#international lawyers network

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the kleptocrats and oligarchs hunt civil society groups to the ends of the Earth

It's a great time to be an oligarch! If you have accumulated a great fortune and wish to put whatever great crime lies behind it behind you, there is an army of fixers, lickspittles, thugs, reputation-launderers, procurers, henchmen, and other enablers who have turnkey solutions for laundering your reputation and keeping the unwashed from building a guillotine outside the gates of your compound.

The field of International Relations has studied the enemies of the Klept in detail: the Transnational Activist Network is a well-documented phenomenon. But far more poorly understood is the Transnational Uncivil Society Network, who will polish any turd of sufficient wealth to a high, professional gloss.

These TUSNs are the subject of a new, timely scholarly paper by Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw and Ricard Soares de Oliveira: "Transnational Uncivil Society Networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism," published in last month's European Journal of International Relations:

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5e5a3052-c693-4991-a7cc-bc2b47134467/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Cooley_et_al_2023_transnational_uncivil_society.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article

The authors document how a collection of institutions – some coercive, others organized around good works – allow kleptocrats to take power, keep power, and use power. This includes "wealth managers, company providers, accounting firms, and international bankers" who create the complex financial structures that obscure the klept's wealth. It also includes "second citizenship managers and lawyers" that facilitate the klept's transnational nature, both to provide access to un-looted, prosperous places to visit, and boltholes to escape to in the face of coup or reform. It includes the real-estate brokers and other asset facilitators, who turn whole precincts of the world's greatest cities into empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, while ensuring that footlose criminal elites always have a penthouse to perch in when they take a break from the desiccated husks they've drained dry back home.

Of course, it also includes the PR managers and philanthropic ventures that allow the klept to launder their reputation, to make themselves synonymous with good deeds rather than mass murder. Think here of how the Sacklers used charity to turn their family name into a synonym for culture and fine art, rather than death by opioid overdose:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Beyond providing comfort to "Politically Exposed Persons" and "High Net-Worth Individuals," TUSNs are concerned with neutralizing TANs. Activists in these transnational networks play an inside-outside game: in-country activists will recruit peers abroad to bring attention to the crimes of their local kleptocrats. These overseas partners target the klept in the places they go to play and spend, spoiling their fun – and if they succeed in getting corrupt leaders censured abroad, then in-country activists can leverage that bad press to fight the klept at home.

To fight this "Boomerang Effect," TUSNs seek to burnish corrupt officials' reputations abroad, getting their names on humanitarian prizes, beloved sports teams, cultural institutions and great universities. They seek to capture international governance institutions that might wrong-foot kleptocrats, co-opting them to enable and even celebrate looters.

When it comes to elite philanthropy, TUSNs are necessarily selective. Kleptocrats' foundations don't fund anti-kleptocratic groups – they stick to "education, public health, the environment and the arts." These domains steer clear of human rights questions that might implicate their benefactors. Russian oligarchs love children's charities and disability rights – provided they don't target the Russian state.

If charitable giving is reputation laundering's carrot, then "reputation management" is the laundry's stick. Think of organized copyfraudsters who clone websites that have criticized their clients, then backdate the articles, then accuse the originals of infringing copyright in order to get them de-listed from Google or taken offline altogether:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops

Reputation managers also spend a lot of time in court. In the UK – the world's leader in libel tourism, thanks to a legal system designed to let posh monsters sue muckraking journalists into silence – Russian oligarchs have perfected the art of forcing their critics to shut up and go away:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/04/londongrad/#enablers

Indeed, London is a one-stop shop for the global klept, a place were forelock-tugging Renfields will buy you a Mayfair mansion under cover of a numbered company, sue your critics into silence, funnel your money into an anonymous Channel Islands account:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/07/the-klept/#pep

They'll sell you whole galleriesworth of "fine art" that you can have relocated to a climate-controlled container in a Swiss or Irish freeport:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#moneylab

They'll give your thick-as-pigshit progeny a PhD and never check to see whether he wrote his thesis himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSE%E2%80%93Gaddafi_affair

Then they'll hook you up with a cyber-arms dealer to hunt your enemies by capturing their devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-dangerous-ideas

But don't let Brexit stop you from shopping for bargains on the continent. The Golden Passports of the EU – available in a variety of flavors, from Maltese to Cypriot to Portuguese – offer the discerning failson access to the luxury good shops and fleshpots of 27 advanced economies, making it a favorite of the Khmer Riche – the junior klept of Cambodia's ruling faction:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/cambodia-hunsen-wealth/

But golden passports are for amateurs. Skilled klepts travel on diplomatic passports, which offer the twin benefits of free movement and consequence-free criminality, thanks to diplomatic immunity. The former Kazakh dictator's son-in-law enjoyed a freewheeling diplomatic life in Vienna; one daughters of the dictator of Tajikistan had a jolly time as an envoy to DC; another, to London (where else?).

All this globetrotting serves a second purpose: when rival elites seize power back home and force the old guard into exile, those ex-monsters can show up in the lands they called their second homes and apply for asylum. It turns out that even bomb-the-boats UK will welcome any asylum seeker who enters via the private jet terminal at City Airport (to be fair, these "refugees" have extensive properties in Zone 1 and country places in the Home Counties, so they won't need housing).

This stuff works. After Kazakh state goons murdered at least 14 protesters at a Zhanaozen oil facility in 2011, human rights groups around the world took up the cause. But they were effectively neutralized by TUSNs, with former UK PM Tony Blair writing on behalf of the Kazakh government to the EU condemning any kind of international investigation into the mass killings (add "former Prime Ministers" to the list of commodities for sale in the UK to sufficiently well-resourced murderer).

The authors close their paper with two case-studies. The first is of the daughters of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, Gulnara and Lola. And President Karimov was indeed a dictator: he trapped his population within his borders, forced them to use unconvertible scrip in place of money, and ordered the murder of hundreds of peaceful protesters, plunging the country into international isolation.

But while Uzbeks were sealed within their borders, Gulnara Karimov became an international player, running a complex network of businesses that mixed the products of the nation's oilfields with her family's fortune. She solicited – and received – bribes from Teliasonera, MTS and Vimpelcom, who were all vying for the contract to provide service in Uzbekistan. All told, she extracted more than $1b in bribes, laundering them through Latvia, Hong Kong and New York. She acquired real-estate in France and Switzerland, and her spree continued until her father collaborated with Uzbek security to seize her assets and place her under house-arrest.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was Gulnara's estranged younger sister. She and her husband Timur Tillyaev ran the Dubai-based SecureTrade, which did extensive business with "opaque Scottish Limited Partnerships," laundering more than $127m in a single year to offshore accounts in the UAE and Switzerland. They acquired many luxe assets – a jet, a Californian villa, and an LA perfumier.

Lola styled herself as the face of the Karimovas abroad, a "philanthropist and cultural ambassador." She was a UNESCO ambassador and commissioned works of monumental art – and also sued the shit out of news outlets that reported factual matters about her family repressive activity at home. She organized AIDS charities in the name of Uzbekistan – even as her father was imprisoning a writer for publishing a book explaining how to have safer sex.

The second case-study is on Isabel dos Santos, "Africa's richest woman," daughter of Angolan dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Isabel's vast fortune stemmed from her personal capture of vast swathes of the third-largest economy in Africa: "telecommunications, banking, diamonds, real estate and cement, among many others." Isabel enjoyed seemingly limitless access to state credit and co-investment, and was given first crack at newly deregulated industries. Foreign firms that invested in Angola were required to "partner" with Isabel's businesses.

Isabel claimed to be a "self-made woman" – a claim credulously parroted by the western press, including the FT. She used her homegrown fortune to become a major player abroad, especially in Portugal, where she was represented by the leading Portuguese law-firm PLMJ. Her enablers are who's who of corruption-loving lickspittles: McKinsey, Ernst and Young, Boston Consulting Group, and the Spanish BigLaw firm Uri Menendez.

Isabel cultivated a public facade of philanthropic giving and public spirited activism, serving as head of the Angolan Red Cross. She attended Davos and spoke at the LSE (she was also invited to Oxford, but her invitation was subsequently rescinded). On social media, she dismissed critics of her wealth and corruption as "colonialists," decrying their "racism" and "prejudice."

Isabel dos Santos's corrupt sources of wealth were finally, irrefutably exposed through the Luanda Leaks, in which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists mapped the network of "top banks, management consultants and legal firms that were central to dos Santos’s operations."

Both case studies shed light on the network of brilliant, driven enablers and procurers without whom the world's greatest monsters would falter. It's a rare window on a secretive world, one that is poorly understood even by its inhabitants. As Michael Mechanic wrote in Jackpot, his 2021 book on vast, intergenerational fortunes, the winners of the lucky orifice lottery often lack any real understanding of how The Money is structured, grown and protected:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

This point was reiterated by Abigail Disney, in a brave piece on what it's like to grow up subject to the oversight of these millionaires who babysit the children of billionaires:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste

This is an important contribution to the literature. We naturally focus on the ultrawealthy individuals whose reputations and fortunes are the subject of so much attention, but without the TUSNs, they would be largely helpless.

Going to Burning Man? Catch me on Tuesday at 2:40pm on the Center Camp Stage for a talk about enshittification and how to reverse it; on Wednesday at noon, I'm hosting Dr Patrick Ball at Liminal Labs (6:15/F) for a talk on using statistics to prove high-level culpability in the recruitment of child soldiers.

