#Apartments For Sale in Alexandria

[beardedmrbean]

Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store.

The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted or raped them.

The documentary and podcast - Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods - gathered evidence that, during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene, but helped cover up abuse allegations.

Harrods’ current owners said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations and that his victims had been failed - for which the store sincerely apologised.

“The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark,” says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.

Since this article was first published, more former Harrods employees have contacted the BBC saying Mohammed Al Fayed assaulted them.

Warning: this story contains details some may find distressing.

The incidents took place in London, Paris, St Tropez and Abu Dhabi.

“I made it obvious that I didn't want that to happen. I did not give consent. I just wanted it to be over,” says one of the women, who says Fayed raped her at his Park Lane apartment.

Another woman says she was a teenager when he raped her at the Mayfair address.

“Mohamed Al Fayed was a monster, a sexual predator with no moral compass whatsoever,” she says, adding that all the staff at Harrods were his “playthings”.

“We were all so scared. He actively cultivated fear. If he said ‘jump’ employees would ask ‘how high’.”

Fayed faced sexual assault claims while he was alive, but these allegations are of unprecedented scale and seriousness. The BBC believes many more women may have been assaulted.

'Fayed was vile'

Fayed's entrepreneurial career began on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, where he hawked fizzy drinks to passers-by. But it was his marriage to the sister of a millionaire Saudi arms dealer that helped him forge new connections and build a business empire.

He moved to the UK in 1974 and was already a well-known public figure when he took over Harrods in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s, he would regularly appear as a guest on prime-time TV chat and entertainment shows.

Meanwhile, Fayed - whose son Dodi was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 - has become known to a new generation through the two most recent Netflix series of The Crown.

But the women we have spoken to say his portrayal as pleasant and gregarious was far from the truth.

“He was vile,” says one of the women, Sophia, who worked as his personal assistant from 1988 to 1991. She says he tried to rape her more than once.

“That makes me angry, people shouldn't remember him like that. It's not how he was.”

Some of the women waived, or partially waived, their right to anonymity to be filmed - and the BBC agreed not to use surnames. Others chose to remain anonymous. Put together, their testimonies reveal a pattern of predatory behaviour and sexual abuse by Fayed.

The Harrods owner would regularly tour the department store's vast sales floors and identify young female assistants he found attractive, who would then be promoted to work in his offices upstairs - former staff, male and female, told us.

The assaults would be carried out in Harrods’ offices, in Fayed's London apartment, or on foreign trips - often in Paris at the Ritz hotel, which he also owned, or his nearby Villa Windsor property.

At Harrods, other former staff members told us it was clear what was happening.

“We all watched each other walk through that door thinking, ‘you poor girl, it's you today’ and feeling utterly powerless to stop it,” Alice, not her real name, says.

'He raped me'

Rachel, not her real name, worked as a personal assistant in Harrods in the 1990s.

One night after work, she says she was called to his luxury apartment, in a large block on Park Lane overlooking London's Hyde Park. The building was protected by security staff and had an on-site office staffed by Harrods employees.

Rachel says Fayed asked her to sit on his bed and then put his hand on her leg, making it clear what he wanted.

“I remember feeling his body on me, the weight of him. Just hearing him make these noises. And… just going somewhere else in my head.

“He raped me.”

The BBC has spoken to 13 women who say Fayed sexually assaulted them at 60 Park Lane. Four of them, including Rachel, say they were raped.

Sophia, who says she was sexually assaulted, described the whole situation as an inescapable nightmare.

“I couldn't leave. I didn’t have a [family] home to go back to, I had to pay rent,” she says. “I knew I had to go through this and I didn’t want to. It was horrible and my head was scrambled.”

Gemma, who worked as one of Fayed’s personal assistants between 2007-09, says his behaviour became more frightening during work trips abroad.

She says it culminated in her being raped at Villa Windsor in Paris's Bois de Boulogne - a former home, post-abdication, of King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson.

Gemma says she woke up startled in her bedroom. Fayed was next to her bed wearing just a silk dressing gown. He then tried to get into bed with her.

“I told him, ‘no, I don't want you to’. And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me and [I] really couldn't move anywhere.

“I was kind of face down on the bed and he just pressed himself on me.”

She says after Fayed raped her she cried, while he got up and told her aggressively to wash herself with Dettol.

“Obviously he wanted me to erase any trace of him being anywhere near me,” she explains.

Eight other women have also told us they were sexually assaulted by Fayed at his properties in Paris. Five women described the assaults as an attempted rape.

'Open secret'

“The abuse of women, I was aware of it when I was on the shop floor," says Tony Leeming, a Harrods department manager from 1994 to 2004. It “wasn't even a secret”, recalls Mr Leeming, who says he did not know about more serious allegations of assault or rape.

"And I think if I knew, everybody knew. Anyone who says they didn't are lying, I'm sorry".

Mr Leeming's testimony is backed up by former members of Fayed's security team.

“We were aware that he had this very strong interest in young girls,” says Eamon Coyle, who joined Harrods in 1979 as a store detective, then became deputy director of security from 1989-95.

Meanwhile Steve, who does not want us to use his surname, worked for the billionaire between 1994-95. He told us that security staff “did know that certain things were happening to certain female employees at Harrods and Park Lane”.

Many of the women told us that when they began working directly for Fayed they underwent medicals - including invasive sexual health tests carried out by doctors.

This was presented as a perk, the women told us, but many did not see their own results - even though they were sent to Fayed.

“There is no benefit to anybody knowing what my sexual health is, unless you're planning to sleep with somebody, which I find quite chilling now,” says Katherine, who was an executive assistant in 2005.

'Culture of fear'

All the women we spoke to described having felt intimidated at work - which had made it difficult for them to speak out.

Sarah, not her real name, explained: “There was most definitely a culture of fear across the whole store - from the lowliest of the low, to the most senior person.”

Others told us they believed the phones in Harrods had been tapped - and that women had been scared of talking to each other about Fayed’s abuse, fearing they were being filmed by hidden cameras.

The ex-deputy director of security, Eamon Coyle, confirmed this - explaining how part of his job was to listen to tapes of recorded calls. Cameras that could record had also been installed throughout the store, he said, including in the executive suites.

“He [Fayed] bugged everybody that he wanted to bug.”

Harrods told the BBC in a statement these had been the actions of an individual “intent on abusing his power” which it condemned in the strongest terms.

It said: “The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010, it is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”

There were a number of attempts to expose Fayed before his death - notably by Vanity Fair in 1995 - with an article alleging racism, staff surveillance and sexual misconduct. This sparked a libel lawsuit.

Mohamed Al Fayed later agreed to drop the case as long as all the further evidence the magazine had gathered of his sexual misconduct in preparation for a trial was locked away. Fayed’s settlement was negotiated by a senior Harrods executive.

In 1997, ITV’s The Big Story reported further serious allegations including sexual harassment and groping - which is classed as sexual assault.

One of the women in the BBC investigation, Ellie, not her real name, was 15 in 2008 when she reported an assault to the police - an allegation that made headlines - but did not result in any charge.

In 2017, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast allegations of groping, assault and harassment, with one woman waiving her right to anonymity for the first time. It gave some women the courage to come forward - and was followed by a 2018 investigation on Channel 4 News.

But it is only now, with Mohamed Al Fayed having died last year, that many of the women have felt able to speak publicly about rape and attempted rape.

Cash and NDAs

The BBC documentary reveals that, as part of Gemma's settlement in 2009, she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a legally-binding contract which ensures information remains confidential.

She says after she was raped, she contacted a lawyer who told Harrods she was leaving her job on the grounds of sexual harassment. Gemma says she did not feel able, at that time, to disclose the full extent and seriousness of Fayed's assaults.

Harrods agreed she could leave and it would pay a sum of money in exchange for her shredding all evidence and signing an NDA. Gemma says a member of Harrods’ HR team was present as the shredding took place.

The BBC has heard that women were threatened and intimidated by Harrods' then-director of security, John Macnamara, to stop them speaking out.

Fourteen of the women we spoke to recently brought civil claims against Harrods for damages. The shop's current owners, who are not asking women to sign NDAs, started settling these in July 2023.

It took Sophia and Harrods five years to reach an agreement. In her case, the store expressed regret but did not admit liability. Many more women are now considering legal action against Harrods.

