#property management in baltimore

[danielkaufmanrealestate]

The Next Nashville? Billions In New Investment Could Put Baltimore Back On The Map

Baltimore’s Real Estate Renaissance: A $12B Transformation 🌟🏙️ Baltimore, MD — The Charm City is buzzing with anticipation as massive real estate and infrastructure projects converge, injecting billions into Baltimore’s economy. From the iconic Inner Harbor to the waterfront Baltimore Peninsula megaproject, the city is poised for a revival. But with growth come challenges—housing affordability,…

[chewingonsneakers]

ALL FOR THE GAME IN-DEPTH CHARACTER CHEAT SHEET

@themaxbox you asked for this

[MAJOR SPOILER WARNING]

ALL FOR THE GAME:

THE FOXHOLE COURT, THE RAVEN KING, THE KING’S MEN - NEIL JOSTEN AS MC POV

THE SUNSHINE COURT, UPCOMING TSC SEQUAL - JEAN MOREAU/JEREMY KNOX AS MC SPLIT POV

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AUTHOR - Nora Sakavik (pen name) She/Her

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TIME PERIOD - 2006-2007

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CHARACTERS:

Neil Abram Josten -

He/him. The narrator, from a limited 3rd person POV.

Neil is 19 years old, 18 at the beginning of the books. Neil has naturally auburn hair and chilly blue eyes, both of which were covered with black hair dye and brown colored contacts throughout the first and some of the second book. Neil is 5’3”.

Neil Josten is not his real name, at least not until he had the FBI legally changed it in book three. Neil Josten is his twenty-second name ever used.

Neil Josten’s father is a serial killer known famously as The Butcher of Baltimore, or more realistically, Nathan Wesninski. Nathan works under a large and very wealthy Japanese Yakuza gang known as the Moriyamas. Nathan is named for his method of killing, usually chopping or skinning people using a butcher’s cleaver. He also had a wife and a son; Mary Weskinski and Nathaniel Abram Weskinski. Nathan and Mary’s marriage was likely arranged. Nathaniel was born in England to Mary and Nathan, though spent the next few years in Baltimore, Maryland, so his father could relocate and hide better. Nathaniel then grew up alongside the yakuza leader’s son, Riko Moriyama, and Riko's brother Kevin Day. They played on a little league Exy team run by the Moriyamas. The Moriyamas had trained them every day to become the greatest Exy players to live, in order to gain money and control. When Nathaniel was ten, it was decided that if he couldn’t prove his athletic potential through a solo practice session in front of the Moriyamas, he would be executed. The night of his solo practice, Mary stole five million dollars from the Moriyamas and took Nathaniel to flee through hidden tunnels. They spent the following seven years bouncing through countries and identities, all throughout Europe and America, most notably Germany and some time in France. They each had multiple fake passports and identifications, new appearances each time. Nathaniel cycled through 22 different identities, including the names Alex, Stefan, Rafael, etc. But when Nathaniel was seventeen, Mary had been found and captured by Nathan. He had begun to slowly kill her before she managed to escape, but she only made it halfway across California before she bled out and died in the driver's seat of their stolen car. So Nathaniel said his goodbyes to his mother, took the duffel bag of money and supplies from the backseat, left his dead mother in the front seat, and set the car on fire with a can of gasoline and a match.

He put his mother’s bones in a backpack and buried it under the blacksand of a California beach.

Nathaniel walked along the road with his bags for the next two days and made it to Salem before he collapsed and vomited, the shock of what happened catching up to him.

While a young child still under watch of his father, Nathaniel did not lead a happy life. His father’s hideous blonde henchman, Lola, forced him to kill small animals, skin, and gut them for practice, training him to become like his father in the future, to carry on the legacy. Nathaniel, Riko, and Kevin had once found Nathan messily chopping an innocent man into hundreds of pieces of flesh right on Moriyama property.

The first book starts immediately off with “Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn’t want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother.”, a first look into his mind as he sits on the bleachers of the Exy court of a small community college in Millport near the house he had been squatting in illegally. A man named David Wymack approaches him and tells him he’d like to recruit him for the Palmetto State Foxes Exy team. after a brief conversation, afraid of how this man knows of his existence and what it could mean, Neil attempts to run up the bleachers and into the locker room to get away from the potential danger. He is stopped by an Exy racket slamming into his stomach. Wymack catches up, once again asks to recruit him, Neil looks to the side and spots his old childhood friend Kevin Day watching him. It scares him, he is worried Kevin may recognize him all grown up under the hair dye and contacts. Being previously caught by his Millport Exy coach sleeping nights on the locker room floor, supposed evidence of abuse going on in Neil’s “home”, this is used against him to convince him to come along and join the Foxes.

More personal info abt him:

He has zero style, from life on the run. faded and mellow colors were best and he took what he could get. A running joke is how he wears raggedy jorts quite often. Neil still has millions of dollars left that he keeps in his duffel bag, which he brings absolutely everywhere and never lets out of his sight unless safely locked away. Neil has only kissed one girl before during his life on the run but upon his mother finding out, she beat him to teach him the consequences of connecting with people or falling in love. He once wore a bulletproof vest for ten days straight out of fear and only stopped wearing it because after his mother cut it off him to wash it. He used to sleep in the same bed as his mother, with a gun under each of their pillows. Neil’s favorite color is gray. Neil still remembers the names of the two boys he stood by as he watched his father kill a man, and has a binder full of information, magazine cut outs, printed interviews, and pictures of Kevin and Riko to keep tabs on them. Neil loves fruit but hates vegetables because of what was easily available during life on the run. Neil dislikes sweet foods. Neil doesn’t drink or do drugs because he doesn’t want to lose control and let slip some important information about who he really is. Neil only buys cigarettes so he can light them and hold them to smell the smoke, only actually smoking them very infrequently. He doesn't care for the nicotine. He just smells the smoke and thinks of his dead mom. Neil is covered shoulder to toe in a war zone of scars from his father and his henchmen and the Moriyamas’ workers and life on the run. Some of these include a very large road burn scar that spans from his left shoulder to right hip from when he rolled out of a moving car, a healed gunshot wound on his left shoulder, and a large burn scar on his right shoulder in the shape of an clothing iron from a time when his father lost his temper. Others include smaller or longer or thinner ones covering some of his arms and most of his legs and torso. Neil has never had a friend before. Neil doesn’t consider anyone to be like family to him besides his mother (this changes eventually as he comes to terms with how his mother was not good with him). Neil has zero social skills but in a kind of funny way. He doesn’t understand slang, is in the dark on most pop-culture, and is sort of strange to talk to. Neil is unaware of having any sort of sexual orientation; it’s never been something he's spent time thinking about before. Neil’s skin color is a couple shades tanner than the twins’. He is jersey number 10, a striker on PSU’s Exy team.

Andrew Joseph Minyard - [TW: SA, SH]

He/him. 19 years old at the beginning, 20 by the end. Andrew has short light blonde hair and hazel (almost yellowish) eyes. Andrew is 5’0”.

Andrew is identical twins with Aaron, who I will introduce afterwards. Andrew and Aaron were placed into the foster care system after birth, but after only two weeks, their mother (they had an absent and unknown biological father) felt guilty and decided to take back only one of her babies. She randomly picked and chose Aaron. So for many years of his life, Andrew was a foster child. not a happy one at that. Andrew jumped from family to family, and he only says that none of them were good homes.

When Andrew was seven years old, he was raped by a male member of his current foster family. In the third book he admits during a conversation with Neil that the reason he hates the word “please” so much is because the man who raped him, Stephen, had told him he would stop if Andrew said it, but then didn’t stop.

— "Who said 'please' that made you hate the word so much?"

Andrew gazes at him in silence for a minute. "I did… He said he would stop if I said it."

"You believed him," Neil guesses.

"I was seven," Andrew says. "I believed him.” —

We know that similar incidents happened multiple times after that from different men of his following families, (Jesse, who liked to choke Andrew so he’d be quiet. Samuel, who called him a whore and told him he liked it.) but the most noteworthy is another absolute monster named Drake Spear. Drake, who found out Andrew was ticklish and used that against him.

Drake was a member of his final foster family. He was supposed to be an older brother to Andrew. Drake was in the military, he was this big muscle-y tattooed guy who was perceived as kind and gentle by his mother and the only foster mom Andrew had ever cared about, Cass Spear. What happened is that when Andrew first joined this foster home, he was twelve years old, and Drake was away at his station. After lots of trust gained, he grew to love Cass and see her as a real mother. She was very kind to him despite his bad behavior, which made him feel loved and act out less. One spring, she told Andrew that her son was coming home. Andrew didn’t like that but he trusted Cass so he didn’t make an argument. The day Drake came home, he was kind to Andrew, giving him candy and keeping his distance. But he wasted almost no time in destroying that trust and very quickly began the abuse. almost every night, Drake snuck into Andrew’s room to take advantage of him. It became too much quite quickly, and Andrew eventually took blades to his wrists to try and make his body his own again. While living with the Spears, Andrew first learned that he had a twin brother from a cop named Hidgeons who mistook Aaron for Andrew. The cop, who was confused as to why “Andrew” was with a woman besides Cass and ended up learning about Aaron’s existence, told Aaron about Andrew and then told Cass to tell Andrew about Aaron. Aaron, wanting nothing more than to meet his brother, wrote him an excited letter asking to meet him. Andrew responded with a simple “fuck off”. What Aaron doesn’t know is that Andrew did want to meet him as well, but refused to let that happen due to sexually violent and disgusting twin fantasies Drake would tell Andrew about after he found out about Aaron. Soon meeting his breaking point, Andrew snapped and got himself caught breaking the law just so he could get into juvie and could finally be away from Drake. He was saddened by the loss of Cass, though, who he considered a true mother to him. In juvie is where he finally met Aaron, during visiting day, where his twin came to see him for the first time. Long story short, Andrew wasn’t too kind to Aaron the first time they met. After serving his sentence, Andrew finally came to live with Aaron and their mother, Tilda. This is when Andrew found out that Tilda has been beating Aaron and is a drug addict and got Aaron hooked on drugs alongside herself. Andrew’s response? To take their mother for a lovely scenic drive where he reached over, grabbed the wheel, and steered the car down a hill wrecking it with intent to kill. Tilda died. Andrew survived. He's not so sure he wanted to. But anyways, it was considered a simple accident and he wasn’t caught. So the twins get a new guardian, now living with their cousin, Nicky. Nicky buys a house in Columbia and houses them both with little money and little support from the twins. While under Nicky’s care, Andrew tries to get Aaron sober, and his method of doing this is by locking Aaron in their bathroom for eight days and sitting in front of the door the entire time, only leaving canned food inside for Aaron. Andrew tried to ignore his twin’s screaming, banging, and vomiting from withdrawals and yes, it did actually get him sober in the end. Andrew is offered a PSU Exy scholarship because of the goalkeeping talent he displayed while playing in juvie, but refuses until they eventually give Aaron and Nicky scholarships as well as a deal. Nicky got Andrew and Aaron jobs as bartenders at a club/bar joint called Eden’s Twilight, lying about their age to do so. Andrew formed a small connection with fellow bartender Roland, and started hooking up with him in the employees-only back room. However, it was technically stautuatory rape, as Andrew was only seventeen and Roland was 23. Roland knew this and he still agreed, which is why i have many words on how much i hate his guts.

Once during a shift, four guys began harassing Nicky for being gay, beating him to a pulp on the sidewalk outside. Andrew took care of the situation by beating every single one of the guys nearly to death.

This little incident got Andrew on court-ordered antipsychotics and they all quit their jobs. but he’s not psychotic. This caused some extreme side effects of the medication. So for months and months, (this is before and throughout the first two books) Andrew walks around with a big manic smile on his face. He makes dumb little comments and laughs at bad times. His strict filter is completely removed. He absolutely hates taking them, but if he’s caught off of them he will be punished by law, so he made a deal with Wymack which allows him to be off his meds for half of every game before withdrawal kicks in. He also goes off them every night to sleep, and has Kevin keep hold of them. But by the time he begins vomiting and shaking from withdrawal, he begs Kevin to give them to him. In The Raven King, during a Thanksgiving dinner with a few teammates at Nicky’s parents’ house, Andrew has another incident with Drake, who was paid by Riko to find and assault Andrew once more for his own sick reasons. As the assault occurs, Neil and Aaron, Exy racquet in hand for protection, come looking for Andrew and end up breaking down the bedroom door. Almost instantaneously, Aaron enters the room and swings, slamming Drake through the skull and bludgeoning his head in, killing him. Later, following this incident, Andrew is sent to a rehabilitation center to get clean of his improper medication, as it has prevented him from properly coping with what happened to him, instead forcing him to turn it all to smiles and empty laughter. the doctor assigned to Andrew is a lackey for Riko, paid to inflict more pain onto the blonde. Dr. Proust uses everything in his power to destroy every last bit of Andrew’s dignity. In a shocking additional bit of information from Nora herself, we learn more details, such as; drugging him to make his head fuzzy and his body weak, using ward restraints to keep Andrew defenseless with the excuse that he’s a danger to himself and others, biting the scars on his wrists till they bruised, reenacting scenes from Andrew’s own trauma from details Riko paid to dig up, and, most of all, filming every single time it happened and sending the tapes to Riko. Andrew is the one who stops Neil from running away by slamming him in the stomach with an Exy racket.

More random info: Andrew says he doesn’t really care about Exy as a sport, he says he just plays it because it’s less boring than life. This is not known to be true or untrue. Andrew is a goalie with a number 03 jersey. Andrew wears pretty much only black, from muscle tees to turtlenecks to pea coats, basically all black all the time. Supposedly black platform shoes and such. For the first two books, Andrew has never received any consensual sexual touch. Andrew looks identical to Aaron, their only visible difference to most is the black armbands Andrew wears from elbow to wrist. Exy fans think it’s just his way of distinguishing himself, but Andrew really wears them to both hide his self-harm scars and sheath knives underneath them. Andrew smokes way too many cigarettes a day. Andrew’s favorite food is ice cream. Andrew has a very high alcohol tolerance. Andrew is very afraid of heights and sits on the roof of the dorm building to “feel something”. This makes plane travel for away games very difficult for him. Andrew hates the word “misunderstanding” almost as much as he hates the word “please”. Andrew speaks fluent german. Both the twins are very pale. Andrew is an absolute god at goalkeeping. Andrew is the second most buff person on the team, behind Matt.

