#comport recordings

[muzaktomyears]

[Ron] Ellis is a keen observer. A man who understands the nuances of human behavior, he was, even as a young man, fascinated by the dressing-room behavior of artists, which in the case of the 1963 Beatles was telling. He saw them backstage twice: once in Southport and then at the Odeon in Liverpool for the group's triumphant Christmas concert in December 1963. It was there that he finally delivered the records [which they had previously ordered] to John, George, and Ringo. "And when I went in, they were all in the dressing room and Paul McCartney was mincing about, imitating Brian Epstein, "Oh, 'ello Brian," and this sort of thing, taking the piss out of him. George was a quiet person; John was very pleased to get his records; Ringo was, well, let me tell you what happened. Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas were on the bill at the time and they'd hidden Ringo's polo sweater. And they made him crawl around the room and beg before they'd give it back to him." "They... liked him?" I ask. "Oh yeah, they were just joking with him, you know? So I looked at McCartney and I thought, "This is somebody who's on a different level." John was in it, you know, for the laughs and the music and the birds and everything. Ringo was enjoying the ride... he was lucky; suddenly he'd a national star, you know? John loved all the music and fun, but you felt McCartney's on a different level here - he's a businessman, playing as a musician. That's the impression I got. He was very supercilious. I think he can see the big picture. He can see what's going to happen to the Beatles, and he wants to be in there making sure he controls it." (...) The sense of Paul's quiet ambition and manipulative powers were shared by both Beatles press officers, Derek Taylor and Tony Barrow, who play a pivotal role later in this saga. But my own dressing-room experiences, in 1964, were different. Paul never grimaced in my presence. In fact, he 'cracked up' at some of my questions. He did, by his comportment, show an aversion to any sort of controversy. He treated Epstein with respect in public, but privately complained to John whenever he believed Epstein was too controlling.

When They Were Boys: The True Story of the Beatles’ Rise to the Top, Larry Kane (2013)

[aurora-daily]

Aurora: “We have this golden opportunity to truly understand each other beyond religions, cultures and how we look, but we choose to fuel our fear against each other”

An interview with AURORA for Hot Press by Riccardo Dwyer (June 24th, 2024)

There’s an ineffable air of Teutonic mysticism surrounding Aurora Aksnes – an Aurora-aura, if you will. Raised in a small municipality near Bergen, Norway, her elfish appearance, rare humour and all-round quirkiness have led some to cast the 27-year-old as a kind of Nordic folklore character turned chart clambering sensation.

Perhaps this hyperborean categorisation is deepened by her appearances on Frozen soundtracks and John Lewis Christmas ads, as well as a fan-made Wiki site which contains enough hyper-linked lore to make the creators of Skyrim blush.

It’s easy to see why Aurora’s attracted so many dedicated Warriors and Weirdos (her affectionate label for her fanbase). In addition to her one-of-a-kind comportment, she’s released three glorious, genre-meandering albums which artfully zero in on some of life’s biggest quandaries – from inner conflicts to questions about a deity.

Her fourth opus, as anyone shrewd enough to spot the mentions of ‘Blood’, ‘Skin’ and ‘Mind’ in the singles leading up to the project will know, suggests a thematic direction towards us, mere Homo Sapiens.

“With every album there’s one specific thing that really inspires and intrigues me,” Aurora acknowledges. “This time, it’s man’s relationship to man. It’s all about your relationship to your own organs, and how you listen to what they’re trying to tell you, especially the heart. I’ve been reading a lot about the history of anatomy and the abilities we give each organ, and how that varies depending on the era and country.”

The title of the LP is at once a statement and an enquiry – a cry for civility in a world seemingly devoid of compassion and a marker of the artist’s own anatomical reflections. It’s probably best to let Aurora explain all that good stuff though. So, then, What Happened To The Heart?

“That is the question,” she nods. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I’m very overwhelmed by the state of the world. We have this golden opportunity to truly understand each other beyond religions, cultures and how we look, but we choose to fuel our fear against each other. We’ve been given the chance to be connected more than ever, but we fail to connect in the right places.”

The golden opportunity for connection – the internet, and more specifically social media – is central to the rampant evaporation of love.

“When I was younger and the internet first came about, I remember trying to understand what it could mean for people,” says Aurora. “None of that happened. Porn and gaming happened instead. We haven’t really made it as far as we all might have expected.

“We see and hear each other, but we don’t feel each other with our hearts. We still let these heart-breaking things happen, we’re watching people in Palestine lose their lives for no reason. We should be on a path forward to a peaceful world, but it seems like we’re heading in the opposite direction.”

This, Aurora suggests, is a result of our human tendencies being exploited by the binary overlords.

“We talk into echo chambers in real life, because we surround ourselves with people who are similar to us, so we don’t often get challenged,” she reflects. “Then we have the internet, which is based on algorithms, so we end up in echo chambers there as well. It’s like the world doesn’t want us to learn from anyone else with a different opinion or to interact with people who oppose us, and that’s something that really scares me.”

UNITY AND LOVE

The issue of climate justice also permeates the record. The origins of What Happened To The Heart? are in fact rooted in environmentalism, after a call to change led Aurora to pose the record’s titular question.

“Indigenous leaders of the world joined together and wrote a letter, ‘We Are the Earth’, basically pleading with leaders of the mass-produced world to lead more with their hearts and less with their minds,” she explains. “The way we live is so heartless and cruel. We take whenever we can. And if we’re not forced to apologise or pay for it, we won’t.

“We will gladly let the people of the future pay for what we’re doing now. And we will gladly let someone far away pay for the clothes we wear, or the food we eat. We know that things are wrong, but we still just go along with it. That’s how the world is today. It’s a weird dynamic to live in as a human, because I don’t know what else I can say. It blows my mind to realise how deep our issues lie.”

Aurora is evidently passionate and well-informed. Does she see it as an artist’s responsibility to weigh in on issues of social justice?

“Well, scientists have tried to warn us about global warming for 50 years and nobody has listened,” she points out. “Leaders of the world don’t want to change their ways because it won’t benefit them. They want to have money now and to not have to think about the world later.

“Sadly, it’s come to the point that artists and musicians, as individuals who connect people, have to deliver the important messages. You have to reach out and appeal to the masses, and artists are the best at doing that – at engaging people and riling them up around unity and love, rather than fear and hatred.”

EIGHT BIG THEMES

She acknowledges her own role in what’s often a ‘mass-produced’ music industry.

“You can talk to companies who do things right, or to people who have a minimal carbon footprint,” she says, “but that’s not where your words are needed. It’s good when you’re part of an industry that has a lot to be better in. There’s more room for the things say to make a difference, instead of talking the same shit to people who know it already.”

What Happened To The Heart? holds up sonically too. It’s rife with romantic melodies, expansive synthscapes and arena-ready choruses, punctuated by Aurora’s distinct, soaring vocals – which have drawn comparisons to both Enya and Björk. However, Aurora finds it difficult to assess her own music.

“I don’t really see it when I’m in it,” she says. “I see it later, when I hear it. I don’t like listening to my own music. I would rather eat a baby.”

They must have some tasty infants in Norway, I laugh – the songs really do sound good.

“This album has a huge range,” she admits. “It’s been extremely fun to play around with, because I wanted it to symbolise both lyrically and sonically a process of pain – and the two paths you can choose, self-destruction or self-healing. With humans, it seems that pain often inspires more pain – hurt people hurt people.

“I see all of my music as being a really clear extension of me, and I think that’s really showing in the production. It starts really soft and spiritual, and then it ends on a really hard and human note. It’s going to be fun to sing live. I’m shitting myself with excitement.”

Using that phrase as a gauge of excitement rather than fear is indicative of Aurora’s uniqueness. She goes against the grain in most facets of her artistry, even imposing a Tarantino-style limit on her creative output. Strictly committed to releasing no more than eight albums, the decision tracks back to her early days as a musician.

