#the most terminal case of eddie mentionitis

[peachie-o]

buddie is so funny like. conceptually. bc they’re not the typical grumpy x sunshine that’s been done a milliom times it’s more like. guy who thinks he’s fundamentally broken and unlovable and his boyfriend who thinks the goddamn sun shines out of his ass. and who’s who in that dynamic changes depending on the day

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddie-week.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Day #7 - Prompt: Free Space | Word Count: 1500 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Alcohol | POV: Steve | Tags: AU, Wrong Number, Right Person Trope, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Meet-Cute

Steve dials the number messily scrawled on the scrap of paper. He’s nervous. He’s always nervous when he has to stick his neck out and make a move on a girl these days. 

Yeah, he did the first bit of legwork and got her number out at the bar last night. But he's fumbled the ball and failed enough times, Robin's loving, but accurate, "you suck" burned in his brain, that he's always leery to try again. He should be used to it by now, but it’s still uncomfortable and awkward, every goddamn time. If his friends weren't all fretting about his emotional well-being from being so terminally alone, he wouldn’t put forth half the effort anymore. 

He has Robin. He has his cat. He's happy. 

It rings three times before he hears it connect, “Hello?”

It’s a man’s voice, and he hesitates for just a moment, “I’m looking for, uh, Lyla?”

“Sorry, man. Wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must have misdialed,” Steve says, a different kind of embarrassment. But this is one he can handle easier, for sure. So he pushed the wrong button somewhere along the way. His eyesight isn't the best thing he's got going for him.

“No worries, man,” the other guy laughs, seemingly carefree about being bothered.

They each disconnect and then Steve reads, and re-reads, the number before dialing again. More carefully this time.

It rings only once before it’s connected.

“Still me, dude,” the familiar voice relays, still light and friendly.

“Wow. I’m so sorry. Clearly, I was given a fake number. That's embarrassing,” Steve laughs, because this is more embarrassing than misdialing. He's uncomfortable and mortified to admit that this girl just didn't want him to call her. Even if he's only admitting it to a stranger.

She should have just told him no. He hates that she didn't, for her sake, too.

“Shitty move,” the other guy answers.

“Yeah, well. I'm sorry I bothered you. Again. I promise to cross-check any future numbers against yours before dialing, just in case.”

The guy laughs, "Well, now. Don't go to any trouble for my sake. Honestly,” and he doesn't sound put-out at all, “don’t worry about it. She clearly didn’t have the balls to just, be, like, honest. That sucks.”

Steve laughs, maybe if she'd had balls this wouldn't have happened at all. Most men feel more comfortable just saying no, he thinks, which is sad but true. He swings both ways, and maybe he should take this as a sign to lean the other way for a while. See if that works out any better for him. 

It probably won't, but he could try.

“There goes my big weekend plans,” Steve teases, uncertain why he does it, even as the words tumble out of his mouth. He needs to hang up the phone and let this guy get back to his own life.

“Dude. That's a problem I can solve. I’m gigging tonight. You have to come. Let me entertain you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Whatever. I want to. Just show up. It’ll be a great story, will it not?”

It would be a great story. One he could even tell Robin to convince her he’s living a little, “I don’t even know your name. What if you’re a serial killer or something?”

“Yep, that’s me. Vicious killer,” the guy laughs, “I’m Eddie, man. And I’m a fucking ball to be around. You’ll want to take me up on this awesome offer. We’ll all be down at Hellfire Club around eight. Show up. If you think we’re murderous, you don’t have to follow us to any secondary, secluded locations.”

Hellfire Club is literally two blocks from Steve’s apartment. He's been past it countless times, but never inside. It's always dark. Like it's not even open, making him unsure about what kind of bar it is, it's so nondescript from the outside. Not to mention the name is a little intimidating. He'd half-convinced himself it's a BDSM club. 

But, now that he's been invited, he could just walk down and see what’s the what, “How will I know which guy you are?”

Eddie laughs, “You’ll know. Trust me.”

Steve has a hard time trusting anyone new these days, but Eddie seems friendly enough. 

Steve realizes he must have been quiet for too long, because Eddie starts talking again.

“I’ll have on a badass battle vest. Look for that. You'll see me. It's impossible not to. I promise.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, even if he’s not sure what a battle vest even is.

“Now, are you going to tell me your name, or will that just be a surprise?” Eddie asks.

Steve laughs, “Steve. I’m Steve.”

“Well, I’ll see you later, Steve.”

Steve stands in front of his closet for far too long, trying to find something to wear that doesn’t look too nerdy. He assumes Eddie's cool. He sounded cool, and Steve may have been cool in high school, but these days he just keeps his head down and goes through life, content to be fairly unnoticed. He finally settles on a black t-shirt. Basic, classic. Timeless.

Boring. 

But that's a risk he's willing to take.

He walks down the street slowly and arrives around eight-thirty. The windows are still all blacked out, tinted to the point he can't see anything inside. There's just the neon sign with the Hellfire Club over the door.

When he pulls open the door, he's in a hallway that's painted all black, with a bouncer at the end, stationed at a door. Steve kind of wants to turn around, flee, but he doesn't. He's already here. He might as well at least see. Robin will kill him if he chickens out.

He gives his ID to the bouncer, and is directed down a staircase. He really hopes this isn't a sex club. 

It's not.

And as soon as he crosses the threshold into the bar, yes, he knows Eddie instantly. He’s gotta be the one on the bar, pouring shots directly into various mouths. Steve knows he could turn around right now and this adventure could end. But watching Eddie laughing and prancing up and down the bar with flourish, clearly having fun, makes Steve want to go up and meet this guy.

Steve takes an open seat at the end of the bar, kind of out of the way, and just watches Eddie work the crowd.

The bar is blaring It's Raining Men and Eddie is playing up the song, big time. He's not a stripper, at least Steve doesn't think he is, but he's working the crowd for tips, absolutely. He keeps handing them down to a curly-headed guy, who keeps stuffing them into an overflowing jar.

Steve's pretty sure this is a gay club, or at least queer friendly. Maybe he has found a place for himself, something that's been right here under his nose, all this time.

When Eddie finally jumps down off the bar, Steve watches him work the rest of the room.

The other guy comes over and takes Steve's order, and he doesn't quite have the same flourish, but he's efficient and confident with a bottle and jigger.

"Name for the tab?" he asks, shaking the drink Steve had picked from the list.

"Steve," Steve says, and the guy looks up and meets his eyes.

Surely not. This doesn't feel like this is Eddie. He is wearing a vest, a red plaid one, but the other guy also has a denim vest on, full of patches.

"Eddie?" Steve questions, needing to make sure.

"Gareth," the guy says, "that's Eddie," he clarifies, pointing at the one Steve had correctly clocked as Eddie to begin with. "You're his wrong number guy, right?"

Steve nods. He supposes that's what he is, "Yeah. That's me. Loser in love."

Gareth laughs, and it makes Steve smile.

"That's our specialty here, you'll feel right at home," Gareth teases.

"Glad to hear it."

"I'll tell him you're here," Gareth assures, "he wasn't sure you'd come."

"That makes two of us," Steve admits, and Gareth smiles as he finishes shaking Steve's drink, putting it down in front of him.

"On the house. First-timers to Hellfire drink free," Gareth says, and then he's walking away. 

Steve's eyes follow Gareth across the bar, watching as he taps Eddie on the shoulder, leaning close to his ear, pointing right at Steve.

Eddie looks, meets his eyes, and Steve raises his hand, giving him a small, little wiggle of his fingers.

A huge smile spreads across Eddie's face as he bounds in Steve's direction.

Eddie's quickly right in his personal space, squeezing both of Steve's shoulders, greeting him with a smile, "Welcome to Hellfire."

Steve smiles, liking the feeling of Eddie's hands bleeding through his t-shirt, warming him.

Eddie lets go, and Steve misses the feeling already, but Eddie stays. Sliding onto the stool next to Steve, "I'm glad you came."

And Steve's completely honest as he answers, "Me too."

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddie-week and follow along with the fun!

Notes: If you're too young to remember it, reach out and touch someone was the slogan/jingle for Bell System telephone company back in the day. So, that's where the title comes from, as a play on the wrong number phone call trope.

[dead-loch]

Would anyone be interested in a fic where Ray DOESN’T bring attention to himself following the 3 murders of Trent, Gavin, and Toilets— I mean, Jimmy? So he doesn’t release the car bodies, and because of his relationship with Eddie, he goes dormant, giving him more time to manipulate her? The fic would focus partly on that and then largely on how a relationship with someone like that would unfold (we see a bit of who he really is, relationship-wise, when he tries to force Eddie into saying he’s ‘the best ally’, and when he brings up Bushy in a (successful) attempt to make her shut down) and the aftermath. I don’t want to torture Eddie for too long, but it would be cathartic to write something where she (along with Dulcie and co) gets herself out of an abusive, toxic relationship, and exploring the fall out from that.

I ask because as I mentioned in fic notes, this is something I have some experience with, but very much like Eddie, I am not a relationship person and so I ended up giving this person very little time (in the grand scheme of things) and shut down the relationship very early in his attempts to manipulate, gaslight, and verbally abuse me, partly because being in a relationship has never been a goal or interest of mine, I’d been “on my own” for most of life, and had no problem going back to that once I realised what was happening.

Since romantic relationships are the norm, I don’t think that’s something you see very often. Practically from birth we’re told that we need to find someone and that our lives are empty without a significant other, and I know from, well just being a human on earth, that often these abusive relationships are so difficult to extricate ourselves from because it’s been drilled into our heads, from one place or another, that we need to stay and work things out, or we’ve come to so heavily depend on this person, or we don’t know who we are outside of these relationships (and here we see a lot of Vanessa’s life), or a multitude of other reasons. And to be clear, I’m not interested in pitting one person’s experiences against someone else’s (someone who does terminate a relationship quickly vs someone who doesn’t) or boiling it down to one being better than the other, relationships are complicated and there are a lot of reasons someone might not be able to end an abusive relationship and they are valid. Indeed, I personally have made the choice to maintain my relationship with my mother, who was physically abusive when I was a child, and while that’s not exactly the same thing as an intimate partner, I just want to make clear that I’d approach something like this with the utmost respect for anyone who has experienced abuse. Basically, this shit is nuanced and complicated. (Nuanced and complicated were the first words I used to describe Deadloch when I was telling my friends and family to watch it!)

I’m not sure if I fully have the capacity to write something like this but regardless, throwing it out there in case someone wants to bounce ideas around or has insight they’d want to add, if the fic comes to be.

[athenagrantnash]

me and my sister were talking about 911 and she brought up the whole lawsuit arc and she basically said that buck was in the right and i just..honey no:/ like that boy was not in the right and nobody can convince me that he was

I definitely agree there. Like putting aside the fact that it's literally not ALLOWED for someone to work as a firefighter while on blood thinners, Buck did a LOT of shitty things in that arc, including

Taking medical risks at the end of season 2 which is probably a factor in all the medical issues he had in season 3

Lying to his doctors (and him being medically cleared was based on those lies)

Throwing a fit and QUITTING when Bobby said that he had to be patient for a little while longer before coming back

(that one wasn't necessarily a shitty thing, but it certainly was childish, and definitely began to show how unhealthily obsessed he is with his job)

“I would have two paramedics standing right there, I would be fine” Um... yeah two paramedics who are SUPPOSED TO BE busy helping a person they're out on the case to help NOT his shitty ass. Also that is literally THE most selfish line he has ever had.

Saying Bobby had stabbed him in the back for NOT letting him back on the team whilst on blood thinners because he didn't want Buck to put the rest of his team at risk (but Buck is so self obsessed he doesn't care about everybody else on the team apparently)

SUING Bobby and the Fire Department for "wrongful termination" even though HE QUIT and was only pissy because he didn't like that when they let him back even AFTER that it was not back to full duty

Side note: if it was all about helping people, why not take a fucking job at the dispatch center until he's cleared? (what I'm saying is that it's not actually about helping people for him)

Throwing the people he claimed to be his friends under the bus (most especially Bobby's addiction and Eddie still mourning the VERY RECENT DEATH of his wife) not to mention sharing Chim's medical history AND parts of Hen's past that she clearly isn't proud of

Being pissed off that they didn't throw him a (second) Welcome Back party after everything he did to them

The only apologies he gives are basically "I'm sorry you're mad about what I did" whilst making excuses for his actions not "I'm sorry for what I did"

He was 1000000% not in the right to sue in the first place, that case literally should have been dismissed immediately because he literally had NOTHING to stand on and he CERTAINLY should not have won (my guess is that he only won because that lawyer was so slimy he probably had blackmail material on some judge and that's how he won). But all of his actions AROUND the case were AWFUL and makes him even more in the wrong than he would have been if "all he did" was sue.

[visionfox102]

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Summary :

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? Do you know how to do this work easily? This MiniTool article will show you specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, which are easy and safe to complete.

Quick Navigation :

As we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is. Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly.

Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between Mac and PC, you need to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Currently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.

But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.

Further Reading

Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.

FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.

However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended.

In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.

exFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT.

Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.

Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac

Paid Third-Party Drivers

Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.

Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative.

Free Third-Party Drivers

FUSE for macOS is a free and open-source NTFS driver that can enable write support. But, this solution is slower relatively. And the automatically mounting NTFS partitions in read-write mode can be a security risk for your Mac computer.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Write Support

The Mac OS has an experimental support for writing to NTFS drives. Usually, it is disabled by default and needs some messing around in the Mac terminal to enable it.

It doesn’t work properly all the time and could lead to potential issues with your NTFS file system. For example, it had corrupted data before. Thus, we don’t suggest using this tool and we believe it is disabled by this reason.

Here, we recommend using the paid third-party tools since they are easy-to-use and can do good work for you.

Then, we will introduce these three options for you in the following content.

