#its just a phase though and he stops once he realizes that ed is evidently impervious to harm

[doubledyke]

edd cutting ed's food for him any time they have lunch together as little kids

[your-stitcher-thursday]

Until You Find Me - Stitchers Fic

Hey @onthecyberseas! This is your Stitchmas fic. I tried to keep it from going too angsty. (Definitely has a happy ending!) I loved your suggestion of a HogwartsAU so that’s what I did. It’s Camanda with the tiniest hint of Camsten. Hopefully you like it. 

Thank you to @lady-gryffindor and @stitchedatbirth for hosting this event and @xoheatherkw my beta/cheerleader. 

Ordinarily it was considered an incredible act of friendship to travel long distances to be there for someone.

At one point there were people in her life that she would barely blink twice before following on this kind of task.  Kirsten Clark was not one of them.

The blonde was Camille’s latest mission. Her dossier was long and kind of tragic. Camille had it nearly memorized right down to the smudges and ink splotches of the parchment. Kirsten’s father, Daniel Stinger, had been a teacher at Hogwarts until she was eleven. He had disappeared after his wife, Jacqueline, died in an accident. Ed Clark, a friend of her parents, took Kirsten in and raised her. She was sent halfway around the world for school, away from the place her parents loved most.

For all of that, Camille never saw traces of her backstory impact Kirsten. Camille could feel her own background leaving its grimy fingerprints on everything she did. She could never escape.

It was hard to let go parents who left her at every turn.

It was tough to be raised by a teenage brother who was constantly inches from being arrested.

It was difficult to uproot her life over and over again.

The worst part of it all was that Theo’s lack of regard for the law was what first revealed Camille’s magic. There had been a sale that went wrong. Someone stole the money Theo had earned by dealing. Coming up with the missing cash fell squarely on Camille’s shoulders since Theo had decided to run and hide.

That’s when Camille met Maggie Baptiste.

Or more accurately that’s when she tried to rob Maggie Baptiste.

Her fingers were sure and swift as she lifted the wallet. It had been a relatively easy pick on a crowded street. She made it a block and a half before her mark appeared in front of her. Camille sprinted in the opposite direction, but the woman appeared ahead of her again. Eventually the thief became the pursued and was chased into a dead end alley. The only way out was in. Camille vaulted onto a closed dumpster and tried to open the window above it. She tugged at the latch, willing it to open.

And then it vanished beneath her fingers.

Shock prevented Camille from entering the apartment. She tumbled backward, sliding on the lid of the dumpster. Once she got control of her breathing back she realized that her hands were bound. Funny. She didn’t remember feeling that happen.

Her mark started chastising her about the window. It started off normally enough. Then she began to talk about the Improper Use of Magic Office and the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. That’s when Camille really felt uneasy. After several moments of silence the woman studied Camille’s face. Her expression softened as she asked if Camille was a muggle. As Maggie explained about wizards and magic, Camille’s entire life started to make sense.

The time a street light burst at just the right moment to hide her.

The way she could always find missing items.

The incredible ease with which she could lift anything from a pocket.

That summer she received an acceptance letter for a local wizarding school. She never hesitated, never looked back. Her mind had been made up the second she bailed Theo out of yet another mess. She swore it would be the last one.

Her school years passed until she was able to join the workforce. There was only one job she wanted: Auror. Maggie had become something of a hero and mentor to her so it was only natural that she wanted to grow up to be her. Camille soon joined the department.

Despite her eagerness, the job started to wear on her. Much of her job involved getting close to people in an effort to protect or investigate them. There always had to be a thin barrier up between them though, one she always saw and they never felt.

That distance was what made Kirsten Clark her favorite charge. She didn’t want to be friends. Her feelings were nearly impossible to hurt. It had been restful for Camille to not have to act all the time. Unfortunately, the distance between them was what was currently making her job hard.

If she even had one in the morning.

Camille walked down the long hall of the morgue. Ordinarily the loud thumping of her boots wouldn’t phase her, but she felt less than stealthy at the moment. Her thumb worked over the seal of her badge as she wound deeper down the corridor. A lit room at the end caught her eye. It was the only part of the building that felt inhabited. As she grew closer, Camille could hear someone faintly singing.

The room was overly bright and smelled strongly of formaldehyde, but neither of those things were what Camille noticed first. Her immediate attention went to the woman in front of her. From her victory waves and cherry red lipstick all the way down to her patent red heels, she looked like she had just popped in from the forties. Her focus drifted from the notes she was taking and fell to Camille.

Something snagged in Camille’s throat. She wanted to be witty and charming, but couldn’t find it in her to be either. Living with Kirsten had made all of her social skills rusty.

