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mariacallous · 1 month

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EARLY VOTING in Mariupol began on March 10th, courtesy of armed election brigades who criss-crossed the city in search of participants. Sometimes, mobile ballot boxes were unveiled to the sounds of rousing hits such as Sergei Voitenko’s “My Russia” (Russia! Russia! My Russia! / Great country! Motherland!). Other times, guns did the talking. Those preferring to wait until the official start had a harder job. The locations of polling booths were not advertised ahead of the vote—a provision, officials explained, designed to ensure the safety of organisers. By the time polls closed on the evening of March 15th, the first of the three official ballot days, a stratospheric 69% of the region had already voted. This was all the more remarkable given the absence of accurate voting lists to calculate the number from.

The vote in Mariupol could be written off as a farce, were it not for everything that went before it. The second day of voting came exactly two years after Russian planes dropped bombs on the city’s main theatre while a large number of children were taking shelter inside, killing hundreds of them. Local authorities estimate that at least 22,000 civilians were killed in the city during weeks of bombardment. It may be considerably more. Only 120,000 of a pre-war population of 450,000 remain in Mariupol, plus a similar number of new migrants from Russia and central Asia.

Local sources, whose identities we are withholding for their protection, report that Mariupol has been unusually deserted over the days of the vote. The city still bears obvious war scars, they say. Central streets alternate between ruins and, where houses have been cleared, empty pits. Only collaborators who have proven their worth to the occupying Russian forces have been given homes in the few new-builds, hastily constructed for the cameras on the edge of the city. Access to the city is still tightly controlled, with checkpoints on the roads in and out. Anyone wanting to enter has to get permission at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, 1,000 km away.

The Kremlin has been nonetheless keen for Mariupol to display loyalty. One of the very first acts of the occupying forces—even before the theatre was filled in with concrete in an attempt to contain the stench of rotting corpses—was to wheel in massive video screens showing Vladimir Putin. “They hadn’t even opened the shops or the market, or the hospitals, but they had the big propaganda screens,” one local said. In the run-up to the presidential elections, there was a campaign to encourage locals to take up Russian passports. Its lack of success was perhaps most clearly shown in the decision in December 2023 to allow people to vote using their Ukrainian IDs, a rare example of a state allowing nationals of another one to take part in a presidential election. It is one of many avenues for voting fraud, suggests Mariupol’s elected mayor Vadym Boychenko, now based in Ukrainian-controlled Dnipro.

Solomiia Bobrovska, a member of Ukraine’s parliamentary intelligence committee closely connected to resistance movements, says that Mariupol remains a partisan hotbed. “That’s why they are so strict about the city. They don’t trust locals with anything important.”

The resistance effort can broadly be split between military and civilian wings. Partisan and diversionary activity in the former category is overseen by agencies like the SSO, Ukraine’s special forces, and HUR, its military intelligence agency. The SBU, the domestic intelligence outift, leads on civilian resistance.

Alongside this are other more independent activist groups, like Yellow Ribbon, which says it has 15,000 activists across Ukraine’s occupied territories. The resistance is mostly low-level: printing anti-Putin posters and organising underground Ukrainian flag production. Its social-media channel offers suggestions about how to avoid voting and share information about election organisers with prosecutors. “It’s about giving people support, to show they are not alone,” says “Alex”, a co-founder of the movement. “Our aim is to irritate the hell out of the Kremlin.”

Civil and military representatives are hesitant to discuss the extent of their networks, but it’s clear that their work has become much more difficult since the early days of the war. Many agents have been compromised, hauled off to prison in the best case scenarios. Russia has dispatched tens of thousands of security officers to the occupied territories. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, also in exile, admits the resistance was “losing too many people,” and suggests Ukraine should become more careful. He suggests encouraging locals to vote unless it was safe not to do so; a boycott was unlikely to change anything and could attract dangerous attention, he says. “The Mariupol resistance is different to everywhere else given our history and the level of control. At this stage we need to think about keeping people alive. They are our stake.”

The Ukrainian government, perhaps surprisingly, has not produced a unified position on what its citizens should do: take part in the electoral farce to avoid reprisals, or ignore it. That is partly down to disagreement inside the corridors of power. But it is really because officials find it hard to admit that the liberation of Mariupol now looks remote. For Mr Boychenko, the exiled mayor, who has been criticised for his decision to leave his city in the early days of the war, the focus should be on helping the 200,000 or so survivors now scattered across Ukraine. “We are an evacuated city, a people in exile. But we haven’t disappeared.”

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onthecuterside · 1 year

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Hang on a minute...

So yesterday my little corner of the internet got ugly, and this campaign to cancel a Jikook blogger involves several people that I care about, one of whom is not here to say her piece. This is not just about some differences of opinion - and there are healthy reasons to disagree on everything from how much we analyse and speculate on content, where the lines are on privacy questions, and how best to support BTS. I generally prefer not to give oxygen to toxic behaviour so that it dies a quiet lonely death in its corner, but if we value the community we have here - and I really do - then there are some lines to draw. Here are some that were crossed this week:

Respect. OK, we have strong feelings sometimes, some of us are sassy and use vivid language. But (wow, do I have to say this?) it's not ok to use homophobic or racial slurs. It's not ok to misgender people and use other derogatory language. It's not ok to harass and bully people, and no, blocking people to curate your space is neither of these things.

Lying and making spurious claims. One of the claims made was that 2 bloggers left Tumblr because of a hate campaign against them, instigated by @stormblessed95. I know @serendipitybegins was receiving flack for her numbers theories and she mentioned that's why she was leaving. I haven't gone back to look again at all Storm's post at the time, but even IF she was critical of number theories, she has never directed this to specific people or been hateful about it. I was close to @whysojiminimnida and I can tell you NO ONE KNOWS WHY SHE LEFT. She last posted in late November, including an account of an interaction she had with BTS members, with no receipts. Around the same time Storm answered an ask about rumours in which she was IMPLICITLY critical of this kind of post. A total of 3 comments expressed some concerns, politely, that this was either made up or in breach of privacy. WSJ likely received plenty of critical anons, one of which she answered in her typically unbothered style. Like many comments have mentioned, she was not one to be threatened off her blog. As others mentioned, she had serious health issues. Her last DM to me was early December. We were in the middle of working out the finer design details of a hat I was knitting for her poor chemo-ravaged head. Then I never heard back from her. Trust me when I say that I have tried all legal avenues to find out what happened to her. But for now, I am wearing that damn hat myself. I've called it WSJ's Borahae and it makes me fucking sad that her name is being used in this way right when Hobi leaving for the military is making me sad enough.

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pretty-handsome-boy · 1 year

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Good news!!

(hot scenarios listed below if you want to skip to that)

Content Warning// hunger kink (obviously), fasting, food control, cum, owner/pet, master/servant, BDSM, DDLB pet names, exercise, sex.... you get the idea

Boyfriend has decided to participate in my hunger kink!!! YESSSS I'm so excited to potentially have someone to do this with irl, as this will ensure I actually start doing fasts properly again. I'm unbelievably hyped to get really stuck into this, if this works out this account will get much more active next month.

My ADHD means I find it hard to organize around fasting and to remember that I'm fasting when I'm not actively having hunger pangs, but having someone to help me with timing and gently remind me to starve will make up for those shortfalls.

I've mentioned the kink to him in the past, and he didn't seem interested, but I think he's realized how into it I am and since we're already in a sort of master/pet (or owner/slave) relationship, he seemed very eager to explore more avenues to dominate, train and control me. I told him my fantasies and he was quick to come up with ideas to build on them.

Things we discussed:

Tying me up and taunting me with food between getting fucked

Tying me up to starve and then fucking me while he eats

Going out to a restaurant and having him order loads of food and getting me little to nothing

Doing chores and getting rewarded with food

Or maybe just his cum 😅

Depending on how things go, getting a wireless blood glucose monitor which would be connected to his phone so he could track and optimize things (this one's entirely his idea, I might add. He's a tech guy)

Co-ordinated workouts, together or just watching me and wearing me down (though I think he'll feel that's too mean in practice)

Having him work out more to more easily overpower me in a fasted state. I really want this, he used to be much much stronger than me but in recent years we're more evenly matched... in one way or another, him getting involved in this kink will fix that... but if he gets stronger while I get weaker... 😳

Controlling my diet- I already have a strong preference for chocolate because it satiates hunger really well in the short term but leads to intense blood sugar crashes soon afterwards, and loud growls <3

But I think he's leaning towards implementing larger, more nutritious meals for me instead. I'm not actually sure how we'll be doing this, but Daddy's smart and will always come up with a way to get what he wants ☺️

Either way we'll be taking things slow and steady because he's a really, really good dom and wouldn't want me to be hurt. These are all just ideas we were coming up with to try out. We'll likely be doing our first dominated fast sometime this week or mid-December. I'm very excited! 🥰🥰🥰