Aaron Michael Minyard - [TW: substance abuse]

He/him. Same age, height, and appearance as Andrew; they’re identical twins. It is explicitly stated that they look so similar that the only way people can tell them apart is by either Andrew’s black armbands or Andrew’s manic smile.

Aaron is studying to become a doctor, and takes med classes. In the first book, Aaron begins seeing a Vixen (PSU cheerleader) named Katelyn Mackenzie. When Aaron and Andrew were still living with their mother, they made a deal that they will put each other first before anything, including relationships. Aaron did not break off this deal with Andrew beginning to date Katelyn, and for this Andrew despises Katelyn. Her appearance is not stated, but a majority of the fandom agrees as a running joke that she looks quite similar to Neil, in a funny bit that the twins may have the same type, though her appearance is up to personal interpretation. Most agree that she is taller than Aaron no matter what. She is also planning to attend medical school with Aaron after they graduate PSU. Aaron loves her, and in the future (after the books take place) the author confirmed that they get married and adopt a dog, a pug named Po, but they do not have kids. His mother, Tilda, was very physically abusive towards him. When Aaron was a young teen Tilda introduced him to drugs. She’d take them in front of him, therefore encouraging him to try.

He started taking any drug he could find to get himself high, including drinking cough syrup, but his biggest addiction was to painkillers. Tilda would get angry, but not because he was doing drugs, but because he would steal her cash to pay for them, or steal some of her own. Aaron was hooked and couldn’t quit, so when Andrew killed Tilda and they both went to live with Nicky, Andrew locked Aaron in their bathroom. For days Aaron tried any means to escape, pulling drawers out and throwing them at the door, punching the walls, and was in major withdrawal pain, crying and wailing on the floor and throwing up, he was a mess. He screamed for Andrew to Please let him out, please, but Andrew couldn’t hear that word without silent spiraling into his own mind. He eventually came out the other side clean and he had stayed that way since then. He considers it the worst period of his life, although he’s secretly thankful to Andrew for getting him sober. He still takes one drug, but it’s non addictive (i know, that’s why it’s fictional). Cracker Dust is a fictional drug in powder form that a few of the Foxes take; it is sweet like sugar and gets the user high like a mild version of cocaine, but has non-addictive qualities. He drinks a lot, too. At the team’s trips to Eden's Twilight, Aaron usually gets wasted and takes cracker dust before going off to the dance floor with a couple of the others.

More random info: Aaron has intricate unique handshakes with each of the bouncers at Eden’s. Aaron is 05, a backliner on the Exy team. Aaron blames Andrew entirely for the death of Tilda, and it takes a lot to even consider forgiving him. Aaron can be frequently found in his dorm room playing video games with Nicky and/or Andrew. Aaron wears simple clothes, with the exception of nights he spends at Eden’s, where he wears black clothes, oftentimes with leather. Aaron is quietly homophobic, most likely due to the strong christian views his mother and Nicky’s parents expressed around him, but he tries to get over this in therapy and, post-canon, eventually learns to get over it almost completely. Aaron also speaks fluent German.

Nicholas Esteban Hemmick - [TW: homophobia, suicidal ideation]

He/him. Most often nicknamed “Nicky”. Nicky is 5’10” and 23 years old. He is the cousin of the Minyard twins, and his parents are Luther and Maria Hemmick. Nicky is openly gay and proud, and his boyfriend of multiple years, Erik Klose, lives in Germany. Post-canon, Nicky stops playing Exy to move to Germany and in with Erik and gets a job working alongside Erik at a business firm before getting engaged and married, and adopting a dog together. Nicky is half Mexican, with light brown skin and shaggy almost-chin-length black hair and dark brown eyes. Due to Nicky and Erik’s long distance, they have come to an agreement that they can kiss other people, but do no more than that. Luckily, they stick together in the end because they’re very in love. Nicky is also a backliner, he is number 8 on the team. Both Luther and Maria, who were strict Christians, hated him for his sexuality. They still consider him a sinner and believe he has strayed far from God. They verbally abused him because of it when he was a child, possibly physically, though it was never confirmed or denied.

He was sent to conversion camp for six months to try and cure him when he was a teenager. While in that camp he very nearly killed himself and was horribly depressed. To get away from this bad familial situation, he took exchange classes for two years in Germany and stayed in a house with a family who took in exchange students, where he then met Erik, the caring son of the family. Nicky taught Erik more English than he already knew and taught him to speak fluently, and Erik taught him better German, and after a while of pining they got together. Nicky was uncomfortable and hesitant for a while because he believed everything his parents said about his sexuality, and often would escape to the nearest church in the middle of the night to pray for forgiveness about his “sinful thoughts” until Erik came looking for him, found him in the pews, and took him home. Eventually, Nicky forgave himself as much as he could and let himself be in a relationship with Erik, and it just got better from there. But when Tilda died, Nicky dropped the entire life he had built in Germany with Erik and moved back to America to take care of the twins. He was heartbroken to leave Erik but he loved his cousins more than anything. He treated them like his own kids and worked days and nights to pay for their house and food. He continued to love his cousins despite how badly they would treat him, often getting nasty homophobic remarks from Aaron or plain silence from Andrew. Nicky is sensitive, and struggled a lot with taking care of the twins, considering Aaron’s addiction, and Andrew’s violent stubbornness.

It was especially hard when he had to try and go about his day hearing Aaron yelling and sobbing in the bathroom in pain, because deep down he knew he needed to keep Aaron in there until he got better. It got more difficult when Andrew tried to protect Nicky and ended up in court, but he had Erik to call and talk to through it all. Nicky takes cracker dust with everyone else and dances drunk with Aaron and a couple others at Eden’s sometimes. Nicky, although he doesn’t have any romantic feelings for Neil, he is physically attracted to Neil and very open about that in the first book, often stating his attraction in sometimes predatory ways. It gets to the point where he holds Neil in his sleep (Neil does not know this until he wakes up with Nicky wrapped around him), makes out with him drunk despite Neil trying to push him away and telling him to stop, and says things like “Don’t let me get too drunk tonight,” while looking at Neil’s body, to which Andrew responds by holding a knife to Nicky’s stomach. As creepy as his actions were, he later gives an honest apology and Neil easily forgives him. It doesn’t take away what he did, but he understands now that it was bad.

More personal info: Nicky and Erik made a list of the five celebrities they’d each be allowed to hook up with if ever given the chance; Kevin Day, his own teammate, is #3 on Nicky’s list. Nicky is hyper and doesn’t know how to keep a secret (unless it’s genuinely very serious). Nicky can be quite sensitive but stands up for himself in the face of homophobia, unless it’s coming from his parents, where he tries to fight it before tucking his tail between his legs. Nicky is the reason the twins learned German in school. Nicky, although he takes Exy seriously and is a very talented athlete in the game, complains constantly while having to run laps. Nicky hates being alone in silence because it gives his thoughts a chance to catch up to him. Nicky covers up his lingering symptoms of depression with smiles and hyperactivity, though it gets especially hard when he’s really missing Erik.

Kevin Day -

He/him. Kevin is coach Wymack’s son, though he is the only one of the two who knows this until halfway through the third book when he finally decides to tell Wymack. not even the coach knew he had a son. He is 20 at the start of the trilogy and 21 by the end of the third book. Kevin is a striker, jersey number 2. Kevin is 6’1”. With dark hair and green eyes, Kevin is half Irish (thanks to his mother, Kayleigh Day), and half something else (thanks to Wymack).

Kayleigh Day invented the game of Exy before having a son. Kevin grew up with his mother and lived a good life until age five, when she was killed in a staged car crash. He was taken by the Moriyamas who staged the crash and was made to live alongside Riko and Nathaniel. Wymack got Kayleigh pregnant without knowing, and they didn’t stick together for long enough for him to find out, hence why he’s unaware of the fact he has a son. Riko, having the privilege of being the true son of the Moriyamas’ boss (and actually being very very talented at the sport) was given the title of number one. Kevin became known as number two, second best player ever under Riko. Riko was absolutely brutal on Kevin despite them being the same age. When they were teenagers, Riko forcefully tattooed a small number two onto Kevin’s left cheek to match the number one he put on his own face as a self absorbed act of control.

When Kevin was nineteen, Riko, in a fit of rage, broke Kevin’s dominant left hand. Kevin then left and signed with the PSU Foxes. He got an easy scholarship to attend school and play Exy at Palmetto State due to his talent and fame. Having joined the Foxes a year before the first book, he has taught himself to be ambidextrous to more easily play after his broken hand couldn’t heal properly due to lack of medical attention. Kevin has also created a lie to tell to the public when they ask about his hand; he says “I broke it in a skiing accident”. Kevin however didn’t leave all of the Raven’s behind, and is in a long term (and long-distance) relationship with one of their players, Thea Muldani. We don’t know much about her, as she only appears once, but what we do know is that she is an African American woman, often portrayed by fandom with long braids. The author said that later in their lives after the books, they marry and have a daughter. Whether their marriage is born out of true love or simply convenience, we still don’t truly know for sure. I vote for love because i like to be optimistic.

The author once said that although Kevin and Allison are not interested in eachother, if they had to hook up with someone else on the team with would be one another.

Kevin expects a lot from the rest of the team when it comes to their abilities on court. He takes Neil to the court practice late at night (like 10pm to 2am) and Andrew will come along 90% of the time just to watch from the bleachers and maybe once in a full moon join in as goalkeeper. Kevin believes Neil will make it to US court after college, he believes in his skills and abilities.

Kevin got in good with Andrew and his lot almost immediately after coming to PSU and Andrew became his bodyguard of sorts. They have a deal; Andrew will protect him from the Moriyamas no matter what unless Kevin asks him explicitly otherwise to break the deal. Although spending years with Neil when he was Nathaniel, Kevin does not recognize Neil as he’s older and under disguise. Kevin doesn’t realize that Neil is technically Nathaniel until Riko points it out (Riko knew the whole time of course) and mocks Neil for being the butcher’s son and Kevin hears and looks at Neil again and it clicks.

More random info: In earlier drafts of the books, Kevin Day was not dating Thea, and was instead actually dating both Neil and Andrew. A good chunk of the fandom headcanons Kevin Day as a repressed bisexual. The Foxes all know Kevin is really hardest on himself, that’s why they all let him push them to their limits on the court. Kevin Day is an alcoholic, but almost no one acknowledges it and it’s quite sad. It has become almost a joke now when it’s a genuinely serious issue. He most often drinks straight vodka.

Jean Moreau - [TW: heavy abuse, SA, suicide attempt]

French. Tall.

He/him. Jean is another one of the Ravens, 19 years old. Jean was born in Marseille, France. Jean is a backliner and jersey number 3 on the Edgar Allen Ravens. The Ravens’ dorm tower is called Castle Evermore, or more commonly, the nest. With pale skin, black hair, and gray eyes, Jean stands at 6’2”-6’3”. Jean, under Kevin, is Riko’s number three, meaning that he is in the inner circle with Kevin. Jean has a small number three tattooed under his cheek similarly with Riko and Kevin. Jean grew up in Marseille with his parents, but after they failed to pay off debts to the Moriyamas, they quickly decided to give up their only son as a replacement for the money. Without a second thought they gave up Jean when he was fourteen. Jean is a great Exy player, but due to Riko’s strict ratings of people, he’s deemed less worthy than Kevin. Jean’s partner, the Raven whom he must share classes and a room with, was named Zane. Jean has been tortured so much by Riko, it’s horrifying. Under Riko's supervision, Jean has broken six fingers (three that Riko made him break himself), was pushed down the Evermore stairs four times (bashing his head open two of those times), was waterboarded ten times for Riko's enjoyment, and was sexually assaulted five times by other Ravens under Riko's orders while Riko watched and sometimes helped restrain him. Riko didn't order a sixth time because the fifth time it happened, Jean gave up and didn’t protest, so Riko didn't find it amusing anymore. Jean was never given a single day to recover from these injuries before he had to be back on the court. One of the Ravens who assaulted him, Grayson Johnson, who was over eighteen at the time, had continued to hurt Jean after the first ordered assault.

Luckily, in the third book, Renee (another one of the foxes) sneaks into the Ravens tower and takes Jean from Evermore and brings him back to PSU, where he sleeps and recovers in the guest bed of the Foxes nurse, Abby. During his stay with Abby, he considers death by overdose on sleep medication, death by burning, and death in general. He is doing awful mentally, he has convinced himself that he is nothing if he’s not with the Ravens, that it is his place. He gets help becoming less pessimistic with Renee, who stays with him often.

In The Sunshine Court, Jean moves to LA, gets a scholarship in University of Southern California, and joins the USC Trojans. He moves in with team captain Jeremy Knox’s best friends and iconic lesbian couple Catalina Alvarez and Laila Dermott, later rooming with Jeremy when he stays with them once classes begin. After struggling with living without a partner, Jeremy offers his partnership to Jean, which he gratefully accepts. Jean grows close with the girlfriends, letting himself be taught how to cook and how to ride a motorcycle. He slowly learns to build trust with new people and find beauty in his life again. The Trojans help Jean through his trauma and Jeremy teaches Jean how to live and be a human. A ship between Jean/Jeremy is close to being confirmed and 100% expected as a definite thing to happen in the next and final book, though so far it’s just been tension.

