimentary improvised explosive devices” to encourage violence within the United States.” The report warns that they might well target campaign activities and election events.

According to the first draft report, white supremacists are more dangerous than foreign terrorist groups, which are “constrained.” The next two drafts watered down the words “white supremacist extremists,” calling them “domestic violent extremists.” But all three drafts note that white supremacists have killed 39 of the 48 people judged to have died from terrorism in the U.S. between 2018 and 2019.

None of the three reports refers to any threat from “Antifa,” the loose group of anti-fascist activists the Trump administration often describes as the instigators of recent unrest. Instead, two of the drafts say that rightwing extremists are trying to escalate lawful protests into violence.

The documents were leaked to Ben Wittes, the editor in chief of the national security website Lawfare, a leak that suggests someone at DHS is concerned about the administration’s apparent encouragement of rightwing extremists. (The citation for the first draft of the report is in tonight's notes. It’s worth reading.)

Finally, on Rachel Maddow’s television show tonight, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen confirmed something that many of us have suspected all along. "Trump never thought he was going to win this election, he actually did not want to win this election,” Cohen said. “This was a branding deal. That's all that the presidential campaign started out as, this was a branding opportunity in order to expand worldwide."

Heather Cox Richardson

Notes From An American

[vagrantblvrd]

Jeremwood FAHC where battle buddies formed before they joined the crew? Everyone is terrified until they find the pair dead asleep on Gavin or Lindsay, or both, and they just look confused/pleased respectively, and shoo everyone away when they try and wake the pair up? And just, sheer shenanigans between all of them as they all settle into a the full force of the FAHC

Hmm, yes, yes, I see what you’re getting at with this, Anon?

But may I humbly suggest the reason these two Very Scary and Spooky figures choose Team Losers for their respective human pillows has to do with their Tragic Backstories?

For an example:

Before they became the Super Scary duo known throughout all Los Santos (and certain areas outside it, most of which have been reduced to rubble and charred remains because idiots) they were (baby) agents in An Agency somewhere?

Very hush, hush, totally no shady goings on here, no sir Mr. Government overwatch group!

Just patriotic assassinations and the whatnot.

Ryan is all clean-shaven and by the book. Perfect role model for the other baby agents who came after him.

Stellar record and all that, did everything Right.

And then the handler he’s had since graduating the academy retired. (Or is retired, something that plants the initial seed of unrest/suspicion in the back of Ryan’s mind about what he’s been doing all this time, but we’ll get to that later.

Anyway, he gets a shiny new handler in this guy all the way from England, kid with this accent who makes no damn sense and Ryan is >:( because he doesn’t trust him? (Gavin’s a goddamned kid, wet behind the ears and the most ridiculous questions and Ryan’s supposed to trust him to keep him alive?)

But then they get tossed into training exercises and simulations to get used to each other and as annoyed as Ryan is with the ceaseless chatter, Gavin’s always on point when it comes to getting Ryan through the exercise/simulation flawlessly. (Well, okay. There’s a miscommunication or two due to cultural differences but they sort it out before disaster befalls them.)

And at the end of things Ryan’s a little annoyed at the fact he can’t fault Gavin’s expertise at his job. Especially when he’s kind of glowering at Gavin after one of the “cultural differences” arguments and Gavin challenges Ryan to take over Gavin’s job while Gavin runs through the exercise/simulation.

All, “…what?” because his old handler wasn’t a field agent in any form of the word, amazing at her job, sure, but a klutz who only passed the annual certifications because Ryan and her previous agents kept on her about them to make sure she’d pass and all that.

And Gavin, okay. Goddamned twig and just look at him, no way he could pull off an assassination in a controlled setting like this, okay. Gavin just looks at him like he thinks Ryan’s chickening out, because of course he would, and Ryan will be goddmaned if he lets this twig of an asshole get away with that. (Or…something.)

Gavin chortles all the way down to the training room floor, grins up at the cameras he knows Ryan’s watching him through and tosses off a little salute before wading into the training exercise.

Entirely new one the two of them haven’t gone through yet because this is meant to be a test for both of them, right? Gavin going to their superiors and agents and whatevers involved in running these exercises for an official okay from them and all that. (He puts it forward as a bonding exercise, way to gain trust between partners which will up their efficiency rating and all that and of course their superiors are eager to jump at the chance to have the two of them reach active status all the sooner and the whatnot.)

So.

Ryan in Gavin’s little command center realizing he’s maybe made a misstep with this dare/bet? He’d been in the room once or twice before talking to his previous handler, but when Gavin came into the picture he’d had it upgraded. More cameras and gadgets and other bells and whistles Ryan isn’t sure what their function is?

And hes clumsier than he’d like about it, toggling between camera feeds to keep track of Gavin’s progress through the levels. Goddamned mansion the agency had built for this particular exercise and Gavin charming his way through with barely a ripple to mark his passing.

Hasn’t alerted anyone yet and Ryan is struggling to keep up with him and okay, yes, it’s definitely harder than it looks from the outside. (He’s always known it in the back of his head, but it’s different now, isn’t it?)

Things go…okay for a bit, but then their superior threw in a little plot twist towards the end, this Ultimate Test for the two of them they obviously didn’t anticipate and Ryan almost gets Gavin “killed”, sends him down a dead end corridor, guards closing in and they both know he fucked up, and Gavin looks right at the closest camera.

Should, by all rights, be furious with Ryan because he fucked up – but all he does is ask Ryan some simple little question, look up the blueprints on one on the computers and see if there’s a discrepancy with the layout of the area he’s in.

Contractors and clients and other bullshit he doesn’t have time to explain, because Plot Reasons. Mainly due to the fact Gavin got his hands on the real blueprints involved in building the course level they’re using for the exercise because he likes to be thorough like that. (Might be considered cheating, but he’s all about everything he can do to keep his agent alive, even in a supposedly safe environment like the agency training courses.)

Lo and behold there is, some botched bit with the ducts or something hastily covered up, Ryan’s hardly an expert despite all the time he’s spent crawling through various systems in his career to date.

Gavin grins as he backtracks and finds the botched bit of construction hastily covered over. Since the “building” the agency is using for this training exercise is an overblown set piece it’s just been wallpapered over or something else, and Gavin is easily able to get through it and escape that way, because Plot Reasons.

Ryan’s still a bit shaken at the close call and Gavin has to get him back on task of leading him out of the ducts he’s in, which he does. Watching silently as Gavin exits the training level with the McGuffin he was sent to steal and a dead target behind him.

He apologizes to Gavin for almost getting him killed, which Gavin laughs and dismisses because he knows it wasn’t intentional (right, Ryan?), but maybe now he understands Gavin’s up to the job of keeping Ryan alive if he’ll let him.

Their bosses side-eye them for basically Kobayashi Maru-ing their way out of the training exercise, but decide Gavin’s more of an asset than they anticipated and praise him for his thoroughness. (While making a mental note to keep an eye on him because he really shouldn’t have been able to get his hands on those blueprints, you know?)

Anyway, they work together for a year or two until Ryan gets picked for this new agency that’s come along in the meantime. Even shadier doings than his original agency and so sorry, but you’ll be given a new handler and a field partner and really, Agent Haywood, you’ll be doing your country a great service with this new agency.

There’s this whole Thing where they say their goodbyes and Gavin, who has a bad feeling about all of it, warns Ryan to watch hi back out there since Gavin won’t be there to do it for him. Ryan is all ??? and also ditto and a little if Gavin ever needs anything to contact him? Which Gavin promises to do with more vice versa, but honestly they know the odds of them ever meeting again are slim to none.

(And Ryan’s kind of right, when his old agency goes down in flames a half a year or so later. Sabotage and all that and so many dead with Gavin’s name of the list of casualties and okay, right, totally nothing suspect there. Ryan absolutely buys into that load of horseshit after the way he saw their agency being whittled down before Ryan was picked for his current agency, or course. Totally doesn’t have a little side-hobby of untangling that mess to get to the truth, goodness no.)

ANYWAY.

Ryan gets paired up with Jeremy who is obviously a rookie agent out of whatever agency handed him over to their current agency.

Young and inexperienced in the field but eager to learn and smart as hell. Lot of potential and best of all doesn’t take Ryan’s bullshit, which is awesome.

There’s an adjustment period for both of them because their new agency is a bit more lax with the rules and regulations, and Jeremy rubs off on Ryan a little over time and vice versa.

They get this handler who is calm and professional – for the most part.

The three of them don’t really click as a team for their first few missions, but the third or fourth one in things go to shit in the most chaotic, bizarre ways possible?

And their handler, who up to this point has been completely normal proposes a ridiculous plan to get them out of their predicament and the worst thing is it works? Ryan in a goddamned clown suit and Jeremy posing as a cowboy (???) and they get their target and escape without incident somehow?

Get to listen to their handler howling with laughter as they speed away in a speedboat and share this look because what the hell? And Lindsay – of fucking course it’s Lindsay – getting herself under control to coordinate their extraction and whatnot.

Things get better (worse???) after that because their missions tend to go to shit more often than not requiring the most ridiculous plans to succeed and they’re still considered their agency’s top operatives.

Life has never been so strange for any of them.

Ryan loosens up, decides he likes the look of the beard he grew for a mission and keeps it unless there’s another mission that requires he shave it. (And then he goes right back to growing it out, and also just kind of loses his mind in general because no one can stay sane with both Jeremy and Lindsay in the mix, okay, no one.)

Lindsay starts joking around with them when they’re in the field and Jeremy is just. So flabbergasted at half the things she says and it’s all gloriously wonderful shenanigans and chaos and all that for a good long while for the three of them.

Lindsay watches these two idiots she’s responsible doing the Mutual Pining Thing and laughing at them because it’s pretty damn obvious they’re head over heals for one another?

All these little gestures between them in and out of the field, but then it just gets sad, you know?

Close calls thanks to the nature of their line of work, Jeremy sitting beside Ryan’s bed down in medical after a bad mission and vice versa. Longing Looks and Quiet Pining and Lindsay is their confidant and does her best to drops hints without betraying either of their trust in her.

Setting up situations where they have lunch or dinner together. The three of them out to have a dinner to celebrate some team milepost or whatever but she gets called away at the last minute for some minor  problem but no, really, you two enjoy yourselves they can do this again at a later date. (Heavy emphasis on the word date, but they’re too dense to pick up on it.)

And then! Just when she thinks they realize there’s a Mutual Pining Situation going on and might be about to do something about it?

Bad shit happens, because of course it does.

Someone contacts Lindsay, tells her trouble’s headed their way and to look out for her boys because they’re going to be at the heart of it, and Lindsay.

Oh, she knows exactly who sent her that message, the ones that follow because Gavin’s clever, right, but she’s just as good at her job as he is. (There’s this whole Thing where they met years ago, thanks to friendly inter-agency rivalries and Gavin worrying about idiot Ryan and just. Yeah.)

It’s thanks to him the three of them are prepared for the suicide mission meant to get rid of the Battle Buddies (the usual Conspiracy Plot Reasons) that allows them to fake their deaths. Handy little tip telling them a good place to hide out is Los Santos, and hey, take the scenic route just in case, which they do.

Meanwhile, Lindsay has all these files and the whatnot on what their agency have been up to that end up in the right hands, some reputable reporter or whoever and goes to lunch one day and forgets to go back afterwards.

Doesn’t go so far to fake her death, just disappears as far as the rest of the world is concerned while the agency more or less burns to the ground behind her.

She ends up in Los Santos too, gets a nice little apartment somewhere and gets a reputation for being a crazy cat lady with all the strays she looks after, fosters, handing them over to good homes and the like.

Hears rumors going around about this pair of mercs new on the scene a year or two later. Big scary bastard going around wearing a skull mask and his partner with the cowboy ensemble and laughs herself sick when she sees her boys on the news one night, because they haven’t changed a goddamned bit.

Wonders if they ever figured their shit out and makes plans to contact them to ask how they’ve been doing, but she gets a job offer before she can.

Some crew or other with a reputation of their own and this skinny prick of a Brit with the most obnoxious grin and gaudy sunglasses and the Fakes would be interested in someone with your particular skills, and is she interested?

Lindsay just looks at Gavin in his ridiculous get up and decides the hell with it, you know? She’s been on vacation long enough and if someone like him trusts these assholes she’s fine with it.

They hand her control of B-Team and she kind of loves it. The crew is her kind of chaotic and she gets why Gavin chose them out of all the crews in Los Santos.

No brainer when Geoff’s looking to expand the crew and there are these two idiots running around causing chaos without anyone to watch their backs but themselves. (Well, okay. And Gavin and Lindsay from the shadows, but they’re stretching themselves thin watching out for the Fakes and the Battle Buddies and it just makes sense to have them all under the same roof, so to speak.)

And then!

Ryan and Jeremy being ??? and !!! at seeing Gavin and Lindsay – initially suspicious because what are the odds?

Jeremy watching Ryan circling Gavin because it’s been years and he really wants to think he can trust the little shit, but so much has happened he’s not sure he can?(All this time he’s been trying to find out what happened to him only to see Gavin cozied up to the biggest crew in Los Santos???)

But then he realizes Lindsay trusts Gavin implicitly, that Gavin’s the reason the three of them made it out of the agency alive at all, and Gavin’s just giving him this little smile waiting for Ryan to make up his mind the way he did when they met all those years ago.