#hunger kink #he/him pronouns btw #tummy kink #weight loss kink #nsft #bdsmplay #ropeplay #food mention

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shunsellon · 1 year

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Thank you, darling, for your answer to my request. 😘😘😘😘

Now, I wish some Maruren-7

Shundan-15 and Jesse/Zenet-35

marucho/ren + 7 — sa ngalan ng pag-ibig by december avenue

It’s been days since Marucho last saw Ren. Marucho’s nights are less than fruitful; he spends most of them awake in bed, and his sleep uneasy. When the day’s war efforts are done, it’s Ren’s betrayal that plays over and over again in his head. That Ren is not the one I befriended, Marucho thinks during yet another sleepless night. He lied to me, yes, but he’s also lying to himself. Ren’s also become a constant in his dreams. Sometimes Marucho dreams of the days they spent together, but more often than not he’s plagued by scenarios of them on opposite sides of the battlefield. And even in his dreams, Marucho can't find it in himself to let go of Ren.

dan/shun + 15 — bad blood by taylor swift

Dan was back. Dan was back, and Shun could already feel the migraine he’s bound to have. “Look, I’ve come back to help—” “Help,” Shun repeated, his voice deadpan as he stared down his friend. “You left. You left, after leaving Interspace in a worse state than it was. After nearly killing Anubias, the audience. Leaving without so much as an explanation, not bothering to honor the time we set.” Shun unrelentingly crowded into Dan’s space. “We waited for you. I waited for you. But you left, and you’re not allowed to come back like you’re able to fix everything.”

zenet/jesse + 35 — klwkn by music hero

Zenet can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen the skies. With most of Gundalia’s population living underground, it’s no wonder that only a few are given the opportunity to go above the surface, to see the stars and the satellites that revolve around their planet. Neathia, however… “I don’t think Neathia’s skies can be beaten, darling,” said Jesse from his place next to Zenet. They were laying on the ground with their eyes on the galaxies visible above. The stars and the Neathian moon shone in the sky, and there was nothing the two Gundalians could do but be enthralled by the sight. “And it’s the witness to our love.”

send me a ship/character + a number for a drabble based off of my spotify wrapped no more, please!

#this marinated in my drafts ahgkjdfhk SORRYYYY i was busy #marucho marukura #ren krawler #shun kazami #dan kuso #zenet surrow #jesse glenn #marucho x ren #dan x shun #zenet x jesse #maruren #shundan #queen-jass-blog #answered #ask games

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furbabycomehome · 1 year

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hefty-sized short-haired dark-gray tabby w/ thick black swirl pattern, 11 years old, born 2011, about 10-ish lbs

yes Vaccinated, yes Sterilized, but not microchipped,

LINK to downloadable flyer with all contact information is available in a google doc located in the account header up top and here:

--- PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG OR REPOST THIS POST ANYWHERE ON OR OFF TUMBLR. THANK YOU! --- Please DO NOT be cruel and harass or spam our contact information. Please only call us if you have information on him.

disappeared from: Shasta Circle neighborhood on Verdugo street area on the border of Los Angeles and Glendale (nearby Forest Lawn Cemetary, Glendale and Glassell Park) - California

PLEASE PLEASE check everywhere on your property: under, in, AND behind walls, sheds, storage units, garages and underhouse crawlspaces, or any small crevices a cat can manage to get into. It's Christmas. PLEASE help send our VERY LOVED cat home. We are lost without him.

If you see a cat fitting this description (or any stray domestic animal on your property), please call animal control to turn them over to North Central Animal Shelter on Lacy Street in Los Angeles or your local animal shelter for your area nearest you to be recovered by families, or if possible, please call the family directly to come get them.

Veterinarian office familiar with him: VCA Gateway Animal Hospital in Los Feliz area, Los Angeles. Give the desk our cat’s name - as "patient under another owner."

Listen, our cat bites sometimes, but he is also super affectionate. If you have him, PLEASE don't be cruel to him, don't lock him up or out, don't hit him, don't leave him alone with aggressive kids or animals. If he's too much for you or you can't keep him, do not re-home him. Do not throw him out, do not abandon him. PLEASE TURN HIM OVER TO AN ANIMAL SHELTER NEAREST YOU SO HE CAN BE RECOVERED BY HIS FAMILY OR RELEASE HIM BACK TO THE SHASTA CIRCLE NEIGHBORHOOD AREA. HE IS WANTED AND HE IS LOVED. HELP HIM COME BACK HOME.

Reminder: PLEASE GET YOUR FURBABY MICROCHIPPED! PLEASE REMEMBER if you found a lost or stray domestic animal, there's probably a family missing them. Turn them over to an animal shelter for a lost/found period before adopting them. Help reunite families.

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

Primary E-mail: [email protected]

TWITTER (search under "People" tab) = Name: Furbaby come home // Handle: @FurbabyComeHome // Search E-mail: [email protected] // Website: https://twitter.com/FurbabyComeHome

TUMBLR = Handle: @furbabycomehome // Website: https://www.tumblr.com/furbabycomehome or furbabycomehome.tumblr.com

INSTAGRAM = Name: Furbaby Come Home // Handle: @furbaby_come_home // Search E-mail: [email protected] // Website: https://www.instagram.com/furbaby_come_home/

FACEBOOK = Name: Furbaby Come Home // Search email: [email protected] // Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088519672460

DISCORD ID: furbaby_come_home#9545 https://discord.gg/jB5FsYktVZ - discord server link (please do not join unless you have information. this is just for communication avenues)

#Pawboost #Flyer link #pinned post #bug bug come home #furbaby come home

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reasoningdaily · 1 year

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The Intercept: Police Harass Veteran on Terror Watchlist, Lawsuit Says

Saadiq Long was on his way to a night shift at the transportation company he works at when he saw flashing lights behind his car. Two police cruisers were signaling him to pull over. This would be the third time in just over a month that Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran with no criminal record, had been pulled over without explanation by Oklahoma City police officers. The stops frustrated Long. He suspected he was being targeted.

After wondering again why he’d been pulled over, this time would be different: He would get some answers, however unsettling, about why it was happening.

Long, 52, was initially told by an officer who stopped him that his car had been listed in a gang database. After waiting in his car for roughly 20 minutes, the officer, according to a video that Long made of the incident, came back with a different story. The police officer told Long that his car had come up as a “hit” in a national watchlist database, one that “automatically alerts us that this vehicle is under suspicion for a terrorist watchlist.” The cop said that Long’s presence on the watchlist, rather than any driving-related infraction or accusation of criminality, was why he had been pulled over.

Long is no stranger to harassment by federal authorities. In 2015, he sued the U.S. government over his placement on the Department of Homeland Security’s no-fly list, as well as the larger terrorist watchlist from which that database is built. Eventually, Long was told his name was removed from the no-fly list, but, as the traffic stops in Oklahoma indicate, he has remained on the broader terrorism watchlist. His lawsuit in federal court related to that watchlist is still ongoing.

More immediately, Long is trying to deal with the very local consequences of being on the federal watchlist.

The U.S. government’s terror lists are often thought of as a tool for protecting against foreign national security threats. Yet in Long’s case, his continued presence on the list, which is secret and has no clear avenues for an individual to be delisted, has now resulted in an unending cycle of harassment from local police in his hometown of Oklahoma City, where he lives with his family.

Since the December 30, 2022, stop where he was verbally informed that his car was on the terrorist watchlist, things have gotten much worse for Long. In subsequent stops, he has been pulled over, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a police cruiser. In one incident, Oklahoma City police officers leveled their guns at Long while blaring orders over a loudspeaker instructing Long to exit his vehicle.

Having failed thus far in his case against the federal government, Long is now suing the Oklahoma City Police Department over the traffic stops, as well as their use of the federal terrorist watchlist as a pretext to target his vehicle. (The Oklahoma City Police Department declined to comment on the case.)

“As Saadiq Long drives the roads of his city, the Oklahoma City Police Department has been watching, aiming its vast network of cameras and computers at him repeatedly,” the lawsuit says. “Using a secret, racist list of Muslims that the FBI illegally maintains, officers have repeatedly pulled Saadiq Long over, sometimes at gunpoint, unlawfully arresting him twice in the last two months.”

“Despite the fact that he has never been arrested or charged for any crime, due to his presence on this list, he has lost work licenses, been denied visas, and been prevented from flying on airplanes,” said Gadeir Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing Long. “The officers who are pulling him over are just doing it because their computers are telling them to do so due to his watchlisting status. He is not under investigation for anything, but this secret list is still terrorizing him whether on land or air.”

In 2013, Long was prevented from boarding a flight to Oklahoma from Qatar, where he then resided. A U.S. citizen and Air Force veteran, the denied flight to Qatar was when Long first discovered that he was on the DHS’s no-fly list. Ever since, he has faced detention and other harassment while traveling.

