#he's also not allowed to smoke in this section of the facility and its making him angry lol

[nevalizona]

John bitching and moaning about the clothes he was assigned to wear under his protective gear because this whole experience is new and frustrating so he's complaining about every little thing possible. He doesn't like the way it feels. Doesn't like the way it fits.

[0nepiece-imagines]

I have a request for smoker, katakuri and crocodile hcs with a s/o with lucky powers. When they are in a bad situation, they can change events around them to make things work well for them. Also I love your writing!

// aww thanks for the compliment!

// sorry this took a little while to get out! school has been hectic recently, but I’ve got some free time to trickle out some headcanons and scenarios slowly.

• a small description of your devil fruit power: similar to the nagi nagi no mi or the ope ope no mi, your devil fruit creates a radius of effect within a certain zone around you, and anyone or anything that comes into the zone will be affected immediately, and can be afflicted with good fortune or bad.

💨 SMOKER 💨

🤍 you and Smoker met when you were both training to become marines, and you have been stuck together like glue ever since

🤍 knowing him for so long, you aren’t intimidated by his outward nature, since you know under his brashness he’s a complete dork who loves to make kids smile

🤍 your devil fruits are quite compatible, with both of you building on the abilities of the other. smoker can obscure you from sight to allow you to traverse the battlefield to an advantageous position and both of you are basically untouchable, with the good luck effects of your power no attack can hit him and his smoke confuses enemies. you are practically an unstoppable team.

🤍 this is especially useful in those rare moments Smoker or one of your other allies are trapped, outnumbered or any other problem. If you can get them in the radius of your good luck, or inflict bad luck on your enemies, you can make the difference between life and death. Many young marines and even older, higher ranking officials have had close calls that you have been able to rectify.

🤍 this ability isn’t useful just for battle though, it also has its uses day-to-day. that new fancy restaurant you’ve heard about? oh, lucky you, they just happened to be able to squeeze you in when you called. want a day off because your Smoky works so hard? Would you look at that! Looks like he’s got a free day tomorrow.

🤍 your ability is the best for getting him to relax, knowing that you are there as his safety net. although he doesn’t like to lean on you much or take advantage of your devil fruit, it is nice knowing that you’re his little lucky charm.

🍩 KATAKURI 🍩

💜 your marriage was an arranged one, as there was no way in hell Big Mom was allowing her strongest son to marry someone of his choosing. you were from a rich, powerful kingdom on an island not far from Totto Land, and with your abilities in both battle and due to your devil fruit, it was only natural she would want her third eldest marrying you.

💜 Katakuri is a respectable, responsible and kind husband though he was a bit distant at first. He was also very busy, and still is, so he had little time to spend with you at first and also kept his distance due to distrust.

💜 although you found the man intimidating, you were determined to get to know him, and so when he was free you would use your devil fruit abilities to convince him to take a day off. he would suddenly find himself free for the afternoon or a day ahead of schedule.

💜 after getting to know him, and after gaining a bit of his trust, you began to join him at overseeing the growth of the produce, and then the processing, and packaging, and shipping of the flour. Eventually he put you in charge of a small section of processing facilities, and very mysteriously the workers seemed to really be on their game the days you were around!

💜 your relationship evolves to one of true love overtime, with you learning how to make doughnuts for Katakuri, memorising his favourite types (though he isn’t picky when it comes to doughnuts!). He also begins actively looking for time to spend with you, and quite the secret romantic, he begins to organise dates for the two of you and dinners, even occasionally managing to sneak you away to the other islands of the archipelago for a little holiday retreat.

💜 his observation haki and your devil fruit powers practically make you invincible. anything he does not foresee can usually be dealt with by your luck giving ability. Enemies can also be hindered when you give them bad luck, so it makes any attacking force even easier to defeat thanks to you.

💜 now that you have been together for so long, he couldn’t imagine a life without you. other than a few people, you are one of the few who see him regularly without his scarf when he sees you alone. you feel very privileged that he trusts you with something so sensitive for him.

🐊 CROCODILE 🐊

🧡 you met as young pirates, the bane of this mans existence as you always seemed to beat him to treasure, your boat seeing unusually tame weather on the torrent of unusual weather that is the grand line.

🧡 it was through these interactions that you grew to have a rivalry and then a friendship and then some sort of romance with crocodile

🧡 with you at his side and miss all-sunday to lead him to the weapon pluton, he would be unstoppable. with your devil fruits you would create utopia.

🧡 the fight for alabasta was far more difficult with you around to impede the Straw-hats, your ability tipping the scales in your favour until you were defeated and knocked unconscious, your abilities now unusable. still, you had never been given a bounty and were hidden well far away from crocodile, so you were never sent to impel down.

🧡 you used this to conceive a plan to break your croccy out of prison, using your skills and devil fruit to get yourself promoted to an officer in impel down, and teaming up with luffy to get crocodile out ahead of schedule.

🧡 while he was in prison, you rarely got to see him, as lower-ranking members took him his meals but you kept his clothes clean and neat until the day came where he would don his fur coat once again. when you saw him once again you nearly leapt into his arms, but restrained yourself. He wasn’t one for public displays of affection. That’s why it surprised you when he gave you an unexpected pat on the head, and even a ‘well done’!

// hope you like it anon!

[thiscrimsonsoul]

About the Muse

Okay, so... since mobile is dumb and no one can see Wanda’s about pages from there, here they are:

[CAUTION: NOT SPOILER FREE FOR ANY MOVIES!]

{ Basic Stats and Family }

Name: Wanda Maximoff

Avengers Alias: Scarlet Witch

Age: Winter Soldier (17), Age of Ultron (18), Civil War (18), Infinity War (20), Endgame (20+, however you want to count that haha)

Birth Mother: Magda Eisenhardt (deceased)

Birth Father: Max Eisenhardt/Magneto (Yes, I’m ignoring the retcon in the comics that stomped all over this, heh.)

Adoptive Parents: Django and Marya Maximoff (deceased) are the only parents the twins have ever known.

Siblings: Fraternal twin brother, Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver

Languages: Romani dialect (native tongue); Transian and Sokovian (learned as a young child); English, French, and German (taught to her at the Hydra facility)

Romantic Orientation: demi-heteroromantic

Sexual Orientation: demi-heterosexual

{ Background } – Trigger warnings: sexual assault, child harm, child death, suicidal thoughts

(Basically, what I have done with Wanda is flesh out her background a little better than the films did, borrowing from certain parts of her background in the comics and melding it together with the movie verse. So neither the comic- nor movie-verse is 100% canon for her, but most of the changes and merges of the two are in her background before the movies. I will be counting the majority of what happens in the movies as canon for her later years. Below I have detailed her background story and general headcanons about her life, mental health, and the events of the movies as I will be using them on this blog. This does not mean all of this is set in stone, however, it is just what I will be working from as I write her unless otherwise specified in rps. Some of this could be changed or truncated depending on verse and starter situation.)

Wanda and her twin brother Pietro were adopted as infants by Django and Marya Maximoff, never knowing any different but that the Maximoffs were their real parents. From the time she was very young, Wanda knew she was different. She could lift and push small objects with her mind, and sometimes she could make things happen just by saying it, by willing it so. Wanda could do these things because she is the child of a mutant. Pietro had his own abilities because of this as well. She was very close with her brother, and they sometimes got feelings about each other (being in pain or being too hot/cold, for example) without speaking.

When the twins were little, the family lived in Transia, but an incident with Wanda forced them to emigrate elsewhere, to Sokovia. Her family was Roma, also known as the Romani people, an Indo-Aryan ethnicity, so they already faced prejudice for that reason, but when Wanda’s budding abilities as a mutant as a young child became known, that only made her family greater targets for hatred. The incident that caused it was very traumatic for Wanda. When she was six years old, she was molested by a boy her age. Her fear and anger caused her to release this force inside her, the same one that allowed her to move objects with her mind. It pushed the boy away from her and, still not done with him, she cursed him for what he had done, telling him he would die for it. The next day, the boy was run over by a wagon and killed. Because the boy had told his parents about Wanda’s curse and then it had come true, she was labeled a witch, and to protect her, the family left Transia and eventually settled in Sokovia.

More detail about Wanda’s early life is in this headcanon post here.

At the age of ten, there was an attack that resulted in the deaths of Wanda and Pietro’s parents. For two days the twins were trapped under rubble, staring at a bomb that thankfully was a dud, but the children hadn’t known that. The name “Stark” was printed on it, causing the twins to develop a hatred for America and one of its foremost security and weapons inventors. They survived the event, but it left them feeling angry and helpless. So when Hydra began recruiting for a research project that the deceptive organization said was to help empower the citizens of Sokovia, the now orphaned and homeless twins jumped at the chance.

For eight years, Wanda and Pietro were kept at Hydra’s facility, mostly residing in their individual rooms, but having supervised time together. They were put through many evaluations, tests, and training sessions designed to detail the effects of the experiments involving Loki’s scepter on them. Of the many children selected for the experiments, Wanda and Pietro had been the only willing participants, and the only ones to survive. I headcanon that this was because only someone of mutant blood could withstand the power contained in the scepter. The experiments were at times frightening and even painful, but the twins could see the results manifesting as time went on. For Wanda, it meant the ability to bring forth this force she had always felt was within her, to call it outside her body and have it do her bidding. The energy took whatever shaped she willed, or the shape of fluidly-moving smoke if she did not define a shape. Although she did not choose its color, Pietro insisted that it came out red because that was Wanda’s favorite color.

The experiments enhanced the twins’ already partially-existent powers and brought out whatever was latent within them, but that wasn’t all they enhanced. As the experiments progressed, the twins’ ability to feel things about the other became more intense and pointed. Sometimes, they could communicate telepathically as well, although it was more of a passive thing than something they could employ at will. In addition to having telekinesis and other matter-altering powers, Wanda also has the ability to be extremely empathetic, sometimes whether she wished to or not. She sometimes would feel the emotions of others around her so strongly that it would affect her own. Over the years, she learned to tune out what was not hers, although she could not stop herself from passively experiencing it. She could enter people’s minds, something she discovered by accident one day when she became angry with one of the scientists at the facility. She was able to not only see inside his mind, but to induce a dreamlike state in which the man experienced his darkest fears. This reality of her own creation that drew from the man’s own psyche was something she also witnessed, and combined with her heightened empathy, it frightened her. But after that first time, it became a weapon of hers, and something she did not allow to frighten her or make her sad if she deemed the person deserving of it. Wanda to this day carries guilt over what she did to the Avengers in the Hydra facility, knowing that they did not deserve the nightmares she manifested in their minds.

When the Avengers came to Sokovia, the twins were told that they were being attacked and encouraged to help defend it. Thinking they were being loyal to Hydra, whose true nature they didn’t know, they did their best to defend the facility. Later, they joined Ultron, but that fell apart once Wanda realized the computer didn’t want to make the world a better place, it wanted to help destroy it. She decided to aid the Avengers, despite her hatred of Tony Stark, and Pietro followed suit. When Pietro was killed, Wanda felt him die through the bond they shared. Not only did she feel what it was like to die, something she spoke to Ultron about later, but the loss of her beloved brother caused her powers to go haywire for a bit. Responding to her heightened negative emotions, a wave of energy was released from her, disintegrating Ultron’s bots around her.

She has survivor’s guilt regarding Pietro’s death, thinking that if she had not decided to stay and fight, he would still be alive. After she tore out Ultron’s “heart,” Wanda was prepared to die. In some ways, she wanted to, since she now had nothing and no one to live for. Vision’s gesture of saving her life and literally carrying her out of danger made a huge impression on her and painted him in a good light from that moment on. It was the very beginning of her feelings for him.

From this point onward, I pretty much follow the movie canon as far as events in Wanda’s life, so in the next section I’ll just list some random headcanons that I have for things in the later movies as I address Wanda’s mental state.

{ On Wanda’s Emotional Stability, PTSD, Fear of Abandonment, and Agoraphobia-Like Symptoms }

Wanda has been through a lot in her young life, and it has definitely left her emotionally and mentally scarred. She suffers from nightmares and flashbacks about the sexual assault she experienced as a child as well as the two days she spent with Pietro near that dud bomb after her parents were killed. She also has nightmares about Pietro’s death and physiologically feeling him die. I headcanon that she also has nightmares about killing Vision and subsequently seeing him killed by Thanos.

After spending almost half her life inside a facility and mostly inside one small living space, Wanda developed a fear of wide open spaces, crowds of people, and chaotic situations. They can cause her to experience either panic attacks or the exact opposite, going numb and being unable to move. The reason for this is, although she was somewhat a prisoner inside her room in the Hydra facility, it was also a place where she felt safe and calm. Her life had been so sheltered in that facility, that once she was freed, the outside world was something unfamiliar to her. Her social skills also suffered because of her time in the facility, and to this day she still sometimes has trouble with average social cues. She is not good at reading people, discerning intent, or telling if someone is lying.

Wanda tends to think that holding in her emotions is not only necessary but that she must do it to be strong. This is something she learned from Pietro, whom she never saw cry or be afraid of anything. It formed an understanding in her mind that strength equaled stoicism, so the only time she emotes to any huge degree is when it’s over something significant enough that she’s not able to hold it in. Sometimes when that happens, her powers react to her emotions, causing damage and even death around her.

Wanda went through a very rough time after Age of Ultron. She was alone, with no living family left, she was mourning Pietro, she was away from home in a country she had thought of as an enemy for most of her life, and she was in a large facility full of people who distrusted her. She was bombarded by doctors, psychologists, and evaluators trying to determine whether she was able to be rehabilitated and scared of what would happen if they determined she wasn’t. During this time, both Clint and Vision were friends and supporters, and Natasha was very sympathetic toward Wanda because of her own background. But Natasha had work to do and Clint went back to his family, so Vision quickly became her main source of emotional support.

In Civil War, Wanda was very sorry for what was a quick and not well thought out decision to move the bomb where she did, but she does not hate herself or her powers. She is very proud of her abilities, she just regrets causing the deaths of so many people. This is an important point to mention, because although Wanda has at time contemplated allowing herself to die and feels insecure about a number of things, she is extremely proud of her powers. To insult them is to insult her, for she views them as truly an extension of herself. At the end of Civil War, when she is placed in the Raft and put in a strait jacket and shock collar, two things are happening in her mind. She is fending off a feeling of numbness and dissociation due to the feeling of forced confinement, something that really upsets her, and she is also offended and angry that her ability to call upon and use her powers would be taken away from her.

Pietro was a protector for Wanda in addition to being a beloved brother. When he died, that role was immediately filled by Vision, who first protected her in Sokovia. Wanda prefers her romantic partners to be physically larger than she is (not an unusual feat since she is a petite woman), and when she feels afraid, angry, or otherwise unstable, being enveloped in her partner’s arms stabilizes her, makes her feel calm, and brings back a similar feeling of being in a safe and small place like her room in the Hydra facility. It makes the world stop spinning out of control, a feeling she gets when she is panicking about something.

Vision is the only romantic and sexual partner Wanda has ever had. She opened up to him in a way that she had not done with anyone else, even Pietro. Although they were only together for a short time, he meant everything to her, since she had lost everyone else in her life. Fear of abandonment had taken hold after she lost her parents, and then again after losing Pietro, so to then lose Vision after she had become so close to him (and given the manners in which he died twice) was incredibly traumatic for her and left her very unstable indeed. She retreated inside herself, unwilling to become close to anyone else after that, because at that point she assumed that everyone she loved was just going to die and leave her. What some view as a calm exterior of a woman at peace with Vision’s death is actually the visage of a woman dissociating from a pain she has not even begun to process.

Being “dusted” was a familiar feeling for Wanda. It was this feeling of ebbing away, of fading into nothing. She experienced the same thing when Pietro died. She smiles slightly as she disintegrates because she will not have to mourn Vision as she did Pietro, which was a very painful process she didn’t want to go through again, and she hoped to see Pietro again on the other side.

{ Shipping }

{ General Shipping Info }

I am willing to ship with canon characters and OCs from any fandom or even fandomless OCs, as long as there is chemistry and Wanda wants to. XD

Wanda likes her romantic partners to be physically larger than she is. (Not a huge feat, since she is a very petite woman, heh.) This is because, when she is anxious or upset, being enveloped in another’s embrace is comforting to her and makes her feel safe.

She is very much attuned to hands and eyes in her partners. The eyes are just something she focuses on, and hands mean a lot to her. The way she manifests much of her power is through her hands, so anyone who will hold and be gentle with her hands will earn her affection.

Orientation: Wanda is heterosexual. She is also demi-heteroromantic and demi-heterosexual, meaning she needs time, chemistry, and a strong emotional attachment to someone before she can/will fall in love with them or be interested in sex.

{ Shipping With Vision Muses } For my version of Wanda, the standard ship will be Vision. If you do not like this ship or disagree with how I view it, that’s perfectly fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, hate and harassment will not be tolerated, so do not bring drama or unkind behavior my way. Since there appears to be much confusion, hate, toxicity, and vitriol in the fandom regarding this ship, I want to detail where I stand and what will be considered canon for my version of Wanda on this particular blog.

Yes, I ship them. Hard. They are my favorite ship in the movie verse and have been one of my favorites since the comics.

Yes, I ship them romantically.

Yes, I ship them sexually, provided it is a verse in which Wanda is 18+. I will not write smut with minor muns at all and I will not write any with Wanda in a verse where she is 17 or younger, even though I am 21+. This is not negotiable. If muns and muses are 18+, I’m all for it, provided there is chemistry. With Vision, chemistry can be somewhat assumed ahead of time unless the Vision muse is extremely canon-divergent or it’s an evil AU of either muse or something like that.

Yes, I do assume that they were already lovers when engaging in their meetings in Edinburgh, during the events between Civil War and leading into Infinity War.

{ Shipping With Muses Other Than Vision } Honestly, my version of Wanda will not be able to be shipped with just any muse. This has to do with my interpretation of her and how I have structured her background. The following things are obstacles to Wanda becoming romantically or especially sexually involves with someone. They’re not deal breakers, but rather are things that may cause her to standoffish and slow to warm up to people:

She is emotionally damaged and at times mentally unstable. I don’t mean she’s batshit crazy, I mean she has been through SomeShit™, and that has left her with erratic emotions at times, poor social skills, PTSD, and an intense fear of abandonment. (See “About the Muse” page for details.)

She is extremely distrusting of people, especially people she’s just met.

She is a sexual assault survivor. (See “About the Muse” page for details.)