“I started writing songs when I was about nine,” she says. “Songwriting was beginning to give me a new sense of meaning in life and made me feel better than anything else I had ever touched or let touch me, and I just had a moment thinking, ‘Oh my God, there’s so much I could write about. What do I want to say?’

“I remember taking it really seriously and writing down a map of all the things I want to say, and there were roughly eight big themes that I wanted to approach.

“First up was The Demons. The Warrior was chapter two and then chapter three was God. Now we’re at The Human, but yeah, there’s eight things and I’ve said four of them. It’s going well so far.”

[steveyockey]

Imagine this scenario from scratch. Imagine some God's-eye view of it. Not as it actually happened, in the end, but from the beginning. There is a place full of people. Into this place comes a person who has nowhere to live; who is hungry and thirsty and tired and in obvious distress; who very probably, like a huge number of Americans, including many without permanent residences, suffers from mental illness. Go ahead and grant that this person—homeless, hungry, thirsty, tired, stretched just as thin as those conditions might stretch any person—is behaving erratically; that their comportment might disturb others. So: Who is vulnerable here? Who is in the greatest need of help? What is the actual problem? How might this small ad hoc instantiation of community solve it?

I'm struggling to put this into words. I can't tell if it's because what I'm trying to express is ludicrous or because it's so dully obvious that I've never bothered to actually think of how to say it before. Sometimes you have something that somebody else needs more than you do, and you can afford to spare it, and the easiest thing in the world is just to give it to them. In that moment, to have what you can give them is, itself, a gift, a thing to be thankful for. In my lifetime this society has seemed ever more fanatically opposed to that possibility, and ever more committed to the idea that of all the things a vulnerable person might legitimately need, help—simple material help—is never one of them. But, like, how many people were on that train? How come nobody just, like, offered Jordan Neely a swig from their water bottle? Or, hell, tried to pry off the guy literally strangling him to death right there on the floor? Did any of them have anything at all they could give to the person first suffering, and then just straight-up dying, right in front of them?

Thirty years is no time at all. Jordan Neely was a squishy little toddler yesterday, a gangly kid 10 minutes ago. At 30 he had no place to live. He was hungry and thirsty and tired and upset. He was experiencing a whole stack of separate crises piled onto each other. He walked into a crowded subway car carrying those crises; one of the people there decided that the problem, in that situation, wasn't that Jordan Neely was hungry or thirsty or tired, or that he was in obvious distress, but rather that on top of those other things he was also breathing, and killed him. Somebody else took their phone out and recorded it. That was Jordan Neely's whole and only life. It ended when he walked into a room full of people, homeless and hungry and thirsty and tired, and they helped themselves to his silence.

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

Homosexuality and the First Fifteen Roman Emperors

English historian Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) famously declared that "of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct" [i.e. strictly heterosexual]... but how true is that statement?

I did a little research and, while in no way offering a definitive answer over the matter, found evidence of homosexual activities for thirteen out of fifteen names. Besides the already mentioned Claudius, I didn't find any allegations about Vespasian and Antoninus Pius, who also seemed to be strictly attracted to women.

With the exception of the ones about Nerva and Hadrian, all following quotes were taken from Craig A. Williams' Roman Homosexuality.

(Warning: most quotes include mentions of some kind of non-consensual relationship, including with minors)

AUGUSTUS

Augustus himself acquired the reputation of an avid womanizer, but he also was said to have kept male slaves as his deliciae or “darlings,” one of whom, named Sarmentus, is mentioned in passing by Plutarch.

Augustus, one late source gossips, used to sleep in the midst of twelve catamiti and as many girls.

TIBERIUS

Funerary inscriptions from the imperial household under Augustus and Tiberius reveal that among the different positions filled by slaves in the palace were those of glaber ab cyatho (a smooth boy who served wine), glabrorum ornator (a male slave who served as beautician for the smooth boys), and puerorum ornatrix (a female beautician for boys).

Suetonius’ allusion to Galba’s tastes for mature males is far removed in tone from his explicitly moralizing condemnation of Tiberius’ shocking sexual use of very young boys (what he did “cannot be mentioned or heard, let alone believed”).

CALIGULA

Suetonius uses the coded phrase “pudicitiae neque suae neque alienae pepercit” (“he spared neither his own nor others’ pudicitia,” signifying that he played the receptive and insertive roles in penetrative acts respectively), and then reports some examples in rapid succession: two relationships with men that seem to have involved an exchange of role; an affair with a young nobleman named Valerius Catullus in which Caligula played the receptive role (Valerius claimed to have been worn out by his exertions).

CLAUDIUS

Suetonius has this to say of the emperor Claudius: “He was possessed of an extravagant desire for women, having no experience with males whatsoever."

NERO

Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, and Aurelius Victor tell us that the emperor Nero publicly celebrated at least two wedding ceremonies with males, one in which he was the groom and one or perhaps two in which he was the bride, and they provide stunning details: dowry was given, a bridal veil worn.

GALBA

Suetonius records that the emperor Galba was particularly fond of men who were “very hard and grown up,” and it is worth noting that Galba’s fondness for mature men seems to have caused no eyebrows to rise, presumably because he was observing the two basic protocols of masculine sexual comportment: maintaining the appearance of an appropriately dominant stance with his partners and keeping himself to his own slaves and to prostitutes.

OTHO

Dio notes that Galba’s successor Otho alienated many people by having relations with Sporos and generally associating with Nero’s followers.

VITELLIUS

Vitellius began his brief reign as emperor in A.D. 69 by publicly honoring a freedman of his named Asiaticus, with whom he had had a stormy affair when Asiaticus was a young slave of his.

VESPASIAN

[No reports of homosexual activities.]

TITUS

Dio also mentions Domitian’s affair with Earinos, adding that the emperor’s brother and predecessor Titus had shared his tastes for eunuchs.

DOMITIAN

Statius imagines Venus proclaiming that Domitian’s beloved eunuch, Earinos, will surpass in his beauty some legendarily gorgeous young men: Endymion, Attis, Narcissus, and Hylas—the first two of whom were loved by goddesses.

NERVA

It is often insisted that Domitian was sexually abused by his eventual successor, the Emperor Nerva.

TRAJAN

Trajan kept delicati, and this detail is dropped in such a way as to suggest that this was a standard feature of the imperial household.

HADRIAN

Hadrian appears to have preferred the company of men and homosexual relations. The great love of his life, Antinous, was a young man from Bithynia.

ANTONINUS PIUS

[No reports of homosexual activities.]

[secular-jew]

Let's break this down:

7,720 civilian casualties over a 6 month period, in an urban war where the terrorists hide behind and use civilians as shields.

Important to note as we analysts do: Consider that the estimated 7,720 civilian casualty count is undoubtedly overstated, since 1) some Gazans have been killed by Hamas - such as the ones who don't comport to Hamas's demands, the ones who are found to be deemed homosexuals, the one's who are found to complain about Hamas, or the hungry who try to receive food-aid donations and since 2) many of rockets fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad (some estimates are as high as 25%), misfired or fell short, landing in Gaza!

But even if every dead civilian was a result of Israeli military activity. The ratio of civilian to combattent casualties -- is roughly 1/2:1 -- that's ONE HALF to one. 1/2 dead civilians form collateral damage, to 1 dead militant terrorist.

This would be an absolute record low ratio in urban warfare history, where one typically sees ratios as high as 10:1. especially where the one side - the terrorist side - hides behind civilians and kills civilians who don't support them or who complain about them.

[lurkingshan]

I gotta be honest, I am struggling with Absolute Zero right now, which frustrates me because I love the premise and the vibe and I really wanted to love it. @bengiyo noted that I am getting to the point where I’m actually kinda mad about this drama, and it’s true! For me it’s all down to the same core issue: the show needs to get a better handle on its main character.

Similar to last week, throughout most of this episode I had no sense of what adult Suansoon is thinking as he continues to functionally date teen Ongsa. Is he thinking about future Ongsa, his actual partner who he has abandoned in a dire health situation, at all when he touches teen Ongsa, hugs and gropes him, brings him to his apartment and cuddles on the bed with him? Does he actually realize he is an adult and Ongsa is a kid and this is all super inappropriate? I do not know, because there is zero indication on my screen to tell me what’s running through his mind as he continues dating Ongsa while also making vague gestures towards connecting with his own teen self.

