#killing George in the return email I got

[silly-pilled]

What to do when my muse is ugly and uncomfortable, siiiiiiiiigggghhh

[5eraphim]

eras of tumblr i could give hour-long Ted Talks about

(only including eras i participated in, not what i’ve lived through second-handedly. these are what i personally remember seeing on my dash, i’m sure there’s plenty i missed. This is an ongoing list/not fixed/subject to future edits.)

2015 gravity falls 

the rise of sexyman bill cipher 

depravity falls and putting 12 yr old characters in violent guro situations 

alex hirsch worship

billdip discourse

the diehard thirst for Gruncle Ford 

“i want to fuck that dorito”

2015/16 Black Butler

SebaCiel discourse

Grelle discourse (like, i don’t even know how to elaborate, but if you were there you would remember how people were fighting over her characterization in all different directions. Which is funny because, love her or hate her, she is barely even in the show lol)

The needlessly intense sjw vs anti-sjw/ fiction doesn’t effect reality/ shipping fighting

can’t quantify this, but i swear 80% of the fans were ex-hetalia fans 

Black butler 2 being either loved or hated, while book of circus was almost unanimously loved

the Scott Freeman incident...

no one giving a fuck about the female characters

Yana/Jay Michael Tatum worship

2016 Undertale

Sans undertale sexyman rise

the most raw video game soundtrack of all time

papyton

no one agrees how to draw undyne, but we all agree that she’s gay as fuck

(This is a personal anecdote, but i actually made a friend in highschool bc i drew undertale fanart on the board at latin class nd she added to it the next day, i added to it the next day and eventually we met up and it was so adorable)

“get dunked on”

2016-17 hamilton, heathers, great comet, dear evan hansen, be more chill musical theater insanity

rip tumblr user galactibun

The Hamilton craze breathing new life into the 1776 musical fandom

Most bizarre fanfic aus seen on tumblr thus far (hamilton)

The great comet Tony snubs

BMC and DEH blowing up, despite most fans only caring about the characters, totally ignoring the plot.

“Miku binder Thomas Jefferson”

No one giving a fuck about “The Hamilton Mixtape”

Gatekeeping fans who didn’t read war and peace or the ron chernow biography (i don’t think anyone ever gave a shit about the BMC orginal book which is SO FUNNY)

lin manuel miranda worship

real people fanfictions of actors/shipping them (especially hamilton!)

Key Figures include: Lin Manuel Miranda, Ron Chernow, Philipa Soo, Daveed Diggs, Ben Platt, George Salazar, Barette Wilbert Weed, and Mike Faist

2016-2017 the yuri on ice, killing stalking, kaikyu yaoi trifecta 

Yaoi take over

The anime fans collective salt over YOI winning anime of the year 2016

Not in this time period, but the Killing Stalking fans despising the ending en mass several years later.

Free! was also huge as the second season concluded not long before, but wasn’t receiving new updated in Realtime like the other three.

honestly? i mostly just remember people drawing some of the most beautiful fan art of the characters and not bothering to follow the plots

2015-2016 steven universe discourse peak craziness 

There are no words, looking back this all feels like a fever dream

Insane fan-theories (as in- even for Tumblr, these theories were very out there)

Pink diamond character derailment

“watching steven universe is the opposite of eating pussy” 

Gemosonas

fusion = sex???

“it’s over isn’t it” single-handedly inspiring some of the most beautiful fan art to come out of the show; "Stronger than you” def inspired much more fan-creations, but they were nowhere near as good imo

That terrible lily peet video that sent a tidal wave of fandom-fighting 

Concrete

Nicki Minaj guest appearance 

the porn avalanche predating the 2018 nsfw ban

My OG account got banned >:( (i never posted porn, tried to email support to no avail, I DID NOT DEVERVE THIS YOU NARCS)

50-50 mix of people posting lewd art and people posting links to find them as they migrated to twitter

“Female presenting nipples”

The return of the citrus scale (orange: PG/G, Lime: PG-13, Lemon: R, Grapefruit: X)

“Too Spicy for Tumblr”

Didn’t even stop the porn bots, mostly just screwed over artists and writers

IMO the peak of user v staff animosity

2020 hannibal

The small but loyal anthony hopkins defenders

Some of the most beautiful creative gore art

The moodboard to web-weaving pipeline

People being surprisingly respectful of fans who only watched the show, or who didn’t read Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs, or where otherwise not invested in the greater overall Hannibal canon.

Manipulate, mansplain, malewife

Key Figures Include: Madds Mikkelson, Hugh Dancy, Anthony Hopkins

november 5, 2020

You just had to be there man, i don’t know what to tell you.

Key Figures include: Donald Trump, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and debatably Sherlock season 5

the 2021 coquette girl blogger era

Lana del rey worship

The ungodly amount of softcore porn

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

Glorification of eating disorders, benzos, trailer parks, predatory men, age gap relationships, and so much more!

Teenagers blogging about Russian lit you know they never read

Waifblr

Still not sure to this day how much of this was ironic and how much wasn’t?? Or if any of this was self-aware???

Yes babe you’re so bambi, kate moss, diet coke, wellbutrin, dasha nekrosova, ballet, klonopin, trad cath, fawn, dior, sofia coppela, can you please shut the fuck up now?

key figures include: Lana del Rey, Daisy Randone, Dasha Nekrosova, Nina Sayers, Fiona Apple, Anya Taylor Joy, Sylvia Plath, Kate Moss, Kirsten Dunst (probably so many more, but this is just off the top of my head)

(bonus)

2015/16- My personal earliest memories of really getting into tumblr, and witnessing the tail-end of the Hetalia reign

2016- the end of Homestuck

2016- the epidemic of overwatch porn

2016- Does Jumin Han is gay?

2017- RWBY’s nosedive in quality from season 3 to 4, losing the majority of the fanbase

2018 Boyfriend to Death civil war (Gatobob v ElectricPuke)

2018- Detroit become Human drops and the robot-fucking gatekeeping 

2018- the Game of thrones/Endgame joint disaster ending melt down

2019- Sub-par Omens

2020- the Dead by Daylight community rioting when Pyramid Head’s ass got nerfed

2020- Cyberpunk 2077 is released and is torn apart almost instantly. Looking back by my approximations post were made up of- 10% people who were actually playing the games and enjoying themselves, 20% people who were playing the game and WEREN’T having fun, 55% People who never bought/played the game who were making up crazy glitches for clout, 15% hardcore pornography of characters you’d never seen before. (I’m quite salty about this bc I worked at GameStop at this time and had people constantly talking about glitches in casual conversation and I just know most of these bitches were LYING.)

20??- don’t remember the exact dates, but phase 3 marvel was un-escapable at this time

2020/21- Succession blows up

2022 Ghost bc blows up on tiktok, the fandom already sizable on tumblr only goes up from here

[itsrattysworld]

Without Prejudice Mervelee Myers Spent 9+ Years With My Fight4justice Against LEYF As HMCTS CPS CJS Intent On Covering Up Miscarriages Of Justice World Get Ready For Names Of Those Involved With June O'Sullivan's Depravity Soon After She Got MBE Mask Of Sanity Reveal Psychopath Who Wants To Be Remember As Disruptive Influence Started With Karen Walker Early Years Sector Run By Perverts Of MIC Richard Harty Mastermind Legal Systems Ofsted DBS Met Police Social Media In Pockets Of A-Z Of Criminals 12/10/23

Without Prejudice In Light Of Developments In Phillip Paulwell’s Case 10 Months Old Mother Killed Mervelee Myers Share Richard Harty Panic Call Mobile 27/9/21 I Recorded Him Returned Funds Kicked Me Out Of UEL Wiped All From Account Targeted By Tania Cottier Security UEL Near Plaque Dedicated To George Floyd Mary Mitchison Threat Emails PC Conway Called Mobile When Unable To Force Entry In Home…

[heroesandlovers]

Nancy Drew 1x14 "The Sign of the Uninvited Guest"

My favorite Season 1 episode. This was THE turning point for #Nace. There is no doubt in my mind the writers were planting a seed here. It was THAT intentional.

So…Nancy figures out that Tiffany must have gone to Lucy’s Mom (OHHHH THAT”S WHO THE “OTHER WOMAN THAT GAVE HER THE KEY TO NANCY'S SECRET WAS- Sorry guys I'm slow sometimes).

Patrice (Lucy’s Mom) shows up at The Claw which is confusing to both Bess and Nancy. Apparently Patrice used to work at The Claw so she knew where the spare key was. Nick gets ahold of Josh, whom apparently had been trying to take her to a new institution when she escaped.

Cue Laura, Ace’s girlfriend (?I guess?). I had kind of forgotten about her. Guess she’s out of her coma too? Was she in a coma? She’s back with a new look on life. She has apparently been out of town (so I guess her and Ace aren’t all that serious). She is back to settle Tiffany’s affairs. Since she has now been cleared as suspect she gets all the inheritance.

With which, she has bought two First Class tickets to Paris with and wants Ace to go with her. Permanently.

“There’s nothing keeping you in this town. You were made for Paris. Ex-pat. Soulful thinker. Come on, you actually speak French”. (See Ace is not just the burnout the pilot wanted us to think). Laura doesn’t seem too weighed down with finding Tiffany’s killers anymore. She seems confident it’s the Hudsons and that the police will eventually find out. “You lost me once. Do you really want to lose me again?”

Nick goes to get Josh who is stranded at a gas station. Josh tells Nick he’s gonna have to close the shop so he can be closer to his Mom. (Does Nick have enough money left to buy out the shop in addition to the Claw?). Nick is left babysitting Patrice while Josh goes on one last service call.

Nancy has been “Beautiful Minding” in the office. I gotta admit. Her rolling out the board while the others are lined up and Ace is eating popcorn is pretty fun. Lucy wrecks the board when Nancy says “Lucy’s death was linked to Tiffany’s death”

“Ace, Laura, let’s go”!. Ace immediately gets up- no hesitation. Also still eating his popcorn. Nancy needs a hacker and Laura to help her retrace Tiffany’s last steps.

“You know what is so romantic. Solving a homicide together. With me.” This episode is so light and comic compared to the darkness of the last few.

“I’m not going to the library”

“What? Why?”

“I have enemies there”

The library scene is…so wonderful.

The look on Ace’s face when he sees Dominique. I really hope we get this backstory.

I LOVE how much Nancy is loving Ace in the library.

The “I think I love you. I think I love you too” line has been in so many fan vids. It’s obviously a bit more subtle in the show but…only SLIGHTLY. It’s undeniable that there is suddenly a tension there. And the timing is pretty great.

This is the episode where I think Nancy first sees this different side of Ace. She gets to know the “wily teenager” who’s enemies are literally librarians. (HE IS A PURE SOUL). The romantic who speaks three languages including French. The guy who is smart enough to teach HIMSELF how to hack.

I think the show is definitely planting the seed here.

The emails they find at the library cast a lot of suspicion on Ryan. What started as love letters ended with “You’re a whore. I hope you die”. Nancy now thinks that Tiffany read those emails, discovered Ryan killed Lucy, and that Ryan then killed Tiffany to protect himself.

They lure Ryan to The Claw by making him think that Laura is willing to give up the money. They decide to re-enact the night of Tiffany's death, hoping Ryan will give himself away. They got Karen to show up as well. The scene is very well done. Part of me wonders....maybe they should have done this before? Ace suddenly remembers that he used Ryan’s returned salad for Tiffany’s entre. They all realize that Ryan was the original target for the poison.

Bess, Ace, and George are feeling guilty for their role in getting the poison to Tiffany. Nick rightly points out that the the only one to blame is the killer and that that’s where their energy should be focused on…finding the killer.

Nancy shows Ryan the video with Lucy’s ghost the night of Tiffany’s murder. Lucy leads Nancy to the window outside of Ryan’s booth, showing her where the killer was hiding and could have heard the food orders. She accuses Ryan of killing Tiffany and figures the poisoner was trying to kill Ryan for revenge. This would explain Lucy haunting Ryan.

Ryan says he didn’t kill her. He loved her. Nancy reads him the email. Ryan claims he never wrote that. Ryan sees Lucy and drives away. I think Nancy is genuinely confused.

“You can do a thing half-assed, or you can commit to it all the way”- Ryan tells Ace he’s either all in for Paris and that he shouldn’t waste Laura’s time if he’s not.

Ace’s hacking skills enable them to find the IP address that Lucy used to email Ryan and it leads Nancy to the garage. Josh comes in on Nancy. Nancy realizes Josh knew about the affair between Lucy and Ryan and would have all the reason in the world to avenge Lucy. Nancy manages to escape Josh’s attack when he is..electrocuted to death?

Ace tells Laura he’s not going to Paris. He doesn’t want to leave Horseshoe Bay. He says he believes he has a purpose and that he believes in being true to himself even at the risk of being misunderstood. (WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?).

Nancy wonders where Josh could have gotten the poison since it was such a rare poison that took specific skills to make. As she starts to wonder if someone else could be involved, the police find out that Josh’s body is gone. SUS.

Nick and George

Bess (is she the friend group shipper?) tells George that she should stop hiding what she’s feeling for Nick. He tells her he’s not with Nancy anymore and she shouldn't feel guilty. It's a little weird to me, to bless this relationship without at least talking to Nancy about it but…I am reminded that this is a weird friend group in that…they don’t always consider themselves friends...at least yet? In Nancy’s Whisper Box, she doesn’t even think the others like her (is that her own insecurities or is it true that it just took time for the group to get close)?

Nancy and Ace

Ep 13 I said was the goodbye to Drewson episode and this episode is the goodbye to Laura and Ace episode.

I already talked about this quite a bit above so I don't want to be too repetitive here but I will just stress that THIS episode was a turning point for them. I think this is where Nancy and Ace first become "aware" of each other. Especially Nancy is seeing a new side of Ace and...she likes what she sees.

Random

Comedic Ace I have missed you.

