#thousands of new larries are born

[crinkle-eyed-boo]

would it give the story credibility if he sued on grounds of defamation though? or that the people in it are too easily recognisable? i mean everyone except liam seems to be painted quite favourably, which is probably by design so nobody but him would have a reason to drag her ass to court, but still...

I’m not a lawyer but the closest comparison I can think of is that you didn’t see Justin taking Britney to court when she spilled ALL of their very inflammatory tea in her memoir. (He may know that suing Britney would do him NO favors in the court of public opinion, but he also was like I’M NOT APOLOGIZING TO ANYONE at one of his secret shows, so.) Or you don’t see Kim taking Taylor to court for thanK you aIMee or any of the diss track wars in the rap world going to actual court. Or to put it in our fandom terms, you don’t see Harry taking the producers of After or The Idea of You to court, for example.

At the end of the day, defamation is VERY hard to prove in court. And this little book of hers (that’s being self published, again) will probably NOT make waves anywhere but within fandom circles, so again, as a not lawyer talking shit, I feel like Liam doing anything in the judicial system would just bring more attention to something that he’d very much not want people looking into.

[homeisxlarry]

even though the topic has passed, i want to vent a little. i think what happened with daisy and all the drama about erasing freddie's face and explaining why she did it, represents too much of what "babygate" means: an unscrupulous show.

and i don't mean that this started from freddie's birth… from the moment louis saw briana for the first time in his life this was a show. they even posed for paparazzi photos that would later serve to "confirm" a pregnancy.

do you remember when briana's mother started spreading rumors that she and louis were going to get engaged? louis had to go out for a walk holding hands with a friend to shut her up.

not to mention that we even had a birth certificate, photos of louis outside the hospital, briana walking that poor child when he was a couple of days old everywhere, when louis and briana exchanged the baby on the street or in parking lots. all the people who were watching live and in person how careless they were with that baby, exposing him to real dangers: exposed to the sun, to the heat of LA, to irresponsible driving with the baby in the car, leaving him in the care of unknown people just days after he was born, the circus that briana put together when danielle approached freddie and there are even photos of freddie with briana's ex-partners in ~awkward situations

and i think the biggest reason this topic has come back to the conversation is because of all the inconsistencies that were created in the pandemic: the complaint from briana's ex-partner where she indicates that he was keeping the child because louis was an absent father (a situation that made both briana and her mother close their Instagrams for a few weeks), the times that louis' family forgot that freddie existed or the incongruent answers in interviews, the photo of the "birth" in a fertility treatment clinic (??) and so on all day.

(and i mention the above paragraph because there was a period of more than a year and a half – pre-pandemic – where there was no sign of louis getting close to freddie)

and everything i wrote above is not even 1% of everything that has happened. many people who are new to the fandom missed most of these events, and the truth is that i understand in a way that they "freak out" when they see someone who does not believe in louis's paternity.

i am a fan of louis, i will continue to be for a long time to come (i hope), but there is something that has bothered me a lot and that is that in a way he exposes the larries to be seen as the bad crazy ones for believing in "stupid theories", but in contexts outside of social media, he has no problem interacting with them.

the truth is that none of what happens makes sense to me. before, i could blame his team, and perhaps they have some responsibility in how louis' image has changed so much during these last years. it hurts me to think that he is leaving aside a significant amount of his fandom. he wants us away, and not only that… he exposes us to an endless cycle of hate. I still remember that tweet about the chicken and the conspiracy theories. was it really necessary? what is the context of that post? it wasn’t necessary and there is no context, but there we had to put up with every bad word and every insult just because “louis” felt like it.

none of this would have happened if everything had been clear from the beginning. they try to stop everything when it’s too late and in the stupidest ways. they want to deny larry, but louis shows up making a thousand references about harry. they want to say that louis is an exemplary father, but as soon as he had the chance, he sold all his properties in LA. they want to say that louis cares about his son’s privacy, but you can make a timeline since that child was born with his daily photos from day one. they want to say that louis and harry hate each other, but there louis shows up including a lot of scenes of them in his documentary. they say louis hates larries, but every chance he gets, he says hi to every person who mentions the subject.

the truth is that this whole subject has me bored and for some time i have thought that all this hostile environment towards us is going to end up distancing us even more from him (even during the fitf era, many people have already left). and it seems even worse to me that an artist with almost 15 years of career enters the dynamics of the fandom and his interactions are limited to what the “supposed” majority wants to hear.

i will just leave one question, are we larries really to blame for the fact that they can't show their faces to freddie now?

ps: louis has shown on too many occasions that when he wants to maintain his privacy, he does it without any problems. and do you think that everything that happened before was beyond his control?

[rockislandadultreads]

Happy Independence Day!

Brothers at Arms by Larrie D. Ferreiro

In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded. France and Spain provided close to the equivalent of $30 billion and 90 percent of all guns used by the Americans, and they sent soldiers and sailors by the thousands to fight and die alongside the Americans, as well as around the world.

Ferreiro adds to the historical records the names of French and Spanish diplomats, merchants, soldiers, and sailors whose contribution is at last given recognition. Instead of viewing the American Revolution in isolation, Brothers at Arms reveals the birth of the American nation as the centerpiece of an international coalition fighting against a common enemy.

The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed

In the mid-1700s the English captain of a trading ship that made runs between England and the Virginia colony fathered a child by an enslaved woman living near Williamsburg. The woman, whose name is unknown and who is believed to have been born in Africa, was owned by the Eppeses, a prominent Virginia family. The captain, whose surname was Hemings, and the woman had a daughter. They named her Elizabeth.

Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the highly acclaimed historiography Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, unearths startling new information about the Hemingses, Jefferson, and his white family. Although the book presents the most detailed and richly drawn portrait ever written of Sarah Hemings, better known by her nickname Sally, who bore seven children by Jefferson over the course of their thirty-eight-year liaison, The Hemingses of Monticello tells more than the story of her life with Jefferson and their children. The Hemingses as a whole take their rightful place in the narrative of the family’s extraordinary engagement with one of history’s most important figures.

As The Hemingses of Monticello makes vividly clear, Monticello can no longer be known only as the home of a remarkable American leader, the author of the Declaration of Independence; nor can the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president have been expunged from history until very recently, be left out of the telling of America’s story. With its empathetic and insightful consideration of human beings acting in almost unimaginably difficult and complicated family circumstances, The Hemingses of Monticello is history as great literature. It is a remarkable achievement.

The Second Founding by Eric Foner

The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States.

Eric Foner’s compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.

1776 by David McCullough

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence—when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King’s men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.

Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough’s 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.

[fatalpoison4u]

Stars and planetary systems in fiction Very near the speed of light: Taking advantage of time dilation at close-to-light-speeds

Bussard ramjet: The Bussard ramjet is a theoretical method of spacecraft propulsion proposed in 1960 by the physicist Robert W. Bussard, popularized by Poul Anderson's novel Tau Zero, Larry Niven in his Known Space series of books and Vernor Vinge in his Zones of Thought series. Bussard proposed a ramjet variant of a fusion rocket capable of reasonable interstellar travel, using enormous electromagnetic fields (ranging from kilometers to many thousands of kilometers in diameter) as a ram scoop to collect and compress hydrogen from the interstellar medium. High speeds force the reactive mass into a progressively constricted magnetic field, compressing it until thermonuclear fusion occurs. The magnetic field then directs the energy into rocket exhaust, providing thrust. Slower than light: With regard to interstellar travel, in which faster-than-light speeds are generally considered unrealistic, more realistic depictions of interstellar travel have often focused on the idea of "generation ships" that travel at sub-light speed for many generations before arriving at their destinations. Other scientifically plausible concepts of interstellar travel include sleeper ships. Another idea is using habitats to explore and expand our known universe over a long time. A modern variation that is becoming popular is one where the passengers just upload their brains into the ship's computers and are downloaded into cloned bodies when they reach their destination.

Generation Ships 💖:

A generation ship, or generation starship, is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels at sub-light speed. Since such a ship might take centuries to thousands of years to reach even nearby stars, the original occupants of a generation ship would grow old and die, leaving their descendants to continue traveling. Generation Ships are great settings for sociological comment: the author has a nice sealed pressure vessel to play out their theories or critique existing cultures.

