#(ask dated november 27 2024)

[stabbyfoxandrew]

hello and happy Wednesday!! I'd like either demon or mer Neil pls!!

WIP Wednesday (11/27) | Mer Roadtrip AU (Part 96)

After a couple hours of Andrew's terrible directions and terrible music taste, Neil is relieved when the other boy announces they're nearing the Las Vegas exit. Neil reaches over to turn the radio down so he can focus and surprisingly, Andrew doesn't immediately crank it back up. He'd been doing that all afternoon. Usually when Neil was least suspecting it. It was like he thought it would be fun to make Neil crash the car and kill them both in a fiery explosion.

Luckily, Neil's not easily spooked. Well not by a radio anyway.

"So... After you get your new identity made, are we getting a room here tonight?" Andrew asks as Neil crosses a couple lanes to take the exit into Vegas. Neil drums his fingers on the top of the steering wheel and follows a van onto the exit ramp, his tongue peeking out of his mouth as he considers it. Finally, he clears his throat.

"No. I wanna be out of Nevada by nightfall," He says decisively. He needs to put some distance between them and Lola. "We'll stop in, uh, Utah."

"What's in Utah?"

"Nothing," Neil answers. "That's why we'll stop there. Then tomorrow, we'll get up and get going. We need to get to Colorado."

"Why?"

"I have some money stashed there. Or rather, my mom did." Neil says, avoiding Andrew's gaze. He coughs. "Either way, we can’t really afford to stop for long. So—”

"You didn't look like a shark to me."

"I—" Neil blinks and glances at Andrew. "What?"

"Sharks have to keep moving. If they're stationary for too long, they die. You are acting like a shark when you're a..." Andrew gives him a long look and waves a hand in the air. "Reddish-orange tropical something or other."

Neil's stomach clenches. "Don't call me that."

"What? Tropical?"

"Yes." Neil says through gritted teeth, the memory of Lola's harsh laugh invading his memory. He uses a hand to rub his wrist, as if that alone could erase the feeling of her nails digging into his skin.

"Fine." Andrew accepts with no argument. "But you're not a shark. There are no reddish-orange sharks."

"Not a shark." Neil confirms. "But we have to keep moving, because Lola's got a nose like one."

"I don't think I like this woman very much." Andrew says. "She has claws, a nose like a shark. What else, Neil? Has she got fangs and slitted pupils too?"

"Not sure, I try not to look at her face." Neil mutters. Then his gaze flicks down to the dashboard beyond the steering wheel and his heart leaps from his chest when he sees the needle on the gas gauge drooping to the left a bit. He swings into the closest, overcrowded gas station and pulls up to the pumps.

[carryon-countdown]

🕯️Carry On Countdown 2024 • Prompt List ❄️

Hello Snowvians! It's our pleasure to announce that it is once again time for the annual 2024 Carry On Countdown. The Carry On Countdown is a fandom hosted, month-long ‘countdown’ event to the Chapter 61 Snowbaz anniversary for The Simon Snow Trilogy by Rainbow Rowell. The event begins on November 25th and features daily prompts to help inspire all kinds of wonderful fan-created content as we draw closer to Simon and Baz’s anniversary date on December 24th.

We encourage fanfiction, fanart, cosplay, memes, songs, playlists, crafts, etc. The prompts are completely up to your own interpretation and can be used in your original content however you like, but if you have any questions, please send us an ask. 

Speaking of, our admins are excited to present the prompt list for this year's Carry On Countdown: 

Day 1, NOV 25: Something Old

Day 2, NOV 26: Chosen

Day 3, NOV 27: AU/Alternate Universe

Day 4, NOV 28: Daydreaming

Day 5, NOV 29: Forest

Day 6, NOV 30: Truth/Dare

Day 7, DEC 1: Gently

Day 8, DEC 2: Bleed

Day 9, DEC 3: Side Ships/Alternative Ships

Day 10, DEC 4: Dinner

Day 11, DEC 5: Wavering

Day 12, DEC 6: Normal

Day 13, DEC 7: Lyrics

Day 14, DEC 8: Sour

Day 15, DEC 9: Sweets

Day 16, DEC 10: Punk

Day 17, DEC 11: Surprise

Day 18, DEC 12: Vessel

Day 19, DEC 13: Fluff

Day 20, DEC 14: Teeth

Day 21, DEC 15: WLW

Day 22, DEC 16: Angst

Day 23, DEC 17: Goats

Day 24, DEC 18: Holiday Shopping

Day 25, DEC 19: Truce

Day 26, DEC 20: Savour

Day 27, DEC 21: Intertwined

Day 28, DEC 22: Snowed In

Day 29, DEC 23: Alight

Day 30, DEC 24: Something New

You are welcome to participate in as many or as few of the days of the event as you wish. Completing every daily prompt for the COC is not mandatory, although anyone who does will earn a special spot on our “Page of Honour” once the event has concluded. 

The COC is a fan-created and fan-run event, and we have a lovely, dedicated team of admins who are busy organizing all of the fun: Cora @otherpeoplesheartachept-2, Froggy @jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists, and Raegan @carryonmylovelies.

Even though we can hardly believe it, this is the 9th consecutive year that the fandom has hosted this countdown, and its admins are thrilled to continue this cherished tradition with you all. We feel quite lucky to be a part of something so special every year, and we truly cannot wait for another delightful season of sharing Snowbaz fan-creations with one another. We wish everyone who is planning on participating in the countdown the best of luck. And don’t forget! Our askbox is always open for any questions you may have concerning this event.

Reblogs are very much appreciated (please reblog!), and the hashtags we encourage using with posts relating to the countdown are #Carry On Countdown and #COC 2024. 

Much love,

The admins of the 2024 Carry On Countdown ❤️‍🔥

[fiabex]

Fic In A Box 2024

Schedule

August 9-16: Nominations Pre-Gaming (participants can load tags from last year’s tagset into this tagset)

August 17: Tag Nominations Open

August 24: Tag Nominations Close

August 25-26: Nominations Cleanup

August 27: Signups Open

September 1: Swap requests open

September 7: Signups Close

September 10: Assignments Out By This Date

September 11: Swap requests close

October 20: Assignments Due

October 27: First Extension Due Date

November 3: Final Extension Due Date

November 10: Last Day To Submit Makeup Assignments

November 16 28: Work Reveals

November 30 December 12: Creator Reveals

All times 11:59pm Eastern

What is Fic In A Box

A gift exchange is an event where participants create fanworks to gift to each other. Fic In A Box is a fanwork exchange with a large minimum gifting requirement and several unique features. Gifts can include fic, art, audio, video— and much much more.

How It Works/The Nitty-Gritty:

All participants in Fic In A Box are requesting 10,000 words of fanfiction by default, but can opt in to other mediums to give their gifter options. Mediums can include writing structure things like "in-world rpf" for your gift, or include creative formats as far away from fic as different types of art, knitting patterns, logic puzzles, and so on. There were 288 mediums to choose from last year, and we add more every year.

For mediums other than the written word, pretty much any medium will be accepted, as long as it can be digitized for delivery and we can agree on a clear and easily checked equivalent to 1k of written fic. Participants who primarily work in non-writing mediums are very welcome and will get specially matched (as long as they give the mods a heads-up) so they'll have an assignment they can complete. If your art form is fannish cross-stitch? We'd love to have you join us.

Participants have the option to split the 10k words (or equivalent in an opted-into medium) that they owe between several separate works (say, one fic of 3k and a another of 7k) to reach 10k total. The minimum word count per work is 1k by default, but lower wordcount works will count if your recipient has opted into receiving them. (Drabble is a medium that can be opted into!) And initial assignments are 10k for one person, but at the start of the exchange the mods run Swaps which will give you the chance to split that 10k into multiple shorter assignments for multiple recipients!

So when it comes time to turn in gifts, you might turn in 3k worth of art, 4k in fic, and 3k in typesetting a fic (10k total), and then you receive 8k of fic and 2k of map design (10k total). Last year 265 people signed up, and we exchanged 993 gifts at the end of the creation period, everything from fic to reddit posts to logic puzzles to museum catalogues to CYOA stories to colouring pages!

