#the sign that said links house has been removed

[samglyph]

I’m cool with Zelink and I will ship on occasion but it is a bit funny to me all of the shippers being like “aww they live together and sleep in the same bed” when my base reading of the text is that Link gave the deed to his house to Zelda since her former home is no longer osha compliant and immediately fucked off to go do adventuring shit. And he’s now buying a different house.

[drawing-prompt-s]

GoFundMe: Getting the kitten to the vet...

for a rabies shot, FIV testing, and a possible upper respiratory infection!

So someone sent in the last $305 I needed while I was asleep. I'm transferring it to my account now which means I'm a) shutting off the GFM as soon as the transfers process and b) taking in the kitten as soon as the money becomes available to me - so likely by Friday I'll take her in, or Saturday or Monday (they do half days Saturday, and are closed Monday).

GoFundMe Link Paypal Link

Venmo Link Cashapp Link

Multiple payment options available because I am typically asked for alternatives to GFM and PP.

$350 / $350

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

INFORMATION + VIDEO UNDER THE CUT!

From the GoFundMe description:

Hello!

So, unplanned, there is a new kitten in the house as of Feb. 22, 2024. (Not Jolene's, she is fixed). When at my friend's house - where I will be moving in a few months - we found out that a cat that comes to visit often is not only owned, but a mom. However, the neighbor doesn't want the kittens, so he always puts them outside and leaves them there. I could no, in my right mind, leave the kitten outside by a trashcan and under a tire in February of all months, so I brought her home.

So far I have treated her for hookworms, given her the vaccines I can do myself, and looked into getting a spay voucher from one of the local shelters. The kitten is roughly 3 months old.

However, current concerns are that she may have an upper respiratory infection (and there is always the concern that she could be FIV+). She has an inflamed eye with a regular and concerning amount of discharge and has for a few days. I have also caught her sneezing and she has started coughing on more than a few occasions. She also has a few other signs of sickness - anemia, the runs, and some blood spotted in it. If it is a URI, I need to catch it as fast as possible because I also have Jolene, my 3 year old cat. She absolutely also needs FIV testing and a rabies shot because of that, and because where we are moving there are other cats.

Jolene and the kitten have both been getting along well. The kitten loves to follow her around and Jolene acts more like the disgruntled big sister (don't let her fool you, I have caught them playing regularly - she just needs her alone adult time too).

I have already altered a bit of my projected finances and removed money from my savings to care for the kitten and help her. But there is only so far that can go as I also need to be able to afford gas, food, and furniture for the upcoming move (I'm going to start buying things soon so I can put it together and move my stuff prior to the official move date). I was trying to put off a full vet visit until sending the kitten in for a spay, but with her eye and the possibility of infection spreading to other cats, it can no longer wait.

I am shutting off this GFM as soon as I reach the goal. The vet said to budget for a little more than $300, between the base cost of a visit, FIV testing, rabies, and potential treatment for an Upper Respiratory Infection- assuming it's nothing too major. And I added a little more to what I am expecting because GFM does take a fee from donations.

If the kitten does end up being FIV+ we do have rehoming options available or I will find someone better suited to handle an FIV+ cat (either already having one of their own or a home with no pets).

I tried to take a video of the eye, but as you can imagine, a 3 month old kitten isn't the most keen on staying still, haha.

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

Let me add in the breakdown as well, now that I think about it:

Base cost for my vet to see a new cat (even as a pre-established client with other cats treated there): $100

FIV testing: $40

Rabies (and other vaccines I may be missing I was unable to do myself): $35 - $45

And the vet recommended budgeting about $100 for medications depending on what they find (if she still has worms, if she has other parasites due to being outside untreated, if she has a URI like the current concern is): $100

The rest is tax, the % upcharge for using a card, and to negate the fees that GFM with-drawls from each donation.

[icallhimjoey]

Joe with those glasses 😩 the whore in me came out! Anyways imagine the reader being like woah the first time she sees him with his glasses on. He’s usually in his contacts but let’s say he got tired and decided to wear his glasses for the day, and reader knew she had a sexy and handsome boyfriend but she didn’t knew how him with glasses would make him more sexier than he already is. Let’s just say Joe know the effect it has on her and well and well now the rule is that the glasses stay on during sex!

my requests are closed but fuuuuuck ok here we go Wordcount: 1.3K

His glasses

"Stop giving me those eyes," Joe warned after asking you a question, two jars in his hands, right in the middle of a supermarket isle. You hadn't answered but instead had perched an elbow on your shopping cart and rested your head in a hand, granting yourself a moment to stare at him as he studied the backs of two pickle jars.

It was only 10 in the morning, but you were all sorts of riled up. It was those glasses. You knew it. Joe was sexy, but Joe in his glasses? Oof. Illegal. Straight to jail. Joe wore them around the house for brief moments sometimes, but today, Joe'd decided to take them outside, past the threshold of his flat, and you couldn't believe it.

"Wait, what are you..." you'd asked him when you saw him ready to walk out with them still on.

"What? Oh. It's just easier, come on, let's go,"

Suddenly, Bedroom Joey was out in public, stood here in front of you in the middle of a supermarket, fretting over what difference two pickle brands made besides the price of them. How could Joe expect you to separate the frames from their usual surroundings and... activities?

"Which one do you think looks better?" he asked, holding both jars up to you again, like you cared at all.

You kept staring with an impossibly wide smile on your face and with thoughts far away from the conversation Joe tried to have with you.

Joe waited two more seconds for you to answer before he sighed with annoyance and removed the glasses from his face, pushing them up into his hair, making you almost whimper at the loss of them on his nose.

"No-" you whined.

"Which one?" Joe interrupted, looking at you like a disappointed schoolteacher and you were quick to grab one of the jars from his hands to place in your cart.

"Please put them back on," you were about to reach for them yourself, but Joe swatted your hands away quickly before lowering the specs back onto his face himself.

"You're ridiculous," Joe laughed, linking arms with you. And maybe you were. But had he not seen himself? Had everyone not seen Joe Quinn in glasses?

"Pub lunch?" he offered after your morning shop, and a small gasp left your lips. Joe was going to take the glasses into a pub with you? You were going to stray even further from your bedroom with Bedroom Joey? Was this man even fucking thinking straight? "Sure," you casually replied, hoping any sign of you being too into it would prompt him to leave them at home.

But he hadn't.

You were sat across from him as his eyes scanned over the menu, and your mind ran wild with the most inappropriate of fantasies. Up until this point, you'd been very above having sex in public. But now, everything was up for debate. It didn't help that Joe was wearing a fuzzy jumper too. Holy hell, what had gotten into his head this morning?

"Don't!" Joe said sternly as you used a foot under the table to press onto his seat in between his thighs, not even looking up from the menu. You only stilled for a second before carrying on, sliding down your seat slightly to be able to reach, making Joe jolt in his seat.

"Oh my God, stop," Joe laughed as he tried to keep his voice down.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom..." you said, elongating your words to really bring your point across as you moved in your seat, getting ready to get up.

"Meet me in-"

"No, you're not," Joe made big eyes at you, a smile playing at his lips, absolutely shocked at your behaviour. "We're having lunch. Sit." Joe looked at you over his glasses, and what the fuck, it just made everything so much worse.

"Meet me in 3 minutes." you finished your sentence, your face showing a weird mixture of arousal, anger and confident determination. Joe hadn't seen it from you before and watched you walk away, disappearing up a set of stairs to the toilets. He then looked around, checking to see if anyone had either seen or heard what had just transpired at his table before abandoning it completely and flying up the stairs, taking two at a time.

You stood waiting in the women's bathroom, praying that the first person to walk in after you would be Joe and not a random woman who actually had to use the facilities for what they were meant for. You sighed a breath of relief when the door opened and you saw Joe carefully peep his head around it. His beautiful head. With those beautiful glasses. Upon seeing you he scurried over and before you could even close the stall door behind you, Joe's lips were on your mouth in a heated kiss. Not wanting to break away, you fumbled your hands around until you were able to lock the door.

You used both hands to pull at Joe's collar that had now made its way out of the neckline of his jumper, pressing your lips harshly into his. Your nose pushed into his cheek, just underneath the rim of his glasses, and Joe made the grave mistake of reaching for them to get them out of the way.

"Don't you fucking dare," you panted into Joe's mouth, yours wide agape, his spread into a wicked grin that bit into his bottom lip as your hurried hands made sure he kept those specs in place.

"Yes ma'am," Joe complied, rushing to quickly unbutton his trousers with the gentlest touch he could manage. They were expensive and he wasn't going to be the one to explain to his stylist how he broke the zipper in the toilet stall of a pub. Joe breathed heavily and it fogged up his glasses a little. It made you moan at the sight.

"Thinks he can just casually walk around with them on, out and about, like it's no big deal," you had already hiked up your dress and had stuck the bottom hem of it into your cleavage so it would stay out of the way. It made Joe snicker a little.

"Resourceful," he said, shifting your panties to the side with the tip of his tongue stuck to his upper lip.

"Always," you said, sneaking your hands past the waistband of his boxer briefs, gasping at how hard he was already. "Jesus Christ, Joe," he was quite literally throbbing in your grip. "You've been groaning at me for hours," Joe reasoned, revealing he was well aware of the effect he'd been having on you all day and he didn't waste any more time, gripping one of your legs and placing your foot onto the toilet seat.

"Gross," you mustered before Joe captured your mouth in another hungry kiss, slowly tilting his hips to slide himself slide along your folds a couple of times.

"Don't think about it," he said before he let himself find your entrance, locking eyes with you and then slowly sliding in, making your jaw drop. Joe was fast to plant a palm over your opened mouth, knowing sound would escape it any second.

"So I guess I'll wear these more often," he whispered as he pressed his forehead against yours, locking his glasses in between your faces, the plastic rim of them leaving marks on the both of you and he steadily picked up his pace.

You shook your head, barely able to get the word no past your lips as you looked at him, making strong eye contact through the lenses.

"It'll be the death of me," you panted, trying your very best to keep your voice down, moans and groans held back in your throat, fighting their way out of you any chance they got.

Joe chuckled lowly, "And what a heavenly way to go.".

-----

The Taglisted: 

@ghostinthebackofyourhead @kiwisa @jasminearondottir @josephquinned @cancankiki @sidthedollface2 @dylanmunson @munsonsgirl71 @alana4610 @emmamooney @xomunson @sadbitchfangirl @thatonefan-girl @paola-carter @eddiemunsonfuxks @figmentofquinn @haylaansmi @thewondernanazombie @hellowhatthehellisgoingonhere @munsonmunster @kellysimagines @dirtyeddietini @mybffjoe @harrys-tittie @chaoticgood-munson @harringtonfan4 @sherrylyn628 @bdpst-massacre @xeddiesbattattsx @05secondsofsexgods @lovelyblueness @adoreyouusugar @nadixq @prozacandnicotine @munsonswhore86 @alwayslindie @thefemininemystiquee @hauntingbastille @eddie-joe-munson @ali-in-w0nderland - add yourself

[pacific-coast-hockey]

Georgi Romanov: A Brief Introduction*

*bc there is not a lot of information about him in English.

Good evening to the greater Sharkudablr community, it has come to my attention on the eve of Georgi Romanov's Possible First NHL Regular Season Start that not all of you know about Georgi Romanov or appreciate him appropriately. This is insane to me as someone who spends approximately 40% of my waking hours thinking about Georgi, but then I realized that as a person with a blog, I can just say stuff to fix that.

This is Georgi Romanov:

He's not exploding you with his brain, he's actually exploding his teammates with his brain, you're just standing there.

This is also Georgi Romanov:

Goaltender Interference with the Barracuda is when Your Goaltender Interferes With You Beating The Shit Out Of Kole Lind 😌

This is ALSO Georgi Romanov:

At beginning of the season, sadly he got a haircut so he looks less like the kind of beautiful Eastern Orthodox saint you'd find in a stained glass window who was like the patron saint of taking poppers at Ultra Europe. Who said that.

Georgi Romanov is so important to me. He was a frequent flyer on the Wichita Express this season which makes it all the more joyful that he made a) to the NHL, and b) saved...uh...a couple of...shots against Edmonton. Fuck Edmonton all my homies hate Edmonton. Anyway, the Cuda signed him this summer thinking they were getting a lil buddy for Beck Warm (in the ECHL) and then he proceeded to kick ass at the AHL level and matched or outplayed Chrona and Mäkiniemi every step of the way and then Jmac way overplayed him and he did amazing anyway. Then I got to experience Jmac and GMJW putting him on the Wichita Midnight Rider bc the Sharks had uh really been banking on Chrona and Mäkiniemi for their goalie prospect pipeline and were NOT expecting some 23 year old kid who had played ONE single KHL game to actually be very very very very good, but like Jmac is incapable of spreading starts evenly between all three goalies, so Georgi had to be removed from the premises.

But he is very very very very good. Even though he suffered severe Strauss Mann-ification, he has risen to the challenge again and again! When Chrona got called up to the Sharks and then Mäkiniemi went down with mono, he basically got called up full-time to be the third goalie in the Cuda and he has been killing it ever since.

