#carter decades challenge

[starandsims]

Just some aesthetic pictures of Daisy the cow - nothing else.

[historicalfictionsims]

Steggy Week 2024 - Day 2 (Headcanons and Meta)

With their promised dance being four (or twelve) years overdue, Steve and Peggy take any moment they can find to make up for it.

In my game, Steve is always the one who gets dipped. Peggy is a total backleader, since she had to teach him how to not step on her toes.

@steggyfanevents

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: The Tithing House

For decades the gang of highwaymen known as the Gallerwood Outlaws were famed and feared for equal measure, melting out of the forest to rob merchants, nobles, even mages, before vanishing back into the trees. Even after their awful deaths at the hand of a bountyhunter some years ago folk still sing of their deeds, and of the secret hideaway in which they stored their ill gotten gains.

Adventure Hooks:

Folk have been saying that the ghosts of the Gallerwood outlaws have been stalking the roads near where their bodies were hanged, still looking for one last haul. The party are tasked with investigating rumours after a fearful carter was set upon by these spectres, losing something precious in the process. This provides the excellent framing for a first adventure as each member of the party can be invested in retrieving something different out of the carter's cargo giving them a reason to work in the same direction.

As they investigate, the party will discover that these ghosts are infact local toughs who have dressed up and painted themselves phosphorescent cave lichen in order to shake down passers by. After giving them a thrashing and a Scooby-Doo unmasking, the party can retrieve the stolen goods and return to the inn for celebratory drinking. In the dead of night one of the party awakens to a shadowy figure looming at the foot of their bed, spectral face illuminated by the ghoul-light that flickers in the bowl of their pipe. Evidently the story of the party's antics has spread, and it appears one of the real ghosts of the Gallerwood wants a word.

Frauds and phantoms aside,  entirely possible for the party to stumble across the dungeon while exploring the surrounding swampland, only realizing it served as a bandit hideout after stumbling into the remnants of their camp. 

Setup: The ghost introduces himself as the late Cullen Carver, once founding and now final member of the Gallerwood outlaws. Cullen has an offer for the party, and is willing to guide them to the cache kept by his fellow bandits if they will perform for him a last request. As Cullen explains it, neither he nor the other outlaw spirits will be able to rest so long as there is no end to their tale, and there can be no end so long as the mystery of their hidden treasure remains unsolved in the common imagination.

Cullen is in high spirits despite being dead, so the party should expect some gallows humour as the hanged man leads them through the swamp's hazards, eventually arriving at the outlaw's secret base: The Tithing House, a long abandoned temple of Erathis concealed within the depths of the wilderness that's become infested with all sorts of mire creatures since the thieves met their end.

Challenges & Complications:

The Outlaws kept their treasure in the temple's crypts, and to access these the part are going to need to venture through the gauntlet of dark chambers and traps the bandits set up to keep eachother's hands out of the cookie jar. Cullen can help with some of these, but the whole point of the traps was to keep his fellow thieves honest. The only other way into the vault is through a heavily reinforced door, the key to which is currently in the possession of the bountyhunter who hung the Gallerwoods from trees in the firstplace.

While the party has the pick of spoils, Cullen points out a particular chest kept apart from the rest and calls upon them to fulfill their end of the bargain. This chest was Cullen's nestegg, put aside from numerous heists and robberies to be delivered to his wife and children in the event of his death. With no surviving highwaymen to carry out the promise Cullen's REAL unfinished business comes to light. The party can keep their word, or they can snipe the treasure for themselves, earning the spectre's undying enmity and curse to boot.

To get out of the the Tithing House the party will need to face off with a demon of avarice.. but not in the traditional form of bossfight. He'll approach just as they're leaving the dungeon, taking the form of a plump old man with a grandfatherly smile who wears the spotless robes of an Erathian friar despite the flooded cemetery in which they stand. He is all calm words and politeness, congratulating them on making off with such a fine haul and urging them to never mind that silly old ghost and his wishes, banishing Cullen beneath a nearby grave so that they can talk cordially. The Smiling Friar explains that he had a deal with the highwaymen; feeding off the greed of their crimes in exchange for concealing their hideaway and passage through the forest. There's no reason the party couldn't renew the deal, become the new band of legendary thieves, save that they'll have to forsake their ghostly guide and his last act of charity. Should they turn him down the Smiling Friar will call up the dead of the cemetery to slaughter them, clearing the way for the next band of ambitious treasurehunters.

Art 1 Art 2

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Clay Jones, Claytoonz: The new GOP mantra

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 25, 2024 (Thursday)

Momentum continues to build behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, and the national narrative as a whole has shifted.

Democrats appear to be generating significant enthusiasm among younger Americans. Yesterday, for the first time in their history, the March for Our Lives organization endorsed a presidential candidate: Kamala Harris. Students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, organized March for Our Lives after the shooting there in 2018. Executive director Natalie Fall said that the organization “will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida.”

Andrea Hailey of Vote.org announced that in the 48 hours after President Biden said he would not accept the Democratic nomination, nearly 40,000 people registered to vote. That meant a daily increase in new registrations of almost 700%.

People are turning out for Harris in impressive numbers. In the hours after she launched her campaign, Win With Black Women rallied 44,000 Black women on Zoom and raised $1.6 million. On Monday, around 20,000 Black men rallied to raise $1.2 million. Tonight, challenged to “answer the call,” 164,000 white women joined an event that “broke Zoom” and raised more than $2 million and tens of thousands of new volunteers.

Another significant endorsement for Harris came yesterday from Geoff Duncan, the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, who wrote on social media: “I’m committed to beating Donald Trump. The only vehicle left for me to do that with is the Democratic Party. If that requires me to vote for, speak for, or endorse [Kamala Harris] then count me in!” Duncan’s public announcement offers permission for other Georgia Republicans to make a similar shift. In 1964, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond similarly paved the way for southern Democrats to vote for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Harris’s appearances are generating such enthusiasm from audiences that when she delivered the keynote address this morning at the convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, Texas, the applause delayed her ability to begin. After a speech defending education and calling out the cuts to it in Project 2025, Harris ended by demonstrating that after decades of Democrats being accused of being anti-American, Trump’s denigration of the country has enabled the party to claim the position of being America’s defenders.

“When we vote, we make our voices heard,” Harris said. “So today, I ask you, AFT, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it? And when we fight, we win! God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”

Today the Commerce Department reported that economic growth in the second quarter was higher than expected, coming in at 2.8%, thanks to higher spending driven by higher wages. The country’s changing momentum is showing in media stories hyping the booming economy Biden’s team tried for years to get traction on. “Full Employment is Joe Biden’s True Legacy” was the title of a story by Zachary Carter that appeared yesterday in Slate; CNN responded to today’s good economic news with an article by Bryan Mena titled: “The US economy is pulling off something historic.”

With Harris appearing to have sewn up the nomination, the question has turned to her vice presidential pick. That question is fueling the sense of excitement as potential choices are in front of cameras and on social media advocating Democratic positions and defending the United States from Trump’s denigration. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro listed the economic gains of the past years, and said: “Trump, you’ve got to stop sh*t talking America. We’ve got to start standing tall and being patriotic and showing how much we love this amazing nation.”

The vice presidential hopefuls appear to be having some fun with showcasing their personalities, as Minnesota governor Tim Walz did in his video from the Minnesota State Fair where he and his daughter went on an extreme ride. So are social media users who have dug up old videos of, for example, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining how he would pilot a small starfighter that had lost its auxiliary shields, or Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s identical twin brother Scott pranking a fellow astronaut on the Space Station with a gorilla suit Mark smuggled on board.

That sense of fun is an enormous relief after years of political weight, and it has spilled over into making fun of the Republican ticket, most notably with a false story that vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance wrote about—and I cannot believe I am typing this—having sex with a couch. The story is stupid, but worse are the denials of it, which have spread the story into populations that otherwise would likely not have seen it.

Just two weeks ago, Vance appeared to be the leader of the next generation of extremist MAGA Republicans, but now that calculation seems to have been hasty. Vance is a staunch opponent of abortion—the key issue in 2024—and he has been vocal in his disdain of women who have not given birth, saying in 2021, for example, that the U.S. was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He went on to say that people who don’t have children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country.

Republican commentator Meghan McCain noted that Vance’s “comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian.” Actor Jennifer Aniston, who tends to stay out of politics, posted: “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States.” Vance had called out Harris by name in those 2021 comments, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff took to social media to defend Harris from Vance’s attacks on her as “childless,” calling her “a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.” Harris’s stepdaughter chimed in: “I love my three parents.”

Vance also ties the Republican ticket firmly to Project 2025. The Trump camp has worked to distance itself from Project 2025—not convincingly, since the two are obviously closely tied, but it turns out that Vance wrote the introduction for a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who was the lead author of Project 2025. The book appears to popularize that plan, right down to its endorsement of a “Second American Revolution,” and according to the book deal report, proceeds from the book will go to the Heritage Foundation “and aligned nonprofits.”

Now Vance’s words praising Project 2025 will be in print, just in time for the election. Yesterday, Trump posted: “I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 25 [sic]. The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Do not believe them!”

Trump is clearly aware of, and concerned about, the changing narrative. This morning, he called in to Fox & Friends, saying, “We don’t need the votes. I have so many votes. I’m in Florida now…and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it. Every single house…. It’s amazing the spirit…. This election has more spirit than I’ve ever seen ever before.” Tonight the Trump campaign proved their worry by backing out of debates with Harris, saying debates can’t be scheduled until she is the official nominee, although Biden was not the official nominee when they met in June.

The larger narrative shift has affected the media approach to Trump, who is accustomed to shaping perceptions as he wishes. Now, 12 days after the mass shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there is increasing media attention to the fact that there has still been no medical report on Trump’s injuries, although he wore a large bandage on his ear at the Republican National Convention and said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday that he “took a bullet for democracy.”

Yesterday, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that it is not clear whether Trump was “grazed” by a bullet or by shrapnel, words that former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance called “FBI speak for, ‘it’s unlikely it was a bullet.’”

CNN chief medical consultant Dr. Sanjay Gupta noted last week that the people need a real medical evaluation of Trump’s injuries, explaining that “gunshot blasts near the head can cause injuries that aren’t immediately noticeable, such as bleeding in or on the brain, damage to the inner ear or even psychological trauma.” But, as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has noted, much of the press has kept mum about the story.

