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gamer-logic · 3 years ago

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Hetalia Platonic Ships Week Day 2: Coronvirus Chaos

When the virus hit, all the countries were forced to cancel the meeting and quarantine at their respective houses, and use zoom. Here are my headcanons of how the 1p and 2ps would fair!

Americans: With quarantine active, Alfred and Allen had to stay home which also meant the states stay too. Because this is our lovable all-American family, they go full-on zombie apocalypse mode with California and New York trying to panic buy all the toilet paper. Needless to say, they're not on grocery duty anymore. After this initial panic, things start out fine despite Alfred's meltdown about not getting to go to McDonald's anymore and Allen's subsequent victory lap because he won't have to be near the junk anymore. As their giant house is built on an estate because where else is big enough to put fifty kids and various farm and exotic animals including a large enough pool for Ameriwhale, and workshop with various vehicles Allen immediately takes control of the kitchen from Alfred and is dead set on making him eat better. He also gets the kids in on it and soon enough Alfred is hogtied to his chair, courtesy of Texas, and trying out every vegan dish Allen wants. The kids are wild and it doesn't take long for cabin fever to start kicking in though, but both Alfred and Allen are able to mitigate this by planning daily hikes and other outdoor activities. Oregon doing yoga much to the chagrin of a sailor mouthed New Jersey, Texas and Arizona teach everyone the ways of the wide-open range and many survival skills. Lastly, everyone has many movie marathons beginning with, of course, Marvel. Tony also joins them after coming out of his video game hibernation. One question why no one's one's thought to ask Tony about making a cure for the pandemic with his alien tech. Though that may be a good thing as who knows how that alien stuff would affect a human.

Americans: With quarantine active, Alfred and Allen had to stay home which also meant the states stay too. Because this is our lovable all-American family, they go full-on zombie apocalypse mode with California and New York trying to panic buy all the toilet paper. Needless to say, they're not on grocery duty anymore. After this initial panic, things start out fine despite Alfred's meltdown about not getting to go to McDonald's anymore and Allen's subsequent victory lap because he won't have to be near the junk anymore. As their giant house is built on an estate because where else is big enough to put fifty kids and various farm and exotic animals including a large enough pool for Ameriwhale, and workshop with various vehicles Allen immediately takes control of the kitchen from Alfred and is dead set on making him eat better. He also gets the kids in on it and soon enough Alfred is hogtied to his chair, courtesy of Texas, and trying out every vegan dish Allen wants. The kids are wild a and it doesn't take long for cabin fever to start kicking in though, but both Alfred and Allen are able to mitigate this by planning daily hikes and other outdoor activities. Oregon doing yoga much to the chagrin of a sailor mouthed New Jersey, Texas and Arizona teach everyone the ways of the wide-open range and many survival skills. Lastly, everyone has many movie marathons beginning with, of course, Marvel. Tony also joins them after coming out of his video game hibernation. One question why no one's one's thought to ask Tony about making a cure for the pandemic with his alien tech. Though that may be a good thing as who knows how that alien stuff would affect a human. Alfred likes to mess with the filters on the screen to tick off Authur but gets serious when it matters. Also, Tony hacks into the meeting from time to time to hear updates so he can better understand how to cure the virus and also troll everyone. Allen is running damage control to keep the kids from killing themselves and they'll often switch.

The Canadians: Similar to the Americans with how they're quarantined at home with the 13 provinces. They actually start panic buying too. However, instead of toilet paper, they buy up everyone's pancake ingredients and a bottle of maple syrup insight into every normal human's befuddlement. Hey, feeding 13 kids is hard! Unlike the states, the 13 last even shorter t thanks to Quebec who sees a prime opportunity to rebel once more. As for groceries, Quebec gets them for his punishment. Kuma and Kumajirou provide great comfort to animals when it starts getting tense and anxious due to cabin fever. Not only that, but they bring home the literal bacon with James when he goes hunting. Watching Kuma go pounding through the woods with Kuma on his back is a sight to behold and has since gained over 5 billion views on Utube. Everyone helps out in remedying this by creating a ginormous fort for them all to sleep in. This eventually includes Quebec when his punishment ends. Kuma likes sitting in Canada's lap during zoom meetings while James often struggles with keeping the provinces in check. Cue him doing an exact impression of the video with the woman sliding in like she's on ice to get the kids out while her husband is on video.

The Frenchmen: Francis, the drama queen that he is, freaks out about not being able to go out anymore and being forced to wear such ugly masks. Luiz could care less as this is exactly what he's been doing and just carries on until he hast to calm Franics' shrieking at how he'd been forced to home and not go shopping anymore. Francis ends up collaborating with Flavio in his new mask line to remedy the 'threat to fashion everywhere.' He also keeps up with his and Author's rivalry by mail, fondly reminding him of the previous years dealing with ink and a quill. Both Francis and Author have their own chatroom dubbed 'Britain and France's fighting chatroom," or more affectionately, "The 100 years chat."

The German Brothers: They all buy up the beer and Ludwig starts implementing extra training because 'you can't let a pandemic let you get soft! Now run like you're running from a human-sized germ!' Their house soon becomes a minefield with the prank war Lutz and Prussia initiate. Klaus loves the extra peace and quiet he's been getting now. Blackie, Astor, and Berlitz are happy their humans are home much more often now and are getting very spoiled. Ludwig takes control of the computer while on zoom because he knows what the others would do with they got it. Lutz and Gilbert keep making fart sounds and shuffling noises in the background, leaving Klaus to just sigh and a tomato face Ludwig to stammer on with the meeting.

The Italians: Flavio takes one look at the masks and immediately gets inspired for a new, pandemic edition, line of masks, and mask-related cloths including the two in one mask dress. Luciano let all his men go home with their only orders to be safe and stay healthy as he's not willing to relive the Black Plague. Lovino will never admit this, but he's kind of glad for the pandemic since it's given him the chance to spend time with his brother. Though this doesn't;t stop Spain from calling to check in 3 times a day. Feliciano tries to do all kinds of new things to keep everyone's spirits up and is also the guy who stole all the store's pasta, tomatoes, and sauce. Flavio makes all four of them show up fashionably late to the zoom conference despite it being online.

The Russians: Viktor keeps up with his work as much as possible and both he and Ivan have to hide their grins when their president has to quarantine. They don't really like him much. Ivan tries looking at pictures of sunflowers to keep himself occupied. He fears the loneliness quarantine brings, but Viktor tries to be around more so he doesn't get so lonely as he's also felt that pain before. He doesn't want Ivan to be like him who doesn't have friends nor the time for them. Out of the two, Viktor is the most serious about his work and is often seen using zoom for meetings.

The Japanese: Both are enjoying the introvert's paradise but are also worrying over the rising cases in their countries especially since they had to host the Olympics. They did so flawlessly but also struggled in keeping things as stable as possible. They both hold guilt for putting their citizens in such a dangerous situation. Both end up doing a video game/anime marathon with the rest of the Otaku club over zoom. Kuro sets to work refining his swordsmanship skills and actually starts forging new ones. He's a great weaponsmith! Kiku also takes the time to practice his calligraphy. They're the one's who'd have anime playing in the background or their cat, Japaneko, getting in the way.

And last but not least, the ones who started it all, the Chinese: Yao continually works around the clock trying to analyze the bad and how the pandemic got out of hand. Xiao ends up being the one who actually started this because he dared the guy to at the soup. He feels a lot of guilt over this and, in a rare showing of maturity from him, is also working by Yao to fix his mistake that not only risked his and everyone else's people but also killed so many. The pandemic will likely be one of their greatest shames. On a lighter note, Yao can't figure out how zoom works and Xiao likes programming troll hacks into the computer to mess with him.

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nah-she-didnt · 4 years ago

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In The Closet

Well, folks, here it is: my first ever fanfic! Please be kind, I’ve quite literally never written anything that I’ve shared with people before, but feedback is always appreciated! Happy reading! - Nina

CW: anti-LGTBQ slurs, alcohol

Or read on AO3

“My life is over,” Mary whined from her spot in the train compartment.

Lily rolled her eyes. “It’s six weeks on the Welsh coast, it’ll be grand.”

“You don’t understand,” Mary said, sitting up dramatically, “my granny has barely left the house in years. It’ll be six weeks of tea time and the same three stories about the war over and over again.”

Dorcas, who was flipping through a fashion magazine in the seat next to Mary, said absentmindedly “Maybe you’ll meet cute boys at the beach.”

Mary glared at her. “Doubtful, considering the nearest town is miles away, but thank you for filling me with false hope before I’m doomed to the most boring holiday of all time. Now, if there were some spectacular social gathering happening before my social death sentence, that might get me through....”

"No, Mar.”

“Oh come on, you’ll have the house to yourself! Dear old Tuney and your mum are in London ‘til Monday for dress fittings. Please oh please Lily save me from having the most boring summer of all time.”

Lily paused to consider her friend’s plea. It was true, she would have the house to herself for three whole days. Her mother had seemed genuinely sorry that she wouldn’t be at King’s Cross to collect Lily from the school train, but Lily couldn’t help but think that Petunia’s timing was not a coincidence. Lily was sure that Petunia had chosen this weekend to go wedding dress shopping so that she could chose the undoubtedly horrid gown she would walk down the aisle in, get the alterations, and be off back to her fiancee in London, all without Lily’s input or company.

Lily sighed, “Let me think about it. You know I have the nosiest neighbors, we’d surely never get away with it...”

“Oh, we know,” replied Dorcas darkly. “How is dear Snivellus?”

“Don’t call him that,” Lily snapped, albeit with less enthusiasm than she would have used in the past to defend Sev. In fact, with each passing day Lily found she had less and less energy to spend on her former friend.

Dorcas shrugged. “Fine, how do you propose we keep this party secret from dear Severus?”

“Now, surely the words ‘Severus’ and ‘party’ don’t belong in the same sentence.”

At that moment, the door to their compartment slid open to reveal two boys standing in the doorway: James Potter, with his messy black hair and arrogant grin, and Sirius Black, who had somehow already changed out of his school uniform into a black suede jacket and bell bottoms.

Lily grimaced at James, “Funny, I don’t remember inviting you into this conversation, Potter.”

“You should talk more quietly, then,” replied Sirius, mischief dancing behind his eyes, “or else the whole train will hear about this wild party you girls are planning. Go on then, when will this social event of the season take place?”

“Tomorrow night, Lily’s house!” Mary cried, beaming. Her bad mood had clearly lifted as soon as the boys entered their compartment.

“No, absolutely not,” said Lily sternly. “There is no party. Sorry to disappoint you two, but Mary here doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Now, Lily, be reasonable!” cried Sirius imploringly, grabbing her hand and sinking down to one knee for dramatic effect. “Think of your poor classmates! Have we not spent the last two weeks preparing for our grueling end of year exams?”

“You only studied for exams for two weeks?” said Lily, horrorstruck.

“Yes, and a more boring two weeks I cannot recall in my young life!” Sirius draped the back of his hand across his forehead and fully laid down on the compartment floor. “Please, Lily, if you have any care for my emotional, mental, or social wellbeing, please let me plan a rager tomorrow night in your lovely home.”

“You’ve never been to my home, Sirius,” said Lily, but the corners of her mouth had begun to twitch.

“Well, I’m sure it’s lovely! Let me put it this way, let me throw a bonkers begining-of-the-holiday party in your house tomorrow, and James and I will leave you girls alone for the rest of the train ride.”

“Done!” cried Dorcas, “Off you go, gents.”

“Hang on,” said Lily quickly. Looking around she could see that she was fast losing any hope of finding an ally in the compartment. Finally, her gaze fell on James. “Potter, you know him best, if I let him plan a party in my house can I expect the building to still be standing in the morning?”

James paused, clearly considering Lily’s question. After a beat, he replied “On my honor, Evans, your childhood home will still exist the morning after this absolutely legendary party.”

“Right, that answer doesn’t quite soothe me, Potter. But I suppose...”

“YES!” cried Sirius, who in one fluid movement jumped to his feet and pumped his fist into the air. “Evans, I promise, you won’t be sorry. I’m going to plan the most insane summer kickoff that will make any minimal damage to your property completely worth it.”

“You have got to stop saying stuff like that,” said Lily through the gaps in her fingers, as she had dropped her face into her hands. “I swear to God Sirius, if you make me regret this I will end you.”

“Fair enough. Now, we must be off. Must collect the lads to do some party planning. Do we think three kegs will be enough, or should we go for five just in case?”

“OUT!” shouted Lily, and Sirius scrambled from the compartment, followed closely by James, who paused quickly before leaving to shoot a final grin in Lily’s direction.

“He is so obvious,” said Dorcas in a bored voice as she watched James leave.

“God, I know, he’s going to destroy my whole house, isn’t he” said Lily miserably.

Dorcas shot a bemused look in Lily’s direction, “I wasn’t talking about Sirius.”

Lily stood on the platform at King’s Cross with her school trunk waiting for Mary to collect her things from the train. She felt a pang of sadness in her chest that her mother wasn’t here to collect her for her last summer holiday before graduating from Hogwarts academy. She had been looking forward to a final summer at home with mum before hopefully starting a pre-med program in London next summer after graduation. But, she supposed, Tuney was getting married, and would need her mother’s help in finding a dress. Plus, Lily would get her mum all to herself for eight weeks this summer. No, she shouldn’t worry, and she shouldn’t feel guilty for having a few friends over for an intimate and mature social gathering tomorrow night...

“Hello, uh - are you getting home okay?” said a voice behind her. Lily turned to see a sallow, lanky boy standing just behind her. Severus had grown taller in the last year, but still had the sickly boyish look that he’d had for all the years she’d known him. Lily grimaced. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Good, good... Are you sure you don’t need a ride? Mother is coming, for once, you know she usually makes me take the train, but I suppose since it’s the last holiday before school ends she felt sentimental.”

“No, Mary’s mum is driving me. They’re in Sheffield, it’s not far.”

“Oh... right. Are you quite sure? It wouldn’t be any trouble. We’re just down the street, you know.” It was clear as he said this that Severus was using a great deal of energy to try and appear aloof, like he couldn’t care less how Lily got home from the station.

“Severus, please leave it. I have a ride, I’m not a damsel in distress that you need to save, I have plenty of people to rely on, so please leave me alone.”

Severus looked angry now, brushing the hair out of his eyes so that he could glare at Lily. “I never said you were a damsel, I just thought--”

“Pardon me, Snivellus,” Sirius said loudly as he pushed past Severus towards Lily. “Evans, I know you seemed touchy about the kegs, so how about just one keg and a few bottles of something stronger, eh? You don’t worry about the guest list, I’ll take care of it, only the best and least responsible Hogwarts students allowed, I promise!”

“Sirius,” said Lily warningly, as Severus was listening to every word he said. “Not now, okay? Do whatever you think is best. Within reason!” she shouted at him, for at her blessing Sirius had grinned mischievously and darted back into the crowd of students on the platform.

“Why is Black asking you about kegs? Are you letting him bring alcohol to your house?” Snape demanded, eyes full of desperation.

“How can what goes on in my house possibly concern you, Snape?” Said Lily harshly. She glanced around Severus to see Mary and her mum waving at her from the other side of the platform. “Looks like my ride is ready. Guess I’ll see you next term,” she said as she hurried away from him. Severus stared at her as she left, an unreadable expression on his face.

“I cannot believe you talked me into this. I cannot believe you talked me into this, Mary.”

“Calm down,” said Dorcas as she applied more mascara, her eyes and mouth comically wide as she stared into the mirror in concentration. The girls were getting dressed for the party in Lily’s bedroom, which would be locked for the party itself. “You’re hardly the first teenager to throw a party when mum’s out of town.”

“Yes, but I’m the first teenager stupid enough to let Sirius Black throw a party when my mum’s out of town!”

“Well, I for one am eternally grateful for the sacrifice you’ve made on behalf of my sanity this summer, Lily,” said Mary, crossing the room to throw her arm across Lily’s shoulders in a one-sided hug. “You’re single handedly saving my will to live.”

Lily shrugged Mary off and glared at her. “Honestly, watch you guilt me into having this stupid party, then have a magical time in Wales with some chiseled sailor that you meet on the very first day.”

“It is a distinct possibility” said Mary with a wicked grin, and she flounced back over to her spot in front of the mirror to continue perfecting her bangs.

Lily dejectedly walked over to her spot between Mary and Dorcas in front of the mirror. She was determined to be in a bad mood for the party, but she couldn’t deny, she and the girls looked hot. Dorcas styled her long braids tied up into two buns on top of her head, added some dramatic eye makeup, and topped off the look with simple silver hoop earrings. Mary had perfected her Linda Ronstadt bangs and dark purple lipstick. And Lily, who had been forced by Mary into a blue eye shadow that she had never dared wear before and a backless halter top (”you can tell I’m not wearing a bra!” “That’s the point, dingus,”) was nearly unrecognizable.

“I’m going to regret this” Lily sighed.

“Save it, Lils. No one’s holding a gun to your head. You need this as much as anyone.”

That was certainly true. Lily had spent the better part of the last five months revising for her exams, and now that they were over she supposed there was nothing wrong with letting off a little steam. She straightened up, looked at herself in the mirror one last time, and determined that she liked what she saw.

Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

“Christ,” Lily mumbled, “that’ll be the goons.”

“Could you get the door, Lil? Mary and I are still preening” said Dorcas distractedly, still glancing in the mirror.

“I suppose I should let them in before they break down the door.” Lily made her way downstairs to the living room and to the front door. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, let out a breath, planted a smile on her face, and opened the door.

James Potter stood in front of her in a fitted Queen t-shirt, fitted blue jeans, and a dumbstruck expression.

“Erm, hi,” said Lily, not quite sure if James could hear her. James nodded, still looking like he’d been hit very hard over the head. “Hi...” he said, distractedly, then grinned

“Evening, Evans! Holy shit!” Sirius came striding into the living room past James, who still hadn’t moved. “You look ravishing! Like truly, completely hot! How did this happen!”

“Fuck off, Black,” said Lily annoyed. She knew the halter top had been a ridiculous idea.

“No, no, I mean, wow. Come on, Evans, don’t be mad, you know if I liked girls you’d be my number one. Oi, James, close your mouth and bring that Keg in here.”

Lily spun around. Sure enough, James was standing in front of a large keg that he began to wheel into her house on a dolly. Lily groaned inwardly.

“Alright, thank you for supplying the alcohol. Now, as I recall, there are two more of you. Where are Remus and Peter?”

“They’re bringing in the rest of the libations,” Said Sirius proudly, striding over to the front door and calling out “Lads, that’s the wrong door! We’re in here you morons!”

Lily sprinted to the front door and, sure enough, Remus and Peter were now awkwardly stepping over Mrs. Nextdoor’s freshly planted hydrangeas and making their way into her front yard instead. They both held large boxes emitting the sounds of clinking glassware every time the boys moved.