The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac

Paragon NTFS for Mac can write, edit, delete, copy, or move files on NTFS volumes from your Mac computer. It offers a 10-day free trial. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.

With it, you don’t have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. More importantly, it can code with the potential corruption. If you purchase a Seagate drive, you can even get a free download of Paragon NTFS for Mac.

All in all, it does its works well and gives you good user’s experience.

The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS

FUSE for macOS is a free solution to access NTFS on Mac. But it is less secure.

If you want to make automatically mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode on Mac, you need to temporarily disable the System Integrity Protection and replace one of Apple’s built-in tools with a binary that is more vulnerable to attack. Thus, your Mac is in danger when using this driver.

However, you can use it to manually mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode if you never mind using the Terminal. This will be safer, but you need to do more work. You can go to google the steps and see how complex they are.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, Seriously

Although we mentioned this method in our article, we still don’t recommend it because it is the least tested. It is just for educational purposes, and it is available on Mac OS 10.12 Sierra. Perhaps, it will be unstable forever.

How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing Data

Another way to access NTFS drive on Mac is to convert the NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT. Then, the drive can be used on both Mac and PC.

There should be some important data on the drive. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard.

How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data Loss

To format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its 'Convert NTFS to FATS32' function. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard

Download this software to your computer. Then, you can open the software and input the license key to the pop-out window to get its Professional Edition.

Step 2: Convert NTFS to FAT32 with This Software

After running the program successfully, we can see its main interface as follows:

Here, please select the NTFS partition of external hard drive and choose 'Convert NTFS to FAT' feature from the left action pane. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make the change executed.

When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.

By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PC

You Can Convert NTFS to exFAT in 3 Steps

However, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.

Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard Drive

You can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. Instead, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to create a copy for your external drive, which is faster.

If there is only one NTFS partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial Copy Partition to get instructions. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.

Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard

The Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.

Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Just open the software to enter its main interface. Then, choose the target partition and click 'Delete Partition' from the left action pane. After that, you should click 'Apply' to keep this change.

Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Here, you need to choose that partition and click on 'Create Partition' from the left action pane.

Thirdly, you will see a pop-out window. Here, you can choose 'exFAT' from the 'File System' setting option. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including 'Partition Label', 'Drive Letter', 'Size And Location'. After that, please click on 'OK'.

Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. Then, please click on 'Apply' to save these changes.

Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PC

Step 3: Transfer Data back to External Drive

If you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive.

How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing Data

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac

Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.

Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PC

Some people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.

Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition.

How to Make an Empty External Drive Compatible with Mac and PC

If there is no file saved on your external hard drive, how to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

It's very easy to share it between Mac and PC and you also need a Windows computer, a Mac machine, and the free partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

There are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7 to FAT32

Since users are unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB in Windows Disk Management, they need to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

Note: when you connect an external hard drive which is formatted with HFS+ with computer, Windows may ask you to format the drive. Please choose Cancel.

Please download and install this program on your Windows computer to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Firstly, open the software to enter its main interface as follows. Here, please select the NTFS partition or HFS+ partition of external hard drive, and click 'Delete Partition' feature from the left action pane. If there are multiple partitions on the external disk, please select the disk and click 'Delete All Partitions' feature instead. After that, an unallocated space will be released.

Secondly, you can create one or more FAT32 partitions in unallocated space. Select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left side.

Then, you should choose 'FAT32' from the 'File System' option in the pop-out window. Meanwhile, you can set properties for this new partition and click 'OK' to go back to the main window of Partition Wizard.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Solution 2: Format External Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10 to exFAT

Firstly, please delete the NTFS or HFS+ partition in either MiniTool Partition Wizard or Windows Disk Management to release unallocated space. Then, you can create an exFAT partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by following steps introduced in the section Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Once a FAT32 or exFAT partition is created on your external hard drive, you can share it on both Mac and Windows PC.

Solution 3: Create One HFS+ Partition for Mac and One NTFS Partition for Windows

Alternatively, you can create 2 partitions on the external hard drive: one is for Mac, and the other is for Windows. As to size for each partition, it depends on your own demands. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows.

Step 1: Create a NTFS Partition and a FAT32 Partition

Please run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, then delete all the original NTFS or HFS+ partition(s), and create a new NTFS partition as well as a FAT32 partition, and the latter will be formatted to HFS+ in Mac machine.

Then, select the external hard drive and choose 'Delete All Partitions' to create an unallocated space.

Here, select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left action pane.

Now, please specify partition label (Windows is recommended), partition type (primary or logical), drive letter, file system (NTFS), cluster size, and partition size (you can change the length of the handle to adjust partition size). Then, click 'OK' to continue.

Now, you can see a NTFS partition is created. Please use the same way to create a FAT32 partition labeled with Mac. At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Step 2: Format the FAT32 Partition to HFS+ Partition on Mac

Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility.

Then, select the external hard drive and click 'Partition' tab on the top.

Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Tip: You may receive the prompt 'The volume 'MAC' is not journaled. As a result it can not be resized'. Just ignore the message and click 'OK' button to continue.

After NTFS partition and HFS+ partition are created on your external hard drive, it can be shared between Mac and Windows PC.

Note: You might be unable to share all files saved on external drive since Windows doesn't support HFS+ partition while Mac doesn't support NTFS partition completely.

Bottom Line

Are you planning to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC? If yes, now try one of our methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

Should you have any problem, just feel free to leave us a message in comment part below or send an email to (email protected).

Format Hard Drive for Mac and PC FAQ

How do I make my hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

Disk Maker For Mac

If you want your hard drive to be compatible with both Mac and PC, you should format the hard drive to the file system that is supported by both of these two operating systems. FAT32 and exFAT can meet your requirements.

What is the best hard drive format for Mac and PC?

Although both FAT32 and exFAT are compatible with Mac and PC, exFAT is a much better choice because it has fewer limitations. For example, it has a larger file size and partition size limits.

Mac Install Disk Maker

If you formatted your hard drive to exFAT with Apple's HFS Plus, Windows will not recognize the exFAT drive. You can consider using a third-party partition tool to format your hard drive to exFAT.

Mac Os Boot Disk Maker

Windows can only read a Mac hard drive that is formatted to FAT32 or exFAT using third-party software. If the file system of the Mac hard drive is HFS+ or APFS, the drive will become unreadable in Windows.

[angeme8een-blog]

Casualties and Survivors

CHAPTER 1: AIRPORT LOUNGES AND FIDGETING LEGS

The romanticisation of airports has made life more difficult for travellers. It has permitted such overwhelming, not to mention unnecessary, public display of affection that inconveniences those who just want to methodically get from one country to another. Case in point are the hipster lovers who refused to detach their lips from each other, causing quite a ruckus at the drop-off lane. The already noise-polluted terminal air got more chaotic as several cab drivers started honking and yelling expletives at the tanned brunette and her blond lover.

“These young people know no manners anymore, aist!” Mr. Yang expressed his irritation as he scratched the side of his head. Brett wanted to give a cheeky response but he caught himself in fear of being given a proper lecture. Showing your dad how sassy your mouth is on a terribly hot day is a formula for disaster, and Brett knew well enough not to further rile-up his dad when his Chinese accent has already come through. Besides, he was just 30 seconds away from getting out of his dad’s 1997 Toyota Corolla. Might as well keep his thoughts to himself.

“Bretty boy, where is Eddy, huh?” his dad asked as he parked the car on an open drop-off spot and turned on the hazard light. Brett unlocked the passenger’s seat and began collecting his things while responding “he’s probably near. He told me his mom wanted to personally see him leave, unlike the last time we went on tour.” Mr. Yang helped Brett carry his luggage to the curb and onto a trolley before giving his son a hug.

“Now you go with my blessing. Be very good and kind, especially to Eddy. Call your mom from time to time, okay?”

“I will, dad. Thanks again for dropping me off. You should go back to the car before security decides to clamp your tire”

“Aist! I’m an old man, they should show respect!” Mr. Yang scratched the side of his head once more before going back to his car. Brett waved a final goodbye before he pushed his trolley towards the entrance. Once inside, Brett brought out his phone to check-up on Eddy.

“Bro, where you at? I’m already in line for security”

“Bro, please don’t kill me but I’m going to have to take the next flight out tomorrow morning. My sister went into labor five minutes after I left my house. We had to go back home to fetch her because no one else could drive her to the hospital. So now I’m here with Ma and we’re rushing to Queen Elizabeth’s” Eddy explained.

“It’s been 9 months already!? Damn, I totally forgot that Belle was pregnant” Brett slapped himself in the forehead.

“Dude…how could you have forgotten? Have you seen her tummy? It’s like she swallowed Pluto just after NASA announced it’s no longer a planet”

“I fucking heard that Eddy Chen!” Belle’s voice erupted in the background, prompting Brett to move his phone away from his ear.

“I’m sorry” Brett heard Eddy whisper to his sister. “Just hang in there, we’re about 10 minutes away from the ER. Now shush”

“Anyway, bro, so yeah. I’m really sorry about this” Eddy said.

“No worries! Just be there for your sister. Also, tell Belle I said goodluck! Wait, is that the appropriate thing to say to someone who’s about to give birth?”

“I’m not really sure but I think that kinda works. Update me when you’ve landed, alright? Don’t have too much fun without me. Also, practice!” Eddy said before hanging up.

Brett gave a small chuckle as he pocketed his phone. Leave it to Eddy to still be roasting his sister while she’s already in labor. The man’s sense of humour and quick wit are truly remarkable, not to mention unparalleled. Even Brett recognises the indispensable role of Eddy’s creativity in the growth of their channel. He concedes that most of the comedic content in their videos are products of Eddy’s ingenuity. There’s never a dull moment when Eddy’s around, and that’s why Brett is slightly disappointed that he would have to fly solo in his trip to the States. Just thinking about the long hours of sitting down and getting arse cramps every hour or so is already enough to bring Brett to a state of despair. Country hopping is fun, going from one city to another is too, but the actual travel is what really takes a toll on Brett’s energy and mood. He hates every single minute of it, especially the long wait in the airport. There are always way too many people, way too much noise, and way too much walking to do. He’s a musician, for Pete’s sake. His physical activities are limited to five minute walks (usually less since he spends most of his time indoors anyway) and the occasional Lingling workouts that push him over the edge. Just getting through security was enough for him to break a sweat.

After passing through the first round of metal detectors and the x-ray machines, Brett proceeded to the check-in counter of Qantas. It was a long wait before his turn so he decided to check on the ticket sales of their tour. Only two performances in the last city in their itinerary have not sold out yet, but he’s positive that it will eventually. TwoSet’s popularity suddenly grew during the first two weeks of January which the pair did not really expect. The abrupt spike in the number of views per video, not to mention reaching 2 million subscribers much earlier than expected, made the duo ecstatic and grateful beyond words. But their growing fame was a double-edged sword for it meant more work for both of them. It didn’t help that Eddy made a promise to their fans that once the channel reached 2 million subs, Brett would drop his Tchaikovsky recording. And so he had less than a month to perfect the popular piece before he finally performed it during the livestream they did last February. More than a million of the Lingling wannabes from all over the world watched him play the same piece he performed during his debut in 2012. It was nerve wracking, but it was pretty exciting too. Performing for his fans have always brought Brett so much joy, and he will gladly do it until the time when he physically can’t anymore.

“Sir? Please” the voice of the ground stewardess urging Brett to come forward to the counter broke his stupor.

“Sorry” Brett apologised as he handed his ticket. He was loading his luggage on the counter when he heard a pleading voice at the counter next to his. He decided to get a glimpse at the commotion, noting how disheveled and desperate the woman looked and how equally impatient the ground stewardess was becoming. Brett then abruptly withdrew his stare when he and the woman accidentally caught each other’s eyes. Brett continued to load his luggage so it won’t seem too obvious that he was eavesdropping.

“I’ll take any open seat. Please” the woman begged. The fatigue in the woman’s voice was evident, and Brett could not  help wondering if she was hungover or she just came from baby-sitting seven toddlers all at once.

“I’m sorry, madame. But so far the flight is fully booked. If you want, there’s another plane coming in at noon. I can book that for you” the passenger service crew explained.

“No, no. That would be too late. But please, if ever an opening comes up, please do notify me. I’ll give you my number” the woman said as she started scribbling on the piece of paper that the lady behind the counter gave.

“Mr. Yang, here are your boarding pass and your luggage tag. By the way, you received an upgrade courtesy of the airlines. You can use the Business Class lounge while waiting for your flight” the lady smiled at him as she handed Brett everything he needed. Upgrade? Brett thought to himself. That’s weird, specially since the other lady just said the flight’s fully booked.

“That’s generous, thank you” Brett said gratefully. “Oh, by the way, my friend Eddy Chen was supposed to fly with me but he won’t be able to make it because of a family emergency” he added before leaving the counter. Brett internally cringed at what he just did. He knew for a fact that the airline could not possibly use that information. They had protocols to follow when it came to cancellations. Aside from that, it was a really random thing to do.

Well, not random. Brett thought. You just wanted to help the panda-eyed woman without being to obvious. Damn she was tired. And damn, was I really obvious though.

Brett decided to shrug off that awkward incident by texting Eddy while he walked towards the lounge. He did not get any reply right away so he figured that his best friend was probably still attending to his sister. Upon arriving at the lounge and finding a spot to sit in, Brett decided to do some work. After he finished, he went to the bar to get something to drink and eat. He was munching on his crisps when he got a text from Eddy.

Bro, update our fans. Was supposed to do it but I totally forgot. And I reckon they’re not really interested in seeing a bloody head emerge between my sister’s legs yeah?

Jfc Eddy, you could’ve spared me the mental image. But yeah, yeah. I’ll do it.