Obstacles:   Such a ship would have to be entirely self-sustaining, providing energy, food, air, and water for everyone on board. It must also have extraordinarily reliable systems that could be maintained by the ship's inhabitants over long periods of time. This would require testing whether thousands of humans could survive on their own before sending them beyond the reach of help.   Estimates of the minimum reasonable population for a generation ship vary. Anthropologist John Moore has estimated that, even in the absence of cryonics or sperm banks, a population capacity of 160 people would allow normal family life (with the average individual having ten potential marriage partners) throughout a 200-year space journey, with little loss of genetic diversity; social engineering can reduce this estimate to 80 people. In 2013 anthropologist Cameron Smith reviewed existing literature and created a new computer model to estimate a minimum reasonable population in the tens of thousands. Smith's numbers were much larger than previous estimates such as Moore's, in part because Smith takes the risk of accidents and disease into consideration, and assumes at least one severe population catastrophe over the course of a 150-year journey.   In order for a spacecraft to maintain a stable environment for multiple generations, it would have to be large enough to support a community of humans and a fully recycling ecosystem. However, a spacecraft of such a size would require a lot of energy to accelerate and decelerate. A smaller spacecraft, while able to accelerate more easily and thus make higher cruise velocities more practical, would reduce exposure to cosmic radiation and the time for malfunctions to develop in the craft, but would have challenges with resource metabolic flow and ecologic balance.   The success of a generation ship depends on children born aboard taking over the necessary duties, as well as having children themselves. Even if their quality of life might be better than, for example, that of people born into poverty on Earth, philosophy professor Neil Levy has raised the question of whether it is ethical to severely constrain life choices of individuals by locking them into a project they did not choose. A moral quandary exists regarding how intermediate generations, those destined to be born and die in transit without actually seeing tangible results of their efforts, might feel about their forced existence on such a ship.

Sleeper Starship:

A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of crewed spacecraft in which most or all of the crew spend the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation.

Suspended animation can also be useful to reduce the consumption of life support system resources by crew members who are not needed during the trip, or by an author as a plot device, and for this reason, sleeper ships sometimes also make an appearance in the context of purely interplanetary travel.

Suspended animation: Suspended animation is the temporary (short- or long-term) slowing or stopping of biological function so that physiological capabilities are preserved. It may be either hypometabolic or ametabolic in nature. It may be induced by either endogenous, natural or artificial biological, chemical or physical means. 

Embryo space colonization:

Embryo space colonization is a theoretical interstellar space colonization concept that involves sending a robotic mission to a habitable terrestrial planet, dwarf planet, minor planet or natural satellite transporting frozen early-stage human embryos or the technological or biological means to create human embryos. 

Space stations and habitats:

The difference between the two is that habitats are larger and more complex structures intended as permanent homes for substantial populations (though generation ships also fit this description, they are usually not considered space habitats as they are heading for a destination).  A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. Space stations started appearing frequently in science fiction works following the release of the 1949 popular science book The Conquest of Space by Willy Ley. 

Though space habitats are likely to remain popular in SF because of their peculiar usefulness in creating specific kinds of cultural scenario, in the real world the idea seems to be receiving less and less support as something towards which we should currently be working. Although the theoretical advantages of low Gravity and permanent energy supply are real, there are serious hazards such as the long-term effects of hard radiation from the Sun in the absence of Earth's deep atmospheric shield.Space Elevator:

A space elevator is a proposed type of planet-to-space transportation system. The main component would be a cable (also called a tether) anchored to the surface and extending into space. The design would permit vehicles to travel along the cable from a planetary surface, such as the Earth's, directly into orbit, without the use of large rockets. An Earth-based space elevator would consist of a cable with one end attached to the surface near the equator and the other end in space beyond geostationary orbit (35,786 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity, which is stronger at the lower end, and the outward/upward centrifugal force, which is stronger at the upper end, would result in the cable being held up, under tension, and stationary over a single position on Earth. With the tether deployed, climbers could repeatedly climb the tether to space by mechanical means, releasing their cargo to orbit. Climbers could also descend the tether to return cargo to the surface from orbit.

In 1979, space elevators were introduced to a broader audience with the simultaneous publication of Arthur C. Clarke's novel, The Fountains of Paradise, in which engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak in the fictional island country of "Taprobane" (loosely based on Sri Lanka, albeit moved south to the Equator), and Charles Sheffield's first novel, The Web Between the Worlds, also featuring the building of a space elevator.

The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) is a US Non-Profit Corporation formed to promote the development, construction, and operation of a space elevator as "a revolutionary and efficient way to space for all humanity". It was formed after the Space Elevator Conference in Redmond, Washington in July 2008 and became an affiliate organization with the National Space Society in August 2013. ISEC hosts an annual Space Elevator conference at the Seattle Museum of Flight.

[cynicallarrie]

I remember how last year another psychopath told zot3 that a larrie blocked her and she couldn’t see the posts anymore, and zot3 like the psychotic stalker he is, told the anon to check the blog from safari (obviously without logging in) ☠️

I’m convinced that’s what he does, BUT it’s clear that he follows all the blogs that blocked him, using his thousands of fake blogs. Because he always knows what everyone is posting. I’ve lost count of the people who blocked that maniac but he still stalks them.

Everyone does. He/she acts like we were all just born and are new to the internet.

[bllsbailey]

Plane Crash Leaves 7 Dead, Including 3 Members Of Gospel Group The Nelons

ENTERTAINMENT: OCT 16 GMA Dove Awards NASHVILLE, TN – OCTOBER 16: The Nelons arrives on the red carpet at the 49th Annual Dove Awards on October 16, 2018 at Allen Arena in Nashville, TN.

Seven people, including three members of the family gospel group The Nelons, died in a plane crash in Wyoming on Friday afternoon.

The Gaither Management Group said in a statement on Saturday that Kelly Nelon Clark, her husband Jason Clark, and their daughter Amber Nelon Kistler were on their way to the Gaither Homecoming Cruise to Alaska when the accident happened.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the collision happened close to the northeastern town of Recluse, Wyoming.

Autumn Nelon Streetman, another member of the group and Kelly and Jason’s other daughter, released a statement following the tragedy.

“Prayers that have been extended already to me, my husband, Jamie, and our soon-to-be-born baby boy, as well as Jason’s parents, Dan and Linda Clark,” she thanked in a brief statement that she released. “We appreciate your continued prayers, love, and support as we navigate the coming days.”

The group’s last Instagram post was on Friday after they documented a pit stop in Nebraska.

“Gaither Homecoming Alaskan cruise. We are on our way,” Jason Clark said before panning the camera to show the rest of the group.

Melodi Hodges, pilot Larry Haynie and his wife Melissa, pilot Nathan Kistler, Amber’s husband, and an assistant were also killed in the crash.

It wasn’t immediately evident what caused the collision. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is looking into the incident.

An NTSB spokesperson stated that preliminary data suggests that a Pilatus PC-12/47E, a turboprop aircraft with a single engine, “impacted terrain following a reported autopilot issue during flight.”

The spokesperson stated that not much information is currently available and that the investigation is still in its early stages. A team from the agency was headed to the crash site. 

The spokesperson also said that the team will start inspecting the aircraft as soon as they have access to the plane, which is located in a remote area.

The Nelons have recorded more than 35 albums and amassed over 20 Top 5 Southern Gospel radio singles for songs including “Thanks,” “Come Morning,” “We Shall Wear a Robe and Crown,” and “O for a Thousand Tongues.”

In 2016, they were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Throughout their career, they received a Grammy nomination for best Southern gospel album in 1991 and 35 nominations for the GMA Dove Awards. They most recently won a Dove Award for country/bluegrass/roots recorded song of the year in 2021 for “If God Pulled Back the Curtain.”

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

[thewestern]

Chapter 6

Born a beer baroness, Hildegard Wolff had never laid eyes on a brewery so small. She made one last survey of the place, and ducked out the front door, held open by her bodyguard, who was really more of a valet, even if he wore the familiar earpiece and aviator sunglasses of a federal agent. 

Obediently, Mayor Mockingbird fell in behind. Their respective stages awaited on the curb in a designated no-parking zone. Loading Only: Eight to Five. His was a black sport utility vehicle, American-made; hers a full-sized luxury saloon of bespoke, mother-of-pearl exterior, imported from the United Kingdom. Her anglophilic selection of limousine constituted another in a lifelong series of subtle acts of rebellion against her deceased grandfather, Wilhelm I, who would have been sorely offended by the suggestion of riding in anything other than a German Autocar. 

Impatiently, Billy waited in the cabin. Thus was his act of protest. Although he himself was personally more familiar with the Craft Brewing Scene, such as it were, in a professional capacity, such as it was, he did not think much of the New Frontier Brewing Company. Of Mayor Mockingbird, he thought even less. His mother’s interest in either entity confounded him. They couldn’t see him through the extralegally tinted windows, but he could see out to them as they briefly embraced, he whispering a bitter something in her ear, she throwing her head back in hackling laughter, so uproarious as to transcend insincerity. 

After parting Larry’s company, Hildy’s security guard-slash-chauffer led her to the car and opened the rear suicide door. For his part, he preferred the title of protective field operative, the one used in the marketing materials for the Perlmutter Firm, the global comprehensive risk mitigation agency which deployed him. The mayor was meanwhile being led to his transpo by the deputy sheriff. They shut the car doors in unison and sized one other up briskly, before exchanging respectful nods in solemn acknowledgment of one another’s service. 

