#so I end the liaison for a lot of projects

[quinloki]

What I expected coming into work today:

What I got:

Even though it was expected it has not made it easier xD

Whew this is gonna be a long day. 😵‍💫

[nanowrimo]

Seasoned Romance: A Great NaNoWriMo Project

Romance is a genre that everyone can write, no matter what other people may think! NaNo Participant Stella Fosse gives us advice on writing seasoned romance. Years ago, I read an article by a Romance author in her fifties advising her sister Romance writers that if they wanted to be published, they should create characters in their twenties. Shades of the Bronte sisters, forced to take male pen names! Fortunately, times have changed. With so many Romance readers past midlife, publishers have caught on and created a category called “Seasoned Romance.”

The Personal is Political Ageism is not exactly news to anyone over fifty. And studies have shown that a positive attitude about aging helps us live longer and healthier. Telling stories about the vivid lives of people our age is essential. If we want to change the cultural narrative, we are the ones to do it.

Why Seasoned Romance? By now, we have lived the role of romance character several times. We have known all kinds of people and witnessed their romantic fortunes. Autofiction was made for us: Mixing people, situations, and settings can lead to fascinating Romance. Plus, you get to write about sex. And Romance novels tend to be on the short side—perfect for NaNoWriMo. Not to mention, Romance sells a lot—more than Mystery and Science Fiction combined. Sex, money, and dishing your exes: what’s not to like?

How to Write Romance? Not every story that includes romance is a “Romance.” The genre expectations look like this:

Plot: The main plot in a genre Romance is the romance itself. There is an external plot—which would be the main plot in any other novel. But in a Romance, the back-and-forth in the relationship drives the story.

Characters: Each of the two main characters has a character flaw that makes them ambivalent about getting involved. They may have conflicts in goals and values (like the bookstore owner and the chain bookstore developer in “You’ve Got Mail”). And each main character has a sidekick—a confidante to share hopes and fears about the relationship.

Three Act Structure: Here’s a typical setup for a Romance novel.

Act One: Establish the lives of each main character before they meet. Engineer the meeting (the “meet cute”). Show the attraction and the conflict between the characters. Create an external situation that keeps them in each other’s lives throughout the story.

Act Two: Lots of ambivalence. The characters take turns chasing and running away. The external plot adds complexity. The sidekicks weigh in, to encourage or discourage the liaison. What looks like a final breakup occurs at the end of this act.

Act Three: Much soul-searching, resulting in each main character owning and resolving their character flaws. They bridge differences in goals and values, enjoy their mutual attraction (at mild, moderate, or spicy levels of heat), and begin a committed relationship.

Happy-Ever-After (or Happy-for-Now): For decades, Romance novels were expected to end with a big wedding. A Romance novel still must end with the main characters happily together. Often there is an epilogue, where we see the happy characters years after the dénouement.

But wait—I hear you say: Isn’t that awfully formulaic? Sure, but so is a sonnet. Structure can be liberating.

Victorians were scandalized by early Romance novels because they highlighted female passion. Yet the genre became the stereotyped province of thin, young, white, able-bodied heroines. More recently, it’s broadened to include stories about LGBTQ+ characters, polyamorous characters, and characters of color (Stacey Abrams writes Romance under the pen name Selena Montgomery). And with the advent of Seasoned Romance, we Writers of a Certain Age can tell vivid stories about characters like us.

Stella Fosse writes stories of vibrant women and teaches about writing boldly after midlife. Her books include:

Aphrodite’s Pen: The Power of Writing Erotica after Midlife (North Atlantic Books)

A story collection, The Erotic Pandemic Ball: Tales of Love in Lockdown

And her debut novel at age 68, Brilliant Charming Bastard

She has taught romance writing through Secure Senior Connections. Stella blogs at www.stellafosse.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter , LinkedIn, and Instagram. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

[madebysamael]

It's breakdown time again.

My mental health hasn't been great for a while. Tbh, it started tanking after I worked as a vendor selling my handmade jewelry at pride shows in June.

Which went great!! I had best-selling shows and people were really excited about my art. It was awesome.

And then I had to go back to work.

I work full-time, at a desk job in a corporate office. The company is in an industry often used to represent soulless antagonists in movies. My job itself is a specialized position that requires a lot of mental labor. Finding time and energy to create is a challenge, even in the times where things are balanced.

And lately it's been really tough, because the work that needs doing is what I, a person who suspects myself to be on the autism spectrum somewhere, find hellish: I have to navigate bureaucracy and act as a diplomat. I have to coordinate projects between different people and act as a liaison. Most of my job isn't doing anymore, it's figuring out who I need to reach out to, and when, and how do I phrase this so I don't offend anyone? It's inefficient, circular, and often requires me to dance with office politics.

I'm. So. Exhausted.

So, after dragging myself away from the laptop where I've been sending emails and updating spreadsheets all week, I was so excited, because last weekend, I got to escape to my favorite fantasy world: Good Omens. To a life in color, to an eternity ever after.

You all know what happens.

It opened the floodgates. I started losing focus at work, couldn't remember where we were at on projects, who I was waiting on, who I needed to contact - hell, I couldn't even remember to bring my lunch.

I was thinking about GO, but not about the story itself. Instead, it was about how, best-case scenario, it will be 2+ years before they get their happy ending. About how leaving them in limbo for so long fucking hurts.

About how 2-3 years is a long time. Long enough for Neil, David or Michael to have an accident, an illness. About how it would never be the same if they had to recast, or if someone else wrote. Imagine GO without Michael's microexpressions, without David's face reading like an open book even with glasses on. Without Neil's love for the world he shared with Terry pouring out into every single frame of it.

2-3 years is a long time. Long enough for me to get in a car accident, to develop cancer. I already had a cancer scare in 2022; luckily, I was fine. One of my best friends got lymphoma around my age. She, luckily, is also fine now.

But one of my other best friends, who had a heart attack, just a few years older than me... He's in a wooden box in his wife's living room.

And his 10-year wedding anniversary was on July 27, 2023. The day GOS2 was released.

So here I am. A week later, trying to keep it together and failing, thinking it's just a fucking TV show, it shouldn't matter so much...

But it's never just one thing. Every pain carries the weight of all the pain that came before it. I'm carrying the weight of Karl's death, of Steph's cancer, of the family members I've lost that would take too long to list here, several before even David's age.

And I'm struggling to even draw now. Or make jewelry, or sew. The creative pursuits, the things that are supposed to make the rote office job worth it, the things it supports... I feel no joy for them. Even simple things like screenshot studies are excruciating, taking far too long. My problem-solving skills are completely drained at work, and that makes drawing so much harder.

I see so many others creating beautiful things from the pain and getting well-deserved recognition for it. But the ideas aren't coming for me, and even if they were, where would I find the energy?

I don't know how to dig myself out of this spiral. It's so very tiring, and so very, very lonely.

[veneredirose]

HEY EVERYONE

i’m finally doing the review of NCIS: Los Angeles

this is one of the comfort series that I watch and that feels like i’m a part of the family. the first time i watched it I was a little girl, recently I wanted to watch it again because I wanted to understand better the events and connect the dots. so here’s the review!

possible spoilers of NCIS: Los Angeles

the plot is one of my favorite, all the investigations are solved by a two persons-team formed by Special Agent G. Callen and Special Agent Sam Hanna, an ex navy-seal. The other team is formed, for the first season, by Special Agent Kensi Blye and Dominic Vail, a young operative agent who is killed in action during the first season, leaving Kensi Blye without a teammate and full of feelings of guilt. the spot is taken, in season 2, by Detective Marty Deeks, who make a liaison between LAPD and NCIS. He holds this position until departmental reforms in season 12 end up terminating it, after which he completes FLETC training and officially joins NCIS as an Investigator. Henrietta Lange is the leader of this office. In OSP, the team is completed by Operational Psychologist Nate Getz, and Technical Operator Eric Beale. Nate is assigned, after season 1, to different operations by Hetty, and returns only for occasional guest appearances. During the second season, Intelligent Analyst Nelly Jones joins the team, and forms an amazing team with Eric, until eventually the two of them become closer. during the remaining seasons a lot of people appears in the series, like Assistant Director Owen Granger, assigned to the team as oversight whit Hetty, who dies in season 8 after discovering he was ill with cancer (it coincide with real-life battle of the actor, Miguel Ferrer, who was ill with cancer and died). In season 9 Hetty goes to Vietnam on a personal mission, and her place is taken by Executive Assistant Director Pacific Shay Mosley, who is basically in search for revenge and almost get the entire team killed during a non-authorized operation. Later she sends the team and her trusted assistant, Special Agent Harley Hidoko, to Mexico, to rescue her son from her criminal ex-husband. the operation ends well, but her assistant remains killed during the op. The OSP is put under investigation and, at the beginning of the tenth season, Shay Mosley resigns. During season 11/12 Nell and Eric depart for the private sector, so the OSP recruited two rookies: Agents Fatima Namazi and Agent Devin Roundtree. Hetty leaves again so Admiral Hollace Killbride is assigned as Director of Special Operations in season 13. The series ends with Callen married to Anna, Kensi married to Deeks and finally pregnant, and Callen and Sam taking a side project mission to find and rescue Hetty, supported by a new team, including old teammates Nelly and Nate.

During the series:

Callen wants to figure out who his family was, because he grew up in foster homes. At some point he finds his father and his half sister, but their relationship is difficult.

Sam has to deal with the death of his wife, killed during a joined operation with CIA, leaving him with two children and a sense of guilt that never goes away.

Kensi and Deeks decide to adopt a girl from Mexico, and later they find out that Kensi is pregnant.

Hetty faces the difficulties of a life spent undercover.

In my opinion this series is one of the most tricky and challenging series i’ve ever watched. you want to watch episode after episode to discover what is going on. i literally devoured it, i liked it a lot. it’s worth the time you spend to watch it.

thank you so much for reading this review, i hope you like it and i hope you liked this series as i did!