Brett opened their instagram account and started going live. He once again thanked their fans for all the support they have shown, and then proceeded to update them about why Eddy was not with him at the moment. He was doing a mini Q&A when it was announced on the PA system that his flight is going to start boarding passengers in 15 minutes. Brett bid their fans goodbye, pocketed his phone, and left the bar to go back to where he sat before. He was ten steps away from his seat when he noticed that someone else was occupying the chair near the window. It was the same woman from the other counter, the one who was desperately pleading for a ticket.

Lucky her. I guess she did get what she needed after all. Brett muttered to himself as he sat himself in the sofa facing the woman. He placed his violin on his left and his carry-on luggage on the floor before bringing his eyes back to the girl near the window. She was holding a book open in front of her, though it appeared that she wasn’t really reading it. Her hazel eyes stared blankly at the pages of Sara Borjas’ Heart Like A Window, Mouth Like A Cliff as she bit on her left thumb.

Is she nervous? Brett wondered as he continued observing her.

He brought his eyes to her hair and noticed how it was haphazardly wrapped around a bun on top of her head, and it seemed like it would unravel itself at any moment. She was pale for a person who lived in Australia (summer is just about to end after all), but her cheeks had a little bit of red in them.

Is she ill? Has she just cried? Brett pondered. He continued staring at her as if she was a specimen in a laboratory.

Brett noticed that her right leg, which was crossed over her left, would not stop fidgeting. It would slow down from time to time but the shaking did not cease. Sometimes her free hand would slide down to her lap and she would start tapping it in sync with her fidgeting leg. There were instances when she’d bring her head up from her book and her eyes would almost lock with Brett’s, but he was quick enough to avert his stare whenever she was on the verge of moving her head. It was as if they were playing a game of hide and seek, except that no one was really seeking because only one was playing and he wasn’t even playing it well. He was just there, in plain sight, in open space, staring and ogling with no particular purpose. Just staring. And wondering.

Like a creep. Aist. Brett huffed as he realised how wrong it was to be people watching. Well, not people watching in general. Just the one. More aptly put, person watching. Or stalking he thought if I’m going to be honest with myself.

Brett’s slow descent into his own thoughts was interrupted once again by the PA system. His flight number was called, and its passengers were informed that they were to board in Gate C7. Since Brett got an upgrade into business class, he had the privilege of being accommodated first. Not to mention not having to walk all the way to Gate C7 because the airline lounge had a direct jet bridge that connected to the Boeing 787-9 which would carry hundreds of passengers from Brisbane straight to New York. Brett collected his things and walked towards the airline staff who collected his boarding pass and assisted him to the plane. He was greeted by the plane crew once he entered, and was directed to his seat.

“Would you like me to put that away for you?” The stunning flight attendant gestured to his violin.

“Would it be possible for me to keep it on my side?” He asked.

“Of course, Sir. I’ll just fetch some straps to keep it in place. I’ll be right back. Make yourself comfortable” she smiled before leaving for the cabin.

Brett immediately took a selfie and posted it on instagram. He messaged Eddy about the upgrade and teased the latter of leaving the duo to become a soloist. Eddy immediately replied with a picture of him with tears in his eyes. This made Brett laugh but also feel a twinge of melancholy at the same time because bantering with his best mate was way better in person than doing it digitally. Moreover, Brett started engaging in creepy recreational activities because of Eddy’s absence, and it was so out of character for him that he gave an internal scream.

Thank god that’s over Brett told himself as he inhaled deeply and settled himself in the plush window seat. He sent last minute text messages to his friends and family before he turned off his phone.

“Excuse me sir, here are the straps for your violin” the flight attendant from earlier returned with a pair of 13 inch black straps which she handed to Brett. He gave a slight nod and mouthed a thank you while receiving the straps. He then  proceeded to secure his violin to the side. Brett was about to close his eyes when the woman from the lounge entered and stopped at the chair beside him. She whispered something to the flight attendant who was assisting her before she took her seat.

Not again. Brett muttered to himself as he once again stared intently at the woman. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and he did not know why. She wasn’t exactly a head turner, but she had this aura about her that piqued Brett’s curiosity.

Curiosity. That’s it, I’m curious. That’s exactly the reason why I can’t look away. Brett thought.

There’s a story, surely there’s a story behind those tired hazel eyes. There must be because no one looked like that, like she carried the weight of the entire world on her shoulders, but at the same time radiate (but only minutely) a different, more positive energy.

Independence?

Brett guessed.

Gratitude?

Fulfilment?

Success?

It’s like he was playing charades with Eddy again, only this time the other person was a complete stranger and he can’t communicate, much more confirm, his guesses. He looked at her more intensely as he searched for more clues about the type of person that she was. First, he looked at her hands to check if she might have callouses similar to his. She had some, but it was on the wrong places. She was not a musician. Maybe she was a writer, or an architect. Brett was not able to come up with a proper conclusion as to her profession, but he decided that whatever she did had something to do with using her hands.

Second, he considered what she was wearing. She was just wearing tight jeans, black boots, and a plain knitted white sweater. She had no accessories nor any other apparel that would help her battle the weather once they land in New York.

Unless she has one in her carry-on. But I highly doubt that. Brett thought. He did not see her with any luggage at the check-in counter, nor in the lounge. She only had a big tote bag with her which she also declined to be placed in the overhead compartment. Brett inferred that this trip was a product of spontaneity, or panic. It really could go either way. But what was obvious was she did not plan this through.

Brett slowly lifted his sights up to study her face once more. But what happened next caused him to feel a rush of blood to his cheeks. She was staring at him. She saw him staring at him. And now their eyes were locked at each other and Brett did not know what to do.

Fuck.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

My Thoughts on Venom 2018 Part 3: The 90s live again!

We’ve spoken about the different takes upon Venom and which one the movie leans on, but does that take really work for the movie?

Which version of Venom SHOULD this movie be portraying?

And again that answer will depend upon whether you are talking to a Spider-Man or a Venom fan.

You ask me Eddie Brock was never a more compelling character than when he was a Spider-Man villain and 1990s solo anti-hero Venom is just a laughably broken character. This is mostly because the transition for Brock/Venom into a sympathetic anti-hero made little sense given his background and early appearances where he was a homicidal maniac. It was akin to playing the Joker as sympathetic.

However in the context of a film project where Venom is a solo star and where Spider-Man can’t be in it, it’s only logical to base the film upon that rendition of the character.

The advantage the film holds over the comics is that their version of Eddie Brock is being built from the ground up and so consequently selling the audience on the idea of him as a sympathetic anti-hero is a lot easier when you don’t know he has a history of murder prior to that. He is more sympathetic albeit like his comic book version also rather a jerk, just not immensely unethical.

In this sense the movie could’ve worked as a movie unto itself. But it doesn’t which is largely owed to the facts that...

This movie is a product of the 1990s

As I mentioned above to my knowledge a lot or most of the script for this movie was specifically based upon a repurposed 1990s Venom script and the comic book source material for the movie was 1990s Venom mini-series. Specifically Lethal Protector and Planet of the Symbiotes, with stuff like She-Venom  and other references thrown in too.

More than this there are even nuggets from the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon which played a HUGE role in bringing Venom to a wider audience and redefining the character. In fact that show and the 1990s X-Men cartoon were incredibly important to the late 1990s/early 2000s Marvel movies.

The X-Men movies even to this day borrow an awful lot from those cartoons at least in spirit if not in explicit elements (although X-Men: Apocalypse contains a direct quote from the cartoons). Various elements of the 1994 Spidey cartoon made their way into Sam Raimi’s trilogy, including the name Oscorp, Norman Osborn conversing with himself in a mirror and the entire central premise of the alien costume in Spider-Man 3.

In fact the cartoon was an influence upon the original Blade and Daredevil films. Remember how in Daredevil 2003 a young Matt Murdock saw his father acting as a criminal before he was blinded? Or how about Blade’s mentor Whistler who appeared across all 3 Wesley Snipes movies? Both of those things originate from the 1994 Spidey show.

Similarly elements from the show found their way into the Venom film. The symbiote(s) are brought to Earth by a shuttle piloted by John Jameson who crash lands it on Earth. Venom is essentially pursued by Spider Seekers, highly explosive drones made to locate and engage Spider-Man in battle. I’m sure there are other things I missed.

The inclusion of these elements in the movie serves to further highlight how the film was obviously originally conceived in the 1990s and spruced up to serve as a quick script for a modern movie.

This is the reason why so many professional critics are drawing 1990s comparisons to the film. Of particular note was the immeasurably over the top and bombastic car chase sequence that threatened to be something out of the Blues Brothers. Also the shape shifting qualities of Venom and Riot (who turns his arms into liquid blades) which is again straight out of Terminator 2, one of the most defining action movies of the early 1990s.

But of course the biggest 1990s influences are the fact that everything (and I do mean everything) in this movie is ripped from 1990s Venom stories. There isn’t a hint of more modern Venom stories from the 2000s or 2010s. There is at best a vague reference to Venom’s 1980s origin as a disgraced reporter. Really this movie’s heart and soul lies in 1990s source material because it’s script was obviously vaguely updated from something made 20 years ago.

And by God....you can tell.

I am someone who defends 1990s comic book stories on the grounds that the popular perception of them as essentially universally bad is a lazy oversimplification since there was plenty of quality material in the decade.

This does not however mean I am blind to the failings of certain 1990s stories and tropes.

1990s Venom solo stories are unfortunately quintessential examples of those failings.

I do not pretend that I have read EVERY 1990s Venom solo story ever.

But I will tell you that I’ve read a few and of those few I have read...none of them have been good.

This is true unfortunately of the two stories that this movie is based upon. I respect David Michelinie very much and feel his is often grossly over criticised as a Spider-Man writer.

But I must be honest. Lethal Protector and Planet of the Symbiotes are simply bad stories.

And the fact that they are bad stories is what critically hurts the movie.

This didn’t need to inherently be a problem though.

Captain America: Civil War and Marvel’s Spider-Man for Playstation 4 were both based upon shoddy source material and were nevertheless able to elevate said material and deliver compelling stories.

Venom 2018 however instead of recognizing the weaknesses in its source material and borrowing the best ideas to build a better story was weirdly reverential to the spirit of those 1990s stories.

The massive logical fallacies, the goofiness, the bland and overly similar to Venom looking villain, the macabre and rather out of place dark humour and violence along with just being over the top and caring little for true character development or organic plot progression, these are all faults of 1990s Venom stories, including Lethal Protector and Planet of the Symbiotes.

I typically advocate that an adaptation of comic books should respect the spirit of the source but in this case this was a bad idea because the source material itself is rotten.

And yet...

This movie was incredibly entertaining!

[cntcrtainmcnt-blog]

Okay so, classes are starting on Monday, meaning I’ll probs be slower(or faster, it’s also a definite possibility). In any case, I will most likely slow down when it comes to bringing new muses in so hopefully this is my last intro post in a while. If you’d like to plot with any of them, please like this or just message me!

EDWARD “EDDIE” HALE is a 23 years old CISMALE who looks just like LUKE BENWARD. He has been described as ALTRUISTIC yet SUPERSTITIOUS.

Eddie is the younger brother of Terrence, and from the moment he was born, he was expected to be just as good as his brother was. While he did try to live up to it at first, it also gave him some issues, mostly relating to confidence, since he was always compared to his brother and felt like he wasn’t good enough.

Being 6 years younger, at least, he was mostly the one Hale kid people knew in his school year. During that time, mostly in elementary school, it was a relief, since he had a break of living up to everyone’s expectations.

Then, the closer he got to high school, the more people started to hear about his brother and everything.

All through high school, he tried to just blend in, and not get linked to his brother. By that time, people knew all the things he did, Terrence was basically like a legend in their high school, and Eddie was definitely not the same type of character.

Every single time his brother brought a girlfriend home, he’d end up surprisingly bonding with her, enough to care and try to help them after his brother broke their heart. But he personally didn’t have a girlfriend until the very high of his senior high school year.

By the time he graduated, Terrence had moved out to Kola, looking for good job opportunities. Eddie still doesn’t know what happened in his mind, but at one point, he received a text from his brother asking if he wanted to move in with him in Kola and open a confectionery with him. Since he decided to not go to college and was just working a shit job, Eddie accepted. Not like his relationship with his parents was that good anyway.

So moved to Kola when he was 19, and he lives there in an apartment with his brother. Since he never studied, Terrence thought he’d be better running the front shop, greeting people, selling stuff, managing the employees, while he was working mostly backstore with finance and all that.

Not a day passes without him regretting his decision to move to Kola.

While definitely help you if you’re in trouble, even if he doesn’t know you or won’t get anything out of it.

STYLES MCKINLEY is a 28 years old CISMALE who looks just like BEAU MIRCHOFF. He has been described as GENEROUS yet SAD.

So Styles. Is. A. Sad. Puppy.

He was the second son, his brother being about 5 years older than him. When he was only 3, his mother passed away. He was told it was a certain disease, but he was never told what.

Anyway, he grew up looking up at his dad and his brother, and never really minded not having a mom. Although after a moment, he started getting upset whenever someone would mention his mom, and then they’d apologize when they learned about her fate. It’s not like he really knew her, and yes, it’s sad, but it’s something he’s gotten over a long time ago.

When he was 12, his father(43) remarried with a woman that was 24. It was... weird to have a step-mom this young, but it was weirder for his brother. Anyway, they already knew the woman, she was their dad’s secretary, and actually babysat both boys when they were a little younger. So she was already well acquainted with the family.

Anyway, a year later, she was caught cheating on her husband with no one else than Styles’ brother. That completely tore the family apart. His dad divorced, his brother was kicked out, and his step mom was fired and he never heard of her again.

And when he started high school, his father(who’d started abusing alcohol) was deemed ot good enough to care for him, so he went to live with his brother(who was now 19 and had a steady job in a restaurant). But that wasn’t the rockiest part of his high school experience.

