#just look at their careers and how Orlando is growing after she left and they actually brought a great goalkeeper

[jaywritesrps]

[jamielea81]

Conversations

Chapter 14

Description: You accompany your friends on a day trip to Animal Kingdom Theme Park where you meet Scott Evans by chance. This one afternoon leads to a year long friendship with both Chris and Scott over text messages and phone calls.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warning: So much fluff. A few curse words.

Word Count: 6,435

A/N: And here it is, the final chapter of this series. Thank you to all of you who followed along, reblogged and encouraged me to keep writing. More Chris Evans series are to come. Special thanks to @panicfob who asked me if I ever thought about writing a series like this and @allaboutthebooz who told me about a Steve Rogers Disney series she was writing which in turn really got me into a Disney frame of mind. Please tell me what you thought of the series! There will be two one-shots that accompany this. One will be posted next month with the second posted in March. Stay tuned. 

*Italics are internal thoughts

Catch up with Chapter 13

**

In retrospect, moving to New England in the midst of winter probably wasn’t a wise choice. When you moved to Florida all those years ago it was during the summer. It appears your timing is never right. You’ve slipped on icy sidewalks more times than you can count as it seems no one is nice enough to salt and sand the sidewalks surrounding their houses and businesses. You haven’t quite mastered public transportation so you take your chances walking the snowy roads for coffee and grocery items. You’ve learned parking really is a hot commodity until you get of further into the suburbs. For now, you’ll take the extra steps on your health app as they continue to grow.

Speaking of timing, Chris wasn’t even in the state when the moving truck rolled into town. You knew he wouldn’t be and it was probably better that way. You weren’t moving in together, so adjusting to the change without him would only further help you adjust with being on your own. The only caveat to that is you were rarely alone. The Evans clan had seemingly adopted you without your consent. Surprisingly, you were enjoying your adopted Massachusetts family.

When Chris told Lisa about your thoughts on moving to Boston, she asked to speak to you before you went home to Florida during your visit in October. If you were nervous the first time you met her, you were in full panic mode this time. Chris telling his mother everything was something you would need to get used to. God forbid you two have a huge fight at some point and then have to see his mom shortly after. Nope, that wouldn’t be awkward at all.

Chris drove you over with Dodger in tow. The two of them played outside while Lisa fixed you a cup of coffee and essentially asked what your intensions with her son were.

“I’m thinking about moving here to give Chris and I a fighting chance. The distance is hard, Lisa. You probably already know this, but he has flown to Orlando to see me three times in the last month and a half. He’s already busy and this is only wearing him down more. I don’t want that.” You took a breath, ignoring your coffee completely. “I’m not one of those women who’s trying to weasel her way in to his life. Chris and I were friends first and if this whole thing goes to hell, I hope we’re still friends because I’m not giving him or Scott up.”

Lisa smiled, stood up, pulled you to your feet and hugged you. “I think everything is going to turn out just how it should,” she said.

You sighed in relief. “Thanks, Lisa.”

“You should come for Christmas!” she blurted out after releasing you.

You chuckled softly. “My mother would kill me if I didn’t go home to Minnesota.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that. Come the week after for New Year’s.” Before you could say no, she continued. “I insist.”

Looks like I’m going to Boston for New Years.

“Okay… We should probably check with Chris though.”

“Trust me, if you’re here, my son will be too.”

**

Christmas in Minnesota was interesting. A lot of the time was spent talking and explaining yourself. Your brother still wanted to kick Chris’ ass and you couldn’t blame him. The two of them hadn’t met and he was pissed when he saw those photos on TMZ. You made a mental note to get Chris and Heath together to bond. Heath didn’t know Chris like you did and he didn’t understand that the two of you had discussed your relationship at length and were committed to each other.

While your mother was sad that you had chosen not to move back home, she was happy for you and understood the need for a change. She teased you relentlessly about moving somewhere with a true winter. After graduating from college, you declared that you’d never live in a snowy state again. Now you had tentative plans with Lisa to apartment hunt next week.

Your father was another story. You weren’t above bribery so you took him to dinner at his favorite steakhouse. Hoping the appeal of an expensive cut of meat would put him in a cheery mood. It was Christmastime after all. His spirit should already be lighter.

When you changed jobs in October, you told him about it almost immediately. Gary didn’t appreciate being left in the dark. You never called him Gary to his face, but when you ever spoke about your dad to Jana, you referred to him as Gary much to her amusement. He wasn’t happy about the job change which was of no surprise to you. He didn’t understand why you would make a change when you had a great position with the paper. “This is just like you,” he had said. “You’re never settled.” It wasn’t a fair statement. You had been settled for years. Yes, you weren’t married and you didn’t own your own home, but you had a career and had been at the paper for years. You were well respected in your field. There was absolutely nothing wrong with moving on to a position that would bring you growth in your career as well as your personal life.  

If you hadn’t broken the news about the move in a public space, there was no doubt in your mind that he would have stormed out.

“Why on earth would you move to Massachusetts? I thought Florida was where you wanted to plant roots. This is just like you.”

There he goes with that same line. You sighed loudly, poking at your steak with your fork. You lowered your face, refusing to meet his eyes. It was like your twelve years old again, dropping out of soccer only to be lectured by your father.

“When are you going to get your life together?” he asked.

You snapped, well, you snapped as much as you could in a restaurant full of people having a holiday meal.

“That’s exactly it. This is my life dad. I’m choosing to make a change that’s going to fulfill me personally,” you said sternly in a voice just a tad louder than a whisper. “And yes, it’s a big change and yes, it’s scary. But. But.” Picking up your glass of wine, you took a large gulp and set it back on the table. “This is what I need to do. If I’m going to fail, I will fail. But what if this turns out to be the best thing for me? I want you in my life to celebrate my successes, but I also need you if life chooses to spit me out.” Your dad leaned back in his chair, a tired expression on his face. “Can you just try to be here for me if I need you?”

“Of course, Y/N. I’m always going to be here. But I worry. What if you’re making a mistake?”

“Then it’s something I’ll learn from and I’ll just try again.”

**

The week of New Year’s you stayed with Chris. His home was now completely remodeled, so that was one less stressful thing in his life. It was gorgeous when it was half under construction, now it was beautiful enough to be featured in a magazine on home design. It wasn’t a mansion by any means, it was just a very nice, large, upper class, suburban home. Well, a suburban home with a state-of-the-art alarm system. The house was luxurious without being pretentious and you found it strange to feel so comfortable there.

Chris was flying out to Atlanta and then to Costa Rica for filming the day after you flew back home to Orlando. It was a stressful time for him but he made sure to tell you every night that just you being there was helping. Chris was also incredibly clingy the whole trip. You chalked it up to him wanting to spend as much time with you as possible and also the anxiety of starting up a new project. Especially one that would take him away from home for a couple of months.

Every day the two of you cuddled on the couch and spent nights tangled in the sheets. Chris had only been able to visit once in November, so the two of you were making up for lost time. It was your first Christmas together as a couple and you weren’t together for it. Both of you had Facetimed for hours after both your family parties had ended. It wasn’t quite the same, but falling asleep with your phone held close to your face was the next best thing.

“Celebrating the new year together is going to be way more magical than Christmas. Christmas is old news sweetheart,” he said the night before New Year’s Eve. Your lips so close together that you couldn’t help but lean forward bridging the gap in a soft kiss. “This year brought me you. Next year can only get better.”

**

Apartment hunting was not going well. Like, not at all. Any place that Lisa considered to be decent enough to stay in was well over your price range. Not just an extra hundred or two a month over your budget, but close to one thousand dollars over the monthly amount you wanted to spend. Lisa told you she would keep an eye out for listings and send them to you as she found them. This move was looking to be more difficult than you thought it would be. You  hadn’t lived with a roommate since college, but if you wanted to live anywhere near Chris, a roommate is something you would have to get used to.

**

New Year’s Eve was probably the most fun you’ve had in a long time. Granted, you didn’t remember the whole night, but the majority of it was worth the headache in the morning.

Chris, Scott, Zach, Shanna, Carly and you had spent dinner at Lisa’s and played games with the kids until they went to bed after celebrating the New Year at eight that night. There was sparkling cider, confetti, and kisses from all the kids to bring in 2021. Chris had arranged a car to pick the two of you along with Zach and Scott up to take you to their friend Benji’s house for the rest of the evening. You weren’t entirely sure if that was really his name or if it was a nickname he picked up at some point. Regardless, Benji’s house was packed to the brim with people. Chris threw so many names at you as he moved his way through the house that you just started smiling and nodding. Hopefully you’d meet his closer friends in a much smaller and quieter setting in the future.

To say you were feeling quite shy was an understatement. Scott had talked you into buying a dress that was shorter than you felt comfortable with. Your butt was completely covered, but you usually didn’t show as much thigh as you were currently sporting. The gold number was long sleeved with a high neck that provided some warmth, but the back was cut low which added to the “sexy New Year’s vibe” as Scott called it. Scott dressed in a black suit and gold tie which was why he was adamant you buy the dress when you saw it in a shop window earlier in the week. Chris was another story. He didn’t want to dress up, opting to wear jeans and sweater that he later removed when he became too hot, leaving him in a plain black t-shirt. This is why Scott was your date for the night. Technically Scott and Zach were your dates for the night. More so Scott as the two of you coordinated. Chris had fun making a game of it by pulling you away from Scott several times over the night to kiss you in “secret” as he didn’t want your “date” to find out. It was cute and if you were being honest, kind of hot.

You didn’t want to get drunk. Wanting to remember the night was important to you not only because it was your first New Year’s with Chris, but because there were too many of his friends at this party. Giving off the impression of Chris’ drunk girlfriend wasn’t what you were aiming for, so you kept the drinking light. A couple of beers and you cut yourself off. You grabbed a plastic cup and dumped a bottle of water into. It was a trick you used to do in college when you didn’t want to get pestered about not drinking.

“Y/N! Sassy!” Scott called from the across the room.

“My date needs me,” you teased Chris.

His smirk said it all. You turned away from him and he promptly squeezed your ass. You chased his hand away with yours but laughed at his advances.

“Grumpy, what can I do for you?” you asked.

“This my dear, is Nicolette. Nicolette, this is Y/N,” he said, throwing an arm over your shoulder and bringing you closer.

You stuck your free hand out for her to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” she replied.

“So, Nicolette here needs a roommate,” Scott spoke, wiggling his eyebrows. “And since I know both of you, I know the two of you would get along.”

Taken aback by the sudden suggestion, you were sure your face looked somewhat shocked. You trusted Scott and you knew he wouldn’t set you up with a crazy person.

Nicolette laughed. “It’s true. I have a room available after my last roommate got married and ditched me. It’s a two-bedroom house with two bathrooms. I’m barely home, so it’s really kind of a house-sitting slash roommate situation.”

Now she had your interest.

“She’s a stage actress,” Scott said dramatically which causes Nicolette to roll her eyes. “She does a lot of traveling shows.”

“If you have time tomorrow, you can stop by and check it out,” she offered.

“Yeah. That would actually be great,” you replied.

The two of you exchanged numbers and Scott pulled you away shortly after, bringing you back to your boyfriend. “I got you girl!”

**

At midnight, Chris held you close with his chest pressed against your back and arms around your front. Benji stood on top of his pool table, large oversized wall clock in his hand calling out the last few seconds of 2020. Just as he shouted happy new year, Chris spun you around and kissed you, deep and slow. It went on for quite awhile as Scott eventually had the pull both of you apart.

The night was a blur from that moment on. You got dragged into a game of beer pong which later turned into four games of beer pong despite your objections of not being a great player. Scott and Chris passed you back and forth as their partner. The end result was always the same, you having to drink several of the cups with floating Ping-Pong balls inside.

The car service is called by someone, you’re just not quite sure who. All you remember is being pushed into the car and then out of it. Chris and you make it inside but don’t get further than his couch where you promptly push him onto it and straddle his thighs. The 2021 version of you is apparently very horny as you take control of the early morning hours of January first. The button of his jeans is popped open with the zipper quickly pulled down while your gold dress is pushed up over your ass. He’s all consuming and very eager for you to take control.

**

Chris kisses you like it’s the last time from the short-term parking ramp a couple of days later. Tears flow easily from your eyes as you say your goodbyes. He leaves for Atlanta tomorrow for stage shoots then on to Costa Rica. There are no planned visits between you as per his manager and assistant, there just isn’t time. He’s not set to be back state side until March. It’ll be a long three months that just happens to coincide with big changes for you.

Chris wipes your tears away with one hand while the other cradles your faces.

“Don’t cry sweetheart,” he murmurs, bringing his lips to yours in a short soft kiss.

“Why? Cause it makes your cry?” you asked, nose already stuffy from your tears.

He chuckles and blinks away his tears.

“No,” he said softly, licking his lips. “Cause I love you.”

Chris loves you. Chris loves you. You’ve felt it. You’ve been saying it in your head since Thanksgiving, but haven’t been able to say the words out loud. With your gloved hands, you pull his face to yours and kiss him. Pulling back, you rip off your gloves and drop them to the cold cement ground before grabbing his cheeks once more. The kiss is hungry and needy. You’re both out of breath when you part.

“I love you too. God, do I love you.”

Chris smiled softly, giving your nose a kiss. “I’m going to call you every day.”

“Babe…” you sigh out. “We both know that may not happen. You’re going to have days where your exhausted or have late shoots. Just-Just call me when you can. It’s going to be hard and it’s probably going to kill me, but when you’re back, we’ll be in the same state,” you smiled. “We’re only like forty minutes away from each other rather than a three hour plane ride.”

“We’ll make it work. I love you so much,” he said, kissing you again. “Call me when you land.”

You nodded, kissed him once more then walked to the terminal.

**

Carly was calling you for the second time that day. Her first message was asking about getting together for lunch. You weren’t trying to avoid her, but you had been starring at the same blank page for three hours. The deadline for your story on a protest that took place over college campuses across the US this morning needed to be submitted within the next two hours. Your head wasn’t in the game, so despite Carly calling twice, and Scott once, you were tempted to put your phone on silent. Chris had been MIA for two days now. He had kept to his promise of calling you daily over the last three months, even if it were just ten minutes to check in. You were trying to not let it bother you, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss his voice. Production was delayed by two weeks keeping him in Costa Rica longer than expected. You’d been in Boston since the end of January and it was now the first week of April.

You shot Carly a text telling her that you were busy with work.

Y/N: Lunch tomorrow?

Carly: Of course. Good luck!

Nicolette was on the road working on a production of Aladdin, so you had the house to yourself. They were set to perform in Boston in May and she had promised you tickets. A perk of knowing one of the stars of the show. She was rarely home so it really was like living on your own with someone else’s furniture. You had donated or sold everything except for your bedroom set since you didn’t want to pay for storage and you weren’t entirely sure how long you’d be living with Nicolette. When you eventually moved out on your own, you’d have to start new, but that wasn’t anything to worry about now.

An hour later you were almost done with the article after turning on your “get shit done” playlist as you so perfectly named it. After proofreading it for the third time and two key strokes away from submitting it to your editor, there was a knock on your door. Despite living in the city for more than two months, you didn’t know anyone outside of the Evans family plus a few friends you’ve met through Scott and Shanna, but they generally didn’t show up unannounced. You chose to ignore it, assuming it was someone selling something or another for the scouts or a representative from a church wanting to spread the word of God. But the knocking wouldn’t stop. It was persistent and loud. You almost dove under your desk to hide, despite the shades in your room being drawn. After what felt like five straight minutes of knocking, you left the safe comforts of your room and walked to the front door. The sooner you answered, the sooner they would go away and you could take that nap after submitting the article.

Lifting a corner of the curtain on the living room curtain as inconspicuously as possible to see who it was, you audibly squealed and ran to the door. Throwing it open you screamed again much to Chris’ amusement.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!”

“Hello to you too sweetheart,” he chuckled, throwing his arms around you and pulling you close. Neither of you are saying anything, just enjoying holding each other. You snuggle your nose in the crock of his neck, breathing in everything that is Chris. One hand traveled up the back of his neck to his hair. The strands are longer and you can’t wait to play with them later.

“Missed you,” you murmur into his neck.

“Missed you so much, Y/N,” he replied, kissing your temple. “Can I come in?” he said with a soft smile.

“Oh my gosh, of course,” you can’t help but giggle out.

The next fifty minutes are spent christening your bed more than once, even though the two of you have had sex on your bed before. To Chris’ point, this is the first time he’s “banged” you on your bed in Massachusetts. His words, not yours.

With your face pressed against his chest, your fingers draw shapes through the hairs on his stomach. “I like the longer hair. It’s kind of sexy in a nineteen eighties kind of way.” Chris hums. “Maybe you should keep it.” You lift your head up to catch his expression. He’s smirking but shakes his head. “I’m serious. It’s kind of like how you had it in Red Sea Diving Resort. The ladies really dig it.”

His hand that was rubbing your back starts to dig into your sides until you can barely breathe as you’re laughing so hard. “The only” *tickle “lady” tickle* “that I’m” *tickle “trying to” tickle* “impress” tickle* “is you!”

“Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!” you shout until he finally ends his attack.

Chris pulls you back close and kisses your lips. “I never want to go that long without seeing you again.”

“I agree. I’ll live in your rental car on location if I have to.” He kisses your temple in reply. “M’happy you’re here, but I wasn’t expecting you for another week.”

“We pushed through. Long hours to finish up, but it was worth it. I love you so much sweetheart.”

You sit up until your seated on your bottom. Raking your fingers through his hair, you look him in his eyes. “I love you too. I’m so happy you’re home and I can’t believe we are living in the same state.”

“Same city practically.”

You nod in agreement, pushing a strand that has fallen over his forehead back. “I’m also glad Nicolette’s out of town.” Chris chuckles and closes his eyes. “You tired baby?”

“Yeah, had an early flight and then a long layover. Mind if I nap?”