Here is an interview SJHN did with him at the beginning of the season, by the only man I trust on this bitch of earth, Nikita Sokolov. It's a good article, here are some fun tidbits:

Had to learn to tie a tie when he came to North America because in his Russian team (TIER 2 RUSSIAN LEAGUE!!) he just wore tracksuits

Stayed in Knyzhov's house for a month before signing a lease, which doesn't help the "Nikolai Knyzhov is the eldest daughter of the Barracuda" allegations but is so so funny to me too

The mattress company never delivered his mattress and he didn't speak enough English to resolve this, so he had to get his teammates and agent to help him out. I love thinking about Nikita Okhotiuk arguing with a mattress company. I think I would just give him a free mattress at that point.

Bought a car here with a loan to build credit bc him and his wife "need to think about the future. We want to be here for a long time.” 🥺🥺🥺

Here are some facts about Georgi from k 18minutemajor, when I asked if they had any fun facts:

Romanizes his name as Romanoff on instagram

It appears his nickname is Gosha!

Cuda fans all love him very much 😭

They also did amazing art of the greatest hits of Situations Happening To Georgi which I cannot overstate has crossed this man from give Georgi a knife to give Georgi several hand grenades. Please look at it and appreciate it and click on the links bc Georgi has suffered so much and still he remains so beautiful and so deadly.

Here are some facts about Georgi that you may only know if you attend games regularly or watch games on AHLtv:

He habitually bangs his stick on the ice when he gets pissed at his team. Or possibly encouraging them but usually it's when defense is falling apart and shots are like 45 to 30 Firebirds/Cuda, he starts slamming his stick against the ice like...a warning...a reminder...he's coming for ALL your motherfuckers.

Cuda stick the back up goalies in the tunnel and MOST of our goalies are so normal and just sit a couple feet back from the glass and hang out. NOT Georgi. Georgi has Emi the athletic trainer drag his chair right up to the glass and then he crosses his arms on the lip of the board and then he rests his head on his gloves and watches the game with his face pressed against the glass.

When we were rocking a line up with Nikita Okhotiuk for a few brief beautiful weeks, I very much watched Georgi on at least one occasion go up to Okhotiuk during a stoppage and take his water bottle from his hands. MY water bottle. And Nikita just let him.

Often the Cuda lose at home. Often the Cuda are trying to get the fuck off the ice as fast as possible. OFTEN Georgi will do a little one man salute of the arena with his stick while the rest of the team is streaming off the ice. Guys I think he really likes us :(

Cuda Goalie vibes this year were INSANE like I do not even know how to explain what was going on there without going full Pepe Silva BUT by the end of the year, things seem to have um. Well. I once watched Mäkiniemi (with mono!!) run -- run!!! -- down the stairs from the scratches box to go stand by Chrona in the tunnel to watch Georgi face a shoot out and when they lost, both of them waited for him to get off the ice. Guys I think they really like each other :(

Signed for one more year which I guess you could look up on CapFriendly, but EYE didn't know that until this week and I spent no joke like the entire season barfing with anxiety that we don't bring him back. But NO. Provided GMMG doesn't give me a 15th or 16th reason, we have ONE MORE YEAR OF GEORGI 🥳🥳 and will maybe (probably) be rocking a Chrona/Romanov tandem. Which is so beautiful to me as an Employee Appreciator.

Also here's some photos of Chrona and Georgi hugging:

It's the way Goosh was waiting for a hug and gave up for me lol

In conclusion: Georgi Romanov is so important and Sharkudablr needs to love him So Much. Thank you for listening 😌

[ansbobcar]

EP 11. What a lovely night

WORD COUNT. 1560

Link to overview

_ _ _ _ _

Seina Ontarin, formerly Seina Onoji, is a divorced old lady who lived in the forest outside the capital. With no formal background magic education, it’s a surprise that she’s capable of casting complex teleportation spells, noting the appearance of a new table in the streets from thin air. But he shouldn’t expect any less than that. She was the only woman to have been married to the current head of the Onojis, a family revered for their specialty in the mental manipulation spells and loyalty to the Bureau’s magical security force. Indeed, with Rinka’s personal Sangs magic, she was practically a black sheep among them.

Perhaps it’s due to those factors that the elderly woman had pulled her daughter into a tight hug with a friendly glare at the bespectacled man. “What are you doing here mother?” Unsure of how to get out of her hearty embrace as she patted her back.

“They needed some more vegetables since Autumn is arriving soon, they’ll be submitting a request for the Autumn Festival after today.”

“The earlier the better,” Orter interrupted their conversation, slowly removing the bright brunette’s grip on her. “What brings you both here?” She wondered, with a step back.

“Patrol,” they both said in unison. “Is that so? My-my, aren’t you a dutiful duo!” Wasn’t that just an excuse to go on a date? She deduced to herself. “I’ll let you both enjoy the rest of the day then!” Leaving them alone again.

“She’s… cheerful,” he uttered, readjusting the earmuffs he wore. Maybe a bit too cheerful, as the woman had disappeared to another stall. 

“I know right? Since we’ll continue past dinner, do you want to snack on anything else?”

“Anything’s fine by me.”

“Even Kaldo’s monstrosity?”

“Don’t lump me with such horrendous taste,” he hissed backed at her. “I don’t have a favourite food anyways, everything’s rather bland to me.” As she picked up a candied apple he commented, “and don’t you like savoury food?”

“Eating sweet stuff first makes the savoury stuff hit better,” she explained without any evidence. But she sounded convincing even for someone who has read almost all there is to know. "Is that why you said the hangover soup wasn't salty enough?"

He hummed, “possibly.”

Maybe it was her presence, which could only be described as unsettling elegance, lacking daintiness and yet soothing like the spring sun. Perhaps it was the combination of her complexion and her hair that reminded people of such a star. But a dying star would be more accurate with those hues of purple at the ends. ‘She never had those in high school.’

_ _ _

Nothing problematic had occurred for the remaining 4 hours of their patrol. The moon had risen amongst the clouds and returning to them again was Rinka’s mother!

“You’re still around, mother?” Ready to usher the shorter woman back to the comfort of her own abode. She seemed even less composed around her own mother, as her typical facade kept tearing at the seams while the smiling woman continued to laugh in amusement.

“Why don’t you bring him along for a night, dear?”

At these words she grew even less composed. “I thought you hated it when people went to your house? You used to tell me to lock out Ryoh from the door,” only to be waved off. “Well you seem to be comfortable enough since the news came out,” the older woman hummed. “I definitely need to know my possible future son in law, you know?”

With a glance towards the taller brunette for any input, she conceded as they were guided there. It took roughly 40 minutes of pure walking to enter within the vicinity of her abode, noticing the plots and signs of her plants, some being less than edible ingredients definitely before his eyes landed on a comfortable house with two storeys. 

“Take him inside, I need to check up on some of my babies,” she instructed her daughter who obeyed without a problem, entering inside they were greeted by stacks of books on the dining table before noticing the empty set of couches. The walls were a bit new, and the slight smell of wet soil seemed to pervade throughout. If it wasn’t for his knowledge on the woman, it would certainly taint the kind impression she showcased as he held up his lit wand, the earmuff now hung at his neck.

“So you stay over once a month?”

She nodded as she walked up stairs scrambling for a knitted throw and a pillow. “Just in case you end up sleeping over, the couch works right?” As if she hadn’t tucked a blanket over him for the past few weeks. “We’ll see,” noticing research papers regarding the construction of sigils from the corner of his eye.

Sigils are a form of ancient magic that can only be taught in a high schooler’s 3rd year if they score well in the advanced magic class, and is the only time it is taught. Although they are sturdier to typical magic spells due to the lack of finesse needed in channelling the sigil, the activation speeds by the average user makes it terribly inefficient though. It’s a lost magic art.

“It’s a surprise she has access to such papers,” he noted as she placed the items down on the couch, picking one of them up. “Ah, I forgot to return these copies back to Sophie! That’s why she’s been trying to schedule a time to see me alone,” she let out a shaky laugh. She’s so screwed tomorrow. Recent events certainly have shoved back the mental note she made regarding these texts like ‘Deconstructing commonly used Sigils in Agriculture.’ 

“Have you successfully activated one before?”

As if a match had been lit, she craned her head and shuffled around the space almost tripping and bumping her shin into the furniture. “There should be a light sigil that’s activated by pressure somewhere,” scrambling for the light switch somehow with each step. Until she smacked to the floor and unnaturally, a ball of light formed on the ceiling and illuminated the room. Orange splattered on the floor. With some ache, she slowly stood up and dragged a stool to replace herself. 

“Are you alright?” he walked closer to her. There was a lack of softness and care in his voice’s projection compared to his expression, solemnly earnest.

“Yeah,” twisting her torso and limbs a bit. “Just stings a little, nothing terrible.”

“You’re terribly efficient.”

_ _ _ 

Without another word, they began to put aside the Knowledge Cane’s copies that overstayed their welcome. To be completely frank, neither knew what to do beyond simply dozing off at the couch. So in order to please the owner of the house, the two kept themselves busy instead making the both of them ignore the return of her mother with fleshly plucked herbs.

“I’m surprised, Sophina let you borrow so many copies,” having counted a total of a dozen research topics into sigils. “A few of them were used for the storage’s security system after all, so she didn’t mind back then.”

“Back then,” she only nodded at his repetition as he looked over a student’s research on ancient spells. Easton allowed Orca dorm students to publish their research either towards the Magical Research Administration, or in magical research journals, of which only 3 existed due to the Knowledge Cane’s ironfist in regulations. “You used a student’s research for the security system?”

“Although a student’s understanding can be rather elementary, this particular paper focuses on the significance of the medium which the sigil is inscribed with and onto. I conducted my own experiments as well with Tsurara to see if they made any differences since the paper was purely theoretical. We ended up finding out that blood and charcoal were the most consistent mediums, that’s why the majority of sigil instructions required animal blood or a sacrifice,” she hummed at their findings.

‘Doesn’t that mean they used her blood to make the security system?’

“How much blood?”

“Under 2 litres.”

“You should really start taking care of yourself,” he sighed, drained by her rather bright demeanour. It’s nearly 9 o’clock now, how was she maintaining this attitude? “Doesn’t your mother get worried?”

“Oh she knows I worry a lot,” returning with a pot of tea and cups, and passing some to them both. “Ever since she became a Divine Visionary, she’s always made me cry myself to stupor once a week.” The jovial mood displayed felt offputting as he took a sip of the warm tea to keep himself alert, the conversation spilling out his other ear. He’s just trying to being polite.

“The amount of men who went after her when she was a teen made me so senselessly sick!” She huffed, listing the incomparable ages the rejected suitors were with the brunette still pouring some more to drink for himself. “Thankfully, everything worked out,” thankfully reminiscing about the past as she watched him rubbed his rather droopy eyelids to keep himself awake. “But I’m rather shocked, dear, I thought you’d already introduced me to my son-in-law?”

Wordlessly, other than his vision blurring, the familiar Blonde’s features had completely disappeared from it. “Rinka?” He called out, unsure of the situation but he was greeted by nothing as he drowned into the night’s lull.

_ _ _ _ _

LORE IDEA TIME!

Yeah. I personally think sigils should be a thing. Why? I was binge reading The Dark Lord's Confession which talked about sigils. But I do think based on the Mashle Society that sigils are an ancient form of spellcasting especially. Wands became easier to do with technology and education advancements and required no animal sacrifice, just innate magical power. Hence the society which outcasts those without magic. Lolol I love worldbuilding randomly in the author comment/note.

At the rate things are going I need at least 20 episodes to end on the things I want to end on (we haven't gotten to the character angst yet or enough close calls!)

Any other theories of yours are much appreciated (whether it's regarding the plot, the characters or the world)

[steddiebang]

The Center Cannot Hold

Author: @mashawisotsky l Artist: @boiiko Posting on Monday, November 27

Days after an earthquake rocks Hawkins, Indiana, citizens struggle with how the strange event has impacted their lives. Rising sophomores strain to complete their first year of high school. The Wheeler family pretends everything is fine; Mike remains a member of Hellfire Club while Nancy gets a unique opportunity – intern-at-large in support of an AP crime reporter for the Northern Midwest region. The coverage of the Munson Murders is thick on the ground while the lead suspect is still at large. Lucas and Erica Sinclair have two enemies, the unfair house arrest imposed by their parents and the rising racial hatred as the mid-term elections of '86 rumble with the fractures of the Reagan presidency. Meanwhile, Susan Mayfield can't balance her thankless night job with a daughter in a hospital where no one will answer her questions. Rumors swirl around a Hawkins day-care while former King of Hawkins High, Steve Harrington, convalesces at home. One intrepid Roane County prosecutor is convinced the two are linked. Corroded Coffin is no longer playing at The Hideout but one member – the bassist – is certainly signing a tune for county officials. Joyce Byers and her kids return to a town that isn’t sure why they bothered to come back and has no interest in welcoming them. Underneath it all, there is something stirring. What was dead had risen once again

Keep reading for a sneak preview!

He’s bored of being bored. The first while had slipped away under a haze of painkillers and sleep. Mid-week Wayne had driven him back to the hospital to get the lingering stitches removed, the skin healing pink and itching around the black thread. The doc had snipped away the knots and then with tweezers pulled the thread right out of him. Eddie would find himself rubbing the scars and trying to ease the itch on the inside. He prodded the edges of the puffed pink lines and felt the tacky fluid of his body trying to keep itself together. The docs had gone in and manhandled his organs. The morphine was excellent, he remembers. It was like the best of anything he’d ever taken. Nothing bothered him. Everything easy, calm, and warm. The whole world kind and full of comfort. He had never had a sleep that good in his life.

