#york law corp

[reasonsforhope]

Holy crap, I didn't think Biden would be able to get the Climate Corps established without Congress. This is SUCH fantastic news.

--

"After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.

In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.

Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.

“After years of demonstrating and fighting for a Climate Corps, we turned a generational rallying cry into a real jobs program that will put a new generation to work stopping the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that has led the push for a climate corps.

With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said...

...Environmental activists hailed the new jobs program, which is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal...

Lawmakers Weigh In

More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.”

The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves in the Southwest and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.

Democrats called creation of the climate corps “historic” and the first step toward fulfilling the vision of the Green New Deal.

“Today President Biden listened to the (environmental) movement, and he delivered with an American Climate Corps,” a beaming Markey said at a celebratory news conference outside the Capitol.

“We are starting to turn the green dream into a green reality,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal legislation with Markey four years ago.

“You all are changing the world,” she told young activists.

Program Details and Grant Deadlines

The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said.

Creation of the climate corps comes as the Environmental Protection Agency launches a $4.6 billion grant competition for states, municipalities and tribes to cut climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are funded by the 2022 climate law and are intended to drive community-driven solutions to slow climate change.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the grants will help “communities so they can chart their own paths toward the clean energy future.”

The deadline for states and municipalities to apply is April 1, with grants expected in late 2024. Tribes and territories must apply by May 1, with grants expected by early 2025."

-via Boston.com, September 21, 2023

[iww-gnv]

Oct 6 (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) must provide U.S. regulators with documents detailing its spending on efforts to discuss unionizing with workers, part of the agency's probe into whether the coffee chain violated financial disclosure laws, a federal judge has ruled. The decision, which the U.S. Labor Department announced on Friday, requires Starbucks to document travel expenses it paid to send former CEO Howard Schultz and other company officers to Buffalo, New York in 2021 after workers there filed a petition to hold a union election. The Labor Department subpoenaed the information as part of its investigation into whether Starbucks should have disclosed expenses related to the trip and bonuses paid to the company officers. Federal law requires employers to report expenses aimed at discouraging organizing and union membership.

[moosekateer13]

But Daddy I Love Him!

Jared Padalecki x Reader

Warnings: Smut, Friends to Enemies. Enemies to Lovers, Alcohol, Mention of Self Neglect

Summary: Masks are meant to hide identities but sometimes they can have unintended consequences. Y/N and Jared are former best friends turned enemies.  Both come from high-society families that have invitations to certain events. They end up at a masquerade in England, leading to something unexpected.

Inspired by Taylor Swift's But Daddy I Love Him!

I forget how the West was won. I forget if this was ever fun

I just learned these people only raise you to cage you. Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best. Clutching their pearls, sighing "What a mess" I just learned these people try and save you

... cause they hate you

"Seven billion people, and I got put in a room with you." I said.

“Well, I don't want to be in a room with you either, you are such an itchy sweater.” Jared replied.

“Well, you are a cold bowl of soup.” I retorted.

Holy drags me away before I end up clawing his eyes out.

“Careful Y/N your family has a reputation to uphold. You and Jared are having a shouting match and could end up online. You know what damage it could do to your lawyer career, too.” Holy said.

“Yeah, you are right. Thank you for reining me in.” I replied.

“That's what friends are for. We look out for each other.” Holy said.

“We are all dolled up in these gowns, so let's forget about him for tonight,” I said as I put on my masquerade mask. 

My parents usually attend the annual Lunar Luminescence Ball. This time they gave their invitations to me. They said I spend way too many hours in the office and need to get out more. 

Karma Corp personal injury and law. I opened the firm with the money from a trust I got when I was 25. After, a knee injury that ruined my dance career when I was 16. Even if with my parents' lawyers the person who hit me got away. From that point on, I vowed to help people who suffered life-altering injuries like mine. It leaves hardly any time to travel for vacations, which I don't mind. My parents see it differently, though. They felt like I needed a break so here I am.

I take a flute of champagne from the server's tray. I downed the glass pretty quickly. Then grab another.

A guy in a white tuxedo and maroon mask holds his hand out to me. 

I find it ironic that his mask matches my dress.

May I have this dance miss?

 “You may” I replied

We effortlessly glided across the dancefloor.  We are perfectly in sync. 

I miss dancing. I haven't done this in ages.

So graceful like a swan. You must do this professionally.

“ At one point it was my path but life had other plans.” I replied.

“That's a shame”

Whoever this masked man is, he makes me feel at ease and peace. 

I've never felt like this with anyone I've been with.

Princess, may I take you to the room upstairs? I'd like to take this further.

“You may Prince Charming,” I replied.

He carefully swoops me up off the floor and carries me upstairs.

We methodically remove each other's clothes. 

Raw, passionate, euphoric. I never felt this good. No names are exchanged but why would we need to it's only one night.

Princess, those sounds from your lips are like music to my ears.

“Charming, you know how to play my instrument well.” I replied

He sends me to a crescendo over and over. I do the same with him.

I wake up to the sun hitting my face. I don't remember when I fell asleep. My companion from last night is sleeping on his stomach.

I quickly get dressed and leave the room.

Weeks later….

Back in Y/N's New York Y/N's apartment 

A loud pounding on my door. Pulls away from my work.

I yank the door open.

“Jared, what the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

“I figured out that I spent the night with you at the ball,” Jared replies.

I feel the colour drain from my face.

“What? That is impossible. The man I spent the night with was kind, and caring to me. Everything you are not to me.” I retorted.

Jared waves a mask in front of me. I recognize it as the one I wore that night.

“You left this on the floor of the room we shared. I saw pictures online from the event with you and Holy. That's how I figured it out.” Jared said.

I take a step back not wanting him to be so close.

Jared kicks my door with his foot before closing the gap between us.

“You should go, Jared. I shouldn't have let you in.” I replied.

“Can't leave Y/N I've got a taste of you and now I'm addicted. I want more of you.” Jared said.

At just his words I feel myself growing slick and I'm sweating.

Jared smirks at my reaction. I let out a squeal as he picked me up.

He pulls off my flimsy nightgown, followed by my undergarments.

I reciprocate and pull off his clothes. Pulling off his jeans took some extra effort because of the bulge formed beneath them.

Jared pushes me onto the bed.

He fills me with one go. 

  “Damn princess I'll never tire of the way this feels being with you. The way you squeeze me is something else.” Jared said.

I feel myself grow slicker at his words.

“Same prince I'll never tire of the way you fill me and make my body sing.” replied

Hours later and thoroughly marked. We finally pull apart and collapse from exhaustion.

His cum is leaking out of me and onto the bedsheets. I'm going to have to clean that up later.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked.

“I don’t know Y/N but we will figure it out. I can't remember why we went from being close to hating each other.” Jared replied.

“I don't know either,” I said

Jared kissed the top of my head before we slowly drifted off to sleep.

3 months later…

Tart Moment Café

I'm getting glares from Sarah and Hannah Occiden. 

They are so loud I can hear them from where I'm sitting.

“What a mess. She lets Jared use her whenever he sees fit without a commitment.” Hannah said.

“Don't worry, he will tire of her soon.” Sarah replied.

These girls dressed in their Sunday best. They saved me once from bullies, but they only saved me to hate me. It's jealousy, that's for sure. Hannah wanted to be Jared's at one time. He wouldn't give her the time of day.

They look over and realize I hear them. They lower their voices and Hannah goes back to twirling her bleached blond hair around her finger.

Holy sets down the cinnamon roll and tea she got for me.

“The Occiden twins being catty again?” Holy asked.

“Yup. I'm a lawyer so I'm used to dealing with shitty people.” I replied.

I take a sip of my tea before eating my cinnamon roll.

“Well, let's get you away from these bitches as fast as possible. Jared is supposed to be coming over right? You don't want to keep him waiting.” Holy said.

“Yeah, you are right on both accounts,” I replied.

I quickly finish my food which earns a chuckle from Holy. I say goodbye to her before I head home.

Jared is there sitting by the door and greets me with a kiss.

“Mmm, you taste like cinnamon. Eating those cinnamon rolls you love so much from Tart Moment again?” Jared said.

“Yup and let's not waste another moment. You've had a long week at the hospital. I think the paramedic needs some taking care of.” I replied as tug him towards my room.

Jared unbuttons my dress, but we get interrupted.

We hear someone letting themselves in. Jared goes to investigate it.

Jared, what are you doing here? Where's my daughter? You shouldn't be here. All those competitions between you two for grades and awards did a number on her. She focused on getting them instead of self-care at one point.

I ran in to stop the argument.

“Stop, Daddy, things have changed. I love him and I'm carrying his baby.” I said.

My dad's eyes go wide in response to what I just said.

He goes to the couch to sit down.

“Is that true Y/N or did you just say that to stop me from talking?” my dad asked.

“It's all true.” I replied. 

Jared takes my hand in his.

“Sir, I promise I'll take care of her and our baby. After Y/N is my lady.” Jared interjected.

“If you are so sure Jared, and it's Y/D/N. I know when you are both ready. You will make things official. I'd like you and Y/N to have dinner with her mom and me tonight. I know it's short notice but I won't be able to keep the secret of Y/N's pregnancy from my wife.” my dad said.

“We'll be there Dad.” I replied.

He says nothing else and takes his leave. 

 Jared stands in front of me and runs his hands through my Y/H/C. He knows the gesture calms me.

“Well, that was a less chaotic result than I expected. I guess we should go back to my place after we finish up here. So I'm ready for dinner.” Jared said.

“No need. I ordered some clothes for you last week and put them in the walk-in closet in the main bedroom. Now let's get back to what we were doing.” I replied as I tugged him back to the bedroom.

[mads-nixon]

100th Bomber Boys: Major Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal: Pt. 1

Ahead of the show's release, I bought Donald Miller's book and am reading it! Here is a little bit about Major Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal (played by Nate Mann) from the prologue of Masters of the Air (pg. 13-14)!

Lt. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal had not trained with the Hundredth's original crews. He and his crew had been assigned to the group that August from a replacement pool in England, to fill in for men lost on the Regens-burg raid. "When I arrived, the group was not well organized," Rosenthal recalled. "They were a rowdy outfit, filled with characters. Chick Harding was a wonderful guy, but he didn't enforce tight discipline on the ground orin the air." Rosenthal didn't fly a mission for thirty days. "No one came around to check me out and approve me for combat duty. Finally, my squadron commander, John Egan, had me fly a practice formation. I flew to the right of his plane. I had done a lot of formation flying in training and I was frustrated; I desperately wanted to get into the war. I put the wing of my plane right up against Egan's, and wherever he went, I went. When we landed, Egan told me he wanted me to be his wing man." Rosenthal had gone to Brooklyn College, not far from his Flatbush home. An outstanding athlete, he had been captain of the football and baseball teams, and later was inducted into the college's athletic hall of fame. After graduating summa cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, he went to work for a leading Manhattan law firm. He was just getting started in his new job when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next morning he joined the Army Air Corps. He was twenty-six years old, with broad shoulders, sharply cut features, and dark curly hair. A big-city boy who loved hot jazz, he walked, incongruously, with the shambling gait of a farmer, his toes turned inward and there wasn't an ounce of New York cynicism in him. He was shy and easily embarrassed, but he burned with determination. "I had read Mein Kampf in college and had seen the newsreels of the big Nazi rallies in Nuremberg, with Hitler riding in an open car and the crowds cheering wildly. It was the faces in the crowd that struck me, the looks of adoration. It wasn't just Hitler. The entire nation had gone mad; it had to be stopped. "I'm a Jew, but it wasn't just that. Hitler was a menace to decent people everywhere. I was also tremendously proud of the English. They stood alone against the Nazis during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. I read the papers avidly for war news and listened to Edward R. Murrow's live radio broadcasts of the bombing of London. I couldn't wait to get over there. "When I finally arrived, I thought I was at the center of the world, the place where the democracies were gathering to defeat the Nazis. I was right where I wanted to be." Rosie Rosenthal didn't share these thoughts with his crewmates, simple guys who distrusted what they called deep thinking. They never learned what was inside him, what made him fly and fight with blazing resolve. Later in the war, when he became one of the most decorated and famous fliers in the Eighth, word spread around Thorpe Abbotts that his family was in a German concentration camp. But when someone asked him directly, he said "that was a lot of hooey." His family-mother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece (his father had recently died) were all back in Brooklyn. "I have no personal reasons. Everything I've done or hope to do is strictly because I hate persecution... A human being has to look out for other human beings or else there's no civilization."

Rosie was part of the 'Bloody 100th' Bombardment Group of the 13th Combat Wing, of the 'Mighty Eighth' Air Force with John 'Bucky' Egan and Gale 'Buck' Cleven (played by Callum Turner and Austin Butler) His plane was called Rosie's Riveters, and him and his crew were an integral part of the bombardment group.

On October 8th, 1943, the 100th went on a bombing run to Bremen, Germany, and Buck Cleven was shot down. Two days later, Egan and the rest of the 100th went on a supposedly "easy" mission to Münster, accompanied by P-47 Thunderbolts almost all the way to the target. Rosenthal and his crew were not flying their beloved Rosie's Riveters due to damage from their two previous missions in Bremen and Marienburg. Instead, they flew Royal Flush.

Rosie's crew was worried about flying a brand new plane, and became incredibly nervous. Bringing them together under one of the wings, he calmed the boys down and lifted their spirits. This mission proved disastrous, and Royal Flush was the only one in the 100th to make it back to Thorpe Abbotts (the 100th's air-base in East Anglia).

Needless to say, I love Rosie already!! I've read up to chapter 6, and I feel like my brain is going to explode with all the information I've taken in :3

lmk if y'all want more posts like this one or would like to be tagged in them!!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Our Generals that kicked Hitler's Generals asses.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 23, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 24, 2024

The struggle over whether the U.S. government should work for everyone or for the very wealthy and corporations was on display today. Cable and internet providers and home security companies sued to stop the newly finalized Federal Trade Commission “click-to-cancel” rule that says it must be as easy to cancel a service as it is to sign up for it. 

Also today, the Department of Transportation reached a record settlement of $50 million with American Airlines, whose damage to wheelchairs and dangerous physical assistance to disabled passengers has broken laws. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both legs in combat in the Iraq War, praised the fine and commented: “When an airline damages or breaks someone’s wheelchair, it’s like breaking their legs.”

"The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. "With this penalty, we are setting a new standard of accountability for airlines that violate the civil rights of passengers with disabilities. By setting penalties at levels beyond the mere cost of doing business for airlines, we're aiming to change how the industry behaves and prevent these kinds of abuses from happening in the first place.”

A reader called to my attention that the recent Federal Election Commission filings showed one significant difference in the expenditures of the two presidential campaigns. The Harris campaign spent $34,550.02 on sign language interpreting services. The Trump campaign spent $0.00. 

These details of governance are fragments of a larger picture of how we see our country. Are we all created equal and entitled to be treated equally before the law? Or are some people better than others?

CNN was supposed to host another presidential debate tonight, but while Vice President Kamala Harris accepted, Trump declined to attend. In place of a debate, CNN invited each candidate to hold a town hall. Harris accepted; Trump declined. 

In her discussion with host Anderson Cooper, Harris focused on the reiteration yesterday by Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired U.S. Marine Corps general John Kelly, that Trump had spoken admiringly of Adolf Hitler and expressed a desire to have generals like Hitler’s. In an interview with the New York Times, Kelly said Trump “met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.”

The ideology of fascism is associated with Italian journalist and politician Benito Mussolini, who articulated a new political ideology in the 1920s. Mussolini had been a socialist as a young man and had grown frustrated at how hard it was to organize people. No matter what socialists tried, they seemed unable to convince their neighbors that they must rise up and take over the country’s means of production. The efficiency of World War I inspired Mussolini to give up on socialism and develop a new political theory.

Mussolini rejected the equality that defined democracy and came to believe that some men were better than others. Those few must lead, taking a nation forward by directing the actions of the rest. They must organize the people as they had during wartime, ruthlessly suppressing all opposition and directing the economy so that business and politicians worked together. Logically, that select group of leaders would elevate a single man, who would become an all-powerful dictator. To weld their followers into an efficient machine, they demonized opponents into an “other” that their followers could hate.

This hierarchical system of government was called “fascism” after the bundle of rods tied around an axe that was the ancient Roman symbol of authority and power. Italy adopted it, and Mussolini’s ideas inspired others, notably Germany’s Adolf Hitler. These leaders believed that their new system would reclaim a glorious past with the ideology of the future, welding pure men into a military and social machine that moved all as one, while pure women supported society as mothers. They set out to eliminate those who didn’t fit their model and to destroy the messy, inefficient democracy that stood in their way.