[schmergo]

Websites trying to make homes for sale seem desirable: It's in a QUIET neighborhood! Sought-after residential area. You will walk out of your front door and see nothing but your lawn. You will walk to the edge of your lawn and need a servant to bring you a lemonade to revive you. You will stand at the edge of our lawn and only see other lawns as far as the eye can see. There are also maybe some driveways and cars. One day a baby fox walked onto someone's lawn in this development and the HOA immediately called a SWAT team on it. If you walk in this neighborhood, the HOA will call a SWAT team on you. Your kids can play basketball in your own driveway, but they're on thin ice. There is no hint of a surrounding world outside this community. No roads. No commercial buildings. No communal meeting places. No fun. No community. Websites trying to make apartment buildings for rent seem desirable: GET READY TO LIVE IN THE CENTER OF ACTION! Walkable neighborhood with walkable access to everything your heart desires! Minutes from Old Town Alexandria! Minutes from downtown Falls Church! Minutes from Great Falls! Minutes from that one frog pond you liked when you were 4! Minutes from the Louvre! Minutes from Zambia! Live wall to wall with 8574849 of your best friends in this 4738 floor high rise smack dab in the middle of a year-long public outdoor rave. Located on a median directly in the middle of I-95, you will enjoy the sound of sirens wherever you go! Enjoy a drink in the Downtown Shmoopelsburg entertainment district, steps away from your front door! Enjoy a drink on your balcony! Enjoy a drink on the Express Bus to Shmoopelsburg! Enjoy our communal social room/ indoor BBQing area (don't worry, the fire department is next door), or enjoy listening to your neighbors discuss their bowel movements through the paper thin walls! You're young! You're fun! Step right outside your front door and be right in the middle of the action! Get run over on the interstate!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

#10yrsago Feds subject drug suspect to vaginal/anal probe, X-ray, CT Scan, without a warrant — find nothing https://www.thedailybeast.com/dog-orders-cavity-search-lawsuits-ensue

#10yrsago Business-logic of cooperating with the NSA has changed https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/a-fraying-of-the-public-private-surveillance-partnership/281289/

#10yrsago How much value did your account generate for Twitter? https://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/07/interactive-this-is-how-much-money-twitter-owes-you/

#10yrsago Rob Ford’s exaggerated and imaginary savings to the taxpayers of Toronto https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/city-hall/deconstructing-mayor-rob-fords-fiscal-record/article_8c6e3bf3-bea5-54d8-8e2c-d28b5bfcf631.html

#5yrsago Europe’s collision course with copyright censorship: where we stand today https://doctorow.medium.com/europes-copyright-rules-will-stifle-free-expression-8633e91f5284

#5yrsago Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can’t afford to rent a DC apartment https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-cant-afford-to-rent-an-apartment-in-dc.html

#5yrsago Bruce Sterling on architecture, design, science fiction, futurism and involuntary parks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0__x5SG8WY

#1yrago Delegating trust is really, really, really hard (infosec edition) https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/09/infosec-blackpill/#on-trusting-trust

[ew-glassexpert]

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[xtruss]

The End of Legacy Admissions Could Transform College Access

After the fall of affirmative action, liberals and conservatives want to eliminate benefits for children of alumni. Could their logic lead to reparations?

— By Jeannie Suk Gersen | August 8, 2023

White Gravenor Hall of Georgetown University Washington D.C. lit by an early evening Sun. Georgetown has made reparations part of its admissions process, in light of the university’s history of enslavement. Photograph by Oleg Albinsky/Getty

In 2016, Georgetown University announced a first-of-its-kind change to its admissions policy. In addition to the long-standing legacy preferences afforded to applicants “with an enduring relationship” to the school, including children of alumni, it vowed to “give that same consideration” to the descendants of hundreds of enslaved people. From its founding, in 1789, the school had been funded by Jesuit-owned plantations in Maryland that were operated with slave labor. By 1838, the plantations had become less profitable, and Georgetown’s leaders arranged the mass sale and transfer of two hundred and seventy-two men, women, and children to businessmen in Louisiana to pay down the school’s debts and secure further funding. In 2016, a university working group that had studied Georgetown’s role in slavery suggested multiple ways to pursue “reconciliation”—including admissions preferences for descendants of those sold in 1838. The university’s president, John J. DeGioia, said, in 2021, “We live, every day, with the legacies of enslavement.”

In university admissions, one such legacy is plain, even apart from any institution’s direct involvement in slavery. Many of the most selective schools that currently give preference to the offspring of alumni did not admit Black students in significant numbers until the nineteen-sixties or seventies. And, since then, disproportionately small percentages of those schools’ student bodies have been Black. That means that the vast majority of Black American families have at most two generations of alumni experience despite having been in the United States for centuries.

In June, the Supreme Court’s ruling, in Students for Fair Admissions’ cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, prohibited schools from considering race as a factor in admissions. The suggestion that Harvard could and should simply end legacy admissions was integral to S.F.F.A.’s attack on affirmative action. S.F.F.A. argued that abandoning legacy preferences and substantially boosting socioeconomically disadvantaged applicants would make Harvard “far less white, wealthy, and privileged.” According to the plaintiff, Harvard’s unwillingness was a refusal to try race-neutral methods to achieve diversity before resorting to considering applicants’ race, as the law then required. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurrence specifically criticized Harvard’s resistance to eliminating preferences for children of alumni, donors, and faculty, remarking that the preferences are “race-neutral on their face” but “undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most.”

The Court’s decision has unleashed furious attention to inequalities that have limited access to élite educational institutions. Legacy preferences are the obvious first target because they appear to have functioned as a kind of counterweight to affirmative action. On the day of the Court’s decision, President Biden announced that his Department of Education would examine “practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege instead of opportunity.” Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, immediately urged colleges to discontinue legacy programs, which Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, called “affirmative action for the privileged.”

Last month, congressional Democrats reintroduced a bill from 2022—which was previously endorsed by a number of civil-rights organizations, including the A.C.L.U.—that would prohibit schools that receive federal funds from giving admissions preference to legacies or donors. One of the bill’s sponsors, Senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, explained that legacy preferences are “not a form of affirmative action that serves our country well” and that “it takes away from the diversity on a campus, it takes away from fairness to get into college.” It is possible that Republican lawmakers, such as Senator Scott, will join Democrats to make it a bipartisan effort.

This near-instantaneous consensus on legacy admissions may seem surprising. But we have seen versions of it before. After California banned affirmative action in public education, in 1996, the University of California system chose to end legacy preferences. The pattern also occurred at the University of Georgia and Texas A&M two decades ago.

The availability of racial preferences has enabled a tolerance of legacy preferences: boosts for underrepresented minorities were in part compensating for boosts for others. For those whose goal is to achieve racial equality in admissions, the end of affirmative action may not be entirely bad. Among other things, it has revealed that the use of race as a factor was merely part of a larger system of preferences that knowingly shaped the racial makeup of classes. Out of necessity, admissions might now be transformed to address the inequalities that make racial diversity difficult to achieve and sustain.

Admissions policies that explicitly articulate a preference for the offspring of alumni date to the nineteen-twenties. At that time, several Ivy League schools, traditionally populated by wealthy, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, had begun to experience, in the words of Harvard’s then president, A. Lawrence Lowell, “a dangerous increase in the proportion of Jews” admitted for scholastic achievement. Schools responded by adopting holistic admissions processes, which would alter who was selected. The use of geographical diversity as a factor brought in more Midwesterners, who tended not to be Jewish. The consideration of personal qualities also disfavored Jews, who were thought to be academic grinds who lacked character. Legacy status was another such factor, favoring white and wealthy Protestants whose families had a history with the institutions that children of recent immigrants would obviously lack. Holistic review, including legacy preferences, became the magic formula for élite admissions, to which race-based affirmative action was added as an ingredient in the sixties. The former president of Harvard Lawrence H. Summers defended legacy admissions as “integral to the kind of community that any private educational institution is.” (This summer, in response to the Court’s affirmative-action decision, Summers urged an end to legacy preferences, among other reforms.)

Today, more than seven hundred colleges and universities consider applicants’ legacy status, but the practice is most common at institutions that admit less than twenty-five per cent of applicants. A recent study by Harvard economists, using data from several élite colleges, found that legacies were nearly four times more likely to be admitted than other applicants with the same test scores. A study based on evidence from the S.F.F.A. v. Harvard litigation found that, from 2014 to 2019, children of alumni were nearly six times more likely to be admitted to Harvard than other applicants. Surveys administered by the Crimson indicate that nearly a third of the student body have family members who attended Harvard and that around a third of legacies report parental income of more than half a million dollars, whereas only an eighth of non-legacies do.

The consensus on legacy admissions began to shift meaningfully during the past decade, as élite schools started examining ways to increase access. Although M.I.T. has stood out among the most selective institutions in reportedly never having considered legacy status, Johns Hopkins eliminated legacy admissions in 2014, and was followed by Pomona, Amherst, and Wesleyan. According to Education Reform Now, more than a hundred colleges and universities have ended legacy admissions since 2015. The president of Johns Hopkins, Ron Daniels, has written that the preference for legacies “was impairing our ability to educate qualified and promising students from all backgrounds and to help launch them up the social ladder.” More recently, he called it “an aristocratic policy, not a meritocratic one,” that is “indefensible in a democratic society.”