Because of these things, I really only see Wanda getting into a romantic/sexual ship with two types of people: 1. The strong, stable, “I’ll be your rock but I am also a cinnamon roll” type that she can feel safe and protected with (example, Vision). Not that she can’t take care of herself, but it’s more of an emotional protection she’s after than a physical one. 2. Someone who has also been through SomeShit™ and is just as damaged as she is, and therefore she is able to empathize with and relate to them well (example, Bucky).

[meshkol]

Day 5 of Kinktober 2018: Shotgunning

Tags: shotgunning, marijuana use, drug use, unrequited love, angst

Pairing: Stony

I have no idea where this came from.  It was originally going to be WinterIron, but then this just happened.  I don't even know.  I like it though.  Unbeta'd as per usual, and there's no character bashing here, just so you know.  Enjoy.

Also read on ao3!

He slips out of the party for fresh air and a moment’s quiet.

He gets why it’s going on of course – they’ve won the war, and everything broken has been repaired, and pardons have been issued, and peace has been achieved – but there’s only so much schmoozing he can do before he uses up his seemingly infinite well of patience and needs to take a moment for himself.  That infinite well has been running dry for years because once he’d found out that Bucky was alive, he hadn’t allowed himself to rest or recuperate until he had finally found his best friend, and after that his entire reality had gone to hell.  The split with the Avengers over the Accords, needing to always be comforting and a strong leader for the people he had brought down with him, Thanos...it’s been non-stop, and he hasn’t had a moment to himself for years, giving every iota of himself to his team and eventually to the entire universe itself.

But now he can take a moment, suck in a deep breath, rest.

He wanders through the Avengers compound, the dark corridors silent and still under FRIDAY’s watchful eye, and recollects himself, allowing himself this moment where he can just be without having to put on a mask of power and justice and collectedness. It’s nice to just wander around in a place he now calls home, every fibre of carpet and every molecule of air familiar and safe, and not for the first time, he feels bone-deep gratitude that he’s able to be here, with the people he calls family in this facility that makes him feel secure, despite everything that’s been thrown at its inhabitants over the years.

He’s not sure how long he wanders, lost in his thoughts and gathering his mental fortitude to return to the party, when he smells smoke.

He pauses, tense as his sensitive nose breaks down the scent of it, and when he’s convinced that it’s simply the sharp, pungent odour of marijuana, he relaxes, because it means that nothing’s burning.  It’s an odd smell in this area of the compound, because the smokers have designated areas with air filtration systems to eliminate odour and this section of the compound – the Avengers training areas – don’t have one of those.  Those sections are sequestered near the living areas, the kitchen, and the staff areas, to eliminate a sizable walk for a cig.

It’s even odder here. Only a few people have access to this wing, as it houses and supports the Avengers directly, and none of the Avengers smoke.  Well, marijuana at least – he knows that Rhodes enjoys the occasional cigar, and Clint and Tony had partaken in the occasional cigarette back when Tony had been...well, going through everything.  Still, Rhodes is a stickler for the rules (and he’d been quite busy with Hope and Sam, all of them remarkably drunk, so he knows that it’s not Rhodes), and the other two are in a better place now, not resorting to vices like drugs and alcohol to cope with the horrors life keeps throwing at them.  In any case, he’s never smelt marijuana in the entire Avengers complex, and while he’s certainly for any medication use (including marijuana, courtesy of an hour-long lecture from Sam waxing poetry about how it can help so much for all sorts of people, including war veterans and trauma survivors), he hadn’t been aware that anyone smoked it.  Well, other than Tony, but that had been years ago.

Though, now that he thinks about it, Tony had hopped out of the festivities a while back and therefore Tony’s the only one that he’s not currently tracking.  It hadn’t been a surprise that Tony hadn’t stayed long; between being sober and the past years of trauma, shoving him in a room full of celebrating, drunken people isn’t exactly the best idea, as Tony had said with his usual, wisecracking nonchalance (laced with self-deprecating humour that Tony tries to hide but doesn’t quite have the strength to anymore). ‘Tempting a sleeping beast,’ he had said, grinning, but the wide smile hadn’t reached his eyes.

Tony doesn’t smile like he used to, and it’s a damn travesty.

Steve Rogers – little, bumbling Stevie, who volunteered for an experiment to win a war and came out looking like he does, but still doesn’t know how to use it all outside of a fight and doesn’t know how to really connect with people without it being about his image – takes a deep breath and follows the scent to the balcony.

He leans against the open glass door for a long moment, just observing.  Tony’s the first thing that he notices, leaning over the clear glass balcony and looking out to the distant New York skyline, a blunt in between his almost elegant but strong fingers.  Tony’s hard to miss, even in a crowd (always so big, his infamous personality and charm making him seem ten feet tall when he really is just a man, a man who’s been crushed by the weight of the universe and suffered for it), but here, alone in the very-early hours of an autumn morning, he’s utterly poignant. The perimeter lights illuminate him dimly and the smoke is curling round his head like a moth, and he looks so tired in the poor lighting (or maybe he’s simply washed off the expensive concealer that he liberally applies to the dark bags under his eyes).  Steve looks him up and down – short, compact body with that lean waist and strong muscles, greying hair getting longer now and slightly curling around his ears, and Steve can’t help but acknowledge for the umpteenth time that Anthony Stark is a handsome man.

It’s always been a tickling thought in the back of his head, wondering what it would be like to touch Tony’s skin and see him shiver, feel him pressed against Steve and Steve licked every millimetre of him, but it’s never been anything too distracting. Tony, despite his clear attractiveness and intelligence, had rubbed Steve the wrong way until he had been forced to examine the reasoning behind Tony’s every action and word, which had nipped any true possibility for attraction in the bud back then. Surprisingly, considering everything, it had been Wanda to explain it to him.  ‘I’ve been inside his head, for better or for worse, and for the most terrible purpose,’ she had said quietly, when he had been warring between guilt that he’d destroyed the lives of his family and the anger that Tony hadn’t listened, had fought people he called allies and friends once, had struck at Bucky, for God’s sake, a man who had been through too damn much himself. ‘He suffers, every single day, Steve, and when you live in a spotlight that the whole world is watching, you put on a mask.  The mask Stark wears is strong and hard and malleable with long use, but it is just a mask, and you do not know his mind like I do.  He is hurting, full of guilt and sorrow, and he fights just as strongly as you to give the illusion that everything will be fine, that everything will be better, even when everything is falling apart around you.  I have spent my entire life hating him Steve, but you cannot blame a man for doing what he thinks is right, even if you don’t agree with his actions, and in hindsight perhaps we should agree. However, in the end, he is human, and he is doing the best he can in a world that will do nothing but break him.’

Steve still doesn’t think he’s ever heard words that opened his world so dramatically since he’s come up from the ice.

Steve can see Tony for what he is now: a man who was shaped by traumas both old and new, who was trying to assuage his guilt by seeking oversight and giving reparations, who puts on a face to protect himself in his softest spots, and who overcompensates with sharp humour and tactlessness in order to assure the world that he is strong and unruffled enough to protect the innocent.

Steve gets that, because he does the same thing, albeit with different mechanisms, and that’s probably the reason why they were never able to really bridge the gap back then.  God knows it’s been better since joining forces to defeat Thanos, though, now that Steve can see underneath the mask Tony displays to the world, and surprisingly, they’ve come a long way since then. Steve, for the first time since meeting Tony Stark, can safely say that he would give his life for the man, can call him family and have it feel honest.

Though, if Steve’s current respect and affection he as for Tony means that he dreams about taking Tony apart with every trick he’s read about, then it’s not like anyone has to know. It’s not like anything would ever come out of it anyway – Tony wouldn’t touch Steve with a bargepole, and honestly Steve doesn’t really blame him.  Even though Steve knows that he’s made some right choices and Tony’s made bad ones, that sometimes he was right and Tony was wrong, it doesn’t change the fact that Steve’s made far more mistakes than Tony has, and maybe Tony’ll truly forgive him for it one day, but Steve can’t blame him if he doesn’t.  There are some things that Steve can’t forgive Tony for, so it’s only fair.

Tony Stark is not someone Steve can have, and while he thinks about him too often to be healthy, he’s still at peace with it.

“You curing your asthma?” Steve finally says lightly, after he’s glanced at the silent, dimly illuminated grounds and sees no other living soul around.  He’s not surprised by that either; with the revelry going on in the public wing, he can’t imagine that anyone would want to get away from that. Even Natasha is enjoying herself, having a few drinks and as she mends things with Bruce, both of them accepting that that relationship will never bloom now but wanting to remain friends despite everything.

Tony doesn’t jerk or startle with surprise, which figures.  FRIDAY had probably told him of Steve’s approach before Steve had even made the conscious decision to journey outside.  Instead, he brings the blunt to his lips and takes a deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs for long seconds before exhaling slowly, the cloud of smoke billowing around his face.  Once it’s all but dissipated in the slightly chilled breeze, Tony says in a low murmur, “Must’ve been a hell of a time, growing up in the forties, when they gave you smokes and weed for lung issues and heroin for everything else.”

“It had its moments,” Steve says, then adds, “though a lot more people died back then, from cancer and who knows what else.”

In profile, Tony’s lips quirk, and then he turns to lean against the glass railing so he can face Steve directly.  “I can’t imagine you stoned,” he says, chocolate brown eyes scanning Steve’s body as if trying to do just that.  It’s oddly exposing, being looked at as if he’s being dissected by Tony’s genius mind, and Steve almost wants to look away and wrap his arms around his body.  Tony continues, “Were you paranoid as hell or did you smile more instead?”

Steve purses his lips, trying to work out Tony’s angle, and then huffs.  “I’ve never done it, so I wouldn’t know.  Does it make you smile more?”

Tony shrugs one shoulder, takes another lingering drag, and then steps forward.  His gait is steady and strong, but as Tony gets closer to the brighter lights in the corridor, Steve can see that Tony’s eyes are a bit glassy and bloodshot, even if he doesn’t look worse for wear.  He turns when he’s too close and heads to the chairs nestled in a corner, dropping into a chair and draping himself lazily in it. He motions to the other chair pressed against the building as he flicks off accumulated ash into a metal ashtray, and Steve meanders over, relaxing a bit into the white cushions and turning a bit in Tony’s direction.

Finally, Tony admits, “Not really, but I do think really deep thoughts.  I can get a remarkable amount of brainstorming done, and God knows I can stomach SI board meeting better.  Here, try it.”

“It won’t work,” Steve says, eyeing the proffered blunt.  He’s not adverse to smoking – he had used his ‘prescription’ for asthma when he was growing up, not realising that the cigarettes were actually making his health worse, so he’s certainly no stranger to it.  He also knows that marijuana is relatively harmless (and it’s not like Steve can get normal illnesses, thanks to the serum, so he’s safe no matter what he decides to put in his body outside of napalm or something) and after hearing Sam’s lecture, he’s all for anyone using it.  Knowing Tony, who’s practically allergic to therapy, he’s probably using it to cope, and Steve can’t fault him for that, especially when he could be falling back on his toxic habits of alcohol and prescription drug use. Still, Steve’s pretty immune to pretty much everything, and he doesn’t see the point of trying it if it probably won’t work.

Then again, maybe it would, and maybe the voices in his head screaming at him for the choices he’s made will finally go away for a blessed moment.

He takes it and lifts it to his mouth, pulling deeply and trying not to think about his lips wrapping around something Tony’s own have touched.  His lungs are strong enough and his muscle memory vivid enough that he doesn’t cough, and he mimics Tony’s long pause before he blows it out smoothly. It’s weirdly flavourful in his mouth, something very...earthy and sharp.  He can’t really explain it, but it’s much nicer than the ashy, bitter flavour of the cigarettes he remembers from the forties, and he smacks his lips as he tries to connect it to something familiar.

“Huh,” Tony says, and he sounds a bit taken aback.  His arm is still outstretched towards Steve, fingers lax in surprise.  “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

Steve fights the urge to roll his eyes and brings the blunt back to his lips.  He inhales once more, this time the pull a bit hotter and biting as he burns it closer to the end, and reaches to snuff the nub out in the ashtray.  He rolls his tongue in his mouth, tasting pleasantly sharp flavour of the smoke, and then exhales as he says, “I might be an old man without a lot of real-life experience, but I know my way around this sort of thing.  I’m not nearly as stuffy as you all make me out to be.”

“This coming from the man that made me and Hope shake hands after we got into a bitch-fest and constantly tells us to watch our language,” Tony mutters as he reaches to a small tin on the little table between their chairs.  He opens it up, revealing one last blunt, and lifts it to his lips, lighting the end with a deep inhale and offering it to Steve once again.  Steve takes it, ignoring the tingle in his hands and his fingers brush Tony’s, and inhales as Tony continues, “Still, it’s weird. Good-weird, I guess, even though I guess I shouldn’t be egging you on, but still weird.”

“You didn’t egg me on, Tony; I’m a grown man capable of making decisions, and we both know that I’m too stubborn to be goaded into something like this,” Steve says around his mouthful of smoke, and he actually quite likes it, the taste and the smell and the way it feels in his lungs.  He can’t feel anything, which isn’t surprising, but when he glances over, Tony’s smiling, one of his big grins that brightens his eyes and takes years off his face, and maybe it doesn’t matter that Steve can’t get stoned.  He hasn’t seen Tony smile like that in literal years, and he feels a bit lightheaded at the fact that it’s directed toward him of all people.

“You are stubborn.  Probably why we drive each other so batshit all the time,” Tony says with a laugh, but there’s something in his eyes as he watches Steve take another drag.  If Steve was being gracious, he’d probably call it desire, but it’s probably just appreciation that Steve’s relaxing a bit and letting this private interlude be soft and light instead of heavy and filled with ghosts.  Nevertheless, seeing those dark eyes focus on him, bright with amusement but half-lidded and focussed on Steve’s mouth, is actually rather arousing, and he can’t help but swallow thickly as he blows out the smoke. He crosses his legs as naturally as possible, even though he’s certainly not hard, but he still feels the longing in his blood.

“Gimme, you good-for-nothing bastard; you’re hogging my weed,” Tony says and Steve laughs himself, not able to tear his eyes away as Tony wraps those shapely lips around the end and pulls.  Tony’s eyes close, long lashes fluttering against his cheek and casting shadows along his face, and Lord, is Tony gorgeous. Perhaps Steve is feeling something, because he feels a bit tingly and lightheaded, but it can’t be, because no painkillers or alcoholic beverage has been able to affect him since the serum.

A flash – Tony on his knees, wide mouth stretched around him, or Steve on his knees instead – of fantasy, and then he has to look away as he jokes back a bit thinly, “You offered, and besides, you’ve had more than I have.”

“I bought it, I smoke it. Get your own green,” he snarks back, and he almost sounds like his old self.  He slumps even further into his chair, grin tapered off into a small quirk of his lips, and asks, “Do you ever wonder how it would’ve been if we had started like this, instead of how it did?”

Steve sighs, relaxes back against the soft cushions of his own chair, and replies heavily, “Every single day, Tony.  Every single goddamn day.”

He expects a jibe at the language, but instead Tony says quietly, “Me too.  I think I could’ve...”  He trails off, looking a bit wistful, and Steve wants to hear the rest but he can’t bear the thought of hearing it at the same time.  Steve regrets a lot of choices he’s made and stands by the rest, but he can’t stomach knowing what could’ve been had he just opened his eyes sooner, what he’s lost because of the path he walked down.  He thinks it would kill him if Tony could have reciprocated even a tiny sliver of the emotion (it’s love Steve, don’t deny it) Steve feels for Tony, had Steve just looked underneath the underneath instead of the bombastic self-defence Tony wears as a second skin.

They sit in silence after that, passing the blunt back and forth, and when it’s almost gone, Tony clears his throat and asks, “Can I do something?  To share the last of it, y’know?”  Steve tears his eyes away from the silent grounds, something in Tony’s tone making Steve hold his breath, and looks at Tony for a long moment before nodding.

Tony stands, makes his way over to Steve’s front, and then falls to his knees, right in between Steve’s legs.  Steve can feel the warmth of him and he shudders at the sensation as well as the sight of Tony, right in front of him, pupils large from the lack of light and the marijuana.  “Just once,” Tony murmurs almost absently, as if he’s trying to convince himself of the truth in those words, and then takes the last drag of the blunt before blindly snuffing it out in the ashtray and reaching for Steve.

The first touch of that rough hand is electrifying, and feeling Tony pull him close is almost unbearable.  It’s a slow pull, hands cupping Steve’s cheek and bringing them nose-to-nose, and Steve realises what Tony’s trying to do a split-second before it happens: masking the tentative question behind the flimsy excuse of sharing that last drag.

Tony pauses, his nose brushing the side of Steve’s, waiting to see if Steve’s okay with this, waiting to see if Steve will meet him halfway, and oh is Steve more than willing.  He lifts his own arms and then wraps his arms around Tony’s neck, pulling him the rest of the way and slotting his lips against Tony’s own.

They open their mouths in unison and then Tony’s blowing the smoke inside, slowly and intimately, and it’s singlehandedly the most intoxicating thing he’s ever experienced in his life. He inhales as Tony exhales, taking it into his lungs, and then he slowly deepens their connection into a proper kiss, holding his breath and he winds his tongue with Tony’s own.  Tony groans, his other hand gripping Steve’s thigh for leverage as he leans upwards, mouth and tongue moving so fluidly against his own that it nearly breaks Steve’s heart to know that he’ll never get to have this outside of this single stolen moment.

Steve exhales but he doesn’t break the kiss, the smoke practically non-existent, and he pushes closer, wanting so much to make this moment count.  Tony meets him, so much unrestrained passion in his kiss, lips smooth and tasting like smoke, and Steve wants, he wants so much, and he can feel in the shudders of Tony’s body that it’s a mutual longing.

When they finally break apart, both of them panting against each other’s lips, Tony whispers, “That’s what I thought.  Thank you.”

“I’m sorry we can’t have more,” Steve breathes, heart aching as he also acknowledges what could’ve been.

“Me too,” Tony says, voice cracking in the middle, and then pulls away with an obvious hesitance, getting to his feet.  He looks at Steve, takes in every line and angle of Steve’s body as if committing it to memory, and then smiles, something sad but honest, before he turns and walks away, disappearing back into the compound and once again untouchable.

Steve hurts.

[alex-vella-blog]

Musings of an Immigrant (4)

Imagine, much like broccoli arranged bouquet-style in a vase, this is the memory I carry from the last meal of my first around the world experience.

Once Around the Globe / October 26, 2018

The first time I circumnavigated the globe was on a 32-day trip in support of a theme I advanced for an American Express annual report…essentially to document through interviews and photography the global reach of the company.