I don’t understand, of what use is he to us? 

Hildy could hardly sit down before Billy started in. 

Not Us, dear. Me. 

As far as You’re concerned, whatever this childish aversion is to politics, well, you’ll have to grow out of it eventually. It’s my responsibility to work with these people, no matter how distasteful that may seem to you. And, it’s not any of your business, but I foresee the future governor’s usefulness bearing fruit in all manner of ways. Let that be a lesson in itself. We live in a democracy, Billy. We live in a democracy, Billy. By all means, let yourself be heard. Just, please, do it somewhere else.

Hildy hadn’t cast a vote for Mayor Mockinbird. The Wolffenhaus family residence wasn’t actually within the city proper. That’s not to say that she’d a voted for him if she could’ve because absolutely she wouldn’t. Some lines could not be crossed. She had however made max contributions to his campaigns for election and reelection, in both her name and Billy’s, totaling several thousand dollars over multiple cycles. Putting party loyalty aside, Opa wouldn’t have disapproved of this one bit; of course, you have to work with these people. (Vote with your conscience; contribute to your self interest.) Now that Mockingbird declared his candidacy for state office, she had agreed to chair his super political action committee — More Values PAC — and committed to an orders-of-magnitude more gratuitous schedule of donation, summing somewheres in the middle-six figures.

  Put firmly in his place, Billy cursed himself for once again allowing his emotions to interfere with his business objectives. He simply had to be more strategic when interfacing with Mother. Rather than attempt a high-risk recovery maneuver, he resolved to wait until she had cooled down before broaching the more mission-critical subject at hand. Besides, he knew how mother was loath to discuss the family or any other business in the car. Predisposed to motion sickness, she preferred to ride in total silence in this, what was finely tuned — by the same acoustic engineers that designed recording studios, opera houses and black site interrogation suites — to be the quietest car on the market. Above his cluttered thoughts, labored panting on the part of her most beloved companions — a pair of asthmatic terriers — was all Billy could hear.  

Driving from downtown to the family residence, which was tucked away in the foothills, Hildy always insisted on taking a more scenic route. One that bypassed the main interstate and its polluted sightlines, pockmarked on either side by mobile home parks and billboards advertising personal injury attorneys. Her preferred route of passage ran right along Collegiate Avenue, first abutting the botanic gardens — for which Hildy was a distinguished member on the board of directors. Then intersecting a boutique shopping and restaurant district — where Billy could often be seen socially. Straight through the heart of the campus of Collegiate’s namesake college — a private institution to which Billy’s great-grandfather, Hildy’s Opa, Wilhelm I, was a massive benefactor (his name was on so many buildings, they considered naming the whole place after him). A large stone wall shielded from view an historic neighborhood — where Hildy kept her primary residence. There were three roadside churches — Episcopalian, non-denominational and Roman Catholic, in that order … she found them each to be regrettable eyesores. Likewise, three country clubs — two of which the Wolff’s maintained lifetime memberships that they hardly if ever used. Lastly, the country day school both Billy and Hildy had attended — although, the former had not been allowed to complete his studies there, a fact that sent off a sharp spiral of pain down his and her spines with every single passing. The detour nearly doubled the time to destination, but to Hildy, lounging in the privacy suite, the subtle scent of genuine walnut wafting off the hand-carved veneers, reclining on the handstitched leather seats … she could have just as well teleported. Nevermind how that thrice-varnished wood paneling and artisanally-tanned hide upholstery were currently being coated in drool. 

Leading into the Wolffenhaus, a long driveway extended out a quarter-mile — intimidating the first time you drove in, tedious every time after. In one of the only home improvements he ever made, Wilhelm I had German oaks harvested from the Black Forest, shipped — first via steamliner, then by rail — and replanted in a canopy formation lining the vehicular foyer. Back there in that Black Forest there were some trees that lived to three, five, seven hundred years old even. But here in this rocky topsoil they wouldn’t last a fraction of that if they were lucky. As for these invasive specimens, they were approaching the end of their short lifespans, relatively speaking. But you couldn’t tell it by looking at them. Strong and beautiful as ever, they appeared to be from the bottom up. Leaves had completed their turn and were beginning to shed now. The sweep of the passing car dusted them off the smooth black pavement, kind of like the car commercials for the Fall Sales Event. Zero percent APR. 

Motion sensing their arrival, a front gate cranked itself open beneath an archway, itself inscribed in corrugated iron with a family motto of sorts — Der Hunger Des Wolfes Gehört Uns. Although its erection had pre-dated outbreak of the Second World War by some years, the feature nonetheless bore a troubling resemblance to an infamous aphorism as it appeared above the entranceways to Dachau, Auschwitz and other concentration camps across Nazi-occupied Europe. Then with the landing of the Second British Invasion of the early eighties, the words’ English translation — The Hunger of the Wolf is Ours — became a source of some public ridicule for a separate reason entirely. 

As a global comprehensive risk mitigation professional, Ariel was highly trained to treat his clients only insofar as they were assets with which to be safeguarded. That this client of German heritage had a decorative homage to the Holocaust was immaterial to that objective. In any event, even as an Israeli Jew, the Nazis didn’t figure prominently onto his personal axes of evil. This despite a childhood of hearing his grandfather’s stories of surviving Buchenwald, and his own father’s stories of pursuing fugitive war criminals across South America, which he only partway believed. That was then. Now, he was a man, and not for nothing but he’d met many native Germans socially who he quite liked, mostly in the progressive house and trance music scenes that he frequented in his life outside of work. Besides, his generation of Israeli Jews had a new enemy entirely. Those surface-to-surface missiles — Cavness Bauman-made — weren’t shooting down the Luftwaffe, now were they? One grudge at a time.

Buzzing the unoccupied guardpost, Ariel accelerated slowly onto the crushed gravel that surfaced the circular motor court. Parking between the dry fountain where the stone wolves no longer spit, and the overgrown facade, he killed the engine, exited the drivers’ side door, walked efficiently — never run, unless lives are at stake — around the hood to the rear passenger side. He manually opened the door (it was press-button automatic, but the client preferred the human touch). Executed all with a tactical fluidity. As contractually stipulated, it was a breach of Perlmutter Firm protocol for protective field operatives to serve in this capacity — as butlers with guns. However, since this was a legacy account, Ariel was instructed by his handlers to make an exception. 

With all the subtlety of a B-Fifty Two Stratofortress, a strategic bomber capable of carrying a payload of up to seventy thousand pounds, Hildy buzzed Ariel’s post as he stood there at attention. Carefully, she had chosen his picture and physical measurements from a catalogue the agency prepared specifically for her, constituting another breach of protocol. Per firm guidelines, operatives were to be assigned to assets on a basis of aptitude and field readiness. Furthermore, hitherto assignments were to be maintained strictly on a need-to-know basis. Alas, here was a VIP whose special requests would have to be accommodated, no matter how peculiar. So much of global comprehensive risk mitigation had become client relations. It hadn’t always been that way. 

Beside, the Wolff account was a legacy account, but it wasn’t like a big account. Not by a long shot. No, by today’s standards for executive security — corporate budgets for which had been ballooning in direct correlation with executive compensation — a one-operative detail was almost unheard of. For a fact, the Wolff account ran a net loss. That notwithstanding incidents of late payment, which had been increasing of late. Nonetheless, in light of the family’s chequered history, in which this particular firm played a somewhat regrettable role, their service was kept active, basically at cost.

Albeit somewhat sluggishly, the dogs obediently fell in behind on single file — in fact, every place she went, they pursued … including and especially the restroom. Hildy had expressed concern to Ariel how the modest drop from car door to ground might exacerbate the arthritis in their stubby-wubby little legs, so he helped them each down one at a time, taking care to avoid getting slobber on what was his only suit. Even for a man of his practical strength, their lumpy, cylindrical shapes — like tubes of premade dough — were somewhat awkward handling. He had ordered a small foldout ramp from an online pet store, billed to the client expense account, but it had yet to arrive.   

Billy remained in the car, tapping away at his phone. He sat on the opposite side of the extended cabin from mother, specifically so that she couldn’t see his screen — even if that meant he had to sit betwixt the canine mucus kings. Often she would ask, what it was he was even doing with his toy, which is what she called his mobile phone — Hildy felt superior for not bothering to even own one. Emails, he would respond curtly. And often that was true. His inbox had hundreds upon thousands of unread messages; he would sometimes show women the tally in an odd attempt to impress them. This phone had so many other applications though. He could be checking his bank balance (he had shown women that, too), online shopping for whatever struck his fancy at the present moment (he coveted hats, as in baseball caps, and collected them compulsively … he also had a considerably more expensive weakness for watches [timepieces, he called them] … you might say he was a man in perpetual need of accessory), or otherwise surfing the internet … other times he would surreptitiously watch internet porn, doing mother the courtesy of making sure the speaker was muted. It wasn’t a sex thing; it was an impulse control thing. And that his mom was in the car, that had nothing to do with it. Whatever, it’s not like he was driving. Just come off it, won’t you.