On September 6 at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/24/launderers-enforcers-bagmen/#procurers

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Colin (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Westminster_from_the_dome_on_Methodist_Central_Hall_(cropped).jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#international relations #ir #enablers #consiglieri #lickspittles #plutes #guillotine watch #politically exposed persons #peps #high net work individuals #hnwis #oligarchs #reputation laundering #spyware #renfields #big law #uk #kleptocrats #transnational activist networks #tans #civil society #ngos #transnational uncivil society networks #tusns #slapps #Uzbekistan #Gulnara Karimova #Isabel dos Santos #angola #corruption

[sayruq]

FOREIGN Secretary David Cameron approved continuing arms exports to Israel just two days after the country’s military killed three British aid workers, court documents have revealed. The news comes after the High Court reversed a previous dismissal of a case against the exports brought by the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the Al-Haq human rights organisation, which is based in the Palestinian West Bank. At an appeal hearing on Tuesday, the two groups were granted a full judicial review hearing challenging the UK Government's failure to halt weapons exports to Israel, which is set for October. The groups say exported weapons and parts risk being used in violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.According to the UK Government’s export licencing criteria, Tory ministers must block arms sales if there is “a clear risk” that weapons might be used to commit or facilitate “internal repression” or “a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. At the High Court hearing on Tuesday, the Tory government’s lawyers did not argue that the case against arms exports is inarguable, instead saying that the court hasn’t seen all the relevant documents and that they can only be shared in closed, secret proceedings due to national security.

#yemen #jerusalem #tel aviv #current events #palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #news on gaza #palestine news #news update #war news #war on gaza #world central kitchen #david cameron #rishi sunak #great britain #gaza genocide #genocide

[thesolarpunkgardener]

“Today’s rulings against Switzerland sets a historic precedent that applies to all European countries,” Gerry Liston, a lawyer at Global Legal Action Network, which supported the Portugal case, said in a statement. “It means that all European countries must urgently revise their targets so that they are science-based and aligned to 1.5 degrees. This is a massive win for all generations.”

#solarpunk #climate change #climate justice

[ukrfeminism]

A lawyer and the government department she works with are being sued after she made gender-critical statements at work, including expressing the belief that only women menstruate. 

Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley works at an arm’s-length body affiliated to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and is a chairwoman of a civil service network that represents staff with gender-critical views. 

She is one of three key signatories of an explosive letter sent in October to the cabinet secretary warning the impartiality of the civil service was under threat because anyone with gender-critical views was “openly and unlawfully bullied and harassed”. 

The confidential letter, seen by The Times, makes serious claims about a “small number of active gender ideologues” embedded in the civil service who brief against ministers and seek to alter official documents.

Duemmer Wrigley will appear at an employment tribunal next week accused of harassment for several comments and posts shared in the workplace. An employee of another body affiliated to Defra is suing the government department for allowing the network to exist and Duemmer Wrigley personally for her views. 

These include a statement made during a seminar on female autism that “only women menstruate” and a link to My Body is Me!, a book that encourages young children to understand and accept their bodies. A post in which she celebrates “diversity of belief” and explains that being gender-critical is a protected belief has also been penalised.

The Sex Equality and Equity Network (Seen) is an official civil service network with more than 700 members in 50 government departments who support the belief that biological sex is binary and immutable. Duemmer Wrigley is chairwoman of Defra’s Seen network and believes she is being targeted as a figurehead.

The claimant, who has not been named, has accused Defra bosses of creating a “intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and/or offensive environment” and is calling for a disbanding of the departmental SEEN network and, potentially, the cross-governmental network as well. 

Duemmer Wrigley warns that if successful, the case would have a “chilling effect” that could silence all gender criticism in the civil service.

“[It] would effectively preclude any public gender-critical discourse in the workplace,” she writes in a statement. 

“It has been brought at a time when employees with gender-critical beliefs in many organisations, both in the civil service and beyond, are already facing vexatious, chilling or bullying attacks. I believe if this case succeeds, these attacks are likely to escalate. I believe if this case succeeds there will be no place in the civil service for those with sex realist views.”

It comes months after the letter to Simon Case, the head of the civil service, called for “urgent action to ensure that civil service impartiality is upheld, and freedom of belief is respected”.

It warns that unchallenged bias in relation to gender is having a direct impact on policy, based on interviews and evidence from SEEN members across government.

The letter cites efforts from some staff to “remove contributions to government consultations that relate to sex instead of gender” and “quietly briefing external organisations on how to circumnavigate ministerial direction”. 

It alleges there is an “active obfuscation of facts” among some trans activist civil servants to “prevent ministers seeing the impact of trans-inclusive policies” and evidence of internal policy being leaked to “partisan organisations”. 

Maya Forstater, executive director of Sex Matters, a human rights organisation that campaigns for clarity on sex in law, policy and language, said: “This is a shocking case, which follows revelations by civil servant whistleblowers about a ‘culture of fear’ among gender-critical civil servants across Whitehall. 

“It is not reasonable to view the existence of a network of gender-critical colleagues as ‘harassment’. 

“The civil service needs to have a robust culture of integrity, objectivity and accountability, and treat all its employees fairly. Civil servants should not expect to be kept “safe” from encountering ideas or people they don’t agree with.”

A government spokesman said: “We are unable to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

#articles #law

[pixelpaladin]

Deep dive to Spam bots on Tumblr (Spoiler: FSB mentioned)

(TL;DR: Russian business man is heavily investing into companies behind the bots, mentions of FSB, Shell companies in tax-evasion and weak business law countries, Huge industry and money laundering) 

I got annoyed about the bots on tumblr, so I decided to do some investigation into who is behind them and funding the operation, here is my findings:

The graph shows how a network of “affiliate marketing” companies for “dating” services is connected and some of the key players behind said companies

The first “company” I ran into is called “Digital international Inc” and it is shown as the “legal entity” behind of many of the websites the bots tend to link to, it also has its address listed in the Marshall Islands.

By looking at trademarks owned/filed by that company, we find 2 more companies/trademarks that are/were owned by the same legal entity.

First of these is called “Mirelia Services Co.”, currently known as “Mirelia Networks”, which lists its main business as “advertising and marketing” and is registered at the same address as “Digital International”.

Where things get interesting is when we look at one of the trademarks that was passed between “Mirelia” and “Digital international”, a trademark for an LGBTQ+ dating app called “Hitwe”,

The trademark application for “Hitwe” is listed as “Rescinded/canceled” but from the original registration documents and later ownership transfer filings, we come across an interesting company

“Matar Trade & Invest Ltd.” This company has other similar “dating” and “marketing” companies linked to it, and is owned by “Vladimir Mnogoletniy”, a Citizen of Russia, who has lived in Ukraine for over 10 years and his runs his businesses there, but interestingly does not seem to have officially moved there, and maintains his Russian Citizenship as his only one.

He is also the CEO or a major of many other companies, the main one being “Genesis”, the company behind a controversial fitness app “BetterMe”, which has been shown to aggressively sell user data to less-than-reputable ad companies and affiliates, as well as being used to redirect money from scam dating sites and lessen the impact of credit card chargebacks from those sites [See footnote 1]

What makes him a particularly interesting individual is that his father, who is a Captain of the Second Rank in the Russian Navy, is doing security work for “Sevmash” - A Russian shipbuilding company, the only one that is making nuclear submarines in Russia. He also co-authored a research paper that talks about “Military Counterintelligence activities”, The other author of said paper is an FSB officer.[See footnote 2]

Sources and footnotes:

Footnote 1: “BetterMe steals traffic”  - Article by SH[IT]HAPPENS on Medium Footnote 2: “Why don’t I no longer shake hands with Vladimir Mnogoletniy.“ - Article by SH[IT]HAPPENS on Medium

Tangent: one of the other companies that I came across that seems to be working with Mirelia is “Traffichunt”, which seems to be one of the companies selling bot spam advertisements as well.

Another interesting thing is that the lawyer who filed for most of the trademarks, has quite a repertoire of similar trademarks under his belt:

Most of these seem to have been rejected because the address he listed in the applications does not exist

If you read all the way to here, thank you and I hope that bot’s never bother you again.

#spam bots #deep dive #osint #spam #research #i hope i dont get merc'd #tumblr bots #please read #bots #spammers #opsec #phishing #cybersecurity #sex bots #fake accounts #long reads

[the-joy-of-knowledge]

5 ways to become luckier

The harder you work, the luckier you are to people

Find mutual interests: I met a student on campus and we started a deep conversation about life and meaning. It went so well that she took my number and invited me to a dinner party. At the dinner party, I met other students from my school who are interning at top firms that I want to intern at. The host of the dinner party studied at Harvard and Oxford and even told me she can look over my essays when I apply to business schools. It's been a year since I was invited and I have been introduced to doctors, lawyers, engineers. All they care about is your interest and character.

Define your character and personality: You need to figure out what you want to be know for? The one who is curious? The one who comes to work early? The one who dresses well? The smart one? The funny one? You get to define who you are and it attracts people with similar personalities and before you know it you will attract opportunities.

Take risks: No risk, no reward. You need to put yourself out there. Go out to coffee shops, networking events, introduce yourself, join groups. You may not get what you want immediately but you are learning and making choices based on the people and opportunities you have

Use resources: Use free and paid resources to get you where you want. Connect with your professors, career centers, boss, online experts, podcasts, friends of friends, books. Take advantage of scholarships, professional organizations, mentors etc. What you will realize is that there are many opportunities available to you. Set up coffee chats with alumni, reach out to your Linkedin connections, and take advantage of local small organizations.

Be disciplined: Your work ethic and education wil speak for you. Your degree is not carved on your face so it is your conversations skills that will help you. Getting to Harvard is not a joke, you will ahve to prove yourself through discipline. Getting to work for the Big three is a goal that only a few can achieve. Yet some people get offers from all. Before you call anyone lucky remember people make sacrifices, they study hard, network hard, apply to 50+ jobs. Get ready to do the work.