“Hi.”

The word creaked out between them. Camille wrinkled her nose slightly. That was the best she could come up with?

“Amanda.”

Camille frowned. “No, I’m Camille.”

The other woman pressed her lips together before smirking. The twinkle in her eye set Camille’s heartbeat running a little faster. “I was trying to introduce myself. My name is Amanda.”

“Oh.” A flush crept up Camille’s neck. “Right. I should probably let you get back to… all of that.” Camille gestured vaguely to the body covered with a sheet.

The smirk on Amanda’s face deepened. “You could stay a bit longer. I promise I only cut up dead people.” She picked a scalpel up off the table and waved it in the air. “Trust me.”

“Says the lady brandishing a sharp object.” Camille’s response was far breathier than she intended.

Amanda shrugged and set down the scalpel. “Monday’s and Friday’s are open mic night at The Lowdown, and a murder charge would most likely keep me from performing. Tomorrow’s a different story though.”

It worried Camille slightly that she was so happy about someone joking around about murder. Their back and forth felt like flirting. It had been so long since she had enjoyed banter like this. Giddiness bubbled up through her veins. She hadn’t wanted to know someone - let someone know her - like this in ages. It felt so good.

“Well I doubt my conversational skills are what brought you here.” Amanda walked closer to Camille. “Why are you at the morgue this late at night?”

And just like that all of the fizziness Camille had been feeling went flat.

“I’m here about Ed Clark.”

He was why Camille had apparated halfway around the world, trailing her annoying, blonde charge.

He was why Maggie was suddenly letting emotion bleed into her decisions.

He was why Camille might lose her job.

The cardinal rule to going undercover was to never let your cover slip. Camille had mastered that from a young age. The problem was that she had no real reason to follow Kirsten Clark except for Maggie’s insistence. When she fought with Kirsten about being there for moral support - a soap bubble thin reason if there ever was one - the truth had come screeching out of her. From that moment on she stopped treating Kirsten like her roommate and started treating Ed Clark as her case.

Step one was to find more information on Ed’s whereabouts. Kirsten took to Hogwarts. She interrogated several of his colleagues, including a curly-haired Muggle Studies professor. When Camille left them she could hear their verbal sparring from outside the walls of the school. Camille decided to take to the morgue. Her badge could get her access and better answers. No one would sugarcoat Ed’s final hours for an Auror.

“You’re in luck. I’m just wrapping up my notes on him.” Amanda gestured for Camille to join her. “Do you have identification?”

Camille held up her badge. Her mood dropped slightly at Amanda’s much more professional tone. “The deceased’s daughter called earlier to confirm his body was here.”

“‘Body’ is a strong word. There was barely enough to identify him by.”

Suspicion twitched at Camille’s fingertips. “Is it possible the rest of his body is elsewhere?”

Amanda nodded. “Very possible.” She hesitated. “I’m not supposed to speculate without hard evidence.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Camille said softly, willing Amanda to trust her enough with whatever she wanted to say.

The comment earned Camille a smile that brought back some of the joy she felt earlier.

“I think he’s still alive.”

The whisper was barely loud enough to hear over Camille’s breathing.

“The entire crime scene felt like it was staged. It was too perfect. There was just enough blood for me to test.” Amanda paused. “Plus, he was friends with the Stingers.”

Camille’s brain whirled at the thought of Ed Clark not only being alive, but reunited with Jacqueline and Daniel. “I’ve got to go. You’ve been great. I’ll owl if I need anything else.”

Amanda curled her fingers around Camille’s wrist. “Wait.” She held up a pen. “So you know where to send it.”

Camille’s hand grew warm under Amanda’s. The pen slowly rolled over her skin. It left Amanda’s name and address in its wake. Camille noticed that she wrote much slower than she had before.

“Or if you want to see me again.”

Yes.

It’s on the tip of Camille’s tongue. She wants to agree so badly. Every single cell in her body is screaming at her to say yes before Amanda could change her mind.

“I won’t be in town very long.” Camille withdrew her hand sadly. “I’m sorry.”

Amanda frowned. “Me too.”

With that Camille walked out the door. She willed herself to keep going, to not look back. It wasn’t easy considering she was going toward Maggie and possibly the end of her career.

Upon arrival, Camille was expecting to get completely chewed out. She was not expecting a hug. There was something so warm about Maggie’s hugs. They were rare, but when she gave them she threw all of herself into it. Camille chalked it up to her sadness over what happened - or according to Amanda didn’t happen - to Ed.