Long sued in 2015 to clear his name from this secret database. In 2020, Homeland Security informed Long that he had been removed from the no-fly list and would not be placed back on absent further information. The government argued in court that the removal of Long’s name from the no-fly list had rendered his claims moot. Yet his removal from the no-fly list has not meant his removal from the broader terrorism watchlisting database, nor from the dire consequences of his status.

Civil liberties advocates, who routinely challenge the constitutionality of the terrorism watchlist in court, have grown increasingly alarmed by the expansion of its use by local law enforcement agencies. In some cases, these local agencies have been tasked with both monitoring individuals assigned to the list and expanding its scope. In 2014, The Intercept published the government’s secret guidance for selecting individuals to the watchlist. Disclosures in a lawsuit from 2017 revealed that the watchlist had grown to 1.2 million people, the majority of whom are believed to be noncitizens and nonresidents of the United States.

Presence on the watchlist can generate numerous problems for those targeted, from harassment and detention while traveling to the type of routine law enforcement threats and harassment Long now faces.

“His experience, unfortunately, is very common for people who are still on watchlists, even if they are not on the no-fly list. It is par for the course for anyone on a watchlist to experience more aggressive traffic stops,” said Naz Ahmed, a staff attorney with the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility project at the City University of New York School of Law. “Officers are instructed not to do anything that gives away that a person they have pulled over is on a watchlist or to carry out warrantless searches. But you can imagine how an officer may react who doesn’t have much training on this subject, and does not see it commonly, when they come across someone in this situation.”

A 2016 report by Yale Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union found that the U.S. government had “drastically expanded a consolidated watchlisting system that includes hundreds of thousands of individuals based on secret evidence.” The report documented how the system was now being used and interpreted by local police forces who were frequently acting upon “potentially erroneous, inaccurate, or outdated information.” Unlike the no-fly list, which has some limited redress processes, the broader terrorism watchlist remains largely opaque and unchallengeable.

“The FBI accepts almost every single ‘nomination’ to its list submitted by anyone,” Long’s lawsuit says. “This is because the FBI uses a standard so low that, based on a string of speculative inferences, any person can be made to qualify.”

Long’s lawyers filed suit against the local police department in Oklahoma City on Thursday, to compel its officers to stop pulling him over based on his watchlisting status. Long is also asking for financial compensation for violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. (The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the suit.)

Despite his recent experiences, Long has continued driving to work, doing errands, and visiting family in Oklahoma City but with increasing trepidation about how his watchlisting status is being interpreted by local police. Some police officers have been apologetic while pulling him over; others have responded aggressively, treating him as a threat, pulling out weapons, and causing him to fear for his life.

“For the past year or two, I noticed that the Oklahoma City police often followed me while driving, though without pulling me over,” said Long. “I got kind of used to it, but just recently, within the last month and a half, that’s when this started turning into something much more serious.”

The most recent incident, when he was pulled over earlier this month by a group of police officers who drew guns on him and ordered him out of his vehicle — an incident that Long also caught on his own dashboard camera — was the most alarming in his recent series of run-ins. A video of the incident shows police officers yelling contradictory instructions at him for several minutes while standing with guns drawn behind his vehicle.

“I was wondering if they were going to make my wife a widow now for something so silly,” Long said, “just for me being on this list, when they themselves don’t even know why I’m on it.”

#Police Harass Veteran on Terror Watchlist #Lawsuit Says

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i-like-yoongi-a-latte · 2 years

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I was tagged by the lovely Siyuan @ambivartence thank you!! 💕

Name: Elena

Sign: Gemini ♊

Height: 168cm / 5'6 the last time I got it measured, idk if I have shrunk lol edit: I swear I wrote 5'6 first but then my brain went bleep and I wrote 6'5???? bruh

Time: 13:34

Birthday: 12th June :]

Favorite band/artist: I have so many and I will forget someone HERE WE GO!!! BTS, Agust D, Stray Kids, Twice, Monsta X, Ateez, One Direction, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, 5 Seconds of Summer, JVG, Cheek, Sunrise Avenue...

Last movie: uhhhhhhhh....... I can’t remember when I’ve last seen a movie? Despicable Me 2 was on the tv one day and I watched a bit so that??? lol

Last show: Peaky Blinders (I just started season 2 and I’m hooked.) I also finished The Heirs couple days ago, it was probably the fourth or fifth time I watched it....

When I created this blog: December 2016 baby!

What I post: It’s very random. Lately I’ve been more inactive but haven’t written it anywhere because I’ve felt like I didn’t need to do that. Moving on, sometimes I write my thoughts here to yell them somewhere! I reblog a lot, nowadays it’s mostly kpop, sometimes 9-1-1 and sometimes hockey and other stuff. To put it simply - I post about what I like.

Other blogs?: Bold of you to assume I had time or enough energy to keep up other blogs + I’d probably mix them up lol. So no, just this one big dear mess of mine <3

Do I get asks?: Rarely, for some ask games mostly and I appreciate every one - I love doing ask games so if you see me reblog one, don’t hesitate to send a question if you’d like! I might take forever to answer but I will one day!! Promise! And a reminder, my ask box is always open for song recs! Or if you want to tell about something you’re a fan of or book recs or what happened to you today etc

Followers: are so cool, and awesome! 💖

Average hours of sleep: So, here’s the thing. Sleep schedule who?? Idk her?? Something between 7-10 hours maybe. I like to think I could keep a sleep schedule but in reality it’s not possible!!

Instruments: I wish I knew how to play something, like piano it would be so cool

What I’m wearing: Oversized black t-shirt and oversized lavender sweatpants, it’s a very comfy outfit

Dream job: Uhm... I have such mixed feelings about everything now so idk, something to do with the law

Dream trip: Norway, especially the Lofoten islands, Switzerland, South Korea

Favorite songs:

Swipe by Itzy

That That (prod. & feat. Suga of BTS) by Psy (sue me it’s a banger)

Run BTS by BTS

Euphoria by BTS (forever favorite)

Dar+ing by Seventeen

Maniac by Stray Kids

Airplane pt. 2 by BTS

More by j-hope

Moonlight by Agust D

People by Agust D

... I have too many the list goes on- wait

Life Goes On by BTS

I like to think I’m funny hit like if you agree <3 (SOMEONE STOP ME)

Tagging: @sepastian-ahoey @firefighter-diaz @diazactually @fangirlinglikealoon @heiskasmiro @suklaakuppikakku @blubblubsano @boyz-4now if you like to, no pressure!! also sorry if you’ve done this recently and I haven’t seen it

#these are so much fun!!!!#tagged #tag game

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midorishinji · 2 months

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Saturnalia

Original work ｜Part I of the "A girl by the sea"｜Also published in Portuguese and on AO3

Some people say December has a smell. It smells like a grandma's home, like sea breeze, like candy, like freshly cut grass, like rain that's about to pour. I’ve never understood this, and I’ve never felt it either: December to me is a dark month, full of penitence. I was never the type of child who was enchanted by Christmas, or who believed in Santa Claus: when I think of that time, I think about being in my dad's car passing under the tunnel of fairy lights that the city always puts up on a particular avenue here; I didn't know why back then, but I loved passing under the thousands of lights so much because my astigmatism made their brightness merge into a single magnanimous blurry entity. I thought this was how angels were supposed to look like.

Despite this, I can never feel happy when this month arrives. When I was still at school, December meant holidays, lonely and monotonous days at home, watching TV while it rained all the time, floating in a bubble of boredom and isolation. After I grew up, I discovered that I can't be left alone for too long with my own thoughts, or I start to feel like “Saturn devouring his son”, the famous painting by Francisco Goya: if I'm not functioning at maximum capacity, I start to cannibalize myself. In December 2017, I cried for two weeks, uninterruptedly, until I became sick with so much melancholy, like a heroine in a Victorian-era novel, delicately wasting away.

I resigned from the horrible job that used to pain me so much, and now I'm bitter about unemployment. It's been productive: I've been writing like I haven't written in many years, the words spilling out of my fingers, story after story; it's a shame that this production cannot sustain my body, only my soul. All of my college classmates have been feeling discouraged about their careers: we were promised a bright future if we had a degree, but each of us is worse off; informality, low salary, unemployment, freelancing, instability, professional portfolio, LinkedIn, I wanna run away from home and go live in a cave so I never have to deal with capitalism again.

I can't say that I'm perishing gracefully today: a more appropriate description would be a roadkill that drags itself across the asphalt, leaving trails of blood and ragged fur behind. And again we return to grotesque analogies and metaphors, like Saturn. December is the month of the Saturnalia festival in Ancient Rome, when masters served their slaves, and social norms were upside down; it was the festival that worshiped the god of time, wealth, renewal and liberation, the god who demands symbolic sacrifices in his name. In astrology, Saturn is a malefic planet that brings disaster, misfortune, loss, sacrifice, delays, and Saturn's return is feared as a time when everything falls apart.