“Course not. I’ve actually…Oh shit! I have an article I haven’t sent in yet!” You jump out of the bed, looking for something to throw on. You pick up Chris’ undershirt and slip it over your head. You hop back in the bed and give him a kiss before returning to your desk a few feet away and hit send. “I forgot to hit send before I answered the door.” You swivel in the chair to face him, point your finger at him. “You sir, are a distraction.”

“A damn good one,” he said so casually. Chris pats the empty spot on the bed. “Come nap with me.”

“Can’t refuse you.”

**

Spring turns into summer in no time at all. Chris spends more time in Boston than he does in Los Angeles. He told you that from the beginning, but with how much he works, you didn’t expect him to be home as much as he has been. When he is gone, it’s only for a few days. Despite having a roommate that is never home, most of your nights are spent at Chris’ places.

“Dodger misses you. He likes when you sleep in bed with us.”

“Oh, so it’s Dodger that misses me. Not you Mr. Evans?”

“Nope. It’s all Dodger. I just can’t take the whining. Promised I’d call you.”

“You’re such a brat,” you groan.

“You love me. Plus, my bed is bigger. It’s too much of a squeeze if I bring Dodger to yours. Cah’mon,” he groaned. “You know you want to.”

“Fine. Fine. I’m only coming over for Dodger though.”

When you arrive at Chris’ place and let yourself in because he insisted you have a key, you see the lights are dimmed and candles are lit throughout the living room.

“Babe?” you called out. Passing through the living room and into the kitchen. You see a couple of pans on the stove simmering away, but no Chris. You walk up the stairs towards the bedroom, pushing open the door. “Babe?” you called out again.

Chris is standing in front of the bed while Dodger lays on it. More lit candles are scattered on the dresser and night stands.

“Hi Beautiful,” he said, stepping forward and grasping your hands.

“What’s all this?” you asked.

“Happy anniversary.”

“It’s our anniversary?” you asked, head titled to the side.

“To me it is.” He took a big breath and smiled. “Now, I know we had a rough start, but on this day, one year ago, I knew I was head over heels for you. Technically, I’d say our anniversary was back in May. That’s when we started talking a lot more and of course that’s the month we first kissed. But it was July when I knew I could never go back to being just friends. It was July when I knew that I needed to hear your voice every day. It was on this day in July that I knew we were going to be something special.” Your breath was stolen from your lungs as cliché as that sounds. “I love you baby.”

Fat tears rolled down your cheeks, a few landing on your lips as you couldn’t contain the sappy grin on your face. You grabbed his face with both hands, smooshing his cheeks. “I love you, you crazy, wonderful man. Happy anniversary.”

**

Compromises were made as Chris dragged you to Red Sox games in the early fall and then to Patriot games in the early winter. You were forever a Twins and Vikings fan, even though they broke your heart every year. You played nice, accepting the jerseys he gifted you for both teams. The two of you flew to Minnesota to meet your family in late September. Heath and Chris attended a Twins game together as a truce in the new found friendship they were working on. They weren’t best friends, but you hoped they would grow closer. When the Vikings played on Sundays, Chris watched with you so long as it didn’t cut into his Pats’ games, but he refused to wear a Vikings jersey. The funny thing was, you rarely watched football or baseball, but found yourself getting really into it the more you played along with the non-existent rivalry.  

In October you flew to Florida to cover Magic Kingdom’s fiftieth anniversary. Chris was off on a press tour on the other side of the country. You extended your stay since Chris wouldn’t be back for another week, opting to stay with Jana and Brooks rather than a hotel. The biggest surprise was Jana’s small baby bump.

“I’m going to be Auntie Y/N?” you asked, tears in your eyes.

“You bet your ass you are,” she said, tears in her eyes as well. “Way to make a pregnant woman cry.”

You pulled her into a hug. “Shush. And you should clean up that mouth before the baby gets here,” you snorted.

**

By the time you got back to Massachusetts, you had a week and a half reprieve before you were flying back into Orlando with the majority of the Evans crew for their annual Disney vacation. Lisa had invited you herself before Chris even got around to asking you. He later said he wasn’t going to ask because you had no choice in the matter.

“I can’t believe I’m going back as an actual tourist,” you whined to him on the plane.

“You were just there!”

“That was for work. Doesn’t count. I don’t even have my annual pass anymore. What is this bizarro world?”

“So dramatic. Should really be an actress,” he said, nudging you with his elbow.

The trip was great despite the long days in the park. It was a treat to have a Disney Cast Member leading your group around for most of the trip. It sure cut back on the time you usually stood in line.

The downside of the trip were the pictures that were posted online of you and Chris. The two of you did your best not to touch when out in public places, but you both found that hard. Chris would often place his hand on your back leading you from one spot to another. Even though you often sat with Scott or Carly on several of the rides, the ones where you sat with Chris were the ones that were posted. It didn’t take fans long to recognize that you were the same girl pictured with him two years before. Taking Chris’ advise, you didn’t read the comments online and avoided Twitter like the plague. Chris said you both needed to go on like you had been. If you both kept your relationship private, people would eventually lose interest. And they did for the most part.

**

Christmas was spent in Boston with the Evans family. You bargained with your mother for the week after Christmas and she agreed much to your surprise.

Despite Lisa’s insistence that you and Chris spend the night at her house Christmas Eve, Chris wasn’t having it. He wanted to go home after gift opening and spend it with just the two of you.

You barely made it in the door before Chris was wrapping you in his arms.

“What’s gotten into you?” you asked with a laugh.

He kissed your cheek. His warm breath tickled your nose, causing you to hunch, lowering your head and burying it in his chest.

“Move in with me.”

Huh?

He said is so casually as if he’s asking if you want a glass of water.

You pull your face away from his body and hold him at arm’s length. “You wanna say that again?”

“Move in with me. I want you to live here. I can’t handle Dodger askin’ every day.”

“Oh! So, it’s Dodger,” you said, poking his chest. Upon hearing his name, Dodger got up from the couch and came to stand next to you, his butt bumping against your leg. “I’m sorry Bubba, but I can’t move in. It seems that only one of the Evans boys that live here want me to move in. I need a unanimous vote.”

“Cah’mon. Don’t break his heart like that. He said you give the best belly rubs and frankly I can’t compete,” Chris said crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know,” you said, finger tapping against your chin in thought.

“Fine…” Chris dramatically sighed out, rolling his eyes. “You have my vote too. Move in with us.”

You bend down to give Dodger a belly rub, avoiding Chris’ eyes. “Nah.”

“What?!” Chris shouts causing Dodger to get back on his feet and you to fall on your ass. You erupt in giggles. Dodger walks circles around you, tail wagging excitedly.

“You turnin’ me down? Is that’s what’s happenin’ sweetheart?” He drops to his knees in front of you, resting on his hunches. The laughs die out on your breath and you slowly start to breathe normally again.

“Ask me again,” you whispered.

One hand rested on his thigh, while the other runs through your hair taming the pieces that have fallen in your eyes. “Will you move in with me?”

You nod your head slowly. “Yes,” you answer simply enough.

“Yes?” he asked, big smile slowly forming on his face.

“Yes,” you repeat. You let out a big huff of air. “Now, take me to our bedroom.”

**

Before you’re even fully awake, your phone is buzzing like crazy Christmas morning. Reaching blindly to the night stand since Chris has extreme blackout curtains on the windows, you couldn’t see your phone if you tried. Technically, they were your curtains now.

Scott: It’s already been 9 hours and you haven’t called me about you livin’ in sin with my brother

Scott: Get dressed and come to breakfast at Ma’s

Scott: That’s an order

Chris had one arm resting over his eyes with the blanket pushed down to his waist. You turned to face him, kissing his bare chest until he starts to stir.

“How does Scott know I’m moving in?” you asked with a coyness in your voice.

Chris chuckles. His mouth full of sleep and his arm still resting over his eyes. “I sorta texted him when you were changing for bed.”

“You’re a brat. He texted me at seven this morning bitching that I didn’t tell him yet.”

“Sorry,” Chris said, removing his arm from his head and turning to his side to look at you.

“No, you’re not,” you scoffed.

He chuckled again, pulling you into his chest. “No, I’m not.

**

“Hey babe,” you shouted through the open door.

One of the guest bedrooms was turned into your office a month ago and you were still decorating slowly but surely. Chris wasn’t allowing you to pay rent which ensued into a big argument. He ultimately caved some with you paying for the lawn care as well as Dodger’s food. It was still no where near the price of rent you were paying at Nicolette’s, but you would take what you could get for now. You often did all the grocery shopping when Chris wasn’t home so he couldn’t object to you paying. With extra funds in hand, what wasn’t going into the bank you splurged on nice office furniture and some vintage Minnesota Twins pennants to hang on the wall.

“Yes, my love?” Chris said, standing in the doorway.

“Can you help me hang these?” You lifted two of the pennants, one in each hand and gave him a cheesy smile. “Please.”

“You’re killing me babe. You know how bad this makes me look? The Twins?” he scoffed.

“It’s my office. We can keep the door closed when we have company. You’ll live.”

He gave you a wet kiss on your forehead, grabbing one of the pennants from your hand. With your hand free, you wiped at your forehead and stuck your tongue out at him.

**

Scott had kept you busy all day with what he dubbed “Best Friend’s Day”.

It started with brunch, then on to shopping where you spent entirely too much on wool peacoat. You both got a hot stone massage followed by hot donuts from a shop you frequented before he dropped you back at your place.

“Tell Chris he owes me,” Scott said just as you shut the passenger door.

“He owes you?” you questioned. But it fell on deaf ears as Scott waved and drove away. “Why are my friends so weird?”

Unlocking the door, you stepped inside calling out to Chris.

“In here babe!” he shouted back.

Making your way to the office where you were certain you heard his voice, you saw that the door was partially closed.

That’s weird.

“Are you in my office?” you questioned just outside the door.

“Yes, now get your butt in here.”

Pushing the door open, you see Chris sitting on one of the two brown leather club chairs you had situated on the other side of your desk. On the wall above his head is a huge Red Sox logo that has to be at least three feet across. On the wall next to the window is a framed signed Tom Brady jersey.

“Welcome home sweetheart. I added some more décor to your office. Do you like it?” He’s got a huge grin on his face with his eyebrows raised.

“You are something else,” you said, shaking your head as you walk across the room taking a seat at your desk.

Chris gets up from the chair and strolls over to your desk taking a seat on it and facing you. “Something good?”

“Hmm. Not so sure about that babe. Is this what Scott owes you for? Was Best Friend’s Day a ploy to get me out of the house?”

He scratches the top of his head. “M’fraid I don’t know what you’re taklin’ about.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” You sit up slightly and grab on to the neck hole of his t-shirt, pulling him to you. “You’re lucky I like you.”

He kisses your lips and pulls back to look you in the eyes, despite your hand still firmly holding his shirt.

“I love you,” he said softly. He kissed your nose then each of your cheeks.

“I know,” you replied, letting go of his shirt and opening up your laptop.

“Did you-did you just Han Solo me?” he chuckled.

You looked up from the screen, a small smile playing on your lips. “You bet your sweet ass I did.”

“You’re gonna get it. You are so gonna get it,” he threatened. You shut the laptop and pushed back on your chair. “You better run!”

You were out of your seat as fast as you could, squeals of laughter spilling from your lips as Chris chased you through the first floor and up the stairs. “I love you!” you screamed between laughs. “I love you!”

“Damn right,” he said tackling you onto the bed you shared.

The End

**

Tag List: @mustangshelby04 @bellaireland1981 @carolina-thiell @straightforwardly @torntaltos @denise1605 @mcuclintasha @southerngracela @iam-cj @trynnabemultifandom @chrisevansforever@broadwayandnetflix @kyjey @thevelvetseries @i-just-feel-like @daddieslittlefangirl @hista-girl @stankface @im-not-an-armrest-im-short @whymalu @the-doctors-fallen-angel​ @mariswritingforfun​ @tessabb7​ @chrisevansfanfic @lakamaa12 @thinkxlovexloud @deidrashouseofpain​ @nea90sweetie​ @the-murder-strut-murdered-me​ @greyeyedsmile14​ @dangerouslovefanfic​ @ripvandrinkle​ @bitterstar88​ @andymi3ntus​ @zestygingergirl​ @xstudiousslytherinx​ @hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall​ @cocomel0613​ @onceuponathreetwoone​ @supraveng​ @michelehansel​ @fanfictionaffair​ @genesgoingtohamslam​ @agirlcanstilldream​ @what-is-your-plan-today​ @jessyballet​ @capstopavenger​ @wiczer​ @titty-teetee​ @tanelle83​ @pinknerdpanda​ @allaboutthebooz​ @estillion14​ @panicfob​ @patzammit​ @heartislubbingdubbing​ @collinsstanharbour​ @twittytelly​ @linki-locks11​ @mywinterwolf​ @ab-baybay​ @rda1989​ @impalaimages​ @jesseswartzwelder​ @rainbowkisses31​ @xostephanie​ @smoothdogsgirl​ @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk​ @xxloki81xx​ @thenormreedus​ @firstangeldragonranch​ @soitmightgetweird​ @maeleeme​ @denisemarieangelina​ @rvgrsbrns​ @icanfeelastormbrewing @velvetwonderbucky​ @kitkat1690​ @smilexcaptainx​ @suppu97​

[the-beastslayers-queen]

Magic and Moonlight: Chapter 20

Here is chapter 20 at last. Had to write it because the first draft didn’t work for me. Tagging: @queenofthearchitect @biforbecky2belts @balorrollinsmoxley @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk @bethany99stuff-blog @sassyspacedust @afauss2009 @calwitch and @never-sawft-princess if you want in on the tag list for both this and my one shots, hit my inbox darlings. Enjoy!

Ever since Stephanie attacked me, I had been lethargic as hell. I couldn’t get out of my bed since the attack. Finn has stayed with me at Charlotte’s apartment, trying to figure out why I have no energy. I was barely able to put up the barrier over the apartment to keep out Morrigan and Stephanie. I seriously needed Colby to come back to Orlando soon.

As I was laying in my bed, trying to get some rest to regain my power and energy, I heard the apartment door open. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and then my door opened and I saw Roman and Dean had come to the apartment. I smiled weakly at the pair.

“Shit, dollface,” Dean winced at see me so weak, “You look awful. Steph did quite a number on you.”

“Yeah I’m not doing too hot, but thanks for noticing Dean-o,” I spoke softly, too weak to speak any louder.

“Look get some rest,” Roman sat on the edge of my bed, “We’re going to call Colby to fill him in on how you’re doing. Then we’re going to stand watch over the apartment with Finn to make sure nothing happens to you.”

After a couple days of just staying in bed, sleeping most of the time, Colby finally came back to Orlando. I was awake, fighting heavy eye lids for the last three hours, wanting to be awake when Colby came in. I heard the front door open and the thud of bags being thrown to the ground before the sound of heavy footfalls. I turned my head to my door to find Colby coming into the doorway. The look in his eyes at seeing me so weak broke my heart.

“Thea,” he breathed sadly as he came to sit on my bed beside me, taking my small, cold hands into his large, warm hands, “I came back as soon as I could. How are you holding up, babe?”

“I can’t stay awake,” I yawned and then groaned, “I have no idea what’s wrong with me. I just can’t get my energy back. I haven’t been able to cast any magic. It’s like I’m running on constantly dying batteries. I’m so scared, Colby.”

“Hey hey hey,” Colby pulled me up into his chest and wrapped his arms around me, “We are going to figure this out, okay. Becky and Charlotte are here to figure out what is going on with you, okay. We will fix this and get you your strength back. For now, I just want you to rest with me, okay. Once we get you some more energy, we’ll start trying to figure this out.”

And with that being said, I fell asleep in his arms, hoping I’d have more energy when I wake up this time.

When I woke up, I found that Becky was sitting at the foot of the bed with Finn. They were whispering between each other, more than likely discussing what they were going to do to fix what was wrong with me.

Since Becky is a druid, she has a unique set of magical abilities. She is one with nature and cast plant based spells like me. She also is healer far beyond my power, but she can’t resurrect the dead like I can. So if anyone was going to help me heal from this, it’s her. But why would she consult with Finn? Maybe there is something dark about this that she needs advice from Bálor.

“What’s going on,” I groaned as I tried to stretch, but was limited by Colby still holding me.

“So Finn thinks he knows what’s going on with you,” Becky answered, “And in order to start the healing process, we need to pull out whatever darkness Stephanie planted into you. And to do that, I have to channel my healing magic into Bálor while he absorbs the dark out of you.”

“Which means it will be very painful,” Finn added, “And you will need to trust us fully so we can do this. And we need to have Colby out of the room. His inner wolf will make him attack us out of instinct to protect you.”

“Okay,” I swallowed hard, “Colby, go be with Dean and Roman in the living room. Have them restrain you if it’ll keep you from stopping this.”

“I love you, Thea,” Colby kissed me briefly before getting up to leave, “You two better keep her alive and heal her.”

“You have my word, Colbs,” Becky nodded to him, “You’ll have your mate back and at full strength soon enough.”

As Colby left, Finn switched to Bálor and took position at the right side of the bed while Becky stood across from him on my left. I laid back and in the middle of the bed, bracing myself for what was to come.

“Are we ready to begin,” Bálor asked Becky.

“Yes,” Becky then looked to me, “Brace yourself, Thea.”

Becky stretched her hands across to Bálor and he took her hands. Soon Becky began to chant her healing spells, singing a beautiful melody as light began to shine from her hands. Bálor began to chant his own dark magic and I began to groan out in pain. Soon dark tendrils began to stretch from his hands and reached into me.

I began to scream and writhe in pain. I could feel Bálor’s tendrils grabbing and pulling at something inside of me. I could hear Colby in the living room yelling and growling at Dean and Roman. He knew I was suffering and was dying to run in here to protect me.

“Rinne an soith sin uimhir uirthi i ndáiríre,” I heard Bálor growl as he struggled against what his magic grabbed inside me.

