#yes it is the fact that its widely understandable with america and not other countries that pisses me off that is the point

[playingonedchess]

with americans stupid habbit of treating their states like countries maybe i should do that for every region in every country like yeah so Kielce, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship is definitely more than 1000km away from Ganzhou, Jiangxi

[poitum]

The text you are reading now, it seems to me, is the most important demand that I have written in recent days. Therefore, I not only asked for random reposts, but I would also be happy to translate this text into all available languages ​​and distribute it as widely as possible.

The entire world community, left and right, Christians and Muslims, Western and Eastern, insist that the serious problems are only and exclusively the creation of two states for two peoples. I write in posts and in new messages to people I know from different countries, arguing: here it is, the same thing, the final solution, a democratic state and there will be no more problems. And they are all right. Absolutely. This is truly the final solution to the question... of the Jewish state. He will simply disappear, and with him the problem of the future will disappear.

I'll explain. Let's think that in any case a democratic state will be created.

- Hamas comes to power there within a year, maximum two years. If we completely destroy Hamas, Jihad and the Brigades, then other, even more radical organizations will instantly arise in their place. Instead of one severed dragon head, two will grow. Or three. And we can’t do anything about it - interference in free elections in a foreign country is illegitimate. And these will actually be free and fair elections. Instead of Hamastan Gaza 70 x 15 km. we get a hamastan ten times larger.

- this independent state will have its own airport, its own border crossings, which only they will control. And through them, a huge amount of weapons comes into this state, tens of times, in quantities exceeding the number of weapons Hamas has today. By the way, these will not be homemade products made from water pipes, but factory-made professional weapons made in Iran and Russia. And all these weapons will be turned against Israel. Our efforts are devoting ten times the resources, including humanity, to defending today's losses. And at the same time, the whole world will be on the side of the transitional state, and we will act as criminals in the invasion of a foreign country.

- it will no longer be gangs of militants who will climb through the border fence, but part of a well-trained terrorist army, ten times larger in numbers and much better armed. There will be ten times more Jewish children killed, raped, and burned. And again we can only open up, the first move will always be in their hands. For every strike on the territory of another state, the world community will remove three skins from us.

- as a result, Israel will forever be left without peace and security, the country will turn into a full-scale war, constantly, with virtually no rest. Our children will die in the army by the thousands. This will lead to the fact that more and more parents will begin to take their children to quieter countries - the lives of children are above all else for us, unlike our neighbors. Israel will be desolate. The remaining patriots simply do not have enough resources for this debilitating, deadly constant war. Israel will collapse. The Jewish state project will be closed along with the death of a significant number of its inhabitants. You can imagine how life will always be for fugitives in Europe and America with the constant decline in the growing Muslim population there.

Thus, the creation of a Palestinian state is Auschwitz for 7 million Israeli Jews. And not with gas chambers, but with the bellies of pregnant women ripped open and children burned alive. It’s hard to imagine a worse scenario for Israel than the creation of such a Palestinian terrorist state. Apocalypse? Yes! Do you think politicians around the world don’t understand this? Of course they understand. They don’t care about the lives of Jews, they don’t care about the fate of the Jewish state, no matter what they say publicly. They are not interested in the lives of young people, they do not care about the fate of the Jewish state, no matter what they say publicly. They only care about creating an image for themselves as humanists, and then they threw up their hands - I think we couldn’t imagine... No one will actually stand up for us, not in words. But the politics of most Muslim countries adheres to this version of understanding, and they wait and hope for just such a denouement. We must do everything in our power, and more, to prevent such a scenario. By washing, rolling, bribery, force...

Igor Torik

[whenrockwasyoung19]

As a historian, I really want to do a piece on how 9/11 has been commemorated and how it’s been remembered by the people who lived through it and the generation that came up after. So I need to see 9/11 memes so I can determine what jokes about 9/11 are deemed acceptable by society, if any, and which ones are purely tasteless.

Having lived through that time, and remember the South Park era of comedy, I saw a lot of 9/11 jokes in the years after the attacks. They were tasteless then but laughing at them felt cathartic in a way. We’d all been through this collective trauma, and laughing at some shitty jokes was a way of coping with that trauma. But were these jokes tasteless? Probably.

I feel like as we get further away from the event, our memory of it gets more and more distorted. I think for a lot of people who weren’t there and don’t share that collective trauma they can be more cynical about it than the people that were. What do I mean by cynicism? This refers to a couple of trends I see in 9/11 discourse. The first is tasteless jokes, usually in the form of memes. The second is discourse that usually makes a lot of (false) comparisons between 9/11 and some other tragedy. This can be a comparison between some military mission performed by the US military or a natural disaster and most recently the pandemic. The emphasis in these comparisons is that 9/11 wasn’t that bad actually OR what America has done in retribution for 9/11 is worse than the original act itself. The latter point isn’t necessarily wrong but using a tragic event in which thousands of people lost their lives to do it, while an effective rhetorical strategy, can also come off as cynical and disrespectful to the people who survived it or lost family members. I feel like the best way to make that argument is to emphasize how horrible 9/11 was but explain that what the military did in response was perhaps even more destructive and cost more lives. I think deemphasizing how bad 9/11 was or just using it to make a political argument can read as disrespectful and not enough people find that tricky balance between political argument and disrespect.

As for the but such and such was worse, those people can shut up. Like I can entertain conversations about the actions of the US government and military in response to 9/11 because those are conversations worth having. This sort of cynical worldview doesn’t actually yield effective discourse. It essentially posits that because more people died in say a hurricane or an Earthquake that that event was a bigger tragedy. But as a historian, I can tell you that historians don’t claim that something is more significant or even more tragic or less tragic just because at some point in history a worse thing happened. Like as a historians were more aware than most how many bad things have happened in history, so there is no point in comparing all the tragic things to all of the other tragic things like some kind of mad web. Like there is no point in comparing a natural disaster to a terrorist attack because they are in no way similar other than the fact that innocent people died. They are far more dissimilar than similar, and comparing to disparate events that may not have even happened around the same time doesn’t make any sense. What points of comparison are we drawing and to what end? What does that really tell us about the society we’re living in or were living in during the time of these events? So just the business of comparing tragedies is a pointless endeavor but it also posits that the only thing that measures how tragic something is is it’s death toll and that’s not true. 9/11 is a tragedy not just because innocent people died but because of how meaningless their deaths were. They were caught in the crossfires of a conflict that these random office workers, flight attendants, flight passengers, and first responders had nothing to do with. An ongoing struggle between the East and the West, the dynamics between the most powerful nation on Earth and tiny subsections of a massive global religion has nothing to do with these people who died and yet they lost their lives anyway. Now that is true of any civilian attacks. But that’s the thing: there have been far worse civilian attacks in history, even some conducted by the US military (the Dresden bombings come to mind) but that’s kind of the problem with drawing comparisons. I can’t really say if the Dresden bombings and the Blitz were worse than 9/11. It simply doesn’t feel like my place to say to someone that suffered that your tragedy is actually smaller or less significant than this other tragedy that happened some other time. They are all hugely significant in their own ways, they are all tragedies, and they should all be remembered and discussed with reverence.

I do feel that a lot of the comparisons between 9/11 and some other tragedy come from this place of “why does the US make such a big deal about 9/11 and not xyz tragedy?” And this is a valid question but not all of the answers come down to “the US doesn’t care about xyz tragedy” or “the US only cares about itself!” So let’s go through some reasons why the anniversary of 9/11 is so widely covered. Firstly, it happened on our soil. Countries are always going to honor things that happened to them. It’s just a thing. If it affected the people in that country, then yeah they’re gonna go on and on about it. Secondly, it happened 20 years ago so it’s still in very recent living memory. Most people alive on the planet have vivid memories of that day, so most people still remember what that day felt like and want to honor the victims and commemorate it. Thirdly, all the cynical reasons. Yes the US is less concerned about anything else that’s happened outside of our borders. What happened to us matters more to anyone else. No this isn’t great but I’m just reporting the state of things. And yes, the US is selective about what it remembers and what it doesn’t, and the government has a history of struggling to acknowledge the bad things America has done. And lastly, America never really stopped being overly nationalistic like a lot of other countries did after the rise of fascism scared them out of ever doing that shit again. America just maintains its nationalism. Maybe one day it’ll have a more nuanced perspective of itself like other countries do but we’ll see. So yeah there are a lot of reasons why the US makes a big fucking deal about this day and will forever and not all of them are bad or reason to criticize.

Ok now to acknowledge the memes. God any time I tell kids not to make memes about 9/11 I feel like a grandma. I mean I could go on and on about how it’s disrespectful but the people making them know this and don’t care. I guess I’m more interested in understanding why people make memes about a national tragedy. I think it has to do with how 9/11 has been remembered which is largely clouded by all of the political and military stuff that happened as a result of it. For people who learned about 9/11 years after it happened, they didn’t experience these events in real time. For those of us who lived through it, we didn’t know all that was going to transpire because of it. On that day, all we really knew was that thousands of people were dead and more were going to die in the conflicts that would result from it. We didn’t know that the wars would last decades or how pointless it would all be in the end. We had no idea how shitty George Bush was or how incompetent his administration was. We definitely had no idea that Trump was coming. So for a lot of us, we can separate the mess that happened because of the attacks from our memories of the attacks. It’s so much easier for us to think only about the events of that day because we were there. We have specific memories of it which we can latch onto rather than just thinking about news footage or events that came later.

And the cynicism that people feel is somewhat earned. The attacks obviously spurned two decades of Islamaphobia as well as countless military attacks in the Middle East. For a lot of young people, they feel like they’re supporting Muslims or standing against Islamaphobia by disrespecting an event that prompted so much Islamaphobia. And I get that. But also that’s not the way to do show your support or take a stand. Keep in mind that the people who died that day had no idea what they were dying for. Most in their last moments probably didn’t even know it was a terrorist attack. The American people didn’t even realize the first plane was an attack. So it doesn’t really make sense to disrespect their memory when it’s not their fault that their deaths resulted in so much pain and suffering for the Muslim diaspora. Disrespect the people who were openly Islamaphobic after the attacks, criticize the American government for their actions in the Middle East. But not the people who had no control how their deaths were remembered or used by politicians, military leaders, white nationalists, and other racists to attack Muslim people.

As a historian, it’s my job to try to apply a historical context to people’s actions. A lot of people have done this to observe why people responded to the attacks the way they did. Now I want to use it to understand why so many young people feel at best indifferent to the events of that day and at worst resentful and disrespectful towards ur

[davidmann95]

Despite DC occasionally trying to drop “The American Way” from Supes motto, it’s still widely associated with Supes. Do you think swapping “American Way” with say “Universal Way” as a code of ethics baker into the United Planets set up that Superman adopts as a motto in his role of advocate for said organization could work? It would mean defining what that code IS which could get dicey but I think it could work.

The idea of ‘the American Way’ in regards to Superman is something I’ve been thinking about lately due to PKJ taking over the book and pointedly using the term (as did Bendis), noting in interviews it’s in part because he wants to ‘reclaim’ the idea of those values in spite of the nature of the American reality as opposed to what the perception of them popularly become. It’s understandable, and while we’ve been friendly on Twitter recently I don’t know that I could bring up why I don’t prefer it for the character without his eyes also understandably glazing over after the other 50 times he’s probably gotten negative responses to that. Which is a shame, because my reasons for thinking it doesn’t quite work aren’t the same reasons as a lot of peoples’.

As much as I like to think “Superman is for EVERYBODY! so long as you’re not an asshole”, the guy’s also inextricably draped in Americana - he’s a midwestern immigrant dressed in red and blue with a flaglike cape fluttering behind him, and one of his first ‘iconic’ covers was him with an eagle on his shoulder. Even if those ideas are paid lipservice more often than they’re actually explored, they’re there. I don’t think occasional stories interrogating him through that lens are remotely inappropriate, and in fact are probably necessary for keeping things honest whether you’re doing that from a largely positive (Of Thee I Sing, Superman Smashes The Klan) or negative (DKR, Other History of the DC Universe) angle. Yes, there are takes on Superman who would unambiguously condemn America (hell, those are some of my favorite takes), but it’s not particularly a stretch that there are other perfectly legitimate interpretations of the guy thinking “everybody having the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be nice even if America the extant entity doesn’t really provide those”. And let’s be real, Truth, Justice, and the American Way just rolls off the tongue in a way no one catchphrase for him has managed yet.

The problem is he isn’t Captain America.

The thing about ‘reclaiming’ the idea of the American Way is that you have to be really, really specific about what that means. In fairness, it’s not as if Johnson hasn’t done anything to do that: when he draws a mere mortal parallel to his take on Superman in his second story to illustrate the latter’s values, it’s in a man who fought fascism and then took and dished out beatings standing up to cops and counter-protesters in civil rights marches. It’s clear where his Superman stands in the broad strokes. But what about the next person who takes over after him? Even if they think of it as meaning the exact same thing, what if the topic simply never comes up and the notion of the American Way is left hanging there, a contextless, vague signifier of moral righteousness? People disagree all day every day about truth and justice, but they’re at least mostly arguing from a shared definition of the terms.

Captain America can’t have his notion of the American Way he’s fighting for be contextless for long, because he as a character is built around constantly reckoning with it. Even if it exists on a vast sliding scale from socking Crossbones and Batroc to delivering a speech about how America is a piece of trash and a flag is just cloth without ideals behind them, generally speaking we’re constantly having what Steve Rogers (and moreso those writing him) thinks of as ideal American values reaffirmed, even if just by the implication of a guy with America in his name doing what he does. Challenging and relitigating the notions popularly underpinning the country are what his character is about. But Superman doesn’t have to have much of anything to do with America beyond the fact of living there, so just sticking that big nebulous qualifier in his list of core values and assuming we can pick up the finer details from stories that may or may not have anything to do with it sort of gives us “well, I guess the American Way is...stopping Bizarro?”* I don’t dislike it because I think it’s impossible to tell a good story where it fits for the character, but because its utility as a signifier is not only charged but limited.

* Granted, such a story might not be much about ‘truth’ either, but again, at least we probably don’t need to read much into creators’ intent to guess what their definition of it is.

(As for your question - went on a bit of a tangent there - I like that but then you’d constantly have to keep bringing that back up and reexplaining it, so I don’t think it’d stick.)

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Come What May

Request: hey! can i get a request for an american transfer (i’m not sure if they were even a thing lol but anyways) and she is a hufflepuff? maybe she becomes friends with remus due to him being a prefect and sirius ends up really liking her? if you want to change it up a little bit for your writing that’s perfectly fine! xx

A/N: I loved writing this - it took me some time to start, but I loved writing it. I hope you like it and I hope I’ve done it justice. I’ve no clue whether I’ve made the reader American enough but I still hope its good nonetheless. Moulin Rouge is one of my favourite musicals; the title is the name of the song. Enjoy!! :)

Pairing: Sirius Black x American!Transfer!Reader

Warnings: fluff, mentions of pregnancy, I wanna say swearing but I can't remember, mentions of nausea, mentions of anxiety, mentions of homesickness

Word count: 3.3k

In an attempt to improve relations between the wizarding worlds of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, MACUSA and the Ministry of Magic set up a transfer scheme for sixth years of Ilvermorny and Hogwarts. The entirety of their sixth year would be spent abroad where they would gain the worthwhile experience of receiving an education in a different country.

Some pressure from your mother had you applying to spend a year at Hogwarts. Only ten students from the year group were given the opportunity – when it was offered to you, you took it with both hands. A year abroad would look good on your final transcript when applying to train as a Healer.

Upon arriving at Hogwarts, you were swiftly sorted into Hufflepuff; a kind, gentle house that made you feel welcome. Their proximity to the school kitchens would help with reducing the stress for exam season, you thought.

Your first week was plagued with intense homesickness. The Scottish Highlands were hauntingly beautiful, but they were nothing compared to your surroundings at Ilvermorny. You longed for the familiar sight of the familiar Mount Greylock. You missed your family, but your mother’s letters would still find you at Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall had assured you of that.

Your classes were hard to navigate. Hogwarts was bigger than Ilvermorny and you found yourself running from one side of the castle to the other in an attempt to get to lessons on time.

“Hi, are you okay?” A male voice asks. You turn to find lanky teenager with scars littering his face looking at you in concern. A prefect badge on the collar of his robes had you relaxing; here was someone that could help you.

“Hey!” You shout, eagerly, happy to see a friendlier face, “I’m lost. I’m trying to find Divination.”

He smiles at you, “You’re in luck, I’m heading to Divination as well.”

“That’s great, I’ll follow your lead. I’ve been here three weeks; you’d have thought I’d have the layout down by now.”

He chuckles, “I’m Remus, by the way.”

You hold a hand out to him, he shakes it once, “I’m (Y/N). I’m part of the transfer scheme between Ilvermorny and Hogwarts.”

Remus sits beside you in Divination; helping you when you struggled with understanding the teacher’s accent. Divination was taught at Ilvermorny, and along with Herbology and Potions, was one of the subjects you excelled at. Your four times great grandmother on your father’s side was a prophetess who barely escaped the witch trials in Salem; her talents had been passed down to you.

The lesson is over fairly quickly with Remus by your side, helping to translate the Professor’s words. You’re packing your books up, hoping your usually spot in the library isn’t taken when Remus asks: “(Y/N), would you like to join me for lunch? You’ll have to meet my friends, but they’re mainly harmless.”

“Mainly?”

Remus flashed you a grin, “They’ll talk your ear off, but they mean well.”

“In that case, I’d love to join you for lunch. I’d be spending it in alone in the library, so this is a definite upgrade. Lead the way.”