SEE YA :)

[jjtheresidentbaby]

After a long case, the team finally gets the weekend off and Hotchniss just want to spend their time with their little one JJ, who they both knew had a tough time with the case. Since JJ had dealt with angry families and rude undermining cops, she was hurt a lot more than she let on. When they take her home for the weekend, she’s gone nonverbal, only communicating with small sniffles and whimpers, not wanting to be put down after they pick her up. Hotchniss end up cradling her in their arms, wrapping her up in her special blue blanket and paci all weekend, all while looking down at her as they whisper sweet nothings to her about how she’s their special little girl. And JJ stares back up at them, not understanding what mama and dada are saying because she slipped too far in her headspace to escape the cruel words she heard throughout the case, but mama and dada are speaking with such soft tones and gentle eyes that she finds herself believing them when they tell her they love her. And if she could talk, she’s tell them she loves them too. But she can’t so she simply reaches up to them, grabbing at her dada’s finger with her whole hand while the other brushes against mama’s cheek, hoping to convey her love and that they understand.

(Hope I’m not bombarding you with too many prompts. -⚽️)

No Words Needed | Caregiver Hotchniss x Little Jj

a/n: non verbal Jj in any sense holds such a special place in my heart (cough projection cough) and this whole thing makes me so soft!! also you can never send in too many prompts, I encourage all the spam!!

warnings: non verbal Jj, references to a case, pacifiers, pet names, mama!emily, dada!hotch

───°˖✧✿✧˖° ─── (early seasons Jj >> anything else)

-

Hotch bounces in place as he holds Jj up on his hip, her arms and legs are wrapped tightly around him, the fleece blue blanket she loves is somehow maneuvered to tangle around them both, and Jj’s head lays softly against Hotchs chest. He can’t help but grin down to his little girl, pausing momentarily in the dinner he’s preparing to just admire Jj.

She’s perfect, in Hotch and Prentiss’ opinion. Emily has also been doting extra hard on Jj this weekend after the hell of a case they all worked on, Jj getting the worst of it with her liaison job. But now she sits peacefully against her Dada while grasping a hand out for Emily, not saying a word, only pulling the black haired girl towards the pair.

“What is it Angel? You gettin tried?” Jj just blinks towards Emily, nuzzling farther into Aaron, squeezing the two of Emily’s fingers that she holds while suckling on the light pink pacifier that sits in her mouth.

Both caregivers can’t help but awe at the sight, their blonde headed baby so much more relaxed then when they first arrived home yesterday, still not talking but they don’t mind it, they don’t need words to feel how much Jj appreciates the care.

And thankfully her being more relaxed means all the crying and sniffling has stopped, for the most part, she still gives a slight sniffle of her nose every now and again but it’s much better than before.

The caregivers felt god awful listening to Jj cry without a good way to communicate to them what was wrong, it had ended with Hotch scooping Jj up and not putting her down. Neither him nor Emily have dared to put their girl down for anything, it’s too heartbreaking watching her eyes well with tears as soon as they try.

“You’re just the most beautiful girl, with those big blue eyes.” Hotch gains a grin when Jj blushes slightly under the praise, him and Emily share the same look of parental affection at Jj tugging on Prentiss’ hand, them both trying not to think about the state Jj was in before.

“You just want us close by, don’t you?” Emily inquires, side glancing at the stove to make sure the pasta sauce they’re making isn’t bubbling over, then it’s straight back to the blonde in front of her.

“Well good thing we’re not going anywhere anytime soon sweet girl.” Aaron assures, taking his hand that isn’t holding Jj up to brush her hair away and keep his thumb rubbing circles softly against her skin.

“Such an Angel.” He comments softly. Emily takes to leaning up against Hotchs back, being able to peer over his shoulder to see Jj’s tired face, Prentiss lets out a small sight of contentment, as does Aaron. They don’t need words right now, just their family.

[folansstuff]

General Atticus HC's

Had the urge to write more OC headcanons, so here they are some more!

Is currently in his late 20’s-early 30’s. Despite being dead for 5 years and his revival being thanks to semi-supernatural forces, the Garden still aged him to keep him in-line with what it thought was right.

Sleepy Bisexual. Probably drinks as much coffee as Illyana does.

Still has traces of his old Australian accent. Still slips ‘mates’ and ‘oi’s into conversation sometimes. Comes out in full swing when he’s upset.

Majored in English Literature and Teaching! Will leap into long speeches about Shakespeare at the drop of a hat. 

Put on some weight during his time away from the X-Men. Chose not to get rid of it, even after being revived on Krakoa. ((This is definitely not because Illyana likes it, no sir.))

Sees the original New Mutants as his family, would defend any of them with his life.

Team Dad when Sam is away. He and Dani spend a lot of time wrangling the students and planning for the school with the others. He usually leaves her to deal with the council unless they request him specifically. ((Or he gets to see Kitty and Piotr, whichever is more likely))

Die-hard Dazzler fanboy, Alison once dropped into his and Illyana’s home and found him at the door wearing a “I <3 Dazzler” shirt, she never let him hear the end of it ((she was flattered though)).

A perpetual project-starter. Would start and drop a new, weird thing every few weeks. Some are successful (the sweaters he made his teammates, learning to bake) some aren’t (boxing, 

Briefly took a job at Avengers Academy as one of their “normal staff” and a mutant liaison (hilarious considering his history with the X-Men). Took the job despite his dislike of The Avengers because they offered him a ton of money.

Because of this he and Laura are surprisingly good friends, he was the first choice for a teacher for Gabby once he was revived and Akedeimos was more concretely established as a school.

Highly protective of his students, all of them, even the ones who aren’t his students anymore. Had to be convinced to not attack Arcade after he found out about Avengers Arena and almost started a fight with Bishop when he pitched his War Academy.

Frequently uses his powers for mundane things; spinning hand fans, hand drying clothes, rewinding tapes, etc. Will spin the earth around just to skip traffic. 

After being revived he can see errors and other signs of reality having been warped or changed in some way in the form of spirals appearing over the top of the affected object. Causes him serious headaches. 

Idolizes Captain America. Has considered using a shield as a weapon for its effectiveness and to emulate the man. Was very bummed out when Rogers acts like a “boot-licker” and worked against mutant-kind after AvX. 

Dude is just trying his best to live a peaceful and quiet life with his family, and all the superhero drama keeps getting in the way : (

[danse--macabre]

on sexuality, I think there's a couple of important things to understand about tirazel:

- tirazel's mother is a former sex worker who was "promoted" to mafia trophy wife (second wife, of course)

- tirazel's father has wealth, has power, has a house in the upper city - but he wants accolades and status. he can cement this by having his daughter marry into nobility

- tirazel is the youngest of six and the only daughter

as a result, tirazel was raised with the expectation her patriarchal crime lord father would arrange a favourable match with a nobleman, and that her role, until then, is to be an attractive bauble - enough to lure candidiates in - but untouchable and unsullied - that means no relationships, no liaisons, no sex; her father will hurt anyone who tries touch her (& she will be punished for 'her foolish insolance', because she's 'his silly little girl' who clearly cannot be trusted to make her own decisions).

so that means despite this appearance of being a dazzling, beguiling, belle of the ball figure in her late teens - and all the men (they are all men, her father's very heteronormative) she's courting presume, due to her common birth, her mobster father, her ex-sex worker mother, that she's licentious and sexually wild, they project this onto her - when she's actually someone very inexperienced both in love and sex. her experiences involve maybe one early sincere interest that is cut short by her father's intervention, perhaps a handful of sincere interests that are cut short by her own hand for fear of what her father might do, and then lots and lots of empty teasing, flirting, and then cruelly spurning of candidates she doesn't particularly like - out of spite, out of miserable boredom, out of the fact that it's what seems to be expected of her given the court thinks she's some devious seducer (she's just nineteen).

it's no wonder that tirazel runs away ~aged 20, not with a man who is pretty or cares for her, but a clear and obvious charlatan who works for someone who has power. she spends ~2 years living and working in the undercity as the trophy of this charlatan while trying to attract the attention of his powerful employers (who also manipulate and use her), hoping to attain some autonomy and power of her own.

that all goes tits up, of course, and she ends up imprisoned in her chambers by her father for ~3 years (who is scandalised by how she went off the rails and says he intends to punish and protect her in equqal measure), which is where she really intensely doubles down on the necromancy btw, and only gets out by pulling favours after being 'on good behaviour'.

so aged 25, tirazel, belatedly, goes to a wizard academy. her only long-term relationships before then have been with two deeply manipulative people (the charlatan and later his boss, who was tirazel's first exploration of her bisexuality) who have sought to use her wealth, wits, or growing power, and have groomed her. otherwise she's been cloistered, sexually frustrated, denied. it was incredibly freeing to go to the academy and, with enough distance, pretty much do what she like, sleep with basically anyone she wanted (if she was careful eneough), and have some of the best sex of her life - certainly where tirzel studied, there were lots of oportunities for no-strings flings. there's a banter that comes up about wizards being Without Game and tirazel will laugh and tell you that's what they want to think, and in truth she had far more fun 'frolicking' in the university library than she ever did as the belle of the ball.

her father attempts to remove her from he academy not long before the nautiloid abduction, and when you meet tirazel, she's about thirty, she's still very much single, and she's unapologetically interested in sex, in her own desires, is happy to sleep around camp and with others, and sees this as reclaiming herself, her body, and also refusing to be ruled by her father's anxieties that, like her mother, she's just 'a monstruous wh*re' by blood. she recoils at attempts to be possessive or any petty jealousy directed your way, and while you can be exclusively monogamous with her, that's a conversation you have to have. she'll bristle at anything like 'you're mine' -> will respond, 'I'm not anyone's thing'. her life and story has been deeply anchored in misogyny, biphobia, and hatred of sex workers - and Tirazel is at a stage in her life where she refuses to bow to those forces and wants to live as she pleases.

[187days]

Day Fourteen

I did not appreciate my alarm going off this morning AT ALL, but it ended up being a pretty excellent day.

I spent a chunk of my prep time communicating with various people- the nurses, the family support liaison, school counselors- to help support some of my ninth graders. I've spent enough time with that, at this point, I'm starting to catch things that require some extra attention. We got a lot accomplished (teamwork makes the dream work!), so that was a good way to start the day.