“Ní mór dúinn leanúint ar aghaidh,” Becky replied to him, but I had no idea what they were saying. I just wanted this to be over.

What felt like hours, Bálor’s tendrils finally came out of my body and held a small ball of black smoke in their grasp. I just stared at it as Bálor pulled it into himself, absorbing it. I think he was using his own darkness to dispel whatever it was that Stephanie did to me. Becky continued to cast her healing spells on me, and I felt myself lose consciousness once again.

When I woke up, I was slow to open my eyes, but the first sight made me smile. Tyler was laying on my chest and Colby was sitting beside me. I smiled at the sight of my two favorite men with me and wrapped my arms weakly around my son, earning a coo from Tyler.

“You’re awake,” Colby sighed in relief, “I was worried you’d be out for a lot longer.”

“How long have I been out,” I asked him as I sat up carefully, taking Tyler in closer to my chest.

“You were out for a couple days,” Colby replied, “Becky stayed with you and kept healing you the whole time. She was trying to keep you stable so you could rest and get your energy back.”

“What did Stephanie do to me,” I asked.

“She planted a dark seed inside you called the Succubus’ Nightshade,” Finn replied as he came into my view, “It grows inside someone very slowly, making them lethargic and feeds the Succubus with the energy it draws from the victim until they finally die. It’s a way for Succubae to feed constantly without being close to their target. It’s only is transmitted through a strong Succubus’ kiss.”

“So Stephanie was trying to kill me from a distance,” I sighed, “Well I can’t wait to kick her ass for this. She is not going to kill me so easily.”

“You got that right,” Colby agreed, “But for now you are going to rest and spend time with Tyler. We’ll go out and train in the ring after you feel like you are back normal, okay.”

Today, Colby and I were with everyone at the PC. I was getting into the ring today with Colby to train. Becky had offered to spar with me in the ring, but I wanted to work with Colby. He knew my move set better than anyone since his was so similar to mine and he knew what to do to pull out my best.

“I won’t go easy on you today, babe,” Colby warned as he paced against me in the middle of the ring.

“I’d be disappointed if you did,” I taunted him.

We charged at each other and locked up in a collar and elbow. I fought with him and got the upper hand with a back wristlock. Colby twisted himself back to facing me before he started to counter the lock.

Once he finished flipping around and he threw me into the ropes. I came running back to him and I jumped up to deliver a dropkick. Colby sold it and fell to the matt. I then did a running shooting star splash right onto his chest. Again, Colby sold it for me.

I decided to get a little risky and climbed up onto the turnbuckle closest to him. I did a taunt to the crowd, but Colby recovered enough to run up and climb the turnbuckle to meet me. He grabbed me and he performed a superplex on me. He then rolled through it and delivered his falcon arrow on me. I was dazed from the move, but managed to kick out of his pin.

I decided to catch him by surprise and rose to my feet. I grabbed him and performed a small package driver, a little homage to his indie career. Unfortunately, Colby kicked out of the small package pin. I decided to go for a basement dropkick, but Colby managed to dodge it and he got me with a pedigree. He then got the pin and ended our impromptu match.

“You did well, Thea,” Colby held out his hand to pick me up from the matt, “I think you’re ready to get back into the ring.”

“Oh good,” I dusted myself off and fixed my clothes, “Now we just have to have me get checked out by the trainers and then figure out how I’m coming back.”

Colby and I decided to leave everyone at the PC and went to our coffee shop. We decided to take Tyler with us. I saw it as a way to show our son the place that his parents spent most of our early dates as a couple. Plus I needed a tea and Colby wanted some coffee.

“So I’ve been thinking about my return,” I spoke up after taking a sip of my tea, “If I come back I’ll be a face while you’re a heel. So that means I won’t be able to ride with you between shows since kayfabe is so sacred in this business.”

“Yeah,” Colby sighed, “But I think you’d be okay riding with Roman and Dean. That way you’re not alone and I’ll be able to rest easy knowing you’re with people I can trust. Besides, we’ll still be able to room together at the hotels. We just have to leave at different times to throw-off fans.”

“I don’t mind doing that,” I replied as I reached over to hold his hand, “As long as I get to sleep in the same bed with you at the end of the day, I’m happy.”

I was finally home in Davenport. I was working on packing my things up to make my in-ring return. The plan was for me to come out to interrupt Colby’s post-Summerslam promo. Since Colby was told he’d be winning against John Cena and taking the US title while keeping his WWE title, I would be able to make my return as a rebel character against the Authority.

Colby was a huge fan of this whole idea. He saw it as a way for me to wage my war for his freedom from Stephanie and Hunter. I saw it as my way of getting even with Stephanie for all of the bullshit she has put me through.

“I’m sorry that I’ll be leaving you soon, Tyler,” I was holding Tyler and bouncing him as I paced around the house to make sure I had everything I needed for when I hit the road, “But mommy has to go back to work. I want to make sure you will want for nothing. I’m doing this all for you, so you can have an even better future than I will ever have.”

Tyler simply cooed at me, I knew he didn’t entirely understand what I was telling him. One day he’ll understand what Colby and I were doing for him.

“You will never to go long without seeing me,” I promised him, “I’ll always visit you in your dreams. I will also try to bring daddy with me so you can always see him too.”

Tyler smiled even more, like he knew that I wasn’t lying to him.

“But I’m also doing this to help daddy,” I continued, “Daddy isn’t his real self right now. Daddy lost everything he loved about being a werewolf. And mommy is going to help him get it back. A very bad lady named Morrigan cursed daddy, and I have to beat her up so she’ll undo what she’s done to him.”

I put Tyler into his swing and went back to work on packing. Once all of my bags were together by the door, my mom came in and she immediately went to Tyler.

“Are you sure you want to leave for the road,” she asked, “I know how much you love your job, but Tyler won’t stop growing while you’re gone.”

“I know Mom,” I replied, “But I have to go to war for Colby. He can’t get back his true werewolf nature back without my help. That and I have a score to settle with Morrigan. She made my life hell when she was in my mind just as much as she has now that she’s free. If anyone is going to stop her, it’ll be me.”

[asimmingpunsquared]

ISLA BRISA // YEAR ONE, WEEK FOUR // LOTT HOUSEHOLD

Minor events: *  Power outage: Your sims are not allowed to use any electrical items for d4 days (stoves and fridges are exempt). Hope you know how to keep your sims happy.  *

Major events: *  Nothing major. Life goes on as normal.  *

*  1. Sudden change of life plans Sim must quit his current job (even if s/he owns a business) and choose a new career (or buy a new business) immediately.  *

Well, they don’t even have power yet since we just unlocked it, and I guess Caroline can shut the home business down.

First things first: I fixed their eyes in SimPE! I don’t know if I can edit the package so I don’t have to go in and fix the eyes every time--especially because I’m going to try running a Perfect Genetics save in another neighborhood with these eyes specifically--though. Can anybody help me out?

Caroline is still struggling.

Oooh, Heath Maplewood came home with one of the girls!

Since she shut down the home business and they have a little money, I figured now would be a good time to have Caroline purchase the first community lot store in Isla Brisa!

This is The Talking Bass, where Caroline sells the fish she has caught. Eventually it will grow to sell all things fishing-related, but not until we unlock the downtown connection. It is rather sparse on the inside since they ran out of money while decorating it, but I’m excited for Caroline to grow her little shop ♥

Having fun in the pleasant weather!

And birthday time for the twins!

Sam is the older twin, so she goes and gets her makeover first. I think she’s so pretty, I love her eye shape.

Fortune (Earn $100,000) + Good Cook, Neat / - Brown Hair Lesbian

And here’s Olivia!

Knowledge (Max Seven Skills) + Fat, Full Face Makeup / - Stink Straight

Good job bb

One of the girls brought home Ricky Cormier, which is only notable because I swear this motherfucker works his way into every save I play.

Red hands, the funnest game in the universe according to The Sims.

Hema does not strike me as the drum-playing type, though.

First day working at The Talking Bass!

Caroline: Yvette, I’m so happy you came by to check out the new store. I hope you find it to your liking.

Jannick: Caroline. Your stink is unprofessional.

Caroline: Maybe if both my roommates hadn’t left me alone as a single mother to raise three alien children, I’d have more time to shower.

Yvette finds The Talking Bass to her liking indeed!

The struggles of a single mother.

Oh, come on, Caroline. The sink isn’t even clean!

This family REALLY love swinging each other around.

The next day at The Talking Bass, Marjorie comes around to support the first proper business.

I LOVE the dazzle interaction.

Since the girls are friends with this kid, I figured I’d have Caroline hire him.

I immediately regretted this decision.

A lot.

Greeatt.

Hera goes for a swim, which I don’t have my sims do enough despite half of them living on beach lots.

After the fun, the girls sit down to work on their homework. Look at Hema’s pile alone!!!

Olivia: You know, you guys are my best friends.

A game of hackey sack proves that point.

Empty :(

Ooo, cute new townie!

THANKS ORLANDO

One of the girls bring Maggie Plum home from school, but she’s more interested in fishing with Caroline instead of bonding with them.

Not empty :)

The water is starting to freeze over, so Caroline has to dig up things to sell at The Talking Bass.

Jana: I’m only here to scope out the competition.

Caroline: You’re never going to bury the hatchet, huh?

Despite that, Jana did bring her daughter and even buys something from Caroline.

Caroline: I can’t see anything. This was dumb.

Three teens in the house now!

Hema Lott Romance (Become Hall of Famer) + Stink, Jewelry / - Black Hair Straight

Hmm...

Oh.

Or...not? She develops a crush anyway?

Maggie: You guys are wearing the same outerwear.

Hema: They were BOGO!

Man, Caroline’s luck is the worst.

And we end the update with the twins enjoying some roughhousing ♥

They pay $2,000 in taxes, and we move on to the Alvarado/Vega/Stormwind place.

[truthshield]

Innovation revolutionary: Diversity and inclusion at the point of care

VA’s Office of Resolution Management, Diversity and Inclusion (ORMDI) focuses on ensuring Veterans feel seen and heard, ensuring VA meets people where they are. Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) can be uncomfortable for staff to navigate without a guide or additional resources. Pamela Black, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) manager at Orlando VA, had an idea to change that. A history of compassion Black is an Air Force Veteran. She learned about camaraderie and diversity in the military. That isn’t something she had experienced in her hometown of Memphis. Raised by her grandparents and single mom, she developed a passion for helping others, particularly the marginalized and underserved. Pamela Black Black began as an EEO assistant at the Department of Defense (DoD) before applying for other EEO roles at VA. Because she wasn’t yet qualified for the positions, she left her 15-year career with DoD to join VA as an EEO intern at the West Palm Beach VA. After being promoted to EEO manager at the Orlando VA in 2020, Black began questioning her capacity. “Am I really doing a service to these people on my own? I can’t be everywhere at once, but I can equip others to serve.” Diversity and Inclusion advocacy Needing support to grow D&I advocacy, Black applied to the VHA Shark Tank Competition. At the same time, VA Secretary McDonough and his team were looking for D&I projects to grow. Getting support from her facility’s innovation program, the VA Diversity & Inclusion Advocate Program (VADIAP) went live in January 2021. VADIAP trains staff to be D&I advocates, supporting VA employees and Veterans alike. Creating a culture of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (I-DEA) and building a strong VA-wide Special Emphasis Program are just some of these advocates’ responsibilities. Supervisors nominate one or more employees to serve as a service-level Advocate. The nominated Advocate is trained by EEO staff, Special Emphasis program managers, and other VHA stakeholders. Black is looking for people who are just as passionate and active about the work as she is. Supporting Veterans After three DoD Civilian tours in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, Black says her service has drawn her closer to the work she does. “As a civilian, the empathy and compassion it takes to serve Veterans helps me and shapes my work because I know what they’ve gone through.” A Veteran with a hearing impairment felt he was not being heard or treated fairly because he talked loudly. Black drew upon her compassion to better understand. She was able to advocate for the Veteran and educate other staff on how to better serve Veterans in similar situations. Get involved in innovation “Learning about people and the importance of taking the time to get to know them, that’s what advocacy is all about,” said Black. She has already seen a positive culture shift through open I-DEA discussions. If you are interested in learning more or adopting this program in your local VA, head to the Diffusion Marketplace site for VADIAP. Want to support VHA IE’s innovation revolution? Visit our website (https://www.va.gov/innovationecosystem/) to learn about opportunities to become involved in innovation at VA. Innovation Revolutionary is a recurring series from the VA Innovation Ecosystem. It focuses on VA employees who are disrupting the status-quo, breaking down barriers, and attempting to radically revolutionize Veteran care and the employee experience. https://ift.tt/gRnhiMH https://ift.tt/u4zvED5

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Nearly a third of U.S. workers under 40 considered changing careers during the pandemic (Washington Post) When Orlando Saenz was laid off at the end of January, he was devastated. For nearly a decade, he had worked as an executive assistant at an Austin law firm, and it was hard to envision his next steps. But then it dawned on him: This setback could be the kick he needed to finally finish his associate’s degree and seek a better career. A few days later, Saenz, 40, enrolled in community college. He plans to get a paralegal license. The enhanced unemployment aid gave him the financial cushion to “treat school as my job,” he said, for a few months. “If you come out of the pandemic the same as you were, you’ve missed an opportunity to evolve and grow as a person,” Saenz said. “I just realized I needed to do better.” Saenz is not alone. Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. workers under 40 have thought about changing their occupation or field of work since the pandemic began, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, conducted July 6 to 21. About 1 in 5 workers overall have considered a professional shift, a signal that the pandemic has been a turning point for many. Many people told The Post that the pandemic altered how they think about what is important in life and their careers. It has given them a heightened understanding that life is short and that now is the time to make the changes they have long dreamed of. The result is a great reassessment of work, as Americans fundamentally reimagine their relationships to their jobs.

Food stamp benefits to permanently expand by over 25% in October, USDA announces (USA Today) Needy families will get a permanent boost to their food stamps benefits in October under an expansion of the program announced Monday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will increase benefits for about 42 million program participants by more than 25% after finishing a review that determined existing benefits are too low to pay for a healthy diet. The increase kicks in on Oct. 1, when beneficiaries in what is officially known as the SNAP program will receive an average bump of about $36.24 per month, the agency announced Monday. While benefits have increased along with inflation, the USDA said this adjustment represents the first expansion of its purchasing power since it was first introduced in 1975.

First-ever water shortage declared on the Colorado River, triggering water cuts for some states in the West (Reuters) For the first time, federal officials declared a water shortage at the Lake Mead reservoir, a status that causes a slash to the annual apportionment of water to several states in the Southwest. In the year beginning in October, Arizona will lose 18 percent of its annual water apportionment, Nevada will lose 7 percent, and the apportionments to Mexico will decrease by 5 percent. Right now, 59.2 million Americans live in a place with drought, which encompasses 99 percent of the Western United States. Total water storage in the Colorado River system is at 40 percent capacity, down from 49 percent in 2020.

T-Mobile hacked (Motherboard) T-Mobile confirmed that hackers accessed the telecom’s systems on Monday. One hacker claimed that 100 million people had compromised data in the breach, and in a forum post offered 30 million people’s data for 6 bitcoin (about $270,000). Samples of the data contained “social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI numbers, and driver license information.”

Tropical storm drenching earthquake-stricken Haiti (AP) Tropical Storm Grace swept over Haiti with drenching rains just two days after a powerful earthquake battered the impoverished Caribbean nation, adding to the misery of thousands who lost loved ones, suffered injuries or found themselves homeless and forcing overwhelmed hospitals and rescuers to act quickly. After nightfall, heavy rain and strong winds whipped at the country’s southwestern area, hit hardest by Saturday’s quake, and officials warned that rainfall could reach 15 inches (38 centimeters) in some areas before the storm moved on.

Japan to extend COVID-19 emergency lockdown as cases surge (Reuters) Japan was set on Tuesday to extend its state of emergency in Tokyo and other regions to Sept. 12 and widen curbs to seven more prefectures, as COVID-19 cases spike in the capital and nationwide, burdening the medical system. The state of emergency will cover slightly less than 60% of the population after the government adds the prefectures of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka.

American diplomats reckon with Afghanistan’s collapse (Foreign Policy) Current and former U.S. diplomats who served in Afghanistan have watched the events of the past week with horror as the Taliban stormed through the country and ultimately seized control of the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, undoing two decades of hard-won progress in the country. For many American officials, the collapse of the Afghan government and the hasty evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul are deeply personal. Around one-quarter of the U.S. diplomatic corps has served in Afghanistan or Iraq over the past 20 years. In interviews with a dozen people who held posts in Afghanistan, current and former diplomats conveyed feelings of deep anger, shock, and bitterness about the collapse of the government they spent decades trying to build. Several currently serving officials, who spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity, said the events had prompted thoughts about resigning from the foreign service. But mostly the diplomats said they felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear for the lives of the former Afghan colleagues and local staff whom the American government left behind. “We did such a disservice to the local staff who worked for us,” said Shaila Manyam, a former career foreign service officer who had served as spokesperson for the president’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2015. “They take on incredible risks working for us and we’ve screwed them too,” she said. Ryan Crocker, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, said the fate of Afghan women weighed heavily on him. “We encouraged them to step forward, and they did. In politics, the economy, the military,” he said. “The implicit part of that deal was, ‘You step forward, and we’ve got your backs.’ And now we don’t.”