But while today we associate fascism with this European movement, its foundational principle—that some men are better than others and have the right and even the duty to rule over the majority—runs parallel to that same strand in United States history. Indeed, Nazi lawyers and judges turned to America’s Jim Crow laws for inspiration, and Hitler looked to America’s Indigenous reservations as a way to rid a country of “unwanted” people.

For retired Marine general John Kelly to have spoken out against Trump before the 2024 election was a huge deal. As Secretary Buttigieg put it: “It’s one thing for some leftist group to call you a fascist. Quite another when it’s a fellow Republican. And absolutely astonishing when it’s your own chief of staff.” But Kelly was not alone. Former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told veteran journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is “fascist to the core.” 

In tonight’s CNN town hall, Vice President Harris told Cooper that she agreed that Trump is a fascist. She noted that when a four-star Marine general comes out two weeks before an election to warn Americans that one of the candidates is a fascist, we should see this as “a 911 call to the American people.” 

Trump is “increasingly unstable,” Harris said, “and unfit to serve…. [T]he people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House, in the Situation Room, in the Oval Office, all Republicans by the way, who served in his administration, his former chief of staff, his national security advisor, former secretaries of defense, and his vice president have all called him unfit and dangerous. They have said explicitly he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. They have said he should never again serve as President of the United States,” she said. 

When Trump talks about “the enemy within,” Harris said, “ [h]e's talking about the American people. He's talking about journalists, judges, nonpartisan election officials…. And he's going to sit there unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution. Creating an enemies list.” In contrast, she said, she would have a “to-do list” to work on the things that matter to the American people. 

When Trump responded to Kelly’s claims, he appeared to confuse Kelly, who was retired when Trump chose him to serve as White House chief of staff, and Mark Milley, the active-duty chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump referred to four-star general Kelly, whose son died in Afghanistan, as “tough and dumb,” a “LOWLIFE, and a bad General,” but then went on to talk of him as active duty and to say he stopped seeking his advice in the White House. 

Forced to comment on Kelly’s comment about Trump’s embracing fascism, Republican leaders are either ducking the question or acting as if it is not a big deal. On CNN this morning, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu said the news that Trump has praised Hitler will not affect Sununu’s support. “If we can get a Republican mindset out of Washington,” he said, “we need that culture change.” 

At a rally tonight in Macon, Georgia, Trump agreed with the audience as it chanted: “Lock him up.” “You should lock them up,” Trump said. “Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary. Lock ‘em up.” 

Tonight, Shawn Reilly,  the mayor of Waukesha, Wisconsin—a key Republican stronghold—announced he’s voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sweetteaandpie]

it's friday night and my niles/cc headcanon wants to come out and play. i can't get these two out of my head.

i imagine they're still married 25 years later, both of them with silver hair and dressed impeccably. when they married, some of cc's upper-crustiness rubbed off on niles, but only in a superficial way. she still wears chanel, dior, givenchy, versace, and looks sharp in her skirts and pantsuits with jewellery. niles' wardrobe is more or less the same except more expensive. i imagine he is recovering from hip replacement surgery, which fran contributes to niles' inability to keep his hands off his wife. he doesn't refute this, but he does tell her that cc gives as good as she gets. fran tells him he doesn't need to paint a picture.

cc and niles are back in new york, having hated california. they moved back just before becoming parents to identical twin girls. they wrote their own joke when they came out as brunettes, and their mother had to pretend not to know where the brunette genes came from. it is niles' longest running joke and even the twins, who are now 24, occasionally like to tell people they have "mummy's hair."

the twins are quite unlike their parents and cc blames this fact on the "hippie forest school" niles insisted on sending them for their elementary education where she claims they learned to tie-dye before learning to read. cc had wanted a prep school, but niles insisted on a waldorf education. cc eventually gave in, partly because niles was very convincing with his mouth and hands, and partly because deep down, she was miserable and alone in her own educational experience. she did wish niles had found a better compromise, rolling her eyes when the parents' orientation at the twins' school provided a vegan, gluten-free (and booze-free *gasp*) spread. she threatened her husband and threw him her best glares, but he promised to do that thing she really liked in the hot tub that night, so she let it be.

the twins grew and their parents doted on them, even and especially their mother. and they absolutely adored her. they think she is so funny, even though she isn't trying to be. twin #1 is a pansexual vegan in law school who once chained herself to a tree to protest cutting down the rainforest. cc was upset that her "lesbian" daughter wouldn't let her throw a coming out party and niles had to run interference. she had pouted about it for weeks, even saying she didn't mind twin #1 was vegan. coming out parties are so passé, twin #1 claimed. niles reminded cc that twin #1 was going to law school so she could defend her mother against future lawsuits from terrified choreographers, thus saving her money. niles reminded twin #1 of the 33-hour labour her mother was in to have her and her sister...and the drugs wore off during delivery. twin #1 offered to have a low key celebration at home where her parents could celebrate their "lesbian" daughter. "pansexual, mummy!" twin #1 would exclaim exasperatedly with a shadow of a smile on her mouth.

twin #2 attended her mother's alma mater, bryn mawr, but ended up being a yoga teacher-reiki master-massage therapist-ukulele teacher. she's currently taking a herbalism course and experimenting with aquaponics. she lives in a queer collective in brooklyn, sharing a house with 7 other people. cc keeps trying to give her money, but twin #2 is adament about making her own way. she did a couple of years in the peace corps, where she picked up an interest and talent for survival skills. she met bear grylls once and it was the highlight of her year.

though cc loves her family, she still finds great pleasure in terrifying chorus boys and making choreographers cry. she has headed her own production company since returning to new york after the very brief stint in california. she has been on countless magazine covers, has done dozens of interviews, received a gracie award and a few tonys (more than maxwell), as well as is a frequent guest lecturer for NYU theatre classes, putting the fear of god in all the students. she has good instincts and brains and broadway has taken notice. when maxwell moved back to new york from california a few years after leaving, he wanted to merge his company with cc's and bring her back onboard. she said no.

niles has become a writer. since marrying the love of his life, his writing has been described by critics as truly beautiful, inspirational, and creative. he writes plays and has a column in the new york times called "are you being served?" (pun intended). a few years back, he wrote a book of poetry under a pseudonym and it was a best seller. it made the new york times' best seller list for four months straight. reviews called it "erotic," a "love story for the ages," and a "gorgeous love letter."

it was all about cc.

fran read it and told him cc was a lucky lady. he'd responded that he was the lucky one.

they still throw zingers at one another, and the twins have come to appreciate a particularly good one, but they largely stay out of it. in high school, when going through a particularly difficult phase of behavioural challenges, they experimented with throwing them at their parents. however, their parents, being pros, ate them up and spit them out, making the twins wish they hadn't even bothered.

cc is currently taking some time off to help niles do rehab for his new "magical hip."

"baby, does this make me old?" he asked her, feeling self-conscious of the walker he temporarily uses to get around due to his hip replacement surgery.

"yes, but you've been old for 40 years, so this is nothing new."

"my hip is new."

"maybe i should get something new to go with it."

"you could use a facelift," he deadpanned. "sorry. old habits."

she leaned over and gave him a loving kiss, making promises of all the things they're going to do once he's healed

that's all for tonight, but they live rent-free in my head, so there's bound to be more.

[mariacallous]

A new lawsuit brought against the startup Perplexity argues that, in addition to violating copyright law, it’s breaking trademark law by making up fake sections of news stories and falsely attributing the words to publishers.

Dow Jones (publisher of The Wall Street Journal) and the New York Post—both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp—brought the copyright infringement lawsuit against Perplexity today in the US Southern District of New York.

This is not the first time Perplexity has run afoul of news publishers; earlier this month, The New York Times sent the company a cease-and-desist letter stating that it was using the newspaper behemoth’s content without permission. This summer, both Forbes and WIRED detailed how Perplexity appeared to have plagiarized stories. Both Forbes and WIRED parent company Condé Nast sent the company cease-and-desist letters in response.

A WIRED investigation from this summer, cited in this lawsuit, detailed how Perplexity inaccurately summarized WIRED stories, including one instance in which it falsely claimed that WIRED had reported on a California-based police officer committing a crime he did not commit. The WSJ reported earlier today that Perplexity is seeking to raise $500 million is its next funding round, at an $8 billion valuation.

Dow Jones and the New York Post provide examples of Perplexity allegedly “hallucinating” fake sections of news stories. In AI terms, hallucination is when generative models produce false or wholly fabricated material and present it as fact.

In one case cited, Perplexity Pro first regurgitated, word for word, two paragraphs from a New York Post story about US senator Jim Jordan sparring with European Union commissioner Thierry Breton over Elon Musk and X, but then followed them up with five generated paragraphs about free speech and online regulation that were not in the real article.

The lawsuit claims that mixing in these made-up paragraphs with real reporting and attributing it to the Post is trademark dilution that potentially confuses readers. “Perplexity’s hallucinations, passed off as authentic news and news-related content from reliable sources (using Plaintiffs’ trademarks), damage the value of Plaintiffs’ trademarks by injecting uncertainty and distrust into the newsgathering and publishing process, while also causing harm to the news-consuming public,” the complaint states.

Perplexity did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement emailed to WIRED, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson compared Perplexity unfavorably to OpenAI. “We applaud principled companies like OpenAI, which understands that integrity and creativity are essential if we are to realize the potential of Artificial Intelligence,” the statement says. “Perplexity is not the only AI company abusing intellectual property and it is not the only AI company that we will pursue with vigor and rigor. We have made clear that we would rather woo than sue, but, for the sake of our journalists, our writers and our company, we must challenge the content kleptocracy.”

OpenAI is facing its own accusations of trademark dilution, though. In New York Times v. OpenAI, the Times alleges that ChatGPT and Bing Chat will attribute made-up quotes to the Times, and accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of damaging its reputation through trademark dilution. In one example cited in the lawsuit, the Times alleges that Bing Chat claimed that the Times called red wine (in moderation) a “heart-healthy” food, when in fact it did not; the Times argues that its actual reporting has debunked claims about the healthfulness of moderate drinking.

“Copying news articles to operate substitutive, commercial generative AI products is unlawful, as we made clear in our letters to Perplexity and our litigation against Microsoft and OpenAI,” says NYT director of external communications Charlie Stadtlander. “We applaud this lawsuit from Dow Jones and the New York Post, which is an important step toward ensuring that publisher content is protected from this kind of misappropriation.”

If publishers prevail in arguing that hallucinations can violate trademark law, AI companies could face “immense difficulties” according to Matthew Sag, a professor of law and artificial intelligence at Emory University.

“It is absolutely impossible to guarantee that a language model will not hallucinate,” Sag says. In his view, the way language models operate by predicting words that sound correct in response to prompts is always a type of hallucination—sometimes it’s just more plausible-sounding than others.

“We only call it a hallucination if it doesn't match up with our reality, but the process is exactly the same whether we like the output or not.”

[theculturedmarxist]

Conor here: The following post goes into the ins and outs of the case ahead of the April 23 beginning of the case, the outcome of which seems to be a foregone conclusion and will be a major blow to labor.>New York Times labor reporter Noam Scheiber noted back in January when the Supremes agreed to hear the case that the very fact that they did so meant they would likely rule so that it’s harder to unionize. The reasoning behind that belief isn’t just the conservative majority on the court but also that the courtdeclined to hear a similar case in 2014 (back before the current conservative majority).

By Michael Z. Green, professor of law and the director of the Workplace Law Program at Texas A&M University. Originally published at The Conversation.

What factors must a court consider when the National Labor Relations Board requests an order requiring an employer to rehire terminated workers before the completion of unfair labor practice proceedings?

That’s the central question that the Supreme Court will consider on April 23, 2024, during oral arguments in the Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney case. The global coffee shop chain is challenging the NLRB, the federal agency responsible for enforcing U.S. workers’ rights to organize, saying that the agency used the more labor-friendly of two available standards when it asked a federal court to order the company to reinstate workers at a Memphis, Tennessee, store who lost their jobs in 2022 amid a nationwide unionizing campaign.

The Conversation U.S. asked Texas A&M law professor Michael Z. Green to explain what’s behind this case and how the court’s eventual decision, expected by the end of June, could affect the right to organize unions in the United States.

What Is This Case About?

Seven baristas who were attempting to organize a union at a Starbucks shop in Memphis, Tennessee, were fired in February 2022. Starbucks justified their dismissal by asserting that the employees, sometimes called the “Memphis 7,” had broken company rules by reopening their store after closing time and inviting people who weren’t employees, including a television crew, to go inside.

In June of that year, the shop became one of more than 400 Starbucks locations since 2021 that have voted in favor of joining Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

While a complaint over the mass dismissal was pending with the NLRB, Kathleen McKinney, the NLRB director for the region that includes Memphis, sought an injunction in a federal district court to force Starbucks to give the Memphis 7 their jobs back while the case proceeded. The company must “cease its unlawful conduct immediately so that all Starbucks workers can fully and freely exercise their labor rights,” she said.

By August 2022, a judge had ordered Starbucks to do that, and in September the baristas were back on staff.

Although the seven baristas got their jobs back and the union vote prevailed, the company has appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court because it believes the court should not have ordered the company to reinstate the workers while NLRB proceedings were still pending.

But the NLRB argues, and the lower courts agreed, that the terminations chilled further union activities at the store even after the election.

Nevertheless, Starbucks argues that firing the seven workers had no effect because employees at that coffeehouse still voted in favor of unionization.

What’s Being Challenged?

The justices will have to decide which approach federal courts should use when they consider requests for injunctions like this one.

Currently, five appeals courts, including the one where this case arose, base their decision on a two-part test.

First, the courts determine whether there is “reasonable cause” to believe an unfair labor practice has occurred. Second, they determine whether granting an injunction would be “just and proper.”

Four other appeals courts use a four-part test.

First, the courts ask whether the unfair labor practice case is likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that labor violations occurred. Second, they look to see if the workers the NLRB is attempting to protect will face irreparable harm without an injunction. Third, after showing likelihood of success and irreparable harm, they ask whether those factors outweigh any hardships the employer is likely to face due to compliance with the court’s order. Fourth, they ask whether issuing the injunction serves the public interest.

Two other appeals courts use a hybrid test that appears to have components of both of the tests. They ask whether issuing an injunction would be “just and proper” by considering the elements of the four-part test.

In its Supreme Court brief, Starbucks argues that having to give workers their jobs back in these circumstances can cause “irreparable injury” and that it’s an “extraordinary remedy.”

The NLRB, in its Supreme Court brief, says that the injunction was proper in this case because Starbucks terminated 80% of the union organizing committee at the Memphis store and the evidence showed the chilling effect this action had on the “lone remaining union activist.” According to the NLRB, this chilling effect “harmed the union campaign in ways that a subsequent Board ruling could not repair.”

A labor reporter discussing Starbucks’ unfair labor practice cases, including the one involving the Memphis 7, determined that NLRB administrative law judges had found labor violations in 48 out of 49 cases.

What’s the Potential Impact of the Court’s Eventual Ruling on This Case?

While the case may sound like it’s only about seven people employed at a single coffee shop, the scope is wider than that.

Although the NLRB issues hundreds of unfair labor practice complaints against employers every year, it usually doesn’t turn to the courts to force the rehiring of employees. It only sought these types of injunctions 17 times in 2023, for example.

And seven of those efforts involved Starbucks. Despite the small number of overall injunctions, the large number of unfair labor practice complaints – and the eventual 48 out of 49 findings of violations – might support the rare use of injunctions in this case.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Starbucks, the overall impact seems unclear.

For one thing, the court will have picked one test over another without any proof that one is more likely to result in an injunction or not. In addition, the underlying unfair labor practice case has been resolved, since the workers have gotten their jobs back and their workplace has joined a union.

What’s more, Starbucks has agreed to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the union – which has continued to make inroads at the company’s coffee shops.

Because the NLRB rarely seeks injunctions, the fact that this issue has obtained enough importance for consideration by the Supreme Court seems odd considering its valuable time and the limited number of cases it can consider each year. But let’s see what the court’s majority decides.

[deeptrashwitch]

Marcus "Poison" Lombardi

Name: Marcus Lombardi

Nacionality: American🇺🇲/Italian🇮🇹

Age: 25

Date of birth: 8th march 1997 - New York City (U.S.A)

Residence: Killeen, Texas, USA

Afilliation: U.S Marine Corps / 75th Ranger Regiment Specters

Rank: Private

Callsign: Poison (Current)/ Charlie 3-6

Occupation: Infantry operator

Height: 1.86 m/ 6'1" ft

Weight: 80 kg

Blood type: AB-

Pronouns: He/him

Sexuality: Straight

Languages: English (Native), Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian

AFILLIATIONS

Specters members:

-Captain Alicia Marchant (alive)

-Lieutenant Luke Michaelis (alive)

-Sergeant Jackson Blackwell (alive)

-Sergeant Edward Jackson (alive)

-Corporal Noah García (alive)

-Corporal Elijah Wilson (alive)

-Airman First Class Nicholas Fowlett (alive)

-Private Elliot Stevens (alive)

-Private Alexander Christensen (alive)

-Private Francis Scott (alive)

CIA:

-Chief Station Dominique Wright (alive)

Underworld:

-Liù Xiao Chen (alive)

FAMILY

-Kenneth Lombardi (Father) (alive)

-Janice Lombardi nee Crane (Mother) (deceased)

-Nick Lombardi (Uncle) (alive)

-Keyra Lombardi (spouse) (alive)

PERSONALITY

-He is energetic and joyful with his teammates, but when he's on mission his personality becomes a mix of cautious, ferocious and analytic.