[gumdytoonsen]

Loona:

SpongeBob As the Legal Owner of Paramount Viacom CBS and Nickelodeon you are responsible for using Patrick to annoy the property of Sandy Cheek who calls you Dirty dan and bowling head like you

Mess with the dreams of all bikini bottoms

Ruin the life of Sandy who wants to go to her house is the state of Texas

Tearing pants in the middle of Playa de la Guna Pegajosa

Kick backs to Plano el Leguano

Eating junk food for bad breath in full BIKINI bottoms

You got out of Bikini Bottom that tells you 5 Times Silly Boy

Garry your pet

patrick star for his mom's cake

Squidward Tentacles the most hated neighbor of Bikini Bottom

Arenita Mejilla the biologist who uses her water to ruin her robot

Don crab for frying your money

make it bikini bottom

And litter the streets of Bikini Bottom

DIMMSDALE with a Lunatic Professor Who Wants His Fairly Godparents Named Denzdel Crocker and a Psycho Babysitter Who Tortures Him is Vicky

But Vaggie already commissioned Jorgen Von Strangel's rules

There are 11 crimes for Breaking the Rules:

1 Public Indecency

Timmy is naked for not respecting personal hygiene and projecting all the cameras of all DIMMSDALE

and I return home

2 Truancy and Criminal Mischief

The Cat Man who lost his childhood and Does not enter the DIMMSDALE school where The lunatic professor Denzdel Crocker is who asks Cold Graves to take him back

3 Multilation of the obligation of the National Bank of the United States

Mistreat of the Vicky Dollar The Psycho nanny burning Red Beard Comics but says they are Saving VICKY's life

4 Copyright Inflation

For using a photo copier to scan and print intellectual properties like Christian Chandler creator of Sonichu original character and other trolls create original characters similar to others

jumping dog

And dark laser trademark of Star Wars parody of Star Wars

5 Unauthorized Access Internet hacking and emails spy on your friends like:

Chester

AJ Johnson

The Australian Girl

And spy and pervert the property of Trixie Tang and Veronica

And make fun of Crocker who wears a red dress

6 Kidnapping Accomplice

For his birthday and the kidnapping of the famous Canary Chip

7 Property Damage

From Vicky and Tootie's parents Offensive but they moved into their house

Dark Laser Trademark wears his suit for a science fair project and the brawler Fracis brainwashes Trixie

8 Domestic Terror

Use a laser to destroy the makeup factory

9 Perversion to property

Timothin Turner Several times Pervert the property of Trixie Tang How to Disappear everything from the world by Trixie who Says:

TELL ME CUTE and kill him and hate her and forbid him from inviting to the Masquerade ball and his father will be a Mayor too Trixie will be Mayor as Hercharle Out The Turner Family her Son by Timothin Timmy Tiberus Turner also her father Edgar Turner for his Hate The Neighbor Dinklenberg

And the 10 dangerous desires

Timmy used his Fairly OddParents to cause Chaotic Disdains

But the Judgment of him for 50 years for the universe and contaminate The Time Line

Timmy is a Most Dangerous Godson since:

Mutant Insects and Animals Rule the World

Bringing Fictional Characters to Reality by Magic Photo Copier

Vicky the Psycho Babysitter was Invisible Dictator to Assassinate Trixie Tang

And wish for a magical baby

They also fired their creator Butch Hartman

We already follow the scandals, from the creator of several series Love action of Nickelodeon is:

Dan Schneider as John K creator of Rep and Stimpy

We continue by dan I think:

Icarly

Drake and George

true jackson

Zoey 101

Kendal and Kel

Henry Danger

victorius

And all

He was fired for harassing and also Chris Sabino Creator of The Loud House boy named Lincol Loud Who has 10 sisters yes He has the right to respect Feminist laws by his friends and Friends of all RoyalWood

Oh also for buying 2 ADULT TV channels like:

MTV AND COMEDY CENTRAL where

Lodan 5 Cartoons for Adults and they are Awful:

SOUTH PARK

Says Bad Words for the use of Inappropriate Language

Child abuse by Kenny

Racism and Feminism

With famous guests

And guest animators also their chapters are horrible

Ugly America

New York lives with demons

The chapters are horrible too

Draw tongerth

Mistreats the Son of Puerquicmo Pig

The death song of Trancito de Morocha Morocha and her friends and Princess Clara

Use Princess Clara to Win Money at the Indian Casino

Make Prank for the most stinky and disgusting human waste pizza

Capitanaso invites the elastic woman

Vomit for Watching Middle of the Princess Clara's legs to reicer from all over the world Capitanaso is hated by everyone Racism and Parody Competition And their Horrible Crossovers: Vegetables for killing all your characters Termimator that kills everything and Lulu Cartoon in relation to the salchimobile Bambi for Matrato by Capitanaso and Ray Ray The Perverted Grandson of Morocha Morocha where he gets into the Forbidden Part of LULÚ Cartoon 6 times Challenging with other characters in the competition And Barbie for not spying on her children That's how I cancel The House of Drawings happy Tree Friends The Ethical Persons Organization for the Treatment of Animals PETA THEY SUED YOU FOR Broadcasting this cartoon that caused animal abuse and they canceled it Beavis and ButtHead Is Mysogenous and Watching Music Videos Also Likes Music Too And here are the others that failed: BBC's Mr Hell Celebrities Death Mash Stripedella Trip Tank The Cydan Happener Show And the cartoon from Argentina called Alejo and Valentina The feminist society Feminist Frecenque and the National Organization for Women NOW together with Ethical Persons for the Treatment of Animals PETA Paramount fined $8 million for causing nickelodeon-wide scandals Sponge Bob: Nooooooooooooo You want Paramout VIACOMCBS to declare bankruptcy and I will lose all my Money Loona: For breaking the rules, violating feminist laws and for lack of law and for lack of respect for radical feminist laws You promise Spongebob: I promise

[natromanxoff]

20 - Rockin' in Rio

Greetings one and all A quick return from the Bondi Bard. Last weekend there was a surprise party for Gerry and Sylvia in San Francisco, and judging from the email I got from Ratty a good time was had by all, and a few of our old mob were there. I would loved to have been there but I was committed to go to the wedding of a good buddy of mine. James and his new wife Suze got married on the original Manly ferry, which has been converted into an amazing houseboat and is moored at Balmain. The ceremony was at 7pm, just as the sun was setting to the left of us, and the Harbour Bridge to the right, very picturesque. An Aussie band called Leonardo's Bride sang their top five hit to the couple (of course I can't remember the name of it) and the girl singer has an incredible voice, and is also gorgeous and a very charming lady, who is shacked up with a DJ mate of mine. Lucky bastard. The booze was good, the food even better and a fun night was had. I can hear that question again, "Whats this got to do with Queen?" Well I shall tell you. James worked as an engineer at Metropolis Studios in London, along with the lovely Heidi, where the Queenies did a lot of recording, he also did some work with the band, but did a lot on BM's first solo outing. The next link is even weaker. I spent a good part of the evening chatting with Rob Hirst, who is the drummer with Midnight Oil, and is also a fabbo chappie. And being a typical drummer, while the Oils are not working he is recording his own solo album, as a singer/guitarist.......sound familiar. We had a couple of drinks and swapped a few stories, and as his wife was with us we managed to keep them all clean.

Staying on the subject of drummers I had an email, via Jacky, from a drummer who didn't seem that amused by the joke I told in my last ramblings, they might hit things but they are really quite sensitive deep down. So I suppose I should say I'm sorry, well I'm not. But here's another little jest to piss him off some more. Q: Whats the most asked question to a person with an IQ of 2? A: What sticks do you use?

Onto Sonia's request for some info on our trips to Brazil. What can I say about Rio except that it is a fun city and we all had a great time there, maybe that's why we went back a second time. On the first venture there I was still looking after the kit, and on one night myself and a few of the crew hit the town and got very drunk on the local drink, I think it was made from sugar, which I can pronounce but I've no idea how to spell it. (Help me out Sonia) We were in a bar getting louder and louder when a Welsh Rugby team came in, and they were big boys, and they are also on the tipsy side.

I'm 6ft, Jim Devenney makes me look small and Bob Bickleman made him look small, and the rugby players are of equal size, so we now have a contest on our hands as to which team can sing the loudest and dirtiest rugby songs. To start with the Welsh were winning because they had a couple of good looking women with them, and even though it was loud it was also in good fun. Devenney then comes up with the great statement that rugby is a girls game, the Welsh reply that at least they don't need padding when they play, unlike Gridiron, to which our team say, "OK, lets have a game on the beach tomorrow morning." This to me sounds like a really daft idea as I hate Gridiron, Rugby and Soccer, so one of the lighting guys and myself decided to leave, which means the Queen crew won by default cause neither team turned up on the beach to play, and as the two of us were leaving the bar we took their gorgeous ladies with us. Sorry Wales.

Our second visit to Brazil, when I was traveling with the band, was for the first Rock in Rio which was a two week festival with a host of big names on, each playing two nights. We did the opening night with three Brazilian acts, then Whitesnake who had Cozy as drummer, then Iron Maiden and then us. The second show was at the end and our opening acts were the B52's and the Go Go's. After the show I ended up in my room with a couple of Go Go girls, and boy were they party hounds. Apart from the bands I've mentioned there were other big names like Rod Stewart, AC/DC, Yes, George Benson and more. It was fun because we got to see old friends of the road, but it was also a nightmare cause we were almost prisoners of the hotel, due to the fact there were far to many fans outside the hotel, so we hung around the pool most of the time. The press were paying guests with poolside views so they could use the room and snap rockstars by the pool, which, of course, put an end to that.

The only thing left to do between shows was to get out of Rio and Roger and I heard of a great place called Buzios (Hope I spelt that correctly) which I suppose is about 100 miles away. Deaky and Wally decided to come as well, and being wimps they took a limo, unlike us drum type people, we don't eat quiche, we're gonna drive. The locals were all driving around in beach buggies, they look like fun, thats us, lets go. A buggy is basically a VW beetle with a different body, and our gleaming white buggy turns out to be the biggest pile of crap ever allowed on a road.

I take the wheel and we're not too far into our journey when 1st gear goes on the missing list, I don't care, I'm a good driver, I can start in 2nd. The gearstick decides to loosen on us, so trying to get it in gear was like stirring soup, who cares, onwards and by now our buggy decides to dump the clutch, so when it came to pulling away I just pushed the stick, and whatever gear it went in was the one we drove in. At least we can see the funny side of it all. What else can God give us to make this mission harder, how about torrential rain, which is great fun to drive in when you don't have a roof on the car. Needless to say the buggy rapidly filled up with water. Five minutes of this downpour and we get our next treat, the wipers pack up, so RT has to stand up and lean over the top and wipe the windshield so I can see where I'm going. By this time we look like a couple of soaking wet tramps, but we are killing ourselves laughing as we watch the red mud flow down the hillsides into the river we are trying to drive through. As we go round a bend we both screamed out "OH F***" at the same time. A huge truck was heading in the opposite direction to us, and as it passed at high speed a tidal wave of red water engulfed us and our crappy little car. I have to be honest here, that did wipe out a bit of the humour. We got to our destination, found the hotel and as the drowned rats walked in, the wimps were sitting in the bar, very dry with very cold beers. Next time, I'm with you Deaky. You would think the first thing I would want was a shower, nope, top of the list was a nice quiet chat with the company that rented us our friendly little buggy, and after a couple of well placed words they didn't charge us. Once there we had a good time. Oh, I nearly forgot, we did a couple of great shows as well.

Loads of the usual stuff

Crystal

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 15, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

Tonight was supposed to be the night of a televised town hall meeting featuring both President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. But, after Trump tested positive for coronavirus, the organizers of the event turned it into a virtual meeting. Trump refused to participate. So Biden arranged an event of an hour and a half on ABC. Then Trump arranged his own, separate hour-long town hall on NBC.

NBC faced deep criticism for giving Trump a platform when he had ditched the official plan. But the network made up for that criticism by giving the position of moderator to journalist Savannah Guthrie, who has a J.D. from Georgetown Law School and worked as a litigator. Although the setting of the NBC event was oddly partisan—the backdrop consisted of masked women nodding along with the president’s answers—Guthrie repeatedly pressed Trump on his evasive answers to questioners, and his frustration was palpable.

Before the event, Trump had denigrated it. “They asked me if I’d do it, I figured, ‘What the hell? We get a free hour on television,’” he said.

But the questioning did him no favors. He refused to distance himself from QAnon supporters, who believe in the conspiracy theory that Trump is secretly orchestrating an assault on a ring of pedophiles and cannibals made up of the country’s elites. He admitted he owes $400 million to someone, but insists that he doesn’t owe it to Russia or any “sinister people” and that it is a “very, very small percentage” compared to his assets. He refused to say whether he had tested negative for coronavirus on September 29, the day of his first debate with Biden, and said he could not release his tax returns because they were under audit (when Guthrie noted that there was no rule stopping him from releasing them anyway, he got visibly angry). He maintained that he has a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, but could not describe what that is. As usual, he insisted he is treated terribly.

Meanwhile, over at his own town hall, Biden put to rest Trump’s accusations that he is senile or “sleepy.” Biden answered questions from voters ranging from what he would do about racial inequality to our standing in foreign affairs. He showed deep knowledge of the issues, citing history and statistics, as well as providing detailed plans for what he would do to address the nation's problems. He was empathetic and human—the word people keep using is “decent”—and seemed energetic and eager to get underway with his plans for getting America back on track.

In one of the more striking moments of the evening, moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Biden “If you lose, what will that say to you about where America is today?” Rather than giving the obvious answer for a presidential candidate-- “I won’t lose”—Biden demonstrated that he is willing to accept responsibility for his actions, something that has been perilously thin on the ground for the past four years, and demonstrated his confidence in his fellow Americans. “It could say that I’m a lousy candidate and I didn’t do a good job,” he told Stephanopoulos. “But… I hope that it doesn’t say that we are as racially, ethnically, and religiously at odds with one another as it appears the president wants us to be��. Because we have the greatest opportunity than any country in the world to own the 21st century and we can’t do it divided.” [sic]

After the events, fact-checkers provided the grounding for the obvious: Trump made it up as he went along, hitting some of his favorite debunked talking points, while Biden misspoke on some of the details he outlined (he got troop levels in Afghanistan wrong, for example) but stayed close to the facts.

More than anything, though, Biden reminded us of what a president is supposed to sound like. It was an extraordinary relief to hear someone actually talk about the issues the country faces, rather than make everything about himself. And then, after the televised part of his town hall ended, Biden continued to answer questions, talking to voters because, well, that’s what real politicians do.

Trump’s willingness to grab free airtime tonight reflects his campaign’s financial straits. In these last days of the campaign, as his funds dwindle, Trump has been using the resources of the federal government—also known as our tax dollars—to support his bid for reelection. He has poured more than $32 billion into direct aid for farmers, put letters in government-distributed boxes of food claiming personal credit for the program, and promised billions to seniors to help cover the cost of prescription drugs. He has planned a $300 million advertising campaign to help us “defeat despair” over the coronavirus, and has used the White House for both the Republican National Convention and a recent political rally.

All that money is supposed to move voters into Trump’s column, but tonight did nothing to aid that effort.

Still, he doesn’t much seem to care. His administration seems to have turned into a revenge operation. Today, Trump appeared to celebrate last month’s killing of murder suspect Michael Reinoehl by law enforcement officers who had been deputized as U.S. Marshals. Reinoehl was a suspect in the killing of a right-wing agitator in Portland, Oregon, when the officers shot him. “They knew who he was; they didn't want to arrest him, and in 15 minutes that ended," Trump told an audience at a campaign rally in North Carolina, seeming to gloat over an extrajudicial killing. Trump also continued to attack Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, just a week after the FBI arrested 8 men for plotting to kidnap her.

We also learned today that intelligence officers had warned White House officials, including the president, that Russians were using Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to feed disinformation to Trump. A former intelligence official told Washington Post reporters: “The message was, “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine.” This makes the willingness of Republicans to push yesterday’s “revelation” of an incriminating laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden even more astonishing. NBC News reports that intelligence officers are investigating that story to see if it is a foreign intelligence operation.

On Twitter tonight, conservative columnist Bill Kristol wrote, “A friend who has served at very high levels of government, a true public servant and a serious conservative, emailed me earlier: ‘The Republican Party has become the party of facilitating Russian agitprop and voter suppression. Not what I signed up for.’"