More personal facts: Jean still speaks fluent French and has an accent, but Riko hated when anyone spoke a language he couldn’t understand and punished Jean if he heard him speak french. When Riko wasn’t in the room, Jean would teach Kevin French and they would speak to each other using it. While still in the nest, Jean had a solid plan to kill himself on graduation night. This plan was stopped when he was saved by Renee. The author said that the final draft was the only draft where he didn’t go through with that plan at the end of the book. In one of the late drafts, for this idea, he would have killed himself whilst on the phone with Kevin, traumatizing him more as well. The author said that Jean harbors some romantic feelings for Renee that are reciprocated, but Renee has a heartfelt conversation with a silent Jean saying that they’re the right people, but it’s the wrong time. Jean had a crush on Kevin while in the next and thought he was beautiful. It is unconfirmed whether or not Kevin knew about this and whether or not those feelings were reciprocated. Kevin knows Jean has had a crush on Jeremy for a long time now.

Riko Moriyama -

He/him. Japanese. Black hair, brown eyes. 5’5” in height. Kevin Day's “adoptive” brother. Son of Moriyamas’ boss. A striker on the Edgar Allen Ravens, jersey number one. Riko, alongside Kevin, is nicknamed “the son of Exy”. Riko was raised by his uncle, Tetsuji, in Castle Evermore. He was raised to only focus on becoming the greatest. Riko, Kevin, and Jean would have tutors come to them to teach them just so they didn’t have to leave Evermore for school. Riko was inseparable with Kevin throughout their youth, always on camera together. Riko has the number one tattooed on his left cheek, similarly to Kevin’s two and Jean’s three. Riko used a subtle form of control where he would never leave a Raven completely alone at any time. There were always at least two people in a room. This caused Jean great stress and discomfort when he was left alone in his guest room at Abby’s. Riko, as a result of the abuse he himself endured as a child, grew up to inflict the same on the rest of his team. Riko is a narcissist with a god complex, the number on his face symbolizing his supposed greatness as the best player in the history of Exy. Riko would make the team practice until they literally dropped like flies, passing out, and not letting them take breaks no matter the extent of their inflicted injuries.

After the highly anticipated Ravens vs Foxes Exy game at the end of book three, the Foxes won after no one ever having beaten the Ravens before. After a conversation with Neil, Riko’s brother, Ichirou, decided Riko was just a complicated nuisance who didn’t have any benefit and only made things worse. So he called a meeting at Evermore tower with both Riko and Neil, and had Neil watch as he shot his own brother, Riko in the head. He then placed the gun in Riko’s hand, leaving the rest of the world to believe it was a suicide, burdening Neil with the confidential information about the real cause of his death.

One extra fact: Riko speaks fluent Japanese and taught Kevin and Jean, too.

Natalie Renee Walker - [TW: SA]

She/her. Birth name Natalie Shields, most commonly referred to as Renee, Renee stands at 5’4” with white chin length hair dyed in pastel rainbow colors at the tips. Her race is mostly unspecified though she is almost always portrayed as having pale skin. She is 24 years old in book one. She is the Foxes other goalkeeper, jersey number 09. She rarely wears makeup and when she does it’s very little. She dresses in non revealing, more conservative clothes. Aside from on the court, she is otherwise always seen wearing a delicate silver cross necklace. When Renee was ten years old, her father murdered her mother. Renee ran away and was lured into joining a street gang. She slowly proved herself and went up the ranks, because she had nowhere else to run to and devoted herself to her life in the gang. After a short matter of years, she got into a violent conflict with a fellow member of the gang who had been sexually assaulting her and other girls before her. She knew he would continue on with other girls if she didn’t stop him. She knew the man’s favored weapon was the knife, so she practiced on her own knifing skills and eventually used the learned skills to kill the man in a physical fight. Unable to hide the death of a member, the gang found out about why she murdered him, and the gang leader didn’t get angry. He actually raised her status even more and played it off to the man’s family as if he was murdered by a member of a rival gang.

One day she was caught by the police on the streets for drugs, and put in the foster care system. She was soon adopted by a kind and supportive woman named Stephanie Walker who introduced Renee to Christianity and the sport of Exy, ultimately saving Renee’s life. Playing Exy became an outlet for Renee. She quickly deemed herself a Christian. In high school, her and future Foxes teammate Dan had a long-standing rivalry due to being captains of two rival Exy teams, and continued the rivalry for a little while after being recruited to the Foxes by Wymack. They eventually decided to be civil in order to hold their ground alongside Foxes teammate Allison against the sexist men on the first Foxes team lineup. By the time book one begins, all aspects of their rivalry are long gone and they are kind with one another. Upon attending PSU, Renee decided to major in Religious Studies. Despite her calm and careful demeanor, she is actually Andrew’s best friend on the team, though Andrew would never admit that to anyone else besides her. She says that although her religion won’t allow her to see everything eye-to-eye with Andrew, she respects and understands him more than anyone (other than Neil. She stays out of fights among the Foxes other than to try and mediate and deescalate the situation. She’s often referred to as a “sweetheart” by various members of the Foxes.

More random facts: Renee and Andrew are sparring partners and will spar with each other when Andrew is upset. Renee is never seen drinking in any of the books, likely due to her religious ideals. Renee loves orchestral and classical music. Post-Canon, Renee joins the Peace Corps, where she meets fellow volunteer Emilio, whom she falls in love with and has children with, the youngest of whom having the name Patrick. There are bets among the Foxes that Andrew and Renee are seeing each other in secret, mainly fueled by their close friendship and Renee asking Andrew to the Winter Exy Banquet as friends in book two, though she makes a promise to Allison that she will never date him, even explicitly telling Neil in book one that she “doesn’t date heathens”. After getting arrested, Renee’s father was soon killed in prison.

Danielle Leigh Wilds -

She/her. Usually referred to simply as Dan, she stands at 5’4”-5’7” with brown eyes and short brown hair that never goes longer than her ears. She is African American, age 21-22, and PSU Foxes Offensive Dealer, jersey number 01. She is assistant captain of the Foxes Exy team, under Wymack. She is very passionate about the people she cares about and refuses to tolerate people talking bad about the team. She is strict on the team, but in the way that she just wants them to cooperate (not kill each other) and work their hardest. Growing up, Dan lived in a mobile home with her usually pregnant Aunt, Cathey Wilds, and her Aunt’s children. To pay off their debts and keep from being homeless, Dan purchased a fake ID in high school and worked as a stripper. Her stage name was “Hennessy” and she had such a close relationship with her fellow strippers that she still refers to them as her sisters. Cathey had many men she would take home often, and when Wymack shows up at her home to recruit her, she quickly comes to the conclusion that he is there to sleep with Cathey, before he shoots her down and tells her his true intentions. She is initially in disbelief because she had been told that women do not get recruited for Exy. She was the first woman to be on an NCAA Exy team, and for this the public despised the Foxes even more than they already had (they were considered the worst team in the league) and her misogynistic male teammates insulted her openly. But she was very talented and the rest of the team eventually fell behind her. When the cousins arrive at PSU and join the Foxes, they take Dan to Eden’s to test her loyalty and she gains their trust/respect. Dan initially does not want to join a relationship because she feels targeted by the nasty looks men give her as everyone knows of her past in sex work, but then Matt joins PSU and the Foxes, and after a long time of gaining trust and building friendship, they fell in love. They have a very healthy romantic and sexual relationship, often sharing fierce hugs and kisses on the court after successful games.

More personal facts: Dan sees Wymack as a father figure. She did not like Allison for a long time, but without realizing it, they became close friends and the three girls shared a dorm. Dan treats Renee’s bruises and cuts after sparring with Andrew. Dan admires Neil’s hard work and, post-canon, makes him the next team captain after her graduation. Post-canon, Dan and Matt marry and have children together. Dan does not have a good relationship with the cousins or Kevin, and considers Andrew to be psychotic, although treating him an equal member of the team while on the court. It isn’t until the third book when she’s able to hold a civil conversation with Nicky. But despite her dislike of them, she is rarely overly nasty to them and supports their athletic career. Dan majored in Athletic Training and minored in Coaching.

Matthew Donovan Boyd - [TW: substance abuse]

He/him. 21 years old. Most commonly referred to as Matt. Standing at 6’4”-6’5” with Black gel-spiked hair, brown eyes, and chocolatey brown skin, Matt is a PSU Backliner, jersey number 04. He’s mostly seen with the girls, but upon Neil’s arrival he starts to consider him his best friend. Matt grew up in New York and his parents, Randy and Donald, split up when he was young. Randy, his mother, is a boxer with an irregular schedule which means Matt lives only with Donald, his father, who is a doctor. With Randy’s absence, Donald falls into a dangerous party scene involving drugs and alcohol, and encourages young Matt to join in and take part with him. Because of this, Matt becomes addicted to both cocaine and heroin at a young age, but upon Randy’s return, she decides to stay for a while to rehabilitate him. She taught him how to box and play Exy as a distraction, and over this time they bonded. When Matt is recruited to the PSU Foxes, he struggles to stay clean, and Randy administers Andrew’s help in getting Matt to stay sober. This is done by Andrew, the other cousins, and Kevin, taking Matt to Eden’s and giving him Speedball (a strong drug which consists of a combination of Heroin and Cocaine which is then injected into the skin). Matt suffers greatly from the near-fatal drug and almost dies. This scared him straight, showing Matt the true danger he was in and he quit once and for all. Randy took more time off of work to help him recover during this. Matt, although not happy about how it went down, does not hold a grudge towards Andrew for this as he understands that it helped him and he would be dead without the intervention.

More personal info: Nicky thinks Matt is physically attractive. Matt is buff and built strong but his personality is friendly and he’s the teddy bear of the group. He owns a large blue truck that Neil, Renee, and Allison ride in the bed of during Summer practices. Matt majored in Business Administration. The first time Donald met Neil in the third book, he rudely suggested that Neil have plastic surgery done on his face. Matt has faded but obvious track marks on the insides of both his arms.

Allison Jamaica Reynolds - [TW: ED]

She/her. Age 21-22. Allison is a PSU Foxes Defensive Dealer, jersey number 07. Standing 5’4”-5’7”, Allison is white with long platinum blonde hair and smokey-gray eyes. She often curls her hair. She often wears elaborate makeup and her closet is entirely designer clothes. She is proud and not stingy with money. She was a former heiress to the extremely wealthy Reynolds family, who is rich from owning luxury resorts and worth billions, who cut her off after she chose Exy over the family business. She was disowned and removed from the will. Before and during the first book, Allison is in an on-again off-again relationship with teammate Seth Gordon. She loves gossip, especially revolving around romance. Allison grew up with a severe case of bulimia and was hospitalized for it as a teen. She has since fully recovered as much as possible, with Wymack’s help.

More personal info: Allison enjoys modern pop music. Nicky once called Allison a “catty bitch”. Allison’s best friend is Renee, and although a good chunk of the fandom ships them, the author confirmed that they are just close friends. Allison drives a pink convertible. Allison majored in Fashion Design and minored in Marketing. Post-canon, Allison created and owns her own line of Fashion and makes a lot of money off of it. Post-canon, Allison loves dressing Neil in nice clothes.

Bryan Seth Gordon - [TW: substance abuse, implied suicide]

He/him. Age 24. Usually only referred to as Seth. Standing at 6’-6’2”, his appearance is almost entirely unspecified. There are many different head canons on what he looks like. A fairly common one, and my own personal one, is picturing him as white with a buzzed haircut and sharp cheekbones. Seth was a striker, jersey number 06. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Seth was the fourth of seven sons to parents Bryan and Rebecca, who never married. He was named after his father. When Seth was eight years old, his father left, hence his mother switching to calling him solely by his middle name. Rebecca worked three jobs and his older siblings raised him, but were very troubled and not good replacement parents. Seth was a problem child, and began playing Exy in fifth grade. He grew very close to his fifth grade teacher Mrs. Everetts and her husband, spending many nights having dinner with them, until they moved and “abandoned” him with no warning whatsoever. Between them and his father, when he joined the Foxes, Seth always believed that Wymack was bound to leave him too. Seth is clinically depressed and struggles with drug use. At the start of the books, Seth is the only male member left from the original PSU Foxes Exy lineup. Seth dislikes everyone on the team except for his on-and-off girlfriend, Allison.

He dislikes Neil from their first meetup and refuses to talk to him until Neil scores a goal against Andrew. Seth and Allison’s relationship is not all that healthy, and they have never dated for more than a few months at a time. Their first hook-up took place before the first book, and what happened was that they had gone to a frat party off campus and a man had tried to assault Allison and she had been too drunk to react, before Seth pushed the guy off and carried Allison back to her house and laying her in bed before settling on her couch. They hooked up the day after. When they are dating, they are sweet and just fine, but during the times when they’re not, they’re nasty and insulting towards each other. When they’re fighting, Seth tends to take time away and hang out with Matt. An incident at the end of book one occurs, and Seth is killed by Riko’s doing. It is staged as a suicide by drug overdose, he’s found laying on the dorm bathroom floor choked and drowned to death with his own vomit, but the Foxes have their suspicions as to what really happened. Allison keeps his ashes in an urn and is a mess for the following couple weeks. She eventually has his urn built into the fountain in her front yard.

More personal facts: Seth hated the effect that fame has on a person and said “I’m not worth less just because I’m less talented,”. Seth was majoring in Park, Recreation, and Tourism Management. Seth hated Nicky the most for his sexuality but also despised Kevin for his fame and frequently got into physical fights with the both of them, spewing insults and slurs. Seth was disgusted by the idea of Andrew and Renee becoming a couple due to how much he hated Andrew. Seth was easily provoked, and had a bad temper. Neil assumed his mood swings are the result of drug use. Seth was one of Neil’s roommates in the dorms in book one.

Erik Klose -

He/him. Erik has short dirty blonde hair and, (in my personal opinion bc he’s very lightly described), light stubble on his face. Assumed to be around age 24. Nicky’s eventual husband. They are so in love and it's very sad how they have to be an ocean apart for so long. Erik and Nicky frequently engage in facetime sex on their laptops. Nicky calls from his room in the Columbia house after nights spent at Eden’s with the team, Erik calls from his apartment in Germany. We know this both because Nicky is very open about his sex life. Erik is mostly fluent in English but most always speaks in German unless necessary otherwise. Erik and Nicky mot of the time only speak to each other in German. Erik grew up in a Christian family and continues to love God, but he grew up with the kind of religious family that believes homosexuality isn’t unnatural or a sin. Erik helped Nicky be comfortable with his sexuality and his religion. Nicky still loves God and himself now because of Erik’s support. Erik also helped Nicky recover from his severe depression and suicidal thoughts that occurred following conversion camp.

