#and yet outlasted that for such a wide margin | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lumikatdraws · 4 years ago

Text

#2: Sway

(Heavenly bodies that held her in their influence. “Let me help you.” Rating changes to "E." Multiple relationships, several snippets from pre-1.0 Calamity to [ShB spoilers] pre-patch 5.3.)

cw: 18+, consensual OCxOC relationship with [in other depictions, unhealthy] BDSM overtones; rough sex, mention of Zenos (scars and injury), Estinien & Samantha being actual animals. Otherwise fluff and feelings. Many POV shifts, mostly wide third-person POV with eyes belonging to: Raphael, Minfilia, G'raha, Estinien, Aymeric, and Samantha (WoL).

- - - - - - - - - -

- ✧ ☄ ☽ -

Rain pit-pattered the window.

She swallowed the breath of fragrant mist rising from her teacup—took a scalding, half-steeped sip. Past the glass, out in the garden, the rosebushes hung their pretty red faces, the downpour making the blossoms gleaming and leaden.

A hum from his desk—that soft, commanding timbre—and she looked up as though summoned or beckoned.

Bewitched, bedazzled, besotted.

He was thumbing through papers, grim-faced, unsmiling.

“Come,” he murmured. He sounded tired. The word fell from thinned lips like a drop of cool water from storm-laden petals. She rose from the armchair; padded, barefoot, past polished wood floors. Her long nightgown whispered behind her, a white, frothy slip of a thing—a gift from him.

He stirred at the sound of her subservience.

When Raphael Lemaitre lifted his eyes, Rosalyn Floravale was lost in them. They were green and golden and haunted with hazel, arcane and enchanting as the aurum of his hair. He wet his lips and tipped his quill in its stand; pushed his chair from the counter to allow her to perch in his lap. “Sit.”

Her heart stuttered with butterfly flutters as she climbed astride. He allowed her one rare moment of abandon, to stroke her hands through his long, flaxen hair. She pulled it loose of its ribbon. “You look tired,” she said, timid fingertips tracing his resplendent cheekbones. She cupped the sharp angle of his jawline; kissed the side of his mouth. “Let me help.”

He wrapped her wrist in his hand and closed his eyes. Raphael turned his face to press the hard slash of his mouth against the lines of her palm, the arch of his regal nose caught between her fingers.

“You always do,” he whispered. It was quiet enough to vanish—to disappear into the grumbling of the rainfall and the wind. Whether she heard him or not, before he could intercept it, she snatched the bridge of his glasses. Through his defenses slipped the first flicker of a grin; she cackled as he slipped very cold, very clinical fingertips up the front of her chemise, stiff against her skin.

Thumbs stained by ink moved directly to her breasts, his feather-light touch nonetheless kindling. She arched to fill his hands; to beg him, silently, to cast aside pretense. But Raphael Lemaitre was stern as a statue and nothing could sway him. As always, he looked up through bronze lashes, knowledge implacable, a stronghold unspeaking, unsmiling, unyielding.

After long hours lecturing students, he preferred quiet.

She writhed, impatient, in his lap. He watched a moment in silence. Hands primed for reading and writing moved, very slowly, down the outline of her body—found her hips and eased into a calculated shift. Their bodies moved together, and an ugly cry tore from her lips.

“Shh,” he hushed, unlatching his belt.

She held her lip between her teeth to stifle all sound as she watched him. Unbuckled, unbuttoned, he pushed the immaculate press of his trousers down just low enough to—

Her hot, greedy fingers snatched his length into her fist. Always so hungry to take him, she hitched herself up, and he hissed to see she was bare beneath the nightdress—completely unhindered.

They were practiced. So rehearsed, now, she knew the best fits of their bodies; made the frantic struggle of sex into something graceful and efficient. Her desperation always left him breathless, and in the midst of that rainstorm, his dignified lips fell soundlessly open as she sank to sheathe him inside in one stroke, riding him, unruly and ruthless.

Had her eyes been open in the blinding breath that he filled her—had they been open, not closed for the thrill—she would have seen incomprehensible adoration in his face; the brief, broken instant his chiseled façade collapsed. But the mask of power clicked back just as quickly—the need to restrain her, outlast her, and conquer.

She clapped her own palm over her own mouth to stifle her ragged cries and he kissed the valleys of her knuckles; let his eyes glitter like sunbeams in springtime.

Good girl.

- ✧ ☄ ✧ -

The Antecedent’s laugh caught, half-through her throat, and she stifled it.

“What?” Thancred’s scoff was both merry and biting. He stumbled to a halt, dragging the flabbergasted Hero beside him.

“The two of you look so—” Warde cut herself off. “Forgive me—” Her sky-pale eyes glittered, filled with bald amusement. The Warrior—Samantha—pushed her dark hair back with both hands, a fiery blush on her swarthy, sun-blemished cheeks.

“Are you laughing at us?”

A giggle escaped the Antecedent’s lips. She coughed back the cascade that threatened; pinned Waters with a gentle stare. “My dear Thancred—stand aside, if you please?”

Both of her sentinel's ash-blond eyebrows rose and he lifted both hands, play-acting a couerl-burglar at knifepoint. “Fair lady,” he drawled, reversing three paces.

Samantha watched in some blend of horror and unabashed fascination as Minfilia swept into the center of the room, reaching for her with unassuming, outstretched hands. “Allow me,” she offered, keeping her voice soft and tranquil, hoping it offered some solace. “Our friend here of course is an unrivaled tutor, but—” and she prayed her eyes, then, were soothing. Floravale was full of fire, but skittish, so much promise, so much wild. “Ascilia remembers the basics far better.”

From her guardian, she felt the heat of his exasperated affection—stern and probing cross-examination—and passed him a heartening glance.

Stay.

Samantha crept forward, still possessed of that caged-animal stare. “Ascilia?”

“My name,” she said, very quiet. A tiny smile curled her lips. “The true one.”

“But,” came the instantaneous mutter from the watcher, “If you so much as breathe an onze beyond this chamber—”

His interruption was disrupted. “I trust her,” said Minfilia, holding the Warrior in her eyes. Samantha had a fierce and determined appearance—a woman, to be certain—but despite over two epochs of namedays, the sorceress yet moved with self-doubt; exuded a muted and hushed lack of confidence that Ascilia, for all her abundant misfortunes, comprehended very well.

“That would be the Blessing,” offered Thancred, benevolently unhelpful.

“No.” Warde beheld Floravale with tender evaluation. They stood close, now; close enough to twine hands. “Somehow,” she wove fingertips together; locked eyes, light to dark, “I would trust her regardless.” Minfilia’s voice came out small and wondering, like a child.

Samantha responded in kind. “You would?”

Thancred cocked a resigned hip against the well-worn desk and sighed; watched as two would-be schoolgirls burdened by the weight of the known world swung into silent metronome rhythm, the Antecedent’s surefooted actions rendered clumsy by the Warrior’s ineptness.

Ascilia had been told, from the first of her years—admittedly mostly by Thancred, Twelve bless him—that the shine of her grin held the warmth to melt winters; that, perhaps, if she met all of Coerthas with her gladness, she could thaw even Dalamud’s harshest aetherical chill.

She aimed her finest smile at Samantha.

“I would trust you in twelve thousand lifetimes.” She used her chin to point to their toes, and Samantha tripped across the floor to follow. “Excepting yon loitering observer,” another admittedly unnecessary glance to reassure him, “Rarely have I met a soul I found—so suddenly familiar.”

Samantha’s complexion was olive, dark-freckled, but not deep enough to obscure the hot red of her blush. “I feel the same,” she babbled. “Familiar, I mean—as though I knew you long before we ever met.”

Warde spun the two of them to trace the empty Solar. “Marvelous,” she said gently, and Thancred’s eyes followed them both, serene and tempered. “We might make a proper friend of you yet.”

Minfilia pretended not to notice how her partner’s breath stoppered—looked away as Samantha cast a nervous glance to Waters. Warde was aware of the role he assumed on her arrival in Ul’dah; camouflaged the elation she felt at his aura of pride and protection. So you adopted her as well, my secret-keeper.

"Scion and associate,” he grunted, feigning indifference—though the look in his eyes was anything but.

The Warrior huffed. “I would love nothing more than your friendship,” she muttered, and the words were rough but honest. She was catching on to one bar of the dance—Tataru would be delighted. “But—” She laughed then, nervous. “How can I presume to join in?”

Her dark, delving stare flicked to Minfilia’s—smoldering and shy.

“Why,” and the Antecedent lifted both arms to guide her in a pirouette. “You join in the same as this.” The Warrior twirled and her uneven skirts whirled in tiers to hug her calves, catching on the buckles of her blonde spinner’s boots, tickling the trims of leather-embellished leggings.

Rosalyn and Ascilia met each other eye-to-eye, the hybrid mage no small margin taller—

And then the woman the Antecedent hoped might fill the old soles of an Archon tripped all over herself and they were entangled, slip to surcote. With an exaggerated sigh, Thancred bustled over to unravel them. “So much for hoodwinking the Syndicate.”

Above their sudden, wild laughter, Samantha barked. “I trained in natural magick, not parlor tricks.”

Minfilia was breathless. “I’ve been cured of misgivings.”

- ☽ ✧ ☾ -

His tail swayed back and forth as he looked at the Tower.

There in the distant yawn of that crystalline throne room, the Void yet stretched—and there beyond, through that rift in time and space and aether, Nero—

G’raha Tia balled his hands into fists and squared his center of gravity; felt the heft of eons past and future ghost to settle on his shoulders. There was something, something—something he was missing.

Something he yet needed to finish.

Like Nero, he hungered for Allag. For all G’raha knew that his colleagues might deride him—the lash of Scaevan sarcasm was, after all, something far harsher than biting—he almost, quite often, related to the defector; met cold eyes the color of midwinter mornings and saw something brittle tucked behind them.

Brittle, and bitter—substratum primed to crack.

“Raha?”

The barest sound of her voice pooled to tug at his navel. He turned before she could see the way the dense hairs along his tailbone stood up; loosed a casual grin like a mockery of an arrow. “You found me.”

“Of course I—” In the darkness, she almost looked frightened. The plucking sensation dropped inconveniently lower as she trudged up to glare down at his face, a worry line creased between her brows. “You—” She pursed her lips and spluttered. “After all that happened—” She flicked one frustrated hand toward the looming, glittering spire. “Tell me before you run off like that.”

Oh, she was furious—furious and terrified.

For him.

Pleasure stirred in his heart and down between his legs before he could ignore it. He raised his eyebrows. “Worrying after me?”

She scowled harder. “You—” Her hands were balled into fists so tight he could see every ridge of her knuckles and half-gloves. “Of course I worry after you, Raha.”

A tremor itched down his back and he ignored the sudden, feral urge he felt to pounce. “As you see,” he said instead, gesturing to himself. “Whole and hale.”

“Uncharacteristic,” she muttered. She thrust out one hand, flexing stiff fingers.

He had the choice, then, to continue to rile her—but he wove them palm to palm instead, following back to the outpost. A thrill marched up his spine as she all but dragged him to camp, his deepest, most animal instincts ecstatic to be chased and claimed.

He supposed he should have known, somehow, that things would shift—change being the crux of existence, the eternal pendulum swing. But had he known, even after; even granted the gift of both foresight and hindsight, would he have picked another way?

When he thought of it centuries after, he remembered a mirage. For what else could it be but delirium imagined, delusions he dreamt in the lifetimes he slept in the Umbilicus, the haze of his waking besides?

But wherever it came from, in no past, present, or future would G’raha rob himself of one memory: Her legs, a cage to bind him as he moved, slowly and carefully, inside.

- ☾ ❅ ☽ -

His growl was furious. “Let me help you.”

She squirmed away from him like an eel but Estinien chased her; pinned her down with the obstinate weight of his body. He was scalding hot, the gift he stole from Nidhogg affecting his temperature.

“Let go of me,” she growled, trying to kick him, but he curled in a way that placed his long frame at the advantage. His right hand was encrusted with scales of obsidian, vaguely monstrous, and where he touched her a tickling miasma of aether descended. Warped crimson and violet levin tangled down her body in gossamer cobwebs, and each felt the other flicker within—that strange place they were blended from sharing the Eyes—however swiftly her tenure had ended.