In 2019, the Varsity Blues scandal exposed dozens of wealthy parents’ involvement in criminal conspiracy to commit fraud in order to insure their children’s admission to colleges, using inflated test scores, bribery of college officials, and even doctored photos of athletic prowess. The scandal brought public attention to the idea that, even in the absence of criminal activity, the competition to get in may bear more similarities to parents vying to purchase spots than to a true system of “merit.” The racial reckoning of 2020 brought more skepticism toward processes that reflect baked-in racial disadvantage. In 2020, California (where public university systems had decades ago voluntarily eliminated legacy preferences) enacted a law that employed a public-shaming approach, requiring all institutions to disclose annually the number of legacies and donor-related applicants “who did not meet the institution’s admission standards that apply to all applicants, but who were offered admission,” as well as the number who met the standards. In 2021, Colorado became the only state thus far to ban legacy admissions for public colleges and universities. Lawmakers who sponsored the bill called the legacy preference “a concrete example of systemic inequity.”

Bills that would ban legacy admissions at private and public institutions were introduced in Connecticut in 2022, and in New York this year and last. In Massachusetts, a bill introduced this year would force any school that uses legacy or donor preferences to pay a “public service fee” equal to a small percentage of its endowment, which the state would then use to fund community colleges. At Harvard, the fee would amount to a hundred million dollars a year.

In response to the Connecticut bill, Yale’s dean of admissions, Jeremiah Quinlan, expressed skepticism that “a ban on legacy preferences in admissions would have a material effect on representation of low-income, first-generation, or under-represented students.” More emphatically, he wrote that “the state should not dictate how colleges and universities make admissions decisions, just as the state should not dictate whom we hire as faculty or what we teach in the curriculum.” This broader point, about the importance of universities’ autonomy, may resonate in an era of increasing governmental attempts to regulate campuses. (See the Stop woke Act, in Florida.) Universities are increasingly scrutinized by law and political processes, instead of being left to manage their affairs, whether they involve diversity, fund-raising, or free speech. Public regulation in matters of inequality of entry into these institutions which benefit from public funds, however, is less troubling than attempts to control teaching, research, and other academic activities. Although the anxiety of Quinlan and others is understandable, it does not follow that legislatures’ moves to increase access to universities must lead to encroachments on academic freedom.

After decades of suspicion and scrutiny of affirmative action, legacy admissions are taking their place as the punching bag. Last month, in response to a federal civil-rights complaint, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into whether Harvard’s preferences for legacies and children of donors discriminate against Black, Hispanic, and Asian American applicants in favor of less qualified white applicants, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That statute, which prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating on the ground of race, is the same one that, the Court held, prohibits race-conscious affirmative action. Having emerged battle-worn and unsuccessful from nearly a decade of litigation defending universities’ use of race in admissions, Harvard will have to be the standard-bearer for the use of legacy status and, more broadly, universities’ freedom to craft their student bodies without interference.

An allegation that legacy preferences constitute intentional discrimination would be difficult to substantiate, and the complaint does not even raise that argument. Title VI, though, allows for a claim to the Education Department that a racially neutral policy with no racially discriminatory purpose still has a “disparate impact” that is discriminatory. Here, the claim is that Harvard’s legacy and donor preferences in practice have a disproportionate, discriminatory impact on some racial groups. As the complaint puts it, the preferences “provide a competitive advantage to predominantly white, wealthy applicants, which significantly diminishes opportunities for qualified applicants of color.”

It is notable that the anti-legacy claim does not pit Asian Americans against other minorities, as the S.F.F.A. case attacking affirmative action did. But the complaint relies heavily on information from the S.F.F.A. litigation and draws liberally from the Supreme Court’s logic. It quotes Chief Justice John Roberts’s line “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it” and applies his reasoning—that “a benefit provided to some applicants but not to others necessarily advantages the former group at the expense of the latter.”

Because the Supreme Court, in 2001, made private suits based on disparate-impact claims under Title VI unavailable in court, it is unlikely to take on the legacy-admissions issue. The claim is viable in complaints to the Education Department, which has the ability to tell schools to reform their admissions programs if they want to keep receiving federal funds. But civil-rights regulators may find it difficult to come to that conclusion. Almost every other factor considered in admissions—from standardized tests or how academically challenging an applicant’s high school is to personal character or extracurricular activities and leadership—arguably favors some racial groups over others. We know from the S.F.F.A. v. Harvard litigation that considering SAT scores tends to benefit Asian Americans, while “personal ratings,” evaluating qualities like kindness, courage, and integrity, disfavors them; the impact is the reverse for Black applicants. Over the past century, some of the factors used as part of holistic admissions, including “diversity,” were crafted with the intent to favor some groups, whereas other factors had that effect inadvertently. It becomes very difficult to untangle disparate racial impact from the impact of selecting for skills and qualities that a school views as deserving of reward.

Even if investigators were to find that legacy admissions have a disparate racial impact, they would still be lawful if there is a substantial justification for them. The proffered justifications for a legacy preference would likely include the importance of maintaining intergenerational community and loyalty; encouraging giving by alumni; identifying high performers, given that legacy applicants’ familial advantages may predict better outcomes both in college and in their careers; and predicting the likelihood of attendance, in order to maintain a high yield rate. Even if one finds justifications like these uncompelling, it will be hard for government lawyers to conclude that there are no legitimate justifications and that legacy preferences should be legally prohibited. (Studies are mixed on whether legacy admission helps universities raise funds. There may be higher rates of alumni giving at schools that consider legacy status, but schools that abandoned legacy admissions have not suffered a negative effect on alumni giving, and some have experienced significant growth in their endowments.) Though access to these institutions is a subject of public importance, schools will, by and large, likely be left to sort out admissions policies as they see fit.

Universities that have pursued student-body diversity for the past decades through affirmative action will continue to seek a robust enrollment of Black and Latino students. But they will have to find new, race-neutral ways to do so—which could change the character of admissions. During oral arguments in the affirmative-action case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh surprisingly suggested that giving “a benefit to descendants of slaves would not be race-based.” It may seem bizarrely formalistic to say that a preference for descendants of enslaved people is not a race-based preference, but for those who insist that “race” is mere skin color, as some legal conservatives appear to, separating race from enslavement might make sense. Kavanaugh, who, like Gorsuch, attended the Catholic high school Georgetown Prep, which was originally a part of Georgetown University, may well have had in mind the university’s policy of giving a preference to the descendants of enslaved people who were sold by its Jesuit leaders.

Kavanaugh was, in effect, proposing that schools could legally implement a policy of reparations, which is how some colleges originally understood their race-based admissions programs. In the 1978 case in which the Supreme Court first upheld race-conscious affirmative action, though, the Court ruled that reparations or compensation for past generations of racial discrimination and injustice was not a compelling reason to use race as a factor in admissions—only “diversity” was. Colleges and universities then embraced the rationale, extolling the benefits of diversity for fulfilling their educational missions and producing future leaders. But now that race cannot be used as a factor, if, as Kavanaugh suggested, considering the legacy of slavery is “not race-based,” then universities could restore some benefits of affirmative action by giving preferences to applicants who check a box indicating that they are descended from enslaved people.

Last year, Harvard issued an extensive report on its own ties to slavery. It found that slavery was “an integral part of life” at Harvard, whose faculty, staff, and leaders enslaved individuals, some of them on campus. Profits from major donors’ involvement in slavery and the slave trade “helped the University build a national reputation, hire faculty, support students, grow its collections, expand its physical footprint, and develop its infrastructure.” Like Georgetown and many other schools, Harvard would have ample justification to make reparations in its admissions process and to consider a legacy of enslavement. Universities could account, in their race-neutral admissions policies, for not only slavery but also other sustained legal subjugation in which they may or may not have been directly involved. In a recent case, Justice Gorsuch quoted with approval the Court’s statement, in 1974, that a federal employment preference for Native American tribal members of at least a quarter Native American blood was a “political, rather than racial,” classification.

We are in a time when ideas of what exactly is race-based are up for grabs. Once the affirmative-action-bound language of the Court’s previous instructions is swept away, and schools are no longer legally incentivized to talk about race in admissions in terms of “diversity” or even any sort of “holistic” evaluation, we could end up with a more frank and substantive discussion about equity, including not only descent from enslaved people but also severe disadvantage from state-sponsored subordination, first-generation-college-student status, and family income and wealth. Many untold possibilities might open up if we look hard for alternative ways to unlock education as a means to social mobility. ♦

[realstateshtna-blog]

موقع شقتنا هو المرحلة التي تمنح شقق للبيع في جمهورية مصر العربية ، ويقوم موقعنا بزيارة سريعة يمكن من خلالها للفرد الذي يرغب في شراء العقار أن يفحصها بشكل مباشر مع المالك لمناقشة التفاصيل.