I sympathize a little with the poor thing. I'm a Scorpio — misunderstood by nature — and I'm used to Pluto's phases, destruction as a tool of construction. I sympathize because I have a sensitive soul, and I buy the ugly fruits at the market because I know that no one but me would take them home, because I know what it's like to be a damaged product. I have Saturn in the eleventh house, the House of Blessings; it represents friendships, communities, and fulfilling dreams. Where Saturn is, it makes everything difficult: I have few friends, I can't understand social norms, and it seems that the more I swim, the further from the shore, from the much-desired reward, I get. Sometimes I have the impression that I see my dreams constantly slipping away through my fingers, and the more I fight, the more I struggle, the further away they become.

I think of December as the darker side of Saturnalia, wax figures, candles and masks that were offered in place of human blood. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is in this month that the winter solstice, the Long Night, occurs, when the sun seems to never want to shine again. And even though here in Brazil it's the opposite, the summer solstice when the light is so bright it's blinding, December for me is always a month of crossing the shadow, a journey through the Underworld. Saturn and Pluto are not so different after all: they both rule agriculture and bring fortune. Saturn is unhappiness, punishment, deprivation, but it is also wisdom, stability, persistence, tenacity, recognition; a god with two faces, and one of them is only seen after the ordeal. I know that the Long Night will eventually come to an end, because life is made up of cycles and more cycles, and it’s only a matter of time before I can get back on my feet, before I can feel that the reward is within my reach — even though the umbra seems infinite and impenetrable, I believe that it ends, because it’s in my nature to believe. And while the light hasn't returned, I’ll light a candle and take off my glasses, and let the astigmatism blur my vision so that this small flame can take up my entire field of vision until it becomes my sun.

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #ao3 #original work #original writing #poetry #musings #saturnalia #a girl by the sea #december

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519magazine · 5 months

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maximuswolf · 1 year

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Question around Breville / Sage Precision Brewer shower seal variants

Question around Breville / Sage Precision Brewer shower seal variants I've got the UK Sage branded Precision Brewer with the thermal caraffe and have been getting sometimes weaker coffee than expected. I've tried various preground filter coffee and also find it's weaker than expected when hand grinding with a Normcore V2.I had some fresh roasted Bean Brothers coffee come in today and again it's not that strong. I know plenty give up and go with a Moccamaster or similar but others seem happy with the Precision Brewer and just grind finer so just wanted to make sure I explore all avenues at a fix. I've been brewing with 600ml / 4 cups and tried from 32g to 42g, with a single filter or double filter papers (Filtropa no. 4) and can't seem to quite get filter coffee tasting strong. It's entirely possible I've just frazzled my tastebuds over the years :)I was looking into potentially replacing the seal ring and noticed Sage have two options listed in the UK with the part numbers SP0021707 & SP0026920.My machine currently has what looks like this:https://ift.tt/5GCeaqY from looking at other reviews some have this:https://ift.tt/8HjEKx2 first I thought it was just some people had them installed upside down, but mine doesn't match the second in either orientation.It's possible they just revised it, and I've asked Sage / Breville the question, but just wondered if anyone knew which is the older / newer / better variant please as it's possible their helpdesk won't know the physical differences without me ordering both.The pour over kit where I've seen pictures has three extruding nozzles like the second option above.I've found various posts where people had complained in the past about the coffee grinds in the filter not being fully wet (I don't have that problem at all so far) and just wondering if this was a revision that doesn't get mentioned so much that caused / fixed those sorts of problems.Thanks for any pointers Submitted December 12, 2022 at 11:28AM by revaido https://ift.tt/AwisVtj via /r/Coffee

#IFTTT #reddit

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revolutionarywarhistory · 1 year

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"An officer of the Revolution": The story of Mountjoy Bayly [Part 1]

The Mountjoy Bayly House (also known as the Bayly House, Hiram W. Johnson House, Chaplains Memorial Building, Parkington, and Mott House) located at 122 Maryland Avenue, NE in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Photograph courtesy of Wikimiedia. Mr. Bayly lived in this house while working as a doorkeeper and sergeant-at-arms in the US Senate, building it not before 1812, but sometime between 1817 and 1822. Currently, this is the headquarters of the Fund for Constitutional Government and the Stewart R. Mott Foundation. Previously it was the headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

This post continues the series on Maryland's Extra Regiment, focusing on the postwar lives of certain members of the unit whom information is plentiful about to explain wide-ranging trends. Mountjoy/Montjoy Bayly, whose last name can be spelled Bayley, Baley, Bailey, and Baillie, was not like unit commander Alexander Lawson Smith, who settled in Harford County until his death in 1802. Likely of Scottish origin, Mountjoy immigrated from Virginia, living in Frederick Town, within Frederick County. [1]

Reprinted from my History Hermann WordPress blog.

By the end of the war, in 1783, he had, for the time being, ended his varied military career. He served as an adjutant, and later a captain, in the 7th Maryland Regiment, from December 1776 to September 1778, when he resigned, sending George Washington a letter acknowledging this reality. [2] Within his duties as a captain, he fought at the Battle of Brandywine. On the day of the battle, on September 11, 1777, he led a patrol of Maryland soldiers wearing red coats, with a Quaker and "well-to-do farmer," named Joel Baily, thinking that they were the British and welcomed them heartily as a result. [3] However, Mountjoy soon would be out of commission for many years.

Within the sweltering weather and rough battle of Monmouth, in New Jersey, on June 18, 1778, he "broke a blood vessel" which rendered him "unfit for duty." He remained unable to "do duty until the Spring of 1780," sitting in a Pennsylvania hospital, as he said years later in his federal veterans pension application. [4] While he sat in the hospital, in an "unfortunate disposition," his regiment was ordered south, as he recalls. Even though he was later considered an "invalid," meaning that he had been injured in battle, he was still chosen as a captain in the Extra Regiment, which barely had a mention in his pension, only referenced in passing as the "additional regiment" of the Maryland Line. In later years, after serving in the Extra Regiment, he served as a recruiting officer in Frederick County and as "local city major and commandant of prisoners" in the town of Frederick as captured Hessian private Johann Conrad Döhla described him. [5] He placed people under arrest and oversaw Hessian prisoners, from 1781 to the end of the war. He even held a court-martial, in December 1781, in the town of Frederick since the officers commanding the militia in the county did not have, in his words, "the least Idea of discipline or indeed even distinction."

Mountjoy's life after the war

Fairfax County, Virginia (and surrounding counties) as pictured in Thomas Jeffery's 1755 map. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

One year before the conclusion of the war, his father, William, died. However, Mountjoy still had many siblings and his mother, Mary, surviving him. He had six brothers (Pierce, William, Samuel, Joseph, Tarpley, and Robert), and three sisters (Sarah, Nancy, and Betty). [6] As a result of his father's death he may have inherited his father's land in Virginia, which likely included hundreds upon hundreds of acres. This is buttressed by the fact that Mountjoy was buying deeds to property in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1783 and 1784, along with part of a land agreement in 1782 with his father before his death. While Edward Papenfuse says he was entitled to 200 acres in Allegheny County for his service during the Revolutionary War, no record of his land plot in that county can currently be found. [7] However, Papenfuse may have a valid point in saying that he expanded his land holdings in Frederick County, including 47 acres of confiscated British property, and selling 192 acres between 1785 and 1805.

In 1784, Mountjoy cemented his ties with the Edelin/Edelen (Edelin is used in this article) family, prominent and wealthy within Frederick County, especially manifested in Christopher Edelin, a merchant who had become part of the local government in the county during the Revolutionary War. [8] As it turned out, Mountjoy married Elizabeth Edelin, the daughter of Christopher, with the connections between the two families continuing for years to come. He would have four children with Elizabeth, called by her first name in the rest of this article, named Benjamin, Richard, Eleanor, and Elizabeth. [9] Two land transactions the same year seems to indicate when Mountjoy was married. In September 1784, he paid a Baltimore merchant, Hugh Young, to buy a 450-acre tract known as "Victory" and later sold that same tract to Joseph Smith, who might be the son of the person it was originally surveyed for in 1773: Leonard Smith, when the tract consisted of 468 acres. [10] Since Elizabeth is not included on the first transaction, but is included on the second, this indicates she was possibly married to Mountjoy sometime between September 4 and 25.

Later in the 1780s, as Mountjoy continued to buy and sell land, Elizabeth would become more involved in these transactions, especially when it came to selling land. In December 1785, he bought the land on which his father-in-law, Christpher, previously mentioned, lived, which included a stone house and sat on a street in Frederick Town (present-day Frederick). [11] Not long after, he began his slave ownership, as much as we know. He bought an 19-year-old enslaved Black woman named "Pack" and an unnamed two-year-old enslaved Black female from Christopher. [12] These transactions were not surprising since Christopher would die the following year, 1786.