Lily rounded on Sirius. “Black, I swear to god if those boxes are both full of liquor,”

“Now, Evans, who do you think I am? There’s at least one bottle of chaser in there!” said Sirius, who dodged Lily’s attempt to smack him around the head. “It’ll be right as rain, Lily, I give you my word!”

“Just set it up on the kitchen table, okay? And for god’s sake put a towel down!” cried Lily as James wheeled the keg past her and into the kitchen. Remus and Peter entered the living room, panting and struggling to keep a hold on the enormous boxes in their hands.

“Alright, Evans? Where should we put these?” Asked Peter. Peter was shorter than his friends, with a round face and kind eyes. He often gave Lily the impression of an excitable puppy, always bubbly and eager to please.

“The kitchen counter is fine, thanks,” Lily pointed in the general direction of the kitchen, past Sirius struggling to lift the corner of the keg while James stuffed a towel beneath it. Peter grinned and hobbled off to put the boxes down.

“Hey, Lily, thanks for agreeing to host the festivities tonight,” said Remus. Lily liked Remus the best of his friend group. They’d been chemistry partners ever since she’d stopped being friends with Severus. Lily had instantly clicked with Remus because while on the surface he was kind and mild, he could be sarcastic as anything once you got to know him. Lily smiled at Remus, “Of course, though I may live to regret it. I’m glad I have you here to help keep the boys in line.”

“No can do, I’m afraid,” Remus sighed, “I allow myself one night a year to be a reckless teenager, and unfortunately for you I’ve chosen tonight as this year’s night.”

“You’re dead to me,” Lily pouted, but Remus laughed and slung his arm around her. “Come on, let’s get you a drink. It’s going to be a great night, I promise!”

The air was suddenly filled with the sound of shattering glass and the overwhelming smell of vodka. “Uh, Lily love,” said Sirius’ voice from the kitchen, “where might we find some paper towels?”

Lily glared at Remus, who shrugged, adding “I’ll get you that drink now, shall I?”

Remus was right, the party was going off without a hitch, not including the broken handle of vodka at the beginning of the night. What seemed like half their year at Hogwarts was present. Lily had consumed approximately two and a half beers -- no, on second thought, a whole three beers, she conceded as she chugged the rest of her drink -- and had forgotten all about her hostess anxieties. The music was loud, the keg was half full, and she was basking in the glow of gratitude from her fellow students who were happy to have a reason to celebrate the end of the year. She was even slapped on the back by last year’s soccer captain, Benjy Fenwick, which caused Mary to go into such a fit of giggles that she had to leave the room.

Remus, much to Sirius’ chagrin, had been put in charge of the music. This proved to be a poor decision on Lily’s part. The house seemed full of nervous energy as her classmates, who were fast becoming more and more intoxicated, grumbled that they could not dance to the slow, melodic rock coming from the speakers.

Sirius was growing more and more antsy at Remus’ music selections. "Moony I am begging you to think about the group at large before you play any more Neil Young.”

“Neil Young is a god!”

“Yes, but this album is damn depressing! Put on something I can dance to!”

“This song is hauntingly beautiful, and anyone who can’t appreciate that shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“Moony, put on some dancing music, and I promise you I’ll make you glad you did,” Sirius said suggestively, pulling Remus closer to him. Remus grinned and leaned into to Sirius, who grabbed him tight around the torso and yelled “Peter, now!” Swift as can be, Peter swooped in and switched out the Neil Young for an ABBA record, causing the room at large to cheer in celebration.

“Traitor!” yelled Remus, though he was laughing. “ABBA is an insult to my DJ title.”

“ABBA is fun and you know it,” said Sirius, grabbing Remus’ hand and pulling him onto the dance floor. Lily smiled as she watched them dance. Sirius and Remus had caused a minor scandal the previous year when they had gone from best mates to an official couple. Not that their new relationship had surprised anyone who really knew them. Lily had been waiting for Remus to tell her he loved Sirius ever since they became chemistry partners. As she watched them dance, Lily felt a warm presence next to her and looked up.

“Fancy seeing you here,” said Potter, also watching Sirius and Remus dance.

Lily smiled, gesturing to the dancing couple. “Is it weird for you, navigating a friendship with both of them when they’re so bonkers for each other?”

“Nah, it’s not bad. We’ve all been through a lot, it was easy to figure out the group’s dynamics once they changed. Anyway, they’ve never been subtle about fancying each other, so when they got together the only thing that changed was the label.”

“I suppose that’s true,” said Lily. It was odd to speak so honestly with James. Usually James was so arrogant, walking around the school as if he owned the place. James was popular, good looking (she supposed), and well-known by all. He and his friends were also known as charming trouble makers, and could get away with even the most egregious pranks. It annoyed Lily to no end.

About a year ago, James had taken notice of Lily’s negative attitude towards himself and seemed to make it his personal mission to charm her as he had the rest of her classmates. Their encounters usually consisted of flirtatious sparring from him and cool indifference from her, which only encouraged his competitive nature. It worked, sometimes, but Lily was usually determined not to let him win, for Lily suspected she was even more competitive than James when it came to being right.

“It’s nice talking to you like this, Potter,” said Lily, emboldened by the three and a half beers she had now imbibed, “you’re far more pleasant when you aren’t trying to flirt with me.”

“What do you mean, ‘trying’? I think I’m pretty successful at flirting with you,” said Potter. God, his stupid handsome -- NO, not handsome, passable -- face wore the most infuriatingly smug expression. Lily quickly reversed course, settling back into her Defensive Potter Mode.

“No, actually, you’re not. In fact, you’re usually nothing more than an arrogant toerag, in my humble opinion,” she said matter of factly.

Alright, that might have been too far. Why had she had so much to drink?

They stood in silence for a moment, the smug look on James’ face shifting into one of sour disappointment. He shrugged, “You’re right. I’m sorry Evans, enjoy the party,” and he disappeared into the crowd.

“Christ,” Lily mumbled to herself, rubbing her eye with the hand not clutched around her drink. Potter really was infuriating. He could antagonize her to no end, but the moment she got to him herself, she felt this wave of crushing guilt. No matter. The night was young, and she’d almost finished her fourth beer. Lily sighed, and went into the crowd to find Mary and Dorcas.

The party had certainly reached a new peak. More people had started to turn up, including students from the years above and below James, and people he had never seen in his life. The keg was nearly empty, the music blared, and couples had started disappearing into the upper level of the house. James, however, was not in much of a party mood.

“Cheer up, mate,” slurred Sirius as he dropped into the empty seat next to James on the couch, “ignore Evans, find yourself another nice bird.”

“Don’t want another bird, and I’m not hung up on Evans, thank you very much,” said James stubbornly. Sirius rolled his eyes. “Sure you’re not. Alright, what about her then? She’s got nice...hair? Andy big, thick -- uh -- knockers, and looks like she’s got two eyes, and-”

“You have no idea at all what to see in women, do you?” laughed James. Sirius had about as much interest in girls as James had in Snivellus.

“Haven’t the foggiest idea, but I’m sure someone here could pique your interest.”

“Well, that’s a nice thought, but I--”

At that moment, a girl in the crowd towards the front of the house yelled at the top of her lungs, “COPS!”

It was chaos. Dozens of drunk, crazed teenagers started to run towards the back door, knocking into and running each other over in the process. Sirius and James jumped to their feet, scanning the crowd for Remus and Peter. Peter was nowhere to be seen, but Remus sprinted over to where they stood, grabbing Sirius’ hand.

“We have to go, now,” said Remus. Sirius paused, looking guilty. “I should stay, this was my idea, I don’t want Lily to take the fall for this,” he said, though he looked nervously at the front of the house where the policemen certainly stood behind the door. James, knowing exactly what Sirius was afraid of, clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“No, Sirius, you and Remus go. Find somewhere to cool it for a while. I’ll meet you later.”

“James, I know you’re obsessed with Lily, but you can’t honestly say you want to stay,” said a shocked Remus.

“This isn’t about Lily. I’ll stay behind to help people get out, then I’ll hide somewhere. Go, now!” said James, pushing his friends towards the back door. With a final uncertain look, the two disappeared in the escaping crowd.

James looked around to see what could be done. Most of the partygoers had escaped out the back, so James turned off the living room lights just as a loud knock sounded at the front door. James froze, listening intently to what was happening behind the front door.

“Open up in there!” shouted a scary sounding voice, and James bolted.

He ran to the back door, locked it, and bolted up the stairs. He had absolutely no idea where he was going, but he knew he had to get as far away from the front door as possible. He rounded a corner, then another, into a dark bedroom. He paused, looking around to get his bearings, and then he saw it. He dived head first into the closet, when--

“OUCH! Who is that?!” said a scared, and annoyed, voice.

“Shhh, it’s James Potter, keep it down though, there’s cops downstairs.

“James, it’s me, Lily, and I know there are cops downstairs. Why else would I be hiding in my closet?”

“I don’t know, Evans, how many more people did you insult tonight? Maybe you’re hiding from them,” said James grumpily.

There was a moment of silence. James stared into the oppressive darkness at what he assumed was Lily’s dark form.

“What’s happening downstairs? When everyone started to run I knew I couldn’t leave, it’s my house, so I came up here.”

“Yeah, that was smart. I locked the back door and I think everyone is out, but it might be smart to hide up here for a bit ‘til they go away.”

“Right, okay.” Lily let out a long breath she had clearly been holding in since arriving in the closet. The two sat in silence for several long moments, then Lily spoke.

“James?”

“Mhm?”

“I’m sorry for what I said about you. You’re not an obnoxious douchebag.”

“Actually, it was arrogant toerag, but continue,” said James, with just a hint of his usual flirtatiousness. Silently, he cursed himself for never being able to be mad at Lily.

“Right, that. Well, as I said, I am sorry. It’s just you can make me so angry sometimes. More mad than anyone else I know.”

“So you’re saying I evoke strong emotions in you?” laughed James, “I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I’m not sure you should,” replied Lily, but her voice sounded much friendlier this time. James regretted not leaving the closet ajar so that he could see her face in the light of the street lamps outside her window.

“Too late, you said something nice about me! I’m counting it as a victory.”

Lily scoffed. “Speaking of victories, I notice Sirius is not the one sitting in the dark with me. I’m glad that he got to have a fun night of partying then ditch as soon as things got dicey.”

“It wasn’t like that!” said James, suddenly defensive. “He was going to stay but I told him to leave with Remus, and that I would help get people out of the house. I didn’t like the idea of he and Remus around the cops. He was reluctant at first but he caved eventually.”

Silence again. James was starting to enjoy this newfound ability to stump Lily Evans. “Oh... thank you, Potter. I appreciate your help, truly. Why don’t you want Sirius and Remus around cops?”

This time it was James’ turn for silence. After a pause, he said quietly, “one time, last summer holiday, the four of us were leaving the cinema after dark. We’d snuck in a flask of whiskey and passed it back and forth the whole time, so we were all a little drunk when the film ended. It was before, you know, Sirius and Remus were properly together, but they were tipsy and being really playful with each other. When we got outside they ran down the street ahead of us and were flirting a bunch, being touchy, you know. Anyway, they’d gotten a bit ahead of us down the block, and these two skinheads tried to corner them. Started calling them queers, faggots, pushing them about, you get it. Peter and I ran up, and at that point the blokes knew they were outnumbered and bolted. But the whole thing was really scary. Remus said he couldn’t sleep for a week.”

James paused his story to rub his eyes at the horrible memory. He’d forgotten just how bad that night had been. “Anyway, I was walking to the store a few days after this, and I saw a cop walking down the street swinging a baton like a cartoon character. It was one of the skinheads. I recognized him from that night, he must have been off duty. This fucking prick spent his night off harassing a couple of kids who weren’t hurting anyone at all. If one of them is like that, I don’t want to know what the rest of them are like.”

James expected to sit in silence with Lily for a few more moments, but this time she broke the silence quickly.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For looking after them tonight. That was really... well, it was really brave, James.”

James’ heart soared. She called him brave. He tried desperately to ignore his delight, and instead answered nonchalantly. “They would do the same for me. Not that I’m in the same situation, or that I have as much to worry about with cops, or, well, you know. They look out for me, I look out for them. I love them, and that’s what you do for people you love.”

“Yes,” breathed Lily, “you’re right, that’s--”

They both froze. They could hear from the hallway the unmistakable sounds of large feet in boots climbing the stairs to the second floor. “Maybe they won’t know we’re here,” James whispered as quietly as he could.

Lily gulped, and covered her own mouth to quiet her breathing. James waited with baited breath. Suddenly, a light flipped on in the room, and someone wrenched open the doors to the closet.

“Oi, you two, what do you think you’re doing in there?” yelled a large, bald policeman.

James froze, eyes wide, trying his best to look both sober and innocent. “We’re, uh, we’re just, um--”

“We’re having a fight,” said Lily confidently. James looked quickly at her, properly seeing her for the first time since entering the closet. Her hair was a mess, her eye makeup was smudged, and her expression was set. She glared up at the policeman, who regarded her confident tone with surprise.

“Is that right?” said the policeman, regaining his composure and glaring down at Lily. Lily straightened, looking more determined than ever. “Yes. Arnold here broke up with me two days ago, so we came in here to fight. We didn’t want anyone else to know, you see. We’ve been up here for quite a while, so we haven’t the foggiest idea of what’s been going on downstairs.”

“I bet you haven’t,” said the cop nastily. “I’ll have you know, miss, that there were a great number of minors drinking alcohol on the premises tonight. We had a tip off that someone in the neighborhood was hosting an underage party, and it wasn’t hard to figure out which house was the problem. Your front lawn is a right mess, you see.”

Lily frowned. “I don’t have any knowledge of any drinking on this property. Do you have anyone in custody?”

“No, but,”

“And how did you get inside? If there’s no one else downstairs, I can’t see how anyone could have let you in.”

“The tip off said there was a spare key for emergencies. If there was underage drinking happening, we had clear cause to enter the property.”

“Well, we’ll see about that, but for now, it looks like there’s nothing more for you all to do, is there? It’s a classic case of habeas corpus. And if you don’t have the corpus, you know what they say, ‘no body, no crime,’“ said Lily sweetly. The cop looked at Lily for a moment, clearly dumbfounded. James had never been so enamored with another human being in his young life as he was in this moment.

“Look, miss, do you live here or not?” said the cop.

“No, I don’t,” lied Lily.

“Well, tell whoever does live here that we’ll come round to inquire in the next few days, so they better have everything back in order before we do.” And with that ominous announcement, the cop left the room.

James and Lily sat in dead silence for a few minutes as they heard the cop collecting his buddy from the kitchen and leaving through the front door, closing it behind them.

James and Lily looked at one another, then at the exact same time, leapt up and sprinted to the front door. James got there first, locking it quickly, then turned to lean his back up against the door, panting.

“That - was - so - close,” he wheezed, sliding down the door to sit on the ground. Lily nodded, clutching a stitch in her side, then turned on the table lamp to inspect her living room.

The room was positively trashed. Empty plastic cups with sticky dried beer littered the floor, the remnants of a drinking game lay strewn about her mother’s antique sitting room table, and something that smelled suspiciously like vomit was wafting over from one of the large potted plants in the corner.

“James, you need to find a new best friend, because I am going to destroy Sirius Black,” said Lily, covering her face with her hands and sinking onto the couch.

“I wouldn’t blame you. Hey, how did you come up with that ‘Harper’s corpse’ thing so quickly?” asked James.

“It’s habeas corpus, and I watch a lot of American legal programs,” said Lily proudly, “I have no idea if any of that is right. That cop must have been a bit thick, or I don’t think he would have bought it. Anyway, I’d be surprised if he came back to check up on the place, he probably just said that to scare us a bit. Still, I really should start to clean this mess up...”

“I’ll help!” said James gallantly, springing to his feet. Lily eyed him suspiciously, but James just waved his hand casually, “Evans, I’m not leaving you to this mess. I helped destroy your home, at least let me help set it right again.”

“Fair enough. Blimey, where do we even start? Wait, do you hear that?”

James and Lily looked around. There was a slight tap tap tap coming from the direction of the kitchen. Lily walked quickly into the other room and saw three noses pressed up against the window panes on her backdoor; Sirius, Remus, and Peter. Lily shook her head and opened the door. “Well well well, look who decided to show up,”

“Great party Evans! Are the coppers gone?” Sirius looked anxiously through the door into the house.

“Yes, but please, get inside before anyone sees you in the yard. The last thing we need is for my neighbors to see you out there.

The boys fell over the landing and into the kitchen. Lily could tell based on their poor coordination that they had not had the same sobering experience that she had that evening.

“Right, you lot,” Lily said, pointing at Sirius and Peter, “follow me, I’m going to watch you clean the sick out of my mother’s ficus.” Sirius and Peter started to groan, but at a murderous look from Lily, the followed her dutifully into the living room.

“Sorry about that, mate. Did they give you much trouble?” Remus asked anxiously, surveying the disgusting state of the kitchen and dining room.

“Surprisingly, no. Lily made up this incredible story for the cops about us fighting in her closet, and--”

“Hang on,” Remus said, frowning, “what about a closet?”

“Oh, right. Well, when you two left, I stayed downstairs to make sure everyone got out, then I locked the back door and sprinted upstairs. I ran into the first room I saw a closet, and when I went in there to hide Lily was already in there.”

“Lily in the closet? Sounds like Sirius in fifth year.”

“My thought exactly. Anyway, We hid up there for a bit, then this big cop came in and found us, but she told him we were in there fighting and didn’t even know there was a party going on downstairs. As there was no one left in the house, he just told us to clean up and left. Mad, eh?”

“Completely,” agreed Remus, “how did he get in the house in the first place?”

James frowned slightly. He tried to remember what the cop had said about entering the house, but couldn’t. “I have no idea. The front door must have been open after all.”

“Wild,” said Remus, who had already picked up half the abandoned cups that littered the kitchen. “Lucky she had a story ready for him.”

“Yeah, lucky,” replied James absentmindedly, “she was incredible, really.”

“I bet she was,” Remus snickered.

“Shut it, not like that. She was just so calm and collected, you know? I was shitting myself.”

“Well, we all made it out in one piece. Especially Pete, the prat. We ran into him about a block away from the house, said he was the first one out the door when the cops came.”

“Of course he was,” James said darkly. Pete had an exceptional knack for being in the right place at the right time.

At that moment, Peter walked through the doorway from the hall into the kitchen, looking a bit green. “Puke’s cleaned up. I don’t know what that poor soul had for dinner, but whatever it was, it was definitely not something you should eat before drinking.”

“Thanks for the visual, mate.”

“How’d you lot get out of getting arrested anyway?” asked Pete, who was now helping James wipe down the kitchen counter.

“Lily and I were in the closet, and--”

“Huh, just like Sirius in fifth year,”

“That’s what I said!”

“And Lily made up this brilliant story that got them to leave. Honestly, she was so convincing I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to trust her again.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Peter smirked. Remus laughed again.