-During the conjoined missions he stays near the other soldiers as his Captain commanded, but he always is alert and is always trying to get the most information he can of them only by their looks.

-He always stays deep in his thoughts when he thinks about his parents, and sometimes is difficult to bring him back. Every time he came back, he shake his head and then sighs, and when he does that...everyone knows he has zoned out.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in New York City, New York. His family during many years were his father, his mother, his uncle and him, but now there's only the men. As a kid, he was an absolute mom's boy, although he keeps an amazing relationship with his father.

When he was younger they all lived on Little Italy, and he passed part of his time inside his father's store, helping with the register while he was on high school. During that time he met Keyra when she went to buy groceries, it was a daily thing, but that time was somehow different and they ended up dating after many funny situations. He took a year and half before enlisting, again to help with the family bussiness, and once he enlisted to the Marine Corps, he departed to Camp Pendelton.

When he finished basic training, he was assigned to one team, his first and last team before the Specters. After his first deployment, and even against some people advices, he proposed and married Keyra, and has never regreted it. But during that first years, he learned about his mom's diagnosis, she had stomach cancer.

It was difficult to hear, and mostly to see his father so drained when he accompained her to chemotherapy. He talked with Keyra about and both decided to help with the costs of the treatments, so a big part of his salary went to it. Even his uncle flew from Florence to help them with the bussiness, to gave his own brother a break, also Keyra helped her mother-in-law everytime she could.

Marcus had a hard time to go and see his mom, but when he was able to do it, he went even if it hurted like hell to see her that way. Right now he prefers not to evoke the image of his mother, how tired, sick and sad she looked, and how she tried to smile to him. That lasted during a couple more years before his mother passed away, and it hurted during the next two years and still hurts until today.

It was difficult to keep going, but he did, helping his father and with Keyra's help. After it, he continued inside the Marine Corps, and soon Wraith went to talk with him to offer him a place inside the Specters. Soon he arrived to Black Tomb, and there he has stayed from then on.

SKILLS

-Specialized on many fire weapons, his favorites during missions are a Galil 556. and a Carabin M4.

-Main and static part of the infantry squad, but he goes better during infiltration missions. They are the second squad to get inside the objective, always behind the recon squad.

COMBAT

His combat style is specialized on ofenssive, not as variated as the Captain's, but it make him almost an expert on MCMAP. His first choice weapon is also a Bowie knife. He's teaching their combat style to some of the team, and he practices usually with Alexander and the Captain.

TRIVIA

-Marcus loves to learn how to play every instrument he can get his hands on. So far he knows how to play guitar, drums, flaute, tamborine, bass and piano.

-He's madly in love with Keyra. Every time he's off deployment he arrives at the house with a flower bouquet, his wife favorite dinner and some beautiful jewels. He always feels guilty for leaving her during missions, but every time she reassures him that she'll be fine and that she's proud of him.

-He has no car but Keyra does. She got a blue Chevrolet Spark, it's nothing luxurious and a bit old but she uses it almost everyday.

-Marcus doesn't have a favorite music genre, but enjoys specially the music in spanish. Noah has played jokes on him many time because of it.

-Everytime he has the opportunity to talk about his wedding, HE WILL! It amuses the team, but they are happy to hear how their friend has a happy marriage. Everyone gave him ideas for some dates, and Marcus helped Luke with everything related to his own wedding.

-His callsign was an accident, to be honest. During a call with his now deceased mother, he heard her talking about a documentary she was watching, about true crime. His mother muttered something related a random fact mentioned, and he recognized it instantly a way of how killing with poison. They started calling him Poison, and it stayed!

-He always goes to get himself checked looking for any kind of cancer. He refuses to take a risk about it.

-His favorite drink is soda, he doesn't have a determined brand, just takes anything in stock. And his favorite food is pancakes, specifically the ones with banana and chocolate sirup! Everytime they go to a dinner or a cafe, Marcus will order pancakes and if it has also powdered suger on top...he can die happy.

Song

Moodboard

[demigodsanswer]

Variation (Rated M), in On Your Toes (Percabeth Ballet AU)

Summery:

"Annabeth thought she was used to people staring at her. The room full of dancers had their eyes on her and Beckendorf. But Percy wasn’t watching and learning. His eyes were on her back. She looked at him in the mirror, catching his eyes in the reflection. He looked away, guilty red face turning to look at the floor, and she smiled. She felt desired." ~ Variation: a different or distinct form or version of something. Variation, in ballet: a solo dance following, often following a pas de deux Some moments from Twice Upon a Pointe from Annabeth's point of view

Annabeth felt like she’d been asleep for a long time.

Maybe not the full nine years. No, the first four were perfect, according to her memory. Annabeth, of course, wasn’t stupid. She knew what the law was, but it hadn’t made an ounce of difference to her. 

Everyone in New York City Ballet had treated the sixteen-year-old her like a child, but put adult professional expectations on her. In hindsight, of course. She was a child, legally at least, and she was also a professional dancer now with all the responsibilities and expectations that came with that. 

But Luke didn’t treat her that way. He treated her like an adult, with her own ideas, her own mind, her own desires. But he also understood that she was young and adjusting to being a profession far younger than most people became pros, even in the ballet world. That was all she wanted: for someone to know she was smart, competent, but new, so, so new to all of this. 

Luke had always liked helping her. He protected her. He made her feel safe. 

But he couldn’t cope with her success. Annabeth had started to see that during Romeo and Juliet. She was only nineteen and in the corps, but Chiron had picked her to be his Juliet. He was choreographing his own version of the classic ballet, and he was choreographing it on her. For as long as companies danced Chiron’s version, they’d dance choreography designed to suit her.

Luke hadn’t been picked to be her Romeo. Charles Beckendrof had. Chiron wanted younger dancers to match the youth of the characters. No, Luke had been cast as Paris. 

In hindsight, Annabeth should have counted that as a red flag. 

The worst parts of Luke started to show then. He was jealous of everyone. He became possessive, holding onto her too tight even in their pas de deux as Juliet and Paris. He chipped away at her confidence, or tried to. There was only so much he could do to her confidence when their director was lifting her up over and over again -- Sugar Plum at 17, Liberty Bell at 18, Juliet at 19, the Swans at 21, Coppelia at 22, Kitri at 23 … and now, finally, after years of promising, Aurora at 26. This time Luke wasn’t there to tear her down. 

But he wasn’t there to hold her up either. 

Annabeth laid awake, staring at the dark ceiling in the room she used to share with him. The sun was rising, her alarm had been silenced. Today was the first day of Sleeping Beauty rehearsals. She reached across the mattress to where he used to sleep. The sheets were still tucked in tight, his side of the bed totally made, and completely cold. 

It was time to wake up. 

~

Annabeth was used to people staring at her. 

She considered herself very pretty, and her long, thin dancer's body often had men ogling her on the streets and in the studio. Plenty of other women looked at her, some in admiration, some with a visible jealousy or disdain that Annabeth had learned to channel into her own ambitions. Children often stared in admiration -- either young dancers who knew who she was, or just little kids in awe of a tutu and pointe shoes. Audiences watched her of course. Their gaze was equally motivating as it was comforting. She’d grown up on stage in so many ways. 

People staring at her rarely made her nervous these days. 

But people would be watching her today. And she didn’t know what to expect from those gazes. 

Annabeth had danced in exactly five Nutcrackers this past winter. Three were Sugar Plum Fairies, getting back on stage at the Koch theater only three days after returning to New York. She could dance Sugar Plum in her sleep, and with Beckendorf as her partner, it took no rehearsal time at all before they felt stage-ready. Her other two shows were Snow and Flowers. Chiron needed a last minute replacement, and she’d jumped at the chance. They were corps roles, nothing thrilling about them on paper. But they were more fun than her principal roles. In the corps, no one was ever looking at just you the entire time. For a moment, you got to disappear behind the falling snow or large skirts of Flowers. 

And then, Nutcracker ended, and The Sleeping Beauty started. She knew Chiron was staging this for her. He’d promised it to her when she was eighteen. 

The last time he’d staged it, she’d only been in the corps, and had been thrown on as the White Cat in the Puss in Boots pas de deux for the last three consecutive shows, but otherwise she had no major role. It didn’t stop him from pulling her aside one night, still in her cat costume, and telling her that the next time he staged this ballet, she would be Aurora. 

The White Cat had turned out to be a perfect part for her, despite the humiliating costume. It was slow, with a few good moments to balance, and relied on a lot of acting and cat-like arm movements. Annabeth was able to show off her musicality and her artistry, and her ability to work as a partner. She’d done a good enough job on such short notice that Chiron had given her the role of the Liberty Bell in Stars and Stripes that summer, a much bigger role, a principal role, and one of her first real breakouts before Romeo and Juliet. 

It took Chiron eight years to decide to restage Sleeping Beauty, but Annabeth’s return to New York was the perfect opportunity. 

That meant it had to be perfect. She had to be perfect. 

Annabeth had gotten changed three times that morning, searching for the perfect tights and leotard combination that would make her feel confident without making it look like she was trying to hide. Black was out -- that was her safe zone, but too safe. It didn’t project confidence; it made her look like a student. Light pinks, whites, and pastels also wouldn’t do. They were too revealing, and they brought up a plethora of body-image concerns. She’d been gone for nine months. Sure, she’d stayed in shape, but if she was going to be scrutinized by company members and stare at herself in a mirror for eight hours, she didn’t need to feel completely exposed. 

And anyway, pink, purple, and white were the Aurora costume colors. She couldn’t look overeager. She had nothing to prove. 

No, she certainly had everything to prove. But she didn’t want to make it clear to everyone that she knew that, and that she was absolutely in knots over it. 

Annabeth stripped off the light pink leotard she usually loved so much and went to the bathroom a third time that morning for another nervous pee. She was running out of time to get ready. 

Finally, she pulled a royal blue leotard out of her closet. She’d never worn it in New York before. She’d treated herself to it during a small emotional breakdown after watching her dancer friends in New York start their Fall seasons while she lived in an AirBNB in Richmond, Virginia that was walking distance to her childhood studio. 

The deep blue color complimented her features. It was simple on the front, no flairs or frills; it it covered her chest and collarbone ending with a strip of blue velvet that went around her neck. It clipped at the base of her neck in the back. From the front, the cap sleeves also looked plain, but in the back, they were ornate lace in the same blue color. The whole back was cut out, exposing her skin and muscles, framing her back in that blue lace. 

She turned to the side, and then the other side. She slipped on pink tights and a small blue skirt. Then she coordinated a few warmups. She had gray leg warmers that would cover her calves, a pink sweater, and black trash bag pants. She double checked she had the compression sock that would hopefully ensure her left foot was a team player today. She slipped the skirt off, tucking it into her dance bag with the warm ups, and slipped jeans over the tights. She shed the pink dance sweater for a regular sweater, then added her winter coat and hat. 

And just in case she still felt like garbage when she arrived at the theater, she threw her favorite black leotard and a pair of black tights into her bag. 

~ 

Annabeth thought she was used to people staring at her. The room full of dancers had their eyes on her and Beckendorf, which was expected. They all had to learn the choreography, and Chiron was teaching it to Annabeth and Beckendorf primarily, because they were the first cast Prince and Aurora. 

But Percy wasn’t watching and learning. His eyes were on her back. She could see him in the mirror, and it was obvious that he was watching her . Annabeth tried not to notice. Occasionally, Percy’s gaze would be pulled away, his attention going in another direction. But then it would come back. 

But it didn’t feel leering, or judgemental. She didn’t feel exposed or uncomfortable. She looked at him in the mirror, catching his eyes in the reflection. He looked away, guilty red face turning to look at the floor, and she smiled. No, she felt desired . As Beckendorf took her hand to start the next portion of the Wedding Pas, Annabeth finally felt her familiar confidence in her dancing return to her like an old friend. 

Let them stare, she thought with a smile, one of the best ballet companies in the world is staging a ballet just for me. Because I am one of the best. 

~ 

Everything had been going so well. She’d felt confident enough that day to wear a deep burgundy leotard with a deep mesh V down the front, with long mesh sleeves that emphasized her arms. She loved her port de bras and knew it was one of her strengths as a dancer. Her artistry had always been most important to her, and she worked hard to coordinate her arms, legs, and head motions while also expressing character and telling a story. 

Percy hadn’t been staring at her as much in recent days, keeping his focus on his own partner and learning their dances. But she kept checking, a little kernel of disappointment settling in her chest every time he saw that he was looking at Katie, not at her. But she forced herself to ignore him in return. 

You’ve sworn off dancers, she reminded herself. But she glanced back at him again. He’d said hi to her that morning, and his kind smile and green eyes had given her butterflies. Goddamn butterflies. It hasn’t even been a year since your breakup, you useless tart. 

She did her best to act like the virginal Aurora, in love with her prince. She loved Beckendorf, sure. He’d literally been her Romeo once. But he was her best friend. They’d never dated (“I always thought you were too young for me,” he’d confessed. That had made her laugh. He was just over two years older than her). If he’d even given her butterflies, it had been years ago, before he found the love of his life, and she found … whatever Luke was. 

Really, Annabeth wasn’t sure when the Percy butterflies had started. She hadn’t seen him since May, but even back in May … he’d always been so kind to her. He’d carried her off stage when she’d gotten injured, and he’d taken such good care of her at that moment. Before that he’d made her smile, pulled laughs out of her easily, and he brought her extra snacks in rehearsal. 

Annabeth was probably the last one to realize just how good looking Percy was. Dark hair, green eyes, and such an easy care-free smile that compelled you to smile back. She’d noticed it during “Diamonds,” but what could she do? She was engaged. You’re not engaged anymore, a small voice reminded her. That thought kept her smiling. You can look all you want. Annabeth’s heart raced. 

Now she was single. Now she was healed in so many ways. And now … and now … Percy was looking at her with those wide green eys -- fuck how do eyes that green even happen? -- and she felt butterflies turn into something less innocent and much lower in her belly. 

No more dancers, she reminded herself. Unless he’s interested … 

It was a foolish exception to make. Annabeth was smart. His eyes on her told her yes, he was interested. 

Alright, she decided, getting ready to start the dance again, no more dancers unless it’s Percy Jackson. 

Their Wedding pas rehearsal ended, and the boy’s rehearsal for their Wedding Variation was about to start. Annabeth took a seat at the back and started to stretch. She had a little bit of a break before her next rehearsal, so she let herself cool down and stretch out her legs. And if she sat a bit close to Percy, so what? 

From his spot hugging the back wall, Percy marked the choreography, muttering notes to himself as he watched Beck dance. Annabeth rested a massage ball under her sore calf muscle and watched him. 

Annabeth had also been the last one on earth to learn just how talented Percy was; he was so much more than a pretty face and a quick wit. When they’d done “Diamonds” last year, he’d left her speechless with how quickly he adjusted to dancing with her. He’d been so graceful and attentive during their pas rehearsals, and he picked up choreography in a blink. 

Dancing with him felt so right. It was as natural as dancing with Beck, but without all of the years of partnering behind them. Somehow he’d never even been her Sugar Plum Cavalier. Annabeth was sure that if she hadn’t spent most of Nutcracker season dancing it for her youth company in Virginia, they would have danced together last season. 

Annabeth closed her eyes, sending up a wish to the universe that she and Percy could dance together again. Maybe when Beauty was over Chiron would pair them. Carousel and Flower Festival were on the season’s program after Beauty. They might look good together in one of those. 

Annabeth was a woman of unfortunate luck. Don’t get her wrong; she’d had one of the most blessed lives a person could ask for, and a dance career plenty envied. But sometimes the universe liked to ruin her life in ways that somehow left her feeling like the guilty party. 

Beckendrof had gone up for a triple tour, and he’d landed with a sickening pop, before falling onto his back and holding his knee. Annabeth gasped involuntarily before he’d even hit the ground. She and Percy were both on the move then, her to her friend, and Percy saying he’d get the PT team. 

“Sorry,” Beck whispered to her. 