#self improvement #beauty #self love #growth #mindfulness #self development #education #classy #self care #preppy #educators #emotions #energy #students #smart #school #emotional intelligence #get motivated #mindset #mind control #motivation #meditation

[eroguron0nsense]

Assorted One Piece Modern AU HCs

The Whitebeard Pirates are all part of a shelter/relief/mutual aid network for drug users, unhoused people, and vulnerable youth. Ace looks up to them all immensely and volunteers part time, but he's still very much on a journey of self discovery and healing

Ace is a massive music nerd and hobbyist with a near encyclopedic knowledge of genre histories and subcultural spaces. He goes to a lot of local acts his friends are involved in, plays the drums and bass and hangs out at Brook's recording studio/jams with him from time to time while he's in town (Brook loves Luffy and his family, and he's just happy to entertain young people who make or love music and let them use the space). He's undecided in his major but kinda leaning toward sociology or social work.

(Rayleigh is his prof, and unbeknownst to him, a college buddy/old flame of his bio parents who recognized him immediately and has no clue what to do with himself.)

Sabo is, of course, a socialist student organizer in a poli-sci/law program and interning at Dragon's practice (grassroots activist turned civil rights lawyer). The ASL brothers live together in a shitty apartment with barely any heat. He's secretly a massive film snob and organizes Radical Documentary Screenings with Koala from time to time.

Dadan has a cabin like 2 hours outside the city in the mountains and the brothers crash there every now and then over the holidays. She's retired now and constantly gripes about having to feed and shelter her stupid kids every time they come home but she still gets teary whenever she watches them go. Their childhood bedroom and three bunk beds are perfectly preserved and cleaned, and she wouldn't ever dream of moving Ace's posters or Sabo's old bookshelf and criterion DVDs or Luffy's plushies and taxidermied insects.

Brook's band is a genre-blending indie darling that occasionally tours the country. I'm definitely not the first one to think of this, but Laboon is a Newfoundland with severe separation anxiety and Brook has to bring him on tour or to half of the group outings. The Rumbar Pirates are a local jazz act he performs with from time to time, and he may or may not have dated Calico Yorki.

Usopp (fresh out of high school) only recently reconnected with his father and they've been having awkward family dinners with Kaya but it's getting less weird having Yasopp around. He babysits the Usopp Pirates part time and they love him to pieces; he's low-key interested in studying Botany and horticulture and has been checking out local degrees and training programs.

Franky's in the middle of an auto mechanic apprenticeship and is debating trying to get into a mech eng program at Robin's university; he was raised by Tom as a carpenter, and has worked as one for a really long time, but he's increasingly getting into engines and inventing things and the family's very supportive. Robin's a Masters student doing an hourly TA thing in Clover's class on Archaeology of the Void Century, and they're married.

Sanji, naturally, works at the Baratie and Zeff lets him brainstorm and test daily specials or set menus for holidays. He and Pudding are in the same patissier courses at culinary school (she's obviously a baking major); they're exes who've stayed friends and care deeply for each other. The ASL brothers sometimes pick up shifts at the Baratie (with the exception of Luffy who broke way too many dishes)–Zeff really likes all of Sanji's friends and dumps leftovers on them

#one piece #one piece au #one piece fandom #portgas d ace #revolutionary sabo #monkey d luffy #franky #cyborg franky #nico robin #usopp #one piece usopp #god usopp #straw hat pirates #yasopp #calico yorki #soul king brook #kaya one piece #curly dadan #whitebeard pirates #silvers rayleigh #modern au #sanji #black leg sanji #charlotte pudding #red leg zeff #baratie #Sanji's bi awakening was Ace but that crush on his friend's big brother didn't go anywhere and he's deeply in love with Zoro #I just wanted y'all to know that

[luxuryandbrown]

Amal Clooney

the perfect embodiment of feminine & masculine energy.

Feminine in her mannerisms and how she presents herself but rightfully masculine in her career, Amal Clooney is a beautiful representation of what it means to balance your feminine and masculine energy.

who is she?

Amal Clooney, now 44 years old, is an international lawyer, human rights activist, mother, and wife to the famous George Clooney. When she’s not representing powerful clients before international courts, she is advising political governments and individuals on legal issues. She is a brilliant woman known for her high profile cases, accomplishments, husband, and fashion. She is described as “a brilliant legal mind” and “knows her brief inside out”. Her accolades make her the ideal role model and inspiration for young women.

her background

Amal is a Lebanese-British lawyer and activist specializing in international law and human rights. She was raised in England by her educated father and entrepreneurial mother. Following high school, she studied at Oxford University and graduated with her bachelor’s before attending New York University of Law where she got her Master of Law degree. 

influenced by strong women

Amal is a product of her environment. As mentioned, she was raised by an entrepreneurial mother. Her mother, Baria Alamuddin, is an award winning journalist. Baria has interviewed some of the most notable and prominent figures in the world. Amal’s mother and grandmother both are strong supporters of women empowerment and education which you can see in Amal’s philanthropic work. Another example of being influenced by strong women is when she worked in the office of Sonia Sotomayor, the first woman of color and Latina to serve on the supreme court. She even had the pleasure of working with the judge for the United States Court of Appeals and a NYU Law faculty member. It’s obvious that Amal was fortunate enough to have examples of strong and powerful women not only in her home but in the workplace.

personality

I admire Amal for her intelligence, wit, and ability to keep most of her personal life private. Not much is said about her private life, but colleagues have mentioned that Amal has a ‘commanding presence”. This is obvious when watching her interviews — her energy fills the room. She never overshares or says more than necessary, but when she does speak it’s worth listening to. As you probably guessed, she is an intelligent woman. Fluent in English, French and Arabic. Her cleverness and well articulated speeches immediately captivates those around her.

love life

One person who was captivated by her mind is her husband George Clooney. In the world of law, she was already a celebrity but became one in the literal sense when she became involved with the well known bachelor, George Clooney. George had a long history of dating gorgeous, famous women but never settled down. He even publicly said he would never get married... this was until he met Amal in July of 2013, in Lake Como Italy.

Similar to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, the two met through a mutual friend. This is why your connections, network, and personal brand matters — those can open more doors for you than a dating app can. While most women would fall at the feet of George, Amal didn’t. In fact, he chased her for months before they became serious. He claims he fell for her because of intelligence and personality, but I assume the chase also had a huge impact. Amal is highly intelligent and understands seduction. She knows if she were like every other woman, she would get treated like every other woman. Instead, she stayed committed to her career and mission while making time for him when she could.

In 2014, the two love birds became engaged only after a year of dating. The Clooney’s were married in Sept of 2014 by no other than the former mayor of Rome. Their beautiful multi-million dollar wedding was in Venice, Italy and was one to remember. After they said “I do”, the couple moved to a multimillion-dollar estate built on a small island in London before having their twins in 2017. Together the couple committed to philanthropic work for women’s and human’s rights. It’s rumored that they’ve donated over $22M to a variety of charities. In 2016, her and George Clooney founded Clooney Foundation for Justice. She has partnered with several other charities, such as Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, and has her own scholarship program to send young girls to college.

awards & achievements

I would love to end this off not talking about Amal’s love life but the amazing things she’s accomplished. Her list of her achievements and awards are way too long to cover so I’ll mention the few I thought were most notable. Amal was awarded the most fascinating person in 2014, the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Young Global Leader, and Time magazine’s Woman of the Year in 2022. Her fight for human rights has made her a noble activist, leader, and role model. She uses her celebrity status to shed light on political issues that may have otherwise been thrown under the rug.

Amal has shown us that you can be a feminine family woman while being successful at your career. Her brilliant mind has captivated the red carpet, magazines, and one of Hollywood’s best actors. Amal is an inspiring mother, wife, and activists. Her poise, style, and grace are just a few elements to her feminine charm. Her healthy balance of masculine energy is portrayed in her ability to relentlessly peruse her career, fight for meaningful causes, and excel in a highly competitive field.

X, @luxuryandbrown | You might like: Meghan Markle: Femininity Breakdown

#amal clooney #george clooney #inspiring women #hypergameous #hypergamy #luxury and brown #power woman

[femmefatalevibe]

Hey! I work as a freelance content writer/copywriter as well. I had to stop working because of academic pressure, but the pay in my country is peanuts, and I have always wanted to expand globally. I would really appreciate it if you could share some tips on how you started getting clients and how did you build your agency? Thanks!!

Hi love! Some high-level tips are below:

Intern/Apply to remote internships to get clips/experience

Create an Upwork account to get entry-level work/testimonials to get some client portfolio work and to help build your professional reputation

Always be on the lookout for leads, do your research, and craft a thoughtful/useful pitch for the client/publisher. Send work samples/share how you can help them. Follow up – remember rejection is part of the job, it's a numbers game

Start your own blog to show off your skills/build credibility in the writing world/your field

Save all of your quality-work to use in your portfolio. Always have a portfolio ready in PDF format and as a direct link that's mobile-friendly available when pitching clients

Utilize LinkedIn, your university connections, build your network, request informational interviews, and don't be shy to ask for letters of recommendation or referrals

When you do get a client whose honest and integral, show up and do your best work and submit it on time. If you can't for whatever reason, request an extension/notify them of the delay ahead of time

Perfect your craft, continuously read about your industry, and sharpen your skills. Show up with a business owner, not employee, mindset. This might be different when you're doing contract work for an agency where they might have their own contracts, set a budget, etc. But, when working with smaller, independent clients, ensure you have your rates, terms, general business practices, contracts (see a lawyer about this one), onboarding process, client questionnaire, payment method, etc., all set up for your client to acclimate to when you're ready to sign them. Remember, your clients are your customers, not your employers. It is a partnership, not an unequal power dynamic – you are the talent, not the direct report.