We’ve now spent three entire episodes with Soon drifting around in the past with no clear sense of what he’s doing or why. It’s a lot of story time spent just to get back to where we started in episode 1. And it would feel worth it if I felt like I knew what Soon is thinking or planning or had any sense of his motives with teen Ongsa, but I don’t. Throughout this whole episode it felt like I was being kept at arms length from the main character and his thoughts while being forced to watch him do things I don’t understand.

And then, right at the end, we finally hear from Soon about what he wants to do, when he tells Ongsa he is from the future and he came back to “correct the past” so that teen Ongsa and teen Soon will never meet. And that was such a big record scratch for me, because it does not comport with his actual behavior. If his intention is to keep them apart in the hopes that not being together will prevent Ongsa from being in an accident, why did he approach and date Ongsa? He has already made Ongsa fall in love with him, and now he wants to say never mind actually, don’t meet me and I’m just gonna bounce back to the future and hope we’re both alive and not together in the new alternate reality I am creating. Does he know Ongsa at all? Of course he is not going to listen to him. This plan makes no sense. And he only finally told Ongsa anything at all because he was forced to; how was any of this going to work?

And even before I get to dissecting his nonsensical behavior toward teen Ongsa, I don’t have any sense of how or why Soon arrived at this plan in the first place, because the show has not let us into his mind at all. Future Ongsa is not dead, and Soon does not have any idea of how his recovery is going because he’s not there. What makes him think changing their future is necessary? Why is he so convinced it’s their relationship that is the important variable to prevent the accident rather than any number of other things? His motives here just were not set up properly.

This is getting very ranty so let me just cut to the point: I am open to a narrative about a Suansoon so overwhelmed and dazed by trauma that he goes back in time and starts mucking around doing foolish things with no real sensible plan, if this is in fact what the narrative is trying to accomplish here. This is the bread and butter of time travel narratives and can be very compelling when done well. But that requires giving the audience some insight into why he is making these choices, what is driving his decisions, and how he intends to make things happen. And we are just completely missing that insight in this show.

[aftapati]

❛  i promise you i'm going to make your life a living hell.  ❜ / i mean he’ll kinda try 🤷‍♂️. You know who : )

( @ofcentvries / prompts / accepting )

❛ Goodness gracious. Haven't you got tired acting like a broken record, Captain Hitsugaya? Such comportment of yours never ceases to disappoint me. ❜

A subtle yet audible enough exhalation took its transpiration, as gloved arms took a folded formation thereunder clothed sternum. One unbinded nuance of chocolate would glance at the significantly shorter figure, acting as the illustration of exasperation. Such anticipated flurry of reaction and emotions, consequently marking this whole encounter quite dull in his mind. And if there's one of the many things Aizen himself despised, was predictability.

Having excellent mastery in wordism, he could effortlessly entertain himself with what was presented to him. A miscellany of contemplations crossed his mind, all of them divulging the same content. De facto, Hitsugaya Toshiro was reputed for his amount of knowledge, pragmatism and sensibility. A child of prodigy, if you will. But still --- a child in mind and soul. Oh, how easy it was to vexate the young captain; making him lose composure, lose his mind and eventually make him act out of paralogism, with all means of rationality disappearing. And it only took the mention of one particular name. Alas, he will not indulge himself in something of such prospectiveness.

❛ Someone of your class and level of intelligence should not behave like a petulant child, don't you agree? ❜

❛ And besides, you flatter yourself too much if you think that you possess the capabilities in meddling with my life. So I suggest you act like the individual with the common sense and collectedness that you are reputed for. ❜

[alifeasvivid]

Negotiations, Episode 18 of The Thief of Spades, Season 2 (T+)

>.> been over a year. Also episodes 16 and 17 appear to have disappeared from tumblr, but they are on AO3. I'll have to remedy this later.

Chapter Rating: T+ Warnings: None Summary: Alfred strikes a deal with Gem-A. Feliciano attacks Ludwig. Arthur and Kiku avoid the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Word Count: ~2800

Read here on AO3.

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

It would have been more fun if she had locked him in some dark interrogation room with a cold metal table, a two-way mirror and only one lamp hanging from the ceiling, Alfred thinks. Instead, he sits in Lucille Bonnet’s office which is well-lit and tastefully decorated with lush reds and warm caramel browns. He had insisted on holding onto the spinel even when a pair of her employees (more like henchmen as far as Alfred is concerned) came and abducted him.

They are standing outside the door.

“Alfred,” she says with a careful smile, “Or do you prefer Mr. ‘Of Spades’?”

“Ha. Alfred’s fine,” he says.

Lucille nods. “Bien.” She perches herself primly in her office chair with the elegant comportment of someone much older than herself. “Now then, you might think you’re only here because of the red spinel in your possession, but—”

“Actually I don’t think that at all,” Alfred interrupts out of nerves more than any intention to be rude. If he can actually pull this off, it will change everything. “I think I’m here because you want to know how I know the real story of it. You probably also want to know how I got ahold of the California Bubbly morganite and why I gave it back instead of fencing it.”

Lucille’s excessively cordial demeanor fades into a more focused, business-like air. “That is quite clever of you, hm? To the point then. I would like to know all of those things, Mr. Jones and I can assure you that you would very much like to tell me.”

Alfred nods. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I’ll just level with you, Miss Bonnet,” he says, placing the spinel on the fancy leather blotter on her desk. “I’ve deciphered the code that’s used by the more powerful and high ranking members of the Gem-A since the beginning. I’m sure you know that means I can access any of the most confidential records of your organization at any time. I’m sure you also know what kind of information those records frequently contain.”

In an effort to seem unaffected by Alfred’s statement, Lucille first pulls out a white cotton glove and examines the spinel with her loupe; once she is satisfied that it is the correct stone, she removes the glove and folds her hands on her desk. “And how, exactly, did you do that?”

Alfred meets her serious gaze with his own to match. “I found a cipher. In the library of a manor formerly owned by one of Gem-A’s previous directors. I can find anything and everything now, as I’ve demonstrated by discovering one of your current directors’ mistresses and by knowing that it was a member of the Gem-A who stole and concealed the Blood Oath Ruby.”

Lucille waves one of her hands gracefully and dismissively. “So you found an old journal and decided you had also found a conspiracy, is that it?”

“Something like that,” Alfred says flatly.

“Well, we’re constantly in the process of digitizing all of our old records anyway, so who’s to say that we will even need this code for much longer?”

Alfred smirks. “You and I both know that the only way to keep anything hidden these days is to keep it off of a computer. Besides, I know that many of the most confidential and damning records pre-date the organization. Some of the ones I’ve seen are over three hundred years old and plenty could be older. I found that journal tucked in between some encyclopedias in a massive, old library on someone’s private property. There are tons of records stored the exact same way.”

Lucille’s eyes widen only briefly before her expression becomes placid again.

Alfred leans forward. “Somebody could do a lot of damage while you’re trying to put everything out there for any hacker to find. Somebody might even get a damn good offer for that information from the GIA.”

Lucille lifts her chin and glares at him. “Point taken. So what is it you want?”

“I want out.”

“Pardon?”

“I don’t want to be the Thief of Spades anymore. I want out.”

“So stop stealing things,” Lucille says simply.

Alfred shakes his head. “You know it doesn’t work like that. The Thief of Spades has a reputation. I can’t just suddenly drop off the grid, the CIA, Interpol, they’ll leave the case open. Not to mention I haven’t exactly made a ton of friends in underworld, right? If I just disappear, they’ll always be looking for me. I have to go out with a bang. One last job.”

Lucille raises her eyebrow. “And what do you think that we can do for you?”

“Le coeur de filou.”

“And I suppose you are blackmailing us into letting you steal it?”