In the hours since Camille had left, Kirsten had grown quite comfortable in Ed’s home. His squat hut was located at the furthest boundary of the school. It was quiet, secluded, and home to a number of cozy pieces of furniture. It helped too that the Muggle Studies professor was at her side as she unravelled some of Ed’s research. They had discovered a spell he had been perfecting that allowed people to project the memories of the dead.

Camille kept waiting for Maggie to fire her. She had broken the cardinal rule. There was no way they could keep her after that. And yet Maggie continued to treat Camille like family even after she shared Amanda’s suspicions about Ed being alive.

On the fourth day Kirsten accepted Ed’s position as Herbology professor. The school year was starting the following week, and she seemed like the logical successor. Maggie had arranged for a local Auror named Fisher to help Kirsten with questioning if she needed it. That seemed like the beginning of the end for Camille.

Until Maggie told her that Fisher’s department was severely understaffed. She wondered if maybe Camille would like to stop going undercover and stay put for more than a few months at a time. Her first case could be with Fisher and Kirsten.

Camille could feel the pieces of her life slowly starting to knit together. There was one more she needed to get right though.

Luckily, it was a Friday.

The Lowdown was a tiny pub on a winding street. Camille passed it three times before she spotted the place. She wasn’t sure if it was her nerves or the lack of signage that gave her trouble. Once inside, she had no trouble spotting Amanda even though she wore all black. It took Camille a couple of moments to gather herself. Amanda didn’t notice her until they were nearly face to face. She looked surprised to see Camille, though not unhappy.

“I thought you were leaving town,” she said casually.

Camille ran a hand through her hair. “Turns out I’m not. I just got transferred.”

A smile threatened to overtake the smirk on Amanda’s face. “Really? How interesting. Does that mean I’ll see you in the morgue again?”

“Only on Monday’s and Friday’s,” Camille told her. “I’d like to see you outside the morgue some days too.” Amanda’s smile lit up the dark pub. “That could definitely be arranged.”

“Without the scalpel,” Camille joked as she twined one of her hands with Amanda’s.

“Oh that might be a dealbreaker.” Amanda took Camille’s free hand in hers.

Camille took a step toward her. “Really?”

“No.”

Amanda whispered the word against Camille’s mouth before kissing her. Camille disentangled the hands and slid hers around the back of Amanda’s neck. Her fingers toyed with the soft skin there. She wanted to spin the moment out as long as she could. They were on the brink of something wonderful, something new. Camille would’ve bottled the moment and trapped it in a pensieve so she could live it over and over again if she could’ve.

They both pulled back slightly, lips barely brushing together. Amanda rested her forehead against Camille’s.

“I’m really glad you came and found me.”

[jambrass0-blog]

Tom Engelhardt: The Unhappy 17th Anniversary of the Afghan War

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Yves here. Those of you who paid some attention to our post 9/11 nation-breaking exercises in the Middle East may recall that there was a phase when disillusionment about the Iraq War set in, that media and the pundits depicted invasion of Afghanistan as necessary and by implication justified. After all, a Great Power had to Do Something after a blow like the 9/11; it was the war on Iraq that was de trop. 17 years later, that justification looks pretty thin.

By Tom Engelhardt, a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His sixth and latest book is A Nation Unmade by War (Dispatch Books). Originally published at TomDispatch

We’re already two years past the crystal anniversary and eight years short of the silver one, or at least we would be, had it been a wedding — and, after a fashion, perhaps it was. On October 7, 2001, George W. Bush launched the invasion — “liberation” was the word often used then — of Afghanistan. It was the start of the second Afghan War of the era, one that, all these years later, still shows no signs of ending. Though few realized it at the time, the American people married war. Permanent, generational, infinite war is now embedded in the American way of life, while just about the only part of the government guaranteed ever more soaring dollars, no matter what it does with them, is the U.S. military.

This October 7th marked the 17th anniversary of that first of so many still-spreading conflicts. In league with various Afghan warlords, the U.S. military began moving into that country, while its Air Force launched a fierce campaign, dropping large numbers of precision munitions and hundreds of cluster bombs. Those were meant not just for al-Qaeda, the terror outfit that, the previous month, had dispatched its own precision air force — hijacked American commercial jets — to take out iconic buildings in New York and Washington, but the Taliban, a fundamentalist sect that then controlled most of the country. By early 2002, that movement had been ejected from its last provincial capital, while Osama bin Laden had fled into hiding in Pakistan. And so it began.

The 17th anniversary of that invasion passed in the heated aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings, as the president was rallying his base by endlessly bashing the Democrats as an “angry mob” promoting “mob rule.” So if you weren’t then thinking about Afghanistan, don’t blame yourself. You were in good company. 