Now at the motel and officially cleared for activity Eddie mourned a little. He’d been forced cold turkey off the booze and the dope; even after the feds had awkwardly returned his paraphernalia it was only the music shit he got back. Nothing he could move. The problem was that he sucked at planning ahead for so-called important shit. Stuff like drafting a campaign, was no effort at all. Burning through Off Season when he finally got his hands on it - not even stopping to eat or take a piss, eyes going dry from staring at the page, not even turning on the light after the sun got low - the usual when he liked a book. Taking all his codeine the first week, leaving him to lay on the bed and grit his teeth and drink whisky to sleep, well. He was predictable. Bucking convention exactly as expected. The refill was still days away.

The issue with drinking to sleep was that it made him have to piss early in the morning, pre-dawn light smearing across the floor, mouth dry and flooded with spit, stumbling into the bathroom and trying to hit the bowl. Everything grey-washed and even standing making him feel like his guts were water. When he had lived with Wayne after the disastrous first-last year of high school he had enough shame to creep around. They gave up the pretence after Wayne caught him in the dark eating a dry cheese sandwich and leaning on the counter, drunk in the witching hour after being drunk in the afternoon after being drunk the day before. Days bleeding one into the other. His dad would have brought out the belt. Would have swung so the buckle hit. 

“Go to your room,” was all Wayne said, and didn’t comment on the pull tabs littering the ground outside like shrapnel.

Getting to the bathroom today almost saw Eddie break his neck. He stepped on something that cracked underfoot but it was too dark to figure it out. The whole cleaning thing for him came in waves. Dirty clothes and books and scrap paper would pile up until it bothered him, then some kind of second wind would catch him around the throat then he’d spend the weekend scraping down to the carpeting and washing two weeks' worth of dishes until ten at night. Then he would feel good - scoured even - and his mind would be quiet. He always fucking himself over. The minute Master of Puppets dropped in his hands everything else fell away. Eddie spent hours listening to the tracks, could pick apart every section and examine it, turning over the riffs in his mind. Meditating on the progression. Sitting there and thinking about the rhythm. Drilling the solos over and over until the calluses were bruised underneath. Despite what the guys said, he wasn’t good. Music wasn’t magic to him, but it was his mother tongue. Some guys could talk Quenya or Conan or whatever, and sure he could do that, but he dreamed music. When he was showering or driving or even taking a shit sometimes a phrase would fall into his head, fully formed. He tried not to let the frustration get to him but playing at Jeff so the guy could play it back at him was always torture. Not to mention fighting with Gareth about, fucking, polyrhythms while Eddie could only say, look, look, like this man, and slap it out on his own thighs. As if he knows what tempo means.  Just listen, that’s all, recreate the noise in his brain out there in the open.

Read more on November 27!

[divinemissem13]

Friendly Competition

Flufftober, day 13: Wrong (game) Fandom: Star Trek Strange New Worlds Ship: Pike/ Una Rated M for implied sexual content (could probably be T but I like to rate cautiously) AO3 link

Game night for two in the captain's quarters. Rules TBD.

“You do know I’m the boss, right? I could just order you to fold.”

“Mmhmm” Una replies smugly as she lays down her hand: a full house, queens over kings (of course). She raises an eyebrow and smirks at Chris, a silent challenge to beat her hand.

Chris reluctantly shows his hand, one card at a time: 7 of hearts, 4 of hearts, 6 of hearts. He glances up at Una but she doesn’t seem ruffled yet, his seemingly random placement of his cards luring her into a false sense of security, just like he had hoped. 

8 of hearts. Chris looks up again and sees Una’s jaw tighten. It’s the only sign he sees that she is getting worried, but it’s enough. 

“Wanna guess what this last one is?” Chris asks, trying to feign innocence but doing a terrible job as the corners of his mouth are already curling toward a smile. 

Una rolls her eyes. Leave it to a man to make such a big deal out of one little hand while she sits fully clothed and he’s in nothing but boxer briefs and knee socks, the rest of his clothing having been shed piece by piece with each hand he lost.

“A joker?” she quips sarcastically.

Chris is so excited, he doesn’t even acknowledge her biting tone. He stands triumphantly and throws down the final card with a flourish: a 5 of hearts. “Straight flush beats your full house! Scant, please!” he exclaims gleefully.

Una leans one elbow on the table, resting her chin in her hand, taking in the ridiculous but adorable sight across the table. The dissonance of his manly, muscular physique against his boyish excitability is one of the things she finds most enticing about him. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to start with something a little smaller? A boot, maybe?” she purrs at him with a gleam in her eye that tells Chris she is definitely up to something. 

“Oh, I’m sure. The scant. Hand it over,” he confirms, holding out a hand and wiggling his fingers.

Una stands and walks close to him, her finger tips playing with the hem of her very short dress. She doesn’t remove it though. Instead, she leans in and whispers in his ear, “Here’s the thing, Captain: I never said we were playing strip poker.”

Chris stands there with his mouth hanging open as Una struts away toward the bedroom, still fully clothed. He replays the evening in his head and realizes that, in fact, she had never once requested an item of clothing from him. He had eagerly removed something of his own volition each time he lost a hand, blinded by the anticipation of when she would have to do the same. 

And now, standing alone in the middle of the living room in the oh-so-attractive combination of mismatched underwear and socks, he only has himself to blame. 

Feeling defeated and more than a little bit embarrassed, Chris begins to gather the pieces of his uniform from the floor. One boot has ended up near the bedroom door and he goes to retrieve it, wondering why the hell he was throwing clothing around on top of everything else.

Suddenly, a yellow piece of fabric hits him directly in the face. Once he shakes off the shock, he realizes he is holding Una’s scant. 

He squints into the darkened bedroom and can only just make out her silhouette stretched out on the bed. The starlight gleams against her skin, highlighting the ample curves and lithe limbs so that she almost seems to be glowing. 

The pile of clothes drops to the floor and before he has fully processed the situation, Chris vaults to the bed and lands on his hands and knees straddling his Number One everything. She looks up at him with a seductive smirk and he leans down to kiss it right off her face. Just before their lips touch, he murmurs “Now this is the type of ‘poke-her’ I’ll always win.”

Una bursts out laughing, right in his face, but he kisses her anyway, swallowing her howls until they turn into sighs and moans.She rolls them so that she is on top of him and Chris can’t help but think smugly (before he stops thinking completely) Yep, in the end, I always get her to fold.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches and Wizards Job 34-35-36

AO3 Link

Buy me a Ko-fi?

Remember: Tumblr has no algorithm. Reblogs give me life.

1-2 + 3-4 + 5-6 + 7-8 + 9-10-11 + 12-13-14 + 15-16 + 17-18-19 + 20-21-22 + 23-24-25 + 26-27-28 + 29-30 + 31-32-33 + 34-35-36 + 37-38 + 39-40-41-42

THIRTY FOUR

Nate closed his eyes for a moment in the dark.

They had the real portrait, for now.

They had the real Grandmother, for now.

They had Koschei, upstairs, for now.

But the first was going to cost them Parker, the second Eliot and the third Dresden, and at that point the cost got way too high for any con to be feasible. "Hardison," he said at last, beginning to move once again. "Endgame."

"Wh- I'm not ready, Nate!"

"Be ready. Sophie, Fedorov, go make sure our consultant stays in one piece. More or less. I need to borrow your bodyguard for a second, Fedorov."

"Oh, sure, give us the easy job," Sophie shot at him.

"Well, you gave him to me," the Russian agreed easily, looking mildly intrigued. "I suppose you're free to take him back. Are you looking for your thief?"

"Parker?" Nate seemed nothing if not puzzled at the question. "No, she's fine. She just got too close to something that fried her earbud which, you know. Inconvenient. No, I just don't want the Blackbird to know Nick exists. Yet."

Nick's grin broadened in delight at that. "Oh, you understand ambushes. I like you."

"That is slightly terrifying coming from you," the mastermind admitted cheerfully as the group split up. "Eliot, the non-negotiable factor."

"Yeah, I got her." The hitter had slipped into the mansion's vast basement without a problem; it was the one place where there were no visible guards. It was a vast, echoing space, a little dusty but overall in good order. He could see plenty of lights over his head when he shone his phone's flashlight up. Several smaller spaces had been partitioned out: a pantry, a cava, a corner full of totes marked 'Christmas', 'Halloween', 'Easter' and so on. It was also one of the few rooms that betrayed the house's age: salt streaked the concrete walls. There was a good reason why most houses along the New England coastline didn't have basements; once you got inland, sure. But where the land had been stolen from the ocean, the ocean was ever eager to reclaim it, one drop at a time if need be.

He'd found the room behind the old cast iron furnace and its piping, which had been disconnected but never removed. It was one of the few rooms that, like the cava, showed signs that care had gone into its construction, the walls solid when he ran a hand over them. Eliot guessed it was a man-cave of some sort. Light came in from under the door, a steady golden glow which he figured came from the glow-sticks the leshy favored. He could hear the rough, gravelly voices of the leshy and the more familiar Russian speech of the humans with them. The light, the hitter knew, was for their benefit; the leshy couldn't fully see in the dark, but it also didn't hamper them. He counted voices, and steps, walked back to the cava and the pantry, prepared his weapon of choice, took off the earbud and the earclip with the mirror shard, and walked right back to the door, knocking jauntily on it. "Tea service!"

The voices on the other side went silent. "We asked for nothing," someone replied.

"Look, man, I just know I have wine, cheese, some of them lil' toast things, a whole spread of jams -"

The door opened a crack. A man stared out, mouth open and ready to take Eliot's head off, metaphorically, until he saw the massive tray and the two bottles of wine the hitter was carrying.

A leshy came up behind the man, growling quietly. It, too, paused, sniffing. Eliot lifted up the tray, where he'd painstakingly smeared every sweet jam he'd been able to find in the pantry, and grinned winningly. Man and leshy crossed a look, and the door opened all the way. Eliot passed the human one of the wine bottles, winked and stepped in. The door closed behind him.

Two broken bottles, a dented tray, an utterly thrashed room and eight unconscious thugs later, the hitter knocked politely on the bathroom door. "Ma'am? You there?"

The door opened a crack. "That sounded very exciting."

"It gets the blood flowing," Eliot admitted as the old woman stepped out. She could've just as easily been stepping down from the portrait, stern and austere, though there was an odd fragility to her that was not part of Sokolov's work. Her silver hair was neatly braided back and she wore an elegantly simple white blouse with little golden mice for buttons, a flaring skirt with a repeating pattern of dancing farmfolk, and a black knotwork shawl. She glanced appreciatively at two leshy embedded into one of the walls as Eliot escorted her out of the bathroom and through the ruins of the room, and then clung to his arm with a small, very ladylike swear.

"Are you alright?"

She attempted a smile. "He has taken much from me," she admitted. "I did not realize how much until he trapped me. Arrogance makes fools of the best of us." She shrugged a little. One of the thugs groaned, sprawled among the wreck of a low shelf and a scattering of movies. Without missing a beat she aimed one of her sensibly-clad feet and kicked him hard enough to bowl him over and knock him out once again. "What now?"

Eliot managed to stop staring long enough to dig in his pocket for the enchanted mirror shard and clip it back on his ear. "I've got Grandmother, Nate."

"Give it to her."

"Got it." Eliot reached into an inner pocket of his dress jacket and smiled at the old woman. "Got something for you, ma'am. I believe it's yours to begin with." He offered her a plain, coarse square of blue fabric, neatly folded, and she stared at it and him in surprise and keen interest. "So, here's the plan."

While Eliot escorted his precious cargo away, mister Alexander Worthington (the Third), drove back up the driveway to the front of the mansion, yelling to all and sundry as well as at the person on the other line that he did not want to be there, he did not need to be there, he had no reason or goal to be there, not with every portrait being a fake and the seller being a con man - and a bad one, at that. He yelled a brief bout of angry Russian into the phone before hanging up and trotting furiously up the stairs. The guards on duty could scarcely believe their good luck, but they were also not about to question it, even when the Brit switched from whining on the phone to whining at them about everything and anything, the portrait failing to be produced, the outlandish nature of the company, the buffet being a joke. Coming in to find the mansion subsumed in complete darkness did nothing to appease him. He was escorted back to the main room and was there all of ten seconds before disappearing into the dark guts of the house.

They had been told, after all, to keep people in, not out. And mister Worthington (the Third) had been invited.

But only Sophie and Fedorov were close enough to the room on the top floor of the mansion to hear when Harry screamed in pain. She went very still with a little gasp; the Russian enforcer instinctively reached for his gun, and she immediately reached out to put a quelling hand over his. "That won't help," she assured him quietly. "He knew this would happen."

"That does not make me willing to let it," he countered tightly, but he drew his hand away.

"We're not going to let it," she assured him. "I need you to wait out here until it's time for you to come in."

"And how will I know when it is time?"

She smiled a little at him. "Parker will tell you," she assured him, and stepped gracefully away to knock on the room's door.

