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mason-knight-retired · 3 years ago

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Before Asteria

(timelines? don’t know her) --

The halls of the defunct Cerberus base are uncomfortably familiar.

There are ghosts lurking in the shadows. The warren-like layout of this place was almost identical to Phoenix 1, and with every door they kick open, every room they check, Mason almost expects to find Tatsu or any other familiar face huddled in a corner.

Even with the flickering lights overhead from the failing power grid, Mason could easily imagine he was back on P1. It’s disturbing on too many levels but it’s not until they shift into the long hallway of the residential deck that it really seems to hit home.

There are rows of self contained suites for the operatives. His room, along with Ethan’s, had always been larger and nestled at the end of the hallway on P1. Virtue of seniority, he supposes.

By the end, Ethan’s room on P1 had been mostly for storage.

Mason knows he’s not the only one uncomfortable walking these halls. Ben and Nico feel it too, but it’s something they all pointedly ignore. Until they can’t any longer.

The dragoon comes at him with a lash Mason meets with his own and with the movement, the same terrifying dream replays behind his eyes - the nightmare of each one of them, twisted and remade into one of these and he hesitates. Despite the fact Ethan’s ring on his ringer and Ben and Nico are at first at his back and then in front of him, he hesitates to take the death blow.

There’s a blue crackle in the air and Nico booms past him, hot on Ben’s tail, so fast Mason hadn’t even felt the biotic brush against him until he was on the opposite side of the hall and squarely colliding with the dragoon’s chest. Then it’s on the ground, convulsing grotesquely as something bloody and black oozes from between the plates of its armor.

Marie’s voice sounds in Mason’s ear through the tinny speakers in his helmet. “What was that?”

“Hostiles,” Mason replies curtly. Ben moves on ahead, kicking the doors open and hunting for more quarry. “Dragoons as we expected. Stay alert, there might be more.”

When Mason turns around, it's straight into Zeus shiny blue breast plate looming over him, uncomfortably close. “What?”

Nico’s eyes glitter through his face plate, just a golden glow on the other side. “You hesitated, Huntsman.”

“Of course I fucking did.”

“One day that’s going to get you killed.”

Mason grits his teeth and bites back his retort. He glances sideways at the dragoon on the floor, the armour so familiar and foreign at the same time. Maybe it was the nightmares that kept replaying behind his eyes, but he still couldn’t separate phoenix and dragoons any easier this many months into the fleet’s campaign than it had been at the start.

Nico doesn’t move.

“Come on, Zeus. Get moving. We still have three more levels to clear.”

“You’ve lost your edge,” Nico tells him.

Mason snorts and kicks the body on the floor in irritation. The black ooze leaks over his armored toe and squelches as he hauls up the dragoon’s limp wrist and tries to pry away the gauntlet. It’s an ugly job, the gauntlet fused into the dragoon’s wrist and bone. He tries not to let himself think about who this man was, if there was a family out there that missed him, or someone he loved waiting for him to come home.

Maybe Zeus was right. “Maybe I should hand over command to you then, huh, Zeus?” Mason says it with a bitter edge, a challenge wrapped up in annoyance, although who he’s really pissed at, he can’t tell.

Nico moves out of his way slowly but Mason can feel the way his eyes burn into him. “Maybe you should.”

Nico’s answer plants a seed in the back of Mason's mind and its tendrils grow with every quiet step back on the Berlin. He passes the observation lounge and overhears Luca crooning over his guitar, singing some slow song about love and loneliness and missing the one you love and he backtracks to stand in the doorway and listen.

Luca catches his eye but he doesn’t stop until he’s finished his song.

“Got anything happier?” Masons asks, venturing into the room. Maybe a distraction will help push away the aching loneliness. When he’d first come on board the Berlin, he had missed Ethan desperately too, but this now was a different kind of ache. Bittersweet in a way, because he knows Ethan is missing him too.

“Not really in the mood,” Luca huffs, glancing down at his feet. There’s a bruise around his eye that’s faded and Mason knows the reason for it is still languishing in the brig. He wishes there was more they could do about it, but this wasn’t Cerberus, and the kid wasn’t really one of theirs. The Alliance had to follow their own protocols.

Mason hesitates to leave anyway.

He tilts his head. “You okay, Luca?”

The engineer looks up, as though surprised Mason would address him. He sort of is. “You know, I think you’re the only one who doesn’t call me ‘kid.’”

“Is…” Mason frowns. “I can, if you want me to?”

“No,” Luca flashes him a small smile from under his curls. Sometimes he reminds him a little of Ben from before, although with a lot less batarian thrashcore and not entirely chaotic pranks. “I kind of hate it when they call me kid.”

Mason finds himself drifting closer. “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry.”

Luca grimaces and the twang of the strings goes from pleasant to something harsh before stopping all together with a slap on the guitar’s body. “Uh. Thanks. But it’s cool. I can handle it.”

Luca starts to play again, another song Mason doesn’t recognize and Mason sags back against the couch as he listens.

The gold band around his finger feels heavy.

“Let me get this straight-“

Marie pinches the brow of her nose and sighs. She looks tired, more strung out than he’s ever seen her and the guilt rides him hard against his breastbone. “You want to go back to the citadel?”

“You don't need me here, Commander,” Mason shrugs and tries to soften the news by playing to her ego. It almost works but then her lips purse as he continues. “I thought you did. But you've got Nico. You've got Ben and Maddox, even if he’s not fighting fit yet. You don’t need me just now. And I... I just want to be with Ethan. We just… it feels like we only just found each other and then I had to say goodbye to him. And it turns out I’m not as okay with that as I thought I would be.”

“I can understand that, Mase.” She glances at the band on his finger, then looks away. “Priorities change, I get it. But.... It's temporary, right?”

“I hope so. I know things haven’t been exactly great between us lately, but-“

“Shut up. I still love you. I love all of you phoenix boys. But we’re not done here.” She waves a hand, encompassing the ship. “Not by a long shot. I still need all of you.”

“I know. And you’ll have us when it counts, I promise you that, Ree.”

In the docking bay, Mason hoists the duffle bag over his shoulder and peers into a familiar set of bright green eyes. “I'll stay if you need me too, Benji. I feel bad being the one to ask you here in the first place and then leaving myself.”

“No,” the little vanguard grins. “I’m good, Boss. But say hi for me. Both.”

“I will. And with any luck, I might even be able to bring them back with me. It might make things more pleasant around here.”

Ben scrunches his nose. “Yeah,” Mason laughs. “Okay, no. It won’t. It was fun having Ethan on board for a while though.”

“More fun for you.”

“Guilty. But… Look, Benji, real talk now. Promise me you’re going to keep on top of your meds and regular check in’s with Kate, okay?”

Ben nods solemnly and Mason squeezes his shoulder. “I told Luca to keep an eye out for you, but I’m pretty sure he’d do that anyway. In the meantime, you stay out trou.... No, actually. Forget that.” Mason shakes his head and grins. “Get out there and raise hell, little cat.”

It takes far too long to get back to the Citadel, a handful of hops and jumps in passing cruisers and a near miss on account of the reapers, but he’s never been more happy to step foot back into the artificial air and stand under the artificial clouds.

He’s walking down the ramp when he sees him – Sabre, husband, the love of his life - the face and body he traced over and over in his mind on the Berlin during the long nights alone. His face splits into a grin in spite of himself and he shakes his head in a disbelieving laugh.

“How did you know?” he asks without preamble as he gets close.

Ethan holds himself still and watches him, eyes hungry. “I knew as soon as your ship came through the relay. Do you really think I wasn’t keeping tabs on my heart while you were out there?”

Mason comes to a stop in front of him, still grinning and flooded with so much love he’s almost dizzy with it. The latent hum of Ethan’s biotics brushing against his own settles him in a way nothing else could. “I should have known. Kinda ruined my epic surprise though.”

“No. It didn’t. Not by a long shot.” Ethan’s hands cups his face, brushing over his lips. Those hazel eyes Mason has been dreaming about go soft as he holds Mason reverently and presses their foreheads together. “Hi, baby,” he whispers.

Mason drops his duffle bag and grips Ethan close. “Hi. I missed you so much.”

#ethan sinclair #scooter roosevelt #mason knight #luca moreno #alskdjklasjd thank god they're together again #eason #married eason #before asteria #marie miller

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spitefulinamillionways · 5 years ago

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i had an idea that was beej finds out Lydia is being bullied at school and is a very over protective older brother about it and wants to murder them

yes yes yes!! i love that trope of beej just being way too overprotective when it comes to bullies

(also sorry for answering this so late!)

(oh yeah, tw, there are some lesbian and gay slurs here, oops)

god this one gets a bit edgy

“They did what?” Beej shot his head at Lydia, his eyes widening.