Alfred shakes his head. He pulls a small usb drive from his pocket and slides it over to her. “No, I want it legitimately. I want to buy it from you and then I want you to let the Thief of Spades steal it. At the upcoming gala for it.” 

“And you have legitimate money for this?”

Alfred nods. “Yes, it’s all on that flash drive. I own a building. A huge, luxury residential building here in London. The current market value is worth more than the alexandrite, let alone the revenue from leasing. It’s under a clean identity, not mine.”

“Who then?”

“Charles Foster. He was my grandfather. All the information you need is on that stick. It’s all above board, I swear.”

Lucille nods and then looks at the usb drive held by her delicate fingers and then up at Alfred. “Indeed, you do seem quite sincere. Yet I find myself having difficulty believing you. You know our code. You know that you have this entire organization at your fingertips now. Why is it you want so little? If we do this for you, how can we be assured that you won’t decide you don’t want ‘out’ as you say and use that information against us?”

“I do want out,” he says emphatically. “I want it more than anything. I want a normal life.”

Despite everything, Lucille a romantic at heart and grins slyly now as the realization dawns on her: Inspector Kirkland. “In only a few short years, the Thief of Spades has become an internationally-known jewel thief who lives for nothing but the best, who goes to parties and rubs elbows with some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in Europe and gets away with whatever he likes. What is a normal life compared to that?”

“It’s everything,” Alfred says. “I don’t want anything to do with your organization. I have enough money to last me three lifetimes. The one thing the Thief of Spades can never have is a family, a… a home. I have people I love now,” he says quietly. “I want to be with them and I want to make beautiful things instead of stealing them. Look, if you ever see me messing with you guys, you have my permission to just take me out right then and there.”

Lucille smiles softly. “It is alright, I’m convinced. For our sake and yours, I am very pleased for you. Let me go over this information and if the property is worth as much as you say and can be purchased legitimately from ‘Mr. Foster’ then we have a deal.”

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

“What’s that damn look on your face?” Romano demands, poking his twin in the chest. It dawns on him what Feliciano is probably intending to do given that Ludwig is still in sight out the window of their cafe. “Feli, if you go after him, you’re dead to me.”

Feliciano can’t even find enough thoughts that aren’t about Ludwig kissing him to roll his eyes at Romano’s ridiculous statement. The chaste sweetness of the kiss makes it all the more romantic and precious in Feliciano’s mind. After so long seeing Ludwig stern and seemingly detached, such an expression of affection must mean that he has strong feelings for Feliciano after all.

In this state of joy, he tears off his apron and dashes out the door. He cannot let this moment slip away or he fears he will lose Ludwig forever. 

“Ludwig!” he cries out. He beams with all the love he feels when Ludwig turns around, placing his phone in his pocket.

Ludwig is so surprised by Feliciano calling out his name, so surprised by the sweet expression on his face and even more surprised when Feliciano runs toward him, jumps into his arms and kisses him all over his face. Ludwig holds him tight, forgetting that anything in the world exists but the two of them in this moment, forgetting his work and his oaths and all of it. He kisses Feli softly on his lips, lets it linger as he sets him down. 

Feliciano places his hands on Ludwig’s cheeks and looks into his eyes, once such an icy blue in his mind, they now seem a precious silver. “Ti amo. Ti amo I have love you for so long” he says. “So long and I thought… I thought you…”

“I know,” Ludwig says, suddenly very aware that they are standing outside on a busy sidewalk. He lets Feliciano lead him back into the cafe, enamored of the way the he keeps kissing Ludwig’s hand and he can feel his cheeks growing very warm. He pays no mind to Romano fuming and neither does Feliciano. He feels truly happy for the first time in such a very long time. Distantly, he thinks, surely Arthur Kirkland would understand.

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

Arthur has been allowed to go back to New Scotland Yard and resume working on normal cases, with the Agents calling him in only a few times a week. Arthur takes this to mean that they are easing off of the Thief of Spades case, which would really be splendid since Arthur is almost certain that Alfred might actually intend to quit his life as a thief. There might finally be a light at the end of the tunnel.

For this reason, he is initially rather pleased when he receives a call from Honda. 

“Mr. Honda, ah,” he’s never sure how to greet the man. “It’s… good to hear from you.”

Kiku stays silent on the phone for just a moment too long. “Good evening, Inspector.”

His curt tone sets Arthur immediately on edge. “Ah, if you’re calling for any updates on Alfred, I think you’ll be pleased to know that I think I might be close to convincing him to give up his criminal life altogether.”

Kiku remains quiet for another very long moment. His affection for Alfred and his admiration of Inspector Kirkland are regrettably far outweighed by his need to protect his own interests at this point. “I had hoped it would be so, Inspector.” He sighs. “But I believe your view of the situation might be clouded. According to my knowledge, Alfred is in contact with the Gem-A, which is sure to put him in great danger—both from them and from Costa and Clark. To complicate matters further, he has not contacted me in far too long; I have learnt all of this information secondhand. You may have noticed by now that… perhaps, Alfred is not always the most adept at gauging the level of risk he is undertaking.”

Arthur frowns, wondering what Alfred could be doing directly contacting Gem-A, but presses on. “Yes, I had noticed that,” he says. “He’s got a bit of a blindspot when it comes to assessing threat levels as they pertain to himself. He bites off more than I think he can chew, but, Mr. Honda…” he blushes and thanks the heavens that Honda can’t see him. “I’ve grown… a lot closer to Alfred. I doubt I need to elaborate further than that given the many eyes and ears you have everywhere,” he pauses to let the polite accusation sink in. “I really do think that… I can convince him to leave the Thief of Spades behind.”

On some level, Kiku genuinely believes that Arthur is right. The detective is very persuasive with his strong conviction and staid charisma. His competence and pragmatic nature have impressed Kiku from the first moment he learned of him and he would be very glad to have someone like Arthur working for him, but things have already gone too far. Alfred is apparently determined to be far more reckless than Kiku had ever anticipated. “Inspector, I know that you speak the truth as far as you know it. But I have known Alfred longer than you have. There is nothing that can compel him to give up the life he has. He has always spoken at length about freedom and doing as he pleases with little regard for anyone else and that is what is most important to him.”

Arthur’s brow furrows more. “With all due respect, Mr. Honda, I do not believe that Alfred is currently as free as he thinks he is. I think he is starting to see that. I know that I—” he breathes deeply and exhales the words he has been trying in vain to say to Alfred, “Perhaps I cannot offer him complete freedom. I am not wealthy or well-connected. I’m an ordinary man with an ordinary life and an ordinary family, but I love him. Maybe he doesn’t need so much freedom anymore, maybe what he needs now is a home.”

Deep in Kiku Honda’s heart is a wistful romantic child that aches for Arthur’s words, but there’s too much on the line. Just as that dreamy-eyed child had to be smothered inside of himself, he must now perform the same cruel kindness on Arthur. “Your sincerity is admirable, Inspector. But you will never find such sincerity in dear Alfred. You are trying to steal a heart that isn’t there, trying to trap a thief with bait that holds no interest for him. What I admire most about Alfred is his ability to act with absolutely no regard for anything other than his own desires. To many people, this is not an admirable quality and I would not blame you if you were one of them.”

Arthur understands Honda’s indirect language quite easily: Alfred doesn’t love you and he will undoubtedly use your feelings to betray you. Fist clenching at his side, Arthur bites his tongue. It’s possible that not terribly long ago, Arthur would have believed him. If memories of Alfred’s smile, his touch, his body, his paint all over Arthur’s chest, in his own bed weren’t so easy to summon, Arthur would believe him, but now he knows he is right and it wouldn’t surprise him at all if some Japanese billionaire, quasi-legitimate businessman had ulterior motives. It would be more shocking if he didn’t, considering that his access to information is far greater than Arthur’s. 

“I see,” Arthur replies diplomatically, playing his cards close to the vest. “So what does all this mean, then?”

“It means I am in the process of organizing his extrication from London.”