Biden’s Betrayal of Afghans (The Atlantic) There’s plenty of blame to go around for the 20-year debacle in Afghanistan—enough to fill a library of books. Perhaps the effort to rebuild the country was doomed from the start. But our abandonment of the Afghans who helped us, counted on us, staked their lives on us, is a final, gratuitous shame that we could have avoided. The Biden administration failed to heed the warnings on Afghanistan, failed to act with urgency—and its failure has left tens of thousands of Afghans to a terrible fate. This betrayal will live in infamy. The burden of shame falls on President Joe Biden. For months, members of Congress and advocates in refugee, veteran, and human-rights organizations have been urging the Biden administration to evacuate America’s Afghan allies on an emergency basis. For months, dire warnings have appeared in the press. The administration’s answers were never adequate: We’re waiting for Congress to streamline the application process. Half the interpreters we’ve given visas don’t want to leave. We don’t want to panic the Afghan people and cause the government in Kabul to collapse. Evacuation to a U.S. territory like Guam could lead to legal problems, so we’re looking for third-country hosts in the region. Most of the interpreters are in Kabul, and Kabul won’t fall for at least six months. Some of these answers might have been sincere. All of them were irrelevant, self-deceiving, or flat-out false.

A war’s secret history (Washington Post) In the summer of 2011, Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV made a round of public appearances to boast that he had finally solved a problem that had kept U.S. troops bogged down in Afghanistan for a decade. “They’re probably the best-trained, the best-equipped and the best-led of any forces we’ve developed yet inside of Afghanistan,” he said. But according to documents obtained by the Washington Post, U.S. military officials privately harbored fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that the Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. money and firepower. “Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,” an unnamed former U.S. official told government interviewers in 2016. Over two decades, the U.S. government invested over $85 billion to train and equip the Afghans and pay their salaries. Today, all that’s left is arsenals of weapons, ammunition and supplies that have fallen into the hands of the enemy. Though it was obvious from the beginning that the Afghans were struggling to make the U.S.-designed system work, the Pentagon kept throwing money at the problem and assigning new generals to find a solution. Recruiting was hard enough, but was compounded by startling rates of desertion and attrition. Another biggest hardship was having to teach virtually every recruit how to read. Making everything harder was the Obama administration’s decision to rapidly expand the size of the Afghan security forces from 200,000 soldiers and police officers to 350,000. With recruits at a premium, Afghans were rushed through boot camp, even if they couldn’t shoot or perform other basic tasks. As the years passed, it became apparent that the strategy was failing. Yet U.S. military commanders kept insisting in public that everything was going according to plan.

Blaming Afghans? (The New Yorker) The Afghans now have suffered generation after generation of not just continuous warfare but humanitarian crises, one after the other, and Americans have to remember that this wasn’t a civil war that the Afghans started among themselves that the rest of the world got sucked into. This situation was triggered by an outside invasion, initially by the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, and since then the country has been a battleground for regional and global powers seeking their own security by trying to militarily intervene in Afghanistan, whether it be the United States after 2001, the C.I.A. in the nineteen-eighties, Pakistan through its support first for the mujahideen and later the Taliban, or Iran and its clients. To blame Afghans for not getting their act together in light of that history is just wrong.

Taliban allowing ‘safe passage’ from Kabul in US airlift (AP) The Taliban have agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a U.S.-directed airlift from the capital, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said Tuesday, although a timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others has yet to be worked out with the country’s new rulers. Jake Sullivan acknowledged reports that some civilians were encountering resistance—“being turned away or pushed back or even beaten”—as they tried to reach the Kabul international airport. But he said “very large numbers” were reaching the airport and the problem of the others was being taken up with the Taliban, whose stunningly swift takeover of the country on Sunday plunged the U.S. evacuation effort into chaos, confusion and violence. Pentagon officials said that after interruptions on Monday, the airlift was back on track and being accelerated despite weather problems, amid regular communication with Taliban leaders. Additional U.S. troops arrived and more were on the way, with a total of more than 6,000 expected to be involved in securing the airport in coming days.

[thotyssey]

One of New York busiest, most in-demand and outspoken nightlifers, David Serrano made his name giving us life from the DJ booth… and these days, he’s officially capturing our lives in the photo studio.

Thotyssey: Hey David! So, how has Crazy Covid Summer been treating you?

David Serrano: It’s been interesting. I got Covid early in March, so I was able to get passed it quickly. Unfortunately, with the bars closed, I haven’t been working much… but I am not wasting this time. I’ve been really focused on leveling up my photography skills.

Glad you’re feeling better! I did see you just released a whole bunch of gorgeous pics of some of our famous queens. Are these shots you took a long time ago that you’ve finally been able to get to, or are have you been arranging new shoots during this downtime?

A little bit of both. I’ve been able to do several shoots during lockdown, and have several lined up. But I’ve also been going into the archive and pulling out some of my favorites that may have not had a chance to shine yet. Definitely using this time to be as creative as possible.

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[All photos by David Serrano]

Do you think you have a favorite subject yet, as far as the people you’ve shot?

I love people with over the top looks. Pretty is fine, but it can be a bit boring. Anyone that pushes the envelope with their aesthetic is what I gravitate towards. I recently released a shot of Androgyny that I love, with her giant red Mohawk. It’s very punk. I like that. I also love anyone that can just let go in front of the camera and go big. They’re not worried about looking foolish or pretty. And I love shooting dancers, ’cause they know how to move. I shot FiFi DuBois, and we had some really dynamic shots.

You’ve been doing nightlife photography for a few years, but for a long time you were better known in NYC as a DJ. I think it’s really just been the past few years that you really stepped up as an in-demand photographer. Was that intentional, or did it just kinda happen that way?

It was purposeful, for sure. I’m definitely interested in moving in that direction with my career. I’m 43 now, and I’m wanting to work more outside the clubs… but still staying within my nightlife community, like my work on The X Change Rate with Monet. I’ve spun the big clubs, and that was fun when I was younger. But as I get older, my priorities are changing. I prefer to work more shows now, and work more closely with the nightlife artists… so these are steps that I am making to expand my skill sets.

Before we talk more about Now, we should visit Then! Where are you from originally, and how did you begin as a creative person while growing up?

Okay, that’s a long story! I was born in Port Jefferson, Long Island, but moved to upstate NY right outside Woodbury Commons when I was three. I lived there ’til 10th grade, and then moved to South Carolina for a year and a half. Then I finished high school in a small town outside Orlando, Florida. My dad had retired while I was in high school, so we moved and I ended up going to three high schools.

I knew I wanted to do something creative since I was a child because my mom told me, “do something you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” So I gravitated towards the arts. It was always between music and film. I actually started college as a film major at UCF, but ended up switching my major my last semester to music production, which is what my degree is in.

When I turned 28, I moved back to NYC to pursue a career in music as a singer / songwriter. I released a song with Junior Vasquez called “Not Again,” aptly named ’cause it was the only song we did together. I made no money from it, so I decided to pivot and got into DJing instead. I loved it, and that became my career. I also started working in graphic design, which then led back to film. And here we are today… full circle moment.

Was it Junior who taught you how to DJ?

Um, no… LOL. Actually, I consider my DJ parents to be Xavier and Corey Craig. They helped me a lot, and gave me advice when I first began. My first gig was filling in for Xavier at Barracuda, which became my first residency in 2007. And as of March, I was still there.

As far as bars and big parties in the realm of nightlife go, what have been some of your favorite memories and highlights of the past decade-plus for you?

I enjoyed my time at Stage 48 spinning upstairs in the pop room, along with my time at XL working “Hot Mess” with Lady Bunny and Bianca Del Rio. I also loved working Drag Brunch at the Highline Ballroom, and of course the multiple Glam Awards I’ve spun. Those are just a few that stand out. There have been so many. I’ve been very lucky.

I always wondered… what would happen if you won a Glam while you were DJing the awards show? Would you play your own music intro and run up and accept, or just, like, wave from the DJ booth?

I’d have them toss it to me, LOL! Or I’d walk in an awkward silence. Fortunately, it probably won’t ever be an issue.

We’ll see you up there soon enough!

In what huge ways has the nightlife biz changed since you started out?

Social media has definitely impacted nightlife, for sure. People don’t need to go out to the bars and clubs to meet other gay people. Plus, because the world is more open and the LGBT + community is more accepted, the crowds have become more mixed and smaller. Drag has exploded after almost dying out because of Drag Race, and drag has become more mainstream… and has moved from only being hidden away in the underground scene. This is why I’ve felt it necessary to evolve myself. Otherwise you get left behind.

It’s true, within nightlife there is a clear path for drag performers (that fit certain criteria, like being cis men) to elevate, but that path is not so clear for everyone else in the biz right now.

Speaking of social media… you have a very unfiltered presence there, lol! Whether you’re discussing politics (you’re a very progressive Bernie man), pop culture or even nightlife drama, you often say exactly what’s on your mind. Today that’s almost like a death sentence (or at least an entirely stressful situation), with all the canceling happening. Do you care what people think about your social media posts?

I am a native New Yorker, and Hispanic to boot. We don’t hold back our opinions. Couple that with the fact that I’m older and come from a generation that wasn’t coddled or given participation trophies for everything, and my personality can easily trigger overly-sensitive types. I don’t like those people and don’t want to be around them anyway, so speaking my mind keeps them at bay. I have no interest in giving them any power.

People that are in my circle know me, and don’t have any issues with me. I’m actually easy to work with, and very chill. But I don’t have time to baby anyone, or give a platform to anyone talking nonsense or creating problems when none exist.

Actually, what are your thoughts about nightlife folks (promoters, DJs, performers, venue owners) who did those large, undistanced and unmasked parties during lockdown, particularly in those first months?

We all have to be careful and responsible… but I understand people needing to earn a living. If you’re being irresponsible and not wearing masks in public indoor spaces, then you’re asking for trouble. But at the same time, we need to be pragmatic and not Mask Nazis. If someone is outside without a mask and minding their own business, leave them alone. If they’re inside a public place, feel free to say something. As for the public parties packed with no masks, that’s not smart… but we know who these people are. They’re not usually known for their good decision making skills.

[Photo: Maxim]

Lol! Tell us a bit about The X Change Rate, Monet X Change’s fun talk show care of the BUILD Series that airs on YouTube and is filmed for a live studio audience (pre-Covid, of course). She’s had some amazing guests, and naturally she’s a great hostess herself! You’re the house DJ there, naturally.

Monet is great–super sweet to work with, and I was gagged when she reached out to me and asked me to be a part of her show. The crew is amazing, and it’s really inspiring and humbling to work in such a professional environment.

Hopefully you’ll both be back in the studio soon!

I sure hope so.

It must be old hat at this point–but still cool–to have seen so many queens you’ve worked with over the years get cast and do well on Drag Race.

Yes, it’s so surreal to see so many of my friends make it on the world stage. It’s inspiring… but also hard to reconcile. To me, they’re just my friends. To their fans, they’re superstars. It’s weird, but very cool.

So it’s almost impossible to answer this question nowadays, but what else is coming up?

I’m currently in the process of creating some amazing images with Danny Logan, formerly known as Dallas Dubois. He’s become an amazing costume designer since leaving drag years ago. He’s gone on to work in television and film, and is doing very well for himself. We have some incredible, politically charged and poignant concepts in the works… so look out for them.

That should be amazing! And finally: there was a lot of new music this summer. Did anything stand out as your favorite song or album for you?

You have no idea. There have been SOOOO many great songs. I am really into the 80’s synth pop sound, that has made a huge splash on the scene this year: from The Weeknd to Gaga, Dua Lipa, and Miley. They’re all killing it. Right now, I’m loving Miley’s newest song “Midnight Sky.” She’s serving major Stevie Nicks vibes, and I am here for it. Not to mention the video is giving me major visual inspiration for my shoots!

Thanks, David!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for DJ David Serrano’s upcoming appearances, and follow him on Facebook, Instagram (also one for his photography), Twitter and YouTube. All photos care of David Serrano unless otherwise labeled.

On Point Archives

On Point With: David Serrano One of New York busiest, most in-demand and outspoken nightlifers, David Serrano made his name giving us life from the DJ booth...

[thedigitaldollhouse]

Savannah:

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, I could hear the vibrations of my cell phone going off as I packed the rest of my things. I wasn’t in the mood so my ring tones were on vibrate. Moving to Atlanta was a sad day for me; everything that had happened in the past year was overwhelming. I needed to get away.

Trying to cover up the irritation in my voice I answered the phone, “Hey Mom, I’m almost ready.” “Hey Savannah, did you get in touch with your sister?” No, not yet, I’ll give her a call back, but she knows were coming I’m sure.” “CALL HER SAVANNAH”, my mother yelled. As I hung up the phone the thought of hearing the mean attitude from my step-sisters voice turned my stomach. I was the last person she wanted to speak with. We hadn't had any form of communication in 4 years.

The phone rang twice, “Hello Savannah”, “Hey Bella, how you doing? I just called to let you know we’re re on the way to Atlanta and we should be there by sundown.”

“I know mom texted me 10 times already, tell them I’ll be here and not to leave you without any money; I will not be taking care of your ass”, she said. “Ok I understand”, I said as I sighed trying to be as polite as I could. “But seriously Bella we need to talk when I get there. I really need you to understand how sorry I truly am about everything.”

“Blah, Blah, Blah, save it, just call me when you’re almost near,” she said, and ended the call. The embarrassment of her hanging up on me without so much as a “goodbye” frustrated me even more but it had to be done at least till I could stand on my own two feet in Atlanta.

Orlando became a place I longed to get away from and it was time I moved elsewhere. I’d lost all my friends, my job, and my parents were sick of the drama between me and my ex so they sat me down at dinner one evening and in a nice manner they told me to pack my shit. The nerve of my mother of all people to want to put me out in the streets, she knew I had no where to go and besides my step-dad and Bella, my mom was the only family I had.

Luckily I'd found an intern in Atlanta that accepted students with a low GPA to start working on pursuing my career as a private investigator, but the only thing was, it wasn't a paid intern so that meant that I would have to find a job to support myself. Assuming they were going to put me in an apartment and help pay my bills until I was ready to be on my own they dropped another bomb on me.... I would have to stay with my step- sister Bella. Dammit. I grew nervous. Me and Bella were the best of friends all of our lives until about 4 years ago when everything took a left turn. We both ended up dating the same guy, but I will admit that she had him first. I wanted him and at the time I guess I didn't care. Even after the truth came out and she wanted nothing to do with him, I stayed and chose what I thought was the love I had for him over me and my own sisters.

My parents thought it would be wise if I went and stayed with Bella, praying that whatever was broken between us could be fixed. I knew it wasn’t gonna be easy but I was praying the same. I missed her, and I never stopped thinking about her. What I’d done was completely stupid, and it had labeled me as being un-trust worthy, but the heart wants what it wants, and I can no longer apologize for that. To her it was unforgivable but to me it was a simple mistake that I'd made.

"She will love me again one day" is what I always tell myself, but in the mean-time I needed to get my life together on my own.

Although I hadn’t seen Bella in years, I was told she was doing well for herself. She was always the ambitious type who seemed to make decisions better than I could. My mother adored her and constantly talked about her claiming she had become her favorite because she was a go getter and a perfect example of what I needed to be. It hurt my feelings to know that Bella was so much more smarter than I was but I did look up to her so I could see why.

Arriving to my new home, the 9 hour drive was well worth it. Bella’s home was beautiful. She had a gorgeous front yard, and an all brick stairway leading to the front door. Feeling better than I did on the way there, I was finally ready to make peace with her and get back to how we were growing up.

Bella’s mother and father divorced when she was 5 years old, and I was 5 also when her father remarried to my mom. My mother Linda was already a single parent and before my step-dad Peter came into her life it was just she and I. My father left us when I was 2 years old to be with other women I was told. Although Peter was my step father he was the only man I’d ever known. He made sure that me and my mom had everything we ever wanted. It was a year after my mother and Peter got married that I’d meet his daughter Bella on Christmas Eve. Our greeting wasn’t a gentle one but more of a tussle. Bella had spotted a gift under the Christmas tree at our parents annual Christmas Ball, and assumed that the gift had her name on it. I’d made the same assumption because it was a big box wrapped in golden gift wrap with a pink bow attached to the front of it. As I quickly ran to take the gift out of Bella’s hands my mother seen us go at it like little brats and yanked the gift out of both of our reaching. “This gift is to be shared between the two of you, you understand Missy” as she looked at me with her expression of if I catch you fighting over another gift under this tree I will punish you immediately. Savannah say hello to your new sister Bella,” said Linda. We looked at each other with anger. I was no longer an only child and neither was she. About an hour after our loud spat in front of all the guest, we were allowed to open our gift. It was two African Barbies with our names embedded in each of them. That did it for us and from then on we were the best of friends.

Bella and I were thick as thieves growing up. Nothing could separate us except for the unfortunate school year. Bella only stayed with us for summers and holidays, but when the summers and holidays were over she had to go back to Ohio with her mom.

The whole way there I was thinking of what could I say to change what had happened; were there any excuses that could be made. No it wasn’t, I just had to live up to what I’d done.

[sleepymarmot]

DS9 season 6

[Season index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PS]

Here I get angrier and discourse-y

A Time to Stand

The Garak/Bashir scene (finally)... and Bashir looking like this... I feel blessed

when he talks about his “boyish smile” but cannot smile at all. that hit hard

aw Worf/Jadzia!

the Terok Nor dynamics are fascinating. I'm very impressed by Kira's willpower...

jesus fucking christ the Dukat/Kira scene :O D: 😨

why is Bashir doing mental calculations now, he's not Data

Rocks and Shoals

Kira's storyline about being self-conscious about collaborationism is great. In the previous episode we saw her trapped and vulnerable, especially in the viscerally horrifying scene with Dukat, and now we realize along with Kira herself that all of that is having it good.

Sons and Daughters

how did Sisko send a signal that Martok heard but the Jem'Hadar didn't?

Alexander lived on the Enterprise because Worf's parents were incapable of raising him anymore... I guess that was so inconvenient for the DS9 writers they decided to just ignore it instead of at least trying to invent an excuse.