Various shenanigans as he realizes Gavin’s safe, the Fakes are safe, and Jeremy relaxes because he trusts Ryan’s judgment in this?

The two of them realize the others have no idea the four of them know each other from Before and get a kick out of fucking with them whenever they can, hence the human pillow Thing.

Big scary mercs napping like little kittens on them and everyone else being !!! because what do now??? while Gavin and Lindsay are like, no! They need their sleep, hush up or go away because you have no idea about these idiots and their sleeping habits! >:((((((((((

The slow realization the rest of the crew have that allowing the four of them to Shenanigate was a Terrible Idea as they rain chaos on Los Santos (and occasionally the crew itself).

Also?

Just shenanigans in general with Ryan being a creepy bastard and Jeremy being Jeremy and everyone worrying Gavin and Lindsay are going to be horribly murderized like the idiots they are because they just keep teasing and making fun of Ryan and Jeremy. Like. Mercilessly so the way they do the rest of the crew?

At least until something happens with someone from their old agencies out for Revenge and Gavin and Lindsay get grabbed and the crew going crazy trying to find them?

And then there’s the Battle Buddies all terrifyingly professional about ripping these bastards apart for touching their family – and their Tragic Backstories are revealed in which the crew had no idea about the (former) sekrit agents in their midst this whole time.

Also, also, the bastards who grabbed Gavin and Lindsay are suffering before the rescue party gets to their little hideout because Team Losers is a force to reckoned with on their own, you know?

Supposedly where the baddies want them, but the baddies miscalculated because they’re locked in there with Team Losers and oh God, make it stop, make it stop.

Absolutely no one on the crew’s side of things being surprised by this turn of events and it’s kind of a mercy killing for the baddies once they realize what’s going on.

Gavin and Lindsay just :DDDDDDDDDD “What took you guys so long?” even though they’re a bit bloodied up and kind of hurty feeling and everyone is just fucking Christ, you idiots.

And then shenanigans???

[theawkwardterrier]

things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 26

AO3 link here

Peggy tries to put on a good face during dinner, but he can tell that something is wrong. He knows it could be plenty of things; she’s been strained recently, the world coming at her from all sides. Even with his forewarning, the situation in the Middle East is barely holding together, and they were just discussing the other night the discovery of an ex-SHIELD agent shopping around a tell-all spy memoir. Still, he has the feeling that it’s something else, something larger that’s troubling her, that has been hanging in the background for a while and is now bursting into disastrous life.

Even the kids notice. Drea waves across the table to get her attention, and when nothing happens, Rose waves a hand as well, then Emma, until finally Nate touches Peggy’s shoulder and she shakes herself into awareness.

“I assume you’re all begging for the vegetables?” she asks, exaggerating the clenching of her fingers and raising an eyebrow to convey her sarcasm before lifting the dish. The kids laugh, but Steve notices them watching her for the rest of the evening.

He doesn’t bring it up while he washes the dishes, or sits to do his schoolwork. (He hadn’t had the time between his afternoon class, starting dinner, and helping the kids with theirs). Peggy takes a chair nearby, a novel held in her hand. When Steve looks up to stretch or give her a little smile, he notices the small muscles shifting beside her mouth, the tensed set of her fingers.

“Mom, tell Drea to give me back my book, I was just about to read it!” Rose hollers from her bedroom upstairs, despite the number of times they’ve tried to get them all to stop doing that.

“She hasn’t even started it and I’m just getting to the good part,” Drea yells defensively.

Peggy grimaces and stands. Steve stands too, wrapping an arm around her so that she stops moving toward the stairs. He kisses her mouth, then her forehead. “Let me take care of it.” She nods, and that’s when he knows that whatever she has to tell him will be worse than he’d feared.

He solves the fight between Rose and Drea pretty quickly (Drea gets to finish the chapter, but won’t take Rose’s things without asking) but then immediately gets sucked into the chaos of getting everyone to bed. The routine is a marathon these days: reading with Nate and Emma first, a chapter each once their pajamas are on and teeth are brushed (The Mouse and the Motorcycle for Emma, Green Knowe for Nate), before moving immediately over to knock on the bathroom door to remind Rosie to stop making faces at herself in the mirror, then going to sit on the edge of Drea’s bed and talk about her day before she turns out her light, another knock for Rosie so that she huffs out in her pajamas looking put upon, Drea coming blearily out with some concern (tonight’s: she wants to make sure that they’ll remember to buy a gift for Samara’s birthday party this weekend), a reminder to Rose that she can stay up in her room for another half hour as long as she doesn’t play her music too loudly, and finally he can go see Peggy.

(He misses those nights of just him and Peggy keeping each other company. He misses the kids gathering into one bed, piling on top of each other as he read to them all. He rubs a hand across his eyes. Rosie is in high school now, and somehow in the last year, Drea has decided that she doesn’t need someone to read to her anymore either.)

Peggy has her shoes off but remains dressed otherwise. Her blouse is even still tucked in. She looks up as he enters the room and closes the door behind him.

“Are you sick?” he asks, coming to sit beside her on the bed. He takes her hand, holding it loosely in both of his, but she takes it back, resting her palms back on the bed and leaning onto them. “Is it something with the kids?”

She shakes her head and gives a little laugh. “Only very indirectly, I suppose.” She stares ahead and doesn’t speak for a moment, then takes in a deep breath and begins. “We knew, of course, that there were Nazis who escaped, even some of the worst. And we knew that we haven’t come close to rooting all of them out or having even the slightest notion of where they might be. There are other people who have made that their job, and we help them when we can.”

Steve nods. He knows all of this.

“Last month, an informant came forward to the intelligence community. He had led a pair Nazi hunters to a village in Uruguay. A colleague of theirs came looking soon after, and he gave the same information. None of those people he had told about the village have been seen since.”

A lot of the Nazi hunters are Holocaust survivors, doing work that most of the world has already moved on from. Steve starts to feel a little sick.

“There is a way of seeing protocol,” Peggy continues carefully, “as having us report the information to the United Nations. But the delays, the probability of leaks, the potential for some sort of symbolic action only...none of us wanted that. We contacted the government in Montevideo directly, but with the election upcoming, they told us that it was too precarious a time to take on such a thing. They agreed to allow us to send a small military team, for surveillance and information-gathering at first, but for capture or elimination if necessary. That team has disappeared as well. We assume that they are dead.”

She takes another breath. “Despite my misgivings, I agreed to send a group from SHIELD to attempt another assessment of the threat. Howard and the lab equipped them with continuously broadcasting radios that worked even in very remote locations. The audio that we received…” Steve finds himself sitting very still, animal, as she soldiers on. “It seems that they are entirely suspicious and unwelcoming of outsiders, so there’s little opportunity for infiltration. They’re Nazis, a group of them, we’re absolutely certain, and what’s more, I’m fairly sure that they’ve scavenged some of Hydra’s technological remainders. Obviously without the Tesseract they don’t have quite the supernatural lethality, but whatever they have is overwhelming even well-trained operatives.”

“What about more significant military action?” The words, crisp and professional, surprise even him.

“With enough equipment and force, we could likely overpower them. But the Uruguayan government won’t commit their military before the election, and I’m concerned that the threat is growing too quickly to wait months. Sending in American troops, even if it is agreed upon, will undermine the work I’ve done in holding the line against constant military intervention in Central and South America. ‘It seems Director Carter would just like to lead us around without following her own advice.’ Never mind that this is about genocidaires, war crimes, not to mention the potential existential threat, not about propping up—” She brings herself up straight, presses the side of a hand to her eyes, then drops them both to her lap. She looks at him with deliberateness, taking a deep breath, and he knows what she is about to ask.

“Before I go, I’d like to listen to the broadcasts you have,” he says before she can, before she has to. His voice is calm, secure, as far as he knows; it is as if he is hearing it from afar. “I know I’m not authorized for it, but I’m probably not authorized for this conversation either.”

She looks at him with such sadness. Her lips, still their signature red even after a long day, lie parted instead of pressing together to call up composure. But she takes what he has given her, and goes on.

���I can have Howard make copies of the recordings if you’d prefer to listen to them here, but you can come into the office if you’d rather.” He’s usually busy enough throughout the day, but he has come to visit her at work before; it’s not unheard of for them to go into her office and close the door and have any staff nearby take a long lunch. “We would keep your name out of it completely: you would work under an alias, and we would give you false documents. I would refer to you as an outside contractor; I don’t think the other intelligence heads are as engaged with this as I am and I can likely get it past them. Any other operatives we would allow into that field wouldn’t be informed of who you are. I would make sure that—” She catches in a breath. “I would make sure that after this is finished, there isn’t a trace left that it ever happened.”

You will be able to return to this life we’ve built, slip right back into it without a thought, is what she is saying, what she is trying to promise him. Steve looks around at their room: their matching firm pillows, the towel he had tossed indifferently over the side of the laundry basket that morning, the photos on the nightstand, Peggy’s cosmetics carefully lining her vanity, her hairbrush angled at the front. He knows that no matter what even she can manage, no matter what happens in Uruguay, when he comes back, it will all look a little different, a little unfamiliar. “It’s okay, Peg,” he says simply. “This is important.”

“I’ve already selected a group who would be good candidates to accompany you, if you wanted them,” she says. “I can tell them in the morning.”

“That would be good.” Even when he was in practice rather than simply relying on enhancement and old reflexes, he had so often worked with a team. He thinks about the shield, locked away beneath the ice. He knows the coordinates where he had been found the first time. Howard bought the land around it years ago, hiding it among other seemingly random purchasing whims, just to make sure that no one else would happen upon that spot. In the back of Steve’s mind, he had idly thought that it would be a good spot for climate research in the upcoming years, assuming that he could successfully steer Howard in that direction. Now he considers the place in a new light: the time for the trip there and back, the machinery involved (drills, something, he doesn’t know), the secrecy, the way he would be robbing his own grave if he did such a thing. “I’ll need to talk to Howard about...equipment, too.”

She gives a bare nod, but is quiet, as if she’s finally come to the end of what she has been forcing out. She only speaks again a moment later. Her tone is low and he thinks only he could hear the sob beneath it. She places a hand on his cheek. “I’m so sorry. I thought I would be able to keep all of it away from you. I promised you that. My job requires that I send people into danger, but you...I never wanted to have to ask this of you.”

“It’s okay,” he repeats. “It’s okay. I know you did what you could. And now it’s my turn.”

And she must believe him, at least a little, at least enough, or at least she can pretend, because when he takes her hand again, she lets him keep it. She slides her fingers among his and does not let him go.

He spends ten days training while the kids are at school. Peggy says they have the time for that, at least. He misses classes while he does it, lets his professors know that he has an important personal matter to attend to over the next several weeks. They’re mostly understanding. He sends in assignments by mail when he’s able. He’ll take summer classes to make up whatever he needs to if it comes to that.

He thinks of the summer with both longing and disbelief. It is only a few months away in true time, but unfathomably far when he can’t think past the mission counting its way down toward him.

They tell the kids that he’s been offered an opportunity for a short field study with one of his professors. Although he knows that he should be savoring it, storing up these memories, for the first time his children’s laughter, their teasing, is bitter to him. Because it will be so easy for him to die there, and if he does, this lie will be the last thing they know of him.

Peggy drives him to the airport. He watches her hands - their painted nails, their steadiness on the wheel - and her eyes as she drives. When they arrive, she follows him out of the car, leaves the door open in front of the terminal, kisses him gently, then ferociously, pressing up into him, then gently again. She is so much more familiar to him than when they did this once before. Somehow he thinks the ache is worse this time: then he wondered at the possibility of what they might have had, but now he knows that future intimately and trembles at the thought of losing it.

She bends her head for a moment, rests her forehead against the open collar of his shirt. “You have a startlingly good track record for successfully coming back to me,” she says against him. “Don’t let’s ruin things now, hmm?”

“I don’t plan to,” is all he can manage. He doesn’t feel solid enough for promises.

He flies from DC to New York, then down to Buenos Aires. The agent barely examines his beautifully faked passport before stamping it, and no one (thankfully) checks his suitcase.

The rest of the team is already in place: a group of six, all professional operatives who look him over and simply nod.

They have their own leader, a reasonable man who meets with Steve to plot out their strategy on the hours driving north and later hiking up into the lower parts of the mountains. The way he talks about the rest of the group is appealing - he makes clear their strengths, assigns them where they’ll be most useful, never tries any of the put-downs disguised as ribbing that Steve’s seen from commanders before.

They don’t need to calculate coordinates to know when they arrive. It’s a while since they’ve seen much of anything and then there it is: carved into wilderness with an arched metal gate that might be blank but makes Steve stare and set his jaw.

There are cameras. They could have guessed that there would be, but Steve’s heard the recordings too. “I think they’re watching us,” said one voice to another, pitched soft, horribly young. Steve had put his head in his hands.

There’s no time for that now. The others look to him. He gives the nod. Lowry nods back, an explosive already in hand. She pitches it, the first move, and they begin.

In the heat of it, there is familiarity. The stand-in shield Howard made isn’t truly like the original - the alloy he’s created is strong and still lightweight, but it isn’t vibranium - and yet Steve falls into patterns that his body somehow remembers. The instinct of when to swing forward, when to duck, how to use the surroundings against your opponents...these things have not gone away the way he thought they had.