See, Styles was a rather talented soccer player, and so quite popular. But unlike his friends(who tended to be cruel and manipulative), he was just the most caring person, he just never showed that side often. Or at least, people would mistake him as just another cruel boy.

Anyway. Early in sophomore year, they started picking on this girl, Louise, who was, really, just minding her own business. But they didn’t like that she was never mingling with people, and they really wanted her to like... do it with them. Well, Styles never said anything out loud, but she categorized him as one of them, and he totally gets why, since he never stepped in to stop it. Which he was kind of sad about because if he was honest, she seemed really nice and he thought he could definitely like her.

Well, he did end up stopping them, about a month and a half later. It was a party(which she surprisingly decided to go to), his “friends” had cornered her in a room. He was standing in the back at first, but when he realized what their intention was, he just want ahead and got them, not so pacifially, to leave. That was the beginning of his story with Louise, and honestly the end of his popularity(and soccer career, since he quit, refusing to play with such jerks).

At first, Louise and him were distant, mostly because he was grumpy he went from everything to nothing, but he quickly warmed up. And that was the beginning of a wonderful love story that would’ve lasted for ages, had it not been a horrible diagnosis.

It was during senior year, she was getting sicker and sicker, so she went to the doctors. And when she got her results, she was devastated. So was Styles, when he learned she had cancer, and it wasn’t an early stage, and it was almost terminal.

Well, anyway, they decided it wouldn’t stop them. The next year, while she was transferred to a better hospital and he decided he would go into medicine in a close by hospital, they did the most impulsive thing either have ever done, and they got married. She just wanted to live as much as she could, before it was too late.

She was strong, lasted for a very long time, but the more time passed, the more they realized the day was going to come. Louise passed away 3 years ago, when they were 25. Styles was devastated, but at least, he knew she had a good life. She had the life she wanted.

So he kind of knew he wouldn’t be able to stay in that town much longer after her death, so he decided to head back to Kola. He’s now a resident in oncology, and his biggest dream would be to help cancer patients.

TAMI SULLIVAN is a 20 years old CISFEMALE who looks just like SHANNON PURSER. She has been described as MAGNANIMOUS yet SELF CONSCIOUS.

Tami is the youngest sister of a pageant queen who went out to become a model. She was originally expected to also follow in those steps, but she had no interest in beauty contest, and much prefers imaginary worlds.

While her sister would always be out partying with friends, Tami would just stay home and read books after books. Literally never stopped, it’s all she did. So while she wasn’t so good in classes such as sciences or maths, she was skilled in English or Literature classes.

So she’s not really popular? Never has been? But she’s also got a bunch of friends. You know how it is, unpopular kids tend to bond together, and they nearly always have more genuine friends than popular kids. So she’s really happy being unpopular but with real friends.

She’s currently studying to become an editor, since she loves reading and it would be a perfect job for her. She would totally write her own stories, but she’s just lacking a little in the imagination skill.

While she lives well being unpopular, constantly being compared to her model sister has given her body issues. She knows all shapes are pretty, curves are pretty, people tell her she’s pretty, but it’s sometimes just really hard to believe when you’re sister is tall and skinny and poses on magazine covers.

TERRENCE HALE is a 29 years old CISMALE who looks just like GLEN POWELL. She has been described as AESTHETIC yet COCKY.

Born from two overachiever parents, Terrence was expected to do good. And while he had an immense ego and self-confidence, he was also surprisingly smart. So of course, when his brother was born, he was taken as a model.

To not look like a complete nerd, Terrence acted like a real brat in school, hanging with the popular kids. Hell, he was one of the most popular kid out there. He just made sure to study double the amount at home so his grades would stay up.

Definitely did a lot of shit, dated countless girls(often now more than a few days), did all kind of crazy dares, which ended up getting him suspended quite a few times, but also gave him a name in the school, which would end up lasting for years.

Once he graduated high school, he went on to study accounting in Kola University, keeping up the same game he played all through school, aka he was a frat boy who acted like he gave no shit about classes, but definitely had the best grades in the class.

After graduating, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He knew he would never go home, somehow being far from his parents felt good, so he just looked around for jobs, but nothing really interested him.

Until he was binge-watching all of the Harry Potter movies, with a gigantic bowl of candies. He then realized there weren’t that many confectioneries in Kola, and that was definitely something the town needed more. (he might have been high when that happened...)

It was really on an impulse that Terrence looked around for a place to rent, to found one, and called Eddie to know if he wanted to join. Honestly, that confectionery was going to happen whether he said yes or no, but he definitely wanted his brother to be a part of it. He was just always close to him, and he knew he was most likely looking out for a good opportunity career-wish.

The confectionery, called Candy Hale, was opened about 4 years ago, and its popularity keeps only increasing. Terrence mostly works the accounts, but he also doesn’t mind helping up front if needed.

[brokentoys]

not to talk about hush again but i realized something... ed says THIS...

“I thought he’d pay a FORTUNE for the cure.” Okay. So Eddie didn’t even realize Tommy knew Bruce or anything after taking a dip in the Lazarus pit. And not to mention - Eddie’s statement here “pay a fortune” kind of contradicts what he says earlier (calling the other rogues morons for caring about money, also obviously he doesn’t want the word that he used the Lazarus pit to come out.) So... it’s actually the most IN CHARACTER thing to imagine that, even though Eddie had no more use for Tommy, that he was able to cure his own cancer... you just KNOW Eddie had to waltz into Tommy’s office and fucking SHOVE IT IN HIS FACE. You know how much GLEE it filled Eddie with to be able to gloat about how SMART he is, because he was able to cure himself of something even the best doctor couldn’t. And then somewhere among it Eddie’s like “oh???? you ALSO hate bruce????”

And also it’s funny because it implies that Tommy didn’t even ASK HOW AT ALL. Like here’s a man that’s a fucking BREAKTHROUGH CASE. Not only did he completely cure himself of cancer, he cured himself of TERMINAL CANCER. And Tommy didn’t give any fucks. It reminds me of that fucking Spider-Man panel but instead it’s like “Tommy??? With Eddie walking into your office... you had the chance to cure cancer!!” “But I DON’T WANT to cure cancer, I want to kill Bruce!!!!!!!”

[egarotss]

A Transatlantic Crossing With the Queen Mary 2 - Part 1

Driving up to the Port of Southampton's Mayflower Terminal and getting first look at the white-and-dark hulled Queen Mary 2, the biggest, longest, tallest, heaviest, and most costly boat at any point assembled, evoked impressive energy and wonderment. Docked to port at a 50-degree, 54.25' north scope and 001-degree, 25.70' west longitude and confronting a 116.4-degree compass heading, the 17-decked leviathan, with a 1,132-foot length and 148-foot width, included a gross load of 151,400 tons and overshadowed the structures with its overhang lined façade, obscuring it with its 236.2-foot stature. Its draft expanded 33.10 feet underneath the water line. The drifting city, complete with its staterooms, eateries, shopping arcades, libraries, theaters, and planetariums, would connect, in six days, the European and North American landmasses, the comparable in hours to the term of the ethereal intersection by 747-400, itself then the world's biggest business aircraft. However, the maritime intersection would yield mutual respect, refinement, restoration, enthusiastic fix, and return to the more slow, yet more rich period of steam transport travel-an excursion, I would before long discover, would prompt a quest for the oceanic history of the past which had made the innovation of the present.

Not at all like the multiplication of present day voyage ships with their nearly lower speeds and more prominent volume, square-calculation bodies, the Queen Mary 2 had been planned as a cutting edge replacement to the 35-year-old Queen Elizabeth 2 and, in that capacity, would have to bring to the table that very all year, traveler conveying abilities, predominately in the harsh North Atlantic, with a plan which forfeited income creating volume and lower development expenses of the customary journey transport for the necessary wellbeing, speed, and solidness of the sea liner. Resultantly, it highlighted a similar angular body setup normal for the long queue of its Cunard archetypes, built of thicker steel which conveyed a 40-percent more prominent expense than those of regular journey ships. Planned by Stephen Payne, whose motivations for the bow had come from the Queen Elizabeth 2 and the brake divider from the Normandie, it was the principal fourfold screw North Atlantic sea liner since the France of 1962. Payne himself, a maritime designer brought up in London, had been associated with the Carnival Holiday, Carnival Fantasy, and Rotterdam VI activities. The last mentioned, joining a changed Staten dam frame, had highlighted a less "square shaped" body shape than the customary journey transport, however had still been extensively eliminated a full liner plan.

Planned for the essential Southampton-New York course, it consolidated dimensional limitations directed by the United States port, including a pipe tallness which cleared the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge by just ten feet and a general length which surpassed the 1,100-foot dock of the Port of New York by 34 feet.

Built by Alstom Chanters de l'Atlantique in St. Nazaire, France, which had additionally assembled the Normandie, and assigned structure G32 by the shipyard, it had been the main Cunard liner at any point built outside of the United Kingdom and, as Concorde, the world's quickest and up until recently just supersonic aircraft, turned into the subsequent British-French cooperative transportation project expected for overseas assistance, in spite of the fact that through boundlessly unique, if not inverse, modes.

Its inside offered unrivaled space and solace. Of the 17 decks, the initial four were intended for hardware, stockpiling, and the 1,254-in number group; 13 were for the 2,620 travelers; and eight contained overhang staterooms. Eminent components incorporated a Grand Lobby, the Royal Court Theater, the Illuminations Theater and Planetarium, the Connections Internet Center, the Queen's Ballroom, a Winter Garden, nine significant cafés, 11 bars and parlors, a 8,000-volume library and book shop, an Oxford University address program, exhibitions by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, five pools, sports settings, a Canyon Ranch Spa, a structure of shops, and a discotheque. These arrangements would comprise my "home" for the following six days.

Emblematically reflected by its more modest QE2 archetype berthed an extensive separation from its bow at the Queen Elizabeth 2 Terminal, the Queen Mary 2 addressed a two-overlay net weight increment over its prior age partner and, without a doubt, followed its ancestry back to a long way of Cunard vessels which had crossed a 165-year time frame. I by one way or another detected that the unavoidable intersection would not exclusively be an excursion of distance, however a return on schedule.

Tenderly vibrating at its spine, the behemoth along the side isolated itself underneath from its billet beneath the metallic cloudy at 1810, nearby time.

Not at all like the traditional motor propeller shaft innovation of more established age sends, the Queen Mary 2 was fueled rather by four rearward, frame underside-mounted Rolls Royce Mermaid electric-engine cases, each weighing 260 tons and containing four fixed-pitch, 9,900-pound, hardened steel sharp edges, and all things considered delivering 115,328 torque. The forward, detachable pair was fixed and given forward and toward the back impetus, while the rearward, inboard pair included 360-degree azimuth capacity and gave both drive and controlling, hindering the requirement for the rudder. The trend setting innovation framework diminished both intricacy and weight and expanded inner body volume by wiping out the customary motor design's related gear.

Three Rolls Royce variable-pitch, cross over propeller bow engines, altogether creating 15,000 strength, given port and starboard bow House Moving Services From Ireland To UK ability at velocities of up to five bunches. At eight bunches, when their adequacy had been surpassed, they were covered by 90-degree pivoting, liquid powerful entryways.

Driven by double water-sprout shooting towing boats, the behemoth ocean liner started its blundering development down the bowl. Keeping a 11.5-tie forward speed in the Solvent, it initiated its starboard abandon 140 degrees at Cal shots Reach at 1907, ready for the comparable move at Brambles.

Packed into dim, the sun projected its shining orange streaks outward through the slender, unhampered strip on the western skyline. Expecting a 220-degree heading through the Thorn Channel, the Queen Mary 2 started its starboard go to adjust the Isle of Wight.

The main supper on board the exquisite, oceanic designing victory had been served in the 1,351-seat, three-story-high, double level Britannia Restaurant which had included a terrific, clearing flight of stairs, section upholds, and a vaulted, illuminated, stained discriminatory constraint and was suggestive of and motivated by the fantastic lounge area salons of the twentieth century French liners, for example, the Ile-de-France, the L'Atlantique, and the Normandie. The actual supper, served on Wedgwood bone china and in Waterford precious stone, had included white zinfandel wine; cream of blended mushroom soup with parmesan bread garnishes; dry rolls and margarine; oak leaf and Boston salad with shaved carrots and sherry vinaigrette dressing; rack of pork with wild mushroom ragout, truffle pureed potatoes, morel sauce, and sauerkraut; warm apple strudel with cognac sauce; and espresso.

The slim line of orange lights illustrating the coast followed itself behind the harsh. Keeping a 27-tie speed and a 250-degree heading, the stone consistent, 151,000-ton designing mass utilized the dark channel and started its extraordinary circle course, from Bishop's Rock in the Scilly Isles. Ahead lay the limitless Atlantic-and the way manufactured by all of Cunard's past transoceanic liners. Tomorrow, I would start following the recorded one.

Day Two:

First light welcomed the extended liner as a passage of indistinct, damp dim. Encased between the bleak cloud arch above and the naval force ocean record beneath, which spat intermittent white covers, the dark and-red piped vessel infiltrated the dampness immersed morning, the downpour discharging sky and the twirling, eddying ocean converging into consistent, wind-stormy, transport besieged douse.

Any undesired development, notwithstanding, was rapidly, and undetectably, hosed by the two sets of 15.63-square-meter Brown Bros/Rolls Royce balance stabilizers which were constrained by gyroscopic vertical reference instruments and stretched out the extent that 15 feet from the frame to check transport roll.

Diving into 348-meter-profound waters 98 nautical miles off of Ireland around early afternoon, the Queen Mary 2 had navigated 418 miles since its takeoff from Southampton yesterday.