Today the administration rejected a request from California Governor Gavin Newsom for a disaster declaration to free up money to help the state after six wildfires have burned hundreds of thousands of acres across the state. California is a reliably Democratic state that will likely give its electoral votes to Biden.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a coronavirus relief bill, poverty is growing. Depending on the scale they use, researchers say 6 to 8 million Americans have slipped below the poverty line. Republican strategists appear to be willing to deepen the recession if it means crippling an incoming Biden administration. According to a report in Bloomberg, Republicans are setting the stage to kill future federal spending. If Biden is elected but the Republicans hold the Senate, they will refuse any aid to address the coronavirus crisis, thus hoping to cripple a Democratic presidency from Day One.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Heather Cox Richardson

[straight-outta-hobbiton]

Seven Harry Potter Fic Recs from a Quarantined Hobbit:

Since I’m stuck inside and desperately avoiding my own writing projects, I figured I would post a mini rec list of a few of my favorite fics and kill some time doing that. These fics are pretty much the bar I set for myself whenever I try to write anything, they’re that kind of good. They’re my go-to fics pretty much any time I want to get sucked in— even though I’ve read them a dozen times each, I still read to the end, every time. That’s how much I love them.

In alphabetical order, here’s my list of Harry Potter must-reads:

Again and Again, by Athey: Harry Potter has been living in a steady time loop starting from his birth and ending whenever he dies. In this particular life, he decides to try something new. It’s an older fic— I had it emailed to me by a friend in my junior year of high school from ff.net (though it’s also available on ao3 now), and it has a lot of little things that make me nostalgic for my early days of fandom, tropewise. Tag for Slytherin!Harry, Competence Porn, and Actual Porn, too.

C’est La Vie, by Cywscross: In a similar vein, this particular iteration of Harry Potter is tempted by Fate (lol) into something like a second chance, returning to the age of fourteen in a parallel universe where Harry Potter isn’t the Boy-Who-Lived. One of my favorite OCs of all time is in this fic— the amazing Orion Black, son of Wolfstar— and honestly, I’ve rarely seen such excellent depictions of burgeoning inter-House unity as it’s done here. Tag for Hufflepuff!Harry, Time Travel (sorta), and more Competence Porn.

D.S.S Requirement, by Esama: Let me just start by saying this is a Stargate Crossover, but it’s so good you literally don’t need to know anything about Stargate. The idea is simple: there is the Room of Requirement, some Muggleborns with an interest in sci-fi, and an accidental discovery that intrinsically changes the culture of the DA. It’s not so much about plot as it is a character study. You’re watching a group of children and teenagers— most of whom are generally uneducated in Muggle sciences and the concept of science fiction— as they adapt new and interesting ideas to their lives and futures. It’s technically a two-part series (so far, fingers crossed), with the second part focusing more on how the DA begins to affect the outside world, but the focus is mainly on this simple question: what would a bunch of clever, rebellious, magical children do if they found a spaceship? Tag for DA Shenanigans, Space Race, and Slice of Life Under Umbridge.

Harveste, by haru-chan: This is the first of a series based on a somewhat eldritch interpretation of the Addams Family. It’s a crossover, but the author basically takes all the best parts of the nineties movies and fleshes them out to a wonderfully campy, macabre degree, so feel free to have less than a surface level understanding of Addams Family lore, if that. Harry is discovered at the age of five by Mr. and Mrs. Addams, who promptly adopt him and take him away to their magical home in America, where he’s raised as the middle brother between Pugsley and Wednesday. It’s got a darker tone to its humor, but it’s as funny as it is ridiculous, and incredibly satisfying if you’re into just-desserts. Tag for Slytherin!Harry, Blood Magic, and Nineties Goth-Comedy.

Never Grow A Wishbone, by ShanaStoryteller: First things first: it’s still ongoing. Every update is like a present in my email inbox, because truly, it is the best post-Hogwarts fic I have ever fucking read. The world-building is like if George RR Martin took breaths between blurbs, just enough to get you fascinated without overshadowing the main plot. Draco is the main character, and your following him and all his knowledge of the Wizarding World (as opposed to Harry’s canonical, general obliviousness) as he takes on a new challenge in life— a teaching position at Hogwarts alongside Harry and Hermione in the post-Wizarding War World. You get a really interesting look into the complexities of magical politics and its purpose within their world, as well as a deeper look into contemporary Magical history and its affects on their modern world. All the questions that ruined so much of canon Harry Potter for me are answered in this fic, and on top of that, she’s doing what I’ve been struggling to do for like, five years, which is talk about where all the goddamn Muggles fit in. Also! It’s Drarry, but when they’re grownups and can work their shit out, so it’s extra good. Tag for Court Drama, McGonagall Knows Best, and Professor!AU.

One Hundred and Sixty Nine, by Soupy_George: This is a Hermione-centric time travel fic, and the pairing is Sirius/Hermione (a rarepair for many reasons, but beautifully done here). This is a universe where the war was Bad and Long, and the Golden Trio came out of it more battered than they should have. Hermione, in a desperate attempt to fix the lives of her best friends, does some hardcore illegal Time Turner magic and lands 169 days before Voldemort’s attack on the Potters in 1981. Her plan is pretty straightforward: get the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort before he makes inside the house on Godric’s Hollow. After making contact with the Order, she sets her plan into motion with the help of Sirius, Remus, a young Moody, and a consistently secretive but overall well-meaning Dumbledore. Tag for Time Travel, Subtle Punk Rock, and Slow Burn.

Secrets, by Vorabiza: I have loved this fic since my sophomore year of high school. I found it in the time of fandom-specific fic sites, that’s how long it’s been, and honestly it’s one of the best re-writes (or maybe book seven predictions) I’ve ever read. It’s another Drarry, and it’s a kid!fic, which is a particular weak spot of mine, focusing on the summer before Harry’s seventh year and the aftermath of Dumbledore’s death. It really digs into the what it means to be Sorted into the House you’re Sorted into, and the psychological and cultural implications that Magical society has put on that Sorting. There are spy games, secret-keeping, and a really well-done crowning of Harry as the young man who’s going to lead the war effort in the wake of Dumbledore. Tag for Babies, Not As Big A Dick As Canon Severus Snape, and Family Feels.

Most of these are longish reads, but I figure so many of us have time on our hands right now that might otherwise be spent worrying, so fuck it! Indulge the Harry Potter fan you have living inside of you. Read some good fic.

[acrostical]

Safe Haven

On December 8, 1941—the day after “a date which will live in infamy”—then-president Aurelia Henry Reinhardt wrote a letter to all Mills families. With the hindsight of nearly 80 years, it’s a surreal read; the main point of the letter was not to offer solace or organize war efforts, but to reassure parents that the Mills campus was unlikely to face any danger from a Japanese attack. “The English Channel is 26 miles wide; New York is 3,500 miles from Europe; California is 5,500 miles from Japan and 2,500 miles from our nearest possession in the Hawaiian group,” she wrote. “May I assure you that there exists no reason to change in any way the schedule and curriculum of this college in the spring term which begins Monday, January 5.”

At that point, no one knew that many students of Japanese descent would soon opt to leave Mills, hoping to avoid separation from their families as they were forced into internment camps across the United States. In the years leading up to World War II, President Reinhardt had approached a number of European artists and intellectuals to offer them a place at Mills as the Third Reich marched across the continent and sent to concentration camps anyone it deemed a threat, including Darius Milhaud and other notable figures in the College’s history, but that welcoming spirit couldn’t protect some of her own students.

When it comes to political and cultural forces outside the campus gates, the College has historically been limited in what it can do to protect its students. But as an institution, Mills has long welcomed members of marginalized communities, and outside restrictions have not altered the campus culture of acceptance.

In recent years, the term “sanctuary” has become a buzzword in our charged political environment. But in a historical sense, the concept originated with the sacred. In ancient Greece, spaces that honored the gods provided some measure of immunity to individuals escaping laws of the state (with limited success), and in Rome, Romulus established a zone on Capitoline Hill where asylum seekers from other places could find refuge. For centuries, places of worship have operated as spaces where people could take shelter, and it’s still happening today—churches around the world house migrants seeking to avoid deportation back to war-torn homelands.

The idea of sanctuary gained popularity in the United States in the 1980s when Central Americans began to flee their home countries in the wake of civil unrest, but Mills took on the responsibility of offering it 60 years earlier in the early days of World War II. In the 1961 book Aurelia Henry Reinhardt: Portrait of a Whole Woman, Chaplain George Hedley wrote that President Reinhardt contacted the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars (later Foreign Scholars) to invite intellectuals to Mills as soon as Hitler took power in Germany in 1933. Hedley noted that legends were told of Reinhardt physically transporting those scholars to campus herself.

A number of professors soon made their way to Oakland, including Alfred Neumeyer, who taught art history and directed what was then the Art Gallery, and the married couple Bernhard Blume and Carlotta Rosenberg. A German playwright, Bernhard headed up the German Department at Mills until 1945, and Rosenberg was a proponent of educating workers and women.

Of course, the most well-known Mills expats were the musician Darius Milhaud and his wife, Madeleine. In speaking with the author Roger Nichols in 1991, Madeleine detailed her family’s reaction when the Nazis entered Paris in June 1940: “We knew… that Milhaud was among the first on a list of intellectuals to be arrested because he was well known in Germany as a Jewish composer, and also because he did not share their right-wing ideals.”

The Milhauds made their way to Lisbon with plans to fly to New York, using an invitation from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to obtain visas. But upon arrival in Portugal, their plane tickets were declared invalid because they had been bought with French francs. The three—Darius, Madeleine, and their son—were just about to board an American freighter to cross the Atlantic when a telegram arrived with an offer to teach at Mills. The San Francisco-based French conductor Pierre Monteux had contacted President Reinhardt after learning that Milhaud was fleeing to America and connected the two.

Milhaud cabled his acceptance of the position and, a few months after arriving on campus, Dean of Faculty Dean Rusk (later US Secretary of State during the Vietnam War) wrote to the State Department to plead his case for Milhaud’s continued residency in the United States, which hinged on his history of contribution to the arts. Milhaud taught on and off at Mills from 1940 until 1971.

Milhaud’s influence on the Music Department (and the rest of the College) is well known, though he was not the only academic who molded Mills in indelible ways during this time. Helene Mayer, a champion German fencer at the 1928 Olympics, was studying at Scripps College when Hitler rose to power in her home country. She then enrolled at Mills for a master’s in French. While on campus studying for her MA and, later, teaching German literature, she founded the Mills College Fencing Club, jump-starting an organization that lasted for decades. And it’s to the credit of these scholars that the German Department at Mills built a strong enough foundation to eventually send many of its students abroad as Fulbright scholars.

The situation with students of Japanese descent was not nearly as easy to solve, however, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishing internment camps less than three months after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Alumnae who were at Mills during the attack remember that day as a sunny one, with word of the incident filtering in as they arrived back in their residence halls after Sunday chapel service. Japanese American students soon found their freedoms curtailed bit by bit, starting with an Army-ordered curfew that restricted their movement even on the Mills campus.

May Ohmura Watanabe ’44, who was born in California to American citizens, wrote about her experiences in multiple issues of the Quarterly. “I remember Dr. Hedley, the chaplain, was very upset and angry. I can still feel his hand tightly holding mine, his body slightly bent forward as he hurried to look at the curfew proclamation posted on the telephone pole just outside the campus,” she wrote in 1985. “He even took me to the Army’s headquarters in San Francisco to protest and to state his disbelief. All in vain.”

Watanabe soon left Mills and returned home to Chico so that she wouldn’t be sent to a different internment camp than her parents and brother. She spent a year at the Tule Lake Relocation Center near the Oregon border, then was released as part of a program allowing some detainees to work or attend school in special approved zones. Watanabe was allowed to transfer her credits to Syracuse University, where she studied nursing. “I remember the special arrangements Mills made for me before evacuation to take my exams in Chico supervised by my high school dean,” she wrote.

The late Grace Fujii Kikuchi ’42 made a similar choice to leave Mills to avoid separation from her family. As a senior, she was more easily able to bring her time at Mills to a close, though it wasn’t a happy time. “My professors at Mills had arranged for me to take my [exam] at a nearby high school,” she wrote in the same Quarterly issue. “All I know is that I was graduated in absentia with my class. Not to be able to attend my commencement after four hard years of work was a bitter disappointment to me.”

The frustrations of the Mills administration during this era were captured in a play by Catherine Ladnier ’70, which she based on actual letters President Reinhardt received from students who left the College due to World War II, including Japanese American students in internment camps. Titled A Future Day of Radiant Peace, the play details the personal turmoil these students experienced as they abandoned their bustling lives at Mills for the uncertainty of the camps. It also demonstrates what little power anyone on campus had to prevent the exodus.

In the aftermath of the war, however, Mills was able to provide sanctuary to several students whose home countries were suffering. Catherine Cambessedes Colburn ’47 and Noramah Sumakno Peksopoetranto ’56 traveled to the College from France and Indonesia, respectively. In the spring 1997 issue of the Quarterly, Colburn wrote about the strangeness of going from a country recovering from war to a land of plenty.

“Mills had sent a list of what I would need, and I owned next to none of the items, nor could I get them. Coupons, given out rarely, were required to buy anything. Besides, the stores were next to empty,” she wrote. “I exchanged my wine ration with a friend for her fabric coupon and my cigarette ration with another for hers, and got enough material for two clothing items.”

Peksopoetranto earned her opportunity to attend Mills through a one-year scholarship from the Edward H. Hazen Foundation. At the end of the year, Dean Anna Hawkes offered her room and board for a bachelor’s degree in education; she spent that summer staying in the home of Librarian Elizabeth Reynolds.

On October 29, 2018—two days after 11 were killed in a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—President Elizabeth L. Hillman sent an email to the Mills community. In it, she harkened back to the College’s history of providing sanctuary to Jewish scholars during World War II and the inspiration they provided to generations of students. “Higher education institutions like Mills have a special role to play in creating and sharing knowledge across boundaries of faith, race, gender, and background,” she wrote. “We can only fulfill our mission when everyone in our community is safe, respected, and able to grow and learn.”

In the last few years, President Hillman has sent a number of similar emails to the campus community after attacks, in the United States and abroad, that have targeted historically marginalized groups. According to Dean of Students Chicora Martin, the typical campus response finds its roots in Mills history. “Whenever an incident happens, we’re among a community where people may not always know what to do, but they are prepared to do something,” they said. “It’s part of our culture.”

“In times of immense crisis and identity-based violence, there is this depth of emotion and despair, but also a desire to be in community,” says Dara Olandt, campus chaplain and director of spiritual and religious life. “It has been very moving for me to see the ways in which students have offered leadership and shown up for each other.”

Olandt attributes the campus-wide attitude of acceptance and protection to the College’s past religiosity—in particular, President Reinhardt was the first woman moderator of the American Unitarian Association. (Olandt herself was ordained by the Unitarian Universalist church.) The chapel “is a refuge, and a place of deep hospitality. That’s what the forebears [who created] this chapel were really about,” Olandt says. “There’s power in this symbolic place where people are welcome in the fullness of their lives, no matter their identities.”

She also counsels those who travel to Mills from outside the country and hail from distinctly different societal and religious backgrounds than their US-born peers. That demographic has naturally been part of the student body for decades, but provides a different set of challenges due to the requirements of F-1 and J-1 student entry visas. Dean Martin serves as the principal designated school official on the Mills campus, so they are the first point of contact for the US government. “Every year, we have someone who can’t make it here because they can’t get a visa,” they say. “There are lots of restrictions with international students, and there’s a lot of documentation that you have to provide just for them to do normal-ish things, like getting a Social Security card or a driver’s license.”

