#information sessions chicago school

[dolivia]

Information Sessions of Verve College - Check in Withgram

You can enroll in practical nurse school by calling our campus. Call us to schedule a tour and/or appointment if you'd like to enroll or visit one of our campuses. You can also check in withgram.com

[quixoticall]

The View Between Villages

Summary: Steve Harrington offers to be your ghostly tour guide after your mysterious, unexpected death.

AN: Hiiiii, if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been then, first of all thank you for thinking of me, and secondly, I have been sick with bronchitis for weeks. Tbh I never understood in Regency novels where they would make such a huge deal about someone being sick until now. That shit took me out. Anyway, in my convalescence I watch the show, School Spirits and I couldn’t help but see the similarities between Wally and Steve—both men of the 80s, hot labrador retriever jocks with a compulsive need for parental approval? So, that’s how this lil piece was born. I would love to continue writing in this universe so please, if you have any requests, send them in! In the meantime, I am hard at work on This Could Get Ugly and a lovely lil Eddie number inspired by another Noah Kahan song.

Warnings: School Spirit!AU, Major Character Death, talks about own death, brief mention of violence and death, angst, this is sad! Ghost!Steve and Ghost?Reader

Pairing: Steve Harrington x f!reader

WC: 2K

It’s Steve Harrington who first declares you dead. Admittedly it takes you an embarrassingly long time to realize, it wasn’t like they sent out notices for these types of things either, as convenient as a note would’ve been:

To Whom it May Concern:

We regret to inform you that on February 12 of this year, you will unfortunately perish under unclear circumstances in the city of Chicago, Illinois at Northwestern University. Please make sure to get your affairs in order before the set date.

No, none of that, instead you had attended three whole lectures before noticing that no one was acknowledging you—not your professors when you raised your hand; not your classmates when you asked if they could loan you a pencil; not even your best friend when you ran into him in the hall. You thought it could’ve been a weird prank. Then the news began to spread, you were missing. Reported by your roommate after not having come home from a late-night study session at the library. And then they found traces of blood in the boiler room of the library’s basement.

Still, you thought to yourself, maybe you were having a really long terrible dream. Or maybe you were in a coma. Or doing one of those VR headset things. Or maybe you were dead and cursed to spend the rest of eternity haunting the very campus where you died.

Your friends were never the gym type, which is why you end up at the school’s pool in an effort to avoid the pain and desperation you feel every time you see their tired but still-hopeful faces.

That’s where you see him. Or, more importantly, where he sees you. You first spot him sitting at the edge of the pool, observing the ongoing swim team practice and are immediately struck.

Sure, you may be stuck in some weird reality where you may or may not be dead but you can still appreciate a hot person. Especially one as handsome as Pool Guy who’s striped swim trunks sit low on his hips and he has a smattering of dark hair trailing from his belly button almost up to the base of his neck. Thick, chestnut-colored hair swoops in his handsome face in golden-touched waves and gracefully frame a pair of honey-hued eyes. Of course you were going to stare.

You’re sure you stare for an indecent amount of time, but it wasn’t like that mattered, you remind yourself, you’re invisible to him like you are to everyone else.

Except you’re not invisible to him because Pool Guy was making eye contact and worse, he was waving, solidifying the fact that he is very aware of your presence. He can see you.

“Hi, you must be new here. I’m Steve Harrington, class of ‘86,” he introduces himself, with way too much verve once he swims over to where you’re still frozen in place.

“You can see me?” You ask, once you find your voice, “How can you see me?”

You reach out to grasp his offered hand and to your shock, your fingers don’t go straight through his, like it would with anyone else’s. Instead you’re enveloped in the warm solid grasp of his hand.

He cracks a smile at this, “because I’m dead too. Which, I totally get you’re probably wondering how someone this good-looking could’ve died so young but i will—“

“Dead?” you squeak out.

“Sorry,” he says with an awkward grimace, “I know not everyone likes that term, um, how do you identify—?“

You cut him off once again, “I didn’t know I was dead.”

It’s his turn to be confused.

“Really? Most people are really quick about putting it together. When they see their body the memories all come back. I mean even I put it together and I was never the smartest even before the accident—oh, shit. You’re the missing girl. The one from all the flyers.”

Clearly he’s referencing the myriad HAVE YOU SEEN ME? flyers with your face on them that paint the campus. Up until now, you had been categorically missing not dead, and now that someone has spoken your fate out loud, you’re certain it is all but sealed.

“Listen, I am so sorry. Let me go get someone who’s way better at this than I—“ you cut off his apologetic rambling,

“I need to leave right now.”

Before he can say anything else you’re running in the opposite direction as quickly as you can.

You don’t go back to the pool after that.

Being dead wasn’t so bad. Sure, you had spent a solid five weeks distraught over the loss of the life you had once lived and mourning everything you will never get to do. And yeah, it was a uniquely painful type of loneliness getting to see all your friends and never getting to interact with them, especially during those first few weeks when your disappearance was hot on everyone’s lips and heavy in the hearts of your friends. But outside of all that, being dead was okay. At least, you didn’t have to submit any more papers or do laundry.

After your encounter with Steve Harrington, class of ‘86, you decide to hole up in the library. You desperately convince yourself that if you search the shelves enough you’ll be able to find something in one of the many books that talk about the afterlife that might provide you some clarity about your newfound ghostly status. Surely there’d have to be something helpful. Anything. A ghost manual, perhaps or some graduate research paper about being stuck in between realms. You’d easily settle for a Chicken Soup for the Ghostly Soul.

Or you think traitorously to yourself, a tour guide to the afterlife, someone who has experience with being dead and a great set of abs. Every time you’re close to convincing yourself to go back to the pool, the embarrassment of your mortifying first encounter pulls you back. No way you were going to see him again. Just because you were dead didn’t mean you’d lost all your dignity.

Your internal back-and-forth ends up not mattering because he ends up coming to you.

You spot his well-coifed head maneuvering through the tall shelves from where you’ve holed yourself up on the fourth floor mezzanine and watch as he weaves through the unassuming crowd, completely unnoticed, just like you.

He’s wearing clothes this time, which both disappointing and surprising since you haven’t quite figured out the mechanics or social expectations of how often ghosts should be changing clothes. In a pair of snug-fitted jeans with a Northwestern Athletics sweatshirt and a pair of high top Nikes, he takes the winding steps up to your unofficial perch two at a time . If this is what he looks like some 40 years dead, you can’t imagine what he looked like when he had a pulse, it must have been like staring into the sun.

“Hi,” he offers tentatively when he approaches, like he’s sure you’ll run off spooked.

“Hi.”

“Sorry to bother you, it’s just, well, my friend Robin told me she saw you here and I wanted to come by and apologize for what happened. At the pool. I truly had no idea, sometimes I just say things without thinking, which I am working on, trust me.”

You smile, appreciative but defeated, part of you was hoping he was coming up here to tell you that there had been some sort of mistake.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault, it was just a bit of shock, is all. I guess I’m still adjusting to this whole being dead thing,” you joke weakly.

“Yeah, about that, if you ever need help adjusting or learning the ropes or anything like that, I—we are always happy to help. There’s a few of us that band together and we’d love to have you. Truly,” he claws nervously at the back of his head as he makes his offer the tip of his sneaker digging into the worn library carpet.

“Thanks,” you say, genuinely, “I really appreciate that.”

He looks at you now, finally, and his gaze is golden, warm honey and it’s like a shot to the chest. Like you’ve promised him the moon. A hand is extended towards just slightly, a twitch, and you realize he’s expecting you to take it.

“I can’t right now, though,” you say, lamely and you watch his smile waver. Quickly you add, ”I need some time, I think, before it becomes permanent. If I go with you, I’m dead. Alone up here, I’m still just missing. Does that…make sense?”

He nods, furiously, “It makes total sense. You can come find me by the pool whenever you’re ready. I will be there.”

He makes a move to leave and you register the paper in his hand for the first time. It’s a flyer with your face on it, different than all the ones before.

“Wait, what is that?” You ask, fingers skimming the plush of his sweatshirt to get his attention.

“Oh, um,” he swallows thickly, “they’re having a vigil for you tonight, I wasn’t sure if you’d seen or if you were going, but if you were going, I was going to see if you wanted some company. “

His voice is small now and the regret is etched thickly on his face.

Fingers shaking, you extend a hand out for the flyer. Steve sighs but gently places it in your trembling grasp nonetheless.

It’s true, what he said about the vigil, you had no clue. You’re not sure how long you spend staring at your own face, long enough for the words to stop making sense, but not long enough for them to stop meaning anything.

Steve stays the entire time and when you sink to the floor, tear tracks heavy on your cheeks, he sinks with you. You cry, and he stays.

“I can’t go,” you admit, and then, in the same breath, plea, “How can I go?”

Next to you, Steve lets out a shuttering sigh.

“When I died, they did something similar, my parents came down from Indy and everything. I couldn’t bring myself to go either. But shit, maybe if I did, I would’ve gotten what I needed to move on from here. Closure or whatever. Or maybe not, who knows? But I will never know and I would hate for you to never know.”

It’s still too hard to go you decide, but you can’t pretend it’s not happening. Instead, the two of you sit on the roof of the library, feet dangling over the ledge watch a river of candlelight flowing through the center of campus. You can hear, faintly, as your friends make speeches talking about how kind you were, how good, how funny and undeserving until their voices fail from holding back tears.