David Vincent Wymack - [TW: substance abuse]

He/him. Wymack grew up with a violent and angry father. As an adult, he vowed to make his Exy team a safe sanctuary for troubled young adults. His trauma caused him to become a borderline alcoholic and angry, but he makes it clear in the first book that even though he likes to yell and throw things, he will never, ever, hurt anyone without being provoked. His race is unspecified but most, including me, headcanon him as Native American for various reasons. Wymack has tribal flame tattoos on both his forearms. He cares for all the Foxes more than he’d ever say out loud, he cares for them like children. He’s hurt when he learns that Kevin is his son, because he realizes that his own son was getting abused and harmed throughout his childhood (by Riko) and he had no idea and couldn’t help him. Wymack is one of the first people to catch onto Andrew’s physical attraction to Neil, but he just says “this is below my paygrade” and inwardly groans to himself. His father was an alcoholic and started the genetic train of alcoholism that still affects Wymack and Kevin. Wymack’s step father tried to kill his mother, which landed him in prison.

Abigail Marie Winfield -

She/her. Most commonly referred to as Abby. Her appearance is mostly unstated aside from a blonde mid-length ponytail. She is the Foxes Exy team nurse, and Wymack’s former assigned therapist. She is kind and sweet but confident and will not hesitate to order someone around. Abby makes Nicky stop Andrew from drinking while on his meds, but Nicky isn’t great at enforcing this. When she does her first required physical on Neil in the first book, despite reassuring Neil by saying that she’s “seen worse”, she is obviously shocked by the excessive scars on his body. During the cousins’ first year at PSU, she housed the three and Kevin at her place off-campus. The Foxes have bets that Abby and Wymack are sleeping together due to them interacting a lot, Wymack making the passcode to the court Abby’s birthdate, and other various small things. This is confirmed in book three, and they are in a romantic relationship that lasts the rest of their lives. She has motherly instincts and pretty much thinks of the Foxes as her kids.

Betsy Jo Dobson -

She/her. Commonly nicknamed “Bee” by Andrew. Commonly agreed upon that Betsy has pale brown hair that goes to her chin, and she has relatively pale skin and a pudgier build. She has laugh lines on her face and wears narrow-rimmed glasses. She is the PSU Foxes team psychiatrist and the only therapist Andrew has ever trusted. When Andrew was put on his meds, he was assigned court-ordered weekly therapy sessions. He has never trusted or liked a therapist in the past and it started that way with Bee, but after he noticed that she treated him with more humanity and was a more favorable personality to him, he started to open up and now he tells her everything. At the start of every session, she makes both Andrew and herself a mug of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. She has a collection of glass animal figurines on her laptop stand that Andrew buys for her as an apology because during their first meeting he broke the ones she had by knocking them off her laptop stand and throwing them at the wall to see how she would react and felt guilty when she stayed completely calm and didn’t get angry with him. He continues buying her more every time he finds one she doesn’t have. It’s required for everyone on the team to see her at least once a semester, though they can schedule an appointment any time. Betsy previously worked in counseling at juvenile detention centers until she got her job at PSU. In juvie, she worked mainly on suicide watch. Betsy has OCD and her office is very neat and orderly. She is close friends with both Abby and Wymack. Neil does not trust Betsy because he does not trust therapists in general. He is, however, entirely supportive of Andrew’s relationship with her and understands that he needs her sometimes.

Zane Reacher - [SA]

Zane, with an unknown age and appearance, was Jean’s partner in the nest. When you had a partner at Evermore, whether you hated them or not, it was required to share your classes and strictly on-campus dorm room with them. Zane desperately wanted to make number 4 on Riko’s perfect court, directly behind Jean. Zane, fully aware of the sexual abuse Riko was inflicting on Jean, tried to protect him from it although he could not fully stand in the way of it without violent repercussions. He quickly learned about Grayson’s perseverance, understanding why he frequently showed up to their room at night, and he despised him for it. He and Jean had an agreement where Zane would try to keep Grayson away from Jean as much as he could. However, in a turn of events, Zane made the jealously-fueled selfish decision to turn his back and keep quiet when Grayson came to their room the next time, just telling Jean to keep it down. Fell in love with Raven teammate Clarissa, despite extreme hardships when it came to romance in the Nest.

Jeremy Knox -

Jeremy Knox is 23 years old. Shaggy caramel hair, white and tan from the SoCal sun, 6’1”.

Jeremy strongly dislikes being reminded of his last name, for reasons currently unknown. Jeremy’s parents are divorced and he lives in a large house with his mother, congressman stepfather who he separates himself from as much as possible, his sister Annalise, and his older brother Brayden whom he avoids at all costs. It is implied he has another sibling, though he refuses to discuss this even in his own point of view for similar unknown reasons. He also refuses to talk about a supposed incident at his first fall Banquet for which he was the subject of many vague rumors. Jeremy is gay, and it's implied that he has only had quick hookups in the past, no genuinely romantic relationships. On the outside, Jeremy is sunshine on Earth, just a very silly guy. A very silly guy who avoids cops like the plague for more related unknown reasons. We will learn much more about his very ominous past in TSC2.

One extra fact: It is confirmed that Jeremy is a service top.

Jack & Sheena -

you may hear these names sometimes in the fandom. these are two characters only mentioned in the author’s extra content. they are future Foxes, becoming part of the team when Neil is captain. very angry, very homophobic people. always trying to get a rise out of Neil, Jack with his snarky comments and Sheena with her sharp laugh like a hyena. you won’t usually see their names ever except for in fanfiction (same as below).

Robin -

again, another future Foxes member as described by the author’s extra content. Robin had a rough childhood growing up in captivity. when she joins the Foxes she becomes an honorary part of The Monsters (see below). She becomes a close friend of Neil’s when Andrew graduates and she helps Neil feel less alone. i like to forget she exists a lot not because i don’t like her but just because i don’t have really any feelings about her existence.

The Monsters -

the group name for Andrew, Aaron, Kevin, Neil, Nicky. the ones that go to Eden’s and Columbia together.

[spade-riddles]

Joshua Kushner - A Slumlord

For those of you who asked for some proof, here is a some:

"Westminster Management LLC and JK2"

----------------------------------

The article is from 2022:

... agreed to pay a $3.25 million civil penalty and restitution to settle a 2019 lawsuit in Maryland over allegations of charging tenants illegal fees and failing to maintain properties, Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Friday.

Frosh announced that his office's Consumer Protection Division has reached a settlement with Westminster Management LLC, a New Jersey-based corporation, and the 25 companies that own or owned 17 residential communities managed by Westminster Management in Maryland.

"Tenants in Westminster properties suffered with mold, leaks, floods and infestations of rodents, roaches and bedbugs," Frosh, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Management hid these conditions only to reveal them to their tenants after they were locked into long-term leases. Westminster knew the condition of its properties, and it charged tenants illegal fees to live in those miserable conditions. Westminster's conduct was unconscionable."

------------

This one from 2020:

Jared Kushner’s Property Management Company Is Trying to Evict Hundreds of Tenants in the Middle of a Pandemic 

Westminster Management, which netted Kushner $1.65 million last year, “has submitted hundreds of eviction filings in court against tenants with past due rent during the pandemic.”

For instance, properties owned by the Kushners in Baltimore had more than 200 code violations in 2017 alone; repairs were apparently “made only after the county threatened fines,” and that same year, the New York Times and ProPublica found that tenants of the Kushner properties had reported maggots, mold problems, and a mouse infestation. And in Maryland, an apartment company partially owned by Kushner is trying to evict hundreds of tenants in the midst of a pandemic, the response to which he has presided over and epically fucked up (along with, of course, Donald Trump). 

[scotianostra]

On July 1st 1884 Allan Pinkerton, the Scottish-born detective, died.

Not all Scots that I post about should be looked upon as good people, we do have to acknowledge this in our history, scratch beneath the subject in most cases and you will find fault, this is certainly true of Pinkerton.

Born in Glasgow, on the 25th of August 1819 his father was a sergeant of the Glasgow municipal police and died in 1828 of injuries received from a prisoner in his custody.

In 1842 Allan emigrated to Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Dundee, Kane County, Illinois, where he established a cooperage business. Here he ran down a gang of counterfeiters, and he was appointed a Deputy Sheriff of Kane County in 1846 and immediately afterwards of Cook County, with headquarters in Chicago.

In Chicago he organized a force of detectives to capture thieves who were stealing railway property, and this organization developed in 1852 into Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, of which he took sole charge in 1853. He was especially successful in capturing thieves who stole large amounts from express companies. In 1866 his agency captured the principals in the theft of $700,000 from Adams Express Company safes on a train of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railway, and recovered all but $12,000 of the stolen money.

In February 1861 Pinkerton found evidence of a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln upon his arrival in Baltimore on his way to Washington; as a result, Lincoln passed through Baltimore at an early hour in the morning without stopping. In April 1861 Pinkerton, on the suggestion of General George B. McClellan, organized a system of obtaining military information in the Southern states. From this system he developed the US Secret Service, of which he was in charge throughout the war, under the assumed name of Major E. J. Allen.

Pinkerton was not without controversy, one of his detectives, James McParlan, in 1873-76 lived among the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania and secured evidence which led to the breaking up of what was considered a criminal organization. His detectives were also used to escort strike breakers during the era.

In 1869 Pinkerton suffered a partial stroke of paralysis, and thereafter the management of the detective agency devolved chiefly upon his sons, William Allan and Robert. He died in Chicago on the 1st of July 1884. He published The Molly Maguires and the Detectives , The Spy of the Rebellion, in which he gave his version of President-elect Lincoln’s journey to Washington; and a memoir, Thirty Years a Detective. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency continues to trade in the US to this day.

Pics are of Pinkerton, on horseback then with, President Abraham Lincoln, and Major General John Alexander McClernand. Pinkerton was the head of Union Intelligence Services at the time. He also, allegedly, foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. His wartime work was critical in Pinkerton’s development, which he later used to pioneer his agency. Other pics include the firms logo old and new.

[no-spices-just-pisces]

Foxes Gang Au part 1

The Foxes, Ravens and Trojans were rival gangs on the Palmetto territory

The Trojans came to an begrudging peace with the other two gangs as long as blood wasn’t spilled

They were the ones that wanted to do their business without being at each other’s throats, thanks to their leader Jeremy Knox, whose ever present smile had a subtle treat to it only the trained eye could notice

The Foxes and Ravens were notorious for their rivalry, no peace would ever be settled between them

The Ravens won in numbers and resources but the Foxes won in heart and ambition

Even with so little members, they fought like they had everything to lose, they were a family, pulling each other to the top

The tension between them was always well known on the streets of Palmetto

Dan Wilds, leader of thee Foxes cared about her members like her own blood, always putting their safety first over money

Riko Moriyama, leader of the Ravens, was the exact opposite, sacrificing and torturing recruits left and right for the sake of profit and his own personal satisfaction

Their bad blood only increased as Riko’s second in comand, Kevin Day left the Raven and joined the Foxes after Riko left him broken handed on the streets after a job went wrong

Still, the Ravens took offense as if the Foxes stole their property from then, and war started

The first move was when Fox member Seth Gordon was shot in the chest in the middle of the day by a Raven

The second move was when Seth’s girlfriend, Allison stabbed the Raven in the chest 17 times

Foxes were restricted from walking Palmetto’s streets alone from then on

The Trojans made their statement of neutrality known, but there were whispers stating that they would take the Foxes’s side if things went too far

No one would have thought that the factor that would settle the war between the two gangs would come in the form of a 5 feet 3 redhead with attitude problems

Nathaniel Wesninski grew up around violence, being thought from an way too early age that his he would grow up to inherit his father’s crime empire and rule over Baltimore with a hand of steel

His mother didn’t want that future for him, so she ran away with him in the middle of the night when he was 11

They had been on the run for 8 years until their father had caught up with them and took away the only person who ever cared about him

He managed to escape his father a second time, but barely

Without his mother his life didn’t look like it was going to last much longer, his father would eventually catch up to him again

Nathaniel, now under the identity of Neil Josten, ran to Palmetto, the last place he had been with his mother before they ran away, remembering the power that place held, hoping he could find someone more powerful than his father to either protect him or kill him first

His salvation came in the face of Ichirou Moriyama, who didn’t take Neil under his protection because of his heart, but in need of a mean to tighten the leash he had on his younger brother

Riko had too much power in Palmetto, being given that territory by their father, since he could never interfere in their business

Neil, being recognized by Ichirou, was sent in the heart of the gangs’ war to survey everything happening and report back

This was against everything his mother had wanted for him, but this offered him protection against his father, so it worked

[aeshnacyanea2000]

What would an ideal Season 4 of Hannibal look like to you? What plot elements would you like to see? Or do you even want a Season 4?

Thank you so much for this ask!

Do I want Bryan Fuller to get the chance to make a season 4? Honestly, no. As far as canon is concerned, I think the season 3 finale (without the zinger) was the best case scenario for a series finale. It leaves enough room for interpretation, for a variety of scenarios as to what could come next.

If I could magically have exactly the season 4 I dream about? Ooof, that's more complicated. Because I have several ideas for a potential season 4.

There are just three things that are absolute must-haves for any hypothetical season 4 for me:

obviously, Hannibal is still alive

the zinger is not something that actually happened (if it gets referenced at all, then it's a dream sequence)

Bedannibal is endgame (that does not mean there has to be any significant amount of Bedannibal screen time in the season, but it should end with the two of them reunited)

Another thing I'd like to see is the aftermath of what happened, and the consequences for the characters. No convenient time-skip to gloss over the procedural/legal implications. I want to see the full cluster fuck unfold. The scandal, the public outrage, the internal FBI investigation and the politics. The media circus. I want to see Freddie Lounds having the time of her life spinning the story of the murder husbands, of Will Graham freeing Hannibal Lecter.

