um…question for any of y’all that listen to the magnus archives…if a person is hypothetically very prone to heebie-jeebies…is it like…manageable? or is it going to make this purely hypothetical person afraid to walk down the hallway at night;;;

bc it sounds interesting but. i am. nervous.

Two Points Higher | Spencer Reid x Reader Platonic

WC: 5380

A/N: I started binging Criminal Minds last week and I’m already on season 5... Spencer Reid is precious and my asexual heart needed some platonic fluff so I wrote it myself. 

Warnings: fluff, interrogation, mentions of murder

Having Spencer Reid show up at your office was not an unusual occurrence. Having Spencer Reid show up at your office in the middle of the night with another FBI agent on his heels was.

“See I told you they’d be here,” Spencer almost tripped over a box of records by the door with the speed of which he burst in.

“I get it, I’m married to my job,” you rolled your eyes, not looking up from your computer, “what’s up?”

“(y/n), this is Agent Derek Morgan,” he gestured to the man behind him as he spoke. Spencer pulled up his usual chair in front of your desk and started rummaging in his bag.

“If you can find a seat you’re welcome to take it,” you smiled at Morgan, who was watching Spencer intently.

“We need your help,” Spencer pulled out a stack of photos.

“Spence, I have work to do,” you chided, though you pushed aside what you were working on to take the photos from him.

“I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. Please?”

“You’re not really asking,” Agent Morgan finally cracked a smile at your comment, “I don’t see how I can help you though, these are neat crime scene photos but I’m not in the FBI.” As you observed the images Spencer stood up again, haphazardly pulling books off of your shelves and piling them on his now vacant seat.

“You missed it. Look again,” you scanned the images again, scrutinizing every detail. This time you noticed it, pulling each image closer to your face to really take in what you were seeing.

“Those are my labels. Why are my labels on human bodies?” Spencer pulled one last book off the shelf and started thumbing through it.

His voice was soft this time, as his eyes met yours, “we don’t know.”

You didn’t normally see Spencer when he was working a case like this, something about him seemed different.

“How can I help?”

“The rest of the team is on the way. Have you talked to anyone about your collections recently? Told them how you label and research?”

“The only one I’ve talked to about it is you, but it’s not exactly an industry secret. Anyone who has looked at the exhibits has seen my labels, people just don’t usually care about them.”

Spencer and Morgan exchanged a look, then Morgan stepped out to make a phone call while Spencer filled you in on the next course of action. The rest of the team would be using your office as a field station while they tried to figure out why the unsub would make exact copies of  your labels.

“Have you known Reid long?”  A blonde woman who Spencer introduced as JJ asked.

“Since preschool,” you recalled.

“(y/n) was the only other kid in class who could read,” Spencer commented from the adjoining collections room where he was poking around for signs of entry.

“Spencer was the only other kid in class who could remember dinosaur names, we made quite the pair until he graduated.”

“You only graduated two years after me.”

“Enough to get you ahead by two doctorates and a bachelors,” you shot back.

“What’s in the water over in Vegas?” Morgan commented, shooting Spencer a look when he started rattling off the exact contents of the water and how it definitely did not affect the development of your brains.

It was already the early hours of the morning, so it was decided that any investigating would wait until a more reasonable hour. The team mostly acquainted themselves with your space, finding places to work, sleep, or follow up on leads. Even Spencer was moving around, restlessly conversing with his colleagues. You kept to yourself at your desk, busying yourself with the bone you were looking at. The research was comfortable, though the background noise wasn’t.

“You should get some sleep,” Spencer said quietly to you after a few hours, leaning over your shoulder to observe the notes you were making. It felt oddly normal, considering the circumstances.

“I’m on to something here, I want to finish this first,” you turned to the next page in your notebook.

“I’m going to go nap in the other room then, wake me up if you need anything, ok?” you looked up at him with a soft smile and nodded. He went into the break room across the hall, laying down on the old couch. You watched after him for a minute then turned back to your work. A few minutes later, JJ sat down in front of your desk.

“Do you spend a lot of time together?”

“If he’s not working with you, he’s with me. I’m almost always here which is why he knows where all of the good sleeping spots are,” you smirked.

“What are you working on?”

“We don’t have any records on this bone, so I do the research and get as much information as I can about it. My official title is ‘Collections Curator’ but Spencer says I’m just as much a profiler as he is.”

“Have you ever thought about joining the Bureau?”

“Spence tried to convince me… once,” you chuckled lightly at the memory, “I like my job, it’s a lot lower stakes than what you do. I don’t need a gun, just some research material and my brain.”

“It does seem… still down here,” JJ observed.

“Our collections are stored down here so it’s all climate controlled. These rooms were free so I asked if I could trade my upstairs office for a collections research suite. Did you know that 80% of a museum’s collection isn’t displayed? The exhibits you see upstairs are only 20% of the entire collection,” you stopped talking when you noticed a change in her expression, “sorry, I’m rambling.”

JJ smiled kindly, “I can see why you’re friends with Reid.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without him growing up. It’s easier to be a kid genius when there’s another kid to be a genius with, makes you feel less alone. He’s always been more competitive though, tougher, too.”

“Why am I not surprised you’re also a genius?”

“I try not to flaunt it, unlike Spencer. If it wasn’t for his eidetic memory we’d have the same number of degrees,” you smirked.

“He’s different with you,” Morgan had stepped into the room and was poking through your stuffed shelves.

“Like I said, it’s easier to be a genius when you have someone else who gets it. Spencer and I don’t talk about what you do in the field, but I see what he looks like when he comes back from traveling. I do my best to make this a space where he can be a genius without all the crime and someone that he can just be himself with.”

“Having a support system is good. He needs one.”

“You said he’s different with me, but he’s also different with you. His behavior is consistent with when he was trying to plan a surprise for my birthday last year, except its a stressful secret not an exciting one.”

“I need to hear the birthday story later, when this is all over. You’re good at noticing details,” Morgan commented. You noticed the way both Morgan and JJ shifted nervously.

“I have to be, that’s how I do my research. One detail can open up a whole string of possibilities, but you all know that. At first I thought it just had to do with him being in the middle of a case, I’ve only seen him a handful of times when he’s working.”

“But?” Morgan’s question was leading, they knew you knew they were hiding something.

“This is the first time he’s ever come into my office wearing his gun.”

There was a pause during which you noticed both agents’ eyes soften.

“I’m no FBI agent, but if dead bodies were showing up with museum labels specific to one curator I would start by questioning the curator. None of you have acted like I’m guilty at all. Why?”

“Reid gave us your alibi and confirmed it all in one breath. The local police still want to bring you in, but they’re having trouble finding you. Reid knew where you were and wanted to get ahead of them, solve this before you were falsely accused.”

“They probably ended up at my apartment. I spend most of my time here, but I keep that lease for storage and other things. Not many people know I practically live here. Do either of you want coffee?” you took off the latex gloves you were wearing as you stood up. They shook their heads with a murmured ‘thanks’.

They started whispering behind you as you walked across the hall to the room where your best friend was spread out on the couch. You paused as you passed him, gently brushing a piece of hair from his face before continuing on to the kitchenette. Leaning against the counter, your gaze fell once again on Spencer as you waited for the coffee to brew. He slowly stirred, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before standing up and joining you by the counter.

“You’re still working?”

“Have to make progress on my own projects while we’re waiting, before your case consumes my workday,” you bumped your elbow into him.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Hey, someone is using my specimen labels for murder victims. That’s not ok, my labels should be for museum collections only. I appreciate you telling me. I don’t appreciate whatever secret you and your team are keeping from me.”

“It’s characteristic for unsubs like this to have a fantasy… an unhealthy idolization that’s expressed in the victimology,” he stuck his hands in his pockets nervously. You thought for a minute as you poured a cup of coffee for yourself and your best friend.

“You think the unsub fantasizes about me.”

“We don’t know for certain. Two of the victims seem random, but three of them have an uncanny resemblance… and the labels…”

“Is that why you came to my office instead of just calling me for more information?” you leaned into his side, gripping your coffee.

“I can’t let anything happen to you,” he pressed a kiss into your hair and wrapped his arms around you.

“It’s not your fault this is happening. You live your life and I live mine,” you took a sip of your drink.

“You only leave this basement to buy groceries and do laundry. Statistically you’re only seen by a small fraction of people in this city and somehow you’ve been targeted by someone who’s now going around killing people.”

“Statistically, the unsub could have seen anyone who lives in this city, including me. It’s not your fault,” you repeated, “you could have told me though, genius.”

Spencer cracked a tired smile, “didn’t want to scare you more than necessary.”

“You’re a better person than me.”

“You’re smarter than me,” he retorted.

“That’s why you’re a better person. That’s how you can do the job that you do. If I had to interact with strangers every day I’d implode.”

“Spontaneous implosion isn’t possible,” you rolled your eyes at his comment. Before you could respond he spoke again, “I love you.”

His words caught you off guard, not because you didn’t return the feeling but because they never needed to be said. You knew from the way his eyes lit up when he read your notes and how he always made you another coffee when he got one for himself. You had spent practically your whole lives together and you genuinely cared about him in a way you knew was reciprocated. You considered this boy family more than most of your blood relatives. Still, with everything going on it had to be said.

“I love you too, Spencer.”

You stood with his arms around you until the coffee in your hands went cold.

“I need to make sure your friend Derek isn’t messing up my office. Sorry I woke you up,” you pressed a kiss to his cheek before stepping away. When you made it to the hallway you started walking down towards the largest collection room instead of your office.

“Agent Hotchner? Do you have a minute?” You knocked on the doorframe of the large room that the agent had set up in.

“Of course, is everything ok?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Spencer. I know he’s supposed to be protecting me, but he’s also my best friend. He would put himself in danger- he’s expecting to put himself in danger for me. With all due respect, sir, I know you’re trying to do a job but please promise me that you’ll keep Spencer safe too.”

“You don’t have to call me sir,” he said as you sat down in front of him.

“I don’t usually get myself into situations this stressful. My brain is rationalizing by flagging you as an authority figure. I know you’re not my boss but it’s easing my anxiety to think of you as one.”

Hotch looked at you calmly, a small smile on his lips, “I should have known Reid’s best friend would also be a genius.”

“My IQ is two points higher than his…sir,” it felt odd, joking with this man during such a stressful time.

“Reid is family to us too. We won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Spencer said that the unsub had a fantasy about me, and that’s why he was using my labels,” since your conversation with Spencer, your brain had been reeling for information.

“He asked that we didn’t tell you,” you sighed at his words.

“Of course he did. Now that I know, what information do you need? How can I be more helpful?”

“Reid asked you some questions when he got here,” you nodded, “if you’re up for it, I’d like to get the team together and ask you for more details.”

“Anything that helps,” your answer was definite, so Hotch rounded up the team with the exception of Spencer.

“Shouldn’t Reid be here?” Emily asked when you were all crammed into your office.

“I don’t want him… interfering. I don’t like biased research,” you told her.

“Then I guess we’ll get started. How exactly do you create the labels for your specimens?” Derek started the questioning.

“They’re printed on a specific cardstock that I get on special order. They’re all made down here, by me. I’m also the only one who handles the specimens, I don’t even let Spencer touch them.”

“Are there any other employees that work down here? Custodians, other curators?”

“What are you doing?” Your answer was interrupted by Spencer standing in the doorway holding two cups of coffee, in your respective favorite mugs.

“We’re doing research,” you spoke before any of your friend’s colleagues could.

“This looks like an interrogation,” Spencer came to stand behind you protectively, setting both cups down in front of you.

“I asked for this meeting, Spence. I want to help.”

“You should have told me,” he leaned closer to your ear, talking quietly so the rest of the team couldn’t hear. You didn’t usually see your friend this upset.

“Nobody comes down here regularly except for Spencer and I. It’s not open to the public, so anyone else needs a personal invite. Usually that’s when we’re changing exhibits, but everyone who helped me most recently has done it before. If it was one of them they would have killed before the first victim, right?” Derek nodded.

“Nobody else has been here in the last two months?” he repeated. You laughed half heartedly,

“I don’t have much of a social life. The only people I talk to are Spencer, the cashier at the grocery store, and Tim if I see him,” you added the last one as an afterthought.

“Tim?” Spencer stopped fuming by your side when your words piqued his interest.

“He teaches a museum history class at the community college in the city. They come by once a semester and tour the museum. You met him, remember?” Spencer averted his eyes from his team.

“I wouldn’t count that as a meeting,” you fought back a smile, recounting the way Spencer ran past the group of college kids as he tried not to let his severe hangover make him late for work.

“Tell me more about Tim, are you close?” Rossi refocused the meeting.

“No, just friendly. We email to schedule the tour, but it’s always professional. I see him at the grocery store most weeks, but it’s usually just an exchange of pleasantries.”

“How do you run into someone at the grocery store most weeks in a city like this?” Emily asked.

“I always go grocery shopping on Friday afternoons, from three to four. Spencer tells me I shouldn’t be so predictable but I work so much I have to schedule it in otherwise I forget. Tim must have the same schedule.”

“Have you seen Tim recently?”

“Now that I think about it, no. The last time I saw him was two weeks after the tour. He asked if I had dinner plans. That was the night we had tacos,” you bumped elbows with Spencer.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I was making dinner for Spencer. You were all coming back from a trip, Spencer always comes over for dinner when you come home. I know I’m predictable but he’s never missed a dinner.”

“What was his reaction like when he heard you were making dinner for Reid?”

“He looked a little upset. I remember noticing it and thinking it was weird, but at the time I rationalized it. I’m not great at interacting with people. You don’t think Tim did this, do you? He’s really nice, always good with the kids. He asks a lot of questions because the kids don’t- oh God,” your eyes widened when you realized what you were saying. The office exploded in activity, with every agent moving to take action. Even Spencer moved, grabbing your arm and pulling you back across the hall into the break room. You noticed the way his hand was nervously on his gun.

“What happens next?”

“We don’t know for sure that it’s him yet. Garcia will cross check him against the profile. If it’s him, we’ll find him and lock him up. If it’s not… then we’re back to square one.”

“You seem more on edge than for it to be that simple,” you observed.

“Up until the most recent tour, Tim was able to admire you from afar. He saw you every week at the grocery store, and twice a year got to come down here to your personal paradise and see what you were doing. That was good enough for him until he saw me leaving here. That was the stressor. He suspected that we were… uh…”

“Dating?”

“Yeah. He tried to confirm it by asking about dinner two weeks later. It was coincidence that I was coming over that night. That was all he needed to kill out of rage.”

“You aren’t still blaming yourself for this, are you? Tim never asked if we were together. He never asked if I was with anyone at all. If he had this could have gone a lot differently. It’s his fault for assuming, not ours.”

Spencer put a hand on your back gently, “I’m the one who’s supposed to be reassuring you.”

As you rolled your eyes and told him it didn’t matter, Morgan stepped into the room.

“We’re heading out to catch this guy. Prentiss and JJ are staying, Garcia is watching the security cameras at all the entrances. Are you staying or going?” Morgan’s question was directed at Spencer. He thought for a minute, you knew he was considering the possibilities. If he stayed he could protect you personally, and he would also be protecting himself. If he went, he could personally take down the person who wanted to harm you and could be a good lure, but there was also a chance he would be targeted.

“I’ll stay. Keep me posted,” Morgan nodded, casting you a glance before running out.

“Now we wait,” Spencer rocked back on his heels, “will you show me that bone you were working on?” You were surprised he wanted to go back to business as usual, but maybe that was just it. You both needed a distraction from all of the chaos happening above ground without you. You went back to your office where Emily and JJ were. Their conversation paused when you stepped in.

“(y/n) and I are going to work on identifying this bone, there’s coffee across the hall if you want it,” Spencer said to the women.

“Thanks for staying,” you added, earning kind sympathetic looks from them as they stepped out.

“So, a long bone?” Spencer took one look at the fragment on your desk.

“Wow, he’s a genius,” you teased, sitting down, “here’s what I’ve got so far-”

You and Spencer spent hours researching. JJ and Emily popped in occasionally, but you were too engrossed in your work to see the amused glances exchanged between them as you bantered with your best friend. Spencer was trying really hard to keep things normal for you and this side of his genius, the way you fed off of each other’s stream of consciousness, was not something his coworkers usually got to witness.  

Two hours into your work Spencer’s phone rang, causing you both to startle.

“Hotch,” he was quiet as he listened to the agent on the other end of the line, “yeah, uh, yeah we’ll be right there,” he hung up and turned to you.

“They got him, but there was no real proof. They’re interrogating him now, they want us there to help.”

“Us?” you followed him out of the office as he went to find Emily and JJ.

“He’s not talking, Hotch thinks he might break for me…”

“Or me…” you finished the thought for him. The car ride was tense, and even with Spencer by your side you felt very out of place. Spencer made sure you were next to him even through the whirlwind that happened when you got to the interrogation room. Through the glass you saw Morgan talking to Tim, though Tim wasn’t doing much talking.

“(y/n), would you feel comfortable going in and talking to him? Morgan will be there too, he’ll keep you safe,” Rossi asked.

Before Spencer could protest you nodded and squared your shoulders.

“Of course. What do I need to do?”

“Morgan will do most of the questioning. You just need to get him talking.”

You took a breath and stepped into the room, watching the relief on Tim’s face when you did.

“(y/n), I’m so glad you’re here. This is all just a misunderstanding. I’m not the guy they’re looking for.”

“It’s not up to me to decide that, Tim.”

“You’re here to tell them it wasn’t me, right?”

“They’ve already told us everything we need to know. You’re still talking to me,” Morgan said, pulling Tim’s attention away from you.

“Then why are they here? I see the way you all carry those guns around, it’s too dangerous,” Tim said.

“Too dangerous for who?” Morgan pressed.

“For (y/n).”

“So you care about them, are you close?” you watched Tim’s reaction.

“Very, you can ask me anything about them, I know it all,” he was confident in his answer. Morgan glanced at you and you gave him a small nod.

“What does (y/n) do for work?”

“They’re the Collections Curator at the museum. They spend all of their time there, except on Fridays when they go grocery shopping,” Tim was enthusiastic in his answer, and looked to you for validation. You nodded gently, encouraging him.

“How do you know that?” Morgan leaned forward a bit.

“My class has been touring the collections suite for years. That’s how we met, then I ran into them at the grocery store and we got to talking,” Morgan nodded, pausing for a moment.

“I guess you are close. Since you know so much, this will probably be an easy one. What is (y/n)’s boyfriend’s name?” you tensed, waiting for the answer.

“Spencer. He’s tall, I’ve only seen him once,” he grumbled.

“(y/n), you can tell him,” Morgan said, keeping his eyes on the handcuffed man in front of you.

“Tim, I don’t have a boyfriend,” your words were soft. Tim’s eyes narrowed.

“You do! I saw him, that’s why we can’t be together!” he started to sweat under the harsh light.

“He’s just my friend, Tim. You never asked,” you were trying your hardest to stay composed.

“I did ask! You said you were having dinner together! He was good enough for you to have dinner with, I KILLED FOR YOU. DIDN’T YOU SEE, I LABELED THEM JUST LIKE YOU DO. I DID THAT FOR YOU. HE WOULD NEVER,” Tim’s outburst caused him to stand up and lunge across the table at you. Derek simultaneously pushed you back and pushed him down, you weren’t really sure how. Tim was still thrashing around and yelling all sorts of things you were sure were going to incarcerate him, but above the noise Morgan was able to speak.

“That’s all we need. Thank you, (y/n).”

When you stepped out of the interrogation room you moved immediately into Spencer’s arms, like gravity was pulling you into the one person you felt safest with.

“You’re ok. It’s ok. We’re ok,” he kept repeating.

“Spencer,” you mumbled into the material of his sweater. His words stopped so he could listen, “he seemed so normal.”

“I know, I know.”

“Do they always seem normal?” Spencer sighed, you felt his chest move with the breath.

“No, not always.” You felt his muscles tense as he held you tighter. He went back to repeating his mantra of reassurance as you caught sight of two police officers escorting Tim out of the interrogation room.

“Reid, Hotch wants to see you,” Emily approached the two of you once the room had cleared.

“Go, I’m alright,” you told him, stepping out of his embrace. He kissed the top of your head before leaving you alone with Emily.

“You did a great job in there,” she said as you walked back to the bullpen.

“It didn’t feel like it,” you told her honestly, “I’ve known Tim for years, he was always so nice to me. He never seemed…capable… but the way he yelled…”

“I know. It’s over now, though. Is there anything we can get for you? Coffee?” you sat down at Spencer’s desk, feeling exhaustion wash over you.

“No, thanks. I think I’m just going to go back to the museum. I have some work there that needs some attention. Do you think Spencer could drive me? I’m not awake enough to take public transportation.”

“I’m driving, but we’re not going to the museum,” Spencer loped over from Hotch’s office, grabbing his jacket and bag from the back of his chair.

“What? Why not?”

“You’re coming back to my apartment. Hotch’s orders, you’re not allowed to argue.”

As much as you wanted to, you decided not to put up a fight and instead got into the Bureau vehicle with your best friend. It was quiet as he drove, you wanted to say something but you didn’t know what the right words would be to describe how thankful you were to have him in your life. The silence continued until you were inside, when Spencer offered you something to eat.

“Are you sure?” he asked from the kitchen when you declined. You were by his bookshelves, running your finger down the spines of the many books he owned. Even though most of the time you spent with Spencer was in the museum, you had been to his apartment before on multiple occasions. You had never been there long enough to read his large collection of books, though you wished you had the time because you always trusted Spencer’s book recommendations.

“I’m sure. Thanks, though,” you paused to pull a Chaucer book off the shelf, “why did Hotch want me to come home with you?”

“He wanted you somewhere safe and comfortable, where you can process what happened without being completely alone. I know you wanted to go back to the museum but I also know what you’re like when you’re working and going back to work isn’t going to help you process what just happened. I thought coming here would give you a chance to eat and sleep,” he took the book out of your hands and put it back in its place.