The high was self-evident. Here I was 28-years old, visiting countries far and wide that I had never been to before, and in some cases since, while interviewing notable people in every facet of careers and professions. The low was a bit of a personal quirk, perhaps an emotional impetus that could have been put under better control: In short, I didn’t want to miss the first steps of my first born son, an event that was going to fall sometime during the month-long trip.

 The first stop was Paris, France, where the banking, travel, credit card, and travelers check divisions of the company were huge business. The photographer I retained to travel with me and document the events of the trip was Eva Rubinstein, daughter of Arthur Rubinstein, the celebrated pianist. It was fortuitous that on the night we arrived he was being honored with a reception complete with all the expected fanfare of the rich and famous. At the time I smoked cigars, a bad habit I got into as a result of being around the company boardroom with its complimentary supply. Rubenstein not only smoked them but had his own farm and fabrication facility in Cuba at the time. My meeting with him was not much more then ano introduction and his request that I take good care of his daughter during the long trip. He was also gracious enough to give me a box of his Cuban cigars, emblazoned with his personal cigar band. As much as I welcomed the gesture, I was aware that I had to finish smoking the full box prior to returning to the U.S. because the land-of-Castro product was considered contraband by the U.S. government. 

 To represent American Express International Banking relationships I focused on Claude Lelouch, the then very famous French film director, writer, cinematographer, actor and producer, with whose company the bank did business. At the time, Lelouch was known in America for his 1966 film drama “A Man and a Woman,” and “Live for Life” in 1967. Now that a lifetime has gone by, I am not in the least embarrassed to say that I was very impressed to be interviewing one of the most celebrated ‘fellow’ creatives (hope is eternal) in his palatial digs, sitting facing each other on wingback chairs, and taking in the mesmerizing Parisian landscape. 

 Next came Spain where I was scheduled to focus on the activity of American Express’ travel division. So, what better than Costa Del Sol. But first I stopped in Barcelona, so after the magic of this city, the beach scene was a bit of a letdown. Rather than a slice of the Spanish population this region was more a mixture of other European nationalities than Spanish. For a local fix I went into the hills to a town called Benalmádena where I very unexpectedly ended having a meal at a private house. Memory fails, but when asking where I should eat, a local denizen suggested knocking on a particular door and the lady of the house would take care of me. It was very much the case. The then seemingly older lady who answered the door was very accommodating. She asked what I liked to eat and within the half hour she was back from wherever she needed to go to procure local fish and accompaniments. Perhaps it was the unplanned event and local fair, but the memory of the meal makes me salivate to this day. 

 Yugoslavia, specifically Belgrade in Serbia, and Dubrovnik in Croatia, as guests of the General Director of Star Travel, the then-communist state’s travel monopoly, was my host. Two impressions: Belgrade — grey. Dubrovnik — haunting, a perfect little Venice, except in miniature and less tourists. But most impressing was the state’s largess showered on me and my photographer in the way of entertainment and first class travel…all at the people’s expense of course.

 When I arrived in Greece, the country was under the control of a Military Junta (1967–1974), headed by a group of 4 colonels of the Greek army and led by a man named George Papadopoulos. At one point I arranged to visit the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. For a major tourist site, the place was fairly deserted on that day and provided the perfect setting for taking photos. As one would expect of a professional photographer, Rubinstein was shooting everything in sight. Suddenly, a convoy of sedans comes rushing in and a squad of military uniform-clad individuals step out. The photographer must have found the scene to be not only interesting but especially intriguing because she continued to shoot in their direction. This caused us some grief. We were quickly surrounded by security personnel fully equipped with nasty looking weaponry. In a nutshell, they took issue with the concept of us photographing military brass without permission…an act bordering on espionage. After some interrogation, and a period of heightened anxiety, they confiscated the film and we were let go.

 India of the early seventies was a different kettle of fish from the driving, capitalistic society it is today. The following two episodes encapsulates the country of that time.

 Once we deboarded and attempted to go through customs, literally in the middle of the night in ambient temperature that was well over a hundred degrees farenheit and no air-conditioning, we encountered Indian logic in its purest form. This event took place before the advent of digital photography, so the photographer was carrying hundreds of rolls of camera film, both exposed and unexposed. Now imagine a local customs officer speaking sternly in Indian English. Officer: “What is your visit’s purpose?” Me, and keep in mind that we did not have a work visa: “To see the sights.” Officer: “So why do you need so many rolls of photography film?” Me: “Because I work for American Express and might use some photos acquired on the trip in company publications.” Officer: “So, to be clear, you are not tourists but rather working on a photography assignment and you have no work visa to do so.”

 It had become clear over the ensuing six hours, during which the full inventory of film, both exposed and otherwise, having been placed in a walk-in vault that was hot enough to fry an egg on any metal surface within it, that most imported products were controlled under some sort of business monopoly system. Photography film was no different and whoever held the import license needed to collect their pound of flesh. As tourists, people could bring in a few rolls of film without any issue, but in the quantities that we were carrying to satisfy the needs of the whole trip, it qualified as illegal import. In the end, with the help of local American Express support team, and a monetary contribution that could feed a small village in that part of the world for many months, we were allowed to keep our contraband.

 The ordeal we had just experienced was quickly forgotten once we were being driven away from the airport towards our destination, Bombay, now Mumbai, because of yet another Indian oddity. The spectacle was seeing sections of large-diameter drainage conduit over many miles along the road, for sure intended for ground burial, but unintendedly, become domiciles for thousands of families. Life looked very normal at the front and back openings of each section of the pipes that was intended for a different purpose. People were going about doing their thing… cooking, bathing, living. If we hadn’t gone through the earlier experience at the airport it would have appeared as an alternate universe and more of a curiosity.

 At the time of this trip, Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony, and since I was born in a country with similar British experience, my assumption was that Hong Kong spoke English to one degree or another. In fact, the island of Kowloon which is where the business hub was located at the time is very much the case, but on the mainland and the New Territories it was another story.

Tired of the business opulence that was being showered on me and Rubinstein by the hosts, which included being feted at The Sky Terrace and The Peak Tower, it necessitated that I take in some of the local color and taste the more local foods. So, I took off by foot to parts unknown to see the sights. When the time came, I stopped at a local restaurant to have something to eat. So, this is when I came face to face with the cultural roadblock. The menu was in Chinese and no English was spoken at all. Never fear, there’s always pantomime. Trying to help, the waiter clucked away and flapped his arms. “Chic, chic” was the recommendation to which, since I was in full comprehension mode, I promptly agreed to and ordered. In short order, with mouth-gapping, I was looking at an aluminum cooking pot heaping full of chicken feet arranged with the claws sticking up and leaning over and around the edge of the pot.

Imagine, much like broccoli arranged bouquet-style in a vase, this is the memory I carry from the last meal of my first around the world experience.

[beacon-of-chaos]

Defenders of Aura 2 - A Battle Century G Sequel

The military research facility is up in the mountains, only accessable by air. Lucis devises a plan to infiltrate the facility in disguise, using Karen's ex-military knowledge to forge documents to get us in as tranfers brought in to shore up security after the prison break out. Lucis asks everyone to come up with aliases and we end up with Cpt. Shiro (Lucis), Dr. Bruce Steel (Spectre), Flora (Fauna), Ketojan (Katari) and Unit TX-5, AKA Tex (Sinclair). Before we head to the base, Sinclair attempts to find as much information out about it as possible. He is able to download an out-of-date floor plan and find some images online. Clearly not a secret base, then. There's a landing pad where we can land our stolen military transport ship (after changing the plates, naturally) and take a truck through the security checkpoints. Once into the base, there appears to be a part which is empty and unused, which will be our entry point. We'll investigate the facility and attempt to find the mechs. Lucis has a mech of his own (perk of being royalty) which will be stationed nearby to be called remotely when we need to escape. Katari's own mech is actually a living creature, a type of organic dragon-mech (which I believe was called something like Bloodrage) which was captured when he was arrested. Fauna never had one of her own but if we find one for her we'll take it. On our approach we broadcast our clearance codes and get permission to land. As we begin to touch down, we notice a mech hanger with five high-class mechs parked outside. Looks like there are VIPs on a visit. A truck is provided for us to drive to the base. We note the anti-air turrets on the towers around the outer walls. We'll probably need to do something about those in order to leave. At the gates to the main compund we are stopped by guards. They order us to leave the truck. Lucis puts on his best authoritive voice and tells them we're in a hurry. We're informed that because of the visit from Grand Master Jemiko everything needs to be done by the book. Sinclair notes that he heard this name before while searching for the plans. She's a high-up in the Camelot military, an expert fencer, though with no real combat experience. Lucis changes tactics and goes for sympathy mode. "Oh, I've done your job, I know what it's like always being blamed" etc. etc. This seems to work and the guards let us through. Once in the compound we park up and begin a fake patrol route, making our way around to the abandoned part of the building. There are a few security cameras around which we'd rather avoid, but Fauna can detect plant life inside so she uses her plant magic to transport us through another one of her plant portals (I'm assuming it's like the meld with trees spell from D&D). We appear insider the abandoned section, out of a tree in some kind of glass container. Luckily there's no one around, so we investigate for a bit. There's an old terminal here that might give us more info on the facility but there's no power. Sinclair attempts to plug in and use his own power source to charge the device, but either through lack of practice or the new body, he causes a feedback loop of some kind and leaves himself feeling, for lack of a better term, woozy. We move on. Eventually we find a door into the main part of the facility that had been boarded up. After pulling the boards off, we see a security door with both a number pad and a physical lock. Sinclair isn't feeling up to cracking the code right now, so Katari uses his sleuthing skills. By observing the wear on the number pad he is able to correctly guess the four digit code to unlock the door (a natural 10 on his investigation roll). The physical lock is solved by Spectre, who quickly whips up some acid using something he found in the abandoned building's storage area and burns through the lock. Inside is a well lit corridor with several doors along it. Katari and Fauna can feel Naul energy behind one of them. Lucis sneaks up to the door and attempts to quietly open it and peek through, but this door appears to be rusty and alerts the occupant inside. This room is some sort of laboratory. A scientist stands by a console next to several vats that have some kind of organic material floating inside. Lucis apologises and introduces the group, saying that we've been sent to inspect the base and get reports on the current research. The scientist is confused but takes Lucis' word for it and explains that the research into Naul biotech is going well, but they have yet to come up with a weapon to work against them. Considering that the Camelot humans and the Naul are meant to be allies, this is worrying. The scientist also mentions ongoing tests on one of the subjects. Katari can't help but feel some familiarity to the various organs in the vats and steps forward to ask for pictures of the "subject" in question (Lucis: This is Ketojan, our Naul Cultural Liason). The scientist hands over a print out and, sure enough, it's Katari's mecha. The GM makes him roll willpower to not go ape, which he just passes, though the scientist notices his discomfort. We make our excuses and leave. The next area is an observation room, overlooking a large hanger. It seems empty now, though there is a large area covered in blood and extra-large medical equipment. As we look down into it, we notice two figures talking. One is Robert Steel, the other is a woman wearing armour that we suspect is the Grand Master. The room is sound-proofed, but there's a one way speaker to listen in. We duck down and switch it on. Jemiko seems to be berating Steel for the lack of progress on his research and also for the prison break out. Steel attempts to defend himself but Jemiko tells him to work harder to fix things and walks out. We decide that hanger looks like a good place to check out and maybe confront Dr. Steel. In the next room there are three doors. From the plans we have, we see that there's another lab to the south, a corridor leading further into the facility to the west, and the security room to the north. We plan to head to the hangers via the western corridor, but Lucis suggests that we firts try and get into the security room and try to steal access codes. This will make stealing the mechs and escaping much easier, by allowing us to switch off the defences. It's a good idea, but the door is locked. So Lucis knocks on it. A voice comes over a tannoy asking for our business and Lucis makes up a story about how we just got here but someone screwed up and forgot our codes and could you please let us in so we can get this sorted out? This, of course, sets off some metophorical alarm bells with the security team, who tell us to please wait here. Katari: By any chance are there any vents in here that could be used to gas people? Sinclair: Once bitten, twice shy? Eventually the door opens, and out steps Grand Master Jemiko. The group tries to keep up the charade but it's very clear that Jemiko can not only see through us but is highly amused by our attempts. It's at this point she notices that Katari is carrying a sword and she challenges him to a duel. Katari is a proud warrior and gladly accepts. Guard walk out of the security door and aim at the rest of us while Katari and Jemiko move into the southern lab for their duel. She allows Katari the first attack. He rushes at her but she's able to easily use his strength against him and knock him away. He makes another attempt but the Grand Master once against deflect his attack, then follows up with one of her own which cuts deep. This goes back and forth a few rounds before it becomes apparant that Katari cannot win (though he refuses to accept this). The rest of us decide to take action. Spectre combines some of the chemicals he found in such a way as to create a smoke bomb. In the confusion that ensues, Fauna uses her magic to overwhelm the senses of one guard with euphoria, causing him to fall to the ground. Sinclair suddenly finds combat data in his mind and proceeds to butt a guard in the face with a rifle. He rolls a 1, normally a problem but Sinclair's "Better Lucky Than Good" trait kicks in, turning that 1 to a 10. The guard is knocked back into the wall, and tries digging a dagger into the wall to steady himself. Unfortunately he jams it into a control console and shocks himself unconscious. Lucis uses this time to slip into the security room and take it over so the rest of us can take refuge there. We kick out the guards inside and lock the doors. There are two other doors out of this room. One leads north towards the mech hangers, the other leads west to room that is apparantly not on the plans and has no security cameras. Those of us with magic senses note an odd feeling coming from that room. Sinclair notes that it's a similar energy reading to the biofuel. He attempts to ask Space Face if he knows what this is. His response is a cryptic "You may find answers, but be careful that you do not endanger yourself to get them". We decide to check the room out before we leave, with Sinclair shutting down as many of the base's defences as he can first. Inside is a large stone tablet surrounded by complex looking equipment. Sinclair and Spectre note that the writing is the same as the writing we saw back on the Nomad homeworld. As we look at it, we each feel as though the tablet is attempting to communicate with us. We allow it to touch our minds and we feel ourselves being drawn into some kind of vision. We see a world populated by animals. They are doing animal things, minding their own business, when a figure appears amongst them. A humanoid made of star stuff and wrapped in a cloak; one of the so-called gods we saw in the shrines of the Nomad homeworld. It waves its hand and the creatures now seem more aware, more intelligent. The scene skips ahead. The next thing we see is the world has changed. It now is the Nomad homeworld. There's a spaceship and boarding it are many beings, both Naul and Nomad, heading to a new place somewhere in the stars. The scene fades. We're back in the secret lab. We have no idea how much time has passed, if any, but we can hear the sounds of people attempting to break down the door to the security room. We should go, but Lucis suggests that we find a way to take the tablet with us. Considering this thing is a solid stone slab taller than any of us this seems difficult. Thankfully we have Katari and his super strength so he is able to load the stone onto a pallet and move it out. The security door is broken through and the guards takes a few shots at us so we have to run through the northern door and close it behind us. We make our way to the hangers. The first one we enter has three large creatures in. These are Naul mecha, organic and at least one is quadrupedal and apparantly made of moss or grass. Another is humanoid (I think, I forgot the description). The last looks more like a dragon. Each appears to be drugged and on some kind of life support. Katari and Fauna go to the plant mechs while the rest of us check out the next hanger for more traditional mechs. Katari's dragon is in a bad way, with stitches along its side where various organs have been removed. The humanoid one is on its last legs, being heavily wounded. Fauna can feel its pain and so decides to put it out of its misery and convinces it to let go. Something about the quadrupedal one draws her attention so she moves towards it. Meanwhile, Katari tries to speak to his dragon. Thanks to the drugs it seems unresponsive. Katari decides to try an old Naul ritual, cutting his hand with a knife and speaking Naul words while holing the bloody hand to the dragon. This seems to stir the creature, though it also seems wild, angry and scared. It rushes straight for the hanger door, breaking it down. Fauna boards the quad mecha and picks Katari up as they go after the dragon. In the other hanger, we find some metal mechs that we can use. Spectre finds a maintenance mech of some kind. Looks like it has chemical tanks mounted on it, possibly something the scientist can fill with his own concontions of acid or similar. Sinclair finds another mech in the corner. It looks rusty and broken, but Sinclair feels drawn to it. As the GM put it: GM: It calls out to you. It's made of spare parts, just like you!

It's not the Beast of Burden, which evidently is not here and was probably broken down for parts (RIP) but it will do. As Lucis calls for his own mech, we load the stone tablet and make our way outside. Unfortunately it seems that Jemiko is waiting for us in her custom mech, alongside four other mechs that look pretty strong compared to us. Of course we ran out of time at this point, so next session we have our first mech fight with new mechs!

Edit: forgot the quotes!: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22428591&postcount=495

[intoabrownstudy]

“So are you United or City?”

This is the inevitable follow-up question after, on clocking my accent, someone has asked me where I’m from. I always say that I’m from Manchester. I feel there is a reasonable expectation that they might know where that is or maybe have at least heard of it.

And I enjoy that follow-up question. It shows interest and knowledge that Manchester is, at least these days, probably best known as a football town. But I never like my answer.

“Well, actually, I’m from a town a few miles out of Manchester called Bolton, and it has its own team, Bolton Wanderers, they used to be in the Premier League a few years but now…”

I try to stop myself at this point. The poor questioner was anticipating a simple one-word answer but is now being faced with the prospect of having to feign interest in far more information than they expected going in.

“Oh.”

I’ve found that striking up a conversation whilst watching games in bars over here is almost inevitable. I moved from Bolton to San Diego, CA, just over ten years ago. Since then, I have spoken to many people with varying exposure to football. One aspect that seems to fascinate those not used to the sport is the idea of promotion and relegation in club football.

“If you’re not good enough, you get kicked out the league. My team were relegated a few years ago from the Premier League.”

“Oh right. So who’s your team now?”

This question stems from the fact all the major sports in the US don’t have the jeopardy of falling out of the league and that even the franchises themselves can be moveable feasts. Sometimes the sports fan in the US are asked to change allegiances.

“Oh, no, It’s not a case of that. I just follow them in whatever league they are in.”

Bolton Wanderers: A club that very few choose for. Manchesters United and City have, respectively, established and growing international fanbases because of, respectively, historic and current successes. It is extremely unlikely that Bolton Wanderers will ever garner anything like the attention that their noisy neighbours attract.

So why do I bother? Why do I follow this team in lower leagues, where the standard is awful and the coverage is limited. What has got me to the point where I, as a moderately-intelligent forty-two-year-old, more than five-thousand miles from home, still get all hot and bothered about a team that has only ever brought me disappointment? Well mostly.