“Let me look at you,” he snarled, and just as the smoke of his eldritch magick found a crack in the light of her blessings, seeping in, he snatched her wrist in his hand and used the secret she taught him against her.

A cry tore from her throat—arse—and she crumpled, limp, to the blankets.

Then, with the skilled and ruthless fingers of a hunter, he stripped her bare of skirts and bodice and shucked her free of her chemise, much like he might clean an antelope carcass.

It was rare that Estinien was shocked, but his eyes went wide on reflex at the sight of the wounds on her body—fresh tracks and puckered scars, no few left by Ame-no-Habakiri. His scale-flecked thumb stroked a path by the lines left by the katana and he shuddered with a convulsion, consumed at once by rage. Again, both could feel it curl within, an actual, aetherical connection.

Death, came the inward rumble, not from her, but from Estinien.

I will kill him.

She coughed out a laugh. “Who can kill the unkillable,” she croaked, increasingly convinced that the prince was akin to a demon. “That man defies all rational definition.”

“Slag him,” Estinien spat, physically shaking. His eyes were frozen on the places stained by Doma, by Galvus—her flawed and magnificent skin— “How could you allow him—"

“I let nothing,” she hissed, the command of her magick returning. She huffed a breath to transpose the fire building in her chest and it came out an icy mist. “How could you allow Nidhogg?”

Hard, dark eyes caught her glare. They were locked for a handful of hot breaths and heartbeats. Estinien lunged, pulling the blow just before their browbones cracked together; nestling gently instead.

His voice rarely hitched, rarely fractured. “He told me to protect you,” he whispered, and in the depths of it she heard something shatter; a glacier’s melting edge.

Aymeric.

“You are,” she rasped, both hands on his face. “You do. You did.”

Thought evaporated. Tussle turned to whispers turned to snapping and biting. His clothes were gone, saltwater on his face. The source of the tears hardly mattered.

Samantha hooked her knee around his haunches, tossed her head back, and howled.

- ☾ ✧ ☽ -

The canopy of the Twelveswood swayed above.

He laughed, and a cackle of crowcall escaped her. “And here I thought,” she rasped, hoarse, “The Lord Commander was not the type to be prevailed upon.”

A crooked grin twisted his lips. He hooked his elbow to buttress her back; dipped her low so that the gleaming, star-white fringes of her blanched-bright hair swept almost to the ground. “But you, my Hero,” he exhaled, “Are prevailing.” He whorled her upright and was gratified to find her grinning, broad and breathless. “And I of course admit a certain bias in the case of our affairs.”

She unfurled against his arm and tossed her head; barked another wine-drunk chortle at the stars that glittered far above the boughs. The lamplight cast the stern angles of her face into shadows impossibly softer, framed by the intermittent pinprick-incandescence of fireflies.

Like them, her splendor shone foremost from within.

“Impolitic,” she teased him, “For a statesman to play favorites.” And then, without warning, she was deadweight in his hands. The Warrior of Light dragged the Speaker of Ishgard down to dewy cushions of moss and leaf-litter; jerked her chin toward the bottle long abandoned. “And to ply a weary Scion with drink, nonetheless.” She quirked a brow. “Are you trying to intoxicate me, Ser Aymeric?”

He was smiling down at her, beguiled—hers, helplessly, always. “Not on drink,” he murmured, brushing the tips of their noses together. “Though I concede I misjudged the—vigor of this vintage.”

She snorted and dissolved into guffaws, and he held her, amused and admiring.

His design was elaborate—ambitious and, to his horror, slightly extravagant—from aperitifs with her parents, to the banquet in the ballroom, to this tour of girlhood haunts and havens, he had plans.

But let her this moment, his skipping heart warbled. This breath of freedom from Norvrandt.

Your grandiose suggestions can wait.

- ☾ ☄ ✧ -

He held his frame at an angle away from her.

Distant.

“Close the door,” she begged again. The Exarch met her stare through copper lashes, the side of shrewd, slitted eyes, and the Tower itself seemed to inhale. There was a long, gravid pause.

Then, very sudden, very quiet, the access to the Ocular clicked shut.

And they were alone.

The Exarch—G’raha—gripped his right arm like it pained him. She reached for it on impulse. “Let me help you.”

It should have been easier, to look and see a friend. But it was hard to reconcile—to dissect him from her trials in Norvrandt—to blend the ardent young scholar with the venerable, cryptic old man. Even as he turned and opened his posture to her—even as she took him by the shoulder, the shape so familiar—he was something slightly else. “Samantha—” The richness of his very timbre was darkened, subtly altered, the Exarch ancient in ways that G’raha Tia only wished to understand.

“No.” Her low voice echoed hoarsely in the room. “Don’t dispute it. Don’t speak to me of debts or death or some other damnation imagined.” His right shoulder was hard as granite. She dug in her fingertips. “You don’t deserve to suffer, Raha,” she muttered. “You never did.”

His face was serene and impassive. But as she watched—as she poured healing aether through his fractures, letting it slip between the tectonics of him and the Tower—something cracked.

Strong arms hooked the small of her back, his stature humble but packed, dense and deceptive, with power. He crumpled with a breath and turned to crush his face against her shoulder.

“Say it again.”

Shocked from focus, her spell fizzled—but her grip on him tightened. She hugged him, hard. “You never deserved it,” she rasped, one hand cradling his neck. “Not one bit.”

The hard tips of his crystallized fingers caught between the layers of her bodice. The breath he took rattled his body.

How long they stood and swayed there was unknown.

- ☄ -

The spell to shield her aether was proving easier to weave, but whether it was effective was a question only Estinien could answer.

It was late by the time she reached the Manor. Snow fell in flurries, all but stopped, and she took her time shedding her layers, sneaking into the foyer so as not to wake the—

A breathy laugh, far down the hallway.

She froze and craned her neck. A dim glow from the direction of the parlor. Sweeping back her hair, now damp with melted snowflakes, she tiptoed down the vaulted corridor, ears peeled for—

“Fury bless it.”

Aymeric’s laugh, again. “You keep too much tension in your shoulders.”

A grin curled her lips in a reflex like breathing and she picked up her pace, keeping quiet. The heirlooms and artifacts stored on the walls seemed to watch and adjudicate as she crept to the archway, peeking in.

There in the parlor, limned by firelight, the two most eminent figures of her Ishgard were dancing.

Estinien swayed away from his partner, long torso bared to the hips, garbed in ash-colored slacks that hugged his thighs too tightly—a pair nicked from Aymeric, no doubt. And the lender himself was dressed all in black, the high neck of his collar offering only the barest glimpse of alabaster throat.

Quiet and clandestine, she leaned against the frame, watching as the two of them simpered.

“Poor form,” crooned the lord of the house.

“My arse,” came the clapback.

With lupine grace, Estinien slunk back, snatching Aymeric’s wrist. A wicked smirk curved Borel’s beautiful mouth as he followed. “That, I assure you, is formed quite correctly.”

And then Estinien laughed. It was a raw, candid sound—wide and rambling as the grin on his lips. At the gleam of his teeth, a wild, uninhibited rapture surged through her, and she realized with a start—

It did not belong only to her.

Before she could think to escape, a hard, towering body barreled for impact. “You little rat,” Estinien growled—and she caught a glittering wink in his right earlobe as she was lifted from the floor, hefted easily over his shoulder.

She slumped and twisted to find Aymeric watching, smiling bright. “Ignore me,” she insisted. “Keep bonding. I have a mind to go to the—”

But Estinien was already carrying her up the stairs. “You smell like—” She could hear his nose wrinkle. “Too much of those damned Lakeland lilacs and not enough like me.”

She huffed. “Last I checked, the world was not, in fact, compelled to smell Wyrmbloodian.”

Trailing behind by several paces, Aymeric followed, laughter lighting the ice of his stare. He pushed the rook-black curl from his eyes and fixed her with earnest attention. “Welcome home again, beloved.”

Home, again, to stay.

- ☾ ☄ ✧ -

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2020 #G'raha #Aymeric #Estinien #Minfilia #Thancred #G'raha Tia #Aymeric de Borel #Estinien Wyrmblood #Warrior of Light #Minfilia Warde #Thancred Waters #original characters #my writing #ffxiv fanfiction #Samantha Floravale #Raphael Lemaitre

15 notes · View notes

beanarie · 6 years ago

Text

past & pending 3

this is for @stele3 whose lovely comment led to a somewhat mostly done chapter 1. <3 there’s a bunch more written, but none of it’s going on ao3 until i know how to pull the rest together. the rest of the series (post-finale, everyone’s in love) is here.