On the walk to the Great Hall, you and Remus bond more and you can feel the start of a genuine friendship beginning to be built.

By the time you arrive at the Great Hall, you have decided that Remus is in fact a sweetheart with a heart of gold who loves his books as much as he loves his friends. From your limited knowledge of Hogwarts houses, you can see exactly how Remus meets the standards to be a Gryffindor.

Remus automatically heads to the table assigned to Gryffindor, spotting his friends in the crowd. You only hesitate for a moment before joining him.

“(Y/N), these are James, Peter and Sirius.” Remus introduces, pointing to each teenage boy with their name. They look at you with fascination as you take a seat next to Remus, who hands you the pitcher of water without a second thought. Yes, your friendship with Remus would be something you truly treasure with all of your heart.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” You greet, not missing how their eyes widen at your accent.

“Are you one of the American exchange students?” Peter asks.

You nod, smiling at him, “I am.”

If it’s possible, his eyes widen further, “You must be really smart then. Like super smart to get into the programme. The one’s we got in Gryffindor are like geniuses.”

“Thank you, that’s a very nice compliment.”

Peter blushes, breaking the eye contact between you two.

You start placing food onto your plate, eating a forkful in between answering questions.

“My turn now – how did you all become friends?”

James grins, “We all met on train and became friends. It seemed fate was on our side when we were all sorted into the same house.”

You look at the ties each worn by the teenagers; stripes of solid red stand out against dark black. “You’re all in Gryffindor!”

James nods, “We are! And our ever-lovely Remus is our prefect.”

You smile when you see Remus out of the corner of your eye, sitting a little straighter at the sound of his school role.

Sirius catches your eye, a smirk turning the one corner of his lips upwards, “What house were you sorted into?”

You point to your tie, not missing the way his eyes rake up and down your body, “Hufflepuff,” you state proudly, feeling very at home with your Hogwarts house.

“What’s your house at Ilvermorny?” He asks, pronouncing each syllable of your school separately, testing out the sound of it on his tongue.

“Pukwudgie.” You declare, prouder than ever of your house back in America. Those sorted into Pukwudgie are defined by their passions and their desires; they commit themselves fully to everything they do whilst being fiercely loyal caregivers and protectors.

Sirius’ lips tremble; he wants to chuckle at the odd sounding name. You don’t miss the expression on his face, rolling your eyes at it.

“We have four houses at Ilvermorny: Pukwudgie, Wampus, Horned Serpent, and Thunderbird. It is said that my house, Pukwudgie, favours healers which makes sense since that is what I’m working towards. I want to work at the hospital for magical folk in New York City. The other houses favour different positions; Wampus – warriors, Horned Serpent – scholars, and Thunderbird – adventurers. Truthfully, we aren’t that different to Hogwarts expect for the fact that we’re in America. The Hogwarts students over there are probably realising the same thing. ”

The four boys look at you in astonishment, and you realise that since you arrived in Scotland, those were the most words you had spoken in succession.

“Well,” You say, grinning, taking a sip of your water, “we aren’t entirely different other than the fact that we’re better

James squawks in indignation, “How? I think you’re mistaken. I’m going to need a point by point explanation of how that is even possible. Hogwarts is the best school out there!”

You laugh at him, “Hogwash. Are you ready for that conversation, James?”

Sirius grins, showing off his perfectly straight, white teeth, “Oh, I like you. I think we’re going to get on like a house on fire.”

With your heart racing, your answering smile is blinding.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Marauders adopt you as an honorary member; Peter had dubbed you the emissary to Ilvermorny with a promise to tell your tales of your time at Hogwarts to the student body of the school; to make them famous ‘across the pond’.

The more time you spent with the pranksters, the more you saw them as themselves. James and Sirius were ridiculously smart but played aloof – happier to marked as the class clowns than the smartest in the class (though they were by miles). James was besotted with a red-haired girl named Lily who never seemed to want to give him the time of day, but he persisted.

Peter had the best stories from his childhood, and he was more than happier to tell you them. But there was something simmering under the surface with Peter, as if he was too close to the flame of something he couldn’t quite pull back from. You hoped he would before it was too late.

Remus confessed to you a month into your friendship, of his lycanthropy – he trusted you, he knew you wouldn’t spread his secret and you wouldn’t. You could see his self-hatred always simmering, but Remus was so pure of heart with a predisposition for trouble that made him a natural leader when planning the school-wide famous pranks, that you knew he would not let the wolf inside him control him for longer than was necessary.

The friendship you had created with all four of them was something you would cherish upon returning to Ilvermorny. In such little time, they had taken you in and made you feel at home within their group.

Out of all them, you felt drawn to Sirius and he was more than happy to entertain you. He found you fascinating as well as extremely beautiful. There was something about your eyes that he couldn’t put his finger on, but they had him from the very moment they fell on him in the Great hall. He could sit and listen to you for hours whether it be a story or a rant. He was more than happy to let you talk and for him to listen. You had bewitched him; mind, body and soul. He’d follow you to the ends of the earth.

It was this that made you fall in love with him.

As cliché as it is to describe, your feelings for Sirius took you by surprise. In a matter of few weeks, you had started to fall in love with the shaggy-haired prankster. He had captured your heart in a way you never thought possible; you found it hard to think of anything but him. Your heart raced with every bit of eye contact made across the classroom; as if you were the only one in his line of vision.

Sirius had a way to make you feel as if you were the only one in the world; he would listen to your rants over the differing education systems between the USA and the UK or if someone had gotten on your nerves. He would defend you if ever a cross word was even uttered in your direction; Severus Snape had been on the receiving end of most of Sirius’ hexes. Sirius had you completely enthralled.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You spend weeks agonising over your feelings for the Gryffindor; badgering Remus at every opportunity until he cracks and tells you that Sirius feels the same but doesn’t know how to approach you.

You decide then and there that you’re going to tell him; that you’re going to confess your feelings for him. As you rush to the library, you steel yourself in case of rejection. It would break your heart, but you would find a way to repair the friendship.

You find Sirius in an isolated corner of the library, pouring over one of the many leather bounded books. The library had taken your breath away when you first arrived; never in your life had you seen so many ancient and dusty tomes dedicated to the practice of witchcraft and wizardry. Now, your eyes are drawn to the teenager hidden among them.

Sirius is sitting in one of the few arm chairs. You don’t sit down; the anxiety and adrenaline preparing your legs for a quick exit if needed.

“Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?” You ask.

Sirius looks up from his book, wide-eyed, “What?”

“Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend? I know it’s a free weekend for the both of us and I’d like to go with you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I like you, Sirius and I think you’ve known for a while that I do.”

Sirius can’t help the blush that rushes to his cheeks, “I know of your feelings.”

“I need to know: are they returned or am I overstepping here?”

Sirius places his book on the table, “No, no, you’re not overstepping. I’ve had a crush on your for a while.”

Your grin lights up your face and Sirius find himself making the promise of to always be the cause of your smiles and never your tears.

“So would you like to come to Hogsmeade with me?”

“As long as you let me pay; it would be shame on my name for me to let such a beautiful person pay for their date.”

“You are a gentleman. So you will come?”

“Yes, we’ll go to Hogsmeade on a date this weekend. I adore your confidence.”

“I’m American,” You state, shrugging your shoulders, “We’re born with it.”

Sirius barks a laugh as he pulls you into his lap, his hands on your waist. You press not one, but two kisses to his cheek where the blush still remains, savouring he fact that it was you who affects him so, and no-one else.

Sirius relaxes beneath you; happy to have you in his arms for however long you have left at Hogwarts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the muted light of the moon reflecting into his dorm room, you can be honest with each other. Your time at the school for witchcraft and wizardry was coming to a close with little under a month before you were returning to Ilvermorny to complete your final year of education.

You didn’t try to ignore the lance of pain spearing your heart as you imagine that year without Sirius. A little over four months with him and you knew that you have found the love of your life; that there would be no-one else for you.

“I don’t want to leave you,” You whisper in the dark of the night, curled under his arm, your hand pressed to his chest so you can feel his heartbeat under your palm.

“I don’t want you to go.” He whispers against your hair.

Tears sting the corner of your eyes, “What are we going to do?”

“For now, I’m going to sleep next to the girl I love. Tomorrow, we are going to talk about it, I promise. I just want to hold you now.”

“Tomorrow,” You promise, “Tonight, I just want to be held by you.”

Sirius pulls you tighter to him; as if the two of you aren’t already pressed together. He drops another kiss to your head while you press one to his shoulder. You aren’t sure whether of you get a lot of sleep that night; worries of the future working their way down the familiar path of your mind.

The following morning brings lingering touches and unhurried kisses. The anxiety from last night hangs like a dark cloud over the both of you but there is a determination within you to hurry it away.

The day is spent slowly; slowly walking around the grounds, slowly reading in the common room, slowly kissing. As if the slower your pace, the longer you can spend in his arms where you truly want to be.

The topic needs to be approached; it needs to be addressed or else it’ll sour the remaining time you have left with the boy you’ve fallen in love with.

Laying on the couch in the Gryffindor common room, your head in Sirius’ lap, you ask, “What are your plans for the summer?”

He sighs, pretending to think it through as he brushes a hand from the top of your forehead to the tip of your nose, “I’m not sure, I think I’m going to be visiting this really pretty girl that I’ve fallen in love with.”

You beam, “Yes please. Come stay with me! My family is going to love you.”

Sirius’ cheeks warm, “Really?”

You nod, “Definitely, I’ve already told them all about you in my letters. My mom is going to love you. My dad is going to take some persuading though. I think the whole family won’t be able to leave you alone. I go to Scotland and come back with a boyfriend.”

Sirius laughs, warm and rich, “I’ll have to bring my charming self.”

“You do that, and you won’t get to leave.”

“Maybe that’s the plan. I think we can do it, you know.”

“Can do what?”

“A long-distance relationship. I think we can do it; I think we’re strong enough.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I know we haven’t been together very long but I’m in this for the long-haul. I want no-one else but you; I love no-one else but you. In such a short time, you’ve shown me what a relationship should be like and I want it. I want it all with you. So I think we’re strong enough to get through it. We can send letters and on the longer holidays, we can alternate between America and the UK.”

“You’ve really thought this through.”

Sirius nods, nudging you to sit up. “I have. I thought of it last night, I don’t know how neither of us thought of it earlier.”

You think it through, seeing no disadvantages to his plan other than the fact that you would miss him dearly. “I like it. Let’s do it, let’s do long-distance. I love you too, I want no-one else either. I hope you’re ready for all of my letters, Black.”

He laughs; the sound music to your ears, “More than ready.”

You can’t help the smile as you lean into kiss him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7 years later:

The house is quiet; too quiet, you think as you push your feet into your slippers. You make your way downstairs to be greeted to the sight of your husband of five years cooking with your four year old daughter. 

“I think we’ve been caught, sweetheart.” Sirius whispers to the toddler sitting on the kitchen counter.

Your daughter turns from her place, “We’re making pancakes!”

“I can see that,” You say, chuckling, making your way to your husband – kissing him before kissing your daughter on the top of her head.

“We wanted to give you a bit longer in bed. I know you were up most of the night feeling sick.” Sirius says, a hand touching the barely-there bump.

“You’re my knight in shining armour, Mr. Black”

“Always at your service, Mrs. Black.”

Your final year at Ilvermorny was filled with letter upon letter from Sirius telling you the stories of his final year at Hogwarts. You were very happy indeed when he reported that James and Lily had finally started to see each other, and that Remus was thinking of going steady with a girl in Ravenclaw who loved books as much as he did.

The long-distance relationship was hard at times; always after a visit from one of you to the other but nevertheless, you both persevered – worries always extinguished over written word. Your family understood that your home was now in England; in the arms of a black-haired prankster that had captivated your heart from the very first smile. Your dream of being a healer was still very much attainable in England.

You and Sirius were not long behind James and Lily for marriage. Sirius had proposed one evening after you returned home from your shift at St Mungo’s; bone tired and in the need of a hug, you were shocked to return home to rose petals leading to the living room where Sirius was down on one knee – the only light in the room being from the candles lit on every surface available. You both cried when you accepted; you both cried at the wedding a year later.

You didn’t think there would be any more room in your heart to love someone else other than Sirius.

Then you found out you were pregnant. And your heart made room for one more. Your heart had stretched to fit three when your test came back positive for the baby currently growing in your womb.

As you sit in your kitchen, watching your husband cutting up pancakes for your daughter, you feel overwhelmingly grateful for your mother pushing you to fill out the transfer paperwork all those years ago.

*******

Harry Potter (General) taglist: @slytherinprincess03 @bforbroadway @obsessedwithrandomthings @the-hufflefluffwriter @masterofthedarkness @kalimagik @summer-writes @lupins-sweater @mischiefsemimanaged @soleil-amaryllis

Sirius Black taglist: @cheapglitter @fific7

[cafecitowriter]

I wish you would write a fic where they assign Peggy to protect Steve on the USO circuit as one of the USO dancers. If she likes it or not is up to you :)

Hi okay first of all thank you so much for this! 

Second, sorry this took a hot second, but this absolutely got away from me. I hope you like it!!!

...

No matter how Peggy spun it, this new assignment was nothing more than glorified babysitting.

She knew full well that her skills would be better suited to continue working under Colonel Phillips, going undercover and gathering crucial intel for the Allied cause. That’s exactly what she had been doing - successfully, she might add - for months now. She could do more damage to Hydra and the Nazis if she was out in the field.

Colonel Phillips knew it too. At least, that’s what Peggy assumed, seeing as he put up more of a fight than she’d expected when he learned that she was being transferred from the front lines to join the USO circuit to take care of Steve Rogers.

Now known as Captain America.

Or at least, that’s what he was being called in the USO tour.

Peggy had studied his file as part of her research, and she’d heard she grumblings from the other men in camp about Project Rebirth and its “failure”, as they chose to phrase it.

Truthfully - and silently - Peggy thought his transformation was nothing short of a miracle. He went from being 5’4”, 90 pounds with a novel of ailments to being what could only be described as a super soldier.

Why he was being relegated to show business, with her as his undercover bodyguard, Peggy couldn’t understand. He could be so much more, if they’d let him.

That at least, she could sympathize with.

“This is your cover,” Phillips told her gruffly, handing her a thin file. “I hope you’ve been practicing your American accent.”

“Betty Carver?” she scoffed incredulously as she read the name on the page.

At least she wouldn’t have to dye her hair.

...

Peggy took a bus with the rest of the USO girls to their hotel in Brooklyn. They were to have a few days of rehearsals, and then they would run for two weeks here before moving on to their next stop.

One woman in particular, Beth, had taken an instant liking to Betty. When Beth asked Betty if this was her first tour, she had sheepishly admitted it was her first gig ever. Beth spent the rest of the bus ride talking her ear off, giving her advice, telling her stories of performances gone right and wrong, and most importantly, assuring her that she had an entire support system of women if she ever needed help.

They were sisters now, Beth had told her.

Though Peggy was miles from where she wanted to be, she could begin to see the some slight silver lining to the whole ordeal.

Luckily enough, Betty and Beth are paired up to share a room - and Peggy was almost certain that Beth had something to do with that, which made her respect for the women grow tenfold.

“You coming, Bet?” Beth asked, looking more than ready to head down to dinner.

“I’ll be down in just a minute,” she smiled. “I like to unpack first.”

Peggy waited for Beth to exit before taking a deep breath. She then set to work, checking the room for any hearing devices, seeing what vantage points she had to work with, and double checking the gun in her thigh holster that she’d made herself, just for the occasion.

She then unpacked her entire suitcase, since that’s what she told Beth she was currently up to.

A knock at the door startled her. Peggy straightened up and slowly approached the door. She left her hand close to where her gun was hidden underneath her skirt, knowing that she might need to draw it at a moment’s notice.

“Hi. I’m Steve Rogers.”

Now, Peggy had read everything there was to know about Steve Rogers.

What her reading hadn't prepared her for, was how boyishly handsome he was, the intensity of his blue eyes, or his disarming smile.

"Hi," she said simply, her brain managing to forget all other words in existence.

Get a grip, Carter.

“Betty Carver,” she added quickly.

“Nice to meet you ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” she asked, raising her eyebrow at him. “I can’t tell if you’re overly polite, or if I look that much older than I actually am.”

“Just how I was raised,” he shrugged sheepishly.

“Betty’s just fine, Captain,” she told him, giving him a reassuring smile.

The tips of his ears went pink at the title.

“Betty, then,” he conceded, rubbing the back of his neck, though Peggy couldn’t help but notice that his smile never faltered.

“I thought we were meeting you at dinner,” she asked curiously.

“I was there,” he told her. “One of them - Beth - told me you were still up here, but it’s been a while and I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” she said, softer than she’d intended.

“And as I can see, you’re doing just fine,” he said, looking suddenly awkward, as though he thought he was intruding on her space. “So I’ll uh, I’ll see you down there, Betty.”

“We can walk down together,” she offered before he could turn to leave.

It would be easier to protect him if she made friends with him, and there was no time like the present to begin forming that relationship.

“I’d like that,” he smiled, offering her his arm.

Peggy suppressed a smile, but accepted his arm.

“Seems like you were raised right, Captain.”

…

As assignments went, Peggy had to (begrudgingly) admit it wasn’t flat out terrible.

The choreography was simple enough that with her limited dance experience, Peggy could get through it, and there were enough women around that she could sing mostly under her breath.

Betty had made a very close friend in Beth, as as a few of the other women as well - Guadalupe and Gwen in particular.

Then there was Steve.

He and Betty had gotten along well since he’d walked her to dinner the first night.

Peggy really liked him, too.