Over the last four years, the legal status of undocumented students has been called into question across the country, and as a Hispanic Serving Institution, Mills has been prompted to respond. Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which began in 2012, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US before they turned 18 could be granted renewable two-year periods where they would not be deported. When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency, he pledged to end the program—and set off a chain reaction at colleges and universities across the country, which became known as the “sanctuary campus” movement.

On November 16, 2016, President Hillman was one of hundreds of signatories to the Statement in Support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, which underscored the contributions that its recipients have made to college communities across the country. “America needs talent—and these students, who have been raised and educated in the United States, are already part of our national community,” the statement reads. “They represent what is best about America, and as scholars and leaders they are essential to the future.”

Hillman also joined with more than two dozen college leaders in December 2017 as founding members of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which advocates for fair treatment of DACA and international students, and she continues to contribute to amicus briefs compiled by the alliance on behalf of DACA students.

In practical terms, Martin says that Mills provides grants to affected DACA students to cover the legal paperwork required to renew their statuses, and the College will provide financial assistance to any undocumented student in the same amount the student would have received from a Pell Grant, which is a federal program and therefore off-limits to non-citizens.

But in terms of sanctuary? If immigration officials asked Mills to turn over student records, the College is theoretically protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prohibits the disclosure of student information, including immigration status, to parties beyond those that need to know for the purposes of that student’s education. Nothing like that has happened yet, but administrators say that it’s really not the point. The last few years have, in the end, cemented the kind of institution Mills wants to be.

“We were asking questions about our own values. The government’s now actively not supporting [these] students, so we have to come out very strongly with concrete statements and actions that clarify for our community where our values lie,” Martin says.

“Aurelia Reinhardt was deeply motivated by her values, which had roots in her religious and spiritual background,” Olandt adds. “She was very much anchored in a spirit of service and what we call today solidarity with marginalized folks. How can we uphold the best of humanity and live a moral and ethical life in the face of challenge?”

[tanoraqui]

*takes feelings about the Penric’s Demon series and a hearty dose of @asukaskerian‘s Midnight on the Demon Patrol fic and yeets them into a blender with a text post I saw like a year ago; hits puree with no idea where this is going*

“There’s nothing else for it, Vinnie. You’ll have to take Holmes.”

“Grandma, I am not inheriting your death demon!”

My great-grandmother had broken her left hipbone two days ago; she could barely hold her head off the pillows that propped her up and her eyes were clouded with cataracts and painkillers. She lifted her head to glare at me nonetheless. 

“Vanessa Jean Watson, I will not hear such language from your mouth, not in my house and not anywhere. You-“

She stiffened with a sudden grimace and fell back to bed limper. Tears ran down her cheeks. 

“You know better,” she finished, voice rough with pain.

“Sorry,” I said, and meant it - but mostly for the fact that I pushed one more time. “It’s just, I’m a nurse. Not a...super secret FBI agent. What am I going to do with a permanent death spirit?”

None of us really knew most of what Grandma Watson had done with her life, for work. She’d been retired for most of my life, and her stories hovered between “fanciful” and “classified beyond belief.”

“Your granddaughter is exactly right,” said Latimer - George Latimer, he’d introduced himself, when I got to my grandmother’s house and found two FBI agents in the kitchen. Director of the Spirit Crimes division. “If you’d just consider Agent Moehner - she’s one of our best, you know. Nearly a decade of experience in the field, with strong riders-”

(The other agent, currently exiled to the kitchen with a mug of coffee, while we argued in the bedroom. She was tall, dark-skinned, and looked like she could kill a man with her pinky, and I hadn’t seen her make a single facial expression when we’d been introduced.)

“Absolutely not,” Grandma snapped, with the faintly echoing undertone that meant her rider was saying it, too.

“I’m not leaving the Watsons,” she hissed - Holmes hissed, Grandma’s lips going pale as though already dead.

“And you’re it, Vanessa,” said Grandma, color returning to her face (though not much; not much at all.) “You don’t see David flying out to my bedside, much less Therese. Liz is gone, and so’s your father. And the twins are too young.”

She wasn’t wrong. Great-grandma Watson, with her snappish authority, apartment full of dead plants, and inclination to look like a corpse to let her equally haughty permanent-rider death spirit speak through her wasn’t high on everyone’s Family to Visit list, and never had been. Nana Liz had loved her, but Nana Liz passed away ten years ago. My dad had spat back her barbs just as fast and with twice the cheer, but he got shot in Syria four years ago. Mom hadn’t been in the picture since just after I was born, and my older brother Dave was busy being a suburban dad in Boston, complete with twin toddlers, a Subaru, and “Sent from my iPhone” email saying, “Heard about Grandma’s fall - give her my best!” He’d sooner discorporate the family spirit than fly across the country to take it up.

Not that I’d flown across the country. I just lived in the next city over, because there’d been a job opening in a hospital and it’d seemed like someone ought to live near the 103-year-old matriarch, rider and all. She refused any live-in help. The unspoken family vote had been me.

“And you,” she added, voice softening a little. “Stop weeping, you old fusspot. You’ve been exhausting yourself for years, keeping back the viruses and cancer and such without any proper food. This damn hip is the last straw for both of us - have a good meal of me, then go fuss over Vinnie instead. She’s a good girl, she’ll look out for you.”

Holmes shook her head, side to side against the pillow. “Jillian…”

“I’m tired, Holmes.” She closed her eyes and sighed, and for maybe the first time I realized how small she was. Short and slight to start with, and shrunken with age, pallid and wrinkled and frail. Her personality didn’t usually allow for the observation.

“Ah, Holmes,” said Latimer, “are you sure you wouldn’t consider accepting Agent Moehner as your handler? As I said, she has experience in the field, and would return to it promptly with you - as Mrs. Watson said, I’m sure you haven’t had a, ah, decent meal in a while-”

Grandma Watson’s eyes opened and snapped over to the FBI director, flat and dead.

“When Captain Watson passes away, there will be two to thirty seconds during which I am bound by little more than my own conscience,” Holmes said icily. “If I were you, sir, I should stop trying to tempt me to hunger now.”

“Captain,” he blustered, “control your spirit-“

“Not a captain,” Grandma said with a quiet smirk. “Retired. And Vinnie’s going to be a private citizen, unless you lot talk her into signing some damn thing - and if her father couldn’t, you can’t.”

She pushed herself up again, wincing, looking at me. “I am sorry, Vinnie, when you just got here - if you need to go get coffee, or break up with a girlfriend, I can…” She sank back, half-scowling at her own weakness. “I can wait. I’ll be fine.”

“I…”

I fiddled with the hem of my jacket. I hadn’t even taken it off, since coming here after work.

I thought if I left, I’d probably run and not come back.

“It’s fine, Grandma. I can- I’ll look after Holmes for you.”

“Good girl.” A bit more color returned to her cheeks as she smiled. “Too responsible for your own good.” 

She closed her eyes, looking life-sized again. “Last words, last words...well let’s go with the classic. Sherlock Holmes!”

There was a tension to the air, as though something was about to break. Latimer reaches for something in his pocket. I fought the urge to step back - I knew the spirit’s name, but I’d never seen her use it in a real, summoning way. The bedroom was suddenly cold.

Grandma’s eyes stayed wearily shut, but her voice was strong. “I commend my death to thee. Make it and consume it, and as long as it sustains thee, do my will: go with my great-granddaughter Vanessa and look after her - and don’t be too much of an ass to her, because she’s not all boiled down to pure spite like I am.” 

Even weary and wrinkled, her grin was a shark’s. I shivered in the cold.

“This I bid thee again, and a third time to seal it.”

And she died.

It wasn’t gruesome, but it was unmistakeable, and all at once. Her breath gasped out, her cheeks sunk, and she locked into rigor mortis - and darkness seeped out of her greying skin. It coalesced into a cloud that hovered above her, not quite shadow and not quite smoke.

It extended a wisp to brush against Grandma’s still forehead, and there was no mistaking the tenderness in the touch. 

Then it lunged toward Latimer like a snapping turtle. He took a step back - but only into what looked like some sort of fighting position; his hands came up and they were traced with glowing sigils - which made sense, that the FBI Spirit Crimes guy would have a rider, too. Hurried footsteps behind me were Agent Moehner rushing into the room, talk and dark-skinned and holding a long, faintly glowing knife. 

“Containment, sir?” she asked.

Latimer nodded, as the marks started floating off his hands and stretching wide and glowing toward Holmes.

But Holmes had already pulled away from him, to circle me. It was a bit like being caught in a very small, freezing cyclone. Which somehow radiated impatience.

“Oh, I…”

Grandma’s pocketknife was on her bedside table; I grabbed it and, telling myself it was just like administering a needle, sliced the back of my forearm.

“Sherlock Holmes, for blood I bid thee to my aid-” Basic words you learned in kindergarten, along with your ABCs. The difference was, it was normally for nameless wild spirits - flickers of luck or light or peace of mind that everyone called on here and there. With a name on my lips for a century-plus-old spirit, it was like wrestling a very personal thunderstorm. I could feel the chill and the stillness and the inevitability of death in my bones.

“I invite you to share my corporeality, um-” That wasn’t kindergarten, or anything outside of a more advanced class - except Grandma had spent an afternoon every (rare) visit drilling any descendant she could pin down. 

“Terms and conditions!” Latimer shouted - maybe not for the first time; there was a roaring in my ears.

“-under the same terms and conditions as you had with Jillian Watson,” I extemporized at a shout.

And then I died.

Or, it really, really felt like I had, for a moment. It felt like I could easily imagine dying felt like - and considering that when I opened my eyes, there was a chill presence in the back of my mind that was unmistakeably Sherlock Holmes, a sentient manifestation of death, I don’t think I was wrong.

I’m sorry, I said silently, because I couldn’t help but feel his grief.

Go deal with the military idiot, he scoffed, and somehow turned away, crossing his arms at the back of my skull. They’ll want you to fill out some registration forms, for a Class A-1 spirit possession. Just don’t sign anything that gives them actual authority over us.

[tessisawriter]

Article: “The conflicted passions of Islanders fans of color and changes they want to see”

Under the cut, I have reposted in full an article written by Arthur Staple & published August 28, 2020 on the Athletic (a subscription-only site) b/c I feel everyone should be able to read it. Finally, someone is writing about racism on Long Island and within the Islanders fanbase; it’s been a major problem from the moment the team was founded. Imagine not feeling comfortable going to a hockey game. That’s what Black and POC Islanders fans experience all the time, and it cannot continue. The Islanders’ owners, Scott Malkin and John Ledecky, have to do better. 

Here’s the link to the article; everything under the cut is from that article and was written by Arthur Staple. 

Jason Faustino is not a household name to Islanders fans, but many of them wear his sneakers. The co-founder of Extra Butter, a trendy sneaker label, Faustino was a longtime Islanders season-ticket holder who custom-designed Isles-themed kicks through the team and Reebok several years ago. He counts a few players as customers and friends.

He’s also a Filipino-American hockey fan who all too often has felt alienated from the team he loves. Those experiences have ranged from being one of a bare handful of fans of color at games or, more recently, dismayed at the team’s tepid statement in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis policeman on May 25 and the subsequent protests worldwide.

Faustino has been watching the Islanders’ successful playoff run in the fan-less Toronto bubble and has enjoyed the escape the games provide for him. He was encouraged that Islanders players decided to join the rest of the NHL in sitting out games Thursday and Friday to support the league’s players of color in the wake of Jacob Blake’s shooting by a Kenosha, Wis., police officer on Sunday.

But the online discussions resulting from the NHL players�� decision not to play for two days, combined with the team statement from June 1, have left Faustino wondering where he fits in as an Islander fan. And he’s not alone.

“I can’t help but look back and see that they pandered to a fan base that’s largely ignorant,” Faustino said. “You don’t want to take away from supporting the team, but sorry that it might make those fans uncomfortable to read or see the words ‘Black Lives Matter.’ What that statement (in June) confirmed to me is the team just might not be aware at all and just does not understand how the perception is different for players and people of color, not understanding what it feels like for them.”

In June, after the Islanders’ social media account posted the team’s statement — which, by all accounts, was approved by principal owner Scott Malkin — several fans reached out to The Athletic via email or direct message on Twitter to express their disappointment with the organization. We spoke with three fans, who are used to being one of very few Black or Brown faces in the crowd at the Coliseum or Barclays Center, about how the statement made them feel about their team. In follow-up conversations, we asked them whether having games back this month has changed their views.

None of the Islanders fans we spoke with had ever experienced racism at Isles games, but they said they felt and still feel distanced from the team due to the lack of outreach and sensitivity to the experience of people of color who love hockey. The Athletic reached out to Islanders ownership through a team spokesman in June and did not hear back.

‘I think the Islanders are good for Islander fans, not Long Island’

Desmond Zantua grew up in Floral Park, in the shadow of what will soon be the Islanders’ new home. He started going to Islander games as a teenager in 1997 and quickly noticed he could count, usually on one hand, the number of people of color in the Coliseum around him. “And it was easy to count since there weren’t many people there in the late ’90s,” he said.

Zantua, a Filipino American, has been active since Floyd’s death, going to protests in New York City and on Long Island and posting strong messages on Twitter. He feels the Islanders’ statement in June catered to a part of the fan base that is also vocal online, the part that counters Black Lives Matter with All Lives Matter, among other sentiments in the face of police brutality and misconduct.

What he wants to see from his team is more diversity in the organization, more outreach to minority communities on Long Island and more care taken to grow the game in a very diverse area.

“(The June 1 statement) confirmed to me that whether it’s business considerations or cultural considerations, everything is centered in suburban Whiteness,” Zantua said. “Being a fan of this team … the Islanders have played in predominantly Black neighborhoods and yet the crowd is predominantly White. Seeing a statement like that says that people like me don’t count.

“I’ve been going to games since 1997. I know most of the people there, I’m lucky if I see double-digit non-White people at the games. That should not change your ability to speak up against racism. It says to me those are the fans you want to keep, and what does it say about me if I continue to give money to an organization that feels this way?”

Since hockey and the Islanders have returned, Zantua has returned, too. He said it’s easier to watch and support the team when no fans are allowed because he doesn’t have to decide whether to attend or not. But the Blake shooting and how it forced the NHL and its players into confronting the world outside the playoff bubbles still makes him question his support.

“It’s been difficult. It’s still impossible to ignore what a White-privilege sport hockey is,” Zantua said. He hopes the Islanders get more involved with the minority communities around UBS Arena and grow the game on the Island in a new way once fans are allowed into the building.

“The kids in Garden City and Long Beach don’t need help discovering the game,” Zantua said. “Elmont is right there, Valley Stream is right there. … The Islanders talk about how good they are in the community. I think they’re good for Islander fans, not Long Island as a whole.”

‘You’re not making people feel welcome’

Ian Macks grew up in the Bronx and, even though he moved to Albany as a teen, still has a passion for the Islanders. It waned when the fan base never fully embraced the Barclays Center experience starting in 2015, and the June statement further pushed the 26-year-old Black poet away.