Again, he was not watching porn on his phone, at present. Actually, he had a high score going on Brick Blaster, which quite cynically combined the most addictive elements of two vintage arcade games into a digital speedball for dicking around. A Solitaire for the Singularity, of a sort.  

Ariel waited beside the door he held open. Once before he had forgotten Billy was back there and had driven the car around to the moto paddock with him inside. He still hadn’t lived that down. Standing there for another ten minutes, he resisted the urge to check his own phone for an important message he was expecting. Ariel had big plans, you see. He wasn’t going to be a protective field operative forever. He was a man with really special skill, to just barely misquote his new favorite film. Skills that he would not let go to waste. Finally, Billy momentarily emerged from his trance, having fallen only woefully short of his high score. Immediately commencing a new game, he made his way out of the vehicle without even looking up, still managing to make Ariel feel plenty looked down upon. 

Zayin ba’ayin (זַיִן בַעָיִן), Ariel cursed under his breath as he passed, using the Hebrew slang for dick in the eye, or fuck you in the eye. As in, that was like six weeks ago I forget you in the car, asshole … fuck you in your eye. He waited for the large manor doors to close behind him before he spitted on the ground in his general direction, muttering out loud this time, Ben Zona (בן זונה), which was a more common insult meaning son of a whore, or son of a prostitute. Although in certain contexts of contemporary slang, it meant awesome, or excellent. Ariel had been so far away from home so long he wasn’t always current with exactly how they told folks to fuck off anymore.

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues (Easy Piano Solo sheet music)

Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues (Easy Piano Solo sheet music)

https://dai.ly/x8fghht

The Moody Blues

Band from Birmingham (England), founded in 1964. With Denny Laine in their ranks and songs like “Go Now”, “Let Me Go”, “He Can Win” or “And My Baby's Gone”, The Moody Blues began their career at Decca performing great R&B music; but the authentic R&B, not the modern party soul, thousands of light years from the soul of Motown or Stax, I don't know why the hell they call it R&B, confusing the staff since it has nothing to do, except their black roots, with the exciting R&B of the 50s and 60s. Well, it doesn't matter... At the end of the 60s, with the departure of Laine from the group and the entry of Justin Hayward, the Moody Blues abandoned these early sounds to embrace psychedelia, prog-rock and orchestral sounds, achieving immortality thanks to the song "Nights In White Satin” and magnificent albums like “Days Of Future Passed” , “On The Treshold Of a Dream” or “In The Search Of The Lost Chord”.

The band, managed by Tony Secunda (who also took over the career of the Move ), originally consisted of singer/guitarist Denny Laine (born October 29, 1944 in Jersey), keyboardist/vocalist Mike Pinder (born December 12, 1942, in Birmingham), vocalist, flute and harmonica player Ray Thomas (born December 29, 1942, in Stourport on Severn), bassist Clint Warwick (born June 25, 1940, in Birmingham) and drummer Graeme Edge (born March 30, 1941, in Rochester). Before joining the quintet, its members had already played in different bands, Thomas and Pinder having shared a group in projects such as El Riot & The Rebels or The Krew Cats, a band that came, like the Beatles, to play in Hamburg . For his part, Denny Laine had been the leader of Denny & The Diplomats, and Graeme Edge was part of Gerry Levene & The Avengers. Converted into the Moody Blues, they recorded the single "Lose Your Money (But Don't Lose Your Mind)" at Decca in 1964, a rhythmic song written by the Laine/Pinder couple that passed unnoticed through the stores of albums, quite the opposite of the following, "Go Now", a song written by Larry Banks and Milton Bennett, previously recorded by Bessie Banks, which took them to number 1 in the United Kingdom and 10 in the United States in 1964.

A year later other singles appeared: “I Don't Want To Go On Without You” (number 33), a song written by Jerry Wexler and producer Bert Berns; “From The Bottom Of My Heart (I Love You)” (number 22), composed by Laine and Pinder, as was “Everyday” (number 44). All of these tracks are found on their debut LP, "The Magnificent Moodies" (1965) , lavishly expanded on subsequent reissues with sensational songs found only at the time in single format. Although the sales of their latest singles had not been trivial after achieving a number 1 with "Go Now", the group was somewhat disappointed with the commercial response, especially the great songs "Boulevard De La Madelaine" and "Life's Not Life”. This fact caused the group to vary its formation in a very important way. Clint Warwick left the Moody Blues, now represented by Brian Epstein, replaced by another member of El Riot & The Rebels, bassist and vocalist John Lodge (born July 20, 1945 in Birmingham), and key band member thus far, Denny Laine, who was replaced by singer/guitarist Justin Hayward (born 14 October 1946 in Swindon). Laine rose to fame in the 1970s with Paul McCartney as part of the Wings.

The new Moody Blues released "Days Of Future Passed" (1967) , a great conceptual album produced by Tony Clarke and orchestrated by Pete Knight with the participation of the London Festival Orchestra. It offered psychedelic and progressive sounds exemplified in the Hayward-penned single "Nights In White Satin" (number 19 in 1967). The LP was more successful in the United States than in his own country, reaching number 3 on Billboard and 27 in England. They had previously released the singles "Fly Me High", composed by Hayward, and "Love And Beauty", written by Mike Pinder. "In The Search Of The Lost Chord" (1968), with mellotron sounds (Pinder being a master of the instrument), extended the psychedelic, lyrical and conceptual sound of this new stage and continued to increase his international audience, both in his performances in direct as in the sale of his vinyls, which in the United Kingdom took him to number 5. Among the tracks on “In The Search Of The Lost Chord” are the singles “Voices In The Sky” (number 27) and “Ride My See-Saw” (number 42).

“On The Threshold Of a Dream” (1969) reached number 1 in Great Britain thanks to songs like “Lovely To See You” or the single “Never Comes The Day”; while "To Our Children's Children" (1969), released on his own Threshold Records label, peaked at number 2. If the end of the decade had been great for the Moody Blues, the beginning of the 70s was the same or even better, since both "Question Of Balance" (1970), with the single "Question" (number 2), and the phenomenal "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" (1971) reached the top in the UK and number 2 in the US. The desire to fly solo on the part of its different members meant that, at the peak of their career, the group ceased their activities for a long time after publishing the LP "Seventh Sojourn" (1972), a very appreciable album with songs like “For My Lady”, “New Horizons”, “Lost In A Lost World”, “Isn't Life Strange” or “I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock'n'Roll Band)” that raised them to number 5 in the UK and to number 1 in the US.

Justin Hayward and John Lodge released the album "Blue Jays" (1975). Hayward and Lodge made their solo debut years later with, respectively, "Songwriter" (1977) and "Natural Avenue" (1977). Pinder had started his solo career with "The Promise" (1976), as had Thomas with "From Mighty Oaks" (1976) and Edge with his Graeme Edge Band and the album "Kick Off Your Muddy Boots" (1975). At the end of the 70s, the Moody Blues got together again to record "Octave" (1978), an album that returned them to number 1 on the British charts. A year earlier they had prepared their comeback by releasing the live album “Caught Live + 5” (1977), an album that included performances by the group in the 1960s. After "Octave", Mike Pinder, a very important piece in the band's classic sound, was replaced by Patrick Moraz. In the decades that followed, The Moody Blues recorded studio works such as "Long Distance Voyager" (1981) and "The Present" (1983), both produced by Pip Williams, "The Other Side Of Life" (1986), "Sur La Mer” (1988) and “Keys Of The Kingdom” (1991), all produced by Tony Visconti, or “Strange Times” (1999), without Moraz and with keyboards by Danilo Madonia, and “December” (2003) , without the participation of Ray Thomas. The latter died on January 4, 2018 after suffering from prostate cancer. He was 76 years old. about:blank In 2010, the live show "Live At The Royal Albert Hall" (2010) was released. In 2016 his song "Life's Not Life" was included in "Let's Go Down And Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967", a 3-CD box set released by Cherry Red Records with psychedelic sounds. In 2017, “Question” was played on the double vinyl “Hi-Fidelity (A Taste Of Stereo Sound)”. In 2018 the live "Days Of Future Passed Live" (2018) appeared, with the single "Say It With Love"; and “Tuesday Afternoon” was included in the “Mai 68 Revolution” compilation, a 4-CD box set published by Universal with music that played during the period of the May 68 revolution. The same year his song “Lose Your Money (But Don't Lose Your Mind)” was included in “Fab Gear (The British Beat Explosion And Its Aftershocks 1963-1967” (2018), a 6-CD box set released by RPM with 185 songs by bands from the British Invasion of the 60s. In 2018 Universal released a 5-CD box set, titled “Mod” (2018), in which the song “And My Baby's Gone” plays. Sony, also in 2018, included their classic “Nights In White Satin” in “Chilled 60s” (2018), a triple CD with 60 songs by different artists from the 60s. It opens with Fleetwood Mac's “Albatross ” and closes with Santana 's “Soul Sacrifice” . That year they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, presented by Ann Wilson of the group Heart . In 2019, Decca included their 1967 single, “Love And Beauty”, in “The Psychedelic Scene” (2019), an open double vinyl with the song “Vacuum Cleaner” by Tintern Abbey. Graeme Edge passed away, due to cancer, on November 11, 2021 in Sarasola, Florida (United States). He was 80 years old. Read the full article

[techniche]

Back in the lead-up to the First Gulf War (1990-1991), for example, another member of the Bush dynasty, President George H. W. Bush, invoked the “new world order”, in his address to Congress on September 11, 1990: Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective — a new world order — can emerge: a new era — freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world – East and West, North and South – can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. And today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak (emphasis added).