I want to explore the origins of my love for Bolton Wanderers. The memories that have formed it. These memories are genuine, with the only research undertaken was to make sure timelines are correct.

oOo

In early 1987, Bolton Wanderers are struggling. A once mighty club1 are in a bad way financially and in the bottom third of the old Third Division. Relegation to the old Fourth is a very real possibility.

As a ten-year-old however, I was blissfully unaware of all of this. All I knew was that I liked football and I liked watching football matches. My first interest in the sport was being allowed to stay up for the 11 pm kick-off to watch the instantly-forgettable nil-all bore-off that was England’s group stage match versus Morrocco at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. A game in which nothing happened, save England’s captain, Bryan Robson, being carried off and England’s vice-captain, Ray “Butch” Wilkins getting sent off for throwing the ball in the general direction of the ref. Awful. Loved it2.

A combination of our enthusiasm for football and the dire situation in which Bolton Wanderers found themselves must have been the catalyst for my dad to take us to some home games. Usually, this would be the point in the piece where I am supposed to wax lyrical about my first game. The intoxicating aromas of wintergreen, second-hand pipe smoke and the half-time pies. The roar of the crowd. The elation of seeing my first goal. None of that. I can’t bring it to mind at all. I assume that we did go to some home games before the first game that I do actually recall, which was an away game. And it’s not a particularly cherished memory.

Looking back, I’ve no idea what my dad was thinking really. One of Bolton last few away games of the ill-fated 1986/87 season was at York City. As a family, we had been to the city of York many times. So, the plan was that we would drop my mum off in the city centre to do some shopping, whilst me, my dad and my younger brother would head over to Bootham Crescent for the 3 pm kick-off. We parked up around the corner from the ground and found our seats in the away end. My only recollections of the game were that the real Robbie Savage3 had his shirt ripped and that he refused to replace it. And that we were one-nil down at half-time.

This, apparently, was all that was needed for some Bolton fans to start causing mither4. The seated section of the away end was separated from the terraced area by railings to our right. Some Bolton fans started to climb them. An image that is seared on my retina is a deranged face poking through the railings, as he swung on them to force them to fall over. Other fights broke out behind us. This was Bolton fans against each other. I was frightened. As was my brother. I recall my dad asking for calm. I don’t recall if there ever was. We left the game before the second half started, as my brother and I were in a pretty inconsolable state. We picked up my mum and headed for home.

This incident is consistent with a fairly stereotypical view of football crowds in the late Eighties. It is the only time that trouble has happened so close to me at a football ground, but it must have had an impact, as I didn’t go to any other away games until my adulthood.

Bolton were relegated a few months later. The fourth division. A historic new low for the club.

Bolton Wanderers as a football club didn’t have a great deal going for it at this time. Burnden Park was an outdated stadium and in order to pay off debts, a corner of the ground was sold to the Co-Op so a Normid supermarket could be built. Sympathetic away fans would later chant “You only sing when you’re shopping”. The club asked regular supporters for financial help. They set up what they called Lifeline. Supporters could set up a monthly direct debit to donate money to the everyday running of the club. They needed fans to step up, and they did. Amongst those fans was my dad and I remember helping him spend his winnings from the monthly draw on the occasions his numbers came up. And I think it was in this spirit that he decided that buying season tickets for the first ever season in the fourth division was the right thing. It was this idea that, I believe, triggered my love of Bolton Wanderers.

As a young fan, the fourth division would be a baptism of fire. We were at our lowest ebb. In theory, things should only get better but certainly not get worse. We should have a good season.

The manager, Phil Neal, England and Liverpool legend, was able to bring in new players. I actively followed the moves made before the start of the season in the Bolton Evening News, the local paper. We had signed an impossibly-bronzed right-back from Halifax Town called Phil Brown5. A frontman from Bristol City called Trevor “Sumo” Morgan, who’s backside had its own gravitation pull. A striker from Preston, John Thomas, who seemed like he might score goals. The new home shirt6 was great; the best one there ever has been and since. I definitely recall a sense of optimism around the place when the first match of the season finally arrived. A home game against Crewe Alexandra.

And we scored first. The goal came from another new signing, from Grimsby Town, the box-to-box midfielder Gary Henshaw7 with a volley. We were cruising this division, right up until the point that Crewe equalised, by some no-mark called David Platt8. One-all, the final score. Ah well.

This was, and hopefully will forever be, the only season Bolton Wanderers spent in the lowest professional league in England. We gained automatic promotion to the third division by clinching third place on the last day of the season.

During this season, a matchday routine was crystalised. Parking up on the same street and then walking on the ground, buying the matchday programme from the same corner and asking my dad where on Earth Scunthorpe or Hartlepool or Darlington is.

Inside the Burnden Park itself, the amenities were less than salubrious. We sat in the Great Lever end which was nominally designated as the family end, although I was never sure what it was that made it family-friendly. It was dark, had just-about serviceable toilet facilities and a portacabin serving your half-time Bovril. As season ticket holders, we had designated seats which were right behind the goal almost all the way towards the back of the stand. In actuality, we could have sat anywhere we chose, but we always very deliberately sat in “our” seats. There was no earthly reason to do so, as in the seat in front of us, was a very elderly gentleman, complete with flat cap, who sat quietly on his own but would chain-smoke his way through every game. Looking back, we must have been a persistent annoyance to him also, as we would bring along a genuine World War Two ARP rick-rack, which we had painted club colours. On the appearance of the teams, we would swing that thing around for all our worth, making, on reflection, a very unpleasant noise. But neither side relented. Every week, same spot.

What I do remember with fondness about Burnden Park were the times, as a family, that we would go to lunch to what was dubbed the “Executive Lounge”. This is where the top brass of visiting clubs would be entertained and what passed for the fancy-eating quarters for the players after training. But during the day, any old scruff could avail themselves of the plentiful buffet for a very reasonable price. You would often see the players tucking into their lunches and best of all, the club legend and lifetime president of the club, Nat Lofthouse would be there. A nicer, more considerate and conscientious man I have yet to meet. Sir Nat had time for everyone.

In his pomp, he was the most feared striker of his generation. After scoring two goals against Austria whilst playing for England, he earned the title, The Lion of Vienna9. To this day, Bolton’s six-foot-plus furry mascot is named Lofty the Lion. As a tribute to the great man and this epithet, local folk band, The Houghton Weavers produced a song of the same name which they released on 7-inch vinyl. Sir Nat was gracious enough to sign my copy even as I interrupted his meal one day. My mum has kept our copy10.

Nat Lofthouse was an important part of why Bolton Wanderers survived as a club. And for him to not mind some oik asking for an autograph, and in fact made to feel actually welcomed, meant a great deal. Even in the moment, but probably more so now.

It was around this time that I must’ve had it bad. With definitely my dad as the enabler. The whole family would often go to see the stiffs11 play on cold midweek evenings. Even travelling to Blackburn’s Ewood Park and Oldham Athletic’s Boundary Park to see youth team cup games. I enjoyed that a typewriter had been used to produce the teamsheets that were handed out at these games, that you could hear the players’ voices as they hurled insults toward the ref, as well as the creek of the wooden stairs in the Manchester Road end12.

There were other occasions, such as the day, we all woke early on a dreadful Saturday morning to go see a Bolton A13 team match against Manchester United at their old training ground, The Cliff. It was a disgusting day; the type when the rain drives at you sideways. It also happened to be Christmas Eve! The redeeming aspect of this adventure occurred before the game even kicked off. Manchester United’s first team were there for a light training session before their Boxing Day game. I was able to get the autographs of players that I’d seen on the telly and who I knew were really good. Gordon Strachan, Paul McGrath, Mark Hughes, Steve Bruce and, best of all, Bryan Robson14. A hero. Amazing. Then Bolton A played in a match.

As I planned this piece, my research revealed that I had misremembered gaining promotion to the third division in the same year as we won a Wembley final. That glorious day in North London remains the best I’ve had as a Bolton Wanderers fan. Alas, that happened in May 1989. Eek. I had remembered us fighting on all fronts, cup and league when in reality, we had clinched mid-table mediocrity by February and had only the Sherpa Van Trophy to play for in the rest of the season. These were the years when only clubs from the third and fourth divisions could enter15, so after we had beaten Blackpool over two legs in the semis, I felt confident that we could go on to beat a fourth division team, Torquay United, in the final. That final was at Wembley.

It probably goes without saying that I had never been to Wembley before. In those days, there were only a handful of games shown live on television. A few hand-picked first division matches on a Sunday. And, of course, the FA Cup Final. At Wembley. Where it was always sunny. The field, implausibly green and twice the size of any other. The crowd, unfeasibly large. I really couldn’t wait to see my team down there.

We stayed overnight at my auntie’s in Stevenage and, as a family, marched on Wembley Way, bathed in the prerequisite sunshine. It was the time when supporters had started to bring inflatable objects to games; a craze started by Manchester City fans, who honoured their striker, Imre Varadi16, with inflatable bananas. Bolton produced their own inflatable, a pig, as we are known as the Trotters (Even though it is believed that the nickname doesn’t actually relate to pig’s feet, but to a colloquial term for a practical joker). I had brought one of these for the big day, but when it was made clear that I would be responsible for carrying the thing all day, a decision was made to leave it in the car. However, the rosette created especially for the game did make it to the ground. I miss the use of a rosette for finals, I think they look smart and are due for a revival.

Bolton won. But not before conceding the first goal of the game. Four different scorers for Bolton made it four-one at full-time, which included one of the best goals ever scored by a centre-half at Wembley17. To this day, I remember Dean Crombie cushioning a pass on his chest after making a lung-busting 50-yard run and then slotting home like it was his job. Everyone around me was understandably ecstatic and were stood up during the trophy lift. I decided to stand on my seat, the kind that flips up, to get a better vantage point. So what I remember most about Bolton receiving the coveted Sherpa Van Trophy is the excruciating pain of trapping my leg in the seat after losing my balance. Even now, this mental scar twinges whenever I’m navigating a partially-empty sports stadia.

Looking back, I’ve used the word “we” a great deal. We won the cup that day. It was an important day for the club, as it reminded the whole community how important it was to the town.

Bolton were bang average for the next few seasons after the Sherpa Van Trophy success. Phil Neal was never able to gain promotion to the second division after several attempts. These seasons have, over time, merged into nothingness. It was only after the appointment of Bruce Rioch did the club start challenging for promotion. Under him there were great cup runs, defeating, most notably, Liverpool at Anfield in a FA Cup replay, and promotions to the second division and ultimately the Premiership/Premier League18 through the playoffs.

oOo

It was my dad’s enthusiasm for his football club, and his sense of civic pride, that first nudged me down the path towards Bolton Wanderers fandom. Continuing what he started is a huge part of why I still care.

I support because of the great days the club has afforded me. I support because of the sense of sharing with friends and family and with absolute strangers. I support in hope, rather than in expectation.

Bolton Wanderers has always been a club that represents the town. I take pride in how our 1958 FA Cup win was achieved by 11 blokes who were born and raised in the town. That has not happened since by any club, and will probably never happen again. Nat Lofthouse epitomised that. His love of the club meant that he would do whatever was asked of him. Filling in as manager if needed. For our club to be associated with a great figure like Sir Nat is a privilege. His example is one that we as Bolton fans should always be mindful of. Throughout its history, the club has existed for the fans, and also because of the fans. Currently, the club is in a difficult period. We need to be watchful and supportive in ways that might extend further than simply cheering on the team on a Saturday afternoon. It should be treasured, and we must not be complacent. The club should be maintained so that it can thrive and remain the great representation of our town into the future.

Bolton Wanderers is a significant, historical sporting institution. As I Boltonian, I am extraordinarily proud of it.

Footnotes

1 Founding member of the Football League; scored the first-ever goal in that League; Four-time FA Cup Winners; Winners of the first FA Cup Final held at Wembley in 1923

2 On the back of this, me and my brother both got full England kits, which we both wore out of the sports store in York.

3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Savage_(footballer,_born_1960)

4https://www.yourdictionary.com/mither

5 Now famous for being impossibly-orange in management at Hull City et al and number two to Sam Allardyce at Bolton.

6 Alas, my replica of this shirt is lost. Either at an Airbnb in Milwaukee or Chicago. Tragic.

7 On my first day of a summer job as a driver’s mate for a local delivery company, to my surprise and delight, Gary Henshaw was the driver of the van. Together, we made sure the good folks of Scunthorpe got their fridges and washer-dryers that day. I was definitely star-struck.

8 A few years later, David Platt went on to play for Aston Villa, then, Arsenal, Juventus, Sampdoria and of course England. He scored “in the last minute of extra time”.

9 For more reading about Nat Lofthouse, this is a fabulous article from TheseFootballTimes.com https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/09/29/nat-lofthouse-the-lion-of-vienna-and-the-gent-of-bolton/

10 The photograph courtesy of my mum; note that Sir Nat signed with Thanks.

11 The reserve team.

12 So here’s where I allow myself to wax lyrical, about reserve team games.

13 A third-string team of reserves and youth players.

14 This photo courtesy of my mum who still has the autograph book.

15 In its current iteration, the Checkatrade Trophy, Premier League and Championship clubs can submit academy teams (if they wish).

16 Some kind of corruption of Varadi into Banana. No, I don’t either.

17 All views expressed are my own.

18 Delete as appropriate for that year.

[introvertllux]

Copia (Donald Pierce Fanfic) (Re-uploaded)

Enjoy this first chapter sorry if there are any errors I just sort of wrote this spontaneously! :) (LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO SEE A SECOND CHAPTER)

 Chapter 1: The Start

       My name is Luanna Morgan. I used to just go by Luanna point blank, I never knew my last name I just had assumed I was never given one, I was once asked my Charles Xavier himself, you know… the head of that one fancy boarding school a long time ago. The school for mutants. Yeah, that’s the one. 

       Sorry, I was getting a little ahead of the story there, so anyways as I was saying I never knew anything about my life. I never knew my biological parents; I don’t know if I have any siblings either… the one thing besides my first name that I was sure of is that I was a mutant. Clearly I was dropped off at a school for mutants as a fucking baby but I couldn’t have shown signs that early on, could I? As I grew up I started noticing I was not like other mutants I was different. Now let me explain myself, I felt as if I was a copy. I didn’t have any unique powers of my own. It seemed to me as though I had the same powers as other individual mutants. For example, telepathy and flight like Jean Grey, healing factor like Logan, and shape shifting like Mystique. 

      As a kid all I craved was to have my own original power something no one else had, it was all I’ve ever wanted no toy or car could ever replace my desire to have my own power. I also struggled with my appearance. It was not until I was seven years old that I had discovered “my” shape shifting ability. Like I said before I never knew who my parent were so of course I couldn’t even tell you what they looked like, so that did not help me try and form an appearance I like. I saw that I was born with green eyes, brown skin, thick curly hair, so I left it I didn’t think I was ugly or anything of the sort I was just like any child, nothing less than…curious. Other than that, living with Charles Xavier and all the mutants were great. Until the war broke out.

        Everything was destroyed! So, I did what I thought was right at the time I ran away, I didn’t fight. Years went by and hundreds and hundreds of mutants died. We became extinct. Now, it’s the years 2029 and it’s a rarity to run into a mutant these days. After I ran away, I went all over the states, I stole and even killed to feed, clothe myself. As I reached my late teens and I decided that I wanted to make a life for self-something that didn’t involve stealing or murdering so I decided that I would get a job and go to school. So, I did just that, I majored in nursing. To my surprise it was quite hard for me to find a job. I searched high and low until… one day I was offered this job. It was for this company called Trasigen, I had never applied for then nor have I even heard of them at that time.

          I was just a young twenty-two year-old girl looking for something to pay the bills. So, I said yes. I was told that it was asylum that helps cater to young children with mental illness. I was assured that they would be healthily tested on so that we may find cures for their individual illness and be sent back into the real world to live as average people do. My job was to just feed, talk, and play with them. Although I knew I was much more capable than that I was a nurse for crying out loud. But nonetheless, I still did what I was told. I never did see the child during the afternoons or night at first I did not find it suspicious I just kept my mouth shut the pay was extremely good. However, one morning I checked up on one child his name was Rictor. I love Rictor he was such a sweet, nice, and brave little boy. My curiosity reached its peak that day.

  Whilst I gave him his breakfast I asked him 

“Rictor, where…where do you go when I leave” 

He looked at me hesitantly and began to shake.

 “Rictor?”

 I said as I placed my hand gently on his left shoulder.

  He flinched instantly. “Its okay sweetie you can tell me.” I said trying to reassure him.

 “They…they do bad things to us after you leave miss…bad things. They-they hurt us…”

 He said to me crying. 

I comforted him the best I could because look what they were doing to him to the other kids it was for the best these experiments weren’t to hurt them it was to help.

       But, I needed to know more so I spoke to Zander Rice the head of this whole place. It was not too often you’d see him so I was lucky. I demanded he tell me what he was doing to the children after I left, I even threaten to report him to authorities if he did not tell me the truth! I expected to be fired on the spot but instead he showed me. He told me the truth. The truth shocked me. He told me that those children having a mental illness was nothing more than a cover up. Zander explained to me that in the past the world was not yet ready for mutants to live among them so he comprised this facility of lost mutant children that they had found on their quest for mutants. 

           Zander said his goal is to stabilize their powers so that they can live normally among humans and everyone will be safe. I believed him, but I sure as hell I didn’t tell him I was a mutant for I feared he tried to keep me here too. After our long discussion, he told he that this would be my new work area, the lab department, I was ecstatic a promotion and I had only worked there for six months. 

“Of course Luanna if you are going to working in this department I must introduce you to my right-hand man, Mr. Pierce.”

 He said to me.

 I turned behind me, sensing another presence.  

 “Zander ! I’d say it’s quite rude of you to hid a beauty this great from me.”

 He said to me as he grabbed my left hand and kissed it.

 “I go by Donald, baby.”He said to me.                                                                           

 I was left speechless and to my own thoughts. I felt a shock jolt through my body as soon as his hand touched mine.                                                             

“My name is Luanna.”

 I said blushing lightly.                                           

“Luanna, such a great name for such a beautiful woman.” 

He smiled at me flashing his gold tooth at me.

 “Zander I sure we’ve kept you away from work… allow me to finish up the tour with her.” 

Donald said ad he wrapped his left hand around my waist.

To say I didn’t melt in his grasp would be an understatement. “So eager to whisk me away.” 

I said jokingly to Donald.                                     

“I have to be with Zander hidn’ a beauty like you away from me.”

 He said smiling at me again.  

 “He wasn’t hiding me, maybe I was hiding myself… waiting on a reason to come out.” 