“It’s okay,” she promised. She could never be mad at him, but she was mad at herself for her stupid wish. 

Beckendorf was out. 

~ 

And when your partner goes out, they just don’t give you a new one. Not usually. Annabeth had been pulled from plenty of ballets before because of an injured partner. When she’d been injured last year, she’d nearly ruined Percy’s ‘Diamonds’ debut. It was only saved by his experience dancing with Piper. Dance was an art that required plenty of precision. It was hard to slot one dancer in with a new partner if they’d been rehearsing with someone else before. 

So that was it. All that press promotion for Sleeping Beauty, all the grand promises, and she was out too. 

Or at least that’s what she expected this conversation with Chiron and Mr. D to be about. 

“You’re still doing this,” was the first thing out of Chiron’s mouth. “Charles is out, but we want to keep you in.” 

Annabeth’s heart raced. Well then, it had to be Percy. They danced so well together before and -- 

“We’re going to start rehearsing you with Jason tomorrow,” Mr. D said. 

“Jason?” She asked. Jason was new. He’d joined the company right around the time she’d broken her foot, torn her life apart, and fled New York humiliated and miserable. Which is to say, she’d never danced with him. 

“What about Percy Jackson?” She suggested. “We did well in ‘Diamonds.’” 

“I want to see how you do with Jason,” Chiron said. “We haven’t seen you two work together yet. I want to try it. If it doesn’t work, we will try someone else.” 

~

The pas wasn’t working. She and Jason did not make natural partners. Annabeth always felt she danced better with dancers who were the same height or shorter than her when she was on pointe, but Jason still had a few inches on her even on her toes. They could make it work if they needed to. If they had days or hours before the curtain, sure they could make it look good. But they weren’t days away. They were a month away. 

Annabeth looked in the mirror. Just past her and Jason, at the back of the room, was Percy, the man she knew she danced well with. The man she wanted to be dancing with if it couldn’t be Beckendorf. That Chiron hadn’t put her with him first thing today was … honestly unbelievable in a way she couldn’t even begin to understand. 

She looked at her and Jason in the mirror, their matching blonde hair and similar faces. We look like Jamie and Cersei fucking Lannister, she thought. 

Annabeth made eye contact with Chiron. Put Percy in, she tried to plead with him. We tried it this way, and it doesn’t work. Stop wasting time. 

“Percy, let’s see you do it with Annabeth,” Chiron said. 

Annabeth smiled. 

Percy looked nervous stepping up to the front of the room, and for a moment Annabeth got nervous too. If Percy didn’t work out, she’d have to face the fact that she was out of the ballet. And worse, face that she’d been wrong about him. 

“Hello again,” she said, taking his hand. Despite how often she’d sought out his gaze, they’d hardly spoken since last Spring. “Don’t let me fall,” she said with a smile. He wouldn’t, she assured herself.  

Percy smiled back, the nervous look fading from his face. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said.

By the time pianist started, Annabeth knew she had been completely and totally right. Whatever nerves Percy had before weren’t on his face or in his dancing. He knew every step and he acted the shit out of the role. He held her steady; there wasn’t a moment Annabeth didn’t feel completely and totally supported by him. When she was on her left foot, he was even more careful, she noticed. He held her a little tighter, and waited for her to initiate the next move, attentive to her recent injury.  

If Chiron ever made her dance this with Jason Grace again, she’d quit the ballet for real. It had to be Percy. It had to be. 

When the music ended, and he set her back on her feet after their last fish dive, all she could do was smile at him. He smiled back. 

They were going to be perfect.

~ 

The rehearsal for Aurora’s act three variation was … tense. Only Drew Tanaka, the third cast Aurora, was sitting comfortably, sure of her role in the ballet. Annabeth still hadn’t officially been given a new partner, so she wasn’t sure yet if she was really performing. Helen and Katie were also not sure if Annabeth was about to steal one of their partners and kick them out of the cast. And Kayla Knowles, a nineteen-year old corps member who was learning it as a backup, looked scared shitless that her first major principal role might be Aurora of all things. 

But still, Annabeth was called to the front. As the first cast Aurora, she got priority for the coaching. They all knew the choreography at this point, but she still got the most attention. She made sure to earn it. She might be kicking one of these gorgeous dancers out of the lead role, and if she was going to do that, she needed to prove that keeping her in was the best call. 

After rehearsal, Chiron asked her to hold back. 

“What did you think of today?” Chiron asked. 

“I think it’s going well. Are you happy with it?” She asked. She knew what he was really asking about, but she wanted to get his opinion on the issue of her partner first. 

“I’m very happy with your work today,” Chiron confirmed. “We are definitely keeping you at the head of the ballet. But what about your partner?” 

Annabeth looked at Mr. D, then back at Chiron. Was it really a question? Was the answer not as obvious to them as it was to her? Had the damn butterflies clouded her judgment?

“Percy,” she said simply, “it felt much better with Percy, and I think it looked better too. Jason and I look like brother and sister.” Mr. D laughed. “What’s your hesitation?” 

“I worry about his confidence,” Chiron said. 

“Why? He seemed plenty confident to me. He’s constantly proven to be adaptable. And he’s the same rank as Jason, so there’s really no reason to consider someone else,” Annabeth said. “He’s the one, he has to be.” Chiron’s eyes flicked to something behind her. Annabeth glanced over her shoulder but just saw the door. She didn’t dwell on it. “If I’m dancing this, then I want to dance it with Percy. Jason is talented, but Percy suits me better.” 

“Well, I’m glad we’re all in agreement then,” Chiron said. 

“What about his confidence?” Annabeth asked. 

“He’ll just have to find it,” Chiron said. “But as long as you are confident in him, I trust everything will go well.” 

“I am,” she promised. 

~

It was the first time Annabeth had seen Percy do one of his variations from the ballet. His first one was a slow character piece that showed off his long lines and perfectly flat turn out (she’d kill for her legs to stretch that way). He made the dance look so natural, so effortless, as if he’d been living with the prince for weeks already. 

Annabeth couldn’t take her eyes off of him. 

She felt caught up in the emotions he acted out. He reached one way with his hand, as his foot pointed back the other direction. She wanted to take a picture and send it to the students she’d worked with last Fall. Look, she would tell them, that is what I mean when I say keep that energy going from the toe all the way to the tips of the fingers. 

Percy was nearly perfect. He’d learned the choreography standing at the back of the room for days, but now he moved as if it had been set on him from the start, as if he’d been coached already. There was no other way to describe him except that he looked like a principal dancer. 

Why the hell isn’t he? She had to wonder. She’d expected him to be promoted after ‘Diamonds,’ especially after he quickly adapted to a new partner. But he was still just a soloist. I worry about his confidence, Chiron had said. But from Annabeth’s point of view there was no lack of confidence, no shred of hesitation in him. He was all artistry and technique. Just like her. They were a perfect match.  

Truth be told, she’d never really thought of Percy as much of a classical dancer. He’d become known for Jerome Robbins ballets at City Ballet, mostly Opus 19 and Opus Jazz. Neither of them were overly classical in the way Sleeping Beauty was ( Opus Jazz was in sneakers even). 

Annabeth knew him first and foremost as a Candy Cane in Nutcracker . In that piece, he was all big jumps, smiles, and Christmas spirit. Every year she watched Candy Canes from the wings, dressed in the pink bodice and basket skirt of Marzipan, holding her panflute, and she watched as Percy Jackson and so many other company men literally jumped through hoops to the tune of the exciting Christmas music and jingle bells. Actual goddamn jingle bells.  

And then she had to go out and do Marzipan. It was also a technical challenge with hops on pointe, gargouillade s, and a deliberately out of synch corps and lead. But the audience never cared. They clapped because of the genuine thrill and awe at Candy Canes. They clapped out of obligation for Marzipan. There was zero audience energy to play off of. 

Candy Canes was an immensely tough act to follow. Especially his. 

‘Diamonds’ had taught her that he was so much more than big jumps and perfect turnout. He matched her perfectly in “Diamonds.” They’d been such natural partners. They would have looked amazing on stage, blowing “Rubies” and “Emeralds” right out of the water. 

Annabeth looked down at her left foot. This is all your fault, she said to it. Her foot, obviously, didn’t respond. 

She was glad at least that it wasn’t still causing her pain. But she found herself babying it, favoring the right foot, which would never work for her in the long-term. She needed to stop worrying about the healed injury and start dancing on it the way she always had before she lost all her strength in the foot completely. 

Percy came to total stillness as the pianist finished the final few bars of the score. Chiron offered a few suggestions, but Annabeth could only smile.

Percy looked at her; he caught her staring and smiled back. The butterflies flooded back into her with a vengeance.

Shit. 

~

Annabeth shut off her vibrator with a frustrated huff. She’d tried several different ones, on all the different speeds and settings. She’d even turned on chapter fifty-five of one of those fairy porn books Silena had recommended, the one where the main girl gets railed by the dark haired love interest on the table. Those books hadn’t been masterpieces, but they were the exact literary lobotomy she’d needed back in July. But now it was doing nothing for her. 

She was desperate to get off, but her body simply wasn’t complying. 

This wasn’t new. Annabeth had been stuck on edge for years now; her antidepressants made it one hell of a challenge. Luke had long given up on trying to get her to finish. With how long it took her, she didn’t mind. At a certain point, she just got bored of him inside her, and sweating on top of her. Most of the time, she was hardly in the mood at all. Luke did work hard to get her in the mood, often going the extra step to properly seduce her and make her feel desired. He’d never pushed if she really hadn’t wanted it. 

She caught herself thinking fondly of him, and forced herself to laugh. Sure, man of the year. Not interested in the coercive assault, only the statutory kind. 

But even when she couldn’t finish with Luke … at least someone had been there. At least she had some kind of intimacy, emotional or physical. At least there was someone else in her bed, someone who wanted her. Now she just had a few pieces of oddly shaped, over-priced silicone, and even they weren’t doing their job. 

Annabeth rubbed her eyes, now frustrated, sad, and horny. What good were these fucking drugs if they didn’t make her happy and kept her from getting off? 

She shut off the audiobook in frustration. Those stupid fairies were in love, and she hated them for it. 

Annabeth laid on her back in silence for a few minutes, resigning herself to lazy fingers until she felt less bad about herself. Her ADHD medication had long-since worn off for the day, and so there was nothing to stop her thoughts from drifting back to earlier, the hot press of Percy’s hand on her back in their pas, the feel of his lips on hers during the awakening scene, the sweet way he’d invited her to lunch … oh. 

She couldn’t. She couldn’t let herself think about Percy. She’d never be able to look at him tomorrow if she did. Maybe not looking at him would help, though. Or maybe if she just could get off once … 

Annabeth picked up her vibrator again and flipped onto her stomach, before pressing herself up onto her knees. She swapped the audiobook for Beyoncé’s Renaissance, an album that never failed to make her feel sexy and hot, and she gave in. The vague image of several romance-genre men -- Mr. Darcy, Colin Bridgerton, Rhys -- melted away into the clear mental picture of Percy … under her … in her … 

Vision Percy made quick work of it. 

But it certainly didn’t make anything easier. 

~ 

Percy had invited her to lunch with his friends. In fact, he’d invited her a few times now. Actually, he wasn’t even inviting her anymore. They would just talk after morning rehearsal and keep talking until they were together at the commissary. And then they were still talking when they were sitting down. 

They sat with Jason and Piper like usual. Even though they didn’t work out as partners, Annabeth liked Jason. He was a nice guy. Even if he was blonde. No one was perfect.  

When she and Percy sat down to join them, he and Piper were debating Friends. 

“Have you seen Friends ?” Piper asked her. 

“It’s my favorite show,” Annabeth said. 

Piper nodded. “That’s what I thought.” 

“Have I said that before?” Annabeth asked. 

“No you just,” Piper gestured to all of her, “have that look.” 

Percy laughed next to her. Annabeth shoved him a little, looking for an excuse to touch him outside of rehearsal. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, still giggling. It wasn’t a convincing apology. 

“We were debating,” Piper continued, ignoring them, “which character Jason would be. He says Chandler. But I don’t see it.” 

Annabeth thought for a moment. “I think you’re Mike, the Paul Rudd character, Phoebe’s husband,” Annabeth suggested. “Nice guy, a great addition to the crew,” she gestured around at the rest of New York City Ballet, “but you don’t have the same history as everyone.” 

Jason didn’t seem offended by his lack of principal cast designation. He just smiled and nodded. “I’ll take it!” 

Annabeth pointed to Piper. “And you’re Phoebe.” 

Piper feigned confusion. “Is it because I’m vegetarian?” 

“Sure,” Annabeth said. 

“Who would you be?” Jason asked. 

Annabeth shrugged. “I’ve always thought I was a Monica,” she said, taking a sip of water. 

Percy spoke up then, not hesitating for a second before he said, “Yeah, okay Rachel.” 

Annabeth pressed her hand to her mouth to keep herself from spitting it out as she laughed, but that only made Percy laugh, and his laugh was contagious. It had been such a swift and brutal assessment of her character that she couldn’t even be mad. She just desperately didn’t want to spew water everywhere in front of him. 

Annabeth finally managed to swallow, before turning to him to ask: “Why Rachel?” 

“Oh please,” Percy said, “rich, pretty girl, leaves man at the altar? It’s you.” 

Oh she was not going to let Percy Jackson win this. While Piper and Jason kept laughing, Annabeth just straightened her back, leaned forward a little at the hips, and smiled closer to him. 

“You think I’m pretty?” She asked, her voice sweet and flirty. 

Percy’s ears were red and he was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Annabeth almost felt victorious. But then he settled a hand on her knee and simply said: “Yes.” 

His green eyes went from her thighs, to her eyes, then to her lips. She might just kiss him, she thought, just to … prove something? No, not to prove something. This had nothing to do with whatever game she’d just made up, and everything to do with the fact that she was so aware of everything happening between her legs. She was slick and pulsing. Aroused. She was fucking aroused at lunch with her friends. 

Get it together, Chase, she scolded herself. 

Piper helped pull them out of whatever trance Percy was holding her in before Annabeth could push him to the ground and ride him right there. Piper threw a baby carrot at them, hitting Percy in the cheek. 

“You are in public, you freaks,” she said. 

Percy and Annabeth turned back to their food, faces red, Annabeth’s thighs pressed together, the memory of his hand on her knee still hot. 

~ 

Annabeth wandered down to the costume shop on her break in rehearsals. She wasn’t scheduled for a fitting for another week, but she’d like to catch up with Silena, and maybe get a glimpse of her costumes. And she needed Silena’s opinion. 

“What do you think of Percy?” Annabeth asked, sitting down with a cup of tea at Selena's workbench. She was busy repairing tulle and appliques on a Lilac Fairy costume. 

“You know I love him, why?” She asked. 

“So he’s a good guy?” Annabeth asked. 

Silena stopped her work, dropping her hands to the table with a loud thump before looking up at her. Annabeth’s face felt hot. “Girl … are you for real?” 

“What?” Annabeth asked, trying to play it casual. 

“I thought you swore of dancers forever, and men for at least a year,” Silena reminded her. 

Annabeth shrugged. “I was thinking of making an exception. If you think it’s a good idea. Or even a viable one.” 

“He likes women,” Silena confirmed, “and he’s single. But …” 

“But what?” Annabeth asked. 

“You know, I told you to go out with him years ago. You should have listened to me then,” Silena said. 

Annabeth couldn’t stop smiling. Luke had asked her out finally. He had for real asked her on a date. They didn’t have to hide things anymore. She could tell people finally, she could be near him. 

“He’s a bit old,” Silena had said, sewing up a hole in Annabeth’s final Juliet costume. It had snagged on the tomb set and torn right under her bust. She’d had to dance the final few minutes of the ballet praying her boob didn’t flash the audience. She was pretty sure it hadn’t. The last thing she wanted was for a bunch of people at the New York City Ballet to see her naked. 

“He’s not too old, he’s still in his twenties,” Annabeth reminded her. “And so am I.” 

“Twenty as of today,” Silena said, as if Annabeth didn’t know her own birthday. “He’s literally playing the creepy old guy you don’t want to marry in the ballet.” 

“He’s a good Paris,” Annabeth said, “a good actor.” 

“Sure,” Silena said. “If you’re happy, then fine, but I don’t like it.” 

“Well, I am happy, and I like it,” Annabeth said. Luke had always made her happy. The last four years had been a dream really. He was kind to her, understanding, forgiving when he got mad, gentle with her in bed. She’d waited so long to be able to be close to him in public. Not that Silena knew that. 

 Speak of the devil …

“This is the costume room. Silena here will get you sorted,” Luke’s voice said behind her. Annabeth turned and smiled. “And that’s our Juliet! And! Our birthday girl!” 

“Hi,” Annabeth said to Luke before looking at the two boys. 