Witness U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush addressing Congress after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait

Source

The term “new world order” as a name applying to a new socialist world government can be traced back at least as far as 1845, to the book The Holy Family by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Amusingly enough, it was attributed to someone on President George H.W. Bush’s staff back in 1990, when Bush turned a lot of heads by endorsing the creation of the “New World Order” and affirming the UN’s key role in it. -  How Biden’s Latest “New World Order” Remark Affects You (By Larry Greenly in thenewamerican.com, March 2022)

[disillusioned41]

A first-of-its-kind analysis of newly disclosed Internal Revenue Service data shows that the richest 25 billionaires in the United States paid a true federal tax rate of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018—even as they added a staggering $401 billion to their collective wealth.

"Many will ask about the ethics of publishing such private data. We are doing so—quite selectively and carefully—because we believe it serves the public interest in fundamental ways, allowing readers to see patterns that were until now hidden." —Richard Tofel & Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica

Published Tuesday by the investigative nonprofit ProPublica—which obtained a sprawling cache of IRS data on thousands of the nation's wealthiest people dating back 15 years—the analysis takes aim at "the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most."

"Our analysis of tax data for the 25 richest Americans quantifies just how unfair the system has become. By the end of 2018, the 25 were worth $1.1 trillion," ProPublica notes. "For comparison, it would take 14.3 million ordinary American wage earners put together to equal that same amount of wealth. The personal federal tax bill for the top 25 in 2018: $1.9 billion. The bill for the wage earners: $143 billion."

"Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, amassing little wealth and paying the federal government a percentage of their income that rises if they earn more," the outlet adds. "In recent years, the median American household earned about $70,000 annually and paid 14% in federal taxes."

The new analysis juxtaposes the recent wealth gains of U.S. billionaires—as estimated by Forbes—with the information in the newly obtained IRS data to derive the "true tax rate" paid by the mega-rich.

The results show that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—the world's richest man—and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett paid a true tax rate of 0.98% and 0.10%, respectively, between 2014 and 2018. In 2007, ProPublica notes, Bezos paid nothing in federal taxes even as his wealth grew by $3.8 billion.

Economist Gabriel Zucman, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the ProPublica reporting is "full of incredible findings."

"Looks like the biggest tax story of the year, if not the decade," Zucman added.

ProPublica makes clear that, far from being the beneficiaries of a sprawling, illegal tax dodging scheme, "it turns out billionaires don't have to evade taxes exotically and illicitly—they can avoid them routinely and legally," a point that spotlights the systemic inequities of the U.S. tax system.

As the outlet explains:

Most Americans have to work to live. When they do, they get paid—and they get taxed. The federal government considers almost every dollar workers earn to be "income," and employers take taxes directly out of their paychecks.

The Bezoses of the world have no need to be paid a salary. Bezos' Amazon wages have long been set at the middle-class level of around $80,000 a year.

For years, there's been something of a competition among elite founder-CEOs to go even lower. Steve Jobs took $1 in salary when he returned to Apple in the 1990s. Facebook’s Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and Google's Larry Page have all done the same.

Yet this is not the self-effacing gesture it appears to be: Wages are taxed at a high rate. The top 25 wealthiest Americans reported $158 million in wages in 2018, according to the IRS data. That's a mere 1.1% of what they listed on their tax forms as their total reported income. The rest mostly came from dividends and the sale of stock, bonds, or other investments, which are taxed at lower rates than wages.

To illustrate the consequences of a system that doesn't tax unrealized capital gains, ProPublica cites the example of Bezos' $127 billion explosion in wealth between 2006 and 2018. The Amazon CEO "reported a total of $6.5 billion in income" during that period and paid $1.4 billion in personal federal taxes—a 1.1% true tax rate.

"America's billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people," ProPublica notes. "Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell."

Richard Tofel, ProPublica's founding general manager and outgoing president, said Tuesday that he considers the tax analysis "the most important story we have ever published."

"In the coming months, we plan to use this material to explore how the nation's wealthiest people—roughly the .001%—exploit the structure of our tax code to avoid the tax burdens borne by ordinary citizens," Tofel and ProPublica editor-in-chief Stephen Engelberg wrote in a separate article Tuesday. "Many will ask about the ethics of publishing such private data. We are doing so—quite selectively and carefully—because we believe it serves the public interest in fundamental ways, allowing readers to see patterns that were until now hidden."

[officialleehadan]

To Distant Stars

Today’s story was brought to you by Larry! We don’t talk much, darling , but I’m always delighted to hear from you!

Prompt: The first time Blaec and Evelene left Earth

+

The ship trembled around them, almost imperceptible under the roar of the engines, but still there as the ship lifted away from the ground. It was new and polished and enchanted against every possible harm.

But Evelene, wrapped in the arms of her dragon, felt a curl of fear. It wasn’t a frequent feeling in her life. There was little she was afraid of, on the whole. Almost nothing could harm her, none of her loved ones were mortal, and the few mortals she was fond of were all reliably in the company of deities who would make sure they were cared for.

So fear, while not new, was unusual.

“Are you ready to leave Earth?”

Blaec’s eyes were on the window. It was strange for him, too. Not that he was afraid. Evelene could feel him in the back of her mind as always, and his anxiety was based on something other than danger.

Dragons, after all, hated to fly under anything but their own power. Evelene sometimes flew on human craft, but Blaec would rather sleep on a glacier than trust someone else to do his flying for him. All the same, even his wings weren’t enough to carry them to Luna Base for the very first time.

“Do you remember the first moon landing?” Evelene asked rather than answer his question. She remembered that day. Staring at the little television and the brave, mad humans who strapped themselves to a bomb and trusted it to carry them away from the little rock they called home. She and Blaec had watched with fascination and bated breath as the little ship touched down, and the men aboard stepped onto the moon for the first time. “back in 1969?”

“We watched it from our suite at the Regency,” Blaec said. Evelene could feel his smile against her hair. “I was impressed they made it. More impressed that they made it back.”

“Fortunately, things have gotten more sophisticated since then,” Evelene told him. The ship they were in was a fine one, designed for comfort during travel. It might be the first time they had left the planet, but humans had been doing it for several centuries and they were good at it by now. There were bases on or near every planet in their solar system, and more being established around their nearest astral neighbors. “Are you sure this is the right decision? We never talked about leaving Earth.”

It was a big step, this single flight to the moon. Soon there would be other steps moving forward, to distant planets, and then to distant stars. Someday, maybe, even to a distant galaxy or beyond.

“Hoshi will protect it,” Blaec said. Together, they watched as the Earth drifted away below them. Their home for thousands of years. The place she was born, and he broke shell. “I’m not even the first dragon to leave Earth. Azu lived on Luna Base for the better part of a decade before joining on the early mission to establish Centauri Base at the next nearest star to Earth. He was still there. Blaec heard from him once a year or so. “Al’Mudhib is waiting for us at Luna Base. Something about the observatory and one of those big mining ships they built for traveling the Kuiper Belt.”

The ships were impressive feats of engineering. Evelene had seen pictures of them often enough. Huge, hollow orbs designed to carry the materials needed to carry humanity to the stars. Between magic and ingenuity, the stars were, for the first time, in reach.

Evelene looked forward to seeing each one. After all, it wasn’t like they were short of time, and humans did incredible things given enough time and enough resources. She remembered looking up at the stars with her mother as her father told her and her sisters the name of every one of them.

Perhaps she would have stories even her godly family didn’t know when she returned. Her cousins were a wide-spread bunch, and they all had adventures to share. She held her own, of course, but this might very well win her the first bottle of Great-Aunt Hestia’s yearly garum production. It was the small things that motivated her.