“Give me a little more time,” Arthur demands, though in a steady tone.

The romantic in Kiku’s heart echoes Arthur’s plea. After another long moment, he says “Very well, Inspector. There are still aspects that are not yet completed and they will take some time to resolve. If you have truly convinced him to abandon the Thief of Spades, I will call it off.”

The call is disconnected after that.

“Fuck!” Arthur shouts in frustration, almost throwing his phone at the couch in the living room. Is Alfred insane? Truly. Arthur can think of no other explanation as to why he would do something so idiotic as to stop communicating with the one man who holds Alfred’s life and freedom in his hands, never mind getting involved with the Gem-A. Doesn’t he know that Honda wants to take him away? Does he even care?

Abigail appears in the room, somewhat alarmed. “What’s wrong, Artie?”

“That was Kiku Honda. He’s already in the process of executing a plan to remove Alfred from London, from Europe in general. He’ll follow through with it if I can’t convince Alfred to give up the Thief of Spades.”

“Well, weren’t you saying that you think he might do that?”

“Honda doesn’t seem to think there’s much chance.”

“What do you think?”

Arthur looks down at his phone. He still has no way of contacting Alfred, but he can contact Gil and Gil can contact Matthew. And with the clock ticking and not even a vague deadline given, maybe Arthur can finally say what he needs to say to Alfred. “I think Honda will need a good deal of luck because I’m the only one who has ever caught the Thief of Spades.”

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2023 Day 20: Hamper

(this one got away from me, and touches on an aspect of WoL's adventures dear to me. Also it's not a FFXIV Write anymore without nebulous future Iyna)

Outwardly, Sharlayan hadn’t changed much in the last hundred and fifty years or so. The buildings were still primarily the native white stone in rounded styles with columns, the tiles of the streets were still blue. Thaliak’s statue still watched over Scholar’s Harbor, and the Last Stand was still the best restaurant in the city, Debroye keeping it much the same as it always had been.

Thankfully for the city, other restaurants had cropped up in the intervening decades.

Iyna still preferred the original, though, and only in part because she had known the owner since the girl was a student during the harrowing Final Days. In part because of the sea breeze coming in with the view, far enough from the docks to not worry about the less pleasant underlying scents that would affect one’s appetite.

And in large part, the nostalgia; memories of old friends at the tables a pleasant one, whenever she visited. Iyna was getting sentimental as she grew older.

It was Debroye herself who served her now, setting a tantalizing lobster dish before Iyna. “I’m gaining weight just from the scents,” Iyna joked. “What have you done to improve even this classic?”

“I can’t give away all my secrets, now that I have real competition in this city,” Debroye said. “But I will say certain spices from Tural do help.”

“Gods, it’s been so long since I went West,” Iyna said idly. “Perhaps I should take a vacation, once done with this commission for the Forum.”

“I haven’t seen you take a vacation in over a century. I’d say you’re about due. Meanwhile,” Debroye looked around. “If you don’t mind, you might have company for your meal.”

“Oh?” Iyna raised a brow as she began to snap apart the crustacean.

“I’ve a history student at the counter with a few burning questions for someone who knew the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. And being a good student, she recognized you by sight alone and is about to jitter off her seat.”

“General academia, or actual project work?”

“Project; she’s fifteen and working on her archon thesis.” At Iyna’s raised brow, Debroye nodded. “She almost beat the Leveilleur’s record for entering the Studium, only missing it due to when her nameday falls during registration—and all without the benefit of family wealth or connections as they had.”

“Not a Viera, I take it?”

“Highlander.”

“Always so impatient, Hyurs,” Iyna noted. “Needing to get so much done so soon, they miss what youth they have. By all means, send the girl over. If nothing else, we can set up a better time to meet for the in depth interview I’m sure she’ll want.”

Deboye nodded, thanking Iyna and returning to the counter. It took about two minutes for the Highlander girl to compose herself and take a seat at Iyna’s table, controlling her underlying giddiness. “Thank you for taking the time to speak to me.”

“Of course,” Iyna said. “What might I do for you, Miss…?”

“Alina Breck,” she said. She was a gangly young thing, not yet filled out to the usual height and broad build of her people. She was fair-skinned and freckled all over, with bushy red hair pulled back in a semblance of a ponytail, curly strands escaping. She had large round glasses over hazel eyes, and wore a simple gray dress, with a wide belt keeping pens, notebooks, and other needed tools on hand. “I was hoping to ask a few questions about your time with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.”

“Very well; though I do have only so much time now. But we can get a start, and if needed, perhaps arrange a longer meeting?”

The girl beamed, the image of a serious wannabe adult scholar breaking for a moment. “Oh that would be great! Ahem. Thank you.” She comported herself again.

Iyna smiled, and let the girl ask her questions, answering in between bites of her meal, sometimes to think.

Also because one did not let a Last Stand Lobster go to waste.

As the hour drew close to when she had to leave to speak to her contacts on the Forum, Alina looked over the notes taken so far. “There are definitely things I want to ask more about, and some things I hadn’t even considered before this discussion, I’m embarrassed to say.”

Iyna shook her head. “Don’t be; there’s always more to discover, even in seemingly well-known topics. It’s why you came to me for this, isn’t it?”

Alina nodded. “I would like to meet again, for sure, and consider some of those questions, especially once I’ve had a chance to check some other sources, but…One last thing I noted…”

Iyna waited. 

“It seems like, well. There were a lot of times Aeryn was on her own, with no other comrades. And sometimes it almost seems by design.” Alina flipped through her notes, a little frown creasing her forehead.

“At times it was,” Iyna said. “I wasn’t there, but when the Crystal Braves betrayed the Scions, for instance, they ensured the group was separated. Particularly Aeryn, with the Sultana. They hoped by dividing the archons and the champion from the leadership, they might have a chance.” Iyna leaned back. “It wasn’t the last time, of course; one of the best ways to try to rein in the Warrior of Light was to separate her from her support; without the other Scions’ knowledge and skills, or those of other comrades and companions she worked with, such as the Garlond Ironworks, adventures could be much harder. Aeryn noted it herself a few times—especially when young adventurers would speak to her, eager for advice, wanting to be like her.

“She often had to remind them that the times she fought alone were the worst; that she was hamstrung without her friends to back her up. There were things she couldn’t do that they could, knowledge they had that she needed. And many of her victories came with help; from her allies, from the dragons, from Hydaelyn Herself. Being cut off from such support was the way to mitigate her strength. Or so her enemies thought.”

Alina tilted her head. “Because she was powerful enough on her own anyway?”

Iyna smiled. “Oh, she was often stronger than even she thought, that stubborn gremlin of a woman. But that strength came from love for those friends, and from them, even when apart.”

“That’s one of the things I’m looking for clarification on,” Alina said. “How she actually stopped the Final Days. Some say she fought only with an enemy at her side; others that the Scions were with her through it all.”

“Both are true,” Iyna said. “Like many others, the Endsinger thought she could deprive the champions of each others’ support, break their hopes, and leave the Warrior of Light without aid. But in that place of pure concept and dynamis, merely physically separating the Scions was not enough. Their hearts were ever aligned with hers.”

Alina wrote that down in her shorthand, thinking for a moment. “I see. I think.”

“Mull it over; we can meet again,” Iyna checked the calendar on her tomephone. Alina compared her own, and they came to an agreeable time, two days from now. “I’ll do some thinking too, and dig through some old notes. I have access to the Baldesion Archives, after all…and might be able to finagle permission for you. No promises, though!” she quickly said as the girl’s eyes lit up.

“Of course, I understand. Thank you, Miss Cauld!”

“Call me Iyna. And it’s been a pleasure, Miss Alina.”

Iyna nodded, paying for her meal—and Alina’s, as one of the constants in life aside from death and taxes is the minimum stipends of graduate students, even one as gifted as this girl—and headed for her meeting with the Forum, a few minutes behind schedule, but they likely would be as well, and would understand her reasons. Losing track of time in academic discussions was another thing that hadn’t changed in Sharlayan.