If you cannot complete the full 10k (or other medium equivalent) but are still able to post one or more smaller, complete works, you can default on just the remaining wordcount. You will then be guaranteed (via finding a back up gifter-- "pinch hitting"-- if necessary) a gift equivalent to the amount you were able to submit (rounded down to the nearest 1k). There are also options to "earn back" guaranteed minimum amount by taking pinch hits or completing your original assignment.

Questions?

For more information about Medium rulesets, signing up, nominations of fandoms, relationships, or medium forms, swaps, or much more (questions about how pinch hits work? we have documentation about that), check out the dreamwidth blog!

If you have questions, feel free to ask them here, check the dreamwidth blog for much more documentation, email the mods, or join our discord server. The discord server has a lot of experienced participants happy to answer questions, and you are also welcome to join just to hang out!

Note: you must be 18 or older to join FIAB.

Links

Email: ficinaboxmod@gmail.com

Ao3 Collection (sign up here once signups open)

Tag Set

Dreamwidth Blog

Discord (includes question channel)

Current Pinch Hits

[levihanweek]

Hello! We are waking up with a bang

Back to our usual Secret Santa exchange! Let’s goo—

How the gift exchange works:

You will be assigned a partner to give your gift to (it doesn’t have to be christmas themed) thus they'll become your giftee.

Your identity will remain secret until the publishing date, so please make sure your inbox and IM are open so we’ll be able to communicate with you in case your giftee needs to contact you.

Info about the gifting:

All forms of works are accepted! These include but are not limited to: fanart, fanfiction, edits/graphics, gifs/animations, manga colorings, playlists, aesthetics, AMVs/videos, etc.

‎Reposting/copying/using another person’s work, and any A I generated works are NOT allowed. We won’t reblog any submissions that you did not make personally or any work that is offensive/discriminatory in any way.

‎Please be sure to tag accordingly if your work contains blood/gore/mature content.

‎For this event, we set minimum requirements for the gifts. We’d appreciate that you try your best to make your work meet the following guidelines:

↳art: draw at least a fairly detailed and colored bust-sized drawing or a b/w well detailed one

↳fic: 1.5-2k words across any genre

↳gfx/gif/edit: 2 big/complex images or 4 simple/small images for the photoset

↳misc: (the above are common gift types for exchange events, but if you plan on making something else and would like to know a minimum requirement for that medium/gift type or if you just have some doubts in general, feel free to ask us. We’ll be happy to help!)

Take these as a potential reference. You’re not obliged to but remember that someone else may be working hard on your gift, so it’s only appropiate to put some love into your piece as well (:

Timeline:

November 25 | Sign-ups will be closed by midnight EST. Be sure to fill up THIS FORM if you want to participate. Might close earlier or later depending on the speed/amount of the sign-ups.

November 26-27 | The mod will inform participants about their giftee and their respective wishlist.

December 14 | The mod will check in on each of the participants’ progress

‎December 25 | Time to post your gifts! If you publish your work here in tumblr, tag @ this blog's and your giftee's username, also include #levihan secret santa 2024 in the first five tags so we can be able to find it. We’ll be reblogging your works on this blog.

If you publish your work on instagram, tag @ale.man.art and your giftee's username, also include #levihansecretsanta2024. The posts will be shared and sent to people.

The date might be extended a day or two but it will depend on the progress of your works.

AN IMPORTANT PSA: If you feel like you cannot meet the deadline or want to drop out halfway, please message us ASAP and we will sort it out. We’d rather you be honest with us if you can’t meet the deadline than be a no-show on the day of.

[clawbehavior]

2024 TDJ Collaborative Fic: "lost and found" now complete!

Access a PDF copy of the story here

Check out this gifset by itsza here

Discord: We have a discord to discuss the story! DM for the link

Prompt: Based on popular vote: Post-canon, Yohan returns for Gaon.

Rating: Explicit

Writing schedule:

Thursday, September 5: no one! the prompt goes live on a03

Thursday, September 12 at 9am KST: @tenderlywicked : tenderly_wicked (CH 1)

Friday, September 20 at 9am KST: @yohangaontdj : tmweis2771 (CH 2)

Friday, September 27 at 9am KST: @ladykyrin: LadyKyrin (CH 3)

Friday, October 4 at 9am KST: @a-small-batch-of-dragons: TheAsexualofSpades (CH 4)

Friday, October 11 at 9am KST: @bellarkeandclintashaandsuch: a sea of shows (CH 5)

Friday, October 18 at 9am KST: @jehan-d-art: lorebearleaf (CH 6)

Friday, October 25 at 9am KST: @mid-n0vember: mid_november (CH 7)

Friday, November 1 at 9am KST: @absolutesuffering: heavenlywildflower (CH 8)

Friday, November 8 at 9am KST: @thedeviljudges: xxcaribbean (CH 9)

Friday, November 15 at 9am KST: @gayautisticraccoon: ObsessiveFandomTrash (CH 10)

Friday, November 22 at 9am KST: NEW* clawbehavior: orangepaperclips (CH 11)

Friday, November 29 at 9am KST: NEW* @obviouslystillfuschia : ObviouslyFuschis (CH 12)

Monday, December 9 at 9pm KST: NEW* @blueatelier: aotelier (CH 13)

Monday, December 16 at 9pm KST: NEW* @gaonsugardaddy niaxz1005 (CH 14)

Monday, December 23 at 9pm KST: NEW* Queenbeyondthejudge (CH 15. final story chapter)

Monday, December 30: NEW* @itsza; itsza (gifset)

gif courtesy of @babyimhome

Instructions:

Have fun. This is literally the least stressful thing you should be writing. Forget any rules about length or quality. Just write what you want.

Restrictions: No major character death, and no sexual assault/rape/molestation, even in the past.

Chapter length: 2 sentences – 500 words (you can write more but it needs to be complete by your date).

Uncertain about whether to write what you’re thinking of? Write it. If you’re really unsure, ask yourself whether the next writer can continue from your chapter. Feel free to DM me or comment on this post if you need a friend’s perspective.

Check-ins: I’ll follow up a few days before your deadline to see if you need anything and to help with publishing if you’re confused.

How do I publish on a03?

Step 1: Let yourself be added as a co-creator on a03 by following these steps:

Go to a03

When you're logged in, select "My Preferences" from the "Hi, [username]!" menu at the top of the page. If you're on your Dashboard, you can also choose "Preferences" in the navigation sidebar (found at the top of the page when you're using a mobile device).

Navigate to the Privacy section.

Check the box beside "Allow others to invite me to be a co-creator".

Select the "Update" button at the bottom of the page. Updating your preferences will return you to your Dashboard.

Step 2: Tell me when you’ve done this by commenting here or on discord. Then I can add you to the story.

Step 3: You’ll get an invite on your a03 account to be a co-author on a story called TDJ Collab: Gahan Edition. Click Yes.

Step 4: Upload your chapter on your date.

I'm soooo looking forward to going insane over these boys with you all.

[elalmacen-rp]

Lista oficial de prompts del Codember 2024

ESP: Y vamos a por el sexto año consecutivo del Codember en El Almacén. Las normas este año son las mismas que en años pasados. El Codember empezará el día 1 de Noviembre. Cada creación en relación a la(s) palabra(s) de inspiración se recomienda que se publique en los días señalados, pero si te atrasas, no te apures. Hasta que termine 2024 las creaciones podrán seguir posteadas; una vez pasemos a 2025, se hará el conteo y se añadirá a la lista oficial.

Puedes encontrar la lista en texto bajo el cut, tanto en español como en inglés, y puedes encontrar la imagen en tamaño completo aquí. Podéis ser todavía participantes oficiales si nos mandáis un ask para que os apuntemos con vuestro respectivo tag. Una vez empiece el Codember, tendréis que esperar al conteo de final de año para que os añadamos. También contamos con separadores oficiales, que podéis encontrar aquí.

ENG: And here we go for the sixth consecutive year of the Codember Challenge. The rules this year are the same as the last few events. Codember2024 will begin 1st of November. Each of the creations in relation to the word(s) of inspiration should be posted in the suggested dates, but if you fall behind, don’t fret. You can still post your creations until the end of the year- when we enter 2025, we’ll update the list with the full counter of each participant in our official list.