As for the actual season 4 story arc, or rather potential story arcs, here are some of my ideas:

Murder husbands not so happily ever after:

Hannibal manages to save both himself and Will from the ocean, and gets them away to lick their wounds. He once again forgives Will for his betrayal, and believes that they can now finally have the life he always wanted for them. Will seemingly agrees. But all is not as rosy as Hannibal dreamed it, and real life together proves disappointing. Will may be everything Hannibal hoped for when it comes to being his partner in murder, but he finds him lacking in other areas of their life together. And Will harbors considerable resentment over the failure of his murder-suicide plan. In the end, their happy life implodes, and this time in a terminal way, with Hannibal killing Will. Heartbroken, Hannibal seeks out the one person he never found lacking: Bedelia.

2. A helping hand:

Hannibal manages to drag himself out of the ocean and evade the searches of the FBI. But he is injured, and needs help. And there is only one person he trusts enough to provide that help. Bedelia du Maurier.

Bedelia, for her part, has anticipated this possibility, and prepared accordingly. Despite Will Graham's threats, she has not left her home. When Hannibal manages to sneak back into Baltimore and climbs over the back wall of her property into her garden, she is ready and waiting. She confronts him before he can try to enter her house, keeping him at a distance at gunpoint until he gives her his word that he will not harm her, and begs for her help.

Bedelia is prepared to help, but not here. She orders him to wait right where he is, disappears into the house for a few moments, and returns with a bag. Then she asks him if he has a car nearby, and when Hannibal answers in the affirmative, tells him to lead the way. They leave the property over the back wall, the same way Hannibal got there.

Once in his car, she directs him across town to what turns out to be a closed down veterinary practice. When Hannibal warns her that all such places would have received an advisory to be on the lookout for him or any signs of break-ins etc. she informs him that this particular practice has been shut down for a few months, ever since the owner died. And it will likely remain shut down for a long while, since there is an ongoing dispute about the estate the man left behind.

When Hannibal questions how she knows about this place, Bedelia reveals that she overheard a conversation between two former customers of this veterinary during a spa visit a while ago. The two women were gossiping freely, and she learned a lot of useful information. Including where to find a spare key for the back door, and the likely code for the alarm system.

Bedelia's info proves correct. They use the practice and a mixture of supplies found there and others Bedelia brought in her bag to patch Hannibal up.

Once that is done, they have a talk.

Earlier, when she first confronted Hannibal in her garden, she asked if Will Graham was with him. Now, she returns to that line of inquiry, asking if Will is still alive. Hannibal doesn't know. He tells her he doesn't care, because after his latest betrayal, he is finished with Will. While Bedelia is happy to hear that, it's not the point of her question. She doesn't say so, but Hannibal can read her well and asks, prompting her to tell him about Will's threats towards her. Hannibal is outraged, and now hopes the man is dead.

They move on to the next topic: the immediate future. Bedelia makes it clear that whatever Hannibal has planned as his next step, she will not come with him. She needs to remain in her home so as not to draw any attention. Hannibal is disappointed, but he understands.

Bedelia does ask if he has a safe place he can go and lay low in. Hannibal tells her truthfully that while the cliff side house was his main safe house, he does have a few other boltholes. But it's been more than three years since he could check on them. They may not be there and safe anymore. He will have to see.

Bedelia is not happy to hear that, and to Hannibal's surprise offers him an alternative. She hands him a printout of a map, of the kind hikers use. It shows some rural area, one numbered state road, a few smaller, local roads branching off of it, going into stretches of woodland dotted with small lakes. A very thin road branching off from one of the local roads is highlighted. It leads up to one of those lakes, and the spot where it ends practically on the lake shore is marked with an X there on the map. Otherwise, only the big road is labeled with a number, but no further identifying localities are shown. It could be anywhere along that road.

Bedelia explains that this is in upstate New York, and the X on the map shows a private holiday cabin. A cabin which was originally built in the 1920s, then later bought by a decidedly shady business man, who hid it under an offshore company registered in the name of his last mistress. When she died many years later, it was left in a trust.

That woman was Bedelia's "great-aunt Marie", not an actual relative, but a friend of her paternal grandmother. Bedelia is the only still living beneficiary of the trust the woman left behind. The trust is managed by a law firm in Switzerland. No chance of anybody tracing it back to Bedelia.

The cabin used to be rented out through a local agency, but bookings had become sparse in the last years, and Bedelia arranged for it to be taken off the market about a year ago. It is still in decent repair. Hannibal is touched and very grateful for her help. And he hopes that at some point in the future, after the manhunt for him has died down, they will be able to meet again and he will get the chance to show her his gratitude.

Bedelia and Hannibal part ways not far from her home, after he drives her back to her neighborhood. Then he sets out for the cabin, and Bedelia prepares for a visit from the FBI, and potentially also from Will Graham, should he still be alive.

3. Will Graham's descend into darkness:

After his attempted murder-suicide, Will is pulled from the ocean by a fishing boat, more dead than alive, but he somehow manages to pull through and recover. Of Hannibal Lecter, no trace is found either alive or dead.

Physically, Will has a bunch of new scars, some lasting mementos that will twinge every time the weather turns, but over all he makes an almost miraculous recovery and regains his old strength. Mentally…

After the inevitable investigations and media circus finally die down, he returns to his life with Molly and Walter, and at first all seems as well as can be expected. But that's not true.

That fight at the cliff side house awakened something in Will Graham. He finally gave in to his dark side, thinking it would be the end. But it wasn't, and now his inner darkness will not allow him to stifle it once more.

He tries to resist, at first, but circumstances conspire against him. Molly has some trouble at work with a local asshole who is harassing her. When Will encounters the man alone and witnesses him abusing a dog, he tries to intervene, the situation escalates, and Will kills him. And he feels the same rush, the same high as during the fight with the Red Dragon.

Will manages to make the body disappear, aided by the fact that the guy was an all round asshole and involved in shady stuff, and nobody is sad he is gone. But after that first incident, the dam inside Will is broken. His next killing is planned.

Gradually, his behavior escalates. More dangerous victims, more "artistic" murders, less careful disposal of the bodies. (Perhaps, mid-season, one of his kills is found, and to Wills delight there is speculation that it is the work of Hannibal Lecter, that Hannibal is still alive after all.)

But while Will is now thoroughly enjoying his own twisted darkness, these killings still can't seem to scratch that inner itch.

And then there is some news item about Bedelia du Maurier, and suddenly all his dark urges have a new focus. The woman he has hated and been jealous of for so long. And now, he decides that he will finally have his revenge.

Bedelia was seemingly unaffected by the events of the season 3 finale, refusing to leave her home after Will's threats, and even after the news that Hannibal Lecter has escaped.

She did eventually leave, when Freddie Lounds and other reporters got too annoying in the aftermath of it all. Nobody knew where she had gone, until now. Will gathers as much information as he can, and carefully plans his attack.

The season finale is him carrying out his plan, only to get a nasty surprise: Bedelia is not living alone. She has been sharing her new refuge with none other than Hannibal Lecter. And the two of them have anticipated his attack, and prepared for it. Will Graham has stepped into a carefully prepared trap.

Epilogue: a news bulletin about the gruesome discoveries in the woods not far from Will and Molly's home, where evidence found in an old hunting cabin provided proof that the missing former FBI consultant Will Graham has become a serial killer and is responsible for a number of disappearances and murders, some of which were suspected to be the work of Hannibal Lecter. Given the new evidence, there is now no doubt they were the work of Will Graham. While Hannibal Lecter's fate remains unclear, there is no indication that he survived the altercation between him, Mr. Graham and the killer known as the Tooth Fairy. Mr. Graham is currently missing, and presumably on the run.

4. The shadow of the monster:

The dead body of Will Graham is fished from the Atlantic ocean several days after the fight at Hannibal's safe house. No trace of Hannibal, dead or alive, is found. Weeks pass, then months. Gradually, the furor surrounding the escape of Hannibal the Cannibal dies down, and life returns to some semblance of normal. The official investigations take longer of course, but without any trace of Hannibal being found, and with the surviving conspirators (Jack and Alana) with every reason to remain silent, they aren't having much success.

And then Alana Bloom receives a package with a bottle of a specific craft beer that she liked - not the beer Hannibal brewed specifically for her, of course, but another one he did serve to her - and some also very specific sweets. The date the package arrives is exactly the date of Hannibal's last dinner party. Or, in other words, the date Alana slept with Hannibal for the first time.

Alana is instantly convinced that this is coming from Hannibal. But there is no definite proof. No note, no fingerprints or DNA traces, and the package itself got sent in such a way that the true origin and who exactly posted it cannot be traced.

Over the next weeks, the other "old acquaintances" of Hannibal Lecter receive similar mail. Jack Crawford, Bedelia du Maurier, Frederick Chilton, Margot Verger. Even Freddie Lounds. Always items that are reminiscent of encounters with Hannibal, but never any concrete proof that this is coming from him.

Once again, the investigations ramp up, and this time, Jack and Alana are on opposing sides. Alana is convinced Hannibal is alive, Jack keeps insisting - partly because that's the story he told until now and he has to stick to it or open himself up to questioning again - that Hannibal is dead and this is someone else. But he can't explain how anybody else would know about these things.

The recipients of the packages react with varying degrees of fear and paranoia, but none are unaffected. And all of them try to work out who could be behind it all, with varying levels of cooperation between each other, and between them and the official FBI investigation. None of them realize that the sender of these packages is right in their midst.

Bedelia was disappointed and heartbroken when Hannibal gave himself up to the FBI three years ago. Over time, those feelings changed to anger. Anger at Will Graham, anger at Hannibal himself, and of course anger at the other players in this game, starting with Alana and the Vergers, and Jack Crawford.

As Will Graham said, if you play, you pay. Bedelia has paid her own price in the pain she has been feeling ever since Florence. Will Graham has finally paid the ultimate price for his obsession. Hannibal may or may not be still alive, but even if he is, Will Graham is dead, and Bedelia knows that death will hurt Hannibal. Right now, she does not feel any sympathy for him. He deserves that pain. But the others, they deserve pain, too. And Bedelia has no more fucks to give. She is ready to burn everything down. Life after Hannibal has been boring, stultifying. She has nothing else to occupy her time. And she misses him. And now she has found the perfect outlet for her emotions, and a task to occupy her time.

Hannibal meanwhile is still alive, licking his wounds. He finds out about what's going on, and is intrigued, but also annoyed that someone would pretend to be him. (He is particularly angry that Bedelia is among the targets of this person.) He decides to investigate.

[follow-up-news]

Kevin Spacey’s $5.6 million waterfront condominium in Baltimore has been sold at auction amid the disgraced actor’s financial struggles following a slew of sexual misconduct allegations. Last summer, a London jury acquitted Spacey on sexual assault charges stemming from allegations by four men dating back 20 years. That was his second court victory since he saw off a $40 million lawsuit in 2022 in New York brought by “Star Trek: Discovery” actor Anthony Rapp. But Spacey said in an emotional interview with British broadcast host Piers Morgan last month that he was millions of dollars in debt, largely because of unpaid legal bills, and facing foreclosure on the Baltimore property. Spacey moved to the Baltimore area when he started shooting the hugely popular political thriller “House of Cards” there in 2012. Speaking through tears during the interview, Spacey said he would have to go back to Baltimore and put all his things in storage. He said he nearly had to file for bankruptcy a couple times but managed to dodge it. His luxury condo on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor sold at auction Thursday morning for $3.24 million, according to the auctioneer’s website. It sits on a floating pier and boasts six bedrooms, seven full baths, an elevator, sauna, home theater, rooftop terrace, multiple verandas and a four-car garage.

[brookston]

Holidays 7.19

Holidays

Battle of Mirbat Day (UK)

Bender Day

Bloomer Day

Brian May Day

Changing Places Awareness Day (UK)

Coach Day (Ukraine)

Colt 45 Day

Engineer’s Day (Nepal)

Feast of Cranks

Female Cabinet Minsters Day (Japan)

Festival of the Puzzlebox

Flight Attendant Safety Professionals’ Day

Flitch Day (Bacon given to any married couple who could prove they had lived in harmony and fidelity for 1 year; very few took home the bacon)

Glioblastoma Awareness Day

Grocery Heroes Day (Canada)

International Retainer Day

K Days begin (Canada)

Lord of the Rings Day

Lumberjack World Championships (Wisconsin)

Martyr’s Day (Burma)

National Barbara Day

National Football Day

National Hug Your Kids Day

National Play Day

National Secretary Day (Mexico)

National Tell A Girl She’s Beautiful Day

National Urban Beekeeping Day

National Words With Friends Day

National Youth Empowerment Day

New Friends Day [also 1.19; 10.19]

One Voice Day

Palace Day (India)

Rojava Revolution Anniversary Day (Syria)

Roy Orbison Day (Odessa, Texas)

Sandinista Day (Nicaragua)

719 Day (Colorado)

Solomon Burke Day (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Spelt Day (French Republic)

Stick Out Your Tongue Day

Tabaski Day (Cameroon)

Tims Camp Day (Tim Hortons; Canada)

Triple Play Day

World Peter Obi Day (Nigeria)

World Product Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day

National Daiquiri Day

Raspberry Cake Day

Independence & Related Days

Cyberia (Declared; 1997) [unrecognized]

Einglen (Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]

Laos (from France, 1949)

Rennell and Bellona Province Day (Solomon Islands)

New Year’s Days

Egyptian New Year (a.k.a. “The Opening of the Year and the Feast of every God”)

3rd Friday in July

Big Sky Games begin (Montana) [3rd Friday]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

Gentse Feesten begins (Ghent, Belgium) [Friday before 3rd Sunday]

Lindenfest (Rhineland, Germany) [Begins 3rd Friday]

National Park & Recreation Professionals Day [3rd Friday]