Welcome to the McGraw-Hamilton Bed and Breakfast, where no one ever calls ahead for reservations.

~~~

They watch the wagon approach for several long moments before Thomas's eyes grow almost impossibly wide and he comes out with it. "That couldn't be our Silver."

Thomas has never seen Silver bare-faced or walking with a boot that obscures, at first glance, that there's anything missing. It's strangely less jarring to see him like this than it is to see him looking like this and limping towards them, as if James expected him to still have his leg.

As he opens his mouth to call out a greeting, a small head pops up from the back of the wagon. For a moment James thinks... but no.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Thomas says, "but that child is entirely-"

"Too old," James agrees. They watch her throw her arms around Silver so he can help her to the ground. She seems to be somewhere in that middle space between five and ten. Her skin is darker than he remembers Madi's being. Not theirs.

Another head pops up, this one belonging to an adult. Thomas makes a noise. "Is that-"

"No." James frowns as Silver guides her out of the wagon as well. "I have no idea who that woman is."

Silver tips his chin in their direction. "Everyone?" he says, projecting his voice. Four more emerge from the wagon, a man and three boys of varying sizes. "Meet Thomas and James."

James stares until Silver looks at least marginally shamed. "Sorry, for not writing," Silver lies. "We couldn't risk a message being intercepted."

"You also couldn't risk us saying no," James says under his breath.

Silver shows nearly all of his teeth. "How are my cats? I'm certain they missed me."

Thomas coughs so he doesn't laugh and cause James to snap and murder someone. "Well! I guess I'm dressing another chicken for dinner. Two more, perhaps?"

~ "We're seeking sanctuary," Silver explains, his mouth half full of stewed chicken. "Not here, of course. We have an idea of where to find Esther's mother." They're not all related. That's clear from their interactions. There appears to be a platonic connection between Esther and Obi, the two adults, and the middle boy looks to be Obi's son. "As for Felix and Andres," Silver continues, tilting his head toward the end of the table, where the largest boy sits with the smallest. "We, ah, picked them up along the way. Does that description feel accurate to you, Madam? Any objections to my phrasing?"

Esther's lips turn up slightly. She looks about thirty. "None," she says, not rising to what was clearly bait. He was teasing her.

After supper, after the washing up, everyone gathers in the parlor and their guests form a wonky, expectant semi-circle around Silver. Story time. James shouldn't be surprised. Children must provide an even more receptive ear than a crew of filthy, brutal, goat-fucking onanists had.

Silver tells of the fight for survival of a sparrow in the grips of a hawk. It's full of hair-raising chases and last-minute escapes.

"Boom!" He claps two hands together and the young girl sits up straighter. "A bolt of lightning hit the hawk, ending his journey in split second. He fell to the ground just steps from where I stood, stone dead, cooked, and even dressed for dinner. The shock of the lightning caused his feathers to flee from his body."

His audience begins to object, the children squirming and laughing. "Stop, please," Obi says, amusement and pain equally evident in his voice.

"On the soul of my dear Grandfather Solomon, when that bird fell he was more naked than the day he emerged from his egg. I have never eaten so well so easily in my life."

Esther scoffs and says nothing.

Felix turns to his brother and asks him a question in Creole. Andres nods and looks to Silver. "The sparrow?"

"Oh, Miss Sparrow took full advantage of her captor's misfortune. She saw her opening, and she took it. She flew away with lightning at her tail-feathers and never looked back."

The crash of Silver's fake leg hitting the floor disturbs the quiet within seconds of James closing the door. He's breathing hard, his eyes closed. "Six days," he says, rolling his shoulders and grimacing.

"Have you not taken it off at all?"

He opens his eyes and laughs sheepishly. "Honestly, I'm a little afraid to look."

"You could have removed it hours ago."

"That-" Silver waves a hand at the floor. "-is not going back on for quite some time and I didn't relish the idea of hopping about the rest of the evening." "What became of your crutch?"

"Giving indigestion to a whale, sprouting roots in the first stage of becoming a tree that will outlast us all, reading Aeschylus and Homer at fucking Cambridge. Does it matter?"

James finishes rummaging around in the trunk and rises with a laugh.

Silver narrows his eyes. "What is that?" He lifts a hand to object. "Before you start, yes, I'm fully cognizant of what that is, but, just. James. You did not buy me a crutch."

"You're correct. I did not buy it." James looks down at the crutch in his left hand and lifts a shoulder. Silver blinks once, then freezes. "Seemed a better use of my time than repairing the kitchen table again."

No response.

"Do you not agree?"

Silver remains still as a Grecian statue.

James sighs. "All right."

A smile pulls at one corner of Silver's mouth. "Well," he says. "It's no declaring war against the British empire in my name. But it'll do."

James swears under his breath. The curse he is under, that could not have been cast after he did anything to deserve it. He would have remembered something so significant, he would have noticed, and he would have taken steps to account for it. It must have been long, long ago. A malevolent figure emerging from the sea, finding his mother, and placing its ghostly finger on him while still inside her womb. Reaching out to his fluttering, thimble-sized heart and proclaiming in a ghastly wheeze most mortals could not hear, Room for shameless fucking miscreants only.

"You were planning on letting me see it, no?" Silver beckons lazily. As soon as James gets within range, a callused hand covers his and tugs, pulling him closer. Silver's fingers ghost over his brow-bone, reverent, and James considers thanking the sea witch after all. "Oh," Silver breathes, "I have missed you."

"Status report, Mr. McGraw?"

James pulls away to check that Thomas closed the door fully behind him. "He's being sincere, so I'd estimate we have about three minutes until exhaustion claims him for the night." They hadn't discussed where he would be sleeping, however, the room they still think of as his is now taken by Esther and the girl. With Obi and... smaller Obi, then the Creole brothers occupying another two rooms, there are still a few options for Silver. Neither Thomas nor Silver will likely voice these other options, so James certainly will not.

Thomas joins them from the other side of the bed. Silver's lips part in a surprised yet grateful moan, and then James spies Thomas's nimble fingers kneading his left shoulder.

"Trying to speed the process along?" Silver murmurs.

"Removing you from the conversation before your compromised self reveals something you may regret later."

The smile Silver favors James with is almost shy. "You know, sometimes it's fairly easy to see why you love him."

James meets his eyes then grins wickedly at Thomas over his shoulder. "Thomas, your efforts come too late."

"What, that? That was hardly..."

James eases away from the bed, rolling his eyes, and seems to catch something out the window. Something is moving out there.

Silver keeps going, though his tone grows vaguer by the word. "Khanyi, the girl, she may wonder where I am. She and Madi are kin of a sort and she seems to have appointed herself my minder."

"If she should rise before you, I'll take her to meet the animals," Thomas says. "They are marginally more entertaining to look after."

"Obi should have something for the children to do. He was a schoolteacher on the island. He's been subjecting them all to twice daily lessons."

"We have some books he may find beneficial."

"Esther will want to go hunting. Andres can go with her, but Felix and Obi's boy, Seydou, no. They'll lose their way chasing after baby deer and get themselves eaten by an alligator."

"How long do you plan on sleeping?" Thomas says, as James exits the room.

James approaches the front door, feeling a bit of a fool. A knock banishes thoughts of delusion from his head. So he did not imagine what he saw.

The woman at the other side is soaked to the bone, shivering, illuminated by lightning at her back.

James breathes out. "Madi."

"James," she says, using the manner in which he closed his letters.

Upon returning to the master bedroom, he gets past the threshold and simply... stops. Silver is dead to the world, his head tipped back and his mouth wide open. Like as not he'll be snoring soon. Thomas sits next to him with his ankles crossed, repairing a hole in someone's trousers with a needle and thread. James keenly wishes he were more practiced at painting human figures. Still, his brain, helpful as ever, catalogues details as though preparing to put them on a canvas. The crease of the pillow- James's pillow- under Silver's bad leg. The furrow of concentration splitting Thomas's brow.

"Is something happening?" Thomas asks, and it's enough to spur James out of his reverie and over to the armoire.

"We have an additional houseguest."

"Truly?" Thomas asks, as though they already host the world entire.

James grabs a blanket and one of his shirts. "You should put the kettle on."

In the first few minutes, they exchange standard pleasantries, she forwards her compliments on their home, and they manage to establish that everyone else arrived safely (plus two) and no, she did not travel all this way on her own.

"My escort chose to remain in town," she says. "But I have to say, if I had no escort, it would be no one's business save my own."

Thomas presses his lips together before he rallies. "This is quite true, Miss Scott. I do hope we did not offend."

Madi sighs quietly and adjusts the blanket around her. She looks diminished in his shirt and her damp trousers, small and miserable and uncertain.

"I am glad to see you," James ventures, heartened when he gets a tiny smile out of her.

"You've said," she points out, not unkindly.

"The sentiment is no less genuine for having been repeated."

"Might we get you something to eat, dear lady?" Thomas nearly begs, his sense of empathy going haywire from having a lovely woman in his kitchen visibly fighting back tears. "Dinner has been handily polished off, but we have bread and cheese. And fruit. I could fry some eggs?"

"Madi?"

Esther stands at the doorway and Madi all but jumps, dropping the blanket on the floor. She pulls herself together with an almost audible effort as Esther asks question after question in a language he does not know well enough to identify at rapid fire speeds.

Their hands inch ever closer and, well. That is not what he was expecting.

#black sails #black sails fic #silverflinthamilton #i won't tag silvermadi bc it's not in this section but they are very much a part of this fic #fun fact 99% of this was written an entire year ago #anyhoo my sunday is over and i need to go to bed #my writing #things by beanarie

23 notes · View notes

mashitandsmashit · 5 years ago

Text

America’s Got Talent: Season 14 - Auditions 4

Terry’s really establishing his presence on the show now! It’s early to call, but he might go on to be the best host of this show to date!

He’s making such an impression that a man played the flute AND stripped! It’s like he came SPECIFICALLY with the intention of baiting the host to join him and combine his two most well-known talents!

Anyway, enough about the obligatory weekly joke act, because boy do we have quite a few quality acts to talk about for THIS week!

10: Ansley Burns. Once again, the bottom entry is a generally solid singer...But she’s pretty much more or less at the same level of Angelica Hale (right down to having the same monkey ears!) I guess give her props for performing an upbeat and fun song, not to mention an Aretha song that ISN’T “Natural Woman”! (She’s allowed to be remembered for other songs! GRAMMYS!!!) I suppose I could complain about Simon doing that “Stop! Redo!“ thing again, but I think he had a good enough excuse this time, as the track WAS drowning her out, and it’s not like he made her perform a different song...It’s just that we’ve seen dozens of young girls sing at this level on the show by now, and in an ideal world, that girl from last week (who was ALSO infatuated with Simon) will outlast this one...

9: Dominguez Poodles. I will admit, when I watched the preview videos for this episode, I wasn’t exactly optimistic since they usually preview some of the highlights, and neither of the two acts previewed really excited me...But they ended up being the bottom two entries of this list anyway, and I certainly didn’t dislike either of them...It’s just that aside from putting the little girl in that cute little costume, this didn’t do anything that I haven’t seen from every other dog act to date...Extra points off for the dab! But maybe they’ll find something new with this act for future performances...I just stifled a laugh...

8: Cirque de Sewer. Yup...I’m putting the rat act over the dog act...What of it!? It’s mostly an amusing little party act, but it entertained me...And I guess pervs got a good look at the lady’s underpants as the rat crawled across them, something that would evoke a blood-curdling scream from most women if it was them in her place, so extra points for that...(Perhaps the rat SHOULD be named Hentai as some Youtube commenters mistook to hearing...)

7: Sos. So...did he steal his name from his dad, or is he Sos Junior or something? I’m confused...Anyway, while he does already have more to offer than his parents ever did, I was mostly pretty bored with the performance...Nothing super surprising or anything...Maybe he will improve in later rounds, but for now, it felt generic and kinda empty...

6: Detroit Youth Choir. I suppose this is the weakest Golden Buzzer of a host since the stripping grandma, but I’ll let Terry have this one since they clearly hit the big guy in the feels...(All I could think of is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsAyiElQKtM) Choirs are a hard sell for me, but when they manage to be entertaining enough, they can stand out...In terms of entertainment, I’d place this performance as weaker than Angel City Chorale’s first two performances last year, but stronger than their later two...While I definitely would have preferred someone else...Meh, I’ll take them! (PS, that wide-eyed kid peeking in from the back killed me!)

5: Voices of Service. Everything about this act just screams, “GIVE US A GOLDEN BUZZER!!!” Perhaps they will get it at the Judge Cuts...In fact, I won’t be surprised if they intentionally schedule them for the one where Brad Paisley’s the guest judge...But I do really like their harmonies, and the token female alone just commands the stage! Honestly...I’m kinda rooting for them! Sure it’s pandering like nobody’s business, but they’re talented enough that they can kinda get away with it...

4: Andy Rowell. Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that this man takes a lot of inspiration from a certain other late comedian named Andy, and while this may not even approach the brilliance that is the “Mighty Mouse” routine, it was still great seeing someone recapture the spirit of it! (What next? Is he gonna impersonate Elvis? Wrestle women? Spend five minutes on stage eating ice cream?) But like that comedic contortionist from a few weeks back, he will probably end up being pigeonholed as “The Karaoke Guy”, no matter how funny his later performances are, and it will probably hurt him in the long run...Still, this is an audition I will remember, and on a less excellent night, would easily make the Top 2 or 3...