You can find the list in text form under the cut, in Spanish and English, and you can also find the full size image in English here. You can still be an official participant of Codember if you forward us the tag you’ll be using on your blog for it. But as soon as Codember starts, you’ll have to wait for the final count to be added to the list. We also have official dividers- you can find them here.

LISTA DE PARTICIPANTES | TAG GENERAL | TAG DE UPDATES

Versión en español:

- Taggeanos en @elalmacen-rp para darle reblog a tu post.

- Cada palabra cubre dos días de Noviembre. Puedes saltarte números pero no desordenarlos o adelantarte.

- No hace falta apuntarse para participar. Puedes formar parte de la lista oficial mandándonos un ask.

- Puedes participar con códigos, gráficos, escritos o lo que te apetezca crear.

- No pasa nada si te retrasas, simplemente ve posteando tus creaciones a medida que las tengas.

- Aplica la palabra como quieras, ¡es sólo inspiración!

01/02. Fragmento.

03/04. Susurro.

05/06. Ascuas.

07/08. Pulso.

09/10. Velo.

11/12. Mosaico.

13/14. Ancla.

15/16. Destello.

17/18. Órbita.

19/20. Puntada.

21/22. Eclipse.

23/24. Eco.

25/26. Cuna.

27/28. Huracán.

29/30. Rocío.

English version:

- Tag us at @elalmacen-rp so we can reblog your post.

- Every word covers two days of November. You can skip prompts but you can’t reorder them or get ahead.

- There is no need to join a list to participate. You can however join the official list sending us an ask.

- You can participate with codes, graphics, writting pieces or anything you wish to create.

- Don’t worry if you fall behind, just keep posting your creations as you make them.

- Use the word however you’d like, it’s only inspiration!

01/02. Fragment.

03/04. Whisper.

05/06. Embers.

07/08. Pulse.

09/10. Veil.

11/12. Mosaic.

13/14. Anchor.

15/16. Flash.

17/18. Orbit.

19/20. Stitch.

21/22. Eclipse.

23/24. Echo.

25/26. Cradle.

27/28. Hurricane.

29/30. Dew.

[deancasbigbang]

Title: Highly Unprofessional

Author: seidenapfel

Artist: Sasanka-27

Rating: Explicit

Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Length: 23000

Warnings: N/A

Tags: Professor Castiel, College Student Dean Winchester, Mutual Pining, Castiel is Jack Kline’s Parent, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues

Posting Date: November 4, 2024

Summary: On his first day of college, Dean feels like a fish out of water. After years of working his ass off with several jobs at once to fund his brother’s studies, his family and friends have decided to pay him back. That’s how he finds himself panicking in the lecture hall. Thankfully, a fellow student distracts him. She promptly becomes a good friend, and Dean has no idea how badly he will need her. The moment he lays eyes on his physics professor, Dean is lost. Castiel Novak seems like the man of his dreams. And when the professor’s son appears from under the podium, several lives take an unsuspected turn.

Excerpt: “Oh, fuck you,” Dean grouched, though he couldn’t help but grin. “No, thank you,” Charlie shot back without heat. “You’re not my type.” “Ouch.” Charlie chuckled, rolling her eyes. “As in, you're not a girl.” “Oh. Oh…” Taken aback, Dean was lost for words. Silently, he observed her in a new light. Of course, his reaction didn’t go unnoticed. Charlie sat up straight — or as straight as she could sit, given that she… Dean winced internally. Goddammit, Winchester! Get your shit together. A frown covered Charlie’s brow. “That a problem?” she asked coldly. “Uh… No?” Dean gulped as she glared at him, a hand on her bag, ready to leave. Finally, his main drive kicked back in. “Fuck, no. No, no, no. That’s… that’s awesome,” he stuttered, scratching the back of his head. The wary look on Charlie’s face was replaced by a broad smile, and Dean relaxed. “Saved by the bell, bitch.” Charlie nudged him. “And you got to know, there’s nothing wrong with working and saving up before being able to go to college. Actually, it’s kind of awesome that you’re here.” “That’s not—” Dean started to object, but then he shrugged. She didn’t need to hear his sorry life story. Instead, he offered his hand. “Dean.” “The dean? Head of the college? That at least explains your advanced age,” Charlie quipped, a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, shuddup,” Dean muttered, earning him another chuckle. Before Charlie could answer, though, someone cleared their throat. The entire lecture hall fell silent at once, except for two idiots in the last row who were still wrestling on their seats. Somewhere, a girl laughed, but everyone else kept their mouths shut. And then, a voice pierced through the silence. “Gentlemen.” Goosebumps erupted all over Dean’s body at that sound and a shiver ran down his spine. That voice was doing things to him. Fuck! Slowly, he turned his eyes to its source and froze. There, behind the podium, stood the most breathtaking man Dean had ever laid eyes on. “Thank you for gracing us with your presence,” the man went on with a snide remark when the tumult stopped before addressing the crowd. “Good morning. Now that we can finally start, I’m really impressed how many of you joined me this term. A physicist talking about comparative religion and science is not everyone’s cup of tea. But keep in mind that many of our predecessors studied both. Back in the day when scientists didn’t have to specialise.” He paused. “Even though I have to admit, the cryptid part in the class’ description might have sold it…” The lecture hall erupted in laughter and Dean was too mesmerised to look away. Hanging on the professor’s lips, he was hooked, especially after he got a name a moment later. Castiel Novak was not what Dean had expected. Whatever Sam had told him about college whenever Dean hadn’t tuned him out — nothing could have prepared him for the lecture he was just experiencing.

DCBB 2024 Posting Schedule

[black-arcana]

ARCH ENEMY Announces Fall 2025 European Tour With AMORPHIS, ELUVEITIE And GATECREEPER

Swedish/Canadian/American extreme metal titans ARCH ENEMY have announced the "European Blood Dynasty 2025 Tour". Support on the trek, which will kick off on October 10 in Stuttgart, Germany and conclude on December 15 in Düsseldorf, Germany, will come from AMORPHIS, ELUVEITIE and GATECREEPER.

Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, November 27 at 10 a.m. CET via www.archenemy.live.

ARCH ENEMY says: "We can't wait to see you again!"

"European Blood Dynasty 2025 Tour" dates:

Oct. 10 - Schleyerhalle, Stuttgart, DE Oct. 11 - Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt am Main, DE Oct. 12 - Zenith, Munich, DE Oct. 14 - Barba Negra, Budapest, HU Oct. 15 - Gasometer, Vienna, AT Oct. 17 - Columbiahalle, Berlin, DE Oct. 18 - Sportovni Hala Fortuna, Prague, CZ Oct. 19 - PreZero Arena Gliwice, Gliwice, PL Oct. 21 - The Hall, Zurich, CH Oct. 22 - Alcatraz, Milan, IT Oct. 23 - Radiant Bellevue, Lyon, FR Oct. 25 - Vistalegre, Madrid, ES Oct. 27 - Zenith, Paris, FR Oct. 28 - AFAS Live, Amsterdam, NL Oct. 30 - Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, UK Oct. 31 - O2 Apollo, Manchester, UK Dec. 01 - Eventim Apollo, London, UK Dec. 03 - Rockhal, Esch sur Alzette, LU Dec. 04 - Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, BE Dec. 05 - Haus Auensee, Leipzig, DE Dec. 07 - Partille Arena, Gothenburg, SE Dec. 08 - Annexet, Stockholm, SE Dec. 10 - Ice Hall, Helsinki, FI Dec. 12 - Sentrum Scene, Oslo, NO Dec. 13 - Poolen, Copenhagen, DK Dec. 14 - Swiss Life Hall, Hannover, DE Dec. 15 - Mitsubishi Electric Hall, Düsseldorf, DE

ARCH ENEMY's twelfth studio album, "Blood Dynasty", will arrive on March 28, 2025 via Century Media Records.

ARCH ENEMY's 2024 European co-headline tour, "Rising From The North", with IN FLAMES, wrapped up on November 5 in Helsinki, Finland.

ARCH ENEMY guitarist Michael Amott stated about "Blood Dynasty": "This new album pushes the boundaries of what we've done before — it's everything you've come to expect from this band, and then some! We can't wait for you to hear it and feel the energy we've poured into every track. Welcome to the 'Blood Dynasty'!"