Media outlets have reported Wray’s testimony, though, and in a social media post today, Trump called on Wray, whom he appointed to head the FBI, to resign from his post for “LYING TO CONGRESS.” Tonight, he reiterated that “it was…a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”

Perhaps eager to get back to their districts, House Republicans canceled their expected votes on appropriations bills scheduled for next week and left town today for their August recess. The House will not reconvene until early September. The government’s fiscal year 2025 begins on October 1.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[lt-natrace]

just saying

Description: your childhood best friend, bob, is getting really sick of the men you date

Content: being cheated on, mentions of the bird strike, mentions of alcohol, going through a man’s phone, little woman quotes, thinking no one will ever love you like you deserve, little bobby being hurt for like 3 minutes but i fix it, childhood best friends to lovers

Word Count: 2.8k

I wrote this for @jostystyles playlist writing challenge and it was supposed to be posted like 3 weeks ago but life happens sometimes. I chose the song just saying but specifically the lyric "he says he loves you but it's all an act". This also wasn't beta'd so any mistakes are mine and you should just ignore them.

“He just gives me a weird feeling, okay?” Bob said once again, earning an eye roll from you as you walked from the bathroom to your closet.

“Bob,” you started, causing him to look up at you, “I’m not having this conversation again.”

He let out a huff of annoyance and crossed his arms like he used when you’d fight as children. After two decades of being Bob’s best friend, he’s never really changed his habits or learned to let you make your own mistakes. Despite what everyone may think looking at your career paths, a wizzo for the navy and a freelance writer, he was the more reserved and anxious one in the friendship. Even as kids, he would be the one to ask if something was a good idea and as teenagers he would always scold you for making bad choices. It was one of the things that made your friendship work so well.

“Whatever,” he replied flatly, standing up from where he was sitting on your bed, “I have to meet Phoenix for lunch, be safe tonight.”

You gave him a small smile and mumbled out an “I will” as he turned to walk out your front door, leaving you alone with your thoughts. He was your best friend but he drove you insane with how critical he was of the guys you went out with. Bob has always found something wrong or suspicious with each of the guys you’ve dated; Jason made you cry too much, Ethan was too flirty, Zach was too old and so on and so forth. Maybe he ended up being right about every single one of them but Carter was different, seriously. He had a stable job at his Dad’s company, took you to nice dinners and the sex wasn’t bad. Despite all these facts, Bob didn’t like him. All it took was one dinner with him and Bob called you on the way home to tell you everything he thought was wrong. It didn’t matter, Bob wasn’t the boss of you and didn’t get to have a say in who you dated, even if it started fights between the two of you.

—-------

A few hours had passed since Bob left your apartment and the sound of loud banging on the front door pulled you from your research. You closed your laptop screen slightly and walked towards the door, slowly checking the peep hole to see who was waiting on the other side. To your surprise you were met with the sight of Bob, frantically fixing his glasses and trying to catch his breath. He jumped slightly as you opened the front door, letting out a sigh of relief as his eyes met yours.

 “Oh thank goodness you haven’t left yet.” He said, pushing past you and turning to face you as he got a few steps into your apartment, “I need to tell you something, it’s really important.”

You’d seen Bob shaken up many times in your life, but this was a whole new level. His hands were shaking, his face was flushed from what you assumed was him running up the multiple flights of stairs and he was pacing back and forth. You watched him for a moment, trying to take in his energy and figure out what could possibly have gotten him so worked up. He stared at you until you motioned him to speak.

“Carter,” he started and you let out a groan of frustration, “No, I’m serious, you need to listen to me. He was at lunch with some girl, she had dark hair and-”

“Jesus Christ,” you cut him off as before verifying the time on your watch, “He was probably getting lunch with a coworker or a business partner.”

“Do you hold hands and pay for business partner’s lunches?” He pushed back as he took a few more steps and began to lean onto the counter. It wasn’t until this moment that you realized how much broader he had gotten on his most recent deployment. You walked to the other side of the island and matched his motion in a sad attempt to stand your ground against him, “He wouldn’t do that to me, he loves me.” You tried, unsure of who you were trying to convince at this point.

“Do you even hear yourself right now? That douchebag has you so wrapped around his fucking finger that you would do anything to defend him, he says he loves you but it’s all an act, he has someone behind your back!” Bob snapped back, his voice suddenly taking up the kitchen. He was never one to raise his voice, especially at a woman and his actions only made you angrier.

“You know what, I know what this is about. You’re jealous,” your voice was laced with venom as you spoke and Bob let out a small laugh, “Yeah, you’re jealous that I’ve found someone I wanna tell everything to and you haven’t. I can’t be that for you forever Bob, it’s time to grow up.”

Bob swore he’d felt his heart break when he had to watch you go to prom with the quarterback or when he couldn’t find Phoenix after their ejection. But this feeling as he watched you walk away from him was worse than heartbreak, this made his stomach turn and he had to fight back the bile rising in his throat. Before you could say anything else, Bob was storming out of your apartment and slamming the door so hard you swore the hinges came off. You and Bob had fought before but never anything like this. You wanted to run after him and tell him you didn’t mean any of it but you couldn’t. Your feet stayed planted in your kitchen, the silence somehow louder than the argument that had just taken place. 

As if on cue, your phone began to ring and a picture of Carter from the last date you two had gone on flashed across the screen. For a moment, you debated ignoring it, Bob’s accusations still heavy in the back of your mind. You pushed them back as you answered the call and tried to hide the shake in your voice.

—----

It’s been nearly a month since your fight with Bob. The two of you had spoken a few times but mainly conversations in passing about your days or if the other was going out that weekend. Bob had tried to make amends a few times but you ignored every attempt, he had no right to step into your relationship and throw accusations like that with not even a grainy picture to back it up. Above all, you were upset that he put such an idea into your mind in the first place. Now you felt like you were putting Carter’s every action under a microscope and looking for a flaw in it, even if you genuinely believed he was innocent. 

You cursed Bob again as you tried desperately to see if Carter had left his location turned on. To your dismay, he hadn’t. He was supposed to pick you up for dinner over an hour ago. It wasn’t the first time he was late but it was the first time he didn’t have an excuse. He had a tough job and was usually forced to stay late at the office working on whatever he did all day. It wasn’t that you didn’t care to ask, he just assured you it was complicated and difficult to understand. Usually you’d pace for a little and then clean up a bit so it looked nice when he got here, but not this time. You sat on the couch, your heels ditched as you refreshed his location again. 

After a few more moments, you heard the spare key clicking the lock of your front door open and sprang to your feet as he opened the door. He was still in his work suit with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of expensive wine in one hand and take out from your favorite restaurant in the other. You couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed at the canceled plans after the effort you had put in getting ready but you could never turn down a night in, especially after what you assumed was a hard day on his part.

“Woman, my god you look good. If I knew this was what was waiting for me I would have told them to cancel the meeting all together.” He said as you made your way over to him and reached up to kiss his cheek, “Let me grab a quick shower and we can eat, feel free to open that bottle up.”

Usually this action would have warmed your heart but you can’t help but hear Bob’s voice repeating over and over in your mind. You’ve never been the jealous type, if someone wanted to go out and ruin what you had they could go ahead and do it, their loss. However, the sight of his phone sitting on the counter, lost under the flowers caused something to change in your mind. It’s an invasion of privacy absolutely, but what if it just unlocked when you moved it?

A text lighting up his screen pulled you from your thoughts. A picture from someone named Brett flashed across the screen. Against what you were raised to believe was right or wrong, you unlocked it. The picture filled the screen and you saw a t-shirt that you had bought him on someone who was definitely not Brett. She had dark brown hair that fell to one side and the hem was pulled up slightly to reveal black lace. You listened for a second to see if the water was still running before scrolling through more messages. Most of them were plans to meet up at some point but one in particular caught your eye. It was from almost a month ago and he was reassuring her that Bob hadn’t noticed they were at the restaurant. Your stomach turned and you held back a dry heave as you grabbed your phone to take pictures of the messages. 

You pushed back your tears as you heard the water turn off and quickly put the phone back to where it was, preparing yourself to watch his every move as you poured a heavy glass of wine. It only took him a moment to appear back in the kitchen, his suit traded for a pair of sweats and you made your way to him, holding your arms out for a hug. He put his arms around you and you could feel his gaze behind you on the counter, frantic eyes hoping to see his phone in the same spot.

“Oh honey, some guy named Brett texted you while you were upstairs.” You said as you pulled away.

He saw him tense for a moment before quickly relaxing in an attempt to not raise suspicions. He made his way towards the cupboard to grab a glass and you continued, “he said he found one of your shirts, I think it was the one I got you from that concert a few months ago.”

The glass slipped from his hands and he turned around quickly, “It’s not what you think.”

You stared blankly at him as you attempted to control your breathing and stay calm. He really thought you were stupid and would believe him.

“Not what I think?” you questioned, your voice cracking at the end, “What it looks like is while I’ve put my dreams on hold to be your housewife in training, you’ve been going out and fucking an intern while I wait at home, hoping you’ll be home before dinner gets cold.”

He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. You spoke up again before he got a chance to reply, “Get out”

His face twisted in confusion, assuming he misheard you, “What did you say?”

“I’m telling you to get out, I want my spare key on the counter now and I’ll leave your stuff at your house later.” You replied, shocked at how much you were able to hide the shakiness of your voice. In the nearly year of dating, you had never talked back to him and the shock on his face told you that no one ever had.

It didn’t take long for the anger and shock to fade into embarrassment. In fact by the time your feet felt the cool bathroom tile, a few tears had begun to fall. The sight of the makeup and outfit you spent too much time on in an attempt to impress Carter only made them fall harder. They weren’t out of sadness for the situation but instead for how you treated Bob when he tried to warn you. You stared at your phone for a moment, debating if it was too late to call him. You decided to give it a try anyways and the sight of Bob’s contact photo caused your heart to break even further as the fear that you might have ruined everything hit you. It was an old photo from college that you took as he subtly flipped you off and you wondered if the two of you could ever go back to how it was then.

He picked up on the second ring and the sound of his slight drawl caused a small smile to appear on your face, “Hello?”

You sniffled deeply and heard rustling coming through the speaker, “Are you okay?”

Before you could reply, you heard Bob’s front door slamming and his shoes hitting the pavement quickly. The call was disconnected as he got into his truck and you were left in silence with your thoughts again. You debated changing but couldn’t convince your body to get up and face yourself in the mirror.

The sound of your front door being opened a few minutes later caused you to lift your head from the bathroom floor, “Carter, I told you-” you started before seeing who had opened the door, “Bob? You came.”

“You called.” He replied, kneeling down next to you and pushing your hair off of your face. You couldn’t imagine how you must have looked, mascara beginning to smear under your eyes, your hair getting caught on your dampened cheeks. Despite this, Bob’s face didn’t falter, he only used his hands to push your hair off your face and his thumbs to wipe your cheeks. 

“You were right,” you started as you sat up slightly, your eyes unable to meet his, “I feel so stupid.”

Bob’s body tensed, his jaw clenching as he wrapped his arms around you. This isn’t the first break up Bob had held you through and at this point, it won’t be the last. Despite all the times your exes had tried to get Bob out of your life, he has always been there to pick up the pieces they left you in. 

“I’m scared no one will ever love me,” you whispered so quietly, if it wasn’t for your head against Bob’s neck he probably wouldn’t have heard you. 