3: ADEM Dance Crew. Ranking the Top 3 of this episode will not be easy, as they are all VERY close together and are among my favorite auditions of the season so far! I’m almost inclined to tie them all! But I guess at the end of the day, this was, by a VERY tiny margin, the least unique of the bunch...Saying that about a bunch of dudes dressed like bootleg “Mortal Kombat” characters is a testament to the two acts that beat them...But the body-popping was at a whole new level from what I’ve seen in the past, and how Not-Sub-Zero managed to keep himself in that position in the end is insane! If it was a lesser man, it would FINISH HIM! This whole performance was a FLAWLESS VICTORY! And like Julie said, they slayed everyone! FATALITY!!!

2: Berywam. I just didn’t want this to stop! Just listening to these guys makes me want to get up and dance with them! As much as I love Pentatonix, they got NOTHING on this group!

1: Marcin Patrzalek. Here’s one pretty-boy with acoustic guitar who I want to go all the way in this game! And as long as he has both the horny ladies AND variety voters backing him, he could very well do so! One of my favorite talents on this show is taking a rather mundane instrument and doing something extreme and different with it, and that is exactly what he did with an instrument usually associated with the most trite and boring AGT contestants...This might be my favorite act of the season so far!

Now THIS was a show! Hands down the best of the season so far!

It looks like next week will be the final audition, so we’ll just see what kind of act Julie picks to stamp her endorsement all over throughout the season...I might already have an idea what form this act will come in (as may you if you’ve watched the early promos), though I don’t know yet what the talent is...But they’re hyping it up quite a bit, and I even remember Howie saying somewhere that one of the GBs will make your jaw drop...None of the other ones so far have exactly done that, so I’m preparing for something crazy...

Kodi Lee’s still looking like the star player of this season so far (which translates to biggest front-runner), but we’ll see if that changes next week...

3 notes · View notes

patriotsnet · 3 years ago

Text

Did Republicans Win The House And Senate

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-republicans-win-the-house-and-senate/

Did Republicans Win The House And Senate

The 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Close Even If Trump Is The Gop Nominee

One very important thing we should have all taken away from both the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests is that the two major parties are in virtual equipose . The ideological sorting-out of the two parties since the 1960s has in turn led to extreme partisan polarization, a decline in ticket-splitting and and in number of genuine swing voters. Among other things, this has led to an atmosphere where Republicans have paid little or no price for the extremism theyve disproportionately exhibited, or for the bad conduct of their leaders, most notably the 45th president.

Indeed, the polarized climate encourages outlandish and immoral base mobilization efforts of the sort Trump deployed so regularly. Some Republicans partisans shook their heads sadly and voted the straight GOP ticket anyway, And to the extent there were swing voters they tended strongly to believe that both parties were equally guilty of excessive partisanship, and/or that all politicians are worthless scum, so why not vote for the worthless scum under whom the economy hummed?

The bottom line is that anyone who assumes Republicans are in irreversible decline in presidential elections really hasnt been paying attention.

Georgia Is Turning Blue

It had been 28 years since a Democratic presidential candidate carried Georgia. It had been 20 years since a Democrat won a Senate seat in Georgia, and 14 years since they won any kind of state-wide race. Republicans had never lost a modern run-off election in Georgia.

That has now changed – a remarkable development in the fast-growing business heart of the American South.

On Tuesday the election analysis website fivethirtyeight.com speculated about whether Georgia would turn out more like Virginia, a southern state that has become reliably Democratic, or North Carolina, a swing state that still mostly tilts Republican.

Election Results 2020: Control Of The Us House

Top 10 Closest Primaries: January to June 2020

Wave elections

Submit

Democrats maintained a majority in the U.S. House as a result of the 2020 elections, winning 222 seats to Republicans’ 213. Democrats three seats and Republicans fifteen, including one held by a Libertarian in 2020.

Heading into the November 3, 2020, election, Democrats held a 232-197 advantage in the U.S. House. Libertarians held one seat, and five seats were vacant. All 435 seats were up for election, with Republicans needing to gain a net 21 seats to win a majority in the chamber.

In , Democrats gained a net 40 seats to win a majority. Republicans had held a majority in the chamber since 2010.

Ballotpedia tracked 41 districts as battleground races: 20 held by Democrats heading into the election, 20 held by Republicans, and one held by a Libertarian. Democrats defended 30 seats that President carried in 2016, while Republicans defended five seats that Hillary Clinton carried that year.

In 2020, 49 U.S. House seats were open, meaning the incumbent was not running for re-election. Thirty-six of those seats were open because the incumbent did not run for re-election, eight were open because the incumbent was defeated in a primary or party convention, and five were open due to a vacancy.

Cbs News Projects Mitch Mcconnell Wins Senate Race In Kentucky

CBS News projects that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has won his reelection race. McConnell was challenged by Democrat Amy McGrath, who ran unsuccessfully for a House seat two years ago.

CBS News projects Mitch McConnell wins reelection in Kentucky.

CBS News November 4, 2020

McGrath had won national attention and significant fundraising when she entered the race, but she had to withstand a bruising primary challenge from the left. After defeating Charles Booker in the primary, McGrath sustained a fundraising advantage over McConnell in the closing months of the race, but was unable to translate those funds into in-person support.

CBS News also projects that New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, has won reelection.

Hope For Biden’s Agenda

For two years, the Republican-controlled Senate bottled up virtually every piece of legislation coming out of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. With a Georgia victory, that blockage has been removed.

That’s good news for Biden’s rather extensive legislative agenda – on issues like healthcare, the environment, government reform and the economy – which should be able to survive the House and at least get an up-or-down vote in the Senate.

A 50-50 Senate tie won’t mean the Green New Deal or a public health-insurance option are coming any time soon, however. There’s still the filibuster, which mandates 60 votes to pass major legislation, to contend with, and even bills that can get by with a simple majority will have to satisfy Democratic centrists like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the two senators from Arizona.

Another round of coronavirus relief seems probable, however, including larger per-person relief payments to all Americans. A simple congressional majority can also vote to rescind any regulations the Trump administration enacted in the final months of his presidency. That will, at the very least, get the Biden presidency off on the right foot.

Green Light For Biden’s Nominees

While the filibuster will be a continued thorn in Democratic sides when it comes to legislation, it no longer applies to presidential nominations. That means Biden’s selection for his administration, from the Cabinet on down, can be confirmed solely with Democratic votes . That’s good news for nominees who might have been controversial, like Neera Tanden, Biden’s budget office pick.

Since several centrist Republicans have already said they will usually defer to the new president’s appointments, it should be smooth sailing for most of his nominees.

The same goes for Biden’s judicial appointments, including any Supreme Court vacancies that open up in the near future. Donald Trump in his four years placed 234 judges on the federal bench, including three to the Supreme Court. That has given him a political legacy that will long outlast his one term in office. Biden, thanks to Georgia, should have the opportunity to start rolling back some of those gains.

Reconstruction And Jim Crow

After the American Civil War, Georgia was initially placed under a military governorship, but in 1868 the Republican Party succeeded in capturing the legislature and electing Rufus Bullock as governor. Support for the Republicans came from the 44% of the state’s population that was African American, along with whites from the mountainous north. Bullock was the first Republican governor of Georgia, but he was threatened with impeachment and fled the state in 1871, leaving the governorship to Benjamin Conley, the president of the Georgia Senate. Conley, the second Republican governor of the state, only lasted 72 days: the legislature quickly called a special election, and Conley was succeeded by a Democrat, James Milton Smith, resulting in the end of Reconstruction in Georgia.

After 1882, the Republican Party did not offer a full slate of candidates in Georgia , cementing Democratic one-party rule in the state. By the turn of the 20th century, the party had developed a reputation among white Georgians as a “Negro party” led by corrupt whites and plagued by local infighting. Black Georgians who could register to vote tended to vote for Republicans, who remained a minority in the General Assembly throughout the Jim Crow era. After the resignation of W. H. Rogers of McIntosh County in 1907 and the full disenfranchisement of African-Americans was completed in 1908, only white legislators could be elected by black voters.

‘miserable And Emboldened’: If Republicans Lose The House They’ll Be On Defense

House GOP leaders are expecting to oversee a more conservative conference next year, with many of their losses coming in seats held by centrists. That tilt to the right is likely to mean even more pressure by top leaders for members to stick together to vote on legislation that is closely aligned to Trump and his agenda.

Senate races in mostly red states benefited from Trump focus

toggle caption

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky talks to reporters after the Senate voted to confirm Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Oct. 6.

Senate Democrats had faced a steep challenge as they fought to keep seats in states Trump won by double-digit margins in the worst battlefield for any party in modern history.

Just six Republicans were up for re-election; all but one of them ran in safely Republican states.

Democrats landed on a plan to allow each vulnerable Democrat to run an independent campaign without a unified platform. For example, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota could stump on protecting farmers while Joe Manchin in West Virginia promised new health protections for coal miners.

Democrats Got Millions More Votes So How Did Republicans Win The Senate

Senate electoral process means although Democrats received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, that does not translate to more seats

The 2018 midterm elections brought , who retook the House of Representatives and snatched several governorships from the grip of Republicans.

But some were left questioning why suffered a series of setbacks that prevented the party from picking up even more seats and, perhaps most consequentially, left the US Senate in Republican hands.

Among the most eye-catching was a statistic showing Democrats led Republicans by more than 12 million votes in Senate races, and yet still suffered losses on the night and failed to win a majority of seats in the chamber.

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process.

Because each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, states such as Wyoming have as many seats as California, despite the latter having more than 60 times the population. The smaller states also tend to be the more rural, and rural areas traditionally favor .

This year, because Democrats were defending more seats, including California, they received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, but that does not translate to more seats.

However, some expressed frustration with a system they suggest gives an advantage to conservative-leaning states.

The rise of minority rule in America is now unmistakable

The Future Could Actually Be Bright For Republicans

Ed Kilgore

The most common political narrative outside MAGA-land is that the Republican Party is screwed, and richly deserves the ignominious future it faces.

Until recently the GOP was a reasonably normal and intermittently successful center-right political party, not wildly different from its counterparts in other countries with a two-party system, despite some racist and militarist habits that burst into view in times of stress. But then America elected a Black president, and Republicans went a little crazy, according to those outside their circles. First they abetted a destructively antediluvian Tea Party Movement and then lurched into the arms of an evil charlatan who somehow got elected president and spent four years trashing hallowed conservative principles and losing both Congress and the White House before his disgraceful and violence-inflected departure.

Worse yet, in the face of huge demographic challenges that beg for a new approach, the Republican Party has now lashed itself to a Trumpian mast going forward, following the most consistently unpopular president in American history in his bizarre crusade to deny he has ever lost anything. Meanwhile a shockingly united Democratic Party is whipping a few decades worth of liberal legislation through Congress as Republicans whine about cancel culture and try to sell the idea that Joe Biden is actually Che Guevara.

House Election Results For Congressional Races

Trump was not on the ballot this year, but the midterm election was viewed as a nationwide referendum on his leadership. Now, leaders from both parties will pursue vastly different agendas on Capitol Hill. Democrats in the House vow to launch wide-ranging investigations into Trump, his business dealings and the transparency of his administration. Republicans in the Senate will continue to install more Trump nominees to the federal judiciary and defend the president and his policies.

Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, about the phone call between the president and the House minority leader: “President Trump called Leader Pelosi at 11:45 p.m. this evening to extend his congratulations on winning a Democratic House Majority. He acknowledged the Leader’s call for bipartisanship in her victory remarks.”

A divided Congress is likely to extend the heated battles of the 2018 campaign into the presidential election in 2020.

Early vote data released early Tuesday indicated that the electorate was younger and more diverse than in the last midterm election. Turnout levels were significantly higher across several demographic groups, and up in states with competitive Senate contests Arizona, Texas and Nevada.

The president’s impact played out differently in the roughly 80 competitive House races and more than a dozen close Senate contests.