تعد سرية العميل مهمة جدًا بالنسبة لنا في موقع شقتنا ، لذا لا يمكن لأحد الوصول إلى مستندات الملكية وأوراق الهوية إلا في القسم المختص فقط لتأكيد هويتك وإثبات ملكيتك للعقار. نحن نعدك بأن خصوصية بياناتك هي أهم أولوياتنا.

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[ewingstan]

Was reading @artbyblastweave‘s excellent post here on why the Parahumans-verse has no Magneto equivalent/cape rights struggles, and had some loose thoughts come together. Because apart from all the reasons he lists, I think an aspect that Worm deals with excellently is the fact that the PRT seems constantly worried that capes are one incident away from being seen the same way as Marvel mutants. Cauldron and the PRT both express anxieties about how certain events will be the tipping point that finally convinces the public that capes are more trouble to deal with than their worth, throwing a huge wrench in the “have as much cape firepower available as possible” long-term plan. The Protectorate was founded largely to combat such public movements before they could seriously develop. It’s part of why Glen was so concerned with Taylor’s image past the point of all practicality—having a former villain would naturally make a lot of people distrustful of the new heroic organization, so all the stops had to be pulled to cement a true heel-face turn.

Its especially notable how this undergirds the cops-and-robbers relationship. A delicate balancing act is attempted by all the major organizations where there are never so many villains that the heroes can’t maintain a semblance of order, but there’s also never so few villains that the heroes feel superfluous. This is probably part of why cauldron releases so many case-53s into situations where they’d obviously turn to villainy, and why they program them with a built-in defeat feature for sale. For capes existence to be justified, they need to be seen as indispensable, for them to be protectors against ever-present threats. The Endbringers are great for that, but for the more day-to-day toleration, you need the Fallen. You need the Merchants. Most distressingly, according to the priorities of the powers that be, you need E88.

Its always been a weird sticking point for me that its the ABB we see as the first target of a villain alliance (and silent hero alliance) when the E88 are right there, turning Brockton Bay into the-place-to-be for nazi fucks and actively committing racial violence on a regular basis. Surely a concerted effort could wipe them out, surely Alexandria could take twenty minutes out of her day to raze their organization to the ground. Hell, the Coil/Undersiders/Travelers teamup actually managed to run their splinter groups out of the city. Why is Kaiser leading a cape coalition, rather than being on its receiving end? And the answer the text leaves us is that not just despite, but because of the horrors they commit on a daily basis, their more useful to keep around than not. They’re something for the citizens of Brockton Bay to fear, so that the Protectorate presence feels justified. Having them around inspires the type of mindset we see in Taylor at the beginning, where the Protectorate base having a fully functional missile system is “something that makes you feel safer.” Unlike the ABB under Bakuda, they’re largely a known element, unlikely to disturb the balance that preserves public relations. And while non-capes with any institutional power may be distressed by the property damage caused by Bakuda’s bombing run, and could start general cape outcry, such people wouldn’t have the same response to E88. After all, they could potentially be the victim of one of the bombs! The E88? Their victims will always be someone else. Anyone who cares enough to do something about it isn’t given a voice.

Once you realize this, it becomes the largest indictment of every institution present in Worm.

[doctorrookie]

A Spicy Surprise

A/N: This is my first ever fic (for Ethan) and boy, am I nervous. It doesn't really have a category, so let's just call it an introductory, smutty, fluffy piece. I was inspired by a Tiktok video and I really hope you like this one. I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote this, just letting all my creative juices flow. Go easy on me.

My MC is a female, named Alexandria Lee. More on her soon.

Word count: 1,921

—

“Ooh, Aly look!” Sienna grabs my wrist and pulls me over to the Bath and Glory stand. A big 50% off sign graces the top shelf.

Sienna and my shift just ended, but neither of us felt too tired, so we decided that we would go out for dinner at the mall nearby. After a sumptuous meal of the heartiest pasta on the face of the earth, we decided to take a stroll around the mall to burn some of it off. Sephora was having a Christmas sale, and we both thought we could go with some new war paint for work. Upon entering, we’re greeted by name brand after name brand etched on stands that are completely wiped out.

We glance at the half-empty Bath and Glory stand, shower gels, bath bombs, skin rejuvenator, whatever that is. Sienna picked up a thin tube of what looks like clear lip gloss.

“Minty Lip Maximiser, perfect for tingly make-out sessions…” Sienna teased, and I can feel my face flush red.

Ethan and I were getting a little… steamy in the supply closet, and Sienna happened to barge in right in the middle of our lip-lock, and let’s just say it’s a miracle his tongue is still in one piece. It’s a hilarious story, but it’s one I’ll share another day.

“Sie, stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself,” I giggle as she starts making kissy faces and sloppy lip-smacking sounds.

“You should totally get this, trust me.”

She zips her lips and gives me a playful wink, a mischievous glint in her other, open eye. There’s something more to this. Something… sinful, perhaps? I just have to know more.

“Is there something more to the equation?”

Sienna pulls me in close, her lips merely an inch away from my ear. Her soft, lilting voice juxtaposes against the content of her whispers. I would have never pegged as someone who would do something like that, but I have been known to be wrong about these things. The corners of my mouth twist into a wicked grin as I formulate a plan in my mind to surprise Ethan, courtesy of Sienna’s mildly disturbing tale.

—

I head to Ethan’s apartment. I spend one or two nights here a week, even though he’s constantly begging for more, but I pay good money for the five-roomer every month, so I have to make sure I get my worth. I slipped the key into the keyhole, just tingling with anticipation to find out his response to my little prank. I scan my eyes around his apartment and find him sitting on the couch, reading (yes, you guessed it) a medical journal. He looks up and beams at me, a smile I absolutely adore.

“Hi, rookie.” He pats the seat next to him, inviting me to join him. I set my bag down on the counter and make my way to his uber comfortable couch. He pulls me in by the waist for a tight hug and I can smell the faint combination of cologne, detergent, and aftershave all over him. The scent is truly intoxicating, and I find myself breathing in deep, revelling in his warmth. He places a soft, tender kiss on my forehead, his light stubble tickling me as I lean into him.

“Hey, Dr Ramsey, how was your day off?”

I turn myself slightly and lean my legs on the rest of the available couch space. I’ve been on them for 10 days straight, being on call and having multiple shifts lined up. I could use about a week’s worth of bed rest. That is, only if he’s right next to me.

“It was fine. Not as good as it could have been…” he closes the journal and places it on the coffee table, giving me his undivided attention.

“Aww, why is that?” I feign ignorance as I run a hand through his soft, dark locks, tousling it in the process.

“I know you just want me to say it’s because you’ve been gone all day.”

“Alright, then say it.”

He sighs lightly, a smirk appearing on his lips.

“Fine. It’s because you, Dr Alexandria Lee, have been away from me for more than 12 hours, and I had to wake up all alone this morning, holding and kissing, mind you, what I thought was my beautiful girlfriend, but turned out to be a pillow that smelled exactly like your hair.”

Ethan Ramsey, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. The sky is falling.

“Well, let’s see what I can do to make up for it then.”

I shift slightly so that my legs were in his lap and lean in close to plant a kiss on his lips, but with one strong move, he pinned my wrists down onto the seat cushions and hovered over me, his breath warm against my neck. He starts attacking my neck with kisses, and they burn into my skin with great passion and desire. He catches me by surprise when he gently nibbles and sucks on the sensitive spot right below my earlobe. My shallow breaths hitch and a soft moan escape me before I could suppress it. All thoughts disperse from my head, like a cloud of smoke. I just need him to do this to me all night long. He pulls away all of a sudden.

“E, what…”

“Let’s save this for later.  After all, we’ve got all night. And I have plans for every single minute of it.”

As much as I hate being teased, delicious tingles run up and down my body. We’ve both got a day off tomorrow and I can’t wait to see what shenanigans we’d be up to. Something wholesome, or something a little… dirtier.

“You’re right. I’ll go take a shower.”

I grab my purse, careful to not let him see the sheer, flimsy garment I have hidden in it. I make my way to the en-suite bathroom as I feel his eyes on me.

“Dr Ramsey, don’t you know it’s impolite to stare?” I say without turning back.

“Well, I can’t help it because…” He trails off.

“Because what?” I turn back, and our eyes lock.

“I like you, rookie.”

And with that, he opens up the journal and begins reading again. I sigh contentedly.

“I like you too, doctor.”

I close the bedroom door and scavenge for my towel, which is neatly folded next to his in the bathroom. I find a cute little basket of bottles adorned with jasmines and candy canes. A note sits on top of it.

Some olfactory stimulation to match how gorgeous you are, both inside and out

- E

This man truly knows his way around my heart. I’ve only mentioned I love jasmine-scented things once in passing. I can’t believe he remembered. And there’s this note. I can’t believe he went to visit my favorite retailer to get this, especially since there aren’t many outlets in Boston.

The sky is truly falling, and so am I.

I untie the ribbon and take a deep sniff of the lovely scent. Mmm… jas-mint. I love it.