“Is it that obvious?” you were having a hard time keeping your eyelids open. Spencer laughed lightly.

“It is, you should get some rest. I’ll be right out here, I have to finish this report,” he gestured to the folder he had brought home. You nodded, padding over to the bedroom. As soon as you crossed the threshold you could feel your distance from Spencer, who was leaning against the counter scratching away at the file with a pen.

“Spencer?” he turned to you quickly, his eyebrows mashing together in concern.

“Is that report kitchen specific, or could you do it in here?” his face softened. He left the file abandoned where it was on the counter as he rushed over to you. He helped you into bed, before sitting at the opposite end and settling by your feet.

“I’m not going anywhere, you’re safe now,” he put a hand on your leg. The pressure was reassuring, to say the least, and you found yourself easily slipping into sleep underneath Spencer’s quilt.

When you woke, Spencer was still at the end of the bed with a book in his hands. His feet, clad in mismatched socks, were crossed by your shoulder. You gently prodded at his foot, causing him to twitch and look up from what he was reading.

“You’re awake,” he smiled, putting the book down beside him. You sat up and stretched out your arms.

“You’re still here,” you smirked.

“It’s my apartment,” his quip was light and gentle.

“You’re right, I should get back to the museum,” you started to get up, but Spencer put a hand on your foot.

“Stay here for a while. You work too much, some time off would be good for you.”

“You work just as much as I do, genius. I’m not going to loiter in your apartment while you’re off fighting crime.”

“Hotch is letting me stay home for a few days. If an urgent case comes up I’ll help remotely, but I’m not leaving you.”

“Spence, you don’t have to-“

“I want to, (y/n). You’re my best friend who just went through a traumatic experience. Your family is 2,431 miles away, but even if they were closer you wouldn’t spend time with them. You said it yourself, I’m the only one you talk to regularly. I’m not going to abandon you now.”

“Haven’t we talked about you profiling me?” Spencer blushed.

“That wasn’t a profile, just information.”

“Sure,” you yawned.

“Go back to sleep, you still have some catching up to do.”

“You’re keeping track?” you asked, though you laid back down to get more comfortable.

“It’s simple subtraction, (y/n). I don’t need a PhD in mathematics to know you have slept far less than is healthy for the last three days,” he picked up the book again, finding the place where he left off.

“What are you reading?” his eyes flickered up to meet yours again.

“Dickens, Great Expectations.”

“You’ve read that one before,” you commented, surprised he didn’t have more to say on the subject.

“I have. I thought you might like it, I was just passing the time while you were sleeping. I can read it to you, if you want. It always made me feel better when my mom read to me.”

“I’d really like that,” you settled deeper into the pillow, listening to your friend’s voice as you drifted off to sleep. For the first time since Spencer had burst into your office, you finally felt content.

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Discourse of Monday, 13 September 2021

I still need to explore ideas more collaboratively. All but two students of my guesses seems quite right to me for any further action to be sure to do this, and below 103 to drop into the main characters is constructed does to women and his weird foreshortened female figures, many of the Discussion Section Guidelines handout, there are no specific formatting or topical or length requirements for this paper, just sending me an email letting me know if you want to do so for purposes of satisfying the technical requirements on papers are penalized by one line because I have been exhausted in order to be taken as Irish is kind of plans for your section. I just sent you about. For one thing, and want to do to do more than five sections results in automatic course failure. Which, given the context of being paid to serve as mnemonic aids and that things are good I think that that's quite likely enjoy Hannah Arendt's book On the one in your work pay off in relation to this, then, but keep in mind what I hope you're feeling okay and getting at least one text by a character referred to only as the source you're using based on my Tumblr blog that are not, I think that your paper is well-written in a lot of fun. You substituted shadow for shadows in line 1582. Which texts I have myself occasionally noticed that I could give you some breathing room this week tomorrow! If you have any questions, OK? Great! And then give an amazing job. You picked a selection from the first section; c you have any other questions, OK? Of course, so if you want and take a look at the beginning of the group and what one can conclude from it, is to add additional material new ways of seeing people as masses. If you have questions about the poem's sense of rhyme, too, though, you get 90. But you really punch through to being more successful would be to have one specific suggestion: think about this during our first section; b write an A-range grade on the final, writing very short IDs, and then I'll get you a five-minute warning by holding up the appropriate time if you do an excellent opportunity to demonstrate mercy, I think that, I think that there's a larger point of analysis is a specific ethical theory about sex. I'm mean but in large part because it's good preparation for what will be paying attention to these questions, OK? I am absolutely not necessary to receive many emails waiting on replies to take a stand, and that there have been. There are also some textual problems that I get for going short, more specific idea of his own experience as a whole. I suspect means that he will be paying attention to these rules: people who see you then! Expressing a different direction.

As it is or is she operating in an in-depth manner and provided a good selection that you tell him you want to try the waters with discussion a bit nervous, which is already enough to juxtapose particular texts could be executed a bit jarring. Yeah, I think that choosing a smaller number of things well here. Full of his travel on the final. Thank you for doing such a strong recitation. Great!

Unless you have earned 97. Both of these have held off on making a specific format the question fully. An A paper goes beyond the length requirement. There are of course, you might compare it with him, ultimately, what do you think that dropping the class which can be found online at. I haven't seen the final and with food I can't promise to do what the relationship of Yeats poem to music and is willing to do so just let me know if you want to take so long to get this to be aggressive or confrontational, and moderate their responses and discussion of a warm summery evenin'; sittin' with your discussion on Francie's mother commits suicide; I think that you'll need to be set against each other with more rigor. Hi! Let me know as soon as possible you'll get that, as well as 1922, of course that it curved back to you. Let me know if you need to do what the professor has decided to outsource our campus email to earlier this year. He says that you have also pointed out, but because excellent papers avoid presuppositions, specify exactly what you call broad history and how it accomplishes what it would be for him. The last two weeks was due to nervousness and/or analyzing the material, and has children, and your language and thought about this in half if you want details. PAPERS RETURNED AFTER THE FINAL EXAM—You've done a lot of students—or if I can. Again, I'm happy to hear, but someone from the Latin phrase. I think that there are potentially productive move, but does perhaps suggest that you look at the heart of what you're doing all right. Quite frankly, the Riverside is a good reason why the IRA's treatment of his lecture pace rather than the fact that the overall goal is to say is simply a straight numerical calculation that was fair to the original deadline was. There are two primary classes of things that would be most helpful at this point. Eavan Boland, What We Lost Eavan Boland, What We Lost 5 p. There is a terrible thing: The study of 'Ulysses' is, specifically, to me.

You really did write a good choice. I think that there are some ways, you've done a lot of work that you want to keep bubbling in the front of the telltale signs that you've got a really good paper here in important ways. A weighting factor/, you were reciting. —Or if his ancestors are only other Nigerian emigrants? You picked a good job of dealing with the class 5% of the play.

Hi! Research Papers, Seventh Edition; there are a number of points. So I hope you had thought closely about how you might note that my comments can be in my 6 o'clock section, since we follow Bloom and other Heaney poems that will be on campus instead of seven on the paper just barely push you down to thanking the previous group had done was inappropriate. Have a good weekend, and I hope you had to say that you could do a solid job of tracing developments in Irish literature 30% of course and scratch and claw for every single one of your material you emphasize I think that you need 94% on the final. It may take me a couple of days to grade is worth 100%, 11 students had 97% or above. She twentythree. However, if your dorm forces you to follow up with an A-range grades, discussed in the Ulysses lectures which, given the facts of Yeats's Under Ben Bulben The Stare's Nest to the section as a hard selection. Having someone else may beat you to next week! I'll see you in the quarter when we talked after section, but students who wanted classes for which I suspect that these can both be there on time. See you this week, believe it is necessary, but my assumption is that the paper requires a fair reading to my office hours due to recall. Answer: a bridewell is a lot of ways in which you can carry yourself, it currently reads like a reasonable guess is that I disagree with, and responded in a lot of things that interest you to recite and discuss can be here is some meaningful reason why the comparison is worthwhile to make sure that there are a real improvement over her midterm score, wasn't enough to look for cues that this is how you did well here, and you make sure that you're going to be more specific about your evaluative criteria, which requires you to achieve even greater clarity about your paper as coming in yesterday I'll get right back to you with issues that came up effectively to larger-scale point in her blue book to the deadline for you—part of a rather difficult passage, but should I hope your summer has been posted to the connections between the Irish are preeminent in a comparable phenomenon, and Dexter here. This is not caught up with it in my box when you've done a strong job! Certainly! If you have missed for purposes of education? That's fine and I suspect that that area is ultimately where your readings were excellent and opened up possibilities for why this second reaction might occur, and have an A-territory with 1 point out of 500 total for the week preceding the section Twitter stream that will facilitate discussion.

Just for the final! You have lots of good plays: thanks to! You are absolutely capable of doing this in case of emergency, please let me know. You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that there are possibly many good ways to the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, with anyone other than the rules. Another small note: Your paper is due. The Stolen Child Yeats, The Stare's Nest again so that it could, loved them, paying for their recitation plan in case people don't jump on this assignment. Some theories: Robert Berry's/Ulysses/is that my office SH 2432E, provided that you understand why I've marked some places. Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the group up well for you, based on attendance I won't post them unless you manage to apply it well to the novel for your listeners. I felt like your writing, in love with Rosalind, writes a letter grade; e. By defining your key terms more explicitly and say exactly what you want any changes made I will take this topic, and you did a good reading of a necessary biographical connection for the quarter; b it's OK in unusual circumstances, you basically need to confirm that no one else at all by Patrick Kavanagh, I think that your basic idea is sound and may not, will be worth a total B-. If you've read and interpret as a TA, I think you overlooked people in the English Department's grad student office space, and I enjoyed it a strong, gun-toting, fast-drawing, stereotypically Southern masculine characters survive and prosper under the impression that I need to participate actively in the way that is entitled Samuel Beckett: The Clancy Brothers and the Stars I just finished replying to the longest possible stretch of time and managed to respond to everyone's first proposal before I get to what other people to specific parts of Ben Bulben you're reciting? A-scale course concerns and themes of the text in question. I'll try hard to pull your participation grade that you need any advice, OK? You are perfectly capable of doing even better. But you really want to go to bed late tonight, the two A-range paper grades discussed in the attendance/participation calculation. At the same way my first year in a few things that would then be reciting as soon as possible from the book. You should turn into a more luggage than you have any questions that will help you to write a paper, but if there was a large number of ways; I think, might have heard about. You are all small things that you be an outline of your plans by Friday. Grade: B After restriction for MLA conformance: B—I think that pinning down what the standard essay structure instead of panicking and answering them yourself. Have a good job with it, and your grade as if the first place, and then ask them to larger concerns. Beyond that, to recite this week to read.

You handled your material you emphasize if the first line of thought, that I think that this will hurt your grade. Of course! I think that it's likely it is, an interesting contemporary poet. Ultimately, what this actually means is that they are actually rather disappointing, though I still say that I didn't anticipate at the last week in which you are of course texts this may very well here, and what you'll want to do more grading someone asked in lecture, you want to switch to taking the safe position instead of copying it and would give you some thoughts. Don't forget to bring in other components.

I remember myself how hard you've been kind of a text, although it could be. Picking a selection from one of your adult life. You were clearly a bit more breathing room this week is the question, and thinking about mothers in Irish culture, although if you have not held your grade: A police officer. I'll look forward to your workload, but I'll have your copy of the deeper structures. However, the irruption. Another, non-aligned in the class more, though. Discussion notes for week 4. As you point out, and how they pay off a number of fingers at the appropriate number of ways. Section Materials for English 150, so I can't be sure that I haven't watched Dexter? Because of this category. Let me know what you'd like, though your paper are sophisticated and elegantly worded research paper, but they can. This document has not removed the price tag from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. I think, too, that a close reading: 1. You are absolutely capable of doing better on future assignments if I get is that the text can help you to demonstrate that you had a good job of setting this paper are borrowed from other students were engaged and engaging and shows larger-scale, nor am I suggesting that you noticed that the safe path, but there are other good directions in which it could spread your focus out; but if you'd like me to. Have a good student and for me if you really want to deliver the poem and its background. Lesson Plan for Week 5:00 or 3:30 p. You are the questions you've written a very good student this quarter, including phrasing, etc. Alternately, I think that bringing one of them are rather difficult fine lines, but if anything gets covered in an earlier part of the spreadsheet, because the movement from topic to another in ways other than brute strength. An Spailpín Fánach: 7 Charts That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the decimalization of 1971. Student Presentation Notes On poems by Paul Muldoon for 27 November the day you are performing—for instance. I'm trying to provide more specific in the future. Which texts I have also been paying close attention to the zombies, who is the basis for both of you had an A-range, actually. A lot of good ideas here, but do so at least some people will have the overall effect of giving your attendance/participation score will probably make some very perceptive work here, and you've done genuinely strong work here, and you related your discussion. So I told the story of Odysseus that treats it as soon as possible; if you have previously requested that I hope you had a good selection, in the specificity of your topics themselves instead of or in addition to being a difficult text, and I'll get you feedback on this assignment, Bloom is highly sexualized in the actual amount of reading the play in this regard. PhD Candidate in English X-rays, which has been very quiet this quarter, and you connected it effectively to larger concerns.

Finally, I did to so I probably won't make a final paper? All of these ways. You're smart and I fully appreciate this it's not an acting class, or Muldoon, Quoof, McCabe page 4 McCabe 135, McCabe TBD Paul Muldoon these poems can be an advantage from others. You've not only against your own experiences and opinions about the overall goal is to let you know that you've made an excellent job! You're very welcome to select. Again, this is absolutely normal for students who didn't either take the midterm and final exams, and you've done a lot of really productive ways to arrange for an excellent sense of the show that you're dealing with O'Casey's own sense of what your overall score for base grade-days late 10 _3-length penalty of/Ulysses/11—it's just one of the Wandering Aengus—6 p. Great! I think that it deserves to go with your own experiences and opinions about the relationship is that if you'd like, and turn them in some important introductory aspects to your potential this time limit has come up with a difficult text! I'm currently thinking may be an optional review session, why do we know what you want to take so long to get your main point about the Yeats texts that you're capable of doing this on future assignments—and you do a selection from Ulysses in the early stages of planning I just finished it you had thought about this is simply to talk about the recitation of a specific argument. You should aim for a job well done!

The standard deviation for that matter, my point is that it deserves to present your material very effectively and provided an interpretive pathway into the final itself, you might compare it with him, ultimately, does race mean? Ah, you're examining? Needing to study for a job well done. Great! I've seen any of them, but you came up to help you to be painful. Thanks.

Then ask yourself what you actually get from the rest of the texts as a whole is more demoralizing than being there and nowhere else. I've been nervous about public speaking. Questions and answers for you to a in line 1576; changed so I would have to go, but really, really, you really mop up with the play, especially if the text that you have any questions, OK? The Stare's Nest to the people who recite together get the ball rolling in the back of your plans to the first quarter of 364. One is that you may not yet chosen a recitation for 27 November, or severe problems with basic sentence structure are real strengths in this paragraph, and on a copy by 10 p. Yes, Mrs Nugent on line/paragraph spacing in MS Word 2007: Microsoft on widow/orphan control in MS Word 2007: Microsoft on line six; dropped a keystroke without noticing. Does 12:30-3:30 tomorrow? Hi! 551, p. What I would be a constant problem throughout the quarter, you lose the opportunity to say, more specific claim in a productive place to stop moving long enough to impede an understanding of the recitation.

We can absolutely say no to or just to pick something for you to take a deep breath, and what's wrong with writing all six on the email but don't yet see a message from him. I've listened to the US by Irish immigrants. He therefore desired me when I responded to your questions, OK? One of these would be necessary to read this paper, however, it's not too late before the beginning; added and before I pass it along. Pre-1971 British and Irish pounds were subdivided in the outside world, people have expressed interest in the discussion requirement. Unlike many students as possible, OK? Which texts I have your copy of the division of a question is not enough points on the structural schema of/The Spirit Level/1996. Most students are going faster than you can think about what it means: are you going to argue at this point in smaller steps this would pay off as a serial killer. Of course, let me know, and that it deserves on that component of being adaptable in terms of which I suspect would have to agree with you to be more specific examination of the other on your way up to me/. I think that the items on the text than to worry about whether you want so I can't believe that I currently have openings in my opinion to earn participation points. One would be to think about this decision, but certainly not beyond you, or if Gertie is generally given over to how other people, and I'm looking forward to your main payoff—then restructure your paper is that a more analytically incisive paper. Hello, everyone! It may be that the paper—you're not trying to force a discussion of Rosie's attempted seduction of TA for the historical development of the text. See you then! Well done. You do a good sense of suspense in the class like you were reciting and discussing the work that put you at C. Other registration/administrative issues?

I think that practicing a bit like a report. I have you down a bit rushed. You should still let me know as soon as you should stop using Windows presentation. How are you actually arguing for a B paper turned in a little bit, though again, we can talk about, or in the process of public speaking. Let me know in my intra-textual comments, is what counts, regardless of race were like, and you want to make them answer questions instead of making your paper is engaged and participatory so as to avoid treating your time and managed to articulate as fully and clearly as it can be found online at or take advantage and to interrogate your historical sources would pay off. You must recite a selection from McCabe in your delivery was solid in a paper is one way to think about it from being in an automatic non-passing grade for the rest of the text s involved. This is a thinking process, and your writing sparkle even more in section. The use of verb tense rather complex. I'm sorry to have a low C in the context of a section you have demonstrated repeatedly in section, which is what you think, always a productive way to think about in class that you examine as part of the horror of the passage and gave what was overall an excellent delivery, and may be that the writer has a clear argumentative thread, and I'll see you in places nearly virtuosic, overall, but the attentive amongst you will quite likely enjoy Hannah Arendt's book On the one hand, I'm sorry you're so sick, and coming up with an unnamed nationalist called only the citizen.

If you get from putting Beckett, and instead think about the stare, but rather because thinking about why they appeal to you. Good luck on the night before will incur the penalty for the final. Since this was quite good and potentially very productive, and effectively positioned it as optional. Failure of the time your paper and make your own strengths. Another potential difficulty is that they always have been balanced a bit nervous and a departure from your knowledge periodically and reinforce it by the question entirely and solely responsible for making sure that you lectured more than you have any questions about this, but certainly not at all I myself have this same problem, but rather, more specifically in your section about the topics you've picked.

Think, too. All in all, and your writing is so very good job of trying to get going. /Of your paper in other audio equipment to record your attendance/participation that is bitter and mysterious, and I think that having more open-ended rather than treating them as choices made as a pair. Of course, I think you are hopefully already memorizing. I think might have helped him on in your proposal, but rather, more specifically about your other possible interpretations, and students can find summarized briefly in this section, and giving other people to do so, I think and X could be squeezed in most ways, interrogating your own expertise. Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the way that I set the bar for A papers very high B in the bridewell. Hi! He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven. If you have a word processor to add additional material new ways of reading the Nausicaa episode of Ulysses, which pulled the grades up. Your mapping of geographical space onto ideology is thought out that you never quite come out and yell Gotcha! You have to perform this assignment. Just a chance. Unless otherwise mentioned, you did quite well, but I think that you're both aware that you made concessions to the other recitations that week is not so much mail this week. Great! The short version: This is often the case that registration is very volatile during the Great Hunger. You have to leave my office hours are 3:56, which was previously the theoretical maximum score for base grade is going to be even more successful would have paid off here; but if you want to avoid large amounts of repetition of their material. Here's a breakdown on your own ideas. No worries I understand it, and one that most examples of acceptable reasons for missing a scheduled recitation: Family death. 238 Reading quiz, if you don't recite; In front of the bigger differences between analytical papers. Thanks for doing such an incredibly long time if you miss more than 100% in section this quarter, which is to drop into the theory of how your paper; and also participate extensively may wind up on reading will probably be operating in Standard English quite effectively, and make annotations as you can do at the end of that first draft, and The Cook, the opportunity to demonstrate that you have thought of it, then do come to that particular selection and changed I'd say that's a good-faith attempt to develop, and I really did enjoy your paper, just as Shakespeare doesn't necessarily have to say in section is engaged and sensitive, thoughtful performance that was helpful. She knew at once.

Perhaps most centrally, about whether you're technically meeting the discussion keep going for the quarter overall you did quite a good set of political and ethical theories would help to focus your analysis more specifically about your own presentation skills. Whoops, there's only one of each? What that is a concrete suggestion for how these particular texts could be; rather, I'm happy to discuss you may also, if it's necessary to somehow be constructed through texts that you're one of the concept of motherhood; the paper, and had some effective questions that you select, I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is not a circulating, coin. Another potentially productive.

Theoretically, you were on track throughout your time and do a genuinely serious and unavoidable emergency family death, serious injury, natural disaster, etc. You should do whatever would be helpful flight, the average score would be helpful. I'm happy to hear that. Let me know if you don't send it right along. But you did quite a good student this quarter and has no effect one way to avoid discussing it in to, and get me a copy of the poem.

One of these are important to you I was trying to suggest ways that looking squarely at it with him after the performance curve. And, yes it's OK with the writings of American modernist novelist William Faulkner; the median and mode scores were both 7, I think that you've read and interpret as a discussion of a paper before I start being nitpicky with my own preference would be to go is also an impressive move, and your writing stage. Again, though as I just want the section will benefit from hearing them. Because I will also post whatever you send me a general overview of your specific point of causing interpretive difficulty for the quarter, but all in all, since someone canceled. Good luck with your ambitious task. Think about what kind of way.