“Our newest apprentices,” Luke introduced. “Ethan,” he gestured to the Asian boy beside him, “and Percy.” Something felt familiar about Percy, but Annabeth couldn’t place it. 

“Happy birthday, Annabeth,” Percy said to her. 

“Thanks.” 

“Silena, they need page boy costumes for the ballroom scene,” Luke said.  

“Got it,” she said. 

“Nice to meet you,” Percy said, offering her his hand. 

“You too,” she shook it. She did the same with Ethan. 

“I’ll leave you two in Silena’s care. Annie, I’ll see you later?” Luke asked. Annabeth nodded. 

Annabeth changed back into her dance clothes, and took her repaired costume to the dressing room. When she got there, Silena had already texted her. 

SILENA:

I know you’re excited about Luke, but these page boys are cute. And your age. 

ANNABETH:

They’re apprentices 

So? 

Percy seems nice. Beck is showing him around in a few minutes, if you want to join him. Offer him a warm welcome to the ballet 

Luke knocked on her dressing room door’s frame. When he saw she was alone, he let himself in and shut it. 

Annabeth fired off a quick, “Can’t! Busy!” To Silena, as Luke picked her up and set her on her vanity. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been so happy. 

“Hardly,” Annabeth said, “and I was busy being …” groomed and abused, but she let that part go unsaid. You never knew who was hiding behind the tutu trees. “So why aren’t you encouraging it now?” 

Silena took her hand. “Would you be ready for something like that?” Silena asked, her voice a low whisper. 

“It doesn’t have to be serious,” Annabeth said. “Can’t we just have fun?” 

Silena shook her head. “I fear Percy isn’t the casual ‘just for fun’ kind of guy. It’s probably why he’s single, actually. And I’ll ask again. Would you even be ready for that?” 

“It would be casual --” Annabeth started. 

“Have you ever had casual sex before?” 

“No, but … “ She didn’t have an end to that sentence. 

“It’s just as physically vulnerable, but without all of the emotional reassurances. Could you do that? Could you be naked in front of another person again?” Silena asked. 

Heat burned her cheeks. She hadn’t exactly thought of it that way. Annabeth had been so overwhelmed the last few weeks with sheer desire for him that she’d forgotten that fantasies and realities didn’t always match. 

Mindfulness and emotional regulation had been huge parts of her therapy work during her break. She tried to practice that now. Annabeth tried to think beyond her base attraction to Percy and actually imagined him in her room, touching her, seeing her. 

Beckendorf took a deep breath, looked her in the eye and said: “Luke tried to show me nude photos of you today.”

Annabeth shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut as she let out a small laugh of disbelief. Beckendorf’s words bounced around her head but her mind refused to process them. “I’m sorry,” she said, “what did you just say?”

Silena nodded. “Luke tried to show him a bunch of naked pictures of you that he had on his phone.”

“How?” She asked, her mouth barely making words. It seemed so unbelievable she needed to have a clearer picture of the whole thing. 

“He just showed me his photo album on his phone. It was … dozens of them maybe, all at once,” he said. 

“He wouldn’t …” her voice wavered. 

“Percy wouldn’t do anything bad,” Silena assured her. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to --” 

“No, no, it’s okay. You’re right,” Annabeth confessed. “It would be a bad idea.” She couldn’t do that. Any of that. She was too fragile to risk being vulnerable. 

“I do think you two would be great together,” Silena assured her with a squeeze of her hands, “but only when you’re ready.” 

“Would I have to tell him?” Annabeth asked. 

“If you guys were seriously going out, it would probably come up. But I don’t think you need to rush to tell him,” Silena said. 

That idea, being completely honest with Percy about what she’d let happen to her, the humiliation she’d faced … that was worse than the thought of being naked with him. That was … 

He wanted to have sex with her in her dressing room. “I don’t want to do it here,” Annabeth said. Luke smiled against her mouth. His hand was pulling at her french twist, trying to free the pins that held it in place by force. “Ow,” she complained. 

He stopped with a tepid, “Sorry.” And then, “Come on, it’ll be hot,” he promised. 

“Someone could find us,” she said. 

“That doesn’t matter any more,” he reminded her. 

“Oh, right,” she said with a smile, her joy coming back to her. “Okay,” she agreed. Annabeth was in a leotard, so he had to pull it all the way off, leaving her totally bare, while he was able to slip himself out of his shorts and dance belt easily. 

He pressed her thighs apart, and then pressed her knees down to the sides. “You need to work on your turnout, Annie,” he teased. 

She pulled away until her back met the mirror. “That’s not funny,” she said. 

She was working on it. Every eye in the company was on her. Scrutinizing her. It was a thrill to have a ballet choreographed for you, to have it suit your body, your skills so completely. But to do it as young as she was … it hadn’t been easy. She’d been crying a lot this past year. Luke was only around for it some of the time. He was okay at comforting her, but sometimes she just kept crying. She didn’t know why, and he just couldn't’ fix it. It felt impossible to lead a ballet as a teenager. 

Except she wasn’t anymore. She’d been born at 7:43 in the morning twenty years ago to the day. 

It ended quickly with little care for her. She made some noises, smiled pretty, and played her part. He finished on her thighs and took a picture of her sitting there. She thought about Juliet, and how she took that potion because she loved Romeo so much. It would be nice, she thought as she wiped herself off, to die just for a little while. 

The thought scared her, but then, there Luke was, kissing her and making it go away.  

“You still with me?” Silena asked. She was standing next to Annabeth now, and hand on her shoulder. 

Annabeth nodded. She pressed her fingertips against the hot ceramic of the mug. “I hate him for what he did to me,” she said. Luke had taught her how to be angry, what anger could really look like, how it could hurt someone. And she wanted to hurt him. And it only made her hate him more. It never ended. 

Silena wrapped her arms around Annabeth’s shoulders. “Me too.” 

 ~

Annabeth had hand written all of the poems from Beyoncé’s Lemonade in her journal. She wished Luke had cheated on her. That would have made things simple. Well, maybe he had. He certainly went out without her a lot, and he was always so sure she was unfaithful. But in the end, that hadn’t been the issue. It would have been a drop in the bucket. 

She read her own handwriting in her journal in Beyoncé voice, the memory of Lemonade clear in her mind. What are you going to say at my funeral now that you’ve killed me? Here lies the body of the love of life, who’s heart I broke without a gun to my head … who because of me sleep evaded. Her god listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. 

She must be the last person on Earth with a Tidal subscription. 

She’d shared several of these poems with her therapists in the last year. She’d found herself on a poetry kick, favoring long epics -- Homer, Milton, Dante, Ovid -- but Beyoncé’s Lemonade continued to be her favorite. 

Except maybe that final level of Dante’s hell. He was right to describe Judas, Brutus, and Cassius as doomed to forever be chewed up by Lucifer, who himself was chained in ice, beating his wings in an effort to escape, only to freeze himself more. It was an endless cycle; the bodies in his mouth were never fully chewed, the ice only getting thicker. That was what should happen to betrayers. Fuck forgiveness or acceptance. 

“Is that really how you feel?” Her therapist asked her. Her therapist’s office looked like it had been pulled straight off the floor at Ikea. It was meant to be warm and cozy, she suspected, but the Millennial Gray of it all only made it feel cold and sterile. But she liked her therapist. Ginny kept Annabeth stable, which was a miracle. 

Chiron had been the first one to suggest that Annabeth take an extended break from ballet, and Annabeth was glad she listened. She had been able to complete a full six months of DBT therapy, a welcome change from the talk therapy that for years had done little but get her from week to week. In her old therapist’s defense, though, she had never told him the whole truth about Luke. He was the kind of therapist who worked with rich NYU students and helped them through imposter syndrome and social anxiety. He hadn’t been equipped to handle all of her … everything. 

Her new therapist in New York specialized in women’s issues, abuse, eating disorders (the one thing Annabeth had mostly managed to avoid in the dance world, somehow), and the like. 

“I want to feel normal,” Annabeth said. 

“What does normal mean for you?”  

“I want to go on dates. I want to have sex without having a panic attack. I want to think about having sex and going on dates without having a panic attack.” 

“Has that been happening a lot?” 

“No … not exactly,” she said. Annabeth ran over the conversation she’d had with Silena. Ginny just nodded along, taking a few notes as she talked. 

“And what is it that you like about Percy?” She asked. 

Annabeth sighed. “He’s handsome. He’s nice. He wants me. He …” she paused. “He makes me feel alive, ” she said, “like I’ve been asleep for years, but now I’m awake, and he’s there and --” 

“Sounds quite a bit like Sleeping Beauty,” she observed. 

Annabeth pouted. It was one of her bad habits, conflating her real life with ballet. But her whole life was ballet. How else could she make sense of it? She’d taught herself all of the choreography for Gisselle while she was on break. When that didn’t help, because just like Beyoncé in Lemonade, Gisselle forgives the bastard, Annabeth taught herself Myrtha, queen of the Willis, who does throw men into the lake to drown. It had helped. Kind of. 

“But it’s still true,” Annabeth said. “It’s how I feel.” 

“I’m not trying to deny your feelings. It’s great that this guy makes you feel alive, as you’ve put it. But you don’t need to reward someone for being kind to you. Not with sex or anything else. People should just be kind to you.” 

“But Percy is kind to me without me having to do anything to deserve it,” she said. Then there was a long, horrible pause. Annabeth slouched back on the couch and covered her face with her hands. “I heard it,” she said before her therapist could point out another one of her bad habits. 

“There’s nothing to rush with this man, Annabeth,” her therapist reminded her. “Don’t rush into something if it’s going to hurt.” 

“But I want to be able to rush in! That’s the whole point! I want to be able to be casual. Or be serious. And I can’t be either. Luke took that from me. My adolescence, my twenties, they’re gone!” 

“Would rushing into something with another man bring them back?” 

Annabeth shook her head, her eyes welling with tears. “No,” she choked out, tears falling as she did. She grabbed the tissues from the side table and blew her nose. 

“What is it that you’re looking for in Percy?” Ginny asked. 

Annabeth faced reality and confessed: “I just want someone to love me. Without Luke, no one does.” 

“How do you think Silena would feel if you said that to her?” Her therapist asked.

Silena had helped Annabeth pick out her wedding dress, she was going to be a bridesmaid, she and Annabeth talked every day. She was Annabeth’s best friend, really. She had been since Annabeth was nineteen. As long as we’re alive, Silena had told her the day Annabeth’s life ended, you’re never on your own. 

Annabeth sobbed and let that be answer enough.

“So what are you really hoping to get out of being with Percy?” 

Annabeth didn’t answer. She feared there was some Freudian nightmare at the bottom of that particular well. She’d listen to “Daddy Lessons” about it later. 

“I just want someone who is actually going to stick around,” Annabeth said finally. 

“Friends can do that too. Is Percy your friend?” 

“Yeah. He’s a pretty good friend,” she said. 

“Then hold onto that friendship. And the friendships you have with other people.” 

Annabeth wasn’t good at friendships, she thought. She hadn’t had a real friend besides Silena and Becknedorf, and maybe Lee since … well SAB really. The realization that Luke had deliberately kept her isolated was one she’d come to months ago. But knowing that was true and growing past it were two different things. 

“It’s just that … Luke, I don’t think he liked me as a person very much. He really liked what I could do for him sexually, though,” Annabeth said. And in the last few years, her pleasure had become less than secondary to his. He hadn’t even really considered it much at all once he got her into bed. 

“How does that make you feel?” 

“Like I don’t have a lot to offer people emotionally. Just sexually.” 

“And how does that make you feel?” 

“Bad. Really bad,” she said through tears. 

“What has your self-talk been like recently, Annabeth?” 

Slut, tart, embarrassing, out of control, coward. 

“Not very nice.” 

“Do you feel guilty about your feelings for another man?” 

Annabeth thought before shaking her head. “It’s more like shame. Shame for how much I want him, shame about how short a time it’s been since Luke, that Luke thought I was sleeping with Percy, and now … and just … shame about everything I let Luke do to me.” 

“Luke did things to you without your consent. You didn’t let him do those things --” 

“Sure,” Annabeth agreed. Intellectually she knew that. Emotionally though … 

“So you feel shame for your sexual desires, but believe you are only valuable for what you offer sexually?” Her therapist asked. 

“Aren’t I a tough nut to crack? Maybe I should convert to Catholicism. I feel like that’s a group that would really understand me,” Annabeth joked. Her therapist didn’t laugh. “What I want from Percy … It's all about me. It’s selfish. When I’m with other people,” the other person of course being Luke and only Luke, “it’s about how I can make them happy. They’re different.” 

“Why can’t intimacy with a partner be about your pleasure as well?” 

“For one thing, you’ve got me on drugs that make it take about 50 years to get to anything pleasurable,” she said. Again, no laughter. “And because …” she mumbled that she didn’t deserve it, already aware that it was the wrong answer, but the emotionally true one. “I’m too … much.” Annabeth wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it was the closest she could get to articulating why exactly it’d be irrational to expect a partner to please her in return. 

“Where did this idea come from?” 

“Obviously Luke,” Annabeth snapped. 

Her therapist didn’t seem bothered by her bratty outburst, and she simply redirected. “Well, if we’re working on helping you feel like you can have an adult relationship that is healthy and helps you feel like a version of yourself you prefer,” a nice way to say ‘normal,’ Annabeth thought, “then why don’t we add to the list: someone who values your pleasure. If the next person you’re with doesn't value your pleasure, whether this is Percy or not, that isn’t the right person for you.” 

Annabeth nodded. “I think that’s a good thing to add.” They had a running list of things she wanted in a relationship. So far, they’d been mostly about meeting her basic emotional needs. She was embarrassed at how low her personal bar had fallen. 

~ 

“Are you okay?” Piper asked her that morning. 

Annabeth hadn’t slept well. She’d done her best to cover up her eye bags, but there was no hiding the miserable, depressed look on her face. Most people were probably used to her looking this way. It was her constant state of being the last few years. But since she’d come back, she’d been so much happier. It felt like a backslide, and that only made Annabeth feel worse. 

“Just a rough night,” Annabeth told her. 

“Did Percy do something?” Piper asked. “Because if you need someone to kick his ass, I know the King of Sparta,” she joked. 

“No, no, Percy had nothing to do with it,” Annabeth promised. “He and I aren’t …” 

“Sure,” Piper said with a coy smile. “Seriously though, what's wrong? Do you want to talk about it?” 

Annabeth just shrugged. “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” 

“What does that mean?” Piper asked. 

 Annabeth rested her face in her hands. “It means I have clinical depression and today is a bad day,” she said. 

Piper rested a hand on her back. “I’m sorry. Do you want a hug?” Annabeth nodded and Piper wrapped her arms around her. “Did you come up with that line you said before?”

Annabeth almost laughed. “No, no that was John Milton’s Paradise Lost. I … went through an epic poetry phase after my life fell apart last year.” 

“Oh, so you’re like smart smart,” Piper said with a smile. All dancers were smart. You had to be to hold the choreography for all those ballets in your head at once. 

“Not by my family’s standards,” Annabeth said, “I’m the first Chase in generations not to go to Harvard.” 

“Oh please, like Harvard is so impressive. They’re all legacies?” She asked. Annabeth nodded. “Yeah, way less impressive when you’re a legacy. Take it from a nepo baby.” That made Annabeth smile. “Getting into the New York City Ballet without any family connections? That’s way cooler.” 

“Thanks, I think so too,” Annabeth agreed. 

“Do they give you shit for it?” Piper asked. 

“They’d have to care about me enough first,” Annabeth said. 

“I’m sorry,” Piper said, offering Annabeth a hand to squeeze. 

“It’s okay.” 

“It’s not, and I will remind you: King of Sparta. And Kind of Sparta’s personal trainer,” Piper said with a smile. “We’ve got a day off coming up. Why don’t we go out for drinks?” She offered.  

Annabeth nodded. “I’d like that.”  

A few days later, they were sitting at some fancy bar with good security Piper knew about. She’d come over to Annabeth’s place first, and they’d gotten ready together. Piper had brought her a fancy cocktail dress that Piper’s mom had first gifted to Piper. 

“This gray-blue is not my color, but oh boy will it bring out your eyes,” she said. It did. The dress fit perfectly, ending a few inches above her knees. The fabric seemed to shimmer. The straps were thin, so Piper brought a leather trench coat for her to wear over it. Annabeth worried she’d look like she was in The Matrix, but it actually pulled everything together. 

“You have a good eye for this,” Annabeth said. 

“Oh, it’s all my mom. The devil who wears Prada, as it were,” Piper said. 

“Have you ever been to the Met Gala?” Annabeth asked. 

Piper rolled her eyes. “Mom tries to get me to go every year. I beg Chiron to schedule me for performances that night so I can’t go.” 