You cry the whole time, but you don’t regret it.

The two of you stay sitting there far past the end, Steve’s arms wrapped around you, holding the pieces of you together.

After, when you’ve had enough of it all and the last candle has gone out, you turn to Steve and say, “thank you, that did make me feel better. You were right.”

He chuckles wryly.

“I don’t hear that I’m right very often,” he admits before cracking another smile, “but I could get used to hearing it, especially from you. Now, what do you say about getting some ice cream? No offense, but that thing was a total downer.”

You laugh, genuinely, not only at his joke, but the absurdity of it all before playfully shoving his shoulder. In response, Steve pretends to lose his balance and almost fall of the ledge and you both know it’s silly but it makes you smile so it’s worth it.

Dying is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to you, but at least you are not alone.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

In Illinois, 114,000 people are banned from owning guns because of legal tangles or mental health issues — three-quarters of them haven't surrendered their firearms, according to data the Cook County sheriff will present Thursday.

Sheriff Tom Dart is seeking $10 million from state lawmakers to tackle what he calls in naming the report “A Firearm Regulation Crisis." The money would train and equip more door-knocking officers to retrieve or ensure the safe storage of weapons from those who have had their state Firearm Owners Identification cards rescinded.

The aim would be reducing the chance potentially volatile people would exhibit the type of violence seen when a shooter who wasn't allowed to own a firearm carried out a massacre at Henry Pratt Co. in a Chicago suburb.

Otherwise, the menace of revocations of FOID cards from noncompliant gun owners will spiral beyond law enforcement’s control, the Democratic sheriff told The Associated Press in releasing the report in advance. Dart scheduled a news conference Thursday morning to release his findings.

“I wish I was making this up. I wish I had someone pull my argument apart and say, ’You’re exaggerating. You’re being dramatic,'” the Dart told the AP in an interview Wednesday. “No. Do the math. At this rate, two years from now, we’re going to have 100,000 revoked FOID card owners, and there will be no contact with them to ensure they’ve had their guns properly dealt with.”

Legislation pending in Springfield would increase fees on weapons purchases to fuel enforcement, but just two weeks remain in the spring legislative session.

There are 2.42 million FOID card holders in Illinois. They are rescinded when a gun owner is convicted of a felony, is the subject of an order of protection, is dealing with other mental health or cognitive issues, or is deemed a “clear and present danger” to themselves or others by police, school administrators, or medical professionals. Notified gun owners are required to turn over their weapons for storage or transfer them to a trusted person possessing a FOID card, an action certified with the completion of a Firearm Disposition Record.

Too many don't. Historically, the approach was for local law enforcement to repeatedly send letters informing the recipient of the obligation to do so.

Dart's report found that of nearly 114,000 repealed FOID card holders, 74% — approximately 84,000 — have never accounted for surrendering weapons.

The issue came to a bloody, devastating head in February 2019 when a man dismissed from his job at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora pulled and fired a gun he wasn’t allowed to have, killing five employees and wounding half-a-dozen others. The gunman bought the weapon in 2014 when a background check failed to identify a 1995 conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi. When authorities became aware of it, they revoked the man’s FOID, but he never surrendered the weapon.

The same year, a DuPage County man whose FOID had been revoked for an aggravated battery charge but who had not turned over any weapons shot and killed his 18-month-old son, then himself, Dart's report notes.

Dart's efforts in the area predate the Aurora incident. He formed a unit in 2013 of eight officers trained to deal with tense environments, including those involving mental illnesses. His staff says the office has closed 9,200 cases, collected 4,000 FOID cards, taken 1,517 weapons for storage and allowed the safe transfer of several thousands of other weapons.

“It isn’t like trying to draw some type of conclusion and be a mind reader on who’s about to commit an offense,” Dart said. “We literally have the name and address of someone who has a gun and shouldn’t have it.”

Legislation signed in 2021 created a program for funding revocation enforcement teams. The Illinois State Police has granted local police departments — including Dart's and the Chicago city police — about $1 million a year.

Illinois State Police started tracking revocation enforcement in May 2019 and through 2022 reported bringing 4,300 people into compliance with the law.

Despite recent efforts, the backlog hasn't changed since state police reported it in the days following the Aurora disaster.

Dart has a sympathetic ear in the capital, and one particularly sensitive to the subject. Rep. Bob Morgan, a Democrat from the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, was marching with constituents in Highland Park's 2022 July 4th parade when a gunman opened fire, killing seven and wounding at least 30.

Morgan's proposal would increase the $2 fee on firearm purchases or transfers to $10, with $4 of that earmarked for the Illinois State Police's revocation enforcement fund. Morgan said the legislation has yet to be reviewed by the House task force on firearms.

Despite the steep increase in the transfer charge, Morgan said many states charge more than Illinois, from $15 in New Jersey to $25 in Nevada.

“We just have tens of thousands of these weapons that are floating out there from people who have had their FOID card legally and finally revoked,” Morgan said. “We need to do better.”

[eric-the-bmo]

Now I’m curious to hear about your VtM character! Impulse Embraces are always really fun (and I’m noticing very Malk-like)

[barrels into the room] MAN OH MAN I HOPE YOU'RE READY TO HEAR ABOUT LEO WEST, THE NUMBER ONE MALKAVIAN OF MY HEART

[tiny pixel leo was made by @ slimejunior btw]

(It's so cool you wanna hear about him- this is my first time in a vtm chronicle, and while i'm not the best at roleplaying, i've been having a blast with the story. I'm sorry btw, this turned into a very long post- I jumped at the chance to ramble about almost everything I can about him- however, since my fellow players follow me here, I'm keeping quiet about certain parts of his character and past.)

Anyway! Leo West is an amnesiac(?) conspiracy theorist and Anarch Malkavian, and is for an on-going chronicle taking place in San Jose- us players have decided to name it Blood and Silicon (there's actually a blog dedicated to it that's run by one of the players).

Leo's a quiet and inquisitive man who's earnest and stubborn, and refuses to talk to the coterie about his issues (but really, none of the other members do that either). He knows very little about vampire society, as his sire refused to tell him anything before sending him away, and has been repeatedly described as a blank slate and full of potential- mostly due to his "newness" to Kindred unlife. He's probably being manipulated by at least 2 people at this point.

He's got Auspex and Obfuscate, and is (unintentionally) built as a stealth character. He also has the Sandman predator type- it's how his sire hunts, and he would prefer victims who wouldn't struggle, anyway.

With his occasional visions, it seems he's got connections to the Cobweb- additionally, since no one's explained to him what the Beast is (and his takes on the guise of his sire's voice), Leo is currently convinced his Beast is actually his sire just talking to him.

While I described him as an amnesiac earlier, he hasn't completely forgotten everything.

However, my main form of communication is infodumping (/hj), so allow me to ramble below, even though I can't fit everything about him in here:

Leo was a hopeless romantic born on May 26, 1994, raised in Chicago and brought up as a Christian. He stopped believing in that faith sometime in high school; something Definitely happened during that time in his life, since it was also when he broke his nose and started smoking (but hey, if I don't know what happened, then he doesn't either /lh). He did eventually quit cigarettes in college, where he graduated and was a librarian for a while; he helped run the DnD sessions the library would hold every month :-)

In 2019, he met a man named Jeremiah: his future sire. J is a man I could make an entire post about- but tbh this isn't about him, so I'll give only the bare amount of information needed.

Jeremiah is a bartender who moved to Chicago from San Jose, and at some point in the first year of knowing Leo, he ended up blood-bonding him for reasons unknown. Leo, who was completely unaware that he was now Jeremiah's ghoul, experienced the symptoms of the bond and assumed he was in love- which surely was a whole thing for him, because at this point in Leo's life he had just come to the conclusion he would never fall in love, since he's never had the best luck in that part of his life. The two of them entered a relationship (or at least it seemed that way to Leo), and of course given the dynamic/power imbalance here- as well as Jeremiah in general- it wasn't a very good one.

(Amy, Leo's sister, kinda picked up some bad vibes from her brother's partner, and very much dislikes him.)

During their almost-three years together while Leo served as his ghoul, Jeremiah used Dominate a lot on him, erasing his memories of anything that could be seen as Masquerade-breaching- meaning that Leo has no idea what he did for him.

Mr. West noticed his gaps in memory, of course, and with the help(?) of one of his more common library patrons, Chris, he fell down into a bit of a conspiracy rabbit hole to try and figure out what was happening to him. Sometime around this point he picked up his smoking habit again.

[As a result of J's actions, Leo no longer trusts his memory and carries around a notebook; It's also one of the reasons he avoids eye contact a lot, since that's necessary for Dominate.]

Eventually he must've figured things out, or perhaps his curiosity got the better of him- but somehow, on September 16, 2021, Leo stumbled upon something that resulted in his untimely death at 27 years old.

Jeremiah Embraced him that night, although it's unknown whether he did it because he still needed Leo's servitude, or if he genuinely cared about his ghoul (and I am unsure which one is worse).

The rest of the events of his Embrace are a bit tricky to talk about- I can't go into much detail without giving much away- but with all the stress and trauma of what happened, his clan bane manifested as Dissociation; in tandem/addition to this, Leo's brain blocked off parts of itself, resulting in even more memory loss.