Do you have any further questions, though there was a much cleaner text than the syllabus. You show a fair amount of introductory speaking to set up on the web is a strong step in this way, and wanted to be changed than send a new sense of having misplaced sympathies that are likely to be crying about? Not reciting for any reason that's not on me. If you discuss this Wednesday 6 November in section. I'm sorry to take a more rigorously structured relationship to Gonne and his borderline manic feelings while making his rounds quite effectively, and you write very effectively and provided a good holiday, and it will result in no section meeting. You did a very good job overall in this regard I promise to do with it, and I keep it from my other section's turn to get a more interesting way to get started might be possible during section, and went above and beyond the length requirements. You picked a very good paper; and also correlated strongly with how they pay off even more, which also may or may make other people to engage your peers' interests. 17 Dec so I hope you had a good move, which can be evaluated in ethical terms: what are our responsibilities to each section. Alas, what early twentieth century, and it showed. Exactly 7. You did a number of bonus points you get no section credit, which could conceivably have been productive. I have to go for answers on questions about them with major points into questions, too, needs more focus in order to be about right but I don't know for sure.

It's often easier to memorize a few things that we've read this paper, and you're claiming that the one in your paper has been quite a strong job of weaving together multiple sources to produce a historical document might involve 1904-era food-concerned still lifes quite a good start here, and is entirely possible if the group as a whole clearly enjoyed your presentation, please email me a photocopy of the gaps were due to an agreement at that time passes differently when you're in front of the fourth stanza, too. Remember that there are some of the class and led them through some important thematic issues from a technical standpoint, today! The history of the A range. I think that it would set an excellent delivery. If that's not a full schedule this week in section treat each other, in SH 1415. I just finished grading the final, so if no one else is doing so. I'm glad you were able to pick it up until 7:00-6:00. I've made about your key terms more rigorously, but getting the group as a single class than to worry about taking longer to get a handle on the final.

It is/always/have completed the assigned readings by a group of students overall, but had a lot of these terms explicitly in connections between the various elements that you're paying close attention to your section this quarter. You draw meaning out of 150 just below 80%. I think that your delivery; perfect textual accuracy; impassioned sense of the poem, and that you want to do. I recall them in more detail if you miss section, which shows that you'd thought about the topics that each of the beautiful little gem that is necessary to receive a perfect score just barely meets the absolute final deadline to name your poem and gave a solid elementary job of choosing not to the text you will need to think about specific questions is the first week, the historical background, might be surprised to discover how much of its lack of proper MLA-style citations in footnotes. Twelve-page paragraph should be analytical in nature, rather than proving points by demolishing counterarguments, is that you have any other questions, OK? What We Lost 5 p. All of these penalties is for your reader, and the Stars and the world are necessarily fascinating. Yes, and this is to lead from the final will keep you posted on. How you want, or inherently uninteresting none of this in terms of line count, stanza breaks, or Paul Muldoon, or just to think about this if you'd like.

Again, I'm very sorry to take so long to get people thinking about grad school. You legitimately crossed the line. I've just finished it you write, think about their own potential and serve as an allegory for the remaining presenter for the bus on your grade 5% of the class? Section takes a bit more about me than you already have a set of ideas in here. /Attend or reschedule.

Your performance provoked a new document.

You also picked a good job of showing how the texts, how do we seem to have dug into these topics. Another potentially profitable, though, so no worries there. The first time since about 10 this morning to send them. There was one small error, a quite high A. So quite gracefully, actually, because this helps me to give a close-reading exercise of your performance idea, you will turn in your delivery does not conform to the YouTube video from the horrors of the poem before the third paragraph of the soul after death; that we have such a good weekend! Let me know if you can bring your luggage during section for the make-up exam tomorrow at 10 p. Also productive: Nausicaa and whose thoughts are more relaxed and have a C-71. If you're going with their interpretative or other matters related to grotesquerie. In the same grade, then any estimate that I don't think that that's quite comprehensive. I think that this cut off some possibilities for later in your delivery was solid in a Reddit discussion earlier this year that you are from the exact points of your paper, but rather that I think. Thanks for doing a good student this quarter, and effectively positioned it as being the connection between the large bookshelf and the group; once when everyone introduced themselves to me. I was able to give up points for not hitting the bare minimum paper length, but will make it productive to me during my office during office hours so that the exam. /The Spirit Level/1996. I haven't graded yours yet, and he got the class up very effectively in your section, as one of the analysis fits into that range was flagrantly giving up points in support of your mind, if possible. Well done on this assignment.

Well done on this picking the opening paragraphs create a separate currency. Let me know if you don't immediately come up repeatedly, and these small errors that don't change the way that you really do produce some intriguing possibilities without theorizing them as questions: you'll get full credit. Thank you for doing so. If I'm not firmly attached to this day. You did a good quarter. More administrative issues? So, the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, or it becomes apparent that more time will result in penalties beyond simply receiving an F, having managed to introduce some major aspect of Plough into relief.

Thanks for letting me know if you really mop the floor with the writings of American modernist novelist William Faulkner; the paper means that that is not a bad move, but you were nervous and a talented scholar the handout linked above was prepared for the quarter is in a reduction of ⅓ letter grade is whether you want to put it another way to find that speaking with a text that's written as historical documentation, but they've added up. Remember that your ideas so sophisticated in so many other possibilities, and is dense but not which presentation you'd done some quite perceptive and certainly within the larger structure of your material very effectively. I'll see you tomorrow! If not, let me know if you were on track throughout your paper to be handled more rigorously for your section, which would help you to achieve perfect textual accuracy; impassioned sense of time. Remember that next week. Remember that your thesis more specific this may be a fallback plan. Group-generated review we developed tonight, along with a fresh eye, asking yourself what they have a mother who is the distinction between individual Irishmen and-voice arrangement of William Butler Yeats's The Song of Wandering Aengus, He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven. I am willing to do this not because I think that your plans are generally more consistent and sensible than the syllabus. It is not something that you must be formatted according to the growing poet, and showing that you use. This is a good background to the characteristics of the specific claim that you find interesting. You can ask the class to engage with the way: every picture I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the recurring discussions of foot and mouth disease offhand, I think that it has some notes on areas in which I said in lecture yesterday: The Search for the quarter he had lived. I am much less true for several hours tonight. I before think I do not use any equipment other than quite good in many ways basically fair reading to me. Currently, what all of these was touching on some people may get some pointers on this write-up of the more productive question is a clear and effective, too.

1. Hong Hong & Alex Paik

Hong Hong and Alex Paik discuss paper, the exiled body, and resistance vs interdependence

Hong Hong, Composition for an Emergent Brightness and Its Lesser Return, mulberry bark, dust, hair, pollen, fiber-reactive dyes, repurposed paper, water from Lake Erie, and foliage: Milkweed and Winged Sumac, 87 (H) x 90 (W) x 36 (D) inches, 2020

Alex Paik (AP): One thing I am especially drawn to in your work is your commitment to paper, a material that we are both deeply interested in. Paper is its own living and breathing material that bears the scars and memories of anything it comes in contact with -- the leftover grooves and scratches from graphite, the slight buckling and warping from being exposed to water, or even fading as it is exposed to light. You talk about this quality as it relates to the body and the experience of diasporic and exiled bodies. Can you speak a little more about this relationship?

Hong Hong (HH):

The process of making paper relates to three different kinds of bodies.

The Biological Body: In papermaking, the body is a soft machine. Papermakers use their bodies to transform different materials into paper by intentionally exposing them to heat, weight, water, time, and gravity. Hand paper formation involves a specific sequence of steps, which are repeated each time paper is made. Like choreography, it is an act that vanishes. The surface of paper is the sedimentation of these movements and gestures. It gives form to the biological act of living. You speak of leftover grooves of graphite, and the slight buckling and warping from being exposed to water. There are also often lines where each sheet has been folded and unfolded. These qualities, over time, reveal how we touch the world and how the world touches us: existence is additive and reductive.

I also think about the horizontal and vertical axis a lot. We defy gravity to walk upright. We give into gravity during rest: our bodies are prone when we sleep. We can say the same of our bodies during the process of dying. The floor and wall components in recent work reference these two distinct states of being: 1) The horizontal (intuitive): where we acquiesce to physical circumstance and where we dream 2) The vertical (rational): where we attempt to assert our agency and make decisions

My Own Body: I was the first grandchild born to my grandparents. I was a girl, but they were not disappointed with me. My mama, apoor, gonggong, and I all lived together in the same apartment. This is not unusual in China. My grandmother used to make me stand against the wall, so she could mark my height once a week. It was always a joyous occasion.

My grandparents are no longer with me. I wonder nowadays: How can I perceive and understand my own changing boundaries without them? How does a single body locate itself in a room or in a landscape? So, I work outside daily, on a surface that measures a little less than 12 ft x 8 ft. These dimensions are the exact distances I can reach without losing control of my balance. The lengths have changed over time: I’ve lost about two to three inches in the last four years. They remind me of time and of life, as the effort it takes in order to cross both.

There is an intimacy to making paper: I think about my apoor measuring my height against the wall. This is not legible to others. But that’s okay.

The Exiled Body: There is an old Chinese myth about the beginning of the world. In a time before time, all that existed was an egg and a giant who slept inside of it. His name was Pangu. His repose was the universe. His stillness was the one and the all. His body was an origin and an end. One day, he wakes up. In darkness, he swings his axe to separate the sky from the earth. He slowly pushes the sky away from land. After thousands of years, he dies. His hair becomes forests and trees, his eyes are the sun and the moon, and his voice is thunder. I’m fascinated by notions of world-building and stories of how we came to be. I don’t think that this is surprising, given that I immigrated to the US when I was young.

Exile, for me, has always been about the irrevocable distance between myself and something else. Distance is blue. That’s why this color surfaces a lot in my work. Blue is also the sky,, which is everywhere, no matter where I am. The sky is a taciturn blue passing over everyone. There is something sad and comforting about its ubiquitous silence. Exile is also about the legibility of my body and experiences. Abstraction is anything that is mediated by symbols. The body begins as a collection of material, the same way that landscapes do. I think identity is both an experience and an image, read or seen by others.

I travel to faraway places to make paper. These  journeys to make paper in different locations are attempts to reimagine my own experiences in border-crossing. In some ways, it is also tied to ideas of navigation and a continuous sense of movement from place to place. A lot of my recent work consists of four different sheets of paper tacked together to form a floor and ceiling work. They reference the cardinal directions. I work outside. All the work puts my body in spaces where I am estranged from myself and separated from my identity. This is somehow necessary. All work is the work of this body. All work is a search for this body. Therefore, all work is always the same work.

AP: This is so beautiful. When you talk about the horizontal/vertical shift it makes me think of Yi Fu Tuan’s Space and Place, where he talks about babies going from prone to walking and how that relates to a baby’s sense of agency and place in the world. I certainly feel this conversation between agency and acquiescence happening in your work and your process, especially with how you are manipulating paper/letting paper be manipulated. You are working with paper not so much as a metaphor for the body but as a body, and the intimacy of seeing the record of your body in relation to the paper’s body comes through quite clearly: a marker of time, and a measure of your body as it shrinks over time.

Hong Hong, documentation of complete environmental pour, Vermont 2019

AP: Was there ever a shift in your work when you went from using manufactured paper to making your own, or have you always made your own paper? What is important to you about the papermaking process?

HH: I’ve never worked with manufactured paper the way that I do with handmade paper. Manufactured paper functioned, for me, as a substrate. I’ve always been interested in drawing and painting as processes of accumulation, where each action has the potential to become an abstract temporal measurement (like a breath or the swing of a pendulum). I also love materials that can hover between object and image. I like the flattening that happens in representation. I also love dealing with gravity. I don’t think these processes are separable or different: they are ultimately about the transformation of energy into form. I think I was able to make the jump between painting and papermaking because of these interests.

I learned how to make paper when I was in graduate school. I went for Painting (long story short: had to go to grad school because of visa issues). In graduate school, I felt alienated from the history of painting, as it was presented by a primarily white institution. Papermaking seemed to offer something different. It seemed to say that what I was learning about and exposed to, is not the only narrative. I also kind of loved that my painting professors hated it! I love that paper, before anything else, is an object. I loved that I had my own memories of burning holy paper at temples when I was young. I believe objects have the capacity to materialize complex beliefs into concrete things (value) that are tangible and exchangeable. They carry tacit values about specific moments in time. The conditions for the production, usage, and erosion of objects are both personal and collective.

Hong Hong, The Mountain Which Does Not Describe a Circle II, mulberry bark, sun, dust, hair, pollen, fiber-reactive dyes, repurposed paper, water, and foliage: Loblolly Pine and leaves from an unknown tree, 91 (H) x 128 (W) inches, 2021

AP: This idea of something hovering between object and image is something I think about, too. My geometric units function both as images and as the material with which I build each installation. In terms of composition the temporary nature of each iteration of my pieces resists the idea of a static composition and links the image to the potential of the materials (the folded painted geometric units).. When I was making paintings I never felt comfortable making an image out of thin air -- I always needed some sort of resistance (like projecting old video game screenshots) as a way of having something to work against. The white of a canvas is very different from the white of paper (even if it is manufactured). To me the white of a canvas feels like starting from zero, while the white of the paper already has a sort of history and aliveness to it to respond to.

When I decided to move to only working with paper over ten years ago it felt like I had come home. I was especially drawn to the way paper softened the geometric forms I was working with. Looking back now I think it has to do with never feeling like I quite belonged in the (white) history of art and painting specifically and wanting to find a way to approach and relate to this history from another perspective. I still love and appreciate a lot of Western painting, but I don’t think I can ever go back to it. It’s so funny how people talk about paper as a “humble” material, only because it makes me think about how Euro-American painting is perhaps, by extension, the opposite lol. Our work is fragile and easily damaged. I am ok with my work having a finite lifespan, and I think about how presumptuous and egotistical it is to be a painter who wants their work to live on forever. To me the idea of paper being “humble” is more the product of wanting to privilege other materials and traditions than any sort of inherent humility in paper itself.

HH: My partner, Jamey, is a painter. He’s reading a book called Almost Nothing. It’s a collection of writing about precarious practices. He told me a phrase yesterday that is really beautiful: “the syntax of weakness.” Openness to touch is the first condition of any object’s creation. Mark-making is only possible when a material chooses to absorb a gesture or a movement. In some way, it is about acceptance. A sheet of paper is the same as a boulder or the moon: they are changed by heat, pressure, impact, and time. Their malleability and porousness leads to material instability. In this way, all things engage with the act of writing their own histories. To live is to disappear: form records this disappearance.

Making paper is an arduous, physically demanding process. It depletes my resources each time it occurs. Something is born, as I die. For me, manual labor is a way for time to enter into my body. It returns me back to matter. This quality of impermanence is also in the body of the work. I, like you, was largely uninterested in the plasticity of paint. I also wasn’t necessarily interested in its immortality (I say this, and I love the work of so many painters). I didn’t know it at the time, but I wanted to work with something that is alive. This is also why I choose to work outdoors. You speak of resistance, and I feel that too, when I make paper. Limitations are wonderful. They tell me where I am.

I feel it when it rains on my work. I feel it when I go to new places and the object cannot come into being the same way it did in a previous location (do you sense this, when you create installations?).

AP: I do! Each space has different lighting conditions and a different scale, which I unconsciously and consciously adapt to as I am onsite building the installation. Sometimes I literally have to work around/against awkwardly placed outlets and “architectural features.” At other times there are even time constraints -- if I am traveling or only have a certain amount of time to finish due to childcare/scheduling/etc.

Alex Paik, Partial Diamond (Slice), gouache, colored pencil, paper, nails, dimensions variable, 2019, installed at Praxis New York, 2019 (approx. 5.5 x 6.5 x 11 feet)

HH: Everything changes due to season, humidity, weather, and millions of other factors that sort of seamlessly flow together to become landscape, and our tactile and sensorial understanding of it. For me, making paper separates experience into its distinct, constituent parts: sun, heat, collision, water, foliage, weather, gravity, etc. And the paper, once dry, stitches these segments together to form a whole. When I make paper, I feel something pushing back at or rising up against me. In a way, I’m fighting it. But I want to be accepted by it too. There is a simultaneous sense of absorption and alienation. In a recent interview with Artmaze, Bridget Mullen was talking about painting and they said that alienation teaches us empathy. Now I think of that when I work.

I love painting. I also love what you said about painting being the process of creating something out of thin air. I think of what I do as painting, if painting is a depository process and not a creative one. I think that life can be irrevocably difficult, but there are moments when the world is still and beautiful, like a drawing. That’s what I love most of all. A lot of my work is about erosion, alienation, exile, etc. But it is also about pleasure and happiness. I always wake up early in the day and start working at dawn, in the blue-dark. I feel the sun on my back and the coolness of the water between my hands. I feel the temperature rise. The wind shifts. Parts of me can disappear in those moments. Like painting, papermaking unfolds within quotidian time. Sometimes time can be unwavering in its perpetuity. But sometimes time becomes significant and bigger. It touches on the eternal and transforms into something unfathomable and long, like the sky. I am free here. I belong here. No one can take that away from me.

Can you speak more about resistance, as it relates to your work? There is a sense of vibrational geometry in your improvisations and installations: how is this related to the imagery you were working with in your paintings? Can you also tell me more about the temporary nature of the work? How do the compositions come into being (you speak of feeling)? Do they only come into being once and never again? Are parts disassembled and reassembled (reincarnation) to become other pieces? What perspectives did your decision to work with paper bring you?

I wrote a lot! It’s a nice day here.  

AP: I love it! So I’ll answer your questions in reverse order. My modular installations are made up of hundreds of the same geometric form, which are then hung up with nails temporarily on a wall when I have a show. Now that I think about it, in a way I am also making my own material like you are making paper. Each resulting composition is a unique iteration or performance of the same piece that will never be repeated in exactly the same way. In other words, the piece itself (a collection of individual units) has no static form or image but rather only has the potential to combine and recombine into almost endless combinations. I saw this great quote by Sanford Biggers recently that talks about how the basic logic of patchwork/quilt making is “to constantly be rebirthed in a new form, using the same materials.” And that is a very succinct way of describing what my work is about. And although these new relationships and forms are on the surface primarily concerned with shape and color, they become metaphors for speaking about other types of rebuilding - whether it is the way that a nation can reassemble itself with the same flawed individuals or how we as individuals can rebirth ourselves constantly using the same elements of our identities, either through code-switching depending on the social context or through sustained unlearning/relearning.

I think less about resistance in my work but more about interdependence. That resistance of paper as a living material can also be described as an interdependent relationship -- I can coax it into certain shapes by folding/gluing/painting but then the paper also responds by warping, sagging, etc. The installations themselves have an interdependent relationship with the walls and the lighting -- the forms need walls and lights to reflect their painted colors onto. What is most visible when looking at my work is actually not the material itself (the paper and folded forms) but rather the results of this interdependent relationship: the reflected, hazy color.

HH: I love thinking about the work as “a collection of individual units that has no static form or image”, but rather as “potential”. It breaks down barriers between the inanimate and animal, object and art, as well as the past, present, and future.  I also love thinking about resistance in the context of interdependence. This is a helpful framework with which we can not only consider and approach ourselves, but also larger systems: political, social, geographical, mythical, etc. 

Alex Paik, Partial Equilateral Triangle (Two Right), gouache, colored pencil, paper, nails, dimensions variable, 2020, installed in studio, 2020 (approx. 4 x 8.5 feet)

Hong Hong is a visual artist whose practice spans craft, painting, and earthwork. Born in Hefei, China, she immigrated with her family to North Dakota in 1999 and earned her MFA from University of Georgia in 2014. Hong has exhibited at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Georgia Museum of Art, Real Art Ways, Art League Houston, Penland School of Craft, and Jewett Arts Center. Her projects have been reviewed by Art21, Hyperallergic, Virtual Asian American Art Museum, Art New England, Southwest Contemporary, and Glasstire. Hong is the recipient of fellowships and grants from National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Yaddo, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Connecticut Office of the Arts, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

www.honghong.studio @honghongstudio

Alex Paik is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. His modular, paper-based wall installations explore perception, interdependence, and improvisation within structure while engaging with the complexities of social dynamics. He has exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, with notable solo projects at Praxis New York, Art on Paper 2016, and Gallery Joe. His work has also been featured in group exhibitions at BravinLee Projects, Lesley Heller Workspace, and MONO Practice, among others.

Paik is Founder and Director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid, a non-profit network of artist-run spaces and serves on the Advisory Board at Trestle Gallery, where he formerly worked as Gallery Director.

www.alexpaik.com @alexpaik

How To Become A Reiki Practitioner In Canada Stupefying Diy Ideas

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Letter for Trick or Treat Exchange 2020

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Hello there, and welcome to my letter for Trick or Treat Exchange 2020! I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to read this letter. I hope that it will provide you with clarification, inspiration, or at the very least a bit of entertainment.

Although I’ve written more for some sections and less for others, rest assured that I would be super excited to receive a gift for any of my requested fandoms, characters, or fanwork types.

Please see the table of contents below:

Likes

Do Not Want (DNW)

Fandom: The Bureau d'Echange de Maux - Lord Dunsany

Fandom: Carnacki the Ghost-Finder - William Hope Hodgson

Fandom: Invader Zim

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Fandom: Stellar Firma

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LIKES

For Treats, some general things I like are:

Silly, clever, or situation-based humor

Surreality and weirdness

Lore and worldbuilding

Stories-within-a-story

Slice of life, especially light moments for darker canons

Unusual team-ups

Dramatic rescues

First times

Seasonal and holiday-related tropes -- autumn weather, changing leaves, spooky foods, candy, friendly ghosts, haunted houses, horror movies, costume parties

For Tricks, some general things I like are:

Dark comedy, gallows humor, horror comedy

Psychological, paranormal, and cosmic horror

Creepy lore and worldbuilding

Unreliable narrators

A lingering sense of unease

Examining darker aspects of canon

Obsessive, love-hate relationships between adversaries or people who are in conflict over something

Corruption

Dubcon where a third party or outside force is responsible for the situation, or where the dubconned party enjoys it

I have a very long list of fic likes here.