House battlefield hinged on contests in suburban and exurban districts

toggle caption

Election 2016: Republicans Retain House And Senate

The Republican Party has kept its hold over Congress, capping a dire night for the Democrats.

, the Republicans retained their majorities in the House and Senate.

Republican dominance over Congress in principle enables Mr Trump to turn his policy plans into law.

But how easily this will happen is unclear given that key party leaders had refused to back him.

Historic win for Somali-American woman

The night began with majority control of the Senate up for grabs, with 34 of the 100 seats available.

But the Democrats have so far gained just one seat in the Senate, with Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq war veteran, taking Mark Kirk’s place in Illinois. During a TV debate last month Mr Kirk Ms Duckworth’s Thai heritage, but later apologised.

Another bright spot was in Nevada, which Cortez Masto retained for the Democrats, beating Republican Joe Heck to become the first Latina US senator.

The final Senate seat to be declared is New Hampshire, where the result is said to be very close and where Democrat Maggie Hassan has declared victory over incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte.

Elsewhere Republicans hung on to other key seats:

Democrats also failed to significantly dent Republican advantage in the House, with just five Republican incumbents losing.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had distanced himself from Mr Trump after previously endorsing him, won re-election to the House of Representatives in Wisconsin.

Mcconnell Not Backing Down From Obama In Victory Speech

I dont expect the president to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did when he woke up this morning. He knows I wont either, McConnell said. But I do think we have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree. I think we have a duty to. Just because we have a two-party system doesnt mean we have to be in perpetual conflict.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrat who will lose his job as majority leader, said in a statement: The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together. I look forward to working with Senator McConnell to get things done for the middle class.

Pre-election polls showed a record low level of interest in the election, and those who did show up were not happy. Exit polls showed that 54 percent of voters disapprove of Obamas performance, and 79 percent gave the thumbs down to Congress.

John King Explains Why Infrastructure Bill Vote Is A Big Deal

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday she will create a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol after Republicans blocked the formation of an independent commission.

reported on Tuesday Judge rebukes GOP for downplaying US Capitol riot as he hands out first sentence in insurrectionmodeled after the 9/11 Commission voted to create the independent commissionspread lies about the 2020 election McCarthy’s conversations with Trump

Collins Says Gideon Called To Concede

Senator Susan Collins of Maine told supporters on Wednesday that her Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, had called her to concede the race. Without taking Collins’ seat, Democrats have little change of claiming the Senate majority.

“I have news for everyone. I just received a very gracious call from Sara Gideon conceding the race,” Collins told supporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Collins, one of the more moderate members of Senate, was considered particularly vulnerable this year. If she had received under 50% of the vote, the race would have proceeded to a runoff, under Maine’s system of ranked-choice voting.

Gideon significantly outraised Collins, and hit the senator repeatedly for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

What To Watch For

One of the most closely-watched aspects of the affair will be how Vice President Mike Pence handles it. The vice president will preside over the session and announce the winner. Axios that Trump believes Pence affirming Bidens victoryas a number of previous vice presidents have done for rival candidates without controversywould be the ultimate betrayal, and Pence has reportedly met with House lawmakers who intend to challenge the results. Former Senate historian Donald Ritchie told the Times theres not much can do to actually change the results, though, as his job is really just to read them out aloud. The vice president could choose to simply avoid the issue by skipping the vote entirely, the Times notes. This would leave Pences duties up to Senate president pro tempore Sen. Chuck Grassley , who has Biden as the winner of the election.

How Maine And Nebraska’s Split Electoral Votes Could Affect The Election

As the race drags into Wednesday, it appears two congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska could prove pivotal in deciding the outcome of the election.

Maine and Nebraska are the only states in the nation that split their electoral votes. Maine awards two of its four electoral votes to the statewide winner, but also allocates an electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of its two congressional districts. Nebraska gives two of its five electoral votes to the statewide winner, with the remaining three going to the popular vote winner in each of its three congressional districts.

The 1994 Elections: The Overview; Gop Wins Control Of Senate And Makes Big Gains In House; Pataki Denies Cuomo 4th Term

The Republican Party seized control of the Senate and moved within a few seats of capturing the House yesterday, winning eight Democratic seats in the Senate and at least 38 in the House. The gains were the Republicans’ strongest in decades and put them in position to thwart President Clinton and his legislative proposals for the next two years.

The Republican tide also extended to the races for governor in several important states that will be critical to Mr. Clinton’s hopes for re-election in 1996, including New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and California.

One after another, once unassailable Democrats like Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Gov. Ann W. Richards of Texas, Representative Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago and Senators James Sasser of Tennessee and Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania fell to little-known Republican challengers.

But Republicans, who have held the Senate in only 6 of the last 40 years, were particularly overjoyed that they had picked up Democratic Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Michigan and Maine. Mr. Clinton had criss-crossed most of those states in a frenetic eight-day campaign swing, but it did no good. The Republicans ended the night with at least a 52-to-48 majority in the Senate.

In metropolitan area races, two Democratic Senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut coasted to victory.

In the poll, 2,600 voters were questioned at selected precincts in every state.

Lindsey Graham Wins Reelection In South Carolina Senate Race Cbs News Projects

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham won reelection, CBS News projects, after a contentious race. Although Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison outraised Graham by a significant amount, it was not enough to flip a Senate seat in the deep-red state.

Graham led the high-profile confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and Harrison hit him for his reversal on confirming a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.

Meanwhile, Republican Roger Marshall has also won the Senate race in Kansas, defeating Democrat Barbara Bollier.

New Hampshire Hasnt Been Called Yet But That Wont Change The Balance Of Power In The Senate

New Hampshire, where Sen. Kelly Ayotte has a narrow margin over Gov. Maggie Hassan . Votes have only been counted from 94 percent of precincts, so there is a possibility that Hassan could still win, but with Ayotte wining 48.1 percent of the vote compared to Hassans 47.8 percent, it seems as if Ayotte will hold onto her seat.

Midterm Elections: What Mattered Most To Voters

In almost every midterm since the Civil War, Americans have opted to put a check on the president by handing more power to the opposition party in Congress.

The booming economy appears to be cushioning the blow for the GOP this year, but Trump has instead tended to focus on darker themes, for instance highlighting a caravan of migrants moving towards the U.S. southern border as much as he has the low unemployment rate.

With the Democrats winning the House, they plan to wield Congress vast oversight authority against the White House and could even vote to impeach the president, though removing him from office seems out of the question, since that requires a supermajority in the Senate.

Trump Sticks To Trump Country As He Pushes For Gop Wins In The Midterms

Trump personally played a significant role in tight Senate contests in the closing weeks of the election cycle. He traveled to Indiana, Florida, Montana, Nevada, Missouri and Mississippi and in some cases landed in dramatic fashion aboard Air Force One to crowds of supporters enthusiastically cheering his red-meat speeches focused mostly on immigration and warnings about what Democratic control meant for his agenda.

His visits included overt reminders to his base supporters that they weren’t just voting for any Republican on the ballot they were voting for senators promising to back his priorities.

“They want to raise your taxes, the Democrats do, restore crippling regulations, shut down your new steel mills, take away your health care, and put illegal aliens before American citizens,” Trump said in a closing rally in Indiana on Monday. “If you want more caravans, if you want more crime, vote Democrat tomorrow.”

A year of big money and big controversy

Democrats benefited from a flood of donations to official party organizations and outside groups working on their side. Democratic candidates and their outside supporters are expected to spend more than $2.5 billion on this year’s election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Republican candidates and their backers are on track to spend $2.2 billion.

Fundraising in 2018 far outpaced what is normal for a miderm election.

NPR’s Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report

Control Of The Senate Could Be Decided By Georgia Races

There are two races up in Georgia this election, a regular Senate race and special election. The rules in Georgia for both the regular Senate election and the Senate special election require a candidate to win a majority, and if none of the candidates clear the 50% threshold, the race goes to a runoff in January.

Recent polling in the race between incumbent GOP Senator David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff has been tight, and the presence of a libertarian candidate on the ballot could prevent either Perdue or Ossoff from clearing the majority. In the special election, 21 candidates have qualified to be on the ballot, including Democrat Raphael Warnock, who has led in recent polls. GOP candidates Senator Kelly Loeffer, who was appointed to the seat last year, and Congressman Doug Collins are also on the ballot. If no candidate clears the majority, that race will also go to a runoff in January.

Newly Uncovered Fraud In Az Could Flip The Senate Back To Republicans

The Democrats have much more to worry about in Arizona other than the presidential race. The fate of the Senate also rests in the hands of the Maricopa County election. Mark Kelly also won Maricopa County, a reliable red county by 80,000 votes.

That means that if the results show that McSally actually won in Maricopa County, she actually won the Senate election as well.

That would mean that the Republicans would control Senate 51-49. It would also create an unusual decision that would have to be made. All of the votes that required Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote would now be invalid. However, an activist judge might disagree, setting up a constitutional crisis.

It may take a long time to sort out.

0 notes

marksautotrim · 5 years ago

Text

Upholstery Oshawa near me

Seat covers in Oshawa Ontario are a significant if marginally neglected part of each vehicle. The part makes drivers and their travelers feel good, while carrying them to every one of the places they need to visit. Car Engines achieve the carrying part, yet they absolutely don't make you feel comfortable. Similar to the case with seats and couches, the material covering your seats wears out, which implies that in the long run you need to change it. Notwithstanding, in contrast to furniture, you can't push a vehicle seat to the side of a room; you need to fix it. Car seat upholstery comes in numerous varieties. Certain fabrics are about durability and simplicity of cleaning, while others are progressively about style and comfort. Picking the correct upholstery can have a gigantic effect as far as driving satisfaction is concerned. Along these lines, before you pick the next coat for your current seat or purchase another vehicle altogether, see what every fabric brings to the table. Here are a couple of well known types of upholstery to look over:

Vinyl

At the point when we consider vinyl, we think "record players." While those don't actually sound agreeable, yet the material we know as vinyl can be shaped and utilized for some, various purposes, including vehicle seats. Vinyl is easy to clean, long-lasting and dependable (more than ten years). While leather tends to get softer throughout the years, vinyl gets harder, which can makes things somewhat less comfortable. Another normal analysis with vinyl is that comfort isn't ideal for hot days or cold climate. That being stated, quality vinyl might be a reasonable choice to leather since it feels fundamentally the same as.

Faux Vinyl

Made as impersonation of vinyl, faux vinyl shows qualities of leather also. It's anything but difficult to clean and has the shine that huge numbers of drivers love. Faux vinyl costs considerably less than a large number of the other options and the explanation is strength – or lack thereof. It doesn't take long for faux vinyl to break and wear away. Subsequently, you may need to reupholster your seats sooner than you'd like.

Leather

There is a ton to like about leather vehicle seats. As a matter of first importance, leather presents a refined look that displays toughness. The style can work for any vehicle and will outlast material fabric when appropriately kept up. Leather car seat covers Oshawa Ontario additionally has a flexible design that allows it to be soft or firm depending upon the vehicle owner's decision. Despite the fact that Leather costs more than cloth upholstery, the cleaning procedure isn't so hard. Essentially wipe the seat down with vehicle upholstery cleaner, vacuum and afterward wait for the leather to dry normally. Leather conditioner is a smart choice on the off chance that you need to ensure the fabric.

Faux Leather

Faux leather conveys all the attractive attributes of leather without the significant cost. The most widely recognized kind of Faux leather is made out of plastic, subsequently the term "pleather." It's adaptable in the manner in which that you can basically get any plan you need in light of the fact that no animals are ever hurt simultaneously. Faux leather is very much easy to clean and is extraordinarily tough. In any case, in compare to real leather, faux cowhide doesn't have a similar gloss. It doesn't smell or age a similar way either, which is a disgrace.

PVC