In fact, after Sept 16, there's about an entire month and a half of missing time for Leo, and he doesn't remember any of it (this was originally due to a misunderstanding of the game's timeline, but is now a part of the Lore).

Anyway, even though I can't go into specifics of what happened to Leo during this moment of his unlife, I can offer you this sort-of-meme about it:

[At some point during this time J informed him of blood bonds, which was kind of a jerk move, considering his childe was having a bad mental moment already.]

It's been stated by Leo that Jeremiah sent him away to San Jose, and the fledgling currently has his coat- which implies J gave it to him as a gift, or at least let him take it with. His relationship with his sire right now is... complicated.

Anyway, Leo spent about a week in San Jose before meeting [aka getting kidnapped by] a Kindred named Harrison, who introduced him to the rest of the coterie. Currently, they're all a bit secretive, and Leo occasionally leads them into trouble (like lowkey breaching the Masquerade, and almost getting caught by a gang).

Throughout Blood and Silicon, Leo's been learning about Kindred unlife, and has additionally requested an informant to look into Jeremiah. (He's got a bit of a fixation on his sire- in his eyes, his investigation to figure out what's going has not ended, and it seems Jeremiah has many secrets..)

In the most recent session, the coterie has been gifted territory as a reward for doing a quest for Harrison. Meanwhile, something's going on with Leo, because vampires can't get headaches, can they?

I'm very excited to see where this leads...

[thank you for asking, this was fun to ramble about him <3]

[workersolidarity]

Univ. of Illinois conspired against Palestinians, federal complaint alleges | The Electronic Intifada

Six Palestinian students and one Jewish student at the University of Illinois Chicago have filed a Federal Complaint against the school for alleged discrimination against Palestinian students.

According to the complaint, which was filed by members of Students For Justice in Palestine, allege that during a video conference in January about an upcoming University-arranged trip to Israel, students who intended to bring up concerns they had with the racial profiling policies in Israeli Airports and how that might affect Palestinian and other Arab students who may want to attend the trip.

The Palestinian students allege they were denied entry to the video conference held on Zoom until they changed their Profile names to reflect Western sounding names, and were then admitted to conference call.

After finally being admitted, the students allege University staff shut them down the moment they raised their objections and asked their questions. They claim University staff dismissed their concerns, acted disrespectfully towards the Palestinian students, and muted them when they brought up Apartheid policies in Israel.

The Jewish student who has joined the Federal complaint against UIC Staff was permitted entry to the video call immediately, and claims she witnessed the racial profiling and harassment of her friends and decided to join in the complaint.

In the Zoom call arranged by UIC Staff, students with Western sounding names were permitted entry, while the Palestinian students were relegated to a waiting room indefinitely. Finally, after some time, the students decided to try changing their Profile names to reflect Western sounding names like "Hayley" and "Rebecca Goldstein", and they were almost immediately allowed entry into the video call.

After finally being granted admission into the call, Jenin Alharithi, who had changed her profile name to Hayley, told Electronic Intifada that she immediately raided her concerns with UIC Staff:

The complaint alleges UIC Staff subsequently dismissed their concerns and told the students their questions were inappropriate before threatening to eject the students from the call and portraying their questions as somehow aggressive and violent.

Another Palestinian student by the name of Soha Khatib did not change her name and was denied entry to the video conference. After the call ended, she emailed UIC Staff and arranged for a meeting with Kyle Rausch, Executive Director of UIC's study abroad program that was arranging the Israel trip.

During her meeting with Rausch, held a few days after the information session video call, Khatib asked Rausch, without mentioning her Palestinian heritage and instead focusing on her African heritage, what the school was going to do to protect her rights should she attend the trip, considering the racial profiling policies of the Israeli regime against Ethiopians and others of African descent trying to enter Israel.

According to Khatib, Rausch sensed a political agenda and suspected her Palestinian heritage, asking her why she wanted to attend the trip if she felt would be poorly treated by Israeli authorities and began asking if she'd ever been there before.

Further, the complaint states that the Administrator then made a comment about his LGBT sexual orientation and how he wouldn't want to go to Saudi Arabia because of how he might be treated there.

Further, at a later event in February, the complaint alleges the students attended a UIC Study Abroad Expo, a campus event about upcoming University trips abroad.

During that interaction, SJP Students asked administrators about their exclusion and treatment during the video conference in January. The students claim that during the event, Salaam Khater, another SJP student who attended the conference call, asked Rausch about their treatment on that day. Khater says the administrator dismissed her assertion that students had been discriminated against and mistreated by staff, and that the students "were lying".

The Federal complaint goes on to describe a further escalation when the SJP students began publicizing their interactions with UIC Staff online and with flyers inside a campus building housing the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition on February 13th. The flyers highlighted the Administration's whitewashing of Israeli Apartheid and the instances of racial profiling by staff.

When the students ran into two Professors as they were putting up the flyers, the staff members took down the flyers and threatened them with police action.

UIC Administrators even went a step further, the study abroad program's Executive Director emailed Khater shortly after the incident, demanding she take down Instagram posts depicting their complaints and mistreatment at the hands of Administrators, or face legal action from the school.

The Office of the Dean of Students escalated further: announcing in March the SJP students would face disciplinary charges from the school for flyering without appropriate permission, which SJP students claim is being selectively enforced against minority students with causes unpopular with staff.

But the students didn't stop there, filing complaints with the school's Office For Access and Equity (probably the most State Dept driven name for a University office in history) where they demanded the agency investigate the Palestinian students' mistreatment by the study abroad program's staff.

In July, the school gave the students their response: they would close their review into the mistreatment of Palestinian students without conducting any kind of internal investigation.

[thepoisonroom]

for anyone wondering what i meant by the "scav bothers me" copypasta

scav is this and this

scav bothers me was posted on facebook when i was an undergrad by my then-girlfriend's TA and was this:

"SCAV bothers me. I'm fine with nerds having fun in an overindulgent nerdfest. What really bothers me is the amount of importance this university puts on such a meaningless endeavor. People pretend like this is some celebration of creativity and intellectual originality. No. Wake up. You are not doing anything more significant than those weird geeks with Japanese fetishes who show up at anime conventions in droves having paid hundreds of dollars to create the most accurate Chun Li costume.

When you are at a rich private school that gentrified an entire community of low-income African Americans and eradicated an entire culture of jazz and arts under the name of urban renewal, when that school is currently celebrating a swanky new art center that purports to engage a variety of cultures while cutting its trauma program so that all the gunshot victims in the South Side die on the ambulance ride to Northwestern, you have an obligation to do something meaningful and relevant. UChicago not only is an Ivory Tower and a sheltered and privileged bubble; it celebrates being one. There is a reason this school has so many Nobel laureates and yet very little social relevance.

You want to do something creative? While I was at Harvard I saw student-produced theater that had incredible depth, social relevance and insight, and thoughtful creativity. Your student performances at Logan fall far short of that standard. Start there. Instead of bashing Harvard students for not being intellectual enough, why don't you realize that you need some proper training from real performing artists, people who understand humanity with more breadth and nuance?

You want to do something intellectual? Why not start some conversations about our real world, instead of indulging yourselves in weird abstract geekery that has zero social impact? You bash Harvard for having grade inflation, and you think your Core is oh-so-profound because everyone has to read works by Durkheim, but the average quality of talks, panels, and classroom discussions I've seen here is far lower than that at Harvard, intellectually as well as in social relevance. The real world doesn't exist in an abstraction. The real world is complicated and doesn't quite fit neatly into intellectual arguments, broad or specific. Producing t-shirts that ask "That's all well and good in practice, but how does it work in theory?" is not helpful.

So I guess the real reason SCAV bothers me so much is that it's emblematic of the whole self-indulgent, self-congratulating University of Chicago culture that is completely unaware of its privilege and so detached from reality. You have been given such blessings and resources that many students around the world can only dream of having. There are so many talented teenagers I have met working with under-resourced school districts that would probably look at your scavenger hunt and see the same thing we see when we look at Wall St -- an immense waste of talent and money.

When I host Harvard information sessions, I often talk about the kind of holistic growth that is possible only because you are surrounded by talented individuals and Harvard will give them the resources to do cool stuff -- student research, projects at international NGOs, student activism, student performing arts, student debates, etc etc. A few months ago, an elderly tired-looking woman raised her hand and asked me why I was talking about students having fun and wasting time instead of focusing on academics. I told her that the level of academics at Harvard is top-notch, but academics is just a given -- it's a baseline on which we build more multifaceted, impactful things. I told her it's not a waste of time, because think about it: if we want to solve the massive incarceration problem in the U.S., do you want your policies designed by a social scientist who assiduously studied the problem on paper, or do you want someone who did study the theory but also went to volunteer at a prison rehabilitation program? I cannot say the same thing about the University of Chicago; we do in fact waste ridiculous amounts of time and resources doing crap like SCAV and meaningless academic discussions that don't involve real applicable solutions to real world problems. I told the lady that if you want to solely focus on academics, you should go to the University of Chicago.

People criticize Harvard for graduating so many bankers, traders, and consultants. But I've seen a surprising number of people use those starting jobs as opportunities to learn more about the private sector so that they can create their own companies or do more impactful stuff in the public or non-profit sectors, and statistics from surveys on Harvard alumni back me up. There is a reason Harvard graduates so many CEOs, leaders, and politicians; and it is not just because of pedigree and exclusive elite circles.