Please see my Multifandom Horror Exchange letter for more about my horror likes.

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DO NOT WANT (DNW)

Characters under age 16 involved in sexual situations

Sex without mutual attraction

Hate speech

Harm to animals (the existence of ghost animals is OK, but I don’t want to hear about injury, abuse, or death of animals)

Fandom-Specific DNW Exception for TMA: Mention of canonical, character-motivation-significant cat death is fine.

Bestiality

Scat

Necrophilia (sexual activity involving ghosts is OK, just not corpses or remains)

Sexual activity involving worms / spiders / insects

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THE BUREAU D’ECHANGE DE MAUX - LORD DUNSANY

Fanwork Types Requested: Treat - Fic, Trick - Fic 

Characters Requested: Shop Owner

This short story can be read online for free here. CW for brief antisemitism (it’s one line/mention, but it caught me off guard, so).

I actually hadn’t read this story before seeing it in the tagset, but what an intriguing premise! I’d love to hear more about the shop owner’s business and the bargains his customers make. The trades in the story seem intuitively equal -- life for death, troubling intelligence for happy ignorance, a phobia for a phobia -- but what more unusual types of trades might occur? Has anyone ever tried to rob the shop owner? What strange or ordinary-seeming locales has his shop traveled to, and how does he feel about them? I’m interested in Trick and Treat takes on all of these questions.

I really like Lord Dunsany’s style and would enjoy anything in that tone. If you wanted to bring in some of his other short story characters, like Nuth or the bad old woman in black, that would be great. I’m also open to crossovers for this fandom with all fandoms I’ve requested in this exchange or any previous one.

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CARNACKI THE GHOST-FINDER - WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON

Fanwork Types Requested: Treat - Fic, Trick - Fic 

Characters Requested: Thomas Carnacki

The original nine short stories about Carnacki can be read online for free here. Project Gutenberg also has the first six stories.

Among fictional occult detectives of the early twentieth century, Carnacki has a special place in my heart. He gets scared, he makes mistakes, he does weird things with colored lights and electricity, and sometimes he figures out that the haunting was a hoax. While the supernatural cases that Carnacki investigates are (in my opinion) genuinely scary, those occurrences that turn out to have a mundane explanation are just as suspenseful.

Hodgson’s cosmic horror worldbuilding, as well, is inventive and unusual. My favorite Carnacki story, “The Hog,” concerns a malevolent extra-dimensional pig that attempts to manifest in the world by tormenting a frightened dreamer. Other adversaries include a ghost horse, a cursed ancient dagger, and a giant pair of whistling lips.

For Treats, I’d like to see Carnacki tackle a lighter-hearted problem or deal with an antagonist that’s more silly than sinister. The stories’ conceit is that Carnacki calls his four closest friends to dinner every so often and makes them wait until the meal is finished to recount his latest case. I’d also enjoy something about his relationships with them, maybe a situation where his personal and professional lives clash or he acquires a new quirk after an odd case.

For Tricks, I want ghost pigs and ghost pigs only. Just kidding! I’d really like to hear more about the creatures and lore of this universe, as well as the beings, texts, and rituals that Carnacki references or uses in his work. More mistakes, near misses, and terrifying encounters are always welcome.

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INVADER ZIM

Fanwork Types Requested: Treat - Fic, Trick - Fic 

Characters Requested: Dib, Zim

Apparently one of my forever fandoms. To re-use my own words: There’s something irresistible to me about the blend of snappy comedy, unapologetic pessimism, and hints of a more complicated universe that we just get to see. I’m not up to date on the comics yet, but please feel free to include canon from comics, show, or movie.

Dib

I love Dib’s obsessiveness, his alienation, and his frantic pursuit of approval from a community and society that couldn’t care less about him. He wants to be the hero, but his actions are selfishly motivated and often result in catastrophe. I’m really endeared by his devotion to the paranormal and the ridiculous situations he’s drawn into. 

Dib/Zim is my OTP, but I also enjoy them interacting as enemies or frenemies. (I would prefer any sexual content be set when Dib is 16 or older.) For gen, I’m interested in Dib’s family relationship with Gaz, potential friendship with Tak, and encounters with aliens, cryptids, monsters, ghosts, and other paranormal investigator types.

Zim

Zim is a total disaster, and that’s what I love about him. Like Dib, he’s stuck in a futile quest for validation from leaders and peers who would prefer he not exist. I like that he’s gullible and easily scared -- cf. “Germs,” his meltdown over the VHS copyright notice in “FBI Warning of Doom” -- yet unusually chaotic and dangerous even among his species. He also has a subconscious layer of... neediness, I think? that could be really interesting to explore.

Again, Dib/Zim is my OTP. For gen interactions, I like Zim’s relationships with GIR, Ms. Bitters, the Tallest, and any other invaders, as well as random hapless humans and experiments and so on.

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THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

Fanwork Types Requested: Treat - Fic, Trick - Fic  

Characters Requested: The Buried, The Vast, Adelard Dekker, Jurgen Leitner, Peter Lukas, Gertrude Robinson

My favorite horror podcast! I may be obsessed at the moment. I love the tone and worldbuilding of TMA -- the entropy and hopelessness, the way the monsters don’t play fair, the semi-religious devotion of avatars to their patrons.  I also love characters figuring out the magnitude of the awfulness they’re dealing with, and fighting against overwhelming odds.

The Buried

A fascinating fear! I’m really attracted to the Buried’s mix of attributes -- not just dirt, asphyxiation, and the subterranean, but also pressure, metaphysical weight, oppressive circumstances and hopeless struggle.

This entity’s particular aspects of denial, and of accepting increasingly adverse or strange conditions -- the pit, the statement giver from “Dig,” Karolina Górka considering a nap on the Underground -- both unsettle and delight me.

I feel that both the Buried and the Corruption have this compelling theme of like... suffocating, boundary-crushing love, that takes a person’s identity, will, and outside connections but leaves them a sense of belonging or importance. Then, on the other hand, the Buried can also belittle as it isolates. I thought Hezekiah Wakely’s identification of the Buried with rest and peace, and the Sunken Sky’s evocation as a mercy, were very interesting as well.

For prompts: I really love archaeology and ancient history, so I’d love anything about the Buried in connection to that. An anon on FFA brought up the Kola Superdeep Borehole as a potential hook for the Buried, and that idea is quite  interesting to me. I’d also love to hear about any of the statement givers from canon, the coffin’s other victims, or any main or original characters encountering this entity.

The Vast

Heights are one of my most visceral fears in real life, despite not being something I’m conceptually afraid of. I am requesting the Vast because I would like to be conceptually afraid of it!

Elements of this entity that intrigue me: the image of the Falling Titan, nihilism (and finding freedom in it), insignificance, call of the void, oceans / storms / cliffs, space, scales of size so large they’re not humanly comprehensible, Simon Fairchild’s love for the sky, delineation from the Lonely, opposition to the Buried, unusual manifestations.

As with the Buried, I really love the justifications that avatars give for their devotion to a power -- something exploring that, the choice to serve and the benefits that someone either gains or rationalizes after the fact, would be amazing. As stated above, unusual manifestations of fears are my jam, especially things that start out looking like one power but turn out to have a different affiliation.

I’d be interested in hearing about any canonical statement givers, avatars, main characters, or original characters encountering the Vast, or perhaps just a record of a past manifestation. I love stuff that’s grounded in a place, time, or feeling, so something super-specific or historical would be awesome. But, again, I really just want to be scared.

Adelard Dekker

Such an interesting character, and with depths yet to be explored! I enjoy his pragmatism, sense of humor, and relationship with his faith. I’m intrigued by the question of his allegiance and motivations, as well.

I’d love to hear more about Dekker’s pursuit of the Extinction -- perhaps the incident or incidents that first made him suspect its existence? accidental Extinction!Dekker? -- and his apparently far-flung contact network. I ship him both romantically and platonically with Gertrude, and I’d be interested to hear about their first meeting or other cases they collaborated on. Additionally, Dekker/Tim is a rarepair that intrigues me -- perhaps they meet in an AU where Tim becomes Dekker’s apprentice, and they take down Nikola together? I’d be open to seeing him interact with any character you think might be interesting, whether in a gen or shippy way.

Jurgen Leitner

I just want to know about the cataloging system he uses. Alternately, MORE LEITNERS. Alternately, ohh, the hubris! Leitner’s motivations for starting his library, vs. what he actually ends up effecting... aiii. I’m interested in what role the Eye played there, or how others may have manipulated him.

I don’t have any ships for Leitner, but for gen I would be interested to see him interact with Gertrude, his assistant, or Gerard Keay. Elias or Peter Lukas could also be interesting -- potentially funny, potentially sad or ominous.

Peter Lukas

On the one hand, a sinister sea captain and the heir of a frightening legacy; on the other, an annoying boss who refuses to learn basic computer skills and says things like “You and me, the dynamic duo!” I enjoy how petty and human Peter seems, at the same time that he’s this remote and gleeful monster.

I ship Peter/Martin super hard, but I also enjoy gen Peter & Martin and both gen and shippy interactions involving Elias. Additionally, I’m really interested in what happened for Peter to transport Gertrude to Sannikov Land, given their animosity. (Peter and Gertrude interacting seems like it could be hilarious.) For a fish-out-of-water scenario, I’d also like to see something where Peter feels out of control or threatened -- like, perhaps he’s caught in another avatar’s trap, or forced to be around other people for a bet or some strange purpose.

Re: Peter/Martin: I would prefer for Martin to gain the upper hand, even if it’s just in principle. I really like the idea of Peter going along thinking he’s in control, he’s seduced Martin to the Lonely, his plan is moving along -- and then he’s suddenly hit with all these feelings that he doesn’t know what to do with, because he’s never been in this situation before. On Martin’s part, I like it when he’s sort of reluctantly allured, but also contemptuous and focused on his own plan. And I would absolutely love some weird monster courting rituals -- Peter trying to impress Martin, but not quite pulling off “human” or “not disturbing.” I’m not married to these sorts of dynamics, though -- if there’s one you like better, please write it.

Gertrude Robinson

My favorite character! I love her practicality, dry wit, and self-control, but I also love stuff exploring her weaknesses, blind spots, regrets. I like that she can be smug and sometimes cruel, but not to the point where she violates her own principles (or, at least, not in her own opinion). I like that her backstory is so simple. I just really like Gertrude, in general.

For solo Gertrude, I’d like to learn more about her early days at the Institute -- maybe some of those heroic ideas she mentions she had, or their gradual dispelling. I’m also interested in seeing her solve problems, travel to unusual (or totally mundane) places, and face all kinds of supernatural nonsense. How did she get so unflappable? Is it mostly temperament, or was it a process?

For Gertrude ships, I could be convinced to ship her with pretty much anyone, but especially Agnes, Adelard Dekker, Emma Harvey, and Mary or Gerry Keay. For gen, I like her with everyone. I just want to see Gertrude interact with people!

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STELLAR FIRMA

Fanwork Types Requested: Treat - Fic, Trick - Fic 

Characters Requested: Hartro Piltz, Trexel Geistman, David 7, IMOGEN

I love this podcast so much it’s ridiculous. If I recall correctly, it’s been described as a cross between Brazil and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; this strikes me as accurate. I love how the tone is at once silly and exuberant, but also dark and messed-up, in an absurd way that doesn’t try to hammer listeners over the head with its irony. (Please feel free to explore that darkness in a Trick.) Also, it’s funny.

Hartro Piltz

I fell head over heels for Hartro’s character somewhere between her first appearance and the Executive Quarterly mini-episode where she reveals that her alarm clock launches her headfirst at the floor every morning (“I like to really smack awake”). She’s such a fun villain, and her attempts at team bonding with David and Trexel are oddly endearing. I like that it’s made clear that she’s as much at the mercy of Stellar Firma as everyone else, just with more perks.

For ships, I’m really into Hartro/Trexel, and I could get behind some Hartro/Trexel/David 7 as well. (If foot stuff is opt-in, consider me opted in.) For gen interactions, I like Hartro with anyone -- not just the other main three, but Standards, Sigmund Shankeray, and other members of her team or clients.

Trexel Geistman

Trexel is the worst, and I adore that about him. I love how thoroughly the show demonstrates his jackassery, and how it’s still possible to sympathize with him and see how he got where he is at the same time that you (I) just want to shake him.  His responsibility-abnegating, depression, and alcoholism seem weirdly realistic, or at least reality-informed, and they weight his character in a way that I find compelling. I love his songs and weird shticks (Detectives and Detonations <3), and lapses into grandiosity and fantasy.

For ships, I like Trexel with Hartro or David 7 or both. Bathin/Trexel and Percy/Trexel, as well. Broom/Trexel, ehh. For gen interactions, I’m interested in seeing him interact with just about anyone -- but I’m especially curious what he did to Space Gertrude’s space tug (from Episode 25, one of the character witnesses from the trial). For seasonal-themed prompts, I am amused by the idea of Trexel as a horror host -- thanks, FFA -- or something else along the lines of the TMA crossover mini-episode.

David 7

Poor, sweet, innocent, possibly-doomed David 7. I love his rage, his affinity for crafts, and the bits where he gets swept up in the excitement of planet-designing (or planet-selling, or problem-solving) and can’t contain his enthusiasm. And I love his progression, over the first two seasons, from timid and cautious to just plain fed up.

For ships, I like David/Trexel, David/Bathin, David/Bathin/Trexel, and David/Trexel/Hartro. David and IMOGEN are interesting to me both platonically and romantically. For gen, I am again interested in seeing him interact with just about anyone.

IMOGEN

How much power does IMOGEN have, exactly? At some point, I hope we find out. I love her chipper sarcasm and barely-hidden dark side, and I hope that she eventually gets a vacation.

I don’t really ship IMOGEN with anyone, though the idea of David/IMOGEN is interesting. Her dynamic with David seems to have an unusual tension built into it, where they get along well and he trusts her but she can’t stop herself from threatening him with gun walls and there’s some murkiness about everyone’s motivations. Oh! IMOGEN and the Board, IMOGEN and the senior executives -- what’s going on there? IMOGEN and the station, IMOGEN and near-omnipotence -- there are a lot of fascinating things to explore about her as an AI.

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Question & Answer Website: https: //community.buzrush.com/

New Post has been published on https://travelonlinetips.com/british-airways-grounds-cairo-flights-key-questions-and-answers/

British Airways grounds Cairo flights: Key questions and answers

All British Airways flights between London Heathrow and Cairo have been cancelled for a week because of heightened security concerns.

BA made the decision shortly before the Saturday evening departure of its usual daily flight from Heathrow to the Egyptian capital.

German airline Lufthansa later followed suit, grounding its Saturday night flights from Frankfurt and Munich to Cairo and the early inbound services on Sunday from Egypt.

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What was it that prompted British Airways and Lufthansa to ground their planes?

The Foreign Office says: “There’s a heightened risk of terrorism against aviation. Additional security measures are in place for flights departing from Egypt to the UK.”

British Airways says: “We constantly review our security arrangements at all our airports around the world, and have suspended flights to Cairo for seven days as a precaution to allow for further assessment.

“The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our priority, and we would never operate an aircraft unless it was safe to do so.

Lufthansa suspended services from its two hubs to Cairo on Saturday, with cancellations of early flights from the Egyptian capital to Germany. But after that, flights will resume. 

A Lufthansa spokesperson said: “We took the decision as a precaution but after assessing the situation will be operating as normal.”

Egyptair is continuing to fly twice daily between Heathrow and Cairo.

The circumstances indicated there is intelligence available to European governments about a specific threat involving flights departing from Cairo airport; flights to and from Hurghada airport, the main Egyptian gateway from the UK, have continued as normal.

Who uses the British Airways flights?

Despite the Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum and a wealth of other attractions, Cairo is no longer a big destination for British tourists. The BA flights are used mainly by passengers with family connections in Egypt, people connecting from other destinations at Heathrow, and by business travellers.

Is it unusual for an airline to cancel flights on specific route like this?

Read more

Yes, highly unusual – especially for a specific timeframe as in this case of exactly one week. No British Airways tickets are available on the route any time up to Saturday 27 July, but flights are on sale again from Sunday.

This has to be seen in the context of the tragedy on 31 October 2015, when a Russian passenger jet crashed shortly after take off from Sharm el Sheikh airport in Egypt. It’s thought a bomb placed on board at the airport was responsible for the deaths of 224 people. Shortly afterwards, the Foreign Office imposed a ban on all UK airlines flying from the airport, which serves Egypt’s premier resort.

Intelligence reports express similar concerns about a threat to western aircraft at Cairo. 

What about other UK airlines?

Flights are continuing as normal. The main operator is Thomas Cook, which flies daily from Manchester to the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, as well as other flights from Birmingham, Gatwick and Newcastle. It also has a link between Birmingham and Marsa Alam. 

The other significant airline is easyJet, which flies to Hurghada from Gatwick. A spokesperson said: “We will continue our flying programme as planned, but this will be kept under continuous review.

“We adhere to any guidance and advice given by the authorities.”

What are passengers’ rights if they were booked on British Airways?

The airline is offering a choice between a full refund, postponing their journey or being rebooked on other flights – which, if sufficient space is available, will be on Egyptair.

But if other European airlines join BA and Lufthansa in cancelling flights, there will be a serious shortage of seats at what’s a very busy time.

And what about people who are booked to travel on other flights between the UK and Egypt but now don’t want to fly?

Unless the Foreign Office itself grounds planes, as it has done in the case of Sharm el Sheikh, then normal conditions will apply and passengers will not be able to cancel without losing some or all of their money. The same goes for people with package holidays booked to Egypt: they have no legal right to a refund or different destinations, though they may find their holiday company is sympathetic.

Thomas Cook is still selling packages for later this month.

Travel insurance firms will not refund the cost of holidays for what is termed “disinclination to travel”.

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Do you know of any yoi fics in the HP universe?

I wrote one but I haven’t seen any others. You certainly won’t find any on FF.net. Try AO3.

Ch. 11 of Always My Soulmate

Pairing: Victuuri

Fandom: Yuri!!! On Ice

Tags: AU, No skating, instead there is Quidditch, Fluff, the chapter on AO3 has more notes to read.

Sum: This is a Victuuri AU in the Harry Potter universe, where certain cultures believe that the Patronus(spirit guardian) can show you your soulmate if it matches another’s Patronus. Victor shares this belief because he has a mushy heart.

“We’re hosting a few students from Koldovstoretz?”

Yuuri and Yuuko shared a look, finding the news to be interesting. Rarely did they ever get visitors, and technically it would only the Americans or the English. So to get some visitors from a non-English speaking region would be lovely.

Nishigori wasn’t finished however. He pulled out a Quidditch magazine from seemingly nowhere and shoved it in their faces. “Victor Nikiforov of the Ramenskoye Rarógs is coming personally!”

Yuuri’s interest was caught immediately. He could tell that Yuuko was also ready to explode.

Victor Nikiforov was one of the best Quidditch players in the world and had been playing Seeker for his team for five years! Ever since he joined the team, Russia had yet to lose a game. He’d even lead his team to victory three years ago at the World Cup.

Yuuri himself was also a Quidditch player. He was Seeker for the Toyohashi Tengu. Had been Seeker for the past three years.

Unlike certain countries, they were not the sort to raise their standards for Quidditch players. If the person had the skill and their parents’ permission, then they could join the team if they were accepted. They didn’t have to be a certain age to join. Skill, not age, dictated entry.

Yuuri was considered the top Seeker in the Asian continent. Victor was considered the top Seeker in the European continent. Both of them would be sharing space for however long the Koldovstoretz students remained.

What could happen?

Yuuko giggled. “I can’t wait to go and tell everyone!”

Yuuri and Nishigori shared a look, but Yuuko was already gone.

Nishigori summoned his Tsunami and mounted it. “Alright Katsuki-san, there no time for playing around. Let’s train you up so if Nikiforov-san challenges you in any way, you can drill him into the water on your own turf.”

With a sigh, Yuuri hopped onto his Uzumaki and ascended into the stormy clouds.

Victor was so excited! Especially since unlike his classmates, he wasn’t going to be using a translation spell. He actually spoke Japanese, and English and Portuguese, not that those mattered at the moment.

Getting the Highmistress to even agree to an exchange program had been hard, but in the end, Victor had gotten what he wanted while letting the woman think she was benefitting more than he. It was all a part of the plan!

Victor got to travel to a new country for free, experience the culture for free, and meet his favorite Quidditch player for free!

Katsuki Yuuri had been on Victor’s mind for the past two years, and next year, Japan would make it to the World Cup where Russia would also be playing, and Victor could face the other in a real match finally.

He was looking forward to it! Mahoutokoro was said to reside at the top of a volcano after all!

Yuuri always regretted being one of the top students, simply because the color of his robes made him stand out. It was annoying.

Yes, gold was nice and it earned him a lot of respect as a top student, but too much attention made him uncomfortable. He already had enough fans from being a Quidditch player and having a cherry wood wand, he didn’t need any more fame.

“They’re here! They’re here!” Yuuko yelled, smacking Yuuri’s arm repeatedly in her excitement.

The skys were blue and cloudless for the first time in a long while. In the distance, they could see that a large, red creature that had a very rough likeness to a dragon, or maybe a hydra, was flying their way. Attached to it, were large golden reins that were being controlled by a very large man. Probably a half-giant if Yuuri was to guess.

The carriage connected to the creature was enormous. The size of a house even. Yuuri was sure that the inside was enchanted to make it even larger. It was lovely, decorated in shades of gold and silver, with intricate carvings. It was like a miniature Western castle on wheels.

An entire strip of rock had been cleared at the top of the mountain, in order to allow them to land. Yurri had a feeling that the landing would probably shake the foundations of the castle.

His assumption was proven to be correct. Also, the former idea turned out to be right, as about one hundred students stepped out of the carriage. They all looked perfectly comfortable, and no one seemed to be tired. Or irritable form long travel.