The rest of his team is highly trained, armed with excellent weapons, and, even with his help, at a distinct disadvantage, and not only because the enemy has excellent weapons of their own.

There is an echo of himself in the men Steve fights, and he pictures Dr. Erskine’s face. Not in that last moment, bleeding on the floor, but before then: weary and wise, with a bit of mischief. How it would have destroyed him to know that these are the broken, brutal remains of his work.

And Steve pushes on, Erskine’s true legacy. He fights for those beside him who he has promised himself he will see home, fights for the right in the world as he always has. He leaves a man shattered on the ground and remembers Emma’s high, delighted giggles overlapping with each other, her kiss to his cheek as he had left. A blow to the gut and he pictures Drea squinting at the pitcher with determination as she comes up to bat. He blocks a bullet with his shield and flashes to Rosie’s surprisingly dreamy face when he had come to pick her up from painting scenery late one afternoon. In the moment when he sees one of his men fall, a broken promise, he thinks of Nate’s hand slipping into his at a street corner, his small, sturdy voice.

And he pushes on, Peggy filling his mind, Peggy asleep and wakeful and waking, Peggy determined and forceful, thinking, listening to him by the radio as he knows she must be now. Peggy in her office, Peggy in her favorite chair at home, Peggy in the yard with sun in her hair, Peggy with his name alight in her mouth.

And he pushes on, for the world and all of them within it, and for himself too.

On the ride from the airport, he ponders saying that he is tired and going to go straight to bed. And it’s true in some ways, as he considers the bodies on their way back to SHIELD to be prepared and returned to the families for burial, as he thinks of the work still ahead ensuring that Hydra is truly gone, as he thinks about whether this was something that had happened the first time without his knowledge or whether rooting out Zola and the others had just made the problem more vicious and secretive. (He does not know, even when he closes his eyes to sleep, what he will see in his dreams.)

But he walks into the hallway of his home and holds his arms open for his kids as they run to meet him. He sees his textbooks stacked on the bookshelf, their knowledge ready to fill him, to offer an opportunity for debate, to prepare him to do a new and different sort of good in the world. (He will be early for class tomorrow.)

Peggy steps into the lighted doorway of the kitchen, drying her hands on the apron she is wearing. She wades past the children clamoring around them and he meets her, her fingers against his forearms, his mouth against hers. Even once they’ve parted, she holds his face between her palms.

“How are you, my darling?”

He takes in a breath. The children have darted into the kitchen, enticed by dinner or somehow knowing that their parents need a moment. “Through to the other side. But I think I could—I can do it again, if you needed me too.”

She tilts her head thoughtfully. There are lines beside her eyes these days. He wants to trace them, with his finger, with his mouth, to make sure that he remembers each one. “I know better now,” she says, “than to say I will never need you again. But for now, I think you’re needed here.”

He nods, but she does not wait for it. She takes him by the hand and leads him toward the kitchen too, toward the glow and warmth and love there.

More chapters here

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Trump administration backs off plan requiring international students to take face-to-face classes (Washington Post) The Trump administration on Tuesday dropped its much-criticized plan to require international college students to leave the United States unless they are enrolled in the fall term in at least one face-to-face class. The abrupt reversal, disclosed in a federal court in Boston, came a little more than a week after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an edict that stunned U.S. higher education leaders and students worldwide. Under the July 6 policy from ICE, international students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities for the fall semester faced a mandate to take at least one course in person. Those students, ICE said, “may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.” That mandate posed a major obstacle to plans for online teaching and learning that colleges are developing in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had sued to block the new policy. In a hearing in that case on Tuesday, held before U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, the judge announced that the schools and the federal government had reached an agreement that made the lawsuit moot. Separately, 20 state attorneys general had also challenged the guidance in court in recent days.

Patients are still delaying essential care out of fear of coronavirus (Washington Post) Jim Johnson was elated when his hip replacement, canceled in March along with other elective surgeries, finally was performed in May. For months, his pain had been so severe he couldn’t sleep, golf or do his job. Just a few weeks after the operation, he tossed his cane away. Hospitals and doctors practices across the country are hoping there are a lot more Jim Johnsons out there—patients willing to shake off fears about the coronavirus and come back for tests and treatments put on hold early in the pandemic. Yet persuading them to return for non-emergency care is a tricky message right now, with the virus slamming the South and West. In parts of Texas, Arizona, Florida and other states, elective procedures have been halted again. For some patients, the spike in infections is reigniting fears about catching the virus in a hospital or a doctor’s office. Doctors worry that could undermine their efforts to win people back, and lead to more lives being lost from other, often preventable causes, such as cancer and heart disease. Doctors say “elective procedures,” including for cancer, can’t be delayed indefinitely without ill effects. Hospitals, meanwhile, see orthopedic, cardiac and cancer surgeries as their key to survival after losing billions of dollars on the shutdown of lucrative procedures.

Global surge in coronavirus cases is being fed by the developing world—and the U.S. (Washington Post) When the United States began shutting down this spring, a virus that emerged months earlier as a mysterious outbreak in a Chinese provincial capital had infected a total of fewer than 200,000 people worldwide. So far this week, the planet has added an average of more than 200,000 cases every day. The novel coronavirus—once concentrated in specific cities or countries—has now crept into virtually every corner of the globe and is wreaking havoc in multiple major regions at once. But the impact is not being felt evenly. Poorer nations throughout Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa are bearing a growing share of the caseload, even as wealthier countries in Western Europe and East Asia enjoy a relative respite after having beaten back the worst effects through rigorously enforced lockdowns. And then there’s the United States, which leads the world in new cases and, as with many nations that possess far fewer resources, has shown no sign of being able to regain control.

Rules once lifted are reimposed to try to curb new outbreaks (AP) Virus restrictions once lifted are being reimposed, shutting businesses and curbing people’s social lives as communities try to curb a disease resurgence before it spins out of control. Residents of Australia’s second-largest city were warned on Wednesday to comply with lockdown regulations or face tougher restrictions. Melbourne’s 5 million people and part of the city’s semi-rural surroundings are a week into a new, six-week lockdown to contain a new outbreak there. Indian authorities will impose lockdowns in high-risk areas in nearly a dozen states as the nation’s coronavirus caseload approaches 1 million. Renewed restrictions took effect in Hong Kong on Wednesday, with public gatherings limited to four people, restaurants restricted to takeout after 6 p.m., and a one-week closure for gyms, karaoke bars, and selected other businesses. Masks also are mandated on public transit for the first time, with the non-compliant being fined. In the U.S., places including Washington state are delaying timetables for reopening their economies. Gov. Jay Inslee said counties will remain at their current stage of economic reopening at least until July 28.

Chaotic protests prompt soul-searching in Portland, Oregon (AP) Nearly two months of nightly protests that have devolved into violent clashes with police have prompted soul-searching in Portland, Oregon, a city that prides itself on its progressive reputation but is increasingly polarized over how to handle the unrest. Divisions have deepened among elected officials about the legitimacy of the more violent protests—striking at the heart of Portland’s identity as an ultraliberal haven where protest is seen as a badge of honor. Small groups of protesters have set fires, launched fireworks and sprayed graffiti on public buildings, including police precincts and the federal courthouse, leading to nearly nightly clashes with police who have used force that’s caused injuries. Similar unrest engulfed many U.S. cities when Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck on May 25. But in Portland, which is familiar ground for the loosely organized, far-left activists known as “antifa,” or anti-fascists, the protests never stopped. Lost in the debate are the downtown businesses racking up millions in property damage and lost sales and the voices of the hundreds of thousands of Portland residents who have stayed off the streets. “The impact is terrible because what people have seen on the TV ... has scared people who live outside the downtown. They feel it’s that way 24 hours a day,” said David Margulis, who said the protests have caused sales at his jewelry store to drop more than 50%. “I talk to people, on the phone, who tell me: ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever come downtown again.’”

Drug cartel ‘narco-antennas’ make life dangerous for Mexico’s cell tower repairmen (Reuters) The young technician shut off the electricity at a cellular tower in rural Mexico to begin some routine maintenance. Within 10 minutes, he had company: three armed men dressed in fatigues emblazoned with the logo of a major drug cartel. The traffickers had a particular interest in that tower, owned by Boston-based American Tower Corp, which rents space to carriers on its thousands of cellular sites in Mexico. The cartel had installed its own antennas on the structure to support their two-way radios, but the contractor had unwittingly blacked out the shadowy network. The visitors let him off with a warning. The contractor had disrupted a small link in a vast criminal network that spans much of Mexico. In addition to high-end encrypted cell phones and popular messaging apps, traffickers still rely heavily on two-way radios like the ones police and firefighters use to coordinate their teams on the ground, six law enforcement experts on both sides of the border told Reuters. Traffickers often erect their own radio antennas in rural areas. They also install so-called parasite antennas on existing cell towers, layering their criminal communications network on top of the official one. By piggybacking on telecom companies’ infrastructure, cartels save money and evade detection since their own towers are more easily spotted and torn down, law enforcement experts said.

Massive flooding in Southern China (Foreign Policy) Floods in Southern China are a recurring threat, but they are worse than ever this year—with some 38 million people evacuated and at least 141 dead. Rainfall has been double than the predicted amount in many places, threatening millions of lives and numerous important cultural sites. Thousands of soldiers have been dispatched to help shore up defenses against the rising tides. Water control has been a preoccupation for every Chinese ruler, and it will only worsen with climate change. China’s worst-known flooding, in 1931, killed over 2 million people.

South China Sea positions (Foreign Policy) The United States has dispatched two aircraft carriers—likely to be backed by British support—to the South China Sea, increasing the possibility of a regional flash point. It has also declared its formal alignment against China’s disputed claims for the first time, saying that it would use “all tools” to oppose them. In the last decade, China has made significant gains in the South China Sea, building a formidable infrastructure of artificial islands to act as bases while strengthening its naval militia. It is also increasingly aggressive in challenging rival claimants, including stalking Vietnamese oil ships and clashing with fishing boats. The U.S. move is long overdue, but it’s also risky: Xi stakes considerable credibility on the South China Sea claims, and there’s no likelihood of Beijing backing down. The pressure on Chinese officials and military personnel to demonstrate their nationalist enthusiasm is growing, increasing the chance of serious conflict similar to the deadly clash on the Indian border.

Trump signs Hong Kong sanctions law (Foreign Policy) On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump continued a week of moves against China by signing a new law that imposes sanctions on Chinese banks doing business with Chinese officials involved with new national security laws in Hong Kong. The president also signed an executive order, largely mirroring existing policy, that revokes the special treatment Hong Kong had received from the United States under the “One Country, Two Systems” doctrine.

Red alert in Tokyo (Reuters) Tokyo raised its coronavirus alert to the highest “red” level on Wednesday, alarmed by a recent spike in daily new cases to record highs, with Governor Yuriko Koike describing the situation in the Japanese capital as “rather severe”. The resurgence of the virus could add to the growing pressure on policymakers to shore up the world’s No. 3 economy, which analysts say is set to shrink at its fastest pace in decades this fiscal year due to the pandemic. “We are in a situation where we should issue warnings to citizens and businesses,” Koike told a press conference, urging residents to refrain from unnecessary travel.

Lebanon looks to China as US, Arabs refuse to help in crisis (AP) Facing a worsening economic crisis and with little chance of Western or oil-rich Arab countries providing assistance without substantial reforms, Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is looking east, hoping to secure investments from China that could bring relief. But help from Beijing risks alienating the United States, which has suggested such a move could come at the cost of Lebanese-U.S. ties. A tiny nation of 5 million on a strategic Mediterranean crossroads between Asia and Europe, Lebanon has long been a site where rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia have played out. Now, it’s becoming a focus of escalating tensions between China and the West. In recent months, the Lebanese pound has lost around 80% of its value against the dollar, prices have soared uncontrollably, and much of its middle class has been plunged into poverty. Talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout have faltered, and international donors have refused to unlock $11 billion pledged in 2018, pending major economic reforms and anti-corruption measures. Left with few choices, Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government—supported by the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies—is seeking help from China.

[bleedingcoffee42]

Eureka AU- Part 6

The obligatory hospital episode where we throw medical words around like commas and hope nobody questions them.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Roy sat down on the floor of their laundry room where Riza chose to set her military foot looker when she moved in.   It never was unpacked, it just remained here as a piece of furniture they set their clothes bins on.   It was one of the few pieces of décor she brought to this home, one utilitarian wooden box painted in olive drab that stuck out like a sore thumb against all his simplistic pieces.    He didn't realize until now that she really didn't have anything of her own, except for this.  

Sure there were clothes, but who looked to the closet for possessions to define a person?   He felt like he was opening a buried treasure chest, a look at the history of one 1st  Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye prior to her arrival in Eureka.   This predated him, and he hated that he never really opened up the discussion about her past in case she did want to share it.   Instead he felt like he was invading her privacy as he opened the truck to go through it's contents.    

He was limited for time and he didn't want to dwell on it long.  After this was over, he would tell her in great detail about Hughes and ask her if she had anything she wanted to share.   He looked at a neatly folded pile of fatigues and lifted them out to set aside.   Her dress uniform hung in the closet, that she wouldn't dare wrinkle.   Then there was a belt and holster.   Some blankets.   Boots.   A gun cleaning kit and mess kit.   Knives.    And a small safe with a touch pad key code lock.   That he grabbed and immediately entered the code: 0611.