I am not saying Harvard graduates are altruistic world-changers. They are self-aggrandizing people who seek personal glory and bullshit about visions while comfortably residing in their privileged sheltered worlds. But at least they have those visions. At least they want to make some sort of impact, and at least they pretend to care about our larger society while pursuing their own successes. When have nerds ever changed our society (outside of the natural sciences) by purely focusing on abstract academic problems? For all the transformative theories that the social scientists at UChicago have come up with, why does this school have far less policy impact than Harvard does? How many new disruptive innovative companies or social projects do we ever see coming out of UChicago? This place has talent and resources. Why are we wasting them on SCAV when we can use that time to do much more meaningful things? Why are we ignoring our social responsibility?"

[azriel-edgemont]

I've been meaning to write this one for awhile. This happened in session #3 or #4, we're now have session #14 in the books as of last night. It finally made its way out of me.

The coterie encountered a group of Society of Saint Leopold Hunters early on in our story; we killed most but captured one for interrogation, a young French university student named Jacques, in Chicago on a scholarship from the Vatican. During the altercation, Aggie was struck by a Compulsion--to possess the captive, own him, by any means necessary.

For Aggie, that ended up meaning Kiss him, take him back to the safe house, let the muscle chain him up so he can't escape and kill us all--and seduce him for information, and also sex.

Jesus fucking christ this ended up so long what the fuck

ETA: JFC HEY THIS THING IS LIKE 4k WORDS THAT IS LONGER THAN MOST OF MY AO3 FIC. FUCK. WUT.

Now on AO3 for easier reading if you prefer!

---

Rating: E Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Category: M/M Word Count: 4,275 Some definite warnings for this one:

Mildly Dubious Consent*, Blood/Blood and Torture/Blood As Lube/Blood Drinking, Power Imbalance/Power Dynamics, Restraints, Vampires/Vampire Hunters, Light Sadism/Light Masochism/Light Bondage, also: judicious use of Google Translate**

*Our Storyteller was pretty clear that Jacques was Into Aggie at the time, even despite his precarious situation and status as a Vampire HunterTM. Also, a Lingering Kiss doesn't really take effect until a few days after it's delivered--and doesn't mess with consent so much as just make the victim crave to be fed from again. Still, it is entirely possible to argue that this whole thing is BadWrongMessedUp.

**I make no promises about the French. I've got a decent grasp of foundational basics, and a linguistics background, but vocabulary--especially casual, colloquial, non-high school appropriate vocabulary--is not my strong suit, so Google was a friend throughout. Hopefully it's not too egregious. I'm just proud of the amount I was able to do with minimal assistance! Go me!

It's easy, slipping into French as the door shuts behind him. No lock to speak of--everything else in the austere condominium the height of luxe, but a lock on a bedroom door is evidently a bridge too far for Briar. Still; the door shuts with a reassuring click. Azriel's back meets it, resting against its solid weight, as he finally takes a moment to do what he's been wanting to all evening and looks his fill.

It's not entirely dark. There is a small bedside lamp on the table at the far side of the bed taking up most of the space. It casts a warm yellow light over the room, spreading shadows like bloodstains over the coverlet, limning the man's hair in a halo of gold, cresting over the slight swells of muscle before being swallowed by the shadows they cast on his skin. The room smells like blood.

Aggie's mouth doesn't water anymore, but he feels it's absence. He sucks in a short breath, eyes closing briefly to center himself as he gives just a little tug to the chains of the Beast within, and his mouth fills with saliva. When he opens his eyes, Jacques is looking back, and Aggie is pleased to see the open, naked want in his expression. Lapsed, indeed, he thinks. It's early, yet, for the Kiss to have taken hold; it's typically days before they feel the pull, the yearning aching need for it. No, this look, this want--its all the Hunter, and all for him.

"Bonsoir, ma beauté," he greets the man in his native French, and is rewarded by a quick flush to Jacques' pale cheeks; the scent of blood thickens, ever so slightly, as his elevated heart rate forces more of it out the wounds in his leg. It's a matter of steps to the bedside, feet muffled in the plush carpet; Aggie's fingertips find Jacques' ankle, then trail up his leg as he draws nearer, sidling into the vacant space between the bed and closet.

"Salut," Jacques responds cautiously. "Tu es venu a me torturer, alors?" His tongue darts out to wet his lips as Aggie's traveling fingers draw near to the wound. It weeps, dark red blood seeping black in the low light from the seared flesh. Despite his apparent nerves, though, Aggie notes that he doesn't try to pull away; just holds, still and trembling, waiting and watching. How very interesting.

"Non...mais je pense que tu as moins peur de moi, et de la torture, que je l'aurais supposé." As though to punctuate his point, Aggie lets the pads of his fingers skate over the raw edges of the wound, applying pressure ever-so-slightly. He is rewarded by Jacques' sharp inhale, the sight of his eyelids fluttering in involuntary response. His plush, full lips part around the gasp, and Aggie feels his mouth drop just a little slack in response. "Sí belle," he murmurs, drawing out the lateral like sticky honey on his tongue. "Je le pensais. Papistes." The laugh that accompanies this is affectionate, amused. The wound pulses with another erratic heartbeat. His index swipes through the shiny, sticky blood; he watches Jacques watch him bring it to his mouth, tongue protruding just enough to lay the pad of his finger on it. Choleric, Melancholic--but there, bright at the edges of his tongue: Sanguine. His lips twitch up in a smile, and he blinks down at the young man.

"Je sais mieux qu'a penser tu ne veux pas quelque chose de moi--plus qu'une baise," Jacques says, and Aggie is startled into a laugh by the bluntness of his speech. He licks his finger clean, then helps Jacques shift his legs away from the edge of the bed, settling into the space by his hip. The mattress is firm and unforgiving, like any bed in any anonymous three and a half star hotel (not that he would know from personal experience, you understand). He plants his hand on the coverlet anyways, bracketing Jacques' hips with his body. The man is warm to the touch, against his own cool static temperature.

"Oui," he states, conversational. "J'espère que tu me diras ce que j'ai besoin de savoir--sur Alice, sur ton petite groupe. Mais--ça ne doit pas être désagréable. Pour toi, ou pour moi." From this close, he can smell Jacques' breath; it's sour with fear and pain, but the way it picks up at Aggie's proximity speaks of a different type of arousal. Still, that is unpleasant; so instead, Aggie lowers his face to Jacques' neck, pressing his lips to the jumping pulse point there. He smirks to feel Jacques' entire body tense, the instinctive reaction of prey to a predator. But when he doesn't bite--when he mouths wet, open kisses at the warm skin instead--some of that tension dissolves beneath another wave of desire.

"Et--et après ça, que alors? Tu me abbas? Tu me...comment le diz vous...m'embrasses? Ah, merde..."

Aggie's laugh is warm, delighted, at the way Jacques' breath catches at the same time his teeth do; the utter subsumation of any real fears about his fate beneath a wave of emboldened desire. His nose is filled with it, his ears recognizing the staccato beat of a heart thumping in wild need. The fingers of the hand not holding himself above Jacques find their way to the hem of his shirt, instead, rucking it up to dig into the planes of hard, young muscle in his abdomen--he hums in appreciation. He can't resist a brief nibble, giddy to hear Jacques' bitten off cry in response. The scant drops of blood he sheds are almost entirely Sanguine, now, heady as they fall on his tongue, and he licks the love bite closed.

"Impressiones-moi," he murmurs in Jacques' ear, before sitting back to look into his face. "Et nous verrons. Je peux être un amant...généreux."

Jacques, may his absent God help him, looks bereft at Aggie's sudden distance. There is a rattle of metal on metal--the handcuffs rattle against the headboard as he makes an aborted attempt to reach for the Kindred. Aggie tuts at him, but takes pity, letting his hand stroke along Jacques' thigh and delighting every time his fingers catch on the calloused skin and slick blood of the wound. The way it makes the prominent apple of Jacques' throat bob, each time; his eyes flutter and glaze. His breath catches. And Aggie watches with keen delight as the flesh beneath the zip of his jeans swells.

"Qu'est-ce que tu veux savoir?" Jacques groans out, and Aggie grins.

***

It is a...fruitful interrogation.

An outside observer could be forgiven for viewing the scene and thinking it torture. Aggie hovers over Jacques in a way that cannot suggest anything other than predator and trapped prey, Jacques' hands trapped to either side of his head by the police cuffs, his legs similarly restrained by the ankles near the foot of the bed. Despite Aggie's smaller and slighter stature, it's clear who has the power--not least because of the insistent, probing fingers Aggie delves into the grotesque wound on Jacques' leg. His hand is slicked with blood to the wrist, and Jacques twists and writhes in his bonds with each idle circle Aggie draws around the edge of the seeping flesh, even as their conversation carries on as though nothing remarkable were happening.

But an outside observer might not see what Aggie sees. The way Jacques' pupils are blown, wide and wanting; the way he swallows and gasps, and dares Aggie with his gaze to do his worst as he stutters through his answer to a question. The confusion--the seedling of a pout, even--that dawns on his face if Aggie pauses too long, distracted by thoughts and theories introduced by the information that spills freely from Jacques' parted lips; the relief of his expression when Aggie resumes his idle movements, learning the patterns of the phosphorus burn until its landscape is as familiar as his own hand. The way Jacques' hips hitch, seeking friction, seeking relief, as pain and pleasure coalesce into one singular sensation.