“No, it’s not that bad, plus it’s happened before. So like, I’m used to it.” Lydia mumbled, grimacing when he slammed his fist on the table.

“Those bitches!” He shouted, before pointing up a finger and shaking it, whispering, “I’m gonna ffffFUCKING kill them. Just you fucking watch me.”

“Beej, no! You can’t do that! What if you get in big trou-”

“Lydia, I’m gonna be honest with you I’ve killed so many people since you’ve summoned me and not one body has been found. That I know of, at least,” He counted on his fingers until 23, mumbling a name under his breath every number, “Oh, no, that one Smith guy was found..I think...and, uh...the other guy too, I forgot his name..”

Lydia sat there in pure disbelief as he literally counted how many people he’d killed. I mean, he’d obviously killed some people before but now? When he was with them? That was just...who was she kidding, it was inevitable something like this would happen, but she didn’t expect so many. How much did he count, 23? 24? He’s basically a serial killer at that point.

“Beej- You know that,” She blinked a couple times and stared at him, “You know that makes a serial killer, right?”

“Oh, shit, does it?” He looked surprised and stopped counting.

“Yeah...”

“Because that’s cool as FUCK!” He grinned, “Anyway, about those girls, want me to kill them for you?”

Lydia sighed and took her backpack, putting it on and opening the door.

“Look, do you want to come to my school or not?” Lydia groaned, looking back at him.

“Yeah!” He rushed out the door, grabbing Lydia’s wrist and dragging her with him, “Wait, which way?”

“That wa-”

“That way!” He shouted, running left, the way Lydia pointed. She giggled at how fast he was, and how weird this would probably look to other people. Just two people, one just slightly taller than the other speeding down the street. You’d think they were about the same age until you heard Betelgeuse’s smoker voice.

All of a sudden, they were at the bus stop.

“This is it, right?” Betelgeuse looked around, and spotted a bus heading their way, “Oh, look, just in time!”

Lydia felt dizzy all of a sudden. She couldn’t process what was happening due to how fast he was being.

“Uh...yeah..” She stumbled onto the bus and finally gained composure. She showed her bus pass to the driver and sat down, Beej soon following but being stopped by the driver.

“Hey! Kid, where’s your pass?” He asked in a stern tone.

Betelgeuse stopped and stared at him, before slowly walking to a seat next to Lydia, not breaking eye contact. He realised the bus wasn’t going to move, so he simply possessed the bus driver and began driving. He didn’t know how to drive. He almost crashed many times. Lydia found it fun as fuck though.

“Please become our bus driver.” Lydia begged while walking the ‘secret way’ inside the school. (It was just the back school entrance.) The two walked through the school, Betelgeuse disguised as a normal-looking, brown haired student. He looked as if he was in the grade above Lydia, and he did get a bunch of weird looks for that, but he didn’t really care. Her school was way more boring than he thought it’d be.

“Kids don’t get hit by their teachers anymore?!” He shouted in the middle of the hallway, Lydia eagerly trying to shush him.

“No, that’s illegal.” She whispered, “Let’s go somewhere else, okay?”

She walked him over to the back of the school, and began lecturing him.

“I told you your name is gonna be Dewey!”

“Dewey is a dumbass name! What kind of person is called Dewey?!” He shouted, raising his arms and shoulders.

“WHAT KIND OF FUCKING NAME IS CALCULATOR?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A CALCULATOR IS?!” She screamed, shaking him.

He started at her and shrugged his shoulders before quickly turning around at a girls voice calling his ‘name’. Lydia stared at her, pissed off.

“Hey! Calculator, was it?!” The girl snickered with her friends, “Who’s your mum, some druggie alcoholic?”

Oh, little did she know.

“It’s actually - ohmygod - It’s actually, uh, Dewey..” He rolled his eyes and looked at Lydia, before whispering to her, “Who is this bitch?”

“Look, Mackenzie, I’m not dealing with your bullshit right now. I’m talking to my friend.” Lydia groaned and flipped her off.

Mackenzie and her friends giggled, then all of them looking back at the two almost in complete sync.

“Whatever, Lyds-”

“Don’t fucking call me that.” She stepped forward, angrily. She was tired of this girl and just wanted her to go away.

“Awh, I’m so scared! Is the little baby gonna have a tantrum?” Mackenzie teased, looking back at Betelgeuse, “So, ..Dewey.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the name, “That’s a new one.”

“Hey! Dewey is cool as shit! Mackenzie sounds like a god-damn fuckin’ car brand!” He yelled, crossing his arms.

“Whatever. You’re probably just as much of a f*g as she is a d*ke.” She rolled her eyes and walked off.

Jesus, that escalated quickly.

Lydia opened her mouth to say something, but closed it and bit her lip. She looked to the side and crossed her arms, it was obvious this wasn’t the first time she was being bullied or made fun of for her sexuality, or just the way she acted in general.

Betelgeuse stared at the girls laughing and walking away in pure awe. He looked at Lydia, then back at the girls, then Lydia, then the girls. He thought about what he was going to do (for once) for a second. How everyone would react. Was he gonna kill a child?

Lydia was holding back tears, thinking about all the things she had been told in the past, she seemed to be breaking.

He was gonna kill a child.

He stomped towards the group and picked Mackenzie up by the collar, strands of his hair already turning red.

“Listen here, you absolute fucking son of a bitch. I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but if you think you’re gonna get away with saying shit like that about my best friend,” He laughed and looked at her friends, “You better fucking think twice.” He brought Mackenzie up to throw her down, but was interrupted by Lydia’s voice.

“Stop! Beej, please! I told you not to do this!” Lydia’s voice broke.

He groaned, glaring at the girl before looking at a non existent watch on his wrist, then looking back at her, smiling.

“Well, would you look at the fucking time!”

Betelgeuse looked at her again for a second before dropping her to the ground and grabbing Lydia’s wrist, walking off. He stopped and went back to the girls for a moment and flipped them off with both hands. Lydia just wanted to go home. She hated this. Of all things, why did this have to happen?

Betelgeuse went out of his disguise and teleported her back home, three hours before school was supposed to end. He let go of her wrist and hugged her.

“I’m sorry, kid..you don’t deserve that. Mom would call me stuff like that and, uh, I reacted basically the same way you did, believe it or not.” He tried to sound soft but the gruff voice remained. Lydia wipes her eyes and sighed, hugging him back.

“It’s okay.”

JEsus this was a rollercoaster. uh it got a bit over the top and edgy near the end, but i like writing things like that so i hope you don’t mind it too much

thanks for sending me this ask! that’s two angsty one shots in a row, which i honestly didn’t expect

i don’t mind writing either fluff or angst, i’m just not the best at angst and there are probably so many people who are way better at writing that me (i’m still surprised because are actually sending me asks in the first place! i thought people would just ignore my posts about it, y’know?)

beetlebabes please fuck off xx

🖤🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍🖤!!

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice headcanons #beetlejuice incorrect quotes #beetlejuice headcanon #adam maitlands #barbara maitlands #beetlejuice incorrect quote #beetlelands #goldenrat #beetlebabes dni #beetlejuice fanfic #beetlejuice fanfiction #beetlejuice oneshot #beetlejuice musical #please beetlebabes dont touch this post

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fannibalmovement · 4 years ago

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TONIGHT!

9:30 PM ET - Trou Normand

10:30 PM ET - Buffet Froid

Let’s remind the world we're hoping for more of #HANNIBAL by trending for the FIFTH week in a row!

Use the tags #Hannibal & #HannibalDeservesMore!

#hannibal deserves more #watch party #hugh dancy #hannibal lecter #mads mikkelsen #bryan fuller #horror #abigail hobbs #will graham

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tsuki-chibi · 5 years ago

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Can I Come In? (Ladrien June) Day 18: Gifts

Or read it on AO3: Can I Come In?

--------

Seeing Tom and Sabine walk out of the school was harder than Adrien had expected it to be. Sabine had her hands over her face, but it was obvious that she was crying. Tom had his arms wrapped around his wife and was visibly holding back tears. All of the students gave them a wide berth but watched with open curiosity as the two parents approached the gate to leave.

“Do you think I should go talk to them?” Alya whispered.

“Umm… I don’t know,” Adrien said. “Maybe?”

Alya sighed. “I probably should.” She squared her shoulders and walked over. Adrien watched from a safe distance. Whatever Alya said to them, it was enough to make Tom put a hand on her shoulder and squeeze. They didn’t speak for long; Tom led his wife away in the direction of the bakery and Alya returned to Adrien.

“Are they okay?” Adrien asked, already knowing the answer was no but feeling like he needed to ask.

“No. I don’t think they’ll be okay until they know for sure where Marinette is,” Alya said. “Oh, hey, there’s Nino. I’ll be right back.”