THIRTY FIVE

Koschei stalked into my room surrounded by half a dozen guards and a single floating source of pale green light. One of the guards was tugging Parker's friend along; she looked pale and terrified, and a little angry. Then again, I was probably all of those things myself, I just had more practice hiding them. "Is this how you treat your guests, Blackbird? Who's your friend?"

He didn't seem to hear my taunt. He rushed over, picked me up by the front of the very nice shirt and vest I was wearing, and lifted me up. He was about my height, which made him taller than the average person, and I was sure he had plenty of muscle to pick people up right off their their feet. But I was just tall enough, just heavy enough, that he couldn't quite pull the trick on me. "What did you do, Dresden," he snarled at me, and it wasn't really a question.

Golly, the list was endless, and I wasn't about to give him even one breath of it without a fight. "Getting a little grabby, aren't we? I don't know what you mean."

"I mean my guests are tearing this place apart down there. I mean my associates think I tried to poison them just now. I mean the Dredgers think I've stolen from them! I mean," he leaned closer until we were barely dodging a Soulgaze, him and me, "that it took me three tries to create the bloody light, so what. did you. do."

"To be fair, you did steal from them."

He dropped me like a sack of flour. "Stone," he said, "disarm him."

His head of security moved forward, but it was one of the guards who'd brought me up to the room who sucker-punched me, driving all the breath right out of me and setting the bruise the leshy had given me to red-hot throbbing pain. I went down on one knee but they pulled me back up, which made my bad shoulder really sing, and they frisked me down with ruthless efficiency. By the time someone dumped me back on my chair they'd taken my staff, my wand, both bracelets, my wallet. They even took off my duster before zip-tying my hands behind the back of the chair. Someone put their hands on me and tried to take my pentacle bracelet, and my anger suddenly came flooding back, helping me gather my scattered wits. I saw the guard kneeling in front of me and snapped my head forward. Forehead to nose, not nose to nose, Eliot had told me, and I tried to remember that.

It was a little harder when I knew the nose I was aiming for wasn't there, but the crunch of the glamour nose was still deeply satisfying. The guard staggered and fell back. Heavy hands yanked me back to the seat and I got punched again, but nothing was going to take away my satisfaction. I heard Jessamine make a little squeak of terror, and then someone shoved her in a chair next to me. "Are you alright?" she whispered at me.

"I've been better," I admitted, trying to get my breath back. Someone had tied my thumbs and index fingers together - while magic was a matter of will and intent, most wizards were trained to use tools, words and gestures to focus their power, like my staff, the bracelets. The words I used were mostly nonsense, but they made sense to me. And while I didn't often use my bare hands, I did tend to fall back on gestures when I didn't have access to anything else. Obviously Koschei knew that as well as I did. I started to work as best I could on tightening the zip-tie further; it wasn't much.

Someone caught my head in a rough grip and yanked the earclip off, handing it off to Koschei. "What is this?" he demanded, sniffing it. "Why does it smell fam-" The most painful feedback sound came out of the earclip and everyone in the room cringed. Koschei threw the earclip on the table along with everything else. "A machine, Dresden? Really?"

"Well, you know, any port in a storm and all that." I had to admire the quick-thinking of Alec-not-a-burger-Hardison. I could think of no better way to disguise the little mirror shard than making it act like the piece of technology it definitely wasn't.

"Well. That tells one much about your magic, does it not," he declared scornfully, flicking his fingers. The guards left me alone. Someone brought him a chair and he sat before me, fussing with his robe first, then with the items his goons had taken from me. "Toys." He rolled my wand between his fingers, and then pocketed it, the asshole. "Scraps. You are many things, Dresden, but I hesitate to even call you a wizard."

He hadn't taken the pin on the collar of my shirt, or my necklace. He hadn't caught onto the shirt.

"Now, what did you do with my painting?"

"Portrait."

His magic hit me hard and fast, like talons closing around my heart and squeezing, slow and relentless. The pain was immediate, burning like acid. I've had worse, but I wasn't about to let him know that. I made what I figured were appropriate noises for someone being tortured. Fortunately, I've had a lot of experience on what that sounds like.

"I have had my patience thoroughly tried tonight, Dresden. It would behoove you to indulge me." He let go of me and smiled that grin that made me want to punch him. "Unless you want the young lady to know what it feels like to disagree with me."

"You won't hurt her. You need her." I grinned at him, but I could feel it in my face, it wasn't friendly.

"I didn't do anything," Jessamine breathed, frightened. Apparently I'd done my job so well I'd spooked the angry right out of her. Time to give her back some agency.

"He can't tell his own portrait from the fakes. He n-" The vise closed around my heart and my lungs, boiling venom, crushing harder this time. "Needs you to make sure he's got the real one," I gritted out, teeth bared at Koschei.

"I am sincerely wondering if you are worth the trouble of keeping you alive, Dresden."

"Get in line, you old bird. You think tonight ends with you winning? You've lost everything. You filled this house with fake portraits, and now you can't tell yours from the copies. The Dredgers know you cheated them. Some of the most powerful people in the European and Asian supernatural underworlds think you were out to kill them. I don't know what you were after but man, you're certainly raking up some heavy-duty debts in the process, aren't you? Can't wait to see you try to squirm out of them-"

Unsurprisingly, he struck again. This time his power locked not just around my heart but my lungs, up my throat. I could taste the foulness of it on the back of my mouth, blackest magic. I heard myself scream, blowing air out of my lungs just to try and get some of the foulness out with it. "I will tell them you did it," he declared blithely. "You will not be around to defend yourself, of course."

"Leave him alone!" Jessamine yelled at him.

There was a knock on the door. Koschei let me go and stood up, and I heard him speaking to the guards. There was a sense of wary readiness in the air that made the hair on my arms stand up on end. A guard opened the door while Koschei faced it.

It's hard to explain the quality anyone's talking about when they say that something shines with the darkest light. It's a radiance that both brings details out of something while terrifying you with the sum total of them. It's the light you see from the darkest fairies, the glow around them that replaces the golden, summery haze of their counterparts.

That light, that darkest radiance, filled the door and spilled into the room. The guards all took a step back; Koschei took two and squeaked like a toddler. Fear and cold came in with the woman who stepped through the door. "So this is where you are hiding," she purred in a tone of such menace that I felt cold sweat break out along my spine, and I wasn't even the one she was talking to.

I'd wrought a hell of a Veil, but it wasn't just that. It was the way she spoke, the way she moved, the way she wore it. Sophie stepped into that room and she was Ekaterina Yegorov, an unknown supernatural power, a thing both beautiful and terrible, worthy of Tolkien's every written word.

"Hiding -" Koschei had to clear his throat before he could continue. "Hiding is such a strong accusation, my good lady."

She merely glided in, glancing disdainfully at the guards, who backed away nervously. "Why are you in the dark?" she demanded, flicked her fingers. On cue, the lights in the room -and only in the room- came back to bright and beautiful life.

No one there could make sense of her. The guards didn't even dare look at her directly. Koschei was still trying to figure out what she was; without that knowledge he couldn't shape a defense, a counter. "Hiding," she repeated. "Do you think disappearing will save you? After you tried to kill us all? The vampire down there is already offering a blood price on your head." She smiled. "Perhaps it will do tricks and tell prophecies. A man's head is so much more useful when separated from the body."

"My body is quite useful to me, madam, and I am rather fond of it," he declared tightly.

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you stole Batra's pet and cheated the Dredgers. I am becoming hard-pressed to think of someone you have not upset in this house."

"You," he replied without missing a beat.

She stared at him for a brief moment… and then laughed, soft and rich and deadly. "Me," she agreed in a tiger's sated purr. "Though I am no more pleased about that trick with the Witchwell than anyone else."

"I swear on my heart, madam, that was not my doing."

"Whose, then?" She tipped her chin disdainfully in my direction. "His?" When Koschei opened his mouth she added. "Do not lie to me, wizard. You hang from a very thin thread as it is."

"No," Koschei admitted, and it was obvious to anyone with eyes that it cost him to do so. "Though that is what I mean to tell the rest of the gathering. But my people have reported that it is very likely the Prince of Thieves is inside the house."

She scoffed elegantly. "Seeking what? Fascinating as all the oddities here are, that is all they are. Oddities. Only the portrait would be worth anything to a mortal, and he would not be able to tell it apart from the fakes any more than you can."

"I believe she is in cahoots with Dresden."

"She? The Prince of Thieves is a woman?" The unknown power facing Koschei mulled on that, seemingly the only thing he'd said that had surprised her, and smiled minutely. "Well, finally the job goes to someone worth the title. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Dresden put a marker on the portrait. A childish scrawl. I believe she's using it, he's empowered her to detect it in some fashion."

"Then use it yourself."

Koschei scowled at me and I grinned the biggest grin I could. "He can't. He tried, and then he realized that he couldn't keep it under wraps because I made it in a hurry and it's sloppy as hell, bleeding power everywhere. Everyone downstairs would sniff it out along with him if he kept it active." There were times when not having a fine touch with magic could come in so handy. "You think he's got a target painted on his back right now? That portrait's gonna be a neon arrow pointed at his head no matter where he goes with it."

She blew out an exasperated breath. "I do not care to wait until you are in pieces or in possession of the portrait, one or the other," she declared archly. "I need access to the gate it hides, and it is a critical matter."

"I am afraid, madam -"

"You should be." She stepped into his space and glowered briefly. "Send your men to bring all the portraits here. You have the foremost Sokolov expert in the room, you have angered a very powerful creature to get her here. Use her, be done with her and start soothing some tempers by handing back what things you can give back. Or do you expect the Prince of Thieves can steal a portrait that size while you're in the same room with it?"

"Even if I did, I could not open the gate for you!" he protested. "I have been unable to recover the key -"

"Oh, the key Vanya promised you?" she interrupted him sweetly, reaching down her cleavage and pulling out the platinum key. "This key?"

Koschei's mouth worked soundlessly a few times. He surged forward but she'd already tucked the key back under the folds of the dress, and she cocked a single brow at him.

He stopped.

She stepped forward, closer, until she could reach out and brush the lapels of the Blackbird's old-fashioned coat. Until the Rosalind diamond just barely brushed the fine black fabric. He went so pale he looked like a fresh corpse. "Have your men gather the portraits. I do not care where. You should not care where, as long as you have her." She nodded toward Jessamine. "I must have access to that gate before sunrise. After that, I do not care what you do, here or anywhere else. I do not care how you deal with your guests, or how they deal with you. I have one care, wizard. It is not a hard one to indulge, not given what I am willing to pay for it, yes?"

She stepped away then, and I saw Koschei reel, as did most people who were ever on the receiving end of Sophie Deveraux's talents.

Someone knocked on the door again. "Oh, that is for me," she told the guards cheerfully, and flicked her fingers at them. "Well, open it."

They obeyed before Koschei could say anything; that's the way with the sort of thug the Russian wizard preferred: not too bright, really good at violence, nearly indestructible but very much keyed to instinctively respond to the authority of the biggest power in the room.

I caught my breath. Parker stepped in, her hands laced over her head, angry and stone-faced, dressed all in skin-tight black. Just behind her, gun leveled at the base of her skull, Fedorov chivvied the thief into the room. "Kate, are you - ah, you did find him," he declared casually.

This was not the plan. None of it was part of any of the plans Ford had explained to me. I was feeling the loss of the ear-clip keenly; the only reason I could tell this was still a plan of some sort was that no one who should be was actually upset.

"Iggy!" Jessamin cried out, lunging out of her chair. One of the guards slammed her back on it none too gently.

"Hey!" Parker surged forward.

"No," the third woman in the room purred, and the thief went down like a puppet with her strings cut.

Ok, so yes, it was a plan of some sort, one I didn't know about, but I still tried to launch myself to my feet all the same. I nearly took the chair down to the floor with me.

Fedorov tipped his gun back, examined Parker, and grinned a little as he holstered it. "Show-off."

"Flatterer," she replied.

Fedorov and one of the guards brought Parker to another chair. They frisked her, found nothing beyond her phone and the non-working earbud in a pocket. "Hands in front," Koschei said when someone broke out the zip ties. "Where we can see them. One should never bind a thief's hands out of sight." He looked daunted and, looking at from his point of view, I couldn't blame him; here was a wizard as deeply attuned to the currents of magic all around him as any I'd ever met. It took that particular awareness to be able to pull off all of the magic I'd seen him work. But he wouldn't have seen anything from miss Ekaterina Yegorov. Not a breath, not a whisper, not a sigh of magic, not one single detectable little thread of energy. She'd spoken one word and the Prince of Thieves had gone down, just like that. The only possible conclusion one could draw was that she was operating way, way out of his league, a house on fire compared to his little candle.

"Thief?" Jessamine squeaked.

"Long story," Parker mumbled.

"Is Isabelle even your real name?" the young curator cried out in despair.

I saw Parker's face crumple with very real hurt. There was crap-all I could do at the moment to help her, and it made my heart hurt just as much, so I did the only thing I could - I stuck to the plan and started laughing. It's not hard; I've done my share of it when staring death or worse in the face. I knew the sound of it, I knew where it came from. I had to force it a little at the beginning, but once it got going it flowed naturally out, along with all the pain and the anger.

"What," Koschei gritted out, "are you laughing at, Dresden?"