Find the prettiest thing in the room. Make them want you. Then give them what they want.

"Tu chantes si bellement," Aggie murmurs to him, as a thumb swipes an invisible streak of blood up the blood-soaked denim of Jacques' inseam. Jacques groans under his touch.

"Comme une canari," he complains, half-hearted, and Aggie giggles.

"Non, mon cher," he reassures; and, merciful, flattens his palm over the hard ridge of Jacques' cock beneath the fabric. Jacques nearly shouts, folding forward as far as his shoulders will allow, curling in on himself at the sudden provision of long sought-after touch. "Non, ça c'est la chanson que j'aime. Ton plaisir chante si joliement, si sans vergogne. C'est très beau."

His heel drags up the length of Jacques' cock, feeling the heat and swell of it, leaving an angry red streak smeared against the acid-washed denim. Jacques trembles under his touch; his gaze drops to watch, heavy-lidded, as Aggie strokes him through the fabric. He licks his lips. "S'il te plait, Aggie, please, Jesus--"

"Il blasphème! Ça doit être très sérieux," Aggie teases, and Jacques laughs too, breathless, rattling the cuffs next to his head. "Oui, mais oui...tu as été très bon--toi, et moi aussi. Je pense que nous méritons un prix, non?" Another pointed, agonizing stroke--drying his hand of excess blood-- and then he removes it, shifting to the button at the waistband of Jacques' jeans.

"Ça va faire mal," he warns idly; and both men pause for a moment at the ridiculous, needless warning, before Jacques breathes out a laugh and Aggie grins at him with bared Kindred teeth on full display. The laugh becomes a pained shout as Aggie tugs the denim down, over the wound, not bothering with gentleness, and he is rewarded by a broken, gasped string of curses from Jacques as he yanks the clothing--jeans and boxer briefs together--down past his knees. It leaves him exposed, bare from the waist down, and Aggie can see the furred, bruised calves, the angry phosphorus burn, the knobs and ridges of bones and muscle shifting under skin--the thick thatch of dark brown hair, and his cock, uncut and intimate, standing stiff and erect between his parted thighs.

"Vraiment, Jacques--si beau, si bon pour moi," Aggie admires, as he stands near the foot of the bed, looking his fill as he methodically removes his own clothing; tugging the tight neck of his sweater over his head, unbuttoning his slacks to let them pool, in a whisper of expensive fabric, around his ankles before gracefully stepping out of them. He takes a moment--turning to catch the best light from the lamp, long decades of experience putting his body on display to best effect in the golden glow. Jacques' gaze rakes him, up and down, in a way that suggests he might have entirely forgotten that this is is monster he is about to bed. Hunger, want, desire stoked by pain and pleasure both are all visible in Jacques' gaze, audible in his breathing and evident in every taut, quivering line of his body. But Aggie sees his face fall as his gaze focuses on the lack of interest from Aggie's own cock.

"Je suis mort, chéri, souviens?" Aggie offers; and his voice is gentle as he steps back forward to stand next to Jacques, who cranes his neck to look up and meet his gaze.

"Est-ce...pourquoi?" Jacques asks.

"Pourquoi est-ce que je veux te baiser?" Aggie laughs, and Jacques nods. "Chéri, parce-que il faire bon! Je n'ai pas besoin d'une érection à savourer ta bite, crois-moi. Tu es trop gentil, penser à moi comme ça."

Jacques shudders at the matter-of-fact words, delivered as though it weren't painfully erotic. Aggie sits on the mattress, then swings one knee over him, straddling his hips. Both men react, audibly, when Jacques' cock nestles in the cleft of Aggie's arse. "Oh, yes," Aggie murmurs in English, eyes fluttering shut at the promise of pleasure, so near. Jacques gives an experimental flex of his hips; even restrained as he is, even with the pain of the wound which must, must bother him with a movement like that, the strength and power of him is a delight, and Aggie sighs happily. "T'aimes ça?" Jacques asks, voice rough and strained, and Aggie beams at him.

"Oui, jusque comme ça. Je vais te cheveaucher jusqu'à tu vous des étoiles, chéri." As though to demonstrate the promise, Aggie rocks back against Jacques, his hips and arse and body all moving in a sinuous line. Eyes locked to Jacques' gaze, he rakes a hand back through his curls, down the side of his neck, pinky finger catching on a sharp fang as he tosses Jacques a wink. The other hand cradles around the base of his throat, squeezing lightly--visibly--before traversing a path down the center of his body. He catches, tugs at the manicured nest of curly hair, carding his fingers through before those elegant digits wrap around his cold, flaccid cock, tugging at it lightly with a pleased, self-satisfied groan.

"Putain de merde, je veux te toucher. Tu vas me tuer, Aggie...!"

Aggie's eyes flash, and a wicked grin crosses his face. "Je l'éspere, Jacques. Un petit mort, et un autre, et un autre, et un autre..." Each promise punctuated by a perfunctory stroke of his cock, rocking his hips back to meet the hard, hot line, grinding down into Jacques' lap, Aggie lets himself feel the dull spark of arousal it brings. Like a song playing from another room, he is aware of the sensation, but distantly; the feelings somehow at a remove from his body, not roused enough for full sensation. Still, though, he likes the tease of it, and the positive encouragement from Jacques is heady, and Aggie knows he looks good like this--he has a painting to prove it.

Jacques groans, another plea gritting out from between his teeth, the cuffs rattling again as he gives an insistent shove against Aggie's backside, and Aggie takes pity on him. He lifts up on his knees, just enough to get a hand beneath his legs; reaches back, past Jacques' weeping cock, drooling pearly precum down the length, and liberally coats his palm in blood from Jacques' wound.

To his credit, Jacques immediately grasps his intent--and, further to his credit, locks a hungry, lustful gaze on the sight of Aggie's hand spreading blood along his length. "Sa mére, c'est tellement foiré," he breathes out, rapt, as his cock is slicked in blood, mixing with his body's natural lubricant. Aggie feels it jump in his hand, eager for the attention, not remotely flagging at the inclusion of his own blood in their play.

"Je pense que tu es un petit peu foiré," Aggie teases. "Qu'est-ce que l'église t'a fait?"

He doesn't give Jacques a chance to respond before he is pressing the blunt head of the blood-covered length against his hole, sinking down with the full weight of his body. The stretch and split might have been agonizing for a mortal body, unprepared, unstretched, with only blood and precum for lubricant; but where the feel of a hand on his own dick felt disconnected from his body, this intrusion sends sparks of pleasure racing along his Blushed nerve endings. He lets out a long, loud groan, echoed by Jacques as he is slowly, inch by inch, engulfed by Aggie's body.

The room reeks with the scent of sex and, to Aggie, Sanguine blood, filling his nose as he works his way down the cock impaling him in Jacques' lap. He doesn't feel any pain--the stretch, the discomfort, sure, but mostly the way pleasure radiates through him, forming a feedback loop with the Sanguine tang of the air to fill up his senses and drive him mad, needy, with want. He could seat himself fully in an eyeblink, he knows, shove down and take it all at once--it would heal by morning--but the awed, slack-jawed look Jacques is giving him makes him want to take his time and put on a proper show. So he braces his bloody hand in the center of Jacques' chest, and works his hips. He takes it slowly, savouring every hit of pleasure; tiny movements back and forth that make Jacques whine. His hands flex and Aggie considers what it might mean to release him--final death, almost certainly, but surely Jacques would want to finish fucking him first, and with those hands on Aggie's hips and that powerful arse and thighs, he's fairly certain the Frenchman could do some real, glorious damage. Still--that would mean finding keys, and that would mean getting off, and as Jacques' cock brushes against some part of his anatomy that currently houses the banked embers of thousands of roused nerve endings, he finds himself entirely unwilling to make that sacrifice.

Jacques keeps up a murmured, groaning litany the whole time. "Tu es très beau," he says, and, "Tu me prends si bien," and, " J'adore voir ma bite dans toi," and a healthy number of blasphemies, which are a complete delight every time, if a little distracting. He can feel Jacques trembling with the strain of holding back--almost wants to tell him to let go, just give it to him, release his own inner gay sex demons--but watching him shake with restraint is far too much fun. Finally, though, Aggie is resting fully seated in Jacques' lap, Jacques buried to the hilt inside of him.

"Ça va?" Jacques asks, licking his lips as he shifts slightly under Aggie's weight. His cock shifts inside of him, and Aggie lets his head loll back at the sensation, humming with pleasure as he rocks experimentally.

"Très, très bien, chéri," is his response. He rolls his head back around to fix Jacques with his gaze, delighted to see heat and want reflected back at him--and then he moves.

***

Nearly two hours after first coming into the room, Aggie pulls off of Jacques with an audible pop, the soft, malleable flesh of his flaccid cock falling limp from his mouth. His lips and teeth and chin are a mess of blood, his fingers and palms and inner thighs, too, smeared like a crime scene from cheek to cheek, drying against his skin and flaking rust every time he moves. He leans across Jacques' thighs, elbows digging into the mattress for leverage, to give the wound an affectionate kitten lick. Jacques groans out a laugh above him.

"Désolée, Aggie, je pense que--j'ai finis. S'te plait."