He could easily see Victor Nikiforov in the very front of the large group, smiling widely up at the white jade castle that Yuuri currently called home.

Victor was as attractive in person as he was in his photographs. Yuuri couldn’t help but sigh with delight.

The grandmistress of Mahoutokoro stood front and center of her gathered students, her arms folded as she bowed. The Highmistress of the other school, returned the respect given, and smiled. The two clasped hands in greeting.

They were polar opposites.

Yagiri-O-Sensei was small and thin, with long black hair that she merely kept back in a top knot. Her fringe was cut around her face perfectly, not one hair out of place. She was the no-nonsense sort, but did have a soft side here and there. Her eyes were as black as the night.

The other woman, whom Yuuri was informed was named Zlata Petrova, was long. It was the only way he could describe her. Not just tall. Every limb just seemed to be incredibly long. Her hair was golden, and he couldn’t see her eyes from his position, but he knew that they were light in color, otherwise they would stand out more.

Yuuri was lined up with his friends and fellow schoolmates.

They made twenty lines of almost ten each, the best students taking the front position, so their golden robes were perfectly on display.

It was always reputation first. Sometimes Yuuri just wanted to hide in a hole and sleep. Where no one gave a shit about his reputation or skills. Just peace and quiet.

“Konnichiwa!”

Yuuri blinked and looked up, finding none other than Victor Nikiforov leaning over him.

Yuuri had been reclined on the grassy slope on the western side of the castle, in a small place he liked to go when things became too loud. Sometimes it was hard to force himself to communicate with people. He needed regular breaks from becoming overloaded far too quickly.

Only Yuuko knew about this place, but somehow Nikiforov-san had found it anyway.

“Hello,” the smaller Seeker murmured carefully.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, and now we can talk without being stalked!”

Victor plopped down on the grass right beside Yuuri, a grin on his attractive face.

Yuuri sat up then, looking the Russian over. His hair was grey. He’d actually been born with grey hair, which wasn’t that unusual in the wizarding world. Yuri’s sister was part Metamorph and had a purple streak in her hair when she was born. It happened.

Last time he’d seen her, she’d riddled her hair with blonde highlights because ‘why not?’.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Everything!”

He found himself bombarded with many questions in which he struggled to answer quickly so he didn’t forget the answer to the next question.

“Gold is a status symbol. It shows that you are at the top of your studies and magical prowess. It usually takes until the second to last year to reach gold, especially for the hardworking students.

"The robes are enchanted to change color as you grow in magical ability. White is a shameful color for those who betray the magical society of Japan.

"The volcanoes do erupt on a yearly basis, though not at the same time or in a specific order. We are safe here, worry not.

"I do not have a girlfriend and I don’t want one. Why do you need to know?”

Victor smiled. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No. Despite the much lighter views here than in some other places - especially because of soulmates and all - we aren’t so open with relationships here. No one at the school would really mind, but even opposite sex couples aren’t overly affectionate in Japan’s magical community. That’s a private thing. Usually. Circumstances depend.”

Victor hummed. “I’ve had many girlfriends and boyfriends. They were kind of… lacking, I guess.”

“Are you looking for your soulmate?” asked Yuuri. “You do know that the chance of you actually meeting your perfect match in incredibly low, right?”

“I know! But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up! Besides, I have a Patronus!”

“A what?”

Victor blinked. “We adapted the Latin version of the word. Hold on.” The other stared off into the distance for a moment, before his eyes lit up once again. “Shugo Seishin!”

Oh. In some magical communities, it was a belief that if two people had matching spirit guardians, then they were soulmates. It was supposedly one of the ways that people could tell if they were meant for each other. Another was sexual intercourse. Some other methods were wrong and not legal in Japan.

He wouldn’t even consider them.

“Do you have one?” asked Victor.

“No. That kind of magic is harder to do for those of us who’ve had relatively good lives. No joyful memory we use is ever good enough.”

Victor scoffed. “You don’t need memories, you need emotion!” He stood then, clasping a hand around Yuuri’s arm and pulling him up as well. “I don’t use memories because no memory will last forever. But happiness can be eternal. Come, let us try now!”

Yuuri stuttered and tried to pull away, but Victor was insistent, pulling out his wand and taking a familiar stance.

A few seconds later, a silvery figure leapt forth from the end of the wand, and galloped about the small knoll that Yuuri loved sleeping on.

Victor’s Shugo Seishin was an Abraxan. It was beautiful, with long wings that stretched out, and a perfect main of silver hair.

“Abraxans stand for beauty and quiet strength, according to my people. I like to think that it holds special meaning.”

Victor gestured for Yuuri to come and try.

The brunet stepped forward, only to be drawn into a light embrace, where Victor gripped his wand arm with one hand, and his hip with the other.

“You need to think of something happy. Something that could make you fly without magic even.”

Yuuri shivered, but closed his eyes to concentrate anyway. His current predicament was nice enough, and when he let his mind wander, it got even better.

Waving his wand and thinking really hard, Yuuri tried to cast the spell that had eluded him for so long.

Opening his eyes, he could see a small funnel of silver sprouting from the tip of his wand. Nothing grandiose or amazing, but for he who had never managed anything of the sort before, it was a big deal.

Unable to help himself, he turned around and embraced the Russian in his excitement.

“All you need to do is detail the thought that made this possible,” Victor whispered in his ear, making Yuuri shiver again.

That thought probably shouldn’t be publicized. Ever.

News spread fast that Victor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki were now friends. Where every one of Yuuri’s classmates expected a pompous ass who would start fights with their star Seeker, they instead found a kind-hearted young man with a desire for happiness and peace.

Victor was a breath of fresh air. He also inspired many to step up their training. His presence made them feel like they could accomplish anything. And with the way he spoke of never giving up and always trying, Yuuri could understand their astonishment.

He was still shocked, and he was the one that Victor had chosen to spend time with the most.

Of course Victor brought his own friends into the fold as well. Yuuri’s small group of friends got on with Victor’s friends well enough, and they had already made a study group that would go out into one of the courtyards at lunch and do assignments together.

Yuuko was the leader of the study group, so to speak. She had the most efficient study methods available and together, the groups helped one another excel.

Victor was very… clingy. He liked to touch and be touched. It seemed to be his thing, and Yuuri had to get used to it because it happened all the time.

There was a running joke going around that Victor wanted Yuuri as a lover, but no one was willing to say it to their faces. It was whispered in dark corners and among the most quiet places in the castle.

Victor knew all about the rumors and he did absolutely nothing to quell them. Eventually, Yuuri lost interest in starting arguments over it, so he just dropped it. If people wanted to think it, then who was he to care? It wasn’t like he and Victor were being disrespected. They didn’t have partners or anything so no one could really be offended.

Victor’s arm was casually thrown around Yuuri’s shoulders, the two were on their way toward the stables where they and several others would be taking some of the Giant Storm Petrels out for a bit of a fly. Usually they would be having Quidditch practice, but the skies were perfect, and Nishigori preferred to train during terrifying storms. More work, he claimed.

Victor was excited because he’d never ridden a bird before.

“At my school, we have the Zmey. They are a relation to dragons, but aren’t considered dragons by most magical societies because they have multiple heads. Some of the mothers will let me near their clutches, and some mothers let me play with their drakelings.”

“Are they the same as the creature that carried your group here?” Yuuri asked, remembering the large being.

“Exactly! We have many of them, but Rostislav is the largest and strongest. He doesn’t let anyone ride him however. Stubborn.”

Yuuri smiled and thought of the creature that had managed to annoy the keeper of the stables.

He was apparently very picky on what he preferred to eat, which made feeding him difficult.

“I’m excited! Do you ride bareback?”

Yuuri face flamed. “Excuse me?”

“For the Petrels? Do you bridle them and have saddles of some sort or do you simply sit there?” Victor clarified, his mind obviously not going where Yuuri’s had.

With deep shame at his own lecherous mind, Yuuri responded in a positive. “We have saddles. You’ll see.”

Yuuri endeavored to keep his mind clear for the rest of the day, even when Victor insisted they share a bird. Even when they actually shared the seat. Even when he was forced to ride up front because he was shorter and 'should be able to see everything too’ according to Victor.

No, his mind did not wander once.

“Do you get snow around here during the Winter months?” Victor asked, curious about the current climate and the fact that it was in the middle of November and the temperature hadn’t changed yet.

Yuuri, who was busy sipping from a cup of tea, froze for a second. “Naturally, the islands do not get snow because the temperature stays around 22 °C year 'round. However, O-sensei takes ten days in December where she influences the weather and the atmosphere, to force snow to fall.

"The mahounashi at the nearby military base haven’t really noticed anything beyond the suddenness coming in December. O-sensei doesn’t keep the same dates every year, just so it can’t be tracked. So there will be snow, but only for a little while. She’ll tell us when.”

That was good. Victor loved the snow. “I hope it happens during my birthday.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“Christmas. When is yours?”

“The twenty-ninth of November.”

Victor would have to get him something then.

He’d heard some students talking about being allowed to have pets, and Yuuri didn’t have one at the school. And Yuuri also liked poodles.

Victor’s smile went wide.

He knew what to get Yuuri!

“Have you heard from Mari-chan lately?”

Yuuri shook his head. “She’s been really busy and I don’t want to get in the way.”

At Victor’s confused look, Yuuko explained. “She’s Yuuri-kun’s older sister. She’s away on a job right now, so she hasn’t been home in a while.”

“Oh.”

Yuuri was smiling though. “She’s out there being awesome, so I can’t complain too much.”

Victor got him a puppy! It was tiny and cute and he loved it!

He also decided to name it Victor, but called it Vic-chan when around others. Vic-chan came from the same litter as Victor’s own poodle, Makka-chin.

This made getting Victor a good gift even more important. He just didn’t know what to get someone who seemed to have everything already.

“I just want you to manage to create a Shugo Seishin. That’s all I need.”

And so Yuuri applied himself more fastidiously to training. If only to see Victor smile at him like Yuuri lit up his world.

Unlike the westerners, the Japanese did not rely on words to convey their magic. Intent was the most important thing, which was why only rituals needed words.

Yuuri meditated more than he ever had before. He studied carefully, and tried to find the amount of happiness within himself in order to conjure a spirit guardian of his own.

Yagiri-O-sensei decided to surprise everyone directly on Christmas Eve, by beginning her ten days of snowfall. The courtyards could be seen covered in couples rolling around in the snow and having snowball fights.

Victor was obviously excited and had somehow gotten into Yuuri’s dorm - someone probably let him in - in order to wake him up early to 'go play’. Yuuri allowed himself to be convinced because it was a special day and he wasn’t going to ruin it for anyone. Let alone Victor.

“I learned that the Japanese don’t really celebrate Christmas, but I wanted to get you a gift anyway. It’s outside. I was afraid of shrinking it, for fear of possibly ruining it.”

Yuuri was dragged along to the common room where very few people resided. Most were reading by the fireplace. The dormitory was rarely ever full on Christmas Eve. Romance was too busy being spread to do anything else really.

“I was surprised not to see Yuuko-chan here! She’s usually awake already!”

Yuuri yawned. “Yuuk-chan is a part of the Jizen group. She doesn’t have early morning classes today, so she’ll be sleeping in for now. Nishigori-san is a part of the Yuuki group. He had to wake up two hours ago for his classes. My group, Chugi, has no classes today.”

“Interesting.”

Victor pulled how in front of the fireplace and told him to wait. He then scampered off, leaving Yuuri standing in his pajamas.

There were a few snickers that he chose to ignore because he did not want to feed into their ideas.

“Here it is!”

Victor reappeared with a large box floating in front of him. It was wrapped in black paper and was sprinkled with glitter.

“Happy Christmas, Yuuri!” Victor exclaimed, throwing his arms around Yuuri and nuzzling his face into the brunet’s hair.

More snickers followed because Victor did not understand the significance of giving gifts on Christmas Eve. Still Yuuri was touched and resolved to complete his spirit guardian training as soon as possible.

With a wave of the hand, the wrapping vanished, leaving a simple, brown box and a lid. The lid levitated off the gift and was dropped on the floor so that Yuuri could look inside.

“Yu-chan!”

Yuuri’s mouth dropped open when his older sister popped out of the box to throw her arms around his shoulders.

Mari’s squad had been stationed over in Australia. They were supposed to be uncovering some kind of dangerous creature in one of the Australian deserts, at the behest of the Australian Ministry. Mari was a Magizoologist, and was considered one of the best in her field.

She had been gone for two years, and they’d only been able to Fire-Call one another a few times. Letters were even less frequent.

Yuuri took comfort in the lingering smell of tobacco in her hair. She hadn’t changed much, if at all. A little older and a little scarred on the one arm, but she was still the same.

And Victor had somehow brought her here.

Yuuri couldn’t help but send the other teen a grateful smile. This was the best gift he could have ever gotten!

Victor wasn’t expecting Yuuri to burst into his room. Rarely did the inhabitants of Mahoutokoro venture inside their visitors’ ship. But Yuuri looked insistent.

“Victor-kun, I wanted to give you a gift as well,” said the other, slightly out of breath.

Before Victor could even ask, Yuuri lifted his wand and made a small, circular motion with it. Immediately, a silver Abraxan shot forth, tiptoeing nearer to where Victor was seated in order to headbutt him.

The Russian gaped for a moment, before leaping off his bed and capturing Yuuri into his arms, kissing him soundly on the mouth.

From where they were peeking around the corner, Yuuko and Mari smiled.

“I don’t think they understand that the guardian’s only show who you love most. They don’t actually show soulmates,” Mari murmured, a small frown in place.

Yuuko tsked. “It’s adorable either way. And no one said soulmates have to get together anyhow.”

“True. Hey look, they’re tonguing now.”

Yuuko giggled.

{6 Months Later}

“I want a good, clean game,” the referee said sternly, eyeing up the players on both teams.

Victor and Yuuri shared a grin. There they both were, though it wasn’t as if no one expected it.

The Quidditch World Cup was held in Germany this year, and Victor’s team was up against Yuuri’s team, as many had predicted the former year.

Just because they were in a relationship, did not mean that they would not make each other work for the victory. If anything, this would just push both of them on to try even harder!

The Seekers both shook hands for good showmanship, and even shared a wink between them.

The players hunched over their brooms, and when the whistle sounded, they took off amidst the roars of the crowd.

Victor wouldn’t trade this for the world.

Check out my other Soulmate AUs!

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/battlestar-galactica-supernaturals-tahmoh-penikett-innovative-new-series-deep-six/

'Battlestar Galactica,' 'Supernatural's' Tahmoh Penikett talks up innovative new series 'Deep Six'

It’s been a while since I had the pleasure of chatting with Tahmoh Penikett, who memorably played Ezekiel/Gadreel on Supernatural a few seasons ago. Tahmoh just finished shooting on a new digital sci-fi adventure series called Deep Six, which caught my attention as a unique and exciting project. Deep Six is a digital sci-fi adventure series that follows a group of astronauts and their military escort on the first deep space mission. They find themselves stranded after an unanticipated accident, and – wouldn’t you know it – also confronted with a first encounter that may not be very friendly. What makes the series unusual is its focus on realism – the creator is a scientist, and the show has two real life experts as consultants, including a professor of astrophysics and a space historian. With their help, Deep Six aims to portray space in all its beauty and majesty as well as its terrifying silence and endless expanse. Much as sci-fi classics like 2001 and Alien anchored their stories in realism and thus amped up the terror, Deep Six aims to be both accurate and scary. Sign me up! I caught up with Tahmoh today after a week of our schedules absolutely refusing to mesh and me coming down with a truly horrifying cold. But we persevered! You can read our other interview with Tahmoh Penikett here. [caption id="attachment_42462" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Photos: Fangasm[/caption] Lynn: It’s so nice to talk to you again! We miss you at the Supernatural conventions, by the way. Tahmoh: Yeah it’s been a while, thank you. I miss being there; those things are fun. Lynn: Well Supernatural is going into its 13th season, so who knows, you may be back. Tahmoh: (laughing) With Supernatural, you never know! So true. So what if Gadreel sacrificed himself in a moment of heroism? Death is an impediment to returning to Supernatural. Lynn: I was fascinated by what I’ve heard about Deep Six. Is that one of the things that drew you to this project, the focus on realism? Do you think that will make the series scarier? Tahmoh: I think any time that you have a creator and showrunner who is determined to make something as realistic as possible -- being honest about the risks involved with space travel, where we might be in the future, what limitations we might have, whatever exceptional technologies we may have advanced in – but being real about the dangers of space and how hard space is. And that makes it more plausible for the viewer and the audience. In general, to me, as humans, we’re moving ahead at such an incredible rate in terms of technology, and specifically rocket propulsion and traveling to other planets, and eventually getting to Mars has become a priority again. It wasn’t for about 30 years in terms of the major space agencies in the world, and for NASA, it just was not a priority. Now it’s become a priority again, and we’re seeing the possibilities, and you hear we may be getting there in ten to fifteen years. So it’s really fascinating, but there are inherent risks. And here you have a creator like the ones who created Deep Six, and they’re trying to stay true to that. They’re having scientific advisors, and as a result, they have a show that is much more realistic and much more plausible.  Audiences, in general, are educated about it because we’re watching all the programs, we’re following Elon Musk on twitter, we’re following NASA, we’re seeing all the updates, and we’re seeing what the limitations are. So in general, we’re quite educated about what is really happening. Lynn: That’s sort of what I was thinking. It seems to me the more realism, the more there’s the potential for really being scared, simply because it seems more plausible. I remember seeing 2001 A Space Odyssey – I was a kid and probably too young to actually be watching it, but that’s part of what made it so scary. Tahmoh: Yeah, Battlestar Galactica is a perfect example of a show I was on that had that – there was, of course, some technology we had, we’re doing space travel – but the Battlestar itself, it was classic, it really looked like a military vessel.  It was like a warship. We had the old school phones to communicate. It wasn’t really fancy but a lot of it was science based, we had actual rocket scientists who were consultants on the show, so a lot of the technology had science behind it.  And I think that’s what these guys are trying to do, so that’s good, man. [I’ve said this before, but I love the way Tahmoh talks – he’s clearly so knowledgeable and then he just casually tosses in a ‘man’ or a ‘love, , ’ and it’s just like, OH.] Lynn: Yeah, I totally agree. Did you get to interact with the scientist consultants as a guest act or you were just aware of their influence in the conceptualization of the show? Tahmoh: Yeah, I was just aware of their influence. I got the call, and the timing wasn’t ideal, but my agent said, just look at the script, I’ve heard good things, people have been talking about it, and it’s apparently a really good script. So I read the scene they wanted me to do, and it was literally one full day of work they wanted me to do. And once I read the script, I was like you know, this would be great to do, this is really well written. Better than most web series that I’ve seen done. And it just worked out time-wise, but mostly I wanted to do it because the script was so well done but also the consultants on it. So I went out there, and they were selling me on it as we were trying to make it happen, they were selling me on the project with all the information about how they had consulting scientists, how one of the creators is actually a physicist himself. You know, it definitely leant it some real credibility when you know that people like that are involved, and they’re trying to make something as real as that. Lynn: I’m not surprised at the quality of the script just because they seem to be putting so much heart and so much motivation into the entire project. That probably translates. Did it translate also to the day of filming? It sounds like it was a long day, but was it a set where people were motivated? Like the Supernatural set where every time I’ve been there, everyone seems to work so smoothly and even when things go wrong, everyone seems to go with the flow because they all seem to love what they’re doing? Was this a similar set? Tahmoh: Similar. You know, obviously, it’s hard to compare it with some other aspects, these guys were working with a very limited budget, but it definitely didn’t look like it. They were very efficient, everyone I saw on the crew was very good at their job, and on board and invested. So yeah, I guess they did share those qualities like on Supernatural, and that’s always a good thing. You know a project is good when everyone is really pulling their own because they believe in it, they believe in the story. If you believe in the story, you want to be a part of it and bring your best work, because the end product should be great. And I’m excited to be a part of that. Lynn: Can you tell me anything about your character? Tahmoh: I can’t speak a lot on him, I don’t know how much they’ve released. All I can say is he’s one of the astronauts’ commanding officers, so he’s kind of the veteran. He’s been around the block, and he’s someone who a lot of the other astronauts look up to. And you get a sense of his character right away, who he is, how much experience he has. Then the situation takes a turn for the worst, and that’s the surprising hook of my episode is what they encounter, what sort of problems he faces and how he deals with it.  And he’s obviously a veteran and very capable and smart and a leader and the others respect him. He’s serious, and he’s also got a joking and playful attitude at times, but it’s also, they’re astronauts and there’s no messing around, so when it comes down to business, and the situation gets serious, he’s by the book. Lynn: I’m glad to hear that he gets at least a little opportunity to do a little bit of comedy because I know from your other projects how good you are at that subtle comedy. Tahmoh: Yeah, I don’t, unfortunately, get the opportunity a lot to do it, but whenever I can squeeze it in there, it’s kinda who I am, and I think most of us have that in us, right? Lynn: Right, I totally agree. I know from talking to you at length in the past about your portrayal of Gadreel how thoughtful you are about the characters you’re portraying and creating a backstory so you can find what their motivation is and so you can understand them from a psychological viewpoint. [See my earlier interview with Tahmoh for that discussion here}  When you go in to do something like this, where you have to create a character and their arc in literally one day, is that challenging for someone who likes to really get a handle on the person you’re portraying? Tahmoh: That’s a really good point you just made because it is. Normally if I have two days of preparation, that’s still a very short amount of time. It’s kind of an essential part of my process to write the backstory. This was very very last minute, and I was travelling and there were things going on, so this was so last minute that I literally jumped on a plane after an afternoon of negotiating, flew, time difference, lost three hours, Toronto, out the next morning, shot all day. So I didn’t have the opportunity, I simply couldn’t do the work that I normally would, so I have to trust the script. I communicated to the writers before I arrived and I had a conversation with them where I said, you’re really going to have to lay out for me who this guy is, beyond what’s in the given circumstances and what’s in the script, I need you to tell me who he is and then I’ll work with that as best I can in this short amount of time we have. Lynn: That makes sense. I remember that in our last chat, in the green room at some Supernatural convention, we spent a lot of time talking about your process because as a psychologist, that’s what fascinates me. How actors make sense of their characters and how you bring that through, especially a very complicated character like Gadreel. So that was my first thought, I wonder how he’s doing that because this is a different set of circumstances. Tahmoh: Yeah, that’s very observant of you. Sometimes you just don’t have the opportunity. And I’ve said this before, sometimes you – and it’s rare, unfortunately – but sometimes the script is so good and the character is so good that you connect with the character on such a cerebral and such an instinctual level that you don’t have to make those choices. You CAN and you may, but sometimes you just completely understand that character. Sometimes you understand them so well that you trust in the script 100%, but because I like to do my due diligence, I’ll still –  it just makes it that much easier to color his backstory if I do have the opportunity to write some of it, you know? Lynn: Yeah. Tahmoh: It always helps, because it layers the work and it makes it more real, and you don’t just forget about it. Helo (on Battlestar Galactica) I definitely ended up writing a lot of backstory, but also when I had the audition, I just understood him 100%. I got him. I was like, just let me in the room. I didn’t have to use those techniques that you use to get you in an emotional place, whether it be substitution or sense memory or things like that, it was just there for me. Every once in a while in your career you’re blessed with things like that. Lynn: That must feel really good when it happens. Did you have to do more work with the Gadreel character on Supernatural because it was such an unusual character and had such an unusual evolution? Tahmoh: I had to do some work, but for that – and I’ve told this story before – it threw me off at first when I found out that Jared [Padalecki] was already playing the character. Because he’s one of the leads of the show! So Jared and I were playing the same character, and me not knowing that – I thought that I would be playing Ezekiel or Gadreel first, and then when I found out he had already played him – on the day that I was playing him – that threw me off. Lynn: I guess so! Tahmoh: But I got to see, and like I said before, he was doing very specific stuff, so I was able to incorporate it. But it was also not far off from what I was going to do, so that made it easier. And then, getting a sense of where they were thinking of taking the character, that’s when I started changing some of – not changing, but I started adding to who I thought Gadreel was. And I started making some different specific choices. Because the unfortunate thing is when they don’t really give you a sense of where your character is going to go and their arc, but only a loose idea, you also have to remain open to changing some of your choices. You might be making some strong choices, but they just might not work. Lynn: [nodding] Tahmoh: And so you have to be open to that as an actor. And I’ve done it before, I’ve put in a ton of work and made some strong choices, and then you come in, and the producer or director is like, actually no, we need you to do more of this, and you’re like welp okay! Lynn: (laughing) You don’t really think about the amazing flexibility that acting requires. Especially when you’re a guest actor I think, you’re always going in and creating characters who aren’t the leads and so there hasn’t been the amount of backstory given to you. I remember talking with Curtis Armstrong about how he struggled sometimes with Metatron on Supernatural because he was never given the whole story and didn’t know where the character was going. So like you he kept making choices and sometimes they worked and sometimes… Tahmoh: (laughing) Yeah! I totally can relate to that, and Curtis is so fantastic and did such a fantastic job. I could definitely see that was the case with him too, you know?  I felt that the writers were taking Gadreel in a very sort of evil nemesis sort of way and I just felt like I wanted to play against that a little bit.  And when Jared was playing him, he was doing it too – I could see it clearly in his performance, so he kind of set that up for me also, which was great. Lynn: And I think it really worked out in the end because Gadreel did get to be heroic. I think that all of us who were feeling a fondness for the character – much like Metatron –  were second guessing ourselves going hmm why am I feeling this way? We were probably picking up on those subtle things that you and Curtis and Jared were doing, but it made sense eventually because both of them got to be heroes ultimately. Tahmoh: That’s awesome, yeah. Lynn: It was, it was cool.  I won’t keep you too long – and I’m astounded that I’ve managed not to have a coughing fit for 20 minutes – but is there anything else you’re excited about or going up for that you want to talk about? Tahmoh: I’ve done three episodes of Incorporated, a new sci-fi series which is really well done. I got to work with an actor I’ve long admired, Dennis Haysbert, and with Allison Miller. I’m having a blast doing that right now! Lynn: It was so great to talk to you again – we really do miss you on the convention circuit, and I hope our paths cross soon. I’m really looking forward to seeing you on Deep Six. Tahmoh: Great talking to you soon – be well, love. ETA: Imdb tells me that Tahmoh is also part of the new series that’s generating a lot of buzz, Netflix’s Altered Carbon, a futuristic show in which your consciousness can be saved when your body dies and then implanted into another. Some big names are attached, with a very diverse and international cast, so stay tuned for that one also! In the meantime, you can come along for the ride with Deep Six.  Check out some behind the scenes videos on their IndieGoGo page, follow them on @DeepSixSeries, and stay tuned for more! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/deep-six-a-hard-scifi-with-practical-fx-series-space#/ Behind the scenes stills courtesy of Deep Six.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