—

I step out of the shower, reaching for my fluffy lilac towel. It even smells like him. I wrap it around my shoulders, the thick material providing some warmth on this cold winter day. I hunt around for the blow-dryer and let the heat take away those wet hair shudders. I rummage through my bag and find the little black negligee that I ordered last week. It got here yesterday, just in time for our weekly rendezvous. I slip it on and toss my hair back before checking how everything looks in the mirror.

Perfect.

As if on cue, the little Sephora bag tumbles out of my purse. I almost feel guilty about my little plan, but curiosity has always got the best of me. I unwrap the tube and apply some of the plumper on my lips. It’s got a menthol-cool burn, but nothing I can’t handle. I just hope Ethan has the same tolerance level as I do.

I drop my purse on the bedroom floor and twist the doorknob open, poking my head out to the living room. Ethan’s in the same position, still engrossed in the journal. He doesn’t notice my stroll from the bedroom to the couch, nor did he sense my hovering presence.

I clear my throat. “Ahem, Dr Ramsey.”

He looked up at me, mouth gaping as he took it all in.

“Aly…”

He pulled me down onto his lap, his dilated pupils becoming a tell-tale sign about his positive reaction to my little get-up. Well, one of the signs anyway.

“Mmm?” I try to stimulate a response from him.

“You look amazing.”

“Kiss me,” I whisper in his ear while slipping his glasses off, trying to stifle all signs of my mean-spirited prank. As I say that, a part of me is kicking myself for ruining this moment, and another part of me is bursting with laughter, just awaiting his response. Either way, it’s too late to back out as he’s leaning in steadily, eyes fluttering shut. I reciprocate and we lock lips tenderly. A faint taste of scotch, mixed with the mint from my gloss. Mmm.

Before any one of us could deepen the kiss, he pulls away all of a sudden, eyes wide as saucers.

“Aly, what is that?” He says urgently, breathing in and out from his mouth. “Oh gosh, it burns!”

He yelps and starts fanning his lips. The sight of it makes me burst out in laughter. The usually stoic Dr Ethan J. Ramsey is flapping his hands about and making an involuntary duck face.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, LEE?” He groans loudly.

I barely managed to catch my breath, and he starts yelping in pain, triggering a second wave of belly laughs. Oh gosh, no one will believe me when I tell this story.

“Lip plumper…” I whimper through my laughs.

“They feel so numb. Are they bigger?” He points to his swollen, red lips. Well, it did say extreme plumping on the packaging.

I nod cautiously because he seems angrier right now than I’ve ever seen him. His eyebrows furrow as he squeezes his eyes tight. I love this.

I walk over to the kitchen to get him a glass of water and he downs it quick. After about a minute, he calms down and regains his composure. I give him a little sideways smirk as I pout my lips slightly and lean in to kiss him again.

“Woah, woah, Lee,” he holds a hand up to cup my mouth. “There’s no way you’re getting near these lips for a week!”

“Aww come on. After so many naughty texts today and that hickie you left on me just now?” I push my hair to the side to reveal the bruise forming beneath my earlobe.

“Fuck…” He groans. I’ve got him hooked.

“How can I be sure that you don’t stab me in my sleep tonight?” He cautiously backs away from me.

“Oh come on, I think you’d be able to see if I have a knife hidden on me right now, right?” I stand up and do a slow twirl for him, making sure to slow down and display the back of my lace thong to him.

He stands up and grabs my wrist, pulling me into the bedroom.

“Fine, we’ll have to work out a punishment for your escapade, but you’re not getting that pretty little mouth anywhere near…”

“We’ll see…”

[chaletforsaleinn]

Chalet for sale in North Coast

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[fericita-s]

A Mansion House Murder - Chapter 15

A Mansion House Murder previous chapters - a round-robin Mercy Street story by @mercurygray @jomiddlemarch @broadwaybaggins @sagiow @tortoisesshells

Thanks @the-spastic-fantastic for beta-ing my chapter!

***

Emma laughed.  

She could tell that she was being hysterical.  She could still think like a nurse enough to recognize it.  But instead of administering to herself in the needed ways - a glass of water, fresh air, some distance from the dead body of her husband and the horrified gasps of the fleeing guests - her laughter became louder and more frenzied as tears fell from her eyes.  Some might have mistaken her tears for weeping, for grief, but Frank would have known them for what they were.  

Relief.  

She could appreciate the irony that after a decade of Frank accusing her of stabbing him in the back by not supporting his renewed allegiance to the Confederacy or the vile sermons he taught on the supremacy of their race or joyfully embracing poverty instead of stoically enduring it, someone had literally stabbed him in the back. 

She reached toward him and patted at his back, feeling for the depth and width of the wound even though it was obvious from his profound stillness that he was dead.  There was no rise and fall of his back or the knife lodged in it to show breath, no twitches or spasms, no pleading words or grasping hands. 

Mary's hands covered her own and she saw the blood, thick and red transfer from her hands to Mary's and thought I was right not to wear that new dress.  It would be ruined. Though perhaps it would have been hidden better, red on red silk, not the streaks of red against her faded white dress as she pulled away from Mary to wipe and wipe her hands, aware that Mary was speaking to her and that there was great flurry of movement as Dr. Foster and Dr. Diggs descended on Mary and Frank’s body sprawled across it.  But she was not able to discern any of the words or the actions happening just a foot away. She was laughing, thinking of how many men she had nursed back to health or comforted as they died in this very ballroom, and how none cursed at her the way Frank had with his dying breaths.

She stood, meaning to look for the lye or some cloths or perhaps a glass of water, but froze when she saw Matron Brannon in the corner of the room and, even with Anne’s firm grip on her elbow, Emma stumbled at her lurching motion. 

Am I back in the war? 

And then everything went black.

***

Alice moved away from Frank’s body immediately and was trailed by her husband who was calling her name. She planted herself in the lobby, giving desperate entreaties for the guests to stay.

“Alice, let them go.  Alice, your sister needs you.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, this pair not as well fitting as the ones he had lost during his surprise discovery of a different dead body in the hotel kitchens.

“But Percival! They’ll go and fetch the police or the Pinkertons!”

He caught her hand that had been clutched tightly around the fan and opened it so that the fan fell out and the red marks from where she had clutched it were bright against her pale skin. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm and she startled at the touch.  It was enough to bring her eyes to his so that she was looking at him when he said, “It’s time for help, even if the cost is great.”

“But the ball! The sale!” Her protestations were whispered and her eyes were bright with tears that she was angry she even had.  What had Frank been to her since the war besides a bothersome brother-in-law? Or Emma either?

Percival shook his head and frowned at her. “This is more than an inconvenience to your plans!”

Alice took a sharp breath and felt her anger slip like the fan from her hand. “There’s no hope of dealing with this ourselves, is there? There must be dozens of witnesses.”

He pulled her close to his side as Dr. Diggs walked out of the ballroom carrying Emma, her neck stretched gracefully over the crook of his elbow. Alice didn’t know if he was speaking to her or to the room at large as he said, “She’s fine.  Mrs. Morris here will see to her upstairs.”

Alice turned to watch them walk up the stairs and then turned back to look into the ballroom where Dr. Foster was removing Frank from his wife’s lap.  She turned once more to Percival, a complete circle and shook her head.  “I don’t know what to do, Percy.  I don’t know what to do.”

He took both of her hands and squeezed them and she squeezed back. “It’s alright, Alice. I do.”  

***

Dr. Diggs closed the door firmly behind him, knowing Mrs. Morris was capable of tending to Mrs. Stringfellow and eager to get back to his wife before a new guest of the hotel turned up murdered. So far the victims had been more adversaries than allies, but he knew more than most how quickly a mob of people could turn violent and how little reason or logic had anything to do with it.

At the top of the stairs, he saw the Chaplain and Jimmy Green, Henry with his hands outstretched like he was giving a benediction and Jimmy, eyes wide with terror.

“I didn’t plan it,” Jimmy said.  His cane was gone and he clutched at the bannister, unsteady on his feet.

Henry took a step closer to him, hands still raised. “I know. I heard what he said too. It would make anyone mad.”

Among the guests still exiting the hotel, whispering and shouting as they moved in a steady flow out the front door, Dr. Diggs noticed one man walking into the hotel.  He had a black silk bow tie and a black short bowler hat, his wool vest and gingham cotton shirt out of place in the sea of formal attire that was parting around him as he headed for the stairs. 

“Did you hear it all? He said he’d hurt her. He’d turn her out.  If the sale didn’t go through, if we didn’t give him enough money,” Jimmy looked to Henry, to Dr. Diggs, to the stranger who was now with them at the top of the stairs. He was pleading, whining as he spoke. “He said he knew I killed Bullen to frame him and that I’d never be smart enough to cut him out of a scheme.”