National Property Managers Day (Australia) [3rd Friday]

Pflasterspektakel Linz (Street Musician Festival; Germany) [3rd Friday thru Sunday]

Sherwood Robin Hood Festival begins (Oregon) [3rd Friday; ends Sunday]

Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival begins (Dorset, UK) [3rd Friday; ends Sunday]

Wrong Days in Wright (Wright, Montana) [3rd Friday & Saturday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 19 (3rd Week of July)

Celebration of the Horse (thru 7.21) [3rd Weekend]

Robin Hood Days (thru 7.20]

Festivals Beginning July 19, 2024

Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo (Dauphin Island, Alabama) [thru 7.21]

Atlas (Kyiv, Ukraine) [thru 7.21]

Bacon, Bourbon and Brew Festival (Newport, Kentucky) [thru 7.21]

Baltimore Restaurant Week (Baltimore, Maryland) [thru 7.28]

Bite of Seattle (Seattle, Washington) [thru 7.21]

Boryeong Mud Festival (Boryeong, South Korea) [thru 8.4]

Cecil County Fair (Elkton, Maryland) [thru 7.27]

Copper River Salmon Jam (Cordova, Alaska) [thru 7.20]

Deer Fest (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) [thru 7.21]

Folkmoot Summerfest (Waynesville, North Carolina) [thru 7.20]

Gentse Feesten (Ghent, Belgium) [thru 7.28]

Giffoni Film Festival (Giffoni Valle Piana, Italy) [thru 7.28]

Grainger County Tomato Festival (Rutledge, Tennessee) [thru 7.20]

Great Wellsville Balloon Rally (Wellsville, New York) [thru 7.21]

Hempstead Watermelon Festival (Hempstead, Texas) [thru 7.20]

Hillside Festival (Guelph, Canada) [thru 7.21]

Humeston Watermelon Days (Humeston, Iowa) [thru 7.21]

International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama (Paphos, Cyprus) [thru 8.10]

Jackson Hot Air Jubilee (Jackson, Michigan) [thru 7.21]

Jazz & Rib Fest (Columbus, Ohio) [thru 7.21]

Killington Wine Festival (Killington, Vermont) [thru 7.20]

Koloa Plantation Days (Koloa, Hawaii) [thru 7.28]

Marysville Peach Festival (Marysville, California) [thru 7.20]

Mississippi Watermelon Festival (Mize, Mississippi) [thru 7.20]

Muskie Days (Nevis, Minnesota) [thru 7.20

North Dakota State Fair (Minot, North Dakota) [thru 7.27]

Northwest Raspberry Festival (Lynden, Washington) [thru 7.20

Positivus Festival (Riga, Latvia) [thru 7.20]

Qingdao International Beer Festival (Qingdao, China) [thru 8.11]

Roscoe Village Burger Fest (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 7.21]

Royal International Air Tattoo (Swindon, United Kingdom) [thru 7.21]

Salzburg Festival (Salzburg, Austria) [thru 8.31]

Saulkrasti Jazz Festival (Saulkrasti, Latvia) [hru 7.20]

Snowflake Pioneer Days (Snowflake, Arizona) [thru 7.20]

Sweetcorn Festival (Chatham, Illinois) [thru 7.20]

Taste of River North (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 7.21]

Tomorrowland Belgium (Boom, Belgium) [thru 7.21]

unWINE Downtown (Starkville, Mississippi) [thru 7.20]

Vashon Island Strawberry Festival (Vashon Island, Washington) [thru 7.21]

Vermont Brewers Festival (Burlington, Vermont) [thru 7.20]

Wannigan Days (Taylors Falls, Minnesota & St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin) [thru 7.21]

Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire (Bonney Lake, Washington) [thru 8.18]

Waterford World's Fair (Waterford, Maine) [thru 7.21]

Yarmouth Clam Festival (Yarmouth, Maine) [thru 7.21]

Feast Days

Adonis and Aphrodite Wedding Day (Ancient Greece)

A.J. Cronin (Writerism)

Åke Hellman (Artology)

Ambrose Autpert (Christian; Saint)

Ancient Egyptian New Year

Arsenius the Great (Catholic Church)

Back-to-Front Yad (Shamanism)

Bernold, Bishop of Utrecht (Christian; Saint)

Cervantes (Positivist; Saint)

Crannchur (Casting of the Woods; Celtic Book of Days)

Daiquiri Day (Pastafarian)

Day of Isis (Everyday Wicca)

Dr. Doom/Thulsa Doom Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Duke (Muppetism)

Edgar Degas (Artology)

Festival of Honos (Personification of morality & honor; Ancient Rome)

Garth Nix (Writerism)

Giuseppe Castiglione (Artology)

Isis and Osiris Wedding Day (Ancient Egypt)

John Martin (Artology)

Justa and Rufina (Christian; Martyrs & Virgins)

Kirdjun (a.k.a. Abakerazum; Christian; Saint)

The Lucaria (Festival of the Grove to Sucellus, Gaulish God of Alcohol); Ancient Rome) [also 2.1 & 7.21]

Macrina the Younger, Sister of St. Basil the Great (Christian; Saint)

Opet (Day of the Marriage of Isis and Osiris; Pagan)

Symmachus, pope (Christian; Saint)

Vincent de Paul (Christian; Saint)

Wedding Day of Adonis & Aphrodite (Ancient Greece)

Wedding Day of Isis & Osiris (Ancient Egypt)

Xu Beihong (Artology)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Lucky Day (Philippines) [41 of 71]

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [22 of 32]

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 33 of 60)

Premieres

Airlift A La Carte (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1971)

The Air Race (MGM Cartoon; 1933) [Never Released]

An Affair to Remember (Film; 1957)

Awkward (TV Series; 2011)

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (Film; 1991)

Clueless (Film; 1995)

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Talk Show; 2012)

Crazy, Stupid, Love (Film; 2011)

Dance With Me, by Orleans (Song; 1975)

Day of the Dead (Film; 1985)

The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton (Novel; 1925)

Chaplin Corps./Accidents/Gas (A Few Quick Facts MGM Cartoon; 1944)

Counter Attack (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1960)

Foul Play (Film; 1978)

Help!, by The Beatles (Song; 1965)

K-19: The Widowmaker (Film; 2002)

The Legend of Billie Jean (Film; 1985)

A Little Bit of Mambo, by Lou Bega (Album; 1999)

Liv and Maddie (TV Series; 2013)

Mad Men (TV Series; 2007)

The Man with One Red Shoe (Film; 1985)

The Midnight Snack (Tom & Jerry MGM Cartoon; 1941)

Movin’ Out (Musical Play; 2002)

My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell (Novel; 1956)

Narcissus and Goldmund, by Hermann Hesse (Novel; 1930)

News Oddities (Phantasies Cartoon; 1940)

Our Miss Brooks (Radio Series; 1948)

Peace Time Football (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1946)

Pinto Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1967)

The Rag Dog (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1935)

RED 2 (Film; 2013)

Revenge of the Pink Panther (Film; 1978)

R.I.P.D. (Film; 2013)

Speedy Ghost to Town (WB LT Cartoon; 1967)

A Squeak in the Deep (WB LT Cartoon; 1966)

That’s All Right/Blue Moon of Kentucky, by Elvis Presley (Song; 1954)

Trainspotting (Film; 1996)

Treasure Island (Film; 1950)

Trick or Tree (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1961)

Uncle Tom’s Cabana (Tex Avery MGM Cartoon; 1947)

Weathering with You (Anime Film; 2019)

Today’s Name Days

Bernulf, Justa, Marina, Poppo, Reto (Austria)

Aurelija, Zlata, Zora (Croatia)

Čeněk (Czech Republic)

Justa (Denmark)

Saara, Saare, Saari, Salli (Estonia)

Saara, Salla, Salli, Sara, Sari, Sarita (Finland)

Arsène, Micheline (France)

Bernard, Marina, Reto (Germany)

Dias, Garyfallia, Makrina (Greece)

Emília (Hungary)

Arsenio (Italy)

Digna, Jautrīte, Kamila, Kamilla, Sari (Latvia)

Aura, Aurėja, Galigantas, Mantigailė, Vincas, Vincentas (Lithuania)

Gerhard, Gjert (Norway)

Alfred, Arseniusz, Lutobor, Rufin, Wincenty, Wodzisław (Poland)

Dušana (Slovakia)

Arsenio, Áurea, Justa, Rufina (Spain)

Sara (Sweden)

Arsene, Arsène (Universal)

Armenia, Arcenio, Arsenia, Arsenio, Wayne (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 201 of 2024; 165 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of Week 29 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 13 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Xin-Wei), Day 14 (Jia-Shen)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 13 Tammuz 5784

Islamic: 12 Muharram 1446

J Cal: 21 Red; Sevenday [21 of 30]

Julian: 6 July 2024

Moon: 95%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 4 Dante (8th Month) [Cervantes]

Runic Half Month: Ur (Primal Strength) [Day 11 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 30 of 94)

Week: 3rd Week of July

Zodiac: Cancer (Day 29 of 31)

[beardedmrbean]

The Finnish parliament approved the country’s Nato treaty by a vote of 184–7 at the beginning of the month, and on Thursday, Niinistö will officially sign it into law, Aamulehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun)reported.

There are other steps, however, as the Tampere-based paper noted that Finland still awaits ratification by the final two remaining Nato member states yet to approve its application, Turkey and Hungary.

Last week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country had decided to begin the process of ratifying Finland's application to join the alliance.

The Hungarian parliament is expected to vote on Finland's membership next Monday.

Cleaner strike begins

Finland may get a bit untidy this week as thousands of cleaners and property managers walked off the job on Thursday morning, as part of a two-day industrial action calling for better pay.

Citing news agency STT, newspaper Ilkka-Pohjalainen (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reported that some 25,000 employees have taken part, affecting some 16 cleaning service and maintenance providers and thousands of sites across Finland.

The new round of industrial action was confirmed on Wednesday, after the sector's trade union PAM rejected a reconciliation proposal put forth by the national labour mediator.

PAM has also issued another three-day strike warning for next week, that could start on next Thursday. That industrial action would involve an estimated 27,000 employees across 18 companies, Ilkka-Pohjalainen noted.

HS: Ukraine requests Hornet discussion

Kyiv has requested that Ukraine, Finland and the United States hold trilateral talks to discuss Hornet jets, Helsingin Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reported on Thursday, citing information obtained by its journalists.

The talks would concern the possibility of Finland sending some of its decomissioned Hornet fighters to Ukraine. Over the course of several years, Finland's current Hornet fleet will start to be decommissioned in 2025 and gradually replaced with US-made F-35 jets.

The renewed request comes after comments Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) made while meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in Kyiv earlier this month.

At the time, Marin said that "there will certainly be a discussion about fighter jets. Various countries are weighing their own abilities to deliver this kind of military support. I think this could also be discussed in Finland."

However, the comments sparked a confused reaction, with some Finnish leaders expressing surprise by the statement.

HS noted that it was not aware of similar requests made to other countries.

Marin to receive honorary degree

New York University is to award Finland's PM Sanna Marin with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, Hufvustadtsbladet (siirryt toiseen palveluun) (HBL) reported on Thursday.

The university described (siirryt toiseen palveluun) Marin as "a member of the vanguard of a new generation of European leadership," praising her leadership throughout the Covid pandemic and response to Russia's war against Ukraine.

The university's other honorary degree recipients this year include Nobel-winning chemist Carolyn Bertozzi, American Ballet Theatre (ABT) principal dancer Misty Copeland, and science education innovator and University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) President Emeritus Freeman A. Hrabowski.

The award ceremony will take place on 17 May at Yankee Stadium in New York City, where Marin is to deliver a keynote speech, according to the Swedish-language daily.

[aman-acan-andacityplan]

One unfortunate effect of the sprawl paradigm on Cleveland is that while population growth in Cuyahoga County has effectively been stagnant since 1948, the urban footprint has expanded significantly. This means that new development is subject to the forces of obsolescence much more quickly than if there were modest amounts of incoming residents that could sustain new commercial corridors and activity nodes. This might explain why the greater Cleveland area seems to have a rather large abundance of dead mall properties. Aside from the two I visited downtown (The Galleria at Erieview and Tower City Center) there was also the massive Randall Park Mall in the village of North Randall, as well as the infamous Rolling Acres Mall and the newly defunct Chapel Hill Mall, both located in the nearby city of Akron.

The decline of the Galleria is understandable, due to its less than ideal location and limited retail offerings, but Tower City Center has the most desirable address in downtown Cleveland. To enter the retail complex one has to go through the Terminal Tower, the opulent 1920′s landmark, which effectively functions as one of Cleveland’s most important architectural features. The terminal tower also fronts Cleveland’s main square and is the hub for all local bus and interurban rail service in Cleveland. Even in its moribund state, the Tower City Center presents an interesting blend of modern retail design and 1920′s opulence. Glass openings above you provide for interesting views of the beautiful Terminal Tower and the large opening on the back side offers nice views out to the Ohio City neighborhood on the other side of the river. The property also boasts a casino and luxury hotel, so with all that going for it why is it dying? 

The shutdown landed a mortal blow to the mall’s viability, as the various synergistic activities (sports, transit, gambling) that brought sustained traffic were put out of commission and proved to be too much for the ailing retail property to handle. I suppose one could also lay blame on the property managers or the city for lack of adequate oversight and long-term planning for the property’s future, but the unfortunate truth is that few cities have been able to sustain large, indoor retail ventures. San Diego, Baltimore and Minneapolis are just a few cities I can name offhand that have seen significant reversals in their urban retail market.

The mall property is slated for redevelopment, but a slick rebranding can only accomplish so much. Urban malls are dying off quickly and even the newer, urban entertainment centers built in the aughts are openly struggling. Some of the more successful instances of urban retail seem to be in repurposed warehouse districts or in simple urban arcades like the 5th Street Arcade found in Cleveland. By now the lesson should be clear: single-owner, mall-style retail ventures, whether they are indoor or outdoor, will FAIL in a large urban setting and it is in a city’s best interest not to pursue them. The traditional urban retail paradigm of a few main street storefronts, punctuated by maybe a small, arcade-style, retail complex are the proven strategies for fostering an urban retail environment.       