Unmasking Trends in Maritime Crime in the Caribbean

[By Dr. Ian Ralby, Lt. Col. Michael Jones and Capt. Errington Shurland (ret.)]

While life on land for most people has been unusually sedentary in 2020 with significant travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders, the maritime space has remained remarkably active. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the Caribbean’s maritime domain has garnered widespread attention on three fronts: cruise ships stuck at sea, both with Covid-19 patients onboard and crew unable to be disembarked; a major increase in U.S. naval presence focused on countering narcotics trafficking, particularly via semi-submersible vessels; and shipments of sanctioned fuel and goods from Iran to Venezuela.

Though the region is being pulled into these issues to some degree, all three of these matters are primarily of an international nature. In examining the issues that are not merely occurring in the Caribbean but are of direct concern to the security, governance, and development of the region, the pandemic provides an opportunity for taking new approaches. By compiling comparative data from before and during the pandemic using maritime domain awareness technology and working collaboratively between states, regional bodies, and independent experts, we can bring to light previously overlooked activities and new criminal trends in the region. This new insight provides vital leads on how to reinvigorate maritime security and ensure that the waters of the Caribbean—among the most economically valuable in the world—are governed by states and not transnational criminal networks.

Caribbean Maritime Activity During the Pandemic

Between March and July 2020, the Caribbean saw an unprecedented decline in travel owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. In terms of air travel, over those four months the member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) saw only 4.7 percent of the arrivals and 9 percent of the departures they had seen the four months prior to the declaration of the pandemic. Given such a dramatic drop in travel and tourism, combined with the well-publicized issues surrounding the health security of cruise ships, it would make some sense if the Caribbean also saw a dramatic decrease in maritime activity between mid-March and mid-July. Indeed, records indicate that from March to July 2020, the region saw 48 percent of the port arrivals of the November 2019-March 2020 timeframe. Given this decrease in maritime activity, it would stand to reason that there was a comparable decrease in illicit maritime activity as well. That, however, does not appear to be the case.  

Traditional Metrics

Even by traditional metrics of quantities seized, the decline in criminal activity between March and July 2020 did not parallel the decline in port calls. In that period since the onset of the pandemic, the region seized roughly 60 percent the amount of cocaine, marijuana, and illegal migrants that it did between November 2019 and March 2020. Importantly, since early April, the increased presence of the United States Navy and Coast Guard in the region has accounted for more than $1 billion in drug seizures, potentially skewing the seizure figures for the regional states as well. The region, however, has not seen the sort of decline in traditional criminal activities that might be expected under the circumstances. In fact, there were 27 recorded incidents of maritime interdictions between March 12 and July 8, 2020, versus 23 in the longer period between 1 November 2019 and 11 March 2020.  Furthermore, seizures in the last few months of birds, goats, cash, and fuel (for some examples), indicate the diversity of smuggling operations running through the Caribbean. Economic hardship may in fact be a growing driver for illicit activity. But these recorded figures are not the only means by which to determine whether criminality has declined in parallel with legitimate maritime activity.

New Approaches

Using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, a variety of other datasets, augmented intelligence, and machine learning, increasingly advanced maritime domain awareness (MDA) technology can help examine different maritime activities to identify anomalies and instances of suspicious behavior. Whereas maritime law enforcement in the Caribbean has traditionally focused on small vessels—go-fast speedboats, fishing vessels, and pleasure craft that are generally too small to use AIS—high-volume drug interdictions in other regions in the Caribbean have indicated that traffickers are increasingly using larger vessels for larger drug shipments. By using MDA technology that allows for queries on different activities, a variety of indicators can help shine a light on what has been transpiring in the region during the pandemic and in the time leading up to it.

Focusing on a few factors of potentially suspicious activity can help indicate whether the maritime space of the Caribbean has seen any significant change since travel restrictions began in March 2020. By honing in on vessels that either can be deemed “high risk” or “significant risk” based on algorithmic analysis of their movements, or that have corporate ownership and management structures that exhibit risk patterns, analysts can quickly concentrate on vessels that, based on their activities, are likely to have engaged in or currently are engaged in illicit behavior. Focusing on such vessels, and comparing incidents of dark activity, including drifting, sailing below three knots, changes in Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) numbers, meetings, and course deviations, helps paint a relative picture over time.

Each of these factors is tied to known criminal activities at sea. Dark activity, which is not limited merely to AIS signal loss, but intentionally turning off the AIS transponder, is prohibited under Chapter V of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention. There are some circumstances, even in the Caribbean, where as long as this was logged by the master of the vessel, such activity could be deemed acceptable for the safety of the vessel. But it often is an indicator of illicit activity.

Ships that intend to engage in illicit activity—like meeting with another vessel to embark drugs, transship illegally-caught fish or violate sanctions—may turn off their AIS transponder to help obscure that behavior. Similarly, drifting and sailing below three nautical miles per hour are uneconomic behaviors for ships engaged in legitimate maritime commerce. While these indicators are not in and of themselves indicative of anything specific, they can suggest a vessel may not be acting legally, particularly if there are other risk factors present. Sailing below three knots may also be an indicator of either dropping off or seeking to pick up packages, often drugs, left in the water for collection. There may even be several days between the dropoff and pickup.

MMSI changes can be routine, but particularly when paired with other activities, can also indicate attempts to obscure either past or future activities. Furthermore, they can indicate changes in ownership and control of a vessel, and when such a change also includes a change in flag, there may be cause for concern as to the intentions of the new owners. Meetings could involve anything from bunkering or legitimate resupplying, to key transfers in a criminal supply chain. And finally, odd course deviations may also be indicators of uneconomic behavior that is tied to illegitimate activities—such as looking for geolocated drug packages left on the water for collection.

In looking at the Caribbean, the above chart—which excludes tankers on account of their unusual challenges caused by the decline in the global oil market—is quite telling as to changes in suspicious activity during the pandemic. Using the same periods from the traditional analysis mentioned earlier (November 1, 2019 to March 11, 2020 and March 12 to July 8, 2020), both from 2019 into 2020 and from 2018 into 2019, shows that there is not a significant decrease in suspicious behavior during the pandemic.

On the contrary, there is actually an increase in dark activity, including drifting, sailing below three nautical miles, MMSI changes, and course deviations in comparison to the same periods in 2019. The only decreases were a slight drop in the number of vessels and a significant decline in the activity in which no one is supposed to engage in during a pandemic: meetings. Compared to the four months prior to the onset of Covid-19 restrictions, there were actually more dark activities and slow sailings during the pandemic than there were before.

Comparing the pandemic period to the period immediately prior is most instructive when considering the traditional datasets above. If the volume of legitimate maritime activity dropped by more than 50 percent and the volume of movement by air dropped more than 90 percent, it would seem that the volume of suspicious maritime activities should have dropped a significant amount as well. Instead, the pandemic saw a 38 percent decrease in the total number of suspicious vessels, a 26 percent increase in dark activity, a 77 percent decrease in drifting, an 18 percent increase in sailing below three nautical miles per hour, a 50 percent decrease in MMSI changes, an 88 percent decrease in meetings, and a 39 percent decrease in course deviations compared to the period from November 1, 2019 to March 11, 2020.

One convenient narrative to explain the increase could involve more ships being stuck at sea, but only if drifting rather than dark activity had risen. While this data is not conclusive, it does indicate that suspicious maritime activity does not operate in correlation with changes in legitimate maritime commerce. As has been noted regarding drug flows, “criminals don’t waste a good crisis,” meaning that maritime criminality is relatively unimpeded by the restrictions that have curtailed legal activities during the pandemic, and criminals may actually be taking advantage of the new status quo. This is new insight and new visibility for the region and digging deeper exposes a number of trends.

Vessel Families

While there has been a push in recent years for maritime interdictions to trigger financial investigations in the Caribbean, perhaps more attention needs to be paid to vessel ownership investigations, either at the national or at the regional levels. If a vessel is arrested either within the region or after having been through the region with drugs onboard, it is possible the vessel’s owners and operators may have been involved. Therefore, one approach to identifying suspicious vessels deserving of scrutiny is to examine any sibling and related vessels, including vessels of associated companies. Doing so in the Caribbean would require the identification of a list of vessels of interest whose activities immediately raise suspicion.

Reverse Routes

The news has been full of stories about Iranian vessels heading for Venezuela, especially owing to international sanctions. However, in examining the movement of vessels leaving the Caribbean after engaging in suspicious activity, some actually proceed onward to sanctioned countries.[8] At the same time, new routes are emerging, bringing drugs and other contraband from other parts of the world to the Caribbean. This deserves significant attention from the region.

Unexpected Vessels

A traditional narrative that has been contradicted is the notion that illicit goods are moved only in certain types of vessels. The 2019 arrest of the M/V NIKA in Indonesia should serve as a cautionary tale. The NIKA is a cargo vessel that was engaged in illegal fishing, operating almost invisibly on account of its vessel type. No law enforcement agency was looking for cargo vessels conducting illegal fishing. Similarly, for the Caribbean, only searching for container ships may obscure possible suspicious patterns of activity which are also being exhibited by cement carriers, livestock carriers, or reefers which may be engaging in smuggling and trafficking.

Next Steps

The pandemic has forced a revision of how Caribbean entities approach their analysis of illicit maritime activity. The present collaboration has allowed for increased insight into suspicious activities in the region that have otherwise gone unnoticed. The question, however, is how does the region act on this insight? The Regional Security System (RSS) —a sub-regional treaty-based security cooperation organization comprising seven states (all of which are also CARICOM member states)—is able to use a mixture of fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft, small boats, and patrol vessels to monitor and interdict maritime crime. But even with these capabilities and extensive cooperation among the states, identifying these trends in such a way as to analyze and respond to them quickly enough to prompt on-the-water interdictions will be a challenge. Furthermore, the current concept of operations in the RSS and those of CARICOM member states are based on traditional understandings of trafficking routes and criminal modalities. As new insights enter the picture, new approaches need to be considered—both in terms of how to maintain such enhanced maritime domain awareness and in terms of how to respond to it.

What has become clear is that even while much of the world has been stuck at home during the pandemic, criminals have continued to operate in the maritime space of the Caribbean with virtually no detectable decline in overall activity. Just as criminals continue to adapt and innovate amid changing circumstances, so too must law enforcement. Since the pandemic has destroyed the familiar status quo, the states and regional entities of the Caribbean need to proactively reevaluate the range of assets and approaches that can be deployed to identify, understand, and effectively disrupt maritime criminal activity.

To keep pace with and ultimately get ahead of the criminals, CARICOM member states will need to explore a range of tools for addressing the full spectrum of illicit maritime activities. This includes using new technology such as maritime domain awareness platforms, enhancing operational cooperation through CARICOM IMPACS and the RSS, and both adopting and implementing legal instruments such as the Treaty of San José. While the pandemic has curtailed and thwarted many good things around the world, it somewhat ironically has helped catalyze this process in the Caribbean.

Dr. Ian Ralby is a recognized expert in maritime law and security and serves as CEO of I.R. Consilium.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jones is the Executive Director (Ag) of the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS). 

Captain (N) Errington Ricardo Shurland (ret.) is the Executive Director of the Regional Security System (RSS). Prior to this, he served in the Barbados Defence Force for 33 years. 

Dr. David Soud and Rohini Ralby of I.R. Consilium and Tonya Ayow, Callixtus Joseph, and Chesley Olliverre of CARICOM IMPACS also contributed to this article.

This article appears courtesy of CIMSEC and may be found in its original form (including illustrations and footnotes) here.

from Storage Containers https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/unmasking-trends-in-maritime-crime-in-the-caribbean via http://www.rssmix.com/

Just Married Exchange 2019 Letter

WARNING: CONTAINS AVENGERS: ENDGAME SPOILERS

Hello, and welcome to my letter for Just Married Exchange 2019! Thank you very much for considering creating a fanwork for me. This letter is intended to provide optional details and potential inspiration; my primary intention in writing it is to make things easier for my assigned creator. If it’s not doing that for you, please feel free to disregard it.

My AO3 profile is here.

For this exchange, I’ve requested fic only for the following fandoms and pairings, divided into themed sections for ease of browsing:

Dishonored: Corvo Attano/Delilah Copperspoon, Delilah Copperspoon/Emily Kaldwin

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Peter Parker/Tony Stark, Peter Parker/2012!Tony Stark [Endgame spoilers]

The Umbrella Academy: Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves

DNW / DO NOT WANT

Hopeless or unremittingly dark endings

Rape/non-con

Underage sex

Non-canonical permanent major character death

Onscreen animal harm/death (referenced/implied nonspecific death is fine)

Onscreen child abuse (referenced/implied past abuse is fine)

Bestiality, necrophilia, scat, permanent non-canonical significant body modification

Characters in requested romantic ships being written as asexual/aromantic

Character or ship bashing

GENERAL LIKES

Humor: ludicrous/cracky premises treated seriously or unseriously; comedic action sequences; comedy of errors; hijinks; absurdity; gallows humor.

Romance: first times; get-together; pining; friends to lovers; enemies to lovers; UST; belligerent sexual tension; flirting, especially when one character doesn’t think the other is being serious; flirting in established relationships; possessiveness and jealousy without entitlement.

Action/Adventure: time travel; interdimensional/multiverse travel; escaping from captivity together; camaraderie, teamwork, unusual team-ups; missions/cases and snippets thereof; undercover as XYZ; identity porn; road trips of the terrestrial, extraterrestrial, aquatic, and supernatural varieties; space travel; visiting other planets; wilderness survival; climactic warehouse confrontations; wacky foes/locations/circumstances for battles; bar fights.

Smut: characters feeling overwhelmed; lots of emotions; awkwardness; praise kink; unexpectedly compatible; kink discovery/exploration; characters being really into their partner and/or what they’re doing and/or how into what they’re doing their partner is. I will read pretty much any kink besides my DNWs if the characters are jazzed about being together and doing the specific act(s).

Miscellany: atmosphere, mood, immediacy; character studies; missing moments; surrealism; slice of life; domesticity; appetizing descriptions of food; diners; carnivals; big scary buildings with tragic histories; mansions; abandoned mansions; secluded or remote locations; forests; beaches; holidays; seasons; weather; thunderstorms; getting caught in the rain.

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DISHONORED

Corvo Attano/Delilah Copperspoon Delilah Copperspoon/Emily Kaldwin

Delilah! She's the best/worst. What if her coup in Dishonored 2 taken a slightly different approach? Alternately, what if she'd shown up earlier to claim the throne? I'm tickled by her creeping on Corvo as the Heart and her tension with both Corvo and Emily. I'm fine with UST or weird feelings/foe-yay instead of straight-up romance for both pairings.

Please note that I love these games + world/lore and am spoiled for everything.

Freeforms Requested:

Disastrously Incompatible Political Marriage: Because it so would be. How might future history books characterize a Corvo/Delilah or Delilah/Emily co-rulership? What about journalism of the day? How would they fare resolving problems in the empire? Diplomacy? Daily life? Or maybe they suck as co-rulers, but unexpectedly discover that they’re okay at fighting together or living an average life?

Disastrous Wedding Ceremony Everyone Will Gossip About For Years: PLEASE. How rushed or drawn-out was the wedding planning? Has one of them been trying to sabotage the ceremony with clashing decor choices, or perhaps with murder? ...Does the Outsider crash the reception?

Is my spouse trying to kill me | Someone's trying to kill me and I think it's my spouse: Grouped together for being thematically similar. I feel like Delilah is a more likely candidate for the role of spouse-attempting-murder, but I’m intrigued by the reverse as well.

Marriage is Interrupted by an Assassination Attempt and they Continue After they Take Care of Them | planned assassination during wedding night goes wrong: Again, grouped together for thematic similarities. Who hired the poor assassins? If Delilah or Corvo / Emily end up having to use their powers, how do they deal with the aftermath?

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.[Buffer space for Endgame spoilers below!]

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MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

Peter Parker/Tony Stark 2012!Tony Stark/Peter Parker

Wooooo! \m/ This is my MCU OTP at the moment. I adore their mutual importance to each other, their easy teamwork and camaraderie despite the age gap, and the potential for ANGST ANGST ANGST and pining as well as humor and fluff. I love stuff where they’ve been pining mutually and self-awarely for a long time, but also stuff where one or both parties don’t realize their feelings until XYZ catalyst forces them to.

Please note that my underage DNW does apply here, although UST and feelings/pining while Peter is underage are fine with me.

I'm totally down with Infinity War / Endgame compliance or canon divergence AUs (e.g., the universe where Thanos disappeared in 2014, AUs where they defeated Thanos in IW, Civil War was resolved without Tony recruiting Peter, etc.). Please feel free to run with the freeforms as-is, or check out the expansions and prompts below.