Teaching Global Studies was fun because so many students' hands went up when I asked them to share something they'd learned or something they had a question about after reading yesterday's annotation assignment, There were awesome discussions in all four of my sections, and the amount of side chatter (a middle school habit I'm in the process of breaking) was at a minimum, so that was great. By the time we were done talking, it was clear everyone understood how South Korea had developed from the 1960s onward.

So then we started to tackle what's happened to North Korea. I gave students a list of topics (famine, human rights abuses, the caste system, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean military, North Korean defectors...) and had them choose two to research. They have to take notes in their own words, and cite their sources (citation practice is always good) by the end of next class. So they got started today, and even though they only had 15-ish minutes to work, the majority of them really got into it. I kept being called over to various tables so students could share what they were learning.

It's really cool when that happens.

Also really cool: my APGOV students' projects about their towns. And I knew they would be. Some of them made videos, some wrote letters, and two made postcards rather than traditional letters. They all shared what they'd done, and we discussed what they'd learned about where they're from, how local politics work, and how policy areas- economics, the environment, education, and so on- are intertwined.

So it was a good lesson. I'm going to do one more on Monday about the FSP (because it's interesting and it's had a big impact on state and local politics), then move on to the actual AP curriculum. `Stay tuned!

[glassautomaton]

Hi Glassy, seems like I've been half of your inbox lately, haha! I've got a lot of questions that fester in my brain though, so I suppose that's half of an excuse.

Anyway, last night, I was wondering about Omega-7, I was wondering if you had a specific timeline for that? Wodering how the Foundation was able to retrieve Iris from the clutches of an angry Summerian Warrior as well haha, did she escape? Or did they sweep through after thinking everyone was dead and found her half alive?

Also, would you ever make a tale set in Omega-7 or where Omega-7 is the main subject? I think that you would do wonderful with making that!

Anyway, Iris, Beatrice, and Adrian swirl around in my brain like some horrible broken found family smoothey, so any information that you want to share about them is welcome! :]

Not quite sure what you mean in terms of a specific timeline for Omega-7. I'll be honest in saying that I've had a bit of trouble in really getting into the nitty-gritty of how all that would fit in with DA, more specifically Able's character. I have a couple ideas with how I want to take him, but he's just... a little hard to fit in? I dunno. I could get into it (I've spent a while thinking about him) but that isn't what this ask is about, though I could type it out of someone wants. These asks have been a good way of getting things in order in my head.

In terms of a general timeline, Iris was taken in when she was 13. Adrian joined the team shortly before and stayed relatively close with Iris, and acted a bit like a liaison between Able's team and Iris' team, which Beatrice was on. Adrian spent a lot of time with Able and took the brunt of that - he changed over the course of the task force. Iris did as well, though not quite in the same way, as Adrian went from someone who was ultimately well-intentioned but trying his best to someone who was extremely cynical and divisive, while Iris started off idyllic and naive and became more and more worn down and jaded.

Eventually, Iris is pushed to kill someone but refuses, which is where the flashback with Adrian in Voices Carry Part 4 takes place. Iris was taken off the team while things were sorted out, and Adrian was injured (leading to all the stuff with 784-ARC) and Able went on his rampage during this time. Iris was at a different location, but given her photos to see if she could stop Able. This was a last-ditch effort to contain him, and hey, if Iris got more comfortable with killing as a result, then that was two birds with one stone.

Iris is unable to do this, and is injured as seen in Voices Carry Part 2, a memory that formed essentially a deep scar, something I wanted to use a bit of imagery to convey there. That leads right into the start of Kill the Feeling, which starts when Iris is 15.

As for writing Omega-7 tales, that's a definite maybe. I think I'll have more flashbacks to that time moving forward, as Iris' relationship to Adrian will have to be expanded upon a bit more in the future if I stick with my current plans. I could write entire articles that take place mostly in that time period if need be, but time will tell. But I do want to spend more time in the future looking back at that stuff.

As a bit of a side note, I'm trying to figure out how much of the 784 incident I want to keep as canon in my series. 784-ARC is canon, as it was mentioned in Redwood Labs, but as for the actual events I might end up retooling them a little bit if the need arises. I think that's another thing I'll have to go back and reread with a more critical eye, but the last time I did that for Olympia Project it didn't exactly impress me.

[67-romeo]

This amazing piece of history was sent to us by one of our fans, whom also happens to be a USAF Thunderbird.

A very rare event, and something few have seen before.....when a Thunderbird was loaded with a lot more than smoke oil!

WARBIRD

USAF Thunderbird History - 1988

"It was 1988; the USAF Thunderbirds were tasked by Gen Robert Russ, who was Tactical Air Commander (TAC) at the time, to put one of our Thunderbird aircraft into combat configuration in the allotted (mandated) 72 hour period, a task never done before on the team.

To make a long story short, the maintenance boys and girls, worked their backsides off and had the aircraft ready in less than 72 hours with the only exception being that the jet wasn’t painted (in the combat scheme). The aircraft tail number selected for this event was Thunderbird Number 10 which was 81-0679.

A couple of interesting facts in this event, the aircraft originally came to the team from the factory (I don’t know that date) painted in Thunderbird colors when it later left our organization in combat gray only to be returned to us from Hill AFB again repainted with Thunderbird Red, White, and Blue to be used during the training/show season of 1990.

For the 1990 Show Season that aircraft had been assigned to Thunderbird Crew Chief, TSgt. Dave Kramer and his Assistant Crew Chief who was a Hydraulic troop named SSgt. Mark Thome (Number Two in the Diamond). A couple of years later it (aircraft) left again along with all of the other "A" models and it would be assigned to a Singapore unit at Luke AFB (training organization). It (tail number 81-0679) still remains the only Thunderbird aircraft to be painted combat gray and Thunderbird colors twice!

Funny enough, the nickname "Warbird" came about when someone (still unknown from within the team, who was possibly assigned to this conversion tasking) used their finger and wrote the word "Warbird in the gun residue while it sat in the hangar after its historic flight, the name “War Bird” stuck with the team and was used when the event was reported back to TAC/HQ. TSgt. Dave Kramer had made some “plates” to attach inside the cockpit that were later mounted on plaques for SSgt Mark Thome and Steve Henderson (there were many others whose names I can’t all remember helped greatly in this project). The plaques stated "Warbird, Second to None" because of it flying in the number 2 position of the Diamond.

Major BJ Java (our Logistic Officer, Vietnam Vet pilot), who was #7 at the time, flew the jet, shot bullets and dropped bombs. The jet looked awesome being red, white and blue with a gun, bombs, missiles, and ECM pod fully functional. Thunderbird Msgt Charlie Saunders remembers being on the ramp when the jet returned from its sortie and BJ had that “big ‘ol grin on his face”. The jet was a mess with all the gun gases (soot) that had stuck to that beautiful paint job, we (the team collectively) made Thunderbird history that day.

A picture of the jet flying overhead on the departure end loaded with four (captive) AIM-9P, six (live) BSU-49 500lb (retarded) bombs, and an ECM pod on the Centerline is provided. The pilot signed this photo after the historical event."

I hope you enjoy the photos...

SMSgt (Retired) Tom Wharton - USAF Thunderbirds, Production Superintendent, Chief of Quality Control and (US Navy Blue Angels, Thunderbird Maintenance Exchange Program Liaison 1990) Line Chief - 1988 to 1991

www.Sierrahotel.net

Thank you for sharing this amazing this amazing piece of aviation history with us, SMSgt Tom Wharton. and more so, thank you for your service!

Sierra Hotel Aeronautics Staff

[jcmarchi]

Putting AI into the Hands of People with Problems to Solve - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/putting-ai-into-the-hands-of-people-with-problems-to-solve-technology-org/

Putting AI into the Hands of People with Problems to Solve - Technology Org

As Media Lab students in 2010, Karthik Dinakar SM ’12, PhD ’17 and Birago Jones SM ’12 teamed up for a class project to build a tool that would help content moderation teams at companies like Twitter (now X) and YouTube. The project generated a lot of excitement, and the researchers were invited to demonstrate at a cyberbullying summit at the White House — they just had to get the thing working.

Pienso has developed a no-code AI builder so the people closest to problems can use the technology rather than relying on machine learning engineers. Image credit: Courtesy of Pienso

The day before the White House event, Dinakar spent hours trying to put together a working demo that could identify concerning posts on Twitter. Around 11 p.m., he called Jones to say he was giving up.

Then Jones decided to look at the data. It turned out Dinakar’s model was flagging the right types of posts, but the posters were using teenage slang terms and other indirect language that Dinakar didn’t pick up on. The problem wasn’t the model but the disconnect between Dinakar and the teens he was trying to help.

“We realized then, right before we got to the White House, that the people building these models should not be folks who are just machine-learning engineers,” Dinakar says. “They should be people who best understand their data.”

The insight led the researchers to develop point-and-click tools that allow nonexperts to build machine-learning models. Those tools became the basis for Pienso, which today is helping people build large language models for detecting misinformation, human trafficking, weapons sales, and more, without writing any code.

“These kinds of applications are important to us because our roots are in cyberbullying and understanding how to use AI for things that really help humanity,” says Jones.

As for the early version of the system shown at the White House, the founders ended up collaborating with students at nearby schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to let them train the models.

“The models those kids trained were so much better and nuanced than anything I could’ve ever come up with,” Dinakar says. “Birago and I had this big ‘Aha!’ moment where we realized empowering domain experts — which is different from democratizing AI — was the best path forward.”

A project with purpose

Jones and Dinakar met as graduate students in the Software Agents research group of the MIT Media Lab. Their work on what became Pienso started in Course 6.864 (Natural Language Processing) and continued until they earned their master’s degrees in 2012.

It turned out 2010 wasn’t the last time the founders were invited to the White House to demo their project. The work generated a lot of enthusiasm, but the founders worked on Pienso part time until 2016, when Dinakar finished his PhD at MIT and deep learning began to explode in popularity.

“We’re still connected to many people around campus,” Dinakar says. “The exposure we had at MIT, the melding of human and computer interfaces, widened our understanding. Our philosophy at Pienso couldn’t be possible without the vibrancy of MIT’s campus.”

The founders also credit MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) and Startup Accelerator (STEX) for connecting them to early partners.

