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earnestly-endlessly · 3 years

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Hi! Do you have any Cherik Army AUs? I've managed to find just 3.

Hi Anon, thanks for the ask. I found some good Army AUs, though some might not quite fall into the category of 'Army AU'. There are, surprisingly, few Army AUs that I have found, whereas there are several military and war AUs, but those don't necessarily involve an army. I did include a variety that involve an army in one way or another, though some fit the bill better than others. I hope you find some that you enjoy!!

Cherik Army AU

I Want to Guard Your Dreams And Visions – luninosity

Summary: I was reading Barbara Hambly’s Abigail Adams mystery novels, and then Erik/Charles American Revolutionary War AU happened. Little snippet in which they share a tent, drink coffee, and provide support to each other.

The Eggnog Riot – Sophia_Bee

Summary: 1826. The American Military Academy in West Point. The day after Christmas. Cadet Erik Lehnsherr wakes up naked with a certain cadet Xavier sprawled across his chest. He can only blame the eggnog.

No Man’s Land – ikeracity

Summary: It's 1914 in Ypres, Belgium. British soldier Charles Xavier has been in the trenches for four months of endless artillery fire, bone-deep cold, and constant fear of the enemy. But on Christmas Eve, the gunfire falls silent, and they climb out of their trenches for a Christmas truce. Charles, of course, meets Erik, the German soldier across the way.

My Land’s Only Borders Lie Around My Heart – pseudoneems

Summary: WW1 Christmas truce of 1914. Opposing soldiers Erik and Charles meet.

Le soldat – Iggyassou

Summary: Erik is in the trenches, trying to survive the war so that he can go back to Charles, his young lover waiting for him back at home.

Names – Squeegee

Summary: In the summer of 1917, British soldier Charles Xavier finds himself taking cover in a shell crater.

Not sure if the 'graphic' tag applies or not, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Quell a storm with pen and ink – patroclux

Summary: Charles had spared his life. That was not something he could easily repay.

They wrote letters to each other for two years, until Charles was pulled out of the war from a sudden illness and Erik remained to fight for a cause he didn't believe in. One that ultimately had no effect; one that stole away four years of his life.

Traumatized and persecuted, Erik applied for a post at Janus, a lighthouse in the middle of the Irish Sea. He thought being alone would do him good.

Despite the letters and despite the love, Erik didn't expect Charles to find him.

Hier steh ich an den Marken meiner Tage – MonstrousRegiment

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a spy in the SS, and his British liaison is strategist Charles Xavier. Their relationship from the moment they meet to a year after the end of the war.

Theme and Variations: War – ninemoons42

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a musical prodigy and a man destined for great things and great stages. But his life is shattered by a terrible accident that leaves him blind and trying to find his way back to his life, his music, and his place in the world.

Then he meets Charles Xavier, an agent of Section 8 of the Military Intelligence Directorate of Providence, and he finds himself listening in to clandestine radio transmissions and clicking Morse code, and these sounds are part and parcel of a war that can only take place in the shadows and the hidden places of history.

Strib nicht von Mir – ravenoftheninerealms

Summary: A squad of Allied Forces, led by Charles Xavier, liberates the Nazi concentration camp where Erik was being held prisoner.

Cold foxholes, warm hearts – oddegg

Summary: Basically, this is Band of Mutants. A little slice of life in Bastogne.

Photographs and Memories – tirsynni

Summary: When war-battered Erik Lehnsherr met Charles Xavier, the man kneeling in the dirt and whispering to a lost refugee child, Erik feared his days of running from his deviance was done.

Marching Home – Quietbang

Summary: For a prompt on the meme asking for fic dealing with the fact that, in comics canon, Charles served in the Korean war.

War meant something different to this generation, Charles knew.

Crash on the Levy (Down in the Flood) – Quietbang

Summary: “This is much bigger than you think. You're in the middle of a war, and you don't even realize, do you?”

He pauses, and answers his own question.“No, of course you don't. How silly of me."

The Knight and the Dagger – Dow

Summary: A Lieutenant in the Soviet Army, Erik Lensherr had no other goals than to find the man that killed his parents. But when a discovery yields a little boy with wings like an angel, Erik is shocked to realize that he isn’t alone. There are other people like him, both dangerous and alluring.