"But the last time you defied him, he left you here to die!" "We talked about that. He admits he overreacted" bwahaha

Oh Alexander, so much secondhand embarrassment...

god, he gave her a dress, eww

oh my god, and he immediately re-gifts it to his own daughter, what a jerk

accepting Worf into the house of Martok involved much less ceremony...

why doesn't this episode address Alexander's age? did the writers assume, again, we didn't watch TNG? they could have said something about his grandparents protesting because he's about ten years old. something about Klingon children growing up very fast, and humans disapproving of child soldiers.

I don't understand how Ziyal can be so naive. Sure, she's kept unaware of the creepy sexual aspect of Dukat's advances (though I was waiting for Kira to snap and finally say "Your father keeps hitting on me, please don't force me to be in the same room with him"), but surely she must see why Kira finds his company uncomfortable and inappropriate! I do like that Ziyal is on his side again. And I enjoy seeing the continuation of Kira's storyline where she has to walk the line between keeping a polite facade and staying true to herself, gets too used to engaging Dukat&co on their own terms and has to take a step back to reassert herself.

Behind the Lines

Wait, if the Romulans have signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion, why do they still allow Starfleet to use their cloaking device against it?

I've already been concerned about their open discussions of resistance activities, but a Founder's presence on the station makes it even worse! Sure, discuss your plans over a bar table that might well be a changeling...

Odo, for fuck's sake, she's going to learn all about the resistance from you...

"She didn't find out about the resistance, if that's why you're worried" in the same scene: "If she had some hidden motive, I would have sensed it"

Odo!.. >:(

Captain Dax!

Do the Cardassians still have the truth serum? If no, it's a giant plot hole; if yes, things are looking really bad...

Favor the Bold

oh god ewwwwww

why is Leeta making that noise

haha you go Kira

"We are way, way past sorry" good. unforgiving Kira is the best Kira

Odo's longing for his kind works so much better when the Founders are not on screen -- the things they actually say are so boring, one-dimensional and unconvincing... Though I find interesting that Odo's storyline mirrors Kira's in this arc: the female changeling manages to seduce him while Dukat fails to do the same to Kira.

Sacrifice of Angels

"DAMAR: I doubt he was working alone when he tried to sabotage the station. He must've had help. His wife Leeta, Jake Sisko, Major Kira. DUKAT: What are you proposing? DAMAR: That we arrest them. Keep them in custody, at least until the wormhole is reopened." Finally someone wakes up! I was expecting them to do this an episode ago...

"War is such thirsty work. Don't you agree?" "Perhaps if you didn't talk so much, your throat wouldn't get so dry."

Oh look! He's actually pretty shocked by the suggestion to "eradicate [an entire planet's] population"! Even this guy has standards.

"A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness" classic Dukat. this is his ideology in a nutshell

"Then you kill them?" I'm loving the discussion of the differences between the Cardassian and Dominion approach

"Perhaps the biggest disappointment in my life is that the Bajoran people still refuse to appreciate how lucky they were to have me as their liberator. I protected them in so many ways, cared for them as if they were my own children. But to this day, is there a single statue of me on Bajor?" how is it possible to be so deluded?! fucking incredible

"Link with me, Odo. Embrace the clarity" EMBRACE ETERNITY

Where's the Enterprise during all these battles?

haha Quark & Ziyal make a great team

"The only reason they haven't killed me yet is that I'm part of their victory celebration. Seven o'clock, Dukat makes a speech. Eight thirty, cake and raktajino. Eight forty five, execute the Ferengi"

holy crap, they actually detonated the minefield! I didn't expect that

LITERALLY DEUS EX MACHINA

(I'm beginning to think this is a predestination paradox and the wormhole aliens started taking care of the Bajorans throughout history because Sisko told them to...)

Shit, I thought Dukat was about to snap and kill her, but it's even worse

I didn't expect to feel sympathy for Dukat ever again after those scenes with Kira, but this show played me again. I guess he'll completely lose it now?

Did you really had to remind us that the trainwreck that was Garak/Ziyal existed?

Wait, please tell me this isn't Dukat's last appearance and he's not about to spend the last 1,5 seasons in an asylum?

You are Cordially Invited

Why does this Klingon woman have human teeth?

Ah yes, Jadzia is too proud and independent and should follow her fiance's totally reasonable suggestion to humiliate herself to fit better in his culture. fuck you

Resurrection

am I supposed to recognize this guy?

oh no it's a Mirror episode

I... don't... care...

ugh, her again

I wish I just fast-forwarded this episode

Statistical Probabilities

How did I know from the title that this is a Bashir episode...

lol my dude when Bashir gets his look on his face you know you're fucked

I can't believe Miles pretended to have work just so he could be in the same room as Julian... romance is not dead

Don't know what to think about this episode. There are some good conversations about ableism and intelligence, but that set of stereotypes and assumptions... It's like the final Sherlock episode. And it was implausible when they could read Damar so well in the first place. And the long-term predictions are a million times worse! Do they include variables like "wormhole aliens destroy the entire enemy fleet because Sisko asked nicely"?

Plus I don't like how this season portrays Bashir's enhanced intelligence... I thought he was just made smarter than average, not make mental calculations at the same speed as Data... Where did that come from. Why.

The Magnificent Ferengi

"May I help you, gentlemen?" lmao

"Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap."

"By the time the Dominion is done with you, all you'll want is a quick death." I love his serene tone haha

This was hilarious :D I really like this show's ventures into black comedy! Also Keevan looks exactly like Orlando Bloom and it cracks me up.

Waltz

Dukat's career has been through a lot of ups and downs over the seasons, and this is the lowest point ever that brings a new dynamic: Dukat so powerless that Sisko can afford to feel pity for him. I'm glad Dukat seems sane.

"A bottle of kanar and an Orion slave girl would be nice" ew

oh, so he has hallucinations. oh well.

"From this day forward, Bajor is dead. All of Bajor" Ouch. Sisko, I think you made it worse... I might have used the same rhetoric in Sisko's place, but damn, his final statement about Dukat's evilness rings pretty hollow since it was him who dragged "kill all Bajorans" out of Dukat's subconsciousness into the light. Like, I understand, when you're injured and trapped with an armed crazy fascist who tries to force you to praise him, you'd want at least the final satisfaction of telling what you think about him to his face, in no way I blame you for it... But if someone is mentally unstable and obsessed with proving to you he's a good person, and you reject it and instead goad him into exposing and accepting his darker motivations -- then don't say he is irredeemably evil? I can see how Sisko's rhetoric could have worked as reverse psychology -- his opponent would have started the speech about killing everyone, heard himself, stopped in horror and realized the error of his ways -- but Dukat didn't have enough self-awareness for that even in better times, and certainly not now. This was just giving your enemy ideas. Nice job breaking it, hero! When Dukat sabotaged his own redemption arc by joining the Dominion, it was beautiful, but when someone else does it to him... Idk, I usually like the Batman/Joker dynamic where the bad guy is obsessed with the protagonist and defines himself in opposition to him, but I'm not sure how well it works here... On the other hand, it has been a part of Dukat's character that he has an almost fourth wall breaking awareness of his role in the story as a likeable complex antagonist, so there is some poetic sense that he turns to straight-up villainy when someone convinces him that is the better role for him and he decides to live up to it. 

The sad thing is, except that strange last scene, I was absolutely with Sisko the entire episode. And contrary to his words at the end, I found it an excellent example of grey morality. I've talked about it a couple of seasons ago -- allowing the antagonist to plead his case and then explaining why he's still wrong -- and this episode dedicates a lot of time to this. We've basically already heard Dukat's self-justifications, but learning what exactly was his role during the occupation and what he has done differently that made him think he was so much better than the other Cardassians -- that's something I've wanted since the beginning of the show. Cardassians are my favourite part of the show because of their messed up ideology, and Dukat is the one character who keeps talking about it, which is why he's so interesting for me. (Initially, heavy focus on ideology was what I expected from Garak and his character arc, which is one of the reasons I was disappointed in them.) It's great how he gives a lengthy speech that does make him sound pretty reasonable and sympathetic for a minute, and then with a single line Sisko breaks the spell and makes him reveal the ugly racism under it all, the reason why Dukat is deeply wrong despite any good intentions: "From the moment we arrived on Bajor, it was clear that we were the superior race. But they couldn't accept that. They wanted to be treated as equals when they most certainly were not". But, honestly, this isn't exactly news. Dukat's always been a racist, a victim-blamer, an egomaniac, an opportunist, and this episode doesn't even touch the issue of Bajoran women. So in this episode, he says pretty much the same things as when he played a "morally grey" role, but now that suddenly means he's "not morally grey"? Because of some bat-swinging during a psychotic episode, and a final villainous speech based on an idea fed to him by Sisko? He's responsible for a genocide, that's bad enough -- you don't need to start blaming him for things he's not fully responsible for! One of my favourite things about Dukat is that his crimes mostly happened offscreen, before the events of the show, so his presence on screen was sort of a test of integrity for both other character and viewers -- can you still tell right from wrong without a visceral reaction to violence and suffering happening right now before your very eyes? The characters have always passed that test; but now, regrettably, the writers decided that the viewers cannot. At the beginning of the episode he's a war criminal half-mad from loss, and Sisko feels sorry for him; at the end of the episode he's a war criminal completely mad from loss, and Sisko thinks he's evil. I guess, this might be interpreted just as Sisko's version of Kira's stories at the beginning of the season, where she briefly forgets how much she hates Dukat, and by the end of the episode he gives her a reason to hate him even more. I guess it comes down to the first line in this liveblog that I wrote during the first minutes of the episode: when the enemy is neutralised, we can afford to feel sympathy for them, but as soon as they start posing real danger, compassion goes out of the window and our first priority is to stop them. Except, of course, that works for any enemy, they don't have to be "truly evil"... So my complaint about that line still stands. Besides, it really deflated the drama; five minutes ago we had Dukat delivering his mad king's speech with the Shakespearean levels of gravitas, and now Sisko almost looks in the camera and summarizes his experience with the dramatic equivalent of "That's as many of four tens. And that's terrible."

Alright, let's try to stop raging about the dumb final scene and say something about the actual episode... I wish this was a real courtroom episode without the madness -- but the imaginary Weyoun, Damar and Kira's arguments were very well done. Their opinions sounded authentic while the delivery was distorted by Dukat's point of view. Just look at the imaginary Kira draping herself sensually over everything... :D

Dukat has a special talent for making me feel terribly guilty. You know the parts from his final monologue about Bajoran "superstitions", how they "clustered in their temples and prayed for deliverance"? Well, as I dislike the episodes about Bajoran religion I kinda see where he's coming from, and now I feel like a Nazi...

Idk how I'd fix this episode. 

I'd like to throw out the mental illness altogether but then half of the episode stops working. 

If I couldn't invent a completely different ending, I'd throw out the final scene, letting Dukat's actions speak for themselves. 

Or there would be a final scene, but similar in tone to "The Ship", where Sisko'd be like "Whoops..." and also traumatised by the experience. 

Or, if it were absolutely necessary to state the moral of the story and remind the viewers that Dukat is Bad(tm), maybe he'd say something like "Yes, I gave him the idea, but everyone is responsible for his own actions, and blaming everyone but himself is what he wants and does, so I'm not going to". 

Maybe I'd end the episode with Sisko killing Dukat and the final scene being like "Generally I value life but you know what? No regrets". (Of course the best outcome would be if Kira killed Dukat but I've already been informed it won't happen.) 

tl;dr: There are some impressive scenes, lines and acting, but the episode is deeply compromised by its general intent, mental illness excuse and the final scene.

Who Mourns for Morn

Not the best Quark episode... Gags about Morn don't work for me because the prosthetic is so bulky the actor can barely move in it, let alone make facial expressions, and it's impossible to believe that guy becomes talkative, charming and athletic as soon as the cameras stop pointing at him.

Far Beyond the Stars

Finally, a classic episode that lives up to its reputation -- and an AU that's good enough that it does not require an explanation. (The Prophets... made an elaborate simulation of 20th century Earth... to inspire Sisko to fight on? Okay.) I feel that somehow this is the best story about Sisko as the Emissary so far, even though -- or maybe because -- it was only discussed indirectly. It works as a history episode, as an AU episode, as an issue episode, as a meta episode about Star Trek itself...

I'm a bit confused by not-Bashir's role as one of the white writers who just don't get it -- just another reminder of how little I understand the concept of race... I've never thought of him as white -- would he be, by 1950's standards? I get that the episode is specifically about antiblackness, but they did mention sexism against not-Kira, so why not him?

I tried hard and failed to recognize the artist -- turns out, it was Martok! I'd never guess...

I'm darkly amused at Odo as conservative, contemptible half-antagonist again (similar to the roles he played during both occupations and in Mirror universe). His conflict with not-Quark is still recognizable, not just superficially imitated without any of the substance (remember when Quark called Odo a fascist?).

Similarly, I almost laughed when Dukat and Weyoun showed up as racist cops -- just in case you somehow still aren't drawing parallels to the current events, the show does it for you... How sad it is though: a show filmed in 1990s about the 24th century remembering the 1950s looks like an immediate reaction to the news reports of today...  

It was a pleasure to see Kasidy in both worlds! I've missed her. She's such a likeable person, and has effortless chemistry with Sisko (and Benny).

Joseph was great, a beautiful variation on his role in Homefront/Paradise Lost.

I was impressed to learn afterwards that the writers all had real prototypes. So they’re based on a group of real people and group of fictional character at the same time, and both sets of influences are recognizable. That’s incredible. 

One Little Ship

"I love it. Let's go"

more enjoyable than I expected

Honor Among Thieves

ooh nice scenery

this is the kind of story I find hard to watch both because it's painful to wait for something terrible to happen, and because it's not very captivating

Change of Heart

ah yes, Bashir learned all the rules from half a second glance *eyeroll*

this is season freaking 6!!! you told us two seasons ago that Julian's crush on Jadzia is dead! what the fuck?

moral of the story: don't send married couples on dangerous missions toge -- wait, as I was typing, Sisko said the exact same thing lol

why are all Jadzia/Worf episodes so bad. why are all Jadzia episodes so bad. is this a conspiracy?! why is her every episode about almost dying? you know, at this point I'm kinda looking forward to it happening for real.

Wrongs Darker than Death or Night

What, you can easily travel back in time? Just like that?

I didn't expect this show to actually use the term "comfort women"!

Kira looks like she needs a bucket to vomit in... I may need one too...

*Dukat kisses Meru* *mine and Kira's vomiting intensifies*

let me guess, the episode will end with Kira realizing that "my mother deserves death for having Stockholm syndrome" was a bit too harsh

"Kira and collaborationism" is one of my favourite themes in this show istg

"Believe me, there's a part of me that wishes that I hadn't. But the fact is, no matter what she did, she was still my mother" I actually wanted to Kira to go through with the assassination! But then it'd create a different timeline and the episode wasn't about that. 

ok, I spoiled myself about Dukat/Meru so it lost the shock value, and I can see that it's incredibly contrived, but on the other hand it somehow managed to make Dukat's harassment towards Kira even more gross and creepy which is impressive

I have so many technical questions though. If Bajor has a freaking time machine why is no one using it in the war? Why is the Dominion not trying to get its hands on it? Why does it work differently than in "Tribbles"? Is it a closed time loop or alternate timeline? -- at the start of the episode, have Meru and Dukat met the time-travelling Kira or not? Dukat said he was the Prefect only for ten years but in this episode young Nerys looks about four and she certainly isn't a teenager at the end of the occupation -- how does all of that add up? Wait, if Ziyal was 13 by the end of the occupation, it would make more sense if Dukat was in charge for about 20 years and, roughly speaking, spent seven of them with Meru (as said in this episode) and thirteen with Naprem, and the line in "Waltz" is a continuity error -- but putting it this way sounds more wholesome than he deserves, since from the words of that one dude in this episode and a scene in "Things Past" I got the impression that those unfortunate Bajoran women passed through his quarters at a much faster rate...

btw remember when I was hoping that Dukat's mentions of his children to Sisko were intentional manipulation? now I'm pretty sure they were.

wow, TvTropes: "The episode itself... which is rather a letdown. With such a name, you'd expect some sort of horrible atrocity to be happening" -- you mean, MASS SEX SLAVERY, long-term psychological manipulation, prostituting oneself to a tyrant and learning to like it, and planning the murder of one's own mother -- these things are not horrible enough??? who tf wrote that entry

(btw, kudos to this episode for handling these heavy topics without going the exploitative shock value route like "Violations" that actually showed rape scenes on screen.)

also someone mentioned that Terok Nor is very brightly lit and now I can't get it out of my mind... why, set designers, why...

Something I liked: in the opening scene Dukat says: "Captain Sisko gave me the clarity to see beyond the lies, the self-deceptions that were controlling my life. He helped me see to the truth about myself. And now I'm going to do the same for you." And that's what happens indeed, even if not exactly in the way he might have intended. Sisko made him acknowledge the violence under the pretty words and justifications, and now we get to see the ugly true face of what Dukat calls -- and genuinely believes to be -- "love".

Inquisition

"Why would the Dominion leave your runabout orbiting the camp" well I'm glad the writers are aware of their plotholes... :D

"Captain, if Doctor Bashir had been involved in one or two questionable incidents, I could understand how you might be able to dismiss it, but the sheer number of incidents form a pattern of behaviour that can't be ignored" you could say that about literally any of the main characters lmao... every episode of any Star Trek series contains a questionable incident plot twist?? let me guess, it's set up by Sloan to make him confess

Second Skin 2

"And because you didn't want billions of Federation citizens to lose their lives needlessly, you agreed to provide us with information that would help us end this war quickly" heh, nice use of Statistical Probabilities

oh wow, Weyoun and his ship are actually real! I didn't expect that

the DS9 crew are all acting so strange, I guess they're part of the simulation too

"I admit it takes exceptional people to do what we do. People who can sublimate their own ambitions to the best interests of the Federation" heh, is this the final test?

wait, they kidnapped him THAT early? Bashir really should stop going to medical conferences...

this episode was pretty predictable after so many similar stories, but I do like these types of episodes, and this one utilised well the long-running themes of Bashir and secret service, and Bashir's idealism. And he got to join the club with Data, Riker, Picard, Dax, O'Brien, Worf -- am I forgetting anyone? Oh, right, Wesley -- that was one of my favourite episodes, actually... Oh, and I just rewatched the scene is the beginning where Bashir wakes up tired in the simulation for the first time, and remembered that episode of TNG where Riker kept losing sleep because aliens kidnapped him every night.