One early partner was SkyUK. The company’s customer success team used Pienso to build models to understand their customer’s most common problems. Today those models are helping to process half a million customer calls a day, and the founders say they have saved the company over £7 million pounds to date by shortening the length of calls into the company’s call center.

“The difference between democratizing AI and empowering people with AI comes down to who understands the data best — you or a doctor or a journalist or someone who works with customers every day?” Jones says. “Those are the people who should be creating the models. That’s how you get insights out of your data.”

In 2020, just as Covid-19 outbreaks began in the U.S., government officials contacted the founders to use their tool to better understand the emerging disease. Pienso helped experts in virology and infectious disease set up machine-learning models to mine thousands of research articles about coronaviruses. Dinakar says they later learned the work helped the government identify and strengthen critical supply chains for drugs, including the popular antiviral remdesivir.

“Those compounds were surfaced by a team that did not know deep learning but was able to use our platform,” Dinakar says.

Building a better AI future

Because Pienso can run on internal servers and cloud infrastructure, the founders say it offers an alternative for businesses being forced to donate their data by using services offered by other AI companies.

“The Pienso interface is a series of web apps stitched together,” Dinakar explains. “You can think of it like an Adobe Photoshop for large language models, but in the web. You can point and import data without writing a line of code. You can refine the data, prepare it for deep learning, analyze it, give it structure if it’s not labeled or annotated, and you can walk away with fine-tuned, large language model in a matter of 25 minutes.”

Earlier this year, Pienso announced a partnership with GraphCore, which provides a faster, more efficient computing platform for machine learning. The founders say the partnership will further lower barriers to leveraging AI by dramatically reducing latency.

“If you’re building an interactive AI platform, users aren’t going to have a cup of coffee every time they click a button,” Dinakar says. “It needs to be fast and responsive.”

The founders believe their solution is enabling a future where more effective AI models are developed for specific use cases by the people who are most familiar with the problems they are trying to solve.

“No one model can do everything,” Dinakar says. “Everyone’s application is different, their needs are different, their data is different. It’s highly unlikely that one model will do everything for you. It’s about bringing a garden of models together and allowing them to collaborate with each other and orchestrating them in a way that makes sense — and the people doing that orchestration should be the people who understand the data best.”

Written by Zach Winn

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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[the-firebird69]

We have a lot of things to report and it was going to try and abbreviate

-the morlock are on the ropes and that's all of them even the pseudo empire is not doing well they are continuously attacking each other and it is vulgar rude and crass and I'm calling for an end of it I don't want to see it anymore it's not doing anything and it's gross. We have several programs that are working towards this goal they leave an area but however they go into another and it is not good the areas they're leaving are mixed true but they are flooding into areas and causing problems for our people our son has been complaining about it for quite a while. We have solutions but they are not deployed in a timely fashion and last night we did and they created at least on liaison with Frank Castle hardcastle and whenever we take over an area or we're going to and they're pushed out we are going to mobilize I am sending it in concrete right now and send it to Olympus so we're going to publish

Zig Zag

We did approve this measure and it was last week no it was recently and we're going ahead with it now there's too many of them moving into the other areas is not enough to cause massive problems but it is a very poor lunch and it's dangerous and our son and daughter want to increase military presence in other areas and police more so and paramilitary police we need a lot of police and we need a lot of vehicles for them and we did start production of police cars trucks bikes and we're going to make a ton of them because we need some more like move out it becomes a huge problem and you might as well to our own arms off so we sat down and thought about it and what are you saying is true and we're doing the job now more so and we were on it but we did say we need vehicles and it is true these old ones are crap and there's no parts for them it takes forever to get anything done so we're going ahead and doing the job and he did say right now I'll grab all of them and we have a ton of them okay I mean and relatively the same year almost there's a huge number of them that we have stockpiled they are now deploying used cop cars and it was a good idea and he said that they're built better they last a lot longer lots of half million miles and Thor went right to it and we need that desperately paddy wagons too tons of them so we went and converted a whole bunch of dog trucks and stuff we have an army of them and we're getting them out there now and we're opening our own precincts. We need anybody with police experience and he wants to pull security forces from our areas and leave just military because the military is going to secure them 100% and we're going to go ahead and do that and then train another batch we're going to keep doing that now and I'm writing that as an sop I'm going to start an initializing it today we have a program like that that you already started but this one's going to be bigger and I'm bringing that down it's more like this that they're coming up with and we're going to go ahead with it and immediately

Olympus

I can't stand it the stuff is very good but we should be doing it as a matter of course but still we need to get organized we're still reacting to problems instead of army was gigantic we would not have to and we do see that and the keys just kind of stopped and people don't want to push themselves to hire and we need to hire for these projects Pluto Mars he does not want to ever piecemeal this thing he wants to put out the total number we need and of each grouping and he wants to put up what we're getting and what we need every day for these two projects and we're going to start one for the big ones and I agree we have to do this now and it's going to be a drive to get people to sign on and to get people to sign up we need the brave we need the courageous the strong and the smart and Swift and we need you to sign on to help our survive and they will help us in turn as our eyes and ears and we need it now they're suffering I got to put this out there right now

Thor Freya

We need to and have to do this so we're going to get going on it these are great ideas and to salvage those police vehicles is a terrific idea who's in on designing them and he knows all about it so do we but it should be instinctual and it's not really and he said to convert military to police and the problem is that when we pushing them out now we had a lot of we're taking over an area with a lot of seepage of corks and Trump's and they're horrible horrible people and they're looking for us and it's part of Mac system too there for some reason more mild but we do need it very badly and paramilitary please police and he went ahead and he grabbed tons of it and we have a huge Force considered a last for the police it won't last for our military and it's true too and we can start making parts for those might as well it's a cover thing too we can't really run in there with different cars and trucks so he started that up and it's working these are great ideas we're doing it now

Olympus

We have a ton of stuff to get on to I'm going to do it now I'm here too we have a lot of work to do he wants us to put this chart in graph up there and said we're way behind he says we have to put it up and say we're behind everybody we need your help and we work for them and they work for us but if they don't know that they have to work for us so I'm going to post it now

Thor Freya

[disappearingground]

Jenny Lewis: ‘My friends have heard some of the stories, but there’s some good ones I’ve been saving’

The Guardian June 4, 2023

The US singer-songwriter and former Rilo Kiley frontwoman on touring with Harry Styles, being happily single and the importance of joy – mostly in puppy form – in your life

By Kathryn Bromwich

One of Jenny Lewis’s many appealing traits is a certain kind of rock star insouciance. So when she was announced as the support act for Harry Styles’s North American tour in autumn 2021, prompting many of his fans to respond with: “Who the fuck is Jenny Lewis?”, the singer-songwriter created a Spotify playlist of the same name. It showcased the many highlights of her 20-plus-year career in music, from her days as frontwoman of indie rock band Rilo Kiley, through various side projects, to her current solo career making shimmering pop songs infused with country and 1970s rock (“The more she goes on … the more she sounds like one of the greats,” wrote Kitty Empire in these pages, about her last album, 2019’s On the Line).

Despite their initial misgivings, the fans “were amazing from show one”, says Lewis. She had just come out of the pandemic and total isolation – “I hadn’t even gone to a restaurant or done anything” – and found herself on the biggest stages she had ever played, arenas filled with thousands of new young fans. “I got pure love and support and total attention,” she recalls, speaking over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles, sunlight streaming in through the wall-to-wall windows behind her. “They make signs at the shows to get Harry’s attention, but about four shows in, someone in the crowd had a sign that said: ‘I’m here for Bobby Rhubarb.’”

Bobby Rhubarb is Lewis’s two-year-old cockapoo, a present from a poet friend named Serengeti and the subject of the first single from her fifth solo album, Joy’All (“I need a dog that’s hypoallergenic / In the poodle milieu and photogenic”). The song, Puppy and a Truck, came out of an online songwriting workshop organised by Beck and is a sweet, moving bop about being single in her 40s and finding a deep sense of fulfilment in her new life. “I don’t got no kids / I don’t got no roots,” she sings at the end, in a tone that could be read as wistful, or liberated, or both.

Shit gets real, there’s a lot of suffering, and how are you going to weather it?

This balance of emotions is a central tenet of Joy’All, an album that came out of lockdown and Lewis’s first opportunity to stop and process everything that had happened to her in the preceding years. “I think going through a big tragedy, or the loss of both of your parents, or the end of a long-term relationship,” she says of this time, “the common theme as a human being is just: shit gets real, there’s a lot of suffering, of varying degrees, and how are you going to weather it?”

During her time alone, she experienced “a spiritual shift – I realised that the pursuit of joy is a really important thing”. She found this in Bobby Rhubarb, who brought new rhythms to her daily routine and reminded her of the things that truly matter – “Like play and going on a walk.” She read books by Hermann Hesse, Raymond Chandler and Ram Dass, consumed “a lot of murder content” and grew two massive weed plants (“pleased to meet you, Mary Jane”, goes new track Love Feel).

Joy’All is an uplifting, layered album filled with ear-worming hooks and memorable lines, preceded by a spate of career-best singles such as Psychos (featuring what she calls the “ultimate Tinder profile description line: ‘I’m not a psycho / I’m just tryna get laid’”) and Giddy Up, a Kacey Musgraves-esque country-pop tune about taking a chance on romance, and cognitive dissonance. Throughout the LP, difficult events are balanced out by joyous ones: “the essence of life / is suffering” goes one line, later becoming “the essence of life / is ecstasy”. The pain of a breakup sits alongside the thrill of a new liaison; there are references to an encounter at an after-school party that “almost destroyed” her, but also to listening to Marvin Gaye with an “ice-cold Modelo”.

On our call, Lewis is engaging company, with a sparkling intelligence and a warm, easy laugh. With her feathered red hair and a T-shirt bearing the logo of the Beastie Boys label Grand Royal, she exudes an energy halfway between Stevie Nicks and Natasha Lyonne, interrupting herself with a joke when she feels she is coming across as too LA (she divides her time between there and Nashville). She was born in Las Vegas in 1976 and by the 1980s had a thriving career as a child actor, with roles in TV shows such as The Twilight Zone, The Golden Girls, Baywatch and Murder, She Wrote, as well as films including Pleasantville, Foxfire – opposite a young Angelina Jolie – and the now cult classic Troop Beverly Hills.