You felt Bob’s breath hitch at your admission and another wave of embarrassment washed over you. It was a thought that circled your mind but it was usually late into the night after Carter had turned his back to you and he thought you couldn’t hear him texting on his phone. Bob didn’t say anything for a few minutes and the pit in your stomach only grew. Eventually he spoke, his voice nearly as quiet as yours.

“I have loved you ever since I have known you”

His words hung in the air for what felt like an eternity. His once calm heartbeat was now pounding against yours as the two of you stayed holding each other on the cold tile. The embarrassment and anger from earlier faded to anxious butterflies as you sat up straight to look into his eyes. Half of you expected to wake up and be laying next to Carter, all of this having been a dream. But there he was, the man you have loved since you were a teenager, admitting he felt the same in his spiderman pajama pants. 

Bob cut you off as you opened your mouth, “I’ve waited far too long to tell you and I know this is horrible timing and if you don’t feel the same that’s fine but I have to tell you before I lose you to someone-”

“Shut up,” you mumbled before closing the small gap between the two of you. The kiss was light and slow, unlike any other man you’d ever been with. There was no rush to go to work or get into bed, just this moment and you were determined to make it last.

The two of you sat in a comfortable silence for a while, both trying to absorb the events from the night. Eventually Bob helped you up from the ground, wiped the smeared makeup off and helped you into bed. Not the first time he had done so but the first time it was followed by him crawling in next to you and holding you close. 

[homenecromancer]

comic by Tim Kreider; here’s the full text of his Artist’s Statement for this one:

I had already turned in my cartoon Friday afternoon when, Saturday morning, I read the news that Reagan’s health was failing. I began drawing immediately. I have had a rough draft of this cartoon ready for this occasion for years. As the day continued I kept getting e-mails and text messages from friends excitedly anticipating the Gipper’s impending death. Finally Steve, with whom I have planned for over a decade to hold a party on the day of Reagan’s funeral, called me from the track, where he was betting on the Belmont Stakes, to tell me that the old bastard was finally dead. He reported that there had been a perfunctory Moment of Silence, lasting approximately 1.6 seconds, before everyone went back to betting. It was beautiful. As the afternoon went on I got a flood of congratulatory calls from friends around the world—Ben in Boston, Megan and Mike in New York, Berkeley in Baltimore, even Allison in Bulgaria. I e-mailed this cartoon into the City Paper around seven P.M., begging them in the name of our sweet lord and savior Jesus Christ to stop the presses and please run this Wednesday, and then headed down to Baltimore to drink tiny beers and watch The Big Lebowski. The Reagan party will be held at my house this weekend.

Perhaps it may seem insensitive and unpatriotic to some for me to run such an ugly cartoon at this time of national mourning. To those of you who hold this view, I must respectfully say fuck you. Some of my younger readers may not even remember Ronald Regan’s presidency, and I would not want them to be misled by the onslaught of state propaganda they’ll be subjected to this week. Calling him the Great Communicator is like calling Hitler the Great Negotiator, and if we’re going to credit him with winning the Cold War we may as well credit him with the Challenger disaster and the return of Halley’s Comet. Let me tell you what it was really like:

Even at age twelve I could tell that Jimmy Carter was an honest man trying to address complicated issues and Ronald Reagan was a brilcreemed salesman telling people what they wanted to hear. I secretly wept on the stairs the night he was elected President, because I understood that the kind of shitheads I had to listen to in the cafeteria grew up to become voters, and won. I spent the eight years he was in office living in one of those science-fiction movies where everyone is taken over by aliens—I was appalled by how stupid and mean-spirited and repulsive the world was becoming while everyone else in America seemed to agree that things were finally exactly as they should be. The Washington Press corps was so enamored of his down-to-earth charm that they never checked his facts, but if you watched his face when it was at rest, when he wasn’t performing for anyone, you could see him for what he really was—a black-eyed, slit-mouthed, lizard-faced old son-of-a-bitch. He was a bad actor, an informer for McCarthy, and a hired front man for a gang of Texas oilmen, fundamentalist dingbats, and right-wing psychotics out of Dr. Strangelove. He put a genial face on chauvanism, callousness, and greed, and made people feel good about being bigots again. He likened Central American death squads to our founding fathers and called the Taliban “freedom fighters.” His legacy includes the dismantling of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the final dirty win of Management over Labor, the outsourcing of America’s manufacturing base, the embezzlement of almost all the country's wealth by 1% of its citizens, the scapegoating of the poor and black, the War on Drugs, the eviction of schizophrenics into the streets, AIDS, acid rain, Iran-Contra, and, let’s not forget, the corpses of two hundred forty United States Marines. He moved the center of political discourse in this country to somewhere in between Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet. He believed in astrology and Armageddon and didn't know the difference between history and movies; his stories were lies and his jokes were scripted. He was the triumph of image over truth, paving the way for even more vapid spokesmodels like George W. Bush. He was, as everyone agrees, exactly what he appeared to be—nothing. He made me ashamed to be an American. If there was any justice in this world his Presidential Library would contain nothing but boys' adventure books and bad cowboy movies, and the only things named after him would be shopping malls and Potter's Fields. Let the earth where he is buried be seeded with salt.

as of today, Ronald Reagan has been in Hell for twenty years

[jackiequick]

Jennie Rue Woods — Marvel’s Timeless Gal 📝

MARVELOUS AU — Auntie JJ

Full name: Jennifer Ruth Underwoods

Other Identity: Jeanie Woods

Nicknames: Jen, Jennie, Jeanie, Jean, Ruthy, Rue, JJ, Dollface, Barbie, Quinnie, Fefe

Age: 28–32 (87 years of age)

Birthday: June 30, 1923 (Cancer)

Height: 5’5 (5’7 in heels)

Occupations: Waitress, Coffee Girl, SSR Sectary, Agent, Widow, Mama Bear, Assistant

Alias: Alexa Bowmen, Paige McKenna, Jacquline Stark, London Holloway, Olivia Erhart, Eliza Pearson, Emily King, Barbra James Scott, Ashlee Lance

Family:

- Parents, Alexander & Fran Underwood (dead)

- Older Sister, Dolores Marie Underwood (dead to her)

- Sister, Peggy Carter (the big sister she never had)

- Brother Figures, Jack Thompson & Daniel Sousa (her boys)

- Howard & Maria Stark (her found family)

- Anthony Edwards Stark (her nephew #1)

- Rei Stark ( #1 godchild )

- And list goes on!

Relationship status: Single, but has dated and been engaged once

—————

Personality: Jen is a sarcastic goofball with a heart of gold despite all the crap she been through in life. On occasion she is spirited, stubborn and determined. Not just that, she’s quick-witted with a sharp tongue. However she is very kindhearted, a little slow at times but she’ll get there, she can get distracted very easily at times and motherly to those around her.

Due to being on her own for a good part of her life, she ended up being observant and trying to be resourceful. She has a knack for getting information without raising suspicion and being sneaky for the most part.

Style:

Evie has a vintage and classy style, often seen in 1940s-inspired dresses, with a touch of modern flair. Her wardrobe reflects her independent spirit and love for classic fashion. Even as she progresses over the decades she stays with a simple yet gentle sense of fashion as a way to blend in with the crowd.

Skills:

Proficient with weapons, particularly guns.

Basic combat

Previously worked as a nurse during WWII, honing her medical skills.

Quick thinker, adapts well to challenging situations.

Handle a control panel

Design and disguise

———————————————

—Background:

Jen grew up in a decent sized house with a Russian father and a Italian-American mother, along with her older sister Dottie. When it came to both children, their parents loved them both the exact same.

However, behind the smiles and glittering eyes on both daughters held an small rivalry that over time.

Dottie was always the one-upper of the pair, acting like she knew more and always one step ahead of everything. Hell, Dottie enjoyed having her nose in her young sister’s business, ignoring her most of the day, parenting her like she was a second-mother and treating her sister, Jen, like a pest that she couldn’t stand.

But Jen wasn’t far behind either, as she rather enjoyed sometimes sticking her nose in older sister’s business, taking her sweater without asking and bugging her with whatever new thing she was obsessed with at the moment. The difference was that Jen knew her limits, as she held a fear behind her smile when it came to Dottie, often intimated by her status and rude attuned attitude.

It didn’t help that both ladies couldn’t be more different when it came to their interests.

In result, it often led to plenty of bickering, fighting over every single thing possible and barking off more than they can chew.

However, it all came to a sudden pause when their father Alexander was overseas with Dottie to Russia saying they had business to attend to. Her mother only simply nodded and hugged them both watching them drive away, before entering the house to continue her daily task, asking Jen to follow behind.

The girl was confused on the matter and questioned the trip later that night. Her mother, Fran, simply told her that Dottie was one of the few girls signed off to train and becomes a skilled fighter.

Saying that one day, Jennifer might get her turn to do the same but the young blonde refused the idea. She rather stay home, be a kind young lady, fall in love, paint all the gardens in the fields and learn what she needs to in America. She visited Russia before, as she always found it to be colder and unassuming to her likely.

Whatever Dottie was doing, Jennifer wanted no part of it.

Thankfully, with a small sigh, her mother agreed to her dreams and kissed her cheek.

Years later, Jennifer would learn what her sister was doing and fought to not follow the same path. She had to desire to become a skilled fighter in Mother Russia and train to be become an assistant to The Red Room. But faith had other plans, as her parents promised her to do a trail run, live in Russia and educate herself into getting certificate of achievement.

Just for a few short months. 3 months.

With a deep sigh and small grunt, she did so as promised. In The Red Room, she was made to watch videos on culture, read books, take any notes and practice her knowledge on what she already knows. Not just that, Jennifer was brought in to take up a couple of activities such as dance, carefully handle weaponry, learning basic combat and drive a vehicle, if she ever needs to hot-wire and getaway.

Jennifer wouldn’t admit it but a small part of her enjoyed watching the women in those rooms all move in one single motion like trained dancers, ready to performance for a show on stage, and she was in the front row getting a glimpse of the sight.

She looked over her shoulder as a tall shadow took behind her, she gulped assuming it was one of the teachers ready to shout in her face for sneaking out of her bedroom this late in the afternoon, but instead it was her older sister.

“What?” She grunted out, spinning to face the taller blonde.

The tall blonde held a slinging smirk, “Nothing. Like what you see?”

“You’re new high ponytail or the performance?”

“Both, Fefe.”

“Don’t fall me that. What do you want?”

“Just want to know if my baby sister is enjoying it here?”

“You mean having my wrist cuffed to the bed, being held in a isolated room twice a week with no windows and a locked door? Oh yeah, I love it.” She repiled with a sarcastic tone.

Dottie grinned, “And having me here as a upper classmen.”

“Yeah…that. When are you gonna realize you’re just as insane to enjoy this, Dot? You love it here and actually find it trilling. I don’t.”