The case opened and there was a gun.  No surprise.   The journal secured to the lid was what he was after so he grabbed it and locked the box back up.   He opened the little book and saw meticulously kept, handwritten records of dates, times, coordinates and operations.   Causalities, notable events.  A record of every military action she had been a part of, starting with a confirmed kill as a cadet on the first page.

He blinked.  She hadn't even graduated yet and they sent her to the field as a sniper? A sniper.  She wasn't just a great marksman, she was one of the elite!   Then the pages of dates and times and numbers, bodies that piled up as she carefully pulled the trigger.   Recorded yardage, recorded shots, wind speed.  Everything bit of data to record this except for the target's name.

She was just a kid.

He had to focus.   This was all something for later.   He quickly flipped through the pages, keeping his eye focused on finding keywords: vaccination or Raven.  Finally he found the entry.   It was a mere six months prior to her coming to Eureka.   An engagement in the desert.   Something about seizing artifacts.   Her special ops team had been given a vaccination to protect them from an ancient virus that was suspected to be in the tomb they were vandalizing.   Well of course it wasn't writing in the ink that way, but he could read between the lines.  He saw the hesitation and the gap in the journal where she debated on what word to use, 'preserving from grave robbers' was written a lot harder than the rest of her sentence.   So he had his answer, the date and time of  her vaccination against a virus that had completely eradicated the people of an entire city-state in ancient times.  An advanced civilization who didn't stand a chance against this plague.

Roy was going to call Ed with the information, but instead chose to take a picture and text it to him.   There was a lot to digest in the entry and he didn't want to be the one to choose what was delivered as data and what wasn't.   He snapped a photo of the page and cropped it so it contained nothing but a description of the event.  The kid would never compromise Riza, he trusted him to use this information wisely, so he sent it.  Watched the confirmation that it was received and read and got back a text in reply.

“I get to be there when you take this fucker down.”

If only Ed knew that the battle was going to be in court, not some showdown in the streets.   It probably went a lot further than Raven, it's not as if some General was sitting in his room at night cooking up vaccinations like Meth.   He had a military contractor create this, he had someone tasked to create and distribute this for him.    Tracing it back to Raven would be next to impossible.   It went through the system like a root that broke through the pipes and was feeding on the sewer water.  

“We made this.”

Roy stared at that text.   Then another one appeared.

“We made the first one.”  

Roy closed his eyes.   Goddammit.  

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Roy made it back to the infirmary just as Ed arrived with the data he collected.   “So, where are we?”

Ed opened the door to reveal he had his brother Alphonse working on something with Dr. Marcoh.   Mustang went in the room, eyes glued to the dry erase board as the two worked out their thoughts for all to see.   “The original Xerses vaccine was made specifically for Hawkeye's team.”

“So you've checked personnel records?”  Roy asked, knowing the answer already. Riza was the loose end, it was important enough Raven got his hands dirty delivering the murder weapon.

“They're all dead.”  Dr. Knox said from the corner.   “The rest of her team is already gone.  Died in their sleep, shipped home and the plane went down.”

Roy could feel his rage brewing.  

“I made the vaccine.”  Marcoh said.   “I remember it clearly.   They sent me some cloth that was a burial shroud, from a tomb that had been excavated and the air had killed the grave robbers.    The instructions were to produce a vaccination for this antique strain in case the team going in to this vicinity was exposed.”

“There is nothing wrong with that, doctor.”  Roy assured him.   “You did save lives.”

Alphonse Elric stepped back from the board.   “The vaccine itself is not the issue, it's the administration of this recent booster that is.  The booster was made to specifically cause a response, to overwork the system which has an already built up immunity and can target what was injected.  It's a modified virus made to feast on it's weaker self.”

Roy looked at the notes on the board.   A vaccination meant to attack the very specific signature of the previous vaccination.  Something that would be in nobody else's system in the century unless the were given the first Xerses Vaccine.  So now it was attacking the host body itself.  “Well that is way beyond Raven's creative ability and comprehension.  Who the hell made this?”

“If I were a corrupt asshole who stole priceless relics from a war torn country,” Ed said.  “I would say that I had the money to spare to fund a private lab to create something for me.  We forget what it's like to not work here, someone out in a lab dying for funding and freedom would jump at the chance like this.”

“Especially with the spin that it's for the people.”  Alphonse added.

“For the refugees.”  Marcoh chimed in.

“For fucks sake.” Knox snapped and stood up to rush into the room with his patient.   He saw the vitals spike and knew the inevitable was here.  Her body was rejecting the baby to try and increase it's chances for survival.   She was suffering a miscarriage which under normal circumstances would be fine with just careful monitoring, but he was concerned about hemorrhaging in her current condition.  It was time to leave the cure to the researchers, he was here to be a doctor for his patient.

Roy was in the room immediately, following Knox as he tapped on monitors and lifted up the sheet and cursed to himself.   Roy didn't need him to tell him what was happening, he needed him to not say what was happening.   “Can we stop the bleeding?”

Knox looked over at him, eyes pleading with him to not go into detail with what was going on because he wasn't an idiot.   “Go help them find a cure.   There is nothing you can do here.”

Roy wanted to stay, it seemed right, but Knox was correct.   He was needed elsewhere.  So he turned around and went back into the observation room where Marcoh met him with consoling eyes and the Elrics searched his face for answers to their silent question.    They didn't need to know.   “What are the odds that we can attack this virus and not do more harm?”

“It's the only option we have.”  Marcoh said sadly.  “Odds are stacked against us.”

“Fuck the odds.” Ed said.  

“Brother.”  Al said and Ed went over to the board and circled the word Xerses Virsus.  

“We might not know what this mystery scientist made, but I bet we're a thousand times better than that hack!”  Ed said.  “We make our own virus to attack our known variable, Marcoh's Xerses Virus itself.   Then we'll know the worst case scenario of what we're dealing with and take the next step which is to figure out how to destroy what we made.”

“We don't have that kind of time.” Alphonse protested.

“We don't have a choice.”  Ed said.  “And if we run out of time I'll open the gate again and put her somewhere were time stops.”

“What the fuck, brother?”  Al's gasped and everyone looked to Al.  The portal wasn't something they understood at all.  He would dare open it again?  And jeopardize Hawkeye?

“Years off someone's life is better than no life at all.”  Ed snapped. “I'll make that sacrifice.   I'll make it.   She saved us and that's just equivalent exchange as I see it.”

Roy didn't say anything as Ed stormed out and screamed about getting to work.    Al mumbled about 'cheating death' and 'throwing limbs at God' before following his brother out of the room.   Marcoh just picked up his things and nodded before leaving.    Roy stood there and chose to ignore the reference to their Necromancy experiment gone wrong and pick up the tablet Marcoh left for him with the specs on his original Xerses vaccination.  Then he went into the room to be with his wife while they lost their first child.

[sineala]

Hi! You often metion in your comic books posts, that Tony is often put into the "bad guy" postion. What's his status now? Hero? Anti hero? Villain? And why do the writers do this? From the stories about comic book's civil war or the mindwipe situation one really starts to wonder if he will ever be a straightforward "good guy" again, without any gray morality involved.

This was a very interesting question! Thank you for asking! I think there are a few different issues at work here. (Under a Read More because I get a little grumpy about current canon.)

I would say that Tony is – setting aside for the moment runs like Superior Iron Man – still a hero. If you pick up an Iron Man comic, you are going to see Tony saving lives, because basically at the end of the day he still wants to help people. Granted, he’s more of an ends-justify-the-means kind of guy, which is why he will make decisions that Captain America would never make, but ultimately he does what he does because he believes that what he is doing is going to help the most people and harm the fewest. It’s not like you’re picking up… I don’t know, Deadpool or The Punisher or something like that. They haven’t changed that much about him.

One issue is that Tony’s personality as well as the stories they tend to give him often end up with him being put in some kind of adversarial role. We all know that he is basically his own worst enemy, and so when writers are trying to give Tony some kind of interesting narrative arc, one they often pick is basically “a loss of autonomy for Tony leads to terrible consequences.” So he gets drinking arcs – Demon in a Bottle, O'Neil’s run, Avengers Disassembled, Fear Itself. And in a more-superhero vein, he gets mind-controlled into hurting or killing people – Vor/Tex, The Crossing, Execute Program, Superior Iron Man. Or his tech turns on him and hurts people – LMDs, the Sentient Armor, and so on. So it’s easy, really, to look at this guy who can’t stand himself most of the time anyway and think, “I bet he would really hate it if he couldn’t control himself and he hurt people.” And one way to write that story is to make him a villain. At least temporarily.

Another issue is with the differing status of Tony in his solo books versus Tony in event books or making cameo appearances in other titles more generally. An event like Civil War is created by a whole lot of people – especially once you count the tie-ins – and not all of these people are really into writing Tony; possibly they are not even very familiar with his character. And I get the impression that these events are also very hard to coordinate at the editorial level, because they will often characterize the same character in very different ways, or have them do things in one book that are contradicted in another. Honestly, he comes off pretty badly in any Civil War book that is not his own tie-ins, The Confession, or Casualties of War. But which of them is the real Tony? All of them? Some of them? You pick! (Civil War II is a mess and literally no character looked good in it and it still makes no sense. Ugh. I think they were just like “here are some popular characters, let’s randomly assign sides.”)

However, I think that the mindwipe situation is different, because that was one extended story, the work of a single writer. I don’t think it was a great thing for Tony to do to Steve, no, but I can absolutely see it as an outgrowth of his generally extremely evident control issues that have been a big part of his personality since about the time of Armor Wars (or earlier, if you’d like to hypothesize that the alcoholism has some interaction with the control issues). He wants to have all the options on the table and he doesn’t want Steve telling him what to do. It’s a lousy thing to do to Steve, sure, but I can believe it from the guy who was pro-Registration because it was better than the alternative and him running it was better than anyone else. Tony’s mindset in Hickman’s run seemed to basically be that he was doing exactly what was necessary. So, I mean, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but I feel like at least Hickman put some thought into it.

And I think, finally, that a lot of the change in Tony’s character has to do with… well, the fact that one of his key traits is Being Really Rich. He was created back in 1963 as, essentially, capitalist propaganda, back when generally America was much more in favor of things like the military-industrial complex. I mean, okay, he’s a rich defense contractor who spends a whole lot of his early issues being the benevolent face of capitalism smashing the Communists over and over. And even when he’s not fighting, he’s being a Good Boss; he demonstrates a lot of caring and devotion to his employees on a personal level, and you can trust that he is just a really good guy who has a lot of money and genuinely wants to use his money to do good in the world. All the way up through… oh, about the mid-90s… we see him engaged in serious amounts of philanthropy. We see him actually, on panel, helping people out.

And now, well… I guess either billionaires don’t do that, or we don’t believe they could want to do that, or we all hate defense contractors now or late-stage capitalism has betrayed us all and now when we think of billionaires we can only picture Jeff Bezos probably diving into a swimming pool of money like Scrooge McDuck, or something.  Because Tony’s not really like he used to be anymore. Because – okay, I guess here is my Unpopular Opinion on comics – I feel like the way Tony is being written lately (say, Fraction’s run onwards) is really more of the writers’ “this is what I would do if I had a billion dollars!” fantasizing than trying to portray Tony as someone who primarily wants to be ethical with his billions of dollars. And so we’re getting “Tony sleeps with a lot of women because he is rich and he can!” and “here is Tony at his awesome climbing wall just because!” and “here he is with his gigantic ego that he apparently has now, that all his friends comment on, because he is rich and obviously full of himself!” and to me it just seems like… well, like a power fantasy in the way that superhero comics are power fantasies, but this one is a wealth fantasy and not just a “I wish I could punch people through walls” fantasy which I guess is a fantasy that some people have? I know, I know, I don’t know why I’m here sometimes either.

So I feel like sometimes the writers look at Tony and just say, “Aha, he is a rich guy, and I need a rich guy in my plot to do rich guy things!” and these days rich guys are kind of shady, culturally, and so that’s why you get things that sort of make sense right up until you wonder why Tony is the one doing them because Tony Would Never. (Like, he’s a member of the Hellfire Club! Does that seem like even remotely his thing?)

I hope that helps answer your question? I don’t know if that made any sense.

[deankinslowindianapolis]

5 Top Tips for Dealing with Contractors

One of the things that people ask most often is how they should tackle the task of managing the various contractors that they need to complete their construction project. When dealing with contractors, several factors can combine to make the process go more smoothly for all involved, and we have listed five below.

Planning

Those who don’t plan their success are effectively planning for failure. However, it can be helpful to map everything out well in advance and ensure you have a clear idea in your mind of what it is that you would like the contractors to do.

Clear and well-presented ideas will find the best responses, so think about how best to organize and prepare what you want to say to the people tasked with carrying out your vision.

Communication

As with any other aspect of business, or life in general, communication is critical when dealing with contractors. Clear communication channels will reduce project friction and allow for a clearer understanding of required outcomes from all parties.

This communication may take the form of in-person meetings or video calls. In addition, once-weekly progress reports can strike the correct balance between supervising progress and micro-managing.