Hope this helps xx

#female entrepreneurs #business tips #freelancewriter #freelancing #entreprenuership #female writers #copywriting #content writing #women business #female founders #femmefatalevibe #femme fatale #dark feminine energy #dark femininity #it girl #high value woman #the feminine urge #female excellence #high value mindset #dream girl #queen energy #female power #life advice #life design #skilldevelopment #level up journey

[fablesrose]

Ch 8 - The Three Days of the Hunter Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist 

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: The team is vying to steal a man's reputation back after a so called reporter ruins it. Plus you and Eliot team up a bit this time around ;)

Words: 4132

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Now we’ve stolen a lot of odd things before, but how do we steal back a man’s reputation?” Hardison asked after the situation was explained to us. A man in a tragic school bus crash that killed two children had a slanderous story written about him and showed on air. It ruined this man’s reputation unfairly, and the news anchor is to blame for making it all up.

“We get the network to issue a complete apology and utterly disavow Monica Hunter’s story,” Sophie answered. 

We all glanced at Nate to see if he was going to add anything, to direct us in some way, but he didn’t. He just said, “Uh, Sophie’s gonna be doing this one.”

“What?” Eliot asked.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sophie echoed, “I’m gonna be Nate on this one, only, you know, nicer.” 

“But, if you’re gonna be Nate, then who’s gonna be you?” Parker asked.

“You.”

“Me?”

“I don’t mean to obsess about the last time Sophie ran a con, but…” Eliot cut in, “I’m sorry, where we had to blow up the offices.”

“I don’t think you guys told me about that one…” I commented.

“Really? Because I don’t remember that,” Sophie defended.

“I do,” Hardison replied before turning to me, “It’s a sore spot… for all of us.”

I nodded, raising my hands with understanding.

“Um, Hardison, just run it,” Sophie tried to move on.

“Look, if you don’t mind,” Nate leaned over and whispered to Sophie, “I thought I would still do the ‘Hardison, run it’ thing so… Hardison, run it.”

We all looked at each other and at Nate with a look that said, ‘seriously?’ It took a moment before Hardison started the slides. He started explaining Monica Hunter’s show Hunt for the Truth and her little formula behind it, turning innocent people into the boogeyman. Any attempts at suing get buried in lawyers. I added in a few details from my own research on her as well. 

“Yeah, she demonizes perfectly innocent people for ratings, and then stands behind the network thinking they’re gonna protect her,” Sophie summarizes, “We’re gonna sever that relationship.”

“How?” I asked.

“We’re gonna get her to go on air with a fake story that just destroys her reputation,” Sophie explained. 

“Like when you find a crooked cop,” Eliot adds, “you know, all his cases go right out the window.”

“Exactly,” Sophie stands at the front of the room, “And then to protect themselves, they issue an apology to Mr. Pennington, and then they throw Monica Hunter into the jaws of the very media machine that she bent to her own malicious will.”

“Wow,” Parker comments, “I gotta say, Sophie’s briefings are much more dramatic.”

“And poetic,” Eliot adds.

“You see, what we need to do though,” Nate said, finding it hard to leave things alone, “what we need is, we gotta sell her a fake news story that she can’t refuse.” He walked to the front of the room, overtaking Sophie, “That’s what we gotta do, because what does she have? She has fame, she has money, what does she need?”

Sophie cleared her throat, setting him back on track to apologize and sit on the couch.

Sophie continued, “what does she have? She has fame, she has money, what does she need?”

I rolled my eyes with a huff before actually contemplating the question. Once I did, I quickly came to a conclusion, “Respect. Anyone with two eyes and a working brain thinks she’s a joke, an absolute dumpster fire. Let alone serious journalists.”

Hardison pointed at me in agreement, “Right. Look, these are emails from her agent and internal memos from the network.” He pulled them up on the screen, “See, everytime her contract’s up, she tries to go and get a job on a serious news show, but she gets laughed out of the room every time.”

“We can’t sell her respect,” Nate said.

“But we can sell her a story that commands respect,” Sophie remedied. “A story that she’s gonna chase to get the respect she craves. Pack your bags everyone. We’re going to D.C. to make news.”

We all watched her, inspired, but not sure what to do next.

“That’s when you wanna…” Nate gestured to walk away dramatically like he always does. 

“Let me do that bit again,” Sophie said, “Pack your bags everyone. We’re going to D.C. to make news.” She then walked out of the living room.

“She’s walking into the closet,” Nate pointed out.

We shrugged, but figured that was our cue to get a move on. 

After we arrived in D.C. Parker was sent in to make the first contact with the mark.

“I got the pass. Easy.”

“Parker, we went over this,” Sophie told her over comms, “You’re not supposed to take it. You’re supposed to get caught with it.”

“I don’t know how to get caught.”

“Yeah, I know it’s difficult to steal badly, just… just try.”

“Why isn’t y/n doing this part?”

“Because,” I answered, “I have about the same amount of confidence in acting and conning as you do Parker, if not less, and I don’t know how to steal at all. It’s easier to teach one skill at a time.”

“Fine.”

After some rustling and loud noises, Parker was finally ‘caught.’ After being confronted by Monica, Parker fled out of the building, of which she followed. Parker strung her along for a minute before disclosing what story she had, and why she needed Monica’s press credentials. 

“I have a story that will bring down… the president of the United States.”

I was waiting with Eliot for our cue to intimidate Monica and lead her to believe that something serious was going on. We stood in suits around the corner from our apartment that Hardison was waiting in with his conspiracy theory. I kept fidgeting with my suit as we waited for Parker to arrive with Monica. 

“Quit messing with it,” Eliot told me after I pulled at my sleeve again.

I looked over at him to see him messing with his tie, “Hypocrite.” I swatted his hands away and straightened it myself, avoiding his eyes that I could feel on me. 

“Are you nervous? We have a five second part, you don’t even have to say anything,” He said after I pulled away.

“Well the goal is to be intimidating, and I don’t think I am very intimidating,” I paused and deliberately straightened my coat, “and I’ve never been much of a blazer person.”

He chuckled, “okay, give me your intimidating look, let me judge it.”

I groaned, “It’s gonna be so bad, especially compared to yours.”

He nodded, urging me to do it.

“Fine,” I gave him my best glare, trying to be intimidating.

“That’s good,” he said, “but looks very intentional and almost forced, you want it to look effortless.”

I sighed, “how do I do that?”

“Give me a deadpan, annoyed look.”

My face relaxed as I obeyed him. 

He gently straightened my head as it had tilted to the side and directed my sight directly at him and his eyes. “Okay, now clench your jaw a bit and give me a tiny squint,” he looked at me for a moment while I adjusted my expression, “well, you look pretty intimidating right now, but I don’t know if it’d work on anyone with taste…”

I furrowed my brow at him before he finished.

“I think you look too good.”

That left me speechless and blushing. 

He smirked at me a bit before we heard Nate through the comms, “Eliot are you-”

“I have to warn you about my source,” Parker cut in, talking to Monica, “He doesn’t like strangers.”

That cued us to get closer so we could reveal ourselves when Monica was about to leave. We heard her dismiss Hardison and Parker, so we started our walk down the hallway. I positioned myself on the corner facing Monica directly when she opened the door leaving Eliot to walk past me, make eye contact with her and slowly turn around. She looked between the both of us before all three of us retreated to where we came from. 

We listened as Hardison and Parker sold Monica the story and then she left, talking to her coworker about stealing the story right from under Parker’s nose. Eliot and I smiled at each other as we walked into the apartment.

“Hunter’s hooked,” Eliot said as we walked in, joining the others.

“Our mark has a story and a source. We halfway home,” Hardison said. 

“Now for the hard part,” Sophie said, “We need to steal a general.”

“No,” Nate corrected, “it's ‘let’s go steal a general.’ You know, it's a rallying cry.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“‘We need to steal a general,’ it’s a little naggy. It’s kinda like ‘we need eggs,’ you know? ‘We need eggs.’” He repeated, emphasizing how low energy it was, “‘We need eggs!’ You know?”

Sophie just rolled her eyes and walked away.

“No, I’m just trying to give you a little…”

“You see what you did,” Hardison told Nate, following Sophie. 

“Eliot, these conspiracies aren’t real right?” Parker asked. 

“What do you mean?” He asked back. 

“Like the one over there that says all the major wars of the past fifty years were ordered by members of The Council.”

I looked over at the wall and back at them, suddenly intrigued by his answer.

“Parker, I’m not at liberty to discuss that with you,” he answered before walking away and following the other two.

“You’re not a member of The Council are you?” Parker asked humorously before becoming more serious, “Eliot?” She turned towards me and Nate, “Is he?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered, following the others. 

I quickly followed, before Parker could pry even more.  

Nate quickly turned towards me when I caught up, “By the way, was Eliot flirting with you before?” He didn’t let me answer before walking after him, “Eliot!”

Parker was still chasing after us, “Wait, is he?”

Later, I watched from a distance as Eliot distracted a general and lifted his badge, allowing Nate to take his place for a little while. 

“Alright, you guys have got to teach me some of this thievery thing,” I whined quietly, “How’d you lift that so smoothly Eliot?”

I could hear the smirk in his voice, “It’s all about practice sweetheart.”

“Eliot, don’t call my niece that,” Nate remarked through the comms. 

“He can call me what he likes, Nate. We’re all friendly here,” I replied, sending a playful eye roll at Eliot as he approached me.

“I don’t care, get ready for the walk by you two. Parker, what’s your 20?”

“Seconds away.”