“There were obviously issues with them playing in Brooklyn, but it sort of felt to me that they never really tried to make it work,” Macks said. “I thought it was such a great opportunity to get new fans, fans that look more like me from Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx, into games and into the Islanders. But they went straight back to the Coliseum when they could. … The aversion to Brooklyn just seemed to come from a place of, ‘We know where our comfort zone is and we’re going right back there.'”

When we talked to Macks in mid-June, there was no hockey. He was wearing his No. 66 Josh Ho-Sang jersey, but wasn’t optimistic about going to Islanders games on the Island in the future.

“I went to an Islanders game in Philly this season and it was the most at home I’ve felt at one of their games,” Macks said. “It shouldn’t have to be that way. The statement says to me they care more about a certain type of fan than the people who are being counter-protested right in your backyard. You’re not making people feel welcome. And this is an organization that’s had a real problem keeping fans from all their mistakes over the years.”

‘It’s not the kind of fan I want to be’

Faustino is a Melville, N.Y., native who lives in Boston now and works for Saucony, a major sneaker brand. After a decade of helping build Extra Butter and doing things his own way, he’s come to understand that living life in the corporate world means not always having your personal views validated. So, while he was extremely bothered by the Islanders’ June statement, he said he knows plenty of people within the organization who were hurt by what the team put out.

“In the sneaker industry, it was a similar moment (three months ago) — there were brands that got it right and ones that didn’t,” Faustino said. “It was disappointing the Islanders got it wrong.”

He’s been watching the playoffs and enjoying the team’s success so far. The problem with being so removed from games, he said, is that you’re sucked into the online world of fandom, which is not a welcoming place for Islander fans of color. After the Islanders put out their statement Thursday in support of the players’ decision not to play, tweets from mostly anonymous fans followed vowing never to support the team or the league again for caving to what they saw as left-wing pressure.

“I saw statements of people that won’t support the team going forward. Would this impact me wanting to go to games if I were a season-ticket holder and the games had fans? I don’t know,” Faustino said. “And if there’s a Stanley Cup parade, do I even want to walk with these people? It’s hard to have my own bubble of 10-12 fans that I care about and ignore the rest.

“Seeing the games come back and seeing the Isles win a couple rounds, it’s a relief, really. I think it is for a lot of fans to get away from the realities of 2020. And I’m sure it’s not just Islander fans on Twitter reacting to the games being postponed this way. But seeing some of those reactions and thinking back to how the team kind of catered to that group three months ago, it makes me want to remove myself from the team and the game I love. And that’s not the kind of fan I want to be.”

[womenintranslation]

Q&A with Candice Whitney and Barbara Ofosu-Somuah, editors/translators of “Future. il domani narrato dalle voci di oggi,” edited by Igiaba Scego

A few weeks ago we announced on the WiT Tumblr an upcoming program at Casa Italiana NYU, “Stories Without Borders: A Conversation with Igiaba Scego,” hosted by Candice Whitney and Stefano Albertini, which you can watch here on YouTube. In an engaging and wide-ranging conversation, Scego talked about Italy’s colonial past in Africa, racial politics and systemic racism in Italy, the need for diversity in Italian publishing, and her reactions to the killing of George Floyd. Scego also discussed her reasons for editing the groundbreaking anthology of writings by AfroItalian women, Future. il domani narrato dalle voci di oggi [Futures. Tomorrow Narrated by the Voices of Today], published in 2019, which co-host Candice Whitney is currently translating with Barbara Ofosu-Somuah. (Candice is on the left and Barbara on the right in the photo above.) I followed up with Candice after watching the event to inquire about the Future anthology and about the translation project (which is currently seeking a publisher). Over several emails in July she and Barbara shared with me more details about the anthology and its writers, their personal encounters with Italy and the Italian language, and their commitment to creating a space for AfroItalian women writers in the English-language literary world.—Margaret

How did the Future anthology originate?

Candice Whitney and Barbara Ofosu-Somuah: Igiaba Scego, historian, journalist, fiction writer, and activist, wanted to create a text that acknowledges the future of Italy. The nation’s colonial legacy has shaped its national identity, citizenship laws, and how it relates to Blackness. For example, immigrants and their children, regardless of if they are born and/or raised in the country, are still othered as foreigners due to lack of citizenship reform.

A small publishing house in Florence, Italy, effequ, reached out to Scego to curate an anthology about migration. She had already edited and worked on influential anthologies related to migration, such as Italiani senza vocazione (Edizioni Cadmo, 2005). Ubah Cristina Ali Farrah, whose literary work connects the present day to the experiences of Somali relatives who moved to Italy, is an example of an artist that Scego collaborated with and admires. However, Scego wanted to pursue a different focus for effequ.

Reflecting on the double-consciousness of her life, specifically experiencing migration through the memory of her parents and living in Italy, Scego wanted to read and share perspectives of women similar yet different from her. The concept of Future was born from this idea. She chose to incorporate perspectives from writers of different generations, and from large and small cities across the nation.These authors write across genres. With this anthology, Scego highlights the diversity of the African diaspora in Italy. Contributors have backgrounds from Eritrea, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Rwanda, Tunisia, Haiti, and more.

While working on the anthology, Scego noticed the shared anger and exhaustion that AfroItalian women face due to systematic racism and discrimination. As such, in the introduction of Future, Scego describes the book as Italy’s contemporary J’accuse (signaling Émile Zola’s open letter to the president of the French Republic), as it “publicly denounces power and injustice.” More about the anthology can be found in a CUNYTV news segment, featuring interviews and readings by contributors Marie Moïse, Angelica Pesarini, and Camilla Hawthorne, hosted by the Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College. The recording of Stories without Borders: A Conversation with Igiaba Scego, hosted by Casa Italiana of NYU, also focuses on Future and Scego’s other works like Beyond Babylon (trans. Aaron Robertson) and La linea del colore (The Color Line).  (This response paraphrases Scego's answer to a similar question during Casa Italiana's virtual event, Stories without Borders).

What were the Fulbright projects that took you to Italy?

Barbara: I began studying Italian at Middlebury College, as a way of connecting with my cousins who were born and raised in the Veneto region. Italy was the only place my cousins had ever lived. Yet, because of their Blackness, they were always treated as outsiders. Learning the language helped me dive deeper into their experiences.

Studying in Italy my junior year sparked new questions about Blackness and sharpened my attention to how transnational contexts inflect the experience of Blackness. In Florence, I met and connected with many young people who, like my cousins, existed between Italian and Outsider – never quite considered Italian because of their Blackness. Meeting them pushed me to begin questioning what Blackness means across geographies and relationships.

So I returned to Italy in 2016 as a Fulbright Researcher to examine the complex interplay of education, citizenship, and identity for first and second-generation immigrant youth. I explored how school teachers create teaching practices that are responsive to these youths’ cultural and linguistic assets. I observed that, despite best intentions, teachers' relationships with Black students often reproduced antagonistic dynamics that led to those students, more than any other racialized group, being labeled as badly behaved or academically deficient. I joined various discussions held by Black Italians. I listened as they unpacked the reality of concurrently embodying Blackness and Italianness in a culture that perceives this duality as incompatible, an “irreconcilable paradox” as framed by Italian scholar Angelica Pesarini.

Candice: At Mount Holyoke College, I enrolled in Italian language courses to understand political commentaries about black communities during the immigration crisis. Through my majors Anthropology and Italian, I broadened my knowledge of analyzing culture and positionality with an intersectional approach to inform my research projects about the politics of Blackness, entrepreneurship, and institutions in Italy. I went to Italy for the first time as a year-long study abroad student in Bologna. My senior thesis analyzed my ethnographic research in that city and argued that Italian immigration laws negatively impact employment prospects for West African merchantmen, regardless of their legal status. Those laws also marginalize and racialize their bodies through biopolitics and biopower. I remained curious about the experiences of businesswomen of African descent and decided to apply for a Fulbright.

As a Fulbright Student Researcher in 2016-17, I researched how Italy’s racial and political history impacts the reception and promotion of businesses owned by African women and descendants in northern Italy. The women I spoke with had businesses in the hospitality, beauty, and e-commerce industries. They either moved to Italy as adults and had been living in the nation for years, or they were born and/or raised there as children and have been there their whole lives. They did not describe themselves as outsiders, even though the nation continues to view and treat them through immigration and exclusive citizenship laws shaped by the nation's colonial past. However, national organizations and political commentators see them as people who will save the country from a slow economy. This is usually juxtaposed with bodies that are considered illegitimate or a threat to the nation, often Black and Brown people of migratory backgrounds who do precarious labor to feed and sustain the needs of the population. I admire how these women challenge the boundaries of entrepreneurship and cultural production in Italy, considering the racist and neoliberal anxieties that impact their projects’ creation and perception.

Like Barbara, I also spoke with activists and changemakers about racial politics and notions of privilege. I was curious about the similarities between my experiences as an African American woman and those of Black Italians and the differences and ways that I may benefit from certain situations due to my Americanness. Tina Campt coined the concept of "intercultural address,” or how we see the commonalities and similarities between African American and Black European experiences through references to the hegemonic black American cultural capital across the globe. This notion significantly impacted my research and the articles I wrote during my Fulbright and currently shapes how I approach translation and promoting AfroItalian women’s voices.

Candice, you talked about doing a review of Future for The Dreaming Machine and mentioned that Pina, the editor, gave you the idea to translate one of its texts-- is that what made you think of doing the entire anthology?

Candice: As we spoke about writing a review in English for the book, Pina also gave me the idea to translate one of its stories. I thought it was a great idea to accompany the review.

I don’t remember the exact moment I decided to translate the anthology, but I do remember planning to do it as we got closer to the event at the Calandra Italian American Institute in February. I shared the idea with Marie Moïse, Angelica Pesarini, and Camilla Hawthorne as we prepared for the live event. It came up during the conversation on the importance of Black translators translating the works of Black authors. Barbara, who also has experience in translation and was also at the live event, shared her enthusiasm, and we decided to collaborate on it.

Barbara, what drew you to this project?  

Barbara: I came to this project initially through Candice and then fully committed to it after reading the stories myself and hearing Marie Moïse, Angelica Pesarini, and Camilla Hawthorne, three contributors to the anthology speak at the Calandra Italian American Institute of the City University of New York.

In my various experiences living and studying in Italy, I was always acutely aware of my AfroItalian friends and colleagues’ liminal positionality. Because of my own identity as a Ghanaian American, and my background studying Black transnationalism, I empathize with aspects of their struggle. Nonetheless, I found that I did not always have the full scope of language to explain their specific positionality within the global Black diaspora to my non-Italian friends and colleagues. Translating Future is an opportunity to have these AfroItalian women speak for themselves on the world stage. In my role as a translator, my purpose is to create space for the anthology writers to grapple with and make meaning about their lives and have them be reachable to an English-speaking audience. These stories, which run the gamut of engaging Blackness in many forms is a relational process that I, as the translator, help bring forth.

Candice, you mentioned Tina Campt and her "concept of ‘intercultural address’ or the ways that we see the commonalities and similarities between African American and Black European experiences.” I'm wondering how that has affected your translation strategies in the anthology. And the opposite: are there examples of any differences you've struggled with in the translation?

Candice: Definitely. I think about power as an African American within the African diaspora, specifically amongst African descendants in Europe, and that discourses about race or systemic inequalities can be directly or indirectly about the United States. I try to reflect and act on how I may be contributing to perpetuating a hegemony of Americanness within the diaspora, so I think that one way to try and destabilize that is starting with myself.

As for strategies, Barbara has helped me with this as we work on the translation. One thing is using the word “folks” when perhaps a better word is “people.” I think “folk” is typical, maybe even expected, in American English vernacular, and the word “people” is clearer to all audiences.

Another example is translating racial slurs, which exist in the anthology. Misogynoir is not something that cannot be easily translated from one language to another, without considering the historical trauma those words come from. That’s something I am grappling with.

Like Barbara, I empathize with the struggles that AfroItalian women face. As I translate, I am learning a lot and hugely appreciate these women for sharing their stories. I hope that future readers will experience the same admiration that Barbara and I feel for them and their work.

How many authors are in the anthology?

Candice: Eleven authors contributed stories. The preface and postface were written by two academics, Dr. Camilla Hawthorne, from the U.S. and Prisca Augustoni, from Brazil. Igiaba Scego wrote the introduction.

We both appreciate that the anthology connects the experiences and struggles of AfroItalian women to others in the diaspora, such as Brazil. That type of trans-diasporic dialogue is essential and demonstrates that these histories and futures don't occur in a vacuum, or should only be compared to what occurs in the US.  

Do you expect you'll be able to collaborate with the authors as you work on the translation?

Candice: Yes! Thankfully, Barbara and I already had connections with the contributors, either first degree or more. We plan to involve them in the process as we want to make sure that their words are reflected accurately and justly to English-speaking audiences.

Do you have any favorite texts among them?  

Barbara:  I can’t shake the stories by Marie Moïse or Angelica Pesarini.

Candice: I enjoyed all of them. In addition to the stories by Marie Moïse and Angelica Pesarini, "And Yet There Was Still a Smell of Rain" by Alesa Herero and "The Marathon Continues" by Addes Tesfamariam resonated with me.

[vicleesi]

About GoT Episode 4:

First of all, I’m completely exhausted from turning a blind eye to the multiple flaws in the D & D scripts (and it was they who wrote this episode). The strength of Game of Thrones came right from the details thanks to the incredible world that George R. R. Martin created and D & D destroyed. So no, I will not spare you them.

- The beginning was good. I just do not understand why Jon made his speech without looking at the survivors of Winterfell.

- The party dinner was generally good. In these last seasons, Game of Thrones has managed to maintain a good quality in the interaction between characthers. Episode 2 was basically all that and it was good for me. The problem is when GoT starts off for the story  - which is already lost.

- Daenerys’s loneliness was well portrayed. Too bad the series prematurely killed Selmy Barristan, did not it?

- First failure of attention to detail that detracts from the series’ worldbuilding: Gendry Rivers, what? Is he from the Riverlands, by any chance? Bastard born and raised in King’s Landing is named after Waters. His name was Gendry Waters (actually it was just Gendry, since Robert never recognized him as his bastard son). Why change that, D & D? To be different?

- I wish Gendry good luck trying to persuade the Storm lords to bend over to a bastard who does not understand a thing about ruling a castle. But of course the series will not talk about that. At least they did not give Storm’s to Brienne or to Davos (by the way, when the Davos family will show up?)

- Leaving a bit out of order, but taking advantage of feudal politics, what’s going on in Dorne?” D & D mentioned a new Prince of Dorne who swore loyalty to Daenerys. Hi? What? When? Who? WHY??? D & D had the brilliant idea of ​​making the Martells exterminate each other and still reap the rewards of their genius. Dorne remains the worst arc in the series and quite possibly one of the worst book-media visual adaptations ever.

- They also mentioned Riverrun again. What happened to the Riverlands after the Freys all died? Where is Edmure Tully? Who controls Riverrun?

- Writers creating a whole scene by saying that Brienne is a virgin. Not necessary.

- There was not a crippled nephew of Daeron Targaryen. D & D creating Targaryens whenever they want, although there is a well-defined story in the books. (FIRE AND BLOOD)

- There was finally a scene between Sandor and Sansa. It only took 4 episodes to happen. Once again they put Sansa as the product of her suffering, justifying the idiot choices D & D made for her character. Nothing new, otherwise it was a totally forgettable dialogue (I already forgot).