She thought back on all those old adventures, tapping reminders to herself into her tomephone idly as she went, recalling the times the Scions and companions had been separated, not by choice, from one another. How they had succeeded anyway, often by trusting that the others would do what they must, what they could.

Iyna made sure to note that, too. She smiled and put the tomephone away as she climbed the steps to the Rostra. She did not often dwell on those times in such detail, and it had been some time—she really would need to hit up the archives for writings and reminders of those days—but given the girl’s questions, and the focus on the Warrior of Light’s companions and how they helped her succeed, Iyna was quite willing to delve into those memories.

There was always, after all, more than one perspective to a story, and more than the popular myth. Aeryn had never wanted to be that, and to give due credit to her beloved friends and companions was a gift Iyna was more than willing to offer to her memory.

[femalethink]

Women in sexist society are physically handicapped. Insofar as we learn to live out our existence in accordance with the definition that patriarchal culture assigns to us, we are physically inhibited, confined, positioned, and objectified. As lived bodies we are not open and unambiguous transcendences that move out to master a world that belongs to us, a world constituted by our own intentions and projections. To be sure, there are actual women in contemporary society to whom all or part of the above description does not apply. Where these modalities are not manifest in or determinative of the existence of a particular woman, however, they are definitive in a negative mode—as that which she has escaped, through accident or good fortune, or, more often, as that which she has had to overcome.

One of the sources of the modalities of feminine bodily existence is too obvious to dwell upon at length. For the most part, girls and women are not given the opportunity to use their full bodily capacities in free and open engagement with the world, nor are they encouraged as much as boys are to develop specific bodily skills. Girls’ play is often more sedentary and enclosing than the play of boys. In school and after-school activities girls are not encouraged to engage in sport, in the controlled use of their bodies in achieving well-defined goals. Girls, moreover, get little practice at “tinkering” with things and thus at developing spatial skill. Finally, girls are not often asked to perform tasks demanding physical effort and strength, while as the boys grow older they are asked to do so more and more.

The modalities of feminine bodily existence are not merely privative, however, and thus their source is not merely in lack of practice, though this is certainly an important element. There is a specific positive style of feminine body comportment and movement, which is learned as the girl comes to understand that she is a girl. The young girl acquires many subtle habits of feminine body comportment—walking like a girl, tilting her head like a girl, standing and sitting like a girl, gesturing like a girl, and so on. The girl learns actively to hamper her movements. She is told that she must be careful not to get hurt, not to get dirty, not to tear her clothes, that the things she desires to do are dangerous for her. Thus she develops a bodily timidity that increases with age. In assuming herself to be a girl, she takes herself to be fragile. Studies have found that young children of both sexes categorically assert that girls are more likely to get hurt than boys are, and that girls ought to remain close to home, while boys can roam and explore. The more a girl assumes her status as feminine, the more she takes herself to be fragile and immobile and the more she actively enacts her own body inhibition.

Studies that record observations of sex differences in spatial perception, spatial problem-solving, and motor skills have also found that these differences tend to increase with age. While very young children show virtually no differences in motor skills, movement, spatial perception, etc., differences seem to appear in elementary school and increase with adolescence. If these findings are accurate, they would seem to support the conclusion that it is in the process of growing up as a girl that the modalities of feminine bodily comportment, motility, and spatiality make their appearance.

There is, however, a further source of the modalities of feminine bodily existence that is perhaps even more profound than these. At the root of those modalities is the fact that the woman lives her body as object as well as subject. The source of this is that patriarchal society defines woman as object, as a mere body, and that in sexist society women are in fact frequently regarded by others as objects and mere bodies. An essential part of the situation of being a woman is that of living the ever-present possibility that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as shape and flesh that presents itself as the potential object of another subject’s intentions and manipulations, rather than as a living manifestation of action and intention. The source of this objectified bodily existence is in the attitude of others regarding her, but the woman herself often actively takes up her body as a mere thing. She gazes at it in the mirror, worries about how it looks to others, prunes it, shapes it, molds and decorates it.

This objectified bodily existence accounts for the self-consciousness of the feminine relation to her body and resulting distance she takes from her body. As human, she is a transcendence and subjectivity and cannot live herself as mere bodily object. Thus, to the degree that she does live herself as mere body, she cannot be in unity with herself but must take a distance from and exist in discontinuity with her body. The objectifying regard that “keeps her in her place” can also account for the spatial modality of being positioned and for why women frequently tend not to move openly, keeping their limbs closed around themselves. To open her body in free, active, open extension and bold outward-directedness is for a woman to invite objectification.

The threat of being seen is, however, not the only threat of objectification that the woman lives. She also lives the threat of invasion of her body space. The most extreme form of such spatial and bodily invasion is the threat of rape. But we daily are subject to the possibility of bodily invasion in many far more subtle ways as well. It is acceptable, for example, for women to be touched in ways and under circumstances that it is not acceptable for men to be touched, and by persons—i.e., men— whom it is not acceptable for them to touch. I would suggest that the enclosed space that has been described as a modality of feminine spatiality is in part a defense against such invasion. Women tend to project an existential barrier closed around them and discontinuous with the “over there” in order to keep the other at a distance. The woman lives her space as confined and closed around her, at least in part as projecting some small area in which she can exist as a free subject.

—Iris Young, "Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality."

[ronmanmob]

Thoughts on Ron  👓

All That Free Time In His Life After

Especially in the life he can build out in NYC, Ron's ties to gangland and the imposition that involvement made on his time waver into non-existence. And while this disorientates the man for a period - as so big a life change would anyone - once the dust settles Ron finds himself able to find himself in ways he'd never had the chance to when the criminal underworld was all up in his business. He gets to wander where curiosity takes him, unbothered by needing to maintain a reputation that (while thoroughly well earned in London) didn't really comport with the man he was beyond his high walls and propensity, when pushed, to exact immense violence.

All that is to say, our actually quite friendly neighbourhood not-a-gangster finds the time, space and want to get into new kinds of hobbies and pastimes once he's out of the hell-scape that is gangland. These include but are not limited to:

Boxing - for enjoyment and conditioning now, nothing else

Volunteering at the local animal shelter

Poking through the history section of old bookstores

Collecting vintage records to add to his Wurlitzer

Curating his war games paraphernalia - hand painting his soldiers

[tomorrowusa]

Don't be fooled by phony support for labor from billionaires like Donald Trump.

Contrary to what a few media outlets reported, Trump did NOT speak to striking UAW workers. The owner of a non-union shop invited him to hold what amounted to a campaign rally at his building.

The Media Falls for Trump’s Labor Lies

[O]nce you strip away Trump’s bluster, you see a recognizably Republican creature. His labor lies are proof. The former president wanted people to believe he was speaking to striking auto workers, but the UAW had not invited him and its president, Shawn Fain, had sharply criticized Trump. The press fell for Trump’s lies anyway. [ ... ] Here’s what else we know about Trump and labor. His Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia, was resolutely anti-union and anti-worker. Scalia rewrote “dozens of rules that were put in place to protect workers” The New Yorker reported, and during his tenure, OSHA “explicitly told employers that none of its COVID-19 recommendations impose new legal obligations.” Under Trump, the National Labor Relations Board reversed some Obama-era regulations that made it easier for workers to organize. Politico itself reported in 2018 that the Trump administration was “rolling back worker safety protections affecting underground mine safety inspections, offshore oil rigs and line speeds in meat processing plants, among others.” On labor, Trump is an orthodox conservative. We know that Trump’s “mixed legacy” with labor is, in fact, clear. He likes to sound like a populist, but he is a proven conman. Yet those facts are relatively absent from mainstream coverage right now. Why are political reporters still making such basic mistakes? Why are they even furnishing his lies? Trump’s claims deserve skepticism, at minimum, like any politician. As long as Republican voters prefer Trump in spite of his anti-worker record, and Republican lawmakers are still anti-union, we can hardly speak of “a long coming convergence between his own party and union members,” as Politico does. [ ... ] As my colleague Eric Levitz recently argued, a paper or news channel can find it difficult to cover Trump “without sounding like a shrill, dull, Democratic propaganda outlet.” Therefore the media “comports itself as an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.” In such circumstances, the press should ask itself if objectivity is even possible, let alone desirable. The truth will not long withstand business as usual.