Utilize Technology

Many project management software solutions on the market can bring all the information together transparently. As a result, everyone can see who should be doing a particular part of the project on which day.

Discuss this with your team and figure out which solution they would collectively be most comfortable with, then go with that. It is vital to get buy-in from the contractors on this type of innovation. It will be easier to do this if you explain the advantages they will experience from participating.

Apps like Monday.com, Trello, Asana and the like are available on people’s smartphones and can take the strain out of coordinating workflows across a large team. For example, management can assign tasks to each team member for a particular day, and you can see when the deadlines are. This level of clarity essentially allows for better planning for the whole team and improves communication.

Anticipate Problems

Don’t necessarily think the worst, but be aware that problems and delays can and very likely will happen. For example, it isn’t helpful to lose your temper with the team when things happen that are outside their control, as this may make for poor workplace relations. Hence, it is essential to take the time to get your mindset straight before you start.

Anticipate that there might be problems, but also try to anticipate some of these difficulties in advance so that you can work around and circumvent the worst of them when they happen. This anticipation can help to get the team back on track quicker than would otherwise have been possible and means that there isn’t the same kind of hit to morale.

It is important to remember that nobody wants to feel like they are doing a lousy job. However, if you can encourage them and suggest workable solutions rather than getting mad will help the project proceed at a faster pace overall.

Embrace Teamwork

The phrase “teamwork makes the dream work” may be a little overused and cliche, but it has become that way for a reason. It is crucial to embrace collaborative working and use the “softer” interpersonal skills to smooth away any difficulties. Cultivate good working relationships with the team, especially your critical points of contact, and the whole project will benefit.

Try not to verge into micromanaging as this will feel frustrating to more experienced members of your team. On the other hand, people who have worked in this field for a long time need to believe that you have confidence in their abilities to get the work done, so try to give them the space they need to thrive.

Further Information

Here at Cruitfly, we offer excellent solutions for contractors to find new talent and for individuals to discover the work opportunities they are seeking.

As the “great resignation” has become a sharp focus for businesses, there has never been a better time to look outside your networks for new talent. We are well-placed to offer temporary staffing solutions to cover skills gaps. We also provide the chance to directly hire our recruits where they prove ideal for your company.

We can place people anywhere up the chain, from entry-level to leadership positions and have high-quality candidates joining us regularly. We fill roles in new construction, communication infrastructure, commercial energy and general labor.

[jodybouchard9]

7 Types of Home Improvement Projects You Should Avoid During the COVID-19 Pandemic

AleksandarNakic/Getty Images

Quarantine means spending way more time at home—and for some people, that also means noticing everything you want to change about your space. But is now a good time to take on a major renovation project?

Probably not, experts say.

“If you’re not already in the middle of a renovation, I don’t think right now is the time to start a big project,” says Katie Kurtz, a real estate agent in Minneapolis and home design blogger at Adorned Homes. “You could get into the middle of it and realize you need help with it, and you’re probably not going to be able to find anyone to come in.”

In compliance with social distancing guidelines, many contractors are limiting the number of people on work sites, which means projects are taking longer than usual, Kurtz says.

But even DIY projects come with challenges during a pandemic.

“Most stores only allow a handful of people in at one time,” says Casey Lyn Daneker, a real estate agent in Philadelphia. That means last-minute trips to pick up supplies could prove challenging—not to mention risky from a health perspective.

So, which projects should you avoid tackling during a pandemic? We asked the experts.

1. Anything that requires precious PPE

Personal protective equipment—or PPE—is in high demand and short supply right now, as hospitals struggle to gather adequate supplies for health care providers. Home improvement stores are also running low on PPE, which contractors and homeowners need to safely tackle projects around the house.

“Because masks are so limited right now, I don’t think people should be taking on projects that could take up mask supplies when they don’t need to do those projects,” Kurtz says.

That means now isn’t the right time to pull out your paint sprayer or begin a dusty new woodworking project, or any other project that requires PPE.

2. Sky-high projects on a ladder

White, middle aged male paints white trim of old urban home

AleksandarNakic/Getty Images

Spring might seem like a natural time to clean the gutters, but think twice before you climb a ladder, says Laura Bierman, home improvement project coordinator at YouthfulHome.com.

“With nearly 20% of all fall injuries involving a ladder, the last thing you want to do is wind up in the hospital because you lost your balance,” Bierman says. “The issue with showing up to the ER these days is that you might end up catching something worse than what you came in with.”

3. Projects that bring too many cooks into the kitchen (or bathroom, or living room…)

As health officials continue to urge us to limit interactions with people beyond our immediate households, homeowners should avoid starting a project that would involve a long list of contractors, from plumbers to electricians to carpenters.

“Now would be one of the worst times to start a renovation project that requires a tradesman to come inside of your home,” Bierman says. “To mitigate health risks, avoid starting any projects that would require you to give additional people access to the inside of your home.”

4. Projects with heavy equipment or materials

In the good ol’ days (aka a few months ago), you could call up a few buddies to help you move a couch or carry heavy equipment up a few flights of stairs. But right now, it’s not a good idea to start any project that you can’t handle 100% on your own, since you don’t want to involve more people than necessary.

So postpone any major overhaul of your space that requires a lot of muscle, unless you live with family members or roommates who can help. Otherwise, your best bet is to stick to lightweight, low-impact projects where you can fly solo with confidence.

5. Noisy projects that annoy the neighbors

Cleaning with high pressure.

terra24/iStock

“With most people cooped up in their homes, we should all be striving to be good neighbors,” Bierman says. That means mowing the lawn, busting out the power washer, or sawing wood outdoors could disturb your neighbors who are trying to work and study from home (and, of course, juggle child care responsibilities).

“To be mindful of the current circumstances, I recommend either working on loud tasks after 5 p.m., on weekends, or not at all,” Bierman says.

6. Demolition that generates lots of garbage

If you decide now is the time to finally rip up old carpeting or demo a dated basement, you might find yourself stuck with the debris.

“Even a bathroom renovation could result in tons of trash, and with the current climate, it might not get picked up,” says Daneker, who says her own trash schedule has been modified in light of the health crisis. Your local dump may also be closed or have reduced hours.

7. Expensive projects that overly improve your home

Now that you’re cooking from home more than ever, it might seem like a good time to splurge on the high-end stove you’ve been coveting. But even if you can afford an expensive upgrade, you’re better off waiting until the economy recovers.

“We still do not know the ultimate effects that COVID-19 will have on the housing market and home values,” says Kristina Morales, a real estate agent and interior designer and stager in Newport Beach, CA. “The last thing you would want to do right before you sell a home is to invest a lot of money in home improvements and then suddenly home values fall.”

The post 7 Types of Home Improvement Projects You Should Avoid During the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

[junker-town]

Why ‘The Oklahoma City Dolls’ is the best sports film of all time

A huddle in Oklahoma City Dolls (1981). | Oklahoma City Dolls/Sony Pictures Television

Clichés get new weight when they’re about equality.

The best sports film of all time is a 1981 made-for-TV movie called The Oklahoma City Dolls.

This is not an assertion made lightly. Sports have inspired countless memorable films, and I, for one, certainly can’t profess to have seen them all. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine that any of the others tell as smart — and as progressive — a story as the mostly-forgotten Dolls, which you can only currently watch via YouTube bootlegs.

Name another movie that articulates class struggle via a group of blue-collar women fighting to form their own football team, complete with thoughtful, but not forced, discussions of gender politics and labor rights. In that light, Waylon Jennings’ on-screen debut as the befuddled love interest is just the icing on the cake.

Photo by Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

“It held up better than we would have thought,” says Susan Blakely, 71, who starred as Sally Jo Purkey — a disgruntled factory worker turned quarterback. She and her 76-year-old husband Steve Jaffe, who was among the film’s producers, watched the movie for the first time in almost 40 years before speaking with me. The couple had done Dolls as part of a three-picture deal Blakely had signed with ABC after the success of miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (for which Blakely won a Golden Globe). “They gave us a bunch of scripts, and I thought this one was just terrific,” she adds.

The movie, which was written by Ann Beckett, is loosely based on a real team. The Oklahoma City Dolls were a semi-pro team that played for three years in the late 1970s, as part of a larger vogue for women’s football during that period. Though the Hollywood version, produced in part by an all-women company called Godmother Productions, is heavily fictionalized, the liberties taken make the Dolls’ story more — not less — controversial. The team’s battle to get on the field serves as both a broad metaphor for equality and an allusion to a specific, timely fight.

“I was very political,” Blakely says. “That was what attracted me to the script.” She’s been outspoken since her days as a model in the early ‘70s, when she organized the “Models for McGovern” group — “Ford [Models] was furious,” she says, laughing — and had a particular interest in women’s rights. “I was definitely a feminist,” she adds, in case you couldn’t tell as much from the picture of her onstage alongside Gloria Steinem.

A 1978 clip from the Ithaca Journal.

Blakely had spent much of the late 1970s pushing for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment — a period that coincided with her greatest visibility thanks to Rich Man, Poor Man. When Cosmo asked her, “What’s your worst fear?” in 1980, she quipped, “That the Equal Rights Amendment will pass and we’ll elect our first woman president and vice president: Phyllis Schalafly and Anita Bryant.” Oklahoma City Dolls was filmed that same year, when the bill’s passage before the revised 1982 deadline was looking less and less possible.

An ad that appeared in TV Guide for the movie.

The movie begins with Purkey, a single mother working the line at a valve factory (they filmed in a real factory) for $40 a week, goofing around with her female coworkers. Where are the men? Well, they’re out playing for the company football team — which they get time off to do, while the women have to “pick up the slack” back at the factory with no extra pay. “You know what I’ve always said about you?” the middle manager tells Purkey when she has the audacity to have a conversation with a colleague. “You’ve got no company loyalty.”

As it turns out, her lack of loyalty should be the least of his concerns. Purkey files a complaint about the unequal conditions with the EEOC, and because the company is a potential government contractor, the agency takes it seriously. An official shows up and tells the boss they’ll have to give the women equal time off.

The boss, Mr. Hines, thinks he’s got it all figured out when he tells the women on the factory line that the only way they can get time off is if they play football, too. The trouble starts (for him, at least) when they take him up on that offer.

It’s not an easy road for the women, but you can probably guess where it ends. The strength of the dialogue, though, turns what might have easily been trite into a piece that’s quite powerful. After their first attempt at a practice, for example, the women are discouraged: it’s hard, and they’re already facing resistance from the men in their lives. “I’m afraid Ray’s going to kill me if he finds out,” the most promising wide receiver says quietly.

But Purkey’s response to the general dismay isn’t just a pep talk — it’s practically a consciousness-raising.

“The problem ain’t in our muscles, it’s in our heads!” she shouts, clutching her own in her hands. “There’s no reason on this Earth that a bunch of women can’t learn to run a ball back and forth between four goal posts just as easily as a bunch of men! Heck, I used to play football when I was a kid and I was pretty good too! Baseball, basketball, kickball — you name it! I loved all that stuff, until one day some adult told me it wasn’t feminine. That a woman has to act like a lady, flouncing around.

“Seems to me now that giving birth to babies ain’t particularly ladylike,” she continues, to chuckles around the room. “And making love ain’t necessarily ladylike,” Purkey adds as the women whoop.

“So what’s wrong with a little football, eh?”

Oklahoma City Dolls/Sony Pictures Television

Sally Jo (Susan Blakely) tells it like it is in Oklahoma City Dolls.

That scene was one Blakely says she tweaked to better reflect her own experience. When they were just a week or so into filming, the Screen Actors Guild went on strike — so she had six weeks to work on both her football prowess with the assistance of Jaffe, who had played in high school, and to revise some of her scenes.

“That was a scene that I worked on the most of any of them,” she recalls of the “ladylike” monologue. “I played a lot of sports as a kid — I was a gymnast, a runner, a swimmer, a tennis player, a golfer. I did try and play a little football with my older brother, but he was like, 6’10 when he was 13, and he would only play tackle. Anytime I’d get the ball, my brother would come right at me.

“But my father would always say, ‘You don’t have to win all the time when you’re playing against the guys. I would be like, ‘Well, then why are you even telling me to get better at it at all?’”

Blakely translated that feeling — the acute sense of unfairness women and girls face in sports, and beyond — into the scene, and most of the movie. Even though she says regrets coming off “a little too angry,” she’s just as frustrated now by the fact the injustices shown in the film haven’t been resolved. “We’re still dealing with women getting less money for the same jobs,” she points out. The Equal Rights Amendment still hasn’t been passed.

During the six-week strike, Blakely found herself mirroring Sally Jo: The women who had been cast as football players were crammed in hotels near the Columbia backlot where they were filming, seemingly six to a room as Blakely recalls it, with no cars. “I wouldn’t go on shooting until they got them two to a room, and cars,” she says. “I became like my character. Persona non grata at Columbia but …”

Oklahoma City Dolls/Sony Pictures Television

Sally Jo (Blakely) steps back to pass in Oklahoma City Dolls.

She and the other actors had to learn football, although a male stunt double handled Purkey’s play in the game scenes. The stunt coordinator, Allan Graf, was himself a retired football player — he started on USC’s undefeated 1972 team, and briefly signed with the Rams. He would go on to manage stunts for just about every memorable football movie, including Any Given Sunday, The Waterboy, The Replacements, Jerry Maguire and Friday Night Lights.