I said as I flirted back just as hard.                                             

“Trust me sweetheart I can be your damn reason.”

 Donald said to me as he pulled my body close.

   He gripped both sides of my hips. I sucked in a deep breath as I just realized that one of his hands feels different from the other. I slowly slid my right hand down to his and felt his right hand. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, I felt his hand and just as I suspected it was not a human hand. It lacked flesh, bones, and muscles everything a human hand had. Could he be a mutant like me? No, I would have sensed it. I opened my eyes and gripped his hand. I looked up at him in a questioning matter.

 “What, this old thang? I had an accident a long time ago after the military, I quit and that’s when I meet Zander he fixed my hand for free. After I quit the military nobody even looked twice at me I was a honorary disgrace to the U.S. no hospitals would fix my hand. Nobody would he me, but Zander did.”

 He said looking at me with said eyes.

     I place my left hand on his cheek, well you’re no disgrace to me.” I said quietly. “Look I’m saying this from the bottom of my heart you are so brave and smart for doing this for these kids you’re helping them have a better like, you’re anything but a disgrace.” 

I said with a soft smile. 

“Thank you, sweetheart.” He said. 

    I looked into his blue eyes and then at his lips I wanted to kiss him. To tell the truth it would be my first one I had done nothing romantic or sexual in my whole entire life. My focus was to survive and those two categories were not options for me. Donald looked at me and then down at my lips. He then leaned down to kiss me, it felt right. He pulled away for a second and looked at me then he continued to kiss me and I kissed him back and we started making out. From there on things got very heated to say the least. 

   The next day I found myself in a bed alone with soft sheets covering my body. Yeah, we fucked but that wasn’t all it meant to me. I lost my firsts to this man, a man I knew for a couple of fucking moments. Maybe that made me a whore in somebody else’s eyes, the hell if I know but I know one thing I have strong feelings for this man and I’m pissed off he left me here. I searched for a clock somewhere in this god forsaken room. I found one handing in the darkest corner of a wall for what I could see it was 8:00 am, great now I have thirty minutes to find out where the hell I am and get to work. I quickly got up and searched the room for my clothes. I found them and put them on, I slipped my shows on and found my way out the door.

     Before I  can closed the door behind me I notice, that the outside of the room was all too familiar. This was the lab. Donald lives in the lab section of the building? I had a bone to pick with Donald so I there this new discovery towards the back of my mind. I had no idea where he worked. I looked all over the lab and I couldn’t find him. I searched and searched until I came upon this door that said ‘RESTRICTED AREA’ in capital letters. 

      I didn’t care, I twisted the door handled and it was looked. I easily picked the lock and walked inside the area. I looked around and noticed a lot of cells and smoke, this place made me feel so uneasy. My sensing was going wild but ignored the for now. I walked further until I was stopped. 

“This is a restricted area, I’m sorry Miss Luanna but I cannot allow you to walk any further.”

 A man with a loaded gun strapped to him said to me, he was built like a military man. 

“I just would like to know if you have seen Donald anywhere, I need to speak with him,” I said kindly to this guard.

 “He is handling something important at, he is out right now.”

 The guard said not looking in my direction.

 I felt his heart rate go up… he was lying to me.

 “I know he is here and I’m not leaving until I speak with him. So, your move.”   I said in a stern voice.

    Seconds later he moved to find Donald. I stayed put not wanting to look around this place any further. I waited a minute until I saw Donald approach me. I knitted my eyebrows together.

 “So you think you can fuck me and leave, great fucking swarming you left me with.”

 I said with anger in my voice. 

“Hey, hey I never once said that.”

 He said putting his hand up in defense. “

You. Actually. Think. I’m. Joking.”

 I said jabbing my finger into his chest with every word.

 “Never said you were darling. I think we should talk about this the room.”

 He said pulling me along with him out of this restricted area. 

    I could not believe this man, hell I couldn’t even believe myself for allowing this man to pull me back to that room. We made it back to his room sooner than I had thought. He slammed the door behind him as I folded my arms underneath my breast. 

“Look sweetheart I know you’re mad at me but there’s no reason.” 

He said walking closer to me.

 “Oh really? Because I can think of a couple go reasons off the top of my fucking head!”

 I yelled at him.

 “Look I didn’t fuck you and leave if that’s what you’re thinkin’ I felt something between us and I don’t want to let that go yet.”

 He said as he pinned me against the wall, the same on with that dangling clock.

 He uncrossed my arms and healed them to both sides of my head. I looked away from him “

Let go of me asshole!”

 I yelled.

 “I’m an honest man baby you think that if I wanted to hurt you I would have done it already. Look at me.”

 I didn’t look at him.

 “Look at me.”

 He repeated softer.

    This time I listen I stared straight in his eyes I felt as if he was telling the truth. He let go of my hands and I left them at my sides. He then placed both of his hands at the sides of my face and leaned down and kissed my forehead. 

“I want this.”

 He told me…and I believed him.

[strangewriterforhire]

Long Winter: A Sample Chapter

The longboat rocked sharply as it navigated the treacherous air currents rising above Boston Citadel, though its passengers didn’t seem to mind.

Lord Garth’s forehead rapped hard against the armoured glass view port he had been peering out of, and muttered a brief curse beneath his lips. For such an occasion as this he should really attempt to act the part of a leader of men, some towering all powerful colossus that could decide a man’s fate with but a flick of the wrist. And normally that would have been the case, had the view provided to him of his city not been so mesmerising. He had of course seen his city from the high observation balconies of his citadel, his realm reduced to a scale model any megalomaniac would have been envious of.

But to see it reduced to so small a volume, to a child’s toy, the reduction in scale was a truly humbling experience.

Captain Duras ‘Tarot’ McDonald smiled from her seat at the back of the Longboat’s passenger compartment, her hands neatly folded across her lap as she enjoyed the aerial sortie. She didn’t often get the chance to simply enjoy the sensation of flight for the sake of it, not without putting on a stony faced visage that came with her rank aboard ship. If the crew knew she smiled, or even that she harboured very human ideals of simple pleasures, her authority might be terminally undermined. But here, aboard the No3 Longboat, she and Lord Garth were all but alone. Save of course for a small marine detachment from the Sparrowhawk, and a similar group of hard cases from Lord Garth’s personal guard.

And for the time being both sets of soldiers were sizing each other up in the rear cargo compartment.

To the port sat the five handpicked marines of the Sparrowhawk’s shore party, dressed not in their robin’s egg blue battlefield tunics and leggings, but in the segmented ceramic plates of combat armour. The lightweight ceramics made sure her marines were able to maintain their high speed manoeuvrability on the battlefield, to better favour their hit and run tactics, whilst sacrificing full body protection.

The segmented design of individual plates meant a knife or lucky shot might find a gap to cause injury, but that meant hitting a target first. And Rishland Naval marines were hard targets to hit, especially when they were firing back: at their hips were flechette pistols loaded with fragmenting diskette’s that could shred leather as easily as skin from close range. They also carried a telescoping halberd on their opposite hip, its wickedly bladed tip ready to spring out as it telescoped into an adjustable fighting tool: form axe, to spear, to club and back again.

The fearless fighting females of the Rishland Marines always knew how to accessorize for any occasion, be it a state dinner, honour guard duty, or a full frontal assault on entrenched hostiles.

Lord Garth's assortment of personal guard had settled for the pretentious show of force that was full armour, polished and scrubbed to a mirror like finish. With their royal red plumes atop their helmets, and the silken sashes going from one hip to an opposite shoulder disguising the leather belts and buckles that allowed their heavy holsters and short swords to remain at their sides, they looked for all the world like chrome roosters. Even with a sailor's eye, one not accustomed to land based combat, Tarot had a feeling the armour was more for show than anything else. She had heard of such devices that could look beautiful and attractive with one eye, and be as deadly as any crude looking machination of war. Perhaps these suits of armour disguised their brutality behind mask of supreme civility.

And a little theatrics where they were going, might do wonders for the days already bleak outcome.

“First time in flight, Lord Garth?” Tarot spoke up from her seat, allowing an amused to colour her words.

“This high, yes.” He remarked with remarkable control on his voice, settling himself fully in his seat so he might turn his head slightly and look at the captain, adding a little too quickly “I have been aboard levitator airships before.”

Aye, Tarot thought, but none like my Sparrowhawk I wager.

As if on cue the longboat rolled gently over, presenting one armoured view port to the sky and the other to the city and harbour below, as it began a steep turn out across the bay.  Tarot looked to the clouded sky presented to her, knowing that no threats resided there to the best of their knowledge. For Lord Garth, he was given the pleasure of seeing the water bound airship that had saved his city.

The Sparrowhawk had been forced into a water landing shortly after the final shot of the Battle Of The North Wall. Whilst attempting to regain some of her altitude, some unfathomably complex device within her power generation room had given way under the stress. Demons of electrical fury had unleashed themselves within the forward levitator room, taking out capacitors, levitator plates and engineer’s who hadn’t gotten out of the way quickly enough. The butcher's bill form that section of the ship had been a high one to pay. But the fact that so many had stayed to manage the stricken power plant into a steady shut down, instead of a catastrophic loss of containment, made Tarot glow with pride for her crew.

The damage caused to the forward levitators had both cut the ships speed dramatically, and caused her forward half to partially lose its gravity defying sails. They’d flickered back a moment later, ghostly pale and running like the colours from a painters brush in water, but they’d returned. Knowing that at any moment the vessel might lose her forward levitators, Tarot had ordered an emergency water landing in the famed harbour of Boston. Airships usually landed either on expansive landing fields or specially designed cradle docks. A water landing presented the tricky problem of mixing high energy electrical discharge with a perfect conductor.

In most manuals, such a manoeuvre might be listed under ‘Last Resort’, or its related appendix ‘Complicated Suicide For The Creatively Challenged’.

With no small amount of luck, and of course the training of Rishland legend behind them, the Sparrowhawk had drifted to mere meters above the water before cutting her levitator bands to zero power.  That meant that a thousand tons of military fighting ship dropped like a stone into the waters of Boston. The shock wave from the ship’s sudden watery landing had swamped a few low lying docks, and a tavern famed for its ales had suddenly become known for its fish suppers, but all in all no ill came from the landing.

Below them now, in the light of a new day, the Sparrowhawk was being attended to by a host of water based craft. Small tugs and ferries rushed to and from the frigate, taking the injured to shore based facilities better suited to the severe injuries they had sustained, or carrying much needed supplies. A pair of large barge cranes were moored off of her bow, their booms and steam billowing power plants adding to the foggy morning as they were directed in aiding repairs.

“Not bad for the work of women folk.” Lord Garth found himself muttering.

“And we’re just a frigate, My Lord.” Tarot said, taking no offense from the unintentional slur “Wait until you see a Rishland battle cruiser hove into view, and then you’ll see the work we ‘women folk’ accomplish.”

“Huum.” Lord Garth said guardedly. He had read the sealed letter hand delivered from Tarot to himself, a missive bearing the unbroken wax seal of King Branagar of the Rish. The letter had been short and lacking in fine details, the sort of terse note a commander might hand to an intelligent subordinate who didn’t need all the pieces to make out the puzzles meaning.

The Inland Empire was on the move, with their eyes cast towards the Shattered East Coast and the four citadel cities of New York, Boston, Norfolk and Mobile. As these cities were all major trading ports to the sea, securing them would be the Inlander’s main objective if they were making a land grab for the entire Eastern Continent: with no ports any aid from the Far East and Rishland would be hard pressed to do any good. Once these targets were secured, or levelled, the Inland Empire would consolidate their holdings along the coast, and then fill in the interior of the map between Meridian and the coast with Imperial red in a matter of months.

‘Operation Terse Retort’ was the label provided by Branagar’s letter concerning the Imperial code phrase for this audacious plan.

To this end Branagar had promised to send a force of arms to bolster the defences of the Shattered East Coast, with scouting elements arriving ahead of an organised fleet movement unlike any not seen since the M-War. When Tarot remarked about seeing Rishland heavy capital ships in the skies above his city, she was not exaggerating. Her estimates for the arrival of the Rishland Navy ranged from a matter of days, to a few weeks, as Boston was considered a target that could withstand considerable enemy action.

For now, Boston stood alone before the approaching storm of Western aggression.

Which meant, currently, Boston was guarded by a wounded defensive force of its own making, its own high walls, and a lamed warship floating in water when it should be soaring in the skies. Add to the mix the strange reports from the high docks along the wall, and the curious vanishing of the emissary of the Iron People, Garth felt as though he were living in very interesting times indeed.

The longboat righted and began to accelerate slightly, nosing up just enough to make Garth clutch at the armrests of his chair. The city below receded still further, and then the abrupt interruption of the high citadel walls appeared and vanished to leave nothing but scrub land beyond Boston’s walls. That was not to say the land beyond was unmarked by recent trouble. The blackened smoke charred wreckage from the Hudson Principality courier ship that had been lost in the opening salvo was scattered out like a bleeding wound from Boston’s side. Numerous small craters, and ragged trenches marked the ill fired shots of defender and attacker alike.

It was with thoughts like that, that the longboat began a circling descent towards its destination: a sea of tents in neat orderly rows, surrounding the crippled three legged wreckage of the Inland Imperial War Walker Ajax.

Lord Garth had a meeting to attend with an officer of an enemy power, and Captain Tarot had volunteered to chaperone the event. After all it was her marines ensuring that the prisoners of war, a definition the Rishlander had enforced where Bostonian forces would have declared fair game on any Inlander’s in their sights, were treated both fairly and humanely. Not a gram of Boston’s produces fed the prisoners, and whilst Garth felt bad about imparting that burden on a wounded ship’s company, he found no succour for the troops below him.

The Inlander’s had come to kill his people, regardless of their following of others orders.

So he would sit at this meeting, and listen to what Tarot had to say, whilst he sat across from Captain Yeorgi of the Empire. He would sit, but he might not choose to listen.

[dailykhaleej]

COVID-19: Ban on supply of waterpipe tobacco, without digital tax stamps postponed

Shisha is a water pipe made of clay, ornately carved metals or plastics, which permits smoking flavoured tobacco as it’s bubbled by means of water. Picture Credit score: DailyKhaleej archives

Abu Dhabi: The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has issued a choice to postpone the implementation of the ban on supplying, transferring, storing and possession of waterpipe tobacco (recognized in Arabic as ‘Mu’assel’) and electrically heated cigarettes within the UAE that don’t carry Digital Tax Stamps till January 1, 2021.

The ban had beforehand been scheduled to return into impact on June 1, 2020, in line with the timeline set for launching section two of the ‘Marking Tobacco and Tobacco Products Scheme’, which seeks to guard shoppers from business fraud and low-quality merchandise, restrict unfavourable impression on public well being and improve management methods set as much as fight tax evasion.

In a press assertion issued in the present day, the FTA defined that the extension of the timeline for section two of the scheme was to handle the challenges posed by the present circumstances, which stop sure producers, importers, distributors, and stockpilers of waterpipe tobacco and electrically heated cigarettes from assembly the beforehand set deadlines. Authorities had carried out strict precautionary measures to curb the unfold of COVID-19, together with quickly closing cafés and eating places and banning them from serving waterpipes.

FTA Director Common Khaled Ali Al Bustani asserted that the FTA’s resolution to postpone the ban on supplying, transferring, storing, and possessing the tobacco merchandise without digital stamps as designated in section two of the ‘Marking Tobacco and Tobacco Products Scheme’ till January 1, 2021, goals to offer producers, suppliers and distributors of waterpipe tobacco and electrically heated cigarettes sufficient time to kind out any points and have the ability to seamlessly implement the scheme.

“This extension on the timeline provides them with seven additional months to prepare for the mandatory implementation of the ban,” he stated. “It also comes in response to the concerns expressed by stakeholders in the tobacco sector, and their requests for such an extension that would allow them to sort out any issues resulting from the current difficult circumstances and the necessary precautionary measures that were enforced to prevent the spread of the novel Coronavirus. The decision provides them enough time to sell off any remaining tobacco products that do not carry the Digital Tax Stamps.”

“The FTA has consulted all relevant business sectors, as well as the operator of the scheme’s electronic system, and reassured all stakeholders that it fully understands the difficulties brought on by the current crisis, asserting its commitment to minimising the impact of the ban on businesses, and encouraging them to comply with tax procedures and legislation,” Al Bustani concluded, noting that the FTA is devoted to coordinating with its authorities and private-sector companions to make sure an environment friendly and seamless implementation of tax methods.

The importation of waterpipe tobacco and electrically heated cigarettes that don’t carry the Digital Tax Stamps was banned on March 1, 2020 as half of section two of the ‘Marking Tobacco and Tobacco Products Scheme’.

The FTA known as on all producers, importers, and distributors of tobacco and tobacco merchandise, in addition to all stakeholders within the sector to abide by Cupboard Choice No. 42 of 2018 on Marking Tobacco and Tobacco Merchandise. The Digital Tax Stamps permit for digitally monitoring the designated merchandise from the manufacturing facility till the merchandise attain the tip client, making certain that set requirements and standards are happy and that Excise Tax obligations are met.

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[taxhintindia]

HOW TO REGISTER ON ZOMATO | GET LISTED ON ZOMATO - FOOD (FSSAI) LICENSE

IMPORTANT DOCUMENTThe most important document you need for the registration on the Zomato is the

Food License(FSSAI)

ZOMATO BUSINESSZomato is an Indian restaurant search and discovery service founded in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. It currently operates in 24 countries.  It provides information and reviews on restaurants, including images of menus where the restaurant does not have its own website.ELIGIBILITY

To be deemed as a business entity in India, Private Limited Registration, Partnership or LLP Registration is required.

An FSSAI Registration or License According to the business turnover or business size and nature.

Shop act License and GST Registration in India

To acquire these license and registration, You can contact an food-license.com

TO ADD RESTAURANT ON ZOMATO:

If any restaurant is not found in the Zomato Listing, the owner or the user can intimate by performing the given steps.

Step 1: To add a restaurant in Zomato, visit the Add Restaurant Link and fill the registration form with restaurant name, phone number, city etc.

Step 2: Then click on Add Restaurant to add the restaurant to the Zomato Listing.

Once submitting the form, a Zomato executive will visit and collect documents such as PAN Card, Aadhar card, Copy of FSSAI registration, take pictures of restaurant etc. On successfully completing the restaurant verification, your restaurant will be added.

REGISTER THE RESTAURANT IN ZOMATO:

Step 1: To obtain Zomato restaurant registration for Business app, visit the Zomato for Business App Link

Step 2: Search your restaurant in the search bar to check whether the restaurant is listed on Zomato or not.

If the restaurant is found in the Zomato listing then click on claim the listing.