"You," I admitted. "You and your best laid plans. You need her," I tipped my head at Jessamine, "to cooperate. The only way you're gonna get that is if you threaten her friend, so you need her," I tipped my head at Parker. "And since she's not about to tell you where the painting actually is, you need me." I beamed at him. "Ain't life a bitch. Just when you thought you finally got to kill someone."

"The night is young," the Russian wizard hissed at me.

"Maybe. But three people already found you, all cozy up here with me. How long until one of Batra's dryads sniffs you out? Or Ying Ying? I'm surprised the Dredgers aren't here already. How many guards you got willing to tangle with Mister Act and his people?" Every word was a blow that Koschei couldn't dodge, couldn't block, couldn't defend against. He'd been left primed for it, and I could only hope I was helping the plan, not hindering it.

"Mister Stone," the Blackbird said at last. "Get your people together and round up all the portraits. Bring them to the boat-house."

Stone did a nearly-visible head count before turning to his boss, his tone dubious. "All of them, sir?"

Koschei paused; his own head count was a little less obvious. "Well, the two in the main room are fakes, those can stay behind. And bring the wizard, I do not trust him out of sight." He clamped a hand on Jessamine's arm and dragged her up, his tone going to utter cordiality. "Mister Fedorov, could I possibly impose on you to bring the young lady with you?" He tipped his head at Parker. "We will further tie her up if you believe it will help."

"What's there is enough," the Russian enforcer declared blithely, moving over to Parker and tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of laundry. "I trust the lady whose protection I'm under." He grinned winningly at said lady, who beamed at him.

Stone, having finished instructing the rest of his people, moved over to me, closed a hand on the back of the chair and picked it up, with me in it. I knew instantly he was going to be a severe problem down the line; strength is not an uncommon attribute in Nevernever thugs, but Stone hadn't even paused to take a breath or brace himself. He'd simply done as he was told. I looked more closely at him, since I was being given the chance, looking for confirmation; I was pretty sure his clothes weren't painted on, but he hadn't been so close to me until that moment.

The clothes were real, well fitted, custom-made - not surprising, the man was too big to fit in anything off the rack. It was as he shifted to wrap his free arm around me so I couldn't jostle out of the chair that his sleeve hiked up, just a bit. Just enough for me to see that there were no wrinkles where his wrist was bending, no hair, no definition to his knuckles. His nails were engraved - they looked real from afar, but I was less than a foot away.

Well, crap. I started running down the list of any magic I knew that could scratch a golem, let alone take one down, as we left the room and moved through the darkened hallways, led by Koschei's pale light spell. It was a really short list and I didn't have any angelic swords at hand or dragon's blood on tap.

"Let's keep in mind I need to breathe, Stone, alright?" I told him when his arm tightened a little too much over my sore ribs.

"Let us keep in mind that I do not care, wizard," he replied indifferently, considering the chair and tossing it carelessly aside in favor of throwing me over his shoulder, like Fedorov was carrying Parker, except he hung me with my head facing his chest.

"Gosh, who spit in your cornflakes? Is Koschei holding your keystone hostage or something?"

The golem didn't hesitate. "My keystone is my own. The cornflakes, you can keep."

"Oh, hey! I didn't think golems had a sense of humor."

"Lacking one yourself, I see how you would not recognize one."

I wasn't just talking to get him to talk at that point, I was honestly astonished. "You're old."

He did glance down at me at that, as if detecting the honesty of emotion in my voice, and why wouldn't he? I'd never even heard of a golem capable of independent action, or thought. To have one that also had a sense of wit and levity was mind-boggling. "Age and craftsmanship," he admitted.

"And you waste it all working for him."

"I enjoy service. I do not see the point of ethics or morals. The first is for everyone. The others are mortal fripperies."

I wasn't going to win that argument, not with a golem. "But, that aside, why? Why the Blackbird?"

"He promised I would be challenged." The golem looked down at me once more, then ahead once again. "And I have been."

We got out of the mansion with no one the wiser, though it sounded like the scuffle that had started in the main room had spilled over past the bar and into the dinning room. There were just too many disparate powers gathered all together in a single place; most of the time there was no violence between them because their interests didn't cross paths, and if the auction had gone along as the Dredgers had planned, they never would have. But Koschei and his games had made them all linger. The Blackbird had no one to blame but himself for the mess that he'd brewed.

Hanging there, over a shoulder as broad and solid as a rock, I came to an abrupt realization: I'd been there before. Many times, actually. I was either famous or infamous, depending on who you ask, for throwing myself off the deep end and into the thick of my enemies, and hoping I could wade back out. Most of the time I'd managed, but I usually limped out exhausted, bloody and battered, and there were losses, in friendship, in love, in trust, that were so great they were injuries in their own right.

Koschei was a power that should have left me in that kind of shape. Hell, that roomful of people back at the mansion would've probably loved to take me apart one piece at a time. I had no idea what sort of relationship the Jade and Red Courts had, but I'd never met a vampire that would've passed up the opportunity to get a little debt owed to them from another vamp, and I know the fairy twins would have loved to have me on a leash, because that was just a thing with every fairy in my life barring one.

But there I was. Barring the fact I was hogtied, or that Koschei had taken most of my tools away, I was literally brimming with power, relatively in one piece, and what injuries I did have had been tended to. I still had two aces up my sleeve, three if you counted my pendant, which had come clutch in so many occasions that I really ought to start putting it at the top of the list.

I was as good for the fight as it got, and I had the Leverage people to thank for it. For the time to prep, for the research, for the tools, but above all for covering the bases I couldn't. Good as I was at fighting magic with magic, there was still only one of me. With Leverage, it didn't matter if the leshy came at me or someone tried to rob me or if I couldn't make sense of the puzzle pieces, or if they were all to be found in the electronic ether. These people had a phalanx formation that they'd refined to perfection, and they'd made me part of it without missing a step. It felt both nice and terrifying. Imagine what I'd be able to do with a team like them backing me up. Imagine what they could pull off with a wizard on their corner.

But I also knew it was not a tenable situation. It wasn't just Hardison; we were actually working together just fine, him and me. The language and the tools might be different, but we were both doing basically the same job. It was Ford, who try as he might still couldn't quite get to the believing part. It was Sophie, who thought she needed magic to pull off a grift when really, she didn't. It was Eliot, going up against a golem. It was all of them, running into a Burning Witchwell if I'd arrived in Boston a day late.

It was Boston, burning me to cinders and brushing me off her hands without a second thought. A city can't help what it is. I was Chicago's wizard, I knew my city, its moods, its weather, its seasons, the things about it that empowered me, strengthened me. Did Boston deserve a wizard of its own? Absolutely. It had to be someone better than me at self-control. Swinging power like I did in Boston would get me killed sooner rather than later, and it wouldn't even take a bad guy.

I heard the sound of the surf and became aware of the nearby press of the North Atlantic. I'd expected it to be a grounding influence, like Lake Michigan, but instead it seethed with dormant, subtle layers of power, restive and waiting. Then we were in the boat-house, an elegant single-story house done in that marine kitschy style that says an interior designer got paid very well and no one actually lived in the premises. The open wrap-around porch surrounded two sides of the boat-house, reaching for the stirring surf. Off to one side a dock had been partially dug out, lined with rip-rap and attached to the boat-house like an oversized closed garage. There were two yachts docked there, and an assortment of smaller craft pinned against the walls.

Fedorov automatically tried to flip on the light switches by the door, but nothing happened. A murmur and a gesture from Sophie, and the lights were on.

"You really must tell me how you are doing that." Koschei smiled at her as he walked in, dismissing his own light spell and clapping his hands so every door in the boat-house swung open.

"I asked the little voice in my head for help," she told him with a graceful gesture.

He gave her a strained, polite little chuckle. "Mister Stone, take the rest of our guests to the boat-house. If they give you any trouble, drown them a little."

"Hey!" Jessamine protested.

"Oh, no, not you, my dear," Koschei had clamped his hand around one of her arms, and dragged her back to him none too gently. "The drowning bit is just for Dresden and the princess."

"How do you even drown someone just a little?" Parker muttered.

"Not the question to be asking present company," I replied as Stone took a few steps onto the docks, making them groan with his weight, and threw me down onto the boards roughly. I rolled onto my good shoulder to try and protect myself, and Parker got tossed right on top of me, driving the rest of my breath out.

I felt her brush her hands against mine and suddenly the mage-knot binding the thumb and index of my good hand was gone; I felt her press something familiar against my palm before Stone put his foot against her side and shoved her off to one side.

Seriously, HOW?!

I slid my wand up my sleeve, closed my good hand into a fist over my shield bracelet and decided not to question it. Magic is magic.

"Why?" She countered immediately.

"Because mister Stone might actually oblige with a demonstration, and he doesn't need to breathe."

Parker looked up. The golem looked implacably down. "Oh." She scooted to sit next to me as I dragged myself up, and we both leaned against one another. "He's not really gonna hurt Jess, is he?"

"No, he needs her. He may bluff her, he may scare her, but it doesn't profit him to hurt her. He might hurt you to scare her, though."

Fedorov chuckled a little. "The wizard is not being fully truthful with you."

Parker looked up at me, then at him, then at me again. "Harry?"

I hadn't wanted to say it, but the Russian wasn't leaving me a choice. "He might also hurt you to get to me," I had to admit. "Because the only one who knows where the original is, if Stone's people can't find it, is you. And if you won't tell him -" she scoffed pointedly "- the only one who can safely locate it by the marker on it is me."

She frowned. She looked up at Stone. "What if I tell you where it is?"

"Parker!"

"That would -" the golem began.

I kicked at Stone's shin. It was a moot effort; I knew it and he knew it. I might as well be kicking a piece of concrete. Stone bent down, picked me up by the throat, and let me hang there, unable to breathe and my feet a good few inches off the dock, while he continued speaking in the same calm tone. "That would make matters go faster."

"Faster meaning you and Dresden will die quicker," Fedorov pointed casually.

"But he'll let Jess go?"

I kicked at her. I was two lengths of my leg too far, but dammit, Parker!

"Untrue." Stone leveled an even gaze on Fedorov, then shook me a little, until starbursts of blackness began to swim in front of my eyes, the rest of me tingling unpleasantly. Ok, ok, no more kicking. "It profits him immensely to return miss Lochlin to mister Batra unharmed. It profits him reasonably to have the Prince of Thieves, you, owe him a life-debt." He turned to look at me. "The wizard, he almost certainly will kill."

"No! You go tell him I will tell him where the original is, but he's got to let us all go, Jess and Harry and me! All of us!"

Fedorov and Stone crossed a look. The Russian enforcer looked as dubious as he was amused.

"Why are you here?" the golem suddenly asked Fedorov.

The Russian aimed a thumb at the inside of the boat-house. " The lady promised me an interesting night. My safety was guaranteed." The boards where we were all standing creaked and groaned once again, and Fedorov looked down, then up at Stone with open curiosity. "Should I worry her?"

The world was beginning to blur into colors without shape when Stone let my feet touch the ground again. "Mind yourself, wizard," he warned me, and shoved me down. I went sprawling on my back, landing on my zip-tied hands with all of my weight. Stone bent down and picked up Parker by the front of her skin-tight black sweater, and threw her over a shoulder.

"Hey!"

"Mind the wizard, please," the golem told Fedorov. "He has a bodyguard and no one seems to be able to tell me where he's gone off to." When the Russian gestured agreeably, Stone went into the house.

I laid there for a long moment, examining my circumstances, considering my options and mostly just getting my breath back. "You could've let me lie to her," I told Fedorov.

"I could," he admitted. "But I am coming to realize a lie of kindness is no better than any other lie."

"I'm not her uncle."

He snorted in humorless amusement. "No. But you are her friend. Respect what she has given you."

I had no good answer to that, because he was right. Every time I hid something from the people around me, every time I lied or kept secrets, my friends, the people I cared about, those who depended on me, ended up in trouble, or hurt, or worse. And there was a lot worse in my world that hurt or dead. So I just laid there, staring up at the beams of the open ceiling in the boat-house, with nets keeping floats and boards and kayaks and paddles safe.

The door to the boat-house opened again and Koschei stalked out, dragging Jessamine with him. Behind him came Stone and Parker, the golem stepping carefully on the boards of the dock. trying to keep the complaining from the wood to a minimum, not that it helped. Behind them all came the beautiful, deadly woman in the indigo dress, who moved immediately to Fedorov's side. The wizard was back to his tooth-rottingly cheerful self. "It is a promise easily given, easily kept," he assured Parker. "Give me the original, prove that it is the original, and all three of you can leave safe and sound at once."

"Parker, it's a tr-"

Koschei turned and whipped a hand at me, and his power choked the voice right out of my throat. It didn't matter, she was far too quick for it. "What does he mean it's a trap?"

"How would I know?" Koschei replied archly. "You have what you asked for, after all, no?" He spread his arms. "I am being very generous, all things considered. You have stolen from me, after all. I could just pry the knowledge out of your head and be done with it."

I saw her chew restlessly on her lip, but without the ear bud I didn't know if there was an ongoing plan, if she was winging things, if everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Jessamine looked both frightened and mutinous, but she wasn't making a peep.

"You'll let all three of us go. You won't do anything to stop us, or to hurt us."