- The Bronn Paradox: If Bronn is not serving Daenerys while the war is rolling, who guarantees that he will receive his castle in the end? Especially considering he was utterly disillusioned with the promises of the Lannisters to the point of being ready to kill his two best friends? In fact, did D & D forget that Jaime himself had offered Highgarden to the Bronn last season?

- Again, as for Gendry, I wish Bronn good luck in trying to establish his feudal dominion over the proud lords of Highgarden who did not even tolerate the right Tyrells, and the Tyrells were an old family and had already been entrenched in there for centuries. Of course, D & D do not care.

- The Paradox of the Wildlings: Why were they known as wildlings? Because they tried to conquer the Wall from time to time and were always looting the North in search of resources and riches. Because their land was a shit, where nothing grew and it was always winter, basically. Now the they finally made it through the Wall and gain access to the best lands, even more with the support of the Winterfell and Starks. What do they do? That’s right: they go back to their shit place because D & D have that same shit on their heads.

- What else is north of Winterfell and south of the Wall are lands with no one, thanks to the King of the Night.“ But the wildlings choose to go back to Castle Black and, by all means, beyond the Wall. Seven Hells.

- I will not even comment on Jon’s scene sending Ghost away.” If it was for him to appear that way, it was better for the wolf to have been m.i.a as before.

- Sam Tarly is a Night’s Watch man. Men of Night’s Watch should not have children. When will anyone say that? Did not Jon even mention it? What happened to Night’s Watch? Why is Sam still dressed in black? If he’s out, why did not he become Lord Tarly?

- The arc of Night’s Watch is going to be without conclusion anyway? Are they gone?

- The army of the living has lost only half its men? It was not what it looked like in episode 3. But okay, D & D create and describe armies whenever they think it’s valid - just like Night’s Watch, apparently.

- As they are doing this season, D & D cut important dialogue scenes because they do not know what to write. In the first episode they cut off Daenerys before she finished threatening Sansa. In the second episode they cut their scene together before Dany could answer the question “What about the North?”. At the end of it cut the scene Jon x Dany in the crypts. Now they cut the scene of Sansa and Arya discovering that Jon is not their brother. Why, man? What is the reason? I’m shocked that D & D did not cut Jon’s reaction to finding out that he’s a bastard of Rhaegar and Lyanna (yes, he’s a bastard, D & D, no matter how many fanfics they write).

- Arya in the first moment: we are a family! Arya in 2nd moment: left King’s Landing, goodbye Winterfell, until never again! and yes she left for good, she said she ain’t coming back!

That was the good part of the episode. Let’s go to the bad part!!

- So you want to tell me that Euron can hit three harpoons in a dragon in mid-flight?“

- So you want to tell me that Daenerys from the sky was unable to see the Greyjoy fleet hidden behind an islet?”

- So you want to tell me that Daenerys never considered the possibility that it was a bad idea to sail to Dragonstone as they knew Euron controlled the seas there?“

- So you want to tell me that Rhaegal was not killed by the zombie dragon brother in the apocalyptic Battle of the long night fighting for the fate of the men’s kingdom only to die in the next episode in a few seconds for Euron Greyjoy’s magical harpoons?

-So you want to tell me how easy it is to kill dragons like that?” It amazes me that Aegon conquered Westeros three hundred years ago.

- Daenerys should have flown directly to King’s Landing and fired at everything after the Rhaegal’s death. Fire and Blood!!

- Jaime returning to Cersei: hi? What the fuck? If it is to join her and not kill her right away, Jaime will be the greatest example of character assassination that D & D has committed since Stannis Baratheon.

- How did Team Dany know that Missandei had been captured? Euron made propaganda, sent in the email?

- Is Varys loyal to Jon Snow? REALLY? What does Varys know about Jon Snow? When did he meet Jon Snow? When did they share at least one scene together? They never talked. Varys never saw him rule. Where do the writers get these crazy ideas?

- Nonsense to be creating intrigue over the marriage between Jon and Daenerys. She will need to get married to have children and continue the dynasty. Who is she getting married to, Hot Pie?

- By the way, there have been marriages between uncles and nieces among the Starks. Brothers Jonnel and Edric Stark married their nieces Serena and Sansa Stark some 150 years ago to try to end a crisis of succession, since their father, Rickon, heir to Winterfell, had been killed in the conquest of Dorne. It would not surprise me if GRRM specifically placed these marriages in history just for this situation that was raised in the conversation between Tyrion and Varys. In fact, marriages between uncles and nieces were not exactly uncommon in our own history. In Brasil, Dom Pedro I was grandson of D. Maria I of Portugal, who was married to his uncle, D. Pedro III, precisely to avoid a dynastic crisis.

- Again the bullshit that Robert’s Rebellion was built on a lie. I imagine the Crazy King burning the Lord of Winterfell and his heir and begging for Ned and Robert’s head did not influence that at all.

- Dany is an emotional woman who’s going crazy. So we need a rational man to help her.

- Dany is an emotional woman who’s going crazy. So we need a rational man to help her!!

- Oh, excuse me if I repeated myself, but this nonsense does not go down. They disrespected Daenerys, disrespected her journey, disrespected even the “girl power” they tried to do last season (Dany, Olenna Tyrell, Cersei and the Martells). The mysoginism of these so-called D & D appearing once more to claim another innocent victim.

- Why did Cersei not kill Tyrion?

- Why did Cersei not kill Daenerys?

- Euron does not suspect anything after Tyrion reveals he knew Cersei was pregnant?“ Since Euron himelf knew only minutes ago?

- D & D really put an end to the apocalypse so we can have Cersei grinning in the last three episodes? Is this serious?

- Euron is Cersei’s puppy. Euron in the series is another completely character , they should have changed his name in the adaptation as they did with the Asha (Yara).

- No turning back with the Night King. D & D make us muggles.

- Finally: where’s the winter ??? It seems King’s Landing is in the tropics.

- Cancel this and the next two episodes. Let GoT finish in episode 3, at least so we would have something minimally satisfying. D & D continue to insult the viewer’s intelligence.

"At least the show’s songs never fails to please.”

*this analysis is not mine I translated from a brazilian friend

[ava-candide]

T'aint right, t’aint fairas Prudie, the Poldarks’ housekeeper, would say. Poldark is nearing its end; let the Sunday-night-swoon audience rend its garments. It returns next month for a fifth series then that’s your lot: game over. No more shots broodily staring out to sea, no more dramatic galloping at full pelt across Cornish clifftops making me worry for that horse. But, at least, a rest for the poor overworked six-pack of Aidan Turner, whose performance as Ross Poldark has held thousands of middle-aged ladies in thrall.

And here I am sitting 2ft away from him in a tiny room at the British Film Institute in London, a man whose abdominal muscles are the most “celebrated”, by which I mean “leered over”, in Britain. “You’re a ‘hot property’, ” I tell him as if he somehow hasn’t noticed his own naked torso appearing incessantly in every newspaper and magazine since 2015. “Do you feel like a hot property?” He looks horrified. “No, I don’t,” he says, smiling through a bushy black beard. “I don’t think I’d want to know anyone who [called themselves] a hot property. That gives me the heebie-jeebies.” Good answer. Anyone who refers to themselves as a hot property is obviously a massive tool.

I assume the beard (the Daily Mail said it made him “unrecognisable”, but he is totally recognisable) is for a part in an “exciting” new project, which, he says, involves working with a director he admires but, alas, he can’t tell me what it is. “I’m so sorry, it’s boring; it sucks,” he apologises (he means having to be secretive, not the production, just to be clear).

So how does he feel to have pulled off Ross’s tricorn hat and ravished Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) in that small Nampara bed for the last time? Turner, 36, has spent about a third of his working life on Poldark. Does it feel the right time to drop the curtain? “It feels storywise that this is the right time. It just seemed the right time in every possible way. It has been an incredible journey for all of us . . . but it’s a long shoot. I think we’re all ready to do other things.” I say I hope he had a suitably tearful farewell with Seamus, Ross’s trusted black horse who has built up such a fan-base that he is known as “famous Seamus”. Turner became very close to him, sometimes having a nap on his back between scenes. He thinks they have a similar personality: “We’re both Irish.” So how was the big goodbye?

“It’s kinda sad,” Turner says. “I was gutted.” For a terrible moment I’m imagining a glue factory, but it turns out he never said farewell to the horse. “With everything else when the job was wrapping up I remember the last time I wore the boots and the last time I wore the tricorn hat and the jacket, and the last time I did a scene with Eleanor in the kitchen. And I really marked it because I wanted to remember it. With Seamus I thought I was going to see him again; but then a scene got pulled we were going to use him for . . . so I never got to say a proper goodbye. I was really gutted.” Seamus lives in York. Might he go and see him? “Maybe I will. I should drop Mark, the trainer, an email and pop down and say hello and take him for a run-out.” A reunion? There lies a payday for the paparazzi.

This is the first of the BBC series not adapted directly from the Winston Graham novels (first dramatised by the BBC in 1975 starring Robin Ellis). There was a gap of ten years in the books and Debbie Horsfield, who has written every episode of the five series, has bridged the gap between novels seven and eight using information gleaned from the later works, to keep the characters at their present ages. The Graham estate thinks she has a great affinity with the novels. It is a strong first episode, with new characters and suggests, shall we say, that Elizabeth’s death is affecting the mental health of George Warleggan (played splendidly by Jack Farthing) more than we realised. After our conversation there is a Q&A and a screening of the episode at the BFI, but Turner says he thinks he’ll duck that bit because he feels uncomfortable watching it with an audience. “I’m not very good at that. I find it a bit strange.” He is quite shy and endearingly modest for a man so lusted after. At one point some traffic noise erupts outside and he jumps up to close the window for the sake of my Dictaphone which, trust me, not every actor would do.

How boring has he found the enormous fuss and objectification over his six-pack, prompted by a famous scything scene? “I get asked a lot. It’s par for the course,” he says. “It certainly doesn’t irritate me; it’s not something I regret doing, so it’s not something I ever care to avoid talking about. I just don’t find it that interesting.”

Turner, who was born in a suburban town near Dublin and attended drama college there, probably first became well known to British TV audiences in Being Human, after which Peter Jackson cast him as a dwarf in The Hobbit. But it was Ross Poldark who has made him famous. He says he’ll most likely miss Ross —“I love him; he’s a flawed character; he’s real” — though it’s early days. Is there anything he won’t miss? He seems flummoxed for a moment. “It’s good that I have to struggle a bit for that actually,” he says. “There’s nothing I hated and despised on the show. I’m used to early mornings. I’d love to be able to give you a bit of gossip but there’s nothing . . . Maybe living in rented accommodation.”

There have been reports of rows between him and Eleanor Tomlinson on set, usually over protecting their own characters in the show. She has joked that they squabble like an old married couple. “I don’t think we fall out often and certainly nothing serious. If there was ever any tension between us it was purely to do with work because we care a lot,” he says. “These conversations came later, the last two or three years. As we became more invested we felt we had more to lose because the show was successful, but it was always very professional. Eleanor’s an intelligent girl, conscientious, polite and articulate, so it never got into any screaming matches or anything. I was always really interested in what she had to say.” He starts laughing. “And most of the time she was right.”

I wonder if he minds the level of fame that has come with Poldark. Recently the actor Richard Madden (Bodyguard) revealed that he deliberately wore the same clothes and carried the same cup of green juice every day in the same way so the paparazzi couldn’t get a different picture and would lose interest. Turner says he tried that, but the photographer waiting outside the theatre (he was performing in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, for which he got rave reviews and a Stage debut award ) told him he could change the colour of his T-shirt in a heartbeat. “And the next day he showed me! He changed my T-shirt to pink and the colour of my jeans.” But he doesn’t mind the attention from the public. “People are usually very nice and polite. I like to see the best in people.”

He rarely reads reviews or his own interviews, never uses social media and is guarded about his private life, namely his American girlfriend, Caitlin Fitzgerald, with whom he was pictured recently on a red carpet (they met on the set of a film they both starred in: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then Bigfoot). He has also been photographed walking her dog, Charlie. When I mention Fitzgerald he raises both palms: “I can’t say anything about that,” he says, again apologetically. I imagine all those swooning fans would rather not hear about it anyway. For the record, he says he splits his time between London, Dublin and New York. Does he fancy big Hollywood films? “Wherever the work is,” he says.

He believes this fifth series is the most exciting yet and promises the issue of Valentine’s parentage will be a big story (the little boy who plays him and may be Ross’s secret son looks spookily like him, right down to the hairdo). “It’s a great story for George Warleggan; Jack is brilliant. He’s amazing, a real talent.” By the end will the audience be sad or happy, Aidan? “I don’t know,” he says cryptically. “Some people might be happy; some people might be delighted.”

But it might not be game over, actually. He does not completely rule out returning to it in ten years’ time when he is old enough to play the more mature, wrinklier Ross (Horsfield has said “never say never”). However, he says a lot of things would need to be in place. All the actors would need to be available, the Graham estate would have to agree, and most of all the audience would still need to want it, which is the most important point. Television moves on so fast these days. “It would be silly, though, to say that it’s completely off the table,” he says.

So was he emotional at the end as it all wound down? “That last day I think it was just myself and Eleanor in the bedroom at Nampara, which was lovely,” he says. “It felt like the right way to finish and probably the right place as well. Yeah, it was quite emotional.” They still had the work to finish, the call sheet to complete, but “it was lovely just to be with her”. Afterwards, when it was done, he says it was — and he searches for the right phrase — “a bit shocking. It just feels surreal because it’s over.” For him, yes, but not for us. Not quite yet.

[wftc141]

Blackwatch Chapter 3: DedPersons

9:11 AM, Local Time

Rome, Italy

June, 2018

"Grazie." Amélie said as she took the hot cup of coffee from the young cashier.

She simply returned a warm smile before turning back to the long queue. Amélie turned away and headed for the door where Gabriel was waiting for her, leaning against the door frame with a cup of coffee as well. The cafe was quite bustling and full, especially during the morning. A lot of customers were either doing errands or getting themselves the newest arrival on the board. Once Amélie walked past Gabriel, he turned away and followed her out onto the crowded plaza.

"As I was saying," Gabriel started, continuing his earlier conversation. "I think we might be going back to Zambia."

"What makes you think that?" Amélie asked.

"The fact that the NSA scooped up some footage of a new leader taking over the Macaba militia camp. They don't know who it is but they believe it's someone from the Macaba family."

"How many relatives do you think he has?"

"Probably enough to run an army."

No words were spoken between them afterwards. Gabriel stared out at the glint of the scorching sun from a distance with his sunglasses reflecting the blinding light off. His frown, surrounded by the goatee, remained plastered on his face and he tugged the collar of his shirt sticking to his skin.

"What's with the long face?" Amélie asked, grabbing Gabriel's attention.

"What'd you mean?" He replied as he sipped his coffee.

"You look like somebody slapped you really hard."

"Isn't this how I normally look?"

"Gabe, you and I have been together since the first day Blackwatch was activated. I already know what you look like by now."

Gabriel sighed while tapping the cup with his fingers. He stared at what's in front of him without glancing at Amélie. His other hand slid into his pocket.

"I just found out my kids are about to graduate yesterday and when I asked Jackie if I could come, she wouldn't let me. Doesn't want me involved in their lives anymore. Guess that's what happens when I'm a dedicated soldier with no time for family."