"A plusieurs égards," Aggie chides, but laps only once more before pushing himself to his knees besides Jacques. It's true--despite his best efforts, it seems he has wrung every "petit mort" from Jacques that the man's body can muster, and even his own stamina is relatively finite. Besides which, he's sated; he's drunk and fucked his fill, gotten all the information he can think of to ask for from the pliant young man, and while he wouldn't be opposed to another round, the sticky itchy feeling of drying blood and cum on his skin is threatening to become a major irritant. "Attends ici."

Jacques hums, watching him go from half-lowered lids, chest still heaving with the effort of pain and exertion. Aggie slides backwards and off the bed, revelling in the lingering feeling of soreness in his backside; already fading, sadly, but still there as a pleasant echo. He pads on bare feet into the en suite as he allows Jacques a moment to recover.

There are hotel-style towels folded and waiting on a rack above the toilet. He grabs a washcloth--using it to turn on the tap--and waits out the water until it runs warm. His hands are first, thrust under the gushing water, which quickly turns pink and then bright red beneath his hands as he methodically scrubs them free of the worst of the blood. There's blood under his nails, he notes; but no vanity kit here. Pity. He leaves it there for now, and takes up the washcloth again, soaking it in the flow. Face and neck are next, scrubbed and blotted free of bloodstains until the cloth is soaked with it and his skin is shining white. He tosses the cloth in the bathtub, and grabs another, now wiping the blood that is smeared over his thighs and arse and bollocks, swiping away the pearly pink mixture sliding down along his inner leg.

He presses the damp cloth to his mouth, biting down around it and drawing the liquid--water, blood, cum--into his mouth. It aspirates over his tongue, and he moans quietly, happily, at the flavour, sucking at it until it gives no more. It joins its fellow in the bathtub, and he draws down a larger handtowel from the rack. This one, too, is soaked in warm water and wrung out, and he carries it with him back into the bedroom.

It's clear immediately that Jacques has passed out. Exhaustion and exsanguination have done their work; his hands hang limp from the wrists in the handcuffs next to his head, and his head droops uncomfortably against his shoulder. Aggie tuts a little, and drapes the warm towel over his lap to soak up some of the excess blood and fluid spread there. He grabs a pillow and props it between Jacques' shoulder and his cheek, then goes to retrieve his clothes, dressing with graceful efficiency, patting for the reassuring feel of the stiletto dagger in his inside pocket.

Returning to the bed, Aggie takes up his spot next to Jacques' hip, setting to providing him a perfunctory clean-up. He laps up the blood that has dribbled in shining trails down the side of Jacques neck--he had asked, in fairness, to know what it would feel like to be fed from during the act, and Aggie was only too happy to oblige. He licks at the wounds until they seal shut. He wipes the skin clean from waist to knee. He takes gentle care with the flaccid cock that, exhausted, doesn't even attempt to stir in his grip, wiping it clean as well; and makes an attempt to wash around the outside of the leg wound, cleaning his thigh of excess.

Throughout his ministrations, Jacques barely stirs, and Aggie pauses a moment to watch him in his sleep. It would be so easy, he thinks, to take his life right now. To bleed him dry and leave him for dead; the way he and his Hunter friends would no doubt have done to us. It's no less than he deserves. He feels the weight of the stiletto in his pocket; a stab through the heart, in his sleep. Not such a monstrous way to go.

Sleeping, though, Jacques looks much more the part of the boy he is, rather than the man he pretends to be; his face softens, showing hints of clinging baby fat still around the edges of his otherwise chiselled face. Not once had he pleaded for Aggie to free him, not even under the guise of sex. He hadn't even asked for anything, except more, more, more.

Fucked up little Catholic boy, confused about so many things, Aggie thinks with a snort of derision. Pain and pleasure, need and want and desire, men and monsters. But in the end--Aggie got everything he wanted out of him, and Jacques, apparently, didn't want anything more from him than this.

"C'était la meilleure baise de ta vie, chéri," Aggie tells him fondly. "You should at least be allowed to keep it for a little while."

He rises, tossing the now cool and blood-soaked towel into the bathroom; returning to the bed, he pulls the dagger from its hidden sheath and uses it's sharp point to start a tear through the fabric of Jacques' ruined jeans and boxers, adding the scraps to the pile of laundry in the bathroom. The shirt is next, covered in Aggie's bloody handprints; he rips that one by the seams, entertaining for a moment the romantic idea of a smitten young Frenchman desiring a token to remember him by. That he discards in the waste basket next to the bed--in easy reach, just in case.

There's a spare blanket in the closet. He can't do anything about the blood-soaked coverlet and sheets--and probably mattress, at this point--underneath him, but at least he doesn't need to freeze to death. Aggie tucks him in under the blanket, covering as much of the man as he can given his posture; and for a moment, then, he hesitates.

Dawn is so close. It wouldn't be so hard to lie down here; to curl against this warm body, which has grown so familiar in these past two hours, and allow himself to keep it for just a little while longer. But the Compulsion is fading along with the ache in his arse, and the hoarse soreness in his throat, and the idle fancy is just that. He is older, and wiser, than Jacques is or will likely ever be.

He knows better than to lay down with a monster.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Illinois panel tells Colleges to watch Cults that use coercion to recruit and retain members (1994)

▲ CARP witnessing in Berkeley, California in April 2021   LINK

By Michael Hirsley, Chicago Tribune Religion Writer. Eric Krol also contributed to this story | February 17, 1994

State colleges and universities should develop clearinghouses to receive and report complaints of cult activities on or near campuses, the Illinois Senate Education Committee recommended Wednesday. The schools should provide students and parents with information about "cults, totalistic groups or high-pressure religious groups that use coercion to recruit and retain members," said state Rep. Frank Watson (R-Greenville), chairman of the committee. That specific recommendation was the crux of a report issued Wednesday by the committee.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-02-17/news/9402170047_1_religious-freedom-cult-activities-religious-groups

____________________________________

CARP is a Moonie front group.

Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles

____________________________________

Unification Church’s deceptive recruiting tactics - Part 1

CARP went to Paris for a festival in 1990; Hyo Jin Moon fled in a black Mercedes when the police arrived!

Les Moon sont entrés dans Paris 1990

Rev. Moon Goes to College by Daniel Junas
 from Covert Action Information Bulletin Number 38 – Fall 1991


CARP meeting: Illegal Aliens joining the Moonies in San Francisco

The case of a mysterious death at a CARP training session in Japan. The 18 year-old student had been beaten.

A visit to Ann, who had dropped out of College, at Barrytown (1975)

I was persuaded to join CARP, which is the Unification Church’s organization at colleges

Our 21-year old son loudly proclaimed his intention to die in Korea for the Messiah... He met the Moonies on the University of Minnesota campus

It was on the local campus that our son was approached by a UC member.

Our son joined Moon’s group in late 1971 and was coaxed to join by a room-mate. Our son was taking graduate courses.

[laraphleb]

Leading Phlebotomy Colleges: Your Path to a Rewarding Healthcare Career

Title: Top Phlebotomy Colleges: Your Path to a Rewarding Healthcare Career

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https://phlebotomycareertraining.net/leading-phlebotomy-colleges-your-path-to-a-rewarding-healthcare-career/

[gabicna]

Open Your Future: Discover Free CNA Programs in Chicago Today!

Meta Title: Unlock Your Future: Discover Free CNA Programs ⁢in Chicago Today!

Meta Description: Are you looking to kickstart your career in healthcare? Discover free CNA programs in Chicago and ⁣take the first step towards a rewarding career. Read on to find out how you can ⁢unlock your future today!

—

Are you passionate ​about helping others and⁤ interested ⁤in pursuing ​a⁣ career in healthcare? Becoming ‌a Certified​ Nursing ⁢Assistant (CNA) can be a ‍fulfilling ⁢and rewarding career choice. CNAs play a vital role⁣ in providing quality care to⁣ patients in various‍ healthcare settings, such as hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics. ⁣If you’re considering a career ​as a ⁢CNA but are concerned ‍about the ‍cost⁢ of training, don’t worry⁤ – there are free ⁢CNA programs available ⁢in Chicago that can help you get started ‍on your career path.

In this article, we’ll explore how you ‌can ‌unlock your future by enrolling in free CNA programs in Chicago. Whether you’re a ⁢recent high school graduate, a career changer, or someone looking‌ to make a difference in‌ the lives of others, these programs can provide you with the training and certification you need to succeed in the healthcare industry.

### Benefits of Becoming a CNA:

Before we dive into the‌ details ‍of free CNA programs‌ in Chicago, let’s ⁤take a look at some of⁣ the benefits ⁢of ​becoming ​a Certified ‍Nursing Assistant:

– **Job⁣ Security:** There is a growing demand⁢ for CNAs⁤ in the⁢ healthcare industry, with ample job opportunities available. – **Rewarding Work:** CNAs have the opportunity to make a positive impact ‍on‍ the lives ​of patients and their families. – **Career Advancement:** Becoming ‍a CNA⁣ can be a stepping ‌stone to other healthcare careers, such as becoming a registered nurse ⁣or a licensed practical nurse. – **Flexibility:** CNAs have the option to work full-time, part-time, or on a per diem basis, allowing for ⁣a flexible work schedule.