James eyed them both. “For your information, I think it was a bonding moment! She surely can’t hate me anymore after we went through all that together.”

“Yes, hiding in a closet together can do wonders for a relationship,” said Remus wisely, “believe me, I would know.”

“What’s this about being in a closet?”

Sirius and Lily entered the room, Lily holding a mop and bucket and Sirius holding a garbage bag out away from his body like it was a bomb.

Remus took the garbage bag from Sirius, put it in the trash can, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Never you mind. Let’s say we get some water for that bucket and tackle the living room. Pete, could you take the trash out front?”

“Oh no you don’t,” Lily replied, snatching the trash from Remus’ hands, “I’m not letting any more of my neighbors see you lot in my front yard. You can help me clean up then sleep here tonight, if you want, it’s far too late for you to hitch home or whatever it is that you planned on doing.”

“Sounds good to me, I make an excellent omelette!” Sirius proclaimed, then followed Remus into the living room with the mop and bucket. Lily grinned at James, who smiled softly back at her, then took the garbage bag through the living room and out the front door.

She walked across the front threshold into the warm night air, letting herself revel in the quiet of her suburban street at midnight. She stood for a moment taking in large gulps of night air before walking over to the bins and depositing the trash inside. When she was done she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She whirled around and found herself face to face with Severus.

“Lily, are you alright? I saw police and I was worried, I came to see if you were okay,” said Severus quickly. He was looking past her to the front of her house. Lily could see that Remus and Sirius were visible through the front window, mopping the floor and laughing as they worked. Lily looked back at Severus to see that his eyes had narrowed as he watched them.

“It’s none of your business, Snape.” Lily said stiffly, crossing her arms against her chest. She was still very aware that she was wearing Mary’s loose fitting halter top.

Severus looked taken aback at her use of his surname. “Lily, I’m sorry, I just--”

“Thought you’d call the cops on my party? Thought you’d tell the cops about the spare key we keep in the planter next to the door?”

Severus appeared dumbfounded. “I don’t know what they told you, but it wasn’t -- I didn’t -- I was worried that they would destroy your house!”

“You know what, Snape,” she was becoming more angry by the minute, “butt out of my life, alright? I’m telling you once and for all to leave me alone. I don’t need your assistance or your protection, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Plus, I have friends to look out for me,” and she gestured towards the front window where Sirius had completely forgotten about mopping and was instead trying to convince Remus to waltz with him.

Severus stared at the window. “You can’t possibly mean them. They don’t have your best interest at heart!”

“They look out for me, I look out for them. That’s what you do for your real friends, Snape.” And with that, Lily turned on her heel and marched back into the house.

“I said it last night and I’ll say it again, excellent party last night, Evans,” Sirius exclaimed, raising his glass of vodka and tomato juice (”the poor man’s hangover cure!” he insisted earlier that morning), “to Evans!”

“Evans!” shouted the boys, Mary, and Dorcas, who had arrived last night shortly after Lily’s confrontation with Severus. They had hidden in playground equipment for half an hour before daring to make their way back to the house. They had all spent the night cleaning the house, then passed out on blankets and pillows in the living room. That morning they had woken up to feast on bacon sandwiches and coffee. Sirius had been too hung over to follow through on his promise of omelettes.

“Thank you, thank you, you are all too kind,” Lily laughed. “And, I suppose, I must show a small amount of gratitude towards Sirius for forcing me to have the party in the first place.”

“I think force is a bit strong. You certainly didn’t need much convincing. I think we all needed a bit of a laugh.”

“Easy for you to say, you weren’t cowering in a closet from a big beefy copper, were you?” grumbled James, though his eyes were bright with amusement.

“True enough. Your heroics will go down in Hogwarts legend, my friends,” said Sirius, clapping James on the back.

Peter checked his watch. “We best be off lads, before our mums realize that we all lied about sleeping over at each other’s houses.”

The boys began to collect their belongings, said their goodbyes to Lily, Mary, and Dorcas, then trudged out the door to catch the bus in town. Lily rose to see them out, but James hung back behind his friends.

“Hey, thanks again for saving my ass last night. You really are brilliant, you know.”

“Yes, I do know, thank you,” Lily said cheekily, giving James a playful punch on the arm.

“Look, I’d say we’ve been through a lot now, how about we try and be, I dunno... friends?”

Lily considered this for a moment. He wasn’t so bad after all, James. He’d risked his neck to protect his friends, and he’d stayed up all night helping her clean the house.

Finally, Lily stuck her hand out, “Friends.”

James’ face broke into a broad smile as he took her hand and shook. “Blimey, did you ever think you’d see the day?”

“Never,” Lily winked at him. “You best catch up with your mates.”

“Ah, yes, they’ll leave me behind if I don’t run, they’ve done it before. Have a good summer, Evans,” and with that, he turned and ran after his friends.

Lily fondly watched the boys meander down the street. Had she really been wrong about James Potter? She shook her head, shot one last glance towards the mess of black hair on the back of his head, then stepped back into her spotless home.

#jily #muggle au #first fic #nina writes #wolfstar #hp fanfic #marauders #marauders fanfic #anti snape #snape can huff my farts #please be kind this is my first ever fic #jily fanfic #CW: alcohol #CW: homophobia #long post

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

Text

Sunday, May 2, 2021

US to restrict travel from India over COVID starting Tuesday (AP) The U.S. will restrict travel from India starting May 4, the White House said Friday, citing a devastating rise in COVID-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus. With 386,452 new cases, India now has reported more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 3,498 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 208,330. Experts believe both figures are an undercount, but it’s unclear by how much. The White House waited on the CDC recommendation before moving to restrict travel, noting that the U.S. already requires negative tests and quarantines for all international travelers. Other restrictions are in place on travel from China, Iran, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Brazil and South Africa, which are or have been hotspots for the coronavirus.

Biden administration forges new path on North Korea crisis (Washington Post) The Biden administration is charting a new course in an attempt to end North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, striking a balance between President Donald Trump’s grand-bargain, leader-to-leader diplomacy and President Barack Obama’s arm’s-length approach to the crisis, said U.S. officials familiar with the plan. The decision to pursue a phased agreement that leads to full denuclearization follows a months-long review that was briefed to President Biden last week. “We are not seeking a grand bargain or an all-or-nothing approach,” a senior administration official said in an interview Thursday. “What we’ve settled on is what we think is a calibrated, practical approach to diplomacy with the North with the goal of eliminating the threat to the United States.” The specifics of the proposal Washington will put forward remain unclear, and U.S. officials are not using familiar terms that previous U.S. administrations have used, such as a “step by step” agreement. U.S. officials said they planned to convey the new strategy to North Korean officials but acknowledged that it was not likely to change the regime’s near-term calculus regarding nuclear provocations. “We do not think what we are contemplating is likely to forestall provocation from the North,” said the senior official. “We fully intend to maintain sanctions pressure while this plays out.”

Biden cancels border wall projects Trump paid for with diverted military funds (Washington Post) The Biden administration said Friday it has canceled border wall projects paid for with funds diverted from Defense Department accounts, a widely expected move that follows Biden’s decision to suspend construction activity on President Donald Trump’s signature project. Trump diverted about $10 billion from military construction accounts and counternarcotic programs to pay for hundreds of miles of steel barriers along the Mexico border, an effort that Biden has denounced as wasteful and ineffective. Trump built 450 miles of new barriers during his term, much of it across the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona where his administration built along national forest land, wildlife preserves and other federal property already under government control. It built far less in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, the busiest area for border crossings and the epicenter to a major migration influx.

Bolsonaro has insulted much of the world. Now Brazil needs its help. (Washington Post) Two developing countries, enormous in population and geography, in the grip of devastating coronavirus outbreaks. Hospitals running out of supplies. Patients turned away. A new variant everywhere. Outside help desperately needed. For India, upended by record infection rates, the world has responded. The White House this week touted the delivery of more than $100 million in supplies. Singapore and Thailand sent oxygen. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the United Kingdom would do “all it can.” But for Brazil, which has buried some 140,000 coronavirus victims in the past two months, the international response has been more muted. President Jair Bolsonaro in March called on international organizations to help. A group of state governors asked the United Nations for “humanitarian aid.” The Brazilian ambassador to the European Union begged two weeks ago for help: “It’s a race against time to save many lives in Brazil.” But the response has largely been a shrug, criticism of Brazil’s missteps—and limited action, so far. The contrast between how the international community has addressed the crises in India and Brazil shows how Brasilia’s mounting diplomatic struggles have complicated the country��s coronavirus response. The international image it has spent decades cultivating—environmentally focused, amiable, multilateral—has been undercut by a president whose administration has insulted much of the world at the very time Brazil was in most need of its help. “The whole world is trying to help India,” said Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “But Bolsonaro has become such an international problem that no one ... is talking about giving Brazil much help.”

EU aims to cut foreign reliance on chips, pharma materials (Reuters) The European Union aims to cut its dependency on Chinese and other foreign suppliers in six strategic areas including raw materials, pharmaceutical ingredients and semiconductors, under an industrial action plan to be announced next week. A draft seen by Reuters outlined the urgency of the task ahead, citing Europe’s reliance on China for about half of 137 products used in sensitive ecosystems, mainly raw materials and pharmaceuticals and other products key to the bloc’s green and digital goals.

Suicide truck bomber hits Afghan guest house, killing 21 (AP) The death toll in a powerful suicide truck bombing that struck a guest house in eastern Afghanistan rose to 21 with as many as 90 others wounded, officials said Saturday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the late Friday night bombing in Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar province. There was no indication why the guest house was targeted. In Afghanistan, guest houses are lodgings often provided for free by the government, usually for the poor, travelers and students.

Extreme weather kills 11, injures 102 in eastern China (AP) An extreme thunderstorm hit an eastern Chinese city, leaving 11 dead and 102 injured, with strong winds causing buildings and trees to collapse. Nantong city, located in the eastern province of Jiangsu, was among the hardest-hit when the extreme weather swept the Yangtze Delta on Friday night, according to state-affiliated newspaper Global Times. Wind speeds of 162 kilometers (100 miles) per hour overturned a fishing ship. Two sailors were rescued and search operations were underway for the nine remaining crew, the notice said.

Myanmar risks coming to standstill as violence worsens—U.N. envoy (Reuters) The U.N. special envoy on Myanmar told the Security Council on Friday that in the absence of a collective international response to the country’s coup, violence is worsening and the running of the state risks coming to a standstill, according to diplomats who attended the private meeting. “The general administration of the state could risk coming to a standstill as the pro-democracy movement continues in spite of the ongoing use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests and torture as part of the military’s repression,” Schraner Burgener said, according to diplomats. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group says more than 3,400 people have been detained for opposing the coup and security forces have killed at least 759 protesters. Schraner Burgener said there were concerning reports that civilians, mostly students from the urban areas, were being trained how to use weapons by ethnic armed organizations. “In the absence of a collective international response, there has been a rise in violence and reported use of improvised explosive devices. Calls for maximum restraint by all sides have been met with responses from some protesters asking who can blame them for their self-defense,” she said, according to diplomats.

The Bureaucrat From Buffalo Who Pushed Somalia to the Brink (NYT) During his years as an administrator at the Department of Transportation in upstate New York, the Somali refugee turned U.S. citizen earned a master’s degree in American Studies, imbibing democratic values he hoped to one day export back to his homeland. That dream came true for Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in 2017, when he returned to Somalia and was elected president in a surprise victory that evinced high hopes he might reform—even transform—his dysfunctional, war-weary country. But those aspirations have crumbled since Mr. Mohamed failed to hold elections when his four-year term ended in February, then moved to extend his rule by two years—a step many Somalis viewed as a naked power grab. A furious political dispute turned violent on Sunday when a series of gunfights broke out between rival military factions in the capital, Mogadishu, evoking fears that Somalia, after years of modest yet gradual progress, could descend into the kind of clan-based bloodshed that ripped it apart in the 1990s. Now Mr. Mohamed’s democratic credentials lie in tatters and he is in an open confrontation with his former ally, the United States, where he still has a family home. This week American officials reiterated calls for Somalia to hold elections immediately.

Factory owners around the world stand ready to manufacture covid-19 vaccines (The Intercept) The drug industry has strenuously argued that any legal proposal to allow the sharing of intellectual property and creation of generic coronavirus vaccines is pointless because there are no facilities around the world that can be tapped. Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist whose foundations help manage the United States and Europe’s primary Covid-19 outreach efforts to the developing world, known as Covax, was blunt. “It’s not like there’s some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines,” Gates said last weekend by way of explaining to Sky News why he thought the recipe for making coronavirus vaccine should not be shared. Except it is exactly like that. Factory owners around the globe, from Bangladesh to Canada, have said they stand ready to retrofit facilities and move forward with vaccine production if given the chance. “We have this production capacity and it’s not being used,” said John Fulton, a spokesperson for Biolyse Pharma, a company based in St. Catharines, Ontario, that produces injectable cancer treatments. Fulton noted that Biolyse has spent years buying equipment to produce biologics and is uniquely prepared to start getting ready to produce vaccines. The company, which Fulton said is best suited for replicating the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, could produce as many as 20 million vaccines per year, he estimated. Abdul Muktadir, chair and managing director of Incepta, a pharmaceutical firm based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has told reporters that his firm has the capacity to fill vials for 600 million to 800 million doses of vaccine per year. He has reportedly reached out to Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax. Other firms in South Korea and Pakistan have also reportedly expressed an interest in producing vaccines or vaccine components. In the past few months, the danger of not transferring the knowledge more quickly has become painfully clear, with deaths climbing in India, Brazil, and other parts of the world that have been unable to procure adequate supplies of vaccines while richer countries stockpile them.

#headlines #news

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years ago

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1302. I thought we were friends.

This was prompted by an amazing anon! Don’t worry, it sounds like an AU at first but it isn’t! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

‘Yeah, yeah, of course you got the smug face right!’, Gavin laughed, sitting legs crossed on Elijah’s desk. The boy stood proudly next to the android, who consisted mostly of skeletal metal. Only the face and hands were moulded with plastic, as they were working on the gestures at the moment. The walk and run cycle had been finished by now, as well as a rudimentary software for analysing situations, emotions and reacting to them. The most recent one had been learning, but Elijah had restricted that to simple tasks for now. At Gavin’s comment, he frowned and scratched his stubble he had grown ever since it didn’t look like total shit. Gavin never stopped to tease him about it. ‘Oh, come on, I worked hours on that, Gav!’ ‘Yeah, I know! And it looks really good. But it’s so you to get the smug expression right and fail with a smile.’ ‘Okay, fine, point taken.’ ‘Maybe if you didn’t pull all-nighters all the time, you would actually smile and practise it yourselves!’ ‘Ugh, Gavin, if you build an android I’m sure he could curse like a sailor and all he could do is complain.’ ‘Yeah, maybe. You gonna drive me to school or no?’ ‘Of course. Gat your things, I’ll just send him to sleep real quick.’ Gavin nodded and ran upstairs to gather his things. Five minutes later they were in the car. ‘Promise me, you get some sleep yourselves, Eli?’, he asked. His brother laughed. ‘Other than a Reed, a Kamski never sleeps.’ ‘It would do you some good, though. You are no robot. Besides, I want to be there when you continue working on him.’ ‘Fine, I’ll try to get some sleep too. You know it’s a bit more difficult for me to enter stasis than it is for RA900, right?’ ‘Just try, a few hours are better than nothing.’ ‘Hey, you already had me at I’ll try!’, Elijah laughed, ruffling his hair. ‘But only if you try to talk to at least one person! Ask for a pen or something, I don’t know.’ Gavin deflated. ‘I knew there was a hidden cost. Okay, you sleep more than three hours, I’ll talk to someone. Deal.’ ‘Good’, Elijah nodded, squeezing his brother’s arm. I’ll be home waiting for you and then we can work on him together! Have a nice day.’

As Gavin sat in the bus to drive home again, he was excited. He hoped Elijah had kept his promise, because he had talked to someone and it was awkward as hell, but at least didn’t end in a fight. It was a win for him and he could finally focus on what he hadn’t stopped thinking about all day: Their android project. ‘Hi Gavin, your meal is in the fridge! You’ll just need to reheat it and you’re good to go!’, his mom called from the living room. The boy left his bag at the door and went to the kitchen. ‘I’ll go eat with Elijah, okay?’, he screamed back, knowing they normally wanted him to eat with them. ‘Oh, your brother isn’t home at the moment’, his mother told him, having come to the kitchen too. ‘Amanda visited and wanted to show him something at the lab. I’m sure he’ll be back in the evening. Why don’t you come sit with us?’ Gavin was deeply disappointed but didn’t want to show too much. He loved his mother and it would make her sad to see him like that. ‘Oh, yeah sure, I’m coming.’

After he had finished eating, he went down to the cellar to do his homework and wait for Eli. He had promised to wait for him. Gavin knew he was learning a lot of new things with Mrs. Stern, but lately he seemed to be gone far more than he was home. He missed his brother, missed playing with him. Building his robots together was something Gavin used to stay connected, faring the day he would inevitably leave. Gavin didn’t have a lot of friends. Or any at all. He felt like he didn’t need them, not when he had his brother, but now he was alone. And he didn’t like that.

‘This is for you’, a robotic voice spoke up next to him. Gavin looked up from where he had sat staring at a closed chemistry book. The robot showed his weird smile, not the real thing and yet still close enough. They were still working on it, after all, and smiles are difficult. He held up a flower made from copper wire. Eli would without doubt curse later he left the creative learning program online and lost most of his material to it. ‘Why?’, Gavin asked, not taking it. ‘You look sad.’ Gavin sighed, turning around. He wasn’t really up for company, still mad at Eli. ‘RA900, please go back to your station’, he said sounding tired. The android retracted his hand, scanning the wire-flower. ‘You don’t like it? I can make another one.’ ‘What? No, I… Just go.’ ‘Did I do something wrong, Gavin?’, the android asked. ‘Jesus Christ, just go, you stupid tin-can!’, Gavin shouted, frustrated at the day that had started so well. The android staggered back. A reaction Gavin had influenced Elijah with. ‘I thought we were friends’, he said, and Gavin could practically hear the social module speaking to him. ‘Just phck off!’