“Oh, Fefe, when are you gonna realize that with this opportunity you can be just like me? With grace and perfection.”

“That’s my point. I am not like you and I will never be like you. And when my time is up, I won’t be seeing you ever again.”

And Jennifer was right.

She was out of the building soon enough, in hopes to keep her head down and never have to be stuck in a place like that again. But Dottie did warn her as a hard heavy threat, one day, they will try and offer you a deal, snatched her up and order her to work for them.

Jennifer grunted and hoped with her luck, she wouldn’t. However, as lucky as she was with never being dragged there again, she did have Dottie reappear later on her life once or twice just for add measure…

—————————————

📰~The 1940s~ 💡

Plenty years past since those 3 sleepless months within that building and Jen couldn’t be more pleased with herself to be blessed to see a new path her way.

She was living in New York City, Queens as a waitress and painting on the side. She enjoyed painting the city skyline, the people in the park and her favorite flowers whenever possible. She was what many called her, a cartoonist. And her job wasn’t so bad either, yes the clients can be rude and annoying at times, but she made it work.

And her uniform was her biggest perk of her job. The simple teal-blue dress, her white headband, brown flats and her cute pins over her apron.

It was good, also with the fact she clocked out early to visit the fair, as everyone was there to see all the new attractions, men getting tested to see if they’re qualified for the war, people going dancing and much more. One evening, she found herself reading the newspaper wondering the fair, enjoying the sights, getting a drink and eventually standing in the crowd to see the main attraction.

Howard Stark. The Expo.

Little did she know that the man on that stage would change her life, by becoming apart of it.

She laughed, awed and smiled during the show. Even catching glimpses of his young sibling on stage, who eventually joined him.

She looked over her shoulder noticing a ‘help wanted’ signed stamped over a couple of posters, removing one of the tickets and followed to the small building to see what can could apply for. It seemed with the war going on, they need volunteers to help nurse the men on the field and inside buildings. Jennifer thought for a moment, onto her decision but then realized that it was worth it to help the good wanting to men serve their country.

Two weeks laters, she was working as a volunteered nurse. She got tested, signed off and given new uniform to wear. When a certain doctor asked for her name, it seemed like he missed heard it, as he wrote down a different name under her paperwork.

Instead of Jennie Underwood, he put down ‘Jeanie Wood’.

Jen didn’t know if it was on purpose it or not, but it taken her by a surprise at the name. The last person to give her a similar name like that was her 5th grade English teacher, yet she wasn’t complaining. She liked it, a lot.

And if she had to admit, she enjoyed it more than she expected, making friends with the other nurses, checking on the vitals of men and women, along with cleaning their wounds. It’s also when she met Miss Margaret “Peggy” Carter, who came in to recruit some nurses for an experimental program to help out the war, as she was handpicked to do so.

To say, Peggy Carter wowed Jen was an understatement. The women was kind, fierce, charming, witty, a little sassy, had a stronghold on her role here and cared for others. It surprised her how Peggy took a liking to her during those days spent on the job.

That same week, she met Howard Stark as he was preparing for the super solider experiment that she was apart of. The moment Howard met her, he was dazzled, in awe and flirting with the blonde. That was the first time Jennie ever actually blushed and smiled, turning her face to hide her blush from Howard’s darling compliments and witty comments.

Howard simply smiled at her blushing and went off to finish preparing his equipment for the day, before offering to buy her lunch. His tongue accidentally slipped nicknaming her ‘JJ’ for short. Jennie hesitated as she removed her gloves after preparing the equipment and serum with the other nurses needed for tomorrow. One of the nurses nudged her to say ‘yes’ as Jennie just smiled and nodded, following the brunette out the door.

The following day, she met Steve Rogers, as she was there helping to performance the processor and watching the man transform from a skinny kid to a tall solider. But the cheers and awes were cut short as Dr. Erskine died, causing Jennie to remove a gun off the table aiming at the person who fired the shot, but missed by a close second as the man ran out the door. Before she can get a second to blink, Steve and Peggy raced out the door to follow him. Jennie stayed behind to help, get Dr. Erskine to a more comfort position and calm down the crowd.

After that whole event, things were put back into swings as the war went on, Steve became Captain America serving his country, Peggy was brought to help, along with Howard and Jennie to do their part in serving for the better of their playing field.

Once again, she was given a slight change of clothing instead of white, it was light browns and a dark brown jacket to watch.

Jennie was put to work, not as a volunteered nurse, but a someone who helped with the design and coordinates for any trips. She put her skills to some use, which made her smile. Soon enough, the war ended per say in some victorious cheers and others in sorrows for the ones they lost.

When Steve Rogers went down in the plane, after speaking to Peggy on the radio as their side of the speakers cut to static, Jen was the first to enter the room and pull the English brunette into an tight embrace.

———————

💭 ~Meetings and revisiting the past~📑

Once the war ended, Peggy and Jen stayed friends, keeping Howard in touch of course. As both were brought to working in New York City at The SSR (which would later on become SHIELD), Peggy worked at an assigned sectary despite her endless response to her being able to do more. Daniel Sousa saw more in her, which made the women smile at the thought and respect she got from him.

Meanwhile Jen didn’t mind it being the coffee girl/assistant at the SSR, basically a sectary with a nicer name. It gave her a flexible schedule most days, other days she was spent working later hours at her desk.

Thankfully she had Agent Jack Thompson to keep her company, despite his personality, the man saw Jennie as a little sister whenever she entered the building. As if he wanted to shield her from harm and have her stand back from the tough stuff, even through she reminds him that she seen men come back from the war wounded or worse.

Jack would sometimes buy her burger if they knew everyone was gonna be working a late night. He would often bicker with her and Peggy as the English women rolled her eyes, but Jen would respond by saying that it seems like Thompson has a crush on Carter. Which results in Peggy chuckling at the blonde women.

Things were going fine until Howard Stark was wanted for crimes against the country, recruiting for Peggy to help find the truth and prove him innocent. She even entrusted his butler Edwin Jarvis to asset her with the investigation.

In which Jennie met while she was getting herself coffee one morning at the diner where she used to work as a waitress, ordering Mr. Jarvis a coffee.

Mr. Jarvis smiled and thanked for, offering to pay for her donut as an exchange. They soon became friends after that. Little did Jarvis know that Jennifer would become good friends with his lovely wife, Ana, too.

Jennifer didn’t want any to be thrown too far into the mix of things, as she eventually joined to the two Brits on their investigation.

Especially after the plot thicken, she started to be thrown in for a loop as The SSR all visited Russia and reunited with The Howling Commandos, finding themselves in a building that once held many men and women who were spies.

The beds with handcuffs, weird therapists, scientists and much more on that visit to Russia. At one point, Jen froze as she stayed rubbing her wrist at the sight, as it took A Howling Commando to drag her out of the rooms. Hell, some of their own agents froze at the sights, meanwhile others stayed strong during the fight.

On the plane ride home, Jen started to let Peggy in on why she froze, but not everything, as Peggy held the blonde close. Jen was given flashbacks to those 3 months in Mother Russia, the trips she went on and how during the war she remembered the men she had to nurse coming home lost to confused.

But the biggest punch to the grunt was when she saw her older sister on the streets of NYC, under some false name living at The Griffith Hotel for Women, pretending to be some new lady here and wanting to go sightseeing. It made her sick, especially since Dottie got closer to Peggy and watched her baby sister from afar, with sneaky eyes to see her next move.

That’s when everything made sense to Jen.

Dottie was here undercover working for someone who was framing Howard Stark and having everyone turn against the man. Peggy didn’t fully believe Jennie at first when she came in with her claims, Jack Thompson nor Daniel Sousa did either, but soon enough the truth came into full force.

As one could imagine things took a turn for people at The SRR, as they close in on Howard Stark, the true enemies are revealed and much more to everyone involved. As they planned to draw out the real threat, The Leviathan.

But it goes awry when Dottie Underwood distract the agents while Stark is kidnapped, as her boss uses hypnosis to make Howard drop as gasp he invented called “Midnight Oil” to onto Time Square.

Thankfully with Jarvis’s help, they all found them just in time. Jack Thompson and Daniel Sousa handled The Leviathan, who’s name was Johann Fennhoff. Meanwhile Jennie, Jarvis and Peggy handled Dottie, while also trying to convince Howard to not drop the gas over Time Square.

To say Dottie was excited to see her sister again in full swing and having a thrilling fight with Peggy was an understatement.

However this time, Jennie wasn’t too frightened to fight her sister again, as she found strategy and strength in herself to be more confident. It was a bigger perk, that this time around, she had Peggy who was more than intrigued to battle Dottie after their last encounter.

In the end, things were brought to light, they defeated Dottie (who escaped), the right people were imprisoned with scheming with Zola and everyone was given a chance to breath once again.

But like always, life for Jen didn’t stop there as she moved to Los Angeles for her next adventure…

————————

🦅~The 50s—60s~ 🕰️

In 1956, things were looking swell for Jennie as she was working for SHIELD in Los Angeles as an agent. She had her own office, meetings scheduled, kept designing models, going out to dinners and the occasional trip for sizable missions.

She discovered she had a little love for the unknown, collecting items, designing, doing presentations and going on trips to report new things back to SHIELD headquarters.

She was the one to design the SHIELD logo and style of the front over the years after all. Her and Howard liked with idea of an eagle with spread wings.

-> Eagles with its keen eyes symbolized courage, healing, hope, vision, resilience and most importantly strength.

However one late spring night, everything flipped on it’s head for Jennie. It was one of their agent’s bridal shower and she was invited to join in the celebration, free drinks and food, of course she was coming.

Yet, she was soon about to regret that trip.

She was driving home in one of SHIELD’s invented cars, that was had a working mentor that connected to the battery phone. She was on the phone was Jarvis’ wife, Ana, talking about how wonderful her weekend was, crossing a simple long bridge, when a light shower of rain started to fall from above. It wasn’t anything unusual, the weather did call for a light shower that weekend, but what took her by surprise is the springing dose of snowflakes.

“Uh, Ana, I’ll have to call you back…” She said, hanging up the phone and hanging it back where it belong.

It was simply magical to such a sight, however it went from beauty to a beast wanting the snowflakes became a slamming balls of hail hitting the car as she started to carefully hurry along the bridge. However the road soon became dangerous, causing her to swirl off the path and hitting the railing as her car went flying and smash into the water.

The faint sounds of the phone could be heard, ringing with a voice on the other end as the car drowned into the large body of water. In the car, Jennifer was silent with bruises and cuts all over her body, her forehead held a large cut that was covered by blood.

Her breathing stopped as her heartbeat slowed down in seconds, her core body temperature dropped greatly. At that very moment her heart stopped beating.

At 8:55pm, a blot of lighten struck the car. The volts of electricity impact was more than strong enough to reset the heart into a clear rhythm. Jeanie Woods—Jennie Underwoods body slowly lifted from the lower end of the car to regain its awareness. Her head rushed to the surface, jolting out of her anoxic state, causing her to draw her first breath in 4 minutes.