Jaffe himself had toyed with the idea of doubling Blakely on the field just to get a chance to play again, but ultimately decided against it. Like Blakely, though, he has fond memories of his time on set. “The idea that I would watch two full-fledged women’s teams playing against each other was phenomenal,” he says now — offering nearly the opposite perspective to Jennings’ character in the movie, whose skepticism compels Purkey to direct one of her signature barbs his way: “If you can’t hack being a quarterback’s boyfriend,” she tells him on a date, “I suggest you go find some frilly little thing who stands around in the kitchen all day and doesn’t embarrass you. I hope she bores you to death.”

“Having my wife be the quarterback was really wonderful to watch,” Jaffe adds. “To see her blossom as a real quarterback … We would throw the ball around in the backyard, and she got better and better at pinpointing her shots.

“One time she actually ran me right out of the backyard and into our Jacuzzi,” he recalls, and they both dissolve into laughter.

The warmth with which they remember Dolls’ filming is echoed on screen, populated almost exclusively by women who find enormous camaraderie in solidarity — and sports. It’s a story about plucky underdogs triumphing on the field, yes, but with bold and very nearly intersectional takes on all the unfairness happening off it. By the end of the film, a neighbor woman has named her newborn baby Sally Jo, and frankly, it’s easy to understand why.

[all-these-ghosts]

14.

He’s spent all day scouring maps, but his profiling skills are out of practice, and anyway in all their years together he’d never really managed to get into Scully’s head. She resisted all his attempts at categorization, and he loved her for it. Mulder never wanted anything that came easy. So many roads, so many forests. So many places for someone to get lost. He knows something about how easy it is to lose people, and how hard it is to find them again. There have been nights when he’d swear Will was reaching out to him. He dreams of Scully and Will somewhere safe, he dreams of a valley. He dreams of those tomatoes they ate just weeks after the world ended. He dreams that Will is finally taller than him. He dreams of his own father, shrouded in shadow, whispering: All of this is part of the plan. Late into the night he’s circling towns and calculating distances. If they’d walked for a week or a month or a year, if they got a ride, if they went north or south. What the fuck was Skinner talking about, he’s as blind as anyone. All of Mulder’s notes are just guesswork. Well past midnight Frohike bangs on the door to Mulder’s room in the way only Frohike can: simultaneously sing-song and arrhythmic. Mulder rubs his temples. “Jesus Christ,” he says, “just let yourself in.” Frohike shoulders the door open, carrying a radio in one hand and a flask in the other. Mulder eyes both objects with equal interest. He takes a long swig from the flask, then passes it along. “Have a drink, Mulder.” Mulder sniffs at it and winces. Smells homemade. He drinks it anyway, and barely manages to keep it down. He forces the words out of his burning throat. “What are we drinking to, Frohike?” Without a word, Frohike flips the radio on. It's just mumbling, incoherent. Someone’s reading off numbers. “Six-point-three.” A woman’s voice, then more static. “Eighty-two…” “Fascinating,” Mulder says dryly. He gets up and stretches. It’s possible he’s been sitting here since nine a.m. “Shut up and listen.” The voice says, “Mulder, it’s me.” Mulder sits back down. The signal’s bad but she’s unmistakable. More numbers, the word north. Coordinates. Coordinates. Frohike says, “That’s what we’re drinking to.” — They’re still drinking an hour later, scribbling notes every time Scully’s voice comes through. Finally the maps are of some use. The signal is intermittent, but from the numbers they piece together a couple of possibilities. Her voice is monotone, like she’s reading the traffic report: just your typical congestion on the Beltway. But she's telling him that she and Will are alive, that she's left him a message, and if he lets himself think about it too long he's not going to be able to get anything done. His own heartbeat is the loudest sound in the world. “She must have heard you,” Frohike says, shaking his head. “You gave us a lot of shit about that radio.” Mulder shrugs. “I was trying to keep you out of trouble.” “Skinner knew about it. He didn’t care.” “Yeah, but he didn’t go shouting it to the rooftops.” And Skinner wasn't the issue. It's everyone else he worries about, the contractors and mercenaries, the shadows that run this place from the basement. Everyone knows: you don't leave without permission, you don't contact anyone, you don't share the location of the base. People have disappeared for a lot less than building a contraband radio transmitter. Frohike mutters something disparaging about how Mulder's lost his edge, which is probably true. When they were younger, he didn't have so much to lose. He looks at the places he's circled on the map, at the distance between them. God, it’s almost nothing. Three days’ walk, at the worst. This whole time. “I’ll cover for you,” Frohike says brightly. “Tell ‘em you went crazy and joined the mountain cult.” “Thanks.” It’s sarcastic, but he also really, really means it. "Think Skinner will give you a gun?" Mulder bites his lip, runs his hand through his hair. He thinks about the last conversation he had with Skinner. The bodies in the basement and the blood running through his son's veins. "Don't tell him," Mulder says. "Not Skinner. Not anyone." Frohike gives him a long look, but Mulder doesn't offer any further explanation. And then his old friend says, "How about I help you steal a gun?" Mulder grins.

[biofunmy]

Iraq stuck in the middle of escalating U.S.-Iran tensions

CLOSE

The lyrics from a song by a Scottish folk-rock band that was popular several decades ago might seem like an unusual and absurdly specific cultural frame through which to view the tensions that have engulfed the United States and Iran in recent times. 

But for Iraqis, as evidenced by their social media posts, protesters and statements and testimony from humanitarian aid groups, religious figures and political analysts, the 1973 Stealers Wheel song, “Stuck in the Middle with You,” makes a kind of perfect sense.

Ever since the Trump administration exited the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, reimposing sanctions and pursuing a “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran that has left the country economically and diplomatically isolated – culminating this week with an Iranian missile attack on two bases in Iraq that house U.S. troops after the Pentagon killed a top Iranian commander in a drone strike there – Iraq has been at the center of an intensifying tug of war between Tehran and Washington, according to Osamah Khalil, a historian of U.S. foreign relations and the Middle East at Syracuse University. 

“Iraq has become a battleground for American and Iranian influence,” he said. 

Analysis: Trump backs away from war with Iran but it’s not over

Some of this vying for clout is plain to see. 

An American defense contractor was killed in a rocket attack on U.S. troops in late December in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Washington blamed an Iranian-backed group for the assault.

The U.S. hit back with airstrikes along the Iraq-Syria border that killed 25 fighters from Kataeb Hezbollah, a non-state armed militia that is part of the Iraq-based Popular Mobilization Forces, supported by Iran.

Iraqi anti-government demonstrators flash the V-sign of victory during a protest in the Shiite holy city of Karbala in central Iraq on Jan. 10, 2020. Protesters also chanted anti-U.S. and Iran slogans. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Shortly afterward, angry crowds of pro-Iranian demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, chanting “Death to America.” Washington said the siege was orchestrated by Iran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who the Pentagon subsequently killed in the drone strike near a Baghdad airport along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces.  

Poll: Americans say Soleimani’s killing made US less safe, Trump ‘reckless’ on Iran

“#Iran wants the #US out of #Iraq/The US wants Iran out of Iraq/How about we (Iraqis) leave, we might be bothering them,” tweeted Hayder Al-Shakeri, summing up the exasperation that some Iraqis feel. According to his online and social media profiles, Al-Shakeri is from Baghdad and works in development, helping to coordinate regional cooperation programs across Arab states. He could not be reached for an interview.    

Another twitter user, “@mendlusi,” shared a video by an Iraqi journalist that appeared to show an Iraqi man in Baghdad “crying over the pain that Iraqis have suffered at the hands of the government, foreign governments and militias.”

Over the last few months, more than 400 Iraqis have been killed and almost 20,000 injured, according to the United Nations, in protests in Baghdad and cities across Iraq.

Among their demands: an end to widespread corruption that has precipitated a dysfunctional economy, rampant unemployment and ineffective governance.

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They also want to see a halt to the outsize influence of Iraq’s armed Shiite militia groups, such as the Popular Mobilization Forces, that are closely aligned with Iran. Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who has already resigned and is in a caretaker role, was due to meet with Soleimani on the day the Iranian commander was killed in the U.S. drone strike, according to Mahdi’s own admissions to his country’s parliament. 

After Soleimani’s killing, Mahdi, a Shiite who has close ties to Iran, led and won a non-binding vote in Iraq’s parliament that called for U.S. troops to be expelled from Iraq. On Friday, Mahdi asked U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to start formulating a plan for the U.S. withdrawal of troops. The Trump administration rebuffed the idea. 

“America is a force for good in the Middle East,” said Morgan Ortagus, spokesperson for the State Department. “Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against (the Islamic State terror group) and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis and our coalition partners,” she said. 

Still, thousands of Iraqi rallied across the country Friday in anti-government protests where they also chanted criticisms of both the U.S. and Iran. 

“Iraq has been suffering from proxy wars for decades; they have torn our country apart,” said Bashar Matti Warda, a Chaldean Catholic cleric and the current Archbishop of Erbil, in Kurdish Iraq. Chaldean Catholicism which originates in the Church of the East, is a form of Christianity that is found in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and other places in the region. 

Sajad Jiyad, managing director of Al-Bayan Center, a Baghdad-based public policy think tank that focuses on issues related to Iraq and region, said that Iraq “does not want to be in one camp or the other. Iran will always be our neighbor. But we recognize that the U.S. is a superpower.”

Jiyad said that prior to the implementation of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” Iran policy his country was not as caught in the middle between Tehran and Washington and that anti-Americanism has increased. 

“Our politics has also taken on a strong anti-American voice,” he added, referring to the vote in Iraq’s parliament to try to push American forces out of the country. 

While the war in Iraq officially ended in 2011, when former President Barack Obama ordered the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops, 17 years after the U.S. invasion that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains in a fragile state. 

About 5,000 U.S. and coalition troops have been redeployed to the country to combat the Islamic State terror organization, an extremist Sunni group that capitalized on the chaos unleashed in Iraq by the U.S. invasion and, later, the civil war in neighboring Syria. 

Across the broader Middle East region, the U.S. has more than 62,00 troops deployed in various countries ranging from NATO member Turkey to the tiny Gulf state Bahrain.

Iraq and Iran share almost 900 miles of borders and Iraq is heavily dependent on Iran for its energy supply. The many armed militias in Iraq are often closer to Iran than to the Iraqi government – making it potentially perilous to alienate Tehran. A U.S. withdrawal could pave the way for a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

It would be a “gift to ISIS,” Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, using an acronym for the terror organization. 

Washington’s current with Iran crisis has put Iraq “in the eye of the storm” at the worst possible moment, said Abbas Kadhim, head of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq initiative and a former Iraqi diplomat. 

The current prime minister is on his way out of office, and the current government is operating with “truncated authorities,” Kadhim noted at a foreign policy forum in Washington on Thursday. The population is divided, and leaders are struggling to chart a path forward amid a political crisis.

Now they’re dealing with a cycle of confrontation between the U.S. and Iran that has left Iraq torn between two key allies, he said. 

Andres Gonzalez Rodriguez, the Iraq country director for Oxfam, the humanitarian group, said in an emailed statement that due to the recent uptick in Iran-U.S.-related frictions in Iraq “we have had to suspend work in three locations where we were delivering cash aid to people in need of help. If we have to continue the suspension for a few weeks more, 100,000 of the most vulnerable people will be affected.”

Rodriguez said Oxfam, whose aid reaches over a million people in Iraq, specializes in water and sanitation, emergency food, cash and gender programs and protection work. 

Early on Wednesday local time, Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at bases in Iraq hosting American and other foreign troops, in what appears to have been a carefully calibrated response to the killing of Soleimani. No one was killed in the strikes.

Iran’s strike: A loud warning shot and an offer to de-escalate, sources say

President Donald Trump said Iran “appears to be standing down” and suggested the U.S. and Iran could work toward a new nuclear deal while cooperating against militants. Few foreign affairs experts see that as a likely outcome of the increased frictions. 

More: Trump warns Iran but says US ‘ready to embrace peace with all who seek it’

Jiyad, of the Al-Bayan Center, said that Iraq understands that the U.S. can be a helpful partner in the region in terms of fighting the Islamic State terror group, “but we don’t want to be part of a political game where we are either pro-Iran or pro-U.S. The most important thing for us is to keep good relations with all countries.”

Saeed Jamil al-Hadidiyah lives near the area where an Iranian bomb fell in Bardarash, Iraq. (Photo: Younes Mohammad for USA TODAY)

Still, for Saeed Jamil al-Hadidiyah, 59, and his family, who live on a farm where they work as sheepherders near where one of the missiles that Iran fired on a base in Kurdish Iraq landed, such political arguments are meaningless.

“We don’t understand why Iran is attacking us. What did we do to them,” he said Thursday as he showed USA TODAY the damage sustained to his house. 

The missile landed about 1,600 feet from the home he shares with 14 other members of his extended family. The youngest is a 6-month-old baby. None were injured in the attack but the home sustained damage to the roof and some windows were shattered .

 “We know there’s tensions between Iran and the U.S. but why are they shooting at us?”

Contributing: Younes Mohammad in Erbil, Iraq

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[maybetheres-hope]

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Hogwarts Overexposed Chapter 1: The Streets of Fort Lauderdale

Welcome back! 