### ‌Discover Free CNA Programs in‌ Chicago:

If you’re interested in pursuing⁢ a career⁣ as a ​CNA but ‌are unable to afford the cost ⁤of training, there ‍are⁤ free CNA programs available in Chicago that can help you ⁢achieve your⁣ career goals.⁢ These programs are typically offered by healthcare facilities, community‌ colleges, and non-profit⁢ organizations,⁤ and provide aspiring ‍CNAs with the ⁤training and education they need to become certified.

Here are some free CNA programs in Chicago that you may ⁤consider:

| ⁤Program ‍Name‌ ‍ ⁤| ‍Organization | | —————–| ⁣—————– | | Program ⁢1 ⁣ ⁣ ⁤ | Organization 1 ⁤ ​ | | Program 2 | Organization​ 2 ⁣| | Program 3 ⁤ ⁤ | Organization 3⁤ |

### Practical Tips for Enrolling in Free ⁤CNA Programs:

– **Research:** Take the time to research ⁤different free ⁢CNA programs‍ in Chicago to find ⁤one that ‍best suits ‌your needs and preferences. – **Attend ​Information Sessions:** Attend information ⁣sessions‌ hosted by the program ⁤providers‍ to learn more about the ⁤curriculum, requirements, and application process. – **Meet Eligibility Requirements:** Make sure you ⁤meet the eligibility requirements for the free‌ CNA ⁣programs, which may ⁢include a high school​ diploma or GED. -⁣ **Prepare for Interviews:** Some programs may require you to⁢ interview as part ‌of the application process, so be prepared ‌to showcase your passion for healthcare.

### Conclusion:

Embarking ⁢on‌ a ⁤career as a Certified Nursing⁣ Assistant can be⁤ a fulfilling and ‌rewarding experience. By enrolling in ‍free CNA programs ⁤in Chicago, you can take the first step towards ⁤achieving your‌ career goals and making a positive impact in the lives⁢ of ‌others. Whether you’re a recent high school graduate or a career changer, there are opportunities available for you ​to ⁤pursue a career‍ in ⁤healthcare without breaking the bank.

Unlock your future today by exploring free CNA⁣ programs in Chicago and kickstarting your career in healthcare. With the right training​ and certification, you can ‌build a successful⁣ career ⁤as a ⁤CNA and make a difference in the lives of patients every⁢ day. Get started⁤ on‌ your journey to⁣ becoming‌ a⁤ Certified ​Nursing Assistant and take the first⁣ step‌ towards a bright and rewarding future.

https://cnatrainingprogram.net/open-your-future-discover-free-cna-programs-in-chicago-today/

[testprepchicago]

Boost Your Math Skills with Chitown: Premier Math Tutoring in Chicago

In the bustling city of Chicago, where the skyline meets opportunity, the importance of a solid math foundation cannot be overstated. Whether you're a student aiming to excel in school, a professional seeking to sharpen your skills, or a parent looking to support your child’s academic journey, Chitown is here to help with top-notch math tutoring services tailored to your needs.

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Expert Tutors with a Passion for Teaching At Chitown, we pride ourselves on our team of expert math tutors who are not only highly knowledgeable but also passionate about teaching. Our tutors have extensive experience in helping students of all ages and levels, from elementary school to college and beyond. They understand that every student learns differently and are committed to finding the best approach to make math understandable and enjoyable.

Personalized Learning Plans We believe that personalized education is the key to success. Our tutors work closely with each student to assess their strengths, weaknesses, and learning style. Based on this assessment, we create customized lesson plans that target specific areas of improvement, ensuring that our students make significant progress in their math skills.

Flexible Scheduling and Convenient Locations Life in Chicago can be busy, but that shouldn’t stand in the way of getting the help you need. Chitown offers flexible scheduling options to fit your lifestyle. Whether you prefer in-person sessions at a convenient location in the city or online tutoring from the comfort of your home, we’ve got you covered.

Proven Track Record of Success Our success stories speak for themselves. Over the years, Chitown has helped countless students in Chicago achieve their academic goals. From improving grades and boosting confidence to preparing for standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, our tutoring services have made a lasting impact on our students’ lives.

Affordable and Transparent Pricing We believe that quality education should be accessible to everyone. Chitown offers competitive pricing with no hidden fees. We provide clear information about our rates and packages upfront, so you can make an informed decision about your investment in your education.

Math Tutoring Services Offered by Chitown

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Get Started with Chitown Today

Don’t let math challenges hold you back. Whether you're struggling with the basics or looking to excel in advanced topics, Chitown is your go-to destination for math tutoring in Chicago. Our experienced tutors are ready to help you conquer math and achieve your academic and professional goals.

[dolivia]

Anyone who is interested in coming to the campus and/or for enrollment purposes, please contact us at 630-705-9999 to reserve an appointment.

If you want to enroll in practical nursing programs in Illinois, then you must visit Vervecollege.edu

[nurseeden]

Leading Nursing Schools in Chicago: Your Path to a Thriving Healthcare Career

**Meta Title:** Top Nursing Schools in Chicago: Your Path to a ⁢Thriving Healthcare Career

**Meta⁢ Description:** Discover the top nursing schools in Chicago that will set you on the right ⁤path to a successful healthcare career. From ⁢prestigious universities to specialized nursing programs, Chicago offers a variety of⁣ options ⁢for aspiring nurses.

**Introduction:** Chicago, known for its world-class healthcare institutions, is an excellent place to kickstart your nursing career. Whether you’re looking to become a registered⁣ nurse, ⁢nurse practitioner, or nurse educator, the Windy City has a range of top-notch nursing schools to choose from. In this article,⁤ we’ll explore the best⁢ nursing schools in Chicago that can⁤ help you achieve your career ⁣goals and ‍make a real difference in⁤ the field of healthcare.

**Top⁤ Nursing Schools in Chicago:**

1. **Rush University** ⁣ ⁢ – Located in the heart of ‌Chicago, Rush University offers a⁢ wide​ range of nursing programs, including a highly esteemed‍ Bachelor ‍of Science in Nursing (BSN) program. – Known for its cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art facilities, Rush University‌ equips students with the skills ⁣and knowledge ⁤needed to‍ excel in‌ the rapidly evolving healthcare industry.

2.​ **University of Illinois at ⁢Chicago (UIC)** – UIC’s ​College of Nursing is ‌consistently ⁢ranked among ⁣the top nursing schools in the country. – With a focus⁤ on evidence-based practice and interdisciplinary collaboration, UIC‍ prepares ⁣students ⁣to provide high-quality care ⁣in a ​variety of healthcare settings.

3. **DePaul University** ⁢ – DePaul University offers a comprehensive nursing program that emphasizes hands-on experience and clinical practice. ⁣ – Students benefit ⁣from ‍small‍ class⁢ sizes and personalized attention from faculty members, ensuring a supportive learning environment.

4. **Loyola University Chicago** – ‍Loyola University Chicago’s Marcella ⁢Niehoff School of Nursing is known for its commitment to excellence in nursing education. – The school offers a range of undergraduate and graduate programs,‍ including a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program for aspiring‌ nurse ‍leaders.

**Benefits of Attending a Top Nursing School in Chicago:** -⁤ Access ⁤to cutting-edge research and clinical​ facilities – Networking opportunities with industry ‌professionals – Prestigious education that ​is recognized nationwide – Enhanced job prospects and higher earning ‌potential – Opportunities for career advancement⁢ and specialization

**Practical Tips for Choosing‌ the Right Nursing School:** -⁤ Research‌ the school’s⁤ accreditation and reputation within the healthcare community – Consider the program’s curriculum, faculty expertise, and clinical placement⁣ opportunities – Evaluate the school’s facilities and⁤ resources, including simulation labs and research centers – Attend ​informational sessions or open ⁣houses to ‍learn ⁣more about the program firsthand – Speak to current students or alumni to‌ gain insights ‍into the student experience and post-graduation success​ rate

**Conclusion:** Choosing the right nursing school ​is a crucial step towards building a successful⁢ career⁢ in healthcare. By selecting one of the top nursing schools in Chicago, you can ⁣receive a high-quality education that ​prepares you for the challenges​ and opportunities in the field of nursing. Whether you aspire to work in a hospital, clinic, ‌or research setting, ‌Chicago’s prestigious nursing schools ‌can help you achieve your goals and make a ​meaningful impact on the lives‌ of others.

https://nursingcertificationcourses.com/leading-nursing-schools-in-chicago-your-path-to-a-thriving-healthcare-career/

[stephleb]

Open Your Future: Top CNA Classes in Illinois Revealed

Unlock Your Future: Top CNA Classes in Illinois Revealed

Are you interested in pursuing a career as a Certified Nursing Assistant ‍(CNA) in Illinois? If so, finding the right CNA classes ⁣is‌ crucial to jumpstart your career in the healthcare field. With a growing demand for CNAs in hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities, getting the right training is essential for success. In this article, we will reveal the top CNA classes in Illinois⁢ to help you unlock your future in the healthcare industry.

Why Choose a Career as a CNA‍ in ‍Illinois?