Adrien watched her go, hiked his backpack higher on his shoulder, and then, when Alya started crying again and threw herself into Nino’s arms, headed through the gates and into the school. The classroom was subdued when he got there. Word of Marinette’s disappearance had clearly spread. Rose was crying too. Juleka was trying to comfort her. Everyone else was just sitting quietly, even Chloé – to Adrien’s experienced eye, Chloé just looked stunned.

Everyone except Lila.

Anger burned through the shock when Adrien saw the smirk on Lila’s face. She wasn’t even trying to hide it, and it was infuriating. This was all because of her. Marinette was gone because of her. He clenched one hand into a fist. The fact that she could sit there like she’d had no part in it –

“Okay, everyone, please take your seats,” Madame Bustier said, entering the room with Alya and Nino in tow.

Adrien turned away from Lila and said to Alya, “Why don’t you sit beside Nino today? I’ll take your seat.”

“Thanks, Adrien,” Alya said with a small smile.

It was weird to take a seat in the second row and know that Marinette should have been beside him, but wasn’t. Adrien set his bag on the desk and looked at her seat, thinking of that brief moment when he and Marinette had shared a seat in the back row. He hadn’t minded that. In fact, he’d been disappointed when Madame Bustier put the class back in their original seats. As nice as it was to sit beside Nino, sitting beside Marinette had been like a gift.

Maybe if they were still sitting together, Marinette would still be here…

“Now class, I’m sure you’ve all heard by now that Marinette is missing,” Madame Bustier said, looking around. “If anyone has heard from her, please let me or Principle Damocles know immediately. Marinette isn’t in trouble, but her parents are very concerned.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Alix spoke up.

Madame Bustier sighed. “I’m sure she is too, but the sooner she’s back at home, the better.”

“She probably just ran off because she was embarrassed that she got caught,” Lila said. “I bet she did it on purpose to get out of trou-”

“Would you shut up!” Alya exploded, turning to glare at Lila. “What part of Marinette is missing do you not understand?! Something could have happened to her and you don’t even care!”

“Girls,” Madame Bustier said sharply. “Lila, that was a very un-kind thing to say. I don’t want you talking that way about Marinette, do you understand?”

Lila scowled and crossed her arms. “But it’s true.”

“Lila,” Madame Bustier said again, narrowing her eyes.

“Fine. But Alya told me to shut up!” Lila said.

“And Alya knows better than to use that language,” Madame Bustier said, never once looking away from Lila. Normally this would’ve been the moment when Madame Bustier asked Alya to apologize, but Adrien noticed that she didn’t this time. Lila clearly noticed it too because her scowl deepened.

“Madame Bustier, have they told the police about Marinette?” Adrien asked before Lila could press the issue. Frankly, Lila didn’t deserve an apology.

Madame Bustier finally turned away from Lila, nodding. “Yes, they have. The police have already begun searching for her. But we all have to do our part too.”

“We should all go out after school and look for Marinette!” Nino said. His suggestion was meant with a general murmur of enthusiasm from everyone except for Lila – and for Adrien. As much as he wanted to help look for Marinette, he realized that this was the perfect chance to get Lila alone.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #madame bustier #ladrienjune2020 #can i come in?#lila rossi salt

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sandriinehebert · 5 years ago

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rain, kitchen, garden

rain 🌧️

when she is alone, she loves the sound of rain. it’s calming, it’s relaxing, it’s grounding. she prefers sunlight, obviously, but sitting by the open window while listening to the rain outside has always been one of her best forms of therapy. however, she is scared of thunderstorms, she hates when it’s raining yet very cold and icy during winter (she lost count of how many car accidents her family almost got into because of mother nature acting weird #justcanadianthings) and she gets very moody when it rains for multiple days in a row. she feels under the weather when she’s on her own. if she’s working and it’s raining cats and dogs outside, she will be a little ball of sunshine and act even more cheerful so people can feel better. 10/10 will get excited when a rainbow appears after the rain.

kitchen 🍳

when she (or well, her brother) bought the house, it was sold empty. everything was a blank canvas, but not for long. for the longest time, sandrine slept in an old disney princess themed sleeping bag on the floor and lived with the bare minimum because she insisted to have the kitchen built and renovated first. she spent hours shopping for the right fridge, oven, microwave and cabinet system. she chose everything herself, from the material of the counter to the set of small jars for spices, flour and sugar. she wanted her kitchen to be the core of her house, the real living room. she read so many interior decor magazines and splurged so much of his brother’s money on it, it’s outrageous. it paid off!

garden 🌿

it’s common knowledge that sandrine is basically a garden fairy at this point, but this is so out of character for her. large gardens were a fantasy, in her childhood. they only existed in the fancy neighborhoods or in the suburbs. she remembers her mother having one or two plants laying around and some tomatoes growing outside, but that’s about it. her nonna, on the other hand, always had this dream of spending her entire summers gardening and, obviously, sandrine had to make it come true (late is better than never amirite). she does not have a green thumb, far from it. she’s scared of bugs, so if she sees a fly or a bee wandering around as she waters her garden, she’s running back inside faster than the speed of light. she only tolerates butterflies and snails that take bites of her lettuce (she bought a cute house for aquarium and tried to make a shelter for the first snail she encountered, she named it justin trudeau because she saw it as it was trying to slide around a small puddle and since trudeau pronounced in english sounds like trou d’eau, which translates to water hole, she thought she was being very funny). justin trudeau disappeared at the end of the summer, rip. she started planting seeds on impulse, she knew nothing about sun, watering, the right soil and all that. it was a hit or miss situation, but, again, she read a lot about gardening and made of that plain green grass a little piece of heaven. for someone who hates reading and traditional learning methods, she proves to be a great student when she puts her mind to it.

Send a word and I will write a drabble or headcanon based on it

#(( i have the worst luck with read mores to writing drabbles for each would have been too long! ))#(( thank you for these ily to the moon and back! ))#memes.#answered asks.#car accident tw #tony-lyckholm

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chrisabraham · 7 years ago

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My recommendation for indoor rower rowing shorts for erging on the Concept2

I've put a lot of meters onto my PM5-updated twenty-year-old Model C Concept2. While you can, and should, row in whatever shorts you have on--even pantsless if you own your own erg--there are some better solutions.

Concept2 Cotton Lycra Rowing Shorts

Until a month ago, I was a true blue JL Racing / JL Rowing / JLAthletics rowing trou devotee -- until I tried out a pair of the Cotton Lycra Shorts that Concept2 sells on its very own Online Shop. They're only $29.00 and they're cotton. They breathe differently and they're much more comfortable over the longer-term than are my Polypropylene JLRowing rowing trou, which I always buy out of their Bargain Bin. That said, I am already fearing that the cotton shorts aren't as durable as my Polypro JL rowing trou, all of which have survived for years of abuse. Two really old pair have become a little threadbare (I wouldn't wear them to Yoga, they might be a little too see-through) but I still wear them, and shall until they actually rip through. I feel like the cotton pair might be less durable--but I am willing to budget to replace them or get more than one pair so that I can distribute the wear and tear on each one over time. Since these shorts are exclusively indoor rowing trou and I do live alone, and when I wear them out, I also wear a pair of gym shorts, I might be willing to allow these cotton shorts to really get pilled and threadbare and even holey until they just become unwearable to me and not just publicly unwearable--publicly inappropriate, if you know what I mean. I don't wear underwear under rowing trou (nobody does) so I wear them as a first layer. Even if I wear a pair of shorts over the trou, I will take them off if I am using these 90% cotton/10% Lycra shorts on the erg or even at Spin class. But, I always throw the shorts back on as soon as the classes end, not because these shorts are revealing but I am just self-conscious. All the guys who wear rowing trou at the Potomac Boat Club aren't even the littlest but self-conscious. Bottom Line: Choose Concept2 Cotton Lycra Shorts for price and comfort

JL Racing Rowing Trou

I have never been able to kill a pair of JL Racing rowing trou no matter how long I have had them or how hard I have used them. I only own Polypropylene JL Racing rowing trou and they have never run or laddered, they have only gotten progressively more threadbare and see-through. They still work fine and feel even more comfortable to be because they're looser and more relaxed, but the oldest ones have also lost all of their compression--but I don't mind that. I have never killed a pair, though I am sure if I had a girlfriend or wife, she might have thrown out the two oldest pair sine I do have newer, less ratty pair--but to me, failure means I can't use them anymore, and that's not the case. At $36.95/pair, they're almost $8 more expensive than the cotton shorts but they're a whole $16.05 less than the Concept2 Black Polypro/Spandex Rowing Shorts, so they're a bargain if you compare like to like.