Next to the limited deluxe editions that feature two exclusive bonus tracks, fans can direct their attention to the limited liquid blood vinyl that is exclusively available in the band stores and limited to 666 copies.

Issued in July 2024, the "Dream Stealer" single marked ARCH ENEMY's first new music since the release of the "Deceivers" album, which came out in August 2022.

"Dream Stealer" was mixed by Jens Bogren and mastered by Tony Lindgren at Fascination Street Studios. The accompanying music video was directed and produced by Patric Ullaeus.

Three months ago, Amott told Pulp Magazine about "Dream Stealer" and ARCH ENEMY's plans for new music: "We've been staying busy for sure and are really focused on writing and recording new stuff in between the touring we're doing. I'm kind of always coming up with new musical and lyrical ideas though — I just keep going as it's what I enjoy doing anyway. Making music is a natural process, and it's pretty much a daily thing, so it can be hard to pinpoint exactly when everything was conceived. I do, however, actually remember that the initial seed for 'Dream Stealer' was written during a songwriting session I did with Daniel [Erlandsson, drums] in Los Angeles, California, two years ago, and then it's been rearranged and updated a lot till it reached its final state that you're now hearing."

Asked if it was a conscious decision to go back to the "classic ARCH ENEMY" direction and approach with "Dream Stealer", Amott said: "I've seen some seriously great feedback from the fans, and that's always very encouraging, of course. Personally, I don't know if I’d necessarily say 'Dream Stealer' is a throwback to the sound of the past, but I get what they mean — the song has the energy and speed that is very exciting and infectious. Maybe there is a hint of vintage ARCH ENEMY in there, and why not? I'm looking forward to playing it live on stage — I think it is going to be intense as hell."

ARCH ENEMY played its first concert with new guitarist Joey Concepcion on April 24, 2024 at Musinsa Garage in Seoul, South Korea. The show was part of ARCH ENEMY's 2024 Asian tour.

Last December, ARCH ENEMY announced that it had "amicably" parted ways with longtime guitarist Jeff Loomis.

Jeff, who was the main songwriter in his previous group, NEVERMORE, joined ARCH ENEMY in late 2014, but was not involved in the writing for the latter act's last two albums, 2017's "Will To Power" and the aforementioned "Deceivers".

ARCH ENEMY is:

Alissa White-Gluz - Vocals Michael Amott - Guitar Joey Concepcion - Guitar Sharlee D'Angelo - Bass Daniel Erlandsson - Drums

Photo credit: Katja Kuhl

[patriottruth]

The tulsi gabbard Appointment and The 2024 U.S. Elections Aren't The Only Times donald j. trump and his Russian Asset Republicans Worked With Russians Against United States' Interests: COVID-19, USA Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act Sabotage, The Massive Russian SolarWinds Hack of 33,000 U.S. Government and Private Sector Computer Networks, and Russian 2024 Election Day Interference (compiled from Wikipedia):

In November 2019, a security researcher notified SolarWinds that credentials to a third party FTP server had a weak password of "solarwinds123", warning that "any hacker could upload malicious [code]" that would then be distributed to SolarWinds customers. The New York Times reported SolarWinds did not employ a chief information security officer and that employee passwords had been posted on GitHub in 2019.

December 1, 2019: COVID-19 pandemic: First known human case of Coronavirus disease 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei, China.

December 5, 2019: Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi asks the House Judiciary Committee to begin drafting the articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump.

December 9, 2019: The World Anti-Doping Agency votes unanimously to ban Russia from international sport for four years for doping offences, meaning it will be excluded from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

December 10, 2019: Democrats in the United States House of Representatives announce formal charges against President Donald Trump, accusing him of abusing power and "obstructing Congress"; he becomes the third U.S. president in history to face impeachment.

December 18, 2019: The U.S. House of Representatives approves two articles of impeachment against President donald trump, making him the third president to be impeached in the nation's history.

December 29, 2019: The Taliban's ruling council agrees to a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan, opening a door to a peace agreement with the United States.

In January and February 2020, U.S. intelligence agencies delivered over a dozen classified warnings in the President's Daily Brief about COVID-19, including its potential to inflict severe political and economic damage. President Donald Trump typically did not read daily briefs and often has "little patience" for oral summaries, The Washington Post reported. Each brief was also shared with other officials in the administration. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which produces the President's Daily Brief, denied that there were repeated mentions of COVID-19.

On January 8, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a health advisory regarding an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, which was being caused by a yet-unidentified virus.

January 16, 2020: The first impeachment trial of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, begins in the U.S. Senate.

On January 27, 2020, Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, predicted that "things are going to get worse before they get better". Three days later, Fauci stated that the COVID-19 outbreak "could turn into a global pandemic".

On February 10, 2020, Trump stated that "a lot of people think that [COVID-19] goes away in April with the heat … Typically, that will go away in April" (later, on April 3, he denied ever having given "a date" for the departure of the virus)

On February 13, 2020, CDC director Robert Redfield contradicted Trump, saying that the "virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year". Redfield also predicted that it "will become a community virus at some point in time, this year or next year".

On February 16, 2020, Anthony Fauci warned that it was not necessarily true that COVID-19 would "disappear with the warm weather."

February 25, 2020, was the day that the CDC first warned the American public to prepare for a local outbreak. That day, Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said that "We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that this is going to be bad." Messonnier predicted that "we will see community spread in this country", and it was only a matter of time. As a result, "disruption to everyday life might be severe". Messonnier stated that the CDC is preparing, and "now is the time for hospitals, schools and everyday people to begin preparing as well."

On February 25, 2020, Anthony Fauci declared that given how COVID-19 was spreading in other nations, it was "inevitable that this will come to the United States" as well. On February 26, CDC Director Robert Redfield said it would be "prudent to assume this pathogen will be with us for some time to come".

On February 26, 2020, Trump contradicted Messonnier, stating: "I don't think it's inevitable" that a U.S. outbreak would occur, "It probably will, it possibly will … Whatever happens, we're totally prepared." Trump additionally declared that the number of infected was "going very substantially down, not up".

On February 27, 2020, The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, who helped to write the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), which forms the framework for the federal response, warned a private group of his constituents that COVID-19 is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history, and is probably more akin to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. "There will be, I'm sure, times that communities, probably some in North Carolina, have a transmission rate where they say, 'Let's close schools for two weeks. Everybody stay home,' We're going to send a military hospital there; it's going to be in tents and going to be set up on the ground somewhere, It's going to be a decision the president and DOD make."

On February 27, 2020, Trump said of the virus: "It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. And from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better. Could maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows." Also on February 27, Trump declared that the risk to the American public from COVID-19 "remains very low".

February 27, 2020 stock market crash: Triggered by fears of the spreading of COVID-19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunges by 1,190.95 points, or 4.4%, to close at 25,766.64, its largest one-day point decline at the time. This follows several days of large falls, marking the worst week for the index since the 2007–2008 financial crisis.

On February 29, 2020, Trump said that "additional cases in the United States are likely", but "there's no reason to panic at all." When a reporter asked Trump: "How should Americans prepare for this virus?" Trump answered: "I hope they don't change their routine".

February 29, 2020: A conditional peace agreement is signed between the United States and the Taliban. The U.S. begins gradually withdrawing combat troops from Afghanistan on March 10.

On March 4, 2020, donald trump appeared on Fox News's Hannity by phone, where he claimed a 3.4% mortality rate projected by the World Health Organization (WHO) was a "false number", and stated his "hunch" that the true figure would be "way under 1%". Trump also predicted that many people infected with COVID-19 would experience "very mild" symptoms, "get better very rapidly" and thus they "don't even call a doctor". Thus, there may be "hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work—some of them go to work, but they get better."

From March 6 to March 12, 2020, donald trump stated on four occasions that the coronavirus would "go away". On March 10, Surgeon General Jerome Adams stated that "this is likely going to get worse before it gets better."

March 2020: The nightmare of empty grocery shelves begins. Stores capping/limiting purchases.

By March 11, 2020, the virus had spread to 110 countries, and the WHO officially declared a pandemic. The CDC had already warned that large numbers of people needing hospital care could overload the healthcare system, which would lead to otherwise preventable deaths. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said the mortality from COVID-19 was ten times higher than the common flu. By March 12, diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. exceeded a thousand. Trump declared a national emergency on March 13. On March 16, the White House advised against any gatherings of more than ten people. Three days later, the United States Department of State advised U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel.