[pestfly]

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Do pests cause a lot of trouble for you and your family or workforce in Gettysburg, Hanover, Pikesville, or Baltimore? Thus, one should contact On the Fly Pest Solutions. Our services are about protecting your home and property to guarantee you do not have to deal with pests. With such professionals, you are assured of quality service offering flexible solutions to all your pest problems ranging from termite control to wildlife control.

Gettysburg Pest Control

On the Fly Pest Solutions appreciates the pest issues that residents and customers in Gettysburg encounter. At Liberty Gettysburg pest control, we strive to expressly fight off invasions using efficient methods and green products. Regardless of whether you are facing ants, rodents or any other representative of the so-called ‘houseguests,’ we can assist you. Do not allow pests to dictate the status of your compound, get in touch with us now for pest management in Gettysburg.

Termite Control in Hanover

Termites are indubitably detrimental to your house if they are left to fester for some time. Termite control in Hanover is something that we offer and its objective is to shield your house or commercial property from these damaging insects. To make sure to fight termites, we pay particular attention to inspection to see where they are for treatment to be done. In On the Fly Pest Solutions, you can be able to relax because your property is in the right hands. Protect your valuable stock with very competitive termite control services.

Pikesville Wildlife Control

Meeting such animals at home or at work may be shocking and perilous at the same time. Our Pikesville services in the field of wildlife control are meant to address such cases of conflicts in a secure and non-lethal manner. - From raccoons to squirrels, we have the capacity to remove the unwanted animals and let them go to other places thus secured your compound. Handling of wildlife involves a humane approach to animal handling to ensure that clients and the animals are protected.

Baltimore Pest Control

Of course, Baltimore is not an exception for pest issues, however, On the Fly Pest Solutions is ready to assist. Pest control in Baltimore is offered which specializes in areas such as bed bug control, cockroach control, and others. We practice Integrated Pest Management to give results for the long term as well as to avoid harm to the environment as much as possible. You can rely on us to make your Baltimore property free from pests and a comfortable place.

Why on the fly Pest solutions?

Experienced Professionals: The members of our team are highly skilled in working with pests and our main priority is focused on satisfaction.

Comprehensive Solutions: Our services touch everything under the sun, the different types of pests include termites, wildlife, and many others.

Eco-Friendly Methods: It is our policy to utilize an eco-friendly approach when it comes to controlling pests.

Customer-Centric Approach: We make sure to give each customer the best service you need to have so another satisfaction guarantee from us.

Do not let pests take over your comfort and endanger your health. Call On the Fly Pest Solutions today and get the most excellent pest control service in Gettysburg, Hanover, Pikesville, and Baltimore.

For more information, visit ontheflypestsolutions. net and our phone number is +1 410-982-5050.

[harmcityherald]

Maryland property manager accused of gender-based discrimination, making "relentless advances" towards vulnerable women - CBS Baltimore

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 7.19

Holidays

Battle of Mirbat Day (UK)

Bender Day

Bloomer Day

Brian May Day

Changing Places Awareness Day (UK)

Coach Day (Ukraine)

Colt 45 Day

Engineer’s Day (Nepal)

Feast of Cranks

Female Cabinet Minsters Day (Japan)

Festival of the Puzzlebox

Flight Attendant Safety Professionals’ Day

Flitch Day (Bacon given to any married couple who could prove they had lived in harmony and fidelity for 1 year; very few took home the bacon)

Glioblastoma Awareness Day

Grocery Heroes Day (Canada)

International Retainer Day

K Days begin (Canada)

Lord of the Rings Day

Lumberjack World Championships (Wisconsin)

Martyr’s Day (Burma)

National Barbara Day

National Football Day

National Hug Your Kids Day

National Play Day

National Secretary Day (Mexico)

National Tell A Girl She’s Beautiful Day

National Urban Beekeeping Day

National Words With Friends Day

National Youth Empowerment Day

New Friends Day [also 1.19; 10.19]

One Voice Day

Palace Day (India)

Rojava Revolution Anniversary Day (Syria)

Roy Orbison Day (Odessa, Texas)

Sandinista Day (Nicaragua)

719 Day (Colorado)

Solomon Burke Day (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Spelt Day (French Republic)

Stick Out Your Tongue Day

Tabaski Day (Cameroon)

Tims Camp Day (Tim Hortons; Canada)

Triple Play Day

World Peter Obi Day (Nigeria)

World Product Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day

National Daiquiri Day

Raspberry Cake Day

Independence & Related Days

Cyberia (Declared; 1997) [unrecognized]

Einglen (Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]

Laos (from France, 1949)

Rennell and Bellona Province Day (Solomon Islands)

New Year’s Days

Egyptian New Year (a.k.a. “The Opening of the Year and the Feast of every God”)

3rd Friday in July

Big Sky Games begin (Montana) [3rd Friday]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

Gentse Feesten begins (Ghent, Belgium) [Friday before 3rd Sunday]

Lindenfest (Rhineland, Germany) [Begins 3rd Friday]

National Park & Recreation Professionals Day [3rd Friday]

National Property Managers Day (Australia) [3rd Friday]

Pflasterspektakel Linz (Street Musician Festival; Germany) [3rd Friday thru Sunday]

Sherwood Robin Hood Festival begins (Oregon) [3rd Friday; ends Sunday]

Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival begins (Dorset, UK) [3rd Friday; ends Sunday]

Wrong Days in Wright (Wright, Montana) [3rd Friday & Saturday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 19 (3rd Week of July)

Celebration of the Horse (thru 7.21) [3rd Weekend]

Robin Hood Days (thru 7.20]

Festivals Beginning July 19, 2024

Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo (Dauphin Island, Alabama) [thru 7.21]

Atlas (Kyiv, Ukraine) [thru 7.21]

Bacon, Bourbon and Brew Festival (Newport, Kentucky) [thru 7.21]

Baltimore Restaurant Week (Baltimore, Maryland) [thru 7.28]

Bite of Seattle (Seattle, Washington) [thru 7.21]

Boryeong Mud Festival (Boryeong, South Korea) [thru 8.4]

Cecil County Fair (Elkton, Maryland) [thru 7.27]

Copper River Salmon Jam (Cordova, Alaska) [thru 7.20]

Deer Fest (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) [thru 7.21]

Folkmoot Summerfest (Waynesville, North Carolina) [thru 7.20]

Gentse Feesten (Ghent, Belgium) [thru 7.28]

Giffoni Film Festival (Giffoni Valle Piana, Italy) [thru 7.28]

Grainger County Tomato Festival (Rutledge, Tennessee) [thru 7.20]

Great Wellsville Balloon Rally (Wellsville, New York) [thru 7.21]

Hempstead Watermelon Festival (Hempstead, Texas) [thru 7.20]

Hillside Festival (Guelph, Canada) [thru 7.21]

Humeston Watermelon Days (Humeston, Iowa) [thru 7.21]

International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama (Paphos, Cyprus) [thru 8.10]

Jackson Hot Air Jubilee (Jackson, Michigan) [thru 7.21]

Jazz & Rib Fest (Columbus, Ohio) [thru 7.21]

Killington Wine Festival (Killington, Vermont) [thru 7.20]

Koloa Plantation Days (Koloa, Hawaii) [thru 7.28]

Marysville Peach Festival (Marysville, California) [thru 7.20]

Mississippi Watermelon Festival (Mize, Mississippi) [thru 7.20]

Muskie Days (Nevis, Minnesota) [thru 7.20

North Dakota State Fair (Minot, North Dakota) [thru 7.27]

Northwest Raspberry Festival (Lynden, Washington) [thru 7.20

Positivus Festival (Riga, Latvia) [thru 7.20]

Qingdao International Beer Festival (Qingdao, China) [thru 8.11]

Roscoe Village Burger Fest (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 7.21]

Royal International Air Tattoo (Swindon, United Kingdom) [thru 7.21]

Salzburg Festival (Salzburg, Austria) [thru 8.31]

Saulkrasti Jazz Festival (Saulkrasti, Latvia) [hru 7.20]

Snowflake Pioneer Days (Snowflake, Arizona) [thru 7.20]

Sweetcorn Festival (Chatham, Illinois) [thru 7.20]

Taste of River North (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 7.21]

Tomorrowland Belgium (Boom, Belgium) [thru 7.21]

unWINE Downtown (Starkville, Mississippi) [thru 7.20]

Vashon Island Strawberry Festival (Vashon Island, Washington) [thru 7.21]

Vermont Brewers Festival (Burlington, Vermont) [thru 7.20]

Wannigan Days (Taylors Falls, Minnesota & St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin) [thru 7.21]

Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire (Bonney Lake, Washington) [thru 8.18]

Waterford World's Fair (Waterford, Maine) [thru 7.21]

Yarmouth Clam Festival (Yarmouth, Maine) [thru 7.21]

Feast Days

Adonis and Aphrodite Wedding Day (Ancient Greece)

A.J. Cronin (Writerism)

Åke Hellman (Artology)

Ambrose Autpert (Christian; Saint)

Ancient Egyptian New Year

Arsenius the Great (Catholic Church)

Back-to-Front Yad (Shamanism)

Bernold, Bishop of Utrecht (Christian; Saint)

Cervantes (Positivist; Saint)

Crannchur (Casting of the Woods; Celtic Book of Days)

Daiquiri Day (Pastafarian)

Day of Isis (Everyday Wicca)

Dr. Doom/Thulsa Doom Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Duke (Muppetism)

Edgar Degas (Artology)

Festival of Honos (Personification of morality & honor; Ancient Rome)

Garth Nix (Writerism)

Giuseppe Castiglione (Artology)

Isis and Osiris Wedding Day (Ancient Egypt)

John Martin (Artology)

Justa and Rufina (Christian; Martyrs & Virgins)

Kirdjun (a.k.a. Abakerazum; Christian; Saint)

The Lucaria (Festival of the Grove to Sucellus, Gaulish God of Alcohol); Ancient Rome) [also 2.1 & 7.21]

Macrina the Younger, Sister of St. Basil the Great (Christian; Saint)

Opet (Day of the Marriage of Isis and Osiris; Pagan)

Symmachus, pope (Christian; Saint)

Vincent de Paul (Christian; Saint)

Wedding Day of Adonis & Aphrodite (Ancient Greece)

Wedding Day of Isis & Osiris (Ancient Egypt)

Xu Beihong (Artology)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Lucky Day (Philippines) [41 of 71]

Perilous Day (13th Century England) [22 of 32]

Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]

Umu Limnu (Evil Day; Babylonian Calendar; 33 of 60)

Premieres

Airlift A La Carte (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1971)

The Air Race (MGM Cartoon; 1933) [Never Released]

An Affair to Remember (Film; 1957)

Awkward (TV Series; 2011)

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (Film; 1991)

Clueless (Film; 1995)

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Talk Show; 2012)

Crazy, Stupid, Love (Film; 2011)

Dance With Me, by Orleans (Song; 1975)

Day of the Dead (Film; 1985)

The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton (Novel; 1925)

Chaplin Corps./Accidents/Gas (A Few Quick Facts MGM Cartoon; 1944)

Counter Attack (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1960)

Foul Play (Film; 1978)

Help!, by The Beatles (Song; 1965)

K-19: The Widowmaker (Film; 2002)

The Legend of Billie Jean (Film; 1985)

A Little Bit of Mambo, by Lou Bega (Album; 1999)

Liv and Maddie (TV Series; 2013)

Mad Men (TV Series; 2007)

The Man with One Red Shoe (Film; 1985)

The Midnight Snack (Tom & Jerry MGM Cartoon; 1941)

Movin’ Out (Musical Play; 2002)

My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell (Novel; 1956)

Narcissus and Goldmund, by Hermann Hesse (Novel; 1930)

News Oddities (Phantasies Cartoon; 1940)

Our Miss Brooks (Radio Series; 1948)

Peace Time Football (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1946)

Pinto Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1967)

The Rag Dog (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1935)

RED 2 (Film; 2013)

Revenge of the Pink Panther (Film; 1978)

R.I.P.D. (Film; 2013)

Speedy Ghost to Town (WB LT Cartoon; 1967)

A Squeak in the Deep (WB LT Cartoon; 1966)

That’s All Right/Blue Moon of Kentucky, by Elvis Presley (Song; 1954)

Trainspotting (Film; 1996)

Treasure Island (Film; 1950)

Trick or Tree (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1961)

Uncle Tom’s Cabana (Tex Avery MGM Cartoon; 1947)

Weathering with You (Anime Film; 2019)

Today’s Name Days

Bernulf, Justa, Marina, Poppo, Reto (Austria)

Aurelija, Zlata, Zora (Croatia)

Čeněk (Czech Republic)

Justa (Denmark)

Saara, Saare, Saari, Salli (Estonia)

Saara, Salla, Salli, Sara, Sari, Sarita (Finland)

Arsène, Micheline (France)

Bernard, Marina, Reto (Germany)

Dias, Garyfallia, Makrina (Greece)

Emília (Hungary)

Arsenio (Italy)

Digna, Jautrīte, Kamila, Kamilla, Sari (Latvia)

Aura, Aurėja, Galigantas, Mantigailė, Vincas, Vincentas (Lithuania)

Gerhard, Gjert (Norway)

Alfred, Arseniusz, Lutobor, Rufin, Wincenty, Wodzisław (Poland)

Dušana (Slovakia)

Arsenio, Áurea, Justa, Rufina (Spain)

Sara (Sweden)

Arsene, Arsène (Universal)

Armenia, Arcenio, Arsenia, Arsenio, Wayne (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 201 of 2024; 165 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of Week 29 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 13 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Xin-Wei), Day 14 (Jia-Shen)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 13 Tammuz 5784

Islamic: 12 Muharram 1446

J Cal: 21 Red; Sevenday [21 of 30]

Julian: 6 July 2024

Moon: 95%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 4 Dante (8th Month) [Cervantes]

Runic Half Month: Ur (Primal Strength) [Day 11 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 30 of 94)

Week: 3rd Week of July

Zodiac: Cancer (Day 29 of 31)

[fieldsofdrams]

Exploring Unique Backyard Swimming Pool Designs in Maryland

When discussing improving our outdoor spaces, very few things can achieve the same appeal as a well-designed backyard swimming pool design in Maryland because it is beautiful and useful. Whether you live in a city such as Baltimore with lots of noise or remote fields in Chester County, there are many pool companies in Maryland that can provide various alternatives to convert your compound into a secluded haven.