In other case, (if a restaurant is not available on Zomato) then Add your Restaurant to Zomato business listings by following the steps mentioned in the ‘To Add Restaurant on Zomato’ section.

Step 3: When adding or claiming the restaurant on Zomato is done, scroll down below on Zomato for Business page where you will find a simple registration form.

Step 4: Fill out the form mentioning the restaurant name, your name, phone number, e-mail address and city. The click on Submit.

You can also contact Zomato for Business by giving a call at +91–8039654500.

Step 5: After submitting the form to partner with Zomato, an executive from Zomato will contact you to verify the details provided. On verifying the account, your account on Zomato for business will be activated.

       ZOMATO BUSINESS APP

Before you use the Zomato for Business App, you need to claim your listing.

Download the app and login using the same credentials that are used to claim your listing.

Start managing your restaurant directly from your smart phone.

The registered partner can do the following with the Business App.

Get real time notifications and reviews, and can easily answer reviews.

Manage and your update your listing’s information online directly through your Smartphone or Computer.

Promote your business by promos to existing and potential customers on Zomato

Upload your special menu directly from the app

Promote events such as musical events, food festivals etc. that are hosted in your establishment.

GUIDELINES FOR RESTAURANTSRESTAURANT NAME

Users search for and identify places to eat or order from using Restaurant names.

Restaurant names on Zomato must be written as they appear on the board outside the restaurant.

Restaurant establishment types and taglines (unless the restaurant name is registered with the tagline) must not be mentioned in the name of the restaurant on Zomato.

Restaurant abbreviations in the restaurant name is not accepted on Zomato.

RESTAURANT ADDRESS

The restaurant address guides diners to the restaurant.

The address needs to be in a standardized format for easy understanding for users and for consistency.

Do not add more than one landmark, and do not use abbreviations.

Do not add other restaurant names as landmarks as it affects the searching results for other restaurants.

Add the floor number along with name of the building if the restaurant is located above the ground floor for easy locating.

RESTAURANT FEATURES

A diner is looks for these facilities when deciding about where to dine. These are called attribute tags on Zomato.

The Pure Veg (no meat and egg)tag is used for restaurants that serve only vegetarian food

Smoking Areatag is marked only for restaurants that have a separate smoking area as well as a non-smoking section.

Happy Hoursare exclusively for restaurants that serve alcohol and that offer special offers or discounted rates during a period in the day.

Wi-Fi Availableis marked if the diners can use Wi-Fi services at the restaurant and not only by the management.

BUSINESS HOURS

The operational hours of a restaurant is represented as business hours so that the diners can plan their visits in their convenient time.

Users can filter restaurants based on a restaurant’s opening hours by using the “Open at” filter on Zomato.

A 24-hour clock is used to add timings to a listing. This is displayed on the restaurant page in a 12-hour clock format.

We always add the timing for the dine-in hours. If the delivery hours are different from the dine-in timings, we can add the custom delivery timings to your page if you mail us at restaurants@zomato.com.

The timing grids on Zomato accepts only numerals, so only specific times can be entered. Entering specific timings as specified above will help the users find your restaurant using the filter ‘Open at’ if they search for a specific time while choosing a restaurant.

PHOTOS

The photo stream of a restaurant gives diners an idea about what to expect at the restaurant in terms of ambiance, service, and food.

A complete set of façade, ambiance, and food shots on a restaurant page gives the diner all the information he needs to make a decision. Some pointers to remember while uploading photos for the restaurant are:

An order is followed in which photos appear on the photo stream, which is maintained for all restaurants: [Façade/exterior shots] — [Ambiance/interior shots] — [Food shots].

Facade shotsare photos taken from the exterior of the restaurant, typically including the sign and the entrance

Ambiance shotsare photos of the interiors of the restaurant that give the users information about the lighting or seating arrangement at the restaurant

Food shotsare images of food prepared by that specific restaurant

No images with people in them is put up.

Ambiance/food shots that are stock images, or taken from Google Images/other websites is put up, as that would be copyright infringement.

Even if stock photos have been legally purchased by the restaurant, they are not uploaded as they do not depict the true nature of the food and service provided by the restaurant. This is misleading for diners.

Currently only  .JPEG and .PNG file formats for photo uploads are supported.

A single frame can only contain a single photo. Photo collages are not uploaded as they don’t always show a clear picture of what’s at the restaurant.

Images where logos and social media handles take up a significant portion of the image are not used to avoid the notion of promoting restaurants.

MENUS

Diners rely extensively on the menus on Zomato when deciding on where to eat or what to order, and to know how much it might cost them.

The maximum dimensions we can upload for menu pages are 650×700 pixels.

Only the relevant text portion of the menu is kept on the page

A certain order for menu pages is maintained similar to the way a user would read through a menu: [Appetizers/soups] — [Entrées] — [Main course] — [Desserts]

Avoid putting up menus without prices as it affects a user’s decision. The menu must include the names of the dishes and prices, as this helps users get an idea of how much they will spend at the restaurant.

COVER PHOTOS

The image should have high resolution (images with 1200×500 pixels or greater in resolution).

Horizontal photos are preferred, as they would be better suited to the page layout. While vertical photos are allowed, the focal elements of the image may be lost when it is cropped to the required dimensions.

Websites, phone numbers, and other text should not be superimposed on the photo.

Photos of raw ingredients are not allowed, unless the food is served that way.

NEW LISTING CREATION – GUIDELINES

A new listing for the restaurant will be created if there have been any major changes that will affect a user’s experience that may include the following.

A complete change in cuisine.

Any changes in the type of establishme.

Change locations, and the new outlet is not in the same area or neighborhood as the original outlet.

FSSAI License | FSSAI Registration | FSSAILicense | FSSAI BusinessRegistration | FSSAI Consultant

[uwianthropologygroupproject-blog]

Attitudes towards ganja in Trinidad and Tobago

The general attitude towards ganja in Trinidad and Tobago. 

In Trinidad and Tobago, there are mixed attitudes towards ganja, because of its illegal status and the stigmatization of being a “criminal” that follows its use. This is caused by how the law categorizes ganja as an illegal narcotic that is punishable by law if caught in possession. However, in contemporary society in Trinidad and Tobago, the cultural negative norms towards ganja are being challenged and the citizens are advocating for the legalization of ganja. This is due to the arising positive benefits of the drug such as its medicinal benefits in treating cancer, asthma, anxiety disorders & the extraction and use of cannabis oil to treat epileptic seizures, relieve pain, and in the reduction of glaucoma among many others. Also, people want it to be legalized so they can smoke it freely without the threat of being arrested or labeled as a criminal/delinquent. 

Factors that influence these attitudes. 

Ethnicity and Social Class

Trinidad and Tobago is a multicultural country made up of many different ethnic groups which include: East Indians, Africans, Chinese, Whites, Mixed and other. East Indians comprise of the largest ethnic group in the population with Africans being the second largest. Therefore, attitudes towards ganja may vary according to certain ethnic groups and the geographical location plays a significant role as some places may be heavily populated by a certain ethnic group. It was observed that the areas where ganja was responded to positively are predominantly inhabited by persons of African descent. 

Figure 1: A table showing the attitudes towards ganja pertaining to ethnicity and location in Trinidad.

A trend was also observed with respect to the various locations mentioned and their development. The three communities mentioned ranged from the suburb (Roystonia) to urban (Charlieville) and developed (Haeland Park). The suburban and urban locations where the majority are populated by blacks and Indians respectively showed an acceptance of the narcotic to an extent which they used recreationally and the developed or what is deemed a “white community” showed unacceptance towards ganja. However, it is observed that young people from this community tend to use ganja.

In relation to social class persons from all social class wants ganja to be legalized although it is advocated for, more by the younger people than the older people from these different strata. 

Gender and Age

In relation to gender, it can be stated that in the past males were the primary users of ganja and this statement still stands in the present. Interviews conducted revealed that there were a higher usage and preference for the legalization of ganja in Trinidad and Tobago among the younger males aged 13 and up. The reason for the usage of ganja at such an early age starts when these males enter high school and are peer pressured into trying ganja because it is considered  “cool” and the “popular” kids do it. On the other hand, there are some females who smoke ganja but they are less open about it in order to escape scrutiny. 

Also, pertaining to age, it is the younger persons of Trinidad and Tobago that support the legalization of ganja as they have received more exposure to what ganja really is and what it can do, as more evidence of its benefits are coming to the forefront. This is in opposition to the much older generation in Trinidad and Tobago who grew up with the notion that ganja is a dangerous narcotic like cocaine and heroin, and its negative stigma of inducing violence and delinquency which creates a close-mindedness when it comes to new information emerging on it being considered “good”. However, they do believe that if ganja should be legalized, it should be so for medical reasons mainly. Whereas the majority of younger persons especially university students preferred to use ganja recreationally as it helps them from feeling stressed and makes them calm, relaxed and able to study more efficiently. Also, many persons who use it considered it an “escape from the harsh reality”. 

Religion

Although Trinidad and Tobago is multi-religious, the dominant religion practiced is Christianity followed by Hinduism and Islam. Therefore, the smoking of ganja is looked down upon, as it is considered immoral and deemed “the devil's lettuce”. Though, if used for medicinal purposes then it is okay, but most Christians still would not have anything to do with it. The same goes for Muslims and Hindus.  Interestingly, before and when they came to the Caribbean as indentured labourers, the Hindus used ganja in local religious practices, as deities are offered ganja as part of their religious ceremonies. However, this practice seems to have been abandoned. Besides, these views are mostly of religious persons who are traditional, whereas the younger persons of these religions have a more open mind to the use of ganja although they are discouraged to using it by their religion.

The Law

In Trinidad and Tobago, the possession of cannabis is still illegal and therefore remains classified as a dangerous drug. According to the Dangerous Drugs Act of Trinidad and Tobago (2015) section 5, subsection 2, a person who has in his possession any dangerous drug is guilty of an offense and is liable (a) upon summary conviction to a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars and to imprisonment for five years or (b) upon conviction on indictment a fine of fifty thousand dollars and to imprisonment for a term which shall not exceed ten years but which shall not be less than five years. This does not apply to persons who hold licenses and medical practitioners (p.13). Also section 5, subsection 3 states that a person who cultivates, gathers or produces any marijuana, except where he does so under a license granted under section 4, commits an offense and is liable (a)upon summary conviction to a fine of fifty thousand dollars and to imprisonment for ten years; or (b)upon conviction on indictment to a fine of one hundred thousand dollars or where there is evidence of the street value of marijuana, ten times the street value of the marijuana, whichever is greater or to imprisonment for twenty-five years to life(p.14). In sections 4 and 57, the Minister may make exceptions and issue a license to import marijuana for medicinal and scientific research purposes(p.12).

Therefore, these strict penalties pertaining to ganja creates a fear of usage among the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. It allows the stigmatization of ganja as “criminal” to continue to last which affects persons who do use the drug as they are looked down upon by society. Also, those who are caught in possession of ganja, even if it is only a little is permanently affected by having this label of being a criminal on their record which jeopardizes future opportunities. The Report of the Caricom Regional Commission on Marijuana (2018) presents statistics in Trinidad and Tobago on possession of small amounts of marijuana, for example, in 2012, 3128 males and 265 females were arrested for cannabis/ marijuana; in 2015, 3220 males and 270 females were arrested and in 2017, 3022 males and 201 females were arrested (p.40). This is why some people rather decriminalization of ganja first, then legalization.

The Media

Recently, the media have been reporting on the benefits of ganja and the countries that have legalized it which has an impact on peoples’ attitude towards the drug. It was only when the media reported that some states in the US legalized marijuana, that the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago pushed for its legalization here. This is because whatever happens in the US has an impact on the Caribbean countries and also because ganja is acquainted with the Caribbean and citizens felt that Trinidad and Tobago were stuck in the past by not legalizing ganja as every other country was planning to/already did.

History

Historically, Trinidad and Tobago were former British colonies. With the introduction of Indian indentured labourers in the nineteenth century, and having received the most, Trinidad and Tobago were introduced to ganja by the Indian indentured labourers. It wasn’t in widespread use and in the 1930s ganja was criminalized with the introduction of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinances in the former British territories in the 1930’s pursuant to the 1937 Dangerous Drug Ordinance in the UK (Caribbean Community Secretariat, 2018, p.17).

How and why these attitudes have changed over time.

Recently, attitudes towards ganja have changed because people are now informed of what ganja is and its benefits which has encouraged many persons in Trinidad and Tobago to push for its legalization. It is mostly the younger generation who has a positive attitude towards ganja as they grew up in a time where more research is put into it whereas the older generation is stuck with a mentality that is negative towards ganja because this is what they have been taught in the past when the research was limited. 

Another reason why attitudes have changed is that of globalization. People all over the world are advocating for its legalization with some countries being successful like Canada and some states in the US. This encourages people in Trinidad and Tobago to do the same with social media playing a major role in sending this message of ganja positivity around. The huge amount of articles on its benefits are readily available online which has an impact on peoples’ attitude.

Also, people are seeing how ganja can help improve the economy as they can benefit from it economically. This factor plays a major role in changing peoples’ attitudes towards ganja from looking at it negatively to positively since the need to diversify Trinidad and Tobago’s economy is a growing issue since the closure of Petrotrin. With the growing acceptance of the drug, the country can implement research facilities, creating job opportunities and start exporting finished products.

However, until the government in Trinidad and Tobago show that they are ready to move forward in legalizing ganja, despite the many positives of the plant, marijuana will still be seen by the masses as a drug no different from other chemically synthesized drugs such as cocaine and LSD. 

[itsshubhamme-blog]

Why Sports Is Important In Life?

In India sports activities isn't always given as plenty prominence as in a few other countries like USA, Britain, Japan, Australia and so on. bodily development is as much essential as mental improvement, for, each have an identical contribution to a a hit existence. even though there are bodily training instructors in every faculty they do now not take real interest in promoting the students’ enthusiasm in sports activities.

It is natural for die younger students to take part in numerous styles of games and excel in them. whilst youngsters are brimming with power they have to find outlet for it. games make students energetic and lively and put together them for attention of their studies. “All paintings and no play make Jack a dull boy” is a announcing.

A student who offers interest best to his studies and is constantly found along with his books in hand is referred to as a bookworm. This must not be taken as a disparaging assertion however this simplest suggests that his excessive hobby in studies has made him disinterested in physical sports.

In a valid body is a legitimate thoughts. while we play different kinds of video games like volleyball, football, cricket or tennis our complete machine works in full vigor. Our muscle mass emerge as more potent and our frightened gadget is toned up. We neglect ourselves in the wild run and soar as we play competing with our rivals. Taking element in games and competing with our competitors is a healthy rivalry. This spirit of wholesome contention is quite vital in the game of lifestyles.

what is important in sports is that we ought to not lose coronary heart if we, as a crew, fail to win. We need to take success or defeat with a sportive spirit.

India ranks low within the global sports activities. at the same time as america, China, Germany, Japan, Belgium and different countries win many gold and silver medals India sometimes wins simplest bronze medals. best in cricket India has a proud record. however even in cricket the Indian players do not fare well every now and then.

constant education has a important position within the shaping of right sportsmen. The terrible performance through the Indians in the Asian and the Olympic games is a topic of common dialogue. The Ministry of sports activities has to take new measures in encouraging the scholars to participate in games. They should participate within the inter school, intercollegiate, countrywide and global games. illustration of our gamer inside the worldwide sports activities adds to our glory.

in recent times appropriate players who have made a mark inside the global of sports are given a quota in jobs. Being a terrific sportsman enables a person in getting a good activity.

“paintings while you figure, play at the same time as you play, and which might be the way to be happy and homosexual.” this is an old saying and that is proper for all time.

Importance of sports activities in schools

sports and video games are given lesser attention in Indian colleges because it's far taken into consideration a simply bodily activity. however sports and video games encompass more than just the advantages of physical matters, it will increase in confidence, and mental alertness which makes them an critical a part of the curriculum. games and sports must be made an fundamental part of a scholar’s life. A pupil should look at tough to achieve success in diverse take a look at and examinations. however, he/she ought to also get concerned gambling video games to derive the fitness and power of lifestyles

Why sports activities ought to be protected in training ?

while kids take part in faculty sports activities, it presents a sense of belonging, and being part of a group, permitting to work in a group surroundings. except, it enables the scholars to have interaction with peers in a social and friendly manner. It also helps to learn how to consider the pastimes of teammates and to exercise mutual appreciate and benefit their cooperation. work together, percentage time, emotional area and other sources help to recognize each different.

Furthermore, it allows to take turns to play and learn to cope with fulfillment and failure as a collection and a group. those interactions can greatly facilitate bonding and lasting friendships with schoolmates, that could assist make kids more sociable in the future career. numerous researches have indicated that youngsters who take part in sports and physical sports are much less possibly to move towards crimes. How ?

Engaging themselves in sports reduces the quantity of unsupervised loose time on their hands and stops boredom. This makes options together with smoking, alcohol, and pills much less attractive. It became found out that girls who play sports activities do higher at faculty and research the importance of aim putting, planning, all of which can be vital sections of place of work achievement, which has prevented less probable to have intercourse or get pregnant at an early age.

The benefits of playing sports are numerous, and it leads to balanced mental growth. It teaches the kids lifestyles competencies like social abilities, crew efforts, leadership, endurance. It inculcates self belief, area and playing with out crossing the policies. mainly, it builds sportsmanship, which could be very critical in which it allows to address both triumphing and losing with grace. All of these reports and habits are also beneficial of their future lifestyles inclusive of profession.

How schools can help college students via video games and sports ?

Colleges need to offer each supervised and unsupervised sports in time table and surroundings. due to the fact, supervised consultation may be targeted approach with the steerage from coaches in special sports activities. this may assist children to choose the games which they like. but supervised sports activities could have too much discomfort for youngsters of younger ages.

Numerous researchers in the western nations have discovered that the rigid sporting structure in colleges had terrible consequences. Unsupervised carrying surroundings offers children a preference of sports and let them free on the fields with out obstacles or rules. but one should permit simple tracking to make sure the kids are secure. except, one of the primary benefits of unsupervised wearing is that it allows children to form their very own teams, regulations and so forth, thereby allowing fun and the creativity float with out intervention through adults.

bodily benefits

It strengthens the heart due to the fact that it's far like different muscle tissues. whilst coronary heart and different muscle tissues responds to physical sports and may become more potent and greater efficient. subsequently, strengthening the coronary heart muscle can help thrust back heart ailment.