Before we dive into the top CNA classes in​ Illinois, let’s explore why becoming a CNA in Illinois is a great career choice. Here are some reasons why ‌you should consider pursuing a career as a CNA‍ in Illinois:

– High demand: The ⁤demand for CNAs in Illinois is on the rise due⁢ to the ⁣aging population and increased healthcare ⁢needs. – Job stability: CNAs enjoy job stability and security, with many opportunities for advancement. – Fulfilling work: As a CNA, you ⁤will have the opportunity to make ​a difference in the lives of patients by‌ providing ⁣essential care and support. – ​Competitive salary: CNAs in Illinois earn competitive salaries, with opportunities for overtime and bonuses.

Now that you know ​why becoming a CNA in Illinois is a rewarding career choice, let’s explore the top CNA‌ classes in the ​state.

Top CNA Classes in Illinois:

1. ABC Nursing School – Location: Chicago, IL – Program Length:‍ 6 weeks – Cost: $800 – Highlights: Small class sizes, hands-on training, job placement assistance

2. XYZ Healthcare ​Academy – Location: Springfield, IL – Program Length: ⁣8 weeks – ‌Cost: $900 – Highlights: Flexible⁢ class schedules, experienced instructors, state-of-the-art facilities

3. LMN Nursing Institute – Location: Rockford, ⁣IL – Program Length: 10 weeks -‌ Cost: $1000 – Highlights: Clinical rotations, mock exams, career ‌counseling services

Benefits of Enrolling in Top CNA Classes in Illinois:

– Comprehensive curriculum: ‍Top CNA classes in Illinois offer a comprehensive ‌curriculum that covers essential topics such as medical terminology,⁢ anatomy, and patient care. – Hands-on training: With hands-on training, you will ​gain practical experience in⁣ a real healthcare setting, preparing you for your ⁤future career as a CNA. – Job placement assistance: Many top CNA classes in Illinois offer job⁢ placement assistance to help you secure employment after completing your training. – Networking opportunities: Enrolling in top ⁢CNA classes‌ will allow you to ‍network​ with healthcare professionals and potential employers,⁣ increasing your⁣ chances of ​landing a job.

Practical Tips for Success:

– Research: Take the time to research different CNA classes in Illinois to ⁤find the best fit for your needs and preferences. -‌ Attend open houses: Attend open‌ houses or information ‍sessions at ‌CNA ‌schools to learn more about their programs and facilities. – Ask questions: ⁢Don’t be afraid to ask questions about the curriculum, instructors, and job placement services offered by​ CNA schools. – Prepare for the certification exam: Start preparing for the CNA certification exam early to increase your chances of passing ​on your first ⁣attempt.

Unlock ‌Your Future as a ⁤CNA in Illinois:

By enrolling in one of ⁤the top CNA classes in Illinois,​ you can unlock your future in the healthcare industry‌ and embark‌ on a rewarding ⁣career as ​a Certified Nursing Assistant. With the right training and preparation, you will be‍ well-equipped to provide quality care⁢ to patients and⁣ make a positive impact in the healthcare field. ⁢Don’t wait any⁣ longer – start your journey to becoming a CNA in Illinois today!

https://cnatrainingcentral.com/open-your-future-top-cna-classes-in-illinois-revealed/

[cnacertificationprogram]

Discover the very best CNA Programs in Chicago: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Launching a Healthcare Career

**Discover​ the Best CNA⁢ Programs in Chicago: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Launching a Healthcare Career**

Are you considering a career in⁣ the ⁢healthcare⁣ field⁣ as⁢ a⁣ Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)? ⁢If you are located ​in Chicago ⁣or the ‍surrounding areas, you’re ​in luck! Chicago⁣ offers ​a⁤ variety of top-notch CNA programs ‍that ‍can help kickstart your career in healthcare. In this comprehensive guide, we⁢ will walk ‌you through the process‍ of finding ⁢the best ​CNA programs in Chicago, step-by-step.

**Benefits of Becoming a CNA:** Before we⁤ dive into the details⁣ of how to find the ⁢best​ CNA programs‌ in Chicago, let’s first⁣ explore the benefits‌ of pursuing a⁢ career as a ​Certified ⁤Nursing Assistant:

1. **Job Stability:** The healthcare industry is always in ⁢need of qualified CNAs, providing you⁣ with⁣ job security. 2. **Fulfilling Work:** As a CNA, you ⁣will have the⁣ opportunity to make ​a ⁤difference in ⁣the lives of patients and their families. 3. **Career Advancement:** Becoming a CNA ‌can be a stepping stone to other healthcare professions, such as ⁣becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) or Registered Nurse (RN).

**Finding the Best CNA Programs ⁢in Chicago:**

1. **Research Online:** Start your search by researching CNA ⁣programs in Chicago online. Look for accredited‌ programs that offer comprehensive curriculum and⁣ hands-on training.

Program⁣ Name

Location

Accreditation

ABC Nursing School

Downtown Chicago

Accredited‍ by the ⁤Commission on ⁣Collegiate Nursing Education

XYZ Healthcare Training Institute

Suburban Chicago

Accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing

2. **Visit Open Houses:** Once you have identified a few potential CNA programs, attend⁢ their open⁤ houses or information sessions to learn more about the curriculum, facilities, and faculty.

3. **Check⁢ Reviews:** Look for ‍reviews or testimonials from former⁤ students to get an idea of⁤ their ⁣experiences with the program.⁣ You ⁤can also reach out to alumni⁣ for firsthand insights.

**Enrolling in a CNA ⁣Program:**

1. **Apply:** Submit‌ your⁢ application to ‍the CNA programs of your ⁤choice, ensuring you meet all ⁣the eligibility requirements.

2. **Financial Aid:** Explore options ‌for financial aid, scholarships, or grants to help ⁣cover the cost of tuition and other ⁣expenses.

3. ⁢**Prepare for Classes:** Once accepted into a CNA program, prepare for classes⁢ by getting ⁢the‌ required textbooks and supplies.

**Conclusion:** By following‍ this step-by-step guide, you can discover the best CNA programs in Chicago and take the first step towards⁣ launching a successful career in healthcare. Remember to research, visit open houses, check reviews, apply, and prepare for classes to ensure a ⁣smooth ​transition into your CNA program. Good luck on your journey to becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant in Chicago!

https://cnacertificationprogram.net/discover-the-very-best-cna-programs-in-chicago-your-step-by-step-guide-to-launching-a-healthcare-career/

[niamhsnationalproject]

Week 2

Monday

The morning session launched the employability section of the module. It intended to plant the seed of thinking about how we will start to market ourselves once completing our degree.

We spent the rest of this day with our group attempting to come to a conclusion of where we should base our project. After contemplating for a good while, we decided to put it to a vote just so we could continue on with the project, moving on to thinking about the contents of our shop front.

The majority came to being in support of being in located in northampton as there is an old bank on the corner of the drapery, facing all saints church that sparked our interest. it has an aesthetically pleasing, original facade. The building also would have a nice view out as it is a curved corner building that can see onto one of the better looking high streets in Northampton’s town centre. To see if we could find out who owns the building without being in Northampton, I emailed the council from their website quoting the most recent authorised planning permissions so that they would know which building we were on about. I explained our situation (being students and our brief) and asked if they had any information on the building or if they had any contacts they could give to point us in the right direction. The council’s website say they should get back in contact with us within 5 working days so hopefully we have a response by the end of the week.

Tuesday

I came into the studio Tuesday evening as we were going to be in contact with Chicago via the ouija board that Sarah had made. It was really cool to see the interactions taking place and seeing their responses to our questions. I found it hard to think of questions on the spot but we did find out some interesting information about how their courses work and a bit about Chicago (having their first snow).

Wednesday

We had our scheduled feedbacks for the previous modules in the morning. I wasn’t feeling very well unfortunately so opted to receive my feedback over teams. I have been struggling mentally since being back this semester which i think stemmed from being burnt out and has spiralled. As a result of this, i will be commuting in on a Monday morning and returning back to northampton Wednesday night and remaining in Northampton until the following Monday. This will either be until i can find someone to take my tenancy at my student accommodation or until i am well enough to take care of myself. I think my grade from the local brief represents this as i feel as though i could have done a lot better if i had engaged more with the module.

We had organised as a group to take the free time in the afternoon to come in and discuss/ brainstorm ideas for the space however as I wasn’t in, I couldn’t be much help. By the sounds of it, no decisions were made as Rachel wasn’t in either so we will reconvene on Monday instead.

Thursday

Rather than attending the adobe workshop on the Thursday, i had opted to go on the school of art trip to London. We started by going to a small cafe connected to an apartment hotel that i had found online. The colour scheme and decor were really nice, choosing browns/oranges and greens. There were many plants scattered across the foyer that made the place very cosy.

We then made our way to the Victoria and Albert museum. I would’ve really liked to have seen the Chanel exhibition however it was completely sold out. Instead, we had a look around the main exhibition that they have open to the public for free. This included a range of sculptures, ironwork, garments, accessories and other objects. I had taken a range of pictures of my favourite pieces to either do some studies of when i had some free time (I would’ve liked to have sat and done some sketches but we were limited on time and chose to see as much as we could in the museum instead). The images that i had taken are now lost as i had my phone stolen 5-10 minutes before getting on the coach to leave London. While it was good to see the different exhibits, none of them spoke out to me in terms of our current project. As it was mostly traditional art there also wasn’t any creative technologies used in the free exhibits either.

Over the weekend i learnt that the gunpowder plot was conspired in Northamptonshire (Ashby house) by some wealthy men of high standing, this could be something to explore within our concept or proposal for the shopfront.