Cough and breathing heavy, Jennie regain memory of recent events, using all her skilled strength within her to carefully climb out of the car, knocking the side door open capturing the cool air that surrounding her.

She breathed heavily, spreading outside of the side door and swimming forwards to the surface, finding a pot of greenery in the cold depths of the night. Once she climbing onto the grass, rolling over as she let her back hit the grass such a reliving impact. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened it once again to watch the snowy sky fall onto her cool skin.

Well, she was screwed.

Thankfully she crawled onto her feet and found the nearest gas station, entering a phone booth to call Jarvis to pick her up. And being the good friend he was, the man arrived with a blanket as well, bringing to his house to stay the night. She explained to Jarvis the accident, planning on trying to recall everything she could remember to have it on record of that night and how the car was totaled in the process, but the man didn’t care as long as she was safe and sound.

As the years went, she credited her appearance to a healthy diet, often exercising, skin care, good genes and just plain luck. However actions was required only months laters when she was pulled over for a minor traffic infraction.

“Ma’am, it says here that you were born in 1923.” Said the officer.

“That’s right, officer.” She repiled with a kind smile.

“That would make you 40?”

“Yes. I look young for my age.”

“Ma’am I might have to hold onto this.”

The two talked by the man didn’t look so convinced, asking to come by the station tomorrow if possible and to bring her birth certificate.

That’s when she knew she needed to start packing, calling up family and making a few adjustments to her life. That’s when she moved back to New York City for a while, keeping her job within SHIELD, but taking up studies for medicine to research her condition, talks with other scientists.

But they all slowly came to the conclusion that it seems like there was no results for her condition, despite the records, recalling of events and etc.

It happened again where officers would stop the women and question her appearance, age and name. Even tried to take her into the station, as she would always do what she must to get out of it, even call up a friend for witness.

Packing up once again, making a couple of whole calls and planes to drive off somewhere off the grid of neither New York or LA, she found herself in San Diego instead. Making sure that Peggy, Howard, Jarvis and their friends know what to do, if anyone contract them, remove any records and to do something about the officers who taken her originally.

In result, Jennie Woods went on to change her name, keep her files close to her chest, residence and appearance the best she could every decade. And to never speak a true word of her fate to answer living soul (unless they were family of course).

To her relief, as the years went on things calmed down and she was less frequently questioned, however she would get wondering eyes at work.

——————

——————————————————————

🐤~Auntie JJ~ ���

-> May 29th, 1970 her nephew Anthony Edward Stark was born.

The day she held that tiny will soul in her arms, she knew she would love him til her dying days. She would take care of him, spoil the boy, and make sure he knew he was loved, even if she wasn’t there everyday to see him.

And that she did.

In the 70s, Maria and Howard knew they would need a pair of helping hands, aside from Jarvis, as they offered for the women to live with them. And of course, she said yes.

Jennie was there every step of the way and she loved it. Watching Tony grow up, taking his first step, first words, teaching him to read and write. Hell, when he was old enough, Tony would draw her so many drawings that she hang up in her office showcasing her godson’s work.

There were plenty of days and nights where neither of his parents were around as work and events took up their time, so in result if she was free, Jennie would do it.

“..’So after Lisa sewed on the missing button, she gave Corduory a big hug.’ The End. Now it’s time for my little bear to go to sleep.” She said closing the book with a smile.

Usually the 7 year old would give her a sleepy remark but after the long day he had, he decided against it. He rolled onto his side getting comfy.

“Auntie JJ?” He yawned in his small voice.

“Yes baby?” She asked standing up and putting the book back on his bookshelf.

“Would you always love me like Lisa love Corduroy?”

Jennie paused what she was doing as a small smile appeared on her lip at the question, she turned out and kneeled over the bed, placing a hand above Tony’s small cheek. Her warm touch smooth his worries.

“Of course I will, bubba” She replied and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

He smiled in returned, “Can we have pancakes tomorrow?”

“We will have to see. But first night night.”

“Night night.”

She gave him one more smile watching as his eyes closed, pulling his blanket closer. When she knew it was clear to leave, she gently closed the door behind her and escaped to the living room to watch a rerun of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Midway through the episode, she paused the taping and through back onto what Tony asked her earlier. She looked down at her lap, playing with the throw pillow in hand and sighed deeply. She knew why he asked that question, with his parents getting busier as the day goes by, especially at such a young age, it makes sense Tony would wonder if the adults in his life still love him.

And she meant what she said earlier, this unconditional love she has for her nephew is true. She adores that tiny little troublemaker, even if she sometimes drives him nuts, it’s one of the reasons she cares for him. He’ll keep on learning , as time slips through her fingers watching him grow up.

She knew she will be always try to be there for him, even if she’s in a different city, she’s only one call away.

And she was right.

Tony’s auntie JJ is there for him every time she can be. The smallest moments and his biggest. His graduations, his first true inventions, taking him out for ice cream, reading him bedtime stories, making him bacon on his birthday, the two of them sneaking off to watch movies late at time and the list goes on.

Hell, if she’s in the same room and near by, JJ is there to poke and pinch Tony when he says something he isn’t supposed to. Which results in him yelling a small, “Ow!” As she’ll give a smile in return or a certain look to tell him to quit it.

There are moments that his aunt JJ would have a date pick him and Tony would try to question his intentions with his aunt. Little did she know her godchild Rei would be the same way in the future. Every single one of her dates biggest haters.

———————

—Likes:

Mysteries, romance and detective novels

Waking up late

Coffee (of course!)

Classic movies from the golden era & sitcoms

Vintage fashion and style

Baking

Jewelry

Design

Painting & Drawing

Donuts

The sun setting

—Dislikes:

Narrow-mindedness

Cold coffee

Being underestimated or misjudged

Chaos in the house

Being underdressed or overdressed for an event

Sitting still for too long

Big Crowds

Closed spaces

Horror movies (however she enjoyed CW’s Supernatural)

Hiking

Fast rides

—Languages:

- Fluent in Spanish and English.

- Russian and Italian

- And some French

——————-

—Additional information:

- Jennie has a couple of scars, some small and some are a little big

- She tends to wear reading glasses or sunglasses at a lot

- You can sometimes find her on the couch wearing her earbuds listening to her favorite songs or binge watching a series on her IPAD

- As said before she likes jewlery, so in result you can find her wearing rings, earrings and sometimes necklaces. Such as her charm bracelet she got as a gift back in the 80s from a old friend

- She has traveled a lot over the years, sometimes she been a place more than once or even lived there. As well, as she met a couple of likely faces too

- Due to trying to keep up her energy and stamina levels, when it came to changing her appearance Jennie always tried to have a little fun. Such as dying her hair different a color, giving herself a new haircut, buying statement pieces that seemed timeless and testing out makeup to make her blend in with the crowd

- When it comes to makeup, she tries to keep it rather simple (she used to wear a lot of over the years but it resulted in some acne)

- When she’s under stress or filled in anxiety while in public spaces, she tends to play with her nails, add pressure to her inner palm, rubbing her wrist, wipes her sweaty palms on her jeans and etc

~~~~

~~~~~~

—That’s all folks! I wanted to add more detail about her but then it would’ve been wayyyy too long of a ride 😅

Anyways pls let me know what you think! Remember to like, comment and share

Tags: @gaminggirlsstuff @gcthvile @missstrawbs2001 @cherrysft @xgoddessoffandomsx @rickb-chaos @starkleila @infinetlyforgotten @meiramel @sherloquestea @parisparker269 @djs8891 @buckysteveloki-me @yetanotherwells @nakiaswg @carellmcu @ximehs

[warningsine]

Venezuelan security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday at protesters challenging the reelection victory claimed by President Nicolás Maduro but disputed by the opposition and questioned abroad.

Thousands of people flooded the streets of several neighborhoods of the capital, chanting "Freedom, freedom!" and "This government is going to fall!"

Some ripped Maduro campaign posters from street posts and burned them.

AFP observed members of the national guard firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, some wearing motorbike helmets and bandannas tied over their faces for protection. Some responded by throwing rocks back.

Maduro, 61, attended a meeting Monday at which the National Electoral Council (CNE) certified his reelection to a third six-year term until 2031.

He dismissed international criticism and doubts about the result of Sunday's voting, claiming Venezuela was the target of an attempted "coup d'etat" of a "fascist and counter-revolutionary" nature.

But opposition leader Maria Corina Machado later told reporters that a review of voting records available so far clearly showed that the next president "will be Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia," who took her place on the ballot after she was barred by Maduro-aligned courts.

The records showed a "mathematically irreversible" lead for Gonzalez Urrutia, she said, with 6.27 million votes to only 2.75 million for Maduro.

The elections were held amid widespread fears of fraud by the government and a campaign tainted by accusations of political intimidation.

Pollsters had predicted a resounding victory for the opposition.

In the early hours of Monday, the CNE said Maduro had won 51.2 percent of votes cast compared to 44.2 percent for Gonzalez Urrutia.

The opposition cried foul, prompting Attorney General Tarek William Saab to link Machado to an alleged cyber "attack" seeking to "adulterate" the results.

'Another fraud' 

The outcome sparked concern and calls for a "transparent" process from the United Nations, United States, European Union and several countries in Latin America.

The CNE has not provided a detailed breakdown of the result.

Allies including China, Russia and Cuba congratulated Maduro.

Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old former diplomat, on Monday acknowledged the deep discontent in society with the CNE results and vowed that "we will fight for our liberty."

Machado assured Venezuelans that "the leaders of the world" are validating the results, and called families to turn out Tuesday for "popular assemblies" nationwide to show support for a peaceful transition of power.

Nine Latin American countries called in a joint statement Monday for a "complete review of the results with the presence of independent electoral observers."

The US-based Carter Center, one of a few organizations allowed to bring observers into Venezuela, urged the CNE to immediately publish detailed polling station-level results.

Brazil and Colombia also urged a review of the numbers while Chile's president said the outcome was "hard to believe."

Peru recalled its ambassador and Panama said it was suspending relations with Venezuela.

Caracas hit back Monday, saying it was withdrawing diplomatic staff from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay for "interventionist actions and statements."

'Bloodbath' warning 

Independent polls had predicted Sunday's vote would end 25 years of "Chavismo," the populist movement founded by Maduro's socialist predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chavez.

Maduro has been at the helm of the once-wealthy oil-rich country since 2013. The last decade has seen GDP drop by 80 percent, pushing more than seven million of its 30 million citizens to emigrate.

He is accused of locking up critics and harassing the opposition in a climate of rising authoritarianism.

In the run-up to the election, he had warned of a "bloodbath" if he lost.

Ballots were cast on machines that sent electronic votes directly to a centralized CNE database.

The machines printed out paper receipts that were placed in a container and counted by hand as a backup measure meant to be open to public scrutiny.