It reduces fats and cleans the arteries and veins. sports activities and video games reduce the quantity of dangerous cholesterol and fats within the human frame. Rigorous sporting events can increase the power of the walls of blood vessels, and allows to lower blood stress. besides, it allows in reducing blood sugar tiers. exercising prevents sugar from collecting inside the blood by means of triggering muscle groups to take up greater glucose from the bloodstream and use it for power.

This could reduce someone's chance of developing diabetes.

It improves respiratory and strengthens the lungs. sport and sports activities growth lung potential, and their efficiency in transferring air inside and outside of the body. As a end result, more oxygen is pulled within the blood.

It controls weight and allows to stay slender. It also strengthens bones not simply the muscle groups and improves their energy.

Sooner or later, numerous researchers have discovered out that sports activities and games have helped prevent most cancers in many people. It changed into also located out that people who exercise regularly have decrease incidences of most cancers like colon, prostate, uterine, and breast cancers.

Standard benefits of Sports activities

Sports activities also outcomes in development of self assurance, for some students who aren't robust in academics. It helps to strengthen their belief device, which may additionally result in progressed academic overall performance. It additionally serves because the pleasant icebreaker for fresh students, and helps in friendship and faster assimilation. therefore considering these types of merits, the colleges need to consist of sports activities environment with right facilities, committed instructors and time to help their students pursue sports activities.

Authorities tasks

In a bid to sell sports in the us of a, the authorities has introduced that video games duration will be made mandatory in faculties after decreasing the syllabus via 50 percent via next 12 months. The ministry of schooling is making sure that the syllabus in faculties through 2019 is decreased through 50 percentage and there could be a sports length on a normal basis.

Ministry is making plans to make sure that the SAI (now SI) reduces its manpower through 50 percentage through 2022 with a purpose to cater to sports and it has a lean frame and money is spent on sports. This yr there could be 20 specialized sports activities faculties and the government of India will pump approximately Rs 7-10 crore every. The idea is to have a very pointed approach so every college could have simplest two or three main sports. these could be very targeted on their dreams

conclusion

Slowly, educationalists and authorities departments have realized the importance ‘games and sports’ and had been making steps to lead them to as an quintessential part of the prevailing- day school training. And times are changing and video games and sports which have been looked upon simply as a ‘period of wreck’. Now video games and sports activities have grow to be a brand new medium which allows to expand the inborn sports activities competencies of students. If the authorities and educationalist tasks are nicely laid down, one can see a one-of-a-kind face of the scholars in destiny.

Importance of Sports At Workplace

sports activities have continually been a large a part of my life. i was a scholar athlete each at Rocky Hill excessive college and Springfield university, and now i'm the head Junior Varsity and Assistant Varsity girls Volleyball teach at Rocky Hill high college. not only have I participated in sports my whole existence, however I additionally revel in looking it both in individual and on television.

With super Bowl XLIX right around the nook, i have been thinking about how my sports activities heritage has helped me in the place of work. I examine an editorial, "The blessings of sports activities within the place of business" that had a some proper thoughts on how the 2 are similar.

1. working with others in a collaborative manner

Being on a sports activities team you learn to rely upon your teammates. The team creates a volleyball-setting power for a common intention of winning. each individuals selection influences the group in a fantastic or poor way. In volleyball, the setter controls the game. They concentrate to their hitters and provide the ball to the participant who is speaking with them the excellent. If the setter stops listening and makes a decision to offer the ball away to whomever they need, than the groups play is now not effective and they will suffer. The identical holds proper inside the place of job. it is a not unusual practice that humans paintings in group tasks at work, they may be a group in that example. If their is hostility inside the institution and one man or woman ventures off on their own to paintings in my opinion, it can cause chaos and failure. Being capable of paintings together in a collaborative manner is a ability that we stock with us for the duration of our lives each in and out of the office.

2. Overcoming variations

expertise and overcoming differences plays a prime role in being capable of work collectively productively. we are constantly going to come across folks that we do no longer see eye to eye with, and we are able to be compelled to work with them to provide high quality effects. I found out at a younger age how to cope with others I didn't take care of. while i was in high college there has been this one lady who i used to be usually competing with, she become also on my volleyball crew. Off the court docket we had been scuffling with every different, but on the courtroom we usually had each others lower back. We have been teammates and had been pressured to triumph over our differences for the not unusual appropriate of the crew. We do the equal at paintings. Our boss may also ask us to paintings with a person who professionally we proportion similar expertise, but in my view we may battle to get along with. on the way to paintings correctly and correctly we overcome variations and do the pleasant work that we are able to do for the good of the agency.

3. trust

On a game crew or inside the workplace, there aren't many victories without consider. Being capable of collaborate efficiently and overcoming variations revolves round trusting one another. without consider, there is continually a risk of failure. after I attended Springfield university, certainly one of our team constructing exercises become appearing agree with [trust] falls. every female at the team could ought to put their trust in a teammate to seize them. you spot the character there to catch you, however there is nonetheless fear that you will fall. It changed into a fantastic workout of getting to know to agree with to your teammates. believe is also needed in the course of group tasks at paintings. We want with the intention to recognize that our teammates are going to finish their part of the work to the quality of their capability in order to finish the challenge. with out accept as true with, a group can fall apart and in the end cause battle among each other.

Importance of sports In Kids Life

In India sports activities isn't always given as plenty prominence as in a few other countries like USA, Britain, Japan, Australia and so on. bodily development is as much essential as mental improvement, for, each have an identical contribution to a a hit existence. even though there are bodily training instructors in every faculty they do now not take real interest in promoting the students’ enthusiasm in sports activities.

It is natural for die younger students to take part in numerous styles of games and excel in them. whilst youngsters are brimming with power they have to find outlet for it. games make students energetic and lively and put together them for attention of their studies. “All paintings and no play make Jack a dull boy” is a announcing.

A student who offers interest best to his studies and is constantly found along with his books in hand is referred to as a bookworm. This must not be taken as a disparaging assertion however this simplest suggests that his excessive hobby in studies has made him disinterested in physical sports.

In a valid body is a legitimate thoughts. while we play different kinds of video games like volleyball, football, cricket or tennis our complete machine works in full vigor. Our muscle mass emerge as more potent and our frightened gadget is toned up. We neglect ourselves in the wild run and soar as we play competing with our rivals. Taking element in games and competing with our competitors is a healthy rivalry. This spirit of wholesome contention is quite vital in the game of lifestyles.

what is important in sports is that we ought to not lose coronary heart if we, as a crew, fail to win. We need to take success or defeat with a sportive spirit.

India ranks low within the global sports activities. at the same time as america, China, Germany, Japan, Belgium and different countries win many gold and silver medals India sometimes wins simplest bronze medals. best in cricket India has a proud record. however even in cricket the Indian players do not fare well every now and then.

constant education has a important position within the shaping of right sportsmen. The terrible performance through the Indians in the Asian and the Olympic games is a topic of common dialogue. The Ministry of sports activities has to take new measures in encouraging the scholars to participate in games. They should participate within the inter school, intercollegiate, countrywide and global games. illustration of our gamer inside the worldwide sports activities adds to our glory.

in recent times appropriate players who have made a mark inside the global of sports are given a quota in jobs. Being a terrific sportsman enables a person in getting a good activity.

“paintings while you figure, play at the same time as you play, and which might be the way to be happy and homosexual.” this is an old saying and that is proper for all time.

children ought to be active regular to stimulate growth and bodily health for their nicely-being. research indicates the importance of sports activities and bodily interest for kids from an early age because lively youngsters are less likely to suffer from future diseases like weight problems, excessive blood strain, diabetes, and coronary coronary heart problems. within the recent years, Sports participation has significantly declined among youngsters of a while 10 to 18, which as a end result has multiplied the weight problems hassle among young adults. The significance of physical hobby among young youngsters has clear advantages and facilitates to reduce destiny dangerous fitness outcomes which include obesity challenges and diseases.

Bodily exertion and sports activities are regarded to relieve strain and anxiety for kids who're lively. people who don’t take part in sports are discovered to be coping with stress, depression, or tension. physical sports are recognized to improve health, stamina, frame shape, and cognitive abilities and a child who does sports activities activities is more likely to be mentally sharp and lively in different fields of lecturers like memorization, analyzing, and mathematics.

Dr. Glyn Roberts of the university of Illinois says that, sport can affect a infant’s development of and it is also inside recreation that peer status and peer popularity is set up and advanced.

regarding young kids in sports not only improves their bodily well-being but additionally contributes to their psychological and social improvement.right here are some critical factors to consider involving children in sports activities:

Bodily capability and Motor talents

The proper time to expand a toddler’s bodily capability is from early to mid-early life that's from 7 to eleven years antique. at some stage in this age variety, a baby learns to apply their senses to explore new matters and make feel in their surroundings. This developmental segment facilitates to construct and stimulate brain pastime to foster self belief, independence, and physical capacity to guide an lively life.

Every other fundamental purpose in baby’s improvement is to permit them to develop a feel of agility and motor capabilities to transport with confidence for tough situations. as a result sports activities foster that improvement in kids from an early degree which includes higher body coordination, fluid movements, electricity patience, and brief reflexes.

At college of Missouri fitness Care, our adolescent medicinal drug crew encourages all youngsters to participate in sports activities or other normal bodily pastime. physical exercising is good for the thoughts, body and spirit. crew sports activities help train kids duty, willpower, management and different capabilities.

Many athletes do higher academically

gambling a recreation requires lots of time and strength. a few humans might imagine this would distract pupil-athletes from schoolwork. but, the other is genuine. sports activities require memorization, repetition and gaining knowledge of — skill sets which are immediately relevant to elegance paintings. additionally, the willpower and aim-putting skills a game requires may be transferred to the school room.

sports activities train teamwork and hassle-solving skills

combating for a commonplace aim with a group of gamer and coaches teaches you how to construct teamwork and correctly communicate to resolve issues. This experience is helpful when encountering troubles at paintings or at domestic.

bodily fitness benefits of sports

honestly, sports activities will let you reach your health goals and hold a healthful weight. but, in addition they encourage wholesome selection-making which includes no longer smoking and not ingesting. sports activities additionally have hidden health blessings including lowering the chance of osteoporosis or breast cancer later in life.

sports increase

watching your difficult work pay off and accomplishing your goals develops self-confidence. accomplishing a sport or health goal encourages you to reap other goals you place. that is a worthwhile and exciting gaining knowledge of method.

lessen stress and stress with sports activities

workout is a natural manner to loosen up and permit pass of strain. you could also make new friends who may be there for you as a support device. when you feel below pressure or harassed, call up a teammate, head to the fitness center to speak and play it out.

[lopezdorothy70-blog]

The Drug Crisis in the U.S. Concerns Prescription Opioids, not Marijuana

by Paul Fassa Health Impact News

There is a new shift being observed with the federal government looking to increase cannabis cultivation for research purposes accompanied by an intention to curb opioid production, according to an article from Marijuana Moment published recently by Forbes magazine.

During the latter part of the Obama administration, there was some movement toward expanding sanctioned cannabis cultivation for research, which the DEA under Jeff Sessions Justice Department resisted until recently. 

Along with this potential increase of cannabis resources for research, the DEA has announced an intention to restrict opioid production and monitor opioid distribution more closely than it has been. Opioids include oxycontin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and morphine. 

All of these opioids are addictive, dangerous, and potentially lethal.

Ironically, marijuana has recently been used to effectively help opioid prescription drug addicts painlessly walk away from them permanently within weeks. (Source)

U.S. Attorney General Sessions and DEA Acknowledge the Opioid Crisis 

Shortly after taking office as head of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions began voicing his opposition to medical marijuana, declaring “heroine was only slightly worse than marijuana” and “good people don't smoke marijuana,” even implying that marijuana was the gateway drug to opioids and heroin. (Source)

Sessions then attempted to sway Congress with his opinions, but met a lot of opposition, since medical cannabis now has some kind of legal status in the majority of U.S. states, and most Americans are in favor of legalizing medical cannabis.

In the meantime, the death toll for opioid addictions continued to rise dramatically, except in states that allowed regulated medical cannabis and recreational marijuana. Opioid prescriptions have actually declined in those states.

In an August 2018 press release that refocuses the drug war onto opioids, DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon stated:

We've lost too many lives to the opioid epidemic and families and communities suffer tragic consequences every day. This significant drop in prescriptions by doctors and DEA's production quota adjustment will continue to reduce the amount of drugs available for illicit diversion and abuse while ensuring that patients will continue to have access to proper medicine.

Attorney General (AG) Jeff Sessions added: The opioid epidemic that we are facing today is the worst drug crisis in American history. [Emphasis added] President Trump has set the ambitious goal of reducing opioid prescription rates by one-third in three years. We embrace that goal and are resolutely committed to reaching it. (Source)

The emphasized phrase by Sessions is a dramatic shift from his recent position of threatening to come down hard on states that legalized cannabis for medical or recreational use. His threats loudly echoed the Drug War theme declared by President Nixon during the 1970s, which was intended more as a front to dragnet anti-war college students, hippies, and African American leaders who were protesting and resisting government control on several fronts during the 1960s and 70s. 

These groups were widely known to possess and use marijuana and other drugs. Going after them by criminalizing them with drug laws could eliminate their leaders and discourage their movements without criticisms for violating free speech and public gathering constitutional guarantees. (Source)

President Nixon's “Drug War” has focused largely on marijuana for several decades since its declaration during the early 1970s. Under President Ford, a University of Virginia study was contracted to try and prove that marijuana was a brain-killer. 

Inadvertently, the researchers discovered marijuana was shrinking lab rats' brain tumors. Ford had the Virginia study papers quashed.  

See:

Does Marijuana Cause Brain Damage?

This Administration Replies Belatedly to the Demand for More Cannabis Research

While the death rate from opioid addiction has been recognized as a national epidemic that needs to be legally restricted, not one death from cannabis consumption has ever been recorded. 

With the discoveries of cannabis' medical virtues, using the whole plant with THC (the cannabinoid that induces the “high”) or using hybrid cannabis plants low on THC but high with cannabidiol (CBD), more researchers are seeking to create research projects that not only further legitimize cannabis as medicine, but also determine which strains are best suited for particular ailments and diseases.

But as long as the Federal Government has cannabis (marijuana) classified as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, it makes growing cannabis for research and procuring it for the same reason difficult and subject to DEA raids. Many universities with research facilities have economic ties with the Federal Government. 

Even research labs not tied to federal purse strings are faced with violating federal law for having relatively large possessions of the banned weed grown on the premises. 

The University of Mississippi's agricultural department monopolized the source of federal legally sanctioned cannabis for research since 1968. Many have been critical of the limited amount, quality, and lack of strain diversity available from this one institution. 

For the most part, that research has been used to satisfy Drug War politicians' need to demonize cannabis or marijuana. And it is a limited supply that cannot satisfy the desired access to cannabis for medical and scientific research purposes.

The DEA's tendency toward the end of Obama's administration was to create the policy that would expand and allow more facilities to grow cannabis for research. The DEA was willing to go along with supplying the demand from several institutions. But when Session's took office as AG, which supervises the DEA, those applications lingered in limbo.

But more recently, a letter from bi-partisan Congressional members to Sessions demanded an update on the 26 new applications to nationally sanction cannabis cultivation for research purposes and requested specific reasons for why the applications were not yet approved. From the letter:

Research and medical communities should have access to research-grade materials to answer questions around marijuana's efficacy and potential impacts, both positive and adverse. Finalizing the review of applications for marijuana manufacturing will assist in doing just that. (Source)

Session's responded in a Senate hearing saying that adding new facilities to compete with the University of Mississippi would be “healthy” and promised the DEA would be moving forward on the applications with the cannabis availability issue soon, though he is concerned about the cost of supervising 26 new sources.

Investments and Tax Revenues from Cannabis Commerce are a Driving Force Influencing the Federal Government's Cannabis Turnaround

A DEA filing in the new Federal Register for 2019 may be published soon. It calls for increasing the legal amount of cannabis grown in the USA for research purposes by over five times the 2018 amount of around 1,000 pounds to over 5,400 pounds in 2019. (Source)

This should probably lead to at least a good portion of the 26 new applicants to be approved. Israel, Canada, and other nations have legitimized cannabis research to determine medical applications. 

But here within the large union of states, we have a confusing situation where over half the 50 states and the District of Columbia (Washington, DC) have legitimized cannabis for medical uses with varied disease application allowances with a few allowing adult recreational use, all regulated and taxed for state revenues accordingly. 

The fact that Forbes and other financial publications are writing about investing in cannabis commerce on several levels indicates that the cannabis boom is going to continue to grow.

The financial report known as Money Morning encourages investing in USA and Canadian cannabis commerce with tips on strategical time for highest yields and which cannabis stocks look most investment-worthy with this article.

It may surprise you to know that despite all the publicity surrounding Colorado and all the West Coast states, all five New England states have legalized cannabis for medical use. Massachusetts had given the green light for adult recreational use and Vermont seems to be following shortly. (Source)

The following video illustrates the Wild West is not the only frontier for the burgeoning cannabis industry. New England is keeping stride with the West with its own bold progress in cannabis commerce.

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[newstfionline]

An Ancient River in Syria Sections Off a Modern War

By Ben Hubbard, NY Times, Aug. 3, 2018

ZOUR MAGHAR, Syria--On the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, Kurdish militiamen aligned with American troops burrow into sandbagged positions and eye their foes across the water.

On the other side, Arab rebels backed by Turkey shoot at anyone who nears the river.

For millenniums, the Euphrates has given farmers in the village of Zour Maghar water to irrigate fields of wheat, eggplant and sunflowers. Generations of families have sprawled on its banks for picnics, the older children teaching the younger to swim.

But after seven years of war, the river that has fed life in Syria’s parched east has become a hostile front, separating warring sides as it travels north to south. Deprived of its water, families have fled Zour Maghar, abandoning their mud-brick homes and leaving their fields idle.

“The river was everything for us,” said Muhammad Bozan, 35, a farmer who can no longer work his waterfront land. “We used to live from the river and now we can’t.”

Syria’s war has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions and left entire cities in smoking ruins. It has also ensnared the Euphrates, an arc of the Fertile Crescent that is considered a cradle of civilization.

On a recent trip along the river, we found a wasteland dotted with depopulated towns, gutted factories and civilians struggling to get by.

We mostly stayed on the east bank, an area out of Damascus’s hands that is effectively stateless and boxed in by hostile powers. The only way in was to cross the Tigris River from Iraq in a shaky, seatless motorboat.

As the government of President Bashar al-Assad has focused its military power on defeating rebels in the north and south, the river has emerged as the collision point for the great powers and their local allies struggling for influence in the east.