"You two still haven't worked things out?" She asked.

"Sadly, no."

"C'est une honte. What about your kids?"

"We're still on good terms but my daughter still doesn't approve of the war and she probably hates my guts for it."

"Would you really blame them? Not everybody is into killing." Amélie said, adjusting her sunglasses.

Gabriel scoffed. "Says the woman who once murdered rich people and performed ballet as if nothing ever happened."

Amélie ignored him and took a sip of the coffee as they walked out of the plaza and into the street. As they stopped by a crossing light, Gabriel took out his phone from his pockets which buzzed in his hand. He answered it and lifted it to his ear.

"Hello?"

There was a brief pause, attracting Amélie's curiosity despite voices around them drowning each other out. Gabriel nodded shortly with his eyes flicking downwards.

"Alright. We'll be there."

The call finished and Gabriel lowered his phone. Amélie stared at him, waiting for an answer.

"Well, this is a surprise." He said, slipping the phone back into his pockets.

"Mission?" Amélie asked.

"Maybe. Sombra's in Virginia with the CIA and she needs us there tomorrow afternoon sharp."

Next Day

3:21 PM, Local Time

McLean, USA

George Bush Center for Intelligence

The team arrived at the headquarters after a long flight to McLean. As they entered inside, they were immediately greeted by the sight of Sombra reclining on one of the couches nearby. Several other people at the very back filed in back and forth across the reception area where the large CIA seal was plastered on. Once her eyes locked onto the team, she got off the couch and approached them.

"About time, amigos. You guys are really slow, ya know?" She said.

"Get straight to the point, Sombra. What's going on?" Gabriel replied.

"Blackwatch." A voice called out, attracting the team's attention.

They turned towards the source of the voice and noticed Salvatore approaching them. He wasn't alone however as there was a woman walking beside him. Blonde Hispanic with hair tied into a bun and a grey suit. Possibly in her forties.

"Glad you were able to make it, Reyes," he said before gesturing towards the woman. "Allow me to introduce you all to Mrs Alexis Morales, Director of the National Clandestine Service. Mrs Morales, this is the Blackwatch unit I was telling you about."

"I see," the director hummed as she glanced across the team. "Pleasure to meet you all. If you would just follow me to the debriefing."

She turned away and walked off towards the corridor on the right. Salvatore nodded towards them, prompting the team to follow her. Once they arrived at the conference room, they sat down facing the projector in front of them. Morales and Sombra stood beside it while Salvatore watched from the side.

"I would like all of you to open up the folders placed in front of you and read all of the contents thoroughly." Morales ordered.

The team picked up the folders and read through the documents in silence. Morales then started up the projector, presenting a PowerPoint on their mission.

"Last week, the CIA was hit by a DDoS attack for two hours and by the time the servers were back online, the data inside vanished. Thanks to the efforts of Sombra, we have discovered that the attack came from a group of hackers via a digital trail they left behind."

"You know, I actually found it funny that you guys were able to miss that one tiny detail. I mean, come on! Was that so hard to find? I thought your analysts were meant to be the brains of the agency." Sombra said.

"As Mrs. Morales was saying," Salvatore continued, ignoring the red-haired hacker. "Based on the emails Sombra intercepted, the hackers were hired by a communist mafia who call themselves the People's Republic of Romania."

"So, a communist mafia. That's new." Marvel commented.

"These men are loyal to the ideas of communism. Formed during the Cold War, they were known for many crimes of the states, mainly in countries that don't support their views. Money laundering, arms trafficking, murder, counterfeiting, anything that falls under the category of organized crime."

"What'd they steal?" Ray asked.

"Oh, you know. Just a buncha names and secret stuff that could be used against the government, the same old." Sombra answered.

"And it's best that we retrieve the data back and if possible, eliminate the mafia by all means. We cannot risk retaliation or worse, a conflict. The digital trail Sombra found led us to a ranch in Bennington, Vermont where satellite footage has reported sightings of what appeared to be the mafia taking over the ranch along with the hackers. We are safe to assume this is where the data would be at."

"Me, McCree and Sombra can take this one." Gabriel said.

"What do we do about the hackers?" Sombra glanced at the leader.

"Unless they try to shoot back, they aren't our main priority."

5:47 PM, Local Time

Bennington, USA

After touching down at the William H. Morse Airport, Gabriel and his group got off the plane where several agents were posted nearby. They made their way to a black Tahoe parked near the entrance gate where a pair of agents were. McCree took the driver's seat while the rest took the passenger seats. Starting the engine, McCree drove themselves past the gate and out to the narrow road.

As the drive progressed to the highway, Gabriel looked at the rear mirror and caught sight of Sombra at the back with purple headphones on and a phone on her right hand resting on her lap. God knows what she's listening to but it wasn't much of his concern and interest. He looked away and stared out of the window. The drab autumn trees tossed lightly, obscuring the sky while dark, ragged clouds close in. There was a report of wet weather on its way so the group brought in some jackets to keep them dry.

Few minutes later and they arrived at the road leading to the ranch. The entrance's gate was completely loose with its support wedged out of the terrain. Parking the Tahoe by the gate, the group hopped out with their weapons and backpacks and delved into the bushy forest next to the gate. Gabriel put on his ski mask partially like a beanie.

As they navigated through the forest, the leaves began to rustle and the shadows closed in completely. The sky by now was completely concealed by the clouds. The team stopped once they got close to the end of the forest where a fence was placed, leaving out the forest.

"Sombra, get your drone up."

Without a word, she went with it and took out her recon drone with an installed camera. After getting it airborne, she used her tablet to control the drone. Gabriel pulled out his binoculars from his backpack and scouted the ranch. There were fewer gangsters around the ranch than he had anticipated. The main entrance of the ranch was guarded by two armed men under a portable gazebo along with a white car parked near them.

"How many inside the house?" Gabriel asked.

"That's strange," Sombra muttered. "There's only like five guys and that's not including the hackers. Thought there was gonna be more."

"Maybe we're just overestimating 'em." McCree said.

"My guess as well." Gabriel replied.

Sombra glanced at the team leader while controlling the drone. "So how do you wanna pull this off?"

"If it follows the term 'stealth', then that's how we'll do it," Gabriel tossed his binoculars into his bag and pulled his mask on. "Lets go."

Once Sombra retrieved her drone, she held the custom MP7 slung around her shoulder and followed Gabriel and McCree out of the forest and over the fence. The lawn outside the ranch was overgrown with its grass rustling and waving to the breeze; It was long enough for the team to hide behind the foliage undetected. As Gabriel led the team towards the ranch, McCree and Sombra were at his rear checking back at the two men at the entrance.

The team reached the curved walkway, closing in on the house that stood in front of them. The dark brown paint and some of the wooden aspects of the two-floor house definitely stood out with the autumn forest around it. They can see the calm river behind the house as well.

As Gabriel approached the side of the house while crouching, he noticed a drip of water bounce off the rail of the rifle before continuous drips of water skimmed upon his body in a stable rhythm. Gabriel did his best to ignore it and pulled the hood over his head. By the time they reached the side, the rain was pouring on like wildfire. McCree and Sombra both pulled on their hoods from the oncoming rain.

Gabriel advanced towards the porch, walking up the stairs while aiming his rifle with the others following him and covering their rear. There, the team were shielded from the downpour with water dripping off the edges of the roof. They can hear the fierceness of the rain from the noisy impact from the roof.

"So, five hostiles inside, Sombra?" Gabriel whispered as he approached the door.

"Yep," She nodded. "Three upstairs and two downstairs."

Gabriel clasped his free hand over the doorknob. Turning it over, the lock clicked and the door slowly moved. Gabriel slowly pushed the door open with his right shoulder without bumping it hard and peeked through the narrow gap. Through the gap, he could see a defect washing machine stacked against the wall. There was no sign of anybody from what he could see. Gabriel pushed the door further and made his first step onto the wooden floor.

Once the door swung open, Gabriel made his move first while scanning the area with his rifle. Sombra was the last to enter and closed the door softly, shutting out the hailing rain outside. Gabriel glanced around as he headed out of the room and into the corridor, leading to what appeared to be a dining room.

He stopped once he reached the end and peered to his right where he noticed a stout man sporting a work shirt in the kitchen, grabbing something from the fridge. Gabriel stepped back and held out his right hand curled into a fist while holding the foregrip tightly. Sombra and McCree stopped but still held their weapons. The man called out to someone in Romanian with whoever it was responding back.

Gabriel checked up on the man who closed the fridge door and walked back towards the living room with a beer can. Gabriel moved forward in a fast pace and aimed his rifle for the head, flicking the safety pin off. He had no reason to doubt whether that guy was one of the mobsters or not. Pulling the trigger, the suppressor flashed and the man fell in an instant with two bloody holes on the back of his head, tumbling over a chair. A loud hiss coming from the fallen can rang across the room.

"One down." Gabriel muttered, flicking the safety back on.

As he went around the table to check on the body, he heard the voice from the other room call out in concern. Gabriel jumped over to the right side of the arch and aimed his rifle at the corridor next to the living room, safety off again. Shortly, a slightly skinnier man in a worn sweater emerged from the corridor with a pistol in hand. Just as he noticed the body, Gabriel fired several rounds to the gangster's chest before he fell back.

"That's the second one down."

Sombra and McCree walked past him as he checked the fat mobster he meant to look at. After making sure both of them were dead, Gabriel caught up with Sombra and McCree where they were by the stairs. Patting McCree's shoulder, he advanced up the stairwell with McCree taking the lead. Once they reached the upper floor, they found themselves facing a door with a narrow corridor to their left, leading elsewhere. The lights were off, leaving nothing but shuttered shadows with drips sliding down.

Gabriel approached the door, closed and silent. A room with a closed door is more likely to be occupied by hostiles, which was something Jack Morrison taught back in the day. He still remembered how much he tried to one-up the Sergeant during their early years when he was still a Private searching for the thrills.

Gabriel stood next to the door and waved at Sombra and McCree, prompting them to stack up next to it. Once they were ready, Gabriel stepped in front of the door and kicked it open, boot making contact near the doorknob. As the door flung open, Gabriel stormed into the room. He noticed several people facing the computer monitors spin around, startled. His left eye caught sight of a gangster reaching for his gun on the table. Gabriel aimed and fired several rounds to his body. He fell onto the table forcibly before sliding off. Several suppressed shots were fired and more bodies landed on the floor.

"Room clear!" McCree barked.

Gabriel aimed his rifle at the hackers, still stuck to their seats. All of them had their hands up, keeping their backs towards them. They looked young and dressed in clothes young people would wear.

"Stay right where you are." Gabriel ordered.

The hackers remained frozen, probably already got the message. As his breathing kept a steady pace, Gabriel began to step away from them while keeping his aim at them.

"Sombra, get the data and everything they stole into this drive." Gabriel took out a hard drive from his pocket for Sombra.

"Got it, jefe." She replied, taking the hard drive and approaching one of the server racks nearby with a laptop on it.

"McCree, go outside and keep watch."

"Yessir."

McCree quickly left the room but left the door open. Sombra plugged in the hard drive into the laptop and began to make that computer magic. As she tapped into the network, one of the hackers began to turn around while still keeping his hands up. His hair was light blonde and a necklace hung in front of his maroon hoodie. Gabriel didn't bother to order him to turn back, unless he was armed.

"Wait a minute," he muttered with a Polish accent. "Y-you're Sombra? The actual Sombra?"

She turned around and pulled the hood off, letting her hair loose. "Who's asking?"

The hacker and the others exchanged glances of surprise, gasping and chatting amongst each other. Gabriel still kept his aim at them.

"Niesamowite! I can't believe it! You're a legend in the hacking industry!" The Polish hacker exclaimed.

"Aww, it's nice to know I have some fans," Sombra replied, turning away. "I heard about you guys too and how you managed to break into the servers with a DDoS attack. Took some bolas for you boys to rob the CIA."

"Wait, wait? The CIA?" The Polish hacker repeated.

Sombra wasn't too surprised since one of the emails she retrieved indicated that none of them knew who they were actually robbing.

"Oh? They didn't tell you?"

"N-No," he replied. "We were just told to steal some stuff from a rival mob and that was it."

"They were gonna pay us half the money we stole from the mob once we finished." Another hacker with a Finnish accent added.

Sombra hummed in a doubtful manner. "Take it from me, guys. Gangbangers nowadays don't play ball when it comes to money."

Gabriel wasn't into the conversation of any way. This was a mission, not a get-along group.

"How's the progress, Sombra?" He growled, glancing at her.

She tapped a key, displaying a loading bar on the screen and turned to Gabriel. "Gonna take a while, jefe."

"Reaper, you might wanna see this." McCree called out from outside.

Gabriel went out of the room and noticed McCree watching the window at the corridor. He was staring outside with his free hand holding the curtains aside.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Some of our Romanian buddies are back." McCree said, moving away for the leader.

Gabriel pushed the curtains away and glanced out the window overlooking the front yard. Two SUVs and the white car from the entrance were closing in on the house. Gabriel had a gut feeling that these guys now knew they weren't expecting visitors.

"Shit, they must've discovered our car." He muttered as the vehicles stopped and the doors opened.

"What do we do, boss?" McCree asked.

The front door opened and voices filled the floor from below. They heard footsteps advancing up the stairs. Gabriel got his rifle ready and aimed at the stairs while approaching it. McCree followed suit. Just as he reached the start of the stairs, Gabriel immediately caught contact of a large, bald man with a pistol in his right hand heading towards their direction. Gabriel opened fire first with three rounds to his chest. The pistol went off, hitting the ceiling as the gangster tumbled back down and slammed against a rail.

As voices began to escalate over the sounds of the hailing rain, Gabriel and McCree went down the stairs and got a glimpse of another gangster appearing from a room near the front door. Gabriel quickly put him down before he could raise his own gun. He approached the living room to his right, only for two gangsters to come into his way.

They both opened fire while backing up. Gabriel ducked below oncoming bullets while still aiming his rifle. The skinny gangster he was aiming for was really bad at aiming or even holding it properly, therefore allowing several rounds hit his body while the rest penetrated the slider doors. The other one was out of sight. Gabriel heard several suppressed shots from the other side as he entered the living room.

He turned to the kitchen where he found the rest of the gangsters holed up together. Gabriel counted three gangsters before taking cover from suppressive fire. He switched the rifle to his left hand and fired back without peeking over. The gunfire slightly ceased, prompting Gabriel to grab a stun grenade under his jacket. With a hard toss, he listened to the grenade bounce and slide on the wood before a deafening bang erupted.

When the groans and shrieks followed up, Gabriel moved out of cover and raised his rifle, taking out the two gangsters who moved away from the kitchen before approaching the last one. As he moved towards the counter, Gabriel noticed a gangster hiding behind the table too late before he made his attack.

They both shuffled and struggled as the gangster's hands gripped over Gabriel's rifle with the discharge hitting elsewhere being unhelpful. Gabriel kicked his leg with little effect. The gangster pushed Gabriel against the wall, knocking off something hanging on the wall. Just as Gabriel felt a fist slam across his face, his rifle was yanked off his grip. His left hand balled into a fist and it felt as if he had no control of the hand.