The opposition had deployed about 90,000 volunteer election monitors nationwide.

Economic misery 

Sunday's election was the product of a deal reached last year between the government and opposition.

That agreement led the United States to temporarily ease sanctions imposed after Maduro's 2018 reelection, rejected as a sham by dozens of Latin American and other countries.

Sanctions were snapped back after Maduro reneged on agreed conditions.

Venezuela boasts the world's largest oil reserves but has seen severely diminished production capacity in recent years.

Most Venezuelans live on just a few dollars a month, and endure biting shortages of electricity and fuel.

Economic misery in the South American nation has been a major source of migration pressure on the southern border of the United States, where immigration is a major presidential election issue.

(AFP)

[gcthvile]

Ellison Stark

Name: Elisson "Liz" Stark

Age: early 20s in WW II, 101 in modern world.

Birth date: August 15, 1922.

Birthplace: Small town in New York

Height: 6'1

Sexuality: Bisexual

Background

Elisson "Liz" Stark was born into the renowned Stark family, known for their wealth and ingenuity. Growing up in the shadow of his older brother, Howard Stark, Liz was constantly surrounded by innovation and technological advancements. From a young age, Liz demonstrated a natural aptitude for engineering and invention, much like Howard. The two brothers shared a close bond, often collaborating on various projects and missions.

During World War II, Liz joined forces with Howard, his best friend Jennifer, Peggy Carter, and Captain America to combat Hydra and other global threats. Liz played a crucial role in developing advanced technology and strategies that helped the Allies gain the upper hand in many battles. Despite the dangers, Liz's courage and determination never wavered.

In 1945, during a high-stakes mission, Liz made the ultimate sacrifice. To save his team and thwart a Hydra plot, he fell into freezing water, which led to his preservation in suspended animation. His selfless act was instrumental in the mission's success, but it left his loved ones believing he was lost forever.

Decades later, Liz was discovered and revived by SHIELD. Disoriented by the vast changes in the world, he found solace and purpose in continuing his fight for justice. With the help of SHIELD and a certain blonde, Liz adapted to modern technology and resumed his work as an inventor and strategist.

The Stark brothers

Elisson and his older brother Howard were more than just siblings—they were partners in mischief and innovation. Growing up in a household where curiosity was encouraged, they spent their days tinkering with gadgets and dreaming up wild ideas.

Howard always saw something special in Liz's knack for problem-solving. He made sure Liz was right there with him in all his experiments, treating him like an equal rather than a kid brother. Their bond was a mix of respect, trust, and good-natured teasing.

As the protective big brother, Howard pushed Liz to chase after his wildest dreams, while Liz never failed to challenge Howard's assumptions and add his own twist to their adventures. Together, they were a dynamic duo, balancing each other out with their different strengths and quirks.

Jennifer Underwood

Back in the 1940s, Elisson "Liz" Stark and Jennifer hit it off right from the start as SHIELD agents working alongside Howard Stark. Bonding over their shared thrill for adventure and danger, they became inseparable. Liz admired Jennifer's quick wit and charm, which always added a bit of fun to their serious missions. Despite Jennifer's mischievous side, Liz trusted her deeply, knowing her heart was in the right place. Jennifer, in turn, made sure Liz stayed safe and provided him with emotional support when needed.

As time marched on into the modern era, their friendship only grew stronger. Jennifer helped Liz navigate the complexities of new technology, taking on a protective role akin to Howard's. She was there for him when he emerged from suspended animation, offering unwavering support and guidance. Their bond, built on mutual respect and trust, stood the test of time.

Liz valued Jennifer's loyalty and kindness, while Jennifer cherished Liz's sharp mind and determination. Their playful banter and deep connection remained a constant and essential part of their lives over the decades.

Personality

Elisson Stark is a man of exceptional intelligence, resilience, and determination, honed by his upbringing in the innovative Stark household. Encouraged to explore his intellectual capabilities from a young age, Liz developed a sharp mind and a thirst for knowledge. Known for his resourcefulness, creative problem-solving skills, and strategic acumen, he excels in high-pressure scenarios.

Liz is not just a thinker but also a skilled operative, proficient in hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, and espionage. His experiences as a SHIELD agent and in the war effort have endowed him with enhanced physical capabilities, including superior reflexes, agility, and stamina.

Despite his formidable abilities, Liz remains humble and occasionally struggles to ask for help, reflecting his self-reliant nature. Adjusting to the modern world after emerging from suspended animation can be challenging, causing him to sometimes feel disconnected due to the significant time gap. His strong sense of duty and mission-focused mindset can lead him to prioritize tasks over personal relationships, occasionally displaying stubbornness and headstrong behavior.

Driven by a deep commitment to protecting the innocent and fighting for justice, Liz's compassionate heart extends fiercely to his loved ones, especially his brother Howard Stark. His nurturing nature goes beyond familial ties, always ready to lend a hand to those in need.

In summary, Elisson Stark is a brilliant, adaptable, and compassionate individual. His intelligence, resilience, and unwavering sense of justice make him a formidable force for good, striving to positively impact the lives of others with both his sharp mind and caring heart.

hope you guys like the male version of Elizabeth Stark!

@missstrawbs2001 @jackiequick @blueboirick @cherrysft @meiramel @purpleprincessonfyre @ask-missparker @askstevella @therealdaydreamstark @rickb-chaos @luna-d-marsh @gaminggirlsstuff @marvelsfavoriteuncle

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lawrence Hurley at NBC News:

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Tucked within a Gothic-style building on campus in this small town is a Catholic institution increasingly exerting conservative influence on the Supreme Court: the University of Notre Dame Law School. The school counts among its former faculty Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who swapped the faux-medieval halls of one institution for the neoclassical marble columns of another in helping form the 6-3 conservative majority on the court. In a trend that started before Barrett’s appointment but has accelerated since, the school is now having success placing both students and professors in prestigious Supreme Court clerkships. The clerks serve one-year terms and play a low-profile but crucial role in advising their bosses on which cases to take up and how to rule on them. They do research, help craft decisions and serve as sounding boards for the justices.

The nation’s elite law schools — particularly Harvard and Yale — have dominated filling clerkships at the Supreme Court and educating the lawyers who went on to be nominated to the court for decades. In the competition for students and prestige, law schools have worked to propel their students into clerk jobs. Conservative criticism of academia, particularly targeting the nation’s elite universities, has grown, presenting an opening for more conservative-minded schools to gain prominence with a more conservative court. Hiring clerks from law schools steeped in the prevailing conservative thinking known as originalism — a philosophy often frowned upon in more liberal-leaning law schools — ensures that the justices who hire them have like-minded aides who have been armed by their professors with novel legal approaches on the most pressing issues. Originalist theories have underpinned some of the court’s biggest rulings in recent years, including the decision that overturned abortion rights landmark Roe v. Wade and others that have controversially expanded the right to own firearms.

The relationship produced by Notre Dame faculty helps seed conservative legal theories. Professors are also involved in crafting litigation that can make its way before the court dealing with causes that are popular on the right, such as those encompassed by the term “religious liberty.” Several Notre Dame professors, for example, filed briefs in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case urging the justices to overturn Roe. One of those briefs, filed by a retired Notre Dame professor, John Finnis, was cited by conservative Justice Samuel Alito in the 2022 ruling. Separately, the school’s religious liberty clinic has cases before the high court, including one pending appeal urging the justices to endorse a taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma in a direct challenge to the separation of church and state. The exchange goes both ways. Justices, mostly conservatives but at times liberals too, have become frequent visitors and guest lecturers at the school, which prides itself on being a safe space for conservatives. Within the last two years, Barrett and fellow conservative Brett Kavanaugh have both been on campus, as has liberal Justice Elena Kagan.

[...] “Half the American people could be characterized as conservative. Half the legal profession can be characterized as conservative. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with being conservative. It’s normal. It’s normal everywhere except for in the legal academy,” he said.At some other law schools “it is a badge of dishonor” to have any conservatives on the faculty, which does not serve students well, he added. Among the Notre Dame faculty are well-connected conservative husband and wife duo Richard and Nicole Garnett; O. Carter Snead, known for his scholarship opposing abortion rights; and William Kelley, who clerked for the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and served in the administration of President George W. Bush. Several other professors clerked for conservative justices. “I’m happy that we’re one of the few law schools in America that doesn’t openly discriminate against conservatives,” Cole said. He also expressed pride in Barrett’s achievements. He was among a Notre Dame delegation that was present at a celebratory Rose Garden event at the White House when then-President Donald Trump announced her nomination amid the Covid-19 pandemic just before the 2020 election. Opinions vary on just how conservative-leaning the law school is, with current faculty and some students saying it is ideologically diverse and some former professors and students saying there is a clear tilt to the right.

[...]

‘Cream of the crop’

Each of the nine Supreme Court justices hires four clerks a year. It is considered the most prestigious post a recent law school graduate can obtain. “These are considered the cream of the crop, the best in the legal profession,” said Aliza Shatzman, president of the Legal Accountability Project, a group she formed to help improve transparency in the clerkship process amid concerns about workplace bullying and harassment. During the year, the clerks work on all the biggest cases before the court on issues like abortion, guns, voting rights and LGBTQ rights. Once the clerkship is completed, the clerks are in high demand in the legal profession, with big law firms offering eye-popping signing bonuses. Many clerks go on to high-profile careers, whether in corporate law, academia or in some cases politics. Later in their careers, they are often earmarked as potential judicial appointees. Of the current nine justices, six clerked at the court, as have several prominent senators, including Republicans Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

In the coming nine-month term that officially starts on Monday, two recent Notre Dame Law School graduates, Kari Lorentson and Elizabeth Totzke, are both clerking for Barrett. And two law professors from the school, Christian Burset and Patrick Reidy, the latter of whom is a Catholic priest, are clerking for justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, respectively. They are following in the footsteps of four other Notre Dame graduates who clerked at the high court in the last five years, all for conservative justices. Two other Notre Dame professors also clerked at the Supreme Court in recent years, both with Gorsuch, who appears to sometimes favor hiring academics to work for him. In an appearance at Notre Dame last year, Kavanaugh spoke about what he looks for in his clerks. “It’s got to be people who are comfortable with my general approach,” Kavanaugh said. “I have had two spectacular Notre Dame law clerks. They just worked so hard.” Nicole Garnett, a longtime Notre Dame professor who clerked for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and is a longtime friend of Barrett’s, chairs the school’s clerkship committee. In an interview, she downplayed connections with the conservative justices.