While pretending to be pro-US labor, Trump merchandise was being made in China during his administration.

Trump flags: Made in China

Trump treats his own workers like shit, he considers them disposable and screws them out of their rightful benefits.

How Trump's Casino Bankruptcies Screwed His Workers out of Millions in Retirement Savings Trump made out like a bandit, but his employees paid the price.

[m-blackwell-and-associates]

Follow Up pt 4

This dour mood followed Angelina for the rest of the car ride and doubled when pushed into the morgue to find the medical examiner already there with Peitro’s Proxy.  The Rosselini took one look at her and then her gaze slid to Pietro standing just behind her. Angelina knew she had been dismissed out of hand and the anger seethed.  Such a thing had happened many times before.  When people went to meet the Donna of Grenoble, they expected a woman in her prime, perhaps one aged into wisdom, all demure silk velvet over maternal steel.  When they saw a slight girl frozen forever at 18, round face still carrying the memory of childhood, they discounted what they saw and turned to Pietro as the continuing authority, he having been her voice and direction up until the moment of their first meeting.

Pietro, well schooled and endless amused by this bitter bit of theater, stayed where he was and said nothing, waiting for Diana Rossellini to figure out the silent error she had made.  Angelina did not wait for those brown eyes to widen, or the face go ashen to realize she had dismissed the one that had given permission to be Proxied and that permission could be revoked.

“What did you find?”

The Proxy caught herself, startling to be addressed, but not looking alarmed to be caught out.  “Donna Angelina, a pleasure to - “

“Yes,” Angelina agreed, a great pleasure to meet yet another family member that would have to be taught respect and comportment.  “Your findings?”

Angelina could feel Pietro’s amusement behind her, like a wave of warmth coming off a fire and she made a mental note to address his instigating these awkward introductions at a later time.  One did not humiliate one’s enforcer.  Not if one wanted to keep their good humor and loyalty.

The medical examiner cleared her throat from where she stood on the other side of the table, a skeleton, white and unweathered, laid neatly on a steel topped table.  “I’ve been able to narrow it down to three missing persons.”

“A three way tie?”  Angelina asked, brows raised as if mildly curious about the outcome and the examiner flushed, turning a faintly accusatory stare at Diana.  

“I had just arrived with the dental records, Donna.”  Diana handed them to the examiner, as cool as you please.  The way the other woman snatched them out of the Proxy’s hands suggested that the files had been withheld, either for spite or for testing of the examiner's skill in reading the bones.  It wasn’t that Angelina disapproved of testing the academic might of the people called upon to perform a service, just that at this moment, Angelina wasn’t in the mood for delays.  Or for anyone to decide now was the time for a power play. 

Hurriedly, the woman took out the x-ray images, the shaded transparencies hung up on the light box to be studied.  They waited, Angelina not unaware of the Rosselini’s subtle attempt to size her up, comparing what she saw to what she had imagined.  For her part, she let it go.  There would be time later to put Pietro’s Proxy in her place if necessary.  

“This one, Ms. Giovanni,” the medical examiner said, hurriedly.  Taking down the transparency, she slid it back into its file and handed it to Angelina over the table holding their mysteriously departed.  “I’ll give you a moment.”  Stripping off her gloves, the woman left.  

“Simeon Boucher,” Angelina read aloud before putting the file down on the metal table.  “One parent still living, two siblings living abroad, no spouse, no children.  Cause of death, blunt force trauma.”

“That would be consistent with what we saw when we dumped his body,” Diana confirmed.  “We - “

But Angelina wasn’t interested in the explanations or stories the Rosellini was quick to give.  Ignoring her, she stripped off her own gloves and set the soft black leather aside, concentrating on the well ordered bones before her.

“Simon Boucher,” she murmured under the self-aggrandizing chatter of the Proxy.  “Let’s see if you’re still here.”  Angelina laid both hands on the bones, one hand cradling around the smooth curve of the skull, thumb tracing along the zygomatic arch where a spider web of fractures hinted at the violence of the man’s final moments.  The other hand rested on the cracked and ragged remains of the sternum.

She wasn’t surprised to feel that Simon’s soul still lingered.  A death as sudden as violent as his had been, often made spirits bound to this world.  Ones so bound were unable to let go of their former lives and find whatever peace was beyond the Shadowlands.  Angelina called to the spirit gently, testing to see at what strength the contest of wills between her and the unwilling dead, and while she hadn’t been surprised to know he lingered, she was surprised at the promptness of his response.

Simon’s soul manifested as suddenly as switching on a light, vivid and clean as if drawn on her vision by some bold artist with only a faint transparency to suggest that he wasn’t of this world.  Whatever chatter Diana had been engaging in stopped and Angelina had blessed silence in which to contemplate the spirit.

“You’re like her,” it whispered, voice coming from some other place.

“Like whom, Mr. Boucher?” Angelina asked, hand absently stroking the smooth bone of the skull, as if petting a cat, or soothing a child.

“I assume he’s talking about Elizabeth,” Diana put in unnecessarily.  “I didn’t think little Miss Princess could do the family business.”

Angelina set her jaw, cross that the Rosselini dared to speak, but before she could order her cousin to silence, the sad and despondent shade of the late Simon turned to survey the room.  Once his eyes fell upon the disdainful Diana, it flared, a shadow behind a flame, blown to grotesque proportions and flickering as if caught in a hot and terrible wind.

“You left me to die!” It roared, leaning towards the shocked Rosselini, mouth agape and hands turned to grasping claws.  “YOU KILLED ME!”

Sternly, Angelina bound the enraged wraith of Simon Boucher so it could not attack the stunned woman.  But, with a bit of satisfied spite, she let it slowly drift in her directly, forcing Diana to back up a step.  Aloud, she said, “Perhaps your recounting of your mission wasn’t entirely correct, Ms. Rosselini?”

The look that Diana shot her before looking back at her slowly stalking wraith was murderous.  “No, Donna.  We found him dead and - “  The wraith roared, cursing.  “He was beyond saving!  I could see that just by looking at him!”

Angelina believed Diana when she said that she had seen the man’s fast approaching death.  It was her family curse, after all.  Everything was on the cusp of death to her and everyone that had the Rosselini gift.  She did not, however, believe that Simon had been beyond saving.

“He might have been more useful alive, Ms. Rosselini,” Angelina said, sounding disapproving of Diana's protests and indifferent of her discomfort. 

[jessicamessicavillageofspillage]

Good Faith Questions

So, I am an oldhead who basically held the radfem beliefs in 2015, but knew some also oldhead transfolks who seemed very cool with my pesky materialist view of sexbased oppression- So, I let it all go, did the whole maybe the children are actually abolishing gender gag and just tried to do my volunteerism around IPV without "offending" anyone. Flash forward to now, when many of the "never going to happen" scenarios proposed as political conflicts between cyberfeminism, gender theory and a materially based view of radical feminism have occurred. I have some questions for the desister and ex TRA radfems about this transing the dead stuff and how that comports with self-identification and the so-called harm that people experience by being misgendered. This is probably the thing that drove me back to Tumblr- I am really curious about it, as I have now had several people under 25 explain to me my lesbian heros are transmen according to shit they have learned in school. I am so confused as to how conversations around this go as it appears to me to be driven by racist and misogynistic slashfictionification of the historical record. Can someone get a little into how this is understood by the youth trans culture?