So now we have finally arrived to the day that I have been longing for, ever since I started sporking the Saga back in September 2016, 3 years ago...we have now arrived at the third fic, which happens to be my favourite of the Saga, as there is so much meat that needs to be adressed, so much fail...

This fic, among other things, features more stupid plotlines that go absolutely nowhere, giant spiders that explode by Sue powers, more pointless crying, designated love interests, and to crown it all, a very shitty Jurassic Park rip off. 

The subtitle of the fic is “Salazars return”, a thing foreshadowed way back in the first fic (in which Jamie sees Salazar during DADA, facing her worst fear - this is never adressed again afterwards), and outrightly announced in the last fic with the terrible written prophecy that Emily comes out with. 

As mentioned in the last sporking, the whole “resurrecting Salazar Slytherin” is - despite being stolen from the Draco Trilogy - an actually somewhat interesting plot, but of course we won´t see that much of it, instead we again are faced with terrible soap opera situations. 

Well, let´s dive right in:

Friday, August 5, 2005 “They look like they’re having a great time,” Jamie said, watching enviously from the window in the staff tower as the Giant Squid tossed the girls ten to fifteen feet in the air and then ate them as they fell down permitted them to splash back down into the lake before scooping them up and repeating the process. “Why don’t you go join them, Jamie?” Hermione suggested. “It’s not like we have that much packing to do.” “I’d love to except I haven’t written to Alex today, and we pledged to owl each other every day, because we otherwise would cease to exist if we don´t constantly remind us with the fact that we are a couple” Jamie answered. 

Jamie and Alex would be starting their seventh and final year at Hogwarts in the autumn and had been best friends since their first year. Last year they had finally acknowledged that the feelings they shared for each other went far beyond friendship. Both Alex and Jamie planned to train as Aurors after they completed Hogwarts and then, in due course marry. 

Again, what is it that is so special about their relationship? Nothing has ever been shown to us why they are so perfect for each other, not to mention that Alex has absolutely no personality outside of being Jamie Sues love interest. In fact, Dick Bancroft has more chemistry with Jamie, and that is saying a lot!  When Jamie’s parents died during her fifth year, she had thought that life, as she knew it, would come to a crashing halt. Jamie envisioned saying good-bye to Hogwarts and having to seek some sort of menial employment in order to support herself and her then ten-year-old sister, Emily. 

I actually don´t know why we all of a sudden are faced with a recap of things we already know.  Professor Granger, who had been a mentor to Jamie, refused to think about this alternative. Since the girls had no living relatives, she and her fiancé, Harry Potter, insisted on caring for Jamie as a sister and becoming guardians to Emily. Harry and Hermione did this without hesitation despite Hermione having previously adopted Caitlin, a then eleven-year-old girl 12, actually, also because her age is going to be important the next fic who had been orphaned and abused. And so Harry Potter, now at the ripe old age of twenty-five and married for only slightly over a year, finds himself the father of three children: Caitlin, who would soon turn thirteen fourteen, as she turns 15 in the next fic and start her third year at Hogwarts; Emily, now twelve and entering her second year; and Suespawn Benjamin, Hermione and Harry’s newborn son, just over two months old. “Harry, will we be able to Portkey all the way to Fort Lauderdale or will we have to do it in phases because of the distance involved?” Jamie inquired as Harry entered the room, ready to kiss her arse. “That is the one advantage a Portkey has over Apparating,” he answered. “There is no limit to the distance you can travel. Our group is rather large, however, and so I’ve arranged for three Portkeys.” 

What could possibly go wrong?  “Three? Why so many? And what about Timmy and Ben?” Jamie inquired. “Timmy is rather young to understand he must hold onto the Portkey and Ben, well he just can’t.” Timmy is the four-year-old son of Samantha Bowman, an American Sue witch. Sam had originally come to England searching for Timmy’s birth father but, after a year of no leads, had given up and settled in Hogsmeade where she met and fell in love with Ron Weasley, who suffers from lycanthropy. He had just been released from Azkaban and, at the time, was working in a joke shop owned by his twin brothers, Fred and George. It was at Harry and Hermione’s wedding that Samantha and her son were initially observed by Timmy’s birth father, none other than Draco Malfoy. Draco made a legal attempt to gain custody of his son, but upon failing, begrudgingly accepted the state of affairs and his current role in his son’s life. 

Maybe it is a good thing that we never actually see any of the moments between Timmy and Draco.  “I secured three Portkeys mainly because of Ben and Timmy,” Harry explained. “Traveling by Portkey can be rather rough treatment, especially with a large number of people thrashing their limbs about. I propose that you girls use one Portkey. That will allow Hermione and me to secure Ben between us and the Weasley’s to do the same with Timmy.” “But will all three Porkeys have the same coordinates?” “Yes,” Harry said assuredly. “The only drawbacks are that we have to allow ten minutes between departures, and that we will be arriving in an area that none of us are familiar with. But I’m sure everything will go well.” 

Again, what could possibly go wrong? Also, fooooreeeeshadowing. 

* * * * * *

“I’m tired,” Kim whimpered, “Can we get out of the water for a bit and take a break?” “I’m rather exhausted myself,” Caitlin agreed. “You two are worse than two old ladies,” Emily complained, but she conceded and headed for the shore. “I wish we could shrink Elmo and take him on holiday with us,” she said glancing back at the Giant Squid. 

Yeah, and I´m now totally imagining the Giant Squid with the head of Elmo.  “I’m sure that would go over spectacularly with the other ship passengers,” Caitlin said sarcastically. “Somehow I don’t think they would take kindheartedly to a giant squid in one of the ship’s swimming pools.” “Nah! I guess not,” Emily said sadly. “I’m going to miss him though while we’re away.” “I’ve never been on a cruise ship before,” Kim said excitedly. “I’m so glad your parents invited me to go along.” 

And believe me, we are going to spend a lot of time on the cruise ship, even more time than the nudist resort last fic. 

Anyway, Caitlin and Emily get Kim to walk to Hogsmeade for icecream semi naked, while they themselves are under that charm again. 

The main reason why Emily wants to go to Hogsmeade is because she has the hots for Roger Fortescue, the guy running the shop - HE IS TWENTY WHILE SHE IS TWELVE, AND THEIR FEELINGS ARE MUTUAL WHILE NEIL PORTRAYS THEIR RELATIONSHIP AS A GOOD THING. 

Also, suddenly more recap of things we already know in the middle of everything:

Both Emily and Caitlin are naturalists and preferred to be unclothed whenever possible. Jamie and Emily’s parents were nudists and they raised their daughters in the naturists’ ways. Both girls feel extremely uncomfortable when clothed and would much prefer to always be naked even if others about them are clothed. They don’t see being unclothed as wicked or sexy, but rather as natural and comfortable. Jamie befriended Caitlin when she first started Hogwarts, and was the first real friend and positive role model Caitlin had ever had. It was by accident that the young girl discovered Jamie was a naturist. Caitlin was so impressed by Jamie and her explanation of her lifestyle that she was tempted to try it. She became an immediate convert. 

This makes no sense. 

Kim is a most unenthusiastic nudist. This is an understatement - she is completely forced to it by the other Sues! In order to avoid lingering embarrassment from a cruel prank on the Hogwarts Express in her first year, she had all her cartoon-imprinted underclothes destroyed ´destroyed´ - this sounds like Emily did a Crucio or Avada Kedavra on them. This caused her dorm mates to mistakenly assume that she, like Emily, was a nudist. She now uncomfortably lives that lie. Why though? She has actually become at ease being naked with Caitlin, Emily and their family. The cruise, on the other hand, will be her first experience at public nudity, and she is exceedingly apprehensive. 

And all of a sudden, this:

They had only gone a few hundred feet past the gate, when Caitlin came to a sudden stop. “Did you feel that,” she cried nervously. Kim looked at her questioningly. “Feel what?” she asked, a bewildered look on her face. “I didn’t feel anything.” “I did,” Emily piped up. “It felt as though something hot was trickling down my back. Kim, remember when Professor Flitwick demonstrated the Disillusionment Charm on us last Christmas, the charm that made us blend in with the decorations. It felt exactly the same as when he lifted it.” 

Of course this is an indication of that the modesty charm won´t work later - but what makes this pointless is the fact that it is never brought up again or explained who was behind this. 

They then gush over the fact how fast the ice cream shop was built:

“Wizard contractors take some short cuts not available to Muggle builders,” Emily added. “Yeah!” Kim said. “One might call it magic!” They all chuckled.

This is actually funny, as the Sues on several occasions throughout the fic COMPLETELY FORGET MAGIC, especially a crucial scene in the second half of the fic comes to mind. 

And for the sake of it, this is how I´m envisioning Roger Fortescue:

And the next section...well, I´ll leave that unsporked:

“Well, what have we here?” the clerk behind the counter asked. It was undoubtedly a rare sight to have three towel-clad girls enter his establishment. Although he had addressed all three girls, his eyes only inspected Emily. “Did you girls just get out of the shower?” “No silly,” said Emily dreamily. “We were swimming and had the urge for some ice cream. This is my good friend Kim. She is going on holiday with Caitlin and I.” Roger gave Kim a smile of recognition, but quickly turned his attention back to Emily. “I’d say Kim was extremely fortunate. I would really enjoy being on vacation with you for a week.” At this comment, Emily blushed, but Kim and Caitlin exchanged uneasy glances. This smooth talking git might entrance Emily, but, although she didn’t know why, Kim had taken an immediate dislike to Roger. “I was hoping perhaps you had come to visit me,” Roger said suggestively. “But since you prefer ice cream, what can I get you?” Emily seemed content to stare at Roger; therefore, Kim decided to place her order. “Could I have a small cone of chocolate, please?” “I’ll have a small cone also,” said Caitlin, “but make mine vanilla, please.” “And what about you, beautiful,” Roger said. “Could I have one of those swirl mixes of both kinds?” Emily asked sweetly. Roger purposely served Caitlin and Kim first. The girls sat down at one of the many empty tables as Emily waited to be served and pay. As Roger handed Emily her cone he got a mischievous grin on his face. “Do you know what they say about people who get mixed ice cream?” Emily shook her head, no. “They say they go both ways.” Emily blushed a deep shade of red, but made no comment. Instead she asked, “How much is the total bill?” ”That depends,” Roger said devilishly. “Perhaps we could work out an agreement that would be both easy on your pocket and easy on my eyes.” “What do you mean?” Emily asked innocently, not understanding. “I envisage you looking quite nice in your swim costume,” he said, licking his lips. “If you drop the towel and model it for me; all three cones are on the house.” Emily licked her ice cream, both to prevent it running down the cone and to give her time to think. Her bathing costume was rather skimpy and dropping her towel and modeling seemed like a rather sexual thing to do. On the other hand, she was a naturist. If the world were fair, she’d be happily standing here completely nude at the present time. Besides, she’d sort of like Roger to see her in her bathing costume and free ice cream in the bargain sounded like a great deal. Emily looked around the room. There were only six other patrons in the shop; four pre-teen boys at a table near the rear and a young couple near the window. This felt so weird. She had absolutely no qualms with the entire world seeing her naked. She had even walked naked to the grocery when she was ten, yet modeling a bathing costume in an ice cream store somehow seemed wrong. “I’d really love to see how nice you look,” Roger said entreatingly. Her decision was made. “Would you hold my ice cream?” she asked passing the cone back to Roger. “Now don’t snicker. I’m only twelve and with a bit of luck my figure will develop considerably more.” “I’d never laugh at you, besides I think you have an excellent figure,” Roger said. “Okay, here goes,” Emily said, stepping back from the counter. She couldn’t believe how nervous she was as she undid the towel and in order to avoid seeing Roger’s expression stared anxiously up at the ceiling. As she felt the towel brush her body on its way to the floor, she began turning slowing, allowing Roger plenty of time to scrutinize her before finally looking him in the eyes and saying, “Well, what do you think?” Roger had dropped Emily’s ice cream on the floor. The young girl that was sitting near the window had grabbed her spellbound boyfriend and dragged him from the shop as the four young boys at the rear went wild. Caitlin and Kim, who had been absorbed in conversation and paying little attention to Emily, jumped to their feet. “What happen to your swim costume!?” Kim asked in a panic as Caitlin ran to pick up Emily’s towel and toss it to her. It was only when Kim asked what had become of her costume that Emily realized that she was indeed standing there starkers. “Roger, I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry if I made you ill at ease you. Somehow the concealment charm that covered me was canceled.” She started to wrap the towel around herself. “I’m not embarrassed,” Roger said, not taking his eyes off Emily, “and you shouldn’t be either. You’re splendid.” “I’m not embarrassed,” Emily said, letting the towel slip off and into her hand. “Do you really think I look nice?” Roger corrected her. “I’d say fabulous. Nothing would please me more than to have you spend the balance of the day in my shop just as you are.” “Maybe that could be arranged,” Emily said boldly. “I don’t think so!” Caitlin said, giving Emily an appalled look. “We have to go! Emily, please cover up!” When Emily made no effort to do so, Caitlin grabbed her arm. “Suit yourself,” she said with frustration. “Kim, please help me.” Before Emily realized what was happening, Caitlin and Kim had dragged her out the door and on to the thankfully deserted street. “Now will you put that towel on?” Caitlin asked. “Why?” Emily answered defiantly. “There is no one about, and I’m quite comfortable like this.” Emily tossed the towel to Kim and started boldly walking away from the shop and in the direction of the path that would return them to Hogwarts. 