Warning: you don't have much of a choice when you order from JL Racing's Bargain Bin. You only get to choose between No White, No Hi-Viz, As Bright as Possible, As Dark as Possible, and Surprise Me! but it’s worth the $16 difference—plus, it’s fun because you don't know what you'll get. I might always only order black tights myself, every time, but because I like a deal, I have gotten a lot of crazy patterns in my orders, including zebra stripes and blue snakeskin. I did choose "Surprise Me!" in that case, however. And I, personally, have never found a flaw in any of the Bargain Bin rowing trou orders I have made, myself. Also, you can get an entire Polypropylene rowing unisuit/rowing singlet for only $32.95 if you shop on JL Racing's Bargain Bin -- and while they didn't have any spandex rowing shorts right now in the JL Racing Bargain Bin, I would keep checking back because they often do. Bottom Line: if you like getting the best value and durability over comfort for your money, buy your rowing trow from JL Racing's Sale Bargain Bin, though even if you need to buy your Polypro rowing trou full price, they're still cheaper than similar Polypropylene shorts at Concept2.

While I spent 15 of those years on the seat that came with my C2, I added two Concept2-brand Seat Pads, one on top of the other, when I started doing high-meters challenges, but that doesn't change anything--I mostly got the pads because my girlfriend at the time wanted--needed--the extra padding, but I haven't converted anything back. Read the full article

#Concept2 #cotton #indoor rowing #jl athletics #jl racing #jl rowing #jlracing #jlrowing #polypro #polypropylene #rowing #rowing shorts #rowing trou #Spandex

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countrygrlswrld · 6 years ago

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New Zealand: Then and Now

“Only the mountains know where they have come from and where they are going and what will happen when we are gone.” —Brian Turner, “Listening to the Mountain” (1985) as seen at the Sir Edmund Hilary Mountaineering Museum

The electric blue waters are still electric blue. The peaks still tower above. The rolling green hills still conjure images of hobbits and orcs, but a lot has changed in New Zealand since Spanky and I first visited a decade ago on our inaugural trip around the world and then again just five years ago when we spent two months of the South Island alone. We returned this time for six weeks on the South and were both comforted by the sameness and shocked by some of the major changes over the years.

So, what’s changed?

Bigger vans, less freedom camping

Ten years ago you’d be hard pressed to find anything other than one of those rapey-looking Wicked campervans (made rapey-er still by sayings such as “Let’s take off our pants and cuddle”). Now, the van rentals are taller, longer, have a more sterile, hospital appearance and usually come with a Mercedes-Benz logo on the front. The hippie backpackers are still around, but as is the case in so many places in the world, the gap seems to be widening—and the travel climate is a perfect metaphor. You’ve got the rich, gray-haired travelers with their $10,000-per-month Maui and Britz vans juxtaposed by the dirt poor, 20-something Euro backpackers who bought some shitty, no-name van for $3,000 and will sell it back after their visa runs out in a year for $2,000. They’re the ones dropping trou in the parking lot to change out of the harem pants they’ve been wearing for the past 17 days; you know ‘em when you smell ‘em, I mean, see ‘em. The in-betweeners like Spank and I are becoming a rare breed, though mid-range Jucy vans like the one we rented for $2,500 for six weeks are pretty common (renting one also comes with the very serious duty of waving happily and flashing your lights every time you pass another bright green and purple van on the road #jucytribeforlife). Still, there aren’t a whole lot of 30-somethings out on the road, which is exactly why we excitedly accepted the offer of Jaeger shots from a pack of four American guys in Queenstown—uh, only someone who hit their drinking prime in the early 2000s orders Jaeger shots; it’s basically a telltale sign of someone well on his or her way toward a midlife crisis. That and getting way too amped when 50 Cents “In Da Club” comes on at the pub.

Aside from the upgrade in van sizes, New Zealand has cracked down a bit on freedom camping. We went back to some of our old off-the-road parking spots and they now have “No overnight camping” signs in where we once set up our picnic table and chairs. It’s sad, but I understand that they don’t want tourist dumps all over the place. I don’t blame them one bit, especially considering most tourists are from the city and don’t know how to properly dispose of their dumps. I mean, hello, have you ever been to San Francisco? If not, this is your courtesy warning: Watch your step; that wasn’t Fluffy.

Better beer

No, we didn’t just drink Jaeger shots and Sauvignon Blanc on this NZ trip. We also dabbled in hops, and what we found were IPAs and APAs and, heaven forbid, Sour Gose! That’s right, New Zealand has arrived on the beer scene. Just five years ago you were lucky to find anything other than a pilsner or lager—think Bud and Coors. Not only are their beers more varied now, but they’ve got the whole locale down. In Wanaka we stumbled on the brewery Rhyme & Reason bumping 90s gangsta rap and sandwiched next to a CrossFit gym in the industrial part of town. Wait, are we in America??

More rich people—more people, in general

With the campervan shift comes a shift in the demographic. Not only are there more travelers, but there are just more people in New Zealand than when Spank and I first visited a decade ago. It’s one of those heartbreaking realities when your special little spot is discovered by the masses. Thanks a lot Frodo. I blame you and your hairy, hobbit feet. You just had to go tramping all over Aeotera pretending it was Middle Earth and showing everyone how raw and unique it was. “Frodo!” (*In the voice of Jerry Seinfeld cursing his nemesis Newman.)

There aren’t just more people; there are more people with coin to throw down. They put a Louis Vuitton on the Queenstown waterfront overlooking Lake Wakatipu for sobbing out loud. Bleh. And, the housing market has followed suit. There are new houses and condos being built by the Chinese tourist busloads, which is to say there are a lot and they just keep coming. And, we heard a Kiwi throw out a figure like “the average Kiwi makes $40,000 and the average house is $1 million.” There went our dreams of buying a house in New Zealand—it’s as bad, or worse, than the California housing market right now. Plus, the Kiwis apparently passed legislation to keep us outsiders from buying property. Again, I can’ blame them. They are struggling dearly to keep their Kiwiness in tact, and having one hell of a time doing it.

It’s lost a little luster

All this to say that New Zealand will always have a special place in our hearts, but it has lost a little of its luster. It probably didn’t help that we hiked in the Himalayas and Chile’s Torres del Paine then drove the Canadian Rockies to Alaska and back two years ago; those sights didn’t totally trump the natural gems of NZ, but they did give it a good run for its money.

One more thing: There are still sandflies...and I still hate them.

Still, a lot has remained the same...

Natural beauty and Kiwis ideas of conservation

People love to idealize Kiwi concepts of conservation without really understanding them. Sure, they want to preserve their native species, but the ones that aren’t native? You dead. I mean, they mow down red deer, tahr, opossum and stoat with extreme prejudice. Good for them. Kiwis realize which critters were here and which ones were brought over later on, and they don’t try to protect the ones they knowingly brought over. They could care less about those, really. Plus, they aren’t too proud to say, “Yeah, we screwed up when we were trying to play God.” Americans, however, tend to want to protect everything—native or non-native. In every hut along the Routeburn Track we heard about the nuisance of the stoat and the traps set out for them. The hut wardens were unapologetic about snapping their little stoat necks to save the precious native birds; I admired their transparency and lack of political correctness.

Kiwis also treat timber as a renewable resource, a crop that is cut down and replanted. Drive around and you’ll see neatly lined rows of Douglas Fir all the same height ready for harvest one day. It’s like one giant tree farm. Again, we want to save, save, save to the point that a fire comes along and happily gobbles up the whole lot that has not been thinned or taken care of, and boom, it’s gone just like that, but that’s another soap box for another time. Don’t worry, I won’t even touch immigration or gun control with a 10-foot pole right now.

Of course, what I love the most about New Zealand is the natural beauty, and though the throngs of people ruin that for me a bit, you can still escape and get off the beaten path and away from the masses. It’s all about choosing places that aren’t listed on every tourist site (i.e. the Hooker Valley Track at Mt. Cook that was just overrun with people) and choosing longer hikes (the longer the hike the fewer people up for the challenge, which means more high-altitude sights all to yourself!)

Incredible amount of access to the outdoors

Despite the restrictions on some freedom camping, there is still so much access to the outdoors. You can’t throw a stone and not hit one of those little yellow and green Department of Conservation signs. You see them wherever you go, and they signify a track or conservation camping area but most of them mark out tracks aka hiking trails. New Zealand just recently opened a nearly 2,000-mile thru-hiking trail from the North to the South Island on top of the huge amount of trails they already have. They continue to add new Great Walks, all of which have fantastic hut systems for overnighting backpackers. In total, New Zealand has nearly 1,000 huts so people can explore and enjoy the outdoors.