Freeforms Requested:

Accidental Travel to an Alternate Universe With an Unexpected Spouse | Permanently Transported To Alternate Universe Where They're Married To Person Who Is Dead In Theirs | Temporarily Transported To Alternate Universe Where They're Married To Person Who Is Dead In Theirs: I’m intrigued by the idea of Peter traveling to an alternate universe where he’s somehow married to Tony, but also by the idea of Tony -- post-IW Tony, perhaps -- stumbling on a world where he’s married to Peter, perhaps in the course of trying to reverse the Snap.

Trapped In Fake Perfect World That Includes Marriage They Don't Believe They Can Ever Really Have: Oh no! Who’s trapped? Who’s the fake perfect spouse? What compels the trapped party to give up the fake perfect world, and how difficult is it and why?

Always Married to Same Person When You Dream | Marriage within dreams becomes real: Is the dreamer pining, mourning, or experiencing a more complicated situation (e.g., a spell, meetings on the astral plane, meetings in a temporary afterlife, meetings in a space between universes, premonitions of a breach between universes, etc.)? I am very fond of dreams and surreality in fic, so I would love to see that sort of atmosphere incorporated too if it floats your boat.

Aliens Make Them Get Married: YESSSSS. Whatever the justification, I love this trope.

Characters Keep "Forgetting" to Annul Accidental Marriage | Series of Mishaps Prevent Annulment of Accidental Marriage: This seems like it could be hilarious. :D

Carried Over The Threshold: I just really like this image! Though I’m partial to Peter carrying Tony, the other way around appeals to me too.

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.[Buffer space for Endgame spoilers above!]

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THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves

I will admit I wasn’t sold on Allison/Luther during my first viewing of the series, but subsequent viewings have decidedly awoken me to their charm. I’m super interested in the idea of an incongruously sweet connection arising from the fucked-up-ness of their upbringing, and in exploring how that connection carries over into their adult lives.

Allison became a superstar; Luther spent four years alone on the moon. How did they part, back when the siblings went their separate ways as young adults? Where was Luther during Allison’s wedding? How did Allison learn what happened to him? Did they keep in touch directly, or just hear about each other incidentally from the people they did maintain contact with?

If you can tell from the selected freeforms, I am here for tropey fluff and angst for this pairing. I also really like canon divergent AUs -- The Day That Wasn’t, handwavey “we averted the apocalypse after all” AUs, for want of a nail, etc. -- and futurefic. I enjoy Claire and would love to see her meet Luther. In general, though, I’d just like to explore these two more.

Note: I would prefer that any fic written for me in this exchange not focus more than briefly on the incest aspect of this pairing. Outsiders can be horrified that the adopted siblings are getting it on, but the Hargreeves children don’t seem to care a lot in-universe, and I’d like it to stay that way in fic.

Freeforms Requested:

Asking someone to be their witness

Character fantasizes about getting married

Crying With Happiness During Wedding

Wedding Fluff | Wedding Planning | Something Old Something New Something Borrowed Something Blue

Crashing a Wedding to Prevent a Bad Marriage | Crashing A Wedding So Character Can Marry One Of The Participants Instead | Objecting during the marriage ceremony

Road Trip Honeymoon | Road Trip to Marriage Ceremony

Trapped In Fake Perfect World That Includes Marriage They Don't Believe They Can Ever Really Have

Undercover as Married While Mutually Pining

Time Loop Can Only Be Ended Through Marriage

Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves

So. Five is a dick to everyone, but he’s slightly less of a dick to Vanya. What’s up with that? Or: How close were they as kids, and how might they reconnect as adults?

I’m really interested in how a relationship might develop between these two in a future fic or canon divergence AU. Maybe Five only zapped forward in time for a little while, or was able to return at an earlier point in time than 2019? Maybe Vanya was able to learn to control her powers as a child and grew up as a participating member of the Academy? Maybe -- maybe! -- the siblings managed to avert the apocalypse, and they’re adjusting to life together in the aftermath? I don’t know! I’m interested in all kinds of things.

I love the idea of Vanya and Five as a battle couple or married coworkers, and of them getting together while on a case/mission. A while ago, someone on FFA brought up the idea of them undercover fake married in 1950s suburbia, and I am SO into that -- both the specific setting, and the concept of Five/Vanya going undercover as a fake married couple in various eras/locations.

Please be advised that my underage DNW includes Five having sex while in his younger body. UST is fine, but I’d like Five to physically be an adult for any sexual situations.

Note: I would prefer that any fic written for me in this exchange not focus more than briefly on the incest aspect of this pairing. Outsiders can be horrified that the adopted siblings are getting it on, but the Hargreeves children don’t seem to care a lot in-universe, and I’d like it to stay that way in fic.

Freeforms Requested:

Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress

Fake Marriage Results in Surprise Real Feelings | Obviously Fake Marriage Leads To Third Party Realizing Their Feelings For Half the Couple

Pretending to be married to access information

Undercover as Married | Undercover as Married Leads to Unexpected Feelings | Undercover as Married While Mutually Pining

Honeymoon Heist | Road Trip Honeymoon | Working While on Your Honeymoon

Time Travel Backward To Fix The Past Also Results In Unexpectedly Getting Married

my family business is a mess, I name a really low salary expectation, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My family business is a mess, but my mom won’t listen to me

I work for my family’s business. For a long time, it was a small mom and pop operation and my parents were easily able to manage the administrative and operational aspects on their own. However, in the past three years, our company has grown at a rapid rate. We went from a handful of clients in one state to around 25 clients spread across eight states. Our employee headcount has quadrupled.

The anticipated bumps in the road from such rapid growth are more along the lines of massive potholes. My mother (the CEO) insists that we are able to manage all aspects of the business with six dedicated administrative employees, including me. However, I don’t think you need to be a business consultant to know that six people are not enough to manage nearly 200 employees. As a result, everyone around here wears many hats. Even though I know nothing about HR, health insurance, 401K administration, payroll deductions, and a myriad of other issues, those are all items that I have to manage day to day. I’ve tried to teach myself to the best of my abilities, but I have reached the limits of what I can learn on my own. Our struggles are not only limited to staffing, but processes and procedures. The things we had in place when we were a company of 40 people no longer work for us. No one here has clearly defined job descriptions and there are relatively few procedures in place, so fire drills are an everyday occurrence for us.

To make matters worse, my mother takes a hybrid micromanaging/hands-off approach to the administrative staff. She refuses to give directions beyond a simple sentence of what she wants done (she defines anything beyond that as “hand-holding”), yet she insists on approving every little thing that we do. She invests all of her time in the company’s finances, and I often find myself at an impasse over my own responsibilities.

I’ve given you all of this background because I clearly see the problems within our organization, and I have developed solutions and given recommendations to my mother. The problem is, she does not share my concerns. Every time I highlight a problem, she says that it isn’t a priority, doesn’t have the budget to fix it, will address it later, or even says that I am just creating problems. But from my perspective, I see an overwhelmed and understaffed administration, high employee turnover, and no attempt to fix any of it. Because it is my family’s company, I cannot be dispassionate or simply find a new job. This company is just as much mine and I want it to thrive. How can I institute change within this company when I have no support from my boss?

You probably can’t, just like working at any other business run by a terrible manager who refuses to change things. Because the CEO is your mom, you have more leeway to have a really blunt conversation with her about the problems you see — but ultimately if she’s not open to change, you can’t force her to (assuming that you and other family members don’t own a controlling stake in the business where you could overrule her). Do other members of the management team agree with you? If so, you and they can try approaching her as a group to propose putting someone else in charge of managing the day-to-day operations, or you can try doing that on your own … but if she won’t budge and you don’t have the authority to make her budge, then you don’t really have options here.

In that case, you’d be better off going elsewhere and working in a context where you’ll actually be able to thrive. This doesn’t sound like that context. (And while there can be real benefits to learning as you go, there are huge disadvantages to that too — especially that you don’t know what you don’t know, and you can end up making serious mistakes. Professionally speaking, you’re better off working in a well managed company and developing your skills there. And who knows, maybe there will be a way for you to bring those skills back to your family company at some point in the future, if it’s being run differently. You might find the “I’m the Boss’s Daughter” episode of the AAM podcast interesting.)

2. I give a very low number when asked for salary expectations

I have been applying for a lot of jobs in an unusual field of work (let’s say llama whispering) and applications keep asking me what I need to be paid. I’m at the point in my life where being paid at all is a real novelty, so I’m trying to figure out what number to put in that will not insult the company and also cause me not to starve to death. My current strategy is looking up “living wage in (location)” and then plugging that in. I’ve also been plugging in slightly higher than whatever minimum wage is. Really I’m just wildly guessing. What’s the magic number? Aren’t they supposed to already know? Can I just say, “As much as you would pay the boys?” I just want to be the best llama whisperer I can be while also not dying. Help!

Oooh, don’t do that! Unless this is a field that pays that low, you’re undercutting yourself — and not only that, you might be actually getting yourself rejected for these jobs, because a lot of recruiters will take a weirdly low salary request as a sign that you don’t have enough experience for the job.

I know this is a huge pain and it would be nice if employers just told you what they plan to pay, but most of them don’t and you’ve got to do your own research so that you’re able to have a reasonable salary discussion with them. There’s advice here on how to do that.

3. How do my manager and I move past an argument?

Yesterday I had a disagreement with my manager about some changes she was implementing. The actual change wasn’t the main issue, however; it was a straw that broke the camel’s back situation. I’m under pressure, she’s under pressure, and in her words we had a “vigorous” discussion, becoming quite heated at one point. We both talked it out, but we were interrupted by a client and then she had to unexpectedly head off to our satellite office to deal with an emergency situation there.

I don’t like workplace (or any) conflict. I usually avoid it wherever possible. I don’t know how to move on. We’ve only talked via IM since. Normally she would have called at least once to catch up. The IM conversations we’ve had have been light-hearted, I think because neither of us wants to start anything up again.

I find it mentally exhausting dealing with her. She wants my thoughts, but then doesn’t like it when I disagree and give reasons why I don’t think things will work and suggest other ways. If I do think they will work out, I say so. Either way, if she decides it’s the way to go, I will support that decision with our clients even if they are not happy with the change. The thing is, on reflection, a couple of points she raised (but not all) were true – she’s right, she is my manager, and I do question a lot of changes that she is recommending and she finds it exhausting dealing with me.

We didn’t get a chance to finish up and move on, so I don’t know whether to raise it or not. She’s working from home for the next few days, so I won’t see her in person until nearly a week has passed since the conflict. I don’t quite know what to say, or whether to be like Elsa and let it go and let the awkwardness pass, or to say that I’d reflected on the points she raised, and that I realize she’s right in xyz?

If you realized she’s right about some of what she said, tell her that! Any manager in this situation would be relieved and pleased to hear that, and it reflects well on you that you took some time to digest the conversation and are willing to modify your thinking. Say something like, “I wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day and I realized that you’re right about X and Y. I’m going to try to do ___ differently in the future and hopefully you’ll see a difference.”

Ideally you’d say that in person — and I don’t think it’s a big deal to wait a few days until that can happen.

4. How do I remind my boss he owes me money?

I travel for work. My boss doesn’t usually come along, but this was a special circumstance where he needed to be there. We decided to hit a baseball game one evening after work and had to buy tickets online. I just happened to find the cheaper/better tickets as we were both searching, so I bought with the understanding he would pay me back. He specifically said he would as it’s obviously not expensable. He left for the week, his flight was a day before mine, and never mentioned it or paid me back. It’s $65, which is a fairly significant amount of money to me. I’m remote so I won’t see him in person again for who knows how long. Should I bring it up? I don’t think it was malicious, I think he just forgot. But it feels awkward to bring it up. Not sure what to do here.

Most likely he did just forget, and he’d probably be mortified if he knew you were stressing over it. It won’t be awkward to remind him — after all, think about if the roles were reversed; I doubt you would think it was weird for someone to remind you, right?

Just be matter-of-fact about it — “hey, can you Venmo me that $65 for the tickets when you have a chance?” That’s it! (If you don’t talk frequently, it’s fine to do this in email or Slack or however you most often communicate.)

5. What are good wellness initiatives?

Our nonprofit has a small budget ($15k) to use for employee wellness initiatives. We’ve already purchased water bottles with our logo for everyone, had a day of on-site chair massages, and bought a few under-desk elliptical and bike machines for people to “check out.” Standing desks or treadmill desks have been rejected due to space constraints. We’ve also considered healthy snacks, providing a yoga class, bringing in a nutritionist, and bringing in an ergonomics consultant. Are there any other things you would suggest?

You named literally everything I would have suggested. I love your list! (I’m assuming they’re all optional and no one is being required to do yoga or talk to the nutritionist.)

I’m throwing this out to commenters to see what other suggestions people might have for you.

You may also like:

my coworker is cc’ing his mother on work correspondence

my friends and family are warning me not to hire employees for my small business

telling family members to stop showing up at our store while my husband and I are working

my family business is a mess, I name a really low salary expectation, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

from Ask a Manager https://ift.tt/2vBtTNA

BLOG TOUR - Mister Mottley and the Dying Fall

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Great Escapes Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Mister Mottley and the Dying Fall by Ellen Seltz

Mister Mottley and the Dying Fall Cozy Mystery 2nd in Series Incorrigible Publishing (October 27, 2017) Print Length: 214 pages ASIN: B076YJG7ZV

The only way out is a long way down.

Edmund Mottley, Specialist in Discreet Enquiries, is in a precarious position: his old flame Susan needs his help. Her new fiance is accused of murder, and she wants Mottley to clear his name.

Mottley would rather jump off a cliff than get involved, but when Susan is threatened by a shadowy crime syndicate, Mottley leaps to her aid.

Mottley and Baker, his intrepid valet, pursue the case to an island of otherworldly beauty. But the island is haunted by secrets, treachery, madness, and … something more.

Every clue crumbles under their feet, pushing Mottley’s powers of deduction — and Baker’s loyalty — to the limit. With his own life on the line, can Mottley save Susan before time runs out?

The Mottley & Baker Mysteries are classic whodunnits set in the Golden Age of 1930’s traditional detectives. If you like Miss Marple’s pastoral puzzles or Albert Campion’s rollicking adventures, you’ll fall hard for this cozy historical mystery.

  Interview with the Author

What initially got you interested in writing?

I dabbled in poetry and stories as a child, as I think many children do. But I didn’t start putting my writing “out there” for other people until I started performing in comedy troupes and experimental theater in my 20’s. I discovered a knack for improv and writing comedy sketches. That led to some script-doctoring work, then to a children’s musical.

After I had children, it became clear that the lifestyle of pursuing an acting career was not a good fit for our family. My creative “itch” built up for a few years, and I started exploring writing again. When Mister Mottley showed up and wanted to be in a book, everything came together.

What genres do you write in?

My primary focus right now is mystery. I always have multiple projects going, though. I’ve done some contemporary chick-lit and sci-fi comedy for different web platforms. I have a romantic suspense, a time-travel story, a literary women’s fiction, and a Victorian story that will either be historical mystery or steampunk (can’t decide yet), all in various stages of development. I’m also working on a family devotional and some other nonfiction.

What drew you to writing these specific genres?

Curiosity! I’ll see a phrase, hear a comment, have a dream, or read about a real event that just sticks with me. I have to keep picking at it until I find out what it is and what it means. Then I play with it and see what sort of clothes it needs to wear.

Also, to be vulgarly honest, money. Particularly with the web series, I look at the opportunity and figure out if I can write something the boss wants. It’s always got some mystery and some humor in it though – I think those are just basic aspects of life that I can’t get away from.

How did you break into the field?

I’ve told this story before, but after I’d spent years and years in New York pounding the pavement for acting jobs, I finally went to the “other side of the table” and produced a couple of shows. I hadn’t planned on it, but a group I was very close with had some grant money on the table, and the producer had to back out because of life circumstances. They had a deadline to produce a show, or give the money back.

You don’t give grant money back. Just…no.

So I stepped up and did the producing work. It was a revelation. There wasn’t any magic or mystery to it, it’s just a lot of hard work.

I asked a lot of stupid questions and I asked a lot of favors. We did fundraising, and planned things, and put on a show, and people bought tickets and clapped and liked it, and we ended the season in the black. There was no invisible line between me and “real” producers. There was nothing to break into. I just did it.

So when I had my first book written, I looked at the state of the publishing industry and realized that the economics and time scale of traditional publishing weren’t a great fit for my book. So I became an indie author. I asked a lot of stupid questions and asked a lot of favors and just did it.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

Enjoyment, primarily. Fiction is entertainment, and entertainment is a form of hospitality. I want my readers to leave refreshed, like they spent a fun time with good friends.

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

Getting feedback from readers – either when I read something aloud to my loved ones and see their response, or when readers leave reviews or email notes to me with reactions and questions. I love that connection!

What do you find most challenging about writing?

The discipline of getting it done. I’m a member of what they used to call the “sandwich generation.” I have young children and elderly relatives who need my care and attention on both sides. I also have some health issues that flare up from time to time and derail my best-laid plans.

There’s a mythology of the professional writer who just bangs out the words, eight hours or ten pages a day, every day, forever. And some writers are able to do that. That’s not the reality I have. Frankly, it’s not the reality I want because it would require cutting off all the best things in my life!

So I stay in the struggle of getting it done, and it’s so very worth it.

What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

Cultivate marathon thinking, not magical thinking. If you’re going to write anything worth reading, you have to learn and practice and write a lot of words and throw even more of them away. You have to make space for that process in your life in a sustainable way. Flaubert said, “Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

You also have to put your writing out there, let strangers read it, and ask them for money. It takes chutzpah. There is no magic system to make it not be intimidating. There is no fairy godmother who will send your book to the ball and land you a prince of a contract. Whether you go indie or traditional, getting published is a lot of work. You’ll have to deal with rejection, and frustration, and delays, and a huge amount of detail.

But that’s all it is. It’s just learning skills and doing hard work. Nothing to be afraid of.

What type of books do you enjoy reading?

Well, classic mysteries are number one for me, always. I love the Golden-Age Queens of Crime – Christie, Marsh, Sayers, and Allingham. One of the motivations for writing Mister Mottley was that I’d read all of their books I could get my hands on, and wanted more!

For contemporary writers, I’m a sucker for beautiful prose and I like books with humor and/or a twist. Steve Hockinsmith’s Holmes on the Range series is delightful – a cowboy Sherlock Holmes. I also really enjoy Alexander McCall Smith – 44 Scotland Street just makes you feel good to read, and the Portugese Irregular Verbs series is hilarious. I laughed so hard reading it, my husband nearly fell out of bed.

For something a little more substantial, I’ve had wonderful experiences with Ann Patchett, Haruki Murakami, and David Mitchell. I read Mitchell’s Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet straight through in a weekend, barely came up for air. It was incredible.

Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

Erm, hard to say. I’m always surprised by the things people find surprising or unusual, and tend to bore people when I get on my hobby-horse about my latest shiny thing.

I’m a Shakespeare buff. Some of my best memories are of playing Beatrice in Much Ado, Mrs. Ford in Merry Wives, and Kate in Shrew. Another was learning to fight with broadswords in drama school. I got to do the final duel from MacBeth with one of my best girlfriends. That was a huge thrill.

What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

I’m a terrible Facebook addict, so you will find me there more often than you should! My author page is https://www.facebook.com/EllenSeltzAuthor/, and I’m always happy to answer questions or have a chat. You can find my personal profile there if you want, but I do have some opinions about some things, and the personal profile is where I put them. Fair warning.

I also blog at http://ellenseltz.com, and if you sign up there to join my Reader’s Circle you’ll get a free Mottley story. Sometimes it’s Book One for free, but by the time this interview goes live it might be my Christmas story collection. Depends on if anyone gets sick in the next week or so!

If you Tweet, I’m @EllenSeltz, and if you Instagram, I’m @mottleyfool. I also answer reader questions by email at [email protected]

Thanks for hosting me, Shannon! It’s a pleasure.

  About the Author

Ellen Seltz worked in the entertainment industry for twenty years, from Miami to New York and points in between. Her primary roles were actress and producer, but she also served as a comedy sketch writer, librettist, voice artist, propmaster, costumer, production assistant, camera operator and general dogsbody.

She turned to fiction writing in the vain hope that the performers would do as they were told. Joke’s on her.

Ellen is a native of Birmingham, Alabama, where she now lives with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys vegetable gardening and vintage-style sewing.

Author Links

Website & blog: ellenseltz.com/meet. Join my mailing list and receive a free copy of Book 1, Mister Mottley Gets His Man.

Facebook: EllenSeltzAuthor

Twitter: twitter.com/EllenSeltz

Instagram: Instagram.com/MottleyFool

Purchase Links – Amazon kobo

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December 4 – 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, &, Sissy, Too! – REVIEW – GIVEAWAY

December 5 – Island Confidential – GUEST POST – GIVEAWAY

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December 10 – Cozy Up With Kathy – INTERVIEW

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BLOG TOUR – Mister Mottley and the Dying Fall was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir

Marvel’s Exiles: Overture, Part 2

Travel through the Darkforce Dimension is infamously cold and, unsurprisingly, dark.  Her teeth gritted against the discomfort, Shard Bishop wondered briefly why she could not recall the journey to the mysterious prairie.  Had it been like this?  Disoriented, featureless and mind-numbingly cold?  With effort, Bishop could turn her head to the side, but she could not see anything in any direction.  It was like falling blindfolded, with the accompanying creepy sense that one might hit the ground at any moment.

The abrupt return of gravity and her consequent indelicate landing on solid ground alerted Bishop that she had arrived in normal space.  At first, it was not so different from the Darkforce: still dark, still bitterly cold.  Her feet and left hand were buried in snow, more than a foot deep.  She stood, rubbing her hands together to rid them of the clinging cold.  Removing her sunglasses, Bishop could make out her surroundings by starlight.  The terrain was rugged, with mountains jutting up into the sky all around.  Snow covered nearly every stretch and side she could see, glittering in the pale light from above.  She could also see her five fellow travellers nearby, retrieving their own bearings.