Parker was asking Monica questions as they walked up the steps towards Nate’s newly acquired office. As they reached the top, Eliot and I walked somewhat near them, deliberately making eye contact with Monica. We walked a little ways apart and at a slightly different trajectory to suggest we weren’t there together, but close enough for Monica to get the picture that we were both there for her. I walked almost directly towards her and gently bumped her shoulder as I walked by, to send a bit of a message. 

“I knew it,” Monica said to Parker once I had passed out of earshot, “We’ve got a shadow.”

I smiled as the pass was successful, then left to prepare for the next phase, listening as Monica half interviewed Nate as a general and found incriminating evidence in his office. 

What we didn’t expect was Monica blowing off the story due to her ratings. She said that she sold fear to her viewers, to give them “a reason to lock their doors.” And this story didn’t do that. 

This prompted Sophie to up her game, “Alright, she wants fear…” Sophie concludes, “that’s what we’ll give her.”

This made me nervously look at Nate and Eliot who sat in the apartment with us. 

“This is how it starts,” Nate commented, which didn’t make me feel better. 

The next ploy was to hit Parker with a car. This task was given to me.

“Is there any trick to this where I don’t actually kill Parker?” I asked Eliot who was in the passenger seat.

“Just drive straight at her, she’ll do the rest,” he answered simply.

“Alright, if you say so,” I proceeded to drive at her and cringed as she jumped and rolled over the hood to make it look like I hit her. I threw the car in park and stepped out of the car, watching our surroundings, making sure my expression was stoic. 

Eliot got out and checked Parker making it look like he was looking for something. He eventually found a red folder, grabbed it, and returned to the car. We both got back in and I drove off quickly.

“Was she okay?” I asked him.

He nodded, “Yeah, she seemed fine. Parker, check in once you’re clear.”

I listened as Hardison spoke to Monica, and led her away from Parker’s “dead” body. He hooked her on this even bigger development, and led her to meet with Nate. 

After that she responded, “I’m good, let’s go.” 

I drove around the block and picked her up on a corner away from the crowd, Hardison, and Monica. 

She got in the back seat and grabbed Eliot and I’s shoulders, “that was great! We should do that more often.”

Eliot looked over at me as I smiled a bit in relief, “See? Told ya, she’s fine.”

We rendezvoused at the apartment and listened as Nate spun Monica a story about nerve agents in the water, and how what used to be secret prisons, were actually safehouses for the rich and powerful. Nate gave her a call to action and let her loose. 

We observed as she tried to contact her sources, all of which Hardison artfully manipulated technologically to seem like they confirmed Monica’s fears about the story, even if not directly. It got to the point that we were watching her on the station’s security cameras and she was running around, clearly paranoid out of her mind. 

“Now that’s what I call control,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, we might’ve, uh, pushed too hard,” Nate commented. 

Sophie scoffed, “please.”

Then there was a knock at the door. And that knock belonged to Monica Hunter. We all dashed into the other room before Hardison answered the door. We listened as Monica insisted on getting video footage of the bunkers and took Hardison with her to help get it.

Once they were gone we exited the side room.

“Too much,” Parker commented.

“A little bit,” Eliot added sarcastically, taking a large swig of his beer. 

Nate raced after them to meet them at something that could look like a bunker at the army reserve base. The rest of us monitored from the apartment. Where things took a turn for the worst was when Monica went as far as climbing over the fence into a restricted area and Hardison followed her. This led to both of them being captured.

“Glass half full,” Sophie said once we looked at her, “she really buys the bunker story…”

We listened as Monica and Hardison were separated into interrogation rooms. Hardison tried to talk himself out of it by saying that Monica was taking him back to her place and he was just along for the ride. We heard the officer say hold on before Hardison started speaking to us. 

“Get me out of here,” Hardison demanded.

“Yeah, I’m working on it,” Sophie replied.

“I’m on it,” Parker said, walking out of the side room.

Sophie jumped up to stop her, “No, no, no, you cannot go. You’re dead,” she reminded, “Monica Hunter sees you and the whole con is blown.”

“Right,” she conceded. 

“Damn the con,” Hardison said, “I am a black man caught on an army base with a video camera. I am going to jail forever,” he finished with a squeak. 

“Yeah, look, Nate’s the only one close enough to get you,” Sophie explained. 

“But Nate’s five minutes away and still trying to figure out how he’s gonna walk two prisoners off an army base using an ID that’s already been reported stolen. No, you guys, we’re gonna have to stall,” Nate added. 

“Stall?” Hardison asks in disbelief, before asking, “Y/n, Eliot, get me everything you can on a Lieutenant Abbot. Just do what I taught you.”

I pulled the computer close to me to start typing while Eliot reminded me what to do. Eliot also started to aggravate Hardison in the process.

“Now the http thing comes before the w-w-w dot, right?”

“Eliot!” Hardison whisper-yelled.

“And which one’s the forward slash?” I asked helpfully, typing away easily. 

“It ain’t the time, you two, it ain’t the time.”

“See?” Eliot replied, “It’s not fun when you’re hanging out there in the wind and there’s a dude behind a laptop cracking jokes, is there?”

“I like it when we switch jobs,” Parker comments, happily playing with a gas mask, “It’s exciting.”

We all looked over at her skeptically before I turned back to the laptop to continue my research, with the help of some of Hardison’s software. Eliot and I relayed what we found to Hardison and let him loose to do what he saw fit with the info.

“Sir, I need to know why you’re on this base,” we heard the officer say. 

“Yes.” Hardison replied, “Why am I on this base?”

“I’m asking you.”

“No, I’m asking you,” Hardison insisted, “Why am I on this base? Why am I in this room?”

“So I can ask you questions.”

“Or maybe, it's so I can ask you questions, Lieutenant Kyle Abbot, Social Security 823-24-6270?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to.”

“Maybe you’re not cleared to know. Two disciplinary actions? That one in Germany?” Hardison tsked, “Maybe you’re just too much of a security risk.” There was a moment before Hardison slammed the table, making me jump in my seat, “Did I say you could leave?”

It seemed he had it under some control. Now onto getting Nate in there. 

“Not gonna work,” Nate said. 

“It’s all in the salute, man,” Eliot replied. 

“Just work the stars and bars,” Sophie added, “Nobody wants to look a general in the eye.”

Nate must have come to the checkpoint as he said in his gruff general voice, “Uh, good form soldier, as you were.”

We heard a distant, “clear,” which had me sigh in relief. He was in. There was a minute or two of silence as he made his way to the base before we heard someone speak. 

“Mine appears to be insane.”

“No, not insane,” Nate cut in, “just a reporter. Well congratulations, gentlemen. This base has passed with, uh, flying colors. Well done.”

“Uh, passed what, sir?”

“Have you not been briefed? You were supposed to be briefed. The Department of Defense has decided to, uh, reassure the American people about, uh, the safety of their military bases. So we’ve agreed to cooperate with the network and make a television special, you know, to show off just how effective our security is.”

“They were pretty easy to catch, sir.”

“Well, for you. But in Camp Monroe in Idaho, those two were signing their names on nukes with shiny silver pens.” He chuckled, “turn ‘em loose now and I’ll get ‘em out of your hair.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Alright, let’s go. Sorry to waste your time gentlemen. Very well done there.”

I held my breath, they were so close to getting out. I heard a shake of a pill bottle. 

“Oh, trimethylxanthine, thank you,” we heard Monica say.

“That just slows down the effect of the toxin. Hopefully long enough for you to get the truth out.”

“How did you find us?”

“Are you kidding me? Famous reporter shows up at one of the bunkers, sets off alarms all over the city. We’re gonna be lucky if we get out in one piece, I’ll tell you that.”

“We’ll split up,” Hardison suggests. 

“No,” Monica insisted, but Nate overruled her.

“Yes, your car’s still parked over by the fence. You pick it up and we’ll meet back at the apartment.”

“We’ll gather the evidence and we’ll meet at the studio,” Monica added. 

We listened as they sped off, but it sounded like they got free. 

“Whoo!” I cheered, slapping Eliot’s shoulder who still sat next to me in front of the computer. “Nate I know you can’t talk right now with her there, but I don’t know how you just lied out of your ass so well. In an Army base no less!”

“Ah, he was fine,” Eliot said.

“Well, if it’s a family trait, I don’t think I inherited it.”

“Like I said, it’s just practice.”

“You’ll learn y/n,” Sophie told me, “We’ll teach you.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Don’t have to, you’ve already improved over the last few jobs we’ve done. You’ll be out there grifting in no time,” she insisted. 

I smiled at her thankfully. There wasn’t much time to celebrate though as they were making their way back to the apartment. We packed up everything, our supplies, the photo wall, everything. It left an astonishingly bare apartment, just in time for Monica’s arrival.

“Where did it go? The photos. The maps,” we heard Monica say through Nate’s comm, “Where’s Wade Perkins?” She asked, referring to Hardison. “Thank God, the red file,” she found the only thing left in the room.

That was Eliot and I’s cue to walk in from the side room, dressed in heavy aprons and heavy duty gloves.

“Pardon me,” Eliot said to Monica softly, but it had an edge to it. 

“We were just cleaning up,” I explained, trying to match his tone. 

“We hunt for the truth,” Nate said, bringing the attention to him, “through many dark places. I am a patriot, Ms. Hunter. I’m sorry.” He turned to Eliot, “Earl.”

Monica then sprayed Nate with pepper spray and ran off. I followed her for a few steps before turning back to Nate as he yelled in pain. 

Eliot laughed a bit as he patted his back, “good thing Parker switched that with water.”

“Didn’t. Didn’t switch,” Nate choked out.