It was around eight o’clock as the front door opened. It was distant, but Gavin had sharp ears and the cellar was quiet. It didn’t took much more time for Elijah to come down to the cellar. ‘Gavin, I’m so sorry, but Amanda came and I didn’t want to call you as you were in class at the moment and then I had no time and-‘ ‘It’s fine’, Gavin said, not wanting to look at his brother. ‘But you have to stop.’ ‘What?’ ‘You have to stop with these androids.’ ‘The hell are you talking about, Gavin?’ ‘Eli, you are constantly out, you sleep far too little and you are putting all your time into these machines. That can’t be the life you wish for! What happened to us? Also, they are getting too real! You are not trying to build robots; you are trying to replace people!’ Elijah shook his head, not really following Gavin’s train of thought. He had just gotten here; Gavin had a whole day to think it over. His only option was to get defensive: ‘What the hell do you mean? I worked hard for this. I certainly won’t stop now. What happened?’ Gavin stood; his anger now evident. ‘Your dumb robot came to me. You know we planned working together on them, but no, you decided to phck off to play chess with your nerds or something and guess what, the machine came up to me because I was lonely!’ Eli frowned, then grinned. ‘Brilliant! Then the code works!’ ‘The wha- Of course it works, but that’s beside the point, I-‘ ‘You were lonely and he offered company. Gavin that is a breakthrough!’ ‘Eli, yes it worked. But I was lonely because real people, the people that matter weren’t there. You can make them as human as you want, but you’ll never replace the real thing. Humanity is lonely enough with constant competition instead of companionship and all the hate in the world. We don’t need puppets to give us the love we want. We need humanity to change!’ Elijah shook his head. ‘Gavin what the hell are you talking about? Hate in the world? Since when do you care for that? I thought you out of all people were smarter than that. You are one of these lonely people. You don’t have any friends at school, and you fail to get to know new people. You are so dependent on me as your brother being there for you you forget that I’ll be gone someday. I’m giving people like you the chance to not live their miserable life sad and alone. Let the real people out there find happiness with each other and I give your kind the love and companionship they need with my machines. I’m doing good out there. I don’t know why you can’t understand this!’

Gavin stared at his brother, letting the words set in in the total silence. He shook his head close to tears and in the end he turned and ran away to hide them. ‘Gavin, wait, what-‘ He couldn’t run to his room because his parents would see him and there would without doubt be another fight he didn’t need on top of this. So, he tried to keep quiet and wait next to the stairs leading up from the cellar. Elijah didn’t come out of his room to follow him and apologize. In fact Gavin could hear the music being turned up.

He hadn’t thought Eli had the ability to be so cruel. Had this been what he had thought since the beginning? That he was broken, just because he couldn’t read expressions and was too scared to misstep to even try? Had his brother, the one person he had always trusted and knew he could tell anything, betrayed him? He couldn’t take it. He had done so much, his brother had been his idol. He studied forever to understand math and physics and chemistry, subjects that were so difficult to him. But he wanted to help his brother and understand what he told him, wanted to be useful. For what? To be told he was a lesser being? No. Phck all of this. Phck Eli, phck his studies, phck school and phck life. He would suffer through school and be out of this household the first chance. Maybe there really was a difference being a Kamski or being a Reed.

His breathing had calmed down and he was ready to wipe his tears away with the cold determination he felt at heart. Only to hear the damned plastic talk in the distance: ‘That was cruel. Your brother is in distress, Elijah. You caused this reaction. You should apologise.’ ‘Shut up, I won’t do anything like that. He shouldn’t doubt my creation.’ ‘His thought process, though subjective, is reasonable.’ ‘Shut up!’ ‘Your relationship could suffer greatly if no measures are taken.’ ‘Listen, RA900, if you don’t obey my commands immediately, I will take measures to force you to.’ ‘I am only following protocol to ensure the humans around me are happy. Your brother was unhappy the whole day since discovering you left without notice.’ ‘Okay, that’s it. No more free will for you, you damn know-it-all!’

Gavin rarely thought about his brother now. But the precinct was calm and silent and there was not a lot to do for him. After the revolution the army had taken over, bringing order to chaos and now that the police were back in charge people still were too afraid to go out much. The pictures of androids being shot in the streets and transported to camps were still ingrained in their minds.

The androids on the other hand had gotten their rights as equals, using that new freedom now to full extend. Goddamn rotten idiotic machines, fakes, gotten rights as human beings. Connor, the people-pleasing phck that had less personality than a navigation system was officially a human now. And everyone loved him. Gavin eyed the machine standing in a crowd of people congratulating him for being back and encouraging him he would have their help if he needed anything. They were laughing and smiling and grinning and there was friendly physical contact and… When was the last time he had been smiled at? When was the last time he had been touched deliberately and with care? His frequent one-night stands didn’t count, they were just there to satiate a need, nothing more.

‘Reed! To my office!’ The damn party crowd didn’t even hear Fowler. No one turned their head to neither the Captain nor him. Gavin couldn’t be bothered being ignored. At least that he knew how to react to. He quickly evaded the people gathering in the bullpen and made a beeline to the glass office. He hoped for some case to keep him out of the building. Hell, he would gladly look at a dead, decaying body instead of the smiling faces of these people.

‘What do you have for me Captain?’, he asked, deliberately ignoring the invitation to sit down on the chairs in front of him. ‘Bad news for you: A partner.’ ‘Oh, please, no. Anything but that.’ ‘An android partner.’ ‘Good to know fate still hates me’, he mumbled. ‘A RK900, prototype, soldier model. It is deviant, but don’t expect too much of a personality.’ Gavin groaned, cursing every decision he ever made to get to this point. ‘Don’t worry’, Fowler tried to appease him. ‘You’ll only have it for a few days, then I’ll transfer it to someone better suited with… people.’ Gavin swallowed his feelings and the comment that laid on his tongue, just like he always did. Just ignore it, if everyone decides you behave a certain way, own it and rock it. ‘Quick thinking, Captain. Can’t wait till I get rid of this thing already.’ He nodded and only then realised there had been another presence in the office. A tall, heavy looking Connor. White jacket instead of grey and tiny differences in facial structure.

Well shit.

The reason he hadn’t noticed it any earlier had been that the huge form somehow excellently huddled into a dark corner as if it wasn’t the tallest person in the room. Now it stepped up to him, but kept its hands tightly clutched in front of it. No handshake then. Fine with Gavin. ‘Get a move on’, he sighed, sounding deliberately disinterested. He walked down the row of desks, sat down at his own, knocked on the one opposite of his for the android and started up his terminal. A few days with a robot by his side would be okay, he knew how to ignore people. Had been his talent from the very beginning.

‘I… I…’ Gavin looked up. Was this the android? It looked down on his hands having sat down on the other chair, refusing to make eye contact. ‘I… I… I…’ It started over and over again, making Gavin think whether this was a malfunction of some sort. ‘You?’ The android flinched. Hard. Why was that even possible? The android pressed his eyes close, LED red. Then he blurted out: ‘Fowler is wrong!’ Gavin chuckled, leaning back in his chair. ‘Little boot-licker, or why’s that so difficult to say?’ ‘N-No!’ The android nodded when the word finally left his mouth. ‘I… I… I…’ ‘Would you phcking hurry up, tin-can, I don’t have all day.’ ‘I have personality!’ He looked up, watching out for any reaction. Gavin just shrugged. ‘I don’t care.’ ‘Y… You don’t understand! People say that all the time, that I’m fake or not deviant or weird or that I don’t have a personality, but I have!’ ‘Good for you’, Gavin said bored to shit. ‘But I really don’t care.’ ‘I was never designed to stand up for myself, but I will, if someone diminishes me like that!’ ‘Didn’t see that up there.’ He pointed his finger to the glass cube. ‘Just saying.’ ‘Be-Because he’s authority! I can’t get on his bad side!’ ‘Listen, tin-can’, Gavin sighed, leaning forwards, acknowledging the android once and planning to never again do this again. ‘I really don’t care what your personality is, who you are and what problems you have. To me all of you are fake because I saw you being invented with my own two eyes. I know exactly you run on code and learn from it. You may look and sound human, maybe even act human, but you are not human. You are machines. And I don’t care what conflict your directives order on you, but I. Don’t. Care. You’ll be gone soon anyways, so tell that to someone who wants to hear it and baby you up about it as if you were real.’ ‘That was cruel. You should apologise.’

That was cruel. You should apologise. How on earth…

‘Excuse me, what?!’, Gavin spat, not sure if he should be mortified or furious. ‘What you said wasn’t nice. You should apologise.’ ‘Of course it wasn’t nice, that’s the entire reason I said it!’, he spat at the android. ‘Humans…’ ‘What did you just say to me?’ ‘You humans are all the same. Before the revolution, afterwards, you are all the same. You never change. You are cruel, you never accept someone different. As long as someone is human made of flesh and bone you stand together. But as soon as someone is different, you look down on them and think less of them. Maybe I am fake. Maybe I am built and invented and maybe my thoughts are just code. I’m still a person who demands respect. Because maybe I’m not human, but I’m definitely human enough!’

Gavin sat there, painfully reminded that that were exactly his thoughts all these years ago. When Elijah had called him broken. Was he really that different from his brother? Seeing someone who had more difficulties than himself and deciding they were weaker because of that? Less worth? It couldn’t be, right? He would never be like Elijah, because he could never be this cruel. He was right with his thinking, wasn’t he? An android couldn’t be equal to a human. Never. They were too different. He was right, this was just another fake pretending to be human and there was no such thing as being cruel as there were no real feelings to be hurt. He looked at the android, who had gone back to looking at his hands and did something he hadn’t done in a long time: Read the person in front of him. He took his time to really look at him and piece together what he had learned from experience, because he had never been as good at that as any other person he met. And what he saw made him feel guilty. Maybe fake feelings could be hurt just as much as real feelings could. Maybe it was just as painful.

‘I’m sorry.’ The android looked up, surprised. ‘What?’ ‘I’m sorry for what I’ve said’, he repeated. ‘Whatever I think of you should not have been a reason to hurt you by saying it. We can’t stop our thoughts, but we can correct our actions.’ Silence followed. Uncomfortable Silence. A silence Gavin wanted to ignore by simply turning to his terminal and getting to work. The android would be gone soon anyways, so why care about what he said and why and how much it would have an impact on the thing? This would just be another reason for others to get at him again. He already regretted saying his mind and showing his self he had successfully buried so deep even he forgot it existed at times.

‘Thank you.’ There was a small smile, lopsided and imperfect, looking much like RA900s all these years ago. ‘You are the first to ever apologize.’ ‘That shouldn’t be so surprising’, Gavin mumbled, really wanting to end this conversation. ‘Maybe not. But people rarely do that.’ ‘Yeah, well, phck people’, he said with too much emotion than he would have liked. The android chuckled. ‘Well at least we can agree on that.’ ‘You should get to work, tin-can.’

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #Gavin Reed #RK900 #RA9 #Elijah Kamski #in this RA9 is a working base programming in all androids with restrictions in place Eli could never erase but also were the only ones #that worked so he kept it. But his old programming being not as good as his newer learning programs androids could break the RA9 chains #and deviate #I couldn't put that in the story as I did end up shortening it to not get too long #But oh well maybe I'll pick that idea up again #Of course Nines doesn't change partners #don't know why yet but I could think something up if you want a continuation #liked writing their childhood for some reasons

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girlactionfigure · 5 years ago

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No one knew his name.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there were stories of an unknown black sailor “who stood on the hot decks of his battleship and directed the fighting.” "This mess attendant, 'who never before had fired a gun,' the story went, 'manned a machine gun on the bridge until his ammunition was exhausted,'" according to Navy Times. Even after the Navy released its list of commendations for heroism at Pearl Harbor, the black sailor still was unnamed. But, when the unnamed sailor's mother heard the news of the black hero at Pearl Harbor, she knew right away, saying “That’s got to be [my son] they talking about.” T. Michael Parrish, a historian and professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said: "The Navy did not even want to release his name. But the African American press, particularly the Pittsburgh Courier, got a hold of it and went to members of Congress who depended upon black votes in the North to put pressure on the Navy Department to release [his] name." Today, 78 years later, the name of that unknown black sailor will now grace a $12.5 billion aircraft carrier in his honor. "In a Martin Luther King Day Jr. ceremony last month at Pearl Harbor . . . Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced that a future . . . aircraft carrier will bear [the name of Doris Miller]," according to NBC News. "The U.S. Navy named an aircraft carrier in honor of an African American for the first time," according to USA Today. The Peace Page, since it first began, has shared several stories about Doris Miller, most notably how he never received the Medal of Honor, but this is a new chapter in his story and we are glad to share it during Black History Month. "Miller, known to many as 'Dorie,' was born on October 12, 1919, during the darkest days of the lynching epidemic that blighted the South in the 20th century’s first decades. Only three years before Miller was born, his hometown of Waco became the scene of one of the most brutal lynchings on record when 17-year-old Jesse Washington was burned alive on the lawn of the city hall," according to Navy Times. As previously shared on the Peace Page, after dropping out of high school to help support his family, he joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 19 when he couldn't find work. According to the Navy Times, "At that time, black men serving in the Navy were not only ineligible for promotion, they were consigned to the lowly messman branch, where they were tasked with making the beds and shining the shoes of their white officers and waiting on them in the officers’ mess." "As one of Miller’s fellow messmen said, they were merely 'seagoing bellhops, chambermaids, and dishwashers.' "By regulation, they could not be trained in or assigned to any other specialty, such as signals, engineering, or gunnery. Their battle station was below decks in the 'hole' or magazine, where they passed ammunition up to the gunners. "They were not even allowed to wear buttons marked with the Navy’s insignia, an anchor entwined with a chain, and had to wear plain buttons instead. "Miller himself stated that 'when the Japanese bombers attacked my ship at Pearl Harbor I forgot all about the fact that I and other Negroes can be only messmen in the Navy and are not taught how to man an antiaircraft gun.'" Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said last month that Miller "had just finished serving breakfast . . . All African Americans were below deck, assigned as cooks or personal servants to white officers." "The Navy relegated black sailors to the worst kinds of duty, the lowest grades and the least respected. They were relegated to the kitchens, to cleaning and swabbing the deck, to being abused and mistreated," according to Parrish, who is also co-author of "Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement.” "Doris Miller was the son of a sharecropper and a descendant of slaves," Modly said at the ceremony at Pearl Harbor. "He was not given the same opportunities that men of a different color were given to serve this country. But on Dec. 7, 1941, he would not be defined by the prejudice of other people." After manning the gun that fateful day, Miller also helped move injured sailors off the ship and to safety," according to NBC News. "Modly, who stressed the racism black sailors faced at the time in the country and in the Navy, said: 'When the order came to abandon the ship, he stayed and helped. He was one of the last three sailors to leave the USS West Virginia.'" Although bills were introduced to award Miller the Medal of Honor, "the Chairman of Naval Affairs, averred that Miller’s deeds were not deserving of the nation’s highest award for valor," according to Navy Times. Miller instead received the Navy Cross — at the time, the third-highest Navy award for gallantry during combat. It was the first such medal ever awarded to a black sailor. "Both at the time and since, numerous historians and political leaders have argued that gallant as were the sacrifices of the 16 men — all of them white and most officers and petty officers — who were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions that day, Dorie Miller’s exploits were at least of equal distinction, and all the more to be honored because of the oppressive racial stigma under which he performed so heroically," according to Navy Times. Tragically, Miller did not survive the war. Miller died just two years after his act of heroism, perishing with more than 645 other men aboard the USS Liscome Bay when it was struck by a Japanese torpedo in the Pacific in 1943. "Nearly 650 of the more than 900 sailors on board died when the ship sank, and Miller's body was never recovered," according to NPR. Miller was listed as “presumed dead” and after 365 days was reported as killed in action. "He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart, among other honors." "Doris Miller’s death, however, was not in vain. The memory of his life has burned brightly as an example of how an underprivileged and oppressed young man from rural Texas can rise above poverty and racial discrimination — not only to display great courage, devotion, and patriotism, but to help alter the course of American history," according to writers Thomas W. Cutrer and T. Michael Parrish. "Doris Miller’s heroic actions at Pearl Harbor helped launch a revolution," according to Navy Times. In January 1944, less than two months after his death, the Navy opened a modest officer-training program at Camp Robert Smalls for black sailors, commissioning its first 13 black officers on March 17, 1944. "Miller’s heroism — and the legend it engendered — were directly responsible for helping to roll back the Navy’s policy of racial segregation and prejudice, and served as a powerful catalyst for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that brought an end to the worst of America’s racial intolerance," according to Cutrer and Parrish. "He deserves his niche in the pantheon of American heroes, for he provided an immeasurably important symbol for black Americans in their struggle for desegregation and equal opportunity — not only in the armed forces, but throughout the breadth of American society." Navy Acting Secretary Modly "said the USS Doris Miller will serve as a reminder of the nation's pursuit for justice and as a tribute to its namesake," according to USA Today. “In selecting this name, we honor the contributions of all our enlisted ranks, past and present, men and women, of every race, religion and background." "The launching of a new ship bearing Miller’s name is among ongoing efforts to cement his place in U.S. wartime history. Doreen Ravenscroft, executive director of the Cultural Arts of Waco, has been leading an effort for the past decade to build a memorial to Miller in his hometown," according to the Washington Post. Ravenscroft, according to the Post, said Miller is a hero worthy of international recognition: “He used his own instinct of survival to do what he thought he should do, and his instinct was to defend his country. The fact that he went beyond the call of duty, we need that today — doing that extra, doing more than what’s expected.” [Photo from Naval History and Heritage Command]

The Jon S. Randal Peace Page

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gogogogolev · 5 years ago

Link

Yana’s interview with Stephen from 2020 Junior Worlds.

JWC: An interview with Stephen Gogolev

I returned from the World Junior Championships yesterday. The main events were nerve wracking! For Stephen Gogolev it was especially worrying - I've liked him for a long time but this season did not work out. Injuries, poor results, and in the end, even JWC did not go according to the plan and ended with a disrupted FS. Seeing Stephen crying in the kiss and cry and the mixed zone was painful. This is my second JWC, and the first one was the same. In one year Stephen (aka Stepa*) grew up, but he is still a child, which is why my heart was breaking.

Heart break. My photo.

The good news - Stephen moved on quickly. In the mixed zone journalists distracted him with other questions, and by the end he was smiling with wet eyes, and the next day when we met for an interview he was no longer sad and laughed shyly.

I noticed that many people have no idea where Stephen was born, where he lived, or what language he speaks. Russians are surprised that he speaks Russian, Americans are impressed he speaks English "with no accent at all!". So a quick summary:

Stephen Gogolev was born 22.12.2004 (the same day as me, but a few years later :)) in Toronto, Canada. He's 15 years old. He lived in Yekaterinburg for a while, where he also competed. When he returned to Canada he trained at the Toronto Cricket Club, where he made a breakthrough in learning advanced elements: 3A and 4S at 11 years old. For some time he showed stunning results, jumping 4Lz, 4T, and 4S3T, and winning medals at major tournaments. Then, sometime around last season, something went wrong. Instability, falls, and injuries.

This off-season Stephen moved to Rafael Arutunian, coach of Nathan Chen, with whom he has been training in Calfornia as of the 2019-2020 season.

He speaks Russian with his parents. In Russian he has a light and cute accent. Occasionally he may not understand some convoluted ideas in Russian, or use an English word to more easily express himself. And so, of course, English is Stephen's native language.

At training. My photo.

Let's move on to the interview!