Well, as you can see, Roger is a perv and Emily loves to be starkers in front of other people. And Rogers relationship to Emily is as mentioned earlier, treated as noble. Barf. 

And the charm was lifted, of course. 

On their way back to the castle they meet up with Trilogy!Draco and “Virginia” Weasley who wishes she could be as nude as the girls. 

The sections ends up with this:

“I don’t think Elmo cares if or how we dress,” Emily answered casually, and then added. “Mum likes us to use the concealment charm, but it’s really not necessary anymore on the school grounds. Most of the staff has seen at least one of us nude. It’s really no big deal any longer.” ‘Maybe not to you’, Kim thought and then turned toward the castle and said, “let’s go.” 

This is never picked up on. 

Sunday, August 7, 2005 “Ron, will you please cheer up,” Sam said with annoyance, as she and Ron finished packing. “We’re starting our vacation tomorrow, not going to a funeral.” “That’s easy for you to say,” Ron groaned. “If I had your body, I wouldn’t be concerned with being seen nude either.” “If you had my body, I doubt we’d be married,” Sam said with a laugh. 

Yeah, the Ron-bashing gets worse with each chapter.  “It’s not funny,” Ron moaned. “You know what I mean. I feel like I’m the king of the string bean geeks going on vacation with the Perfect Body Club.” “We don’t all have perfect bodies,” Samantha insisted. “Well, maybe Jamie and Hermione do, because they are Sues, like me!. Hermione is going to have men losing concentration and falling overboard.” “Perhaps you haven’t looked at yourself in a mirror lately,” Ron commented, “but you should put yourself in the same category.” “You’re sweet,” Sam said brushing against him as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. “And that’s another problem,” he said, looking down at a specific part of himself. “It’s totally out of control. It’s ready for action and you barely touched me. If it were the day before a full moon, that’s to be expected, but the next full moon is a ways off. I think I’m turning into some sort of sex manic. Emily and Caitlin caused a reaction the other night and they’re little girls.” 

This is the author handwaving “I´m not a pedo!” “They aren’t that little anymore,” Sam declared. “Their bodies are becoming more womanly every day. Besides, I don’t think that even calm, cool Harry could have handled what happened to you.” 

Why does this sound so creepy? “I wasn’t doing too badly watching them play Twister , although I had to turn away a few times,” Ron said. “Don’t they realize the view they afford when they get into some of those positions?” 

This sounds very misogynistic to me.  “I’m sure they do, but they don’t care. I have to admit that it bothers me a little knowing that my now smooth front will afford people a better view of me. I’m not nearly as comfortable with my body as the girls.”

Anyway, Sam promises Ron lots and lots of sex on the cruise while the girls will watch Timmy. 

Monday, August 8, 2005 8:00 AM “The Weasleys will be here any minute now,” Harry said anxiously. “Are one and all sure they have everything they need packed?” “Why are you insisting we take so much clothing?” Emily questioned. “We are permitted to be unclothed at all times aren’t we?” “When on the ship and at nude beaches, yes,” Hermione answered as she did a cleansing charm on Ben’s bottom and readied him for the trip. “But when we travel about the islands or go souvenir shopping, you will need to be dressed and not just by the concealment charm. I have qualms about any of us even using that anymore now that you girls have discovered yet another imperfection with it.” 

FFFFOOOOORESHADOOOOOWIIIIIING Crookshanks and Alfred both paced the room as if sensing that the family was shortly going to be deserting them. 

This is the first time we hear of them ever since the first fic, as the Suethor simply forgot about them since they´re not nudists - and that is really the reason he wrote!  “Can’t we take them with us?” Caitlin begged. “They’re going to be lonely.” “No we can’t,” Harry said emphatically. “Beside, they will be much more content here, where they have free rein to roam about our quarters and the castle grounds, than they would shut up in a ship’s cabin all day.” “You are sure that Professor Bell won’t forget to look in on them and see that they are properly fed?” Emily asked concernedly. 

Why does she suddenly care about them? “Katie loves animals,” Harry responded. “She’ll see to it that our pets are well taken care of.” As the others finalized their packing, Kim had been reading the cruise brochure and checking their itinerary with animated anticipation.

DAY    PORT                                                                           ARRIVAL                  DEPARTURE

1          Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, United States                                                               5:00 PM 2          Princess Cays                                                               9:00 AM                      4:00 PM 3          At Sea 4          St. Thomas                                                                   7:00 AM                      6:00 PM 5          St. Kitts                                                                        7:00 AM                      3:00 PM 6          Barbados                                                                      8:00 AM                      5:00 PM 7          Antigua                                                                         9:00 AM                      6:00 PM 8          St. Maarten                                                                   7:00 AM                      6:00 PM 9          At Sea 10        At Sea 11        Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, United States                           7:00 AM

I actually think he stole that from an actual brochure. 

“We’ll actually be anchoring at six different islands,” Kim stated with enthusiasm. “I’ve never been further away from home than Hogwarts.” 

And the description for some of them are copy pasted as well. Some, well, might as well be nowhere.  “I’m looking forward to having a wonderful time,” Hermione said as she began breast-feeding Ben.

Such an important detail. 

“Professor Potter, there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why are we leaving so early?” Kim inquired. “Isn’t the United States’ east coast five hours behind us in time? If we leave at nine, it will only be four in the morning there, not even light yet.” “You’re correct,” Harry said rather perturbed. “The American Magical Authority, which is the counter part of our Ministry, insisted that we arrive before sun rise; less chance of us being seen.” 

What could possibly go wrong, again?  “What the hell are we going to do from four o’clock in the morning until five in the afternoon,” Emily blurted out. 

Well, you´ll soon see.  “Maybe we should spend the time teaching you to talk like a proper young lady,” Hermione suggested. “I’m sorry Mum, but that’s thirteen hours,” Emily said apologetically. Hermione looked concernedly at Harry. “Exactly what are your plans for all that time? she asked. “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Harry responded. “I rented a hotel room nearby, where we can all crash or watch the tele until checkout at eleven. Then we can head to the dock and board the ship. Even though we don’t sail until five o’clock, there will be food and drink available for us from noon, and we can take a tour of the ship.” “That sounds like a good plan,” Jamie said, tearing herself away from her latest epistle from Alex. 

-___-

At least we don´t hear any of the things in the letters. 

Cut for more copied brochure exposition. 

Then this:

Caitlin rushed to the door and ushered the Weasleys in. “Why are you dressed?” Timmy asked disappointedly. “I thought we were going on a nudie coose?” 

Timmy is one of the worst things in this fic. 

Also, note the inconsistencies in the way he talks.  “We are Timmy, it’s just that we can’t get comfortable until we’re actually on the ship,” Caitlin responded. Without warning, Timmy grabbed the hem of Caitlin’s tiny skirt in his hand and pulled it up to her waist. “Caitlin has no knickers. I can see her gina!” he shouted. 

NO.  Caitlin leaned over and lifted Timmy into her arms. “You, young man, are getting to be more and more like your Aunt Emily,” she said giving him a big hug. “Your mother better break you of that habit before you enter primary school in the village or all the little witches will be practicing hexes on you.” Ron looked at Caitlin and then around the room. He could not understand her and the others’ lack of reaction to what Timmy just did. Then he finally comprehended that this girl was normally naked, and that it didn’t bother anyone. Why was he so different? Why did it bother him? 

Because Ron is the only person with a sense of reason and is therefore demonised. 

Anyway, they all take the portkey. 

“Damn,” Harry murmured looking nervously around the room. Hermione could never get Benjamin into his harness quickly enough. Harry didn’t like sending the girls first, but he had no choice. Fortunately, Jamie was a powerful Mary Sue witch, so he figured that they’d be okay. 

If only he knew..... “Girls! Hurry! Over Here!” He shouted. “Each of you, hold onto the umbrella. Don’t worry! You’ll be fine. The Weasleys will be along in ten minutes and your mother and me shortly thereafter. Move at least twenty-five feet from your landing point, but don’t leave the area.” Jamie, Kim, Caitlin and Emily had barely clutched the old umbrella when Emily felt as though a hook just behind her navel had suddenly yanked her irresistibly frontward. Her feet left the floor; she could feel Caitlin, Jamie and Kim as their bodies bashed into hers; their legs becoming entwined as they sped forward in a howl of wind and whirling color; their hands stuck to the umbrella as though it was pulling them magnetically onward. Emily had only expected the trip to last a few seconds, but instead it was minutes before they finally slammed to the ground in a bruised entangled mess. “Emily, will you please get your privates out of my face,” Kim asked as if gasping for air. 

Remember that this is Hogwarts Exposed? “Caitlin never complains,” Emily retorted without thought and then looked nervously from Jamie to Kim and then Caitlin, hoping that in the confusion no one had heard her comment. Yeah, remember the incest scene from the last fic? I wish I forgot it. Neither Jamie nor Caitlin seemed to be paying her any attention as they disentangled themselves, but Kim had definitely heard her and was staring at her piercingly. 

Cut for a scene with Hermione, Harry and Ron talking about how the girls will be okay - with Ron having the last word:

“Hermione, they’ll be okay,” Ron said in his most reassuring voice. “What could possibly happen in ten minutes?” 

Tempting fate Ron, tempting fate....

“I wonder where exactly we are?” Caitlin said as she staggered to her feet. “That trip threw my equilibrium out of whack.” “Me too,” Jamie said leaning against a nearby wall. “Well, one thing is certain,” Emily commented. “Whoever programmed that Portkey has never actually been here.” “You’ve got that right,” Kim added nervously. “I understand transporting to a discrete location, but this is a dirty, filthy back alley.” “Yeah, I’m glad we won’t be alone here long,” Jamie said. “Lets move closer to the main street and more light. It’s eerie in here.” “Now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings,” a voice echoed from the shadows ahead of them. “This alley is our headquarters. Perhaps we should clean up, but most ain’t stupid enough to come here uninvited.” 

Yeah.  “And there are four of them,” a voice from behind commented. “One for each of us.” “I get the older one with the big titties,” shouted a third voice from the dark. 

Yeah, we suddenly get a gang of rapists for no other reason that sensationalism.  “Hey, they’re just kids,” said a fourth disembodied voice. “From the sound of them, from England and probably lost.” 

That is one of the most unrealistic things I have ever heard from a “gang member”.  “Lance, are you a faggot? ‘Cause if you are, how ‘bout suckin’ my dick,” the first of the boys to speak responded. “Pete, what is the name of our club?” “The ’Chasers’, Art. And you’re our president,” answered the boy who had commented about Jamie. 

Wow, the dialogue...it´s terrible.  “And what do the “Chasers” do, Phil?” Art asked his voice sounding as if he were extremely intoxicated. “We’re tit-and-pussy chasers.” Phil answered, laughing raucously as he stepped from the shadows and was soon joined by his compatriots. As the gang closed their circle on the girls, the one referred to as Art, snapped open a long switch knife and waved it menacingly. Jamie whispered softly to the girls, “Wands on three. One… Two… Three… 

Why doesnt Jamie just use magic immediately? Yeah, this is completely pointless, and will be an extended scene in the next chapter and it will never be brought up again afterwards.  End of Chapter One

Thankfully.

And I think it´s time for me to start the spitefic which I will use as a framing device for some of the chapters from now on:

Ebony Dark´ness Dementia Raven Way woke up. She was on a silver ground, surrounded by darkness, just like her middle name. She wore a white dress, too white, for her taste. 

She looked at herself in her reflection on the ground - she gasped. “I...I have no goffic make up on! What is happening!”

The last thing Enoby remembered was that everyone was in the Great Hall, surrounding her together for the final showdown against Vlodemint and da death deelerz. She had swung her wand and yelled “Avada Kedavra”, and now she was in this dark space, surrounded by darkness. 

Suddenly, a light came up - a familiar face came out of it. It was.......Gerard Way! 

“Gerard! I can´t believe its you, what is happening!” Ebondy cried out. 

Gerard spoke up with his goffic, ethnic voice: “We need you, Ebony, the times are dark. MCR has split up, and Hogwarts is in danger of Sues who may be more powerful than you. Especially one certain is the most dangerous one, and Draco is dating Ginny!” 

“That bitch!” Evony exclaimed. 

Gerard held his hand out, while a flame came out. It then showed a picture of a pale smiling girl with dark hair and green eyes, who obviously wasnt gothic. 

“This is Jamie Zacherley, she is the most powerful of them all. But in order to defeat her, you must go to other universes and destroy the other Sues there. The first Universe I´m sending you to might seem familiar - it is Hogwarts, but a much more preppy and sappy one in a eternal tube of HappyLand! It is reigned by Ariana Black, a Sue so powerful and annoying that everyone kisses her arse while everyone who doesnt is evil!” 

Suddenly, a portal opened, and Gerard guided her into it. “Take this”, Gerard said, giving her a black goffic wand. “This will help you against all the Sues you will have to fight. In the end, there can be only one!” 

Then he disappeared. 

Ebony whent through the portal. She was in the Great Hall, but everything was pink, sappy, and preppy. Ebony shuttered, but was now prepared for the worst. Then all the students came in to the hall. 

She gasped.