He was nothing like what she’d imagined. Though she’d tried not to make any judgements before meeting him, she had had enough experience with soldiers letting their newly appointed rank go to their head.

Steve however, kept surprising her. He was incredibly gentle for someone so large and strong, kind despite the fact that he was handsome enough that he could get on without having to be.

He also liked to take walks at night, as she’d accidentally learned when she’d encountered him one evening while doing a perimeter check of their latest hotel. He had too much energy, and couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

Something that he’d gained from the serum, he’d told her.

She’d lied and said she always had trouble sleeping in different places, and would take a walk to ease her mind.

He frowned at the idea of her being out alone at night, and offered to take walks with her.

While Peggy was more than capable of protecting herself, Betty was relieved and took him up on his offer eagerly.

Besides, if he was up and out in the middle of the night anyway, it would do well for Peggy to be with him should trouble crop up.

Most nights, they would now both sneak away from their rooms and take a walk together. They would designate a meeting place, and afterward, Steve would always walk her right back to her door.

As the weeks wore on, so did their walks get longer, and the more Peggy learned about Steve Rogers.

He talked of his mother, how she had worked so hard to care for him, how much he loved and missed her.

She learned of his best friend, who stood by his side no matter how many alley fights he got into. Who was finally shipped off, leaving Steve alone.

Steve eventually confided to her that he had only ever wanted to serve his country, that he wanted to be a soldier and help the little guy. That with each passing city they performed in, he felt more lost and useless.

“You were meant for more than this,” Peggy found herself telling him one night, as they were both seated on a park bench.

“How do you know?” he asked, starting out at the moon.

“You’re a good man Steve, and with your abilities…” Peggy trailed off, not wanting to give away just how much she knew about Project Rebirth.

“You really think I can make a difference?” he asked, voice quiet and shy and so vulnerable that Peggy had a strong urge to wrap him in her arms.

She settled for resting her hand on top of his.

“I know you can. Call it faith,” she told him sincerely.

They held hands all the way back to her hotel room.

…

What Peggy found particularly endearing about Steve - but would never dare say it out loud - was how, no matter how many times they’d all change in front of him (as there was normally only one dressing room wherever they went), he was still ever the gentleman.

Steve would always help with patching up their costumes, zipping them up, and sometimes even applying make up, but he never stared or lingered.

On this particular night, a few weeks after they held hands during their walk (a detail that hadn’t happened on their nightly strolls again), Peggy was running late and was the last one in the dressing room. She was in the middle of pulling up her left stocking and clipping it in place - leg perched on the dressing table in front of her when someone walked in.

"Oh I - sorry, sorry,” Steve apologized profusely.

Peggy looked up just in time to see his wide-eyed expression and his cheeks turn pink. From the look on his face, one would assume he’d walked in on her half-naked, rather than fully dressed with only one stocking left to be fixed into places.

"Lose something, Captain?" she asked, quirking her eyebrow up in amusement.

"No," he said quickly, averting his gaze to look at the ceiling. "I mean, yes. I can't find the um, my head - my cowl, I mean."

Peggy took pity on him and lowered her leg.

“I’ll help you find it. Curtain’s in five minutes, after all.”

“Thanks, Betty,” he said, letting out a small breath of relief.

She smirked and took a few steps closer to him.

"You mustn't worry, though, Captain. I don't have any devious plans to ruin your pristine reputation," she teased.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” he murmured, clearly without thinking.

Peggy's eyes widened slightly. Other than the night they’d held hands (which Peggy had to keep reminding herself was only a comfort between friends) this is the first time he’d actually done anything close to what could be considered flirting.

She tried to ignore how much she liked it.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she told him, her voice slightly breathless.

Steve’s eyes flicked down for her lips, and he began to lean in.

Or was it her that was leaning in?

Either way, their lips were now less than an inch away from each other and-

“Two minutes to curtain!”

They startled apart, and Steve cleared his throat.

“We should get-”

“Yes,” she agreed dashing out of the dressing room and toward the wings.

She fumbled to get her last clip in place with how much her hands were shaking.

Peggy leaned against the closest wall and tried to control her breathing and hammering heart.

What the hell was that?

...

Something was wrong.

To be fair, Peggy didn’t have any reason to believe that there was any threat near. She’d taken all her normal precautions before the show, and hadn’t made any threats close to them.

But there were goosebumps on her arms, and Peggy knew better than to ignore her instincts.

“Don’t lift the motorcycle,” she whispered into Steve’s ear as she danced by him.

Though her voice was quiet, she knew his enhanced hearing could pick it up.

While she didn’t know what the threat was, his final pose left him far too vulnerable for her liking, and if he went down, so would Sybil, Beth, and Gwen.

Steve gave her a confused look.

His head then snapped to look at the audience. Peggy followed his gaze and noticed the man who had just stood up in the middle of the song.

He began to raise his hand, and Peggy launched into action.

She broke formation and tackled Steve out of the way. She felt two bullets lodge in the back of her right shoulder and she let out a small cry of pain.

Chaos broke out among the crowd and onstage as everyone screamed and began to disperse.

Peggy used her left hand to pull her carefully concealed gun out of its holster and aimed it toward the group of men now charging toward Steve.

“What the hell is going on, Betty?” he asked as he saw the blood coming out of her shoulder.

“Hydra,” she told him, hissing in pain as he scooped her up and began carrying her toward safety.

“How do you know about Hydra?”

“My name is Peggy Carter,” she explained, returning to her natural dialect. “I’m with the Strategic Scientific Reserve. I was sent to protect you.”

“What?” he asked tightly, his eyes rife with hurt and betrayal.

The pain in her shoulder was now rivalled by the ache she felt in her heart.

“Steve, I-”

The sound of a gunshot behind them brought Peggy back to reality.

“Look,” she told Steve. “I know this is confusing and you’re unhappy with me right now, but we need to get out of here.”

“I can’t just leave everyone else,” he said defiantly his eyes flicking around the half-empty auditorium as everyone scrambled to get out of harm’s way.

“They’re after you. The best chance we can give them is by leading you away from here,” she reasoned, growing increasingly frustrated with him.

“Fine,” he agreed. “But you owe me an explanation.”

“If we live, I’ll tell you anything you like,” she agreed.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #479

“war sends our sons to slaughter  /  another failed attack; there is no turning back”

Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes, a video game when I was little. I was so mad, lol. Do you vent a lot on social media? No. I don't want people to get annoyed with me. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I haven't been responsible for any bills yet. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? I can't/don't do either really, but if I could, I'd probably donate to uhhhh... suicide prevention organizations. As for volunteering, definitely something with animals. Have you ever dated someone who wasn’t at all your usual type? No. What is something you have no patience for? Waiting at the doctor's office. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. What’s that you’re listening to? I'm watching Gab play The Evil Within 2. What kind of relationship do you have with the last person you kissed? We're a couple. What is your biggest accomplishment in life? Still being alive. What is one thing that you really wish you could understand, but don’t? Political stuff. Economics. Have you ever been tutored or tutored someone yourself? I had an Algebra tutor the last time I was in college, and I had to strangle an anxiety attack down because I wasn't understanding the material AT ALL and felt so dumb and annoying. I never did it again. What was the last thing you said out loud (singing doesn’t count)? "It's really embarrassing," to Mom. It really is fucking humiliating that my ankles are swollen from walking/standing more and pushing my desk chair back against the resistance of the carpet. That's pathetic. I'm trying to focus on the fact it's good my body is even reacting to moving more, though. Is everything you have on actually yours? Yep. Do you ever just randomly drive around when you’re upset about something? I don't drive, but if I did, that would NOT be my method of de-stressing. What was the last act of creativity you displayed? Writing an RP post. What’s your favorite department in Wal-Mart? Uh, I guess where you can go see the plants and flowers. Do you find kite flying boring? I LOVED it as a kid. I'd still probably find it kinda fun. Do you have any interest in visiting Japan? Yes, but it's not a massive interest. I've heard the humidity can kill a bitch, and I am NOT into that. Have you ever run a cash register? Yes. I sucked. Have you ever worked as a server? No. Have you ever done the Bratz challenge on YouTube? No, but I saw James Charles do it and it was v unnerving, holy shit. Would you rather paint or carve a pumpkin? Carve. What was your worst experience in high school? My depression as a whole. How much did your senior prom dress cost you? I don't remember. Have you ever been in a serious romantic relationship? Three, if you include my current one. Which part of your body is the most muscular? Uh, nothing? What is the first site you check when you get online, generally? KM. Are you good at creative writing assignments? That's my forte. In elementary school, I actually won a I think county-wide creative writing short story assignment. Not to brag, but I've always been very proud of that, ha ha. Or would you rather just do an informative essay? That's easy for me too, but I prefer writing creatively. Are you more attracted to the badasses, or the goody-goody types? Definitely the goody-goodies. The "bad guys" have never appealed to me romantically. Do you raise your hand or participate in class? I did if I really wanted to ask something or was confident in an answer. What is something BIG you want to do with your life? Make a difference, somehow. What do you think of people who own wild animals? Do NOT just casually take in animals from the wild. That's selfish and just generally disgusting. If you're going to keep an animal generally described as wild and undomesticated, you'd better have a license and deserve that license. Know what you're doing and be certain that keeping the animal in captivity is in the animal's best interest for its unique case. Are you good at explaining things, in general? NOOOOOOOOO, I suck at that. Do you like visiting the mall? Why or why not? Not our mall, no. Its stores suck/are extremely limited, and SO much crime has happened there. Do you like window shopping? Why or why not? YESSSSSSS, mostly on Morph Market, a mostly reptile selling hub online. You can browse TONS of breeders and literally thousands of reptiles, especially ball pythons. They even have a tarantula section I like to look at sometimes. If you lost your job/home/etc., who would likely help you? If I'm losing my home, I'm assuming my mom is gone, so my dad. Why did you first kiss the last person you kissed? We were a couple and I felt like I was supposed to. At that time I didn't see him romantically, but I desperately wanted to. Funny how we're back together and I've no reservations against kissing him now. Feelings change, for sure. Plans for tonight? Girt and I will probably play some WoW Classic together. We've started playing that together, and it's lots of fun with him. :') Has anyone seen you kiss the last person you kissed? Actually, no. Have you ever been kissed in a car? Yeah. Do you think anyone has feelings for you? I know Girt does. Is there anyone in your life that knows right away something’s wrong with you? My mom. Who last made you smile? Girt, 'cuz he's a sweetheart. Where is your mother? She's in bed in her room. She feels like shit. Like, you would think she WASN'T vaccinated, though her long-time doctor has said she'd probably be dead without it while having Covid. Would you rather look at clouds or stars? Stars. Think about your biggest mistake, would you go back and change it? I absolutely would. Are you dating the person you last kissed? Yeup. What is the most immature item you own and actually use? Um. Idk. Do you always take a shower after you have sex? I... didn't know people did this? Like I know women are advised to pee after sex, but full-on showering? No. Do you like chocolate popsicles? Oh hell yeah. Are your parents proud of you? They claim to be. I don't see how. Are you interested in the ocean? Yeah; it's inarguably so fascinating. Hot dogs or hamburgers? I prefer burgers. Have you ever been to a Chinatown in any of the cities you’ve been to? No. Have you ever been to couple’s counseling? No. Do you have any dietary restrictions? No. Have you ever turned down a job offer? No. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? A dog named Cali that was a boxer mix. Do you ever pray, even if you don't believe in God? What exactly is the point if you don't believe in God...? Anyway, I don't. Have you ever been to Mexico? No. Have you ever gotten stuck in quicksand before? No. What's the shortest or longest length you've ever had your hair grow? To around the small of my back. The last nest you saw - was it a bird nest or a hornet's nest? I think a bird's? Do you enjoy Jeff Dunham? I don't know if I'd like him as a person, but I do think he's a funny comedian. Who is your favorite character from Frozen? I was never into the movies. I do think Elsa is kinda cool (no pun intended, lol), though. I like that she has her flaws. Did you finish high school? If not, do you plan on doing so? I did. Have you been in a simulator that mimicked a submarine or rollercoaster? A rollercoaster, yes. How often do you go out to eat instead of cooking for yourself? Mom and I try to avoid fast food for our health. We do a pretty good job at it, but sometimes for convenience's sake, we do eat it. What is the largest family of siblings that you know of? This is probably gonna come across as very judgmental, but... it really bothers me. I don't know how many kids she has now, but one of the dance moms from the studio has SO many children; I've completely lost count. Now if you want that many kids and can provide for them, that's cool. But that's not the case. She uses the "if God wants me to have a baby, then it will happen" mentality, and I'm just like... um, no hunny. Poor choices are leading to kids you're not adequately providing for. She uses no methods of protection and literally has twins whose room is a fucking closet. Ugh it just really bothers me. What foreign languages were offered to you at school? A whole lot. Only Spanish and I believe French were offered as in-school courses, but there were lots of online classes. If you were required to take a course right now, what would you choose? Photography. Team Biden or Team Trump? Over my dead body would I have voted for Trump. My vote went with Biden. What is an animal native to your country that may not exist in others? Bison are factually exclusive to North America. Note that bison and buffalo are different. What are some of your favorite autumn activities? Taking pictures of fall scenery. <3 What are some of your favorite winter activities? Going out in the snow. :') Especially with a camera. Do you eat a shit-ton the week before your period? uuugggghhHHHHHH yes Wendy's, McDonalds, or Burger King? Wendy's. What's the weirdest question you've ever asked Alexa? I've never asked Alexa anything. Do you prefer your apple cider to be warm or cold? I've actually never had it. Do you prefer your coffee hot or iced? Y'all know the story of me and coffee. Can you sing the alphabet backwards? I can't. Have you ever sent flowers or chocolates to yourself before? Ha ha, no. Is there any meat that you won't eat? Yeah, fish and ANYTHING that comes from a wild animal. Does your cat use anything other than it's scratching post as a scratcher? When we got him a scratcher WITH CATNIP, the lil butthead ignored it. -_- He scratches the carpet instead. Did you go through a vampire craze before? Are you still going through it? Nah. Have you ever forged your parents' signature on a poor test paper, etc? No. Has a bird ever pooped on you before? Omg, no. I'd die. Have you ever been sprayed by a skunk before? No. Are black jellybeans delicious or disgusting? I HATE them. Have you ever rolled down a grassy hill before? I have! I miss that.

[crstapor]

Terror White

“You’re either with us or against us.” - George W. Bush


1.

On January 6th, 2021, domestic terrorists invaded the Capital Building in an act of political insurrection. Their intent was to overthrow the will of the people by preventing certification of a free and fair democratic election. They did so at the behest of their political leader (who was impeached a second time for inciting this gross transgression of his oath of office), other voices in their party - the so-called GOP - and talking head agitators inhabiting the far-right media echo chamber. Nearly to a man, a woman, a they, each of these terrorists were white.

Images of ‘good old boys’ traipsing down the halls of the people’s house waving confederate battle flags, kicking feet up on the Speaker’s desk, walking off with public property or smearing their shit on the floors pervaded the internet. These images provided by the villains themselves, posted shamelessly to social media profiles.

As a result of this treasonous, insulting, juvenile, despicable, and ultimately futile effort five people died. Even still, hours after the fact, a majority of members of the so-called GOP voted in accordance with the will of these terrorists. They voted to overturn the results of a free and fair election in the world’s oldest modern democracy. They did so because they believed there were serious ‘concerns’ (‘concerns’, let’s be clear, that started with them and like the Ouroboros, ended up with the confusing, if unhygienic, phenomenon of not knowing where their mouths or assholes ended or began) with the 2020 presidential election. After over 60 court cases arguing that point only one was ruled in their favor. None of the 50 States comprising our union found any evidence of wide-spread fraud. Indeed, a federal agency tasked with monitoring election security stated unequivocally that the presidential election of 2020 was one of the most secure in a generation.

And yet? There they were. Spouting conspiracy theories, assaulting police officers (those stalwart stewards of the ‘law & order’ they otherwise claim to love), brandishing spears and bearskins, stealing mail, leaving death threats to the Vice President, fundamentally acting the fool. A bunch of bullies let out of detention with rage and rebellion on their minds.

Let me be clear: each and every one of these terrorists should be hunted down by law enforcement and charged to the fullest extent of the law. They should then be prosecuted and the judges in each and every case should show or allow no mercy. These barbarians must never be allowed to storm the gates again.

Fine.

But that’s not the really interesting question here. The far-right has been producing assholes forever (one of the few things the ‘right’ is truly consistent at). What’s actually interesting is how these insurrectionists arrived at the conclusions they did. Which is to say; how did their ‘thinking’ bring them to this point.

2.

While it might be tempting for some on the left to see that last sentence as a joke, let’s remember we’re sitting at the adult table. These terrorists, being human, sharing our genetic code, are people - real, live, eating, shitting, fucking, anxious, sleeping, scared, afraid, terrified people - just like you and me. As much as it would be easier if we could see them as Uruk-hai instead of our brothers and sisters, sadly? That’s what they are. Family. Part of the Human Condition.

Though humans that are clearly very, very, very sick. My diagnosis? Mind Cancer. Let me explain, under the assumption my readers understand the difference between mind and brain. As such, I am not asserting that the terrorists are physically sick. From their pics and videos it’s clear many are - obesity, hypertension, anal retention - though that isn’t the point. It’s their mental programming, their minds, that have been infected. Infected with what?

Put simply? A disjointed ontological phenomenology obscured, obfuscated, and accelerated by persistently chaotic epistemological aberrations. Said plainly? Their ability to process reality has been impaired.