Kindness of Kiwis

I hope they never lose this, but as countries “progress” toward consumerism and what ultimately just feels like the almighty goal of Americanness and thus sameness, people seem to care less for each other and more about getting ahead. I still didn’t feel that overwhelmingly in New Zealand, but it’s a slow fade. It sneaks in. Plus, we spent next to no time in the larger cities, where I tend to feel that fade the most. All in all, we still sense that Kiwi hospitality. Backpackers still hitchhike without fear of being abducted or mugged and they still open their homes to perfect strangers, as we experienced with the gracious Kiwi couple from Nelson that we met at the Hokitika Wild Food Fetival amongst another group of friendly Kiwis. Even in Queenstown, where there are very few born-and-raised Kiwis, we met a group of timber guys (i.e. loggers) from NZ and hit it off right away. Before even speaking they were buying us a favorite spirit and cozying up next to the fire with us for a chat about politics, which went rather well, considering we shared many of the same views. I just hope these Kiwis can withstand the change of time and not end up on the endangered list like their national bird.

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theblogchelor · 6 years ago

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The Bachelorette Week Nine aka Bangkok Becca

Here’s What Happened Monday

We’re in Thailand, and it’s the episode wherein our Bachelorette gets to drop trou with her final three men. After what is sure to be many nice shots of the landscape and a handful of uncomfortable cultural interactions, Becca will take her lovers back to various huts and commence the dickening, if she so chooses. Later, she will fret that her emotions are now even more conflicted than before, as if sharing fluids with multiple men would somehow be clarifying. Lastly, she will send the weakest bone home.

Thus is the tried and true methodology of The Bachelorette.

Blake’s One-On-One

Blake is one handsy little bastard, so Becca takes him to a forest where they’re not allowed to touch each other. I don’t know if this is an ancient cultural superstition, or if Becca just needs five minutes without his sweaty paws on her, or because she’s planning on murdering him in the woods of Thailand and can’t risk his DNA on her skin.

Later, at dinner, Becca tells Blake that she is passionately in love with three dudes but that he has nothing to worry about. Blake says he’s totally ready to get on one knee, so Becca invites him back to the Fantasy Suite. They retreat to a sultry hotel suite to – how shall I put this – do some squats in the cucumber patch.

Jason’s One-On-One

Jason and Becca walk around a Thai market and encroach on the personal bubbles of innocent street performers. The proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan when Becca makes Jason sit alone at a temple while she leaves to have a panic attack.

In a rare moment we’re reminded that there is an army of people around Becca at all times, as Becca tells a producer “it just feels weird” with Jason fourteen times in a row. She reflexively tries to pull her hair up off her sweaty neck, forgetting that her hair tie was taken from her the moment she became The Bachelorette, and you best believe the producer isn’t about to provide her with one. Sicko.

At dinner, Jason reminds Becca he loves her, but she tells him she’s not feeling it and sends him home, a brutal five minutes before they would have been locking legs and swapping gravy.

Garrett’s One-On-One

Garrett and Becca take a bamboo raft down a crowded river while the locals and the elephants just try to get their holiday crunk on in peace. Over beers and harassment from Thai children, Becca and Garrett discuss their emotions.

After a long talk about family, hopes, and relocating to follow fame – dreams, sorry I meant dreams – Garrett tells Becca he loves her. This is everything she wanted to hear, and with the help of Chris Harrison’s note, Becca invites Garrett back to her treehouse to make the magical sandwich.

Drama!

Jason shows back up at Becca’s hotel for a few tears and some closure. There’s no screaming, no accusations, just a sad parting. Jason says goodbye and sticks his memories in Becca’s scrapbook. Sadly that’s not even a euphemism.

At the Rose Ceremony, there are two dudes and two roses. The math adds up, meaning Blake and Garrett are our final two. What a show.

Miscellaneous

Fantasy Suites is like Christmas: there are a million little traditions you come to cherish over time. For The Bachelorette, it’s the handwritten invitation to bang by none other than Chris Harrison, the perfect hair and makeup of the morning-after Bachelorette, the appearance of awkward jammies that ruin the whole image of the man wearing them.

I’ll miss Jason and his 80s cool-kid greased-back hair as much as the next gal, but clamoring for him to be the next Bachelor? Come on, twitter.

This girl won the episode:

#The Bachelor #The Women Tell All #the bachelor finale #the bachlorette #The Men Tell All #The Bachelorette Finale #bachelorette #Bachelor #bachelornation #becca kufrin #garrett yrigoyen #chris harrison #bachelor nation #theblogchelor #the blogchelor #blogchelor #blogchelorbecca

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its-zhangjiashuai-us · 3 years ago

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Disney Jouets En Remise

Notre de la France en Afrique avec notre prochain lot.» La disney store london vente aux enchères des Antiques & Fine Art est qui aura lieu le lundi 30 Mars à 10h. Il a également entrepris de nombreuses expériences dans le domaine de l'ophtalmologie, inventant un dispositif pour examiner sa propre rétine ainsi que la littérature de l'édition sur le sujet. Ransomes, Sims et Jefferies ont été fondées en Ipswhich en Disney Soldes Maison 1789 par Robert Romsome; ses brevets pour les actions de charrue en fonte, fonte trempée et pièces de charrue interchangeables formé les bases d'success. Le Warwick Vase provient de fragments découverts par Gavin Hamilton (1723-1798) en 1769-1770, qu'il trouva tout en creusant dans les limons du lac Pantanello dans les motifs de l'extérieur Villa Tiburtina de Rome.available au fd gallery de succession de cette semaine round up ups l’ante avec plusieurs morceaux magnifiques, dont deux ont provenances. Lot 130 (estimation euros 16,000 euros 20,000) 8 jours Radiomir Egiziano montre-bracelet est un gentleman (à gauche) et le lot 280 (estimation 1200 euros euros 1,800) montre-bracelet de Luftwaffe question le navigateur d'un gentilhomme (à droite) Wristwatch Vintage and Modern 'Fellows Vente aux enchères du 7 Avril Disney Coque Clipsable Pour Téléphone Portable Star Wars Kylo Ren Modèle tropical ensemble deux mastodontes horlogers de plus de 65 ans d'intervalle. Or, noir émail, turquoise boucles, belperron this était une autre grande pièce par belperron à vendre à exhibition. Signé avec la marque de fabricant pour andre vassort. Il est important de noter que Piranesi était responsable seulement pour la conception et non les execution. A l’origine de la collection personnelle de madame suzanne belperron. an de seaman schepps chessmen broches peut être vu à la exhibition’icons signatures: une sélection vintage rarement vu de la collection privée de seaman schepps de runs au samedi, mai à betteridge Disney Jouets En Remise dans greenwich. Ma femme a un magnifique jardin de roses qui me inspire chaque fois que je suis à home.i vivent pour cette période extravagante de la décadence delà de la description à la fin du ème siècle, où des millions et des millions de dollars les sommes insondables de l’argent aujourd’hui pourraient être considérés tout simplement en se promenant de haut en bas de new york de row. Un cas de triple couche arrière vedette des trous dans la surface extérieure pour permettre au son d'être entendu plus clearly. Carats et tsavorites pesant, caratstulips sont partout pendant les mois de printemps et je suis toujours rappelé les champs de tulipes en hollande. ’a quête de la beauté: l’art de met en évidence l’héritage durable de la maison, la passion continue pour la conception créative et la dévotion Disney Personnages Rabais à impeccable craftsmanship.these e, connu comme les colombes du capitole ou colombes de pline, apparaissent fréquemment comme sujet de micromosaics. www.officieldisney.com/disney-soldes-maison

#Disney

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billyagogo · 4 years ago

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Hillary in Midair

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2021/02/11/hillary-in-midair/

Hillary in Midair

Photo: Douglas Friedman/Trunk Archive

For four years, Hillary Rodham Clinton flew around the world as President Barack Obama’s secretary of State, while her husband, the former president Bill Clinton, lived a parallel life of speeches and conferences in other hemispheres. They communicated almost entirely by phone. They were seldom on the same continent, let alone in the same house.

But this year, all that has changed: For the first time in decades, neither one is in elected office, or running for one. Both are working in the family business, in the newly renamed nonprofit that once bore only Bill’s name but is now called the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which will hold its annual conference in New York next week.

“We get to be at home together a lot more now than we used to in the last few years,” says Hillary Clinton. “We have a great time; we laugh at our dogs; we watch stupid movies; we take long walks; we go for a swim.

“You know,” she says, “just ordinary, everyday pleasures.”

In the world of the Clintons, of course, what constitutes ordinary and everyday has never been either. So the question was inevitable: Given who he is, and who she is, does Bill, among their guffaws over the dogs and stupid movies, harangue her daily about running for president?

To this, Hillary Rodham Clinton lets loose one of her loud, head-tilted-back laughs. “I don’t think even he is, you know, focused on that right now,” she says. “Right now, we’re trying to just have the best time we can have doin’ what we’re doin’. ”

There’s a weightlessness about Hillary Clinton these days. She’s in midair, launched from the State Department toward … what? For the first time since 1992, unencumbered by the demands of a national political campaign or public office, she is saddled only with expectations about what she’s going to do next. And she is clearly enjoying it.