PVC (or Poly Vinyl Chloride) is a soft and adaptable vinyl material. As a result of its structure, it tends to be effectively manipulated into any shape, however it needs comfort thus. PVC is a bad decision in hot climate since the texture can without much of a stretch stick to bare skin. Accordingly, wearing shorts in a PVC-furbished car can be a terrible experience. By the by, the texture is anything but difficult to clean since plain old water and light cleanser are frequently enough. PVC is a modest choice for the individuals who need to reupholster their vehicle seat, yet need more money to bear the cost of higher-grade decisions.

Nylon

In the event that you need durable upholstery that is likewise accessible in numerous colors and patterns, at that point nylon is the decision for you. Capable for enduring UV beams and everyday wear and tear, nylon is outstandingly resistant to stains and is very much easy to clean. Nylon is likewise waterproof, which settles on it a prevalent decision for the individuals who have pets. That being stated, while reasonableness settles on nylon a decent decision, it lacks in comfort.

Each time you take your vehicle out for a round, it gradually aggregates dust, dirt, grime, and grease. A portion of these will appear in clear places like the wheel wells or along the windshield; however the harm can likewise be discovered crusted into the fabric of your vehicle seats. Car owners will in general give unquestionably more consideration to the motor, exterior, and paintwork than to the seats and leather trim. In all actuality keeping your vehicle's upholstery perfect and new is a key component to keeping up the vehicle's general beauty, yet in addition its usefulness, comfort, and cleanliness. All things considered, your vehicle won't look all around great if the stuffing starts to stand out of the seats, or if the fabric gets worn, frayed, and stained.

While it's constantly great idea to call in the experts for expert vehicle care and car upholstery services, you can pick to go for inexpensively advantageous approaches to carry out the responsibility all alone. Reupholstering your vehicle seats is certainly not a troublesome assignment once you arm yourself with the correct information and tools. You can find the expert near you if you want professional upholstery and car seat covers Oshawa Ontario services which can make you vehicle look good.

#upholstery whitby #upholstery pickering #custom tailored upholstery #reupholstery #grand upholstery

0 notes

guestcanpost · 6 years ago

Text

Travertine supplier Uae

A few kinds of deck are superior to others while making an exquisite and modern home, and travertine is one of them. Travertine supplier Uae work superbly with a wide range of indoor applications, making them probably the most adaptable sorts of ground surface to think about when you need to improve the excellence of your home. Being a characteristic stone, the tiles are normally sturdy and can keep going for ages. Antiquated Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans utilized travertine to fabricate a portion of their most notable structures, a significant number of which are as yet standing today and filling in as confirmation of the stone's strength. Travertine tiles can be connected to practically any room in the house. At the point when introduced in portals and lobbies, travertine can include a stupendous proclamation and contacts of class and polish to make your home all the more welcoming. The tiles can be introduced in restrooms and kitchens, as well, just as in living and family spaces. Respectable providers of normal stone tiles and pavers offer travertine in various completions that can suit any indoor application. Your home can look natural and have an old world look and feel with travertine tiles in a brushed and etched completion. The tiles keep up the common highlights of the characteristic stone, yet with a progressively uniform completion. Brushed and etched travertine flooring is marginally finished, and the edges are etched for an emotional change starting with one tile then onto the next. Travertine flooring tiles will make your home look modern regardless of how often you change the stylistic theme or furniture in your home. A sharpened and filled completion, for example, gives a smooth and non-reflexive surface for an exquisite look that can run with any inside plan. Go for cleaned travertine tiles in the event that you lean toward a glossier surface and a great look. They offer a very smooth surface that is buffed to look sparkly. Along these lines, you can accomplish the appearance of rich class and extravagance that is normally observed in super houses and palatial homes.

Natural Stones Suppliers Uae

Marble flooring gives you a chance to accomplish extravagance and refinement in your inside Living space. This immortal material isn't simply excellent—it is commonsense, as well. Despite the fact that it isn't the least expensive decision, marble is unparalleled with regards to agelessness and toughness, which means cost-viability over the long haul. Marble ground surface can likewise expand the estimation of your home, so you can get more cash should you choose to sell your property once day. Introducing marble ground surface can be a shrewd long haul choice. Simply make certain to pick the correct provider to get esteem. A decent common stone provider will enable you to decide the most financially savvy measure, type, plan, and completion for your prerequisites. They as a rule import their marble legitimately from quarries from everywhere throughout the world, disposing of the go betweens, representatives, and other outsiders that may drive up the cost. This empowers them to offer marble flooring at lower costs direct to clients such as yourself. On the off chance that marble is past your value point, don't stress—there are a lot of different alternatives. Why not attempt travertine tiles? A few completions—particularly the cleaned variation—take after marble flooring. In spite of the fact that travertine is an extraordinary choice to marble, certain attributes make them altogether different from one another. They are the two limestones, however travertine is more permeable than marble due to how nature makes it. This regular stone is an aftereffect of the collection of mineral stores in hot springs just as hotter freshwater situations. Marble, then again, is a 'changeable' material. It is framed when limestone is exposed to incredibly high temperatures and weights. Therefore, it is denser and will in general be progressively strong. On the off chance that you are determined to contributing on marble flooring, congrats—you are settling on a superb decision. These floor tiles can ensure toughness, simple support, and an agelessness that will influence it to outlast patterns. Marble flooring is a savvy flooring alternative in the long haul Read the full article

#NaturalStonesSuppliersUae #TravertinesupplierUae

0 notes

junker-town · 6 years ago

Text

Bobby Wilder built ODU from scratch. Can he *re*build it?

After 2016’s breakthrough, the Monarchs are in danger of three straight down years.

Bill C’s annual preview series of every FBS team in college football continues. Catch up here!

In 2016, the Monarchs won 10 games and the Bahamas Bowl. It was the culmination of a decade-long start-up process. And it appears the foot has since come off of the gas pedal.

ODU hired Bobby Wilder in 2007 to start a program. The Monarchs went 17-5 as a provisional FCS independent in 2009-10, cranked out two top-10 finishes and 21 wins in 2011-12, leaped to FBS and went a decent 11-13 in 2014-15, then broke through in 2016, damn near making the Conference USA title game before outlasting EMU in the Bahamas. This was about as meteoric a process as you’ll see.

From the moment the final second ticked off the clock in Nassau, however, things went awry. ODU had to replace a ton of production in 2017 and slipped from 10 wins and a No. 69 S&P+ ranking to five wins and No. 120.

The Monarchs started 2018 with a 1-6 record that included a 42-point loss to Liberty and a two-point loss to ECU. Not sure which is more embarrassing. The one win came against Virginia Tech somehow, but they were again mired in the 120s in S&P+, and it was pretty easy to make the case that Wilder’s days as head coach in Norfolk were numbered. (Since he’s the only coach the program has had and did such a wonderful job over his first decade, maybe he would have gotten more rope.)

ODU rallied, however. An upset of North Texas and a 77-14 romp over VMI highlighted a 3-2 finish that made Wilder’s seat a little less scalding. Granted, there was also a 34-point loss to MTSU and an ugly 14-point loss to hapless Rice, but ODU still improved to 109th by the end of the year.

It would be a good idea to build off of that progress this fall. But with all this turnover, that could be tricky. You know how the numbers show turnover at quarterback, in the receiving corps, and in the secondary are more tied to year-to-year rises and regression than in other units? Well, ODU must replace quarterback Blake LaRussa, its top three wide receivers, and its top four safeties. For that matter, the Monarchs lose four of their top six offensive linemen and five of their top seven defensive linemen (including Oshane Ximines, likely a high NFL draftee) as well.

The culture that Wilder spent a decade building? It unraveled in about a season and a half, and now he’s relying on a lineup with about a dozen new starters to re-establish it. Suboptimal.

Wilder has tried to counter the inexperience on the two-deep with extra seasoning in the coaching staff. He brought in Bryan Stinespring (26 years at Virginia Tech) as offensive line coach and Galen Hall (defensive co-coordinator at VT until 2018) as DBs coach. He asked David Blackwell to serve as his defensive coordinator after Blackwell raised ECU’s Def. S&P+ ranking from 128th to 101st in his lone year in Greenville. ODU ranked 119th on defense with Ximines and company; Blackwell, Hall, etc., have their work cut out for them.

Offense

ODU does sort of return a starting QB in 2019. Steven Williams finished 2017 as the first-stringer, producing a 146.2 passer rating in the last three games of his true freshman year, and he started 2018 atop the two-deep as well. But he struggled out of the gates, completing 50 percent of his passes with a 106.4 rating, and he was replaced by LaRussa, who had begun 2017 as the starter. LaRussa torched Virginia Tech and never looked back; he threw for 3,015 yards, ODU ranked 47th in passing marginal efficiency, and, having played parts of only four games, Williams redshirted.

Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Steven Williams

With LaRussa gone, Williams will get the first crack at the job. Wilder and longtime coordinator Brian Scott aren’t putting all their eggs into one basket, though. They signed two JUCO transfers — former Michigan State four-star Messiah deWeaver and Stone Smartt, who threw for 2,700 yards (with 31 TDs to 3 INTs!) at Riverside CC in 2018 — plus a mid-three-star freshman in Hayden Wolff.

This should be a pretty exciting QB competition, and the winner will have to carry the offense. Of the five skill corps members with at least 75 intended touches (carries and pass targets) last year, only one returns: running back Kesean Strong.

Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Kesean Strong (1)

A bit player in 2015 and 2016, Strong saw the most intended touches on the team last fall, rushing 106 times with 29 targets. His success rate on those 135 plays was 43.7 percent, slightly above the team average of 42.6, so he is not without efficiency value. Sophomore running back Matt Geiger produced a 54 percent success rate, and a trio of tight ends (sophomores Keon White and Donta Anthony Jr. and junior Marcus Joyner) combined for a 58 percent success rate as well.

The Monarchs will need some big-play companions, however, after the loss of wideouts Jonathan Duhart and Travis Fulgham. Last year’s top four returning backup WRs combined for 16 catches and 191 yards in 2018. It’s basically seniors Darrell Brown and Hasaan Patterson and a truckload of true and redshirt freshmen.

Stinespring’s first ODU line is in the middle of a makeover as well. Of last year’s 60 line starts, ODU loses those responsible for 33 of them, including honorable mention all-conference center Nick Clarke. The left side (tackle Isaac Weaver and guard Tony Barnett) is experienced, and the rest of it is not.

Stinespring is in the middle of a late-career renaissance. He was maligned near the end of his stay in Blacksburg, but he oversaw an excellent James Madison run game and line in 2016 (the Dukes’ FCS title year) and 2017, and Maryland ranked 18th in Rushing S&P+ in 2018, his lone year in College Park. ODU’s run game has lacked a spark; adding Stinespring doesn’t hurt.

Defense

So here’s my attempt at positive spin regarding the loss of stud end Ximines: with him, ODU only ranked 103rd in sack rate (he had 12 sacks), 75th in stuff rate (he had 24.5!), and 90th in havoc rate (he had 19 percent of team havoc plays). And again, they were 119th in Def. S&P+. The Monarchs probably won’t get better at these things in his absence, but they don’t have a whole lot of room to get worse.

That wasn’t very positive, was it?

Well, how about this: Blackwell is a damn good coordinator. Here’s what I wrote in last year’s ECU preview:

In his last three years at Jacksonville State, the Gamecocks never allowed more than 20 points per game. Last year’s JSU defense was a damn masterpiece, allowing 15 points per game and 3.8 yards per play with a 21.2 percent havoc rate that would have ranked fourth at the FBS level.

ECU last year: 45 points per game, 7.7 yards per play, 9.9 percent havoc rate. Last in FBS on all three accounts. Getting Blackwell was a damn coup.

He didn’t work miracles at ECU, but the Pirates still made drastic improvements just to get to 101st in Def. S&P+. They attacked with occasional recklessness (24th in havoc rate, 22nd in stuff rate, 23rd in sack rate), and while they got torched quite a bit ... well ... they were getting torched the year before, too. At least last year they made some plays, too.

Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Lawrence Garner (34)

Without Ximines (and fellow end Tim Ward), the search for play-makers will be all-hands-on-deck. But at least there’s experience elsewhere.

Junior tackles Jeremy Meiser and Juwan Ross (combined: 24 tackles, 7 TFLs, 1.5 sacks) are back.

The top four linebackers return, including MLB Lawrence Garner, the team’s second-best havoc guy (9 TFLs, 5 passes defensed, 12 run stuffs).

The top three cornerbacks — junior Joe Joe Headen and sophomores Geronda Hall and Lance Boykin — are back, too. They were young last year but did combine for 19 passes defensed.

Photo by Michael Shroyer/Getty Images

Geronda Hall (23)

Sensing ODU was falling behind from a talent standpoint, Wilder loaded up on JUCOs, signing 10 on defense — three linemen, three linebackers, four defensive backs. The three up front (end Elijah Golston and tackles Tyre Bibby and Blake Hehl) and two safeties (Harrell Blackmon and R’Tarriun Johnson) are probably the most important.

I’m confident in Blackwell figuring out some improvements, but the best news is that there are almost no seniors. The only ones who might play a role are linebacker Terez Dickerson and tackle Mufu Taiwo. Otherwise, whatever assets Blackwell discovers in 2019 will be scheduled to return in 2020.

Special Teams

ODU ranked 41st in Special Teams S&P+ last year, its best performance yet. Isaiah Harper was extremely efficient in the return game, and he’s gone, but the biggest strength was a lack of outright weaknesses.

Junior Nick Rice ranked 45th in field goal efficiency, and while punter Bailey Cate’s kicks weren’t long (39.7 average), they were high enough to prevent returns (4.3 average). This should still be a decent unit.