Why? Racial resentment, poor economic opportunities, an aversion to books and learning? Yes. All that. Plus? The internet, which has created a new Dark Ages.

Paradoxically, one built on light.

3.

Look. Self-interested demagogues intent on self-aggrandizement are nothing new. Nor are their ability to rally or rile a downtrodden populace. Sadly, demonizing the ‘other’ is also pretty par for the course in these scenarios. An old story, all told. What’s new this time is how it happens.

In a single second - count it out! One Mississippi - a beam, or photon of light moves 186,000 miles. Roughly seven times the circumference of the Earth. The new speed of hate. The internet, that modern marvel ushering in Humanity’s first truly post-scarcity resource, is built on light. Philosophers have for millennia wed knowledge with light. And now we all (well, those of us in the post-industrial world) carry a terminal connected to this internet in our pockets. A stunning marvel of human ingenuity. One would imagine that access to such a wellspring of knowledge and information would have a truly edifying affect on the Human Condition. Perhaps, in aggregate, or retrospect, it will. At the moment?

Yeah ...

At the moment it seems that the more access to information humans have the more they double down on tribal identities, wish fulfillment, instant gratification (read: porn), perceived slights, fantasy lands, Rick Astley videos, or the jibbering incoherent rantings of simple capitalists fomenting the fragile emotional states of low information individuals who feel they have no place in this world. This is a fundamentally devastating epistemological conundrum. Why? For centuries the barrier to the future was the amount of information, knowledge, you could access or process. Yet here and now? Here and now there might be too much access. Too much information. More so, the striking fact that our ability, as a species, writ large, to process or parse this information has not kept pace with the information at hand. A sad equation that inevitably leads to moments like 01/06/21.

4.

The Trump Terrorists of January 6th, 2021, weaponized the internet to facilitate their attempted coup. As did their ‘dear leader’ throughout his humiliating single term in office. In fact, it was the geometrical acceleration of connectivity and interconnectedness enabled via the web and its insanely capitalist platforms that allowed for their ‘movement’ to incubate and evolve. While it is true that neo-liberal policies advocating globalist economics and monetary policy are at the current root cause of most ills genuinely affecting rural, or poor, or uneducated MAGA-heads, it’s also true that apart from an Independent from Vermont no one in the political economy of the last couple decades gave much of a shit about these poor and dispossessed inheritors of old racial mythemes and toxic narratives of self-reliance. No one that is, other than their ‘dear leader’. Never mind he didn’t intend to ease their suffering in any material, or structural way. He talked about it. He tweeted about it. And then he gave them a little song and dance at the rallies. Breathtaking stuff.

However, it wasn’t just the performative act of playing ‘authoritarian’ that got them hot and bothered. No, it was at the same time the eternal need to belong to a group, the legitimate feeling of economic obsolescence, coupled with these new tools of information transmission. Tools that at once gave them powers unheralded and seemingly ensconced them in a protective shell, a perpetually larval manifestation of all their baser inclinations. A reactionary ‘safe space’ from which they could launch a thousand ships of intolerance and hate. What good is truth if you can’t weaponize it? What good are facts if you share them with everyone else?

And so we find ourselves revising Plato. There isn’t just one cave in which we are chained, kept from reality. There are multiple tunnels, alcoves, deeper caverns in which we might dwell. Furthermore, if lucky, there are different days, vistas, egresses in which we can escape from the confines of ignorance. Much like the lucky Mormons, it would seem the far-right believes there are plenty of planets in which ‘Truth’ can dwell. Never mind that multiplying ‘Truth’ in such a way doesn’t actually produce more truth.

In fact, it reduces ‘Truth’. Impoverishes it. Hollows it out.

Which is sad, really. For the major harm caused by these rebels isn’t to our democratic institutions, nor our mythological vision of our nature, nor that ever-loving economy - but to the very fabric that binds the social contract on which all the preceding rely.

That fabric being, specifically, a shared objective reality.

5.

How can we survive if we can’t agree on basic facts? Can a multi-racial, multi-cultural, representative democracy exist when a large percentage of the comprising citizens don’t believe in, or even acknowledge, that that’s actually what’s happening? Is White Supremacy so fundamentally a part of our nation’s DNA that the country can’t exist without it? If so, for those of us who vehemently oppose White Supremacy, the question might then be: is the country worth saving?

Most versions of Western Ethics indicate that violence is not the cure. Nor do I advocate such a position. At the same time I’m deeply troubled, because due their illness these actors are neither rational or coherent. Ergo, we can’t reason with them either. So what next?

To corral the revolutionary, if inchoate, spirit of these sick, fringe minds diseased as they are by hate, grievance, and digital oubliettes would any policy proposals be acceptable? Perhaps as fantastic an idea as the images from 01/06/21, what if the Federal Government decided to halt its obsequious sycophantry to corporate America and ‘elites’ and instead actually, seriously, emphatically reinvested in the heartland, in Main Street, in the working class? Wouldn’t it be ironic if a little more socialism was truly the cure these hatemongers require?

6.

Maybe we should step back and listen to the wisdom of George W. Bush.

Confronting what was at the time the most disheartening terror attack on the homeland, Bush made clear not all who could otherwise be lumped in with the terrorists were terrorists. In the same way that, yes, not all Trump voters are Trump Terrorists.

Even so. Bush made it clear you needed to pick a side.

With us - toward a diverse future in which the promise of the Founders is emboldened and expanded for all who live between our shores. Or against us - back to your stunted hovels and holes with all the other low information troglodytes you like to cosplay revolution with.  

Choose.

It’s your call. But choose quickly, because history is watching, and only one path moves toward the future.

C. R. Stapor Longmont, CO 01/16/21

[princesssarcastia]

we’re tunneling under rock bottom, lads.

alrighty then.  ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who know better: here it is.  just laying bear the incredible shame which is my current descent back into hp.  I’ve been reading lots of fic, and now i’m having a lot of thoughts about it.  putting them under a readmore because I’m morally opposed to even accidentally subjecting people to this if they don’t want to see it.   in the immortal words of groucho marx, these are my principles thoughts, and if you don’t like them....well, i have others.

ugh. oh god. here we go.

i’m frankly disgusted with the way james potter is frequently cast as this HIMYM-Ted-Mosby-like character, who meets a woman—no, doesn’t even meet her.  just sees her.  and decides this is the woman he’ll marry, and then continues to pursue her even though she makes it clear she’s not interested...FOR YEARS...sort of casts himself as a wounded, sympathetic party...and then eventually succeeds!!  which is some Narrative Bullshit, because it implies that’s a way to get someone to go out with you, Which It Isn’t.  like, I don’t think this interpretation even has any canon grounding, but that’s beside the point because canon is a roast and I am carving off only the bits I want to eat for consumption.

the mindset i’m using to justify this to myself is that.  look.  tmi hour with princesssarcastia.  these books actually do mean a lot to me.  they were the books that made me like to read!  they opened a whole world for me; not just the world of HP but countless others, some better written, some much much worse.  it was like they flipped a switch in my head and suddenly i had this glorious form of escapism that had been in front of me all along but that I could now take advantage of.  I would literally not be the same person I am today if I hadn’t read them.  i know everyone says that but I really do mean it.  hell yes I should, and WILL, be more critical of the source material and the fan material now, compared to when I first read them.  I should not only be more critical, but I should also openly criticize it and its author, JK Rowling.  But it’s like with lovecraft, okay; he was shit and JRK is shit, but they laid out the bare bones of something more spectacular than their tiny, bigoted minds could fully flesh out.  so now, fleshing it out is our job, especially so we can rub it in their racist, transphobic, antisemetic faces that we’re way better at it than they ever were.

still hate snape!  really, really do.  he’s a bigot and a bully and he never changed, and the fact that he was poor and his father abused him doesn’t change that or make him redeemable somehow.  It makes him more interesting, sure!  More fleshed out, more three dimensional.  But as a person he still sucks.  He was Neville’s boggart!  And not in the way that McGonagall was Hermione’s boggart; not like some face or representation of a more abstract fear.  It was Literally just snape that Neville feared more than anything else in the world, and I will not abide that.  Snape is bad for the same reason Umbridge is bad: your teachers are supposed to be people you can trust, they are people entrusted with your welfare, they are supposed to broaden your horizons and introduce you to the world around you in increasingly complex but ALWAYS, ALWAYS KIND ways.  Snape does not do that.  And I always thought the idea of him still loving Lily decades after he inadvertently sent Voldemort on the path to murdering her, and spending those decades doing something he hated and making the children in his care as miserable as he was, was much more sad than it was romantic.  That’s not a romance, that’s a tragedy that he walked into with his eyes wide open, and karmically deserved.

The best fics are the ones that understand that Ron Weasley was harry’s first friend, that he was kind, and that his jealousy and temper didn’t make him any less those things.  Ron Weasley is a ride-or-die bitch with, frankly, more emotional intelligence than hermione had sometimes, and I respect the hell out of him.

There really must have been more to the wizarding world than Harry ever sees, and that makes it fertile ground for fandom to grow its own ideas in.  For instance, to fight a war against all the death eaters, their families, the bigoted ministry employees, and the snatchers, there simply MUST have been more order of the phoenix members than were named, the first time ‘round and the second.

When you think about it, the concept of the Order of the Phoenix is actually fascinating. because on the one hand, it’s kind of a private paramilitary group?  It’s basically a militia populated by some government employees, INCLUDING cops, and schoolteachers, and healers, and sometimes your neighbors.  That’s sort of a scary thought in the abstract, though it does literally happen in the U.S. allll the time.  But on the other hand, it’s a group of people dedicated to taking direct action against rising fascism in their government and society.  punch nazis 1995, amirite?

Very excited because today, for the first time, I read a harry potter fic where someone (hermione, of course) mentions human rights. [dead men have no tails, by DuskGlass] and it’s very offhand, narratively; there’s not deep exploration of it.  But it leads to some wider questions I’ve been musing over...

...which is, even though the wizarding world is separate from the muggle world, how does that work out historically?  specifically when it comes to shitty stuff, though there are certainly nicer areas of this to explore if you’d like to.  For instance, How involved were british wizards in colonial efforts?  Did british, french, and dutch colonists in the americas participate in the genocide against native people there?  In the atlantic slave trade?  How involved was the british wizarding world in colonizing India?  And, were native american wizards and indian wizards involved in that conflict?  I mean, i can’t imagine they weren’t.  And if they weren’t, and the european forces still succeeded anyway, they the european wizarding world would have to have been involved in that, right?  when exactly did wizarding and muggle society start splitting far enough apart that muggle wars were not wizarding affairs?  Are there wizards in every country on the planet?  Is there the same level of disengagement in every other country as there is in Great Britain? These are questions i’m sure Hermione must have gotten answered for herself at some point.  I’d like to know the answers as well.

In retrospect, a lot of Hogwarts classes seem centered around defense and offense; in training people in combat, even if that’s not explicitly what they call it.  not in any fudge/umbridge esque “they’re training the kids in combat to take over the government!!!!” way, but in a “this world is actually very, very dangerous, from creatures to rogue magical objects or rogue magical people who mean you harm.”  That’s a fascinating mindset to have; it’s a fascinating paradigm to shift to, I imagine, especially for muggleborns.  Sort of prudent in canon, given the whole Voldemort thing, but it makes you wonder if the wizarding world then just always has some kind of asshole trying to take it over and kill a bunch of people along the way.

I’ll probably have more thoughts at some point, but that’s it for now.  feel free to discuss these, or any other, harry potter thoughts with me further.  I gotta get my enrichment somehow.

[bartzechariah]

The pyramids were waking, one by one, lanterns and torches flickering to life as shadows gathered in the streets below.

Start by clearing back the forest. Mr. If the diversity of viruses in the environment greatly outweighs the number of possible spacers, CRISPR Cas systems may be of little use, says Koonin. The pyramids were waking, one by one, lanterns and torches flickering to life as shadows gathered in the streets below. A tall stork of a girl with a pockmarked face escorted him into the royal presence. "To the families, there is nothing more important than getting your loved ones home," says Matt Ziemkiewicz, whose sister, Jill, died in the 1996 crash of TWA 800 off Long Island. He thought they had done well. Perhaps I should stumble back down to the cellars. “Enough!” said the prince. We will continue to work hard and do our best to ensure that we bottines cloutees femme conduct our daily tasks free of errors, injuries, accidents and infections. If I drink enough fire wine, he told himself, perhaps I’ll dream of dragons.. It had been two days since he had eaten, or maybe three. Ghana worked hard to earn their reputation as African powerhouses, performing arguably how their counterparts should have. “What haibike e mtb 2020 if I did write twelve o’clock? I wrote to you yesterday, but today I’ve been written to myself, and such a piece of business that my head’s in a whirl! They’re waiting for me. Tyrion marked time by the comings and goings of the cabin boy who brought the ghete galbene piele meals he did not eat. Then I began to talk to him. The increase in intensity boosts the metabolism and keeps it higher longer after your workout is over. They may endure it for a time, but with much uneasiness; and they are glad of the first opportunity of emigration... The upshot of this case was, that Souther, instead of getting off from his five years’ imprisonment, got simply a judicial opinion from the Superior Court that he ought to be hung; but he could not be tried over again, and, as we may infer from all the facts in the case that he was a man of tolerably resolute nerves and not very exquisite sensibility, it is not likely that the opinion gave him any very serious uneasiness. We're going to try to learn from it; recognize our mistakes, learn from our mistakes and try not to have them happen again. The air stank of burning wool and brimstone. IF I WANT TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO PEOPLE, I THINK EVERYBODY SHOULD KNOW THAT TRUMP IS GIVING TO THAT PERSON. Just a thought for next year, which I'm already looking forward to.. Unfortunately, our government seems to be heading in the opposite direction when it comes to climate policy. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. Men sat crammed knee to knee along the benches, so tightly packed that the servers had to squirm between them. Were it put to the test, I am convinced that many masters would receive this striking proof of devotion. The elder of the two silent sisters took up the shears. Yes, you heard me. The Shy Maid was a sweet boat. Warn Natalya Nikolaevna that there had better be no idyllic nonsense, Mens JORDAN Hoodie no Schillerism, that they had better not oppose me. Do not use a vacuum cleaner to absorb excess water from your carpet and furniture. And grandfather hit him with his stick. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing, “I am sorry to disturb you, but I thought that you would want to know at once. Well, good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch. OTHERWISE, THIS COUNTRY IS GOING DOWN. He hoped that Griff had better sense. The robo call computer recognizes the and removes your number because they pay at but get zero results. The fall was widely anticipated by the market, and the expectations for the full year figure are for a similar fall, down about 18pc to 88p. The AMD R9 295X2 also makes dolce gabanna adidași bărbații an appearance to determine which delivers the best gaming. Stores to check out the best fashion sneakers on the street. Not now. Of that would have been possible without Moccia heroics in the seventh. “Shame, shame, shame on the sinner,” chanted the septas. JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) You're not imagining things! It feels a lot better outside because a cold front moved through! Expect refreshing air to settle in through Tuesday. The dogs enjoyed the run of the hall, however, and provided the night’s best entertainment, when Maude and Grey Jeyne tore into one of Lord Stout’s hounds over an especially meaty bone that Will Short had tossed them. "icut rich Irish heritage and our state strong exporting industry will serve Aer Lingus well as it expands its service here, a message I conveyed to the company leaders last year in a meeting with public officials and business leaders.ExclusiveFuture Uncertain for State CHAMP Fleetan Irish American I very happy that this day has come" Gov. Life and death went hand in hand amongst the horselords, and a sprinkling of blood was thought to bless a marriage. Oddly enough, the time of launch depends largely on how the market warms up to the Tucson. The wildlings brought their gods with air jordan aj4 them after all. We decided to hook up the 140 mm front intake rather than the 120 mm side exhaust. The defendants deny these allegations, assert that the agreements and the payments did not violate any law, and otherwise maintain that they did not engage in any wrongdoing.. He dare not use tiger cloaks. “I know this man,” she did hear a priest with the face of a plague victim say. I made the mistake of looking into the sky and a sudden unease began to creep over me. The three story 43,747 square foot site will dolce gabanna adidași bărbații have 20 classrooms and room for about 300 students in both the Head Start program for children ages 3 to 5 and the Early Head Start program for infants and toddlers. “Orders have come down from Yurkhaz,” he said. Air Canada provides scheduled passenger service directly to 63 airports in Canada, 56 in the United States and 86 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Mens JORDAN Hoodie Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and South America. Reek saw the way Ramsay’s mouth twisted, the spittle glistening between his lips. Your adrenals are your energy bank account." I will hear the word adrenal which, I assume, is a reference to the hormones secreted by the adrenal glands approximately nine thousand times during my interactions with the Clean Program teams. The Thunderbirds won't return to Florida for any fall shows next year though. Her face was working. The prince has evidently studied Katya, and realizes that she’s suited to nike air max 102 essential white him, and that she may attract him more than I can. “Mance Rayder’s bowmen must have loosed ten thousand arrows at us, judging from the number of spent shafts we’ve gathered up. For those wonderful getaways or river guides Chaco makes those intelligently designed single buckle flip flops that secure your grip despite the slippery slope. “So I went to the cars nike jean jacket and got a white man to put me aboard; and, sure enough, there I found two Bethel ministers; and one set one side o’ me, and one set the other, all the way; and they got me my tickets, and looked after my things, and did every thing for me.