Lifelong Service – Pookaseraph

Summary: Erik thinks he should be the one to teach their recruits hand-to-hand combat; Charles makes a persuasive argument to the contrary.

Footsteps of uprooted lovers – ninemoons42

Summary: Against a turbulent backdrop of artistic, social, and political upheaval, the playwright Charles Xavier and the photographer Erik Lehnsherr find themselves meeting under less-than-polite circumstances, but part rather more amicably than they'd met.

When they find each other again in a Barcelona that is falling inexorably toward war, they find themselves taking up arms, each in his own way, and together they join a struggle for freedom, for love, and for their very lives.

Dear Soldier – Lindstrom, ToriTC198

Summary: "Dear Soldier,

I pray that this package finds you well. The organization gave us a list of odds and ends that you might need, but I thought that a person so far from home might appreciate something more than soap and tube socks."

When Charles' school decides to send care packages to the soldiers fighting in Vietnam, he chooses to also include a letter and a few personal touches. When Staff Sergeant Erik is the recipient of that particular care package it will spur a relationship that will change them both.

Fortunate Son – blueink13

Summary: he days leading up to and during Alex's deployment in Vietnam. Everyone handles it in their own way. Some handle better than others.

You’re Here – Deshonana

Summary: Everyone decides its a good idea not to tell Erik when his boyfriend comes home from the military.

Welcome Home – loveydoveyecstasy

Summary: It's been two years since Charles was deployed to Afghanistan, and Erik can't wait to pick him up at the airport.

When Secrets have Secrets – ximeria

Summary: The arguments that take place in General Xavier's office when General Lehnsherr has a bad day are legendary. Quite frankly, no one really knows what's going on and if the two men have it their way, no one ever will.

Quiet Company – Sophia_Bee

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is always on the move. He's spent the last many years going from war torn country to war torn country telling the stories of the people there through photographs. Then one of his pictures is selected as a winner for the Pulitzer Prize and Erik finds himself stuck in London for longer than he wants. He ends up with an assignment to photograph Charles Xavier, a wealthy philanthropist who is intrigued to find himself working with a Pulitzer-winning war photographer. Erik is far less intrigued by someone he considers privileged and out of touch. Both of their lives are about to change in ways they couldn't imagine.

The City is Ours – RedStockings

Summary: Erik felt his heart racing with excitement, lightened, and for once felt joyful. Charles had looked at him, really looked at him, and there had been something there, a knowing of a kind. As the soldiers laughed amongst each other, and joked each other about who would succeed in marrying the boy, Erik made himself a silent vow. Charles was going to be his, and nothing would keep him from having him. He’d marry him, and he’d save him, and Charles would love him for it.

Not even the war could keep them apart... right?

Sign of the Times – dsrobertson

Summary: Casablanca-ish AU.

Charles Xavier meets Erik Lehnsherr in Paris, 1937. They spend the next two years with one another, stupid in-love, until war comes heavy in September 1939. Erik leaves for Poland and the Resistance movement there, promising to return. Charles is left in Paris, where Nazi jackboots march in, Summer of 1940. He becomes a member of the underground French Resistance, publishing illegal newsletters, leaflets, until news comes through in February 1942: Erik is dead. Charles throws himself into more dangerous work, meeting with Communists, helping derail a German train, and he does too much, goes too far. His friends find him safe passage out of France, out across the Mediterranean, to Morocco, Casablanca. It is here he finds Erik, alive.

The Waste Land – nekosmuse

Summary: The White Queen and her Shadow King sit on their throne, safe behind the psionic shields of the Walled City. The armies of Genosha batter uselessly at the gates, a war locked in stalemate. Magneto, camped in the frozen mud, receives word the Citadel intends to send a telepath to the front lines. The same telepath he met two years ago, who sat across a carved wooden chess set and offered Magneto the first friendly smile in a lifetime. The same telepath who still haunts his dreams.