“Oh, oh no,” I cringed, starting to smell the spray. “Let’s get that washed out, it's gonna hurt for a bit…”

Once we got Nate as cleaned up as possible, we turned on the TV to watch as Monica humiliated herself on live television. Hardison was there at the station making sure it all went through. She looked psychotic as she told her story and it was a welcome surprise when the police arrived and arrested her. The anchor immediately broke the story of Monica Hunter’s psychotic break as she was being dragged off the set behind her. 

It wasn’t too long after the story aired that we were back in my apartment. We had a laptop propped on the counter showing an interview of our client, happy to have his good name back after Monica Hunter’s fall from grace. I was helping Eliot prep dinner, the whole team there to celebrate. 

“See, Ray was the beginning,” Nate said after the interview ended, “I’m telling you, every person that Hunter slandered is going to get a second chance.”

“Loch Ness Monster,” Parker held up the infamous photo, grilling Eliot on other conspiracy theories. 

“Loch Ness submarine,” Hardison replied.

“No!”

“Scottish waters are cold and deep. It’s the perfect place to test,” Eliot replied, barely looking up from his cutting board. 

“Area 51.”

Hardison and Eliot contradicted each other on that one with Hardison saying no and Eliot, yes. 

“She said Area 51, 51,” Hardison insisted.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot corrected, “False. Area 52.”

“Been there,” Hardison commented. 

“Yup.”

I laughed softly to myself from my own cutting board. 

Eliot heard me, “What, you got an opinion over there, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call her that,” Nate said before sitting next to Sophie. 

I ignored him, replying to Eliot, “No, you would know better than me. Now tell me if these veggies are okay.”

He turned from his cutting board to peer over my shoulder, “cut them just a little bit smaller, then they’ll be perfect.” 

And just like that he was gone, but I could still feel his breath brush my cheek. I blushed and my mind went blank, trying to decipher what he said for a moment before it caught up to the instructions. I shook my head, trying not to think about how it would feel to have him closer. 

I took a deep breath before doing as he asked, because that was something I could do, something I could focus on. 

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @isoldeahlstrom @kniselle @technikerin23

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The authors exude bias when they qualify by saying the network “cannot independently verify” a claim. The phrase is used only once in the article:

The IDF claims Hamas operates out of hospitals, calling it a violation of “the strict prohibition under international law against using medical facilities as shields for military operations.” Hamas denies using hospitals as cover. CNN cannot independently verify either claim.

Lest the “either claim” language fool anyone, such qualifications are designed to cast doubt on allegations, which in this case come from Israel, not denials.

But this is so misleading because it doesn’t matter if CNN can independently verify it or not. Israel has produced abundant evidence for its claim, evidence which has been corroborated by independent witnesses and foreign intelligence agencies. How many times does Israel have to produce drone footage showing, in detail, the exact location of terrorist tunnels underneath hospitals? How many videos does the IDF have to release, or Hamas to release itself, showing Hamas fighters using hospital grounds? How many weapons does Israel have to pull out of MRI machines and incubators? What is the standard of evidence CNN requires?

Compare this to some the claims authors do not qualify by stating they could not independently verify. For one, the casualty figures. The network even cites the “Ministry of Health in Gaza” for the claim that “[a] prominent doctor and his daughter, a human rights lawyer, as well as an international football referee” were among those killed during a 24-hour period. But given that Hamas has been caught labeling its own terrorist fighters as “journalists,” or that multiple UNRWA “teachers” were caught participating in Hamas’s atrocities of October 7, was CNN able to “independently verify” these descriptions and numbers?

If CNN is unable to verify, why doesn’t it engage in some journalism and investigate? Why must Israel’s well-documented allegations be “verified,” but allegations against Israel are allowed to escape such scrutiny?

Impartial Journalism?

What might help explain the double standard is the existence of a conflict of interest for one of the authors. The first name listed in the byline is Al Za’anoun, who is identified alongside the other two authors as “CNN.” But CNN hasn’t been Al Za’anoun’s only gig during the current war. He has also been working for WAFA, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority.

The same PA that openly seeks to co-opt journalism for propaganda.

It would be like CNN hiring a reporter from the Iranian regime’s PressTV to cover the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

Just last year, PA president Mahmoud Abbas’s representative to a conference of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS) told the crowd: “In the eyes of His Honor the president, you are the homeland’s soldiers defending the Palestinian national narrative against the Zionist narrative.” Sure enough, the PJS went on to declare that “the top priority of the Palestinian journalist is loyalty to all the Martyrs, loyalty to our people’s just cause.”

The threat of intimidation isn’t imaginary. Nor is the fact that a journalist also works for a foreign outlet any protection. Several years ago, Associated Press reportedly fired a Palestinian cameraman “at the request of Palestinian police who objected to his support for a fellow journalist” that the PA had jailed. A year later, PA forces beat two Washington Post journalists.

If one of CNN’s journalists depends on keeping an interested party, the PA, satisfied with his reporting, how can readers trust they are receiving accurate, contextualized information? How can CNN assure its audience that Al-Za’anoun’s work on behalf of the PA does not taint his work for CNN?

Bonus: Bad CNN Habits Return

CNN’s bad habit of uncritically airing Hamas casualty figures, without mentioning that the figures come from Hamas, is not the only recurring issue.

The outlet is also, once again, laundering Hamas propaganda under the guise of a “humanitarian organization.” As CAMERA documented in October, the network attributed casualty figures to an “aid organization” called “Save the Children.” But, upon a minimal investigation, it became clear that Save the Children was just repeating figures it got from Hamas.

This time, the network used an organization called “Medical Aid for Palestinians” (MAP) for the claim that, “As of February 14, only 11 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning.”

But based on MAP’s statement that CNN links to, the organization isn’t in a position to know this directly. The statement begins with the words, “Reports from the inside…” and does not indicate anywhere that it has firsthand knowledge of the situation. Instead, based on CNN’s own reporting from a day earlier, the figure appears to come from a Hamas spokesperson, Ashraf Al-Qidra: “Only 11 out of 36 hospitals are even partially functioning inside the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra said last week.”

Yes, the network omitted the Hamas affiliation of the “Ministry of Health” in that article, too.

#cnn #media bias #hamas #gaza #camera #journalism #hamas ministry of health

[mariacallous]

Belarusian Paralympic athlete Alexei Talai was waiting on the platform of Minsk’s main train station as a locomotive glided in and dozens of children from Ukraine’s besieged Donbas region spilled onto the platform, where they were greeted with a bunch of brightly colored balloons. According to reports in state media, their journey from eastern Ukraine to Belarus was organized by Talai’s charity with the personal backing of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, a man who has described himself as “Europe’s last dictator.”

A broadcast on the state-owned City TV about the children’s arrival last September painted it as a feel-good humanitarian deed: The children surrounded Talai’s wheelchair, chanting “Thank you, thank you.” To international legal experts and U.S. government officials, it is potentially a war crime.

Of all the atrocities that Russian forces have been accused of since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year—a list that includes mass graves, torture, and the bombing of hospitals—the systematic deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and the territories it occupies was the subject of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin and a top advisor earlier this year. Ukrainian officials estimate that some 20,000 children have been taken to Russia in what researchers at Yale University have described as a systematic program for the forcible adoption and indoctrination of Ukraine’s children.

While Russia’s role in the deportation of Ukrainian children has been well documented, details have only just begun to emerge of a similar operation in Belarus—details that could expose those involved, including Lukashenko, to war crimes charges.

“I think anyone involved could be charged under the same theories,” said a senior U.S. government official, speaking on background under ground rules set by the Biden administration, noting that the deportation of civilians to Belarus followed a similar “fact pattern” as those to Russia.

The arrival of groups of hundreds of children from eastern Ukraine to Belarus, where they are sent to large recreational camps, has been well documented in the country’s state media, which hews closely to the government’s line. But rights advocates and foreign governments are only just starting to grapple with what happens to the children from there.

“Information about those camps is really in short supply,” said Wayne Jordash, a human rights lawyer who is assisting the Ukrainian government’s war crimes investigations.

Parents themselves have been some of the best sources of information about the deportations, said Kateryna Rashevska, a Ukrainian human rights lawyer who is investigating Belarus’s role. As swaths of Ukrainian territory were liberated in a counteroffensive last year, stories began to emerge of desperate parents traveling to Russia in search of their children. But those taken to Belarus have come from regions that are still under Russian occupation and beyond the reach of investigators.

Pavel Latushka, Belarus’s former minister of culture-turned-opposition figure, has the most detailed public accounting of deportations. By tracking posts on social networks, reports in the state media, and from its own sources, his organization, the National Anti-Crisis Management Group, found evidence that at least 2,100 Ukrainian children were taken to Belarus from occupied territories between September 2022 and May of this year. What they found was evidence of “systematically organized, [large] scale war crimes, led by Lukashenko personally and supported by some individuals and so-called NGOs,” he said in an interview.

In June, Latushka handed over a dossier of information about his findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A spokesperson for the court declined to comment.

When contacted for comment for this article, the charge d’affaires at the Belarusian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Pavel Shidlovsky, responded with a link to a news article in the Belarusian state media in which Lukashenko dismissed concerns about the deportations as “simply ridiculous” and suggested that Ukrainian children were being trafficked to the West to have their organs harvested. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The public face of the deportations is Talai, a Paralympic swimmer, motivational speaker, and strong supporter of the Belarusian regime. According to the website of his eponymous foundation, they began facilitating the transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus as early as August 2021, before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. The move was backed by a decree signed by Lukashenko, according to a statement by the presidential press service. Starting last September, reports of the deportations became more frequent. Among the facilities they have been dispatched to is Dubrava, a large children’s summer camp run by the state-owned fertilizer behemoth Belaruskali, which is already under sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Talai foundation did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

It can take investigators years to tie battlefield atrocities to senior commanders and a country’s leadership, but efforts to transfer Ukrainian children en masse out of the Donbas into Russia and Belarus have been carried out in plain sight and been widely documented on social networks, in the state media, and in remarks by top government officials in both countries, which is likely why it was the subject of the first ICC arrest warrants.