In the Pale Moonlight

Garak saves the day! I'm glad to see him live up to his reputation.

Actually, I don't think the plan was THAT immoral. Especially how it turned out in the end. The worst part was the danger to the Federation in case the forgery was discovered, but Garak took care of that. So ultimately, my only regret would be the use of that biomimetic gel in the clearly wrong hands. Call me cynical, but I fully agree with Garak that the price they paid was very small. Sure, for a Starfleet officer all of that must feel very dishonorable, but I'm sure the secret services of all major powers in the galaxy pull this kind of crap and worse on a fairly regular basis.* Hell, I think what Sisko himself did to apprehend Eddington was worse by my standards! And how is bribing Quark worse than blackmailing him, which Sisko has been doing literally since the pilot?! I think his guilt would have worked better for me if the plan failed and all of that were for nothing. 

* Actually, why WAS Sisko the one doing this? And not someone like the just-introduced Section 31?

On a less serious note, I love that Sisko isn't satisfied with the recording until someone talks shit about Dukat :D then he's like "mmm perfect"

I feel obligated to mention the quality of writing and directing! And the wonderful ambiguity of the final "I can live with it" -- I love things like this.

His Way

let me get this straight, Julian got rejected three times by the same woman but she started dating him after he asked a hologram for advice?? wtf. Miles is surprised by the latter part but I'm more concerned about "Bashir is repeatedly rejected and refuses to stop pursuing a woman" (what is this, season 1???! between that and the mention of his crush on Dax several episodes ago, certainly feels like that, and not in a good way) and also about "Bashir dates a woman offscreen because the relationship is so shallow it's apparently not worth showing but we need to remind the viewers he's Straight"

"Is that the best you can do?" "I'd like to see someone do better." "So would I."

"You're not exactly the most lovable person in the galaxy. You're not even the most lovable person in this sector, or on the station. Or even in this room"

how many of those dumbass songs must I endure?

I'm really bored...

ughhh this is embarrassing

and THIS is creepy

(at least Odo is better than Barclay and backs off...)

he can just go to any other holosuite and interrupt whatever people are doing in there? D:

oh god, he can also use the station's com line?! SOMEONE DELETE THIS PROGRAM IT'S GETTING REALLY SCARY

kill me. or kill this episode with fire

ughhhh it's finally over bye. the scene with Quark was very good, but the rest... how come Kira and Odo by themselves are probably the most interesting characters but their romance is this utter dreck?

The Reckoning

why doesn't the universal translator work here?

how did the wormhole animals get here, anyway?

(I’m keeping this typo lmao)

for once, Winn is absolutely right!!

did he actually break it?.. this is not a dream?.. Winn won't be pleased

it's episodes like this when I miss TNG, and Picard's total refusal to treat Q like a god

this is getting stupider and stupider...

take a shot every time Sisko claims to know something 

you know your story is bad when Winn is the most, and probably only sympathetic character in it (and Kira spends the entire final scene talking how bad Winn is? what?) Winn is being rational and ends up saving lives while Sisko keeps justifying his shitty actions with weak babbling about how "The Prophets want this, they work in mysterious ways" -- have they switched bodies while I wasn't looking?!

Valiant

Jake has a nice stylish outfit

That's strange... Why didn't they return to the Federation space after the war began? Will that be the point of the episode -- that they continued the mission on their own out of sheer hubris?

so this poor girl and the others spend months trapped on a tiny ship inside enemy territory because that guy wants to feel adult and important and likes to play captain?

so, they finally found one specific battleship they had been looking for for 8 months? and it happened the next day after Jake and Nog come on board? is that just because Nog adjusted the warp drive?

dude! your job was to gather info! if that battleship kills you, you fail!

The First Duty 2

...but a lot more bloody D:

this episode was better than I expected

Profit and Lace

aaaalright, here we go, let's see if this really is the Worst Episode Ever

why is Ishka wearing clothes that accentuate her breasts? the clothes in the previous episodes were so baggy I assumed that Ferengi women don't have boobs

"...brilliant Ferengi female. Do you know any?" I suppose Pel wouldn't be able to get here fast enough?

okay, Quark reluctantly doing his best to advocate for female rights is actually pretty awesome

are u telling me all Quark needed to be a better person was a little estrogen?

I actually... didn't find this bad for a Ferengi episode? and it was more interesting to watch than some other episodes in this season -- I was genuinely unsure what would happen and was rooting for everything to turn out well! 

Of course I'd prefer if Ishka made the case for Ferengi feminism herself -- but, at least, the narrative is on its side this time, unlike at least one previous episode. And this time she has more agency than in her previous appearances (Zek's lover/hidden mastermind and damsel in distress) -- she's using her position of power to implement a whole new progressive law, and it even seems like she made it to Zek's side for that purpose and domestic bliss was a nice side effect. 

Quark as a woman is an objectively transphobic gag, of course (and yes I know that it’s my privilege that allows me not to be viscerally upset by it enough to immediately ruin the episode forever). But I didn't actually find it as nasty as the same joke in "Facets", where the narrative and other characters used it to made fun of him, and the shot of his head on Kira's body in "Meridian"; here it's for greater good, and being in a woman's shoes (literally) gives him some perspective, plus nobody seems to think sex reassignment surgery is a big deal. Other characters criticise Quark’s performance of femininity in the same tone as Worf criticised others’ performance of Klingon-ness. Like, I see that this is fundamentally Bad, but I was preparing myself to be outraged much more so it doesn’t feel that bad.

And it's gross that Quark sexually exploits his workers and the narrative doesn't punish him, but that happened before in season 1... 

Unlike, say, The Reckoning, it doesn't affect the show's overall plot or lore in a negative way -- I'd even say it's the opposite because of the big win for women's rights on Ferenginar. (It shows a frustrating lack of progress in Quark's character arc, but a lot of episodes share this problem...) So, even though this episode is unfunny and largely offensive, I don't feel it's exceptionally terrible -- just another example of the problems this show has always had. I have more problems with stories that break the entire show, than isolated episodes like this which can be easily skipped and ignored.

Time's Orphan

what about the Orb of Time, wouldn't it help?

Keiko, that's a terrible decision

I guess the episode will end with both Worf and the O'Briens realizing this parenting problem is too difficult for them, and they'll do what they should have done from the start and re-rescue Molly

No, Miles, your plan is horrible. If it works I'll never forgive this episode.

I'm glad it ended well. But feral!Molly was obviously a lost cause from the beginning...

The Sound of Her Voice

Odo, are you being shitty on purpose?

I was worried when Bashir didn't want to talk at the beginning, but this is almost scary!

I suspected something like this...

Julian no...

“I really care about all of you, even if sometimes it would appear that I care more about my work” says the guy who spent two seasons running after everybody like “PLEASE BE MY FRIEND!!!11!”

This entire thing looks like Julian and Miles are about to make a public proposal to each other...

"Someday we're going to wake up and we're going to find that someone is missing from this circle" *looks directly at Jadzia*

Tears of the Prophets

*sigh* Okay, I'm emotionally prepared, here we go

*sees Jadzia on screen* no I'm not prepared

ughh why are Bashir and Quark being so gross

where has he been all this time?

"I don't hold you responsible for Ziyal's death. You may have fired the phaser, but it was Benjamin Sisko who forced your hand" ????? dude. this is a stretch even by your standards.

"You've gone from being a self important egotist to a self deluded madman" Weyoun is not wrong

(but you know acknowledging within the story that your writing is shitty doesn’t fix the problem)

Klingons and Romulans!

why must I listen to this stupid song and look at Bashir and Quark being shitty and badly written

Oh great, the wormhole aliens can somehow contact him whenever and wherever they want, no orbs or travels to the wormhole necessary. WTF?

I like how Weyoun and Damar roll their eyes at Dukat's nonsense. same

"I've immersed myself in the study of the Bajoran ancient texts, and I've come to realize that the wormhole is much more than the gateway to the Gamma Quadrant. It's the Temple of the Prophets" o rly??? truly an astonishing discovery

congrats on finally getting the Renegade eyes, Dukat

what is Garak doing here?

ugh. 

Dukat went from the embodiment of the best storyline on the show to the embodiment of the worst storyline on the show

At least Weyoun and Damar keep reacting to his every word as "That's nonsense" so at least someone inside the story doesn't like this plot as well. I think Dukat has passed them the torch of being the fourth wall breaking meta character...

...but, you know, if the wormhole would really close forever I'd be glad. of course they'll find a way to reconnect with their "Prophets" somehow

I interrupt the ugly crying to ask: how the hell would Sisko's presence on the station have saved Jadzia's life?!

"for the first time in my life I've failed in my duty as a Starfleet officer" uh, how?! 

this is the worst season finale in DS9

Ohhh man... The season started so strong I was overjoyed. I've always wanted more stories set on Terok Nor during the occupation, and didn't expect the show to deliver in this way! The change of status quo was exciting -- it really felt like Shit Got Real and a serious war was on and things would not be the same again! And Kira's little storyline about normalization of oppression and fighting it, first of all inside one's own heart, was great. But then it just went downhill...

Odo's betrayal made me lose all sympathy and trust towards him forever, and even without that, his character arc was greatly weakened by the presence of the Female Changeling, who is the worst combination of uninteresting and unlikeable. When the Founders are somewhere out there, Odo's longing for them is poignant, but when you see them on screen being bland and annoying, the magic just evaporates. 

An underused female character fridged to make a male character's arc less interesting: he loses his Morality Chain, his mind, and complexity as an antagonist. It's just so lazy. His main redeeming quality is the love for his daughter, and we're tired of writing bad people who still have some sympathetic motivations, that's too difficult, so let's take the object of that love away from him to make him Purely Evil(tm). And since the plot requires this rationalist character to do something OOC in the finale, we need to make him crazy or it couldn't happen. He's evil because of mental illness, he's evil because he gets himself possessed by a demon, he's evil because he has red eyes -- that leaves the viewer with the impression that his previous crimes weren't bad enough, that the writers think overseeing colonisation/genocide for years is tolerable but five minutes of hate speech & one minute of glowing red -- that's the real moral event horizon! Mental illness made him evil, huh? Take that trope and throw it in the trash along with Intendant Kira's Depraved Bisexual trope. Hey, remember when this show was about dealing with the effects of war and oppression, and Dukat embodied the different ways that oppression manifests? well now he's a comicbook villain with glowing satan eyes who shoots death rays 

The wormhole aliens are now suddenly Good Gods hijacking bodies and using them for Voldemort-Harry ray battles

The best-forgotten stupid tropes about hyper-intelligence are dragged from TNG and pasted onto Julian

The writers pulled out of their asses Bashir and Quark's unrequited love for Jadzia?? Bashir's crush was cute in season 1, but he got over it long ago, and Quark has always been just friends with her. Bashir had such a nice friendship with her, and now he's wishing that her marriage would fail so he'd get a shot, even though she was never interested in him in the first place? Fucking disgusting. Way to compromise his character.

And, of course, as the final insult, they fucking killed Jadzia for nothing.

So, let me count: Jadzia literally dead. Dukat's character almost completely assassinated, Bashir’s comes pretty close. Odo's character weakened. Lore and plot of the entire series fucked up. God. I have no words anymore. How do you ruin something so quickly?!

[lilac-milk-moon]

Mini Retirements Throughout Life

Have you considered taking a mini retirement? I’ve written frequently about semi-retirement as a more-feasible option than FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). However, mini retirement offers many of the same benefits — arguably, even more benefits!

What is a mini retirement? 

A mini retirement is a period of not working in the middle of your career years. It’s different from both traditional retirement and FIRE since you are intending to return to work.

Traditional retirement delays your retirement years until after your career is fully completed. 

FIRE harshly compresses your working years as much as possible through an ultra-high savings rate so you can retire earlier. 

Semi-retirement is a moderate approach that brings retirement closer. If you accept part-time work you enjoy as part of your retirement lifestyle, you can reach your retirement years earlier.

I have not personally taken a mini retirement, but I find them to be fascinating. 

I recently talked with two mini retirement veterans to learn about their experiences. They took different paths, but both had very positive things to say about their mini retirement periods.

How to take an unplanned mini retirement

First, I talked with a couple that I know well… my parents! 

While I was in college, they took an unplanned mini retirement after my dad lost his job. They made the most of a difficult situation, and it’s a period they reflect on fondly, now.

Here’s what my dad had to say when I asked him about the experience.

Mr. SR (MSR): You took a mini retirement of sorts after you were laid off a few years ago. How did you decide to do that? 

Yes, that was a challenging situation. 

I was with the company for over 20 years. Then I came in one day, and I was let go with no advance warning. It was challenging in many aspects. When that happened, I went through the emotional cycle from disbelief, to anger, to acceptance. 

Once I got to acceptance, we decided to look at it as an opportunity. We considered it to be an opportunity to take an extended vacation — something we really never had a chance to do when I was employed, because I had various constraints like limited vacation time.

MSR: Did you intentionally prepare for this scenario before getting laid off? Or was the mini retirement an impromptu opportunity? 

It was impromptu to a great extent. 

One of the benefits of having big dreams is you that you can act on them when the time comes. That was the case here. We had long talked of experiencing the National Parks so we decided to go for it when the constraints were lifted. 

Yellowstone National Park

MSR: What financial circumstances made the mini retirement possible for you?  

We were blessed with good income and employment for a couple of decades.  Diligent saving and investment gave us the freedom to do what we wanted to do.  

MSR: What did you do during this mini retirement period? What was your favorite part? 

We traveled across 15 or so states and visited National Parks. We had a rough plan, but we flexed when we wanted to. I think the freedom of being able to go and do as we pleased was the best part. It gave us a chance to pray, dream, and reconcile a lot of things. At the end, coming home was nice, too!

MSR: What would you do differently, if you were going to take a mini retirement period again in the future? What advice can you give to others considering this?  

In our case, the financial planning we did afforded us the opportunity to do something we had always wanted, albeit as the result of an unplanned circumstance. We had the flexibility to act and make the most of an unpleasant situation. 

If you intend to take a self-inflicted mini-retirement I would recommend planning the what, where, and how in advance… but leave room for adventure and changes in course along the way!

Key takeaways, if you have the chance to take an unplanned mini retirement

Give yourself the opportunity to process your job change. Once you reach a point of acceptance, view the opportunity as a positive.

Identify a dream or goal you can uniquely fulfill during this mini retirement period.

Embrace the freedom and flexibility.

How to take a planned mini retirement

I also had the chance to speak with M from the blog Radical FIRE. She has now taken two planned mini retirements, so I wanted to get her insight on the topic.

I have talked with M before in a Sitting Poolside interview. You can read that previous interview here. 

MSR: What initially motivated you to pursue a mini retirement?

M from Radical FIRE (MRF): Since I was in high school, I wanted to travel for an extended period of time. When I was in university, I studied in California for a semester and I had the time of my life. I was traveling everywhere in the weekends, and traveled with several friends in the last month we were there.

The thing with traveling is; once you have done it, you’ll want to do it for the rest of your life. It’s addicting.

Once I came back home to the Netherlands, I started to plot immediately how I could travel again.

I decided that I wanted to travel after I had finished my master’s degree. I was writing my thesis and I was starting to feel burned out. I was working on my thesis daily for 8-10 hours, working at university to actually pay for my master’s, and still trying to see my friends and family.

When I almost finished my thesis I was so done that I booked a flight to Colombia. That was my hard deadline for my thesis — and it was only two weeks away (that illustrates how “done” I was, emotionally).

I finished my thesis and went on traveling around South America. I visited Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Photo provided by M, from her mini retirement travels.

This was my first mini-retirement and I LOVED it.

It was such a steep learning curve, which is something I’m still grateful for. 

I learned to make decisions continuously without pleasing anyone in the process. My decisions were completely based on what I wanted, instead of my previous decisions that were mostly driven by a lack of confidence –– trying to please others.

After I took another four months to find a job I liked and go to work, I went all in.

I’ve always been a driven person who wants to achieve the maximum possible. I aspired to a big career at that moment, leading to me working long hours and completing big projects.

It worked. I got a promotion within 9 months of starting my job, I got a 20% pay raise, and I got a shitload of high expectations. I no longer enjoyed working like I did in the first few months.

I found FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early) and I wondered why I would keep working so hard? Why would I keep working toward something that was never going to be enough? I want to have freedom, and one thing you certainly don’t get when aspiring a corporate career is freedom.

I decided to hit the brakes for the time being and go for another mini-retirement. This time with my partner.

At this moment we’re traveling for 5 weeks, enjoying every moment and soaking everything in. We’ve visited Curacao, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and are currently in Nicaragua. We’ll go up to Mexico by bus, flying to Orlando for a week and going back to the Netherlands just in time for Christmas!

Photo provided by M, from her mini retirement travels.

MSR: How far in advance did you start to plan your mini retirement?

MRF: About a year before my partner graduated, he told me that he wanted to travel. He said that he would love to have the same adventures I had, BUT he didn’t want to do it alone. 

We were planning on me visiting him for a month, and some other friends visiting him for some period of time as well.

As we were having that conversation, I noticed that I wanted to get away for an extended period of time as well. That’s when I proposed to join him for his entire trip.

Working it out with her boss 

As soon as we knew, I asked my boss what was the procedure around a sabbatical or unpaid leave. As the company is still growing, there weren’t any procedures yet. That opened a great door for me.