Current climate involved discontinuous, light downpour with a clockwise development toward the west, anticipated to drop to drive 4. The current power 5, new breeze out of the south, combined with a 11.2-degree Celsius air temperature, conveyed a 994-millibar pressure. The ocean, with a moderate 4 state, kept a 10-degree Celsius temperature.

Evening tea, held in the Queen's Room, had been a British custom and a wonderful irregularity among lunch and supper served on each Cunard crossing, the last close to home one of which had been the 2002 eastward excursion on the Queen Elizabeth 2. The Queen's Room itself, the biggest assembly hall adrift, highlighted a curved roof, twin gem crystal fixtures, a velvet blue and gold drape over the symphony stage, a 1,225-square-foot dance floor, a live harpist, and little, round tables seating up to 562. The present show included egg, ham and cheddar, cucumber, tomato, hamburger, and fish finger-sandwiches, scones with thickened cream and jam, and strawberry cream tarts.

Evening tea adrift could follow its ancestry back about 165 years. Einstein's hypothesis of relativity by one way or another appeared to apply. Suspended between mainland, landmass, and populace, the boat appeared to be gotten inside a void, a captured twist in which history appeared to be caught and in which the vessel reconnected with its past, as it by and by replayed it, a partition from the present ashore and a way to deal with its past on the ocean. For more information visit our website http://ireland-direct.com/

[realestatedigitalsales]

Real Estate - Recession Signs Everywhere

Real Estate - Recession Signs Everywhere

Real Estate - Recession Signs Everywhere

By John Mauldin Real Estate - This month, the Federal Reserve joined its global peers by turning decisively dovish. Jerome Powell and friends haven’t just stopped tightening. Soon they will begin actively easing by reinvesting the Fed’s maturing mortgage bonds into Treasury securities. It’s not exactly “Quantitative Easing I, II, and III,” but it will have some of the same effects.

Why are they doing this? One theory, which I admit possibly plausible, was that Powell simply caved to Wall Street pressure. The rate hikes and QT were hitting asset prices and liquidity, much to the detriment of bankers and others to whom the Fed pays keen attention. But that doesn’t truly square with his 2018 speeches and actions. The Fed’s March 20 announcement suggests more is happening. I think two other factors are driving the Fed’s thinking. One is increasing recognition of the same slowing global growth that made other central banks turn dovish in recent months. The other is the Fed’s realization that its previous course risked inverting the yield curve, which was violently turning against its fourth-quarter expectations and possibly toward recession (see chart below, courtesy of WSJ’s “Daily Shot”). That would not have looked good in the history books, hence the backtracking.

On the second point... too late. The yield curve inverted, and recession forecasts became suddenly de rigueuramong the same financial punditry that was wildly bullish just weeks ago. My own position has been consistent: Recession is approaching but not just yet. Yet like the Fed, I am data-dependent and the latest data are not encouraging. Today, we’ll examine this and consider what may have changed. Cracks Appearing Let’s start with a step back. The global economy clearly hasn’t recovered from the last recession like it did in previous cycles. Yes, the stock market performed well. So has real estate. We’ve seen some economic growth, which in a few places you might even call a “boom,” but for the most part it’s been pretty mild. Unemployment is low, but wage growth has been sluggish at best. Rising asset prices, fueled by almost a decade of easy monetary policy, also contributed to wealth and income inequality, which fueled populist and now semi-socialist movements around the world. This slow recovery began fading in the last few quarters. The first cracks appeared overseas, leaving the US as an island of stability. Not coincidentally, we also had (slightly) positive interest rates and thus attracted capital from elsewhere. This let our growth continue longer. But now, signs of weakness are mounting here, too. Recall, this follows years of astonishing, amazing, unprecedented, and astronomically huge monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, and others. In various and sundry ways, they opened the spigots and left them running full speed for almost a decade. And all it produced was the above-mentioned weak recovery. (Chart below from my friend Jim Bianco, again via “The Daily Shot”)

That, alone, should tell you that putting your faith in central bankers is probably a mistake. We can’t know how much worse the last decade would have been without their “help,” but does this feel like success? Yet here we are, with millions still in the hole from the last recession and another one possibly looming. We also can’t rely on historical precedent to identify where, when, or why it will start. But we can make some educated guesses. First Domino Earlier, I called the US an “island of stability.” Other such islands exist, too, and Australia is high on the list. The last Down Under recession was 27—yes, 27—years ago in 1991. No other developed economy can say the same. The long streak has a lot to do with being one of China’s top raw material suppliers during that country’s historic boom. But Australia has done other things right, too. Alas, all good things come to an end. While not officially in recession yet, Australia’s growth is slowing. University of New South Wales professor Richard Holden says it is in “effective recession” with per-capita GDP having declined in both Q3 and Q4 of 2018. (By the way, Italy is similarly in a “technical recession.” Expect more such euphemisms as governments try to avoid uttering the “R-word.”) As often happens, real estate is involved. Australia’s housing boom/bubble could unravel badly. Last week, Grant Williams highlighted a video by economist John Adams, Digital Finance Analytics founder Martin North, and Irish financial adviser Eddie Hobbs, who say Australia’s economy looks increasingly like Ireland’s just before the 2007 housing collapse. The parallels are a bit spooky. Australia’s household debt to GDP was 120.5 per cent as of September last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements, one of the highest in the world. In 2007, Ireland was sitting at around 100 per cent. At the same time, the RBA puts Australia’s household debt to disposable income at 188.6 per cent. Ireland was 200 per cent in 2007, while the US was only 116.3 per cent at the start of 2008. RBA figures also show more than two thirds of the country’s net household wealth is invested in real estate. In 2008, that figure was 83 per cent in Ireland and 48 per cent in the US. Meanwhile, 60 per cent of all lending by Australian financial institutions is in the property sector. In 2007, the International Monetary Fund gave the Irish economy and banking system a clean bill of health and suggested that a “soft landing” was the most likely outcome. Last month, the IMF said Australia’s property market was heading for a “soft landing”. House prices in Sydney and Melbourne have fallen nearly 14 per cent and 10 per cent from their respective peaks in July and November 2017, coinciding with sharp drop-off in credit flowing into the housing sector both for owner-occupiers and investors. Real estate is, by nature, credit-driven. Few people pay cash for land, homes, or commercial properties. So when credit dries up, so does demand for those assets. Falling demand means lower prices, which is bad when you are highly leveraged. It gets worse from there as the banking system gets dragged into the fray. Losses can quickly spread as defaults affect lenders far from the source. This is not only an Australian problem. Similar slowdowns are unfolding in New Zealand, Canada, Europe, and China.It’s a global problem, and one company reveals the impact. Constrained Hiring Shipping and transport stocks are kind of a “canary in the coal mine” because they are among the first to signal slowing growth. Last week, FedEx reported its international shipping revenue was down and cut its full-year earnings guidance. Its CFO blamed the economy, reported CNBC. Slowing international macroeconomic conditions and weaker global trade growth trends continue, as seen in the year-over-year decline in our FedEx Express international revenue,” Alan B. Graf, Jr., FedEx Corp. executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in statement. Despite a strong U.S. economy, FedEx said its international business weakened during the second quarter, especially in Europe. FedEx Express international was down due primarily to higher growth in lower-yielding services and lower weights per shipment, Graf said. To compensate for lower revenue, Graf said FedEx began a voluntary employee buyout program and constrained hiring. It is also “limiting discretionary spending” and is reviewing additional actions. FedEx shares have dropped roughly 27 percent in the past year, lagging the XLI industrial ETF’s 1 percent decline. This little snippet overflows with implications. Let’s unpack some of them. Revenue fell due to “higher growth in lower-yielding services.” So those who ship international packages have decided lower costs outweigh speed. Likewise, “lower weights per shipment” signals they are shipping only what they must, when they must. FedEx is responding with an employee buyout program and “constrained hiring.” The company is overstaffed for its present requirements. This might also reflect increased automation of work once done by humans. In any case, it won’t help the employment stats. In addition, FedEx is “limiting discretionary spending.” I’m not sure what that means. Every business always limits discretionary spending, or it doesn’t stay in business long. If FedEx is taking additional steps, then whoever would have received that spending will also see lower revenues. They might have to “constrain hiring,” too. Obviously, FedEx is just one company, although a large and critically positioned one. But statements like this add up to recession if they grow more common… and they are. Tariff Trouble One reason FedEx is in the vanguard is that it’s uniquely exposed to world trade, the growth of which is diminishing for multiple reasons. Part of it is technology. The things we “ship” internationally are increasingly digital, and they travel via wires and satellite links instead of ships and planes. These sorts of goods aren’t easily valued for inclusion in the trade stats. Energy is another factor. Between US shale production and renewable energy sources, we don’t import as much oil and gas from across the seas as we otherwise would. That shows up in both trade and currency values. The US dollar is stronger now, in part because we send fewer dollars to OPEC. Note the massive (and stealthy!) growth in LNG (liquified natural gas) exports in the past few years. Think what this will look like in a few years, with not one but four LNG export terminals on the US coasts. Natural gas is also the basis for much of the chemical and fertilizer industry. Abundant US supplies (and prices less than half the cost of Russian gas in Germany) help many US industries compete.

Those are just signs of normal progress and change. The economy can adapt to them. The greater threat is artificially constrained international trade, which is what the Trump administration’s trade war is creating. Last year, I explained how trade wars can spark recession and trade deficits are nothing to fear. I won’t repeat all that here. But we have since seen several market swoons/rallies as harsher trade restrictions looked more/less likely. Whether you like it or not, asset values depend on the (relatively) free flow of goods and services across international borders. Interfere with that and all kinds of assets become less valuable. Starting a trade war, at the same time growth is slowing for other reasons, is more than a little unwise. Agricultural tariffs have already ripped through US farm country to devastating effect, leaving losses some farmers may never recover. The president’s tariff threats had other impact as well. Companies raced to import foreign-supplied components and inventory before the tariffs took effect. This jammed ports and highways last year, not with new demand but future demand shifted forward in time. This is important, and I think we will see the impact soon (if we are not already). Transport and logistics companies geared up for last year’s surge, expanding their facilities and hiring new workers. Importers built up inventory in an effort to avoid tariffs that were supposed to take effect in January. The deadline was extended, but the threat is still alive. At some point, all this has to stop. Carrying inventory is expensive and will eventually outweigh the benefit of avoiding tariffs. Then the boom will come to a screeching halt. Imports will fall as companies work down inventory. All those jobs and construction projects will disappear. That, combined with the other cyclical factors and high debt loads everywhere, could easily add up to a recession. Exactly when is hard to say. Recessions usually get pronounced in hindsight, so there’s some possibility we are in one right now. But I still think we’ll avoid it this year. Getting into this box took a long time and so will getting out of it. Regardless, we’ll have a recession at some point. I think the next subprime crisis will be in corporate debt. Next week, we’ll look deeper into the timing question, what the yield curve tells us, and why the next decade will bring little or no economic growth. I realize this is not a happy conclusion, but I call them as I see them. I’ll leave you with one final but critically important thought: Prepare, don’t despair. Tough times are coming but we can handle them. You have a chance to get ready. I highly suggest you take it. Read more https://global.goreds.today/real-estate-markets-brace-for-near-crisis-level-drop-in-retail-property-values/ Read the full article

[foundcarcosa]

cxciii.

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? >> I’m not sure. I’ll name six songs I listen to a lot, at any rate: Black Out Days, Phantograms; Emperor’s New Clothes, Panic at the Disco; Power, Kanye West; Noll, kent; Some Time Ago..., Dethklok; No Resurrection, AFI.

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? >> Oh, I don’t know. Stephen King, maybe. But without the opportunity of long conversations with a couple six packs while sitting in rocking chairs by a river, I don’t see why I would bother.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. >> “Mrs Massey’s real. She leaves pieces of herself. You saw them. So did Mom... and she doesn’t shine.” - Doctor Sleep

4: What do you think about most? >> I don’t think any subject is most prominent.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? >> It was the new router password.

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? >> I usually sleep with some garment or another on. The type of clothing varies with season.

7: What’s your strangest talent? >> None of my skills are strange in my perspective.

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) >> Girls just wanna have fun. [The] boys are back in town.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? >> I’ve had a poem written about me.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? >> I usually play air drums.

11: Do you have any strange phobias? >> No.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? >> No.

13: What’s your religion? >> I don’t have a religion, because I’m an avowed syncretist (not to mention technically atheist, although it’s not that I don’t ‘believe in God’ so much as that I have an indefinable and constantly shifting concept of the numinous).

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? >> Walking, smoking, looking at stars, getting some fresh air, exploring, being nosy, who knows.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? >> In front of it.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? >> I don’t have one single favourite band. I lost interest in trying.

17: What was the last lie you told? >> I don’t remember.

18: Do you believe in karma? >> I think the original concept of karma is interesting, and the veracity of it doesn’t really matter much to me either way.

19: What does your URL mean? >> It’s a play on “Lost Carcosa”, although its personal meaning is a little beyond that by now.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? >> Curiosity. (Yes, it fits both.)

21: Who is your celebrity crush? >> Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Aisha Hinds, Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, that guy who played Billy on Sirens, that guy with the great smile who hosts Celebrity Ninja Warrior...

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? >> No.

23: How do you vent your anger? >> I prefer not to vent it. It runs its course much easier when I simply don’t give it any attention, negative or positive.

24: Do you have a collection of anything? >> No. I don’t grok collecting.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? >> I prefer video chatting if I must choose between the two.

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? >> I am happy with constantly becoming.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? >> A sound I hate is people sniffling, especially if they do it constantly; a sound I love is the distant roar of traffic on a clear summer night.

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? >> Not sure.

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? >> I don’t believe in ghosts personally, but I do believe in extraterrestrial life. I think aliens just interest me more than ghosts.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. >> A beer bottle. A counter.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? >> Nothing specific.

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? >> I don’t know.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? >> I’m not familiar enough with both coasts to have an actual opinion.