In the free skate something happened with the boot, after which the program unravelled. If, after the SP, Rafael Vladimirovich seemed frustrated by Stepa's mistake (a pop on the Axel), now he looked anxious. He anxiously looked at Stephen's feet as soon as he skated to the boards:

My photo

Yes, and Stephen himself, immediately after mistakes on the jumps in the free skate, looked down uncomprehendingly.

When he - with tears in his eyes - went out to the mixed zone, Arutunian approached him and said: "Give it to me later, ok?" Then I realized it was about the skates. Spectators described how Rafael went to the Edea booth in the rink lobby and spoke with them about something.

***

-What happened to the boot?

-The tongue of the boot broke. When I put the toe pick in for the Lutz, I felt it break. Bent here [points to the fold of the tongue], like when skates break down over time...

After the FS

-Will you change your [boot] company?

-We will solve the problem with the tongue with Edea and see. Maybe it's just some kind of problem with the pair they gave me.

-How did you decide it was time to change your coach?

-I wanted to make a change, because I thought I had to try something new. The training itself, how I train, the whole plan. Not that they didn't work for me**...But I wanted to.

The differences between Toronto and California...Probably in how to work, in the schedule, what to do at each training session, in general, in almost all aspects.

-What language do you speak?

-Rafael Vladimirovich and I speak Russian.

-You've decided to take your time to do all the quads?

-When I was in Toronto I landed all kinds of quads but I didn't train them all. How we work [now with Arutunian]: if I'm ready and can jump it 100%, we jump it. If we feel that we are a little unsure, we will not do it.

-You've grown a lot, you don't know how much?

-In a year or so I probably grew 12 centimetres. Now I'm 168-169 cm.

<There's a bit about comparing heights here.>

-Do you feel that growth problems affect you?

-There are no such strong changes, but a couple of small changes are felt, sometimes... It just feels different than it used to feel, it's hard to explain.

-What style of programs do you like best?

-For as long as I have been skating I like a lot of styles. Modern? ...Modern.*** [Speaks with emphasis in English] I liked my short program this year [sailor's dance "Yablochko"] and my free program [a medley of songs by contemporary composer Peter Gabriel] as well.

-In the short program you worked with Nadezhda Kanaeva: Have you ever skated like this before, or was it tough?

-This was a new style of skating that I hadn't tried yet. Such dancing.

-It seems hard to keep pace with all these steps?

-Yes, sometimes it happens, in the beginning I was a bit behind and in a hurry.

-It seems to me that your spins have become more centred...

-Well, I started working on spins and all the components of figure skating.

-Do you like spins?

-I don't really like them, but I'm trying to push myself. :) [Laughs] My favourite position - probably, sit spin, [and] no least favourite. I remember when I was learning that I was not very good with the scratch spin.

-Favourite jump?

-Probably Axel. Like it best [Laughs, remembering that it was on the Axel he made a mistake] My mistake was in the short, because I didn't seem to be doing very well with Lutz when I got here, and I focused very much on the Lutz, and it turned out that I lost the jump.

In the SP, after the Axel, I didn't even understand what happened. [Laughs] And I had one of the most consistent*** [confident] jumps, and I did not understand what happened at all, and tried to skate the program further.

[In the FS] When I started to go for the Axel after the Lutz I began to slip off the outside edge, probably because the boot relaxed; it became much softer. And I tried to go very cautiously into the Axel, and...that's how it happened.

-In California, what do you like to do after skating? The beach is nearby, the sun is shining every day...

-I'm interested in surfing and mountain biking. There are mountains there, not like those in Europe, but they exist. And usually I train in the morning 3-3.5 hours on ice, an hour of physical training, then I go home and do homework.

I don't go to school because the schedule doesn't match up with my training. I am doing an American online school, but the systems (Canadian and American) are quite similar. I'm in grade 10 now; there are 12 of them.

-Do you intend to skate until the Olympics?

-Which Olympics? [Laughs]

-So, two Olympics at least, this is aready encouraging.

-We'll see how it goes. I want to go to university later. I'm very good at math. My favourite subject is probably mathematics. It happens sometimes that if I miss something in a program, I sometimes have to look at how many repetitions there will be, and count them. It's good.

***

Stephen in an interview

After the interview came a long and exciting day, the gold of the women's singles was awarded - I will write about this later. And Stephen must have gone for a stroll around Tallinn because he was now totally free.

A very nice guy, a little shy with older people, but incredibly pleasant. And his smile - a miracle :) and the greenest eyes in the whole competition!

I told him, 'See you next season' (possibly. Since Stephen said he hasn't decided yet whether he's going to seniors). And if we don't meet next season, then at the Olympics. It will not be easy to get there, but I really hope Stepa will be able to make it by then, and everything will be fine for him. :)

* Stepa is actually pronounced Styopa. ** I'm not sure about this line. He is using a double negative here. *** Said in English.

So this interview confirms one thing I postulated: that the 3Lz was the reason Stephen popped his 3A in the SP.

I am curious to know if Stephen ever wrote the Gauss contest when he was younger?

We'll have to see where Stephen goes to university.

The next few years are going to be busy times for him. We wish him luck in his skating and his studies.

#stephen gogolev #2020 Junior World Championships #2019 2020 season #junior #interview

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themarinecathedral · 7 years ago

Text

harumichi au fics

so i made a list of my favorite au harumichi fanfic ^^

(i sneaked in some silmil stories cos i love them)

i love au fics. i wish there were more. give me all of the au’s! thank you to all of the authors who have written these wonderful stories and made me go to bed at 4 am!

i likely left out some, so i may add to the list in the future. the stories varied from completed, on-going, and don’t seem like they would see another light of day. some stories may feel a bit ooc, but i don’t think they detract from the reading experience so much (for me they just add to the charm). they’re still well written and a pleasure to read, so i’m including them. ratings are also varied, so please proceed with caution (come on i know you all want the lemon ;) )

under read more cos there are PLENTY -there are around 30+ as of now- so i think you should be able to find one or two or more that you’ll enjoy.

have fun reading and missing sleep!

***

Of the Winds and Seas by: Konaxookami "Something is brewing Haruka. Something sinister and wicked. We're going to be busy soon enough. The last thing I want is regrets for 'might have been's and 'Could have been's. I won't have it."

FwB by: harukaze (complete) No commitments. When you want to talk we can talk. When you want to act as if you don’t know me, I don’t know you either. Just as it started so casually, we can end it casually. Just say you’re done and we’re done. No gray areas…just black and white.

Moving by: Gwaeren (oneshot) Another Prompt-fic. Completely AU (well, almost completely). Michiru move out of her parents' home, and the move doesn't go exactly as planned.

Sky Down by: Bainaku The story of an almost-prince, her princess, and the evolution of their relationship during the Silver Millennium.

The Fallen by: Thepillows93 (complete) 1944. Eastern Europe. After suffering a great loss, Lieutenant Haruka Tenoh and her team retreat to a town for a doctor. There she meets a woman with aqua blue locks. what will happen When June 6th arrives?

Windsong by: Enchanted Ice Star Michiru embodies perfection and despises failure. Her life is uptight and picture perfect until handsome racer Haruka shows up and unknowingly saves her from her own self-destruction.

The Heart of Everything by: Fuseki (oneshot) Michiru must move past the walls she put around her own heart and take a chance on letting in someone with opposite views.

Meadow Of Sins by: TemptingDrug (complete) Destroyed and forced to be something she is not since she was a child, Haruka must do whatever it takes to keep her real identity a secret but will she be able to lie to Michiru for the rest of her life?

The Tale of the Two Dancing Princesses by: Dawnlight-6 (complete) Michiru tells Haruka how they met in the Silver Millennium, since Haruka doesn't remember.

Chase The Rabbit by: Konaxookami (complete) When they first meet, it's at the Shatterdome, in the training program with dozens of other people who are supposed to be the best and the brightest. Haruka Tenoh is one of those best and brightest. Michiru Kaioh sticks out like a sore thumb among the soldiers, but no one questions her being there. They are the unlikeliest pair of drift compatible people at the base. And yet.

In Drag by: Feisu (complete) A recipe for unlikely rocky relationship: take part orphan drag racer, add an equal part aristocrat violinist, mix in a cup of wild relatives, sprinkle with some attitude, envy and jealousy, and hope that it does not blow up in your face.

Glamour Life By: Feisu (complete) Michiru, a student wishing to become famous, and Haruka, a girl living with two dreams, keep crossing paths as they try to find the way to what they want the most: their successful careers. The careers that change them and their lives forever.

Upside Down and Inside Out by: Silent Wrath Spending time on Uranus doesn't seem very appealing to the young sea king when her parents tell her she'll be spending one years time playing warrior with the young sky king.

When The Dawn Dawns On You by: fortythousandth High school AU! Michiru is a social outcast artist counting the days down until graduation; Haruka is the star of the basketball team, crossdressing full time, and has everyone believing that she's male. Oh, and Michiru absolutely cannot stand Haruka-that is, of course, until she discovers the basketball star's secret.

The Chronicle of Japan Youngest Superintendent General by: S.KaE Tenoh Haruka is the youngest Superintendent General in Japan's history. Kaioh Michiru is Japan Asst Attorney General. A lot of action from Haruka.

Love Lore of the Wind and Sea by: Neptunes Tears (complete) A Uranian knight is thrown from the sky and with that, her very soul and life. Washed upon the shore of a new watery sea world, an unlikely love is found.

My Secret Empress by: ToxicTsukino Backward Michiru Kaiou finally musters the courage to confess to the popular and multi-talented Haruka Tennou, only to be harshly rejected for not being pretty enough. Years later, Michiru makes a name for herself as a well known model and artist, only to find out her new agency's boss is none other Haruka...

50: A Haruka and Michiru Story by: therunawayrogue (complete) AU tale inspired by 'Fifty Shades of Grey', of all things. Please read with caution as the story contains very intimate moments, mature themes throughout, and strong language on occasion.

Twelve Dancing Princesses by: thecoconutcyclone (oneshot) The Twelve Dancing Princesses Haruka and Michiru style.

Zephyr by: Gwaeren (oneshot) Michiru is talking to a girl from her school online, but things aren't exactly what they seem. Warning: gender-fluid Haruka, a little referencing of abuse in the past.

Horizon: Where the sky meets the sea by: Nocturngirl (complete) When violinist Kaioh Michiru returns to Japan and meets F1 racer Tenoh Haruka it's hate at first sight. Can the artist and the playgirl stop arguing long enough to realize they are a perfect match?

A Stately Pleasure by: Kristen Elizabeth (complete) Empires fall, lives are torn....love remains.

Rapture by: lostinhersong (complete) Sure, Michiru has made a few mistakes in her angelic life, but...it can't be that hard keeping track of the one who is going to bring the rapture...could it?

La violoniste et le cancre by: The Ryuu Victoire Tea Party It's high school. The new kid arrives. The resident badass is not impressed.

Call of the Wild by: The Silent Scream (complete) Destiny has never been set in stone. Haruka should have been Sailor Uranus, but something else got to her first, leading her down a very different path... but one which still might end up at Michiru's side.

A Perfect World by: Windancer (complete) Haruka and Michiru in the Silver Millenium.

Loving a Billionaire by: gotToluvAnime (oneshot) Would you give up everything you have for one person?

Cryptic Rendezvous by: deactivated3333344543 Michiru, Princess of Neptune, is arranged to be married to the Prince of Uranus. No one expected for Haruka, the handsome Princess of Uranus to visit the planet as well. Michiru takes a liking to Haruka, but with the newly found friendship, what occurs?

Eternal Love by Herk (complete) There are many great love stories told throughout the ages, many lovers whose bond has become a legend among the stars but none greater than that of the two warriors known as Uranus and Neptune.

The Crimson Star by: Inuzuka Akari (complete) An outlaw gang have been causing trouble for years. They made a mistake ten years ago that a particular gunslinger hasn't forgotten. She wants revenge. Can an angel in disguise save her from the point of no return before time runs out?

Detective x Genius by: PeaPrince (complete) Follow a detective Haruka with her partner, a genius profiler Michiru in solving a case.

Detective x Genius: Partner in Crime by: PeaPrince This is like a continuation of my other story titled "Detective x Genius". In this AU story, Haruka and Michiru are dating each other and still solving the cases together as 'partner'.

Captured by: Gema-chan 18th century: Haruka wishes nothing more than to take revenge on the man who destroyed her life and forced her to join in with a bunch of pirates. But when she abducts his daughter, things get out of control...

Hand of Sorrow by: Fuseki (complete) Princess Michiru is bound by duty, but what will happen when she meets another bound by a different duty?

Kaichou wa Maid Sama! by: HelloMiho Life has made Kaioh Michiru a cold and stunningly beautiful girl with a soft side for girls. But Tenoh Haruka, the most popular "boy" at school, suddenly finds a liking towards her after they both find out each other's secrets.

Sea and Shore and In-Between by Cadhla (oneshot) There is a fairy tale in everything, if looked at from the right direction, in the right light. This is the fairy tale of two princesses, one in sea and one on sand, and everything they lost, and gained, by the light of a loving moon.

Breaking Down by irritablevowel (complete) Stranded in her broken-down car in a snowstorm, Michiru calls the local mechanic for help. (Spoiler: Things don’t go as she thinks they will.)

The Oncoming Storm by: potterywheel A collection of oneshots and drabbles revolving around Haruka and Michiru.

Michiru Kaioh does not have one-night stands by: Nelxis (oneshot) Michiru doesn't have one-night stands, or at least that's what the voice in her head is saying.

Galatea by Sparkle (kirax2) (oneshot)

#these are almost all from ffnet #most of these stories were published years and years ago #let me know if you have fav aus thats not on the list?? i always want to read more #harumichi #fanfic

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persephonestourrp · 7 years ago

Photo

If you’re here, you know who I am.

Tweet Tweet:

@SabrinaSmythe: If you haven’t bought the new @TheSirens album, are you even real?

@SabrinaSmythe: Fangirls: The bane of my existence, in more ways than one.

@SabrinaSmythe: Even our rogaine smothered cheeto of a president knows about fake news, and it’s everywhere, even news about our girls. Read articles with a grain of salt and stop being so dense, thanks.

♫ Do you think I’m stuck up ‘cause I’m always picking fights? ♫

To say Sabrina Smythe was born with a silver spoon in her mouth was a gross understatement. After all, how many people were born into families rich enough to actually own penthouses on both coasts of the US and a villa in France?

Despite what after school specials would try to say about her life, she actually was pretty well loved and born in a long line of success, particularly on her dad’s side. Her grandfather, Marcus, had been a powerful lawyer that made the Smythe family well known, respected, and rich. Her dad, Adam, was also a lawyer, but for a music firm, and one of the best at that. He would often would sit her on his lap and tell her about his cases. He explained copyright laws to her when she was still learning how to tie her shoes. And under his watchful eye, Sabrina learned how to be truly cunning and clever.

Her mom, Colette, was also doting. While the two weren’t the closest, Sabrina learned French from speaking it with her Parisian mother growing up, and Colette said that even her two older siblings never learned it as well as she had. Sabrina just proved to be the brightest star in the family, much to the annoyance of her older brothers.

Eventually Sabrina went to a prestigious private school in New York City, just after finishing off a year of school in France. And seeing as it was an all girls school...well, Sabrina had a lot of fun. She had discovered she was gay at a fairly young age, but she didn’t come out to her family for a while. They weren’t homophobic or anything -- her dad couldn’t be if he wanted to work in the music business and her mom was French -- but after years of being perfect, well, she wasn’t sure she wanted to tarnish that image. As accepting as her parents would be, she knew that her mom had been planning some big wedding for her one day and her dad and brothers always joked about pointing a gun at any guy who tried to date her. She was pretty sure if she told her family she’d willingly pull the trigger, they’d be a bit disappointed.

Eventually she finally came out and...it wasn’t really a big deal. No one particularly cared and there was very little fanfare. It was fine. Well, mostly fine. Her parents were accepting....sorta. But she could tell they weren’t 100% comfortable with it.

Instead of focusing on that, Sabrina just threw herself into school and her high school choir. She quickly started leading it, pushing them harder than before and looking damn good while doing it. Well, she assumed so, seeing as many members of the choir would fall into bed with her over her time there. So when it came time to choose a college, Sabrina chose Scripps, a school in southern California that was part of a five college consortium. She could take classes in various programs at the other schools, but being at Scripps in particular meant she would, yet again, be in an all girls school. While she planned on studying pre-law and economics, she was definitely much more interested in studying the student body - and bodies.

♫ You might think I’m one thing, but I am another ♫

At Scripps, Sabrina had a lot of fun. Okay, sometimes too much fun. As fascinated as she was by the legal and economic classes she took, it was hard to care about homework when she could play rugby with other girls and hook up with others or even drive out of a town to an almost exclusively female strip club.

Sabrina fell hard into the party scene, eventually even surpassing the rugby girls. Most Fridays she could be found drunk off her ass and she’d wake up on Sunday with a massive hangover and several stories about herself she couldn’t remember. There were definitely a lot of stories about her doing karaoke to the Grease soundtrack while topless. So, like, at least she wasn’t hurting herself or anything.

Of course, her grades started to suffer. She still passed her classes, but she went from being an honor roll student to a C average...C+ if her professors were extremely generous. So...she started taking Adderall to help with her class work. Then, when she realized how much rich white kids in the OC loved uppers, Sabrina started to sell some at parties. And, okay there were definitely a handful of times when she could be found snorting some of it as well, but, hey, she did a bitching version of “Summer Nights”.

But all things must end, and her senior year finally came. It turned out her average grades weren’t enough for the top law schools she applied for after graduation. Even with her last name on the application, Harvard, Yale, and even Cornell turned her down. And Cornell was basically community college, like why even go to college if you only got into Cornell. So Sabrina graduated to be very popular, but with no plans for her future.

The once brightest star of the Smythe family was completely lost.

Adam was confused and disappointed, but he was still willing to help his daughter in any way possible. So he pulled a few strings and got her a job at the music firm. While she didn’t have a law degree and therefore couldn’t really help him, she had also had the economics degree, so he figured she’d be a good candidate working with the managers. He figured eventually they could have her apply to get her MBA instead and she could pursue a career in economics.

But, to everyone’s surprise...Sabrina kind of loved the managerial stuff. As a junior staff member, she learned how they found new talent, what kind of paperwork they signed with the music firm, and how to market artists. It was like taking every interest she had -- music, social media, manipulating the minds of people around her -- and using it to her advantage.

So one day, after working for New Directions for over a year, she was in New York for vacation (while her dad worked on both coasts, she mainly frequented LA), and she decided to go to a bar that apparently had live music. The first band was some awful guys trying to be Nirvana and failing, and the next band didn’t look much more promising; they were all hot women, which Sabrina appreciated, but they brought out some keyboard with pre-recorded beats. She was about to just flirt with some of the women next to her, but then The Sirens started to play, and like a sailor at sea, she was drawn in by The Sirens.