On October 8th, for instance, the front page of my hometown newspaper had headlines like “Court Showdown Invigorates G.O.P. in Crucial Races” and “20 Dead Upstate as Limo Crashes on Way to Party.” If you were old like me and still reading the paper version of the New York Times, you would have had to make your way to page seven to find out that such an anniversary had even occurred. There, a modest-sized article, headlined “On 17th Anniversary of U.S. Invasion, 54 Are Killed Across Afghanistan,” began this way:

“Kabul, Afghanistan — At least 54 people have been killed across Afghanistan in the past 24 hours, according to a tally based on interviews with officials on Sunday — 17 years to the day [after] American forces invaded the country to topple the Taliban regime. The violence was a reminder that the war has only raged deadlier with time, taking a toll on both the Afghan security forces and the civilians caught in the crossfire…” 

And that, really, was that. Little other mention anywhere and no follow-up. No significant commentary or major op-eds. No memorials or ceremonies. No thoughts from Congress. No acknowledgement from the White House.  

Yes, 3,546 American and NATO troops had died in those long years (including seven Americans so far in 2018). There have also been Afghan deaths aplenty, certainly tens of thousands of them in a country where significant numbers of people are regularly uprooted and displaced from their homes and lives. And 17 years later, the Taliban controls more of the country than at any moment since 2002; the U.S.-backed Afghan security forces are reportedly taking casualties that may, over the long run, prove unsustainable; provincial capitals have been briefly seized by insurgent forces; civilian deaths, especially of women and children, are at their highest levels in years (as are U.S. and Afghan air strikes); al-Qaeda has grown and spread across significant parts of the Middle East and Africa; a bunch of other terror outfits, including ISIS, are now in Afghanistan; and ISIS, like al-Qaeda (of which it was originally an offshoot), has also franchised itself globally.

In other words, 17 years later, what was once known as the Global War on Terror and is now a set of conflicts that no one here even bothers to name has only grown worse. Meanwhile, the military that American presidents repeatedly hailed as the greatest fighting force in history continues to battle fruitlessly across a vast swath of the planet. Afghanistan, of course, remains America’s “longest war,” as articles regularly acknowledged some years ago. These days, however, it has become so eternal that it has evidently outgrown the label “longest.”

(Un)Happy Anniversary indeed!

Wedded to War

If you consider this the anniversary of a marriage made in hell, then you would also have to think of the war on terror that started in Afghanistan as having had a brood of demon children — the invasion of Iraq being the first of them — and by now possibly even grandchildren. Meanwhile, the first actual American children born after the 9/11 attacks can now join the U.S. military and go fight in… well, Afghanistan, where about 14,000 American military personnel, possibly tens of thousands of private contractors, and air power galore (as well as the CIA’s drones) remain active indeed.

And keep in mind that Americans aren’t the only people wedded to war in the twenty-first century. However, when it comes to the others I have in mind, it’s not a matter of anniversaries ignored, but anniversaries that will never be. Let’s start with a recent barely reported incident in Afghanistan. On October 5th, either the U.S. Air Force or the Afghan one that has been armed, trained, and supported by the U.S. military destroyed part of a “wedding procession” in Kandahar Province, reportedly killing four and wounding eight, including women and children. (By the way, on the day of the 17th anniversary of the war, an Afghan air strike reportedly killed 10 children.) We don’t know — and probably never will — which air force was responsible, nor do we know if the bride or groom survived, no less whether they will marry and someday celebrate their 17th anniversary. 

All we know and probably will ever know is that, in the melee that is still Afghanistan, the obliteration of that wedding procession was just one more scarcely noted, remarkably repetitive little nightmare to which Americans will pay no attention whatsoever. Admittedly, when directly asked by pollsters 17 years later, a near majority of them (49%) do think that U.S. goals still remain unmet in that country and, according to other recent polls, somewhere between 61% and 69% of Americans would support the withdrawal of all U.S. forces there. That, however, is anything but a stunning figure given that, in 2011, a Washington Post-ABC News poll indicated that two-thirds of Americans believed the Afghan war “no longer worth fighting.” Evidently it’s now simply no longer worth giving a moment’s thought to.

Essentially unnoticed here, the destruction of wedding parties by U.S. air power has, in fact, been a relative commonplace in these years of endless war across the Greater Middle East. The first time American air power obliterated a wedding in Afghanistan was in late December 2001. U.S. B-52 and B-1B bombers mistakenly took out much of a village in Paktia Province killing more than 100 civilians while wedding festivities were underway, an event barely noted in the American media. We do not know if the bride and groom survived. (Imagine, however, the non-stop media attention if a terrorist had attacked a wedding in this country and killed anyone, no less the bride or groom!)