Lewis learned a lot during those years: memorising lines, accessing emotion while performing (“You have to think of the worst possible thing to make yourself cry, which is such an interesting thing for a brain that is still forming”). But by the early 00s she was out of that world. She has spoken openly about the trials she faced in childhood: her absent musician father, Eddie, and the heroin addiction of her Vegas entertainer mother, Linda. Lewis’s deceptively cheerful-sounding 2019 track Wasted Youth is about her mother spending her acting earnings first on buying, then selling drugs: “I wasted my youth / On a poppy, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo / Just for fun.” Their relationship broke down, with Lewis becoming estranged from her father and mother for many years. She reconciled with them before their deaths in 2010 and 2017 respectively.

Having some time and distance has given her perspective, allowed her to see things from their point of view as well as her own. “My attitude is good, in that I accept my mom for who she was. I understand that it was probably really hard for her and she did what she had to do to survive. I appreciate all of her choices, even if they weren’t the greatest choices.” She understands now that some addicts don’t get clean. “The recovery rate for heroin addicts – it’s a very small percentage. So the more I’ve learned about that, the more I can accept the whole thing.” She is still unearthing memories from that time; a memoir is in the works (Patti Smith’s Just Kids is a touchstone). “My friends have heard some of the stories, but there’s some good ones I’ve been saving,” she says, rubbing her hands together.

There were also, she adds, many amazing moments in her youth. “I think sometimes the good ones get overshadowed. But my mom was so charismatic and funny and cool. She was a hipster.” One moment in particular springs to mind: “She was in this rehabilitation centre after surgery and I went to visit her. And when I got to her room she was passed out with a peanut butter sandwich listening to Tame Impala. I was like: ‘How is she so cool?’ There were these absurd moments – the context was very serious, but there was always something funny going on.”

Lewis’s upbringing has been an endless source of material. Many of her songs with Rilo Kiley were verbatim accounts of the incredible characters in her mother’s orbit. “Blake [Sennett, Lewis’s then boyfriend and bandmate] and I would get together, he’d be playing guitar and I would just start reciting this stuff. He’d go: ‘Where the heck did you get this?’ And I was like: ‘Ah, never mind.’” A Better Son/Daughter is still the song she gets approached about most. “I’ve seen some tattoos [of it] as well,” shes says, “which is always incredible – it’s like, was that a mistake? But people really connect with that song and share their experiences with depression and addiction and their relationship with their parents.”

As well as the fans who have been with her from the beginning, Lewis now has a cohort of admirers who were too young to appreciate the music at the time. Early 00s female pop-punk acts such as Paramore and Avril Lavigne are now being reappraised; echoes of Rilo Kiley can be heard in the catchy, emotionally literate breakup songs of Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift (the band’s hit Portions for Foxes was included in a list of 18-year-old Swift’s most listened to iPod songs). “It’s like the spin cycle on your washing machine,” cackles Lewis. “It’s the cool cycle: 20 years and suddenly you’re cool. You’re like, wait, you hated this shit back then.”

In addition to Rilo Kiley, Lewis has also been part of duo Jenny and Johnny – with former partner Johnathan Rice – and all-female indie supergroup Nice As Fuck, whose debut performance was at a Bernie Sanders rally in 2016. “I keep leaving behind versions of myself,” says Lewis. “The actor version, the girl in a band version, the start a band with your boyfriend version, the all-girl New York punk band version. I’m constantly starting these things and then moving forward.” While she loves collaboration and has learned a lot from it over the years – she has worked with the Postal Service, Vampire Weekend, Bright Eyes, She & Him, and Ringo Starr, who played drums on Heads Gonna Roll – for now she is happy having autonomy over her own work. “My relationship with my songwriting started out very solitary. I’ve only co-written with a couple of people. Mostly my boyfriends, whoever I’m going out with at the time. But now I’m totally free to do whatever I want to do creatively. What is interesting to me in a song might not be interesting to a collaborator, but I don’t really care because I’m writing more for myself.”

Maybe Elon Musk can throw a giant festival on Mars called CancelFest, where all the cancelled people go

Musician Ryan Adams did some early production work on her last album; he was later accused of sexual misconduct by several women. Lewis has talked about this on numerous occasions, standing in solidarity with his accusers, and is understandably keen to move on. “There’s a broader conversation on behaviour among rock’n’rollers and the bigger conversation of what to do with people who misbehave,” she says, choosing her words carefully. “I think we should all be accountable for our own behaviour. But I don’t think you can cast people out completely. There has to be some sort of rehabilitation process.” Her eyes crinkle into a smile. “Maybe Elon Musk can throw a giant festival on Mars called CancelFest, where all the cancelled people go.” She turns serious again. “It’s such a complex question. I don’t have an answer. There are some shady characters in the world but I sometimes hope they’re on their karmic journey, and they will figure it out, if not in this lifetime in the next – in a Buddhist context. But I don’t believe people are all bad.”

Like everyone who lived through the dubious gender politics of the early 00s, Lewis still has some thought patterns of her own to unlearn. “I think my generation, we assumed there was only one spot if you were a woman. So in being ‘just one of the guys’ I was kind of getting into the club. And you’d be very protective of your role within that because there were so few women.” On the Styles tour, when she introduced her song Just One of the Guys, she dedicated it to all the tomboys in the crowd. “I could feel my band cringing when I said that. And I thought: ‘Oh wow, I guess tomboy is not a term that we use any more.’ And then I looked it up and it’s got a totally negative historical meaning.” So she is adapting. “Here’s the thing: things are changing, language is changing. We just have to learn and accept the fact that we may not understand right away. I don’t have a problem with addressing people in a way that makes them feel comfortable. I don’t understand why people get pissed – do you want others to feel bad? It doesn’t make sense.”

One way in which society isn’t moving forward as fast as she would like is the pressure to have children and be in a relationship. “If you’re not, and you’re in your 40s, there’s this old maid thing. But I feel better now than I have felt in my life. I’m totally single and I’m in complete control of my creative output and my schedule – not to say that, you know, I don’t have my romantic dalliances.” She is on a dating app, largely for entertainment value (she points out the remarkable number of men who include photos of Larry David among their own pictures). She went on a date recently, which “ended up being very fun, even though he wasn’t the one”, she laughs. “He was wearing a Star Wars T-shirt when he walked up and I was like: ‘Oh, I’ve never seen Star Wars. This just can’t work.’”

Lewis has addressed the fact she doesn’t have children in a number of songs, something about which her feelings fluctuate. “The other day I had a visceral reaction to reading that Robert De Niro [just had] a baby and he’s 79. It’s the luxury of being a man or a Peter Pan – I also consider myself to be a sort of Peter Pan figure.” Most of her friends don’t have kids, but now some of the men are reaching their mid-40s and starting families. As a woman on the road for many years, there wasn’t a moment where she felt the need to stop and take care of a child.

“I’d never imagined myself as a bride or a mother. And, of course, there’s a little bit of fear when you come from a relationship like I had with my mom, which was very complex. So I didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care, and then when it’s no longer an option, there’s a sense of Fomo. But ultimately, I made this choice. And I’m totally good with it.” Her affection gets lavished on Bobby Rhubarb. “She gets all of my love and I treat her in all the ways I wish my mom had. So I just snuggle the shit out of her.”

In an interview with the NME a few years ago she talked about how, with confessional songwriting, you “can’t put the worms back in the can”. Are there any songs she wishes she could take back? “No. There are some interviews I wish I could put back in the can – not this one! – where I’m spouting off about cancel culture like a dumdum anyway, but I honour the work. Even songs that have been written about me that aren’t flattering. What you say later in an interview, that’s on you. I’ve talked about some personal things that I really wish I could take back, but no – the work is in amber for ever.”

[yinses]

shadows on snowflakes

pantalone x afab!reader rated: m

a/n: honestly i have no-one to blame but myself. i’m obviously projecting but who knows when we’ll see this man again. let me have this guilty pleasure. 

“oh man, what a day.’’

you truly admired the free-spirit of your colleague as she twirled around in her seat. you wondered if the way the room spun as the chair finally came to a halt made her feel any less nauseated than you felt at the moment as you reviewed the expense reports for the day. 

one day.

a single day.

it truly never ended. 

despite being a foreign entity in the liyue harbor. money was a common language to everyone it seemed, meaning the northland bank was never without clients. 

fresh store owners looking for a start. 

spry adults getting needing a little extra support for their new beginning. 

oh … and the gamblers. you hated those more than anyone. northland bank never turned away the opportunity to move money, even at the detriment to others. and for that group in particular. 

well, you supposed it was more painful to them in the end. 

pushing papers, after all, rarely got your hands dirty. 

but it was yet again another day. so a fresh list of complaints was the least you were entitled to as branch secretary of northland bank.

as if sensing your oncoming migraine, chyou toed at the ground until her chair swung back around to face you. there was a soft daze in her eyes as the efforts of her spinning settled behind her skull. “i don’t know why you get so worked up about everything. this bank practically runs itself. honestly, if i didn’t know the story of morax i’d say all currency came from here. “

as the saying goes, money makes money. especially when there was a lot of it. so when chyou had been placed in front of your desk as a new trainee, eyes wide with all the information, the job seemed like a no-brainer. 

except that's not how it really worked. had not for the pinch in your brow, you might have cooed at her nativity. it was easy to simplify it all when all that was witnessed were the constant flow of money. it was easy to see it from her perspective as a liyuan native. despite its ties to snezhnaya and the even more distrustful shadows of the harbingers, the bank was a fruitful commodity. 

then there was you, the oh so fortunate associate under the direction of the manager, andrei. 

which would be fine. 

still annoying, because at the end of the day, your job was still draining even when the market ran itself. 

except it wasn’t your only responsibility. 

intertwined intimately, was your second title as in-house liaison to the head man himself of all snezhnayan market affairs. 

the regrator. 

northland bank did its best to maintain separation from the fatui ties. but in truth, there would be no bank without the notoriously wealthy harbinger's intervention. 

once again, naivety, some would call you fortunate to have the privilege to work under a self made businessman. well the few who did know. 

the regrator was as successful as he was handsome. gratuitous in the way he built snezhnaya on a firm pillar of wealth. he was as quick-witted as he was tedious; letters never failing to detail every in an out of the bank. 

to be frank, if you didn’t have a hundred other notices needing to be read, you would be impressed with his insight. except, you knew how to do your job and the harbinger certainly had more important projects to focus on. 

you penned in response as much in his last remark. the returning letter had yet to be placed on your desk, but you had more to worry about than a picky banker. 