2019 outlook

2019 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 31-Aug Norfolk State NR 24.4 92% 7-Sep at Virginia Tech 30 -30.7 4% 21-Sep at Virginia 41 -27.9 5% 28-Sep East Carolina 113 -0.6 49% 5-Oct Western Kentucky 101 -6.5 35% 12-Oct at Marshall 77 -18.9 14% 19-Oct at UAB 106 -10.3 28% 26-Oct Florida Atlantic 79 -13.8 21% 2-Nov at Florida International 88 -16.7 17% 9-Nov UTSA 128 6.6 65% 23-Nov at Middle Tennessee 104 -10.8 27% 30-Nov Charlotte 120 2.8 56%

Projected S&P+ Rk 119 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 110 / 119 Projected wins 4.1 Five-Year S&P+ Rk -11.8 (111) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 118 2018 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* -6 / -2.4 2018 TO Luck/Game -1.5 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 53% (45%, 62%) 2018 Second-order wins (difference) 4.1 (-0.1)

On September 28, Blackwell’s former employer (ECU) and Stinespring’s former employer (new ECU head coach Mike Houston) will come to Norfolk for a game that will set the table for the rest of the season.

ODU will almost certainly be 1-2 at that point, after a likely win over Norfolk State and likely losses at Virginia Tech and Virginia, so the ECU game will define expectations. Win, and ODU will likely be in the hunt for bowl eligibility (especially with a home win over WKU the next week). Lose, and it’s hard to figure out where to find five more wins.

This is an awkward time for ODU. Wilder built up a ton of goodwill, but athletic directors don’t like trying to positively spin three down years in a row, and boosters aren’t usually receptive to spin. Wilder probably needs more proof of concept soon, but after two dire years and then turnover, he’s in a youth movement.

Wilder inked nearly a lineup’s worth of JUCOs (a tactic that tends to have drawbacks a couple of years down the line), and he’ll need them to thrive if he wants a serious shot at seven wins or so. Otherwise, this lineup screams “pretty good in 2020” ... for a coach who might need to be pretty good in 2019.

Team preview stats

All 2019 preview data to date.

0 notes

bittenpath-blog · 6 years ago

Text

48cm:Trey Richardson: The bike industry doesn't really exist

By Trey Richardson

Editor's note: Trey Richardson is a marketing professional for hire who spent nearly three decades in virtually every supply channel of the cycling industry. In lieue of payment for this column, Trey would like to encourage appreciative readers to make a donation to World Bicycle Relief.

I started writing this several months ago but decided to sit back and chew on some popcorn and see how things fell after the smoke cleared (still waiting). Between Interbike's 2019 walkout, the ASI/Performance outcome, the number of companies changing hands and now brands like Trek and Cannondale partnering with REI ... that was a lot to take in over a period of about 6 months.

I took several steps back and looked at everything as if I had no knowledge of, or experience in, the church we call 'The Bike Industry' and came to a conclusion I have yet to hear:

The 'Bike Industry' has ended

We ... all of us, use that phrase 'The Bike Industry' a lot. If there was one thing I would say that may make many of the IBD woes go away, it would begin by putting a stop to perceiving 'the industry' as exclusive to who it belongs to and accept what it is and will (not) be in its future state. The days of trying to control how it operates in virtually every channel have been dissipating fast for some time now.

Since anyone alive can remember, bicycle and bicycle related manufacturers have (mostly) used the same, exclusive distribution channels. 'The Industry' had made it a practice to determine who belongs, who doesn't, and how it wants to operate without any outside influence. Add to that, retailers expected faithful support from their suppliers and demanded exclusivity, MAP, margins ... I could go on. Today, money flows in from a lot of different directions and most of it goes into a funnel that is the internet.

I have always said, three shops working together will increase ridership in their community more so than six shops working independently.

Many are upset by (fill in the blank), but the reality of it has ALWAYS been, a business (should) forecasts growth potential based on tomorrow's bottom line ... not how dedicated a retailer was in the past. Especially if said retail channel can no longer support the highest possible ROI for them.

It sucks, but that is how business works.

The new (big) kids on the block

Today, while many shake their fists at the Amazons out there, many don't see them for what they really are. Sure, they warehouse and sell items, but their real business is being a marketplace for others to use as a sales channel. That in itself is what has helped Amazon grow, (well, that and them streamlining the ordering and distributing process in addition to offering many outside services).

Then you have a company like REI. They have a massive network of stores who have managed to maintain if not increase foot traffic in their brick-and-mortar locations as well as have an e-commerce website that includes third party sellers: kind of like Amazon (but I wouldn't necessarily consider them a marketplace ... yet?)

History repeats itself

Around 150 years ago, general stores killed the specialty stores and street markets selling locally sourced goods when trains started delivering mass amounts of goods to populated areas. Then Sears & Roebuck knocked those out when their mail order catalogs made goods available to anyone with a street address (additionally, communication technology exploded with the telegraph and later telephone system, cutting the time it took to a company like Sears to make deals with their suppliers).

Sears managed to get a massive and wide range of products from their suppliers and into customers' hands in a fraction of the time it used to take ... Sound familiar? (The way things are looking, the IBD is going to far outlast Sears, once the pioneer in delivering goods to the mass market).

What was — The bike industry

A bike mechanic, company rep, and customer walked into a bar ...

Years ago, as we were wrapping up our shop's weekly pub crawl one night, a few of us were having a conversation about 'the state of the industry' over beers and burritos. One of our favorite regulars, who was never short on jokes, started making fun of our conversation.

"I never knew the bike industry was such an elite organization ... do you have a secret handshake?" (three fingers go up)

We went on to explain how there is a sort of dedication that puts passion above money and the entire industry works to support each other. "We're family" and not here for the money. I look back at my response as a reminder to not ever base a business decision on how much I like something ... but instead, hope the business decision I make ultimately leads to support that passion.

What happened?

What was 'the industry' is not what I (or most), would consider an industry today. It is instead a supply channel to the overall marketplace. For instance, the auto industry still relies on a closed-chain supply channel requiring their main products (autos), to pass from manufacturing and authorized dealerships before making it to the end user (though this is changing as we speak). Though there are fluctuations, all adjustments are made by companies within that closed supply channel. That closed-chain supply channel is what defines them as AN INDUSTRY.

Until recent years, every bicycle manufacturing, distribution, and sales channel had to pass thru the IBD in order to reach the consumer. Similar to the auto industry, that is what made it an industry.

Today, 'the bike industry' only supplies a niche product category to a small percentage of the marketplace through more 'generalized' channels. Manufacturers and distributors channels are selling through an endless number of nonexclusive retail channels (IBD, outdoor, e-commerce ...), as well as direct to consumer. The bicycle-related supply channel now lives in the same space as most consumer products do. While laying on a beach in Europe, I can order toilet paper, dog food, Swiss Cake Rolls, and a bike, all located in three different states, and have it all shipped to my address in Atlanta. That would take me as little as 5 minutes to accomplish.

In addition to my above statement, no matter how everyone wants to be recognized, the general, money spending consumer doesn't see us like some major player in the economy either. Bloomberg probably can't even spell Schwinn.

The next 4.0 version of 'the bike industry' everyone seems to be waiting on simply doesn't exist. Like most, I will still call it the Bike Industry but we need to stop looking at it, as such, operationally. Complaining about MAP, margins, exclusive brands, etc. is a 'spinning your wheels' waste of time and resources.

We're the IBD Industry and need to champion that!

The IBD Industry is not new because theoretically, it's been like this for years ... but it needs to organize and make a better impact. It needs to make the RIGHT impact.

Since the playing field has been taken over by consumer demand and a more streamlined supply channel scrambling to fill it (while leaving the IBD in the dust), IBDs need to reset their approach to doing business. While this is hard to conceptualize because it goes against everything we've been (wrongfully) taught, retailers need to begin focusing on growth instead of survival ... like they should have 20 years ago.

A large percentage of people running things on the retail side are trying to justify how they can keep things the same with the same number of people while fighting for a harder to obtain than ever dollar. Most of those still around, live on a constant up and down 'net profit' roller coaster which has caused the health of their business to suffer ... much less grow.

THIS NEEDS TO END and shop owners need to make a huge shift in their personal roles.

Do you own a business ... or do you have a job?

This is one of my favorite questions to ask people who have or want to open a shop ... or any business. If an owner attaches themselves to the labor of their business, they have a job. No title or tax identity changes that. Not to sound like a complete tool, but if you own a shop and take on any of the day-to-day items like sales or service ... by 'business standards', you just have a job. A business owner's only responsibility should be focused on growth and branding. Owning a business of which you wear several hats is the number one growth stopper. If there isn't enough time in the day to follow up on what could be some great opportunities, you'll never get out of that up and down cycle.

This is also where I feel the hobby vs. business line gets drawn. Owners who prefer to make a difference from within the walls of their stores often do so because it's what keeps them motivated and/or they see it as one (or two) fewer payroll checks they have to divvy out. Many say it allows them to best serve and keep their customers ... but that only includes customers who willed themselves to go to your store in the first place.

I know 'hobby' is a strong word to use ... but would an owner be that willfully present in the day to day operations of their business if they were running a paper supply store? Would they strike up conversations about what their customer printed last week or tell war stories involving paper cuts and copier jams? ..."Hey, come look at this 32 lb weight almond paper made of imported linen!"

IBD Business owners in what was the 'Bike Industry'

So back to my statement of being an "IBD Industry." Shop owners have a lot of hard decisions to make and more often than not, overwhelm themselves. Many decided to give up because they only saw things getting worse. Most of the 'owners' I know who closed their shop were really only an elaborate employee at best because they were a manager first. In some cases, it may work out, but it is 100 percent not how the 'to grow a business' manual lays it out.

On the surface, the owner/employee role sounds like a thrifty way to start or even run a business. There are a lot of business gurus out there that make running business sound easier by resorting to laying out a plan with a bunch of bad or outdated habits based on low entry fees, first-person service, low head counts, etc. The mentality to run tight and efficient is today's poor excuse that most often results in a business's inability to nurture growth.

Changing tubes and selling bikes with a free tuneup isn't how you grow. Forget about that "right now" money and go hunt down some of that "next 5 years" money!!!

Business owners in today's IBD Industry ... You have ONE job

The IBD Industry is made up of thousands of community-based stores that have the ability to provide services far beyond their traditional means ... which will gain them huge amounts of exposure in return. Alliance marketing is one of my favorite topics. It involves forming partnerships with other lateral and local businesses who are willing to collaborate and even promote yours in exchange for the same.

STOP ...

Do not walk down the street and ask if you can leave some business cards or a countertop ad at the local gym or running store. You need to think bigger and do some old-school hustling. In fact, freshen up those roached out Vans, toss a sports coat over your shop T-shirt (or at least put on some deodorant ... this person knows who I'm talking to), and walk out the door.

If there is a bike shop, there is a 99.9 percent chance there is a community around it consisting of several other small business, associations and events. There may even be some larger companies who host a large number of events for their employees (see some examples below). A shop owner should be focused on knocking on doors, attending SBA meetings, asking questions, and finding new ways to be involved. This could include advocacy, community events, offering services to corporate wellness programs, and many other avenues.

The possibilities are unlimited so why would you limit your access to these?

Generally speaking, owners should spend two or more days a week dedicated to networking outside their shop and not just in the offseason. The best time to promote your business is when things are in full swing! I know I make this sound simple ... because it really should be.

If a shop owner is in a rut being one of two employees in their shop, well ... they're going to have to work a lot harder in order to achieve that level of growth. A common business practice in our industry is to cut corners to save money when in fact, it is likely costing what could be potential new business. Sometimes, a person will just have to say eff it, get out of the shop, and plan on doing some damage control, (that may involve coming back and working late or going in on your typical day off). If you stick with it, things will eventually level out and you'll begin to really appreciate your newfound perspective of running your business.

Competition is your friend!

I have always said, three shops working together will increase ridership in their community more so than six shops working independently. There are three competing shops around me who are great at working together. They often communicate and work together on things both have an interest in. From where I stand, it almost seems as if they are competing more on who can offer better community support than who can sell more bikes. Regardless, we have a healthy riding community that still loves to shop locally.

Bringing it all together — Branding