"On my power I swear it. Provided you deliver the correct portrait to me."

"And you won't have anyone else stop us or hurt us, either, like him, or them." She gestured at Stone, then glowered at the Russian mobster and his companion.

"Ah, clever princess," Koschei smiled. "They will not." He glanced back. "I'm not even entirely sure while the young prince is still here."

"We're still willing to put a bid on the portrait," Fedorov assured him mildly, tucking his hands in his pockets. "Unless you have decided not to sell?"

"Oh, no, no, I prefer to keep that portrait as far away from my person as possible."

I wanted to yell. I wanted to scream the obvious trap at her. I wanted to launch myself at Koschei and shake that smarmy, condescending smirk off his face. But he had Jessamine, Stone had Parker, and I was choking on black, poisonous magic. Not to mention I had every reason to believe this was still part of Ford's plan, whatever that plan might be, but without my ear clip or Parker's bud I had no way of knowing if we'd gone off the rails half a dozen death threats back. I was about ready to sell my soul, or at least a kidney, for any information.

That was when Nate Ford stepped out of one of the yachts and hopped lightly down onto the dock, and I realized I hadn't been worried enough before. "Well, you're in luck," he said mildly, a slightly rumpled, harmless-looking man. "Because it's not even on the grounds anymore."

THIRTY SIX

You ever get that feeling in the pit of your stomach, when you thought you knew the shape of your life, the world and everything else, and then one little thing goes out of whack and the entire house of cards comes tumbling down?

It felt a little like that, watching Ford come up on us. Though from the look on Koschei's face, he was feeling a whole lot more of it. "You." For a moment I wished I could pack all the conflicting emotions the Russian wizard put into the one tiny word, but then again that would mean I'd fucked up nearly as badly as he had and you know what? I was good.

"Me," Ford agreed, walking up calmly. "The sensible one, you said."

"I am allowed an occasional lapse in judgement." Koschei was trying hard to stick to that smarmy avuncular cheer but it was cracking hard at the seams.

"Are you? 'Cuz you've piled up, uh, a number of lapses tonight -"

"Where is my painting?"

"A painting," Ford replied, "is just about any sort of paint you put on a medium. Canvas, paper, wood. A portrait is specifically a painting of a person, or persons."

"I am aware of the difference," Koschei ground out.

"Are you?" Nate nodded politely at Fedorov and Sophie. They both nodded back minutely. He gave me a very level look where I was, still sprawled on the boards of the dock. He didn't even glance at Parker, but his eyes lingered on Jessamine. It struck me then: the curator was the only person there not in the con who could link Sophie to the rest of us. Ford was no longer gambling on her being innocent of what was going on; he was outright betting she'd help.

"Sir, I would prefer to believe you sensible a little bit longer," Koschei ground out. "I want my painting back or I will have to start turning you and your allies," he gestured at Parker and me, "inside out as creatively as I can."

The mastermind made vague appeasing gestures. "Ok, ok, no need to get violent. Alright. So, uh." Ford paused to think for a moment; the man's showmanship was flawless and I was absolutely taking notes. "Let's do it this way: you give me proof that you still have Grandmother lined up and ready to go into her cage - uh, your cage. And I give you the portrait."

The silence turned into a nearly solid thing, broken only by the surf outside and the gentle lapping of the waves against the pillars of the dock. "She," Koschei's voice had turned hard and dark. I felt that finally something of the real Blackbird, the creature behind the fairy tales, the real monster, was coming to the surface, poisonous and deadly, "is ready."

"Is she?" Ford said with a deceptive apathy that was nothing but ice under the thinnest of veneers.

Koschei stared at Ford. Ford stared at the water. The Blackbird suddenly shoved Jessamine at Stone and gestured to the surf, drawing up a perfect, thin sheet of motionless water. He spun his hands in a circle, partitioning off a piece the size of an ornamental mirror. He murmured in Russian, then spoke sharply, making the water ripple.

He'd summoned a perfect scrying circle while still keeping me gagged. And he hadn't even hesitated, or paused to gather up his strength or focus his will. I had to keep reminding myself that, no matter what happened, if it came to a throwdown with Koschei he'd be punching down, and I'd need every counter I'd prepared for it.

Koschei spoke twice more, sharper and sharper each time.

Ford rubbed idly at his cheek.

Koschei threw the mastermind a brief, and entirely murderous, glare, passed his hand over the rippling surface, stilling it again before he called out once more. This time, the rough voice of a leshy answered him. Koschei and the leshy spoke in Russian, the wizard's tone growing angrier the longer the conversation went on. In the end he let out a furious yell and the water went flying in every direction when he threw his hands out in a fury. "What," he hissed at Ford, "have you done."

Ford seemed to ponder that question carefully. "You're going to have to be more specific. Last I checked you had like seven plans going off tonight, and I only accounted for four of them. You know, the ones I was interested in." He shrugged indifferently.

"Who are you?"

"I -"

"WHERE IS SHE?!"

The lights flickered and faltered, the glass on the nearby windows of the boat-house's wraparound porch rattled. The yachts rocked uneasily in their moorings. Willing to find any port in a storm, Jessamine pressed a little closer to Stone, who looked down in mild surprise. Fedorov shifted to put himself between everyone else and his companion.

I tightened my grip on my wand. When Stone had thrown me down, all of my weight and all of the golem's momentum had come crashing down on the zip tie with which I'd been restrained. It had snapped. I was loose except for the wizard's peace-knot on the thumb and index of my bad hand.

"She's right here," Ford declared mildly. "I mean, she's been here all along. I thought you'd - well, she was your teacher for centuries, probably more depending on who you ask," Nate sounded politely disbelieving, and vaguely embarrassed, as if Koschei had grabbed the wrong fork at a fancy dinner and were trying to butter toast with it. "You haven't figured it out yet?"

Slowly, unwillingly, the poison green gaze turned to the only woman on the docks that he could not account for.

Ekaterina Yegorov laid a gentle hand on Fedorov's shoulder and spoke in soft Russian, and very much not with Sophie's voice. He dipped his head courteously and stepped back and for the first time in who knew so many centuries master and apprentice faced each other off.

[achoshistor]

[totk] alternate dimension???

HAHA ok i simply can't go without writing this down but this time i will try my best to omit all spelling errors to preserve readability... tbh i wouldnt read this if you havent finished the geoglyphs

[spoilers!!]

ok im gonna be honest i've only finished botw and totk so this is gonna be moreso why the alternate timeline from botw is plausible in comparison to the actual placement of the timeline bc thats too much thinking and its been like a million bajillion years since i read the historia.

ok so firstly zelda doing different things in the past is def why the line would have changed from botw to totk but why was zelda the one who went back in time?? In botw the divine beasts are literally analogous to the current sages which is basically

vah rudania/daruk = yunobo

vah naboris/urbosa = riju

vah ruta/mipha = sidon

vah medoh/revali = tulin

that covers all four but what about link?? link gets his own divine beast (master cycle) too so why is zelda the sage and not link?? besides i heard this mentioned somewhere else (i forgot where) but link has the ability to literally slow down time when hes drawing his bow or looking through the scope and he can pause time with the menu but idk if thats actually canon LOL. either way link can also control time like zelda. But speaking of divine beasts the 4 helms can be found in totk as well but the item descriptions call them zonai while the general look of the pieces is clearly sheikha which is weird cuz whaaaat?? also idk maybe nintendo just wanted a way to explain amiibo gear but this just suggests that the divine beasts themsleves are also zonai of some sort. Ik people are saying they dont mention the divine beasts at all but impa and i think like one or two other npcs mention them meaning they are still here but zonai somehow which doesnt make sense in the context of botw.

also aside from the divine beasts theres some other things of note too: firstly, your house in hateno which zelda STOLE 😭😭liek man i paid good money for that sign... 3000 rs.... this is p minor but why would she just take the sign away unless it wasnt already there?? I mean ok maybe link wanted to live with her

[zora arc spoilers]

anyways point two about yona... tbh i thought she was ganondorfs spy or something at first because she came out of nowhere... im assuming she's muzu's daughter but we saw no sign at all of her in botw... maybe the devs hated sidlink that much lolol. In all seriousness tbh her appearance does seem to point to a shift in the events of 100 years ago unless she's not from hyrule which seems unlikley seeing that sidon grew up in zora's domain according to the botw dlc.

[zora spoilers over]

ok last thing... the bottomless swamp is gone!!

like whaaat theres a pond there now

I'm like 99% sure this is just because they needed a body of water that you can drop into safely but its also the only pond on ground thats actually got the lily pads from the sky in it which is interesting. I don't think they added any other new bodies of water aside from this though. Lorewise though it makes no sense at all that they removed that whole giant skeleton from here in a few years and even if they did iirc the ground around it was crackly and dry. Lanaryu/Zorana used to all be a desert and they said it took hundreds of years for it to become fertile so its kind of nonsensical that this area would only take a little while...

overall i think this is probably just nintendo trying to make it so that totk can be standalone but man it cant be that hard to write coherent lore

[f1nns1deblog]

Welcome back to another F1nn-ventures recap! Like in the Japan trip and Belle collab posts, I'll be presenting not only this week's new photos, but also a bit of the lore and fan reactions to provide context for why TWO posts from the f1nn5ter subreddit hit r/all yesterday!

First, let us return to a time nearly lost to the mists of history: May, 2020.

(I won't be doing a readmore on this post, sorry mobile scrollers!)

Two different gamer bros from two different countries have had the same idea: dress up like egirls and troll people on omegle. One of them is our boy F1nn,:

and the other is self-trained voice actor and professional YouTuber Natt:

In a moment of pure serendipity, they ended up in the same chat room, resulting in this viral clip:

(You can also check out the full version in Natt and F1nn's videos!)

F1nn and Natt went on to become good internet friends, with Natt popping in on F1nn's streams fairly regularly. (Natt also knew CottonTailVA before she met F1nn!) This year, Natt finally had the opportunity to visit the UK, so naturally he and F1nn planned to meet up irl.

Meanwhile, F1nn's chat loves "walking streams", where F1nn would occasionally live stream while walking around in public in "girl mode" as a dono goal. He started doing this at the beginning of the pandemic when it was late at night, so there were rarely people around to see him dressed up. After moving to his first (and current) house and getting yelled at by his friend MeowRiza, a trans woman, about reasonable safety precautions, walking streams were informally removed as a dono goal option.

Chat, of course, didn't give up hope. The idea of having a friend along to act as a body guard was raised, and it was suggested that F1nn go out somewhere safer, and perhaps do a video instead of being live. This topic came up again in F1nn's 2/18/23 stream, at which point everyone knew that Natt would be visiting in May. Natt was hanging out in chat during the stream, so an agreement was reached: F1nn would go on a "date" with Natt in full girl mode in London, IFF chat hit a dono goal of $15,000.00.

Chat smashed the dono goal in under 45 minutes.

(Check out stream timestamps 4:10:00-4:50:35 for the speedrun!)

All of that brings us to the events of this week (so far!).

On 5/18/23, Natt tweeted that he was in the UK, and on 5/20/23 F1nn posted a photo to his instastory of the sign at the Milton Keynes rail station. We knew they'd be meeting up soon, but not exactly when or what, if anything, they'd post about it.

On 5/21/23, Natt tweeted:

As per usual, the tweet was posted to the subreddit by (one of our new stream mods!!!) Barbie_secretstanner (who also posts F1nn's tweets here to tumblr! but I can't seem to @ them bc tumblr sucks sometimes):

I've included a screenshot of the post to show that Barbie indicated that this was a tweet by someone else, and she included a link to the original tweet as per typical subreddit archiving standards.

The reddit post blew up, relatively, because of how much chat has been anticipating F1nn being in girl mode in public, which led to it landing on r/all, where multiple lovely, supportive people apparently thought that someone was genuinely posting a selfie before their first date, as evidenced by comments that complimented F1nn's looks and encouraged him to have a good time. Natt also received some replies on twitter to the effect of, "She (meaning F1nn) looks cute, good luck bro!"

Next, F1nn posted this photo to his instastory:

Along with a short video that included Natt saying hi in his "girl voice" from across the hotel room they were both in. (To which we all said, 👀👀👀.)

This was followed up by F1nn tweeting:

which was posted to the subreddit by u/ECCOBLAST:

to which dudebros on twitter and reddit responded with ESSAYS about feminism, trans people, and dating norms in general, as they all immediately jumped to a diverse number of completely incorrect assumptions.

They said if women wanted equality then this is what they deserved, and gay men shouldn't expect hetero dating norms to apply just because they're pretty, and trans women should expect their dates to "see through" their chosen gender and be treated accordingly, and even that if F1nn was really a dude a birth then yeah, but because trans men are just self-hating cis women the "real" guy (Natt) should have paid the bill. There were even a few well-intentioned folks who said Natt was a shithead for bringing up F1nn's AGAB over his (presumed) actual gender!

The one assumption they had in common was that this was a post about a real date made by someone genuinely complaining about an actual comment made by a random guy that they were now putting on blast on the internet.

This firestorm of opinions was only somewhat calmed by Natt and then F1nn's replies to F1nn's tweet:

Which brings us to today! Nothing new has been posted so far by either of them, although I am typing this up before F1nn's usual posting time. We are anticipating a video to be made and hoping to see Natt on a F1nn stream, but editing takes a while and we have no clue what Natt's overall schedule is while in the UK, so we'll just have to wait and see if we get any more updates!