[une-touille-en-vadrouille]

Un résumé se trouve en fin de poste

Par un beau matin de Septembre, je m'éveillai suite à un rêve agité, portant sur la cuisson d'un saumon à l'aneth. D'un coup, je sursautais! Aneth! Qu'était elle devenue, elle qui avait disparu au beau milieu de la ville d'Hanoï ? Était elle seulement encore vivante après tout ce temps ? Je commençai immédiatement une enquête, fouillant avec acharnement l'internet mondial, dans l'espoir de trouver des signes du persil, fussent-ils sur le dark web. Après des minutes frénétiques de recherche, je finis par tomber sur une obscure conversation WhatsApp, qui, bien que vieille de plusieurs secondes, pouvait tout aussi bien dater du siècle dernier. Doué d'un esprit de déduction peu commun, je conclus que si je voulais retrouver ma camarade, il me fallait me rendre en pays lointain, peuplé de petits vendeurs d'orange et de flûtes de pan.

Ni une ni deux, je courus vers le premier avion que je vis, stationné entre deux camions de pompiers. Je profitais que l'attention générale soit tournée vers un réacteur de l'avion, et lorsqu'une lance à incendie fut utilisée pour arroser celui-ci, je me glissai dans l'appareil. Je pus profiter des deux heures d'attente qui suivirent, d'une part pour regretter mon choix, et d'autre part pour observer des experts en action. Ceux-ci m'étaient facilement reconnaissable grâce à leur comportement typique, si semblable à celui de mes directeurs de thèse. En effet, ceux-ci se tenaient le menton entre leurs mains et fixaient d'un air perplexe et intense le réacteur, réaction parfaitement similaire à celle mon équipe lorsque je leur présentais mes résultats. Après une correspondance sans heurts, où je pense avoir humblement battu le record du 500m dans les couloirs de l aéroport de Madrid, puis découvert avec joie que mon prochain avion accusait lui aussi un retard de deux heures, je m'endormis paisiblement en direction de Lima. Les collations frugales fournies dans l'avion purent heureusement être compensées par l'équivalent en fondant au chocolat du lembas. Cette denrée, généreusement offert par ma maman, comblait aisement les besoins caloriques hebdomadaire d'un adulte. J'atterris sans encombres à Lima

Après quelques menues péripéties, dont la récupération de ma carte bancaire, avalée par un ATM taquin, je finis par atteindre mon auberge. Quelle ne fut pas alors ma surprise d'y découvrir Aneth! La pauvre enfant semblait encore secouée par ses mois laissés à l'abandon, mais nul doutes qu'elle se remettrait vite maintenant que j'allais la ramener en France.

Résumé : ne voyagez pas avec AirEuropa

[addictedtostorytelling]

Was the comment made by Sara about Grissom stopping LH from killing the nazi doctor creep meant to imply that Grissom had given her that info? Or was it more “you didn’t tell me about your relationship with her but I have known”? What’s your take? I have to believe the writers had her say it (as opposed to anyone else) for a purpose. Thank you!

hi, anon!

it is very possible and i think even likely that grissom did fill sara in on the events of episode 06x15 "pirates of the third reich" at some point after the fact—and particularly as they were dating at the time when said events were taking place, so it would have made sense for him to confide in her—however, it is also possible that sara learned about heather's attack on leon sneller/jacob wolfowitz from some other source than him.

presumably, after grissom halted heather's attack, he would have called medical and police services to the scene to tend to sneller/wolfowitz's wounds and arrest him, so there would have been other lvpd employees who witnessed the immediate aftermath of the event and heard directly from grissom the story of what had happened. also, as we learn in episode 07x23 "the good, the bad, & the dominatrix," heather was charged with an unspecified crime in connection with the attack (presumably either assault/battery and/or attempted murder); even though she ultimately escaped conviction of said crime due to her connections to a local judge, what she had done would have been a matter of public record and definitely would have been something that was discussed around the lvpd/lab (i.e., "did you hear that supervisor grissom stopped a dominatrix from whipping a nazi to death in the desert?!"). her actions also likely would have been brought up at leon sneller/jacob wolfowitz's trial, at which the entire team, including sara, likely would have been called on to testify, as they had all worked the case.

in any case, whether grissom told sara what happened directly or she found out in another way, i don't believe her purpose in bringing up the events of that night is to insinuate that she knows more about grissom and heather’s bond than grissom has ever told her.

i think that sara's reasons for bringing up that particular incident from grissom and heather's history have more to do with her drawing attention to heather’s (in her view) criminal tendencies than anything else. 

while of course sara is preoccupied with the notion that grissom and heather may be having a sexual relationship during the events of “immortality,” she is also attempting to work a serial murder case in which, at that moment, heather is the prime suspect. however, her efforts in this regard are receiving a lot of pushback from none other than grissom himself.

ever since grissom showed up in vegas, sara has been going back and forth with him, trying to get him to at least entertain the notion that heather could potentially be the perpetrator behind the serial bombings—just as all of the evidence to that point in the investigation seemingly suggests—however, grissom has stubbornly refused to do so. 

sara’s frustration with grissom has mounted as the man who always used to preach to her to not allow her personal feelings to cloud her professional judgment and to “follow the evidence” above all else has basically stuck his fingers in his ears and gone, “la, la, la! i know you’re saying that all of the material and circumstantial evidence in this case so far points toward heather, but i’m not listening because she’s too special to me!”

of course, sara’s fears about the nature of grissom and heather’s relationship atm and her annoyance with grissom’s comportment regarding the case go hand in hand: she can’t help but think that the only reason why grissom is being so pigheaded about insisting that heather is innocent is because he’s involved with her somehow—and that possibility smarts to acknowledge (particularly given that sara feels as if grissom didn’t ever “fight for her” when they were married/heading toward their divorce in the same way he seems to be fighting for heather now).

however, for as much as her personal feelings about grissom and heather’s relationship are coloring her actions throughout the investigation, they’re not her sole concern.

she does also care about solving the case, and to do so, she needs to get grissom on board with following the evidence. she also cares about grissom’s safety and welfare because, goddammit, she’s still in love with him, even if he’s moved on from her and so wants to warn him about (what she views as) the real danger heather poses to him.

so when henry walks in bearing news that one of the major pieces of evidence so far in the case is the dismembered body of a man heather once tried to kill, sara seizes on the opportunity to remind grissom that heather is perhaps much more prone toward violent and even homicidal behavior than he has to date been willing to allow.

her saying “he's also the man that lady heather almost killed, until you intervened” is tantamount to her being like: “look, gil, i know you don’t want to admit that heather might be involved with these bombings, but you can’t deny that she has a history of violence! the only thing that stopped her from killing sneller/wolfowitz was you showing up when you did and bodily pulling her off of him. the leap from ‘attempted murder’ to ‘murder’ isn’t a big one. do you really think it’s totally outside of the realm of possibility that she could (as the evidence suggests) be guilty in this case? really, when you better than anyone have seen the kinds of things she’s capable of doing when provoked?”

essentially, she is pointing out a pattern to him. 

she means to confront him, in a way: to make him own up to the fact that, despite his high opinion of her, heather does have it in her to kill.

and, yes, she does want to make this point due to her own feelings for grissom and jealousy over how she perceives his bond with heather: because there is more than a small part of her that is so deeply hurt by what she views as his unconditional loyalty to heather compared to his conditional (and ultimately “broken”) loyalty to her; because she wants to make him see that this person he (in her view) has “chosen over her” doesn’t deserve his allegiance.

but she also does so for the sake of the case: because they can’t afford to keep ignoring large swaths of evidence due to personal attachments.

and she also does so for the sake of him: because she doesn’t want something bad to happen to him because he’s putting his trust in (in her view) the wrong person—and especially not someone as potentially dangerous as heather.

there’s jealousy there, sure.

but there’s also frustration.

and there’s also genuine concern.

and underlying everything, there is a feeling of impending doom, like, “why can’t you see what’s right in front of your face?! this woman is trouble, and i can’t stand the thought that you might get hurt because you’re so blind to who she really is.”

she’s trying to give him a wakeup call, to force him to acknowledge, whether or not he wants to, that at this point in the investigation, all roads really do lead to heather as being the mastermind behind the plot.

particularly now that grissom has become a specific target, she feels it’s important for him to be aware of what’s in front of him.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.