The deportations to Belarus have been funded by the Union State, an economic and political union between Moscow and Minsk, according to statements by a senior official involved. In October, Dmitry Mezentsev, a Russian official who serves as the head of the union, visited the Dubrava camp. “We are participants in their future,” he said during the visit, according to a Russian government newspaper. The Union State had already given tens of millions of rubles to support Talai’s efforts and would continue doing so, he said.

Social media posts by the Talai foundation and reports in the state media describe the children as being drawn from a variety of backgrounds: orphans, children with disabilities and those from impoverished families, and those living in children’s homes. Latushka’s team claims to have identified at least 50 orphans that were among the children taken to Belarus.

The Geneva Conventions, which serve as the backbone of international humanitarian law, provide detailed provisions regarding the treatment and evacuation of children in wartime: Children are to be evacuated to a neutral third country if possible, and written consent by guardians must be secured when they can be found. The deportations to Russia and Belarus are a flagrant violation of those principles, experts say. “It’s difficult for Belarus to assert that it is a neutral country,” Jordash said, as Belarusian territory was used by the Russian military to launch the assault on Kyiv.

In instances where parents have offered written consent, it’s difficult to argue that they have done so of their own free will. “Cities are under siege, and there is a lot of shelling. And when a man with a gun shows up at your house and offers to send your child to a summer camp, it’s hard to say no,” said Katya Pavlevych, a policy advisor on child deportations to the Ukrainian nonprofit Razom. Parents have sent their children to summer camps in Russia for a few weeks in the hopes of offering them some respite from the war without being told that the children would not be returned.

The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit any efforts to change the identity or nationality of children evacuated from war zones. One of the most controversial aspects of Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children has been Moscow’s determination to indoctrinate them, erase their Ukrainian language and culture, and fast-track their Russian citizenship. The smattering of information about the fate of Ukrainian children in Belarus suggests that reeducation efforts may be underway.

An Instagram post by the Talai foundation from last June showed a group of children from the Donbas visiting a unit of the Belarusian security forces that specializes in crowd control. The unit was involved in the violent repression of pro-democracy protests in 2020 after another fraudulent Belarusian election. In an interview last October with Sputnik, the international arm of Russian state media, the head of a Minsk region mining and oil trade union suggested that Ukrainian children from the mining regions of the Donbas were an ideal “target group” to be trained to work in Belarus’ mining industry.

In an interview with Belarusian state TV, Olga Vokova, whose organization “Dolphins” is based in the unrecognized separatist Donetsk People’s Republic and has worked with Talai to bring children from the Donbas to Belarus, described children from newly occupied regions, such as Mariupol in southern Ukraine, as “pre-programmed” for evil. She said that they had to do “everything so as to melt their hearts and show them that we [people from the separatist regions] are not evil.”

Rashevska, the Ukrainian human rights lawyer, said similar efforts were underway in Belarus, as in Russia, to quash their identities.

“In these camps, the national identity of Ukrainian children is eradicated. These children are brainwashed, Russified, militarized,” she said.

[general-klumpp]

DuckTales THEORY: 'New Scroogea' Cliffhanger (S4+)

TLDR:

S3 cliffhanger: discovery of unseen continent, New Scroogea

Whether inhabited by Scrooge wannabees, clones or stans, Webby WILL play a part to bring them together, Donald tagalong

Ma Beagle and Rockerduck are almost certainly the main villains

Ending might seem a bit lackluster and must pave way to S5

If they went this far, S5 would have May and June as the main protagonists while tackling the multiverse.

Hello Duckblr! Although I'm currently working on my own take on a hypothetical Season 4 of DuckTales, I just found out a strange tidbit of information from the artbook. Combine that with already existing speculation online and I have a nearly perfect picture.

Courtesy of violetganache42, That's right. Had DuckTales not been canceled, the cliffhanger would be the discovery of an unseen continent known as New Scroogea. It's been speculated that this could be the location the cast could have originally been planned to fall into.

The question is...what is New Scroogea?? Some believe it's a place where everyone dresses up or acts like Scrooge. Some believe Scrooge will colonise the place. Some believe it's a place where its inhabitants idolise Scrooge. Some even believe it was the result of F.O.W.L. dumping treasures, which could substantiate the defeat of Bradford.

Since it's a common word now that S4 was planned to be Webby's season, she could fit the plot with a few of these examples with New Scroogea inhabitants in mind. Scrooge wannabees, or dopplegangers? Webby can help them while solving an internal conflict within Scrooge, seeing that she, May, and June represent his troublesome side. Scrooge stans? Webby can teach them the proper way to follow in his footsteps. Scrooge colonises? Webby gets Hortense for a word or two about ethics. Donald is 100% our adult protagonist because he has May and June.

While we now understand how Webby will fit as the main protagonist, what about the villains? A better question is, what two villains know about owning a new land, and who may be of interest in taking over a new continent? That's right, Ma Beagle and Rockerduck! Ma Beagle makes perfect sense as there was a comic, 'His Majesty, McDuck' which involved the Beagle Boys trying to take over Killmotor Hill which was declared as a separate country from America. Also, Beagleburg and the fact that she never got her season. Rockerduck because we need to see Rockerduck Estates and there was this gift made for John Hodgman depicting him as a lawyer, perfect to defend Ma Beagle. Other than that...maybe there'd even be a New Scroogean gone rogue...

So...how would the New Scroogea plotline end? I'll be brutally honest, (it's not sour grapes because I found out about this after I started DuckTales MMM) I don't really like it. Why? Because it would destroy all this foreshadowing made earlier teasing us about more important ideas. Poe De Spell? Waddlemeyer? Negaduck? What about characters who need to find a new purpose or peace such as Magica, Manny, Gizmoduck, etc? Unless New Scroogea was kinda affected by the Ramrod or something, I believe these ideas would have to be pushed aside for a fifth season, giving it a lackluster or predictable ending where the New Scroogeans just laugh or swim in gold or something... Considering they had at least 87 more ideas in mind, a fifth season would tackle May and June's pursuit of a social network while going into the multiverse plot teased by the Darkwing characters.

So...yeah...what do y'all think?

#ducktales #scrooge mcduck #webby vanderquack #donald duck #ma beagle #rockerduck #taurus bulba #poe de spell #waddlemeyer #negaduck #may and june duck #ducktales s4 #ducktales season 4

[morallyinept]

Shoot: Orange Coast Magazine, April 28th 2014 Online (Originally appeared in May 1st 2014 Published Issue)

Photographer: Kyle Monk

Interviewer: Pat H Broeske

Grooming: Unconfirmed

Full interview, behind the scenes, outtakes & shoot photographs below. 👇🏻

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

• Original images used in the magazine

• Full interview

The Viper Prince

Orange County school of the arts alumnus Pedro Pascal, auditioned for an uncompromising role on ‘Game of Thrones.’ He got the part. Now will he survive?

Movie outings were a family ritual when young Pedro Pascal lived in Newport Beach. So it was no surprise when the teenage Pascal made “a seamless transition from ‘I want to be Indiana Jones’ to ‘I want to play Indiana Jones.’ ”

His latest transition was equally seamless. The veteran stage and TV actor already was an avid fan of 'Game of Thrones' when he got an audition for the hugely successful HBO medieval fantasy series. Pascal snared the role of Prince Oberyn Martell, aka the Red Viper, debuting last month amid great secrecy and anticipation.

It’s one more sign that the 39-year-old Pascal is much in demand. He recently portrayed an FBI internal-affairs officer on USA Network’s 'Graceland,' now is shooting episodes of CBS’ 'The Mentalist', and is co-starring in the film 'Bloodsucking Bastards'. 

As for 'Thrones,' which he shot last summer in Northern Ireland and Croatia, he’s proving to be a smooth scene-stealer - and not just because his character is an equal-opportunity lover (bedding men and women). What’s ahead for Oberyn? He quips: “An HBO SWAT team will come down on me if I say too much.”

Oberyn Martell is from the land of Dorne. And you?

I was born in Santiago, Chile. But my family left when I was 9 months old. We were given political asylum in Denmark. It was the mid-’70s and my parents were young and liberal. It was a dangerous time, and they were lucky they got out with their lives.

How old were you when you moved to Orange County?

I was 11. I went to middle school in Corona del Mar and to high school in Los Alamitos - so I could attend the Orange County School of the Arts.

You also trained in New York.

Yes, and I lived the typical struggling actor’s life there. I came back to L.A. after attending the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. But mostly I’ve lived in New York.

You’ve done some name changing as an actor. You were Pedro Balmaceda in early TV and stage credits. And, briefly, Alexander Pascal.

Balmaceda is my father’s last name; Pascal is my mom’s last name. After she passed, I took her name. When I started out, I was struggling with not necessarily fitting into what a “Pedro” might look like to some casting directors. There wasn’t the familiarity with the vastness of Latino culture that we now have. But, my name is Pedro. And whether it was going to limit me or give me opportunities, it was something that I had to risk. It was my name. 

You’ve done a lot of episodic TV work: 'Buffy,' 'The Good Wife,' 'C.S.I.,' 'Red Widow.' Do you play a certain type?

I can’t say that I have too identifiable a type. Most times I’m glad I don’t, because I get to play very different characters. There wasn’t anything charming about the lawyer on 'The Good Wife.' He was a pretty sleazy guy, but he was also suited and very clean-cut. I’ve been a military commander in Colombia, a lawyer for the state’s attorney office, and on 'Homeland,' I was majority counsel for the Senate.