I knew that they wanted to keep me, so I told my boss around 6 months before we went; “I would love to stay and work here, but if there are no options – there are no options”. At that time, I decided that if I couldn’t get my unpaid leave I would go on my mini-retirement anyways and leave my job.

Around that same time I asked my current project if they would be able to extend me until the day before I left. They informally said yes.

After that, my and my boss had a formal conversation about if this was going through and in what form. I told him that I would appreciate the opportunity to go abroad for my own personal development. Besides that the form that I choose (unpaid leave) with an extension of my project, wouldn’t cost the company any money.

My boss told me that he would do everything in his power to keep me there, which is something I’m very grateful for to this day.

About 3 months before I went, I managed to get the signed contract from my project and formally extended my project until the day before my flight left. They happily accepted and were sad that the project would come to an end – I had taken over a great deal of responsibility from my manager at that point.

Here’s the timeline:

12 months before mini-retirement — first mention to my manager.

6 months before mini-retirement — formally asked my manager for permission, they said would do whatever they could to keep me there.

6 months before mini-retirement — extended my project verbally until the day before my flight departed.

3 months before mini-retirement — formally extended my project including signed contract.

MSR: How did you work out your mini retirement plans with your employer?

MRF: I’m very happy I was able to negotiate this mini-retirement with my employer!

I am all about open communication and I am a very direct colleague. That’s what people in the Netherlands are known for in general. We don’t sugarcoat and say it how it is.

Luckily my manager is the same, so it’s very easy to communicate. We both express our opinions and we try to come up with a mutual solution for the situation that would benefit both parties.

It also went like this when I asked if I could get my mini-retirement.

I talked about this mini-retirement with my manager and mentioned my love for traveling a few times before shortly in other conversations. That opened up the conversation for when we formally started talking about it. 

By the time we started talking about it, I already had informal confirmation from my project that they would extend me until the day my flight boarded. That meant it didn’t cost the company any additional money.

I would take my remaining holidays (about 5 weeks) and the rest I would take unpaid leave.

Before I went to talk with my manager I already thought things through and I already had a plan. I think that is the biggest thing on how to come to terms with your employer: know what you want and know how to present that to your employer in a way that is mutually beneficial.

In my situation: I knew that I wanted to go on a mini-retirement for four months and I knew when I wanted to return. I already arranged for my project to be extended, costing the company no additional money. On top of that, I took unpaid leave, which also didn’t cost the company any additional money.

These were all factors contributing to the fact that I got to go on my mini-retirement.

MSR: What did you learn during your past mini retirement and what are your plans for your future mini retirements?

MRF: During my first mini-retirement in 2017, I traveled in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. I had traveled for four months and stayed at home for another four months. These months at home I have largely spend learning about myself, the world, and what kind of work I wanted to do.

Learnings

I’ve lived most of my life on autopilot up until that point and the mini-retirement learned me a lot. I learned about myself as a person, what kind of things I like, how I can make decisions independently of others, and I learned how valuable each and every one of us is.

The planet we live in is filled with abundance, there is enough to go around.

If you’re living in the Western world it can be hard to remember, since we’re continuously hearing the message that there isn’t enough to go around.

If I’m living thinking that there isn’t enough on this planet for everyone, I remember the avocado trees along the roads, the fields of bananas, and the beautiful mountains full of trees and plants.

After I returned home, I deliberately took the time between starting to work. I spent about a month seeing my friends and family, catching up with them, and celebrating the holidays.

I also spent a lot of time figuring out my personality and who I actually was. It was hard for me before to pinpoint who I am. I was a little bit of everything and could identify with many people.

I listened to TedTalks, I’ve done a LOT of personality tests, and I asked myself a lot of questions. It was something I enjoy and absolutely something I needed.

I guess it’s good to know who you are and what you want before you start working in the corporate world.

Current mini retirement

During my current mini retirement, I’m only traveling. My last working day was one day before my flight, and my first working day will be directly after new years. I’ll be back home for about a week at that time.

Future mini retirement plans

In future mini-retirements, I hope to travel more. I want to see so much more of the world, I love to explore new places, and I love getting to know different cultures.

Perhaps there will be a mini-retirement where I combine traveling with working on the blog, which is something I would love to do. Slow travel while working on the blog every day.

That would be my ultimate dream!

MSR: Looking back on your past mini retirement, what was the best part? What advice do you have for other considering a planned mini retirement?

MRF: On my last mini-retirement, in 2017, I learned a great deal about who I truly am and what I want. I started to listen to myself, cancelling out the noise and opinions of others.

I got to know my true self, which I’m eternally grateful for.

The best thing about travel is that you learn a lot about yourself in your interaction with others. You meet people along the way that are teaching you great lessons. They have a different perspective on life, which is valuable when you’re like me: only used to the Western perspective.

In my current mini-retirement I’m traveling with my partner, which is very different. You have more short-term interactions as people assume you only want to be with the two of you. You still learn a lot about yourself, but now in relationship with the other.

That is not to say we don’t meet any people, but you’re not traveling with people for extended periods of time (more than a few days).

I’m forever grateful that I got my last mini-retirement experience in 2017 and my mini-retirement experience currently.

Just being away from your job for such a period of time is a breath of fresh air!

Photo provided by M, from her mini retirement travels.

You get to do whatever you want, wherever you want. This to me is the greatest feeling of freedom and the greatest benefit of taking a mini-retirement. You get away from the busyness that is everyday life and you can take your time to look around and reflect.

I don’t think that I would do anything different. I am grateful for how the process went and that I have a job lined up if I come back.

Not that I like my job so much that I would love to continue working, but just the fact that I don’t need to think about what we’re going to do after we come back!

I would highly recommend mini-retirements as a way to slow down on your way to FI. You don’t need to travel, you can do whatever you want. Take up that old hobby you didn’t have time for in too long, work on your blog, read a lot of books, it’s up to you!

Go follow your dreams!

4 steps to a successful mini retirement — Baruch from The Smart Investor

Finally, I talked with Baruch Silvermann, founder of The Smart Investor. He offered 4 key pieces of advice for planning your mini retirement.

Plan and set a budget

Understand your budget. Calculate your expected costs, especially if you’re planning to travel. You don’t want to fund yourself in a big financial hole.

Consider setting up a passive income source

Whether it’s a rental property, mutual funds or peer-2-peer lending investment — passive income sources can help you achieve your goal. Passive income can help extend your mini retirement and help you prepare for your long-term retirement plans.

Remember your financial responsibilities

Plan to stay on track for your long-term financial goals, like saving for your children’s college or your future full retirement.

Enjoy it!

Enjoy the opportunity — this is a unique period to spend your time however you want to.

Are you planning to take a mini retirement in the future? What questions or concerns do you have?

The post Mini Retirements Throughout Life appeared first on Semi-Retire Plan.

from Semi-Retire Plan https://ift.tt/2G6gges via IFTTT

[charlesjening]

Let’s Speculate About Why Lynne Doughtie Is Leaving KPMG

When we got a tip Friday mid-morning that Lynne Doughtie had told KPMG U.S. staff in a video message that she wouldn’t seek another term as chairman and CEO, I wasn’t all that surprised. I figured she’d be one and done.

Doughtie seems like a nice, hardworking, intelligent woman. I don’t think KPMG would have promoted some dolt to lead the firm for the next five years when she was given the master keys to the House of Klynveld in July 2015. After all, KPMG’s advisory business had become the U.S. firm’s fastest-growing practice—not tax, not audit—under her leadership, generating $2.65 billion of the firm’s $6.87 billion in total U.S. revenue in FY 2014.

Doughtie made national headlines in 2015 when she was elected as the first woman to lead KPMG’s U.S. firm, thus becoming the second woman CEO of a Big 4 firm in the States. Just by looking at her resume and her accomplishments, you knew she had the chops for the job, just like Cathy Engelbert had the chops to lead Deloitte.

During her tenure, the firm brought out the giant scissors on several occasions to open Ignition Centers across the U.S.; broke ground on its new $450 million, 800,000-square-foot Kamp KPMG (officially called the Lakehouse) which will open in the Orlando area next year; saw U.S. revenues increase year-over year—from $8.63 billion in FY 2016 to $9.46 billion in FY 2018; and has often been recognized for going all in on diversity and inclusion.

But there’s nothing like a good scandal to completely obliterate the reputation of a firm in the Big 4, and KPMG was involved in a doozy, the likes of which the accounting profession had never seen before.

Doughtie often preached how important ethics and integrity were not only to KPMG but to her as a leader. So, having to fire six of the firm’s top executives, five of whom were indicted, because they hatched and executed a plan to steal confidential audit inspection information from insiders at the PCAOB was not a good look.

There have been other cheating allegations within the audit practice at KPMG, the firm has been hemorrhaging public company audit clients the past few years, morale is low (from what we’re hearing), the firm is still the butt of jokes (“Big 3 and KPMG”), and, to top it all off, Phil still hasn’t won the U.S. Open.

And let’s not forget that KPMG might be replaced after more than 100 years as external auditor for General Electric, which was just accused of perpetuating a $38 billion accounting fraud.

When news broke last year that Engelbert wouldn’t be renominated for a second, four-year term as Deloitte CEO, I think that shocked a lot of Green Dots (even though there hasn’t been a two-term Deloitte U.S. CEO in forever). But I don’t think there were many Klynveldians who were shocked to hear what Doughtie said in that video message on Friday morning.

So, what drove her to make that decision? Got a few obvious possibilities:

1. She is being forced out.

It’s extremely plausible that all the negative publicity KPMG U.S. has received in the national (and international) press the past couple of years did Doughtie in. She might have already been told “don’t even bother trying for a second term” as chairman and CEO. And because she’s in the fifth and final year of her term, now’s a good time to let all KPMGers know that she’s going to step aside in June 2020 so the search for a new CEO can officially begin.

The $50 million settlement KPMG reached with the SEC in June because of the PCAOB information stealing scandal, as well as for the profound cheating on internal training exams that apparently was also going on within the firm’s audit practice, may have been the final straw for The Powers That Be. And as a result of the PCAOB scandal, KPMG appointed two independent directors last year to its U.S. board—retired Air Force General Janet Wolfenbarger and Linda Addison, immediate past U.S. managing partner of global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.

Of the five former KPMG executives who were indicted in that scandal, three pleaded guilty (Brian Sweet, Cynthia Holder, and Thomas Whittle) to wire fraud and conspiracy charges, one (David Middendorf) was convicted in March of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud, and one (David Britt) is scheduled to go on trial this fall. Holder is the only one who has been sentenced thus far; she will be serving eight months in a federal prison beginning in October.

While the plan to cheat the regulatory inspection process was put into motion three months or so before Doughtie moved into the corner office in July 2015, Holder obtained confidential audit inspection selections for KPMG from PCAOB inspections leader Jeffrey Wada in March 2016 and in January 2017—well into Doughtie’s term as CEO. And after getting that secret data from the PCAOB, KPMG partners were found to have revised audit workpapers to reduce the likelihood of deficiencies being found by the regulator’s inspectors.

Wada was also convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud in March.

If that wasn’t bad enough, we found out from the SEC in June that KPMG auditors—at all levels of seniority—were sharing and/or receiving answers to internally administered exams on training courses so they and their colleagues could pass these tests. This exam cheating was also going on during Doughtie’s tenure as CEO.

As a result, morale is really low, according to a source who recently left KPMG:

“The last two years have produced a lot of controversy in the media and public eye. It’s very possible she’s going out to try new things, but there is a culture crisis internally at the moment and I think there is a desire for her to get away from it, or the firm to take action and ask her not to continue leading.

“Morale is quite low, with a feeling from many that it has turned into a toxic work environment over the last 18 months.”

And if you missed Adrienne’s article a couple months ago, nearly 30% of current KPMG employees said the PCAOB and internal test cheating scandals confirmed their perceptions of the firm, while about 29% of Klynveldians said the scandals have changed their perceptions of the firm, according to a survey by the professional community app Fishbowl.

And I mentioned earlier that KPMG was bleeding SEC audit clients. I reviewed the auditor changes roundup posts on Audit Analytics for FY 2016, FY 2017, and FY 2018, and found that in those three years, KPMG lost 109 public company audit clients while gaining 43, for a total of -66. That is tied with PwC (-105/+39) for the worst overall gain/loss score among the Big 4 during those three years.

So, it’s definitely possible she’s being forced to call it a career at KPMG.

2. She did not want to serve an abbreviated second term.

When her five-year term expires in June 2020, Doughtie will be 57 years old. Mandatory retirement age at KPMG is 60. Even non-mathletes like me and Adrienne can figure out that she wouldn’t be able to serve another full five-year term.

I guess it’s possible she could serve an abbreviated second term, but I would imagine both Doughtie and KPMG’s board would think that is a dumb idea.

3. She is leaving because she wants to.

Being the leader of one of the largest professional service firms in the U.S. has to eventually take its toll. When she leaves KPMG in June 2020, Doughtie will have spent 35 years working at the firm—that’s 61% of her life.

We haven’t seen or heard the message she sent on Friday morning, but according to those who have, Doughtie sounded “upbeat” and it seemed she is leaving KPMG on her own terms. Maybe knowing that she is ending her career at a firm that has been compared to a dumpster fire is a huge weight that has been lifted off of her shoulders.

Dumpster fire at KPMG as it emerges cheating scandal went right to the top. via @doctorow @BoingBoing https://t.co/pYWutbZUJh

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) June 20, 2019

So, what’s next for LD? She told the Richmond Times-Dispatch a couple of years ago that when she does retire, she will “stay active, whether teaching or serving on corporate and nonprofit boards.”

According to Doughtie’s bio, she already serves on several nonprofit boards, including the Partnership for New York City (along with PwC Chairman Tim Ryan and Deloitte CEO Joe Ucuzoglu), the LUNGevity Foundation (her mother and grandmother died from lung cancer), Catalyst (along with Engelbert) and NAF. She also is a board member of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose, a trustee of the U.S. Council for International Business, and a member of The Business Roundtable and The Business Higher Education Forum.

Joining a corporate board seems like the “in” thing to do if you’re a former Big 4 CEO. Ex-EY global chairman and CEO Mark Weinberger just did. Doughtie’s predecessor at KPMG U.S., John Veihmeyer, serves on the board of Ford Motor Co., and Johnny V.’s predecessor, Tim Flynn, is on the board of JPMorgan Chase, Alcoa, Walmart, and United Healthcare.

Or she could go teach at her alma mater, Virginia Tech, where she is a board member of the Pamplin Advisory Council, as well as a member of its Accounting and Information Systems Advisory Board.

Who knows!

One thing we do know is that Scott Ozanus, chairman of KPMG’s Americas region and deputy chairman and chief operating officer of KPMG U.S., won’t be the firm’s next chairman and CEO. We’ve been told he is retiring in 2020.

So, who are the leading candidates to take over as KPMG U.S. chairman and CEO? We don’t know. We hope KPMGers might have an idea and can tell us. Maybe Carl Carande, who succeeded Doughtie as head of the firm’s advisory practice? Maybe Jackie Daylor, KPMG’s national managing partner of audit quality and professional practice? Or maybe Harry Argires, national managing partner of audit operations?

KPMGers, if you’re hearing some chatter about potential CEO candidates, shoot us an email. And feel free to speculate in the comment section.

The post Let’s Speculate About Why Lynne Doughtie Is Leaving KPMG appeared first on Going Concern.

republished from Going Concern

[cathrynstreich]

Feet-First Into Leading a Real Estate Team

(Above) Veronica Figueroa and The Figueroa Team “take a deep dive in everything we do.”

Veronica Figueroa’s career started in timeshares—a common niche in her region, but far from her ideal profession.

“I got my real estate license straight out of college with no desire to get into real estate,” she explains. “I dabbled a little in timeshares, and I knew it wasn’t for me.”

Figueroa changed course and entered the hospitality/human resources industry—her career of choice in college—but kept her license. “‘Maybe one day when I buy, I’ll use it,'” she reasoned.

Figueroa did need it, after a divorce left her raising two children solo. While in her full-time human resources role, she began part-time in real estate, driven by her family’s needs.

“It was a way to supplement my income and make sure that my children would be provided for,” she says. “I became obsessed with it immediately, and I started selling to every friend and every family member. It was the combination of skills that I had learned in human resources and my background in hospitality, and my passion that was fueled by providing for my kids.”

Soon, Figueroa was all-in on real estate, discovering that with her drive and mentality, her business could soar.

“My first three months in real estate, I made $11,000,” she says. “I thought, ‘If I gave this my all, and I wasn’t dividing myself between a full-time job, imagine what I can do.’ I took the leap of faith and never looked back.”

There were bumps in the road—”We’ve failed our way forward,” Figueroa says—and the crash, which required she rethink her strategy. Along the way, she has maintained her spirit and vision—one she draws from as leader of The Figueroa Team at her brokerage, RE/MAX Innovation, alongside husband Tony. RISMedia recently spoke to Figueroa about her team, and how she and the group are primed for success. 

Suzanne De Vita: Veronica, you started out with a stint in timeshares. How did you come to form your real estate team? Veronica Figueroa: I decided to go into residential sales, and started part-time while I had a full-time job. Within three months, I quit my full-time job and went full-time [into real estate] as a newly single mother, newly divorced with two small children in private school. I had already met Tony, and he supported me. I hired my first assistant in 2006, and in 2007-2008, I hired my first buyer agent.

Then, the market crashed. I had to move my business back into my living room. I listed my first short sale—I had no idea what I was doing!—and I realized the REO market was an opportunity. I hopped on a flight to Texas to a Five Star Conference with $5,000 left in my bank account, and went out on a mission to meet every single asset manager I could. We broke into the REO market and became really proficient in the operational side of the business.

In 2010-2011, the market was shifting again, and we went really deep into traditional farming in the market that we lived in. I bought a RE/MAX franchise in 2012, and I got really intentional with learning and dissecting all things in the digital space, social media and the online consumer experience. Fast-forward to now, we have a team of 21, and our goal is to sell no less than $125 million and continue to recruit and grow and build multiple streams of business.