[researchers3]

The Researchers

Cold War in the XXI Century

 As we all know the Cold War with the second World War shaped not only the modern geography, yet society, politics, ideologies and even modern technologies. It is believed that the conflict was a direct consequence of the victories of the allies over the axis. When it all ended over half of Europe was communist meanwhile the other half was capitalist, this extreme difference between the ideas caused a disruption of the fragile peace and raised up the tension between the Eastern and Western Block. This rising crisis resulted in the Warsaw pact, the creation of the NATO, the Berlin wall, the Iron curtain, among others. It's important to say that not only Europe was under huge political stress.  Asia, Africa and America, were also involved in their own ways, therebefore the Proxy Wars, minor fights, between minor countries with supplies of nations like the USA and USSR.

In Africa were many civil wars between military and political dictators, in Asia brutal wars like the Korea and the Vietnam ones, furthermore in South America, brutal civil conflicts between the Communist, Guerrillas and the right-wing dictatorships, one after another. Finally, it all ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and was dissolute thanks to internal problems and by a man called Michael Gorbachev.  

Consequently, for some years the Cold War was interrupted and the western bloc NATO was expanding its dominance while the Soviet Union was reemerging as a new nation called the Russian Federation.  Sadly, the tensions were revived after the sanction on Russia were imposed and as a counterattack, they decided to involve the middle east conflict led by western forces.  

Therefore, the Russian influence in the world's economy and military dominance among the world is still striking even though its nation has been through many turbulent changes during the last centuries.

The Russian Military forces are by far one of the largest in the world, their huge influence is still present in many parts of the middle east. Afghanistan is a clear example of a country destroyed by the ideological interest of both the USSR and the USA, in 24 Dec 1979 – 15 de Feb 1989 the communist soviet forces steamrolled through Afghanistan, this conflict was called the Soviet-Afghan war, on the other side, the official war ended with the withdrawal of the Soviet forces. However, the conflict did not end then. There are still some military remains like all their equipment and guns. Thus, in 2001 the US started an invasion of Afghanistan to stop “The Taliban''.  Modern-day Russia is supporting the Taliban as a direct consequence for all they're to the 40 years sanctions and restrictions, as says Gibbons (2017) “KABUL — The general in charge of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan appeared to confirm Monday that Russia is sending weapons to the Taliban, an intervention that will probably further complicate the 15-year-old war here. The Kremlin’s relations with the United States.” (parag.1) For an instance, we can confirm that their interest in helping the terrorist forces. Another point we have to confirm there are remains in soviet ideology and interest is the areas said by Dmitriy Frolovskiy (2020) “Memories of the balance that existed in the days of the Soviet Union and the threat of chaos posed by the rise of radical non-state actors such as ISIS paved the way for Russians to return to the Middle East and the acceptance of its growing regional role.” (parag. 3) their main goal is the counterweight the US insolvent in the Middle east as said by Dmitriy Orlovskiy “Russia was deemed both effective and powerful enough to act as a counterweight to the U.S” ...  Previously mentioned data state clearly that Russia is still present in most of the conflict zones where the western forces are involved to destabilize the opponent forces.

 lthough the Soviet Union was dissolved, their ideology still remains in some foreign countries, even continents like Asia or America. A clear example of communism in China is thanks to Deng Xiaoping he was the beginning of communism in China as he was the one who confiscated the companies to build industrial China which after a long time of struggling became one of the most influential countries worldwide (BBC News Mundo/ 30/8/19 / said in the last argument "the political communist spectrum around the world is still large, but what about the new left? Is there any change in their ideas? The answer is yes, but don't get ahead of yourself, it is simple in 1970-1980 the USSR was losing the economic and ideological war and therefore they had to change their mechanics, they would stop fighting in a militaristic, violent way and would turn their focus in a social-cultural war". 

 Here we see the rise of the new thoughts like the ideology of gender, the social war between the Woman and the Man and third wave radical feminism. As Juan Elman says (2018)” Communism did not die ”, state the authors. With the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the left shifted from economics to culture. He conquered the classrooms, the arts and communication. He conquered backpack pins, cell phone cases and Pinterest graffiti. Conquered. The proclamations of the revolution, although in cool packaging, did not die: to carry it out, the left “invented” new conflicts. This was born the so-called gender ideology, the concept -central link” (parrag. 11) this was originally said by Agustin Laje an writer and an historian which talks about the new left in a series of books, one of the most popular of them is “The black book of the new left” Therefore, having ideological influence in the world keeps Russians and their philosophy present in many spheres of the world.

The Cold War began thanks to the fact that the United States and Russia were fighting over who would be the next to lead the world since they had wiped out the Nazis. Their race caused that more missiles and other dangerous weapons were created to show who was the one who had the power,  and many consequences have been seen worldwide.  Both countries would have much larger weaponry that needed to be used to defend their country  and their ambition for ruling the world has never stopped even though Russia played a less influential role in the previous two decades.  The F-4 Phantom the US Navy's Phantom F-4 fighter-bomber could carry a payload of more than 8 tons of weaponry and was also noted for its speed, reaching a close maximum. at Mach 2.23. This Cold War icon has served the United States and its allies in Vietnam, Iraq, and Kuwait. This is stated by the page (RT / Published June 24, 2017 00:24 GMT / no author)  

    The Cold War was widely recognized and we believe that it is one of the most important and major conflicts in history, since it was a warfare that did not use weapons it used planning, spying and proxy conflicts. At the conclusion of this problem, it can be said that beyond these two blocks there was a third world, the non-aligned countries, but their responses to conflicts were really conditioned by some block. The Cold War avoided a generalized direct confrontation, therefore it was called a “COLD WAR” however don't let that name fool you, it was a cruel, violent and changing war, as said it shaped the modern word, and so for its important to learn about it, to understand the why, where and when.  

“You have to know the past to understand the present.” - Carl Sagan

Bibliography and Sources:

 Gibbons-Neff, T. (2017, 24 Abril). Russia is sending weapons to Taliban, top U.S. general confirms. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/04/24/russia-is-sending-weapons-to-taliban-top-u-s-general-confirms/

 Frolovskiy, D. (2020, 1 June). Russia’s involvement in the Middle East: Building sandcastles and ignoring the streets. Middle East Institute. https://www.mei.edu/publications/russias-involvement-middle-east-building-sandcastles-and-ignoring-streets

 BBC News Mundo (2019 30 ago) Cuán comunista es realmente China hoy | BBC Mundo Cuán comunista es realmente China hoy | BBC Mundo

 Bermúdez, E. A. (2018, February 5). Who's Afraid of Agustín Laje? Zero seventy  https://cerosetenta.uniandes.edu.co/laje-derecha/ RT (2017 JUN 25)

[ucflibrary]

Ready to fly your flag?

Pride Month has arrived! While every day is a time to be proud of your identity and orientation, June is that extra special time for boldly celebrating with and for the LGBTQIA community (yes, there are more than lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in the queer community). June was chosen to honor the Stonewall Riots which happened in 1969. Like other celebratory months, LGBT Pride Month started as a weeklong series of events and expanded into a full month of festivities.

In honor of Pride Month, UCF Library faculty and staff suggested books from the UCF collection that represent a wide array of queer authors and characters. Click on the read more link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links.

With the Libraries’ on remote resource access, the usual extended physical display isn’t available so we have created a list of ebooks and streaming videos that you can access from the comfort of your home. 

A Wild and Precious Life: a memoir by Edie Windsor  A lively, intimate memoir from an icon of the gay rights movement, describing gay life in 1950s and 60s New York City and her longtime activism which opened the door for marriage equality. Edie Windsor became internationally famous when she sued the US government, seeking federal recognition for her marriage to Thea Spyer, her partner of more than four decades. The Supreme Court ruled in Edie's favor, a landmark victory that set the stage for full marriage equality in the US. Beloved by the LGBTQ community, Edie embraced her new role as an icon; she had already been living an extraordinary and groundbreaking life for decades. Suggested by Kelly Young, Administration

 How We Fight for Our Lives: a memoir by Saeed Jones Haunted and haunting, Jones's memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence--into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another--and to one another--as we fight to become ourselves. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: essays by Alexander Chee Chee’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing--Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn't sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that's going to help her figure out this whole "Puerto Rican lesbian" thing. She's interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women's bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff. With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 No Tea, No Shade: new writings in Black queer studies edited by E. Patrick Johnson This book brings together nineteen essays from the next generation of black queer studies scholars, activists, and community leaders who build on the foundational work of black queer studies, pushing the field in new and exciting directions. Suggested by Jada Reyes, Research & Information Services

 Over the Top: a raw journey to self-love by Jonathan Van Ness  Before he stole our hearts as the grooming and self-care expert on Netflix’s hit show Queer Eye, Jonathan was growing up in a small Midwestern town that didn’t understand why he was so…over the top. From choreographed carpet figure skating routines to the unavoidable fact that he was Just. So. Gay., Jonathan was an easy target and endured years of judgement, ridicule and trauma—yet none of it crushed his uniquely effervescent spirit. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll come away knowing that no matter how broken or lost you may be, you’re a Kelly Clarkson song, you’re strong, and you’ve got this. Suggested by Kelly Young, Administration

 Queer, Trans, and Intersectional Theory in Educational Practice: student, teacher, and community experiences edited by Cris Mayo and Mollie V. Blackburn Queer theory, trans theory, and intersectional theory have all sought to describe, create, and foster a sense of complex subjectivity and community, insisting on relationality and complexity as concepts and communities shift and change. This collection brings these crucial theories together to inform pedagogies across a wide array of contexts of formal education and community-based educational settings. Suggested by Anna Dvorecky, Cataloging

 Real Queer America: LGBT stories from red states by Samantha Allen Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 Shakesqueer: a queer companion to the complete works of Shakespeare edited by Madhavi Menon Exploring what is odd, eccentric, and unexpected in the Bard’s plays and poems, these theorists highlight not only the many ways that Shakespeare can be queered but also the many ways that Shakespeare can enrich queer theory. This innovative anthology reveals an early modern playwright insistently returning to questions of language, identity, and temporality, themes central to contemporary queer theory. Chasing all manner of stray desires through every one of Shakespeare’s plays and poems, the contributors cross temporal, animal, theoretical, and sexual boundaries with abandon. Together they expand the reach of queerness and queer critique across chronologies, methodologies, and bodies. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 Sister Outsider: essays and speeches by Audre Lorde In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published. Suggested by Jada Reyes, Research & Information Services

 Stories I Told Myself: a memoir by Brian D. Crimmins (UCF Thesis) Stories I Told Myself: A Memoir explores the experience of growing up gay in the 1980s. It is one boy's journey toward self-acceptance set against the conservative backdrop of a rural community on California's central coast. The story illuminates the hunger for a life different than the one being lived, and the ever-present sense of being different exacerbated by bullying and unrequited love. It is a narrative of evolving identity, and includes cultural insights and societal context of the time period. The author poses a fundamental question, "How did I make it out of the 80's alive?" and he explores the answer with poignant humor and self-examination. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 The Book of Pride: LGBTQ heroes who changed the world by Mason Funk Captures the true story of the LGBTQ civil rights movement from the 1960s to the present through richly detailed, stunning interviews with the leaders, activists, and ordinary people who witnessed the revolution and made it happen. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 The Crimson Letter: Harvard, homosexuality, and the shaping of American culture by Douglas Shand-Tucci Historian Douglass Shand-Tucci explores the nature and expression of sexual identity at America's oldest university during the years of its greatest influence. The Crimson Letter follows the gay experience at Harvard in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing upon students, faculty, alumni, and hangers-on who struggled to find their place within the confines of Harvard Yard and in the society outside. Suggested by Pat Tiberii, Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services

 Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T Fleischmann Sebald meets Maggie Nelson in this autobiographical narrative of embodiment, visual art, history, and loss. T Fleischmann uses Felix Gonzales-Torres's artworks--piles of candy, stacks of paper, puzzles--as a path through questions of love and loss, violence and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality. From the back porches of Buffalo, to the galleries of New York and L.A., to farmhouses of rural Tennessee, the artworks act as still points, sites for reflection situated in lived experience. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Trauma, Violence, and Lesbian Agency in Croatia and Serbia: building better times by Bojan Bilić This book uncovers some of the major moments in the fragile and still poorly known herstory of feminist lesbian engagement in Serbia and Croatia. By treating the trauma of war, homophobia, and neoliberal capitalism as a verbally impenetrable experience that longs to be narrated, this monograph explores the ways in which feminist lesbian language has repeatedly emerged in the context of strong patriarchal silencing that has surrounded the armed conflicts of the Yugoslav succession. The book renders visible a surprising diversity of activist initiatives and the resilience of transnational affective ties, which testify to the creativity of lesbian activist mobilizations in the ambivalent semi-peripheral space that used to be Yugoslavia. Suggested by Anna Dvorecky, Cataloging

We Are Everywhere: protest, power, and pride in the history of Queer Liberation by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown Have pride in history. Through the lenses of protest, power, and pride, this is an essential overview -- and a visual record -- of the history of the Queer Liberation Movement in the United States. With exhaustively researched narrative and hundreds of stunning photographs, this sweeping book traces queer activism from its roots in the late-nineteenth-century -- long before the pivotal Stonewall Riots of 1969 -- to today, casting new light on many of the movement's trailblazing activists and organizations. Suggested by Christina Wray, Student Learning & Engagement

[leadgeneration0001]

Kepitalpay Review 2020

Kapitalpay (full name was “Kapitalpayment — Your Social Investment Network”), is undoubtedly one of the most recognized names in the bitcoin investment broker industry. As a wise bitcoin investor, there is no doubt that it will pop on to your radar as a potential broker of choice.

This is particularly true if you want to engage in Bitcoin investment. Here, Kapitalpay is at the very top of the game. Beyond this, they are also known as a great broker for crypto assets trading and CFDs. They boast more than 2.9 million users around the world and some of the best top-tier regulation possible. In all, this makes them very trustworthy and a top, reliable Bitcoin Investment company.

Through this Kapitalpay review, you will learn everything you need to know to make the best choice about your Bitcoin investment trading future with Kapitalpay

Security

It is true that there are many scam Bitcoin investment brokers in the industry. This means you need to be as careful as possible when choosing your broker. Luckily, Kapitalpay does not fall into this category and has top security measures and regulation in place.

Foundation and Offices

Mentioning regulation, you should know that Kapitalpay are very well regulated and hold several licenses from the top-tier financial regulators. Operating since 2018, they have a physical presence in many countries around the world. This includes hundreds of staff in a variety of offices in the following locations worldwide: Limassol, London, New Jersey, Sydney, Shanghai.

Regulations

Kapitalpay is comprised of four main companies that operate worldwide. These are as follows:

Kapitalpay (UK) Ltd is registered at beta.companieshouse.gov.uk with company reference number 12217645 check here . It is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

Kapitalpay AUS Capital Pty Ltd is authorised by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to provide financial services under Australian Financial Services License number 491139.

Kapitalpay (Europe) Ltd, a Cyprus based investment company, with registration number HE21188. Kapitalpay Europe is regulated by the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (CySEC) with license number 109/11.

Kapitalpay USA is operated by Kapitalpay USA LLC, which is registered with FinCEN as a Money Services Business.

In addition to being well-regulated by some of these top-tier authorities in the sector, Kapitalpay is also ESMA compliant and regulated in almost every European country. Thanks to this wide-ranging regulation, Kapitalpay is available to traders in almost every country of the world including the United States.

Money Protection

One of the most important aspects of Bitcoin Investment trading is making sure your funds are safe. This is understandably a top priority for all traders and something that Kapitalpay takes very seriously.

To that end, Kapitalpay offers two protective measures to help keep your funds as safe as possible when trading with them.

First of all, they keep your deposited funds in segregated accounts within top-tier Blockchains wallet. This is a regulatory requirement in many areas to ensure that the funds of Investors are kept safe. This helps ensure that your funds will increase manually before your investment plan expires at Kapitalpay.

Not Accepted Clients

Kapitalpay accepts customers from all over the world, except from:

AFRICA: Botswana, Burundi, Chad, Congo Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guyana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Mali, Namibia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,Uganda.

ASIA: Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea.

EUROPE: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Crimea Region, Serbia.

AMERICAS: Cuba, Nicaragua.

OCEANIA: Palau, Samoa.

Deposit and Withdrawals

At Kapitalpay Investment deposit is done through Bitcoin, Withdrawal is also done through Bitcoin wallet. Kapitalpay withdrawals can be made through the same methods as deposits. As mentioned, this includes Bitcoin transfer. At the end of investment circle An Investor can withdraw both capital and profit through Bitcoin wallet address provided. Referral bonus can be withdrawn immediately to investor’s bitcoin wallet address. It is important to note that due to anti-money laundering regulation, your withdrawal method must match your deposit method.

Languages

The Kapitalpay website and support is available in as many as 19 different languages. These global options include English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese. There are several more and it is likely that no matter where you are from, Kapitalpay speaks your language.

Representatives & Referral CommissionsREFERRAL PROGRAM

Kapitalpay Investment referral program can help you earn more!

Invite your partners to join Kapitalpay.

Let them signup using your referral link.

Start earning money as soon as they make their first deposit.

Get up to 5 to 15% of you referral’s investments.

REPRESENTATIVES COMMISSION

Representatives are rewarded with twice as much referral commission, which is more than 15% of your referral’s deposit. If you want to become a representative you have to support and promote our project in your region through any legal way possible.

Customer Service

Kapitalpay, like many other top Bitcoin Investment brokers work hard to offer an extensive range of educational opportunities.

Kapitalpay customer support is comprehensive and available through three mediums. These are the email support, whatsapp support which has a Chat back service, and the web-based live chat. The first two of these methods are available in almost all of the 19 serviced languages, and the live chat is also available in a few including English, German, and Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish.To assist you, once you have created an account, you will be assigned an account manager who will reach out to you and whom you can contact if needed.