“Are you asking me on an adventure, First Dragon?” Evelene said, intrigued and charmed. Blaec loved to spoil her, but he was inherently overprotective and didn’t like to take chances with her safety. He must be very confident indeed. Then again, between his magic, hers, and the company of one of the Djinn Kings, there weren’t very many chances for terrible consequence. “How scandalous of you. People might mistake us and think we are married.”

“I can think of no one I would rather adventure with, First Mermaid,” he replied and kissed the top of her head. Evelene turned in his arms and stole a proper kiss from her dragon. He rumbled happily at her and they traded little kisses as the Earth turned into a glowing blue marble behind their ship. “Well, my Great Treasure? Shall we explore the stars?”

+++

HGE - The Others

Tales of before the Human Galactic Empire became what it would one day be.

Sea and Sky

Triton’s Daughter (Subscriber Only!)

Blast and Burn

The Oldest of Friends (Free on Patreon!)

Forward to Treasure (Free on Patreon!)

Sky Battle

Particular Particulars (Free on Patreon!)

+++

MASTERLIST

+++

[cantquitu]

Hi! I'm a relatively new fan, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around whatever Larry was or wasn't. At this point, I'm inclined to believe it was never real; but there are times when things were dubious. And no, it's not the thousands of cute larry slowed down gifsets of them glancing at each other or the 10-hour best larry moments compilation videos or tender touches, mirroring, undeniable larry proof videos scattered all over youtube or whatever bullshit - none of that.

But. The RBB/SBB thing though.

Do you think RBB/SBB was all just larrybaiting? Do you think they, both Harry and Louis, still actively larrybait? It's good for their pockets obviously, considering there's still an abundant number of larries even in 2021... But them (or their team?) knowingly giving larries 'crumbs' to add to their 'proof' doesn't sit right with me at all. Maybe they're NOT larrybaiting and larries really just run with anything. But that still doesn't explain RBB/SBB, so... thoughts?

Sorry if this is a tired subject. You're free to delete this ask if you want, just tell me in the tags if you did! Thanks for for your time, stay safe! :)

Hi! I'm glad that you're questioning Larrie and coming to understand that it was never real.

RBB/SBB had nothing to do with Harry or Louis. They belonged to 1D's tour sound man, a gay man in his '40s who adopted RBB as a queer mascot and had fun with the 1D fans. Larries believed that the teddybears belonged to Harry and Louis and that they were using these bears to send them secret signals about their closet and their relationship, because Larries are delusional conspiracy theorists.

RBB/SBB were not larrybaiting. They were used to share references to queer culture and history, but most Larries are only interested in queer history and culture in so far as they can use it to support their erotic/persecution fantasies about Louis and Harry.

Like most grown adults, I doubt this guy understood how delusional a proportion of 1D's fandom was, or what they truly believed about the bears. Shortly after 1D ended, when Freddie Tomlinson was born, fans messaged the social media account to say that the bears were being used by fans to justify harassment of Louis' baby son, and that was the end of the bears.

No, Harry and Louis do not larrybait. Larries are an insignifcant proportion of Harry's fanbase and he has no reason to do so even if he were inclined (which he never has been since "Larry" stopped being a fun jokey thing that he and Louis shared with the fandom, back in 2012). Unfortunately Larries are a significant proportion of Louis' fandom, but despite the risk of diminishing his fanbase (and therefore his revenue). Louis has made it very clear what he thinks of them.

And yes, Larries really do just run with anything.

[poptod]

hello! can i request something romantic with either ahk or snafu or really any rami character where y/n has round dark brown doe eyes? like so dark brown they look black if you’re not looking at them in sunlight? and he’s just flirting with them and he says something nice about their eyes? i have round dark brown eyes and i’m kinda insecure about them cuz they’re so common, and it’s been one shit-show if a week for me and i really just need to feel good about myself

notes: damn, i can totally do that for you. hope your weekend is much better than your week :) thank u for requesting and i hope you enjoy it !

WC: 2k

+

Life never worked naturally to your advantage. You were born average looking – nothing special on either side of the spectrum, with average hands and common dark brown eyes. You grew up poor and worked your ass off to get into a good college on a scholarship, eventually getting kicked out for something you didn't even do. You auditioned to be part of an orchestra, but there were too many violinists already, and you just 'didn't fit the profile'. You tried to be an artist, but no one liked your creations. You tried to pick up another instrument, but you couldn't afford a good one, and the last time you tried to buy a cheap guitar, the neck broke on the third use.

Because of these many happenstances (and the many more, less mentionable ones), you considered yourself unlucky. It was a fact of life for you as much as the sun's existence in other peoples lives, or that the superbowl was too long. Or guacamole wasn't good. Fortunately, the years of nothing ever coming naturally had made you into a fantastic worker, and by some rare stroke of luck, you found you were rather good at physical labor jobs. You weren't strong by any standards – in fact rather weak – but your attention to detail made you the janitor of a prestigious museum you visited twice as a child.

It wasn't a fantastic job, and the poor pay led to having five roommates, but you enjoyed yourself. You tried to do that in every aspect of life; finding the joy in menial tasks, or solace in duty. After all, you got to see wonderful recreations of history in the still wax figures, and learn heaps of knowledge from the many information panels you came across when making your way through the museum. The only truly unfortunate part of your job was the time – right after closing, but you had to finish quickly, as you weren't allowed inside at night. A stupid rule, but the night guard and Dr. McPhee were insistent on it.

They thought you didn't know about the exhibits.

They were, obviously, wrong. You knew, and you adored the magic behind it all. While you hadn't actually ever seen any of the exhibits come to life, you watched the news on an evening where the exhibits broke out, and with your knowledge of the Tablet curse, you pieced the mystery together.

You hadn't meant to take this long. McPhee was already pissed at you for 'accidentally' skipping over the men's restroom yesterday, and taking too long at your job would land you on thin ice, something you couldn't afford. With a hurried pace you finished sweeping the floors in the last room, storing the broom away and moving on to mopping. Checking your watch once more, you noted the time, mentally checking if you would be able to finish before closing hours.

Mopping the Egyptian room usually takes five to ten minutes, and closing is in two, you thought, despair settling in your stomach. What would you do if you 'found out' about the tablet? What would McPhee do if he found out you knew? He wouldn't fire you, would he?

You truly didn't know. He was a bit of a loose cannon when it came to those things.

As fast as you tried to move, the hours of night came faster than you could mop, and the tablet began to glow behind you. Bewildered you turned, watching with your mouth slightly parted as the glow grew to the radiance of the sun. You knew the tablet brought the magic, but you didn't know about the glow – now that you were witnessing it yourself, the only thing you could feel in your pounding heart was fear. A fear that only grew worse when the Pharaoh's sarcophagus began to rattle.

You'd thought about the wax figures coming to life. You thought about the dinosaur. You, however, did not think about the 4,000 year old mummy.

Needless to say, you bolted. Leaving behind your supplies, you ran as fast as you could, wind pounding past your ears as the sound of a lion's roar came from the neighboring hall. You grit your teeth and made for the main entrance, but by the time you got there many of the exhibits had adjoined in the main room. Pressing yourself against the locked door, you watched with wide eyes as the Teddy Roosevelt statue began to talk to Attila, and in that moment you realized that perhaps magic was not always good. Not when you were spiralling into a panic at least.

It took a couple hours of you staring into space before anyone actually noticed you. To your surprise, it wasn't the night guard, or even McPhee – it was a Pharaoh, skin and everything intact. His crown remained polished upon his head, a stark difference from the crowns on exhibit, whose colors and carvings had faded long ago.

"Hello," he said with a pleasant, polite smile as he knelt, matching the height of your seated position on the floor. "Are you a new exhibit?"

You looked down at your clothes. Janitor clothes.

"No," you said, and instantly his demeanor changed.

"Oh dear," he said, and though you agreed with that statement, you certainly did not agree with him grabbing your wrist and dragging you into the crowd.

"I don't really want to be doing this," you said in a shaky voice, but he did not answer.

As he dragged you through the crowd you kept your eyes closed, wary of overstimulation of both ears and eyes. He eventually stopped at the top of the stairs, where you opened your eyes to find the night guard, Larry.

"What are you still doing here?" Larry asked almost frantically, looking between the dancers below and you.

"In my defense I didn't want to be here, I knew about the magic and I don't – I didn't ever want to actually see it," you half-lied.

"How the hell did you know?!"

"You don't do a very good job of covering it up, Larry," you said flatly, your voice still cracking from nerves.

You didn't have very many friends. Your roommates didn't talk to you much, and the life you had outside of work consisted mostly of quiet, indoor hobbies you could do just about anywhere. So, once the whole of the situation was sorted out (with input from McPhee), you took your drawing pads and notebooks to the museum with you, working for the first few hours and drawing into the hours of night while watching history come to life.