[myhauntedsalem]

The Devil’s Tree

The Devil’s Tree is a solitary oak tree, with some dead limbs, growing in an undeveloped field on Mountain Road in the Martinsville section of Bernards Township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States, across from a private housing development.

Local legend suggests the tree is cursed: those who damage or disrespect the tree (usually by urinating on it, or making disparaging remarks about it while nearby) will soon thereafter come to some sort of harm, often in the form of a car accident or major breakdown as they leave. The tree’s history is surrounded by superstition, and common theories claim that Bernards Township was one of the central headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey and that the tree had been used to lynch African Americans and rebellious slaves since Colonial times. Another theory claims that a farmer hanged himself from the tree after killing his family and that anyone trying to cut the tree down will “come to an untimely end”. Other urban legends surrounding the tree allege that visitors who get too close to the tree will get chased by a black Ford pick-up truck that will then disappear at a certain point, or that anyone who touches the tree will find that their hands have turned black if they try to eat at a restaurant.

In winter, the ground beneath the tree is allegedly free from snow, no matter how much has fallen or how recently. A nearby called “Heat Rock”, and sometimes the tree itself, are said to be warm to the touch regardless of the season or time of day, and is believed to be a portal to Hell.

The township’s plans to develop the land might have required the tree’s removal, but it decided to protect the tree and keep it intact. In 2007, a sign was posted at the site stating when it is open to the public. The Devil’s Tree is currently surrounded by a chain-link fence due to vandalism.

[hedgewitchgarden]

aining is the Scottish Folk magic act of purification. It’s similar to the idea of smudging but very different. Importantly it’s a cultural relevant practice and is one available for folks who work within the Scottish folk magic diaspora. There has been a lot of conversation around appropriation of certain practices across the world by westerners. A lot of people using White Sage to smudge is a great example of this. There is a lot of, I think entirely appropriate, back lash and anger from Native American people and others to stop folk using Sage to smudge in their efforts to purify their spaces. Others cite the over harvesting of the plant in the wild and other issues caused by the commodification of these native practices by predominately white western Capitalists eager to cash in on the latest white person trend adding to it becoming problematic.

There are a number of articles written about alternatives to this practice of smudging with sage aiming to help people explore more appropriate alternatives. Below you’ll explore the practice of purification, known as Saining, from a Scottish Folk Magic point of view. Please note I share this information for people who wish to explore purification from within Scottish folk magic practices. These practices are culturally specific. I hope those with Scottish Heritage might find these practices useful. I hope those without Scottish heritage will be encouraged to explore the different ways these purification practices work from their own cultural point of view. 

Why Sain?

Saining practices are important but why did Scottish folk magic practitioners carry them out? Saining practices, similar to smudging, were carried out primarily to remove influences of negative spirits on people, places, objects, and livestock. Note, these aren’t “energy cleansing” practices it also doesn’t equate to removing sin.

Purification practices are there to remove influences from being overlooked or to remove unwanted spirits influencing the person or the environment. Carrying out Saining helps us to uphold principles of living within the right order of things, alongside this is being diligent in your work, hospitality, keeping an orderly house and being true to our word. 

Scottish Folk Magic is Syncretic and Animistic

Just to note Scottish folk magic practice is highly syncretic. It’s how the information and practices survived throughout the different cultural influences impacting them. I have no problem with the syncretism but others might find some elements of the practice too focussed on an Abrahamic point of view.

Due to the syncretic nature of Scottish Folk magic Saining incorporates the idea of making the sign of an equal armed cross though drawn X in fashion and not + linking it to these patterns in Celtic art. The Etymology of the word Sain is worth noting. Sain comes from Middle English (whence also English sain) and is found in the Scots language as Sain. Cognate to the Scottish Gaelic word Seun (“a charm”). Sain can mean to bless or consecrate and make the sign of the cross. Seun covers a charm for protection, protection in general and also prosperity and fortune. To Seun/sain an object you utilise the sign of a cross or say a protective charm said over an object or both to hallow it and to awaken it to purpose aimed at protecting your prosperity.

Scottish Folk magic practice is animistic – everything has a spirit. Water, plant, person, house etc. When we use a practice to put purification “at a person”, we are asking the spirit to awaken and help us to help remove the unwanted influence “at them”. Here we can already see an issue with items brought that you don’t know the providence of. How do we know the proper call and request protocols, or relevant respect and charms sung, when harvesting the items for use? If the spirit of the object isn’t willing the action of employing it in itself is not enough. You’re basically wasting your money on empty gestures. 

Different purification practices, using different components from the natural world, appear throughout Scottish Saining practices and can be performed over land, livestock, around a person or a whole community as required. Activities to purify a community are of course orders of magnitude larger than those for a person as you can imagine and would usually occur at the quarter day festivals.

[read more...]

[writeraven]

WHO KILLED CROOKED ROBIN?

Who killed Crooked Robin? I, said the Bloody Sword With my frozen blade to the ward…

TAGS: [ ravenael. » A Series of Unrelated Events ]

LINKS: [ Tumblr » Collection, Fandom | AO3 » Work, Collection, Series ]

STATUS: Complete; 1 chapter (4 parts).

FANDOM: Wizarding World » Harry Potter.

GENRES: Short Story, Whodunit.

COUNT: 1,702 words.

SHIPS: Arthur & OC, Arthur/Molly (mentioned).

CAST: Arthur Weasley, OC, Molly Weasley (mentioned).

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FANFICTION.NET.

HOST: [FFnet] The Houses Competition.

CATEGORY: [Y3R5] Additional.

PROMPT: [Genre] Mystery.

WARNING — murder mystery, some language.

Spinnet Yard was a small town somewhere in the London suburbs, a quiet residential area with rows of houses arranged neatly against the road line. Each house had a backyard of their own filled with blood-red roses planted by each resident, all in full bloom under the midday sun.

Around an alleyway bend that would lead up to the main street, a faint pop was heard before a man appeared out of thin air on the road. If anyone had seen him, they would be astounded at how out of place this person was. The man wore a reddish-brown traveling cloak over a checkered shirt, with a gold pocket watch in one hand and a wooden stick in the other. Perched on his head was a pointed hat, with bits of ginger hair poking out underneath the wide brim.

Arthur Weasley sighed as he placed the watch back into his shirt pocket. He removed the hat from his head and pulled the traveling cloak off his shoulders, then he stuffed the cloak into the upturned hat. With a swish of his wand, the hat disappeared from his hand. Satisfied, he hid the wand down the front of his shirt and strolled out to the main street.

The town was deadly quiet; not a single soul was in sight on the road. Arthur glanced around, somewhat unnerved at the stillness. He pulled out the letter to double check the address. “I’m pretty sure it’s around here…”

“Arthur!”

He almost jumped at the voice that suddenly called out behind him. Turning around slowly, he was relieved to see it was a familiar face. “Oh, Brenda, it’s you.”

The lady’s smile widened as she brisked towards him, then she gave him a warm hug. “It’s been a long time since we graduated from Hogwarts. I heard you’re working for the Ministry of Magic now.”

“Junior Officer in the Improper Use of Magic Office,” Arthur replied, stepping back to break the hug. He gestured at the town. “How about you? How does it feel returning to Muggle life after being surround by magic for seven years?”

The lady chuckled at his eager tone. “Nothing exciting, really. Come, I’ll show you to my house.”

Arthur followed the lady to her cottage, squeezing himself through the gate with a cutely decorated sign with the name: Gordon. He was amazed at the roses that filled the garden before he reached the front door.

“It seems like everyone here has roses in their yard.”

“Yes, hence why we’re also known as ‘Rose Town,’” Brenda Gordon said, and she showed Arthur to the living room. “Make yourself comfortable. Tea or beer?”

The wizard could taste the smell of pan-fried fish in the air. “Let’s go with tea. Having a fishy meal for lunch?”

Brenda froze for a moment, then she laughed, albeit with a hint of nervousness. “That’s a terrible pun there. You haven’t changed one bit.” She placed a cup of hot tea before Arthur. “So, tell me about you and Molly. How’s life after the lightning-quick marriage?”

“Crazy,” Arthur replied, taking a sip of tea. “Just like you said, everything was rushed and all… with the fear and uncertainty because of You-Know-Who.” Then he sniffed the air again and stood up. “Are you sure you don’t need to watch over the stove?”

Brenda blinked. “Well, I can’t cook with magic here, so it’s going to take a while…”

“Really?” Arthur glanced at his Muggle-born former schoolmate with an arched eyebrow. With the cup of tea still in his hand, he walked over to the kitchen.

On the blazing stove fire was a huge cooking pan, and a big slab of tuna meat was sizzling away in it. While Molly was the cook at home now, he still knew enough that something didn’t feel right… but what was it?

Picking up a fork from the kitchen drawer, Arthur poked at the tuna. As he had expected, something was wrong here.

“Are you living alone?”

“No, not really.” Brenda shook her head. “I’m still staying with my dad. My mom had passed away when I was in my fifth year, remember?” She waved him off when Arthur opened his mouth to apologize. “It’s fine, I’ve already gotten over it.”

“Right. By the way, where’s Mr. Gordon? I’d like to greet him.”

“Dad’s probably still in his study,” Brenda said, glancing up at the second floor. “I’ll go fetch him.”

However, Arthur was totally unprepared for a blood-curdling scream that shook the house moments later.

On the floor of Mr. Gordon’s study room lay the lifeless body of the man himself, facing down in a spread-eagled position. There was some blood on the back of Mr. Gordon's head, presumably being hit by something hard enough to crack his skull, causing his death.

Arthur shook his head after he checked the pulse. “He’s dead.”

Brenda was in shock. She stood frozen at the door, staring down at her dead father with wide eyes. “What… How…” Then her knees buckled and she sat down on the ground with a thud. “Why…”

“You need to calm down,” Arthur said as he rushed to her side, pushing his half-finished tea into her trembling hands. “Here, drink this. I’ll help you downstairs.”

Nodding, she rested her weight against the redhead wizard and the two of them descended to the ground floor. Arthur guided her to an armchair. “I’m sorry that this has happened,” he began, and pulled out his wand. “Did anyone come here this morning, before you went out to meet me?”

Brenda shook her head, dabbing her teary eyes with a napkin.

“Do you mind if I look around your house for a bit?”

“S-Sure.”

Leaving the distraught woman to recover from her shock, Arthur went back to the study room and examined every inch of it, muttering spells under his breath. “Specialis Revelio… Homenum Revelio…”

Nothing. The frown on Arthur’s face deepened. It seemed like Mr. Gordon’s death wasn’t caused by magical means; there was no unwelcomed outsiders hiding in the house, either. He studied every single object in the room: the neatly arranged books on the shelves, the tidy desk, the dustless carpet… but he couldn’t find anything that could be a murder weapon.

What if the weapon wasn’t in this room anymore? Where else could it be hidden?

Arthur widened his search to the other parts of the house—his cheeks felt hot when he had to check out Brenda’s room just to be sure—but everything was in order, nothing out of place.

There was only the kitchen left.

Arthur stared down at the simmering tuna in the frying pan once more. Of all the things in this house, the tuna had been tugging at his mind the whole time… but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he had a strange interest in cooking when Molly wasn’t even around. When he had first seen the frying tuna, he was confused about why the pan was filled with water. Then, when he had poked the meat with a fork, the tuna was still rock hard.

Why was the tuna still frozen when he could already smell the fragrance of it filling up the house?

The conclusion that Arthur had arrived at was something he didn’t like at all.

“Arthur…? W-Why are you doing this?”

Arthur sighed, watching a frightened Brenda squirming in her armchair, trying to break free of the vines he had conjured to tie around her. He pointed his wand at his friend, locking his gaze with hers.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he said in a low voice. “You killed your own father.”

“Arthur,” Brenda was exasperated. “This isn’t a time for your usual jokes—”

“I’m being very serious here,” he cut her off. “The murder weapon… It’s the frozen tuna in the frying pan. You were trying to get rid of the evidence before I showed up, but you were in such a hurry that you had forgotten to thaw it first.”

After a long silence, Brenda slumped into the armchair, a look of defeat on her face. "You’re right, it was me. I killed my own father.”

“But why would you do something like that?”

“Why, you ask?” Brenda snorted at him, letting out a sarcastic laugh. The nice and cheerful Brenda that Arthur always knew at Hogwarts was gone, now replaced by a crazed woman with a murderous sneer on her face. “A pureblood wizard like you who have been living in the magical world throughout your entire life won’t understand. It makes me want to laugh at your mad love for Muggle things. You’re ridiculously pathetic.”

“…What has happened to you?”

“I hated living in this shithole,” Brenda spat, her eyes flashing with anger. "Going to Hogwarts felt like a dream came true, a chance for me to leave this hell and find my own place in the world of magic… but my dad wanted me to take over the family business. I don’t give a damn about this crap town; I don’t want to live here and pretend that I’m a Muggle for the rest of my life. I’m a bloody witch, for Merlin’s sake!”

“But…” Arthur could feel his impression, his memory of the good friend who had shown him the wonders of the Muggle world shattering into a million pieces before him. “Do you have to go that far to murder your only family left?”