Winter Comes With a Knife – RedStockings

Summary: It apparently came to no one’s surprise that the war-mage Erik Lehnsherr took up residence in the Dark Keep. I knew he was going to choose my sister, Raven, to be his apprentice so why wouldn’t he let me go? What did he want from me?

My name is Charles Xavier, I can read minds and use magic. I’ve met Kings and Queens, mages and magic users. I’ve travelled through lay-lines and jumped through the Dark Void… but none of that really matters.

I am leading an army into war, I am scared and I never wanted this. I’ve come to realise that what I want, rode into my life when I was still a child. Now he’s out there, ready to charge into battle. Ready to die for me.

Polaris – LastAmericanMermaid

Summary: Charles Xavier is 19 years old, doe-eyed and soft; Erik Lehnsherr is 24 years old, steely-hard and bitter. One is a soldier, the other a refugee. Both are mutants. There will be pain, oh yes.

(An AU in which Charles is a wounded British soldier, Erik is the German hiding in France who nurses him back to health, and the contents of this fic are best read to the soundtrack of Atonement.)

Note: Unfinished

MEDIC! – paladin_danse

Summary: A British airborne medic finds himself alone and afraid behind enemy lines. When he decides to save the life of an S.S. German officer he finds wounded in the snow, he has no idea the choice he has made will alter the course of the war—and their lives—forever.

Note: Sadly unfinished

Suicide is Painlesss – weethreequarter

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr did not become a doctor to pick bullets out of children. Unfortunately the US Army had other ideas.

Stuck in the middle of the Korean War, Erik and his fellow civilian surgeons have to battle not only the war, but also weather, mud, and boredom. And that's without mentioning Major Sebastian Shaw who thinks war is the best thing that's ever happened to him and never should've been allowed to pick up a scalpel, or Colonel William Stryker who may or may not work for the CIA and probably doesn't even know himself.

Throw in new arrival Captain Charles Xavier, and Erik is in for a very interesting war.

Note: Unfinished

A Light That Never Goes Out – R_Cookie

Summary: It was meant to be the war to end all wars; these two men were never supposed to meet. One a German Jew, the other a British surgeon. The odds that their paths should cross were next to none - but War defies the expected. It always has, and always will.

From the beaches of Dunkirk to the treacherous slopes of Monte Cassino - this is their story.

WWII AU.

Note: Unfinished

#cherik #cherik fic recs #fic recs #asks #earnestly answers #army au #military au #war au #long post

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a-world-in-grey · 4 years

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Galahdian Gemstones

@secret-engima because headcanons (and I’d like your input on gemstone selections). Two sections - headcanons on Clan Stones, and some history stuff.

-Clan Stones.

-Like Clan Colors, each Clan has a gemstone or pair of gemstones that identify them. These stones are worn in their Clan Braid, usually the first bead in the braid (though some Clans wear theirs at the end, like the Ostium joiners or the Furia), followed by personal beads.

-Certain Clans do share one of their Stones, but each Clan has at least one of their stones unique to them and them alone that serves as their main Clan Stone. So, from the top to the bottom (not including pictures because this post is long enough):

-Altius: Chalcedony/Sunstone. There aren’t very many grey gemstones, but grey Chalcedony is very pretty, especially when banded (striped). For an orange stone, I headcanon sunstone because of my hcs of them being blood of Ifrit’s Blessed, and because it’s a very pretty gem. I headcanon sunstone being their main Stone, because they are one of two Clans that have Orange as a Clan Color. (Second choice for the Altius grey stone would be grey moonstone, without the blue sheen, to contrast the sunstone.)

-Arra: Alexandrite. The Arra are one of the Clans to have a single stone that represents both of their Clan Colors, as alexandrite (though in-verse it’s probably called something different) changes color from green to purple depending on the type of lighting. A suitably subtle gem for a subtle Clan.

-Bellum: Carnelian/Dumortierite. Dumortierite is a pretty blue stone that I chose because of the name - dumortier is a French surname meaning death, though the in-verse name is likely different. Carnelian is their main stone since they are the only Clan with Red as a Clan Color (primary or secondary), and every Bellum is willing to Throw Hands at the drop of a hat.