Henry nodded, lowering his hands and reaching for Jimmy who was leaning precariously near the top step, his grip on the bannister abandoned as he swayed near the top of the steps. “You were trying to keep her safe.  I know that.”

“I killed him,” Jimmy looked again at the man at the top of the stairs with him, seeming surprised at the words he was saying. “But I knew nothing about Bullen! Bullen wasn’t me! It wasn't me!”

Jimmy made a move as if to go down the steps, but stumbled and was caught by the man in the bowler hat who grabbed him by the elbow and then brought Jimmy’s arm behind his back, snapping the ring of a tower handcuff over his wrist and then bringing his other hand behind the back to do the same.

“What are you doing? No! I just explained – “

“You just confessed to a murder,” said the man.

Dr. Diggs saw the solid silver badge on the lapel of the man’s coat, the engraved letters proclaiming “Pinkerton National Detective Agency” before the man turned and guided Jimmy down the stairs.

***

Anne had undressed her and then prepared the bath, leaving Emma in it alone as she went to find suitable clothes. Finding the silence unbearable, Emma began to whisper-sing under her breath the words of a familiar hymn.

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains

Frank hated it, had never liked it when she sang it as she tried to tidy their cold and sparse house or mend their fraying clothes.  William Cowper was an abolitionist and a Methodist besides and it was one more way Frank had let her know she failed him.  Even her choice of hymn was disappointing.

She sank below the waters and willed the blood and grime of the last few hours to be washed away as well. She surfaced and the flowers that had been in her hair were now floating in the soapy water, wilting and breaking apart like flowers on a grave. But Emma knew she wouldn’t drown in these waters or those of grief like Ophelia.  She would rise, newer and freer, even if Ophelia’s insanity might never wash off. 

 Redeeming love has been my theme,

 And shall be till I die.

Emma stopped singing when she heard a new sound through the walls.  A child's moan and then cry, a woman's voice soothing and then singing a nursery rhyme, the click of a rocking chair back and forth across a wood floor.  Emma heard ghosts every time she was in Mansion House - remembered echoes of Tom's pleas to keep his presence from Alice and dying boys asking her to write to their mothers.  But this was new. More real. A child? Who could she be?

Would she hear Frank’s ghost now too?

She thought of Eliza asking her about children and of Eliza's explanation of starting out anew, leaving a husband in Alexandria.  To go west.  Well, Emma was leaving behind a husband now too.  But where would she go?

Too many questions.  She had no answers for herself this evening and shivered, hoping Anne would be back soon with some clothes. There was a rap on the door and then Henry’s voice through it.  “Emma? Are you alright? Anne sent me to check.”

tag @broadwaybaggins, you’re up next! And only three more chapters to go before we end it all!

[justjessame]

Put Me In Coach Chapter 24

I’d like to tell everyone that after Negan gave my my engagement ring our lives continued on the normal, sex-crazed, love fueled route we’d been on since the first time we touched.  I can’t do that and stay honest though.  

We had a good six months after he slipped my second ring on.  Six months of my mom’s ideas for our wedding.  Six months of making it difficult for our neighbors to make eye contact after a LONG weekend at home.  Six months of Eric and Steven (both had transferred to the college I was finishing at) hanging out, but not wearing out their welcome.  Six months of LONG phone conversations with Mary about her life on the west coast and how she couldn’t wait to celebrate our graduations over the coming summer.  We had six months, and I guess, looking back I should feel pretty fucking lucky that we had that.

I’d always thought we were absurdly lucky.  Hadn’t I wondered a thousand times when it would wear off, this magical pull we had for one another.  The way our eyes could meet during dinner with anyone, and both of us would find an excuse to leave the room together, or the meal entirely and then be naked and pounding together in no time flat, wasn’t sustainable.  Was it?

The first blow to our reality came right before Christmas.  Having a pair of police officers show up at your front door never signifies good news.  Having it happen with twinkle lights glowing behind them doesn’t make it easier to take the grim news they were delivering.

Mom had mentioned, offhandedly, that there had been a few break ins in the neighborhood during one of our phone calls.  She’d made it seem a nuisance rather than a fear.  She should have been afraid.  Her and Dad had been killed when they walked in on a burglar.  It had been quick, the policemen assured me, as though that made it better somehow.  

Negan wasn’t home when I found out.  He’d insisted, once we were officially engaged, that he work his second job during the school year as well as during summer.  Mom had told me he was too proud to live off of my trust fund, and with our future coming on fast he wanted to prove that we didn’t need to use it.  So he was working at the car lot, as the two uniformed officers stood on my front porch and told me that my parents were dead.  Gone forever.

The officers asked if there was someone they could call, I must have looked like I was going into shock, because I no doubt was.  I handed them my cell phone, told them to call Negan AND Eric.  Mary was coming home in a few days, but telling her now would just rush her home and I had no fucking clue what would come next.

What came next was Eric and Steven rushing to me from their apartment nearby.  Negan screeching into our driveway moments later.  And then they all tried to keep me from falling into a million pieces.

The funeral overshadowed the holidays.  While I was tempted to completely ignore Christmas and New Years’ I knew that I couldn’t.  Mom, and Dad too, wouldn’t have wanted us to stop moving forward.  That was the point of life, the living get to live it.  

It was a somber couple of months, and later, after everything went to shit fast and furious, I had to wonder if that was the catalyst or if I’d lost him long before then.

Since Negan was working a second job, I took the offer to be a TA when it was given. I won’t lie and say the sexual pull wasn’t there between us any more, it was still there.  We could still make the neighbors blush, but we weren’t as available to one another.  He had school, the teams he helped coach, and then his sales position at the dealership.  I had school, my TA position, and Eric to keep me company.  I should have seen it.  Hindsight, I suppose.

For the next few months, working my ass off to keep up my grades and earn my degree, my focus shifted from being upset that Negan and I didn’t have the time to rip one another’s clothes off as often as we once had.  I had taken my last final the night before my world truly started spinning out of control.  I felt Negan rolling out of bed, the sun shining through our curtains, and then the water turned on in our shower.  

Once upon a time, I would have joined him.  And I was actually thinking about it, but then his phone dinged on the nightstand.   I thought it might be work, they’d texted him before from the dealership when one of his customers needed to contact him, so I rolled over and smiled as the warmth of his side and the scent of him invaded my senses.  It was short lived.  And my plan to join him in the shower left with that contentment.  

Opening up his messenger, I saw a photo that turned my stomach and made me want to scream, cry, hit something, and then die, in that order.  It was Negan, MY Negan, lying on a bed with a naked redhead cuddled against him.  He was naked too, or I assumed he was since his chest was bare and his hands were curled around her waist, pressing their faces together.  Her lipstick, a vivid shade of red, was smeared and his mouth was stained with it.  There was only one word that accompanied it.  “SOON”.

I don’t know how I managed to not do any of the things my body longed to.  I don’t know how I fucking held back when he kissed me goodbye.  I don’t know why I didn’t confront him.  Why I didn’t fucking scream, and hold him accountable is still a mystery to me.

Maybe it was because of the whispers.  Hadn’t I wondered if I’d been his first student lover?  Hadn’t I heard the age old adage that “once a cheat, always a cheat”?  And hadn’t I constantly wondered just how long we had before our bubble burst?  

Five years, give or take.  That’s how long.  Five years of Negan and Amara in that wonderful love and lust filled bubble.  And now our time has run out.  

Negan called me from work later that day.  He said he’d been called by Lucille’s doctor.  She was dying, he told me, and she had asked for him.  I can admit I doubted him.  Wouldn’t any sane woman who saw the picture I’d seen have doubts?  

He asked me to pack him a bag that he’d run by to grab.  I hadn’t called anyone to tell them what I’d seen.  I was all alone in our house, a house we’d refurnished and redecorated together.  A house I thought we’d made a home.  I had a flash of vengefulness that made me want to cut holes into anything I packed for him, but I fought it.  If Negan was leaving, be it for a trip or forever, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d torn out my fucking heart and stomped on it.  I packed carefully for him.  T-shirts, jeans, underwear like I would have packed for any other trip he could have asked me to do.  

He seemed to know that there was something off with me.  Negan hugged me to him, pressing my face into his chest and telling me that he’d be back before I could miss him.  He kissed me in the same hungry and breathless way that seemed to be OUR way, but I had to wonder if he kissed HER like that too.  If he made her sound like Marilyn, or if she called him “sir” or “daddy”?

I felt the hysteria creeping in again, and felt almost relieved when he finally let me go and left.  

Watching him pull away from our house, to head back to where we’d met, I finally let go.  I screamed so loud I was surprised the neighbors didn’t call the police.  They did, however, call Eric.