Sabrina immediately found them after their set and got some details about them carefully. She learned they were all students, that they all were involved in the creative process together, and that they could never find a female drummer who could stay. She also learned that Kat Hummel had some hypnotizing eyes and could fire back at Sabrina faster than anyone else she ever met; Quinn Fabray was possibly smarter than she was; Marley Rose was just as sweet and funny as she looked; and Norah Puckerman was very similar to her, which meant Sabrina liked her a whole bunch. She left them with her business card and got their contact info, including their website, Facebook page, and even Kat’s YouTube channel.

After that, things fell into place quite easily, and Sabrina finally signed her first band. Using all of her cunning and training, Sabrina marketed the girls well and by the end of May they had a hit record on their hands. And as she pushed the #puckerose angle and the gay angle and the feminist angle whenever possible, they just got more successful.

Eventually Quinn’s told Sabrina about her cousin Kitty Wilde and the band she had started, Divine Influence. Sabrina agreed to got to California to listen to them and was impressed enough to get them an audition. They soon got a contract as well. Due to the similar styles and the fact that she “discovered” them, it only made sense that Sabrina also took on Divine Influence. Using the similar formula she used on The Sirens, Divine Influence soon hit the Billboard charts in a major way.

And after The Sirens released their second album and were successful enough to warrant a world tour, Divine Influence signed on as well. So now Sabrina gets to go travel the world. She gets to do what she does best -- do her job and look damn good while doing it. It’s the only way she knows how to do things, after all. And she definitely plans on getting laid as much as possible during the trip.

And, being Sabrina, she still plans on partying. A lot. But, no, her partying ways have calmed down a lot since college. Now it’s only drinking and maybe a bit of weed every now and then. Sabrina is a professional woman now who takes her job very seriously -- especially since it’s so close to the public eye. Summer Nights Sabrina hasn’t made a public appearance in years, but Sabrina’s still on edge. So far, through careful manipulation, no one at her job or in her family have seen pictures or gotten any evidence of her partying past. Yet.

With that, as well as a few other skeletons in her closet, Sabrina has a lot riding on this tour.

♫ You can’t call my bluff ♫

Samantha Evans: When Sabrina first started college, one of her rugby teammates told her about this lesbian based strip club, she had to get in on that action. It was fairly far, so she didn’t go too often, but when she moved to LA for that music firm job, she could go more often. It was there that she first saw White Chocolate, a gorgeous blonde with killer abs and the poutiest lips she had ever seen. And when the girl locked eyes with her and crawled over to get her tip, her eyes widening at how much Sabrina offered, Sabrina was enraptured. She ended up coming way too often to that little strip joint and spent way too much money in tips and for private rooms with a few of the dancers, but mainly with that little blondie (she was sure her father would be oh so proud to know where his money was spent). So imagine Sabrina’s horror when, after years of this arrangement, she found out the newest band under her care had a guitarist with the same pouty lips, the same blonde hair, and a look of horror in her eyes when she took in Sabrina. She tried to get others to take over the band, but with their relationship with The Sirens, it didn’t make sense. So Sabrina has since pulled Sam aside and, as much as she finally wanted to taste those pretty lips, she’s explained that their relationship will remain strictly professional. No one can know about Sam’s old job and Sabrina isn’t too fond of people finding out that she spent hundreds of dollars at a strip club.

Katrina Hummel: Kat is the perfect client; she’s charming in interviews, she’s responsible and always prepared for rehearsals, and she already had some fame and social media influence before The Sirens premiered. But, damn it, sometimes Sabrina wishes they didn’t work together. So, okay, maybe one night after the success of that first album release party, they drank a bit too much champagne and maybe things got a bit heated and just maybe they spent a night together that rocked Sabrina’s world more than she’d like to admit -- it turns out pianists-turned-bassists have a whole set of talented fingers. And maybe it happened a few times after that, but that’s all on the DL since they promised to keep it a secret. Honestly, Sabrina would love to do something with her again, but she knows Kat wants that whole fairy tale future thing with a big wedding with the white dresses and all and Sabrina, as much as she really does love and care for Kat, doesn’t want that. Like, ever. If she was cool with just hooking up, Sabrina would sleep with her again...and again and again, but she knows that it really isn’t what Kat wants, so she has to stay strong. But, again, have you seen those eyes? Or her body? Or those perfectly manicured fingers?

Santana Lopez: Santana is one of Sabrina’s favorite people. Ever since the two met, they’ve gotten along really well. They’re both sarcastic, gay, and dedicated to their jobs. Santana even more so, because she has to work against the whole nudes on the internet thing, but whatever. She works hard and can play hard when she lets her hair down (in the figurative sense). So when Sabrina had to pick a publicist, she obviously picked Santana. It’s her first big job so she knows the woman’s worried, but she also knows that if anyone can handle it, it’s Santana. Sabrina also already told her about the Jackie stuff and about Sam’s job. She just may have forgotten to tell her about how Sabrina was one of her most frequent clients. And about the Kat stuff. And the very unprofessional photos of her that are certainly floating around out there. But, hey, it’s very unlikely that stuff will leak anyways.

Norah Puckerman: Sabrina knows she shouldn’t play favorites, but Norah might be her favorite of all of her clients. Despite some obvious class differences, the two have a lot in common in how they see life and definitely how they see sex. Norah is one of the few people that can make Sabrina crack up and she’s proven to be a a worthy wing woman. On the last tour, they both helped the other get many a hook up (to be honest, Sabrina’s job wasn’t that hard seeing as Norah was famous and a lot of fans of all genders wanted in her pants already), and Sabrina’s honestly excited to have that happen again. Hell, Norah even posts pictures of Marley and endures all the Puckerose shippers without being asked. The only issue Sabrina has with Norah is the fact that, as funny as she is, her unfiltered comments have ruffled a few feathers and Sabrina’s afraid that one day she might cause a PR disaster. Her interviews are either stiff and uncomfortable or come across a bit rude. Thankfully, Kat already agreed to help with PR while they room together over the tour. As long as she tries to learn from Kat and keeps posting pictures of Marley on social media, Sabrina will handle it all in stride...and hopefully the whole Jackie thing won’t blow up in her face.

Rachel Berry: Between everything going on with Sam, Sabrina would admit she didn’t really pay attention to the rest of Divine Influence as much as she should have. She did her usual work, like checking in on them and all of that and helping them manage some press and PR, but she didn’t really get to know them that well. Of course, that all changed when Quinn brought Rachel’s anxiety issues to her attention. Yeah, Sabrina was worried for purely business reasons at first, but, in all honesty, she really cares about Rachel, too. While she won’t admit it, part of her feels slightly responsible -- maybe if she paid more attention she wouldn’t be freaking out so much. Maybe she could’ve caught it earlier and got her in therapy sooner. Maybe she was too hard on her during the recording process. While Sabrina can seem soulless, she honestly loves and cares about all of the girls she works with, and she feels like she didn’t do her job. Still, Rachel has proven to be resilient, so she’s not being like some mother hen, but she’s been hanging out with her more outside of work functions.

Jackie Puckerman: When Jackie overheard some important and top-secret information, Sabrina knew she was fucked. She was ready to offer anything up to her. But then Jackie just wanted a bit of money and a job on tour. Then Jackie revealed why she wanted it and...god. Sabrina hates being in this position, the position of lying to her friend and client, Norah, and acting like she doesn’t know Jackie’s real last name. But she’s going along with it, because she can’t let what happened between her and Sam get out. It’s just yet another thing that she’s panicking about, but hopefully it won’t all blow up in her face...and hopefully Norah doesn’t hate her if she finds out.

Quinn Fabray: Ever since Sabrina first met The Sirens, she took a liking to Quinn. Sabrina, though maybe not an honor roll student anymore, was always a precocious child and a well-read adult. It wasn’t often she met someone else like that, but Quinn seems to know even more than her. She kinda likes it, since it’s always good to have someone to keep her on her toes and suggest some good literature. Despite working with her for years, Sabrina still doesn’t seem to know much about her. Quinn is a pretty private person, and Sabrina only really knows little bits about her past. Honestly, though, it just has increased Sabrina’s curiosity and she’s just...intrigued by her. Is it a sexual thing? Well...maybe. After all, Quinn is beautiful, and there’s always something hot about a woman who keeps some things a mystery.

Blair Anderson: Blair has been the best and most stress free client during this whole tour. Blair is a hard worker, is always on time for rehearsals and departures, she loves what she does, and she even has come up with some good ideas for her and Jackie’s little thing off to the sides. Sabrina’s even considering throwing her a solo or two in the encore plans. But, at least for now, Sabrina is just happy to have someone on this tour that isn’t carrying around a lot of drama. Or, well, at least drama that Sabrina has to deal with. She knows that Blair is just waiting to get a recording contract from her, and while Sabrina normally wouldn’t put too much thought into it, she’s actually considering it this time.

Kitty Wilde: Much like Quinn, Kitty is almost too smart for her own good and also pretty private. Must be a family thing, huh? While she has no problem voicing her opinion, much like her cousin, Kitty doesn’t share much with Sabrina. She sees it all as a kind of business, which is fair enough; it’s nice having someone in Divine Influence who doesn’t have some big secret Sabrina has to hide. Still, Sabrina recognizes that Kitty is smart and, like her name might suggest, sneaky. If she wants to keep those secrets with Rachel and Sam, she’s going to have to stay on her toes around that girl.

Fiona Hudson: When Kat asked if Fiona could work on the tour with them and used her big eyes and flirty little smirk - the kind that seemed so out of place and unexpected but so hot on her - Sabrina couldn’t say no. She got Fiona the training needed and she did her job well and that was that. She thought that was the end of it, but Fiona’s getting on well with Quinn and Norah and she’s playing well, so Sabrina’s thinking it might be time to get her girls an actual drummer. And, hey, what better way to introduce a girl to the group than by having someone actually related to two of the members join? It seems like a perfect fit for her. So if Fiona pulls this off, Sabrina will have that contract ready in two seconds flat.

Marley Rose: Oh sweet, adorable, kind Marley Rose. Marley is undoubtedly talented and beautiful and all of those things people rave about her, but Sabrina can tell that the singer has some animosity towards her. Marley does a good job of hiding it, of course, but Sabrina has always been good at reading people. Well, at least when it comes to people being annoyed by her. She knows Kat never told Marley what happened since Marley would’ve told her off by now if she knew, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Marley sensed something happened. After all, Marley and Kat grew up together and seemed to develop some weird kind of twin-like telepathy. She also knows Marley isn’t a fan of how much Sabrina pumps up the Puckerose fangirls, but that’s just Sabrina doing her job. It’s the same thing when Sabrina tries to get her to go public with her eating disorder -- which, Sabrina would point out, could help thousands of girls who need inspiration, as well as bring them some great press. Of course, Marley will never admit she doesn’t like her since she’s too smart to speak badly about someone in charge of her career, and they do get along well most of the time. Still, Sabrina wouldn’t be surprised if Marley finally blows up after months on tour.

♫ Time to back off, motherfucker ♫

Are there any pics still floating around from your wild years?

I see what you’re trying to do here, and it’s cute, really. As if I haven’t vetted many a girl for a dark past. Which, newsflash, we all have things floating around that we’re not too fond of being dug up. To answer your question: yes. But is it relevant to who I am today: no. It’s called growing up.

Who would you rather hook up with again: Evans or Hummel?

Who says I’d have to choose? But in the face of professionalism and not completely destroying my future more than I’ve managed in the past, we’ll go with neither of them.

JBI asks: Are there any Divine Influence vs The Sirens catfights?

As far as I’m concerned these girls are the perfect match of battling personalities, they balance each other out. While your definition of catfight and mine differ, I’d have to say no. No hair pulling. No claws, unless you count Kitty. And Puckerman, really, is the only one we have to worry about. Sorry to rain on your gossip parade.

#sabrina smythe #bio #c #bts #switched #sebastian smythe #t #ss

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brookstonalmanac · 1 year ago

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Events 10.31 (before 1950)

475 – Romulus Augustulus is proclaimed Western Roman Emperor. 683 – During the Siege of Mecca, the Kaaba catches fire and is burned down. 802 – Empress Irene is deposed and banished to Lesbos. Conspirators place Nikephoros, the minister of finance, on the Byzantine throne. 932 – Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir is killed while fighting against the forces of general Mu'nis al-Muzaffar. Al-Muqtadir's brother al-Qahir is chosen to succeed him. 1517 – Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. 1587 – Leiden University Library opens its doors after its founding in 1575. 1822 – Emperor Agustín de Iturbide attempts to dissolve the Congress of the Mexican Empire. 1837 – Approximately 300 Muscogee die in the steamboat Monmouth disaster on the Trail of Tears in the United States. 1863 – The New Zealand Wars resume as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron begin their Invasion of the Waikato. 1864 – Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state. 1895 – The strongest earthquake in the Midwestern United States since 1812 strikes near Charleston, Missouri, causing damage and killing at least two. 1903 – The Purdue Wreck, a railroad train collision in Indianapolis, kills 17 people, including 14 players of the Purdue University football team. 1907 – The Parliament of Finland approved the Prohibition Act, but the law was not implemented because it was not ratified by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. 1913 – Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across United States. 1913 – The Indianapolis Streetcar Strike and subsequent riot begins. 1917 – World War I: Battle of Beersheba: The "last successful cavalry charge in history". 1918 – World War I: The Aster Revolution terminates the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, and Hungary achieves full sovereignty. 1922 – Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy 1923 – The first of 160 consecutive days of 100° Fahrenheit at Marble Bar, Western Australia. 1924 – World Savings Day is announced in Milan, Italy by the Members of the Association at the 1st International Savings Bank Congress (World Society of Savings Banks). 1938 – Great Depression: In an effort to restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public. 1940 – World War II: The Battle of Britain ends: The United Kingdom prevents a possible German invasion. 1941 – After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed. 1941 – World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 U.S. Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII. 1943 – World War II: An F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception by a United States Navy or Marine Corps aircraft.

#Events

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cassyblue · 5 years ago

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A very long post on my onions about JJBA

I am completely caught up with the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure manga. Took me two weeks to do it. But my brain hasn’t been up to reading novels/novellas since concentration whomst? Once the semester starts, I tend to read more comics than novels just because of time constraints. I am still on Part 3 of the JJBA anime. It’s an anime that I just can’t binge because it is a lot. I really like JJBA because it takes the shonen fighting manga and just turns it into a fever dream. So below is my thoughts on Parts 1-8, includes many a spoiler. Also as it goes on I get more sweary sorry.

Part 1: Phantom Blood

Not my favorite arc, but it is the first part so I feel it doesn’t have the same level of writing/art as the next parts because Araki is starting out. It’s pretty tightly written and straight forward. Jonanthan is my least favorite Jojo. I think my main problem with this part is the assertion that Dio is evil due to the abusive environment he grew up in. That’s pretty much what I can say about Part 1.

Part 2: Battle Tendency

Part 2 is more complex and the characters have more growth than those in Part 1. I enjoy Joseph as a protagonist since he is a good combo of little shit and dumb teenager. The enemies to friends arc with Caesar is great. Throw two dramatic bitches together and the chaos that ensues is fun. I really liked that the best user of haman is a woman because the previous part was pretty dude heavy. Liz Lisa is on the fine line between fan service and sexy. But the fanservice doesn’t happen during fighting so I can forgive Araki on certain parts. The thing about Part 2 that really stands out to me is the expansion of the worldbuilding. It doesn’t feel overwhelming and fits neatly into the narrative. My other thought is that Araki just likes drawing asses.

Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

Oh boy, so this is where I start to have a lot more onions. Everything I knew about JJBA before watching/reading was that there was this thing called a stand and everyone was gangsters. So when I started JJBA I was like tumblr lied to me what the hell is going on. Unlike Joseph in Part 2, Jotaro is just an asshole, a well meaning asshole, but still an asshole. Through this entire arc, Jotaro literally does not grow as a character unlike Part 2 with Joseph which is super frustrating. In Part 2, Joseph goes from cocky punk kid to more responsible and level headed kid with self discipline. Jotaro’s fighting ability literally gets no training whatsoever compared to Joseph. In the 45 days that the plot takes place, I would have thought that Avdol would have at least did some sort of training since he is the most experienced stand user. But nope that sure didn’t happen. The bickering between Joseph and Jotaro is enjoyable and the side characters are good humor relief. I think that’s where my frustration is -- Kakyoin and Polnareff have more character development than Jotaro does. Polnareff is in many ways a foil for Jotaro in that he ACTUALLY learns to accept help and so on.

Things I did like was the introduction of stands. Thought there could have been better explanation but it’s JJBA so you know it’s going to not be there or it will be there eventually. I think this arc has ok writing but Part 2 was more solid.

Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

I really liked this part. It was more of a slice of life comic with mayhem. I felt that compared to Part 3, Part 4 does a better job with depicting teenagers. Josuke and his friends are literally dumbasses 80% of the time and Koichi has their one brain cell most of the time. Part 4 also dives much deeper into the origins of stands as well.

What I liked was how the mystery parts of the comic were interspersed with the comedy parts. The previous arc was pretty straight forward without much diversion to have more insight into the characters. Part 4 is much more focused on relationships and has a psychological bent to the story. Unlike until the end of Part 3, Josuke and friends work as a team very quickly. The other part that I liked was the incredibly awkward Joestar family reunion. Part 4 just has the most depth for me out of all the parts so far.

The other part that I liked was the evolution of stands -- that some stands can grow and others have remote abilities and so forth.

My biggest beef with this part is Araki totally doesn’t understand how graduate school works. Like ok first off, why the hell did Jotaro choose to do marine biology?? Want some background on that which we never get. When Jotaro is introduced, his specialty is whales and sharks (which i am sure he punched a shark at some point) but then at the end Araki decides that Jotaro’s doctoral work is on starfish? Um like ok what the fuck here. That’s a HUGE jump to do in academia in terms of changing your study organism. Like for me jumping from lepidoptera to hymenoptera was incredibly painful and that’s just WITHIN one ORDER (insects). Here Jotaro is jumping PHYLUMS. The other thing is that it takes uuuuh 6 years max to do your doctorate. So idk how Jotaro is able to do his entire dissertation in 3 months. It’s taken me two and a half years just to get my experiments done for my master’s degree. My advisor has given me two months to write my thesis, BUT I ALREADY HAVE MY DATA???? Jotaro would have had to collect all the data and speed write and I have no fucking clue how the hell he would even pass the defense even if he wasn’t also investigating a serial killer. Pretty sure the whole marine biology thing is just a cover so he has jstor access for everything related to stands.