The USA Freedom Act, which became law on June 2, 2015, reenacted the expired USA Patriot Act sections through 2019. However, Section 215 of the law was amended to disallow the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue its mass phone data collection program. Instead, phone companies will retain the data and the NSA can obtain information about targeted individuals with a federal search warrant.

On August 14, 2019, the outgoing Director of National Intelligence sent a letter to Congress stating the Trump Administration's intention to seek permanent extension of the provisions of FISA that under the terms of the USA FREEDOM Act are scheduled to expire on December 15, 2019, namely the "lone wolf" authority allowing surveillance of a suspected terrorist who is inspired by foreign ideology but is not acting at the direction of a foreign party, the roving wiretap authority regarding surveillance of a terrorist who enters the United States and the authority to allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain certain business records in a national security investigation, as well as the call detail records program undertaken by the NSA. In reference to the latter authority, the letter announced that "The National Security Agency has suspended the call detail records program that uses this authority and deleted the call detail records acquired under this authority."

Jurisdiction over the reauthorization of the expiring FISA provisions is shared by the Judiciary and Intelligence committees in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives; the House Committee on the Judiciary and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held separate public hearings on the reauthorization in September 2019 and November 2019, respectively. Opposition to the call detail records program has led to some Congressional demands that the authority for the program not be renewed. Additional complications hindering reauthorization arose from a report of the US Department of Justice Inspector General finding fault with certain FISA applications in connection with the 2016 presidential campaign, which led some members of Congress to insist on reforms to FISA as a condition of reauthorizing the expiring USA FREEDOM Act provisions.With Congressional attention focused on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in 2020, the House of Representatives passed a long-term extension of the USA FREEDOM Act on March 11, 2020, just four days before the scheduled expiration of the Act on March 15, 2020, by a wide, bipartisan margin that kept the protections of the Act largely the same. Two months later, in May of 2020, the Senate passed an extension of the Act by an 80-16 vote that expanded some privacy protections, but the Senate version did not include protection of Americans’ internet browsing and search histories from warrantless surveillance, which was proposed by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and failed by one vote.

According to former KGB major Yuri Shvets, donald trump became the target of a joint Czech intelligence services and KGB spying operation after he married Czech model Ivana Zelnickova and was cultivated as an "asset" by Russian intelligence since 1977: "Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump as far back as 1977, viewing Trump as an exploitable target." Luke Harding writes that documents show Czechoslovakia spied on donald trump during the 1970s and 1980s, when he was married to Ivana Trump, his Czechoslovakia-born first wife. Harding writes that the Czechoslovakian government spied on donald trump because of his political ambitions and notability as a businessman. It is known that there were close ties between Czechoslovakia's StB and the USSR's KGB. Harding also describes how, already since 1987, the Soviet Union was interested in Trump. In his book Collusion, Harding asserts that the "top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB." Then-KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov "wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans". Harding proceeds to describe the KGB's cultivation process, and posits that they may have opened a file on Trump as early as 1977, when he married Ivana. "According to files in Prague, declassified in 2016, Czech spies kept a close eye on the couple in Manhattan, … [with] periodic surveillance of the trump family in the United States."

donald j. trump and His Republican Allies Allowed the USA PATRIOT ACT/FREEDOM ACT to Expire on March 15, 2020 and They Didn't Reinstate It until May of 2020.

March 2020: SolarWinds's Orion software hotfixes were released to 33,000 Orion customers.Hackers acquired superuser access to SAML token-signing certificates. This SAML certificate was then used to forge new tokens to allow hackers trusted and highly privileged access to networks. The attack used a backdoor in a SolarWinds library; when an update to SolarWinds occurred, the malicious attack would go unnoticed due to the trusted certificate. APT29, aka Cozy Bear, working for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), was reported to be behind the 2020 attack. Victims of this attack include the cybersecurity firm FireEye, the US Treasury Department, the US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, as well as the US Department of Homeland Security. Prominent international SolarWinds customers investigating whether they were impacted include the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Parliament, UK Government Communications Headquarters, the UK Ministry of Defence, the UK National Health Service (NHS), the UK Home Office, and AstraZeneca.

December 13, 2020: SolarWinds begins notifying customers, including a post on its Twitter account, “SolarWinds asks all customers to upgrade immediately to Orion Platform version 2020.2.1 HF 1 to address a security vulnerability.”

December 15, 2020 SolarWinds Victims named and timeline moves back — Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Commerce and Treasury Departments, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Institutes of Health, and the State Department were all affected. Various security officials and vendors expressed serious dismay that the attack was more widespread and began much earlier than expected. The initial attack date was now pegged to sometime in March 2020, which meant the attack had been underway for months before its detection.

December 17, 2020: New SolarWinds victims revealed — The Energy Department (DOE) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, were publicly named as victims of the attack.

On December 21, 2020, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all agreed that Russia was engaged in “a significant and ongoing cybersecurity campaign” against the United States. Russian asset, donald j. trump, immediately replied: “The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality,” Trump wrote. “I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).”

March 16, 2020: stock market crash: The the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) falls by 2,997.10, the single largest point drop in history and the second-largest percentage drop ever at 12.93%, an even greater crash than Black Monday (1929). This follows the U.S. Federal Reserve announcing that it will cut its target interest rate to 0–0.25%.

On March 19, 2020, donald trump told journalist Bob Woodward that he was deliberately downplaying the risk when communicating with the public. "I wanted to always play it down," Trump said. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

On March 24, 2020, donald trump argued that: "We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu … But we've never closed down the country for the flu." On March 27, he stated: "You can call it a flu. You can call it a virus. You know you can call it many different names. I'm not sure anybody even knows what it is."

On March 24, 2020, donald trump declared that "we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel"; a day later the U.S. surpassed 1,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Throughout March and early April, several state, city, and county governments imposed "stay at home" quarantines on their populations to stem the spread of the virus. By March 26, The New York Times data showed the United States to have the highest number of known cases of any country. By March 27, the country had reported over 100,000 cases.

From March 30 to April 7, 2020, Trump stated on four occasions that COVID-19 would "go away".

On March 31, 2020, contradicting his many previous comparisons of COVID-19 to the flu, Trump said: "It's not the flu … It's vicious". When reporters asked him if his initial dismissive comments on the virus had misled Americans, he replied: "I want to give people a feeling of hope. I could be very negative … You know, I'm a cheerleader for the country." Asked further if he had known—despite his claims that the outbreak was under control—that the situation would turn out so severe, Trump replied: "I thought it could be. I knew everything. I knew it could be horrible, and I knew it could be maybe good."

On November 5, 2024, during the official Election Day, several non-credible bomb threats that originated from Russia briefly disrupted voting in two polling places in Fulton County, Georgia. Both re-opened after about 30 minutes. Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Russian interference was behind the Election Day bomb hoaxes. In a statement, the FBI said it was aware of non-credible bomb threats to polling locations in several states, with many of them originating from Russian email domains. The bomb threats were solely made against Democratic-leaning areas. On the same day, U.S. federal officials again reported that Russian sources were actively engaged in "influence operations", citing disinformation in specific videos that falsely claimed Kamala Harris had taken a bribe and false news stories about the Democratic Party and election fraud in Georgia.

On November 8, 2024 it was reported that one of the Russian email addresses behind Election Day bomb threats was used in June 2024 bomb threats targeting LGBTQ+ events in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas.

If you're an American who wants this matter and the anti-American traitors responsible investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, please contact Democratic Leaders Schumer and Jeffries, Marc Elias and Democracy Docket, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington regarding enforcing donald j. trump's insurrectionist disqualification and electing Kamala Harris as the 47th President of the United States. If you want this matter investigated and prosecuted, the best person to do it is an experienced criminal prosecutor sitting as the U.S. President.

[equallyshaw]

star crossed loves au | connor bedard x kailey hughes au ↳ Connor x Kailey timeline!