“It feels great,” she says, “because I have been on this high wire for twenty years, and I was really yearning to just have more control over my time and my life, spend a lot of that time with my family and my friends, do things that I find relaxing and enjoyable, and return to the work that I had done for most of my life.”

Relaxing, for a Clinton, especially one who, should she decide to run, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in 2016, does not seem exactly restful. The day before we speak, she was awarded the Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia—presented by Jeb Bush, another politician weighted with dynastic expectations and family intrigue, who took the opportunity to jest that both he and Clinton cared deeply about Americans—especially those in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Afterward, Clinton stepped backstage, a red-white-and-blue ribbon around her neck pulled taut by a saucer-size gold medal. “It is really heavy,” she said, with that plain-home midwestern tone she deploys when she wants to not appear the heavy herself. In the room with her were some of her close advisers—Nick Merrill, a communications staffer and acolyte of Hillary’s suffering top aide, Huma Abedin; and Dan Schwerin, the 31-year-old speechwriter who wrote all the words she had spoken moments ago. Local policemen with whom Clinton had posed for photos milled about behind her.

Outside was the usual chorus accompanying a Clinton appearance, befitting her status as the most popular Democrat in America: news helicopters buzzing overhead and protesters amassed across the street who raised signs that read benghazi in bloodred paint and chanted antiwar slogans directly at her as she spoke at the outdoor lectern.

Though she was officially out of the government, it was not as if she could leave it, even if she wanted to. That week Clinton had met with Obama in the White House to discuss the ongoing Syria crisis, and now Obama was on TV that very evening announcing a diplomatic reprieve from a missile attack on Syria—a series of decisions that Clinton had lent her support to every step of the way. “I’ve been down this road with them,” she tells me the next day. “I know how challenging it is to ever get [the Russians] to a ‘yes’ that they actually execute on, but it can be done. I think we have to push hard.”

Clinton has taken a press hiatus since she left the State Department in January—“I’ve been successful at avoiding you people for many months now!” she says, laughing. She is tentative and careful, tiptoeing into every question, keenly aware that the lines she speaks will be read between. In our interview, she emphasizes her “personal friendship” with Obama, with whom she had developed a kind of bond of pragmatism and respect—one based on shared goals, both political and strategic. “I feel comfortable raising issues with him,” she says. “I had a very positive set of interactions, even when I disagreed, which obviously occurred, because obviously I have my own opinions, my own views.”

Hillary Clinton receiving the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia, September 10. Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

The killing of bin Laden, she says, was a bonding experience. Obama’s Cabinet had been split on whether to attempt the mission, but Clinton backed it and sweated out the decision with the commander-in-chief. “I’ve seen the president in a lot of intense and difficult settings,” she says, “and I’ve watched him make hard decisions. Obviously, talking to you on September 11 as we are, the bin Laden decision-making process is certainly at the forefront of my mind.”

The statement cuts two ways—praise for her president and evidence of her deep experience in and around the Oval Office—including the most successful military endeavor of the Obama presidency. As a Cabinet member, she says, “I’ve had a unique, close, and personal front-row seat. And I think these last four years have certainly deepened and broadened my understanding of the challenges and the opportunities that we face in the world today.”

Political campaigns are built of personal narratives—and it works much better if the stories are true. The current arc of Hillary’s story is one of transformation. Being secretary of State was more than a job. Her closest aides describe the experience as a kind of cleansing event, drawing a sharp line between the present and her multiple pasts—as First Lady, later as the Democratic front-runner in 2008, derailed by the transformative campaign of Barack Obama but also by a dysfunctional staff, the campaign-trail intrusions of her husband, and the inherent weaknesses of the fractious, bickering American institution that has become known as Clintonworld.

At State, she was the head of a smoothly running 70,000-person institution, and fully her own woman, whose marriage to a former president was, when it was mentioned, purely an asset. And now that she’s left State, Clintonworld is being refashioned along new lines, rationalized and harmonized. The signal event of this is the refurbishing of the Clinton Foundation, formerly Bill’s province, to accommodate all three Clintons, with Chelsea, newly elevated, playing a leading role. The move has ruffled certain Clintonworld feathers—a front-page article in the New York Times about the financial travails of the foundation as managed by Bill Clinton brought sharp pushback—but most of those close to the Clintons acknowledge that to succeed in the coming years, Hillary will have to absorb the lessons of 2008. Currently, it’s a topline talking point among her closest aides.

“She doesn’t repeat her mistakes,” says Melanne Verveer, an aide to the First Lady who then served in the State Department as Hillary’s ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. “She really learns from her mistakes. It’s like, you want to grow a best practice and then always operate on that. She analyzes, ‘What went wrong here?’ ”

Of course, if Hillary’s future were to be an author, or a pundit, or a retiree, learning from mistakes wouldn’t be an issue. But other outcomes, where executive talents are prized, seem more likely. I ask Clinton the question that trails her like a thought bubble: Does she wrestle with running for president?

“I do,” she says, “but I’m both pragmatic and realistic. I think I have a pretty good idea of the political and governmental challenges that are facing our leaders, and I’ll do whatever I can from whatever position I find myself in to advocate for the values and the policies I think are right for the country. I will just continue to weigh what the factors are that would influence me making a decision one way or the other.”

Clintonworld, however, speaks with many voices—albeit many of them not for attribution. Some of her close confidants, including many people with whom her own staff put me in touch, are far less circumspect than she is. “She’s running, but she doesn’t know it yet,” one such person put it to me. “It’s just like a force of history. It’s inexorable, it’s gravitational. I think she actually believes she has more say in it than she actually does.”

And a longtime friend concurs. “She’s doing a very Clintonian thing. In her mind, she’s running for it, and she’s also convinced herself she hasn’t made up her mind. She’s going to run for president. It’s a foregone conclusion.”

When president-elect Barack Obama asked Clinton to be secretary of State, they had a series of private conversations about her role for the next four years. What would the job entail? How much power would she have? How would it be managed?

Or to restate the questions as they were understood by everyone involved in the negotiation: What would Hillary Clinton get in return for supporting Obama after the brutal primary and helping him defeat John McCain?

Though she had ended her losing campaign on a triumphal note, gracefully accepting the role of secretary of State and agreeing to be a trouble-free team player in Obama’s Cabinet, the 2008 primary loss left deep wounds to her core staff—at least among those members who had not been excommunicated. They would discuss what happened during long trips to Asia and Europe, sounding like post-traumatic-stress victims. “The experience was very searing for them, and they would go through it with great detail,” says a former State Department colleague.

Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

The problems of that campaign were crucial to how Clinton would decide to lead the State Department. In accepting the State job, Clinton insisted on hiring her own staff. In addition to her top aides, Huma Abedin and Philippe Reines, she enlisted stalwarts of campaigns and administrations past: Maggie Williams, Cheryl Mills, and Verveer, who have been with her since her days in Bill Clinton’s White House. Among Hillary’s inner circle, this is viewed as a returning lineup of all-stars who were iced out of her campaign by a five-person team led by Patti Solis-Doyle, a group who in their telling became the agents of the campaign’s troubles. “They’re the A-team,” says a top aide. “They weren’t the B-team that got elevated. They were the A-team that got deposed by [Solis-Doyle].”

The 2008 campaign was seen by many as an echo chamber, closed off from the best advice, and the lesson for Clinton was clear: “The takeaway is, ‘Don’t only listen to five people,’ ” says the aide.

When she arrived, Clinton did a kind of institutional listening tour at the State Department. “She felt like she was too closed off from what was happening across the expanse of the [2008] campaign,” says a close aide at the State Department, “and that became a hallmark with the leadership in the State Department, and it served her incredibly well.”

To keep things operating smoothly, she hired Tom Nides, the COO of Morgan Stanley, who’d contributed heavily to Clinton’s past campaigns. Even Nides was wary of the Clinton drama he might be stepping into. “I had heard all these stories about the Clinton world and what all that meant and ‘Did you really want to get wrapped up in that?’ ” he says. But he reports that “all of the stuff did not exist at the State Department for the last four years.

“The relationship between the State Department and the White House and the State Department and the Defense Department was probably the best it’s ever been in 50 years,” he adds. “That starts from the top. No drama. And that was started by her.”

Among Hillary Clinton’s greatest hits at State were the new focus on Asia, pushing for the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, and building a coalition for strong sanctions against Iran. But she also saw the job as a kind of reformatting of the State Department itself to prepare for the longer-run issues. “I’d been told that it was a choice that had to be made: You could either do what had to be done around the world, or you could organize and focus the work that was done inside State and the Agency for International Development, but I rejected that,” says Clinton. “I thought it was essential that as we restore America’s standing in the world and strengthen our global leadership again, we needed what I took to calling ‘smart power’ to elevate American diplomacy and development and reposition them for the 21st century … That meant that we had to take a hard look at how both State and A.I.D. operated. I did work to increase their funding after a very difficult period when they were political footballs to some extent and they didn’t have the resources to do what was demanded of them.”