“That dumb, rancid asshole-” Eric was whispering into my hair as he held me and I sobbed.  “How fucking dare he-”

Steven was behind me patting my back and whispering comfort while Eric was raging harder than me.  You’d almost think Negan cheated on him.  “Not helping,” his boyfriend snapped at my best friend.  “Mara, honey, maybe it’s not what you think-”

I snorted, and pulled back from Eric to shoot Steven a look of pure indignation.  “They were naked, Steven.  Naked and wrapped around one another, and FUCK I’m gonna be-”

I jumped up and rushed to the closest bathroom.  I made it, but only just, and then I emptied my stomach of everything I’d ever considered eating.  Retching and gagging, even empty I still felt like I had more to give.  Eric was waiting for me, once I’d flushed and then brushed my teeth and gargled.  

“Better?”  His concern was palpable, but it didn’t help.  Nothing would help.  

What’s worse than finding out the love of your life is a cheating dickhead?  The dead reanimating.  Trust me, seeing a corpse walking down the street and then biting people, that shit can out weigh even the worse fucking heartbreak.  

Luckily Mary had made it to our side just in time for us all to evacuate together.  Mary, Steven, Eric, and me off on a grand adventure.  I almost didn’t have a spare moment to think about Negan’s infidelity.  Almost.  And I’d like to say that when I packed for our mad dash to safety that I left all reminders of him behind.  I didn’t.  Eric’s framed gift along with a photo album that held pictures of my entire family came with me.  My rings, my jewelry (yes, even the spring formal set that he’d surprised me with), and while I didn’t pack the feminine dresses that everyone knew me for, I did pack the knee high boots.  

My phone never rang, not before the towers became inoperable.  No texts came.  Nothing to make me think that I was wrong about Negan having left me.  And I had to believe that he left me and was with HER safe and sound, because even with him destroying me, I couldn’t survive in a world where he was dead.  That would be a cruelty too far.

“I think I see something up ahead,” Steven said, he was driving the SUV that we’d chosen to take, having seen the horrible traffic we assumed having four wheel drive might be handy if we needed to go off road.  

I looked up from where I’d been daydreaming out the window and I knew immediately that he was right.  “Alexandria?” 

[realstateshtna-blog]

موقع شقتنا عبارة عن منصة توفر شققًا للبيع بالتقسيط في جمهورية مصر العربية ، ويقوم موقعنا بزيارة فورية يمكن من خلالها للفرد الذي يرغب في شراء العقار أن يناقش بشكل مباشر مع المالك للحديث عن التفاصيل .

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[schmergo]

You ever fall inexplicably in love with some totally useless trinket?

Last October, I’d just gotten approved to rent my first apartment and I was very excited to have my own space. I also love Halloween. So when I saw a spooky sparkly fake dead black tree with HALLOWEEN ORNAMENTS for sale, I was in prime nest-feathering mode and my heart secretly claimed it for its own. But I thought that was silly and impractical, especially since I wouldn’t move into the new place until December, so I didn’t buy it.

This year, I saw those spooky trees everywhere. Store windows, friends’ homes, even the Little Theatre of Alexandria. I joked a few times about buying one but knew there was no point in buying an expensive decoration that we could only have up for less than a month.

Well, today I saw one on clearance for only $1.50. Clearly, I was destined to possess this stupid thing. I am now the proud owner of a tacky spooky sparkly Halloween tree. It brings me much more joy than it has any right to.

Now the question is: do I save it for next year or do I dress it up for Christmas with one sad ornament and some fake snow as a deciduous goth counterpart to our cute little normal Christmas tree?

[poop4u]

The 20 Most Dog-Friendly Cities of 2019 http://bit.ly/2UksOrS

Seattle, Chicago and Denver are this year’s top cities for dog lovers, according to a new ranking from Redfin, the tech-powered real estate brokerage, and Rover, the largest network of five-star pet sitters and dog walkers in the country.

Rover ran the numbers on over 14,000 cities across the country, compiling a list with the highest counts of walks, dog walkers and sitters, along with total hours, minutes and distance per walk by each dog walker or sitter on Rover. Because each top city needs a top dog, Rover also uncovered the most popular breed in each area.

Redfin then coupled Rover’s insights with data on homes for sale to take a closer look at what life as a dog is like in each city. Redfin analyzed how often the keyword ‘dog’ appeared in the online listing descriptions of homes for sale, often to note that a property was dog-friendly or close to dog parks. The company also included each dog-friendly city’s Walk Score® to highlight how easy it is to treat your dog to his or her favorite activity.

“Dogs are part of the family, so it’s important to factor in our furry friends when choosing a place to live,” said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist and a Seattle dog owner. “Highlighting dog-friendly amenities like a spacious yard or a mudroom for dirty paws in your listing can make it easier for buyers to find the home of their dog’s dreams.”

Here’s Redfin and Rover’s definitive ranking for the most dog-friendly cities of 2019:

City Rover Rank Share of For-Sale Home Listings that mention “Dog” Walk Score Top Dog Seattle, WA 1 2% 73 Labrador Retriever Chicago, IL 2 4% 78 Mixed Breed Denver, CO 3 4% 61 Labrador Retriever Manhattan, NY 4 4% 89 French Bulldog Washington, DC 5 1% 77 Mixed Breed Portland, OR 6 2% 65 Mixed Breed Los Angeles, CA 7 2% 67 Chihuahua Brooklyn, NY 8 4% 89 Pit Bull Mix San Francisco, CA 9 4% 86 Mixed Breed San Diego, CA 10 2% 51 Mixed Breed Philadelphia, PA 11 2% 79 Pit Bull Mix Houston, TX 12 2% 49 Mixed Breed Austin, TX 13 3% 40 Mixed Breed Arlington, VA 14 3% 37 Mixed Breed Minneapolis, MN 15 1% 69 Labrador Retriever Alexandria, VA 16 3% 60 Mixed Breed Dallas, TX 17 2% 46 Labrador Retriever Atlanta, GA 18 5% 49 Mixed Breed San Jose, CA 19 2% 51 Labrador Retriever Nashville, TN 20 1% 28 Mixed Breed

Despite the notion that some people may wait to move to the suburbs to adopt a dog, urban cores still rank highest in dog friendliness. Cities renowned for leafy parks and outdoor activities like Seattle, Chicago and Denver claimed the top spots. And while New York City, Brooklyn and San Francisco rank highest for walkability, a seemingly significant factor when deciding to get a dog, they rank lower for overall dog friendliness, perhaps due to a higher cost of living, and housing inventory of typically smaller apartments.

Other highlights include Washington, D.C., and its Virginia suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria, all making the list, possibly aligned to an influx of interest in the area following Amazon’s arrival to town.

When it comes to breed, all dogs are adored equally, but Rover sees the highest intake of mixed breeds and Labrador Retrievers nationwide. And ever the cosmopolitan hubs, New York City and Los Angeles stand out with Frenchies and Chihuahuas, respectively. Across the river from Manhattan, Brooklyn marches to its own beat, and prefers pit bull mixes, as does Philadelphia.

However, no matter where you live or what dog you own, if you’ve opened your home to love and care for a dog, we’re guessing it’s as dog friendly as it gets. For the full report, visit: https://www.redfin.com/blog/most-dog-friendly-cities/.

About Redfin  Redfin (www.redfin.com) is the tech-powered real estate brokerage, combining its own full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in the consumer’s favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the country’s #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to consumers, including the Redfin Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry’s lowest published error rate for listed homes. Homebuyers and sellers enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more than 85 major metro areas across the U.S. and Canada. The company has closed more than $60 billion in home sales.

via The Dogington Post https://poop4u/blog April 4, 2019 at 01:52PM DMT.NEWS, @Brandy Arnold, @pooop4u April 5, 2019 at 11:59AM

[sanguisfulgur]

Profile: Salem

Full Name: Salem Hikari

Nickname(s):·Sale, Lemmy (only by his twin sister), adopts the alias Aiden Woodgrove frequently to match his sister’s most used alias.

Title: The Hunter

Age: Mid to late 20s (appearance), 31 (actual age)

Birthday: October 25th (1987)

Species: Vampire (better life verse)

Ethnicity: White, with historic Japanese routes on father’s side of the family.

Nationality: British by birth, holder of American Citizenship.

Gender: Male (cis)

Pronoun(s): He/Him/Himself

Romantic Orientation: Panromantic

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Birth Order: Twin, younger by a few minutes.

Home Town: Bowness-On-Windermere, England, UK.

Current Residence: Portland, Maine, USA (main)/London, UK (better life)

Religion: Baptised Catholic, but given he knows other gods exist he’s not outwardly religious.

Allegiance: Himself/his sister

Occupation: Hunter

Financial Status: Relatively poor unless a job paid well.

Martial Status: Verse dependant

Status: Active

Fandom: Fandomless OC.

Face Claim: Matthew Daddario

Physical Traits

Face Shape: Somewhere between oval and heart-shaped.

Forehead: Rounded, average in broadness.

Eyes: Grey in colour with the smallest flecks of blue within them, they are upturned with surprisingly long eye lashes.