Despite your original discomfort of being in the presence of a 100% authentic, come-to-life mummy, you became rather good friends with him. Not fantastic, and he didn't know very much about you, but he was kind and handsome. You hated to admit it, but he held your avid interest. Another one of those unlucky things in your life – of course you had to fall in love with an immortal, reanimated mummy who only came to life at night.

"Why don't you ever come dance with us?" Ahkmenrah (his name, apparently) said as he sat down beside you on the loft, the only barrier between you and a fifteen-foot fall being a stone rail.

"I'm afraid I'm not all that good of a dancer," you said, not bothering to look up from your sketchbook. You couldn't ever bear to look at him that long anyway.

"Neither am I," he laughed. "That's the point."

Instinctively you looked up at him, holding eye contact with his grey eyes for only a second before you looked away, a blush already making its way to your cheeks. He had the opposite of your life – lucky beyond belief. The favorite of his parents, completely immortal, completely beautiful, almost too wealthy, and many, many friends, including yourself.

What got you the most however was his eyes. Cold eyes were already praised in modern society – people loved grey, they loved blue and green. But in Ahkmenrah's society, the one that existed thousands of years ago, blue eyes hardly existed. The mutation for the new color was one in a billion back then, making him one of the (probably) three people on the planet with blue eyes. And now that lucky mutation stood before you in its purest, oldest form, and you couldn't bear to look at them for any longer than a solitary moment.

For some reason, it hurt you. Maybe because you were boring. Dull. Brown in a brown society. Sure, they looked beautiful in sunlight – you knew that. They turned into swirling gold and the taste of chocolate, but Ahk couldn't see them in the sunlight. That made you dull.

Now, Ahkmenrah was not a man to point things out about people. If they were being a dickhead, yes, but most of the time he noted things and dismissed them. But you'd been doing this for so long that he grew weary of the dance.

"Why don't you ever look at me?" He asked, a question that had your eyes widening and your back straightening, alarm bells ringing all over your brain.

"I look at you plenty," you said while avoiding his gaze like a 15th century doctor avoids respecting women.

"No, you don't," he said softly. "Not even now. I wish you would – you've got such beautiful eyes."

Your sketching stopped at his words. At your silence he placed his hand on your jaw, tilting so you looked at him. Instead of meeting his gaze you looked to the floor.

"They're very common," you got out weakly, still unable to make eye contact, but he kept you where you were, in the easy sight of him. "They only look good in the sun."

He shifted closer, keeping his hand on your jaw in hopes of you changing your mind and meeting his eye.

"Even in darkness they're beautiful, voids as empty and long as night," he hummed, drawing closer yet till you could feel the heat off his body on your still fingers. "I've noted them quite a lot. Eyes are a beautiful thing, aren't they?"

"Yours are," you mumbled, barely catching the meaning and insinuation of your words before they came out.

"As are yours. Remember when we snuck into McPhee's office? The lamplight bounced off of them and they practically glittered like the embers and smoke of a fire," he said with a small smile. "And the bright lights in the hallways –"

Florescent, you thought.

"– and the candle lights that Nick brought, those flicker with that same spark within you. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

You couldn't move, stuck in place and stuck in your own head.

"The golden fireplace, Christmas lights – and the light of the moon, a dim, faraway light that can only be admired from a distance... like you," he murmured.

Sometimes you forgot his people were poets and admirers of nature.

"You have blue eyes," you whispered through the knot in your throat. He listened carefully. "And... I can see reflections in them. They're soft, like velvet. Despite everything, they.. you seem... happy. You always seem happy, and your eyes give it away."

"Have you ever kissed anyone?" He asked quietly, and in that moment you realized his nose was almost touching yours.

"No," you answered honestly. Another unlucky aspect of you.

"Neither have I," he said before he leaned in, pressing his lips against yours in a tender embrace you weren't at all expecting.

From both the view of the first kiss and of a Pharaoh's kiss, you weren't prepared, but the plush of his pink lips against yours sent sparks of delight into your heart. He moved slow, taking his time to map out your aspects just as you began to trail your hands over his open palm, memorizing the creases. You were reluctant to part, but he ran his hand through your hair and your brain short-circuited into placitude.

"You have the softest lips," he murmured, hand coming to cup your cheek once more.

You never applied aquaphor or did anything to make your lips soft.

Maybe it was luck.

Didn't really matter to you, because he kissed you again, and your eyes fluttered shut as everything in the world but him faded away.

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Waters notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award. She was the first African American to star on her own television show and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896 (some sources state her birth year as 1900) as a result of the rape of her teenaged African-American mother, Louise Anderson (1881–1962), by John Waters (1878–1901), a pianist and family acquaintance from a middle-class African-American background. Waters' family was very fair skinned, her mother in particular. Many sources, including Ethel herself, have reported for years that her mother was 12 or 13 years old at the time of the rape, 13 when Ethel was born. Stephen Bourne opens his 2007 biography, Ethel Waters: Stormy Weather, with the statement that genealogical research has shown that she may have been in her late teens.

Waters played no role in raising Ethel. Soon after she was born, her mother married Norman Howard, a railroad worker. Ethel used the surname Howard as a child and then reverted to her father's name. She was raised in poverty by Sally Anderson, her grandmother, who worked as a housemaid, and with two of her aunts and an uncle. Waters never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. Of her difficult childhood, she said "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."

Waters grew tall, standing 5 feet 9.5 inches (1.765 m) in her teens. According to jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters's birth in the North and her peripatetic life exposed her to many cultures. Waters married at the age of 13, but her husband was abusive, and she soon left the marriage and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel, working for $4.75 per week. On her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street. She was persuaded to sing two songs and impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She recalled that she earned the rich sum of $10 per week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.

After her start in Baltimore, Waters toured on the black vaudeville circuit, in her words "from nine until unconscious." Despite her early success, she fell on hard times and joined a carnival traveling in freight cars headed for Chicago. She enjoyed her time with the carnival and recalled, "the roustabouts and the concessionaires were the kind of people I'd grown up with, rough, tough, full of larceny towards strangers, but sentimental and loyal to their friends and co-workers." But she did not last long with them and soon headed south to Atlanta, where she worked in the same club as Bessie Smith. Smith demanded that Waters not compete in singing blues opposite her. Waters conceded and sang ballads and popular songs. Around 1919, Waters moved to Harlem and became a performer in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Her first Harlem job was at Edmond's Cellar, a club with a black patronage that specialized in popular ballads. She acted in a blackface comedy, Hello 1919. Jazz historian Rosetta Reitz pointed out that by the time Waters returned to Harlem in 1921, women blues singers were among the most powerful entertainers in the country. In 1921, Waters became the fifth black woman to make a record, for tiny Cardinal Records. She later joined Black Swan, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she preferred, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass."

She recorded for Black Swan from 1921 through 1923. Her contract with Harry Pace made her the highest paid black recording artist at the time. In early 1924, Paramount bought Black Swan, and she stayed with Paramount through the year.

She first recorded for Columbia in 1925, achieving a hit with "Dinah". She started working with Pearl Wright, and they toured in the South. In 1924, Waters played at the Plantation Club on Broadway. She also toured with the Black Swan Dance Masters. With Earl Dancer, she joined what was called the "white time" Keith Vaudeville Circuit, a vaudeville circuit performing for white audiences and combined with screenings of silent movies. They received rave reviews in Chicago and earned the unheard-of salary of US$1,250 in 1928. In September 1926, Waters recorded "I'm Coming Virginia", composed by Donald Heywood with lyrics by Will Marion Cook. She is often wrongly attributed as the author. The following year, Waters sang it in a production of Africana at Broadway's Daly's Sixty-Third Street Theatre. In 1929, Waters and Wright arranged the unreleased Harry Akst song "Am I Blue?", which was used in the movie On with the Show and became a hit and her signature song.

In 1933, Waters appeared in a satirical all-black film, Rufus Jones for President, which featured the child performer Sammy Davis Jr. as Rufus Jones. She went on to star at the Cotton Club, where, according to her autobiography, she "sang 'Stormy Weather' from the depths of the private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated." In 1933, she had a featured role in the successful Irving Berlin Broadway musical revue As Thousands Cheer with Clifton Webb, Marilyn Miller, and Helen Broderick.

She became the first black woman to integrate Broadway's theater district more than a decade after actor Charles Gilpin's critically acclaimed performances in the plays of Eugene O'Neill beginning with The Emperor Jones in 1920.