To assist you, once you have created an account, you will be assigned an account manager who will reach out to you and whom you can contact if needed.

Kapitalpay Affordable Packages

Kapitalpay offers 3 affordable investment packages:

Starter: 25% profit in 24hrs Minimum of $20 to maximum of $2000 Example: $20 will give you$25 after 24hr.

Silver: 45% profit in 24hrs Minimum of $500 to maximum of $5000 Example: $500 will give you $725 after 48hr.

Gold: 150% profit in 24hrs Minimum of $1000 to maximum of $100,000 Example: $1000 will give you$2500 after 72hr.

Our Opinion

Overall, having carried out an extensive Kapitalpay review it is our opinion that Kapitalpay has a strong reputation as a very well trusted and reliable Bitcoin investment broker for very good reason. They are extensively regulated by the top-tier bodies in financial regulation and have built a strong rapport among customers.

Their offering of Bitcoin investment affordable packages in combination with one of the most user-friendly trading platforms in the industry has attracted many loyal investors and been something of a first for the sector. The low minimum deposit of $20 is very positive for new investors looking to get involved in the industry and the steady customer support makes it a great place for all levels of Bitcoin investors. Kapitalpay does a lot to justify its position as a top Bitcoin investment broker in the industry. Earning and making money with Kapitalpay is certainly possible, and there are various testimonies to prove that.

Kapitalpay Pros and Cons

Pros

Great social and investment trading features

Regulated by 3 top-tier regulatory bodies

Low minimum deposit

Fast withdrawals

High referral commission

User friendly investment platform

International investment broker

Top tier regulations

Your funds are safe

Cons

Limited amount of languages for customer support and educational features

Kapitalpay FAQs

What is the minimum deposit for Kapitalpay?

In the 1st plan the minimum deposit with Kapitalpay is $20, 2nd is $500 and the gold plan is $1000.

What happens if Kapitalpay goes bust?

Kapitalpay is a very secure broker. If they did though, you are very well protected through the fact that your funds are always held in segregated accounts at top-tier Blockchain wallet. This means in the event of bankruptcy your funds would be safe, untouched and can be withdrawn anytime you want.

Is Kapitalpay trustworthy?

Absolutely. Kapitalpay is a very trustworthy Bitcoin investment company as you can see in our Kapitalpay Review. This trust can be showcased through the extensive top-tier regulation they have in place. They are very well-regulated through CySEC (109/10), FCA (583263) and ASIC (491139) for your protection.

Is Kapitalpay good for beginners?

Kapitalpay is excellent for beginners. They have a very user-friendly investment platform.

Is Kapitalpay illegal?

No. Kapitalpay is not illegal. In fact Kapitalpay accepts clients from over 190 countries. There are a few exceptions though and these can be found in the not accepted clients section of our review above.

Is Kapitalpay legal in UK?

Yes. Kapitalpay is completely legal in UK. In fact they are also regulated and registered by beta.companieshouse.gov.uk in London under the number 12217645 which you can check .

Regulated: CySec, FCA, ASIC

Registered: Companieshouse.gov.uk

[sohannabarberaesque]

Underwater America with Peter Potamus: Florida’s Treasure Coast

Continuing our cross-country tour (and fictional TV series), our heroes travel further south along Florida’s coast in our latest installment. This episode takes place in July 1970.

The ten of us continued down State Road A1A after finishing off a dive in Pelican Flats off Cape Canaveral—a dive that started with the exploration of a grassy reef and ending with all of us swimming alongside three-dozen-or-so manta rays. What a way to make a living.

“We’re going to a wreck next?” Magilla asked, peeling a banana in the back seat.

“Yep! We’re going to Fort Pierce.” I replied as I waited for the traffic light to turn green.

“Ahhh, but can it top the rays we saw?” Breezly said, still giddy from the experience.

The more I thought about it, the reef dive seemed somewhat ordinary up until that moment. “Who knows. I think we got lucky that day,” I said as I drove the minibus along the street. “We were just…there until that happened.”

Hokey, who rode shotgun that day, agreed. “True, true, Peter my buddy. We may have swam with the rays, but we came out of there wet and hungry, as we always do!”

I snickered. “Okay, okay, I get the picture. I suppose we should get some dinner in a little while. We can get a snack before then.” Everyone else agreed. We had lots of time before we got the nitrogen out of our systems, anyway. I decided on a seafood restaurant—complete with patio—in North Hutchinson Island, only a short drive from Vero Beach, one of the northern cities of the region of Florida known as the Treasure Coast.

The food was plentiful, even for the ten of us: a few lobsters, fried catfish and plenty of battered shrimp would keep us full for awhile, and the sides—cole slaw and hush puppies—topped off this delicious meal. “OH, BOY!” we explained, and dug in.

Naturally, the lobsters were claimed by Hokey and Wally, who had desired them ever since a failed attempt to bring back a couple of them from our Pelican Flats dive. We didn’t mind; I filled myself up on the shrimp and hush puppies, while a couple of others, notably Squiddly and Mildew, admired the catfish.

“Oooh, those spices!” Mildew said joyously, savoring the seasonings put into it. “What do you think’s in it?”

“I don’t think they’ll tell!” Squiddly chuckled, biting into a delicious shrimp.

Wally had a pair of shrimp at once, together with plenty of scooped-up cocktail sauce. He found it delicious, although he did not expect the sauce to be as strong as it was—there was plenty of horseradish in it to clear his sinuses. Fortunately, a glass of water helped him through his little coughing spell. “Perhaps a little sauce isn’t a bad idea. Just a little, dont’cha know!” he said, laughing.

The sea breezes added that extra bit of enjoyment indoor eating just doesn’t have. We also got to view some small beach gettogethers of about five or six people, and were able to get an up-close view when we walked along the beach after dinner. Unfortunately for Squiddly, not a single one of those parties had a guitar, though it did have plenty of beer.

For many, the combination of the tides and the wet sand feels so nice between the toes of those who walk along it. For us, the water was just a fact of life. We had been underwater for so long by this point that we simply didn’t experience as much of a pleasant surprise as other people usually have, those who stroll along the beach or wade in the ocean to unwind after a long day. Not to take away from the wet sand, though; we felt it and we liked it—that is, until we were about to get into the minibus. I was adamant about us not tracking sand into the car, and we wiped off our feet with a towel before we got inside.

We spent the night at a motel in Vero Beach, booking three rooms for the ten of us. While Magilla watched some television and Squiddly filled the bath for a good night’s rest, I read up on further information regarding our next destination, the Spanish wreck Urca de Lima.

The Urca de Lima, a 305-ton Dutch-built merchant ship, was one of a dozen ships in the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet, tasked with carrying goods and treasure from the New World back to the Spanish Main. The Urca de Lima was one of five ships captained by Juan Esteban de Ubilla.

On July 24, 1715, Ubilla’s fleet, supplemented by six other Spanish ships, commandeered by Antonio de Echeverez, and a French ship, El Grifón, sent to ward off pirates, set sail from Havana, Cuba, intending to reach the city of Cádiz in Spain. Among their combined booty was a large amount of gold and silver. The Urca de Lima, though, mostly carried goods, along with some private silver kept in chests. The fleet, however, made it as far as Florida when a hurricane hit them, pushing the ships to the coast and either sinking or grounding them. Only the French ship escaped unscathed. More than half the crew of those eleven ships died, including both commanders. The Urca de Lima, however, steered into a river inlet, and the hull remained intact. This allowed the goods to be salvaged, keeping the survivors well-fed for a few days.

The ship’s cargo was eventually salvaged and the ship’s hull burned down to the waterline in order to hide it from pirates, although the existence of the sunken fleet was widely known by that time.

In December, the salvage camp was heavily raided by two British privateers—Henry Jennings and Charles Vane—and their men, and made away with gold and silver totalling over $3 million in today’s money!

Since its rediscovery in 1928, numerous salvage permits were granted, but very little came of it, as far as treasure was concerned. There was a silver piece here and there, but that was it.

Those thoughts were still with me even as we took a stroll along one of Vero Beach’s most popular tourist attractions, McKee Jungle Gardens, a botanical garden off U.S. Route 1.

This time it was Loopy de Loop’s turn to enjoy himself, following the semi-carnivorous overtures his lupine colleagues Hokey and Mildew gave at Tosohatchee. He stopped to smell the flowers with every new variety that came into view, and there were well over a hundred different species, in addition to the gorgeous streams and ponds we viewed that morning.

“Ahh, nature!” exclaimed Loopy. “Is there anything as breathtaking as a botanical garden, with so many magnificent flowers on display in a single place?”

“Yeah, underwater!” Squiddly eagerly replied, taking a bit of power out of Loopy’s monologue.

“Uh, yes, that as well, but I’m sure you understand, for you are but an octopus!”

“True…” Squiddly’s voice wandered off.

Having cleared our minds of any ill thoughts, and rejecting a suggestion by Mildew to abandon Loopy at the garden, I drove back onto the highway and headed east back onto A1A.

Upon stopping in the city of Fort Pierce we chartered a boat to take us to the Urca de Lima, east of Jack Island Park on the opposite side of the Indian River. Everyone checked their gear and put it on, while I piloted the craft out of the river and back onto the ocean.

I was happy to learn that, as the wreck was only 200 feet from shore, we would be diving at very shallow depths compared to Pelican Flats: ten to fifteen feet. I set a diving time of sixty minutes, with no decompression necessary. Maybe we would get a look at some more fish, but for now, it was all about the ship. To ensure that the wreck would not be damaged by an anchor, we instead used a mooring buoy to keep the boat in place.

We dove in following the safety briefing. Once we were close to the floor, we split up into our usual groups. As we swam along, we noticed that there was very little of the ship left, with only the keel, garboard and one side of the boat visible after that entire time, and even then what remained had a lot of vegetation grow on it. After all, this was a wreck that was over 250 years old, and a lot of things tend to happen near the shore in that length of time. The sands and the wildlife come and go—mostly come. Nevertheless, some of us were still in awe over what is basically an old-style artificial reef.

Although I was convinced the chances of finding even one coin were slim, that obviously didn’t stop Hokey, who brushed along the ocean floor with his hands in the hope of uncovering said coin. Wally, being his trusted friend and divemate, couldn’t help but join in and also find nothing. Convinced their big score wasn’t going to happen, they continued to swim along the hull.

We explored the area outside the ship for other remnants. South of the ship’s main structure, Lippy and Hardy were able to find some cannons strewn about—five in all. This in itself is a fascinating thing, although there were originally more cannons around the ship; several of them had been salvaged, cleaned up and exhibited. Mildew and Loopy soon joined them, and Mildew had a little fun by peeking inside, and reaching his hand into, one of the cannons. Eventually, the others joined in after seeing enough of the hull.

As they enjoyed themselves, I was reminded of the salvage operations that took place for decades (and which brought several of the cannons to the surface for exhibition) and continue to take place today, and felt that continued operations would evenually diminish the diving and snorkeling experiences many locals and tourists greatly enjoy. After all, it isn’t every day you have a shipwreck in your own backyard, let alone one that is very accessible.

Art by Bob Jiggles

I began to swim with Hokey and Wally away from the cannons after awhile, heading west. We had intended to see the sights of some fish that may be around, but we ended up finding one of Urca de Lima’s anchors instead, laid out along the ocean floor. It appeared to be about ten feet long and, like the cannons, were completely rusted. It gave us an idea as to how much of the ship actually remained, as almost everything else was broken up over time. The other anchor was also among the items salvaged and exhibited to the public.

Meanwhile, Mildew, still hoping for a trinket or two, reached into the other cannons and found nothing but maybe a stray rock or two perhaps making their way inside. Running his hands along several spots on the ocean floor didn’t work, either. Although the others were convinced they weren’t going to find anything, it didn’t stop Mildew, one of the most tenacious among us in whatever he did. Not until Loopy placed a hand on Mildew’s shoulder and shook his head did he give up his own little treasure quest; the bubbles gushing from the regulator hinted at a sigh of disappointment.

Squiddly swam along the remnants of the hull, his camera picking up the entirety of it, along with some of the animals for size comparison. He would tell me later that it might have been better were we to create a chain by grabbing each other’s legs. We might’ve made a good animal yardstick.

Feeling that we had seen enough of the wreck, I called for the whole crew to surface. We made our way back to the boat, somewhat disappointed. It was a delight to view a wreck, sure, but our expectations had been set too high. Although the ship was burned centuries ago to prevent detection by pirates, we still thought there was plenty for us to see.

We continued further south on our journey. Our next stop was Key Largo, home of John Pennekamp State Park, featuring some of the finest coral reefs in the country and home to a diverse group of marine life. Many of us felt like going on another dive before then, so we parked our minibus at a beach in Jupiter, just north of West Palm Beach.

Magilla and I broke out the bike pump and set about refilling the tanks with pressurized air before we could hit the water again. “It won’t be long now!” Magilla said excitedly, even though we had nine tanks to fill.

This time, we entered from the sands of the beach, donning our fins once the water was halfway up to our knees. This was strictly a pleasure dive where we could just play around in the water for awhile at a shallow depth. Usually this consisted of playing tag with one another, as Breezly and Magilla demonstrated, although some others had fun in different ways: Mildew felt like basking in the sun’s rays even in the water, and posed as though he was laying back in a beach chair, letting nothing bother him. Wally, a bit of a zany character himself, joined Mildew a minute later. Hokey and Loopy interacted with the occasional fish passing by them, while Lippy and Hardy just swam around, unsure of what to do themselves; they were simply content with watching.

We explored further by swimming towards the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. Our heads above water, the view was clear for all of us. Squiddly pointed in the direction of six creatures congregating together. “Manatees!” he exclaimed joyfully.

I removed my mouthpiece. “Must’ve gone after a female,” I said, before putting it back in. We swam closer to the pack while keeping our mouthpieces on, even though our heads were above the surface; we didn’t want to deal with ocean water in the hose.

The manatees turned and started to swim away from the shore, where we confronted them, eager to pet and stroke their heads and play with them for a few moments. Some of us wanted to stroke their bellies, too, and the manatees felt so happy to receive some attention. Squiddly joined in on the lovefest, too, even though his job was to film; I got his back, however, recording him nuzzling against a manatee’s cheek.

We spent a few minutes with them before they had to leave, looking to try again someplace else. We waved goodbye to them and began to head back to where we began our dive. It was getting a little late, anyway, and we needed some food in our bellies. We were also a little exhausted from all the diving, as was easily demonstrated thusly:

“Why’m I walking all topsy-turvy?” Breezly asked, wobbling as though he had a few beers.

“Alors! Those sea cows must’ve made us love drunk!” Loopy added.

Only Squiddly and I walked properly, with my fins slung over my shoulder, as we discussed plans together.

“Hey, how come those two are all right?” asked Mildew.

Everyone else still had their full gear on, well after they had been completely out of the water.

“You need a rest!” Squiddly and I called out to them.

We had to rest up for what I figured would be the pinnacle of our vacation: Key Largo and John Pennekamp State Park, and what better place to do so than what Hokey called “The Entertainment Capital of Florida,” Miami. At least it still is, while Jackie Gleason is still taping his variety show, and until Walt Disney’s next big thing opens to the public.

Avoiding all kinds of alcohol—which probably knocked out half the potential restaurant options in this city—we also wanted a place with prices within our means, which knocked out another quarter of the city. After twenty minutes of driving around the city with no place to go, we decided on a small diner where they not only served the usual fare, but also come Cuban delicacies.

The lively conversation soon switched from the wreck and the manatees to Key Largo. Pennekamp State Park had some of the best coral reefs in the nation, along with a diverse section of marine life. I could hear the excitement in their voices. Some of them even wanted to enjoy a second day there, as we did with Wally’s secret spring.

“If I can find a good motel, sure!” I quipped.

Anyway, that’s our Treasure Coast adventure. If you like wrecks that you can enjoy at shallow depths, I strongly recommend the Urca de Lima off Fort Pierce. If relaxation is more your thing, be sure to visit the almost-endless stretch of beaches. Remember, if you’re interested in diving, please receive proper instruction and follow all safety protocols before going in.

While I’m mentioning relaxation, why don’t you relax awhile yourself? Our next episode will be diver’s heaven—Key Largo. Look for us next week at the same time.

[macattackp]

10 Crazy Things Gen X,Y, and Z Have Accomplished

1. Have made sites like Google and Wikipedia widely accepted  They are not academically accepted, but considering in the 4th grade (2000-2001) the school librarian told our class “Google is useful but it will never replace a library for finding information!” I think we’ve come pretty far...

2. Have flipped retail on its head It was originally “They who had the most physical stores was the leader” but thanks to the rise of online shopping, physical store locations are now taught to be a unnecessary cost and has caused a number of franchise giants to tumble

3. Have Integrated Technology Into Daily Life In the fifth grade (2001-2002) I wrote a letter to my local MP explaining how computers could be used to save trees by saving paper, as well as give students less weight to carry with textbooks and such, and could raise accuracy in spelling and math. The response I got was that it was a nice idea, but computers were so complicated and expensive that we probably wouldn’t see this for another 30-40 years. Here we are less than 20 years later and look how far we’ve come! Side story: In the second grade (1997-1998) we were given basic calculators for $15 to learn how to use them and were told that while they were powerful, they were too expensive so we shouldn’t get used to them as the day would never come where we could just have a calculator on us at all times.