“I think that drawing any conclusions about Supreme Court clerkships is probably a category error because it’s such a needle-in-a-haystack, lightning-strike kind of thing,” she said.In 2023, Notre Dame was ranked fourth in the country at placing students in clerkships at all levels of the court system. Overall, Notre Dame ranked 20th in the most recent U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. The traditional elite law schools dominate Supreme Court clerkships, with many justices hiring clerks from the same law schools they themselves attended and maintaining close links with faculty members. About two-thirds of clerks come from five schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Chicago. Barrett, who graduated from Notre Dame Law School, is the only member of the current court not to have a law degree from Harvard or Yale. Within that context, Notre Dame is scrapping with other law schools for the remaining clerkships and has performed well. In the last five years, more graduates of Notre Dame Law School have been clerking at the high court than from many other high-ranking law schools, including Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Another conservative-aligned law school that is making inroads is George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia, which has also placed some graduates in Supreme Court clerkships. While Supreme Court clerkships are the most sought-after, similar roles with federal appeals court judges are also important, in part because many people who later obtain clerkships at the high court have previously worked for a lower court judge. Notre Dame is making inroads on that front too. Of the most recent graduating class of 187 students, about 20% moved on to clerkships of some type.

The University of Notre Dame’s Law School has gotten increasing prominence in recent years, as the courts have gotten more conservative, especially the Supreme Court.

[starandsims]

Florence is a precious little girl, she loves the simple things in life: hugging her brothers, playing with the rocking chair, chatting with the chickens, and pretending to help Mama cook dinner.

[historicalfictionsims]

Steggy Week 2024 - Day 5 (Inspired By)

This scene is inspired by @roboticonography's story Except Perhaps in Spring, in which Steve and Peggy find themselves pretending to be engaged during a chance encounter with Peggy's ex-fiancé Fred.

The story is very entertaining, and I highly recommend giving it a read. As I was going through to get my visual inspiration, the Howling Commandos' teasing banter made me chuckle.

What wasn't nearly as funny was trying to get nine Sims to sit down at the same time. It's trickier than herding cats! To make matters worse, thanks to the romantic boundaries update Peggy thought that she saw Steve cheating on her, and wanted to break up with him. Meanwhile Steve was feeling proud of himself for staying loyal to Peggy. Needless to say I did not save the game after this...

@steggyfanevents

[vintage1981]

Space: 1999 Stars Barbara Bain & Nick Tate Goes Board Documentary About Sci-Fi Show’s Legendary Spacecraft

Actress Barbara Bain, star of the British sci-fi series Space: 1999, is preparing to board an upcoming documentary about the Eagle, the famed spacecraft at the heart of the show that ran from 1975-1977.

Bain will appear in The Eagle Has Landed as will Nick Tate, her cast mate from Space: 1999. The documentary includes the participation of several other notable figures: Apollo XVI astronaut Charles Duke Jr., Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Bill George (Blade Runner, Star Trek), and Brian Johnson, the VFX artist on Space: 1999 whose work is said to have influenced Star Wars. The film is being directed and produced by Jeffrey Morris, who also hosts the documentary. 

The Eagle Has Landed “explores the cross-generational impact of the iconic vessel” in the series that also starred Martin Landau. According to a press release, the film “showcases never-before-seen archival footage” and will be released in time for the 50th anniversary of Space: 1999’s debut, in 2025.

“Space: 1999 appeared on TV a few short years after the world watched Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon,” Morris noted in a statement. “The show’s unforgettable Eagle inspired a generation to envision a future in space and is still doing so decades later. The question we explore is ‘why?’ What is it about this imaginary craft that has captured and held imaginations for nearly 50 years?

Morris’s FutureDude Entertainment is producing the documentary in partnership with Zero Point Zero Production Inc. Anne Marie Gillen is a producer on the project, along with Morris. The film is written by Morris and Fredrick Haugen. Morris is represented by Espada Entertainment.

Space: 1999 ran for a total of 48 episodes, with Bain and Landau in all of them as, respectively, Dr. Helena Russell and Commander John Koenig (the actors were married to each other at the time; they had previously co-starred together in Mission: Impossible).

The show revolved around the denizens of Moonbase Alpha, scientific researchers living on the moon whose existence was threatened by a nuclear explosion, which rocketed the moon out of Earth’s orbit. Tate, an Australian-born actor, played pilot Alan Carter on 42 of the show’s 48 episodes. Originally, his character was to be killed off in the premiere episode, a casualty of the nuclear explosion, but producers Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson liked his work and expanded his role.

“Hovering above the Moon in one of Alpha’s Eagle spacecraft, Alan Carter is an observer to this holocaust, watching helplessly as the Moon spins out into space,” according to a synopsis published by the Catacombs.Space1999.net website. “Sacrificing his only chance to return home, Carter decides to give chase to the runaway Moon, joining his friends on the endless intergalactic journey.”

Tate told the website, “I didn’t have to dig too deeply with this character. Alan Carter was all the things I was as a young man: friendly, happy-go-lucky, someone who loved adventure and accepted a challenge.”

Ian McShane, Joan Collins, and Leo McKern were among actors who appeared in single episodes of Space: 1999.

[twistedtummies2]

Top 12 Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come

It’s funny how Christmas Eve sees us covering arguably the scariest and most unnerving of the Three Spirits of Christmas, at the end of our journey through some of the side players for Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” The irony is almost hilarious. I speak, of course, of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a.k.a. The Ghost of Christmas Future. The Third Spirit is interesting in that he’s arguably the most well-remembered and exciting of the three ghosts: he’s the dark and brooding payoff on Scrooge’s journey, and getting through his section of the tale - the most gut-wrenching chapter of the entire story - is a challenge for the audience, especially for younger viewers or readers. While the black cloak the Ghost wears in the book symbolizes the shadow mystery of the future - emphasized by the fact the Spirit never speaks, and only the tiniest gestures and nuances give away any indication of its thoughts or feelings - it has never been lost on anyone that the visual representation very closely resembles the iconography of the Grim Reaper. What’s interesting about the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come is that they have honestly changed the least out of all three Ghosts in how they’ve been visually represented over the years. While there have been some minor changes here and there, most versions of the character stick with the same visual basics of a dark figure in a black hooded robe, with only their hands - or even just one hand - visible. Yet, at the same time, along with Christmas Past, the Spirit of the Future is one that artistic people LOVE to toy with in various ways, from more simplistic to more wild concepts, which creates a sort of paradox. You can always tell which Spirit is meant to be the Future in every good take on the Carol, but it’s always fun to see the little additions and changes each rendition brings to the table. There’s not much more to say (fitting for a typically mute character), so let’s just jump right in: in honor of Christmas Eve (still ironically), these are My Top 12 Favorite Portryals of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come!

12. Charlie B. Barkin, from An All Dogs Christmas Carol. (Purely for the sheer INSANITY of this one. That, and the song he gets is catchy…yes, he sings. I told you it was insane.)

11. Czeslaw Konarski, from Scrooge (1951). (While simplicity can be used to great effect, I feel this one is a little TOO simple, hence why he takes a lower tier. But he’s still quite impactful.)

10. D’Arcy Corrigan, from A Christmas Carol (1938). (This version has such a great entrance, just for a start.)

9. Robert Hammond, from Scrooged. (Further proof this movie is basically “A Ghostbusters Christmas Carol.”)

8. Tim Potter, from A Christmas Carol (1999).

7. Paddy Stone, from Scrooge (1970).

6. Pete, from Mickey’s Christmas Carol.

5. The Version from Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

4. Jim Carrey, from A Christmas Carol (2009). (Really cool concept having the Spirit act as Scrooge's literal shadow. They did something like that many decades before in the 1935 version, but it's way better here.)

3. The Version from The Muppet Christmas Carol. (Puppeteered by Don Austen and Robert Tygner.)

2. The Version from A Christmas Carol (1971).

1. Michael Carter, from A Christmas Carol (1984). (I love the detail on how, as the sequence goes on, the ghost gets closer and closer to Scrooge, symbolically showing how his future is getting ever nearer.)

[cy-gogglin]

Welcome to Johnny Cash’s world of whiskey, sin and lyrical doom

Johnny Cash is a Mount Rushmore figure in American music. He had a voice as deep and ancient as the wellspring from which his folk and country heritage sprang, and a face that might well have been carved from a mountainside. Across seven extraordinary decades as a recording artist, from his debut single Hey Porter (1955) to his 67th and final album American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), Cash wrestled with love, hate, crime, punishment, forgiveness, redemption, death and salvation. He was the God-loving sinner who could deliver his most famous line, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”, with the same conviction he brought to a gospel spiritual.

“I have a feeling for human nature in difficult situations – don’t know why, but I always have,” Cash told me during an interview in 2003, the year before he died at the age of 71. We spoke via a transatlantic phone call, and I can still recall the thrill of hearing him come on the line with the four words he’d uttered at thousands of concerts: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” That famous gravel voice was instantly recognisable, if a little shaky with age. When I asked him whether, looking back over his long life, he had any regrets, he laughed. “None that I’d really like to publicise. I don’t cry in my beer – or milk, for that matter.”

Cash was then in the midst of a late-career flourish, releasing a series of stripped-back albums produced by Rick Rubin. More than just a coda to a rollercoaster career, the American series framed Cash as an immensely complex figure, embodying and embracing the many contradictions of being human. “Truth is what ties it all together,” he told me of his vast recorded output, almost all of it featuring sparse productions that made no concessions to fads. “I never thought about doing it any other way except the simple, straightforward bare-bones way that felt right in the beginning. It carries my message in the song without a lot of adornment. I try to keep it down to earth – play it as it lays and say it as it is.”

Standing 6’ 2”, and with an incomparable gravitas, Cash was a big man in every sense of the word, and it takes a big book to do him justice. The Life in Lyrics is a proper doorstopper, a large-format hardback of 374 pages that weighs in at 4.5 lbs. Structured partly chronologically and partly thematically, it attempts to tell a life story in songs and pictures, packed with 125 lyrics – from the 600-plus Cash composed – plus hundreds of photographs, handwritten letters and memorabilia from his personal archive.

Cash with his son John Carter Cash in the mid-1970s - White Rabbit

The photos are glorious. In shots from 1969, a year in which Cash saw off the challenge of Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel to be named the biggest-selling recording artist in America, his hands are bony and rough-skinned, testament to a poor childhood spent picking cotton and fights. His face looks whip-thin and dust-blown, brow deeply furrowed, eyes sunken and haunted. Those were his wild, mean days of amphetamines and whiskey. “I always thought somebody was trailing me,” he told me in 2002. It may have been the ghost of his beloved older brother Jack, who died, aged 12, in a horrific chainsaw accident. “I probably never did get over it,” Cash admitted.

But he certainly worked through it. Among the classic songs that Cash composed, and are reproduced here, were the deathless romantic ballad I Walk the Line, the bitter confessional Folsom Prison Blues, the epic Big River, the tragicomic flood narrative Five Feet High and Rising, the careworn lament Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, and the stark protest song All of God’s Children Ain’t Free. At their best, Cash’s lyrics are carefully wrought, with the basic structures and rhyming schemes of folk poetry underpinned by rough-hewn wisdom, sharp observation and quick wit. His signature song, The Man in Black, from 1971, remains an enduringly powerful statement of empathy for his fellow man: “I wear black for the poor and beaten-down / Living on the hopeless hungry side of town.” 