Once you have enough plates spinning in the air, you need to focus on bringing it all together and associating your efforts with your brand. A brand is different from a business in that it is the strategically planned out identity of your business. Holding a road ride twice a week brands you as a roadie shop ... supporting your community brands you as a pillar of that community. The best problem you could have is that your networking efforts have created a pile of opportunity requiring you to hire more help or professional outside services.

The best part, once an owner begins to nurture these efforts, they suddenly get excited . MOTIVATED even! Seeing your efforts increase the community's appreciation of your business will rewire your brain and relight that entrepreneurial fire I sure many have missed.

Stop letting things outside of your control run your business

Business 101: The structure of a business should be established so that any products or services brought in will only compliment that establishment ... not run it. Putting your trust in someone else's hands is the greatest risk an owner could take.

This is what a lot of past and current retailers are going through. Bike companies and distributors hung a super juicy steak out there making it irresistible to do business and led everyone to a level of dependency. Skip ahead to today, because those once 'dedicated' supply channels have been breached by 'outsiders', there is no more special treatment or entitlement being given to dealers. What you did yesterday or for the last 20 years does not matter to a company's future bottom line. Rather than burying yourself with how things like bad margins, MAP and who else is now selling your brand, affect your business ... focus on earning that loyalty back from your community ... one you've probably missed for a very long time.

Places you should network

I'll throw out some ideas but more so, want to spark some thought. If you have something that works, share it in the comments!

Schools & universities — In addition to NICA, find out when a local school is having a play day and offer to include a bike event. Offer a middle school a couple of bikes at wholesale to add to their PE classes. Park your mobile shop van in a high-traffic area of a university for a couple of hours each week and do repairs.

Large businesses — Most have a wellness program and LOVE when a health-related business offers to come out and give a class (we did this 25 years ago on everything from training to bike basics and maintenance). Even better, negotiate and see if a company will PAY YOU to repair or maintain their employees' bikes as an incentive to their employees staying healthy. (this is currently a thing). Help start a bike club within the company!

Small businesses — See what they're involved in, let them know what you're involved in, and find ways you can help each other out or make connections with people they know. Join or start a small business association.

Chamber of Commerce / city officials — If you sell e-bikes, take every person possible with any decision-making powers in your community, on a ride. This is how you open doors to bicycle infrastructure *bike companies may even want to help out with this so ask!

Charities — From the humane and cancer societies to helping someone local in a dire situation, find ways to be of service.

Other shops including co-ops — Get with other local shops and collaborate on how to do better on penetrating your market. If you have a co-op or shop who serves a great purpose like WeCycle Atlanta here, be a resource for them and offer anything you can to GET INVOLVED!

Churches, hospitals, doughnut/bagel shops, restaurants, rehab facilities, professional sports teams and the facilities that rehab them ... I could go on.

If it's not on LinkedIn — It didn't happen

For goodness sake folks ... polish up (ugh, or create) a LinkedIn account and list every business-related effort you do ... especially advocacy. I spelled this out a while back regarding how every person associated with an IBD should promote their professional identity to their customers. The goal should be to bring the community, your branding, and your business together in as many ways as possible to initiate and drive a more progressive way of doing business.

The funny thing is ...

In many ways, I am contradicting what I've stated in other articles. I said, in its current state, there are too many bicycle-related businesses fighting for the same dollar ... and the approach to increasing overall ridership to match what has become a bloated industry is a backward approach.

These things are still true when spoken as if there needs to be an industry-related effort to repair it. As individuals, that is not the case ... but you're going to have to wash your hands of any and all concepts related to any of your suppliers fixing things for you. If you have a business, GET OUT THERE AND OWN IT!!!

Your friendly neighborhood chucklehead — Trey

#48cm road bike #Bicycle Retailer and Industry News

0 notes

buddyrabrahams · 6 years ago

Text

Will Tom Brady retire before Drew Brees?

Tom Brady gets infinitely more attention for continuing to play at a high level at his age than Drew Brees does, which is understandable considering the New England Patriots signal-caller is about to play in his ninth Super Bowl and fourth in the past five years. However, Brady is less than two years older than Brees, and there’s a chance to latter could outlast the former.

Jay Glazer of The Athletic was asked in his mailbag this week if he could envision Brady and Bill Belichick retiring together if they defeat the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl. He said he would not rule it out, and he also predicted that Brady will retire before Brees.

“This is the first year that I can see that happening,” Glazer wrote. “I have nothing to base this on, besides a gut feeling, but I can see it happening this year. I can see it being one or the other or both. I think Brady steps away before Drew Brees does.”

Brady is 41 and will turn 42 in August. Brees turned 40 on Jan. 15. While Brady did enough to lead his team to yet another Super Bowl, Brees outplayed him by a wide margin during the regular season. In fact, the Saints quarterback’s 115.7 passer rating was the best mark of his career and the best among NFL starters.

Again, Brady has accomplished much more than Brees. But he also gets more attention for playing at a high level into his 40s because it has become part of his TB12 brand. With the way Brees played in 2018, it’s just as easy to see him playing another four or five seasons as it is Brady.

If not for one of the worst calls in NFL history, Brees would also be playing in a Super Bowl after his 40th birthday. It seems unlikely that Brady would retire whether the Patriots beat the Rams or not, but the idea of Brees outlasting him is not all that farfetched.

from Larry Brown Sports http://bit.ly/2R9Olgv

0 notes

365footballorg-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Boehm: Red cards, revenge & more of what you may have missed in MLS Week 3

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

March 19, 201810:44AM EDT

Nine games, 24 goals, two red cards and plenty to cuss and discuss across MLS – here’s a few cuts.

Run and gun

Even with a scoreless draw between the Philadelphia Union and Columbus Crew SC, fans were treated to plenty of rippling nets over the weekend. And while the sample size is small, after three weeks of play we’ve seen some teams get involved in more shootouts than others, both for better and for worse.

Most of us tend to associate Atlanta United’s high-octane attack with wide-open games like their 4-1, red-card-assisted win over Vancouver on Saturday. And indeed, all three of their games so far have featured at least four goals, leading to an average of 4.33 total goals per game. But surprisingly, the Five Stripes aren’t actually tops in this statistic.

(Yes, games involving Chicago and San Jose have averaged 5 total goals per game, but for now I’m setting aside teams who’ve played fewer than three matches.)

After outlasting the Earthquakes 3-2 at Children’s Mercy Park, traditionally-stingy Sporting Kansas City have now scored seven and conceded seven in 2018 for an average total of 4.67 goals per game. This is the same outfit that allowed the fewest, and scored the fifth-fewest, goals in MLS last season, which means that Sporting’s games have served up more than twice as many goals this year as last.

The upshot? If you like barnburners, ATL and SKC are appointment viewing right now.

Taste of revenge … or not

Probably the most fraught clash of the weekend unfolded up in Quebec, where mighty Toronto FC, fresh off their landmark Concacaf Champions League triumph over Tigres UANL, swaggered into Olympic Stadium to visit their rivals the Montreal Impact.

After losses in their first two matches under new coach Remi Garde, the home side needed a W – and after 90 minutes of frantic, end-to-end soccer, they got one, thanks to Jeisson Vargas’ deflected strike and some late defensive heroics from Michael Petrasso. Beating Toronto means a lot to anyone from the City of Saints, in just about any context, and this one was timely for the Impact.

Out at Real Salt Lake, head coach Mike Petke insisted that his team’s snowy, hard-fought 1-0 win over his former club the New York Red Bulls (via a penalty kick from yet another key VAR decision) had “zero more gratification as it would if we were playing anybody else.” But his team was palpably relieved to put last week’s 5-1 whipping from LAFC behind them.

Orlando City will have to wait a while longer for that feeling, as they remain winless on the year after a 2-0 loss at New York City FC that might’ve stung a bit extra for Lions coach and former NYCFC boss Jason Kreis.

CCL hangovers

Montreal and RSL were assisted in their ambush efforts by TFC and RBNY carrying sore legs and distracted minds in the wake of their midweek Champions League exertions. The same could be said of FC Dallas, who dispatched a beat-up Seattle Sounders side 3-0 on Sunday.

Armchair Analyst: What is your decision-making process when you’re on the break? Let FC Dallas provide you some clarity pic.twitter.com/k3EybLN2CV

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) March 18, 2018

As Armchair Analyst Matt Doyle points out, there’s no getting around the fact that CCL means a lot to most of the teams from across the region who take part, as it should. And even the most talent-laden squads in MLS and Liga MX find it challenging to maintain maximum focus and fitness for league play in between those big international games.

UPDATE: None of the 8 #CCL quarterfinalists won this weekend, after 2nd legs midweek. Combined: 0W-5L-3D, 2 GF, 9 GA.#TFCLive 1-0 LOSS#RBNY 1-0 LOSS#Sounders 3-0 LOSS#ClubAmérica 2-1 LOSS#Chivas vs #Tigres 0-0 DRAW#Xolos 1-1 DRAW#TauroFC 1-0 LOSS#SCCL2018#CCLHangoverhttps://t.co/BqYVprhF8I

— Jason Foster (@JogaBonito_USA) March 18, 2018

If FC Dallas’ 3-0 lead over Seattle holds, the 5 MLS clubs participating in @TheChampions will be 2-6-1 in league play over the first 3 weeks of the season.

— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) March 18, 2018

For Toronto and the Red Bulls, Saturday’s losses are probably a price they’re willing to pay for reaching the CCL semifinals. For the Sounders, falling to FCD just adds to the sting of their elimination at the hand of Chivas Guadalajara.

Costly red cards

Sunday’s Dallas win carries a rather substantial asterisk, mind you. Clint Dempsey’s first-half ejection – a rather petulant act of aggression to Jacori Hayes caught by VAR – put Seattle behind the 8-ball and was ultimately too much to overcome for Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer’s tired, shorthanded group. FCD were happy to exploit that gift as they worked through their own CCL aftereffects.

Another straight, early, VAR-enabled red was at the heart of Atlanta’s defeat of Vancouver. In real time, few noticed Kendall Waston’s contact with Leandro Gonzalez Pirez in the midst of a scrum of bodies in the Whitecaps penalty box on an ATLUTD set piece.

But the cameras picked up enough evidence of malfeasance to get the big Costa Rican defender sent off for violent conduct by referee Ismail Elfath, and the Fives Stripes’ loaded front line is not the sort to allow a penalty kick followed by a lengthy span of numerical advantage to go to waste. These decisions are inevitably controversial, but Seattle’s Schmetzer provided a useful frontlines perspective on Sunday.

“Well, we’ve got keep our players on the field somehow. With instant replay, we can’t do anything stupid,” he said in his halftime interview on the Sounders broadcast.

The undefeateds: Who’s left?

With many teams spending more and more both on and off the field, there’s been some fretting over the perceived decay of the league’s famed (or infamous, depending on your perspective) parity of late. Those with that perspective may wish to note that even though the season is still very young, most of the league has already tasted defeat at least once.

Only five teams have yet to lose in MLS play, and of those, only two have picked up maximum points from their games to date.

NYCFC are the early pacesetters with nine points from their first three games, a very impressive start for Patrick Vieira’s side in terms of both aesthetics and results. Expansionists LAFC are, surprisingly, 2-0. And a bit further back, Columbus, Dallas and Philly are all still unbeaten.

Your moment of zen

Finally, a quick shout for a unique outing in quiet Boyds, Maryland, where D.C. United hosted the Houston Dynamo in an interesting 2-2 draw at the Maryland SoccerPlex Saturday. This intimate venue, called into action as a temporary home for D.C. while their new home, Audi Field, is under construction, got a dusting of snow coupled with some late dramatics on the field to complete the March Madness-esque vibe:

#block-block-188 {padding:0;} #stay-connected {border-top:1px solid #ebebeb;margin:20px 0;} #stay-connected p {margin:0;color:#4d4d4d;line-height:1.5em;} @media screen and (max-width: 730px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:100%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 731px) and (max-width: 1120px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:100%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 1121px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:708px;} }

MLSsoccer.com News

Boehm: Red cards, revenge & more of what you may have missed in MLS Week 3 was originally published on 365 Football

#Boehm #cards #missed #more #revenge #week

0 notes

patriotsnet · 3 years ago

Text

Did Republicans Win The House And Senate

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-republicans-win-the-house-and-senate/

Did Republicans Win The House And Senate

The 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Close Even If Trump Is The Gop Nominee

The bottom line is that anyone who assumes Republicans are in irreversible decline in presidential elections really hasnt been paying attention.

Georgia Is Turning Blue

That has now changed – a remarkable development in the fast-growing business heart of the American South.

Election Results 2020: Control Of The Us House

Top 10 Closest Primaries: January to June 2020

Wave elections

Submit

In , Democrats gained a net 40 seats to win a majority. Republicans had held a majority in the chamber since 2010.

Cbs News Projects Mitch Mcconnell Wins Senate Race In Kentucky

CBS News projects that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has won his reelection race. McConnell was challenged by Democrat Amy McGrath, who ran unsuccessfully for a House seat two years ago.

CBS News projects Mitch McConnell wins reelection in Kentucky.

CBS News November 4, 2020

CBS News also projects that New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, has won reelection.

Hope For Biden’s Agenda