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? >> ---

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? >> The meaning of my life is constant change and constant curiosity.

36: Define Art. >> The meaning of art for me is whatever excites my senses and invites an emotional response.

37: Do you believe in luck? >> I believe in synchronicity, and I think luck falls into that jurisdiction.

38: What’s the weather like right now? >> Sunny and warm.

39: What time is it? >> 5.58p EST.

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? >> No.

41: What was the last book you read? >> The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. Finally finished it.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? >> Yes, quite. Not in abundance, though, or for long periods of time.

43: Do you have any nicknames? >> Dio, Rev, Eddie.

44: What was the last film you saw? >> The Thing (the 2011 remake).

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? >> A facial laceration.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? >> Nope.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? >> My current active special interests are comparative mythology, the Dark Tower, eldritch stories and concepts, theology and mysticism, social evolution, and supermassive black holes. (I’m watching a show about that last one right now.)

48: What’s your sexual orientation? >> I like dicks and I prefer them to be nonhuman. (I don’t have a solid sexual orientation. The only)

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? >> Not that I recall or know of.

50: Do you believe in magic? >> I suppose I do, don’t I.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? >> No. Grudges don’t interest me in the slightest.

52: What is your astrological sign? >> Gemini Sun (and Moon, and Mercury); Scorpio Rising.

53: Do you save money or spend it? >> I spend it when I can and save some when it’s possible.

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? >> Netflix’s monthly payment date was today.

55: Love or lust? >> Both are delightful.

56: In a relationship? >> Am I in one? Yes.

57: How many relationships have you had? >> Enough to know I’m not done having them.

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? >> Nope.

59: Where were you yesterday? >> At home.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? >> Sparrow’s mouse and phone case are both mostly pink.

61: Are you wearing socks right now? >> Yes.

62: What’s your favourite animal? >> Snakes, spiders, capybara, otters... dogs...

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? >> I don’t use any special weapons to get someone to like me. I want someone’s appreciation of me to be organic-- based upon a perception of me that’s as untainted by my influence as possible.

64: Where is your best friend? >> In Xibalba, my ‘headspace’.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. >> I’ll name five random blogs I love looking at for various reasons: arashi-of-ota, thisherelight, ruth-threadgoode, arielshepard, and elfyourmother.

66: What is your heritage? >> My father is Black American and Native, to his understanding; my mother is Haitian.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? >> I was probably on tumblr.

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? >> Why would Satan need a surname?

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? >> Of course?

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? >> Yes.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? >> That depends on how confident I am that losing that job won’t be a huge loss. And honestly, a job has never been of utmost importance to me, so I’d probably end up saving the dog in any case. Or at least finding someone that can, if the canal is too treacherous for my non-swimming ass.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? >> In a case of terminal illness, I’d tell the people in my social circle and then try to come to terms with it in whatever way suits who I am at that time. And yes, I’d definitely be afraid. Hopefully, by that time, the fear would be less of an issue. Hopefully, O’Dim and I will be closer friends by then.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. >> This is such an unimaginative idea.

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? >> Seven Years in Tibet by David Bowie has a pretty good track record for this.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? >> 6463.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? >> That depends on the people involved, not my opinion. What makes my current relationship effective is communication, investment, and compassion.

77: How can I win your heart? >> It’s not a prize. You don’t win it, you cultivate it, encourage it, inspire it.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? >> In my experience, my creativity is a direct result of my insanity. However, that doesn’t seem to work in every case, so don’t necessarily expect it to.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? >> It’s an interconnected set of decisions, both mine and others’, that create a life. No single decision is responsible for how my life is.

80: What size shoes do you wear? >> 8.5, I think.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? >> I don’t care. Whatever would please those left behind, I suppose.

82: What is your favourite word? >> I have way too many favourite words.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. >> I imagined an anatomically realistic heart.

84: What is a saying you say a lot? >> “son of a whore”

85: What’s the last song you listened to? >> I don’t remember.

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? >> I don’t have favourite colours.

87: What is your current desktop picture? >> It’s a slideshow. Right now, it’s a still from Interstellar.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? >> No thanks.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? >> I don’t know.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? >> Stare at them for a while, trying to figure out how to proceed.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? >> The ability to manipulate organic and inorganic matter without limit.

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? >> No, thanks.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? >> Why would I need this.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? >> One who’s clean, good in bed, and nice to look at.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? >> Meh.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? >> Not to my knowledge.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? >> Nope.

98: Ever been on a plane? >> Quite a few times, yes.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? >> “Whaddup, y’all...?”

[bountyofbeads]

International Powers Call for Cease-Fire in Libya’s Long Civil War

After a meeting in Berlin, Russia, Turkey and other countries pledged to end their interference in the North African nation to make way for peace efforts.

By Katrin Bennhold and Melissa Eddy | Published Jan. 19, 2020 Updated 4:03 p.m. ET | New York Times

BERLIN — Russia, Turkey and a dozen other international powers with competing interests in oil-rich Libya called Sunday for a cease-fire and an arms embargo, committing to end their own interference on the ground to give Libyans space for a political reconciliation.

Sunday’s gathering, hosted by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, offered a small glimmer of hope in the North African nation’s protracted civil war, which has been further complicated recently by an escalating proxy war between Turkey and Russia. Both President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, whose countries have mercenaries on the ground, attended the meeting.

The leaders of Libya’s two warring factions — the embattled head of the United Nations-backed government and a former Libyan army general who is laying siege to the capital — refused to even spend time in the same room. Ms. Merkel said the international participants spoke only individually to the two Libyan leaders, who were not at the conference table but were kept informed of developments throughout the day.

“We all agreed that we need a political solution, recent days have shown that there is no chance for a military solution,” Ms. Merkel said.

In a modest breakthrough, each of the Libyan sides agreed to send representatives to another meeting at which they will begin working out what a solution could look like.

But expectations remain low that these talks will lead to any kind of a lasting peace on the ground in the near future.

Even as the talks were underway, rebel forces launched fresh attacks on the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Nevertheless, negotiators at the meeting did emerge with at least a statement agreed to by the leaders of 12 countries, as well as from the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and the Arab League.

“We call for the termination of all military movements by, or in direct support of, the conflict parties, in and over the entire territory of Libya, starting from the beginning of the cease-fire process,” it said.

It also said: “We commit to refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya and urge all international actors to do the same. Only a Libyan-led and Libyan owned political process can end the conflict and bring lasting peace.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States remained committed to a political solution in Libya and expressed confidence that Sunday’s agreement represented a first step to achieving that goal.

“I think we made progress,” Mr. Pompeo said afterward. “At least progress in getting fewer new weapons systems, fewer new forces to flow into the region so that we can get at least a standstill so that we can begin to unwind this potential tragedy and get to the political resolution I know everybody that came there today wanted to achieve.”

The Libyan conflict has festered for nearly nine years, and for much of that time, the United States and Europe have stayed on the sidelines. Libya began drawing attention mainly when it became a gateway for tens thousands of migrants in 2015 and 2016.

But the recent involvement of Russia and Turkey on opposite sides of the prolonged civil war has created a new urgency for peace efforts. The conflict has turned into one of the Middle East’s most intractable proxy wars, with potentially cascading consequences for stability in Europe’s backyard.

Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are backing Khalifa Hifter, the former general laying siege to Tripoli. Turkey is defending the internationally recognized government in the capital.

Even within the European Union, different member countries have tacitly backed different sides, with varying intensity. France has been on General Hifter’s side, while Italy has traditionally been closer to the official government in Tripoli.

“I worry about the presence of Syrian and foreign fighters in the city of Tripoli,” President Emmanuel Macron of France planned to tell fellow leaders in Berlin, according to a draft of his speech seen by The New York Times.

“That has to stop,” Mr. Macron said. “No one must play a two-faced game.”

António Guterres, the United Nations general secretary, said: “Today all participants committed to refrain from the armed conflict or internal affairs in Libya. These must be adhered to.”

The Libyan conflict has become a test case for German and European ambitions to uphold a multilateral world order. Some saw the Berlin conference as an attempt to resurrect this sort of diplomacy in an era where multilateral agreements have been fast eroding, from the Paris climate accord to the Iran nuclear deal.

“What’s at stake is whether, in the current climate with the United States absent as the world’s policeman, it is still possible to reach international agreements with diplomacy and implement multilateral solutions,” said Daniel Gerlach, editor in chief of Zenith Magazine, a German publication specializing in the Middle East.

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said that Sunday’s talks represented a return to European engagement in the region. But for the endeavor to succeed, he said, Europe must find a unified voice and position and remain actively engaged to prevent the crisis in Libya from destabilizing the entire Mediterranean region.

“Previous agreements in Italy, Palermo, in France in Versailles and also in Abu Dhabi were one-shot events,” Mr. Borrell said, referring to other talks on Libya in recent years. “Here is the beginning of a process, and the important thing will be the implementation of this process.”

German officials hope that Sunday’s agreement is a starting point for a meaningful longer term process to bring stability to Libya.

Berlin has its own interest in preventing the conflict from spiraling further out of control. With the numbers of migrants seeking asylum in Germany at their lowest level since 2013, the government in Berlin is looking to prevent a larger crisis that could again drive hundreds of thousands of people to cross the Mediterranean Sea to seek asylum in Europe.

The agreement signed in Berlin on Sunday has 55 articles and runs six pages long. For some, the sprawling nature of the document was evidence of the great divisions that remained — and above all of the difficulties looming in putting the pact into effect.

“Who is going to implement that?” asked Mirco Keilberth, a North Africa expert and writer.

He said, however, that “you have to give Merkel credit for bringing attention to this conflict.”

Sunday’s agreement, he said, is essentially “a long to do list” for a next conference hosted by the United Nations.

High up on the list is controlling the entry of arms into Libya, where they gave been proliferating in recent years. An arms embargo was first agreed to by the United Nations Security Council in 1970, but has repeatedly been violated by member states since the country descended into chaos following the 2011 overthrow of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi after intervention by European forces, with American help.

The participating countries agreed Sunday to “unequivocally and fully respect and implement” the United Nations arms embargo.

“In order to help to implement it, we Europeans should be strongly engaged, much more than in the past to control the arms embargo,” Mr. Borrell said. “You cannot expect a cease-fire, even if it is agreed, to last if there is no control of arms into Libya.”

Even Sunday’s key commitment of foreign powers — to cease interference in the conflict — might prove tricky, experts warned.

“The foreign mercenaries make money in that war,” Mr. Keilberth said. “Smugglers make money. The war is lucrative for many people.”.

The facts on the ground in Libya are hopelessly complicated not least because of Libya’s oil and gas resources, he said. General Hifter’s army and the government forces are both in part funded by oil revenues.

“Berlin can only be a first step,” Mr. Keilberth said. “It will take weeks to determine whether it was a success.”

Many were skeptical, accusing leaders of not leaning strongly enough on those bombing civilians in the country.

“Of course everyone wants peace,” said Ken Roth, director of Human Rights Watch. “But what happens if peace doesn’t take hold? What if, at best, it takes a long, long time to negotiate. What if, as in Syria, Russia signs up again and again to stop or suspend the fighting but then promptly ignores its pledges?”

An approach that would be more likely to make a difference to the Libyan people, who face regular indiscriminate attacks particularly by bombers associated with General Hifter’s Libyan National Army, Mr. Roth said, would be to vigorously press for an end to those attacks at the same time as peace is pursued.

“There is language at the end of the Berlin communiqué mentioning the need to respect international human rights and humanitarian law, but it is generic, boilerplate language,” he said.

“There could have been language pointing out that these indiscriminate attacks are war crimes, that the signatories in Berlin are committed to prosecuting those responsible and that those supporting the bombing could be criminal accomplices,” he said.

______

Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.

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The best way to help these women rehabilitate is to help build their self-esteem by teaching them they are worthy and loved, teach them life-and job-training skills and housing.

These Syrian Women Rarely Left the House. Then the Men Disappeared.

By Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad | Published Jan. 19, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted Jan 19, 2020 |

ALEPPO, Syria — The women of eastern Aleppo were rarely visible before the war, but now they shape the bitter peace. In the poor, conservative districts of Syria’s ancient commercial capital, many women seldom used to leave the house, and only with their husbands if they did; the men not only won the bread, but also went out to buy it.

Then came the civil war.

Eight years and counting of bloodshed have condemned a generation of Syrian men to their deaths, to prison or to precarious lives as refugees. Now, with most of the country once again under government control, yet ruptured beyond recognition, moving forward is up to the women left behind: part survivors, part mourners, part mop-up crew.

Grandmothers are raising orphaned grandchildren. Single women worry they will never find husbands. Widows are supporting families gutted by losses that once seemed unendurable, and that the world now treats as routine.

In many cases, women are leaving the house on their own and working for the first time, old customs succumbing to the extremities of war and an economy in collapse — nothing new in large cities like Damascus, the capital, but a swift transformation for some of the more traditional corners of this socially and religiously conservative country.

“Before, women were afraid of everything,” said Fatima Rawass, 32, who opened a beauty salon for veiled women in May, three years after her husband died in the war. “But now, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

‘A VERY LONG, HARD WALK’

Ms. Rawass had never met a man outside her immediate family when, at 19, she found out she was engaged to a cousin, she says. No one had consulted her. Born stubborn, with a barbed tongue that would later win her a reputation as a neighborhood brawler, she informed her parents she wasn’t interested.

“You can say ‘no’ if you don’t like him,” her mother was finally hounded into saying. Then her fiancé started calling her three times a day. By the time they married, she was in love.

After they settled in east Aleppo, Ms. Rawass said, she left the house so infrequently that she could wear high heels under her abaya — the long black robelike gown worn by many conservative Muslim women — all day. It was much the same as in other conservative parts of Syria, which is mostly Sunni Muslim, marbled with religious minorities: Her husband did the grocery shopping and the errands. She minded the children.