“Why?” 

“I don’t want to be in a room full of people looking camp right in the eye,” she said with a laugh. “Obviously I like a certain amount of spotlight, but I so prefer the ballet world, toxic as it is. It feels like something that’s all mine. Not something my mom or dad could buy for me. And it keeps me out of their circles too much.” 

“I know how that feels,” Annabeth said. 

“Come on, the driver is here, let's get you a drink.” 

Piper had ordered them French 75s, which were a gorgeous purple color. Annabeth had never tried one, but she was delighted to discover she enjoyed it. 

Piper raised her glass. “To our sleeping beauty,” she said. 

“And our lilac fairy,” Annabeth added. 

They sipped their drinks. 

“Can I ask about Luke?” Piper asked. 

“Maybe. What is it you want to know?” Annabeth asked. 

“What happened?” 

Annabeth sat her drink down. “We were together for years, and a month before the wedding, that turned out to all be a lie,” she said simply. 

“Did he cheat on you?” Piper asked. 

“I wish it was that simple,” Annabeth said. “I’ve just been struggling to process how bad it was, and how badly it ended. Moving on has been … complicated. He was the only guy I’d ever been with, so I’m not really sure what to do now.” 

Piper just nodded and listened. “How much older than you was he?” She asked. 

“Eight years,” Annabeth said. 

“Ew,” Piper said. “Sorry, I know you were an adult,” Annabeth didn’t correct her, “but growing up in Hollywood, whenever I see a man over twenty-five with a woman much younger than twenty-five, I hear the Kill Bill sirens.” 

“Not a bad instinct, that’s for sure,” Annabeth confirmed. 

“I won’t pry, but anything else?” 

Annabeth thought for a minute , and then sat her drink down on the bar. She held up her two index fingers, a little over four inches apart, and shrugged. 

Piper’s loud laugh echoed through the bar, and it made Annabeth laugh too. 

“Oh my god,” Piper said, “you could do so much better.” Piper leaned in closer. “I’ve got it on good authority that Percy is much more well-endowed.” 

Annabeth’s ears went red. “Shut up,” and then, “have you two …?”

“Oh no,” Piper said. “I’m actually mostly into girls.” 

“What about Jason?” Annabeth asked. 

“Yeah, neither of us are really sure what happened there. He’s actually mostly into guys. But we just kind of … clicked.” The smile on Piper’s face told Annabeth that whatever had clicked between them was real and important to Piper. 

“I’m happy for you,” Annabeth said. 

“What about you? Are you totally straight?” Piper asked with a teasing smile. 

“I guess. I mean, I’ve only been with Luke, and right now Percy is like … 90% of my non-ballet thoughts,” no point in denying that at this point, Annabeth figured. 

“Have you ever kissed a girl?” Piper asked. Annabeth couldn’t tell if she was offering. 

“No, but I did do a body shot off of Zia Rashid last summer,” Annabeth said. Piper nearly fell out of her chair. 

Annabeth had briefly come back to New York for Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour. She and a few CIty Ballet dancers were going with a few ABT dancers. They shared a stage, so they could share an AirBNB near the stadium in New Jersey. After the show they’d all gotten hopelessly wasted. Truth be told, Annabeth barely remembered the moment of sinful cross-company bonding, and she was grateful there was no video or photo evidence of it. 

“A few questions: One: when, two: why wasn’t I invited?” Piper asked. 

“Last summer, and because we weren’t friends yet,” Annabeth said casually. 

“Well next time you’re going to get freaky with one of the hottest dancers in New York, give me a call,” Piper said.  “Did you like it?” 

Annabeth shrugged. “It was fine. I don’t know. We’d just gotten back from the Beyoncé concert, and I was so …” Annabeth sighed and fanned herself to communicate horny , “that I probably would have slept with any willing party.” 

“Right, so you were super turned on after watching Beyonce shake ass for three hours, would have slept with anyone, and did body shots off another man’s wife?” Piper asked.  

“Alright, I see your point, but I still have so much going on,” she gestured vaguely to her brain, “that that’s the last door I need to open right now.”

“Door seems pretty open to me, girlie,” Piper said with a smile. 

“I’m still figuring out how to just be comfortable with another guy.” 

“Well, alright, but if you ever want to open that door a little more … Jason and I are open, so I am available,” Piper said with a wink. 

“Are you hitting on me?” Annabeth asked, not able to hold back a smile. 

“Obviously,” Piper said. Annabeth’s heart rate picked up. “But I’ll hold back. Don’t want to steal Percy’s girl,” she said. 

“I’m sure he appreciates that,” Annabeth said. 

“So you two have --” 

Annabeth held her hand up to stop Piper’s question, before sucking down the ends of her drink. 

“Alright princess, I won’t pry anymore,” Piper said. “Do you want insane Hollywood gossip?” 

“ Yes!” Annabeth said. 

“Guess what leading man is a gutless bottom?” Piper asked. 

“I’m not even sure what a gutless bottom is,” Annabeth said. 

Piper laughed. “Text Lee Fletcher right now and ask,” she said. 

“He’ll think I’m off my fucking meds,” Annabeth said. 

“Alright, so --” 

~

“I’ve never seen that movie,” Percy announced. 

Piper had been singing “Once Upon a Dream” from the Disney Sleeping Beauty (singing it so well it made Annabeth angry that a nepo baby could be so talented) while they took a ten minute break. Annabeth hummed along, tempted to get up and dance. She would if Percy did.

“What?” Annabeth and Piper had asked at the same time. 

“Never saw it,” he said again. “What? I was an only child for fifteen years. When would I have seen it?” Percy asked. 

“Well, you’re the prince in the ballet. So you should see it,” Piper said. 

“You haven’t even seen the ‘One Upon a Dream’ scene?” Annabeth asked. “Or when your character slays the dragon?” 

Percy shook his head. “I know that song at least.” 

Annabeth waved him over. “You at least need to know this part,” she said. Percy sat on the floor next to her as she pulled up the scene on YouTube.

Oh. Oh! 

I’m awfully sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you. 

It … it wasn’t that. It’s just that you’re a …

A stranger? But don’t you remember? We’ve met before. 

We … we have?

You said so yourself. Once Upon a dream. 

Annabeth smiled despite herself, humming along to the romance of the moment. She wished Percy would ask her to dance, but then again, all they did was dance together. 

“Is she your favorite princess?” Percy asked in the final seconds of the scene. 

“No, why?” She asked. 

“It’s just … you look exactly like her,” he said, his voice so quiet Annabeth was pretty sure Piper couldn’t hear her at the other end of the studio. 

“Oh,” she sighed. His eyes were watching her carefully, and she couldn’t help herself. She glanced at his lips. She knew what it felt like to stage kiss him, but not what it was like to actually kiss him. If he kissed her now, she’d do more than just sleep with him, she promised herself. If he kissed her now, she’d marry him, if it meant to got to know what … 

“Which princess is your favorite?” He asked. He sounded genuinely curious. 

“Cinderella,” she said. 

“Why?” 

Annabeth smiled. “Because I hate my stepmother.” 

“I know how that feels. I hated my stepdad,” he said. Annabeth saw something familiar in his eyes as he said it. This wasn’t a simple elementary dislike of mom’s new husband. It was something she knew all too well. 

“I’m sorry,” Annabeth said, resting a comforting hand on his arm. 

Percy shrugged. “He’s gone, so it’s all right. But maybe one day we could watch Cinderella? I’ve never seen that one either.” 

“I’d like that,” she said. Her heart was ready to beat out of her chest, and she was pretty sure the lining of her leotard was soaked. No amount of shame seemed to stop her body from having this physical reaction to his proximity. She’d have to escape to the bathroom with the last few minutes of their break to compose herself. 

“It’s a shame City Ballet doesn't do the Cinderella ballet,” Percy said. 

Annabeth nodded. “Maybe Chiron will choreograph a new one for us one day,” she said. Annabeth cringed internally when she realized what she’d said, and she hoped Percy took ‘us’ to mean all of New York City Ballet, not just the two of them. 

If Percy was put off by her pronoun slippage he didn’t show it. He just smiled and said, “Well, you’ll have to be Cinderella. You can collect all the Disney Princesses and the Barbie Princesses.” 

“Do you have a favorite Disney Princess?” Annabeth asked. 

“I liked Meg in Hercules,” he said. 

“Oh? What about her?” 

Percy shrugged. “She was funny. She was older than the guy too, which was different. Jaded in love, so more interesting than the average princess. No offense to Cindy.” Annabeth smiled. “And she fell in love with the big dummy anyway.” 

“You like older women then?” Annabeth teased. Not that she had room to judge. She had a reputation for going with men too old for her. 

“Well,” he shrugged, “when’s your birthday?” 

“July twelfth, 1997,” she said. “Yours?” 

“August eighteenth,” he said with a smile, “1998.” 

She was going to jump on him. She was going to throw caution to the wind and kiss him and whatever else right then and there. 

But their ballet master announced their ten minute break was over. Annabeth pulled on her practice tutu, a blessed additional layer over her treacherous crotch, and got back to work, ignoring her horrifically inappropriate desire for her co-worker. 

~

He’d offered to walk her to the subway, and Annabeth was downright giddy. She took a little extra time changing, making sure her hair, now out of its French twist, looked decent at the ends. She was grateful for her winter hat; it hid the helmet hair the day of sweat and hairspray and turned her already-dirty hair into. 

Percy was waiting for her by the door. “You ready?” She asked. 

“Always,” he said, holding the door open for her again. 

They headed to the subway station they shared, but she knew they’d have to part ways at the turnstiles. She was headed back downtown, and Percy was headed up. 

It had occurred to her more than once to move out, but she hadn’t found the time. When her lease expired at the end of June last year, Annabeth had been too unwell to find a new place, and so she’d just told her father to renew the lease. So far, Luke hadn’t bothered her. He probably didn’t even know she still lived there. Any regular girl would have moved , she thought. But you’re a runaway.  

She kept pace with Percy. He walked slow for a New Yorker, but it was kind to her sore legs. He must have hurt too, with all his jumps and having to lift her over and over. She’d only just gotten totally back to her pre-injury and pre-break-up weight. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it was the kind of in-shape you could only get from dancing eight or ten hours a day, six days a week. 

There was a long silence between them as they headed down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. Annabeth did her best to break it. 

“What a day,” she said. “Can’t believe it’s almost over.” 

“I know, it feels like we just started,” he said. Annabeth nodded in agreement. 

They never got a lot of rehearsal time. It kept City Ballet interesting. They had so many ballets a season, and such short rehearsal periods. No two days were the same. But now? She wished for a few extra days with him. Casting for the second half of the season still hadn’t been posted, but she’d only been rehearsing Agon with him. She’d hoped for something more … romantic. Agon didn’t suit them the way Beauty did, and that worried her. They might not end up cast, or not cast together. And then when would she dance with him again? 

“How’d you end up all the way downtown?” Percy asked. The subway entrance was across the street. They waited for the crossing signal, despite the lack of cars. Annabeth didn’t count herself a New Yorker, not really (she had two more years before she’d officially lived in the city longer than anywhere else in her life), but even she felt like they could cross. 

Oh, she realized, watching him bounce on the balls of his feet to keep himself on this side of the road, he’s stalling. 

The street lights brought out the olive undertones in his skin, and the blue of his jacket only intensified the green in his eyes. Annabeth pressed her lips together. They were chapped, but every chapstick she owned had abandoned her this year. He asked you a question, a little voice reminded her. Not now, I’m trying to decide if kissing him is a bad idea, she told it. 

Sure, they kissed all the time in rehearsal. But that was a stage kiss. It would be horrifically inappropriate to mistake it for something more. So, for science and her own well-being, she needed to kiss him for real. 

Annabeth shoved her needs aside and answered his question. 

“I liked the area, and … Luke wanted to get out of midtown.” He’d had some shitty apartment in the middle of the city. She had lived more uptown, closer to the ballet. It had been Luke’s idea to move further down. Annabeth had loved the idea. She was taking classes at NYU then, and it made it easier to manage that. Now that she was unenrolled, the area was less-than-perfect. The long subway or Uber rides after a long day were torture. But when she got stressed, she could easily get to The Strand and enjoy miles of books. In there, her dyslexia seemed to work with her to read the sideways titles on the used books’ spines, instead of against her for once. 

“You're still in the same place, then?” Percy asked. 

“Yeah, my name was on the lease. I didn’t really see a point in moving, once he left. It’s a good space,” she said, trying to convince him she wasn’t a complete idiot for staying at an address her ex-boyfriend had memorized. “He’s never tried to come back and bother me.” 

“Would he?” Percy asked. Shit, she thought. He seemed surprised at her answer. The lady had, in fact, protested too much. She hadn’t needed to explain herself so intensely. 

She would have to tell Percy, Annabeth realized, if her feelings for him didn’t go away soon, it was only a matter of time before she had to tell him. Annabeth’s mind moved backwards, back to her kitchen the day he left, the tight tug of his hand on her hair, pulling it with the clear hope that he hurt her. Would he come back? 

Percy looked worried. She couldn’t tell him. Not now. The walk sign clicked on, and she took off into the crosswalk. 

“No,” she said, her voice wavering when he caught up with her on the other side. He wouldn’t. He hadn’t yet. He couldn’t. If he did, she’d tell everyone, she’d … “Anyway, I kicked him out. It would be pathetic for him to come back now.” Annabeth tried to smile, as fumbled in her wallet for her metrocard. Her fingers were shaking, and she hoped Percy assumed it was the cold. Could she tell everyone? You’re a coward. Her whole wallet threatened to drop out of her hands.  

And then, her hands were steady and warm. Percy was holding her. One hand was under left hand holding the wallet, the other was on top of her right hand. It was so cold, but his hands were so warm. They never touched outside of rehearsal, except when they were flirting. But this wasn’t that. He was looking at her. It was … compassion in his eyes. 

But there was something more. It was like he was looking through her, but she didn’t feel exposed. It was like a doctor looking at an X-Ray. Percy spotted what was wrong with her like a doctor finds a broken bone. Annabeth knew what it was like for a doctor to hold up an X-Ray of your body and point out its defects. As much as the injury hurt, though, it was nice for someone to say don’t worry, we found the problem. We can fix it. 

“Hey,” he said, his voice gentle. She didn’t want to kiss him anymore. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to cry. She wanted to hold onto him and beg him to understand her. Annabeth could see it in his eyes. He knew. He might not know exactly what, but there was something in him that knew. What have they done to you? She wanted to ask. Was it your stepdad? Do you know me? 

“It’s okay,” Percy promised her. He was breathing slowly, and deep enough breaths that Annabeth was able to see them and match them. It calmed her down. 

“He’s in Portland,” she reminded herself. He was far away from here. 

“And if he does show up again --” he stated. 

There was something dangerous in his look now, almost protective. He was willing to kick Luke’s ass, she could tell. Annabeth was pretty sure Percy could beat him easily. But she didn’t let her fantasies run away with her. She pulled her hands free and found her metrocard; Percy’s breathing had brought her heart rate down to normal. Annabeth was tired of thinking about Luke or talking about him. 

But the idea of Percy punching him in the face did make her smile. 

Annabeth started down the stairs. “Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it, Twinkle Toes?” 

“Oh big words from Ballerina Barbie,” Percy said. 

Annabeth scoffed to cover up how flattered she was. Disney Princess and Barbie! It really was exciting to be wanted by someone new. 

 “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one I could get Mattel to craft a Barbie in my own image.” 

“Pretty sure they already do,” he said. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to tease her or not. Either way, it sounded like a compliment. They pushed through the turnstiles, about to part ways, but Percy turned to her again. “Well, if you ever get tired of being alone and want a good home-cooked meal, my door is always open.” 

“You cook?” She asked. 

“A little, but really it’s my mom --” 

“You live with your mom?” She asked. It sounded way more bitchy and judgemental than she’d meant it to, and she swore at herself. She didn’t care if he lived with his mom. It was just that …. Her dad and step-mom didn’t like her, her mother abandoned her, and Luke’s dad thought she was some kind of young harlot who used her son to advance in her career, and then ruined his life. Parents didn’t like her, and she wasn’t good at making them like her. If dinner with Percy meant his mom … She might blow her chance with Percy. If her dating history didn’t ruin it first, that was. 

Percy blushed, and she felt worse. “Not in a weird Greek tragedy way. … Yes, I do. I help pay for my sister’s school tuition in exchange,” he said, the speed of his words and slight New York accent betraying his nerves. “Plus my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the entire world, so …”

She couldn’t say no to him. 

“Text me the details,” Annabeth said. “I’d love to join you guys.” 

“I’ll save you some cookies,” Percy said. A little flutter of anxiety started in her chest. No, it wasn’t anxiety. She was excited. 