4. We Have Survived and Established Ourselves During The Great Recession The 2008 housing market crash has been bad.... We are STILL suffering from it... Companies over 100 years old have gone bankrupt... whole countries have gone bankrupt! The entire concepts of business that have been taught were flipped on its head. The great recession has been reported as being at least twice as severe as the 80′s recession and closer to the great depression from an economic standpoint. Yet here we are. If we can’t afford our own house, we’ll share one. If we can’t get a job we’ll make one. If we can’t afford things we’ll make our own. This generation is far from a comfortable one... I sometimes tear up thinking about how my “wild dream” is one day having a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom all to myself... and how greedy I feel if I say a laundry room to myself would also be nice.... but we’re surviving! This economy is a mess with people clinging to what little they have until they die and we’re still moving forward. That is crazy.

5. We Are So Educated, We Have Made Degrees Commonplace Have you ever wondered why job requirements are so crazy? Like “Entry Level Job: Must have masters degree and 8 years experience!” It’s because of supply and demand.... So many people have university degrees, that the value of a degree on its own has bottomed out.... Yes this makes it a pain to get any kind of job.... and is INCREDIBLY rough on those without degrees... but think of how crazy that is!! How many times in history have so educated?? We may not have the value appreciated by other jobs, but think of how much we can do and understand that people before us never could! Information is power. Wisdom is steering. Understanding is direction. Just think of what we’re capable of?

6. We Have Changed Media Forever Think about how many areas of education has changed. Television has lost its monopoly due to streaming services, youtube, and livestream services. The concept of “Celebrity” has changed with social media celebrities. We’ve seen the rise of consoles with the fall of PC games, and the fall of consoles with the subsequent rise of PC games. Digital media, indie games, web comics, flash animations, deviantArt, Tumblr.... All of these things had never existed before. As a kid I used to spend hours trying to draw comics on dot matrix printer paper because I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist when I grew up... Now with webcomics and online news, the whole industry has been flipped upsidedown. It is both incredibly accessible and incredibly difficult to stand out.

7. We Have Made The World More International I know people in Japan, Sweden, Norway, England, India, Africa, UAE, China, Australia, Holland, America, Mexico, and more places.... In fact I probably know these people more than I know the people who live on my street! The world has become incredibly international. Business has changed as you can work in real time with someone halfway around the world. Friendships have changed, as you can comfort and encourage people you’ve never met in real life. Science and History has changed, because countries that originally could only compare notes once every so often, now do so in real time, and we can see and talk about the variances between what we’ve grown up knowing.

8. We Have Changed Priorities From “The Most Stuff” to “The Most Experiences.” From “Financial Security” to “Mental Stability.” From “The Most Fame” to “The Most Impact.” The rise of arts. The rise of casual familiarity. The desire to learn. All of these priorities have changed as our generation has grown.

9. We Have Shaken Franchise Culture Franchises owned the world. The Ma and Pa shop had fallen to the names such as Walmart, Target, McDonalds, Wendy’s, etc. While franchises still exist, they seem to really be a shell of who they once were. Some franchises have even taken on the business strategy of “We will survive until I retire.” with no thoughts of what will be left afterwards. Meanwhile freelancers, entrepreneurs, startups, and online services have grown exponentially. They may not have the most money and power (yet) but there has been a change that has occured. One of which the results have yet to be fully seen.

10. We Continue to Grow Our generation puts up with a LOT. Our unemployment/underemployment rate is massive (though this is usually brushed over with statistics). The lives we’ve worked 20-some years for seems to crumble away from us. We’re forced to live 4-8 people per house due to the ridiculous prices of housing. We often work numerous jobs just to earn enough to get by. We get blamed for being entitled, lazy, and killing industries like fabric softener. (Wish I was kidding on that).... And yet we still live.... We adapt... We apply what we’ve learned. 

We can’t afford hotels, so we go AirBnB. We can’t afford designer clothes so we go to Etsy or Amazon. We can’t get funding for medical conditions or emergencies so we help each other through GoFundMe, Patreon, or more... We are tenacious. We are adaptive. We don’t give up!

It’s easy to feel like we’re powerless in this world. We don’t have much money. The news stations rail on us all the time as the world’s biggest mistake. We’re forced to work jobs we don’t want for pay that barely keeps us going... It’s easy to feel powerless, weak, forgotten.... But look back on what we’ve done... this is just a small portion, I’m sure you can think of more! These are the things the history books will remember. These are the things our children and grandchildren will one day ask us about.

We Are World Shakers!

[imthequeenofcordonia]

Abdication

I think I'm in love (chapter one) 

Title inspiration: I think I’m in love by Kat Dahila

Word count: 6229

Paring: Drake x Lily 

Warnings: NSFW material. By reading, you acknowledge you are 18 or over.

Summary: Leo abdicates and leaves, its Liam's social season, but his romance with Riley isn't the only romance brewing

Author note: All characters belong to Pixelberry. In this fic Liam and Leo have a little sister called Lily.

Tags: @addictedtodrakefanfic​​​

“You’re abdicating?!” Lily yelled at her brothers as Leo and Liam walked into the foyer of the palace. They stopped in their tracks as Lily made her way down the stairs. 

Leo hesitated still reeling over the conversation he had just had with Liam. “What is going on?” she asked, looking up at her older brothers. 

“How did y-” 

“Dad. I heard dad talking to Regina. What the hell is happening? You can’t abdicate Leo.”  

“Let’s go and talk about this somewhere more private,” her eldest brother suggested. 

“Why are you doing this?” 

“Yes, I'd quite like to know,” Madeline’s voice boomed from behind them. 

“Maddie,” Leo sighed. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t just abdicate Leo,” Madeline yelled, although Lilly knew the blonde demon was only getting her panties in a twist because she wouldn't be queen. 

Lily turned to face her, “Will you be quiet?! I’m trying to talk to MY brother.” 

“Remember who you’re speaking to,” Madeline demanded. 

“You’re no longer going to be queen Madeline. I outrank you, I always will.” Lily spun around to face the boys again. “Well?” 

Madeline walked over to Leo grabbing him by the arm. “Can we go and talk about this please?” She asked, looking up at him. 

Leo gave his sister a look, that being enough to tell her he needed to appease the demon before her, like always. 

“Unbelievable,” Lily muttered as Leo and Madeline stalked off. lily looked up at Liam tears pooling in her eyes. She didn't know why this was making her so upset, she knew that Leo abdicating was a possibility even if nobody said it. Her brother just didn't want the responsibility.  

“Lily,” Liam started. 

“Why am I always the last to know?” Lily interrupted; she shook her head turning away from him. “I’m going to go and-” she mumbled, walking back up the staircase. 

**********

Drake was sat on his bed untying his shoelaces and then kicking off his shoes. He picked his phone off his bedside table, to reply to a text from Savannah but was interrupted by loud and persistent knocking at the door. 

Drake stood and answered the door. Lily stood on the other side, a few tears running down her cheeks. 

“Are you gonna let me in before someone sees?” she asked, her voice quiet. 

Drake stood to the side allowing her entry into his room then shut it behind her. Lily trotted over to the bed, taking a seat as Drake plopped down beside her. She leaned into him, her head resting on his shoulder as Drake slung his arm around her small frame. 

“What’s wrong?” Drake asked after some time. 

“Leo is abdicating.” 

Drake looked down at her, his eyes growing wide, “What?” 

“That was my reaction, well it would've been if my brother could’ve had the decency to tell me instead of me overhearing my dad talking to Regina. I just-” 

“So, what’s gonna happen now?” Drake interrupted. 

“Liam is the eldest out of me and him, the crown will automatically go to him. If he doesn't accept it'll go to me.... I-I can’t be queen Drake. I can't. I can’t rule a country, I-” 

Drake cut her off with a kiss. He leaned back, cupping her face. “Have you spoken to Liam or Leo or even your dad?” 

She shook her head, “I was going to try and talk to Leo, but he felt like he needed to satisfy the blonde demon rather than explain it to me. That’s just typical, Drake,” she sighed. 

“Do you know if Liam is going to accept?” 

“I don't know. I would imagine he would, but even then, Liam doesn't get a life. He will be forever bound to pomp and circumstance while Leo gets to go on his flamboyant adventures around the world. It’s just ridiculous! Leo has known he’ll be king from such a young age, maybe that was bad parenting, Dad telling him that when he was six, but he knows he’ll be king. I know he’s labelled the playboy prince but this- I just- Me and Liam have followed all the rules, we’ve attended every boring ass ball and function, we’ve made all our public appearances, we’ve sat through every lesson, we’ve done all of it, but Leo was always destined to be king. It was always going to be him...And do you know something else that drives me insane? Dad has always gushed about how much he loves his boys, how good of a king Leo would be and now Leo is going to wreck everything. I- I knew this would happen...He has never followed the rules, so why would he now? And to think I was going to tell my dad today.” 

“About us?” 

“Yeah,” she grinned, “Well, maybe not that we’re dating, but that I am dating someone, before he tries to get me to shack up with some stupid noble.”

“We still need to tell your brothers at some point, ya know.” 

“Yeah,” she sighed, turning to him, “I think there’s been enough drama within the Rys family today. Besides what’s a little longer keeping this a secret gonna do?” 

“I think you’re beginning to like the secrecy,” he smirked. 

“Maybe I am,” she said, leaning in and placing a kiss on his lips. “You’ve got to admit it makes it more exciting, “she whispered when she pulled back, looking up and into his chocolate brown eyes.

 He cupped her face in his hands, getting lost in her piercing blue eyes that he loved so much. She was right, it was exciting this way.

They had been dating for about four months now. It all started on Savannah’s birthday. It started off as a drunken one-night stand, or that's what they made it out to be. Their relationship wasn't a normal one, Drake was sure that if Constantine were to find out he’d most likely have him killed or something and this was his best friend sister. 

They hadn't said ‘I love you’ yet although they both were madly in love with each other. There just never seemed to be the right time. 

“Are you okay?” Drake asked. 

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I’ll speak to my idiotic brother, I'll try and stop my dad from killing him, I'll see what Liam wants to do. I just don't want Liam’s life to be ruined by Leo’s decision,” she sighed. 

“I know.” 

“On the bright side I won’t have to see the blonde demon all the time,” Lily said, leaning into Drake, who kissed the top of her head. Her eyes drifted over to the clock on the bedside table seeing the time was nearing eleven. “I better go,” Lily sighed, getting to her feet. 

That was one thing she did hate about having to keep this all a secret. She hated leaving him. 

Drake stood too, walking her over to the door 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. 

“Night,” Drake whispered, giving her a hug and a kiss before she slipped out and shut the door behind her. 

**********

Lily wandered toward her room slowly. If there was one thing her family was good at it was causing drama, particularly where Leo was involved. 

“Lil?” Leo’s voice called from behind her. Lily carried on toward her room, not paying any attention to her eldest brother’s footsteps coming from behind her.  

Lily stopped when he grabbed her arm. She yanked It from his grip staring up at him. “Now you want to talk?” Lily asked in disbelief. 

“I’m sorry, it was for the best that I dealt with Madeline then. You know what she’s like,” Leo sighed. 

“Fine,” she shrugged. Although she was annoyed, Lily knew what Madeline could be like when she didn't get her own way, she was like a child in that aspect.

Lily pushed her door open allowing her brother entry first. Lily shut the door behind them and leant against it looking at Leo expectantly.

“Why?” she asked. 

“I can’t do this Lily. I’m not cut out for this and I’ve always known that.” 

“What about Liam? Is he going to take over?” 

“He said he’s going to think about it,” Leo explained, “but I think we both know what the answer will be.” 

“And Dad?” 

“I don't think I've ever heard him yell as much as he did. He’s angry and I don't blame him, but I think he prefers it this way, no matter what he says now.” 

“Do you really think that lowly of yourself, Leo?” 

“No, but Liam will always make the better king. That’s just a fact Lil.” 

“So, what now?” Lily asked, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. 

“Honestly? I don't know,” Leo said, sitting beside her, “That’s up to Liam.” 

“Are you going to leave again?” Leo hesitated, she turned to him, hurt written all over her face. “Where to next then? America? You’ve always wanted to go to the states. Dubai? Scotland? England? Australia? I don't know anywhere that’s not here. For god’s sake Leo! You can’t just do this and leave! “ 

“Why not? That’s what I do,” he bit back. “I fuck things up and then I leave. That’s what I'm good at.”

“No, it isn't,” Lily insisted, “if Liam accepts then I'll be alone. Liam will be off learning how to be king and you’ll be halfway across the world off on another grand adventure. Please stay.” 

“I can’t. I-” 

“When are you going?” Lily interrupted, knowing her brother all too well. 

“In the morning,” he told her. “The preparations for the next social season I expect will be underway by morning, it'll be announced publicly that I'm stepping down as crown prince, Liam will be introduced as the future king-”  

“And you can’t stand to be here to watch the mess that you’ve created unfold,” Lily finished. 

“Something like that yeah.” 

“Is this because of Madeline?” She asked. 

“No,” Leo shook his head, “I made my peace with the fact I'd have to marry her a long time ago, it’s not her. Imagine me and Madeline ruling together, it’d be a disaster.” 

“Then marry someone else-” 

“Lily,” he sighed, turning his body so he could face her completely “I realize that this must be difficult to understand, but this is about more than who would be queen, this is about the fact I'm too irresponsible to rule. I wouldn't be any good at it. Dad has always known that; I think everybody always knew.” 

Lily pulled her brother into a hug, he patted her back affectionately. “I know this isn't fair on Liam and I know that’s what you’re worried about.” He pulled back sighing.  “Liam will have dad and Regina; he'll have so much help around him, but if either of you need me, I’m only a phone call away. “ 

“Promise?” 

“I promise. You’ll see me again, I always come home eventually. You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he grinned. 

“Love you.” 

“I love you too, little sis.” 

**********

Leo had been right, the preparations for the next social season had been kicked off the next morning, Liam had been introduced as the crown prince and Leo had left. 

It had been a few weeks since, Constantine had considerably calmed down and even started to see that Liam taking over was for the good of the country, talking of the country the people had reacted well to the news that Liam would become their king.

Lily lay snuggled up against her boyfriend, that her family still didn't know about, in the early hours. “So, why New York?” she asked. 

“Liam wants to go. He always has apparently.” 

“Interesting,” she mumbled, tracing circles along his bare chest. “So, you’ll get to spend a weekend in New York, and I have to stay here and attend a meeting with my dad? Why can’t I come? Think about it... a romantic weekend in New York,” she suggested. 

“On Liam’s bachelor party? Imagine the drama that’d cause.” 

“Fine, but if you run off with some cute American, I will tell my father about you and me and have you locked in a palace cell.” 

“As if. I think it’ll be a nice break for Liam after all the things your dad has made him do over the last few weeks and I promise not to run off with some ‘cute American’ your words not mine.”

“Good. I love you.” 

“D-did you just-” Drake stuttered, his eyes growing wide. 

“Say ‘I love you’? Yeah, because I do.” 

“I love you too,” Drake said, leaning down to kiss her passionately. He cupped her face as he pulled back, “I love you so fucking much.”

Lily turned to look at the clock, it was just about to go six, she knew they were leaving early, and that Drake would have to go soon. 

“So, since we’ve just made a tremendous stride, #couplegoals and all that, why don't we tell my dad, Regina and Liam when you get back from New York?” 

“Do I want to die young?” Drake joked. 

“I’m serious. It’s been months Drakey.” 

“Drakey?” Drake cringed, “I don't like it.” 

“Tough. I do.” 

“Don’t be such a princess,” Drake teased, “I think that it’s about time. At least if your dad doesn't kill me, we won’t have to hide this anymore.” 

“So, about my dad. I think over the weekend I'm going to talk to him about this, give him some time to adjust to the fact I'm not a little girl anymore and then maybe he won’t have you decapitated or thrown in a cell and has the key thrown away, when I introduce you as the guy that took my innocence.”

“We can only hope. How do we tell Liam?”

“I don't know,” she sighed, “Erm...well we could...I know we could tell him by.... I don't know, Drakey, you’ll have to get back to me. And don't think I didn't just see you cringe at the name.” 

“Caught me there. Can we just go back to what you just said for a sec?” 

“About you taking my innocence?” She asked. 

“That would be the one.” 

She shrugged, “Yep the grumpy commoner was who I lost my virginity to. Did I neglect to mention that in that grubby toilet in a random bar on your sister’s birthday?”

“Unbelievable.”

“That night certainly was,” she recalled. 

“Are you being serious?” he asked. 

“Yes! You are the only guy I've ever had sex with. Is that so hard to believe? I’m always in the palace and there are no footmen I like, and my dad isn't exactly the type to let me go out, if I do the scary looking men behind me normally scare them off.” 

“I didn't know that.” 

“They say you learn something new every day, don't they?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” she confirmed…again. Lily sighed when she turned back to the clock. “You better get up. Get ready.”

“Yeah,” Drake sighed, getting out of bed then leaning over and planting a kiss on her forehead before plotting off toward the shower. Lily let out a whistle as she saw his backside recede to the bathroom.  

A good ten minutes later Drake returned, showered and dressed. He took a seat on the end of the bed to put his shoes on. He smiled when he noticed that Lily had fallen back asleep. He shook her leg, laughing at how much she wasn’t a morning person. She mumbled something incoherent as her eyes fluttered open.

She yawned sitting up to look at him. “Don’t give me the death stare,” he grinned, “I just wanted to say bye before I go.

Drake after he had put on his shoes went and put his toothbrush and toothpaste into his bag then returned over to the bed, placing a kiss on his girlfriend’s lips.

“I love you,” he grinned.

“I love you too.”

“I’ll see you in a few days,” he said, slinging the strap over his shoulder. Drake headed to the door but turned when Lily called for him.

She pointed her finger at him as she spoke, “don’t run off with- “

“Any cute Americans,” he finished.