On the eastern bank are mostly American-backed Kurdish-led militias. On the west, along the northern part of the river, are Turkish-backed rebels. Farther south are Syrian forces supported by Russia and Iran. The Islamic State still holds a pocket along the river near the border with Iraq.

For now, the division is holding because none of the other powers wants to confront the United States, which has about 2,000 soldiers on the eastern side and whose fighter jets control the skies there.

Most of the world has accepted that Mr. Assad will continue to rule Syria, but the standoff and shattered landscape along the Euphrates raise questions about whether he can ever stitch the whole country back together.

The immediate question is how long the United States will stay. President Trump has said he wants to pull out the troops, who lead an international coalition against the Islamic State. If he does, the United States’ local allies fear the worst.

“The mere presence of the coalition in the region gives a message to the regime and to the Turks not to interfere: ‘This is where you stop,’ “ said Muhammad Kheir Sheikho, a member of the civil council in Manbij. “The withdrawal of the coalition forces, and at their head the American forces, would cause complete chaos in the area.”

Three hulking, armored American military vehicles leave their base in the olive groves east of Manbij and rumble off to patrol the front lines. American soldiers staff gun turrets atop each vehicle, helicopters or drones fly overhead, and the convoy flies large American flags to make it clear who is driving.

The Americans came to Syria in 2014 to fight the Islamic State, but the jihadist group’s nearest outpost is 200 miles away. The convoy heads out several times a day to protect Manbij, a town with no resources and which few Americans have heard of, from Turkey, a NATO ally.

The American presence in Manbij is a clear indication that the United States came to Syria with one goal but picked up others along the way, complicating a potential withdrawal.

As the United States worked with Kurdish forces to take territory back from the Islamic State, its footprint in eastern Syria expanded. The area, about one-quarter of Syria and mostly desert, is now dotted with American military bases--housed in fields, in an out-of-use cement factory and in oil and gas facilities that the Syrian government would like to take back.

The American security umbrella has allowed Manbij to become a relatively stable island in a war-torn country. It is a local economic hub, with a bustling market and about 200,000 new residents displaced from elsewhere.

But Turkey sees Syria’s Kurdish militia as a terrorist threat on its border and has threatened to attack it. The United States worries that a Turkish attack on Manbij would siphon off the Kurdish fighters from the battle against the Islamic State in the south. Thus the American patrols to keep the Turks at bay.

But as the battle against the Islamic State winds down, the Americans will have less reason to stay.

On the flat roof of a cinder-block farmhouse converted into a military base west of town, Kurdish militiamen pointed across a shallow valley at Turkish military positions and acknowledged that the Turks could storm the area quickly if they wanted. But they did not because of the American military base nearby: a few trailers surrounded by armored vehicles, the Stars and Stripes flying overhead.

“If it weren’t for the Americans, there would be a disaster here,” said Ibrahim Sheikh Muhammad, a Kurdish militiaman.

Most of the territory held by the United States and its Kurdish allies was once ruled by the Islamic State, and the scars of the military campaign to defeat it run deep.

South of Manbij stands the Tabqa Dam, which the Soviets built in 1973, creating Syria’s largest body of water, Lake Assad, and generating power for much of the country.

The jihadists of the Islamic State ran the dam for years but blew up its turbines when they retreated.

It is now back at work, sort of. Its 350 employees work in buildings shattered by coalition airstrikes that blew holes in walls and shook tiles off the floors. Inside the hydroelectric station, rows of charred circuit boxes set alight by the jihadists sit below ceilings stained black from smoke.

But three of the dam’s turbines were whirring as water rushed through below, and a man with a blowtorch worked to repair a fourth. From eight damaged turbines, engineers had salvaged enough parts to rebuild three of them.

The dam is a rare example of cooperation across opposing sides. A power line that connects it to a smaller dam passes through a government-controlled area, sending electricity to the station that provides drinking water to the city of Aleppo, said Mohammed Sheikho, the head of the mechanical department. And the Syrian government still pays salaries to some workers.

But the dam is just limping along.

New heavy electric cables cannot be installed because the German company that made them will not send its engineers into a war zone. And the country best able to fix the rest of the dam, Russia, is allied with the Syrian government.

Even worse, there isn’t enough water.

Since the Kurds took over the area, Turkey has reduced the amount of water it allows into Syria by more than half, limiting the generation of electricity, said Muhammad Tarboush, the dam’s supervisor.

The situation had never been so dire, he said, even when the Islamic State was in charge.

“They are boycotting us with water,” he said.

On the rocky banks of the Euphrates in the former capital of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, boatmen yell to coax passengers onto rickety metal barges. Once they are filled with passengers, cars, motorcycles and trucks bearing everything from diapers to flatbread, the motors roar and belch black smoke as the men pilot their charges across the pale green water.

Raqqa was once a commercial center for Syria’s breadbasket. Now, it is an orphaned city in ruins.

The military campaign that drove out the jihadists in October left two-thirds of the city’s buildings damaged or destroyed, local officials said. Entire city blocks were erased and apartment buildings brought to the ground. Residents have returned to find walls and ceilings missing from their homes. Some even struggle to find their homes.

But the world powers who fought here, led by the United States, are staying out of reconstruction, so Raqqa’s residents are largely on their own.

All 32 bridges in the area were destroyed. The two major bridges spanning the Euphrates are impassable, cutting the city in half. One has a hole large enough for a tractor-trailer to fall through. Under the other, boys climb downed electrical cables to plunge in to the water below.

That has left only the barges to get people across.

Muhammad Jassem, a heavy-machine operator, lives on one side of the river and his elderly parents on the other. The once-simple trip to visit them now takes longer, costs more and gets his shoes and trousers wet.

“As you can see, life is a bit miserable here,” he said after wading ashore.

Everyone relied on the boats: a woman taking her grandson to the doctor for diarrhea; a family of four crowded onto a single motorcycle; a shopkeeper hauling chips and soft drinks.

Since the battle ended, the United States has put $13.7 million into Raqqa for water, electricity, rubble removal and other projects, in addition to $54 million to clear mines left by the Islamic State, according to the State Department.

But it is not rebuilding the city, which Ahmed Ibrahim, the city’s co-mayor, estimated would cost $5 billion.

He had no idea where that money would come from and worried that a lack of support would leave a vacuum that the Syrian government or an extremist group like the Islamic State could exploit.

“As long as they give concrete aid, the people will belong to them,” he said.

Farther south, the road along the Euphrates is strewn with the remnants of an economy blown back decades by the war: a gutted sugar factory, an idled cotton mill, a train station littered with cars blown off their tracks.

The Syrian government controls Deir al-Zour, the largest Syrian city on the Euphrates, but the bridge that connects it to its eastern suburbs across the river is destroyed.

The Kurds, their Arab allies and the United States hold the eastern side, with bases in the oil and gas fields to keep the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies from retaking them.

In some places, opposing bases face each other across the water, so close that soldiers can see each other’s flags and watch each other smoking cigarettes. At one crossing point, a local militiaman monitored the eastern side, while Syrian soldiers stood on the other, about 200 yards away, while residents rowed across in battered metal canoes.

“It’s like an international border,” said a woman on the Deir al-Zour civil council after stepping off a metal canoe that carried her from the government side.

The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity so that she could continue to visit her parents on the western side, said that most of the forces on the government’s side were Syrian but that she sometimes saw Russians and Iranian-backed militiamen from Iraq and Afghanistan buying items in shops.

Incursions in either direction are rare. In February, a column of tanks carrying about 500 pro-government forces, including Russian mercenaries, crossed the river in what appeared to be a push to seize an oil field. The United States repelled the raid, killing 200 to 300 of them.

Since then, all sides have largely accepted the river as the dividing line, an understanding likely to hold until the Americans leave.

The division was bad for Syria, the local councilwoman said, but she did not know how to end it.

“God willing, the sides will come together again,” she said.

[alamante]

The near side of the Euphrates River near Manbij, Syria, is controlled by American-backed Kurdish-led forces. On the other side are Turkish-backed Arab rebels.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

ZOUR MAGHAR, Syria — On the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, Kurdish militiamen aligned with American troops burrow into sandbagged positions and eye their foes across the water.

On the other side, Arab rebels backed by Turkey shoot at anyone who nears the river.

For millenniums, the Euphrates has given farmers in the village of Zour Maghar water to irrigate fields of wheat, eggplant and sunflowers. Generations of families have sprawled on its banks for picnics, the older children teaching the younger to swim.

But after seven years of war, the river that has fed life in Syria’s parched east has become a hostile front, separating warring sides as it travels north to south. Deprived of its water, families have fled Zour Maghar, abandoning their mud-brick homes and leaving their fields idle.

“The river was everything for us,” said Muhammad Bozan, 35, a farmer who can no longer work his waterfront land. “We used to live from the river and now we can’t.”

Image

Members of a family picnic in their garden in Zour Mghar, a village on the Kurdish side of the Euphrates near the Turkish border. Behind them is a wall built this year by Turkish forces, and beyond that Turkey.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

A pump in the Euphrates provides water for the region near Zour Mghar. South of that, the river becomes a battle zone, its water inaccessible.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Syria’s war has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions and left entire cities in smoking ruins. It has also ensnared the Euphrates, an arc of the Fertile Crescent that is considered a cradle of civilization.

On a recent trip along the river, we found a wasteland dotted with depopulated towns, gutted factories and civilians struggling to get by.

We mostly stayed on the east bank, an area out of Damascus’s hands that is effectively stateless and boxed in by hostile powers. The only way in was to cross the Tigris River from Iraq in a shaky, seatless motorboat.

As the government of President Bashar al-Assad has focused its military power on defeating rebels in the north and south, the river has emerged as the collision point for the great powers and their local allies struggling for influence in the east.

On the eastern bank are mostly American-backed Kurdish-led militias. On the west, along the northern part of the river, are Turkish-backed rebels. Farther south are Syrian forces supported by Russia and Iran. The Islamic State still holds a pocket along the river near the border with Iraq.

For now, the division is holding because none of the other powers wants to confront the United States, which has about 2,000 soldiers on the eastern side and whose fighter jets control the skies there.

Most of the world has accepted that Mr. Assad will continue to rule Syria, but the standoff and shattered landscape along the Euphrates raise questions about whether he can ever stitch the whole country back together.

The immediate question is how long the United States will stay. President Trump has said he wants to pull out the troops, who lead an international coalition against the Islamic State. If he does, the United States’ local allies fear the worst.

“The mere presence of the coalition in the region gives a message to the regime and to the Turks not to interfere: ‘This is where you stop,’ ” said Muhammad Kheir Sheikho, a member of the civil council in Manbij. “The withdrawal of the coalition forces, and at their head the American forces, would cause complete chaos in the area.”

A Place Few Americans Have Heard Of

An American military convoy patrols the front near Manbij several times a day, a show of force to protect the city from Turkey, an American ally.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Three hulking, armored American military vehicles leave their base in the olive groves east of Manbij and rumble off to patrol the front lines. American soldiers staff gun turrets atop each vehicle, helicopters or drones fly overhead, and the convoy flies large American flags to make it clear who is driving.

The Americans came to Syria in 2014 to fight the Islamic State, but the jihadist group’s nearest outpost is 200 miles away. The convoy heads out several times a day to protect Manbij, a town with no resources and which few Americans have heard of, from Turkey, a NATO ally.

The American presence in Manbij is a clear indication that the United States came to Syria with one goal but picked up others along the way, complicating a potential withdrawal.

As the United States worked with Kurdish forces to take territory back from the Islamic State, its footprint in eastern Syria expanded. The area, about one-quarter of Syria and mostly desert, is now dotted with American military bases — housed in fields, in an out-of-use cement factory and in oil and gas facilities that the Syrian government would like to take back.

Kurdish troops, in a sandbagged post outside of Manbij, fear a disaster if the Americans leave.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The American security umbrella has allowed Manbij to become a relatively stable island in the war-torn country.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The American security umbrella has allowed Manbij to become a relatively stable island in a war-torn country. It is a local economic hub, with a bustling market and about 200,000 new residents displaced from elsewhere.

But Turkey sees Syria’s Kurdish militia as a terrorist threat on its border and has threatened to attack it. The United States worries that a Turkish attack on Manbij would siphon off the Kurdish fighters from the battle against the Islamic State in the south. Thus the American patrols to keep the Turks at bay.

But as the battle against the Islamic State winds down, the Americans will have less reason to stay.

On the flat roof of a cinder-block farmhouse converted into a military base west of town, Kurdish militiamen pointed across a shallow valley at Turkish military positions and acknowledged that the Turks could storm the area quickly if they wanted. But they did not because of the American military base nearby: a few trailers surrounded by armored vehicles, the Stars and Stripes flying overhead.

“If it weren’t for the Americans, there would be a disaster here,” said Ibrahim Sheikh Muhammad, a Kurdish militiaman.

Burned, Bombed and Still Turning

The control room of the Tabqa Dam, built by the Soviets, its turbines blown up by the Islamic State, its buildings shattered by American-led airstrikes. It is now back online.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Most of the territory held by the United States and its Kurdish allies was once ruled by the Islamic State, and the scars of the military campaign to defeat it run deep.

South of Manbij stands the Tabqa Dam, which the Soviets built in 1973, creating Syria’s largest body of water, Lake Assad, and generating power for much of the country.

The jihadists of the Islamic State ran the dam for years but blew up its turbines when they retreated.

It is now back at work, sort of. Its 350 employees work in buildings shattered by coalition airstrikes that blew holes in walls and shook tiles off the floors. Inside the hydroelectric station, rows of charred circuit boxes set alight by the jihadists sit below ceilings stained black from smoke.

But three of the dam’s turbines were whirring as water rushed through below, and a man with a blowtorch worked to repair a fourth. From eight damaged turbines, engineers had salvaged enough parts to rebuild three of them.

The Tabqa Dam is a rare example of cooperation across battle lines, run by the Kurds with Syrian government help.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The Tabqa Dam created Lake Assad, Syria’s largest body of water, where a Kurdish family displaced by the fighting lunches at a cafe.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The dam is a rare example of cooperation across opposing sides. A power line that connects it to a smaller dam passes through a government-controlled area, sending electricity to the station that provides drinking water to the city of Aleppo, said Mohammed Sheikho, the head of the mechanical department. And the Syrian government still pays salaries to some workers.

But the dam is just limping along.

New heavy electric cables cannot be installed because the German company that made them will not send its engineers into a war zone. And the country best able to fix the rest of the dam, Russia, is allied with the Syrian government.

Even worse, there isn’t enough water.

Since the Kurds took over the area, Turkey has reduced the amount of water it allows into Syria by more than half, limiting the generation of electricity, said Muhammad Tarboush, the dam’s supervisor.

The situation had never been so dire, he said, even when the Islamic State was in charge.

“They are boycotting us with water,” he said.

Shattered City, Uncertain Future

With Raqqa’s 32 bridges destroyed by the war, residents depend on crude barges to cross the river.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

On the rocky banks of the Euphrates in the former capital of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, boatmen yell to coax passengers onto rickety metal barges. Once they are filled with passengers, cars, motorcycles and trucks bearing everything from diapers to flatbread, the motors roar and belch black smoke as the men pilot their charges across the pale green water.

Raqqa was once a commercial center for Syria’s breadbasket. Now, it is an orphaned city in ruins.

The military campaign that drove out the jihadists in October left two-thirds of the city’s buildings damaged or destroyed, local officials said. Entire city blocks were erased and apartment buildings brought to the ground. Residents have returned to find walls and ceilings missing from their homes. Some even struggle to find their homes.

But the world powers who fought here, led by the United States, are staying out of reconstruction, so Raqqa’s residents are largely on their own.

All 32 bridges in the area were destroyed. The two major bridges spanning the Euphrates are impassible, cutting the city in half. One has a hole large enough for a tractor-trailer to fall through. Under the other, boys climb downed electrical cables to plunge in to the water below.

That has left only the barges to get people across.

A bombed-out bridge in Raqqa, no longer suitable for crossing the river, has been repurposed as a diving platform.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The military campaign that drove the Islamic State out of Raqqa left two-thirds of the city’s buildings damaged or destroyed.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Muhammad Jassem, a heavy-machine operator, lives on one side of the river and his elderly parents on the other. The once-simple trip to visit them now takes longer, costs more and gets his shoes and trousers wet.

“As you can see, life is a bit miserable here,” he said after wading ashore.

Everyone relied on the boats: a woman taking her grandson to the doctor for diarrhea; a family of four crowded onto a single motorcycle; a shopkeeper hauling chips and soft drinks.

Since the battle ended, the United States has put $13.7 million into Raqqa for water, electricity, rubble removal and other projects, in addition to $54 million to clear mines left by the Islamic State, according to the State Department.

But it is not rebuilding the city, which Ahmed Ibrahim, the city’s co-mayor, estimated would cost $5 billion.

He had no idea where that money would come from and worried that a lack of support would leave a vacuum that the Syrian government or an extremist group like the Islamic State could exploit.

“As long as they give concrete aid, the people will belong to them,” he said.

Facing Off Across the Water

In Deir al-Zour Province, people take rowboats from the Kurdish controlled-side of the Euphrates to the other bank, controlled by the Syrian government.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Farther south, the road along the Euphrates is strewn with the remnants of an economy blown back decades by the war: a gutted sugar factory, an idled cotton mill, a train station littered with cars blown off their tracks.

The Syrian government controls Deir al-Zour, the largest Syrian city on the Euphrates, but the bridge that connects it to its eastern suburbs across the river is destroyed.

The Kurds, their Arab allies and the United States hold the eastern side, with bases in the oil and gas fields to keep the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies from retaking them.

In some places, opposing bases face each other across the water, so close that soldiers can see each other’s flags and watch each other smoking cigarettes. At one crossing point, a local militiaman monitored the eastern side, while Syrian soldiers stood on the other, about 200 yards away, while residents rowed across in battered metal canoes.

“It’s like an international border,” said a woman on the Deir al-Zour civil council after stepping off a metal canoe that carried her from the government side.

The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity so that she could continue to visit her parents on the western side, said that most of the forces on the government’s side were Syrian but that she sometimes saw Russians and Iranian-backed militiamen from Iraq and Afghanistan buying items in shops.

Incursions in either direction are rare. In February, a column of tanks carrying about 500 pro-government forces, including Russian mercenaries, crossed the river in what appeared to be a push to seize an oil field. The United States repelled the raid, killing 200 to 300 of them.

Since then, all sides have largely accepted the river as the dividing line, an understanding likely to hold until the Americans leave.

The division was bad for Syria, the local councilwoman said, but she did not know how to end it.

“God willing, the sides will come together again,” she said.

Follow Ben Hubbard on Twitter at @NYTBen.

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