“Alright, but remember, you’re the one who has to lift me.” 

Percy was about to say something clever when the downtown train rolled in. “Shit!” Annabeth yelled. If she missed this, it’d be fifteen minutes at least until the next one. She ran down the stairs, and it wasn’t until she was in a seat that she realized she’d forgotten to say goodbye. 

She texted him once she got home. 

ANNABETH

Hey 

Actually, I owe you a goodbye from earlier. 

Goodbye 

She couldn’t help her giddy smile when her phone buzzed. 

PERCY:

Did you catch the train? 

Yeah and then it sat at the station for five minutes. No reason to run like that 😩

It would have left without you if you hadn’t 

That’s how it works. They don’t run in your best interest 

Like how printers always know when you’re in a hurry 

They smell fear. 

I hope you were serious about dinner 

I never joke about dinner 

He told her Sunday at seven, and then sent along his address. Annabeth, the rational and normal woman that she was, added it to her favorites in Google maps. 

~

Annabeth had never had family dinner like this one. It was warm and welcoming. She felt like she was on some 1950s sitcom or something. She kept checking for cameras. She understood why Percy stayed now, financial reasons aside. If this was her family, she’d never leave. Hell, they weren’t her family and she was tempted to move in. 

Estelle had asked her just about every ballet question Annabeth could imagine. Annabeth loved it. She got to tell all her old stories, even the Romeo and Juliet drop -- a classic amongst City Ballet Dancers. Poor Beckendorf couldn’t go a season without someone saying “remember that time Beckendorf dropped Annabeth?” 

“Favorite step?” Estelle asked. 

“Hops on pointe,” Annabeth answered. 

“Why?” Estelle and her brother asked at the same time. 

“Because they’re really hard, and most people hate them, but I’m really good at them,” she smirked toward Estelle, “and I like being better than everyone else.” 

Estelle laughed and said: “Me too,” before asking: “Favorite ballet?” 

“That I’ve ever done, Nutcracker, but my actual favorite is Giselle. But we don’t do it at City Ballet. I’m hoping I can convince my old youth company to stage it and bring me down as a guest so I can finally perform it.” 

“Maybe Percy could do it with you!” Estelle suggested. 

Annabeth smiled at Percy, who was watching them with a fond smile. “I would love that.” 

“I’d have to learn all the steps,” he said. “And the story. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen all of it.” 

“What?” Annabeth asked. “It’s classic!” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t see any ballet until I was twelve,” he reminded her, “and then I had my sights set on New York. And,” he shrugged, “we don’t do Giselle.” 

Annabeth thought about telling the story of how she won YAGP with Giselle’s variation, but she held back. It seemed like almost too much bragging. And that video was on YouTube. She’d just about die if Estelle pulled it up and made her look at her dancing from twelve years ago. 

“Alright, so Giselle and the Sleeping Beauty movie are on our list,” Annabeth said. 

“And Cinderella, ” he added. 

“Of course,” she said smiling. She realized she hadn’t spoken to his parents in a while. That was probably rude, even if they were looking between her and Percy with a fondness that might have frightened Annabeth if she didn’t feel it in return. Annabeth turned towards them, about to make more small talk, but Estelle continued. 

“Do you have any petit allegro tips?” Estelle asked. “Percy says it just comes naturally to him.” She put on a fake deep voice meant to mock Percy as she said it, and Annabeth laughed.

Annabeth gave Percy a faux-dirty look. But of course it did. Because he didn’t have any flaws except his own self-confidence. 

“Hope and pray,” Annabeth suggested with a small laugh. “Make sure you really use your toes to push, but keep the jumps themselves small. And think about moving your inner thighs, not your feet.” Estelle nodded, paying close attention to every word. “But, it’s really just a lot of practice. If I can see you do a combination, I might be able to give more specific advice. Don't worry if it’s hard, I’ve never been very good at it myself.” She hoped that offered Estelle some comfort. “We can’t all be like your brother.” 

“What makes it tough?” Paul asked. 

“Well, for me it’s that petit allegro means ‘small and fast,’ and I’m big and slow,” she joked. “I have long legs and feet, so it’s hard to control all those small jumps, especially in pointe shoes.” She looked at Estelle to share another ballet story. 

“Actually, my turn out and feet were the biggest thing I needed to improve when I got pulled into the company. I’m great when things are slow, but once the pace picks up, I lose it. Or at least, I used to. When we were learning Romeo and Juliet, Chiron just started doing this --” She held her arms out straight in front of her, her hands pinched together to look like pointed feet. She rotated her wrists back and forth. “That was the sign for ‘Annabeth, point your feet and turnout.” Estelle laughed and mimicked the gesture. “I’ve built a whole career on the waist up.” 

Really, the imperfections in her technique at a young age had worked as proof to most people in the company that she’d gotten by on her looks, or had just slept her way to the top. But she had what professionals needed -- the in-between steps, the little details, the coordination of the arms and head, and an inherent sense of musicality and artistry. Luke had never advanced her career for her. If it had been up to him, she was sure he would have stalled it. 

She’d spent her early twenties building the strength in her hips to hold onto her turnout in any situation just to prove she could. But she had always known why Chiron hired her, why he put her in the company. Annabeth could keep up with Balanchine’s demands, but she brought something different. There was a softness in her artistry. She wasn't trying to mimic other dancers; she always did things her way first. If she had gone to ABT or another classical company, she might never have stood out, but she was a welcome relief to City Ballet. Annabeth could almost always move as fast as any of them, but she wasn’t there to move fast. 

Annabeth was their diamond. She didn’t get Juliet because Juliet was known for having turned out legs. She got Juliet because she was the best performer in the company, even back then. That was what their story needed. And she delivered. Drop included. 

Aurora was a premiere classical part, but she had so little character compared to all the other full-length ballet leads Annabeth had done. The other dancers were so talented, but Katie’s Aurora was just sweet and young. Helen showed Aurora’s growth through the ballet but she was missing something. They complained that they had so little to work with, so little character to develop. 

Annabeth held back from telling them that they simply didn’t understand Aurora. Annabeth did, though. Annabeth felt like she was born to dance Aurora. 

~

After dinner, Estelle had done a petit allegro combination for them. Glissade, jete, glissade assemble. Glissade was a glide step that went from two feet to two feet to the side. Jete went straight up, a jump on two feet and a landing on one. Assemble also went straight up, but following the jete, it went from one foot to two, the legs meeting in the air. It wasn’t a terribly complex combination, but it did require speed and coordination. Estelle didn’t look bad. In fact, Annabeth could see her talent and potential. But Annabeth spotted Estelle’s problem quickly. 

“You’re working too hard,” she said. “You’re trying to travel on your jete and assemble, but you don’t need to.” Annabeth stood up and rolled up the bottoms of her jeans a little. “Your glissade travels side to side, but your jete and assemble should just go up and down. The leg goes out, but don't go with it.” She demonstrated the whole combo over. Sure, petit allegro didn’t come naturally to her, but after twenty-three years of ballet, she could handle it. 

Estelle tried again, and this time, she had more success pointing her feet and getting her feet back to fifth position at the end. 

“And when you come out of that jete, think of frappé at the barre. That strike you do in frappé, ” Annabeth did the step, moving her foot from where it was pointed at her opposite ankle, to flexed towards the floor, her big toe striking the floor before pointing again. “That’s what gets you out of that jete back into the glissade.” 

“Oh!” Estelle said, realizing for the first time why frappé actually existed. 

“I never put that together,” Percy said. 

“Of course not, it just comes so naturally to you,” Annabeth said to him. He laughed and started to say something, but Sally cut them off. 

“Alright, no more ballet. We can’t get another noise complaint from downstairs,” she said. 

“What about adagio? ” Estelle asked, looking for a loophole. 

“Is it quiet?” Sally asked. 

“Yes,” Estelle promised. “Annabeth, show her.” 

Annabeth was going to demonstrate without hesitation, jeans and all, but Sally held up a hand. “We don’t need to force our guests to perform for us, Stella.” 

“It’s okay,” Annabeth promised. “I don’t mind.” 

“There aren’t jumps,” Percy promised. 

“Alright,” Sally said, throwing up her hands, “a little bit of adagio before bed.” 

“Yes!” Estelle cheered. 

~

Annabeth texted Percy that she’d made it home okay. She’d gone home just slightly disappointed. She’d been so sure he was going to kiss her before she left. But he hesitated. And her car arrived. And she left. Unkissed. 

PERCY"

Great! 

Also, for the record, Stella never asked me for petit allegro help

She asked me if I liked it and I said yes and that it came naturally to me 

Annabeth smiled at his messages, but had to roll her eyes to his blindness to his sister’s insecurities. 

ANNABETH 

I’ll double check the story with Estelle, but you’re still on thin ice 

🥶 

But thank you for helping her. It meant a lot to her 

She never asks me for help 

I have suspicions about why 

To embarrass me in front of a pretty girl? Annabeth rubbed her legs together under her blankets like a cricket. 

I have two suspicions 

You’re fifteen years older than her. For as long as she can probably remember you've been this super cool pro dancer. She’s comparing herself to you at every step. If you say something comes naturally to you, but it doesn’t to her, she’s never going to admit that to you. 

That’s what I was worried about. 

Any advice on how to make her feel better? 

You’re a good brother. Just keep encouraging her. 

And talking about how often you fall on stage 

He’d mentioned falling more times than he could count, but Annabeth knew that was an exaggeration. She wasn’t sure how many times he’d fallen, actually. Although she did remember one Nutcracker when he’d run out for Candy Canes and his feet had slipped right out from under him. She and all the Marzipan girls winced and then laughed once he stood up unhurt. She wouldn’t mention that now. 

Noted. 

You really made her night. She snuck out of her room once you left to talk to me about you. 

Guess I’ll need to keep coming over 

Oh, you’re never getting away from her 

Good. 

I love kids her age 

Percy was typing for a long time. Annabeth stared at the three dots until they turned into words. 

Me too. And maybe I’m bias, but Estelle is the best 10 year old out there

I’d have to agree. 

Can I tell her you said so?  

Of course

~

They’d stayed up long past when they should have gone to sleep just texting each other. Annabeth fell asleep eventually with her phone still on her pillow. 

The next day, they both looked a little tired, but they tried not to show it. Percy bought her a coffee at lunch, and she’d thanked him with a smile and a “Charming.”

He winked back. “Always.” 

Percy bent over to dig out his lunch. While he wasn’t looking, Piper mouthed: Have you slept together yet? 

Annabeth looked at her shocked, but it wasn’t no, so Piper just raised her eyebrows and smiled.

No! Annabeth mouthed back quickly. 

Why not? Piper asked. Great question. 

But Annabeth didn't have time to mouth: because if we sleep together, we’ll want to date. And if we date, I need to tell him about my … everything. And I don’t want to do that. 

She’d tell him one day, she figured. Piper too. But it was still too new. She could get through a day without Luke lingering in her thoughts, but the idea of sitting Percy down and telling him, beginning to end, the extent of it? It made her feel nauseous. 

After lunch, Annabeth took the last fifteen minutes of break to break in a new pair of shoes. She hadn’t done anything but sew them and put them on so far. She found the best way to break them in for her was just to wear them, stretch them with her feet, rather than with her hands or anything else. Nothing else was as precise for her feet as her feet. 

Piper had agreed to do some cross promotion for The Sleeping Beauty on her Instagram. With the King of Sparta for a father and the actual editor of Vogue for a mother, Piper far outpaced everyone in the company for most Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter followers with 500 thousand on either one. Annabeht personally was sitting at a comfortable 60k. 

“Annabeth, can we get a balance check?” Piper asked, her phone camera pointed at Annabeth. 

Annabeth smiled and stood up. It was her first time standing in these shoes, and she was about to explain that, but as she stepped onto pointe, the pristine satin covering the box of her shoe caught a slippery part of the floor. She lost her balance as her front food slid out in front of her. Annabeth hardly had time to wave her arms before she was on the ground. She almost landed in a split. Her back leg had stayed mostly behind her, but she landed on her ass with an oomph . 

All she could do was laugh and maneuver herself until she was laying face down on the ground, laughing away her embarrassment. Her laughter assured Percy and Piper that she was okay, and soon the studio was flooded with their triple laughter. 

Then, Percy was in front of her, still laughing, but offering her a hand up. “Are you alright?” He asked. “Anything hurt?” 

“Just my pride,” Annabeth promised as she took his hand and picked herself up. “I was about to say these are brand new shoes.” 

“Want to try again?” Percy offered, holding out his hand to her, as if he were once of the princes in the Rose Adagio. 

“Yes,” Annabeth agreed. This time, she found her balance right away, and she took Percy’s hand more out of the demands of the choreography than because she needed it to balance. She brought her arm up to fifth, up over her head, no longer holding his hand. 

Percy stayed where he was as she held her balance. “Want to do the turns?” He offered. 

“Yeah,” she said, taking his hand again for the promenade. They did it four times without music. It was pretty impressive. Annabeth even kicked her leg to arabesque at the end. 

“Gorgeous,” Piper said. “Well, I think my work as Lilac Fairy is just about done,” she said, turning off the video. Given that the Lilac’s Fairy’s job was to get the prince and princess together, Annabeth strongly suspected she wasn’t talking about making a TikTok. 

In the end, Piper cut the two clips together in an “expectations v. reality” style video. Most of the comments were positive, even appreciative of showing that even professionals struggle or fall over. Several commented on Percy, or her and Percy. She resisted the urge to like the comments speculating on the nature of their relationship. But she did like one comment. 

“ I feel like I’ve never seen her smile or laugh before. She looks really happy.” 

Annabeth was.

Dress rehearsals were tomorrow. And soon after that was their debut. Before long, Sleeping Beauty would be behind them both, and Annabeth could start really sorting out her feelings for him. She still worried about telling him about Luke, but she could take her time with that. Luke was gone. He didn’t have control over her anymore. 

And, anyway, she had a feeling Percy would understand. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

Email communications from individuals associated with the Trump campaign have been hacked by malign actors within the last ten days, Popular Information has confirmed.  On September 18, I was sent a message from "Robert," which contained the cover page of a dossier on Senator JD Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential nominee, dated February 23, 2024. Robert refused to identify himself except to suggest it was the same "Robert" who provided stolen internal Trump campaign materials to Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in July and August. "I thought you must have heard Robert's story," he said. Robert eventually sent me a 271-page Vance dossier, along with similar dossiers on two other potential Donald Trump running mates —  a 382-page document on North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R), dated March 2, 2024, and a 550-page document on Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), dated April 1, 2024. All of the dossiers were marked "Privileged & Confidential."

Robert boasted that he had "a lot" of other Trump campaign materials. He sent me a dozen purported emails to and from top Trump campaign staff, including senior advisor Susie Wiles, senior advisor Dan Scavino, and pollster John McLaughlin. The emails covered an 11-month period, from October 2023 to August 2024. 

Robert also sent a 4-page letter, dated September 15, 2024, from an attorney representing Trump to three individuals at the New York Times. The letter has not been made public by either the Trump campaign or the paper. I provided a copy of the letter to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, who confirmed its authenticity with someone at the New York Times who had seen it. (Smith has published a piece about the incident on Semafor.)  The legitimacy of the letter proves that the person or people representing themselves as Robert has stolen electronic communications from people associated with the Trump campaign within the last ten days.

Who or what is "Robert"? A threat analysis published by Microsoft on August 9 reported that "[i]n June 2024, Mint Sandstorm—a group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit—sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor." On August 10, the Trump campaign said it was the victim of a hack by a foreign actor, citing the Microsoft report.  Three U.S. intelligence agencies have released joint statements, on August 18 and September 19, warning of "Iranian malicious cyber actors" who have obtained "stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign." Iran has denied any role in the hack. Popular Information will not publish or excerpt the Trump campaign materials provided by Robert. The materials are stolen, and publishing the documents would be a violation of privacy and could encourage future criminal acts.  I believe that, in some circumstances, the publication of leaked materials can be justified. The Pentagon Papers, for example, were obtained illegally by Daniel Ellsberg, but the public interest in revealing the truth about the Vietnam War outweighed those concerns. 

[...]

My personal emails were weaponized by the media and the Trump campaign in 2016

In 2016, Russian hackers were able to access years of emails from the personal account of John Podesta, who was serving as Hillary Clinton's campaign chair. I started working for Podesta in 2001, when I was a first-year law student at Georgetown. By the 2016 election, Podesta had been a colleague and friend for 15 years. So the materials obtained by Russian hackers and published by Wikileaks included correspondence between me and Podesta. 