It would not be until 1787 that Elizabeth would agree with one of her husband's sales. He would sell land to numerous individuals, such as Joseph Young and George Scott, while buying land from Benjamin Dulany, mortgaging land to George Schuertzell and Peter Mantz, a former major of the Maryland Flying Camp, as the Bayly family lived comfortably in Frederick Town. [13] This included one piece of land called Salsbury/Salisbury Plains which was originally surveyed for Christopher in 1774, and consisted of 131 acres. By 1789, there was another change: Mountjoy re-entered the US military in 1789 as a major, the first of his forays back into the armed services. [14]

Mountjoy, the Maryland House of Delegates, the "Whiskey Rebellion," and French prisoners

A 1795 painting reportedly by Frederick Kemmelmeyer titled "The Whiskey Rebellion" which depicts George Washington and his troops near Fort Cumberland, MD before they suppress the revolting farmers in western Pennsylvania. Image is courtesy of Wikimedia.

As a story goes, on June 13, 1791, George Washington ascended a hill in Frederick County and looked over the "beautiful Monocacy Valley." On that day, he was met by a "Cavalcade of Horsemen from Frederick" which included Mountjoy, and Colonel John McPherson, among others. [15] By this point, he had the political bug. While he had served as an auctioneer years earlier in Frederick County, it would not be until the mid-1780s and early 1790s he would serve as a delegate for Frederick County within the Maryland House of Delegates. [16] While serving as a legislator, he voted against creating a college on Maryland's Western shore, supported the prohibition of taxes to help "ministers of the gospel of any denomination," and helped prepare and bring in reports on inhabitants of Frederick Town and County. One year after his last legislative term, he rejoined the military as a brigadier general, serving in part of the Maryland Militia's Ninth Brigade, based in the upper part of Frederick County. [17]

While Mountjoy only served in the armed forces, for the fourth time, from 1794 to 1795, he was involved in a strong assertion of federal power. From 1791 to 1794, angry farmers, which some call "protesters," who declared themselves “Whiskey Boys,” attacked tax collectors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. They did so because of the whiskey tax introduced by Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton, calling, in part, for a more progressive tax code that didn't benefit the well-to-do. [18] Thomas Sim Lee, then the Governor of Maryland, organized state militia and "took an active part in the suppression of the Whisky Insurrection in western Pennsylvania and Maryland." Governor Lee ordered Mountjoy to rally local militia in the area, arm them, place a guard at the arsenal, and instruct another Maryland general, Smith, to raise a force of 800 men to "restore order." [19] By September 21, the rebelling farmers were dispersed, with most of them rounded up and turned over to the civil court system, as Governor Lee triumphantly told Hamilton. Mountjoy also met with Colonel Thomas Sprigg about guarding the "the magazine at Frederick." He wrote two letters about this. The first to Governor Lee, on September 10, with part of this letter describing the political environment in Western Maryland, specifically Washington and Allegheny counties where a "Spirit of disorder" existed, with "actual riots and disturbances":

I have thought it necessary to Send with the Arms &c Ordered to Allegany County a Strong Escort Consisting of one Complete Company. This I conceive will not be thought over cautious when your Excellency takes into View the existing Circumstances, these Arms &c will have to pass through Washington County Where the people are generally unfriendly to the present Views of the Government. Under this Idea of things I conceive it would be imprudent to risque the Supplies which you have Ordered.

Nine days later, Mountjoy wrote him another letter, in which he expanded on what he had said before:

In obedience to those orders, honoring me with the direction of the troops which your Excellency had commanded to rendezvouz at Frederick Town for the purpose of repressing that turbulent spirit which had violated peace & order and seemed to threaten Government itself in the Counties of Frederick Washington and Allegany...For that purpose I marched about 300 Infantry together with 70 horse through Harmans Gap which opens into the County of Washington near the Pennsylvania line, a rout which led me through the midst of those people whose turbulency it was your object to punish and repress. This was done with an intention to apprehend the characters who had been most active in their opposition to Governmt and whose names had been previously furnished to me for that purpose. It was supposed too that the appearance of an Armiment would have a very good effect, and convince those who had lost sight of their duty that Government could send forward a force at any time when necessity required it sufficient to inforce obedience to the Laws. On my arrival into Washington [County] I proceeded to carry into effect my arrangements by despatching the cavalry in quest of the Ringleaders. But upon the first display of the Horse, I found a party from Hagarstown [Hagerstown] had superceded the necessity of any exertion on my part, by having previously brought in those disorderly people to Justice. About the number of twenty [disorderly individuals] have been apprehended, all of which have been admitted to Bail except eight, these have not yet undergone their examination but most of them perhaps all of them will be committed to close Jail, without bail, however this is but opinion. Martin Bear and John Thompson had been examined before my arrival, and although both of them had been considered as notorious offenders they were admitted to Bail and to my great surprize Cols. [Thomas] Sprigg & [Rezin] Davis were their Securities. It is however but proper to add that upon the examination of these two men their was no evidence of their guilt save the general report as I am informed by those who were present [20]

Five years later, in September 1799, a captain in the First Regiment of Artillerists and Engineers, named Staats Morris (not the same as the British general of the same name) wrote to Hamilton about fifty French prisoners held by Mountjoy in Frederick Town. He says that

I have the honor to inform you that Lieut. Dyson returned from Frederick Town last night, having delivered the French prisoners (fifty in number) to Genl. Baily, as will appear by the enclosed receipt. By his report Lieut Newnan’s command is thought necessary as a guard over them. There have been several new cases of the fever at the fort since the date of my last letter; but from the report of the Surgeon and from the change in the weather, I am led to hope none will prove fatal. In my last letter I had the painful task of communicating to you the death of my young Kinsman, Lieut Lawrence Your letter received since containing orders for him (which I took the liberty of opening) has therefore been destroyed...[bottom:] enclosing Mountjoy Bayly’s receipt for fifty French prisoners

The same year, Mountjoy, a literate Presbyterian, planter, and "gentleman," would become a charter member of the Society of Cincinnati, a group of former revolutionary war officers. [21] Specifically, he would be one of the original members of the Society's branch in Maryland.

#american revolution #revolutionary war #maryland #us history #battle of brandywine #1780s #hessians #extra regiment #regiment extra #maryland house of delegates #whiskey rebellion #1790s #society of cincinnati

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ancestorsalive · 2 years

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Francis Dodd and Family standing outside The Union Inn, Wootton, Oswestry in Shropshire

poseSnodrt2 502a54c 20t479u6u2c1e:a58 8lbl113hrf204at3taOcoa ·

This eve's gaze through the window of time takes us to eighteen sixties England, and certainly to a personal favourite photographic collecting avenue-the 'folks and their residence, shop or other establishment' sphere of imagery. Sometimes, images bestow upon us gifts so precious, given their nature of fragility and antiquity, and indeed the great passage of time, that it really is a miraculous occurrence when a little jotting broadens our understanding of the portrait's context, and the life of the folks staring toward the lens. In this half plate (approx 4.24" x 5.5") ambrotype's case, the notations on the reverse of the portrait fill in the blanks that we often become accustomed to accepting. It reads: 'Aunt Dodd & six children/taken December 1861, presented to me by my cousin Emma Dodd/Mary Jane Thomas'. Aunt Dodd and the youngers, greatly ranging in age, and the obligatory establishment canine, stand before the Union Tavern-above the door the sign reads 'Union Tavern, by Francis Dodd, licenced to brew and sell, ale porter and cider by retail, to be drunk on the premises, dealer in tobacco'. In addition to fulfilling the requirements of local and weary traveller patrons, I'd imagine dear Aunt Dodd also served up some hearty home cooked repasts. Aunt Dodd's Union Tavern: what once was... Post scriptum: this ambrotype sold, back in '05, via Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs/Skylight Gallery; its whereabouts are currently undetermined. Source:

The Daguerreian Dandy-Photography of the 19th Century

poseSnodrt2 502a54c 20t479u6u2c1e:a58 8lbl113hrf204at3taOcoa ·

FURTHER POST SCRIPT TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT :

Lucy Meyer-Hubner says: "I've found them on the 1861 census. The pub is registered as "The Union Inn" & the landlord is Francis Dodd (as stated on the sign in the photo). He is living there with his wife, Mary & their 6 children; Emma (14yrs), Edwin (12yrs), Mary (11yrs), Francis (8yrs), Elizabeth (5yrs) & Harriet Ann (3yrs). The pub was in Wootton, Oswestry in Shropshire."