In 2012, fighting between rebels in eastern Aleppo and government forces in western Aleppo tore the city in two. By the time the government reclaimed it in late 2016, after four years of relentless bloodletting, eastern Aleppo was all but pulverized. The war’s momentum swung irreversibly to the government.

Ms. Rawass had begged to flee, but her husband insisted on staying to guard his carpentry workshop. He refused to join the rebels, who eventually threw him in prison.

Fifteen days later, the children were hungry, and, with trepidation drumming in her veins, Ms. Rawass resolved to go out to buy some milk for what would be her first time. Government bombs and shells were falling outside, some targeting hospitals; snipers stalked the streets. It was, she recalled later, “a very long, hard walk” — the first of many.

To pay her husband’s way out of jail, she sold everything she could, took in sewing work and borrowed.

“I hope I die before you,” she remembered him telling her one day in July 2016, after his release, “because you’re stronger than I am.”

The next day, they heard explosions. When he ran outside, flying shrapnel killed him on the spot.

Ms. Rawass said she soon discarded the heels she had worn even during the war.

She walked to the store through still-unfamiliar streets, dodging the glances of male strangers. She walked to the doctor who treated her for exhaustion and depression and to the beauty school where she eventually started taking classes. She saved up and got a loan from the Red Crescent. And in May, she opened a salon in her partly ruined upstairs room and hung up a sign with her name on it.

“When you work, you don’t have to ask anyone for anything,” she said. “Women who need things can be taken advantage of.”

She offered makeup, eyebrow and hair services to veiled women like her. They continued to attend to appearances, despite everything (“Should we die after our husbands die?”).

Although she had grown up cutting hair for friends and family, her father never let her make money from it, saying employment would expose her to the predations of men. Now, her parents wanted her to quit and come live with them. She refused.

Ms. Rawass had fallen in love again, she said, but she dared not defy her father’s prohibition against remarrying; he believed a widow should devote herself to her children, and her children only. If she disobeyed, he could take them away.

If only she were childless, she sometimes thought. Then she would have to worry only about herself.

What she had was work. It helped her forget.

“It’s only at night,” she said, “that I remember all the bad things that happened.”

‘THERE ARE NO MEN IN SYRIA’

A few hours south of Aleppo, in the coastal city of Latakia, Lekaa al-Shaekh and her fiancé were being photographed inside the ancient Egypt-themed wedding hall where they had met, and where — finally! — they would be married. They posed on a white sofa bathed in neon-pink light and crowned with fake white flowers, a fluorescent bridal fantasia.

“I’ve been waiting so long to sit on this couch,” she said, rolling her eyes.

She and her friends used to expect a great deal from future husbands. Traditionally, Syrian grooms paid a bride-price: a car, a house and cash in Latakia; a kilogram of gold jewelry in Aleppo.

Then the fighting came, and Latakia, an area dominated by President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority religious sect, sent thousands of young men to battle. All over Syria, the economy buckled. Ms. al-Shaekh, 34, decided she could not afford prewar standards.

“There are so few men; that’s the problem now,” she explained. “Some of my friends are waiting for men to give them everything, but it’s tough. We’re in a war, after all.” (Not, she hastened to add, that she had compromised in choosing her fiancé, a soldier she described as kind, handsome and responsible.)

She had advised single friends to make concessions to the emergency, yet many remained disappointed. Some had resorted to adding eligible-looking strangers on Facebook, a stratagem unheard-of before the war. It had even worked for a few.

It was rare to find a single woman who did not survey the field with some despair.

“There are no men in Syria,” said Afraa Dagher, 36, a Latakian who said she had many friends in the same, perpetually solo boat. “At my age, they’re all martyrs or soldiers.”

How did she meet men now?

“I don’t know,” she said, with a brief, tired smile. “Leave it to God.”

‘I COME TO ESCAPE’

Paro Clothes’s business card proclaimed the Aleppo garment workshop “different & fashionable,” and its owner was both. Paro Manoukian, 44, was an Armenian Christian and a woman in a male-dominated industry. In her windowless basement headquarters, the June heat had bargained her down to a red tank top, red lipstick, red nails and a profusion of gold jewelry.

Ms. Manoukian opened the workshop after getting divorced in 2011. Half her all-female work force had surrendered husbands, brothers or sons to the war. A few dozen toiled at home, applying furbelows to garments; three more worked in the back, shielded from male eyes by a teal plastic curtain.

“I asked for the divorce, but I’m sure if I got married now, my husband would want a divorce because I work all day,” Ms. Manoukian said, laughing throatily.

In the back, three employees chatted about their troubles — money, men, children — as their fingers disciplined the cloth. They tried not to talk too much about the people they had lost.

Hayat Kashkash’s husband had forbidden her to work, but after his government salary fell behind rising prices last year, Ms. Kashkash, 53, got hired without asking permission.

“I found a job,” she told him. “I’m going to work.”

“O.K.,” he said. “Go.”

This was sometimes as much burden as triumph.

“Now you have to cook, wash, clean and take care of the kids, plus work,” she said. “Before you leave the house, you have to clean it. After work, you go home and cook.”

But with two sons conscripted into the army, she wanted to keep busy.

“I come to escape,” she said.

“I’m here to escape my kids,” put in Fatima Kelzy, who was hot-gluing pom-poms onto a T-shirt, a cigarette dangling from one corner of her flashing smile. Everyone laughed. She was the joker, the one who got up and danced when they needed a pick-me-up.

Married at 11, she had never imagined any career but housewife. Now, at 44, she was a working widow with six unmarried daughters to feed.

“Actually, I’m working for my kids,” she said, serious now, “because I’m both mom and dad.”

The streets around Paro Clothes were wallpapered with signs recruiting female tailors.

Muhammad Dagher, 38, was surprised to be swarmed by calls from widows seeking employment when he reopened his factory three years ago. Now several women labored there in a curtained-off section, snipping extra threads, checking stitching.

But he paid them less than men, judging them too inexperienced to sew. Why?

“They’re slow, they’re weak,” he said. “It’s new for them.”

Reading his audience, he course-corrected.

“The women are becoming equal to men,” he declared. added. “They work just as hard.”

Samia Hanuf, 39, was not brought up to work. She left school at 15 and married at 19, settling in Latakia. Three children followed before a sniper’s bullet killed her husband, a government soldier, in 2013.

She still talked to his photo all the time, telling him everything: about how, without child care options when she started shifts at a dairy factory, she would make breakfast for the children, lock them in and hope for the best; about accidentally buying spoiled vegetables on her very first grocery run.

As soon as they finished school, she vowed, their daughters would work.

“I don’t want them to be like me,” she said, “not being able to take care of themselves.”

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Lebanon on ‘brink of chaos and anarchy’ as peaceful protests turn violent

By Liz Sly | Published January 19 at 4:48 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 19, 2020 |

BEIRUT — Lebanon is bracing for deepening unrest after weekend riots in the capital suggested the country's once-peaceful protest movement is entering a dangerous new phase.

Rescue services and police said Sunday that more than 400 people were treated for injuries after the worst night of violence since Lebanese took to the streets in October to demand a new government capable of leading the country out of an acute economic and financial crisis.

Protesters and security forces clashed again on the streets Sunday night, with police firing rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators hurling paving stones, fireworks and other projectiles.

The dark new mood was palpable. “Not peaceful, not peaceful. This is a revolution, not a song,” the protesters chanted in downtown Beirut — pointedly contradicting the “peaceful, peaceful” slogan of the uprising’s early days, when huge demonstrations against the government turned into dance parties.

Heavily armed troops joined riot police at the scene, some carrying shoulder-launched rockets.

“Lebanon is being pushed to the brink of chaos and anarchy,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center. “This is a country that is spiraling economically downwards, you have increasing frustrations among a young population, and things could get out of hand very quickly. It’s only a matter of time.”

The unrest risks embroiling Lebanon in the accelerating competition for regional influence between the United States and Iran, both of which count allies among rival groups in the tangled political system that the protesters want to reform.

Human Rights Watch condemned what it called the use of “excessive force” by police to disperse protesters. Tear gas filled the streets of Beirut with choking smoke. Videos on social media seemed to show police firing rubber bullets at protesters.

It was clear the demonstrators had sought an escalation. Young men warned onlookers that they planned to attack the security forces. They assaulted police lines with firecrackers, rocks, uprooted trees and potted plants.

The protesters said they had decided on a more forceful approach because three months of peaceful demonstrations had failed to bring about a new government or any easing of the country’s financial and economic crisis. The value of the Lebanese currency has plunged by half in three months, and ordinary people are prevented from accessing their savings as the central bank seeks to stave off financial collapse.

Employers have stopped paying salaries, hospitals are running out of vital medicines, and people are going hungry as the economy skids to a halt.

“People have reached a point of no return,” said Bachar el-Halabi, a lecturer at the American University of Beirut who supports the demonstrators. “They’ve been protesting peacefully on the streets for 90 days, and no one listened to them.”

Some protesters expressed concerns that infiltrators are working to radicalize the demonstrations and push them toward violence to justify harsh crackdowns and deter ordinary citizens from participating. The shift toward more confrontational tactics was accompanied by a noticeable fall in the numbers showing up to the demonstrations.

“There are instigators here,” said Elias, 22, a protester who declined to give his full name as he joined demonstrators at a police barricade blocking access to the parliament ahead of the violence on Saturday. “It’s people who are not with the protests and want to give us a bad name.”

There were instances of violence at protests last year after supporters of the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal movements turned out on the streets to challenge the demonstrators.

The Iran-allied Hezbollah has now signaled its willingness to support the protest movement, even as it pushes for a new government formed exclusively of its allies. The powerful Shiite movement has sent representatives to discuss with the protesters ways it can contribute to their cause, according to representatives of the protesters and politicians allied with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is exerting pressure for the swift confirmation of a new cabinet led by its nominee, Hassan Diab, a professor at the American University of Beirut who once served as education minister.

Hezbollah hopes that Diab’s appointment will succeed in meeting the protesters’ demands for a government that excludes the traditional political elites widely blamed for the country’s slide into insolvency, according to people involved in the negotiations.

But as the mostly unfamiliar names of the proposed new ministers have leaked to the press, Lebanese have discovered that they have powerful establishment figures behind them. It seems unlikely that the expected announcement of Diab’s cabinet will satisfy the protesters’ demands or the international community’s conditions for offering badly needed economic and financial aid, analysts say.

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Global leaders promise to respect arms embargo on Libya, but fail to secure a lasting cease fire

By Sudarsan Raghavan and Loveday Morris | Published January 19 at 6:50 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 19, 2020 |

Western and Arab powers signed a wide-ranging agreement on Sunday to respect a U.N. arms embargo and stop providing military support to Libya's warring factions. But the gathering failed to persuade the rival sides to agree to a lasting cease-fire, as many had hoped.

“We agreed on a comprehensive plan forward,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters at the end of the summit. “We all agree that we should respect the arms embargo and that the arms embargo should be controlled more strongly than it has been in the past.”

The one-day summit, which attracted many of the world’s most influential leaders, was the most significant attempt yet by the United States and Europe to remain relevant in Libya, after years of watching from the sidelines.

The event, proposed in the summer, came to fruition only after Russia and Turkey — which support rival sides in the conflict — stepped up their military engagement to shape the future of the country.

But although Western leaders portrayed the summit and its agreement as a step forward, tensions in Libya appeared to be growing on Sunday, casting doubt on whether conditions politically and on the ground there are ripe for a cease-fire.

Both Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, the head of the U.N.-installed government in Tripoli, and eastern commander Khalifa Hifter, who launched an offensive on the Libyan capital in April, were in Berlin on Sunday. But they did not meet, underscoring the deep and lingering animosity that divides Libya.

“The difference between the parties are such a magnitude that they don’t speak to each other,” Merkel said. “They were not in the same room.”

Sunday’s agreement calls for all countries and parties involved in Libya to work toward a permanent cease-fire, primarily through a military committee with representatives from all sides. The agreement is to be presented to the U.N. Security Council, giving it greater weight.

The signatories included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the senior-most U.S. official to attend the talks, French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top leaders from Europe, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

The communique calls on “all parties concerned to redouble their efforts for a sustained suspension of hostilities, de-escalation and a permanent cease fire.” It also calls on countries backing the warring factions to “refrain from any activities exacerbating the conflict or inconsistent” with the U.N. embargo or the cease-fire, “including the financing of military capabilities or the recruitment of mercenaries.” Nations breaking the arms embargo should face sanctions, the signatories agreed.

“We know that today’s meeting obviously will not solve all the problems of Libya,” Merkel said. “We wanted to give a new impetus.”

Pompeo said progress had been made toward a “full-fledged cease-fire,” but “there’s still a lot of work to do.”

“It’s a complicated battlefield,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether the countries driving one of the world’s most internationalized conflicts will set aside their ambitions and stop sending weapons and fighters, after having blatantly ignored the arms embargo for years.

Russia and Turkey view Libya as central to their economic and geostrategic ambitions in the Middle East and North Africa. Regional powers such as the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia see Libya through the lens of ideology and counterterrorism — and they are wary of the growing role played by Turkey, which supports Islamists they despise.

Sunday’s communique, analysts noted, had been drafted and agreed upon by all of the parties involved in Libya’s war for more than a month.

“Throughout that time, they sent more weapons and mercenaries to Libya,” said Wolfram Lacher, a Libya scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “So the words of heads of states doesn’t really count for much. There is no sign that the real positions of foreign meddlers have changed.”

There are indications the warring sides have used the lull in the fighting to bolster their positions. In the capital, pro-government militias have gained confidence with the arrival of hundreds of pro-Turkey Syrian fighters and a Turkish air defense system. In Hifter’s eastern stronghold of Benghazi, reports have surfaced of the arrival of new arms from abroad.