“you should come out with us tonight. it's a thursday and tomorrow is already prepped. you can use a bit of easement.” chyou watched you determinedly pack up your belongings with quiet awe. “this much frustration can’t be good for you. why don't we go out for a nice drink?”

shouldering your bag, you declined as politely as you could. what you wanted was to store away the last of these documents so you could curl up in your own home with a cup of tea. 

the bank lobby was finally at rest, only the occasional lingering employee closing up for the day. you waved to a few, silently grateful that you haven't run into andrei along the way. 

the man was nearly as sometimes too good at his job, often persuading you to linger to tie up ends that could wait until morning. 

but you actually enjoyed andrei so there was a difference, you suppose. 

just not tonight. 

with a sigh, you shouldered against the door to your office after turning the key. if luck continued to shine down on you, you'd be able to make it all the way home without interruption. 

“you see, with dedication like this, i never have to worry.”

apparently, no rainbows of fortune came without showers. 

you were rather impressed with the way you kept your composure, heart skyrocketing at the intrusion but your body remaining in place at the sound of familiarity. 

it was sad to say this wasn't the first time a harbinger had broken into your office. but this one was the rarest of them all. 

thick lined coat draped comfortably over the back of your chair, pantalone was a visage of ‘welcomed’ without invitation as he lounged at your desk. there was no telling how long he’d been here, but the fact that he had enough knowledge that you weren’t getting to your tea anytime soon. 

reluctantly, you eased the door shut and flicked the lock.

pantalone cooed at the action, “well done. taught you well. to be honest, i had a bit of trouble with that one this time. new?”

if he was disgruntled by your blatant disregard, his tone made no note of it as you stomped around the room filing away the necessities. as far as you were concerned, your business with him was detailed precisely in every letter he demanded from you, making these unexpected visits more of an inconvenience. 

in fact, there wasn’t even supposed to be a harbinger in this building. 

well there was childe, but he was a joke.

pantalone called himself helpful as he angled his legs to the side to give you room to the bottom drawers of your desk. 

“your last letter made me realize that while i do have my hands in a lot of places, it's important to make sure each and everyone is properly taken care of. your notes are so impersonal now, how am i supposed to know that you're alright?”

you've learned over the years, that there were questions you could ignore and others that explicitly requested a response. these fell into only two categories: ones about business and your wellbeing. 

the curve of his knee wasn’t particularly in your way, yet you shouldered against it anyway out of spite. pantalone offered no resistance to the act, though he chuckled lightly at the notable spite in your attitude. 

“ghosts can’t write letters, pantalone. if you’re receiving them from me that should be telling enough.”

you hated your inability to do anything half-way, habits stopping you from just stuffing the papers into the drawer to deal with later. instead, you were forced to take your time filing them away one by one kneeled beside the ninth of the eleven harbingers. 

what a sight it must be. 

pantalone was respectful of your space however, both your body and desk. you knew despite the fact that he could and had every right to, he didn’t snoop. any and all information was at his fingertips anyway. 

you were simply a voice box.

the man hummed above you,” though a ghost may be more sentimental. you never tell me anything anymore, i have to hear about it from the grapevine.”

unable to resist the bait, you lifted your head to level him with a look. you knew for a fact that the man was above gossip, he simply did not have time for any additional information that wasn't imperative to ‘pumping money around the world’.

which meant that it was volunteered to him. and the only one who would take the liberty was a stupid nosy little water boy who you couldn't pick a fight with because he would enjoy it too much. 

you put away the next file with a little more force than necessary at the thought. “and what is this every generous grapevine saying?”

without looking back, you could hear pantalone shifting in his seat chasing comfort. a moment later came the light drum of his nails. 

“oh this and that. you’re almost too good to a fault. do you do anything other than work?”

“i answer a lot of letters from a nosy boss,’’ you sniped. 

his response was methodically dry, “i didn’t realize andrei was sending you love letters as well.”

with a light huff, you finally pushed the drawer closed and locked it for the night. a glove hand was offered before you could even start your ascend. you took it gratefully, you might be spiteful but your knees were not. 

the assistance was twofold, however, as the same gesture keeps you in place as the man levels you with a long look of contemplation. 

“i dislike having you so far away. you know your position is always open in snezhnaya.”

the position of head manager of not only the largest bank in the country but possibly all of teyvat. a job people still gossiped about in your absence. because surely you had to have done something wrong to have been transferred to a remote location. 

unknowing that it had been of your own violation. 

you tried not to think about the hand planted against the desk caging you in, close but not quite touching despite the intention. 

licking your lips, you focused instead at the slight crease in your clothing from a day of wear. “believe it or not, i quite like the weather here. the only ice i see is in my cup.”

pantalone hums thoughtfully, but the tone was different. more determined this time around. you could feel him trying to catch your gaze. 

it was another request not easily ignored as you felt a light touch under your chin. 

he didn't give you time to get lost in his gaze before speaking,” come home.”

home.

the word felt like splintering ice against the shell of your heart. unforgiving and unrelenting song that you struggled to ignore with each passing day. 

because at the end of the day, liyue was just a place of residence. an olive branch offered to win your compliance. 

because he never wanted you to run. he’d allow distance, as long as you were still in reach.

but liyue had been enough. 

enough space where you weren’t suffocated under the weight of memories frozen for eternity at home. even when they float effortlessly from the letters he sends. 

“i am-”

for the first time in awhile, you witness the cross look on his features. it almost makes you smile, witnessing the pinch of frustration on the face of a man who rarely was seen without a grin. 

and why would he not smile? he’d overcome the drought of poverty in his upbringing and now lived the fruit of his bearings. ones that he once offered to share with you, time and time again. 

“don’t lie to me.”

even when you tried to sever the ties, to learn to grow without his influence. you know deep down the top of you were rooted to the same spot, and it was by his generosity that you were about to branch this far. 

liyue was just another house, but not a home. 

he’d house you as far as sumeru if you needed as long as you didn't forget where you belonged. 

pantalone’s face softened as his hand dropped to follow the slouch of your body as you settled your weight fully against the wood. 

you should have known his letters were leading up to this. it was your own fault after all. the moment he felt you pulling away at the strings, he was bound to follow. 

your eyes dart distractedly to the sway of his earring as he rolls to his feet, neck angling to keep track as he stands at full height. 

there were moments. brief blimps in time, that you realized that even amongst the smog of rumors and truths, the regrator was just a man. 

and every man had his wants and desires. 

you just wished he’d left you as a whim. 

a wisp of a person on the barren streets of snezhnaya. 

that he hadn’t returned after years of separation, boasting bountiful funds and rich clothing as he stood on your tattered doorstep. 

you wished you hadn't welcomed him with open arms. 

wider legs. 

hadn’t remembered he who spent pennies to buy you sweets. 

not fallen in love with the person who held you above the gods who’d forsaken him.

 pantalone brackets your body with his hands on either side of your hips, thumbs resisting idleness as they swipe distractingly against your curves. “it would be nice to visit, would it not?”

he’s never been afraid of words, building an empire on carefully crafted sentences. but you were different. seated on the table, not on the other side and able to decipher the disguised plea. 

the wintery song.

‘come home’.

he hid it well in his letters too. 

always signed ‘ i await your return’.

home to him was the estate he’d built for you both. the wide spanning property with more rooms than you could visit in a week's time. it was well heated, a stark contrast to the thin walls of your past.

yet a different kind of chill had settled into the foundation. 

once you couldn't shake. 

not in front of a warm meal made by chefs of the highest regard. 

not by the roaring fireplace with a grateful head perched against your lap.

not even at night when strong arms held you close with the promise of never letting go. 

he’d asked once what had changed. you remembered the brief warmth of sunlight against the stark white snezhnayan snow as he stood behind you on the porch. he’d finally met his match, a puzzle he couldn't unravel despite spending every waking hour trying to fill the void you'd unveiled. 

you didn't have an answer for him then,

only offering the same sad smile today. 

the one that ate at his heart and stroked the fires under his vexation. 

again, he determinedly stole your lips in a through kiss, determined to reform the shape of your mouth. and you let him, because despite the ache in your heart you truly had no ill-intentions in making him suffer as well.

it was why you took the position in liyue. pressing the excuse that the branch needed a bit of monitoring under the watchful eye of a foreign archon. and of course you were just the person for the job. who else did he trust more?

led by the fainst spark in your eye at the idea, the brightest light he’d seen in months, he’d cautiously approved your transfer papers. he helped you pack your belongings, but never too many. 

certainly you didn’t need a full suitcase for a brief stay. 

but weeks spanned to months and time passed without the crunch of snezhnaya snow under your feet. it was cruel, but you felt a little satisfaction knowing you’d gone to a place that he could not easily follow. 

his harbinger status was too poignant to ignore and not welcome outside of the reach of the tsaritsa. you may not be running, but yet he could not heed your heels. 

so you let him soak in these moments, hands raising to lace together behind his neck, in hopes to placate him for a few months more. but deep down you knew the threads of restraint were fraying. this was his second visit in the span of three months. a feat for a man with his agenda.

which to most may not seem much, but with a man who functioned the world with the grace of a chessboard, he was losing too many pieces. desperation had led him to forsake the gods who denied him a vision and spite fate by buying it for himself. you didn’t want to know what that method of madness would mean for you. 

though in a way he have you a taste of it, in the fervent way he drank from your lips like a man parched. he touched you in ways meant to leave aches in place of the memories because those were harder to ignore. 

the way his fingers would curl, holding you in place as he nibbled –or bit. his hands would always stay stationary at one stop, concentrating all he had to that point alone so that he could make you feel good. 

his lips would always be latched somewhere so that you would not have room to say anything beyond broken moans and soft gasps. lips on your lips, lips on your neck, lips on your chest, lips between your thighs. his movements were somewhat strategic because after he was done with foreplay, ensuring that you were ready before taking it to the next step, he would slide into you and take you back to the oak scented sheets back in the mansion in snezhnaya.

he never let you feel the guilt of taking. because you always would, too weak against the reminder. 

the sex was good. no, perhaps … perhaps it was the art of making love that was good. felt good. felt right despite the world skewing it all.

when your nerves tightened just like a taut bow, you threw your head backwards, caught by his open hand and opened your mouth in a wordless scream, feeling everything fade away to red as your toes curled and your body trembled in release. he, too, sharply plunged in and out again, meshing his addictive-tasting mouth to yours, hands now roving against your wrists and holding them tightly into place as he dominated you purely on the fuel of his frustration. to quicken his impending climax, you shifted a little in place and clenched around him, hard, watching how he screwed his eyes shut whilst murmuring a sweet prayer against your lips before collapsing on top of you, spent. 

during this moment, you pretend you could see the blankets of snow instead of the golden arches of branches and rolling green plains. 

petting his back. minded of the scars he tried to hide from your wandering touches at night after returning home. 

desperately imagining that life was simpler. 

but your heart could not lie. 

not with the fast approaching reality. 