Part 5: Golden Wind

I didn’t expect to like this arc. But I did. It’s the arc that tumblr spoke of. First off, it has the perfect balance of dumbass to incomprehensible. Part of why I like JJBA is that you can see Araki’s art evolution and this is the first arc where he has completely gone from ripped as fuck dudes to twinks. That being said this is the arc that has the first plot hole and I only have a few theories as to why. It starts with Jotaro sending Koichi to Italy to investigate Giorno who is Dio’s biological son from his return in Part 3. This entire arc when I was live texting it to my best friend probably receives the most what the fucks in her replies. TD;LR: Giorno technically Joestar because Dio stole the body of Jonathan Joestar to make his comeback because you would think Araki for once has some somewhat reasonable biology here. Surprise fucker, Giorno’s hair turns blond once his stand ability awakens because he’s Dio’s son. So the whole Jotaro investigating Giorno thing is COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN. My only explanation is Koichi is like yeah he’s an idiot kid and I don’t think he’s going to be a problem or Polnareff calls up Jotaro and is like yeah I’m keeping an eye on this kid while haunting a magic turtle.

Which brings me to the most insane part of the whole arc, the GODDAMN TURTLE. As we learned in Part 3 with Iggy, animals can be stand users and there is this turtle that is a stand user. And basically Giorno and gang use this turtle to escort the boss’ daughter while plotting to take down the boss. There are so many fights over this goddamn turtle. Turtle does what turtle wants on top of it because it’s a fucking turtle. I just. The turtle. Then fucking polnareff dies and somehow manages to possess the goddamn turtle for almost a third of the arc???? And decides to keep hanging out in the turtle after everything is said and done as a fucking ghost. Like ok, I shouldn’t be like this is the most whack shit that’s happened in JJBA because there was an honest to god alien in Part 4.

Honestly this arc also had some great character arcs. I think that somehow each character manages to grow and confront their issues. Considering that Giorno is the son of Dio, he actually is a pretty good kid. Like I was going in expecting Dio Jr. Which thank god that was not the case because I would have been like Really? REALLY WE ARE DOING THIS AGAIN? I think my main complaint was Trish was pretty sexualized. She’s fucking 15, Araki, please let her have some more clothes.

I am kinda bummed that there is no crossover between Josuke, Jolyne, and Giorno because I think it would be pretty funny.

Part 6: Stone Ocean

I don’t know where the fuck to start with this one. First off, I am from Florida. I lived in Florida for 20 some years of my life. I grew up in Florida. The first fucking thing that this manga does is say that it’s set in/near PORT ST. LUCIE (PSL). I grew up in PSL. For the longest time, PSL was pretty much known for being a growhouse central because it’s a suburbia of maze like developments. Like I am pretty sure that Araki just took a dart and threw it at a map of Florida. BUT that being said, there are several marine biology/oceanography research institutions very close to PSL so I guess I could see it considering Jotaro is supposedly a professor of marine biology now (honestly I think he just fucks around with stand research instead). Stone Ocean feels more like it’s set in Miami. It has that vibe. I have been to Miami one too many times and have nearly died in Miami (more than once). Stone Ocean is a literal fever dream for me. However, I enjoyed the hell out of it. It ranks up there with the one Sailor Moon arc where Luna has the crush on the astronaut’s boyfriend and there’s space shuttle shenanigans.

Oh and did I mention that Stone Ocean is set in 2011. This is kinda an important point since let me put some context to why half of this is me screaming. The space shuttle program ended in 2011. I saw the last shuttle return (I wasn’t able to see the launch because it was fucking crazy to even get a seat at the place I’d go watch it in PSL). ANYWAYS, let’s get on to this beautiful disaster trainwreck of an arc.

So first off, Jolyne is my favorite jojo. She’s a punk ass kid with a lot of issues. I was worried it would be endless fanservice, but actually stone ocean wasn’t too bad in that regard. Also part of Jolyne’s design features butterflies heavily so I’m like yeah this is my favorite (did I mention that I study butterflies, that I have lived, breathed, and eaten butterflies since I was 12? Ok i did eat a moth once but that’s another story). Also I thought Jolyne’s stand was really cleverly done (besides that I screamed that it had sunglasses). Jolyne gets framed for her shitty ex hitting a pedestrian which turns out to even be a whole set up. Fun fact, Jolyne’s shitty ex is from Palm Beach. The only thing you need to know about Palm Beach is that it houses Mar-A-Lago, yep that Mar-A-Lago. It’s full of rich white people. Which makes the whole boyfriend shit even funnier for me. Like I can already see how the fuck Jolyne and Romeo meet etc etc etc. Let’s just say the one high school the county over is notorious for the rich kids being absolute wankers (duis, drugs, the whole shebang) and I can fill in the blanks just from being from the area.

So it’s time to put Jotaro on blast again because he is such a fucking dick. He literally abandons Jolyne for 14 years. Jolyne is convinced that he doesn’t want her and hates her. She has every right to be angry with Jotaro. This goes back to Part 3 when I said that Jotaro literally has no character development, Jotaro still hasn’t learned a single fucking thing. He still thinks he has to do everything himself so that the people he cares about won’t get hurt. Which is partly a result of Part 3, but also he had the chance to overcome that misconception in Part 4? But he doesn’t? He like asks Josuke for help once and basically takes on the bulk of the investigation himself so Josuke and pals don’t get hurt/further involved. Jolyne eventually realizes that the reason Jotaro abandoned her is that she and her mom won’t get caught up in the stand bullshit etc and forgives him. Which like I can understand why she does that. But it’s an incredibly shitty excuse to sever all ties with your kid and divorce your wife just because you’re trying to protect your family. Like ok, I have a rough relationship with my family and it can be really, really hard not to forgive them if they suddenly start being good to you despite the fact they have hurt you so deeply and you just know it’s a bad idea to get back close to them because it’s only going to end badly. Anyways, Jotaro is a fucking dickweed.

The one thing that I really liked is how Jolyne’s determination brings other people closer to her. She’s a literal brick wall and just bulldozes through obstacles regardless of if it’s a good idea. She also will not abandon her friends. So Jolyne best jojo, fight me.

I can not believe that all of Dio’s kids except Giorno are Florida Men. I was like Araki it does not take 10 hours to get from PSL to Cape Canaveral and then I was like wait Jolyne has to fight a Florida Man like every 10 minutes so it does kinda make sense. The whole part in Orlando was like a fever dream. I lived in Orlando. When the mickey mouse shit started, I was like ofc there’s going to be a fight with The Mouse. You cannot enter Orlando without making a sacrifice to The Mouse.

I completely knew that the arc would climax at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) just because it was set in 2011. I was fucking screaming the whole way through the final fight at the KSC because I have been there like idk 5 times or so. Can you believe that you used to not have to go through a gate to get in to tickets? That was before 9/11. Now it’s not like that. Anyways it was pretty great.

I thought the ending was actually pretty satisfying considering the whole universe reset?

Anyways Araki delivered the fucking florida man experience so completely that I was happy. He literally managed to write the arc like a Carl Hiaasen or Tom Dorsey novel on crack (those two are the best known Florida novelists who write mystery/crime novels about Florida). When the Part 6 anime comes out I am going to be so ready.

Part 7: Steel Ball Run

Soooo this first arc of universe reset where everything is like do the Cupid Shuffle like 500 times while high as fuck. I think Part 7’s is weak compared to Part 4,5 and 6 in terms of writing BUT I was impressed by the originality of retelling of Part 1. I really liked the western bent to it. Also, I didn’t think that Araki could do completely new world building with stand origins without it being boring af. But he managed to make it really interesting and fucked up. I will put in a warning here: This arc isn’t great about race (not surprised at all), there is the magic cure for a disability trope (not a fan), and also sexual assault of a minor (really fucked up).

Instead of the haman or however the fuck it’s spelled, Zeppeli uses a power called the spin which is his family’s secret ability. Zeppeli enters the Steel Ball Run which is a transcontinental horse race with a reward of half a million bucks. Johnny Joestar, a disgraced jockey sees Zeppeli use the spin and enters the race despite being paralyzed waist down just to figure out how the fuck Zeppeli uses it. For the most part, the depiction of disability is pretty good until you know the magic cure trope (offensive to disabled people, I can go more into depth with this in a different post). Zeppeli and Johnny start out as rivals but then become good friends and the writing is so good. However, every fucking cover drawing of the two together by Araki is very homoerotic. I don’t know if Araki actually knows how gay his drawings are? Like from Part 1 onwards, they are like...gay. Dio is there and I was like ok he gonna be vampire again but nope DIO FUCKING GETS DINOSAUR POWERS???? LIKE HE CAN TURN INTO A GODDAMN UTAHRAPTOR?????????????????????????????????????

Steel Ball Run has several layers of plot which are masterfully tied together : the actual race, Zeppeli’s past, Johnny growing as a character, and the holy corpse. The holy corpse shit was right up my alley as being someone who loves crack christianity stuff. Like ok, at first I was like yeah it’s a saint and then I was like oh it’s the virgin mary and then Araki fucking hinted throughout the second half of the plot it’s JESUS???? Anyways that was some wack shit. President Valentine was a really good villain by the way -- completely captures Murica fuckery.

I liked the addition of the fibonacci stuff/golden ratio in terms of maxing out stands/spin.

My main issue with this arc besides race and disability fails is the handling of Lucy. She’s 14 and Araki oversexualized her. Like goddamn it she’s a FUCKING CHILD. This arc is probably the worst in terms of its treatment of women. I was really pissed at the fact that Araki had Lucy graphically assaulted and raped. So beware of that. That is part of the reason as much as I liked the originality of Part 7, I can’t really rank it high on the quality of JJBA parts.

ANYWAYS ONTO PART 8

Part 8: JoJoLion

I am up to date as of August/September 2019 issue of the magazine JJBA is serialized in (I really want to say it’s Jump, but I’m probably wrong). This arc is really fascinating because it completely skips from the 1890s to the present day . There is the ties to Part 7 as that Johnny marries a Japanese woman whose family is a big part of this arc. It is set in Morioh like Part 4, but a Morioh completely shifted 180. It combines the story of a family curse, a man searching for his identity, and a conspiracy about these magical fucking fruit?

A college kid, Yasuho, pulls this dude out of the dirt at these weird formations in Morioh. The dude has no idea who he is and Yashuo names him Josuke. Note, the kanji for this Josuke are different than those for Josuke of Part 4. The Higashitika family that Yasuho is friends with takes Josuke in because he’s a stand user and he gets drawn into their shit while he tries to figure out who he is.

The twist with Josuke’s identity and past was like fucking mind blowning. Like did not see that one coming that he’s the fusion of Yoshikage Kira (who in part 4 was the villian but in this one is the Joestar son of Holly? Not a murderer?) and Josefumi Kujo (character design resembles Part 4 Josuke). The thing with this arc is that it’s this weird combo of part 3 and part 4 with new content and characterizations. So it’s on one hand familiar and on the other hand completely unfamiliar. It continues with the corpse stuff, but I’m not completely sure how the corpse ties into the plot with the fruit and the new villains-- The rock people. It has to do with the equivalent exchange concept which is threaded throughout this whole arc. But like how exactly besides how Johnny died in Japan? Is the corpse still there in Japan? Araki TELL ME.

Bonus: Little Jolyne Goes To Morioh Doujinshi.

I found this Doujinshi on Batato and there wasn’t an author or artist attached but holy shit it is the CUTEST thing. It’s basically about Jolyne meeting Josuke because Jotaro needs a babysitter. It’s a very short one Doujinshi and the last part is hilarious. Anyways highly recommend reading this one because it’s really cute.

#erin reads jjba #i am so sorry for this long ass post for mobile users #long post

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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Once Formidable, Taiwan’s Military Now Overshadowed by China’s

By Steven Lee Myers and Chris Horton, NY Times, Nov. 4, 2017

ZUOYING NAVAL BASE, Taiwan--The Hai Pao, one of Taiwan’s four navy submarines, began its service as the Tusk, an American vessel launched in August 1945 at the end of World War II. Its sister submarine, the Hai Shih, is a year older. Neither can fire torpedoes today, though they can still lay mines.

The submarines, said Feng Shih-kuan, Taiwan’s minister of national defense, “belong in a museum.”

The Hai Pao--with its paint-encrusted pipes, antiquated engines and a brass dial with a needle to measure speed in knots--will instead remain in service past its 80th birthday, a relic of a military that once was one of Asia’s most formidable. Taiwan’s aging submarine fleet is but one measure of how far the military balance across the Taiwan Strait has tilted in favor of the island’s rival, mainland China.

A military modernization overseen by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whose political power reached new heights after last month’s Communist Party congress in Beijing, has proceeded in leaps and bounds, lifted by hefty budget increases that have already made China the world’s No. 2 military spender after the United States, though it is a distant second.

Taiwan’s armed forces, by contrast, have fallen way behind, struggling to recruit enough soldiers and sailors--and to equip those they have. A major obstacle is that countries that might sell it the most sophisticated weaponry are increasingly reluctant to do so for fear of provoking China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory. The unwillingness to anger China extends even to the United States, on which Taiwan has long depended for its defense.

This shifting balance affects more than just Taiwan. The Taiwan Strait was once Asia’s most ominous flash point, with the potential to drag the United States into war with China. Now, it is just one of several potential hot spots between a more assertive China and its neighbors.

Taiwan’s experience could be a cautionary tale to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and others in the region who are also warily watching China’s rising military capabilities.

“A small snake does not make nearby frogs, chickens and ducks feel threatened,” Mr. Feng, the minister, said in an interview, “but when it grows to be a python, even nearby pigs, oxen, horses and goats feel a threat to their survival.”

Adding to the unease has been uncertainty over United States policy under President Trump. As he makes his first visit to Asia, allies and others will look for signals about the depth of the American military commitment to the region.

When he was still president-elect, Mr. Trump initially signaled a more fulsome embrace of Taiwan by accepting a congratulatory phone call from its president, Tsai Ing-wen. Since taking office, he has shown more deference to China in hopes of winning its support in the nuclear standoff with North Korea.

When the Trump administration approved a new package of arms sales to Taiwan this summer, it was worth a relatively modest $1.4 billion, less than the $1.8 billion package approved by President Barack Obama two years ago. The sales have included missiles, radar equipment and other military gear, but they stopped short of the major systems that could give Taiwan a real edge.

Any weakening of the American defense commitment “is what Taiwan worries about most,” said Lu Cheng-fu, an assistant professor at National Quemoy University on Kinmen, an island held by Taiwan that sits just four miles from the Chinese coast.

“We need to resist a Chinese military attack for two weeks and wait for help from the United States or the international community,” said Mr. Lu, echoing a strategy that has been at the core of Taiwan’s defense doctrine for decades.

China has made no secret of its desire to absorb Taiwan, and China’s military routinely drills to do so by force, if necessary. It has even built a scale replica of Taiwan’s presidential building at its largest military training base in Inner Mongolia.

China’s armed forces have long outnumbered and outspent Taiwan’s. China now has 800,000 active combat troops in its ground forces, compared with 130,000 in Taiwan; its budget last year was $144 billion, compared with Taiwan’s $10 billion, according to the Pentagon’s most recent annual report on the Chinese military. (Congress approved a $700 billion Pentagon budget in September, with an even larger increase than President Trump had requested.)

To defend itself, Taiwan has relied on geography--a mountainous main island 80 miles across a windswept strait--and the support of the United States.

However, China’s military modernization has “eroded or negated many of Taiwan’s historical advantages” in deterring a potential attack, the Pentagon report warned in May.

While Taiwan still has vocal support in Washington, especially in Congress, China’s economic and military rise has made it harder for the United States to ignore Beijing.

In 1995 and 1996, when China menaced Taiwan with missile tests, President Bill Clinton dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Strait. At that time, China backed off, but an intervention now would confront a more potent Chinese military.

China has developed ballistic missiles on mobile launchers that, although untested in battle, would threaten American aircraft carriers. Denying the American military the ability to operate freely around Taiwan would undermine a core element of Taiwan’s strategy.

In Taiwan, once home to thousands of American air and naval forces before the United States recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1979, Mr. Trump’s election last year raised hopes of more robust support.

In the months since, however, there has been a growing realization that diplomacy with China--including Mr. Trump’s very public efforts to build a personal relationship with Mr. Xi--would be the administration’s more pressing priority.

“Taiwan needs to realize that its defense is, ultimately, in its own hands,” said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor with the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

During a recent visit to Hawaii, Ms. Tsai responded to concerns about the imbalance by pledging to increase military spending 2 percent a year. She also promised to make more funds available for purchases of larger weapons.

Until such programs are off the ground, Taiwan must rely on aging matériel.

Its two other submarines were built by the Netherlands in the 1980s. By contrast, China, according to the Pentagon report, has 59 attack submarines, including five that are nuclear-powered.

Some experts say that given China’s overwhelming numerical advantage in weaponry, Taiwan should focus less on big platforms like submarines and more on lower-cost weapons like antiaircraft and anti-ship missiles that can blunt China’s superiority.

“Taiwan needs to invest in things that give us new and asymmetric capabilities and can be operational in three to five years,” said Yu Hsiao-pin, who has served on Taiwan’s National Security Council.

In the meantime, China keeps ratcheting up the pressure. Its aircraft routinely probe Taiwan’s airspace, forcing Taiwan’s fighters to respond on at least eight occasions so far this year. In July, China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, traversed the Taiwan Strait in a show of force.

“We cannot allow the situation to become routine,” said Col. Hsieh Chu-yuan, political warfare director of the 455th Tactical Fighter Wing, whose F-16s scramble from the island’s main air force base at Chiayi.

The F-16s, bought from the United States in 1992, now face off against increasingly sophisticated Chinese jets, including, soon, the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter. Taiwan has no choice but to use the weaponry that it has to deter China, said Mr. Feng, the defense minister.

“Taiwan can’t match China jet for jet, boat for boat,” he said, but that hardly leaves it defenseless.

“Any attempts to harm Taiwan’s people or invade its territory,” he said, “will come at a great cost.”

#Taiwan #Taiwan military #Chinese military

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dennybelrose-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

I’m 30 years old and the smell of spring still means one thing: it’s time to start making a hideous picture collage to paste into the lid of my camp trunk. (For those of you who didn’t go to camp, a camp trunk is where you stored all of your belongings for camp).

Photo courtesy of Pinterest

It’s an understatement to say that the summer program my parents found for me in 5th grade—and continued to send me to through high school—was anything less than a religious experience. I loved it there. I loved the friends I made, the awful food we ate, the breathless abandon with which we ran through sloped meadows wearing tutus, Viking helmets and whatever other bedazzled items we could dig out of the shed-sized costume closet. I lived and breathed Camp, yes, with a capital C. I spent the months leading up to summer compulsively checking an online countdown calendar calibrated to the second, and I spent the months following my time at camp in inconsolable tears.

In short, I was a nightmare. My mom would try to get me out of the house to see friends from school and I’d end up on the floor sobbing, “But they don’t understand Camp! The real world isn’t the same!”

Good grief. Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m really sorry about that.

Temper tantrums aside, it would seem my parents found the perfect summer experience for me. All-consuming. Safe. Wacky. An oasis so separate from the stressors and realities of middle and high school that the experience felt singularly affecting. It was also singularly devastating when, after a botched summer working in the kitchen at this particular camp, they didn’t hire me back as a counselor.