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seogreys · 2 years

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Hash house a go go

HASH HOUSE A GO GO FULL

“One of our busiest times of the day is between 9:30 and noon, when most restaurants have nobody in them,” notes Rees, as customers come in for a leisurely late breakfast or a drink. “It’s been a great program for us.”ĭrinks are so popular at the restaurant that Hash House A Go Go is busy when other restaurants are empty. When you sell one, you sell 20,” Rees said. The Kiwi Watermelon Lemonade sells particularly well now that it’s being served in the chain’s new 20-ounce glasses that are built on a slant so that they look like they’re leaning. The drink is served with a large watermelon wedge and a big straw for $4.95. For that item, kiwi syrup is squeezed into the bottom of a glass and topped with house-made lemonade and fresh-squeezed watermelon juice. The single most popular drink at Hash House A Go Go is the Kiwi Watermelon Lemonade. These specialty drinks cost $6.95, and the regular lattes and mochas are $5.95. Other specialty drinks include the S’mores Mocha, served in a large white coffee cup and topped with caramelized marshmallows and graham crackers, and the Caramel All Over, served cold in a 20-ounce glass and topped with whipped cream and caramel. The Butterscotch Latte is served with a butterscotch candy, and the Cinnamon Roll Latte comes with cinnamon sticks. The glass is placed on a plate that's garnished with more syrup, and sometimes an added accoutrement “which carries the flavor profile from top to bottom,” Rees said.įor example, the Banana Latte is garnished with a quarter banana, still in the skin, that’s caramelized with a blowtorch and placed on the plate. The espresso drinks are layered in a clear Lexington glass and then topped with more syrup. Then steamed two-percent milk is added for a latte, and chocolate milk is added for a mocha. “We do a virtually endless selection of coffee and mochas,” Rees said, simply by adding flavored syrups to a double shot of espresso.

HASH HOUSE A GO GO FULL

Those units have full liquor licenses, but they have maintained the brand's heritage of specialty nonalcoholic beverages with a focus on detail. Rees has since opened four units in Las Vegas, one in Reno, Nev., and most recently, a Chicago location that opened six weeks ago. “So they needed to come up with specialty beverages they could sell without alcohol,” said Jim Rees, the Hash House co-owner and partner who bought from Beardslee the right to open more locations. Hash House A Go Go, a seven-unit casual-dining chain known for its huge portions and over-the-top presentations, had to work extra hard on its beverage menu when founder Andy Beardslee opened the first location in San Diego in 2000: He didn’t have a liquor license. Beverage-only sales rise at restaurants.Customers can pick up orders through a separate entrance, or have food delivered. Once open, the restaurant will serve brunch daily from 8 a.m. Owner and CEO Jim Nyberg says the restaurant will create 75 jobs, with room for 150 diners in the 5,339 square-foot space. The newest location, in the works since February, takes over the former Islands Restaurant location at the Shoppes at Canyon Pointe in Summerlin.īy the middle of December, fans of the massive dishes breakfast favorites the restaurant is known for serving, will be able to dine on oversized servings of flapjacks and waffles, sage fried chicken and waffles, scrambles, and hashes, along with the restaurant’s twisted versions of burgers. After a spring and summer of donating family meals on Fridays out of its original Sahara Avenue location, Hash House A Go Go gets set to open its sixth Las Vegas area location in December.

#Hash house a go go

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fabulouspotatosister · 4 years

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ben&ben delivering vibes again 🥺♥️

#shut up jess #music #audio #did u know they're my go to for doctor who x reader vibes?#them and december avenue sometimes #both their english and tagalog songs!!#sa susunod na habang buhay is another one that i love for doctor who #ben&ben always have a sort of grandness to their music that i love so much #Spotify

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withoneheadlight · 2 years

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(you gotta have) faith

At first, Steve thinks it’s just one of those weird things that happen sometimes.

Brain cacophonies, Carol calls them (“And it’s always my mom and always that tone she uses. Her ‘That-cleavage-is-too-low-Caroline―tone. It’s just. It’s c.r.e.e.p.y”), that thing of suddenly thinking somebody’s calling your name except, when you turn around, you realize it was all in your own head.

It happens to Steve with that commanding voice his father uses to hiss out his name (‘Tomorrow at five. Don’t be late, Ssssteven’ and ‘It’s time you stop behaving like a kid, Ssssteven’ and ‘I said no, Ssssteven. And this is my last word on it’). It makes him jump out of sleep at night, that voice. Swears he can hear it calling sometimes while he’s taking a shower, so he can’t but step out of the cozy warmth and slip on his way to the door to check. So fuck if Carol ain’t right. Goddam creepy. Even creepier when is his late English teacher’s, Mr. Fleishman, and that nasal, high-pitched tone with which he used to blow Steve’s ears up and out of his cloud of self-absorption and that now still haunts him sometimes, like some phantasmagoric retaliation for all those times it was Steve who made his ears blow up trying to convince him into turning his C’s into D’s to, ironically, avoid his father’s hissing.

(Steve’s pretty much run out of luck when it comes to‘Otherworldly things that come back to haunt you’. Wouldn't be that much of a surprise having to add Mr. Fleishman to his inexorably growing list)

But.

It’s neither his father's nor Mr. Fleishman's. Nor is it calling him from the messy insides of his own head.

No-no.

The voice Steve hears. The voice yelling his name. The voice singing from the other side of the façade. Hoarse and grave and a little shaken, almost trailing out of key. The voice that makes Steve get up and go looking for it. That voice sounds, unequivocally, like,

“But what th―?”

“―If I could touch yourrrr―ohhhhhHARRINGTON!”

Billy’s.

Right under his parent’s window. Zig-Zig-Zagging with his feet. Side-to-siding his hips. Indexes drumming along the rhythm of what should probably look like some kind of dance but— doesn’t. Billy’s voice and Billy’s wholeness. Optimistically defying the mid-December frost clouding his breath when he bursts into laughter.

“Holymotherofgod. You’re deaf as a post, Stevie!” he cackles, looking all like he just walked out of one of those ’pieces of clothing you should & shouldn’t wear to avoid stalagmiting in Indiana’ Cosmo top-five’s: ripped-off jeans. Leather jacket. No gloves. No hat. No sense of survival.

He―spins around. Smooth. Smooth. Till. He dead-stops. Stumbles.

Squeals.

“Dwoh-oh-oh!”

Five + one: no sense of self-consciousness.

It’s― Problematically endearing.

“Yeah. No. You can stop yelling. I can perfectly hear―”

“ArE-yOU-SUre-GranPA?”

Billy smiles a curved-all-the-way-up, clownish smile. Lips freezing-red. Eyes bright. Smug. So self-satisfied. Looks stupidly triumphant as the question hits the slatted wall and bounces back, the last vowel rumbling all along the avenue on its way into the dark.

“―you” Steve purses his lips. Rolls his eyes “That's why you came all the way here? To call me deaf on New Year's Eve?”

Billy's expression changes. It’s sudden. Finger-snap quick. Looks at him with that face he always makes (mouth downturned, brows frowning) when he thinks Steve’s just said something stupid. He’s got a bottle of something pink and wobbly and expensive-looking in his left hand and he’s pretty much drunk, if Steve's instincts aren’t failing.

"No" Shakes his head. Takes a swig "Well. Not only"

“Then?”

It's almost imperceptible, but he kind of― shrinks into the visibly scarce protection of his leather jacket, as if trying to retain what little warmth he’s managed to gather, keep it from running away with the cold outside.

Eyes fixed on Steve when he deadpans,

“Went to the party. Didn’t find you in there”

This time, his voice doesn't rumble anywhere. Loses strength instead. Plummets. It’s the opposite kind of power, the one that now carries. Heavy with that something Billy never says, but kind of― implies, sometimes. Sharpens the ends of the words with the unexpectedness of it. And Steve has never been stabbed but he's heard it goes like this: you don't feel anything and then, suddenly, the red is staining.

You don't feel anything and then, violently, in between the gaps of the words, Billy Hargrove has hidden an ‘And I missed you’.

And Steve. He’s more clever than people give him credit for. Definitely more clever than hoping for this being something’s not. But sometimes, Billy goes straight for the heart, and catches him with nothing at hand to stop the bleeding.

Steve can’t tell him Be careful with how you hurt,so he says instead,

“You know me, William” Cool. Unaffected. Not a glimpse of what’s happening inside because Billy’s eyes are on him, searching, observant as they always are. The blue of the sky in-between the storm that’s passed, the storm that’s about to burst. Hungry for detail. And Steve shivers. Because it’s too cold to be only in his pajamas. Because some lies gotta be told to keep something worth keeping “Now and then, it’s good to leave y’all wanting”

Billy scoffs, biting at the inside of his cheeks, lowering his head as he shakes it, damp curls swaying faintly. Draws a curved, trembling line with the tip of his boot along the puddle of water he’s standing into.

“Guess you got it all tried and trued, King Steve. Don’t cha?”

The orangey light of the street lamps whirlpools and glints at the pass of his feet and, for a long moment, he seems captured on the depths of the reflection, captured in the depths of his own head, perhaps, capturing another tiny part of Steve’s heart in the process.

“Anyway” he says, cranking his head back up, shaking his already half-emptied bottle “I’ve got booze so. Are you coming down or what?”

Steve rolls his eyes. The fabric at the elbows of his thin shirt feels damp and cold from the remaining raindrops on the windowshill, and he slides his numbing hands into the opposite sleeve in seek of some warmness.