↳ a little more info on the two! ↳ idk if this is like a thing with au's...but imma do it anyway lol ↳ au masterlist.

first time they saw eachother: at a diner in the loop (12/2023)

first time they spoke to one another: over insta dm's then texting

Spent all of 2024 as friends.

first date: new years eve, going into 2025

date when they became an official couple: 01/04/2025

first game she attended: feburary 2025! (blurb will be written!)

first time she met his parents and sister: april 2024!

first almost slip up to her brothers: march 2024 at the end of her semester and sea about their friendship.

first team outing: april 2024! blurb here.

first friendship break up: july 2024

reconciliation: november 2024

first time the brothers meet connor: janirary 2025! depicted here.

First official break up in july 2025. depicted here.

Second breakup: may 2026

connor goes back home to vancouver after the season, while kailey heads to california to be with cousin maya

kailey begins to date childhood friend, brendan brisson. depicted here.

connor and kailey see one another for the first time in august, when she visits becca, alex vlasic, tessa (alex's fiance) and lukas reichel

connor see's a (ex) friend of kailey for about two months before breaking off with her.

trevor walks in on brenden and kailey, isn't too pleased. (bribes him with coffee dates, because of student loans obviously)

kailey breaks up with brenden in October. (still hasn't told her brothers are this point about him)

goes home for thanksgiving, spills the beans on brenden, no one is happy ofc.

goes to chicago for new years to be with becca and tessa, reichels gf and soon to be wife of alex vlasic!

connor and kailey have a deep conversation, going over everything between the two.

the two get back together that night. 01/2027

kailey and connor only tell their closest friends and teammates in chicago, just to avoid unnecessary drama.

connor and kailey head from california to vancouver in june for a trip to his hometown.

kailey and connor show up to the annual hughes-european trip in july. depicted here a tad bit.

kailey and connor head back to california to pack up her apartment with her cousin, because she now has a finance job in chicago!

a little breakdown of the timeline!! Just add a year to each year, as I switched it!!

they get engaged in vancouver in 2027, in august right before they head back to chicago. (blurb will be written of him asking her three brothers and dad during the yearly hughes-euro trip (now dubbed, hughes-bedard euro trip))

adopt a dog together in October 2027. (they've only had crosby the infamous black cat, for a few years now.)

get's married in july 2029.

adopts 1st child, in june 2032. (connor is 27 and kailey, 28.)

hope you guys enjoyed! just a bit of a cheat sheet for me and you lol

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Mars enters Leo (still in pre-retrograde shadow)

Timeline (current events in bold)

Friday, October 4, 2024, 04:40 UT - transiting Mars enters pre-retrograde shadow, 17°01’ Cancer

Monday, November 4, 04:10 UT - transiting Mars enters Leo

Friday, December 6, 23:33 UT - transiting Mars stations retrograde, 6°10’ Leo

Monday, January 6, 2025, 20:45 UT - transiting Mars retrogrades back into Cancer

Monday, February 24, 02:00 UT - transiting Mars stations direct, 17°01’ Cancer

Friday, April 18, 04:22 UT - transiting Mars re-enters Leo

Friday, May 2, 2025, 06:06 UT - transiting Mars exits post-retrograde shadow, 6°10’ Leo

This is a “mulligan” ingress - no matter how well we think we’re doing (and with Mars in Leo, we think we’re doing magnificently), once Mars stations retrograde our “progress” will start to unravel. Phooey. It will affect all of Mars’ areas:

Physical strength

Energy levels

Sexuality

How we go after what we want

In fact, many of the articles I’ve read about the astrology of 2025 recommend that we hold off on implementing any major changes until after Mars stations direct. Use the Capricorn Solstice energy to plant the seed.

Allow a few days on either side of the following dates:

Thursday, November 14 - Mars/Leo inconjunct Venus/Capricorn, 3°03’. Mars/Leo is passionate and extravagant ; Venus/Capricorn is pragmatic and stingy. It (always) helps to have good physical outlets for frustrated Mars energy!

Sunday, November 17 - Monday, November 18:

Mars/Leo trine North Node/Aries, sextile South Node/Libra, 3°51’

Mars/Leo (3°52’) semi-square Jupiter/Rx (18°52’)

Mars/Leo (4°06’) sesquiquad Mercury/Sagittarius (19°06’)

It feels like some of us are egging people on, when they’re arguing with each other, because we think it’s funny. Could also manifest as us butting in with our 2¢ worth; no one asked us for our opinions but we give them anyway. Try to observe without involving yourself; circumstances will change.

Wednesday, November 27 - Saturday, November 30:

Mars/Leo trine Sun/Sagittarius, 5°34’

Mars/Leo (5°54’) sesquiquad Mercury Rx/Sagittarius (20°54’)

Either we are arrogant and don’t think we’ve done anything wrong - or we’re eager to get better at doing our Marses….

[stabbyfoxandrew]

I have sought out some wifi to request mer roadtrip please!

-@aftgphoenix

WIP Wednesday (11/27) | Mer Roadtrip AU (Part 97)

ANDREW

Because Andrew had to piss, he volunteered to go inside and pay for the gas. Neil had handed him a couple bills and announced the number on the pump, as if Andrew couldn't see it. After taking care of business, Andrew had a couple bucks left so he's now staring at the refrigerated soda section. He grabs himself a bottle of Mountain Dew and taps out a message to Neil asking his preference.

He gets no reply.

"C'mon Neil. It's not a hard question." While he waits, Andrew runs his fingers over the keys. He almost gets the urge to dial Nicky's number, but fights it. He doesn't know what he'd do if Nicky didn't answer. Or what he'd do if he did. He doesn't want to talk about the last few months. He just wants to get home.

Fuck, what if he gets home and there's nothing there waiting for him? If his pod never made it back either. The thought makes his stomach roil and Andrew thinks perhaps he shouldn't have eaten that breakfast sandwich. He waits another few seconds then shoves through to the front of the store to look out the window. Neil's leaned up against the car with the nozzle shoved in the gas tank, staring out at the road. Andrew sends another message and huffs out a breath when it goes unread too.

Andrew snatches another bottle of soda, chucks a couple bucks at the cashier, and heads outside. As he's wedging the drinks into the cup holders, one of which is housing Neil's fucking phone, Neil climbs back into the car and shuts the door behind him before going for his seat belt.

"Do you like Coke?"

Neil shrugs. "It's fine I guess. Why?”

"I personally think it tastes like bathroom cleaner, but you didn't answer my text so you're stuck with it now." Andrew says, cracking the seal on his own drink and taking a swig. Ah, caffeine never tasted so good. He tosses Neil's phone into his lap. "Keep the fucking thing in your pocket."

NEIL

Neil gets the feeling he's being scolded, but he lets it slide off his back. He flips the phone open to see Andrew's text messages.

what drink hello neil wake up

Neil chews the inside of his jaw. "I'm not used to having a phone."

"Get used to it." Andrew demands. "You're supposed to answer when I message you, remember?"

"I know. I just forgot it."

"Don't forget it. It could save your life, idiot." Andrew says. Then he gestures out the windshield. "Let's go."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 26, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 27, 2024

Today President Joe Biden pardoned more than 2000 former military personnel who had been convicted of engaging in consensual sex under a gay sex ban in the military that has since been repealed. People covered under the pardon can apply to have their military discharges corrected and to recover the pay and benefits the convictions cost them. “[M]aintaining the finest fighting force in the world…means making sure that every member of our military feels safe and respected,” Biden said in a statement. 

Biden said he was “righting an historic wrong.” “This is about dignity, decency, and ensuring the culture of our Armed Forces reflect the values that make us an exceptional nation,” he said.

On this date in 2015, the Supreme Court handed down the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which said that states must license and recognize same-sex marriage because of the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that citizens must have the equal protection of the laws and cannot be deprived of rights without due process of the laws.  

In the New York Times today, Kate Zernike explained how the public conversations about abortion have shifted in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. The state bans that went into place have illustrated that abortion is indeed healthcare, as people suffering miscarriages have been unable to obtain the imperative medical care they need. 

Zernike quoted pollster Tresa Undem, who estimated that before the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe, less than 15% of Americans thought that abortion was relevant to them personally. Now, though, Undem said, “it’s about pregnancy, and everybody knows someone who had a baby or wants to have a baby or might get pregnant. It’s profoundly personal to a majority of the public.”