These songs were written to be sung, however, and in The Life in Lyrics, without that inimitable voice to sustain them, their essential simplicity can appear trite. The accompanying text, written by authorised Cash biographer Mark Stiepler with dewy-eyed contributions from Cash’s son John Carter Cash, is informative but hagiographic, with a tendency to exaggerate achievements and gloss over failings. Cash’s brave 1969 anti-Vietnam war song, Route 1, Box 144, which describes a dead American soldier being returned to his family, may offer genuinely touching commentary, but is it really “the greatest argument for peace ever devised”?

There’s also an unfortunate tendency to brush over or excuse the darker elements of Cash’s life, the drug addictions, infidelities and appalling behaviour – despite the fact that these gave his music so much depth. The 1964 hit Understand Your Man is a song of spectacular bitterness directed at his soon-to-be ex-wife Valerie while he was already having an affair with future wife June Carter, yet it warrants only a brief, glib paragraph. I could have done with fewer stories about the deeply pious impulses behind Cash’s gospel hymns, and more tales about, say, the time he smashed every crystal chandelier in a hotel lobby in a drug-fuelled rage over his amorous rejection by a friend’s widow. The Man in Black accepted the darkness within him: it’s a disservice to try to whitewash his image now.

As well as being a songwriter, Cash was an interpreter who could make a song completely his own, but this aspect of his art is inevitably missing from a book of his lyrics, so there’s no commentary on such Cash hits as Ring of Fire, A Boy Named Sue, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, Highwayman or his definitive cover of Hurt (originally by the industrial metal group Nine Inch Nails). We do, however, learn of the genesis of one of his last and finest songs, the mysterious, apocalyptic The Man Comes Around. Composed in 2000, it was apparently inspired by a dream about Queen Elizabeth II, who told him: “Johnny Cash, you’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.”

In the last song Cash wrote, Like the 309, he imagined being carried away by a heavenly train, and viewed it with anticipatory relish: “Take me to the depot, put me to bed / Blow an electric fan on my gnarly old head.” As we reach the end of this mighty book, with the cumulative impact of Cash’s sincere words, the photos of his creased face changing over the years, his clear and consistent love for June and family and, indeed, his fellow man, the final pages become incredibly moving. Blind and weakened, Cash awaits his inevitable end, still embracing life with humour and pathos. 

When I spoke to him that day, he was stoically suffering ill health, and in such constant pain that, having kicked his pill addiction, he was required to take painkillers just to function. Yet, when I asked what was the best advice he had ever received, he didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t sleep with your whiskey bottle by the bed,” he said, laughing deep and low. “That’s a piece of advice that has probably kept me alive this long.”

Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics is published by White Rabbit

Story by Neil McCormick || The Telegraph

[whumpsmith-participates]

Whumptober 2024

Day 3 - Set Up For Failure / Venom

Tags/CW: slaiden, snakes, medical, fainting, homophobia (as in, characters have to do a lil bit of lying, no one's being actively phobic), age gap (immortal and mortal),

Going on safari for their honeymoon seemed like the perfect idea when they were gathered around a table with their groomsmen and women. The weather in New York had been getting gradually colder and colder, and a safari would be nice and warm and it was on both their bucket lists — Might as well cross that off while they were still young.

It wouldn't be without its risks and challenges, though. None of the countries that had decent safari parks and events were particularly supportive of same-sex relationships, let alone a marriage. But they didn't want to let that hold them back. So their rings were returned to their ring bearers, they booked a lodge with separate beds, and they came up with a simple cover story that they could easily stick to when asked any questions.

They weren't expecting any trouble. After all, it was supposed to be two weeks of glamping with the opportunity to photograph some wildlife. All the while pretending to be college mates rather than husbands, which wasn't too difficult, considering one of them was studying the exact subject that the other had been specialised in for decades.

Dr. Douglas Slade McLaughlann had been alive for about 200 years or so, and active as a doctor during most of those years. His husband, Aiden Carter, was born this century and still in med school. He was never quite sure how he managed to fall in love with a 200 year old man, but he was very glad that he fell in love with an experienced medical practitioner, since he seemed to be a walking magnet for trouble.

Not even their honeymoon was safe.

The first couple of days had been fine. They had the staff fooled about their relationship, though the other couples kept giving them cheeky looks, and they enjoyed a short walking safari before taking a day to recover. They still had to get used to Kenya's temperature, and Aiden managed to get stung by a scorpion during the walk.

Luckily the sting hadn't had any ill effects, and they could relax and enjoy a tour in the back of a car, which took them past a herd of zebra, and a troupe of lions stalking them. Not quite the great migration, nor quite National Geographic, but still awe-inspiring.

"They're going to love all these pictures back home," Aiden said, looking through his camera roll while Slade was hogging the bathroom, getting ready for bed. "It's weird that I can't just pick up my phone and text."

"We specifically chose this camp for the lack of wifi, Love" Slade reminded him, "but then again, I suppose you grew up always having access to the internet."

"Not really," Aiden said, "back at my parents' ranch, only dad's desktop had access to the internet. We didn't have wifi, and I didn't have a phone or laptop."

"Oh good, so you know the world won't end if you disconnect for a couple of days," Slade said.

Aiden rolled his eyes, putting the camera to charge for tomorrow. He sat down on the edge of his bed, stretching a bit before turning his pillow over. Something shot out. He wouldn't have even seen it if it hadn't moved. But now it was already too late. He felt a sharp pain on his wrist, right underneath the back of his hand, and he pulled away so fast he nearly pulled the animal with him. It flopped on top of his blankets, and began slithering away.

"Crap— Slade?!"

Hearing the tremble in his voice, Slade stood outside the bathroom in a second, his face half-covered in shaving cream. He looked at Aiden, clutching his arm, and the snake that was now slithering off the bed.

"Och, Love," he said, "arite, sit down. Stay calm. Keep an eye on that snake while I get help."

Aiden sighed, reluctantly sitting down in the chair on the opposite side of the room, pulling his feet up just to be sure. The spot where he was bitten was beginning to burn, as if someone was dripping pure acid onto the wound, eating slowly away at his skin.

"...I'm afraid I don't know what kind of snake it is."

Aiden released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding as Slade returned with one of the camp guides. The snake in question was trying to escape into the bathroom, while the camp guide went after it with a shovel. Aiden tried not to think about that image too much. He focused on Slade instead, who seemed to have acquired a first aid kit while he'd gone off to get help.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, "hot? Cold? Weight on your chest?"

"Hgn...hurts like a bitch," Aiden replied through gritted teeth.

"Arite, just breathe. I've got you," Slade said, kneeling down next to him and gently prying his good hand off of his wounded hand.

The two little puncture marks were clearly visible on his wrist, the skin around in very red and somewhat swollen.

"Do you have antivenom or something?" Aiden asked, trembling slightly.

"There'll be antivenom on the ambulance," Slade said, "in the meantime, I'll have to clean this."

"Oh Lord," Aiden said, "it burns, Slade, it really hurts."

"I know," Slade said, "but I have to treat it."

Aiden groaned, but Slade was right. He always was. So all he could do was to try and tough it out while Slade cleaned the wound. Even when he didn't touch it it hurt, and when he did touch it, it hurt even more. After cleaning the wound, Slade pulled out a sharpie and drew a circle around the redness, checking the time on his wristwatch before scribbling that on his skin as well.

"Arite, now let's cover that up so it stays clean," Slade said.

"...do you have to?" Aiden asked.

"I'm afraid so," Slade said, "just keep breathing."

He gently pressed a piece of gauze over the wound, before beginning to wind a bandage around, and finally pinning it in place with two small clips.

"There," he said, "just rest it on the table, that should minimise the pain."

"Don't they have advil here?" Aiden asked.

"The general advice is to not take any pain relieving medication until you've been treated at hospital," Slade said, "just try to stay calm. I'll come with you and after you get the antivenom we can probably get back to the camp."

"You don't think it's deadly, then?" Aiden asked.

"It's nothing fast-acting from the looks of it," Slade said.

Aiden seemed relieved, finally following Slade's advice and actually trying to stay calm. The response time of the ambulance wasn't exactly what they were used to, but it still wasn't too long of a wait before they showed up, looked at the snake that lay decapitated in the bathroom, and after some debate they finally gave Aiden a jab of antivenom, before explaining that he had to come along to hospital to treat the bite wound properly.

Slade arranged to follow with one of the camp guides, so that they'd have a ride back and somewhat of a translator. Frankly, the whole ordeal was over before they knew it, yet it felt like it had been a really long night by the time they made it back to camp.

Aiden's hand was bandaged up more thoroughly, their bathroom had been scrubbed clean, and Slade was tasked to check their beds before Aiden felt like he was able to get comfortable.

"Does it still hurt?" Slade asked, while turning over every inch of the bed to check for snakes.

"It's more like a really persistent itch," Aiden said, "I dunno what they gave me for the pain, but I'm about ready to pass out."

"Well, thank goodness," Slade said, "we were very fortunate that you didn't get bitten by a snake with anything neurotoxic."

"Yeah but chance for necrosis isn't fun either," Aiden said.

"We'll just keep an eye on it," Slade said, "at least necrosis is something I can treat."

"Lord..." Aiden grumbled as he carefully got into bed.

The next morning, Slade was up early as usual, while Aiden more than deserved to sleep in for a change. He was never much of a morning person, while Slade had no qualms to rise with the sun, or even before, and he found it a waste to sleep the morning away. Not this morning, though. This morning he just kissed his husband on the cheek before leaving the room to get an early breakfast.

When he was nearly done eating, sitting back with a cup of coffee and contemplating whether he should eat that second croissant or leave it for Aiden, his husband in question already came stumbling towards his table.

"Ah, morning, L— Aiden," Slade said, nearly slipping up.

"Hey." Aiden just said, sitting down with a groan and resting his injured hand in his lap.

Slade looked him over for a second, before pouring him a glass of water and sliding it over. Aiden wordlessly grabbed it, taking a couple or large sips.

"How'd you sleep?" Slade asked.

"I slept." Aiden said, with a shrug.

"And how do you feel?"

"Like I want to chew my hand off," Aiden said, "it's sore, and it hurts, and it itches."

"Do you want me to take a look at the wound?" Slade asked.

"Inside," Aiden said, "I also got this rash, and I feel like I'm having some kind of horrible hangover, but not from drinking— You don't think they gave me the wrong antidote, right?"

"Antivenom," Slade corrected, "and let's look at the wound before drawing any such conclusions."

However, as they got up to head back to the room so they could redress the wound and talk about the symptoms without putting anyone off their breakfast, Aiden suddenly collapsed, taking half their table with him before Slade was able to catch him.

"Good god— Help!"

Note: written before switching to AI-less Whumptober prompts.