“In this freezing-ass cold? No shit, man”

Billy’s shoulder quirks up in whaterverness, tongue bulging under his upper lip as he rubs that sharper canine he’s goton the left side.

“Alright―” Takes a long swing. Throat working as the alcohol bubbles up on the inside “―’s up to you”

“But you can come in and―” Steve starts very reasonably saying but Billy,

“WEEEELL―ahguess itwouldBEnice! If-ah-could―”

“Reaaaally?”

Billy winks at him.

“―touch your booOOdy. I know notevery―booody ‘sgot a boody like youAaaaand maY-BE!”

“Billy. It’snot even like that!”

“Ooooh” he rolls his eyes “Then why don’tcha come down here and show me how it goes, Mozart”

“Mo―” Steve takes a deep, deep breath “’Cause you’re outside in the cold. At night. In winter”

Billy holds the bottle in front of his mouth. Uses it as microphone.

“BUT I’VE BROUGHT LIQUID HEAT, DARLING!!” shouts. Spins again. Stumbles again “Uhhhhh-haha” Zig-zags “Tcha-tcha-tcha-tchatcha!” Makes his curls bounce all over as he shakes his head and movesmovesmoves. Wiggles. Slides. Jumps. Makes water spatter. It’s. A sight. Not exactly bad. Not exactly as horribly ridiculous as it should be. Just―a sight.

Pretty much amazing.

“Good God, Hargrove. This is” Steve clears his throat, not really wanting to break the spell but “This. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you dancing”

Because, for all Billy Hargrove never, ever stops moving, he’s a quiet drunk. Calculated movements. Calculated pose. Calculated words. You can still see energy buzzing inside of him like in a plasma ball but, contradictorily, he’s at his best to keep it on a string, hold it back tight.

“Uh-uh-Uh- uhhuhuhuH. I’m gooood!”

Steve’s gotta snort. It’s completely unvoluntary “Yeah. Sure you are, Aster”

And Steve tries and tries and tries to retain his smile but. It’s inevitable. It kind of blooms out of his face. Big and infatuated and You’re gonna be the end of me and sometimes I don’t even careand, the moment he catches sight of it, Billy’s own lights up like in a solar fire. Exultant and happy and―

And. The kind of smile that says,

I’ve got ya.

And Steve knows he shouldn’t feed the predators but. Sometimes (“Oh―but I neeeed some time OFF from that emOtiooon”) they have the most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen and no matter how risky it is, you (“Time to-pick-my-heart upoff the flo-Oor!”). Just can’t hold yourself back.

Because Steve, you see, he‘s got another growing list, still left to decide if it’s more or less supernatural because, the things in there? They too haunt him.

It’s called: ‘things about William fucking Hargrove you shouldn’t find breathtaking but. Do’

“Ok. How drunk are you? And how the hell did you get here?”

Billy does that thing of rising up your arms as in a ‘Who knows?’ kind of gesture, then lets them fall loudly at his sides.

He’s panting. Cheeks flushed pink. Curls damp and frizzy.

And Steve is so, so screwed.

“Oh, I came waaAlking, Stevie. How fucking eh-else?” singsongs “Or ―doyousee-―A.car.here pretty bo-oy? Hu!”

“That’s the thing I like about you, Hargrove” Steve just, gives up. Cackles “You can always make it worst”

“The only thing?” Bright eyes and soft-spoken words and So much worst Steve thinks as Billy points at the empty space in front of him “C’mon. Come here with me”

And Steve. Might. Could. Wants to. It’s the end of the year, after all.

So he sighs. Deep and loud and dramatic.

“Aaaalright. Give me a fuckin’ sec”

He trotters to his room. Puts his new, fluffy robe on. His woolen hat. Takes his scarf in a last minute thought as heading to the door and,

Stops.

There’s a reason, why he didn’t go to the party. A reason that sings out key. Drinks too much at social meetings. Tends to get handsy and affectionate. Dangerous. And last time, Steve made a promise to himself. No more Billy Hargrove and parties. No more pretty boy whispered like a secret in his ear. No more ‘I knew we would be so good together. You and me’. No more ‘I love you, man. Did I ever tell you that? That I love you?’.

No more getting the words, but not the meaning.

But― Billy’s calling him again, loud and insistent, in that way he has Steve doen’t really find unnerving. And it’s the end of the year, after all. All weaknesses be forgiven.

And they’re not a party. Not really.

(Except Billy kind of brought it to his door.

Kind of.

And I missed you)

He shakes his head. Stops fucking thinking and just― rushes down the stairs. Two steps at a time. And the cold, when he opens the door, knocks all the air out of his body.

That, and the way Billy’s looking at him.

“God, Stevie. You always make yourself look so pretty just for me. Now def you look like a Grandpa”

But Billy’s eyes wander all over him, tip to toe and Steve would think he actually looks good if he didn’t know better.

“Don’t be an asshole. It’s a gift. And I’m warm. Unlike some” he glares. And “Here. Lean in”

He holds the scarf in front of him. Waits for Billy to call him a Grandma too.

He doesn’t.

“Thanks,” he says. Eyes searching. Voice soft. As if it’s Steve who tripped him off to the ground, this once. Except it knocks Steve off his feet, too. Billy going soft like this, making it feel like he tamed all his wildness, just for him. Lowering his head so that Steve can put the scarf on his neck, wrap it all around it.

“Don’t thank me” he wears his grin like a shiny armor, but the attacks are breaking in “Now you look like a grandpa, too”

It only takes a smile like the one Billy gives him for Steve to surrender his whole kingdom to him.

“Ok so. Tell me” clears his throat, too many things crammed in there that could get out if he doesn't “What kind of catastrophe made you. Walk. All the way here”

“I do walk to places, Harrington. Way more than you’re implying”

“Nono. Not until tonight. I’m sure this is your first long-distance”

“That you have witnessed” Billy retorts, but he huffs a soft laugh and Steve knows he’s got him, too.

“Does what I don’t witness even exist?” Steve drawls, fake-frowning.

“Here. Asshole” Billy shoves the bottle right into his chest. Only lets it go when Steve’s fingers close around it. Says “C’mon. Chug it!” gesturing upupup with the palm of his hand. Watches him intently. Waits until Steve has taken a swig to say,

To fire, point-blank at him.

“I didn’t want you to be alone on New Year’s Eve”

Catching Steve unharmed, and vulnerable.

So he. Clears his throat. Once. Twice. Hums.

“Is. Uhm. Is this―” He needs to Stop looking at him, Steven, just stop looking at him. Glances down at the pink, delicate, at least thirty-bucks bottle “Where did you get this?”

It’s. Stupid. How unaffected his voice comes out.

“Stole it” Billy says , makes it sound like ‘what else?’

“From―?“

“Caleb’s. Mom? Dad? Dunno. Was in some fancy cabinet. It reminded me of you.”

Steve chokes out a half-broken breath, half laughter “And how’s that?”

Billy quirks his mouth to the side. Takes a step forward. Close. “Well, you know. A pretty drink for a pretty boy” Closer.

And he looks so― soft like this. So stupidly soft. Red nose. Red cheeks. Steve’s scarf wrapped around his neck. Looks even closer than he already is. Reachable. Possible. The most dangerous that he’s ever been. And Steve’s gotta be careful, even in this night, even with all weaknesses forgiven.

(Precisely, because of that)

“Oh. You think I’m” He checks the label “As pretty as ‘craft cherry gin’ so. You stole it”

Billy reaches for the bottle. A movement that lasts for eons. Fingers closing around Steve’s. Feels like one of those times. Those No more-times. Steve’s nose buried on the crook of Billy’s neck. Nuzzling at his jaw. Not cherry but the acid tang of keg beer. Billy’s words turning his chest into a bottled-up tempest. “C’mon, pretty boy. Let’s get out of here. You’re the only thing in this party I give a shit about, anyway”. His voice lowering to a hush, charged with some kind of emotion Steve can´t quite identify, leg perched over Steve’s leg, arm curled tight around his shoulders, both tangled into the drunken mess of the other on somebody’s couch, at somebody’s party.

Truth is. Steve’s not really sure all weakness can be forgiven.

“It’s not only that”

“Oh, there’s more?” Steve snorts, he’s good at this, got years of practice.

“I―” Billy looks straight into his eyes. Hesitates but, doesn’t stop, never, ever really stops “Needed it. The liquid courage”

Steve sucks in as much air as his lungs can take.

It feels like nothing.

“What for?”

And he knows he’s being stupid. He knows but, Billy runs him over anyway, fingers closing tighter, those thunderstorm blue eyes he’s got all Steve can see and, in the darkness of the night, it feels like it ain’t left any other color.

“Ana Porolowski . She asked me to be her midnight kiss and―”

It― Pierces. Cuts. And Steve. He promised. Promised to himself. No more. No more. No more―

Wanting. Longing. Watching Billy sneak upstairs with some girl Steve once upon a time thought he was in love with, back when he still didn’t really know how love feels like.