And you’re a vampire.

Yes, in 'Bloodsucking Bastards', which is a very broad, gory comedy - sort of 'The Office' meets 'Fright Night'. It’s about corporate office drones taken over by vampires. I’m the corporate takeover guy - and the head vampire.

Do you get to have fangs?

I get to do it all, from wearing fangs to full-on horror. I’m only getting my feet wet in film. I’ve done little parts here and there. This is my first major film role.

'Game of Thrones' is also major. How was the audition process?

They cast out of London. I was in California at the time, and was asked to put myself on tape. A friend of mine hand-held my iPhone while he read the scenes with me. The audition was seen by the show creators, David Benioff and Dan [D.B.] Weiss, who sent this really articulate email asking if I would be willing to record it again with an acting adjustment.

I decided to take the process a bit more seriously at that point and paid somebody to do the audition with proper lighting and with proper sound. [He laughs.] A few weeks after my first audition I found myself in Ireland, shaking hands with the creators of the show and two executives from HBO. I thought they’d brought me over for another audition. Even after a costume fitting and a stunt rehearsal, I still hadn’t understood fully that the part was mine. When the trip was over, I called my agent: “Did I get the part?”

You were quoted as saying Oberyn is a lover and a fighter.

It has more to do with the way he lives his life. He’s all passion. Whatever he feels, he does. He’s uncompromising and he doesn’t care what consequences he may face because of his actions.

The show is famous for its nudity among other things. In the episodes we’ve seen, you’re bare-chested. Are you gonna show even more skin?

The great thing about the character is you can never know what to expect because he’s a man who does what he wants, when he wants. So in one moment, he can start a fight with you, or ask you to go to bed with him, offer you some wine, or smash a fresh bottle against a wall. He flips on a dime. So whether or not we see more skin or blood is totally up for grabs. 

You’ve said your character has a “noble agenda,” seeking revenge for his sister’s death. But in Episode 3, he’s offered the chance to be an advisor to the king, who represents the enemy. How do you explain that?

I think for Oberyn Martell, to get as close to his enemies as possible is nothing but advantageous. But the seduction of power, for anyone, is inevitably dangerous, no matter where a person’s “integrity” exists at the start. That’s the thrilling aspect of the show that keeps everyone on their toes. Because as fantastical as the world is, the characters are all written as human beings, flaws and all.

Will your character return in Season 5?

Oh, I can’t tell you that.

Any plans to visit Europe this summer?

You’re looking for spoilers.

School Days

Pedro Pascal‘s mother helped him apply to the Orange County School of the Arts He auditioned, and made the cut.

Getting There

“My family lived in Newport Beach so I got an interdistrict transfer [to attend the school, which then was in Los Alamitos]. There was a lot of carpooling, a lot of different kids coming from different districts. I remember there was this drop-off point in the parking lot of South Coast Plaza. And I would sit with my parents and wait to be picked up. Once I got my driver’s license, they were so relieved.”

Life at OCSA

“When I was there, the school did not have an independent campus. They had trailers on the grounds of Los Alamitos High and had this abandoned middle school that was close enough to walk to. It was all very makeshift and innocent at the very beginning, which is kind of cool,” says the 1993 graduate, who visited the Santa Ana campus last fall to do an alumni master’s program. “I was so floored by the new facilities - and by the students.”

Favorite Place in O.C.?

“The beach at Little Corona. It’s so tiny, and the tide pools are so beautiful.”

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal interview #pedro pascal photoshoot #pedro pascal magazine #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal shoot #pedro pascal words

[lemissingmask]

[ID: Sketch of Redemption era Hardison and Eliot with Hardison driving the food truck and Eliot a little way behind him in front of the curtain to the back. Hardison is leaning over towards Eliot but looking to the road. Eliot had his left hand pressed to his left ribs, his thumb digging in on that side and his hair is wet and dishevelled. He has blood coming from his forehead, nose and lip. End ID]

-

Art prompt fill for: Broken Ribs

Ficlet below the cut

-

Their mark was exactly the kind of guy who really angered Eliot.

One of a depressingly high number of business owners who cut corners to save money, risked the health of his employees by not bothering to invest in proper protective equipment or safety measures. And, in doing so, had enough money to ensure that none of this ever came back to bite him.

He hired lawyers to dismantle any legal arguments, he blackmailed employees, he bribed officials. Basically all the things an bad bad guy could do to make sure he didn't suffer the consequences of his negligent actions.

After Eliot went undercover in one of the mark's warehouses and Hardison got access to the internal network, they found that most of the wealth that facilitated all of this came from betting massive amounts of money on cage fights between intentionally poorly matched fighters.

The mark found unsuspecting amateurs and pitted them against members of his own professional security, who would draw the fight out just long enough to make it convincing, earning themself a fraction of the pay out.

It was brutal, but it offered an impossibly perfect way to bankrupt the guy.

Their con had centred around positioning Eliot as an untrained fighter, and getting the mark to put him in a fight. Eliot would win, and the mark would lose a lot of money.

Even more money than usual thanks to some carefully applied legal pressure from Harry.

And, while Eliot was in the fight, Parker would break into the mark’s office and get all the documents needed to use as evidence for his breaches of safety standards, blackmail, and bribery.

Straightforward and the sort of thing they’d done in one variation or another hundreds of times before.

Except this time, someone had discovered that Eliot could fight. The crew didn’t know how, but by the time they’d found out, Eliot had already been deliberately hit by a car and left to die in the freezing downpour that had started earlier that day.

The hit and run had knocked Eliot out for no more than a few seconds, and by the time Hardison got to him in the food truck, he was on his feet, glaring at the approaching familiar vehicle, one arm around his torso.

Broken ribs.

Hardison had come to recognise the particular way Eliot held himself when his ribs were broken.

There was also blood tracking down one side of his face, from a cut on his forehead, which probably looked much worse than it was thanks to the rain. The split lip, bruises and bloody nose were so usual on Eliot that Hardison barely took note of them.

It was the ribs that worried him as the hitter joined him in the truck, growling at him to “Go!” when he didn’t immediately start driving, completely failing to comprehend the fact that the delay was caused by a very reasonable concern for his damn safety.

“You know you don’t hafta do this, man,” Hardison said even as he drove as fast as the truck would go towards the fight venue.

“We changing the plan?” Harry asked over the comms, the buzz of voices in the background. He was already in position at the fight.

“No, we’re not changin’ the plan,” Eliot shot back, grunting in pain as Hardison made a turn that forced the hitter to grab the dash for support.

“Didn’t you just get hit by a car?” Harry sounded concerned, which really was the only normal, reasonable reaction to someone being hit by a car.

Parker scoffed, but in the echo that told of the vent she was in, Hardison heard the concern she was either hiding or had yet to identify, “Eliot gets hit by cars all the time.”

Harry still didn't sound convinced, “Okay…so, you’re still fighting this guy? Because he looks pretty big.”

“Yeah, I’m still fightin’ ‘im.”

Hardison gave Eliot a sideways glance, taking note of the posture, the pain in his features.

Definitely more than one rib broken. Left side.

“Just try not to take any hits to the ribs, yeah?” Hardison returned his attention to the road, taking the penultimate junction in their route to the club, “‘Cus I’m telling you now, E. If you go getting a lung punctured and collapsed, I am not about to stick a tube into your chest. That’s nasty!”

“You watch too much TV,” Eliot muttered, nudging Hardison lightly with his nearest elbow.

That contact, albeit brief, said a hell of a lot more than any of the growled words Eliot had offered so far.

It was a reassurance. A promise that Eliot wasn’t being reckless. That he knew he could still win this fight and he could do it without getting himself killed.

“You don’t watch enough,” Hardison argued as the significance of the gesture sank in, and with it a salve to his anxiety.

“Yeah, well,” Eliot replied with an entirely false irritation, “Maybe if you get us to this fight on time, I’ll watch that damn vampire show you keep talkin’ about.”

Hardison threw him a sideways smile, “Promise?”

“What?”

“Promise to watch if we get there on time?” Hardison purposefully slowed the truck, prompting Eliot to growl and nudge him again.

“Fine! Now go!”

Hardison broke into a grin and sped the truck up again, already plotting how to orchestrate enforced recovery time for Eliot, aided by some very addictive classic television.

-

#leverage #leverage redemption #art with silly random fic for context #eliot spencer #alec hardison #whump #cw blood #hit by car

[windona]

Prompting night: Clark and Jaime bonding over being 22 year old superheroes?

A/N: I assume by the prompt you mean My Adventures with Superman and Blue Beetle movie crossover.

"It's just so hard. I tried to get a real job with my college degree, but apparently the only jobs in my town are full lawyer or bust. You'd think they needed paralegals or something," Jaime said.

Superman tilted his head back and laughed. "Yeah, I ended up as an intern. I had a stipend, and potential for advancement, but me and my friend shared a studio for a reason. But hey, I made it to full reporter, so it ended up working out."

"I mean, Jenny did help me get an interview for a job. Not that I'm not qualified, but apparently companies don't list all their jobs online, and many they do specifically because they have a person in mind to fill it, so... connections and networking really helps!" Jaime took a bite from an empanada his mother made him. He offered the box to Superman.

"I feel you. By the way, your suit- it's alien technology, right?"

"Yeah, not Kryptonian though."

"Kryptonian?" Superman tilted his head to the side.

"Yeah, like you are? Khaji Da says you're Kryptonian anyway. House of El, specifically, big Science family."

"Your scarab knows about my home planet?"

#prompting night #Blue Beetle #Superman #Jaime Reyes #Clark Kent #my adventures with superman