Nose: Straight, well-proportioned for face.

Lips: Full, soft.

Teeth: All present, and like all vampires will re-grow if knocked out. They’re in good condition. Fangs are retractable.

Cheeks: Narrow, a touch prominent.

Chin: Small.

Ears: None-protruding, very sensitive to sound due to enhanced hearing..

Facial Hair: Usually clean shaven but occasionally will grow out stubble.

Height: 6′3″

Neck: Average length/broadness.

Torso: Broad, defined abs.

Arms: Well muscled from years of archery training, bears scars on his upper right arm from being clawed by a Cu Sith

Hands:·Long fingers, large hands in accordance with his height.

Legs: Long (All leg much like his twin), well-toned.

Feet: Size 12 (American sizes), nothing otherwise noteworthy.

Texture: Skin is smooth barring the occasionally marring of a scar.

Color: Unnaturally pale/white.

Freckles: None.

Scars: Claw marks from a Cu Sith on his upper right arm, bullet scar on his right calf, miscellaneous scars can be found over his body that have been gathered in his human years.

Stretch Marks:None.

Tattoos: An Anti-possession tattoo on his lower back.

Piercings: None.

Skin Conditions: None.

Texture: Hair is thick and wavy naturally.

Color: Black, dark as his mother’s namesake.

Style and Length: Salem’s hair is uneven and choppy, making it seem messy. The length varies, depending on how long he goes without cutting it but it’s usually kept somewhat short in the back with longer bang/side strands.

Mental and Physical

Overall Health: Excellent

Frequency of Mental Exercise: Often to occasional, Salem likes word puzzles and similar brainteasers.

Frequency of Physical Exercise: Daily training.

Life Philosophy: Protect the innocent above all else.

Life Goal(s): Honestly Salem is rather aimless here. He’s never thought much about what he wants having always imagined himself hunting until the day he died.

Describe Voice: Smooth and friendly, Salem is a flirt and tends to drop to more husky undertones.

Speech Patterns: informal at most times, Salem is casual and direct - blunt, even - in his speech, though not intentionally crass he doesn’t mince his words.

Habits: Tapping his foot (not out of impatience, it’s just a consistent habit whenever he’s idle), clicking his tongue, tilting his head (much like his twin),

Daily Routines: Showering and dressing, taking care of breakfast and some morning exercises or a run, from their it varies as a hunter given he has no set work routine.

Likes: animals (especially dogs), spicy food, cold autumn mornings, rainstorms, bookstores, listening to music to fall asleep, lie-ins, scented candles, long showers, libraries.

Dislikes: being woken up, cream cheese, math, clutter, loud music/noises, nightclubs, hot/humid nights, ignorance, golf, people who stop to talk right in the middle of the path/in doors.

Dreams: A good life for him and his sister.

Motivations: Protecting himself/his twin, eradicating monsters that pose a threat and keeping safe those that don’t.

Interests: literature, animal husbandry, unsolved murders and disappearances

Hobbies: Hiking, reading, spelunking, running, archery, urban exploration.

Skills: Marksmanship, tracking, observing and noting details about a person, exceptionally convincing liar, extensive knowledge of the supernatural and occult, multilingual. As a ‘hunter’ strain vampire he possesses their incredible hunting/tracking abilities, heightened senses an enhanced physical strength/speed ect. Salem can also transform into a colony of bats (or an individual one) and a red fox.

Shortcomings: Aggressive with an easily-provoked temper, has a tendency to disregard his physical well-being when it comes to others, co-dependency issues with his twin, struggles to memorise numbers (such as dates, phone numbers ect.)

Weakness(es): His twin sister, his strain of vampire (different from his twin’s) are vulnerable to silver in their first year of transformation as well as to sunlight in that first year. Congealed blood can cause nausea. Beyond that killing them is a difficult process: They must stabbed through the heart with a Bowie knife/white oak stake then the head must be cut off and the heart removed; after this the limbs must be cut off and all burned separately, the ashes from each part must also be buried separately and NOT scattered.

Regret(s): Leaving to go hunt without his twin and thus her being alone and then being turned by Theo. It’s not his fault by any means, but he blames himself for not being there.

Fear(s): Losing his twin, otherwise failing to keep people safe.

Phobia(s):·Arachnophobia (that he will not freely admit to) & Taphophobia (fear of being buried alive)

Mental Illness(es): PTSD

When and how was this diagnosed?:· Has not been properly diagnosed, but all the symptoms are there and obvious to anyone who knows how the condition manifests.

Other Illness(es): N/A

When and how was this diagnosed?: N/A

Physical Disability(ies): N/A

When was this diagnosed and/or how did it happen?:

Other:·

Personality

Usual Mood/Expression:· Salem on the outside tends to appear calm, mouth pulled upwards into a half-smile. He’s less paranoid than his sister an so more outwardly approachable in appearance to strangers.  He is however easily provoked.

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good/Neutral

Jung: ESFP

Enneagram: Type 8  (The Challenger)

Four Temperaments:·Sanguine

Soul Type: Caregiver/Hunter

Common Archetypes: The Caregiver

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Top Five Tropes:·Grey Eyes, Anti-Hero, Twin Telepathy, Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, Hunter of Monsters

Five Prominent Traits:·Loyal, Aggressive, Protective, Distrustful, Reckless

Misc

Food:·.Salem is not a fussy eater by any means but he does have a love for spicy food, French pastries and curry udon.

Drinks:·Coffee, fresh orange juice, Dr. Pepper and negroni cocktails

Books: Great Expectations, Harry Potter, Mortal Engines, Tolkien’s legendarium, The Book Thief & ASOIAF.

Movies/TV Shows: Salem is a sucker for high fantasy and steampunk aesthetics s he tens to gravitate to those kinds of shows/movies. Like his sister however, he likes to watch horrors in order to rip them apart.

Music: Rock (particularly indie/alt style), indie pop and general ‘alternative’ labelled music.

Video Games: Horror Survivors and First Person Shooters are where he shines.

Weapons:· Possesses multiple handguns, crossbows and compound bows, a shotgun, machete, rapier, numerous other blade types, throwing knives a recursive bow, poisons, unconventional weaponry needed against the supernatural (dead blood, crosses ect.); he also has knowledge of curse/hex breaking. .

Drugs: N/A

Elements: Lightning/Water.

Animals:·Dogs, wolves, bats, corvids. The animal he is like in spirit is a·fox.

Plants: Lily-of-the-valley and red roses but he’s not much of plant person in terms of knowing what most are called ect.

Stats

Self-Love: 5/10

Courage: 8/10

Confidence: 8/10

Pride: 6/10

Greed: 3/10

Patience: 4/10

Tolerance: 8/10

Mental Flexibility: 8/10

Passion/Motivation: 8/10

Creativity: 6/10

Education: 5/10 (Formal-education-wise, Salem is more self-educated, educated by others outside of schooling.)

Compassion:·7/10 (Depends on person.) 0/10 for targets or those he despises. 10/10 for those he’s close to and children.

Empathy:·7/10 (Again decreases and rises depending on the being.) 10/10 for those he trusts/cares for, and children. 0/10 for targets.

Loyalty: 10/10·

Forgiveness: 3/10

Sociability: 7/10

Emotional Attachment: 6/10

Physical Attachment: 7/10

Stamina: 10/10

Mental Strength: 5/10

Physical Strength: 10/10

Battle Skill: 7/10

Initiative: 8/10

Restraint: 2/10

Defense: 7/10

Agility: 6/10

Flexibility: 6/10

Strategy: 6/10

Leadership: 5/10

Teamwork: 5/10

Wrath: 9/10

Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence: 7/10

Visual-Spatial Intelligence: 6/10

Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence: 10/10

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: 4/10

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: 10/10

Interpersonal Intelligence: 9/10

Intrapersonal Intelligence: 3/10

Existential Intelligence: 5/10

Naturalistic Intelligence: 7/10

Relationships

Parent(s): Shiro Hikari & Ebony Knight ( Both deceased.), Norio Hikari (Godfather, alive.), Vlad III/Dracula (Adoptive father, alive)

Siblings: Sharna Adrienne Hikari (twin sister, alive)

Significant Other(s):·Verse dependant, Laini (better life verse)

Children: Verse dependant

Family:·Ryou Hikari and Alexandria Hikari (nee Woodgrove.) [Grandparents] & Conrad Knight and Irene Knight (nee Beckett.) [Grandparents,Deceased], Adrienne Knight (Auntie, deceased.), other extended family members he does not know.

Closest Friends:· His twin sister. Though Salem is a friendly and personable man, his co-dependency and distrust of others means he keeps most at an arm’s length.  

Rivals: none, really.

Enemies:·Theo, Thanatos (enemy of his entire family), hunting targets.

Pets: Nova, his sister’s Tamaskan.

Other:·To be added over time.

[starrdaley51-blog]

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