SD: Your core marketplace is Orlando. How are the changes in your market motivating your team? VF: Orlando being a popular destination, we’re seeing lots of growth, lots of new jobs and lots of development. On the flip side, we’re also a target for disruptors—we’re seeing iBuyers and all of these competitors coming into the market. It’s a great market, so long as you can pivot and have a value proposition and be willing to put in the work. We’re a fun, focused, dynamic group of people who have high integrity and are very generous. We’re growth-minded, we stay very nimble when it comes to change, and we’ve always been learning-based. 

SD: What’s your approach to leading your team? VF: The EOS [Entrepreneurial Operating System] Traction process is our management style. Everyone’s clear on what the vision is. We’re always discussing what our issues are, and everyone is participating, helping with this vision and mission, and helping us move the rocks up the mountain. If anyone’s wanting to improve their management style, ensure everyone is clear on what their role is.

SD: Communication is key to your team’s workflow. What tools are you using? VF: We communicate via Slack non-stop, seven days a week, from eight in the morning to 10 or 11 at night. Slack has become a way for us to communicate and be invested in each other’s business. We [also] meet every Monday in person. We have a clear agenda as to what went on the previous week, we allow our listing agents to share their up-and-coming listings or their challenges with their listings, and together with our buyer’s agents, we learn what types of buyers they’re working with to see if there’s a fit. We talk about industry challenges and we’ll have vendors [come in], as well.

SD: You’ve built a powerful presence on social media. What’s your strategy? VF: It’s about standing out in an ever-competitive market. We’re just being authentic. We’re a fun group. We want people to know that we’re energetic, we have a lot of passion, and we’re going to take a deep dive in everything we do. We wanted our brand and our culture to be true to who we are. What you’ll find with us is we celebrate our wins on social media. We share our lives on social media, from our children to our beliefs as far as the things we love. It’s our pets, it’s travel…we want people to get to know us. We want to be 100-percent authentic to who we are and who we are going to continue to be: bold, brave, fun, honest, the most hard-working people, and not afraid to take risks.

SD: You have a goal of $125 million in sales this year. What’s next for your team? VF: We are looking to incorporate a new showing assistant model for our top producers so that they can continue to scale and grow their business—somewhat of a “team within a team,” giving them an opportunity to grow into the entrepreneurs they deserve to be without having to figure it out on their own, and leverage the resources that we provide. The stretch goal is $150 million, and we will be recruiting, as well. We’re really excited about where the industry’s going.

Suzanne De Vita is RISMedia’s online news editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at sdevita@rismedia.com.

The post Feet-First Into Leading a Real Estate Team appeared first on RISMedia.

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[lorettalivingston6911]

Katy Perry Talks Orlando Bloom, Religion, Therapy, & The Failure Of Witness In VERY Honest New Interview!

people always ask me if I've been getting Botox

Katy Perry was willing to say a lot in the latest issue of Vogue Australia!

The interview took place in late May, and at that time at least, Katy was, as has been assumed based on some other strong evidence, dating Orlando Bloom! And it seems like she still is!

Related: Katy *Accidentally* Posted A Sexy Comment On Orlando's IG

She said she didn't want to get into the details of her love life, as it tends to overshadow other comments:

"Of course, I love my relationship, but that is one part of me, and I don't want any part of what I do to be diminished."

However, she did confirm, on the record, that the two are going strong!

But on to the things Katy wants to talk about -- namely her spiritual and mental health.

Speaking on her relationship with religion, Katy, whose parents were both Pentecostal pastors, shared:

"My mom has prayed for me my entire life, hoping I'd come back to God. I never left Him, I was just a little bit secular, I was more materialistic and more career-driven. But now that I'm in my 30s, it's more about spirituality and heart wholeness."

How does she achieve these?

In January, Katy attended a week-long personal growth program at the Hoffman Institute, which purportedly "helps participants identify negative behaviors, moods and ways of thinking that developed unconsciously and were conditioned in childhood."

She explained:

"For years, my friends would go and come back completely rejuvenated, and I wanted to go, too. I was ready to let go of anything that was holding me back from being my ultimate self. I have had bouts of situational depression and my heart was broken last year because, unknowingly, I put so much validity in the reaction of the public, and the public didn't react in the way I had expected to... which broke my heart."

Dang, we knew Witness wasn't the biggest hit, but it really made her that depressed?

"Music is my first love and I think it was the universe saying: ‘Okay, you speak all of this language about self-love and authenticity, but we are going to put you through another test and take away any kind of validating 'blankie'. Then we'll see how much you do truly love yourself. That brokenness, plus me opening up to a greater, higher power and reconnecting with divinity, gave me a wholeness I never had. It gave me a new foundation. It's not just a material foundation: it's a soul foundation."

So, how exactly does this program work? Katy compares it to a computer reboot:

"I believe that, essentially and metaphorically, we are all computers, and sometimes we adopt these viruses via our parents or via the nurture that we are given or not given growing up. They start to play out in our behavior, in our adult patterns, in our relationships."

She believes in the Hoffman program so much she even recommends it to other stars:

"I recommend it to everyone, my good friends and other artists who are looking for a breakthrough. There are a lot of people who are self-medicating through validation in audiences, through substances, through continually running away from their realities – denial, withdrawal. I did that for a long, long time too."

And no, Katy isn't worried being happy will ruin her artistic output:

"I was with someone recently who asked: ‘Well, don't you think that if you do too much therapy it will take away your artistic process?' And I told them: ‘The biggest lie that we've ever been sold is that we as artists have to stay in pain to create.'"

It's an interesting point. After all, many artists of all kinds -- actors, musicians, visual artists -- do seem perfectly content while making content.

Is being a tortured artist just a bad habit? Hmm...

We don't know that we're sold on this program, but we're certainly glad Katy is feeling better!

[Image via Dave Starbuck/Future Image/Michael Wright/Rob Rich/WENN.]

all shit of items at home is why real celebrities even some cereal killers

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Katy Perry Talks Orlando Bloom, Religion, Therapy, & The Failure Of Witness In VERY Honest New Interview!

Katy Perry was willing to say a lot in the latest issue of Vogue Australia!

The interview took place in late May, and at that time at least, Katy was, as has been assumed based on some other strong evidence, dating Orlando Bloom! And it seems like she still is!

Related: Katy *Accidentally* Posted A Sexy Comment On Orlando's IG

She said she didn't want to get into the details of her love life, as it tends to overshadow other comments:

"Of course, I love my relationship, but that is one part of me, and I don't want any part of what I do to be diminished."

However, she did confirm, on the record, that the two are going strong!

But on to the things Katy wants to talk about -- namely her spiritual and mental health.

Speaking on her relationship with religion, Katy, whose parents were both Pentecostal pastors, shared:

"My mom has prayed for me my entire life, hoping I'd come back to God. I never left Him, I was just a little bit secular, I was more materialistic and more career-driven. But now that I'm in my 30s, it's more about spirituality and heart wholeness."

How does she achieve these?

In January, Katy attended a week-long personal growth program at the Hoffman Institute, which purportedly "helps participants identify negative behaviors, moods and ways of thinking that developed unconsciously and were conditioned in childhood."

She explained:

"For years, my friends would go and come back completely rejuvenated, and I wanted to go, too. I was ready to let go of anything that was holding me back from being my ultimate self. I have had bouts of situational depression and my heart was broken last year because, unknowingly, I put so much validity in the reaction of the public, and the public didn't react in the way I had expected to... which broke my heart."

Dang, we knew Witness wasn't the biggest hit, but it really made her that depressed?

"Music is my first love and I think it was the universe saying: ‘Okay, you speak all of this language about self-love and authenticity, but we are going to put you through another test and take away any kind of validating 'blankie'. Then we'll see how much you do truly love yourself. That brokenness, plus me opening up to a greater, higher power and reconnecting with divinity, gave me a wholeness I never had. It gave me a new foundation. It's not just a material foundation: it's a soul foundation."

So, how exactly does this program work? Katy compares it to a computer reboot:

"I believe that, essentially and metaphorically, we are all computers, and sometimes we adopt these viruses via our parents or via the nurture that we are given or not given growing up. They start to play out in our behavior, in our adult patterns, in our relationships."

She believes in the Hoffman program so much she even recommends it to other stars:

"I recommend it to everyone, my good friends and other artists who are looking for a breakthrough. There are a lot of people who are self-medicating through validation in audiences, through substances, through continually running away from their realities – denial, withdrawal. I did that for a long, long time too."

And no, Katy isn't worried being happy will ruin her artistic output:

"I was with someone recently who asked: ‘Well, don't you think that if you do too much therapy it will take away your artistic process?' And I told them: ‘The biggest lie that we've ever been sold is that we as artists have to stay in pain to create.'"

It's an interesting point. After all, many artists of all kinds -- actors, musicians, visual artists -- do seem perfectly content while making content.

Is being a tortured artist just a bad habit? Hmm...

We don't know that we're sold on this program, but we're certainly glad Katy is feeling better!

[Image via Dave Starbuck/Future Image/Michael Wright/Rob Rich/WENN.]

[latestnews2018-blog]

Bruce Prichard On How TNA Officials Saw AJ Styles As Top Guy, Shelton Benjamin On Daniel Bryan, Zeda

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/bruce-prichard-on-how-tna-officials-saw-aj-styles-as-top-guy-shelton-benjamin-on-daniel-bryan-zeda/

Bruce Prichard On How TNA Officials Saw AJ Styles As Top Guy, Shelton Benjamin On Daniel Bryan, Zeda

– As noted, tonight’s new episode of the WWE Network’s “Something Else to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard” podcast will focus on the TNA reign of current WWE Champion AJ Styles, featuring footage from TNA that was apparently used after a recent deal was reached. Above is a clip from the show. Prichard talked about working behind-the-scenes for TNA while Styles was there.

“I had never worked with AJ beyond his tryout matches for WWE so immediately I’m hearing the negative,” Prichard said when co-host Conrad Thompson asked what TNA officials thought about AJ as a top guy. “I hear that, ‘AJ, he just wants to wrestle his matches and do all these high spots, he doesn’t listen, doesn’t want to change, doesn’t want to grow. He’s a pain in the ass. We’re trying to build him into a bigger star and he’s bucking us at every single opportunity.’ The feeling was that AJ just wasn’t willing to do what it took to become a star. For example… they wanted AJ to bleach his hair blonde like Ric Flair. AJ didn’t want to do that. They wanted AJ to wear robes like Ric Flair but it looked like something that his daughter put together. It just wasn’t a good look and AJ wasn’t comfortable being Ric Flair. He didn’t want to talk about being up all night with the women. AJ’s happily married and a very religious guy. He didn’t want that perception. Every time you suggest something new to AJ, he doesn’t want to do it. Unless it’s just wrestling a match with one of his buddies, he doesn’t want to do it.

“I learned early on in my career that you try to judge people on how they treat you. And I tried talking to AJ and found that he was pretty receptive to things. He had good reasons why he didn’t want to do some of the things suggested to him. So, now all of a sudden I’m trying to find a way to get into AJ, in a way to pitch him ideas and try to do some different things with him which he was open to, at least with me.”

– Team Vision Dojo in Orlando sent word that former WWE NXT Superstar Zeda will be in action at Friday’s Championship Wrestling Entertainment event in a Battle Royal and a singles match. It looks like she will be using the name Zeda Zhang on the indies.

We noted before that Zeda will be training at the Dojo and working for their I Believe In Wrestling promotion. She will co-assist the next Team Vision Dojo Open House for potential students and fans on July 10th with Amber Nova. Details on that event are here.

Zeda, who is still under a thirty-day non-compete clause with WWE after being released earlier this month, made her Major League Wrestling debut during an angle at last week’s MLW Fusion TV tapings.

– Shelton Benjamin took to Twitter today and wrote the following on last night’s SmackDown loss to Daniel Bryan:

@WWEDanielBryan We’re gonna have to Run that again. That is IF there’s anything left of you after @BigCassWWE is done with you at #MITB

— Shelton J. Benjamin (@Sheltyb803) June 13, 2018

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Macy’s becomes first major department store in the U.S. to sell hijabs.

Just in time for New York Fashion Week, Macy's announced it will be partnering with a modest fashion line for Muslim women.

Photo via Macy's.

Starting Feb. 15, the retail giant will feature an assortment of hijabs, cardigans, abayas, and dresses from the Verona Collection on Macys.com.

Lisa Vogl, founder of the Verona Collection, is a graduate of The Workshop, Macy's business development program for minority and/or women entrepreneurs. After her conversion to Islam in 2011, the single mother quickly realized how rare it is to find affordable, trendy modest clothing — and that "many other women, both Muslim and non-Muslim, felt the same way" — so she decided to launch her own fashion line.

But the Verona Collection, according to Vogl, is doing more than simply creating affordable, trendy clothes: The brand represents a new diversity and inclusivity in the fashion industry.

“Verona Collection is more than a clothing brand. It’s a platform for a community of women to express their personal identity and embrace fashion that makes them feel confident on the inside and outside," said Vogl in a Macy's press release.

This isn't the first time major retailers have catered to Muslim women.

Be different!Mariah Idrissi becomes world’s first hijab wearing model for retail giants – H&M. https://t.co/UARdO0o3HB pic.twitter.com/fkZDuCej4E

— Fashion Point (@Fashionpointng) March 27, 2017

A recent example came in December, when Nike released a sports hijab in response to the growing worldwide trend of female Muslim participation in athletics.

In June 2015, Uniqlo launched a collection with British-Japanese Muslim fashion designer Hana Tajima also featuring hijabs and long dresses in their UK, Singapore, and online stores. That same summer, DKNY released a Ramadan-themed collection aimed at Muslim women, and the famed designers and retail brands Oscar de la Renta and Zara followed suit.

In January 2016, Dolce & Gabanna announced their own line of hijabs and abayas. Major international retailer H&M featured hijab-wearing model Mariah Idrissi in their Close the Loop campaign.

Here's what makes Macy's modest clothing line particularly special: It's the first major department store in the United States to sell hijabs.  

Photo via Macy's.

Macy's, founded in 1858, is one of the few old-school giant department stores left in the U.S., making their latest efforts to expand their customer demographic to include Muslim women a huge milestone for the rapidly evolving fashion industry.

Azmia Magane, an Orlando-based writer and marketing specialist for Muslim consumers, applauds the new partnership.

"I'm really excited to see Verona Collection as an offering at Macy's," she said to Upworthy. "It's a win not just for Macy's and Muslim women, but any women looking for modest fashions. It also sends a message of inclusivity that's vital in today's sociopolitical climate: Muslims are welcome here."

Maryam Sarhan, a 22-year-old in Washington, D.C., said that she hopes Macy's is just the first of many other big-name retailers to create modest fashion lines for women of faith.

"I'm pleased to see a department store like Macy's diversify their collection and offer more options for women of various backgrounds and beliefs to feel beautiful," Sarhan said. "I hope other companies follow this example with an open mind."

Aysha Khan, who's worn the hijab since elementary school, doesn't really see the difference between buying hijabs at big retail stores and from smaller Muslim vendors. Still, she's excited that there are more options — and a platform for Muslim women designers.

"I'm mostly excited about this move as it uplifts Muslim women designers," the 22-year-old Denver journalist told Upworthy. "I'm always here for bigger brands and platforms giving Muslim women opportunities in the mainstream fashion industry."

However, some Muslim women are asking an important question about the booming trend of modest fashion lines: at what cost?

Photo via Macy's.

There is a concern among some Muslim women that consumerism is hijacking their faith.

Mediha Sandhu, 34, considers herself to a part of the Muslim women consumer market. While she sees the value and optimism in Islamic fashion recognized nationally by such a staple in American culture, she still can't help feeling a bit perplexed.

"I also feel sort of at a loss that something unique and intimate, like a small business, has become mass-produced, and hijabis are the targets for mass consumption," Sandhu told Upworthy. "It's like my favorite secret spot became a tourist attraction, where the secret spot is Muslim hijabi stores."

Binta Nur, a 25-year-old Muslim hijabi from Philadelphia, where she says "Muslim women make careers by catering to their sisters," is skeptical of the modest fashion partnerships like Verona Collection and Macy's.

"I'm not a fan," Nur said in an interview with Upworthy. "They are just trying to capitalize on this market. Like, there are Orthodox Jews and Christians who wear head coverings and [are] just [as] conservative."

Worried that the trend will quash independent female Muslim entrepreneurs, she added, "This is going to put so many Muslim-owned companies out of business."

Yet for many, this broad effort to tap into the Muslim women market is also good for business.

Photo via Macy's.

In 2013, Fortune reported that Muslims spent around $266 billion worldwide on clothing and shoes. That's roughly more than Italy and Japan's spending put together. But that figure is expected to rise in 2019, according to the 2015 Thomson Reuters State of Global Islamic Economy report — to about $484 billion.

Today, Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions, and its booming population could have something to do with the rapidly expanding market. For instance, Pew Research Center estimates that, by 2050, the world's Muslim population in the world will equal that of Christians.

Sabiha Ansari, co-founder of the American Muslim Consumer Consortium, said that she's spent a lot of time and effort explaining to businesses the benefits of tapping into the Muslim consumer market.

"It's about time," Ansari told Upworthy. "We have been raising awareness about the American Muslim consumer market and its spending power since 2009. I applaud Macy's on pursuing an emerging new consumer."

She adds that it's not only Muslim women who will be interested in the new line of clothing: "I wouldn't just limit modest clothing to Muslim women alone. There are plenty of Jewish and [Christian] women who can be potential customers as well."

There is a long road ahead, but these seem like the right first steps.

While I like to support small businesses, I'm mostly excited about this move as it uplifts Muslim women designers.

Still, I'm always here for bigger brands and platforms giving Muslim women opportunities in the mainstream fashion industry — even if these first steps are imperfect for now.

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