[meeedeee]

The First Post To The First Slash /Shipping Mailing List

The Date: October 19, 1992 ("it was almost 29 years ago") The Poster: sherrold* 

Context: the first pan fandom slash (shipping) mailing list, Virgule-L, was in its infancy. Safe spaces for women to talk about slash online were rare. And most fan fiction was distributed in print fanzines (which is why fanzine reviews like the one Sandy wrote were so important as a single fanzine cost $15-20 or around $30-40 in today's dollars.) Fan run conventions were the only way to meet other groups of fans and mailed letters and phone calls were the tenuous tethers that strung these fan groups together. The mailing list - and the Internet - was about to change...everything. ****************

Well, welcome to my adventure in mailing! I hope to have this set up soon as a 'real' mailing list, with it's own address. Until then, I only know one way for one of you to write to everyone at once. Just reply to a letter from the list, and answer yes, when it asks, 'reply to all'. So far there are 7 of us. I'll let everyone introduce themselves. I am Sandy Hereld,* I write as Alyx (often with a friend who used Alys) the pen name is *not* a secret. I started in "/" fandom in trek, moved to Pros, and now am very crazed about B7. I still love Pros, and like a lot of different fandoms, including Wiseguy, Starsky and Hutch, and Muncle. I helped run a slash con here in town last week, Virgule, and hope to make Escapade** this year (in February, in Santa Barbara--one of the list subscribers co- runs it--memberships still available), but not Revelcon.*** Maybe, if I get a new job, Media West. I've never been there, and I've always wanted to go. I just finished a great Multi-mediazine called Homosapiens Too. It has an interesting variety of fandoms and crossovers; even more important, there wasn't a single story that stunk (though I liked some better than others, of course.) Page count is Pros/Booker 18 pgs (Bodie/Booker) Eroica/Muncle 5 pgs (Eroica/Illya) Batman 4 (Batman/street punk) Nightflyers 6+ (cartoon, from the movie) TNG 5pgs (Beverly/symbiote) B7/TOS trek 5 pgs (Blake/Spock) Dangerous Liaisons 7 pgs (Valmont/Danceny) Damiano 2 pgs (from the R.A. McAvoy books) MUNCLE 2 pgs the usual Star Wars 4 (cartoon, original characters) Pros 4 pgs the usual B7 50 pgs (Blake/Avon) Perhaps I should mention at the there was a contest for most outrageous crossover pairing. My favorites were: The Right Place To Be (Bodie/Booker) by Arcane Annie & Stew--Bodie quits in a huff after an Operation Suzie, and is too embarrassed to go back; Booker has quit somewhat similarly. Seeing how stupid the other's foolish pride looks, they both learn things about playing roles and 'what really matters.' They also have pretty good sex. Do Blond's Really Have More Fun? (Eroica/Illya) by Barbara T. This definitely is set at a time when Solo and Kurykin are having some problems. The crossover is a fascinating one, and it works. (Anyone needing Erioca explained, just e-mail me. It is a pretty new/small fandom, but growing fast.) Brand New Day (Spock/Blake) by Jane Carnell follows immediately after Blake's pod makes planetfall after Star One. A great Blake, and if not a totally convincing Spock, it's close. Worth it for this scene alone. --Blake "What do you like?" "Anal penetration," "Which way round?" Blake inquired. "I am a telepath. It hardly matters. Whichever way pleases you." Valmont (Valmont/Danceny) by Stew -is a romantic, but very plausible retelling of the movie Dangerous Liaisons, all from Danceny's POV. For any that have read the book, you know it is told solely in letters and diary entries, so this collection of Danceny's diaries is very faithful to the original feel. It is also an amazingly concise retelling, squeezing 2 hours into 6 1/2 pgs. Submissive It Ain't (Pros) is basically just a sex story, but one firmly based in the very different personalities of Bodie and Doyle. Nice idea, beautiful sex, slightly weak ending. Puppeteer (Blake/Avon) by Bryn Lantry is a convoluted but beautiful story where: the action is in the emotions, everyone has multiple motives, and no one truly knows their own minds, much less understands their crewmates. A bit alternate, set sometime in the months before Star One but after Blake has already got the idea in mind, this is a wonderful character study of Blake and Avon, with Vila and Cally in strong supporting roles. Not my favorite type of story -- I think I prefer something a bit more straightforward, but undeniably compelling and well written. The other stories weren't dogs either... The Muncle story, Hanging In Time, by Y.J. is a very disturbing portrayal of the hurt-comfort syndrome in Illya, The Batman story will appeal to anyone who liked "The Dark Knight Returns" With All My Symbiotes -Susan Douglas- has some nice female slash. Why Couldn't It Be Me has gotten a certain amount of press as "Biblical slash." It does have two biblical characters in it, but it is just a vigniette, and has no overt slash content. A few caveats: I disliked the art in the first story, and was indifferent to the rest. I had a hard time reading the 2 cartoon sections; I thought the penning needed to be clearer, and the xerox needed to be darker for those sections. With those few quibbles in mind, I recommend the zine highly. It has an interesting collection of stories set in an amazing variety of universes. The editor is joining a growing number of publishers and putting the word count down -- 80,700, with 40,700 of it in Bryn's B7 story. It is available from Manacles Press here in the U.S. at  [address removed]. There is no U.S. price on the zine; it says to SASE Manacles Press, and I can't remember whether I paid $15 or $18 at the con. From Australia, it is available from the publisher...[address removed] $12 within Aust, $20 posted overseas airmail. (I assume that's $Aus)”

*Sandy passed away in July 2011 of cancer. One of our final joint projects was going  through our emails dating back 20+ years to find fandom history we could share

**Escapade is the longest running slash convention and is still held in Southern California (as of 2021)

*Revelcon is a slash friendly multi-fandom convention held in Texas. As of 2021 it is still running

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

I’ve been rewatching CM and god, what I wouldn’t give for them to bring TG back for this revival. I haven’t even watched seasons 12-15 yet because I’m in denial about him being gone 😭😭😩

omg I haven't watched it either xD I've been holding off watching s11e22, The Storm, for like a month I swear. Which, I know is going to be amazing but I also have heard it's the beginning of the end and I'm not readyyyyyyy.

I would give anything for TG to come back. A n y t h i n g. But idk what CBS feels is the appropriate amount of time to be blacklisted or whatever the hell they did 🤷‍♀️ despite how it would be so easy to write him back in, and the missed opportunities is already making my skin crawl.

Okay. This was going to be a quick answer, but I've been THINKING about this way more than I should lately, without ever having watched 12-15 but I feel like I know enough, and with all the projects I'm going to be finishing/starting soon I know I won’t have time to do anything with my ideas. So I'm just going to type this little beginning I have plotted out and maybe one day I'll make it into the fic I want it to be:

(I know you didn't ask for a hc/blurb thing but surprise you get one xD)

CW: Spoilers for season 11-15 that are probably inaccurate af, fighting, violence, bit of blood and injuries talk, some profanity. 

-

((I legit have this all plotted out like a full season, and picture everything as shots and scenes and I know exactly how I would want to bring Hotch back.))

-

It would start in a small suburban town in Indiana, legit white-picket fence, middle of nowhere, off the grid town. With the most pedestrian name ever, we might as well call it Mayberry. Typical weekend morning, bright green grass and trees and summer sunshine lighting it all up, they still get papers delivered it’s that picturesque. And it’ll pan to all sorts of people on this street of nice, two-story houses, and finally zero in on not the man picking up his paper from his front porch, but the jogger slowing down that the man calls to next door, calling him a name we’ve never heard before -- but the jogger answers with that dark eyed squint and a nod... and it is Aaron Hotchner. Or the man who used to be Aaron Hotchner. He hasn’t gone by that name in years, WITSEC provided him and Jack with new ones.

His house isn’t even really decorated like a home, he’s been in enough over the years to know tell-tale signs of what a happy home should entail. Photographs, memorabilia, nostalgia tucked away in corners -- they don’t have that. He has a couple of photographs he keeps in his office, the only two in inconspicuous view being a photo of Haley and Jack when he was two years old, and a photo of his team the day he completed the FBI triathlon and they all showed up to support him. Everything else of their old life is in boxes in a storage facility in downtown D.C., under another false name that can never be linked back to them. 

Mr. Scratch was a poor excuse for why he and Jack were still under WITSEC, but he hopes near daily that it was enough of a reason that no one would question why he didn’t return once that monster was dead. That no one smart enough to read between the lines would go digging for more reasons, or worse -- try to find him -- and they pictured him living a happy retirement very similar to the charade he is living now. 

But Aaron Hotchner was never meant for retirement. No matter how easy and simple his days have been the past few years. It was only a matter of time. 

He walks through his home that looks more like the insides of a Home Living magazine, to his kitchen which is bright and spacious and tiled white that he knows Haley would have loved, getting a glass of water from the sink and chugging it all in one go. It isn’t until he’s getting a second glass that he hears it. The faucet was supposed to have masked any disturbance, they were careful in when they moved, how they placed their feet, the slowness of the their approach -- but not enough.