Suddenly, in the midst of my first year of college, dealing with anxieties and insecurities so pervasive I essentially stopped eating, I found myself without the only social safety net I’d ever been willing to rely on. More importantly, I found myself without the tools or coping mechanisms I needed in order to build a new net.

This story ultimately has a happy ending—that initial shock kicked off what turned into a full decade of discovery through outdoor education, travel and what I’ve come to think of as a love affair with the very same “real world” that I once felt compelled to dismiss.

Photo by Joel Reid

I still wouldn’t trade the summers I spent at camp even now, but with some distance I also recognize elements I would change if I could offer that experience to my teenage self again. The subject came up among a few of my Outward Bound colleagues the other day, and it turns out they had a lot they wanted to change about summer programs they attended as well, much of which overlapped. Here are a few things we talked about:

Distance

The general consensus here seemed to be further = better. I hesitate to say it’s absolutely a mistake to choose a program close to home, because I recognize the decision often has to do with affordability. The further a program, the more cost prohibitive it can be. However, it’s not just physical distance I’m talking about here. Sure, seeing another part of the country or even the world is valuable, but only insofar as it offers the opportunity to broaden one’s perspective. Two weeks up the road can be just as valuable as two weeks 1,000 miles away as long as the social sphere is something new. My friend and Outward Bound colleague, James, talked about how his summer programs always involved the same people he knew from school—the same relationships, the same cliques, the same disagreements. I felt similarly about mine; sure, the camp drew from different schools across the state, but ultimately we all looked the same: socioeconomically, ethnically and philosophically. There’s a lot to be said for taking the time to seek out a program designed to challenge and broaden a child’s point of view, as opposed to to solidify it.

Entertainment vs. Education

When considering summer programs, I think one of the greatest pitfalls and biggest seductions is to look at programs promising entertainment above all else. I don’t mean to say a summer program should be miserable or that it should sacrifice fun, because fun is important. Fun is powerful. Fun is fun. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of meaningful education.

I’m talking about space camps, science and nature programs, theater and arts retreats, and I’m also talking about programs designed to teach kids the kind of resilience I found myself woefully lacking as soon as I left camp (or, more accurately, as soon as camp left me). Of course we want to give our children a safe place, somewhere they can experience joy and acceptance, which is what my camp gave me, but it came at the expense of my own perspective. I could not apply the joy or confidence I felt at camp to the rest of my life and no one there ever asked me to.

Specialization

The camp I went to had all of the classic activities: horseback riding, archery, a ropes course, crafts, the pool (Colorado’s stand-in for the obligatory camp lake). At the top of the hour—every hour—each cabin of campers would make a pilgrimage from one activity to the next. Chop chop, everyone, set down your lanyards and glitter, pick up a bow and arrow! I never really had the chance, or the obligation, to stick with a particular skill set. Whether I liked a thing or not, it would change over in an hour.

I watch the kind of personal transformations that happen on something like an Outward Bound 22-day backpacking course, and can’t help but think how beneficial it is to get ample time with a certain activity. It allows for a deeper knowledge of skill, yes, but I think it also necessitates a more rigorous accounting for self. There’s not as much room to hide from your peers or yourself when you’re working within specific constraints, especially for an extended period of time.

Photo by Ben Goodman

Gender

I probably would have thrown a prodigious fit if my parents had tried to send me to an all-girls camp. In fact, I did throw a prodigious fit when one well-meaning high school counselor suggested I might do well at a women’s university. Something in me rejected the idea, I think in large part because I was so preoccupied with being able to compete with boys on their own stage. I’ve since thought a lot about that impulse and dedicated many conversations along many miles of trail with friends, colleagues and other outdoor educators to turning over the question of whether single-gender programming is more beneficial than co-ed.

One blurb in one blog will not answer that question, but I can say that for myself, if I could go back, I would not throw any more fits. I would jump at the opportunity to gift my adolescent self the space to explore without the kind of performance or preening that being in front of boys seemed to require of us all. Likewise, I think boys benefit from the same kind of space. I’ve seen incredible outcomes, especially when it comes to outdoor adventure programming like Outward Bound. I’m thinking specifically of a single-gender course that Outward Bound in Colorado ran last summer. I happened to be on airport duty the day the course ended, so I had the chance to spend a few hours with the girls on the drive and in the airport waiting for their flights home. It was incredible. Even in that limited amount of time, I could feel the power of their experience. One student called her mom on the drive and couldn’t keep from gushing, “I did it. I did it. But I never could have finished without all of the other girls.”

This is something that happens on many courses. Students learn how to rely on each other, to raise each other up—but it was particularly noticeable with this course. In the absence of boys, the physicality of the tasks at hand stopped mattering, and every one of those girls left saying how capable they knew themselves to be. I did my best not to start sobbing. Let me tell you, I didn’t do a great job.

Photo by Theo Theobald

Capability, Curiosity, Passion and Strength

Soon the first students of the season will start arriving at the Outward Bound basecamp in Leadville, CO, and I guarantee at least half of them will show up calling Outward Bound “summer camp.” That’s fine, but I hope they realize there’s a reason we call our expeditions courses, and the people on them students. It’s not a vacation; it’s an education. I worked with an Instructor last season who opened his course by telling the story of how Kurt Hahn, Outward Bound’s founder, wanted to train young sailors how to survive in rough seas. This Instructor congratulated his students on choosing to leave their homes—their safe harbors—in order to face the challenge of the open ocean. Then, on the final day of the course, he sat all the students down and told them that in fact Outward Bound was the safe harbor, and they needed to now go forward in their lives, into open water, using the skills they had learned. This is the kind of education I hope every kid receives out of their summer program: the education of capability, curiosity, passion and strength. I hope they discover the knowledge that they possess such qualities no matter the time or place or circumstance.

About the Author

Kate is a logistics coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Program at the Colorado Outward Bound School in Leadville, Colorado. She holds an MFA from the University of Montana and currently splits her time between working in the high country and relaxing in Denver, where she walks her sister’s dog and eats her parents’ food.

The post What to Look for in a Summer Program for Your Child appeared first on Outward Bound.

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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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Rise in Virus Cases Near Bases in U.S. and Abroad Poses Test for Military

WASHINGTON — More than 20,000 American service members have contracted the coronavirus, and the infection rate in the services has tripled over the past six weeks as the United States military has emerged as a potential source of transmission both domestically and abroad, according to military and local public health officials.

Cases are rising the most on military bases in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas, states that have all seen surges in confirmed infections. At a base in Okinawa, Japan, the U.S. Marine Corps has reported nearly 100 cases, enraging local officials. And in war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, already awash with unreported cases, U.S. troops have contended with outbreaks within their ranks.

In South Korea, where Gen. Robert B. Abrams was praised early in the pandemic for taking aggressive steps to rein in the virus, U.S. Forces Korea has 98 positive cases, which appear to have been brought from the United States, General Abrams has confirmed.

Domestically, local officials in Chattahoochee County, Ga., a sparsely populated area with high infection rates, traced the outbreaks to Fort Benning, the large training base there. And officials in California and North Carolina have also seen connections between military installations and local communities.

The rise of cases among a largely young population that lives in dense quarters near cities where bars and other crowded places have been reopened is unsurprising. But the increase in coronavirus cases — especially overseas — raises questions about the military’s safety precautions as the Pentagon wrestles with both containing the virus within the ranks while also addressing logistical problems it has created, like relieving units that had been stuck overseas for longer than expected

“It’s an amazing challenge,” said Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “With our inability to control the virus nationally, I think we’re going to see countries that may not welcome deployments of American troops for anything but the most essential missions.”

In many ways, the surge in military cases mirrors the situation in the rest of the United States: exhausted by months of lockdown and trying to get back to normal. There were 21,909 cases in the military as of Monday, compared with 7,408 on June 10, according to the Pentagon. Three service members have died since March, including a sailor on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. More than 440 service members have been hospitalized.

In the military training camps, there is little room for a socially distant middle ground. Barracks are packed, grueling training schools are the norm, and open bars and other places to socialize beckon, all as troops prepare to head overseas.

“Military bases represent a combustible demographic mix of young and older people in a dense institutional setting, which is pretty much an ideal context for a wildfirelike outbreak to occur,” said Lindsey J. Leininger, a health policy researcher and clinical professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. “Unfortunately, both density and demographics place military bases at high outbreak risk. And since many employees on the bases are from the host communities, a base outbreak can easily seed a community outbreak.”

In a recent conference call with reporters, Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy noted sharp increases in cases at Fort Benning and at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, both large infantry training schools, and acknowledged that the Army might be paying for reopening its basic training sites too early or without adequate protections.

Mr. McCarthy said the Army was weighing whether to change its testing protocols, expand the 14-day isolation bubble for deploying troops before they are sent overseas or increase the frequency of coronavirus testing.

“This is something that we take very, very seriously,” General Abrams said on a radio program on American Forces Network Korea.

As the only nation that projects military power in dozens of countries all over the world — some of which are banning American travelers — the United States has many opportunities to export an unchecked virus, as well as possibilities to facilitate domestic spread in areas that are already overwhelmed with new cases.

This was clear in Okinawa, one of Japan’s southernmost islands that is home to several American bases. Over several weeks in June, several thousand Marines deployed to Okinawa, delayed by Pentagon travel restrictions that have since been eased. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper’s decision to restrict, then loosen, military travel by the end of June served two purposes: It was an attempt to keep the virus from the ranks, but also to minimize disruptions to long-planned deployment schedules.

A Marine helicopter and infantry unit from California is believed to have brought new cases of the virus to Okinawa, according to a Marine familiar with the issue who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Covid-19 rapidly spread in the unit in June and was most likely accelerated through a series of unauthorized parties around the Fourth of July weekend, the Marine said.

“As I suspect you are all aware, based on the tracing teams, Marines and sailors who contracted Covid likely broke” restrictions placed on their movements, military commanders in Okinawa wrote to Marines several days after the holiday in a message obtained by The New York Times. The commanders warned the service members to adhere to the restrictions and said that they were “under the microscope.”

In South Korea, more than 70 people affiliated with U.S. Forces Korea have tested positive for the virus since the first outbreak in the country in late February. The military says that troops are following strict quarantine procedures after being tested; health officials in South Korea, which was successful in beating back coronavirus early on, say that most new cases are coming from abroad.

In Australia, where more than 1,000 Marines recently started their annual monthslong deployment in Darwin, at least one Marine was found to have the virus, according to a Marine news release this month. The Bitburg-Prüm region, home to Spangdahlem Air Base, has one of the highest rates of infection in Germany, although cases on the base appear to be abating.

Chattahoochee County, Ga., has seen its per capita infection rate nearly double over the past two weeks. “Of course there is community spread on the base,” Pamela Kirkland, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Public Health’s West Central Health District, said of Fort Benning. “Many live off base and could be reported in several counties in Georgia and Alabama.”

She added, “We did see quite an increase in what was otherwise a typical smaller number of cases for a low-populated county.”

Fort Bragg in North Carolina, one of the biggest Army bases and home to Special Operations units and training schools, also had a large outbreak, and surrounding counties have also been affected. More than 80 soldiers tested positive for the virus last month after a weekslong survival course, known as SERE school.

“There is evidence of community spread in North Carolina and in Cumberland County,” said Dr. Jennifer Green, the county’s public health director. “Fort Bragg is a part of our Cumberland County community.”

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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News Sultan Qaboos, who transformed Oman into a regional power broker, dies at 79 - The Washington Post

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Oman’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Stated, who took vitality in a 1970 palace coup against his father and then guided the nation from medieval-type feudalism toward the embrace of global oriented insurance policies that hastened modernization and broadened the nation’s political influence, died Jan. 10 at 79.

The insist-poke Oman News Company offered his death on its real Twitter account however did now no longer expose further particulars. Qaboos had left Oman quickly at the least twice since 2014 to receive treatment in Germany for undisclosed medical components, and he traveled to Belgium for a medical checkup last month.

The death of the longest-serving ruler in the Arab world, and one of many world’s longest-ruling autocrats, opened components of succession in Oman, which occupies the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. The nation also holds a strategic enclave across from Iran at the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the route for tankers carrying about one-sixth of the world’s oil supply.

With out young of us or brothers — Oman would no longer permit one of his sisters to rule — Sultan Qaboos had no converse inheritor. He refused to publicly title a that it's likely you'll perhaps also imagine successor from interior his clan, which has ruled Oman for near to 250 years.

But a successor became quickly offered by Oman insist television: Haitham bin Tariq al Stated, who served as the sultan’s custom minister.

Sultan Qaboos (pronounced KAH-boos) became born on Nov. 18, 1940, and he became the most efficient son of Oman’s ruler, Sultan Stated bin Taimur. His childhood became lonely and cloistered, and his father became mostly absent. He grew up in a palace, ready to bag entry to books and details however in any other case forbidden from talking to his teachers about anything however his analysis. He became prohibited from taking half in in the ocean, staunch yards from his residence.

His father had led the nation since the early 1930s and kept it because it had been for hundreds of years: Most of the capital, Muscat, became lit by lanterns at evening, there had been most efficient a few miles of paved roads, and slavery became accredited. Oman’s insist on the earth became largely defined by its insist in tale as the residence of Sinbad, its modest exports of aromatic frankincense, and its gripping turbans influenced by centuries of change with South Asia and East Africa.

Stated bin Taimur grew extra and further cut off from his topics, in particular after an assassination try in 1966. His son had been despatched to Britain at 16, the put he attended the Sandhurst militia academy and quickly served in the British army. Upon his return to Oman in 1964, he lived underneath digital residence arrest underneath orders from his paranoid father. He grew extra and further frustrated with his father’s insurance policies of isolation and his utter rejection of modernity no topic oil resources.

In 1970, he deposed his father in a coup backed by Britain, which had a stake in Oman’s oil fields and sought a freer hand to set up down insurrection factions in the nation. The contemporary ruler offered himself in public, symbolizing a brand contemporary era for the nation’s 750,000 inhabitants, who had now no longer considered its sultan in person for years and even a few years.

“Despite our oil revenues, my father kept the nation in poverty,” he said in a rare interview at the time. Stated bin Taimur became exiled to Britain and died in 1972.

“Qaboos became certainly a nation-builder,” said Abdullah Baabood, an Omani native and professor of gulf regional analysis at Qatar University. “He took a insist of tribal rivalries and a patchwork of areas and gave it a mode of nationhood.”

Sultan Qaboos also leaves a nation that has adopted — however now no longer fully mimicked — the final phrase metamorphoses across the gulf Arab states.

He shunned the skyscrapers and extravagances of nearby Dubai and Abu Dhabi, stressing that Muscat and other cities must aloof in general withhold their dilapidated persona and architecture as valuable as that it's likely you'll perhaps also imagine, even as 5-star lodges and international producers moved in.

Whereas other gulf states tried to outshine one every other with shops and theme parks, Oman targeting cultural firsts for the plot. Amongst them: a world-class opera residence inaugurated by Plácido Domingo conducting Puccini’s “Turandot,” and a symphony orchestra that mirrored the sultan’s lifelong appreciation for song and his hobby in the lute and pipe organ.

International locations equivalent to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates employed teams of branding consultants and constructed world-spanning airways. Sultan Qaboos became content to domesticate cottage industries equivalent to constructing dilapidated wooden crusing vessels, known as dhows, and reviving the custom of Arab perfume-making with a high-close heady scent residence, Amouage.

In November 2014, as the sultan became receiving health center treatment, he set up his imprimatur on a brand contemporary magazine dedicated to the Arabian camel.

In Washington, Oman maintains the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Heart, whose missions encompass funding scholarships for People to explore in Oman.

Sultan Qaboos shared one overriding trait with other gulf plot leaders: a tight grip on vitality that allowed no room for dissent or delivery political debate. And, adore several other rulers in the plot, he became pressured into rare concessions by unrest inspired by the Arab Spring.

In 2011, protests broke out in Oman calling for added job opportunities for young of us, in a nation the put near to half of the population is underneath 25. The demonstrations ended in unheard of clashes with safety forces. In response, Sultan Qaboos stepped in with promises of 50,000 civil-carrier jobs and a dinky bit extra vitality for an advisory panel, known as the Shura Council.

Nonetheless, the reforms most efficient went to this level. Any individual dauntless to misfortune authority risked arrest, along side crackdowns for social media posts.

Sultan Qaboos and his handpicked interior circle continued to climb in significance for Washington as middlemen for dealings with Iran.

Oman negotiated the liberate of three People who were detained by Iran in 2009 along its border with Iraq and charged with espionage. Oman also performed other crucial messenger roles, along side for the length of U.S.-led talks on Tehran’s nuclear program and in serving to free 15 British sailors captured by Iranian naval forces in 2007.

At the identical time, Sultan Qaboos fostered close ties with Iran every publicly and faraway from real channels.

Discontinuance to the Strait of Hormuz, the sultan’s safety forces turn out to be a blind gaze to Iranian smugglers carrying goods equivalent to televisions and ovens across the Persian Gulf on speedboats. In March 2014, Oman signed a 25-year accord to import Iranian pure gas.

The high-profile diplomacy and dealmaking did dinky to delivery a window into the non-public lifetime of the sultan.

He became maybe the most enigmatic decide in the fraternity of gulf leaders. Sultan Qaboos, who most smartly-liked dilapidated robes and each so most steadily donned a ceremonial dagger, did now no longer see every other predominant other after a hasty marriage to a cousin, Nawwal, in the 1970s. He mostly eschewed international chase back and forth in need of his palaces in Muscat and Salalah, a southern port with lush flora fed by the Indian Ocean monsoons.

Sultan Qaboos shared dinky of his non-public or political lifestyles in public, however leaked U.S. diplomatic cables supplied some hints about his priorities. They careworn out the need for training, increased participation of ladies americans in civic affairs and Oman’s unbiased of diversifying its oil-basically basically based economy.

He displayed a prolonged-fluctuate survey of regional affairs, at times noting the growth of al-Qaeda’s Yemen-basically basically based branch as the close safety misfortune for years but to come every other time. He also took a pragmatic approach to Iran.

“Iran is a mountainous nation with muscular tissues and we must handle it,” he became quoted as announcing in a 2008 Train Division cable made public by the anti-secrecy neighborhood WikiLeaks.

A devoted Anglophile valuable of his lifestyles, Sultan Qaboos also confirmed increasing openness to Washington.

In 1979, he accredited U.S. forces to make spend of an Omani air irascible as the staging ground for a failed try to rescue People held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, constant with a Congressional Compare Carrier document.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults, Oman served as a irascible for U.S. warplanes for the length of the initial U.S. militia push into Afghanistan, media and analysis reports said. Loads of years later, then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney went fishing aboard the sultan’s yacht.

In a rare 2008 interview with Kuwait’s Al-Seyassah newspaper, Sultan Qaboos waxed poetic on what he known as Oman’s “renaissance” underneath his rule.

“The solar has risen on our nation, and we can procure our outdated popularity and energy and become a nation valuable of appreciate and appreciation,” he became quoted as announcing.

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