Media organizations, including the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the National Review, and others, isolated a handful of my private emails to Podesta and used them as grist for articles that attacked my integrity and professionalism. I believe these insinuations were unfounded, but I was forced to defend my reputation in the media and with my colleagues at ThinkProgress, where I worked before starting this newsletter.  I was a bit player in this drama, but it is still disturbing to have your private communications stolen by a foreign government and broadcast by major media outlets.  As Popular Information previously reported, outlets like Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times produced dozens of unflattering articles and blog posts about Podesta's emails. 

[...]

There were a few tidbits of news buried in Podesta's emails, but no significant scandal. Most of the coverage amounted to little more than voyeurism. A Politico "live blog" of Podesta's stolen emails had more than 50 entries published over three weeks. "All the Juiciest Dirt in The Podesta E-mails, Explained," Vanity Fair headlined a November 3, 2016 article that was representative of the coverage. Unlike the Trump campaign materials from "Robert," Podesta's emails were posted online by Wikileaks. But the media played a critical role in amplifying the material and turning a collection of mostly anodyne emails into an ongoing scandal. The media also did not verify the authenticity of the hacked materials. The Clinton campaign declined to review 50,000 emails and contest or validate each one. The New York Times and others interpreted that as proof that they were all legitimate.  The coverage lasted for weeks because the stolen emails were released by Wikileaks in small batches. Each time a new batch of emails was released, the media swung into action, mining the stolen materials for any morsel that could be used in a story. There appeared to be little concern that both the content and cadence of political coverage at a critical juncture of the election was being dictated by foreign actors. 

The New York Times published at least 199 articles about the stolen emails between the first leak in June 2016 and Election Day. The New York Times Editorial Board wrote that any negative impact their coverage had on the Clinton campaign was Hillary Clinton's fault for not voluntarily releasing the information contained in the stolen emails. "Imagine if months ago, Mrs. Clinton had done her own giant information release," the New York Times Editorial Board wrote on October 22, 2016. "[E]veryone would have long since moved on." The media frenzy over Podesta's emails was actively encouraged by Trump and his campaign. On July 26, 2016, Trump publicly implored Russia to acquire Clinton's internal emails, promising that the media would amplify them. "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," Trump said. (It was later revealed that Russia began targeting Clinton campaign officials "on or around" the same day.)  When Wikileaks began posting the emails acquired by Russian hackers, Trump celebrated. He publicly mentioned WikiLeaks 141 times in the month before the election. "WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks," Trump told a crowd in Pennsylvania on October 10, 2016. 

The Trump campaign is being hacked just like how Hillary Clinton’s was in 2016.

[spacecasewriter13]

When the Lights Go On Again by @spacecasewriter13

Summary: It is May of 1946, over a year after his fall from the Hydra train and losing his left arm, and James "Bucky" Barnes is struggling to adjust. Working as an analyst at the New York City SSR branch, Bucky tries to put the war and all of its sorted memories behind him. However, try as he might he is plagued by thoughts of Magdalene "Maggie" Ramirez, a Women's Army Corps (WAC) Corporal he met in London and hasn't spoken to since before his fall in January of 1945. Little does he know that Maggie, in her struggle to put the war behind her, has moved to the city and looking for a job with the New York Bell Telephone Company as a switchboard operator. Now, by sheer dumb luck, they are reunited as they both fight come to terms with what they were to one another during the war, and work to figure out how to move forward in a world that was unprepared to deal with the consequences of war in the unsteady peace.

Chapter 34: Sisters, Wives, and Sweethearts: Maggie heads to New England for a brief visit with Dick and Catherine Ames. Preparing to spend their first Christmas as a family of three, Catherine and Dick both give Maggie some insight into their wartime losses while also giving her hope for the chance of a happy future.

Excerpt:

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know… we’ll have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree,” Maggie hummed to herself as she watched out the window at the snow flurries that swirled around the train cars as they moved through the city toward Norwalk.

The pane of glass was cool against her forehead, though it did little to ease the headache pounding behind her eyes or soothe the churning of her stomach. The warmth of the train car, mixed with the rocking and the wheels going over the tracks, made her want to hurl. So, she pressed her face against the glass and tried not to think about what the rest of the day would hold.

It was going to be a short jaunt to Norwalk, and they planned to spend the afternoon with the Ameses in a brief Christmas celebration before she and Daniel continued to Taunton the following day. She knew she should be excited about all of this. Meeting Dick and Catherine Ames was going to be a wonderful opportunity to get to know Annie’s family. After everything she had heard about them from Daniel and Annie, she looked forward to putting a face to the names. Tomorrow, she’d be back in Taunton by midafternoon and preparing for Christmas with her family.

Yet, all she could feel was dread, an uneasiness in her stomach, twisting the whole world into anxious uncertainty.

There was so much she wanted to know. Had Dick known Tony? Had they been friends? They’d served together, yes, but what was the level of their connection? It felt a strange question to broach when her brother had been killed in the same battle he’d been wounded in. It was a delicate and difficult topic. As was the question of Dick and Catherine Ames’s love story. How had they forged such a beautiful family from so much pain and heartache?

Neither were things that a recent acquaintance could or should broach. Yet, Maggie needed to know or rather wanted to know desperately. She was hungry for information about her brother and was so out of her depth with James that she was prepared to beg total strangers for any scrap they were willing to spare.

Only she knew these weren’t total strangers; these were Daniel’s friends and Annie’s brother and sister-in-law. She needed to tread lightly or at least not do or say anything that would embarrass Daniel or Annie.

Then there was Christmas and being at home with family. She’d barely survived the holiday last year. Only now, with Nettie here and there was another year between Tony's death and the present, it would be less acceptable for her to be sullen and weepy than it has been the year before. Never mind that she knew Pai, and her sisters were going to interrogate her about James, and that she’d have to withstand whatever her aunts had planned to unleash upon her during her visit.

“Did you have a good time at the party last night?”

Maggie blinked. Sitting up and turning, she found Daniel watching her with a curious expression. “Huh?” she stammered.

“You are in rough shape, aren’t you,” he chuckled.

To Continue Reading, Please Visit Ao3

[miguelobsession]

I'm obsessed with the idea of Miguel X Black Cat because honestly comic Miguel in his original run imo doesn't even care about law that much?

This man just trying to survive, keep his loved ones safe and innocent people safe

I bet the police were chasing the Black Cat around the Nueva York and saw him perched up on the pole somewhere and went

"SPIDER MAN help us catch this criminal!"

"lol no fuck off"

As long as she's hurting the corps and not going after what he cares about he's all game

[theinternetisaweboflies]

Jägermeister

Chapter Thirteen: Aftermath

The paramedics carried Newton to a PPDC helicopter one block south of the apothecary, at the nearest clearing in the debris large enough for them to make safe landing. 

Apparently, Marshal Hansen had ordered the helicopter as soon as Newton's presence was confirmed in the bunker. Hermann was grateful to the Marshal for arranging emergency transport while his own attention was elsewhere. 

Hermann wanted to accompany Newton, but there wasn't enough room in the helicopter with both the paramedics and security officers on board. 

The Secretary General had insisted on giving up his own security detail at the last minute, sending then to replace the officers about to board the helicopter. 

Hermann did not like the look of Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber standing guard over Newton’s gurney, but the pilot was under Marshal Hansen’s orders to take Newton directly to the Shatterdome, so he could be treated by drift specialists. He would be safe there. 

Besides, Hermann's suspicions of the Secretary General had only ever been conjecture— pure speculation based on evidence that was circumstantial at best. No doubt his paranoia could be attributed directly to the drift with Newton, who reveled in developing conspiracy theories about the Queen of England’s death or the symbiotic relationship between mole people and the alligators in the New York City subway. 

Hermann felt some shame for having even voiced his suspicions to the Marshal. The danger that he had grown accustomed to over the past decade had always come from a fixed source. In its wake, danger suddenly seemed to come from all quarters and for all he cared about.

He started to follow Deirdre back to the armored van, but Marshal Hansen intercepted them, gesturing with his good arm. 

For a moment it was V-Day all over again— Hermann and Newt were somehow both leaning their full weight against each other as they followed the new Marshal to the old one's office.

Then he was back in the bone slums. Dierdre stepped aside to confer her fellow security officers, while Hermann joined Marshal Hansen and the Secretary General. 

The Secretary General of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps was a man named Dustin Krieger. Hermann knew him by name only. He was in his mid-fifties, but the job had aged him further. Surgery had fought a battle with age, winning some skirmishes, but losing the battle of the bulge.

“-involving local law enforcement,” he was saying. “This is an issue of national security.”

“Which nation, mate?” Marshal Hansen asked, with an even heavier accent than usual. 

“Excuse me. Of course, I meant international security. The threat has already been resolved, and the perpetrators will be remanded into federal custody. The official story will be illegal kaiju organ harvesting, which has the benefit of being technically true. I’ve already ordered the Security Office to seal the investigation into Dr. Geizer’s abduction.”

“The Security Office is under my-”

“I recommend you have all non-security personnel involved sign a special NDA,” Secretary Krieger interrupted, glancing briefly at Hermann. “Unless you want someone leaking this story to TMZ too? With all of the international attention Dr. Geizer had received since the first leak, it would only look bad for the PPDC.”

Tendo pulled out his cell phone, scrolled for a few seconds, and then whistled. 

Hermann had almost forgotten they were there. Tendo, Mako, and Raleigh. They were still limping from their heroics during the Battle of the Breach, but they had stayed up all night to help him find Newton. 

He sent them a brisk nod and hoped they could extrapolate from there. 

“I’m sure you know the PPDC is in a precarious enough position as it is,” Secretary Krieger was saying, “or perhaps you don’t know. Representative Taylor and I are old college buddies, so sometimes he lets things slip a little early. You know how it is.”

“What are you going on about?” asked Marshal Hansen.

“The Pan Pacific Defense Corps is in danger of dissolution,” said Secretary Krieger. “At least your branch of it is. After all, Marshal, the war is over. This is peacetime. If any part of the PPDC has relevance now, it's the civilian branch. I’m sure the UN will brief you soon enough, but if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to. I’ll see you back at the Shatterdome.”

With that, he turned and walked away. 

“What the actual fuck is wrong with that guy?” asked Tendo. At least, it was phrased as a question, although Hermann was fairly certain it was intended to be rhetorical. 

“He doesn't have protection right now,” said Mako. “Couldn’t we just-”

“No.” Marshal Hansen held up his good hand. “We got what we came for. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

...

@lastdaysofwar

[dailyanarchistposts]

Footnotes, part 6

[501] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 3.

[502] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 3.

[503] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 3.

[504] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 4.

[505] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 4.

[506] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 4.

[507] Lloyd, Henry Demarest, “Lords of Industry,” 1910, chapter 9.

[508] Watson, Elizabeth C., “Home Work in the Tenements,” 1911, February.

[509] Watson, Elizabeth C., “Home Work in the Tenements,” 1911, February.

[510] New Republic Editorial, “The Quinine Caper,” 1967.

[511] Global Unions (www.global-unions.org)

[512] Burma Forum Los Angeles (www.burmaforumla.org)

[513] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org/action/PAA.jsp?articleid=1958)

[514] National Labor Committee (www.nlcnet.org/)

[515] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[516] Clean Clothes Campaign (www.cleanclothes.org/)

[517] TransFair USA (www.transfairusa.org/)

[518] UNITE (www.uniteunion.org/)

[519] National Organization for Women (www.now.org/)

[520] Multinational Monitor (multinationalmonitor.org/)

[521] National Organization for Women (www.now.org/)

[522] Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (www.svtc.org/)

[523] National Labor Committee (www.nlcnet.org/)

[524] Campaign for Labor Rights (www.campaignforlaborrights.org/)

[525] Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org/)

[526] National Labor Committee (www.nlcnet.org/)

[527] Gay Today (gaytoday.badpuppy.com/)

[528] Multinational Monitor (multinationalmonitor.org/)

[529] Human Rights Campaign (www.hrc.org/)

[530] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[531] National Organization for Women (www.now.org/)

[532] Public Citizen (www.citizen.org/)

[533] Vault.com

[534] Solidarity (solidarity.igc.org/)

[535] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[536] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[537] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[538] Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org/)

[539] The New York Times, October 23, 1997

[540] The Associated Press, November 12, 1997

[541] Managing Risk, December 1997

[542] Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org/)

[543] Clean Clothes Campaign (www.cleanclothes.org/)

[544] AFSCME (www.afscme.org/)

[545] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[546] Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org/)

[547] Dollars & Sense (www.dollarsandsense.org/)

[548] AAP Newsfeed, March 19, 1998

[549] Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (www.iccr.org/)

[550] The Kansas City Star, March 28, 1998

[551] Investor’s Business Daily, May 21, 1998

[552] Chemical Week, June 24, 1998

[553] The Patriot Ledger, August 4, 1998

[554] Texas Observer, September 11, 1998

[555] The AP State & Local Wire, October 28, 1998

[556] The AP State & Local Wire, October 26, 1998

[557] The National Law Journal, December 21, 1998

[558] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[559] Corp Watch (www.corpwatch.org)

[560] Vault.com

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

The New York Times’ conspiracy theory flops spectacularly. White House press corps disgraces itself.

The New York Times ran an article noting that a neurologist from Walter Reed Military Hospital specializing in Parkinson’s Disease had visited the White House on eight occasions over the last eight months. A press briefing at the White House devolved into a shouting match as reporters from the Times and NBC accused White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre of covering up information about President Biden’s health. Or, as the Times described the conduct of the press corps,

The White House briefing room devolved into shouting on Monday as the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly dodged and refused to answer questions about the president’s health, and whether visits to the White House by a Parkinson’s doctor were about the president.

The reporters apparently never considered that the Parkinson’s specialist could be treating other White House employees—including 1,000 military personnel—and that Jeane-Pierre was prohibited by federal privacy laws and national security from providing the requested information that might compromise military leaders. Instead, one reporter said the press was “miffed” with Ms. Jean-Pierre and accused her of “dodging questions” to which the press had the absolute right to answers—damn the privacy concerns of possible other patients in the White House.

Late in the day, the President's doctor reaffirmed that the President has been evaluated on three occasions by a neurologist—at each of his annual physicals, including in February of this year. The other visits by the Parkinson’s specialist were to see other members of the White House staff, including military combat veterans—who frequently suffer neurological damage from combat. The letter is here: Letter 7.8.24 - DocumentCloud.

I urge you to read the entire letter. It explains, in relevant part, that the Parkinson’s disease specialist visited the White House as part of a clinic for military personnel:

Prior to the pandemic, and following its end, [the Parkinson’s Disease specialist] has held regular Neurology Clinics at the White House Medical Clinic in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations. Many military personnel experience neurological issues related to their service, and Dr. Cannard regularly visits the WHMU as part of this General Neurology practice. We value the contributions he has made across the many patients he has treated in support of the White House and its personnel over these years.

So, the New York Times conspiracy theory went down in flames. But the treatment of Karine Jean-Pierre was despicable. It was racist and sexist. The condescension and wild accusations of a cover up by white male reporters who were “miffed” that a Black woman would not do their bidding is reprehensible.

Each of the reporters who accused Jean-Pierre of a cover-up owes a public apology to her, as do the editors of the New York Times and the other media outlets that allow the journalists to make reckless accusations before researching, considering, and thinking through other innocent explanations.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

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Amid all the calls for “cognitive tests” for Biden—but not Trump—journalists are committing malpractice by failing to note that President Biden released a detailed summary of his annual physical in February of this year. The full report is here: Health-Summary-2.28.pdf (whitehouse.gov). The examination included consultations with neurological experts at Walter Reed hospital. I urge you to read the entire report and consider how you would measure up to such a battery of tests!

On the issue of Biden’s neurological health, the report states the following:

An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. This exam did again support a finding of peripheral neuropathy in both feet. No motor weakness was detected. He exhibits no tremor, either at rest or with activity. He demonstrates excellent fine motor dexterity. But a subtle difference in heat/cold sensation could be elicited as it was last year. This heat/cold sensation deficit was detected a couple inches higher on his ankle/calf this year, which is not unexpected, There may, in fact, be day to day subjective variation of these findings, as during last year’s exam, this area of sensation deficit was actually found to be smaller than the year before.

So, Biden did have a “detailed neurological exam” four-and-half months ago. The widespread media demands that Biden “take a neurological exam” should be directed to Trump instead.

Predictably, this “proof” won’t be enough for the media. Just as the media refused to accept a certified copy of President Obama’s birth certificate, the goalposts will keep shifting.

The issue is not Joe Biden. It is Donald Trump—and the media’s arrogant refusal to apply the same scrutiny to Trump that it is applying to Biden. If they did, they would be demanding neurological exams of Trump and his withdrawal from the race. So far as we have been informed by Trump, his cognitive test consisted of recalling five objects: “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” Can you say, “double standard”?

Why isn’t the media making demands that Trump submit to “extremely detailed neurologic testing” by experts from a nationally recognized hospital?

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]