Hotch keeps his shoulders relaxed, his spine still ram-rod straight but that’s just how he stands and it keeps tension ready at a moment’s notice. Keeps him on alert, which he needs as he takes slower sips of water and lets all his other sense shift to a heightened awareness. Knows this house like the back of his hand, even if he’s never allowed himself to consider it home, so he knows which floorboards creak and where all the furniture is strategically placed. Always prepared for something like this to happen, even if he never imagined someone would be so bold. 

Their mistake.

With a careful tick of his head, peripherals his only guidance, he strikes before the intruder gets to. An iron grip and momentum that propels their face into the metal of the sink basin, shocking them that what their file was so misleading about their target. Retired FBI agent, almost 60 years old, living in Pleasantville with a picket fence and a vegetable garden. This should have been easy. The intruder is stunned by the blow, attempts a quick recovery where they lash out and get a few good body shots into the older man -- but he’s built like a brick wall, can take a blow and give it back twice as hard -- a few more precise hits and another crack of their face to the sink that shatters the bridge of their nose leaves the attacker slumping to the floor. 

“You didn’t do your research,” Hotch tells them, breathing a little heavy, opening up a drawer usually deemed for junk and pulls out zipties and an ancient looking cell phone buried deep at the back. “Sloppy. I expected more from him.” 

The attacker kicks out Hotch’s knees in a fit of rage (at having his skill set insulted so), leaving them both crashing to the floor. They grapple and fight a bit more, knocking dishes from the counters and pots and pans to the floor from the grill top island, but Hotch is so well-trained in take downs he gets the slighter man pinned with only a split lip and a single hitch in breath. He barely broke a sweat. Knocks the guy out clean, two solid punches to his face, and he stops because he knows better. Has been there before, and they need to question whoever was sent to his house to kill him. 

He’s barely off the floor, the intruder binded and stuck in a corner when Jack walks in from early morning soccer practice. Takes one look at the kitchen, his dad with blood in the corner of his mouth, and the guy all in black bound by zipties and already knows what happened. Sixteen, nearly as tall as his father now, he looks only mildly worried for all of two seconds until he sees that his dad has an old flip cell phone held up to his good ear, awaiting a connection with their handler in Indianapolis. 

“... Does this mean we get to go home?” 

The shot would pan back to Hotch, and he wouldn’t answer him, just tells the person on the phone to ‘patch him through, they have a situation’, and there would be no very obvious look in answer to Jack’s question. But all of us who know him, know the subtle changes in expression and the slight softening to that stern frown, knows what his reply would have been.

-

The very next scene would be the BAU. JJ and Emily walking at a brisk pace covering a debrief, since they basically run the department now. Everyone has been called in, everyone, retired and moved away and even the ones who cut all ties have been contacted. JJ has just gotten off the phone with Elle, who is working as a liaison in Rome and assured her that if anyone showed up in her home to attack her that they would be leaving in a body bag. But she appreciated the heads up. 

In the bullpen it’s more like a family reunion than anything. Garcia has just gotten off the elevators, a flurry of color and blonde curls and bright as ever, Morgan and Savannah are trying to corral Hank and the twins (both girls and pure chaos now that they can walk) while still making introductions with the new team and their families, and asking if Reid or Rossi know anything about what’s going on as JJ gets there and asks for everyone’s attention. 

“Not everyone is here yet, Kate and her family are on their way from upstate, Will’s getting the boys from school, and Alex and her husband are on a plane, but we need to get started as soon as possible.”

“What’s is going on, JJ?” Morgan asks, passing off one of the twins to Penelope who is in full baby fever mode despite what is obviously a very bad circumstance that has brought them all together. It’s a juxtaposition that has put everyone on edge. It doesn’t help when JJ and Emily look at each other as if in confirmation, trying to decide who is going to tell them.

“Okay, that doesn’t inspire confidence,” Rossi points out. “What happened?”

Emily sighs and makes a gesture for JJ to take the floor, since she has been on point for most of this.

The bull pen is silent in anticipation.

“Earlier this morning, Hotch was attacked in his home in Indiana,” she says, and whatever anyone thought was going on -- that wasn’t it. The shock across the room is like a bomb has detonated.

Rossi curses something out in Italian, looking down, and JJ immediately realizes how this all sounds. But doesn’t even get to backtrack as Reid looks completely devastated and Garcia like she’s about to cry and everyone else starts shouting questions at her. 

“What happened to Jack?”

“How did they even find him? What the fuck is wrong with WITSEC?!”

“Is he okay?” asks Tara, the only intellectual who can see the panic now blooming on JJ’s face.

“Yes, yes! He’s okay, sorry, no -- Hotch is fine. The guy who tried to kill him... not so much, but he should be conscious soon so they can question him.” 

“Jesus Christ, JJ,” Morgan says looking like he just aged ten years in the past 30 seconds. “Lead with that.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. He’s okay, Jack is okay, they’ve been picked up. But... there’s a lot we need to be filled in on,” she admits, which quiets the room once more. “Apparently, the WITSEC had nothing to do with Mr. Scratch. There’s something much bigger and more dangerous going on, and he went under to keep us all safe. As well as himself, and Jack.” 

“What is it?”

JJ makes a gesture with her hands splayed as she looks a little lost. “I only know bare bones, we have to wait to hear the specifics and get everyone somewhere safe.” 

“You think we’re going to trust WICSEC after this?!”

Emily intervenes this time, “We have a plan, or... Hotch has a plan, I think. We’re just learning about everything as we go, he’s really the one that knows the most about it.”

“Then where is he?” Morgan speaks up again. “If he’s been pulled out, and we’re all in danger, why isn’t he here explaining this to us himself?” 

It’s a good question, and everyone looks expectantly at the two women leading the informal briefing. 

“Will he come back at all?” Reid asks, speaking up for the first time. It’s been years, that’s a long time to rethink a life like the BAU, and everything it entails.

JJ takes a deep breath. “He’s... in--”

“Out-processing.” 

Hotch is at the back of the room. Everyone turns to him, even JJ and Emily look surprised to see him so soon.  ((But we all know the CM cinematography love that kind of return shot, so I’m catering to it. For situational parallels if nothing else. Imagine the gif sets.))

“I pushed it as fast as they could go, but WITSEC always drags their feet.” The familiar drone, dry barely-there-humor, breaks whatever spell that had been over the room at the sight of the old Unit Chief. Disbelief and relief and stunned surprise litter every expression, and although Penelope looks like the first to say something, her words change course just as she opens her mouth. Because  Hotch is still in civilian clothes, a duffle-bag over his shoulder he used as a go-bag for decades, and beside him with a bag of his own with messy dirty blonde hair is--

“Oh my God, is that Jack!?” she near sobs, the teenager smiling at her in a way that looks so much like Haley, and she goes to hug him first with the boy meeting her halfway. “You’re so tall! And so grown up, look at you!” There’s definitely tears and the team converges on the Hotchners all at once. Reid hugs Hotch first, as tight and bone-crushing as that night in Atlanta all those years ago, followed soon after by Rossi who looks like he might shake the man but just hugs him tight and plants an absurdly embarrassing kiss on his cheek that finally cracks Hotch’s expression into something like a smile. Everyone hugs, everyone, Savannah calls him Aaron instead of Hotch because that was how he’d introduced himself all those years ago, the twins wave shyly and he shakes hands with the newer members that never got to meet him but have heard very tall tales about him for years and years. 

(And y’all, it would be the best damn scene and I would sob like a baby watching it.)

Morgan would be the one that would hold back and let the others go first, but it would also be the most profound when Hotch goes to shake his hand and the other man uses that to pull him into a tight hug of his own. 

“I’m glad you can still hold your own,” he’ll tease with nearly no heat behind it. Hotch hears it for the caring that it is.

“Like hell I would let that happen twice in my own home,” he assures him. 

Everyone settles down, and Emily leads some finer points of what’s going to happen with everyone in the next few hours. Days. Weeks, even, because there’s no knowing what is going to happen next. Hotch observes her, and there HAS to be a shot where she glances over to him and they share a look of understanding -- because she is Unit Chief now, and he approves of what he sees. 

But she turns the floor over to him, and Hotch explains what’s going on.

((I’m going to leave the finer points out about the case and the unsub, mostly because I haven’t finished ironing them out yet and I hope once I watch the remaining season I will be able to much more easily))

But at SOME POINT in the briefing, when Hotch is explaining what happened with the assassin in his home and how he apprehended him, and Emily maybe interjects with the injuries sustained and that they are still waiting for the man to regain consciousness. Penelope will 100% lean over to where Jack is sitting beside her and say without flinching, “Your dad is such a bad ass.”

((I also plan on bringing up Reid was in prison in this scene but it will be more humorous than anything because of Hotch’s reaction, stay tuned on that one. Again I’m not there yet))

((and where I’m taking them is also a secret because I need to do research and it will be so damn cool, but Hotch has everything completely planned out -- like he does. Goes as far as asking the few who question him “Secure enough for you?” when he drops where they will be staying and the protection they will have. Full blown mic drop moment.))

“So gather all of your belongings that you have here. Secure pets and homes, call the kid’s schools, whatever you need to do,” Hotch informs them, stepping back into his old shoes as team leader without even meaning to. But no one tells him to stop. “We need to be in the air ASAP, the jet is being prepped as we speak so we need to move on this.”

He leaves it at that, and everyone doesn’t move. Watching, waiting, smirking a little bit (Penelope, maybe even Reid), until he gives in.

“Wheels up in 30.”

Garcia giggles so much she near cackles with it. “Oh, I just got goosebumps!” And by Emily’s smirk and Morgan’s shared grin with Reid, a million watts between them, everyone is up and moving and pulling out cell phones to get their affairs in order.

Rossi sidles up to Hotch at that point, also openly smirking that they got him to say those four time-honored words. “Welcome back, Aaron.”

And Hotch, well -- he looks around the room at the family he had to leave behind without any hope of seeing them again, and feels every hardened edge in his face and demeanor soften. Before he looks to Dave and tells him what’s been going through his head ever since he walked back through the doors of the BAU.

“It’s good to be home.”

((END SCENE))