On the eve of the summit, pro-Hifter forces blockaded key oil ports in a show of strength, as Tripoli-based oil officials warned that production could halt within five days. Reports emerged Sunday of fighting in Tripoli, including heavy artillery.

The effort to end the spiraling chaos has been plagued by divisions among European countries and a lack of strong engagement by the United States and other Western powers.

Hifter’s forces swept across Libya and launched an offensive in Tripoli during the same week last year that the United Nations was holding a peace conference. His advance was met by silence from the international community, emboldening him, analysts said. Although Italy and other European powers backed the Tripoli government, known as the Government of National Accord, France backed Hifter, whom it views as Libya’s best hope. Italy and France have dueling economic interests in Libya, centered on oil and gas resources.

“We Europeans have been suffering internal divisions, and we have not been united enough,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters.

Washington, too, sent mixed signals. Congress and the State Department have voiced support for the Government of National Accord, but President Trump endorsed Hifter’s offensive in April.

Kremlin-backed mercenaries joined Hifter’s forces on the front lines in September. Europe and the United States did not act against Russia, and in November, the Government of National Accord turned to Turkey for help. Ankara, which already was providing drones, weapons and military advisers, agreed to boost support.

The Tripoli government signed a deal with Turkey guaranteeing Mediterranean Sea oil and gas drilling rights. That angered Greece, Cyprus, the European Union and Egypt, all of which covet those resources.

Ankara is also poised to gain about $18 billion in contracts suspended after Moammar Gaddafi’s fall. Moscow, too, stands to gain billions in arms and construction contracts. It views Libya as a geostrategic asset and an ideological platform to undermine NATO, divide the E.U. and discredit the West, according to Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya analyst at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague.

 Even before Sunday’s communique, senior European leaders were calling for greater engagement and unity in Libya, especially to enforce the U.N. arms embargo.

 “The Europeans should be strongly engaged, much more than in the past, to control the arms embargo,” Borrell said.

Borrell and other top European leaders suggested sending European forces to Libya to monitor a truce.

 “First, we need to have a cease-fire,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said. “We cannot monitor something that does not exist.”

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Hunger strikes tend to work only when governments fear the consequences. Mustafa Kassem’s death in Egypt is a grim example.

By Siobhán O'Grady | Published January 18 at 6:01 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 19, 2020 |

Around five years ago, Mohamed Soltan emerged from the arrivals gate at Dulles International Airport to a crowd of cheering family and friends. They ran to embrace him. He lifted himself out of his wheelchair and knelt to kiss the ground.

For the past two years, Soltan, a U.S. citizen, had been held in Egypt on charges of spreading false information after he live-tweeted the dispersal of an Islamist protest. He was sentenced to life in prison, and for several hundred days, he had staged a hunger strike in a bid to secure his freedom — ultimately losing more than 100 pounds.

In prison, he met Mustafa Kassem, a fellow Egyptian American who had been swept up in mass arrests while visiting family in Cairo. But when Soltan was freed, Kassem was not released alongside him. On Monday, after Kassem staged his own hunger strike that lasted more than a year, the New York taxi driver and father of two young children died in Egypt of apparent heart failure.

Kassem was held for five years in pretrial detention and then sentenced in 2018 to 15 years behind bars on charges that he took part in protests against the Egyptian government.

“It’s very devastating, and honestly it was tragic for me,” said Soltan, who after his release founded an advocacy group for other prisoners in Egypt. “It was a call I’ve been dreading for a couple of years now.”

Egyptian prisons hold tens of thousands of political prisoners. At least six U.S. citizens and two U.S. permanent residents are in Egyptian detention.

Some 300 prisoners are believed to be on hunger strikes, and how long they can survive depends largely on their willpower, fasting methods and body type.

During Soltan’s hunger strike, he only drank water with some vitamins and electrolytes, he said in a phone call this week. Even after he went in and out of a coma and suffered a pulmonary embolism, he continued the strike, only supplementing milk and yogurt products toward the end of his detention.

“They first take away your freedom, then they try to take your dignity and your willpower,” Soltan said, referring to prison authorities. “The idea of the hunger strike is to reverse that process, use whatever is left out of your willpower, ability to eat or not eat, to regain your dignity and hopefully regain your freedom.”

Hunger strikes have long been used as a form of political and personal protest. In apartheid-era South Africa, hundreds of black prisoners staged hunger strikes to call for their release. Mohandas K. Gandhi famously staged lengthy hunger strikes to protest British rule over India. Palestinians held in Israeli prisons have gone on hunger strikes to demand better living conditions — in 2017, more than 1,000 went on strike at once. Many men held in the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay refused food, which led to controversy over whether U.S. authorities were justified in force feeding them.

Soltan said that before beginning his strike in Egypt, he drew inspiration in part from the persistence of Irish hunger strikers.

A century ago, Terence MacSwiney, a member of Parliament and lord mayor of Cork, staged a hunger strike to demand his release from prison after he was sentenced to two years on sedition charges. Ireland was under British control at the time, and British authorities feared MacSwiney’s death could boost the Irish cause for independence. Still, they refused to release him, and MacSwiney died 74 days later.

“There was astonishment at the time that somebody could last for that long because there wasn’t much awareness of how the human body could deal with hunger striking,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, a history professor at University College Dublin. “It captured international attention because it was a powerful image of the Irish republic against the British Empire. It generated enormous emotion.”

Decades later, during the violent period of unrest in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles, hunger strikers drew inspiration from earlier strikers such as MacSwiney, and some managed to achieve their demands. Dolours and Marian Price, sisters who were arrested for their involvement in bombings in London, staged hunger strikes and fought back against their force-feeders. They were ultimately transferred from prison in London back to Northern Ireland.

Others succumbed to starvation. Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican, was elected to Parliament while leading a group of prisoners on a hunger strike. He died after 66 days.

The strikes drew attention to the Irish Republicans’ political cause. But British authorities proved that even the threat of an elected member of Parliament dying wasn’t enough to force their capitulation.

Still, Ferriter said, “for some people internationally, the Irish have provided some kind of illustration of what might be achieved by a successful hunger strike.”

But in Egypt, Soltan said, he fears hunger strikers have little leverage compared with that of some more successful movements.

“I can’t imagine what … the 300 hunger striking and 60,000 political prisoners went to sleep feeling when they found out that Mustafa died,” Soltan said.

If an American with powerful government officials advocating on his behalf can die in Egyptian custody, he said, it does not bode well for other prisoners.

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Hunger strikes tend to work only when governments fear the consequences. Mustafa Kassem’s death in Egypt is a grim example.

By Siobhán O'Grady | Published January 18 at 6:01 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 19, 2020 |

Around five years ago, Mohamed Soltan emerged from the arrivals gate at Dulles International Airport to a crowd of cheering family and friends. They ran to embrace him. He lifted himself out of his wheelchair and knelt to kiss the ground.

For the past two years, Soltan, a U.S. citizen, had been held in Egypt on charges of spreading false information after he live-tweeted the dispersal of an Islamist protest. He was sentenced to life in prison, and for several hundred days, he had staged a hunger strike in a bid to secure his freedom — ultimately losing more than 100 pounds.

In prison, he met Mustafa Kassem, a fellow Egyptian American who had been swept up in mass arrests while visiting family in Cairo. But when Soltan was freed, Kassem was not released alongside him. On Monday, after Kassem staged his own hunger strike that lasted more than a year, the New York taxi driver and father of two young children died in Egypt of apparent heart failure.

Kassem was held for five years in pretrial detention and then sentenced in 2018 to 15 years behind bars on charges that he took part in protests against the Egyptian government.

“It’s very devastating, and honestly it was tragic for me,” said Soltan, who after his release founded an advocacy group for other prisoners in Egypt. “It was a call I’ve been dreading for a couple of years now.”

Egyptian prisons hold tens of thousands of political prisoners. At least six U.S. citizens and two U.S. permanent residents are in Egyptian detention.

Some 300 prisoners are believed to be on hunger strikes, and how long they can survive depends largely on their willpower, fasting methods and body type.

During Soltan’s hunger strike, he only drank water with some vitamins and electrolytes, he said in a phone call this week. Even after he went in and out of a coma and suffered a pulmonary embolism, he continued the strike, only supplementing milk and yogurt products toward the end of his detention.

“They first take away your freedom, then they try to take your dignity and your willpower,” Soltan said, referring to prison authorities. “The idea of the hunger strike is to reverse that process, use whatever is left out of your willpower, ability to eat or not eat, to regain your dignity and hopefully regain your freedom.”

Hunger strikes have long been used as a form of political and personal protest. In apartheid-era South Africa, hundreds of black prisoners staged hunger strikes to call for their release. Mohandas K. Gandhi famously staged lengthy hunger strikes to protest British rule over India. Palestinians held in Israeli prisons have gone on hunger strikes to demand better living conditions — in 2017, more than 1,000 went on strike at once. Many men held in the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay refused food, which led to controversy over whether U.S. authorities were justified in force feeding them.

Soltan said that before beginning his strike in Egypt, he drew inspiration in part from the persistence of Irish hunger strikers.

A century ago, Terence MacSwiney, a member of Parliament and lord mayor of Cork, staged a hunger strike to demand his release from prison after he was sentenced to two years on sedition charges. Ireland was under British control at the time, and British authorities feared MacSwiney’s death could boost the Irish cause for independence. Still, they refused to release him, and MacSwiney died 74 days later.

“There was astonishment at the time that somebody could last for that long because there wasn’t much awareness of how the human body could deal with hunger striking,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, a history professor at University College Dublin. “It captured international attention because it was a powerful image of the Irish republic against the British Empire. It generated enormous emotion.”

Decades later, during the violent period of unrest in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles, hunger strikers drew inspiration from earlier strikers such as MacSwiney, and some managed to achieve their demands. Dolours and Marian Price, sisters who were arrested for their involvement in bombings in London, staged hunger strikes and fought back against their force-feeders. They were ultimately transferred from prison in London back to Northern Ireland.

Others succumbed to starvation. Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican, was elected to Parliament while leading a group of prisoners on a hunger strike. He died after 66 days.

The strikes drew attention to the Irish Republicans’ political cause. But British authorities proved that even the threat of an elected member of Parliament dying wasn’t enough to force their capitulation.

Still, Ferriter said, “for some people internationally, the Irish have provided some kind of illustration of what might be achieved by a successful hunger strike.”

But in Egypt, Soltan said, he fears hunger strikers have little leverage compared with that of some more successful movements.

“I can’t imagine what … the 300 hunger striking and 60,000 political prisoners went to sleep feeling when they found out that Mustafa died,” Soltan said.

If an American with powerful government officials advocating on his behalf can die in Egyptian custody, he said, it does not bode well for other prisoners.

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Dozens wounded as Iraqi protesters up pressure on government

By Samya Kullab and Qassem Abdul-Zahra | Published January 19 at 2:53 PM EST | AP | Posted Jan 19, 2020

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces wounded dozens of protesters on Sunday as renewed anti-government demonstrations gripped the capital and Iraq’s south, activists and officials said.

The mass protests had lost steam when soaring U.S.-Iran tensions threatened an open conflict on Iraqi soil in past weeks.

As the regional crisis receded, Iraqi activists gave the government a week’s deadline to act on their demands for sweeping political reforms or said they would up the pressure with new demonstrations.

The uprising began on Oct. 1 when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to decry rampant government corruption, poor public services and a scarcity of jobs. Protesters are demanding an end to Iraq’s sectarian political system, alongside early elections and the stepping aside of its ruling elite.

Clashes between protesters and security forces in central Baghdad wounded at least 27 people on Sunday. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse crowds in Tayaran square and the nearby Sinak bridge, wounding 23, an activist and two medical officials said. Some protesters hurled rocks at police, wounding four personnel, a security official and two medical officials said.

The Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Three Iraqi activists said that more rallies are planned in the coming days as the protesters seek to refocus public attention on their mass movement.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran peaked after an American drone strike killed a top Iranian commander and Iraqi militia leader outside Baghdad’s international airport. Those killings prompted days of political turmoil across the region and Iraq that led to Iraqi lawmakers calling for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Supporters of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr say they are organizing a mass protest this week supporting calls for the ousting of American troops from Iraq in response to the U.S. drone attack. The planned rallies in support of al-Sadr have prompted fears of more clashes with the anti-government demonstrators, who say they are against both Iranian and U.S. influence in Iraqi affairs.

Protesters have been in a standoff with security forces on three strategic bridges — Sinak, Ahrar and Jumhuriyah — that lead toward the fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s parliament postponed a critical session on Sunday due to lack of quorum. Lawmakers were expected to discuss candidates to replace outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who resigned in December under pressure from protesters. The next session is expected to be held Wednesday.

Earlier on Sunday, protests burned tires cutting off main thoroughfares in Baghdad.

Protests were also held in the southern provinces of Najaf, Dhi Qar, Karbala and Basra.

Activists expressed fears that parallel protests planned by al-Sadr’s supporters to take place on Friday could eclipse their peaceful anti-government movement. However, al-Sadr has emerged as a supporter of the movement. Many of the protesters hail from Baghdad’s impoverished areas where the Shiite leader enjoys widespread support; his militia group, Saraya al-Salam, has acted as unarmed protectors for the demonstrators.

In a statement on Sunday, al-Sadr said he supported the recent escalation by anti-government protesters and lambasted the political elite for not selecting a new premier.

But activists said the protests called by al-Sadr supporters to oust U.S. troops could weaken their hard-fought movement.

“We are scared of one side trying to start a fight with the other side,” said Ahmed, 34, one of protest organizer in Baghdad’s Tahrir square, the epicenter of the movement. “For our part we are staying calm and focusing on our goals.”

___

Associated Press writer Murtada Faraj contributed.

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