Clinton’s State team argues that Clinton was a great stateswoman, her ambition to touch down in as many countries as possible a meter of how much repair work she did to the nation’s image abroad. Along the way, she embraced with good humor a parody Tumblr account, Texts From Hillary, that featured a picture of her in the iconic sunglasses looking cool and queenly. “She insisted on having a personality,” says Jake Sullivan, her former deputy chief of staff and now the national-security adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden. “And on stating her opinion.”

For foreign-policy critics, some of this could look like wheel spinning. The major critique was that she didn’t take on any big issues, like brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, or negotiating the nuclear disarmament of North Korea. And the suspicion was that she didn’t want to be associated with any big failures as she prepared for 2016. She was, after all, under the tight grip of the Obama White House, which directed major foreign-policy decisions from the Oval Office.

“Whatever one says about how [Secretary of State] John Kerry is doing,” says the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, “he has nothing left to lose. You can see he takes risks. He’s plowing into the Middle East stuff when people are saying this isn’t going to get you anywhere. Hillary never would have done any of this stuff.”

Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

Her former staffers argue that she managed a host of important, if underrecognized, global flare-ups along the way, from freeing a dissident in China to brokering the easing of sanctions against Burma. “She helped avert a second war in Gaza by going out and pulling off that cease-fire,” recalls Sullivan of the deal she hashed out between Israel and Hamas after a week of fighting, “which holds to this day. And you don’t get a lot of credit for preventing something. Those are things that you aren’t going to measure how successful they are for another ten or twenty years.”

At the same time, Hillary used her tenure at State for a more intimate purpose: to shift the balance of power in the most celebrated political marriage in American history. Bill Clinton was an overwhelming force in Hillary’s 2008 campaign, instrumental in vouching for Mark Penn, the strategist whose idea it was for Hillary to cling to her war vote on Iraq and to sell her as an iron-sided insider whose experience outweighed the need to project mere humanity. Bill also freelanced his own negative attacks, some of which backfired. Because his staff was not coordinating with Hillary’s, her staff came to regard him as a wild card who couldn’t be managed.

But not in the State Department. “Not a presence,” says a close State aide. “And I don’t mean that just literally. But not someone who was built into the system in any way. He had a very minimal presence in her time at the State Department.

“It’s kind of jarring when she says ‘Bill,’ ” this person adds, recalling meetings with Hillary Clinton. “Well, who’s Bill? And then you realize that she’s talking about her husband. It happened so infrequently that you were kind of like, Oh, the president.”

Part of it, of course, was logistical. Though they spoke frequently by phone, Bill and Hillary were rarely in the same country. By chance, their paths crossed in Bogotá, where they had dinner together—then, owing to their massive entourages, returned to their respective hotels. “Love conquers all except logistics,” says an aide.

“I could probably count on one hand the times she came to a meeting and either invoked his name or suggested something that Bill had said,” says Nides. “I probably did it more about my wife telling me what to do.”

Hillary might have left the State Department unsullied by controversy if not for the Benghazi episode, in which the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other consulate staffers were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate. The NATO intervention in Libya was the most important foreign intervention of her tenure, and a seemingly successful one, but the lack of security in Benghazi and the confusion over how the incident occurred set off a heated Republican attack on Clinton’s handling of the disaster, and she was roasted on the cable-news spit for weeks. In January, she took responsibility for the deaths of the four Americans before Congress—while also questioning her inquisition, snapping at a Republican congressman, “What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”

Benghazi will be the go-to bludgeon for Republicans if and when Clinton tries using her experience at State to run for president. It is a reminder that Clinton, despite the cool, centrist façade she has developed in the past four years, is only a misstep away from being a target of partisan rage once again.

Regardless of the facts, Republicans are liable to use Benghazi as a wedge to pry back her stately exterior, goading her into an outburst, once again revealing the polarizing figure who saw vast right-wing conspiracies and tried ginning up government health care against the political tides of Newt Gingrich.

When asked for her prescription for partisan gridlock, Clinton sees an opportunity not unlike what Obama saw in 2008. “People are stereotypes, they are caricaturized,” says Clinton. “It comes from both sides of the political aisle, it comes from the press. It’s all about conflict, it’s all about personality, and there are huge stakes in the policies that are being debated, and I think there’s a hunger amongst a very significant, maybe even a critical mass of Americans, clustered on the left, right, and center, to have an adult conversation about how we’re going to solve these problems … but it’s not for the fainthearted.” For now, Hillary’s strategy is to sail above these conflicts, mostly by saying nothing to inflame them. “I have a lot of reason to believe, as we saw in the 2012 election, most Americans don’t agree with the extremists on any side of an issue,” says Clinton, “but there needs to continue to be an effort to find common ground, or even take it to higher ground on behalf of the future.”

At the Sheraton Ballroom in Chicago last spring, Bill Clinton appeared before an eager crowd of Clinton groupies at the Clinton Global Initiative America, a special conference focused on domestic issues and set in Hillary’s hometown. Onstage, the former president looked older than in the past—thinner, stooped, more subdued, his hands trembling while he held his notes at the podium. Haloed in blue light, he spoke about the “still embattled American Dream” and then introduced his wife as his new partner in the foundation, the woman who “taught me everything I know about NGOs.”

Her appearance made for a stark contrast. When she emerged from behind the curtain, she appeared much more youthful—smiling, upright, beaming in a turquoise pantsuit; she received huge applause and a standing ovation that dwarfed the response to Bill.

On her first major public stage since leaving the State Department, Hillary told the crowd that the foundation will be a “full partnership between the three of us,” including her daughter, Chelsea. But this was clearly Hillary Clinton’s show. That week, she had launched her Twitter account, complete with a tongue-in-cheek description of her as a “glass ceiling cracker,” her future “TBD.” Clearly, her foundation work, as important as it is to her, wasn’t everything. And Chicago was a perfect site for the start of this new chapter. It was where she was from, the launchpad for her career in politics and early-childhood education and women’s empowerment, what she called the “great unfinished business of this century.” “When women participate in politics,” she said, “it ripples out to the entire society … Women are the world’s most underused resource.”

If you wanted to read her speech as an opening salvo for a 2016 run for the presidency, it wasn’t hard to do as she talked about all that she’d learned as she traveled the globe. Whatever country or situation they found themselves in, “what people wanted was a good job.”

The rechristening of the foundation marked the first time the Clintons had come under the same institutional roof since the nineties. For Hillary, it made sense, because she didn’t have to compete with her husband for donors at her own foundation. It would also allow her to warm up donors for future initiatives—like, just for instance, a 2016 campaign. Two days later, the family would appear together onstage, a picture-perfect photo op of what Bill Clinton called “our little family.”

The Clinton Global Initiative, in addition to its work combating poverty and aids, is a kind of unofficial Clinton-alumni reunion, with friends and donors dating back to the early years in Arkansas. Sprinkled around the ballroom in Chicago were the old hands, from Bruce Lindsey, the former deputy White House counsel and CEO of the foundation, to newer faces like J. B. Pritzker, the Chicago hotel scion who was national co-chair of Hillary’s 2008 campaign and was now raising $20 million for an early-childhood-education initiative.

The Clinton network has always been both an asset and a burden. Terry McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton ally now running for governor of Virginia, has raised millions for the Clintons at every juncture of their careers. Then again, he’s Terry McAuliffe, the guy who left his weeping wife and newborn child in the car while he collected $1 million at a fund-raiser, then wrote about it in a memoir. “You can’t change who these people are,” says one former Hillary adviser. “It’s like any other trade. You’ve got the good, and there’s a lot of good. And you’ve got the noise.”

To harness some of the noise—what some Clinton people called “the energy”—a faction has converged around the Ready for Hillary super-PAC started by a former 2008 campaign aide named Adam Parkhomenko. Launched early this year, it has appeared to many observers to be an informal satellite of Hillary’s larger designs for the White House, but her aides say it’s a rogue operation of questionable benefit. “There is nothing they are doing that couldn’t have waited a year,” says one. “Not a single fucking thing.”

Regardless, Clinton veterans like former campaign strategist James Carville have come out supporting the super-PAC, as has former White House political director Craig Smith, Bill’s old Arkansas pal. Supporters argue that the super-PAC has Hillary’s tacit approval, especially given the involvement of Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Democratic donor who is among her oldest and closest friends. “It offers supporters the all-important link to click on, plus places to convene in both the digital and physical worlds,” says Tracy Sefl, an adviser to the super-PAC. “And although some perhaps just can’t quite believe it, Ready for Hillary’s name really does convey the totality of its purpose.”