The second incident we know of took place in Khost Province in Eastern Afghanistan in May 2002 while a wedding was underway and villagers were firing in the air, a form of celebration there. At least 10 people died and many more were wounded. The third occurred that July in Oruzgan Province when the U.S. Air Force dropped seven 2,000-pound bombs on a wedding party, again evidently after celebratory firing had taken place, wiping out unknown numbers of villagers including, reportedly, a family of 25 people. In July 2008, a missile from a U.S. plane took out a party escorting a bride to the groom’s house in Nuristan Province, killing at least 47 civilians, 39 of them women and children, including the bride. The next month in Laghman Province, American bombers killed 16 Afghans in a house, including 12 members of a family hosting a wedding. In June 2012, in Logar Province, another wedding party was obliterated, 18 people dying (half of them children). This was the only one of these slaughters for which the U.S. military offered an apology.

And that’s just what I happen to know about wedding parties in Afghanistan in these years. Don’t forget Iraq either, where in May 2004 U.S. jets attacked a village near the Syrian border filled with people sleeping after a wedding ceremony, killing at least 42 of them, including “27 members of the [family hosting the wedding ceremony], their wedding guests, and even the band of musicians hired to play at the ceremony.” Of that attack, the man who was then commander of the U.S. 1st Marine Division and is now secretary of defense, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, said dismissively, “How many people go to the middle of the desert… to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?”

And don’t forget the 15 or so Yemenis on the way to a wedding in December 2013 who were “mistaken for an al-Qaeda convoy” and taken out by a U.S. drone. As I’ve written elsewhere, since September 11, 2001, we’ve been number one… in obliterating wedding parties. Still, we’ve had some genuine competition in recent years — above all, the Saudis in their brutal American-backed and -supplied air war in Yemen. From an incident in September 2015 in which their missiles killed more than 130 Yemenis at a wedding reception (including the usual women and children) to a strike on a wedding in April of this year that took out the groom, they’ve run a close second to the U.S. And then there’s ISIS, which, from Afghanistan to Turkey, seems to have a knack of its own for sending its version of a precision air force (suicide bombers) to take out weddings.

All of these, of course, represent anniversaries that will never be, which couldn’t be sadder. In truth, if you live in any of the battle zones of the still-expanding war on terror, you should probably think twice about getting married or at least having a wedding ceremony. Since Americans don’t focus on such moments in our never-ending conflicts, they have no way of seeing them as the heart and soul of the twenty-first-century American way of war. And of course there’s always the question that General Mattis raised to take into account: What are you going to do with people who insist on getting married in the desert — other than slaughter them?

Afghan Previews?

Only days after the 9/11 attacks, every member of Congress but one voted in favor of the Bush administration’s authorization of military force that opened the way not just for the Afghan invasion, but so much else that followed. The sole no vote came from Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), who warned that “a rush to launch precipitous military counterattacks runs too great a risk that more innocent men, women, children will be killed.” How right she proved to be.

By now, there is the equivalent of unending “towers” of dead women and children in the Greater Middle East, while millions of Afghans and others have been displaced from their homes and record millions more sent fleeing across national boundaries as refugees. That, in turn, has helped fuel the “populist” right in both Europe and the U.S., so in a sense, Donald Trump might be said to be one result of the invasion of Afghanistan — of, that is, a twenty-first-century American push to unsettle the world. Who knows what else (and who else) America’s wars may produce before they end, as they will someday?

Here, however, is one possibility that, at this point, isn’t part of any thinking in this country but perhaps should be. In the wake of America’s first Afghan War (1979-1989), the Red Army, the stymied military forces of the other Cold War superpower, the Soviet Union, finally limped out of that “bleeding wound” — as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called Afghanistan. They would return to a sapped, fragmenting empire and a country that would implode less than two years later.

In that post-Afghan moment of victory — the end of the Cold War — nothing of the Russian experience was recognized as instructive for the last superpower on planet Earth. Here’s my question, then: What if that first Afghan War was the real-world equivalent of a movie preview? Someday, when the second Afghan War finally ends and the U.S. military limps home from its many imperial adventures abroad as the Red Army once did, will it, too, find an empire on the verge of imploding and a country in deep trouble?

Is that really beyond imagining anymore? And if it were so, wouldn’t that be an anniversary to remember?

This entry was posted in Doomsday scenarios, Guest Post, Middle East on October 22, 2018 by Yves Smith.

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