In the three weeks since Biden announced restrictions on asylum applications for undocumented immigrants, the number of people trying to cross the border has dropped more than 40% to its lowest level since he took office. This information will likely come up in tomorrow’s scheduled debate between the president and presumptive Republican nominee Trump, who has made it clear he intends to accuse the president of promoting immigration policies that bring criminals into the United States.

Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a military veteran who joined the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and who has fiercely criticized Trump, today endorsed Biden for president. 

In a video, Kinzinger said: “[W]hile I certainly don’t agree with President Biden on everything, and I never thought I’d be endorsing a Democrat for president, I know that he will always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world: our democracy. Donald Trump poses a direct threat to every fundamental American value. He doesn’t care about our country. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about himself. And he’ll hurt anyone or anything in pursuit of power.” 

On CNN tonight, Georgia governor Brian Kemp told Kaitlan Collins he did not vote for Trump in his state’s Republican primary, although he said he would “support the ticket” in November so that Georgia would remain in Republican hands. It was an interesting statement, since he could easily have deflected the question or simply said he voted for Trump if he cared about avoiding Trump’s wrath. But he appeared not to care, suggesting that Trump’s power even with prominent Republicans is slipping. 

Two Republican voters from Pennsylvania told MSNBC tonight that they are voting for Biden. When asked whether they think there is “a silent Biden voter out there,” one said, “I do. I know there is…. We don’t want to talk about it, but we’re all going to vote for Joe Biden.” 

By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court today blessed the practice of taking “gratuities” as a gift for past behavior by an official, distinguishing them from “bribes,” which require proof that there was an illegal deal in place. The case involved a former mayor from Indiana who helped a local truck dealership win $1.1 million in city contracts and then asked for and received $13,000 from the dealership’s owners. The mayor was found guilty of violating a federal anti-corruption law that prohibits state and local officials from taking gifts worth more than $5,000 from someone the official had helped to land lucrative government business.

For the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that the law prohibited officials from accepting “gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos or the like” in thanks for an official’s help, although David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times noted that the law came into play only when the gift was worth more than $5,000. 

Savage pointed out that as the federal law in question covers about 20 million state and local officials, the decision could have wide impact. This decision that officials can accept “gifts” so long as they are not “bribes” might have something to do with the fact that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have accepted significant gifts from donors—Thomas’s count is upward of $4 million—and it doesn’t relieve the sense that this Supreme Court, with its three right-wing Trump-appointed justices, is untrustworthy.

Writing for justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and herself, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, “Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions.” 

Yesterday, House Republicans released draft legislation to fund the Justice Department and the Commerce Departments for fiscal year 2025, which starts October 1. They propose to slash nearly a billion dollars from the Department of Justice in retaliation for its bringing cases against Trump, and both to cut funding for the FBI and to block the construction of its new headquarters. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the cuts “unacceptable” and said that the “effort to defund the Justice Department and its essential law enforcement functions will make our fight against violent crime all the more difficult.”

In a secret vote yesterday  by a House panel that fell along party lines, House Republicans also agreed to say that the last Congress’s construction of the January 6th committee was invalid and illegal. This enabled them to back a last-ditch effort by Trump ally Steve Bannon to stay out of jail. After Bannon refused to respond to the committee’s subpoena for documents and testimony about the January 6 attack, a jury found him guilty of being in contempt of Congress. 

Today, Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) filed a brief with the Supreme Court saying that Bannon was right to ignore the subpoena because the committee was illegally organized. Politico’s Kyle Cheney pointed out that the lawyer for the brief is not a House lawyer but rather comes from America First Legal, a public interest organization put together by Trump loyalist Stephen Miller to challenge the legal efforts to rein in Trump’s orders when in office. 

Finally, Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer reported in The Recombobulation Area today that event bookings expected for the week of the Republican National Convention, which is set to begin on July 15, four days after Judge Juan Merchan sentences Trump for his 34 criminal convictions, have not materialized. Estimates were that the convention would bring $200 million in economic impact to Milwaukee, but that now appears to be optimistic. “[This is] certainly nothing like we were told or promised,” chef Gregory León told Shafer. With locals staying home to avoid the downtown area during the convention, “[i]f the [reservation] book stays the way it is, we’re not going to make enough money to cover costs.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[conradscrime]

The Murder of Molly Bish & the Connection to Holly Piirainen

August 20, 2024

Molly Bish was born on August 2, 1983 in Warren, Massachusetts. At the time of her death, she was 16 years old and was working as a lifeguard at Comins Pond.

On June 26, 2000, Molly's mother Magi, noticed a mustached man in a white car parked in the lot of the beach where Molly's lifeguard post was. He seemed suspicious at the time, but Molly's mother did not think anything further until after her daughter had disappeared.

The next day, June 27, 2000, Magi drove her daughter Molly near the lifeguard station. Magi reported that she had not seen the strange man there that day, however, another witness reported that he saw a man matching that description in the pond's parking lot just minutes before Molly arrived.

A local worker reportedly saw a similar car parked at a cemetery connected to the pond by a path. Magi was the last known person to see Molly before she disappeared. A few hours later, police contacted Molly's parents to tell them that no lifeguard had been on duty that day and that Molly's belongings had been left unattended at her station.

An extensive search was done, and eventually it became the largest and most expensive search for a missing person ever done in Massachusetts. Molly's case was featured on many tv shows including America's Most Wanted, Unsolved Mysteries, and 48 Hours.

A hunter had seen a blue bathing suit in the woods on Whiskey Hill in Palmer, in the late fall of 2002. In May 2003, this hunter mentioned it and the police were contacted. A search of the area found Molly's body on June 9, 2003, almost three years later.

Molly's body had been found 5 miles from her family home. No cause of death was determined, but investigators believe Molly was murdered and her remains were buried.

There have been a few suspects looked into in relation to Molly's murder. In 2005, a Connecticut man who had been charged with attempted kidnapping in New York was briefly looked into.

Later, in 2009, a man named Rodney Stanger, then residing in Florida, who had been convicted of murdering his girlfriend, had actually lived in Southbridge, MA, a few miles from the town of Warren for more than 20 years.

Rodney had moved to Florida after Molly's murder. Following Rodney's girlfriends murder, Crystal Morrison (the couple had been together for 20 years), Crystal's sister alerted authorities.

Rodney was known to have a similar white car to the one seen the day before Molly disappeared. He was known to also fish in Comins Pond and hunt in the woods where Molly's body had been found. Rodney also matched the description that Magi Bish had reported, however he has not been charged in the case.

While Rodney was being investigated into Molly's murder, he was also questioned about a 1993 murder of a girl named Holly Piirainen. Holly went missing from Sturbridge, and was Molly's age. Molly had actually written a letter of hope to Holly's parents in 1993. Rodney has not been charged in Holly's case either.

In 2012, forensic evidence led authorities to a man named David Pouliot to Holly's case. However, David had died in 2003.

In November 2011, a man named Gerald Battistoni was named a suspect in Molly's death. Gerald had worked as an informant for the Eastern Hampden County Narcotic Task Force. Gerald had spent time in prison for repeatedly raping a teenage girl in the early 90's. He attempted suicide in prison after newspaper articles identified him as a suspect in both Molly and Holly's cases.

Gerald had a criminal record dating back to 1980, had been in the area where Molly's body had been discovered, and resembles the composite sketch of the man Magi saw in the parking lot before her daughter disappeared.

DNA testing was asked to be completed. Gerald died in November 2014. There is no clear answers as to what came of the DNA, but it must not have matched or been completed.

A new person of interest was announced on June 3, 2021, a registered sex offender named Francis P. Sumner Sr. He was found dead inside his home in Spencer, MA, on May 4, 2016. He had a lengthy criminal record but it is unclear why he was connected to the case as a suspect.

On July 9, 1982, Francis was convicted of aggravated rape and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 15-18 years on the rape charge, to be served concurrently with 9-10 years on the kidnapping charges. The earliest he could have been released from prison would have been in 1997. It is unclear how long Francis was incarcerated.

No arrests have been made in Molly Bish's case, however Francis is considered a person of interest. Investigator's have not given up on the case, and encourage the use of familial DNA, hoping that forensic evidence may lead to some answers eventually. Molly's family advocates for child abduction awareness. There is an anonymous tip line that's open for information.