Waters held three jobs: in As Thousands Cheer, as a singer for Jack Denny & His Orchestra on a national radio program, and in nightclubs. She became the highest-paid performer on Broadway. Despite this status, she had difficulty finding work. She moved to Los Angeles to appear in the 1942 film Cairo. During the same year, she reprised her starring stage role as Petunia in the all-black film musical Cabin in the Sky directed by Vincente Minnelli, and starring Lena Horne as the ingenue. Conflicts arose when Minnelli swapped songs from the original script between Waters and Horne. Waters wanted to perform "Honey in the Honeycomb" as a ballad, but Horne wanted to dance to it. Horne broke her ankle and the songs were reversed. She got the ballad and Waters the dance. Waters sang the Academy Award nominated "Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe".

In 1939 Waters became the first African American to star in her own television show, before the debut of Nat King Cole's in 1956. The Ethel Waters Show, a variety special, appeared on NBC on June 14, 1939. It included a dramatic performance of the Broadway play Mamba's Daughters, based on the Gullah community of South Carolina and produced with her in mind. The play was based on the novel by DuBose Heyward.

Waters was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film Pinky (1949) under the direction of Elia Kazan after the first director, John Ford, quit over disagreements with Waters. According to producer Darryl F. Zanuck, Ford "hated that old...woman (Waters)." Ford, Kazan stated, "didn't know how to reach Ethel Waters." Kazan later referred to Waters's "truly odd combination of old-time religiosity and free-flowing hatred."

In 1950, she won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance opposite Julie Harris in the play The Member of the Wedding. Waters and Harris repeated their roles in the 1952 film version.

In 1950, Waters was the first African-American actress to star in a television series, Beulah, which aired on ABC television from 1950 through 1952.

It was the first nationally broadcast weekly television series starring an African American in the leading role. She starred as Beulah for the first year of the TV series before quitting in 1951, complaining that the portrayal of blacks was "degrading." She was replaced by Louise Beavers in the second and third season. She guest-starred in 1957 and 1959 on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In a 1957 segment, she sang "Cabin in the Sky".

Her first autobiography, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, (1951), written with Charles Samuels, was adapted for the stage by Larry Parr and premiered on October 7, 2005.

In 1953, she appeared in a Broadway show, At Home With Ethel Waters that opened on September 22, 1953 and closed October 10 after 23 performances. 

Waters married three times and had no children. When she was 13, she married Merritt "Buddy" Purnsley in 1909; they divorced in 1913. During the 1920s, Waters was involved in a romantic relationship with dancer Ethel Williams. The two were dubbed "The Two Ethels" and lived together in Harlem.She married Clyde Edwards Matthews in 1929, and they divorced in 1933. She married Edward Mallory in 1938; they divorced in 1945. Waters was the great-aunt of the singer-songwriter Crystal Waters. 

In 1938, Waters met artist Luigi Lucioni through their mutual friend, Carl Van Vechten. Lucioni asked Waters if he could paint her portrait, and a sitting was arranged at his studio at 64 Washington Square South. Waters bought the finished portrait from Lucioni in 1939 for $500. She was at the height of her career and the first African American to have a starring role on Broadway. In her portrait, she wore a tailored red dress with a mink coat draped over the back of her chair. Lucioni positioned Waters with her arms tightly wrapped around her waist, a gesture that conveyed vulnerability, as if she were trying to protect herself. The painting was considered lost because it had not been seen in public since 1942. Huntsville (Alabama) Museum of Art Executive Director Christopher J. Madkour and historian Stuart Embury traced it to a private residence. The owner considered Waters to be "an adopted grandmother" but she allowed the Huntsville Museum of Art to display Portrait of Ethel Waters in the 2016 exhibition American Romantic: The Art of Luigi Lucioni where it was viewed by the public for the first time in more than 70 years. The museum acquired Portrait of Ethel Waters in 2017, and it was shown in an exhibition in February 2018]. 

By 1955, Waters was deeply in debt for back taxes; the IRS seized royalties of her work. She lost tens of thousands in jewelry and cash in a robbery.[35] Her health suffered, and she worked sporadically. Yet she had faced lean times before. A turning point came in 1957 when she attended the Billy Graham Crusade in Madison Square Garden. She entered the Garden that night a disillusioned, lonely, 61-year-old woman. She had become successful at giving out happiness, but her personal life lacked peace. She was in debt, had physical problems, weighed too much to perform comfortably, and was worried about her career.

Years later, she gave this testimony of that night, "In 1957, I, Ethel Waters, a 380-pound decrepit old lady, rededicated my life to Jesus Christ, and boy, because He lives, just look at me now. I tell you because He lives; and because my precious child, Billy, gave me the opportunity to stand there, I can thank God for the chance to tell you His eye is on all of us sparrows." In her later years, Waters often toured with the preacher Billy Graham on his crusades.

Waters died on September 1, 1977, aged 80, from uterine cancer, kidney failure, and other ailments, in Chatsworth, California. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Waters

[rockislandadultreads]

Diverse Stories & Funny Laughs: a reading list

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially--and reluctantly--famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship...and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He's a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he's never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened. But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that's when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don't ever want to let them go.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items? • Enjoy a drunken night out. • Ride a motorcycle. • Go camping. • Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex. • Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage. • And... do something bad. But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job. Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit. But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…

Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander

Larry is an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When his father dies, it is his responsibility as the surviving son to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. To the horror and dismay of his mother and sisters, Larry refuses--thus imperiling the fate of his father's soul. To appease them, and in penance for failing to mourn his father correctly, he hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the daily prayer and shepherd his father's soul safely to rest. This is Nathan Englander's freshest and funniest work to date--a satire that touches, lightly and with unforgettable humor, on the conflict between religious and secular worlds, and the hypocrisies that run through both. A novel about atonement; about spiritual redemption; and about the soul-sickening temptations of the internet, which, like God, is everywhere.

Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

In this alternately witty and heartbreaking debut novel, Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable protagonist, Claude McKay Love. Claude isn’t dangerous or brilliant—he’s an average kid coping with abandonment, violence, riots, failed love, and societal pressures as he steers his way past the signposts of youth: childhood friendships, basketball tryouts, first love, first heartbreak, picking a college, moving away from home. Claude just wants a place where he can fit. As a young black man born on the South Side of Chicago, he is raised by his civil rights–era grandmother, who tries to shape him into a principled actor for change; yet when riots consume his neighborhood, he hesitates to take sides, unwilling to let race define his life. He decides to escape Chicago for another place, to go to college, to find a new identity, to leave the pressure cooker of his hometown behind. But as he discovers, he cannot; there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America. Percolating with fierceness and originality, attuned to the ironies inherent in our twenty-first-century landscape, Everywhere You Don’t Belong marks the arrival of a brilliant young talent.

A Star Is Bored by Byron Lane

A hilariously heartfelt novel about living life at full force, and discovering family when you least expect it, influenced in part by the author’s time as Carrie Fisher’s beloved assistant. Charlie Besson is about to have an insane job interview. His car is idling, like his life, outside the Hollywood mansion of Kathi Kannon. THE Kathi Kannon, star of stage and screen and People magazine’s worst dressed list. She needs an assistant. He needs a hero. Kathi is an icon, bestselling author, and an award winning actress, most known for her role as Priestess Talara in the iconic blockbuster sci-fi film. She’s also known for another role: crazy Hollywood royalty. Admittedly so. Famously so. Fabulously so. Charlie gets the job, and embarks on an odyssey filled with late night shopping sprees, last minute trips to see the aurora borealis, and an initiation to that most sacred of Hollywood tribes: the personal assistant. But Kathi becomes much more than a boss, and as their friendship grows, Charlie must make a choice. Will he always be on the sidelines of life, assisting the great forces that be, or can he step into his own leading role? Laugh-out-loud funny, and searingly poignant, Byron Lane's A Star is Bored is a novel that, like the star at its center, is enchanting and joyous, heartbreaking and hopeful.

You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria

Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers. After a messy public breakup, soap opera darling Jasmine Lin Rodriguez finds her face splashed across the tabloids. When she returns to her hometown of New York City to film the starring role in a bilingual romantic comedy for the number one streaming service in the country, Jasmine figures her new “Leading Lady Plan” should be easy enough to follow—until a casting shake-up pairs her with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez. Leading Ladies don’t need a man to be happy. After his last telenovela character was killed off, Ashton is worried his career is dead as well. Joining this new cast as a last-minute addition will give him the chance to show off his acting chops to American audiences and ping the radar of Hollywood casting agents. To make it work, he’ll need to generate smoking-hot on-screen chemistry with Jasmine. Easier said than done, especially when a disastrous first impression smothers the embers of whatever sexual heat they might have had. Leading Ladies do not rebound with their new costars. With their careers on the line, Jasmine and Ashton agree to rehearse in private. But rehearsal leads to kissing, and kissing leads to a behind-the-scenes romance worthy of a soap opera. While their on-screen performance improves, the media spotlight on Jasmine soon threatens to destroy her new image and expose Ashton’s most closely guarded secret.