“Why not?” Arthur could feel his skin crawl at the grin on Brenda’s twisted face. “He’s the biggest obstacle to the life I’ve always yearned for, to the freedom I’ve always wanted. He deserves to die for the sake of his daughter’s happiness! What’s wrong with that?”

“No,” Arthur breathed, tightening his grip on his wand, still pointing it at Brenda. “If killing someone is your way of joining my world, you are wrong.”

He pulled out another wand—Brenda’s—and he watched the smile on Brenda’s face being wiped off, realizing what he was going to do.

“Whether you’re a witch or a Muggle, no one will allow a murderer to walk free without atoning for your sins. You don’t belong in either worlds… only Azkaban awaits you.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE.

This story contains a few sources of inspiration:

Plot is based on Lamb to the Slaughter, a classic short story by Roald Dahl.

Title is a pun on Who Killed Cock Robin?, an English nursery rhyme dating back to 1744.

Support me on Ko-fi — https://ko-fi.com/whyraven. Thank you very much for your continuous support☕

[timesofinnovation]

Is Luxury Finally Set for a Sustainability Reckoning? Amid growing disillusionment with luxury brands, a series of Italian investigations linking major players like Dior and Armani to sweatshop labor is putting new pressure on the sector’s most powerful asset: brand image. MILAN, Italy — Midway through March, Italian police raided a factory complex on a quiet street in a leafy suburb of Milan, 11 kilometers from the city’s via Montenapoleone luxury shopping district. Inside the factory, they found nearly two dozen workers — several employed under the table — making leather bags and accessories for luxury giant Dior. Safety mechanisms had been removed from machinery to enable faster production, with work beginning early in the morning and continuing late into the night, according to court documents. In one instance, Dior paid the supplier €53 ($58) a piece to assemble a handbag it sold for €2,600, the documents said. LVMH-owned Dior is just one of more than a dozen fashion companies swept up in the Italian investigation linking luxury brands to sweatshop labor. In April, an Armani Group subsidiary was sanctioned by the Court of Milan for failing to ensure its suppliers met Italian labor standards. Alviero Martini, a smaller brand known for its map-print bags, received similar treatment in January. (The company said its suppliers had illegally hired subcontractors). More actions against fashion companies manufacturing in Italy are expected to follow in the coming months. The investigation threatens the luxury sector’s most precious asset — brand image — calling into question the veracity of the craftsmanship-soaked marketing narrative luxury players routinely use to bolster the perceived quality of their products, while painting labor exploitation as a mass-market problem. The threat comes at a precarious time for the luxury sector. Not only has the market cooled significantly since the heady days of the post-Covid luxury boom, but punchy price hikes amid reports of declining quality have put pressure on the perceived value of luxury products. On Wednesday, Italy’s Competition Authority announced it had launched its own probe into whether Armani and Dior had misled consumers about their commitments to ethics, craftsmanship, and quality in light of the police investigation. Armani said it has always had measures in place to minimize the risk of supply chain abuses and that it believes the Competition Authority’s allegations “have no merit.” Dior said the initial investigation’s findings don’t reflect the way it operates and that it has stopped working with the suppliers identified by Italian authorities. “The house of Dior firmly condemns these unworthy acts which contradict its values and the code of conduct signed by these suppliers,” the company said in a statement published this week, adding that it is working to improve its supply chain oversight. It also contested some of the findings in the case. The manufacturers in question weren’t producing women’s handbags, but partially assembling men’s leather goods, Dior said, describing characterizations of its production costs as “ridiculously low” as “erroneous.” "It should be noted that the profit margin of the house of Dior is entirely in line with that of the luxury industry," the company said. A Slow-Brewing Backlash The sweatshop scandal has sparked a slow-brewing online backlash, fueled in recent weeks by high-profile coverage in publications like The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. But it remains to be seen whether social media outrage will impact sales. The coming week brings the sector’s first public accounting since the Dior news broke in early June — too late in the quarter for much to show up in the numbers when LVMH reports on Tuesday. Luxury investors are anyway currently far more concerned about the fact that Chinese consumers — long the sector’s biggest growth engine — are not shopping like they used to. “Given everything that’s going on in

China, nobody is focused on this in the investment community,” said Adam Cochrane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Research. Judging by history, that’s a reasonable position to take. Luxury brands have largely managed to sidestep associations with poor labor practices that have dogged fast fashion, painting their high price points as both a function and a guarantee of their commitment to artisanal and ethical manufacturing. Past scandals in Italy and elsewhere have done little to dent this image, quickly fading from collective consciousness, helped along by public commitments to ethical operations and selective investments upstream. ‘Disillusioned with Luxury’ As in 2008, the scrutiny on luxury’s supply chain is not a standalone issue, but one of several pressure points putting cracks in luxury’s marketing façade. Soaring prices for high-end handbags already have critics grumbling vocally on social media about sticker shock amid reports of declining quality. Layer on allegations of labor exploitation and the reputational risks are mounting. “If luxury’s marketing mythology is indeed ‘broken,’ the implications for the sector are serious,” said Deutsche Bank’s Cochrane. “It would be a real fundamental risk… the sort of thing that can really change the direction of a brand unless it’s handled the right way.” Regulators are also playing a bigger role than they have in the past. The investigation by Italy’s Competition Authority is a rare instance of luxury brands getting drawn into a wide-ranging greenwashing crackdown that has already snared numerous mass market players, including H&M Group, Boohoo and Asos. Though potential penalties ranging from €5,000 to €10 million are relatively small, incoming due diligence regulations could bring much more severe fines in the future. Fixing the issues would require big investments to consolidate supply chains and bring more manufacturing in house. Alternatively, companies could pay suppliers more and step up monitoring and controls. Both have costs, but luxury brands enjoy sizable margins and could make cuts elsewhere to smooth out the impact of any increases. Still, a real reckoning may only come if fallout from the scandal starts to show up in the bottom line.

[novumtimes]

Four Lawmakers Denounce Plan to Ease Sanctions on Mining Executive

A bipartisan group of four congressional lawmakers have objected to the Biden administration plan to boost access to metals needed for electric vehicle batteries by easing sanctions on an Israeli mining executive accused of corrupt practices in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The objection came as the Biden administration moves to allow Dan Gertler, an Israeli billionaire, to sell his financial stake in three mines in Congo as part of an effort to remove him from the mining trade there. Senior Biden officials have argued this will help Congo, the largest producer of cobalt in the world, by enticing more Western-leaning investors. They say investors have been skittish of doing business there because Mr. Gertler has been accused of relying on personal ties to government officials in Congo to get mining concessions at below-market prices, creating a cloud of corruption over its entire mining industry. Mr. Gertler has said that all his investments in Congo were aboveboard. But the four lawmakers — two senators and two House members — disputed that, saying the Biden administration was wrong to propose allowing Mr. Gertler to profit as he sells off his holdings in Congo. “We fear that if sanctions are removed, Mr. Gertler will profit massively off his ill-gotten assets to the detriment of the Congolese people,” said the letter, signed by Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, and Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, the co-chairmen of the United States Helsinki Commission, a federal agency that promotes human rights issues globally. “Such an event would significantly undermine efforts to combat transnational corruption and U.S. foreign policy and national security interests.” The other signers of the letter were Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, and Senator Roger F. Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, the ranking members from their party on the Helsinki Commission. The letter, addressed to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, argued that Mr. Gertler had not paid restitution to Congo for the more than $1.3 billion in revenue that American officials estimate the nation lost out on as a result of corrupt deals. Most of the cobalt-producing sites in Congo are Chinese-controlled mines. The last large American-owned mining company pulled out of Congo in 2020, just as the electric vehicle revolution was taking off. Cobalt is important in longer-range electric vehicles, because it helps the batteries hold a charge longer. The State Department, White House and Mr. Gertler did not immediately respond Tuesday afternoon to requests for comment. Source link via The Novum Times

[udo0stories]

Photo by Bel Pedrosa – CC BY-SA 2.0 This month marks the 25th anniversary of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, despite ongoing efforts by the US to undermine the socialist project. President Nicolás Maduro's government has made the US acknowledge its authority, even though the US still claims that the 2015 National Assembly is the only democratic institution in Venezuela. The US is now reviewing candidates for the upcoming Venezuelan presidential election. While this is still interfering, the US hasn’t been able to overthrow the government. Recently, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado appeared before a US congressional committee, showing the US is seeking a reliable ally. Republicans hope she will collaborate with them, while Democrats may have their own plans. Opposition to the socialist government is made up of various small groups, each tied to a leader like Machado's Vente Venezuela party. The US spends millions annually on what it calls “democracy promotion” in Venezuela. USAID has pledged $50 million to influence the presidential elections later this year. Despite Washington's efforts, there's no unified opposition in Venezuela yet. Still, the US continues to try to pick who should lead Venezuela.   Farewell to Venezuelan “interim president” Juan Guaidó The last person considered for the top job in the empire was Juan Guaidó, who is now in trouble. Even though he was well-liked as Venezuela's "temporary president" abroad, people in his own country didn't support him, and he was removed by his own opposition group in 2022. The US and its friends gave Guaidó and his friends control of some Venezuelan assets, like a company in Colombia and an oil franchise in the US, even though they weren't supposed to. They used these businesses to make themselves rich but ended up ruining them. The Venezuelan attorney general says they stole about $19 billion. Guaidó didn't seem like a strong leader, and it turns out he wasn't. But the new person in the running looks good in pictures and is good at speaking. Plus, they can speak English well. Machado auditions before the “bipartisan roundtable” The House Foreign Affairs Committee had a discussion on February 7th about "The Fight for Freedom in Venezuela." Maria Salazar, the committee chair, was very supportive of María Corina Machado, the main opposition presidential candidate. Salazar emphasized that Machado is the only opposition candidate they support, saying there's "no plan B!" During the discussion, Machado described Venezuela as the "largest torture center in Latin America" under the Maduro government, accusing them of intentionally worsening people's lives. When asked about solving Venezuela's issues, Machado said she would focus on opening up markets. However, it wasn't mentioned that the economic sanctions she supported had closed off markets and hurt Venezuela's citizens, especially the less fortunate. Machado comes from a wealthy family. Machado also mentioned she wouldn't tolerate a system of impunity like the one under Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello's leadership. While Nicaragua wasn't initially discussed, Machado pledged to support a transition there too. This prompted concerns from the Perú Libre party, reflecting leftist views in Latin America, who see Machado as a threat to continental peace. Machado’s political baggage Machado has a controversial past in politics. Back in 2002, she supported a short-lived coup against Hugo Chávez by signing the Carmona Decree. Although she was granted amnesty for her involvement, she has been linked to other coup attempts. She was also involved in promoting violent protests in 2014 and 2017, aiming to overthrow the government, and has even called for a US military intervention. In 2014, Machado was prohibited from running for public office in Venezuela because she served as a diplomat for Panama to testify against Venezuela at the Organization of American States. Initially, she refused to challenge this decision in the Supreme Court, which she deemed illegitimate.

However, when the US sought to use her disqualification as a reason to impose sanctions, she complied and took her case to court. Despite her efforts, she remains disqualified from holding public office. Other congressional initiatives In December, Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) introduced House Resolution 911 naming Machado as the "official presidential opposition candidate." This move interferes with another country's affairs and ignores the opposition in Venezuela, which doesn't see Machado as the only valid candidate. On January 30, after Machado's appeal to restore her eligibility failed, Republican Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Bill Cassidy urged Biden to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela to uphold US credibility. That day, the Biden State Department revoked sanctions relief on Venezuelan gold sales and threatened to do the same for gas and oil. Earlier, the Congressional Research Service stated that US sanctions on Venezuela didn't achieve regime change but caused severe human suffering, the same crisis Machado blames on the Venezuelan government. How popular is Machado off of Capitol Hill? Top analysts recognize Machado as the most well-known opposition politician in Venezuela and the most popular one. However, she doesn't have unanimous support within the country. Venezuelan sociologist Maria Paez Victor, now living in Canada, says Machado is disliked by many in the opposition. "She is widely disliked because she strongly supports more sanctions, which have led to a lot of suffering." Machado's opposition primary had issues. She won with an unusually high 92%, but the process excluded some parties and had irregularities, like being run by her own organization instead of the national authority. The US press often calls it "an" opposition primary, not "the" opposition primary, hinting at its questionable nature. The Venezuelan Supreme Court later suspended the results due to these irregularities. Machado’s prospects Maduro hasn't officially announced his candidacy, but it's widely expected that he'll be the choice for his party. Machado insists that elections must include her, a sentiment supported by the European Union, which won't recognize the election without her participation. According to the Orinoco Tribune, the White House isn't overly concerned about the opposition candidate in Venezuela. Biden official Juan González emphasizes the importance of the electoral process over the specific candidate. There are indications that the White House might be anticipating a Maduro victory and planning to reject the election results. In the past, the U.S. declared the Venezuelan presidential election fraudulent well in advance and even threatened sanctions against an opposition candidate. The controversy surrounding Machado's eligibility for elections seems manufactured, with little relevance to her as a far-right opposition figure. Washington likely knew she wouldn't be allowed to run due to past issues. This situation is likely a strategy to cast doubt on the upcoming election and discredit it if Maduro emerges as the winner.