In 2004, Magi and John Bish founded The Molly Bish Center and Foundation in collaboration with Anna Maria College.

Holly Piirainen, the girl who was killed 7 years before Molly, was also found in a wooden area near Hampden County. Police have considered that the two cases could be related. Some of Molly's letter to Holly's family reads,

"I am very sorry. I wish I could make it up to you. Holly is a very pretty girl. She is almost as tall as me. I wish I knew Holly. I hope they found her."

Both cases remain unsolved.

Holly Piirainen's case will be posted tomorrow.

[fangirlvibez]

The Bradshaw son and Seresin daughter - introduction

Characters: Bradley Bradshaw x female!OC Madison Ella Hanscott, Son!OC Nicolas Peter Bradshaw, Jake Seresin x female!OC Quinn Kelsell, Daughter!OC Hazel Alexandra Seresin, Son!OC Benjamin Jacob Seresin

Warnings: in this chapter: mention of (teenage) pregnancy, pregnancy difficulties, Navy inaccuracy. (Let me know if I forgot a warning)

Summary of the story: The 16 year old daughter of Jake Seresin gets pregnant. The dad: the 18 year old son of Bradley Bradshaw. How will the dads react to their kids becoming teen parents?

A/N: English is not my first language, so if there is any spelling or grammar errors: please let me know

next part - masterlist

Introducing the families

✈️ Name: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw

✈️ Birthday: June 27, 1984

✈️ Nationality: American

✈️ Gender: male

✈️ Profession: Naval Aviator

✈️ Husband to Madison Ella Hanscott

✈️ Father to Nicolas Peter Bradshaw

✈️ He and Madison met at the navy base in 2020, 1 year after the dagger mission.

✈️ Madison was there for a documentary about the Navy troughout the years, Bradley was one of the people Madison interviewed.

✈️ Bradley asked her out on the last day of shooting the documentary.

✈️ After 2 years of dating, the couple got married on July 10, 2022. 9 months later Nicolas Peter Bradshaw was born.

✈️ Bradley has a good bond with his son and is very found of the idea of his son becoming a naval aviator like he is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

📓 Name: Madison Ella Hanscott

📓 Birthday: March 5, 1991

📓 Nationality: American

📓 Gender: female

📓 Profession: writer and TV journalist

📓 Wife to Bradley Bradshaw

📓 Mother to Nicolas Peter Bradshaw

📓 She and Bradley met at the navy base in 2020, 1 year after the dagger mission when Madison was in charge of a documentary about the Navy.

📓 She is best friends with Quinn Kelsell.

📓 She is a very busy person and does a lot of overwork.

📓 Her and Bradley decided to buy Sparky for Nick when he was 16. It was around the time both her and Bradley were both very busy with their jobs and they didn’t want Nick to feel alone in his home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🏈 Name: Nicolas Peter Bradshaw

🏈 Birthday: April 9, 2023

🏈 Nationality: American

🏈 Gender: male

🏈 Profession: Naval academy student

🏈 Son to Bradley Bradshaw and Madison Ella Hanscott

🏈 Boyfriend to Hazel Alexandra Seresin

🏈 Nick used to play football in high school but stopped to focus on getting into the naval academy.

🏈 His best friend is his dog Sparky

🏈 His dads opinion is very important to him.

🏈 He is named after his grandad and his dads godfather.

🏈 He fell in love with Hazel when she came knocking on her door. She was wearing a sundress and crying about her first date standing her up. Nick was 17 and Hazel was 15. Nick took her out and slowly fell in love with his best friend.

🏈 Nobody knows they are together because they don’t want it to be weird between their parents if they ever break up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

✈️ Name: Jake “Hangman” Seresin

✈️ Birthday: November 17, 1987

✈️ Nationality: American

✈️ Gender: male

✈️ Profession: Naval Aviator

✈️ Husband to Quinn Kelsell

✈️ Father to Hazel Alexandra Seresin and Benjamin Jacob Seresin

✈️ He and Quinn met at a Bradshaw party in 2021. With Jake being Bradley’s best friend and Quinn being Madisons best friend it was bound to happen for them to meet.

✈️ They dated for 3 years before getting married on December 27, 2024.

✈️ Jake comes from a big family and wanted to have a big family like his own.

✈️ He is very over protected of Hazel and Benjamin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🩺 Name: Quinn Kelsell

🩺 Birthday: January 24, 1992

🩺 Nationality: American

🩺 Gender: female

🩺 Profession: doctor

🩺 Wife to Jake Seresin

🩺 Mother to Hazel Alexandra Seresin and Benjamin Jacob Seresin

🩺 She and Jake met at a Bradshaw party in 2021.

🩺 Quinn comes from a small family but wanted to have a big one of her own.

🩺 She and Jake wanted to have more kids after Benjamin, but the doctors said it could be dangerous for Quinns body to have more. That’s when they decided to just having two kids.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

📚 Name: Hazel Alexandra Seresin

📚 Birthday: August 2, 2025

📚 Nationality: American

📚 Gender: female

📚 Profession: High School student

📚 Daughter to Jake Seresin and Quinn Kelsell

📚 Girlfriend to Nicolas Peter Bradshaw

📚 Sister to Benjamin Jacob Seresin

📚 Hazel isn’t sure yet about what she wants to do after high school so she focuses mostly on her studies.

📚 She fell in love with Nick a month after he took her out after her first date stood her up. Nick was playing with Sparky on the beach while she was reading on her towel.

📚 She cares about what people think of her and can get quite emotional at times.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🛹 Name: Benjamin Jacob Seresin

🛹 Birthday: September 16, 2027

🛹 Nationality: American

🛹 Gender: male

🛹 Profession: High School student

🛹 Son to Jake Seresin and Quinn Kelsell

🛹 Younger brother to Hazel Alexandra Seresin

🛹 Benjamin loves skateboarding

🛹 He is close to his sister

🛹 When the Bradshaw family went on vacation or went away for the weekend, Benjamin was in charge if Sparky.

🛹 He wants to be a doctor like his mom.

🛹 Benjamin is named after his grandad and his own dad.

Taglist: @confusedpimp (let me know if you want to be tagged)

[hellaverse-events]

HellaVerse Week

Please join us in celebrating the HellaVerse by creating and recommending Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss fanworks (fanfiction and fanart)!

From October 27th - November 2nd, 2024, we'll be reblogging posts with fanworks related to the following prompts:

Day 1/October 27: Pride | Humility | Sinners | "I'm the only one that matters"

Day 2/October 28: Wrath | Chastity | Overworked | "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Day 3/October 29: Gluttony | Patience | Cotton Candy | "How my dirty bitches tonight?"

Day 4/October 30:  Greed | Charity | Fundraiser | "I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING!"

Day 5/October 31: Lust | Diligence | Distortion | "Lust shouldn't be about force. It's an ART!"

Day 6/November 1: Envy | Temperance | Deep Dive | "YOU dated a pop star?!"

Day 7/November 2: Sloth | Kindness | Medicate | "You lack discipline, control, and worst? YOU'RE SLOPPY."

Alternative Prompts: Layers of the Rainbow | Overlords | Deal Breaker | Execution Day | Pets

All kinds of fanworks are welcome — digital art, traditional art, 100 word drabbles, ficlets, longer fics, poems, embroidery, cosplay, music, gif sets, vids, etc. If you don't vibe with any of the prompt options for a given day, please feel free to use an alternate prompt.

We are hoping to inspire new fanworks, but this is also a great opportunity to recommend existing fics and fanart that the prompts remind you of. It is critical that you credit the artist/writer, and we'll share some guidelines for how to do so.

We will have banners you can use for your posts, graphics for recommending fics and other fanwork, and participation/completionist badges.

So that we can find your posts and reblog them during Hellaverse Week, please tag Tumblr posts with: #hellaverse week 2024, #day [x] or #alt prompt, #prompt name, #hellaverse. Additional tags for fanwork type are also welcome (#hellaverse fanfic, #hellaverse cosplay, #hellaverse fanart, etc.). Please also be sure to tag for content triggers (#suicide, #suicidal ideation, #self harm, etc.).

Check out the FAQ for more details and feel free to send asks if you have any questions.