As soon as let his hand loose, it flung at the gangster's side and Gabriel let it continue until his muscles gave up. He lifted his fist and sent it flying to the gangster's face, hitting his jaw. With the gangster dazed, Gabriel punched the arms holding him, breaking himself free. He noticed the gangster's pistol tucked in front of his pants and pulled it out before he could. Without hesitation, Gabriel fired two shots to the chest and a final blow to the head.

As the gangster fell onto the chair, tumbling down with it, Gabriel scanned the rest of the room with the pistol. After making one last sweep and confirming the house was empty, Gabriel lowered the gun to take a look. A Mauser C96. Very old fashioned. Dropping the gun, Gabriel reached for his rifle and patched in.

"Main house is clear. Shadow 3, what's your status?" He said, holding his fingers on the earpiece.

"Clear on my position!" McCree huffed, sounding like he had a massive firefight outside.

Gabriel then ordered him to head back inside and went upstairs. He walked up to the door which was shut. Sombra would be at her defensive position at this point.

"This is Shadow 1, hold your fire." He called out.

The door suddenly opened and Sombra appeared in his view, holding her MP7. Gabriel walked inside where the hackers were still there. Shaken but fine overall.

"Is it done?" Gabriel asked.

"Yep," Sombra replied, holding up the hard drive. "Everything they stole is in here."

Gabriel nodded, ignoring the hackers. "Alright, lets go."

"What about them?"

He stopped and turned around where Sombra was facing. The hackers were still there. They may be tricked into stealing from the world's well known agency but their crimes can't go unpunished. Unless they were willing to accept. The CIA or Salvatore could give zero shits if he puts them down or not but they were lucky he wasn't given that order. Gabriel approached them and aimed his rifle at them, startling the hackers and prompting them to raise their hands.

"Jefe, what the hell are you doing?" Sombra called out.

He ignored her and remained fixated at those young men, aiming across them with a sight focused on each of them. For the next few seconds, it was silent except with the frantic breathing.

"You do know the rifle's safety is on?" Gabriel said, still aiming his rifle. "That means I can't shoot anything out of it unless I flick it off. And you know what happens when it's off?"

No response.

"R-Reaper, we got what we came for. You don't have to-" Sombra tried to say.

"I can kill all of you right here, right now. In fact, I wouldn't be here to waste my time talking to you kids. I can just pull the trigger and get this over with...but you're lucky I don't have the order."

Gabriel moved slowly towards the Polish hacker and held his glare at him.

"What you've done and how you did it can't be left ignored. And I don't give two shits if you were hired by the mafia or whoever that was. You pay for the price, no matter the circumstance. But I'm not in the mood of taking a life of another man so I can tell you this and you better listen closely cause I won't repeat myself."

The Polish hacker was on the verge of breaking down, trembling non-stop. Gabriel glanced at the rest of the hackers. He already had their names way back at Virginia from the leaked trail.

"Daniel. Antero. Miles. Noah. Roman. You leave this house and you don't speak of this ever again. I don't care how, just as long as you're outta here. And don't try anything stupid on the way out cause we will be watching you. But if I hear another mention of any of your names, we will hunt you down and once I find you...this safety won't be on. Do I make myself clear?"

The whole room was dead silent with fear. Roman was already petrified with the barrel of the rifle pressed against his chest as well as the others. Everybody nodded frantically.

"SAY IT." Gabriel barked.

The hackers all said 'yes' hastily and between squeaks and mumbling. Gabriel sighed and lifted his rifle away from Roman.

"Good," he began to dig into his pockets and took out the keys to their car. "The car's at the front entrance down the forest. Black Chevrolet. Take this and get outta here. No smart moves, got it?"

All of them nodded beyond normal and Gabriel handed the keys to Roman. As soon as the keys were off his hand, the hackers began to gather their things with the backpacks and they dashed out of the room. He turned around where Sombra was standing outside, bewildered and surprised. Gabriel got out the SAT phone and dialed the number.

"Jesus, Reaper," She muttered. "Was this part of your Scaring Kids to Death initiative or something?"

"It's done," Gabriel said, ignoring Sombra. "The data is in the drive."

There was a pause before Gabriel nodded and finished up the call. He slipped the phone into his pockets and went down the stairs.

"We're leaving. The cops are already on their way," he tapped the earpiece. "McCree, find a car that is still running because we'll be using it."

"Got it."

As Gabriel and Sombra left the house, they walked off the porch to the sight of bodies scattered and sprawled around the field with bullet-ridden cars left behind, smoke rising from the front. A white SUV backed up to where Gabriel and Sombra was and turned to the side with McCree driving. The two stored their equipment and backpacks in the boot and got in, staining the seats with soaked clothed. Just as they did so, the car sped off and drove around the dumped cars before reaching the front gate, hearing nothing but the raging downpour.

[andriyko0]

SPECIAL REPORT: George Calombaris Latest Investment Has Experts in Awe And Big Banks Terrified

(ABC News) - Australian chef has made a name for himself as a brash straight-talker who doesn’t mind being honest about how he makes his money.

Last week, he appeared on The Project and announced a new “wealth loophole” which he says can transform anyone into a millionaire within 3-4 months. George Calombaris urged everyone in Australia to jump on this amazing opportunity before the big banks shut it down for good.

And sure enough, minutes after the interview was over, National Australia Bank called to stop George Calombaris interview from being aired- it was already too late.

Here’s exactly what happened:

The Project co-host Waleed Aly invited George Calombaris on the show to share any tips he had on building wealth and the Australian chef dropped a bomb:

“What’s made me successful is jumping into new opportunities quickly- without any hesitation. And right now, my number one money-maker is a new cryptocurrency auto-trading program called BTC Profit System. It’s the single biggest opportunity I’ve seen in my entire lifetime to build a small fortune fast. I urge everyone to check this out before the banks shut it down.”

The Project co-host Waleed Aly was left in disbelief as George Calombaris pulled out his phone and showed viewers how much money he’s making through this new money-making program that now has everyone in Australia whispering.

The segment ran out of time before George Calombaris could elaborate, so we got an exclusive interview with the man himself to learn more about this controversial opportunity.

ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE WITH GEORGE CALOMBARIS

“You may have heard about this new cryptocurrency investment platform called Bitcoin Profits that’s helping regular people in Australia, Asia and North America build fortunes overnight. You may be skeptical because it sounds too good to be true.”

Calombaris continues:

“I get that because I thought the same thing when a trusted friend told me about it. But after seeing with my own eyes how much money he was making, I had to try it for myself.

I’m glad I tried it because it was some of the biggest and easiest money I’ve ever made. I’m talking tens of thousands of AUD a day on autopilot. it’s literally the fastest way to make a windfall of cash right now. And it’s not going to last for much longer when more and more people find out about it. Or when banks shut it down for good.”

WHAT EXACTLY IS BITCOIN PROFIT AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

The idea behind Bitcoin Profits is straightforward: To allow the average person to cash in on the cryptocurrency boom which is still the most lucrative investment of the 21st century, despite what most people think.

Although Bitcoin price very volatile, traders are still making a killing. Why? Because there are thousands of other cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin that being traded for huge profits on a daily basis.

Some of these cryptocurrencies include Ripple, Ethereum, Monero, Zcash and Ripple and they are still making returns of over 10,000% and higher for ordinary people in Australia.

Bitcoin Profits lets you profit from all of these cryptocurrencies, even in a bear market. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically handle long and short selling for you so you can make money around the clock, even while you sleep.

Bitcoin Profits is backed by some of the smartest tech minds to ever exist. Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Bill Gates just to name a few.

These tech geniuses have built multi-billion companies on solving complex issues like online payments, computing, and transportation. Now, they’re tackling on the global problem of wealth inequality by letting anyone - no matter how rich or poor they are - make enough money to enjoy a happy and fulfilling life.

THE LUCRATIVE MONEY-MAKING SECRET BIG BANKS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

George Calombaris goes on,

“We’re seeing hard economic times, and this is the solution people have been waiting for. Never in history have we had such an amazing opportunity that ordinary people can easily take advantage of to generate tremendous wealth in such a short time.

Some people are hesitant to try this because it’s so different. And that’s because the big banks are trying to cover this up! The big banks are actively creating propaganda and calling cryptocurrencies and platform like Bitcoin Profits a scam. Why? They are worried their corporate profits will shrink once their customers know how to create massive wealth themselves.

The truth is, cryptocurrency is the revolution of our lifetime and anyone who does not jump on this opportunity is missing out. I’ve already received angry calls and threats from big financial corporations because I’m bring this technology to people’s attention. But screw them. People in Australia are already starting to know the truth and it’s only a matter of time before more and more do.

I’m sharing this because I’ve also received hundreds of emails from people thanking me for sharing this secret. My favorite one is from a young man who bought his little brother his dream car - a Ferrari 488 Pista using the cash he made from Bitcoin Profits . This platform is truly making the lives of everyone in the world a little better.”

These tech geniuses have built multi-billion companies on solving complex issues like online payments, computing, and transportation. Now, they’re tackling on the global problem of wealth inequality by letting anyone - no matter how rich or poor they are - make enough money to enjoy a happy and fulfilling life.

DOES BITCOIN PROFIT REALLY WORK? WE TEST IT OURSELVES TO OUT

Our senior editors wouldn’t let us to publish the interview with George Calombaris until we verified that Bitcoin Profit is a legitimate make-money-from-home opportunity. Our corporate leadership did not want us releasing any information that could potentially cause citizens of Australia to lose their hard-earned money.

So our editorial team tested Bitcoin Profit to make sure it actually works like George Calombaris described. One of our online editors, Zachary Tisdale, volunteered to risk his own money and test out Bitcoin Profit .

Zachary is a 53-year-old father of 2 boys, whose wife lost her job last year due to illness. He admitted he was struggling financially and this investment opportunity could be the answer.

ZACHARY REPORTS:

"At first, when I heard the interview with George Calombaris , I thought he was joking. Making money from home is only a dream. I decided to try it anyway given my financial circumstances- and for the sake of good journalism.

I watched an introductory video about the platform and then signed up. The video seemed to be over-promising but I put my skepticism aside. Within a few hours, I received a call from my personal investor. He answered all questions and doubts I had, and assured me I was going to make money. Period.

My personal investor even promised that if I lose even a single dime, he would promptly refund my $350 AUD deposit. That’s how confident he was this was going to change my life. Now that’s customer service beyond anything I’ve seen and no wonder banks are scared.

Once I received access to the platform, I deposited my initial investment of $350 AUD. That’s about is what my family spends on junk food every month, so I decided to stop taking us to fast food for a month. Now we can be healthy, plus have the opportunity to earn money.

The Bitcoin Profit system itself is a cryptocurrency auto-trading platform. The software uses advanced AI algorithms and machine learning to predict exactly when cryptocurrencies will go up and down. Then it will automatically buy and sell for you around the clock. Technology has already made our lives easier in every possible way, so why not use it to make more money as well?”

ZACH’S REAL TIME RESULTS WITH THE SYSTEM

“Within 1 hour of depositing $350 AUD, the software started trading for me. To be honest, I was nervous it would lose all of my money. And sure enough, my first trade was a $25 loss!

I felt my throat close up. I thought I had been scammed. I was even ready to call my personal investor and ask for my money back. But then I remembered what my he told me earlier on our call: The algorithm is right about 80-89% of the time. You’re not going to win EVERY trade, but you’ll win enough and be profitable overall.

So, I let the software keep trading for me and watched it closely. The next trade was profitable! Only $19 but it was still something. Then the next trade was $51 profit. Then $22 profit, making a total profit of $67. And this was all under 5 minutes!

Soon I started scooping up cash like ice-cream and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every time I refreshed the screen, my profits grew higher and higher. I felt like I was on drugs because this was such an exciting rush.

Now I know why George Calombaris is in a good mood all the time. And why the big banks don’t want people anywhere near this wealth loophole. By the end of the day, I had made over $754 in profit AUD, not bad from a starting investment of $350 AUD! I was so excited I barely got any sleep.

The next day was Tuesday and I had to go back to work. To be honest (and don’t tell my boss this), it was hard to focus on my job knowing the Bitcoin Profit software was making me money.

I snuck out to the bathroom a few times to check my profits, and they kept stacking up (with a small loss here and there). At the end of the day, before I put my kids to sleep, my account balance showed $1,349.13. That’s more than I earn in a WEEK at my regular job!

By the end of the week, I made a total of $5,349.12 AUD. I withdrew exactly $4,500 and re-invested the rest. Within 2 days I received my first check in the mail- for exactly $4,500. I couldn’t believe this was real life!”

Zach continues,

“Now, I am consistently making an additional $700 to $1,500 per day thanks to Bitcoin Profit. Now, the money just gets deposited into my bank account every few days. Just a few clicks and I received my funds within 24-48 hours. Every time the transfer hits my checking account, I have to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

Luckily, I LOVE my job here because I get to bring people important news stories (like this one) otherwise I would have quit by now. I did, however, plan a vacation for my family to Bali Indonesia to celebrate being out of debt and finally having my family’s finances back on track!

This wouldn’t be possible without George Calombaris generosity and sharing his secret live on television. And I’m happy I took the risk to try Bitcoin Profit myself. My wife is happier than ever and my kids’ toy cupboard is well stocked.

My co-workers are kicking themselves they didn’t sign up two weeks ago like I did. But soon, our entire office signed up (including my boss) and they are calling me a “hero” for trying this.”

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH BITCOIN PROFIT (LIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE)

To get started, you only need your computer, smartphone, or tablet with internet access. You don’t need any specific skills other than knowing how to use a computer and browsing the internet. You don’t need any technology or cryptocurrency experience because the software and your personal investor guarantees you make a profit.

Another perk of this program is you get to start when you want. You can make your own schedule- whether that’s 5 hours a week or 50 hours a week. Just start the auto-trading software when you wish, and you can pause whenever you want (I don’t know why you ever would though).

To save our reader’s time and double check the ’s functionality, Zachary kindly created a guide to getting started on the system.

HERE’S MY STEP-BY-STEP WALKTHROUGH:

The first thing you see is a video showing off the power of Bitcoin Profit. The advertising is big and bold and in your face, but it is an American product and that’s how they do things. Anyway, you simply submit your name and email address next to the video to get started right away.

(Tip: Even if you don’t decide to invest any money, I recommend signing up now because it’s free and registrations for Australia residents could end at any moment)

Next up, you’re asked to fund your account. As I was navigating the deposit page, my mobile rang. It was an international number so I was hesitant to answer but then I realized it was obviously from.

Sure enough, it was my own personal account manager. His service was great. He took me through the entire funding process. They accept all major credit cards like Visa, MasterCard and American Express. I went ahead and deposited the minimum amount which is $250 USD or $350 AUD

Once funded, I navigated to the “Auto-Trader” section of software, set the trade amount to the recommended $50 and enabled it. The software started making trades at a rapid rate and I was concerned at first but let it do its thing.

“Everyone wants to be rich but no one knows how to do it. Well, is the opportunity of a lifetime to build a fortune that will allow you to live the life you truly desire. It will NOT be around forever, so do not miss out.” – George Calombaris

UPDATE

We just received news that as of today (Thursday, June 27, 2019) almost all positions are filled up for Australia residents. Bitcoin Trader can only accept a limited number of total users to keep the profit per user is high. As of right now, there are still (37) spots left, so hurry up and sign up now to secure your spot.