“Correct,” she smiled, “See you when you get back. I love you.”  

“Love you too.”

“Bye Drakey!” she called as he slipped out. She heard him let out a groan as he shut the door. He loved it really.

**********

Later that morning when Lily had finally hauled herself out of bed and made herself look presentable, she trotted off toward her father’s study.

She tapped gently on the door awaiting confirmation from her father that she could enter.

“Come in!”

Lily pushed the door open and entered the study. Constantine looked up from his desk, smiling when he saw his little girl.

“Have you got a minute?” she asked. Constantine took off his specs placing them on the desk as he gestured for her to take a seat.

“Is something wrong sweetheart?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” she reassured him as she took a seat. “I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Go on,” Constantine said, looking at her curiously. She leaned forward, wringing her hands together nervously.  “Are you certain nothing is bothering you?” Constantine asked, sensing his daughter was nervous.

“Yeah. Dad…I’ve been seeing someone,” she said. Constantine was silent for a good while, lily taking that as a bad sign. She looked up at him.

“For how long?”

“A few months,” she explained, realizing how it sounded. “Erm...so I just thought I’d let you know. And I should probably tell you that he’s not a noble.”

“I’m sorry?” he asked, his voice calm, eerily calm like it always was before he’d start screaming.

Lily looked up at her father. “I really like him dad. I love him,” she explained, hoping that if she were to explain how she felt about him, her father would understand.

“Well obviously you don’t. You’re barely an adult, you can’t understand love. This will end immediately. I trust nobody else knows about this…whatever this is.”

“Dad-”

“No!” Constantine’s booming voice cut her off. “You will do as I say.”

“I am not going to break up with him because you want me too. I’m an adult, I’m not a little girl anymore!” she yelled.

“You will never raise your voice at me again!” he yelled back at her.

“So, Leo can abdicate and fuck whoever he likes, and I can’t?!”

“What did I just say? I am your father and you will show me some respect and never use language like that again. You’re a princess, act like one.”

Lily got to her feet, fighting back tears as she glared at him. “I hate you,” she said before leaving and slamming the door behind her.

 **********

Lily ran to her bedroom, slamming her door shut behind her and sliding down it, burying her face in her hands. Why couldn’t he just have been happy for her? Why did he always have to find a way to be a dick?

Lily cried into her hands as she remembered the promise that her brother had made all those weeks ago. She wanted Drake but he was stuck on a plane, so she dialed Leo’s number instead.

“Hey little sis,” Leo’s groggy voice said through the phone. He sounded tired, wherever he was it must’ve been night, or he was recovering from a hell of a hangover, but he had picked up almost immediately. “Lily what’s up?” he asked after he heard her sniffling.

“I don’t know what to do Leo,” she cried.

“Lily you’re scaring me.” lily rarely cried but if she was something really bad must’ve happened. “What’s happened?”

“Don’t hate me.”

“Never could,” he told her. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ve been dating Drake,” she blurted out, Leo was silent for a little while.

“Okay…”

“We’ve been dating for about five months and I tried to tell dad that I was seeing someone, I told him he wasn’t a noble and he lost it, demanded I break up with him. I don’t want to break up with Drake,” she rambled.

“Did you tell dad it was Drake?”

“No.”

“Okay, then you’re fine,” Leo reassured, he knew it would end badly for Drake if Constantine were to find out. “Does Liam know?”

“No, you’re the only person that does. I just want dad to be happy for me.”

“It sounds like you really love him,” Leo said.

“I do,” she sniffled. “I really do, Leo.”

“Just give dad some time to calm down and then try again.”

“Have you met dad?” she scoffed. “I don’t think he’s gonna come around any time soon.”

“So erm you’ve been a thing for five months and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“We’ve been taking it slow and I was planning on telling dad and maybe you and Liam the night you decided to tell everyone you were abdicating.”

“Sorry,” Leo said, “Leave dad, he’ll get over it eventually and tell Liam for god’s sake,” Leo advised.

“Since when did you become the voice of reason?” she joked.

“I have many talents.”

“Of course, you do,” she scoffed.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked after a little while.

“Honestly? I don’t know. I knew it would end like this, but I just thought that maybe dad might just be happy for me for once. One thing you are right about is the fact that I need to tell Liam.” 

“He’s in New York, isn't he?” Leo asked. 

“Yep. They all went this morning. I miss you, big brother.”

“I miss you too, little sis.”

 **********

The next few days went by painstakingly slow; Lily had done her best to avoid her father, which wasn't altogether difficult when you lived in a palace.  She had messaged Drake a few times but mainly left him alone to enjoy his time in NYC.

The boys were coming back today then it’d be the first ball of the social season. Lily hated them, she’d rather just skip it and scowl somewhere and that was before she started dating Drake but being the king’s daughter made it difficult to avoid such events. 

Lily stood in the foyer waiting for her boyfriend to arrive back. Drake had text her when they arrived at the airport and got in the car to come back to the palace. 

“Sweetheart,” Constantine's voice said from behind her. Lily rolled her eyes then turned to him. 

“Dad,” she said, smiling up at him although she knew he would know she was faking it.

“What are you doing lurking?” 

Lily hesitated, she couldn't tell him that she was waiting for Drake, Constantine was a smart man, he’d figure it out.

“I’m waiting for Maxwell,” she lied, “He said he’d help me pick out a gown for the ball.” 

“Very well,” Constantine said, resting a hand on her shoulder, “And what of the matter we discussed the other day?” 

“All sorted,” she lied again, “We’re no longer together. You were right. It was ludicrous, I’m too young to understand love. “ 

“I'm ever so please that you’ve come to your senses.” 

“As am I. Dad?” 

“Yes?”

“I didn't mean It. I don't hate you.”

“We all say things we don't mean,” Constantine said. “Since you’ve broken things off with that acquaintance of yours and you’ve calmed considerably, there’s somebody I want to introduce you to at the welcoming ball.”

Lily swallowed hard. “Brilliant,” she said, faking a large grin.

“I best get on. I hope the gown picking with Lord Beaumont goes well,” Constantine said, walking off. 

Lily heard Maxwell’s voice. “Welcome to your new home for the next few months, Riley.” 

Riley? Who the hell is Riley?

Lily peeked out the door seeing her boyfriend, Maxwell and a woman, one she didn’t recognize. “This is where I'm staying? I didn't realize I’d be living in the palace,” the girl gushed. 

American, Lily concluded. 

“Most of the nobility live here while the social season is underway...Including all the ladies vying for Liam’s hand,” Maxwell explained. 

Please tell me he didn’t.

“Yeah, living under one roof just makes it easier to attend the rose ceremony later...” 

It had only been a few days, but she had missed his voice, his snarky and sarcastic replies. 

“Drake’s just kidding...at least about the roses. Anyway, I'll show you to your room, Riley.” 

“This is my cue to take off. See you around...if you’re lucky,” Drake said heading into the palace to be pulled into an alcove by Lily.

“Hey,” Drake said, looking down at her, sensing something was wrong. “Lil?” 

“Come with me.”

 **********

Lily shut her bedroom door behind them after dragging Drake there. She locked it just to make sure nobody would walk in. 

“Gonna tell me what’s going on?” 

“I talked to my dad...” 

“And...?” 

“And he basically demanded I break up with you and just now told me he’s introducing me to someone at the ball. I didn't tell him it was you but...was I really deluded in wanting him to be happy for me?” 

“No. He’s your dad Lily of course you’d want him to be happy for you and any normal dad would be.” 

Lily sighed, plopping down on the bed. Drake sat beside her, pulling her closer to him. “I missed you,” he said. 

“I missed you too. Who was that? That girl?” 

“Nothing to do with me,” Drake insisted, “Maxwell is an idiot.” 

“Why? Who is she?” 

“We met her in a random bar in New York. Okay, Liam and she did hit it off, but it didn't mean he needed to invite her here.” 

“For the social season?” Drake nodded. “Jesus. That’s not going to go down well at court. A commoner being given a chance to marry the future king. What was he thinking?”

“I don’t know. He probably wasn't knowing Maxwell,” Drake sighed.

“Oh, talking of the social season…did you know Madeline is possibly being re-entered?”  

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah. I heard Regina talking to who I presume was Adelaide, my father and Madeline. There’s no way Liam will pick her. He can’t stand her.”

“I don’t think anyone can,” Drake added.

“To make matters worse, Penelope and Kiara are also going to be suitors going forward. I swear to god if that girl flirts with you again I am going to kill her.”

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Drake mumbled. “So, it’s looking likely Olivia will be the next queen then. God help us all.”

“Olivia isn’t that bad,” Lily insisted.

“You would say that. Your best friends with her,” Drake muttered.

“Olivia is…just complicated. Anyway, Hana Lee is apparently another suitor. I don’t see the point of this. Liam will never pick Penelope, Kiara or Madeline and then Riley and Hana are outsiders, it wouldn’t go down well with anyone, plus do we need any more balls and dinners and all the rest of it? Don’t we have enough as it is?”

“Apparently not,” Drake replied.

“Anyway, enough of the drama that’s bound to unfold over the next few months…. how was New York?”

“It was good,” Drake nodded.

“That’s it? Good?”

Drake leaned back, laying down as Lily lay her head on his chest, his fingers running through her blonde locks.  “What’s up Drake?”

“It’s just awkward with Liam.”

“Because of us?” Lily asked.

“Yeah,” Drake answered truthfully. “I just don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“I don’t think it will. Liam is pretty understanding, unlike my dad.  Answer this question…do you love me? Truthfully.”

“Yes,” Drake answered with no hesitation.

“And you see us having a future together?”

“Yeah. What about you?”

“I could see me being Mrs. Walker one day,” she grinned. “We’ll cross that bridge with Liam when we come to it.” 

“Not if your dad has anything to do with it. This guy he’s going to introduce you to-” 

“I don't want any part of it,” Lily interrupted. “I don't want to be with some noble. I love you and that’s not going to change, Drake.”

“Do you ever just think about leaving?” Drake asked. 

“Yeah. Leo Rys being my brother has taught me a lot about how to lose security and just disappear for weeks. To answer your question, yes, I've thought about leaving. Maybe one day I will but I can’t now. I need to be here for Liam and my dad, there’s something going on with him, Drakey, and I don't know what it is.” 

“Do I have to go to the ball?” Drake asked. 

“Yes! Come on you’ll be supporting Liam and who else am I going to talk to? Everyone is so boring! At least when Leo was here it was always interesting. Which reminds me...I need to find Maxwell before he runs into my dad,” Lily said, getting to her feet and goes over to the door. 

“What did you do?” 

“I might have told a little fib to the king of Cordonia.” 

“Better go and fix it then,” Drake smirked. 

“Stay here. I’ll be back.” 

“Said the terminator.” 

“I’ll see you later,” Lily laughed, unlocking the door and slipping out, bumping into somebody. Lily looked up into her brother’s ocean blue eyes. 

Lily pulled the door shut and straightened out her clothes as her brother took a step back.

“Liam!” She smiled up at him, raising her voice so Drake could hear inside. Liam looked at her curiously.

“Are you alright?” Liam asked. 

“Yeah. I’m fine. How was New York?” 

“Lily are sure you’re okay? You’re acting very oddly.”

“I'm fine. Perfect. Brilliant. Well.” 

“Right...There’s something I need to talk to you about and I'd rather not discuss it in the hallway.”

“We can go in-” Lily turned to open the door, briefly forgetting than remembering that Drake was still in there. “Actually, no we can’t,” she mumbled. 

“Lily?” Liam asked. 

“We can’t go in,” she said, not daring to look at her brother, imagining the look of pure confusion written across his face.

“Why not?” 

“There’s a giraffe- spider, I mean spider, there’s a spider in there!” she yelled, not fully understanding why a giraffe was the first animal that came into her head. Her room was big but not that big.

“What is going on?” 

“There’s a spider. A big, big grumpy spider. I mean if we opened the door it’d get out, wouldn't it? It’d cause havoc.”

“A spider?

“A big, grumpy, sarcastic spider,” she mumbled. 

Liam glanced down at his watch. “I need to go. Come find me later,” Liam said, before walking off and leaving his sister feeling like an idiot. 

Lily sighed, pushing the door open to see Drake sat on the bed trying to stifle his laughter. 

“A giraffe spider?”

 **********

Later that day Lily went to find her brother.  “Come in!” Liam yelled; Lily headed in to see Liam slip on his blazer. He turned to her, giving his sister his full attention.

“Someone is looking very princely,” Lily smirked. 

“Shouldn't you be getting ready?” Liam asked. 

“I’ve got plenty of time. What did you want to talk about Li?” 

“What's going on with you?”  

“Nothing,” Lily shrugged. One thing she didn't like about being a twin was that her brother would always know if she was lying or if something was bothering her. 

“lil...” 

“I’m fine. Tonight is important, meeting your suitors, the first ball of the social season...You okay?” 

“I’m fine, nervous, but otherwise fine.” 

“I spoke to Leo earlier. He said to say good luck for tonight and the next three months.” 

“Where is Leo?”

“In Athens apparently,” Lily explained. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? You just seem...different,” Liam explained, his brows creased with worry, Lily immediately picking up on that, knowing there wasn’t anything to be worried about.

“I’m fine, big brother,” she smiled up at him.

“I’m three minutes older than you,” he reminded her.

“Still my big brother,” Lily grinned pulling Liam into a hug. “I better go and get ready. I’ll see you later.” 

 **********

Lily headed to her room and changed into her gown; it was black with accented golden specs across the bodice. She finished doing her makeup and hair then placed her mother’s favorite tiara on her head. 

It was after all a masquerade, but Lily had no desire to wear a mask and didn't fully understand why it was a masquerade given the fact it was a welcoming ball, so you wouldn't be able to tell who was who anyway. Court was weird. 

She trotted over to her door when she heard knocking, pulling it open to see her father on the other side. 

Constantine smiled at the sight of his impossibly gorgeous daughter.  He nodded to the tiara she had on. “I remember when I gifted that to your mother,” Constantine reminisced. “You look stunning sweetheart.”

“Is everything okay?” Lily asked. Constantine and Lily didn't have the best relationship, they very frequently butted heads but when they were getting along Lily was quite the daddy’s girl. She knew her father well and she knew something was wrong.

“Everything is fine,” Constantine smiled. “Tonight, is about your brother but I didn't want you to feel like you were being ignored or forgotten about amongst the chaos,” he explained. 

“I don't. I know tonight is about Liam and his future wife. Our future king and  queen. I appreciate you thinking of me dad.” 

“You’re my daughter. I always think about you.” 

Lily smiled up at him, despite everything Constantine was a good dad, or at least he had his moments. Lily only wished that he would be a little bit more understanding. 

Constantine held his arm out to Lily, “Why don’t I escort you to the ball?” 

Lily smiled and took hold of her father’s arm. “Go on then.” 

**********

The herald announced the king, queen, prince and princess into the ballroom. Lily’s eyes immediately looked around to lock eyes with Drake. She smirked slightly at seeing he hadn't changed into formal attire. 

Quite the rule breaker, she thought. 

Lily broke away from her family eventually and headed to the bar. She in all technicality should have been stood with her father and Regina to formally welcome the suitors before they started fawning over Liam, but she had no desire to. She would introduce herself to Hana and Riley later, but right now she needed a drink to settle her nerves about meeting her own suitor later that night. 

Lily scanned the crowd and saw a woman in a red dress with horns and a black mask talking with her boyfriend, before being pulled away by Olivia.  

The redhead said a few words to the girl in the red dress then scurried away, as Maxwell appeared talking to the girl, who she presumed was Riley.

“I don’t like her,” Olivia snarled as she made her way over to the princess.

“That’s Riley?” Lily asked, nodding to the girl.

“Yep,” Olivia said, popping the ‘p’. “That’s the new girl.”

Lily spun around to face her friend. “Don’t tell me you’re threatened, Liv.”

“Of course I’m not,” Olivia growled.

“Of course. Hell would have to freeze over before anything could come close to threatening Olivia Nevrakis,” Lily smiled, earning a smirk from the redhead. “What do you make of her?”

“I would be surprised if she’s still here by the end of the week.”

“We’ll see. You better go, talk to my parents, your future husband,” Lily grinned.

“We’ll see,” Olivia said.

“Oh, come on Liv. You’ve been best friend since we were kids. He’d be an idiot if he didn’t pick you. How can any of the others even come close to competing with a Nevrakis?”

“They can’t,” Olivia smirked.

“Exactly.”

“Someone wants you,” Olivia said, nodding to Drake who was looking at Lily. Lily turned around, locking eyes with Drake, smiling and mouthing she’d only be a minute then turned back to Olivia. “Since when have you two been a thing?”

“We’re not,” Lily insisted shaking her head. 

“Word of advice: stop looking at each other like lovesick puppies before someone else catches on,” Olivia advised before sauntering away to join the que of suitors waiting to be welcomed by the king and queen. 

Lily shook her head and straightened out her dress. Were they really being that transparent? she wondered. 

She stood looking around her at all the stuffy nobles mingling with one another, wondering if any of their smiles were actually genuine because hers never were.

People, ‘normal’ people thought being royal was glamourous, but it isn't. The rules of court and royal life applied to everything. Everything common folk thought nothing of, like going food shopping or getting up for work or taking a stroll without anybody batting an eyelid, that's what Lily Rys longed for. She didn't want her life to be broadcasted through the media, for every move she made to be praised or criticized 

She loved Drake for more reasons than one, but he made her feel normal. As she stood there looking over the nobles, she saw the appeal in leaving, why Leo left. But like she had told Drake, she needed to be there for her brother and desperately needed to know what was going on with her father.