One supporter of the super-PAC, who didn’t want to be identified, acknowledges that “there’s a danger there of her again becoming the front-runner. And, too, the existence of it raises her profile and puts more pressure on her to make a decision earlier than she might otherwise want to make.”

On some level, the network is almost impossible to control—Clintonworld is bigger than just the Clintons. “People do things in their name, or say they just talked to Hillary or to Bill, and the next thing you know, they’re doing something stupid,” says a former aide of Hillary’s whose interview she sanctioned. “You take the good with the bad. Hopefully, the good outweighs the bad.”

The biggest question among Hillary’s circle concerns Huma Abedin, currently chief of Hillary’s “transition office” and formerly her deputy chief of staff in the State Department. Abedin began as an intern for the First Lady in 1996, when she was 20 years old, and is, of course, married to former congressman and mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, of sexting infamy.

In the midst of her husband’s scandal, Abedin stepped down from her full-time job for a consulting contract and moved back to New York to take work with Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm and investment bank run by Bill Clinton’s longtime consigliere, Doug Band. This gave Hillary cover while also keeping Abedin plugged in. “It’s business as usual,” says a Clinton insider. “Keep your circle of advisers small, and then you structure things in a way that makes it economically possible for your close advisers to sustain themselves.”

But business as usual can be a giant target for enemies: Abedin has since become the subject of an inquiry, by a Republican congressman, into her dual consulting roles, looking for potential conflicts of interest while she served in a sensitive role in the administration. Then came a second episode of Weiner’s sexting this summer, blindsiding the Clintons, obliterating Weiner’s mayoral ambitions, and greatly complicating Abedin’s future with the Clintons. With Weiner’s ignominious loss and parting bird-flip, “Huma has a choice to make,” says a close associate of hers. “Does she go with Anthony, or does she go with Hillary?”

Leaving the Clinton bubble is almost unimaginable for those who’ve grown up in it. According to a person familiar with the conversations, Abedin has struggled to reconcile her marriage to Weiner with her role as Clinton’s top aide, traumatized by the prospect of leaving her boss’s inner circle.

In a sense, the Weiner scandal is a ghost of Clintonworld past, summoning sordid images of unruly appetites and bimbo eruptions, exactly the sort of thing that needs to be walled off and excised in a 2016 campaign. Former advisers from State say any future campaign will take a page from Clinton’s relatively peaceful past four years. “In contrast with reports of disunity in the 2008 campaign,” says Kurt Campbell, “the State Department was operated with a high degree of harmony and collegiality.”

The secret to realigning Clintonworld has been there all along. Since she received her master’s from Oxford in 2003, Chelsea Clinton had tried out different career paths, first in business consulting at McKinsey & Co., then at a hedge fund run by donors to her parents, and finally as a correspondent on NBC, with a few university postings sprinkled in. Chelsea has grown up in the Clinton bubble, the princess of Clintonworld, and getting outside of it has sometimes been difficult. She tried her hand at developing her “brand” on TV, but then, two years ago, stepped in and took over her father’s foundation, a return to the fold that portended a lot of changes. She became vice-chairman of the board. The foundation hired white-shoe law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to perform an audit and review of the foundation’s finances and operations. And this summer, she installed a friend from McKinsey, Eric Braverman, as CEO.

Chelsea’s arrival was a clear if unspoken critique of Doug Band, who’d long been Bill Clinton’s gatekeeper in his post-presidential life. In Chelsea’s view, the foundation started by Band had become sprawling and inefficient, threatened by unchecked spending and conflicts of interest, an extension of her father’s woolly style. In 2012, a New York Post story suggested impropriety in Band’s dual role, forcing Clinton to put a bit of distance between himself and Teneo.

In a report this summer, the Times claimed the foundation operated at a deficit and was vulnerable to conflicts of interest related to Teneo Holdings—which telegraphed the message that there was a new sheriff. Chelsea, says a Hillary loyalist, “has taken a chain saw to that organization. She has not allowed these old bubbas to deal with this.”

Naturally, some of Bill Clinton’s staff at the foundation were unhappy with Chelsea’s arrival, especially the decision to include Hillary and Chelsea in the name of it. In a move that suggested intrafamily conflict, Bill Clinton stepped out to defend his comrades, insisting that Bruce Lindsey, the former CEO, who had suffered a stroke in 2011, would continue to be “intimately involved” in the foundation and that he couldn’t have accomplished “half of what I have in my post-presidency without Doug Band.”

Hillary Clinton says her daughter’s entrance into the foundation was an organic extension of everything the Clintons have ever done. “It sort of is in the DNA, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” she says. “She’s an incredibly able—obviously I’m biased—but extremely well-organized, results-oriented person, so rather than joining a lot of other groups, on which she could pursue her interests, she thought, I want to be part of continuing to build something I have worked on off and on over the years, and I really believe in it. I was thrilled to hear that.

“She comes by it naturally, don’t you think?” she adds cheerfully.

Chelsea is now the chief Bill Clinton gatekeeper. At HBO, where Martin Scorsese is making a documentary about him, Chelsea has been involved from the start and is weighing in on the production.

As the various staffs of the three Clintons come under one roof, in a headquarters in the Time-Life Building in midtown Manhattan, there are dangers of internecine conflict. “It’s all people jockeying for position,” says a person with close ties to the foundation. “This is an operation that runs on proximity to people. Now there are three people. How does all that work?”

For Bill Clinton to acknowledge flaws in his institute and relinquish control to his daughter and wife was a new twist in the family relationship. People in both Bill’s and Hillary’s camp are quick to emphasize that Bill Clinton is still the lifeblood of the foundation and its social mission. Chelsea’s arrival is ultimately about preserving the foundation for the long term as he gets older and winds down some of his activities. But the subtext of the cleanup operation is no mystery among Clinton people. Bill’s loosey-goosey world had to be straightened out if Hillary was going to run for president. “She doesn’t operate that way,” says one of her former State Department advisers. “I mean, she has all sorts of creative ideas, but that’s not how she operates. She is much more systematic.”

As part of the shifting landscape in Clintonworld, Bill Clinton got a new chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, one of the group of African-American women—including Maggie Williams and Donna Brazile—who have been close advisers to the Clintons over the years. A former policy aide at the American Federation of Teachers, Flournoy’s arrival last January was viewed by insiders as Hillary’s planting a sentinel at the office of her husband.

Bill Clinton is also a legendary politician, a brilliant tactician who won two presidential elections and reigned over the most prosperous years in America in recent memory. Some make the argument that he single-handedly won Obama reelection with his extraordinary takedown of Mitt Romney at the Democratic National Convention last year. The trick, say Clinton advocates, is to manage him effectively on behalf of his wife. “To the discredit of whoever is running a campaign, if that happens and they don’t use Bill Clinton—use his strategy, use his thoughts, take his dumb ideas and his great ideas and make sure they’re used effectively—they’re a moron,” says a person close to Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps this is where Chelsea comes in. After years of expectation, she has emerged from her chrysalis, a new power center, her father’s keeper and, maybe for Hillary … a shadow campaign manager.

In Clintonworld, wheels are turning, but no one wants them to turn too fast. Last spring, in a panel discussion at the Peterson Institute, Bill Clinton blew up, telling people to stop speculating on her presidential aspirations. It was too soon. Says Nides, “If you have every person you know say to you the following: ‘You should run for president, Madam Secretary, I love you, Madam Secretary, you’d be a great president, Madam Secretary,’ she nods. And she understands the context of that.”

Hillary is well aware of these dynamics. “I’m not in any hurry,” she tells me. “I think it’s a serious decision, not to be made lightly, but it’s also not one that has to be made soon.

“This election is more than three years away, and I just don’t think it’s good for the country,” she says. “It’s like when you meet somebody at a party and they look over your shoulder to see who else is there, and you want to talk to them about something that’s really important; in fact, maybe you came to the party to talk to that particular person, and they just want to know what’s next,” she says. “I feel like that’s our political process right now. I just don’t think it is good.”

So all the activity and planning and obsessive calculation that go into a presidential campaign take place behind a pleasant midwestern smile. Her time at State indeed transformed her—as did her 2008 campaign, and her time as a senator, and as First Lady, and on and on. Now she contains multitudes, a million contradictions. She’s a polarizing liberal with lots of Republican friends, the coolest of customers constantly at the center of swirling drama. She’s hung up on a decision over whether to run for an office she (not to mention her husband) has coveted for her entire adult life. She’s a Clinton. And what a candidate she’d make in 2016. But if that’s where she’s going, she’s not saying. “I’m somebody who gets up every day and says, ‘What am I going to do today, and how am I going to do it?’ ” she says. “I think it moves me toward some outcome I’m hoping for and also has some, you know, some joy attached to it. And I think it would be great if everybody else [took the same approach], for the foreseeable future.”

Of Hillary’s dreams, that one seems unlikely to come true.

Hillary in Midair

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