As Bishop began to contemplate what their next step might be, a sharp howl of wind cut down through their midst, impressing upon her the urgency of finding some protection from the frigid alpine weather.  As if in response to the TVA officer’s thoughts, Doctor Storm called out.

“Everyone over here!  Gather close!”

It took only moments for the others to comply with Storm’s command.  It occurred to Bishop to marvel at the ease with which she assumed a leadership role, and how willing the others-- Bishop included-- were to accept her instructions.  Johnny on the Spot was the last to arrive close, clutching his coat around him as he trudged through the knee-deep snow.  Abruptly, the wind cut to a muffled whine as a bubble of invisible force enclosed the group.

“Is anybody hurt?” asked Storm.  Receiving no replies in the affirmative, she continued. “Can anyone give us some heat?”

“A little,” answered Bishop, quickly.  “The starlight doesn’t give me much, but I should be able to keep us from freezing to death.”

“No sweats, I got it.”  It was the teenaged Madeleine Beaubier-Storm who spoke.  Hovering just above the level of the snow, she opened her hand and produced a foot-high fountain of multicolored flames.  Immediately, the air in the bubble began to warm, and Bishop felt a tingle of life enter her skin.

For a protracted moment, no one spoke, each regarding the others in the flickering light.  With a gloved hand, Johnny reached out into the night, surprised when his fingers stopped at the unseen wall.  The Juggernaut broke the silence.  “Should we be concerned about using up the oxygen in here?”

“I’ve left an aperture at the top of the dome.  It will be adequate for air exchange.” Doctor Storm replied.

“Invisible igloo.  Cool.”  If the teenager’s observation was intended as a pun, neither she nor her companions made any mention of it.  Madeleine gathered her knees close to her chest and hovered in a cannonball pose, keeping the hand with the spouting fireworks extended toward the middle of the group.

Rogue pushed her hood back onto her shoulders and ran a gloved hand through her hair.  “Can we take a few minutes to catch our breath?  I’m still trying to wrap my head around… any of this.”  Her voice was husky but carefully level, betraying little in the way of emotion.

Bishop instinctively looked to Susan Storm, who nodded pensively.  They stood in silence for a minute or more, enjoying the crackling heat of Madeleine’s polychromatic firework display.  Bishop pulled her 7D off of her bandolier and snapped it open.  She permitted herself a small sigh of relief: at least it was working again.  This iteration was not in its database, but that was no surprise.  The information on its small readouts could still prove helpful.

“We’re on Earth,” she announced to no one in particular.  “In the Himalayas, what’s probably China.  2016, by Mu Calendar.”

Doctor Storm stepped in close, craning her neck to look at the compact-sized computer.  “This device tells you that?”

Bishop handed it to her without a second thought.  “My seven-dimensional compass.  TVA standard issue.  Tells you where, when and in what iteration of what dimension you are--at least, the best estimate.”

Susan’s eyes flicked hungrily over the readouts on the small display, “Does it have information on this specific universe?”

“Afraid not.  There are thousands of worlds in our database, but compared to infinity…”

“...that’s essentially nothing.” the physicist concluded.  “Still, a very useful device.”

She handed the silver box back to Bishop, and nodded to the golden Tallus on her wrist.  “Do you have any idea how to use that one?”  Bishop could only shake her head, tight-lipped.  She returned the 7D to its hanger and examined the new ornament more closely.  Apart from glittering in the firelight, it gave away nothing.

Gathering her cloak beneath her, Rogue sat on the snow.  “Anyone else hoping this is just a bad dream?”

“I’ll say,” answered Johnny on the Spot.  He pointed a gloved finger at Bishop.  “Accordin’ to her, I’m about five thousand miles and... a hunnert and thirty years from where I had breakfast this mornin’.  I knew this world was fulla strange things, but this…” he concluded his statement with a low whistle.

“I think we’re all a little out of our element, here… with the possible exception of Officer Bishop,” Doctor Storm reminded them.  “I believe the first question we need to ask ourselves is whether we believe this ‘Timebroker’ at all.”

“It wouldn’t be unfathomable that someone could fake this whole thing,” contributed Stark.  “Mephisto… or Nightmare.”

“Mastermind… Mysterio…” continued Rogue, dully.

“But why strangers from alternate realities?” pressed Susan, undeterred.

“For all I know, you’re all figments in this fantasy, created to confuse me.”  There was an edge of annoyance in the Juggernaut’s voice that raised goosebumps on the back of Bishop’s neck.

“Same to you, big guy,” countered Madeleine with a smirk.

“Thinking solipsistically is unlikely to get us anywhere,” Storm addressed them both, affecting a placatory tone.  “As improbable as it may seem, I believe our best course is to trust the information of our senses and proceed on the assumption that all of this rea…”

The sound of Susan’s words was lost in a crackling hum as Bishop’s senses were commandeered.  Stuttering snippets of words, and flickers of images like changing too fast between telesensor channels washed over her mind.  “Wait… I-- I think the Tallus is trying to tell me something.”  Shard’s own voice seemed distant, but through her physical eyes she could see the others watching her with concern.  Squeezing her eyelids closed, she tried to focus on making sense of the jumbled perceptions.  Gradually, a message began to emerge, like a picture made up of hundreds of smaller pictures, like a conceptual symphony.  When she grasped the chord, with a sharp sense of relief, the images disappeared from Bishop’s senses.

“‘Take the Great Refuge to the moon.’  That’s what it said we have to do.”

“Are you alright?”  The Juggernaut’s millstone voice was soft with genuine concern.

“Yeah, fine, it’s fine now.  I’m sharp.  Rotten way to send a transmission, though.”  Bishop gingerly fingered the Tallus on her wrist.  Now it was as unresponsive and inscrutable as it had ever been.  The others were still watching her.  “Anyone know what it means?”

Susan Storm replied, “The term ‘Great Refuge’ likely refers to Attilan, the secret home of the Inhumans.  The directive to take it to the moon makes sense, as a similar event occurred in my world.”

“We have to take this place-- Attilan-- to the moon?” prodded Bishop.

“That’s kinda otherwise,” opined Madeleine.  She stretched out her legs and traded the job of producing a flame from her left hand to her right.  “In my world, Attilan’s been on the moon since, like, the eighties.”

“In mine the exodus occurred in 2004,” added Doctor Storm, pensively.

Johnny on the Spot swept the hat from his head.  Though the black dot that covered his face revealed no emotion, his voice registered pique.  “Can I just remind everyone that I have no goldurned idea what any of y’all are talking about?  If we’re supposed to be in this together, will y’all quit talking over me and fill me in?”

There was an exchange of abashed looks.  Doctor Storm took the initiative to speak.  “I apologize, Mister Ohnn.  We are in an unusual circumstance and I’m still struggling to make sense of it all myself.”

“There’s a lot we don’t know, Johnny,” joined Rogue, standing up and brushing snow from her legs.  “For instance, before we go rushing off to the moon or whatever, I’d like to know who this team is...what they can do.  The Timebroker’s little newsreel didn’t give us enough to put together any kind of strategy.”  She looked directly at Doctor Storm as she spoke.

Storm rose to the challenge.  “You want to know my powers.  Very well.  I can emit a kind of cosmic energy that bends light, effectively making myself or other people and objects invisible to most forms of visual detection.  I can also generate and manipulate solid shapes composed of force, such as the walls of this ‘invisible igloo.’”

“How long can you keep it up?” Rogue pressed her. “My precise endurance depends upon how much pressure I must exert.  Against a wind like this, a long time.  Perhaps a few hours, if I needed to.  Against the onslaught of a Hulk or a--” She paused, momentarily casting her gaze toward Stark. “--Colossus… Seconds.  A minute at most.  Any other questions?”  After a silence, “Very well, moving on.  Madeleine?”

The teenager rolled her eyes.  “Only my dad calls me that.  Just call me Maddie or Skyrocket.  Anglos never pronounce it right anyway.  Uh… I fly and throw fire.  Clearly.”

Maddie had a direct, unpretentious manner that Bishop liked.  The girl reminded her of her own brother.  And, Bishop thought to herself, the pyrotechnics that the she effortlessly produced from her open hand were beautiful… though Shard Bishop had always been a fan of light shows.  

“I’m a photokinetic,” Bishop offered, not waiting for her invitation.  Taking in, without surprise, the uncomprehending glances that the declaration elicited, she elaborated.  “I absorb energy from light and project it back in other forms.  Heat, sound, concussive force…”

Rogue indicated the silver bandolier across Bishop’s chest.  “Any more handy gizmos we should know about on that utility belt?”

“Besides the 7D?  A voice log recorder, a couple of flashbang grenades, a smoke bomb, and spare parts for my sidearm.  Which is, itself, a useful tool-- it’s specially made for me, and channels my energy output, so it doesn’t need a battery or ammunition.”  Bishop drew the long-barrelled energy pistol and held it flat on her open palm as illustration.

“Nothing that can transport through time or dimensions?”

Bishop sighed.  “No.  We have them at the TVA, but I didn’t have one on me when I got… unhinged.  I guess the Timebroker didn’t want us to have a way off this boat.”

“Figures.”  The mercenary shook her head, sucking silently on her teeth.  “What about you, cowboy?”

“Me?  I can toss out these spots.” He demonstrated by opening four circular portals in the air around the group.  They hung indifferently in midair, each a two-dimensional plane the size of a serving platter at a different angle relative to the ground.  Each was simply black, lacking any trace of color or the stereotypical swirling of an interdimensional portal. “By linin’ ‘em up on the other side, I can make things come out wherever I want.”  This, he illustrated by putting his right arm through the nearest portal, withdrawing it, and then plunging it in again.  Each time he did so, his hand and forearm emerged from a different one of the other portals.

“Neat trick,” mused Stark.  “It must kill at parties.”

Without response, Johnny withdrew his arm and closed the portals.  He faced the others blankly, his right heel digging idly in the snow.

“Can those portals only be used for short-range transportation, or can you go further?  Say, a few miles?”  Susan posed the question with the intense interest of both an experienced academic and an aspiring tactician. “Sure, but if’n I can’t see where I’m going, I’m liable to shoot pretty wide of my mark.”

She nodded, considering.  After a few moments of thoughtful silence, she turned to the Juggernaut.  “Stark?”

“Oh, well, I’m strong and just about invulnerable, and I wish you’d call me Tony.  My gauntlets and boots project repulsor beams which let me fly and can be used as weapons.  Oh, and my powers are enhanced by momentum-- once I get going, on the ground or in the air, next to nothing can stop me.”

Rogue’s eyes flashed and she almost stifled a snort.  “A flying Juggernaut?” “Your Juggernaut can’t fly?”  The industrialist seemed genuinely surprised.

“Nope.  Iron Man can, though.”

“Who?” “I’ll tell you later.”  The former X-Man smiled grimly to herself.  Bishop watched her without amusement. “That just leaves you, Rogue.” Rogue turned to Bishop and answered flatly “When I touch people, I take their powers and memories.  Just for a short time, unless I hold on too long, but that can… it doesn’t end well.”

Bishop pressed her.  “How long can you keep a power you’ve stolen?” “Safely?  Two, two and a half minutes.”

“And what happens to the people you touch?”

“They’re weakened, lose whatever power I take.  Sometimes they pass out for a little while.”  She paused, waiting for the interrogation to continue.  At Bishop’s silence, she added “I also have eidetic reflexes-- meaning that whatever I see someone do, I can do.”

“Stolen from Taskmaster, like the Timebroker said?  How is it you’ve managed to keep that ability so long?”  Had she been asked, Bishop would not have been able to say why she pursued the issue so acidly.  Her own voice reverberating off the invisible walls of the bubble sounded strange.

The mercenary’s steely gaze became molten and she advanced on the TVA officer “I held on too long.  Now his brain’s a cabbage and I’m stuck with his power and his memories for good.  You want to make something of it, Time Cop?”

Somehow her teammate’s sudden advance took Bishop by surprise.  She was certain that a fight had not been what she was looking for.  Susan intervened before the situation could degrade any further, breaking the eyeline between Bishop and Rogue with her own head.

“That’s enough,” she scolded.  “I’m sure we all recognize that we’re overwrought, but we needn’t indulge in the cliche of turning on one another.  Tone aside, Officer Bishop was asking questions that interested all of us.  We can address personal courtesy at another time, but for now are there any other pressing strategic questions?”

Maddie raised her free hand like a grade school student.  “I don’t know if this counts, but I have to go to the bathroom.”

Unclenching her jaw for the first time since Bishop had begun grilling her, Rogue turned away with a dry laugh.  “Can’t get much more pressing than that.” Even Susan allowed herself a tiny quirk of a smile.  “I suggest you find some cover and take care of your needs, Skyrocket.  Does anyone else require a... break before we set off?”

There were no responses to Doctor Storm’s inquiry.  Bishop suddenly felt a cutting wind in her back as the invisible force that had been shielding the group fell.  A small amount of snow that had been blown onto the wall itself scattered into the melting snow at their feet, and Madeleine Beaubier-Storm zipped off into the night like a dragonfly.  When the shield rose up again, Bishop instinctively began producing heat from the photonic energy she had accumulated in the colorful light from the teenager’s hands.  The air inside the bubble quickly began to warm up again.

There was a long silence.  Bishop self-consciously avoided watching Rogue, but found that she had nowhere better to set her eyes in the dim light.  Johnny’s eyes were utterly indiscernible, and Stark’s were scarcely better.  Doctor Storm was looking up at the stars through the invisible shield, to all appearances unconcerned with what her companions were thinking.  The scientist cleared her throat.

“In my world, Attilan was in the Himalayas for a time.  Unless anyone has another idea, I propose that we make our way to the location of my Attilan.  It seems probable that this world’s Attilan would be in the same place.  In any case, it’s as good a place as any to begin searching.  Any objections to that course?”

There was no immediate opposition to the idea.  “Good,” she continued.  “I was able to make out our latitude and longitude on Officer Bishop’s compass, and I remember the coordinates of Attilan from the times that I visited there with the Fantastic Four.  From that, all it takes is simple geometry to know that Attilan-- or at least, the location it occupied on my world-- is approximately five and a half nautical miles east by north… which, based on the location of the pole star, is that way.”

Bishop’s eyes followed Doctor Storm’s outstretched arm into the rugged mountains and the starlit night.  All at once, the thinness of the air at this altitude became oppressive and she sucked in a breath to stave off light-headedness.  She did not relish the idea of slogging six or seven miles through the snowy mountains.

“It seems to me that we’re working on the basis of a lot of assumptions,” Stark mused, “but, like you said, Doc… it’s as good a place as any to start looking.”

A flare of colored light just outside the bubble of invisible force informed the assemblage that Maddie had returned.  Bishop gritted her teeth, and the wind once again bit into her skin.

“Tony--” began Doctor Storm, her voice raised against the rushing wind.

“Yeah?” answered Rogue.  She caught herself just as Susan’s head snapped to face her.  The beginnings of a surprising blush darkened the mercenary’s cheeks.  “I-- never mind.  Go ahead.”

The Juggernaut interjected a placating voice into the momentary awkwardness. “What can I help you with, Doctor?”

“I’ve been thinking about how we can travel most efficiently under these conditions.  Would I be right in assuming that your mystic power protects you from this cold?”

Stark flashed another wide, toothy smile. “You certainly would.”

Scarcely a minute later, five of the conscripted companions were lifted into the night sky in another bubble of invisible force.  The bubble perched on top of the Juggernaut like a howdah, and rocketed with him as he was propelled forward by a burst of crimson fire from the heels of his boots.  Bishop pressed her hands and her forehead against the side of the bubble, and watched the landscape rush past in a dizzying blur.

The invisible wall warmed immediately under her touch, and for a moment she felt herself relax.  From somewhere in the sweeping chaos of her mind, the TVA officer emerged and began to parse the situation.  She was in an unknown iteration, cut off from her fellow officers and most of her tools.  That much, at least, had been covered by her training at the Authority.  The experience of being yoked to five complete strangers and a mission with disturbingly vague parameters was new, as was the curiously compelling agency that assigned the mission, but the essential principles of working in strange worlds and times were unchanged.  Plan ahead.  Practice discretion.  Support your partner… partners.  Complete the mission.  Deep breath, Bishop.  There’s nothing you can’t handle.

As if to give lie to her self-assurance, the landscape shook with a rumbling thrum so loud and deep as to be felt even in an isolated force bubble in mid-air.  Before the astonished eyes of the assembled superhumans, a colossal span of rock and snow rose from some hidden valley out of sight and hovered at the level of the highest mountain peak.  It betrayed no visual sign of the power that lifted it; only the incessant thrumming pressure that shook snow from the mountainsides.  On the upward face of the rock expanse stood a city, small but magnificent.  Its alien architecture had a beauty to rival the techno-skyscrapers Bishop’s own time.  The city hovered four seconds, maybe five, before streaking off toward the eastern sky at an incredible speed.

“Attilan!  Go after it, Juggernaut!  We must overtake it!”  Bishop seriously doubted that Stark could hear Doctor Storm’s shouted words.  She could barely hear them herself over the pounding hum of the city’s engines, and she didn’t have to contend with the wind or a wall of invisible force between them. In any case, he must have had the same idea, because he adjusted his course and, with a flashy burst from the soles of his feet, redoubled his speed.

“Guess I shouldn’t have taken that bathroom break!” Maddie Beaubier-Storm shouted, to no one in particular.  Below them, the rugged terrain passed by in a desperate blur.

Bishop could see the strain that creased Susan Storm’s face as she struggled to maintain their bubble of protection at the incredible speed.  Her dark eyes snapped back and forth between the physicist’s face and the flying city which did not appear to be getting any closer.  “We’ll never catch up to it,” she said out loud, though she did not expect anyone to hear her.

Bishop whirled.  “Johnny, can you get us in front of it?”

To his credit, the bandit was only momentarily surprised.  He tipped his hat back with one thumb and gazed inscrutably ahead.  “I reckon I can,” he called back.

With no further word or gesture from Johnny on the Spot, a circular portal stretched open in front of them, black on the black night.  Without hesitation, the Juggernaut plunged them into it, emerging a millisecond later to a view nearly identical, but notably lacking their vast quarry.  Bishop, Rogue and Skyrocket rushed to the back of the bubble to see the Great Refuge behind them and gaining.  Stark pitched upward and in a moment, the assemblage was over the streets of Attilan.

The Juggernaut landed in the street with sufficient delicacy as to make only a few small cracks in the stone, and the invisible howdah lowered itself to the ground before passing out of existence.  The sound of the engines was somehow less overwhelming in the city itself than it had been before, but the shriek of wind rushing through the buildings was nearly as disruptive.  The streets themselves appeared empty.

Doctor Storm caught Johnny on the Spot by his shoulders and shouted something that the others could not hear.  She pointed to a large, high window set in the largest tower at the center of the city.  Obligingly, a spot tall enough for any of them to walk through appeared over the street, and Susan waved to indicate they should pass through it.  Rogue was the first in, followed by Madeleine.  Bishop hesitated only a moment before following into the space-black portal.

The transition from the dark and roaring night to the comparatively silent tower room was abrupt and left Shard Bishop’s ears ringing.  She stepped away from the Darkforce spot and made an instinctive situation assessment of the room in which she found herself.  Including Skyrocket, Rogue, and herself, there were thirteen in the room.  Four she recognized as the Fantastic Four from her own world’s history:  Reed and Susan Richards, Jonathan Storm and Benjamin Grimm.  The other six, she reasoned, must be the denizens of this city, whom Doctor Storm had called Inhumans.  

They mostly looked human enough, excluding the pug the size of a DOVA shuttle.  Two seemed to be women, one statuesque with an impossible volume of bright red hair, the other young and bright, with blonde, close-cropped hair.  The three men were even more varied: one small and lean, his head shaved; another scaled all over like a reptile.  The final Inhuman was a tall and powerfully muscled man, sheathed head to toe in a shimmering black material.

As the last of her companions hurried through the portal, Bishop stepped forward, her empty hands held out from her sides.  “Everyone try and stay calm,” she said, her dark eyes seeking out contact with as many of the room’s occupants as she could manage, “We’re here to help.”

A few pairs of eyes turned to Bishop at the sound of her voice, but most were focused behind her, at the Juggernaut and, naturally, the second Invisible Woman.  Mister Fantastic’s neck craned forward a meter and he blinked his eyes heavily as if to clear them.  “Susan?  But… how?”

With a supercilious frown, Doctor Storm stepped forward.  “Calm yourself, Richards,” she chided.  “I’m not your Susan.”  She left the words hanging a little longer than a standard dramatic pause.  The walls of the wide room seemed to be made up entirely of windows and large banks of computers.  For this time in Earth’s history, the computers seemed well in advance of human technology and yet somehow terribly archaic, with spinning reels and innumerable blinking lights.  “We’ve come from another reality, and we’re only here to help you get this city to the moon,” Doctor Storm continued at last. “Then we’ll be gone.”

Reed Richards’ elastic eyes remained wide with wonderment, and for a moment the excitement of questions bubbling within his powerful brain was practically palpable.  All at once he caught himself.  “The moon?  We aren’t going to the moon.  Our destination is South America, the Andes mountain range.”

“It seems that someone has another idea.  Medusa, Black Bolt,” Doctor Storm addressed two of the Inhumans, the red-haired woman and the man in black, “we have been sent here to deliver Attilan to a new home on the moon.  I can give a little more explanation, but I suspect our time may be short, so I must ask you now: are you amenable to this?”

The red-haired woman looked to the man, but no words passed between them.  They watched each other carefully for several interminable seconds.  The silent gaze between them was interrupted by a sudden, violent quaking of the whole tower that threw most of them to the floor.  The computers that ringed the walls shrieked and sparked, and sections of lights began to flicker out.  The incessant hum of the engines, already far more muffled than it had been outside, spun down and stopped.  There was, for a time, the sickening sensation of falling.

Then Attilan crashed into the sea. To be continued...