It hurts. The fucker.

“And?” he gasps, his heart like a fist inside his chest because he’s never getting Billy Hargrove. No matter what it looks like, feels like. No matter how tight his grip is. How charged with meaning are his blue eyes.

No other point of balance left. No other color.

“And then Faith began to play”

Steve sighs. Inhales.

“And it reminded you of me?”

No other feeling except the bleeding, coming out from in between the gaps of the words that will never mean what Steve wants them to.

“It did”

And he’s gotta close his eyes to stop the dreaming.

“So you had to walk almost four miles to come and sing it to me?” He’s been doing this for so long. He’s so good at it. He’s weary. “Must be even more baked than you look, Hargrove”

He blinks his eyes back open as Billy lets go of his hand. Steps back. Swallows.

“I had. I’m not. I thought I had lost it but. I still got it”

And he’s always so nervous, so nervous. Energy bursting out of him. But he stands quietnow.

So quiet.

Which is stupid because,

Billy Hargrove is the unsteady ground beneath his feet. He’s all the times Steve has wanted to close his eyes and just say ‘fuck it’. All the times he's had to open them and remind himself what he stands to lose.

And he so, so tired,

“What?”

Of not being able to stop himself from―

“Faith”

It sounds soft. There’s no way for it not to. Faith. It’s a landmine of a word. The most treacherous kind. The one that always sounds like fingers threading the surface of deceitfully calm waters.

Steve knows a lot about soft-sounding, heart-pulverizing words. They spin around his mind at night, keeping alive feelings that shouldn’t. But Billy’s looking at him and it seems important, so Steve smiles a small smile and puts his stupid hope aside, saying,

“Thought you always carried it with you” pressing his fingers over that spot where he knows it is, has seen it a million times, has wondered a million more.

Has never asked.

“No” Billy reaches out, wraps his hand around Steve’s wrist. Fingertips fitting into the hollows between his bones “Not that kind of faith”

And there’s something. Something. In the way Billy’s gaze is holding onto his under the liquid, golden halo of the streetlamps. The way Billy is― waiting on him. Like he needs Steve to ask, first. Like he needs Steve to want to know what comes after. As if what he’s holding in unsaid between them requires of way more than whatever cherry-flavored liquid courage he can swallow.

And Steve is far from feeling corageous tonight. It took all the strenght he had to not go to that party but, it’s been too late for too long, now, for not giving everything he’s got to Billy Hargrove.

“Billy―” he starts, and it’s barely a step, what takes Billy to get them flushed together, what makes that, surrounded by the clear dampness of the night, the only thing he can feel is that devastation that is Billy Hargrove “Then what, Billy?”

And there's this thing, about Billy most people overlook. He's always hiding in plain sight, covered in tiny mirrors. They reflect and deflect but, they can't truly hide what's underneath, once you know him. And in this mirror maze he is, Steve can’t always find the way out but, sometimes he thinks Billy might help him, if he just reaches out his hand for him.

Maybe there's some faith in that too. And maybe Steve’s right because,

“In believing that, if I was in the right place, at the right time, maybe I’d get the midnight kiss I actually wanted” Billy says, soft and slow and careful, and it feels like he’s―

Taking Steve’s reaching hand. Walking him to the center of the maze. Looking at him with those blue eyes that make disappear any other color and― shattering all his mirrors.

For him.

And Steve doesn’t know what to do. Doesn't know what to think. Doesn’t know what to say. He’s been trying so hard to not want this. To not hope for this. But then Billy’s breath shakes out of him in the middle of the cold, like glass dissolving into the clearest of sands and,

“Fuck!” Billy’s eyes cut apart. He shakes his head “This was the shittiest idea ‘am so sorry I―” He starts to move away and―

“No. No. No” Steve grabs the back of his arm. Holds him in place. And he doesn't know what to do and doesn't know what to think but, he manages at least to capture some breath inside his lungs to gasp “How long till midnight?”

And Billy goes still.

“Ahm” He clears his throat. Checks his clock. And it must hurt, how hard Steve’s fingers are digging on his skin, but he can’t let go “Four-uh. Four minutes”

“Alright,” Steve nods. Feels the cold on his lips as he presses his tongue between them, the distant remnants of cherry gin “Alright”

He’s careful. The most careful he thinks he’s ever been, whith anyone else, with himself, as he wraps his arm around Billy’s waist, guides Billy’s over his shoulders. But it feels like it’s all in vain, because Billy lets out a nervous, trembling laugh, a ‘Fuck, Harrington’ and Steve’s whole body’s shaking and is definetly not for the cold, because there’s no cold, not in this tentative space where their bodies are touching.

“Keep on singing?” He asks. And there are too many things already, hunting Steve in this little town, but in this moment, right here, what he feels for Billy Hargrove is the most terrifying.

“Ok” Billy nods, fast “Ok”

And then they move. Then they dance.

Shaken breaths. Unsteady footsteps. Billy starts to sing. Softly. Slowly. Turns the song into a ballad "Oh, baby, I reconsider my foolish notion” Lulls them as they swing around on the wet asphalt. And Steve leans into the quietness of his voice, into the unreal drift of what is happening, “Well, I need someone to hold me but I'll wait for somethin' more ‘cos I’ve gotta have―”

“It’s a weird song to―, you know” Steve cuts him off “Sing to somebody you want to―”

“Kiss?”

His heart skips a beat, so hard and so sudden that the next feels loud. A full-body rattle.

“Yeah”

"That's. Only because the song is not about you. Well. Not all” Billy breathes out “It's― about me. And you. You’re the something more." and time, it must be playing on them some kind of trick. Because it's impossible that’s not midnight yet. Impossible that Steve’s lips feel like this, like it’s gonna take whole years and not seconds, “You're. You’re the chorus, Steve” like a whole lifetime is gonna pass before he gets to kiss Billy Hargrove.

“You realize that― doesn’t make much sense. Right?” he stutters, and Billy stifles a laugh into the crock of his neck, his breath hot and bristling.

“Makes more than it seems like”

And then, time catches up in the beepbeepbeep of Billy’s watch. The first seconds of midnight. And they’re wrapped into each other, not dancing anymore. The silence of the night loud around them, listening closely to their ragged breaths.

And Steve thinks that maybe Billy needs it to, to reach out and for Steve to―

He buries his face in Billy’s neck and inhales deep, the scent of flowery detergent from his own scarf, the warmth contained under his curls and Billy, Billy, Billy,

"Come on, Hargrove” he whispers, voice thin and unsteady “you've walked almost four miles, haven’t you?"

And then Billy pulls away just a little, just enough to― bring his fingers to Steve's lips, map their shape with his fingertips, as if he's a little scared too, now the illusion of him is scattered on the ground in a million broken pieces and,

They say it hurts, afterwards. But it doesn't. Billy's lips touch his and it must be a clean wound, the kiss piercing its way straight to his heart and then healing inside of it. Billy drags his lips over his, licks his mouth open, reshapes a space for himself inside of Steve, and Steve kisses and kisses and kisses him back, falls into him, lets Billy lead him wherever he wants because Billy’s arms curl around his neck and, again, they’re dancing.

“So—was it this?” he asks when they break apart, his breath a mess, Billy’s lips red and tender and warm as they brush his “The midnight kiss you wanted?”

Billy huffs a short, light laugh, as he hadn't just mortally wounded him, saved him with a kiss right afterwards. Pulls him in by the collar of his robe. Laughs a little higher. Gets them both smiling into each other’s mouth.

“Yeah, pretty boy. It was”

“Well. I’ve got more, loverboy, if you wanna stay” he says, breathless, his heart restless. Comes out as honest and raw as he feels, the words hiding nothing. The please stay left unsaid loud and clear between them “Wouldn't want you to have to walk all the way back. I know how much you hate it”

“Ok, I loathe it. You happy now?” Billy chuckles.

“I am” he breathes out a smile, and Billy kisses him brief and sweet and exhilarating “And I’m glad. That you did it”

Billy nods, their breaths mingling in the cold as they sway, quietly, lightly, as they just hold on into the other and dance. Right here in the middle of Steve’s puddled driveway. In the first few minutes of the new year. And Steve can feel it, hope, rebranching itself out of his chest and faith, in that from now on, he’s gonna get to give Billy all those midnight kisses he really wanted.

“Billy—” he bumps the tip of Billy’s nose with his, catches with his thumb the smile that’s growing towards the side of his mouth, thinks And more. So many more kisses "Just so you know. Me too"

“Uh?”

And they’re too close, he thinks, too amazingly, extraordinarily, spectacularly close, to left anything unsaid so, he says it,

“I missed you”

(happy 2022, fandom. I 💗 you)

#harringrove #i made a tiny rewrite so here it is for ny eve #happy 2022 fandom 🌟🌟💗💗💗 i luv u #xharringrove

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