Swimming Pool And Backyard Designs In Maryland:

Maryland offers different landscapes and unusual architectural designs, which can be useful for creatively creating unique swimming pool and backyard designs. Variations are as numerous as the state itself, ranging from modern pools designed for contemporary structures within Bethesda to those suitable for ageless houses in Annapolis.

Chester County Pool Companies In Maryland:

When it comes to creating a Chester County pool, companies in Maryland adhere to environmental management and customer attraction. They know how important it is to have pools that are both operational and beautiful. This will enable you to enjoy them at any time during the day and make your garden more attractive than it is now.

Backyard Swimming Pool Design In Maryland:

In Maryland, working with pool companies is characterized by this important advantage, which helps a person who wishes to completely personalize his/her backyard swimming pool design in Maryland. If you're thinking about having an elegant infinity pool in the Chesapeake Bay area or even a home-based type with waterfalls around it, look no further than Field Of Dreams, where professionals can help you.

Maryland's patterns for residential backyard swimming pool design encompass many characteristics and styles. This makes the US state one of the many interesting options for people who want to turn their backyards into green spaces. People can consider using natural stone coping, LED light systems, or energy-efficient heating solutions.

Craftsmanship:

Selecting a good pool Company in Maryland enables the best balance between use abilities, aesthetics, and strength. Highly skilled experts not only have the technical knowledge to implement complex designs but also know the local laws and environmental concerns.

Field of Dreams Inc. excels at creating individual swimming pools that add value and beauty to your household, specifically in Maryland. Each pool is designed by a professional who converses deeply with customers so that the final image is like their own piece of art that fits in perfect harmony with the surroundings.

Apart from bringing immediate enjoyment, properly made pools contribute to the increased value of properties on sale in Maryland. Despite home buyers' growing preference for outdoor areas, spending money on contracting expertise in pool making makes the home you intend to sell distinct in a market full of stiff competition.

Good at making outdoor spaces usable and attractive, such that Chester County pool companies in Maryland are. Your home's outdoor experience can be reshaped by a carefully planned pool, be it a suburban retreat in Columbia or a historical estate in Frederick.

Conclusion: For instance, homeowners may want to consider building a swimming pool for their Maryland backyard because doing so has numerous advantages, like adding value to their real estate and preserving calm places to relax. With companies like Field of Dreams Inc., Maryland residents can have exclusive swimming pools that integrate with their neighborhoods and comport well with their daily habits.

[unwilting]

However, if instead of remaining at the phenomenal level of property forms and market relations Capital is approached in terms of its delineation of the time-determination that grounds capitalism, the relation between racism and the logic of capital appears in a different light. Central to this is chapter 10 of Volume One ofCapital on ‘The Working Day.’ Here we find Marx’s famous declaration, ‘Labour in a white skin cannot emancipate itself where it is branded in a black skin.’ The statement has been heralded by many Marxists as a sign of Marx’s sensitivity to anti-Black racism while being downplayed by critics of Marxism as a rhetorical flourish that is undermined by his privileging the industrial proletariat as the ‘universal’ class that leads everyone else to liberation. What tends to be overlooked by many on either side of the debate is that the chapter on the Working Day was not composed until 1866, shortly before the publication of Volume One; no version of it appears in the earlier drafts of Capital. This indicates that the impact of the U.S. Civil War, climaxed by Blacks fleeing the plantations in what Du Bois called nothing less than a ‘mass general strike’, finally led Marx to devote a chapter of his greatest theoretical work to the question ‘when does my working day begin and when does it end?’

Marx himself argued that ‘so long as the determination of value by working time is itself left “undetermined”, as it is with Ricardo, it does not make people shaky. But as soon as it is brought exactly into connection with the working day and its variations, a very unpleasant new light dawns upon them’. Marx explicitly states in chapter 10 that the freedom struggles of former Black slaves is such a new stage in the fight for freedom that it inspired white workers to take up the fight for an eight-hour workday, as witnessed by the formation of the General Congress of Labour in August 1866 in Baltimore. It wasn’t the struggles of the industrial proletariat that paved the way for the emancipation of Black slaves; on the contrary, it was the self-activity of former Black slaves that breathed new life into a previously dormant class struggle. This had Marx’s ear, and it led him to incorporate issues of race and racism into his critique of capital on a level that is not found in his earlier work. He calls attention to, “Time for education, for intellectual development, for the fulfillment of social functions, for social intercourse, for the free play of the vital forces of his body and his mind […] in its blind and measureless drive [capital] usurps the time for growth, development and healthy maintenance of the body…. Capital asks no questions about the length of life of labor power. What interests it is purely and simply the maximum of labor power that it can set into motion in a working day. It attains this objective by shortening the life of labor power, in the same way as a greedy farmer snatches more produce from the soil by robbing it of its fertility’…”

A page later he writes, “It is accordingly a maxim of slave management, in slave-importing countries, that the most effective economy is that which takes out of the human chattel in the shortest space of time the utmost exertion it is capable of putting forth. It is in then tropical culture, where annual profits often equal the whole capital of plantations, that Negro life is most recklessly sacrificed. It is the agriculture of the West Indies, which has been for centuries prolific of fabulous wealth, that has engulfed millions of the African race.” Marx here poses race-based slavery in the Americas as internal to the dynamics of capital accumulation, which hinges on extracting the greatest amount of surplus value in the fewest hours of time. And he is indeed referring to surplusvalue – not simply a surplusproduct of use-values, since he invokes ‘annual profits’ based on ‘the capital of plantations.’ Moreover, Marx infers that the American system of race-based slavey is not an archaic hangover of a precapitalist past that impedes the development of a ‘higher’ and ‘more efficient’ mode of production, since he calls it ‘the most effective economy’ when it comes to maximising profits. If this is often overlooked, it is because it is easy to conflate Marx’s discussion of precapitalist slave modes of production – in which labour power is not commodified and production is aimed at augmenting use-values instead of exchange value – with the form assumed by slavery in the Americas, which was integral to the accumulation of capital based on a global division of labor.

“In the second type of colonies – plantations – where commercial speculations figure from the start and production is intended for the world market, the capitalist mode of production exists, although only in a formal sense, since the slavery of Negroes precludes free wage-labour, which is the basis of capitalist production. But the business in which slaves are used is conducted by capitalists. The method of production which they introduce has not arisen out of slavery but is grafted on to it. In this case the same person is capitalist and landowner. And the elemental existence of the land confronting capital and labour does not offer any resistance to capital investment, hence none to the competition between capitals.’” — Johnson rightly asks, ‘If slavery was not capitalist how do we explain its commercial character’. Clearly, if American slavery was not capitalist we could not account for its commercial character. But Marx never denied that capitalism existed prior to industrial capitalism, even though the latter was the focus of his critique. The ‘excrescence of money changers and cotton factors in southern cities who yearly handled millions and millions of pounds of foreign exchange’ and ‘the thriving slave markets at the centre of their cities where prices tracked those that were being paid for cotton thousands of miles away’, which Johnson says demonstrates the commercial character of U.S. slavery, did not signify for Marx (unlike Fox-Genovese) that U.S. slavery was exogenous to capitalism. To be sure, there is no capital without wage labour, and no wage labour without capital; a society exclusively defined by slave labour is not and cannot be capitalist. However, nothing prevents slave labour, especially in its most racialised forms, from augmenting capital in a society whose ‘general creative basis’ is wage labour. Roman slavery could neither create nor augment capital because the conditions of generalised wage labour did not exist. American slavery could and did augment capital since it operated in the context of a capitalist world market in which wage labour generally prevailed as its ‘creative basis’. The same goes for racialised forms of violent social control that followed the end of chattel slavery.

What ‘makes labor abstract’ is adhering to socially necessary time: labor becomes ‘homogenous’ insofar as it conforms to a universal time determination, as represented by the ticking of the factory clock. And it is precisely this which accentuates differences between workers: some adhere to the average, others do not; the latter are sooner or later dispensed with and/or deprived of the benefits that others possess, since in capital’s view any hour of labor performed in excess of the social average (which is communicated to the agents of social production through the laws of competition) creates no value. There are many reasons why some enterprises conform to the dictates of socially necessary labor time better than others: it could be the quantity and quality of labor-saving devices, the skill or education of the workers, the level of social cohesion among workers that enables them to resist overwork and speed-up, etc. Although an array of contingencies determines whether or not enterprises follow the law of value, they are compelled to follow this singular law. Race and gender play a critical role in this. If making use of socially-inscribed differences can pump out greater output in less relative units of time, so much the better from capital’s standpoint. The utilisation and reproduction of difference poses no barrier to the homogenising power of abstract labor, so long as they meet the requirements of value production. It is one reason that the majority of factory workers in the world today are young women – gender discrimination tends to lower wage rates while expending the bodies and lives of young women boosts profit rates. It is also why capital sees to it that Blacks are the last hired and first fired – racial discrimination acts as a disciplinary agent in forcing greater output from the most marginalised while enabling many white workers to feel relatively privileged even as they come under increasing pressure from capital’s time constraints. Capital relies no less on the reproduction of national and ethnic difference – as in employing immigrant workers speaking over a dozen different languages in a single enterprise (as in many meatpacking plants in the U.S.) in order to make it harder for them to come together to fight for better conditions. There is nothing in Marx’s concept of abstract labor that suggests that all concrete laboring activities become the same or that social differentiations become washed away. On the contrary, abstract labor in Marx’s theory as well as in life is productive of difference. In this sense, Roediger is correct in writing, ‘we have too often forgotten [John R.] Common’s suggestion that the hurrying and pushing could be chronically infected by playing races against each other.’ We need only add that this ‘hurrying and pushing’ is part and parcel of the disciplinary power of socially necessary labor time, which serves as the inner core of Marx’s theory of value and surplus value.

The clock is set according to the dictates of value production – the drive to conform to the socially necessary labour time that it takes to produce a commodity on the world market. No matter who you are, worker or capitalist, the law of value confronts you as a person apart, as an ‘alien spirit’. As a result, the effort to achieve reconciliation with the political community breaks down – as does the quest for recognition in the earlier section on self-consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This is because capitalism is governed by an abstract form of domination, abstract universal labour time, which can hear no apology. There can be no recognition between an individual and an impersonal time determination that employs them. The moreabstract becomes capital’s dominance, as all aspects of work and everyday life are compelled to conform to socially necessary labour time, the harder it is to achieve even the pretense of formal recognition. In a word, the logic of capital ultimately undermines its contractual form of appearance.

…while the proletariat remains the universal class, insofar as no other class is capable of resolving the contradictions of civil society, it is not the universalsubject.

[kk-mycitysocial]

The Crucial Role of Affordable Housing in Community Well-Being

Affordable housing isn't just about roofs over heads—it's a cornerstone of community well-being. This post'll delve into how affordable housing positively impacts individuals, families, and communities. From improved health outcomes to economic stability, let's explore why Affordable Housing Impact is vital to our communities.  

The Social Impact of Affordable Housing

Access to safe and stable housing profoundly impacts social cohesion and individual well-being. Affordable housing provides individuals and families a sense of security and stability, allowing them to thrive and contribute positively to their communities. Moreover, affordable housing fosters social inclusion housing and reduces social isolation by providing individuals a place to call home and a sense of belonging.  

The Economic Benefits of Affordable Housing

Affordable housing isn't just a social imperative—it's also an economic driver. By providing affordable housing options, communities can attract and retain a diverse workforce, fueling economic growth and development. Additionally, affordable housing initiatives create jobs in construction, property management, and related industries, stimulating local economies and generating economic opportunities for residents.  

The Health Outcomes of Affordable Housing

Access to affordable housing is closely linked to improved Health Outcomes Housing for individuals and families. Stable housing reduces stress and anxiety, improving mental health outcomes and overall well-being. Moreover, Affordable Housing impact individuals to access essential healthcare services and preventive care, reducing healthcare costs and improving long-term health outcomes for residents.  

Case Studies and Real-Life Examples

To illustrate the Affordable Housing Impact initiatives, we'll showcase real-life examples and case studies from communities nationwide. From revitalized neighborhoods to improved educational outcomes, these examples will highlight the tangible benefits of affordable housing for residents and communities alike. By sharing success stories and statistics, we'll demonstrate the transformative power of affordable housing in improving community well-being and quality of life. The Oakwood Project, Portland, Oregon: This project revitalized a blighted neighborhood by developing over 200 affordable housing units, spurring local economic growth and reducing crime rates. Significant improvements were seen in local schools, with better attendance and student performance, showcasing the broader social benefits of stable housing. Harbor Point Estates, Baltimore, Maryland: This redevelopment transformed a high-crime area into a vibrant community with mixed-income housing, public amenities, and green spaces. Post-revitalization, the community saw a 40% increase in household incomes, a 30% decrease in unemployment, and higher civic engagement from residents.  

Conclusion

Affordable housing isn't just a housing issue—it's a community issue. By investing in affordable housing initiatives, communities can create vibrant, inclusive neighborhoods where individuals and families thrive. The benefits of affordable housing are clear from improved health outcomes to economic stability. As we continue to address the affordable housing crisis, let's remember the importance of affordable housing in building healthy, resilient communities for all. Affordable Housing Impact ensures economic stability, educational opportunities, and community well-being. By investing in and prioritizing these initiatives, we can create transformative change and offer meaningful support to those who need it most, paving the way for a more equitable society. Contact us to learn more about affordable housing.   Read the full article