-Bestia: Chrysoberyl. Again, probably a different name in-verse, but this pretty stone comes in both yellow and green. The yellow is likely their main Stone.

-Canere: Sapphire. Specifically color changing sapphire, which like alexandrite, changes color in different light. Color changing sapphire changes between blue and purple.

-Carduus: Moonstone. Blue moonstone is a silvery-grey stone with a blue sheen, representing both the Blue and Grey colors of the Carduus, as well as harkening back to their original Secondary Color of Silver. (My second choice for them would be Labradorite, which is a dark-grey stone with flashes of blue and green, though blue is the most common and what the Carduus would reserve for their beads.)

-Furia: Pearl. Pearls come in a variety of natural colors, though as a rule they tend to be fairly pale. I headcanon that the Furia are the only Clan to wear pearls as hair beads, and few outside the Furia wear pearls as jewelry, most of them being Lazarus, Arra, Praesidium, and the occasional Canere. Furia wear orange and blue pearls as their Clan Stones, and make quite the profit selling the white and pink pearls to the Mainland.

-Khara: Purple/Yellow Jade. Purple jade (known as Turkiyenite) is only 40-60% jadeite and so not technically classified as such. However, this is fiction so we can do whatever, and it’s very pretty. The purple jade is their main Stone.

-Lazarus: Citrine/Quartz. Quartz comes in a variety of colors, including grey. Citrine would be their main Stone. (Alternate grey stone would be chalcedony, which they could feasibly share with the Altius, since chalcedony is really common.)

-Ornata: Lapis Lazuli. While mostly blue, lapis lazuli is known for its gold flecks. (While I really like this stone, I know it’s not necessarily a perfect fit, so another option could be topaz - which comes in both yellow and blue varieties.)

-Ostium: Tanzanite/Onyx. The Ostium are one of the only clans that place their Clan Stone at the end of their braid - the black onyx joiners are the hallmark of the Ostium Clan. Onyx also comes in green, which is what Ostium Braincells wear to designate that they’ve got an Ulric to cluck after.

-Praesidium: Azurite/Malachite. These two stones often form near each other and mixed together, resulting in a pretty and vibrant blue and green stone. Praesidium are the only Clan to have two Clan Stones they are known by, with azurite and malachite being worn in equal amounts alongside the azurite/malachite mixes.

-Tibiae: Quartz/Emerald. Contrary to what one might think, emerald is actually this Clan’s main Stone. Because that Clan needs a warning label, and it’s the only one they are going to give you. (Other options for green stones could be chrysoprase or peridot. Could also use chalcedony or grey moonstone for grey stones.)

-Ulric: Onyx/Charoite. Ulrics share onyx with the Ostium, the latter wearing it after picking up the Black Clan Color from the Ulrics. However, the Ulric main Stone is charoite. (An alternate purple stone is amethyst, but I think charoite is prettier and generally prefer semi-precious stones to precious stones.)

-(Astrum: Obsidian/Heliodore. Differing from the other Clans in that their Stones come from the Lucian mainland. Their main Stone is their obsidian joiner, similar to the Ostium.)

-History headcanons!

-Galahd is rich in gemstones and metals. Much like real-life Myanmar, Galahd has just about every kind of gemstone imaginable, with the exception of diamonds (which Galahdians don’t really wear anyway).

-As such, before the Burning it is very common for every Galahdian to wear precious and semi-precious stones for their braids and jewelry.

-Now, I headcanon that before Lucis folded Galahd into the Empire, mining was not a huge business in Galahd. Oh, it was definitely a viable profession, but the Clans didn’t use a lot of gemstones, and generally weren’t picky about what they did mine up. The best quality went to making beads, and the rest went to jewelry.

-After being ‘conquered’ by Lucis, well. Wealthy Lucians were highly interested in the ‘untapped resources’. Now, depending on how dark you want to take things, this could go a couple different ways. We’ll start with the least nasty, because why not.

-First possibility is that Galahd is able to dictate the trade of Galahdian gemstones. They present a selection for sale, and the Lucian traders buy what they want. Trying to pressure the Galahdians into offering more/higher quality Does Not Happen, because the first attempts are shut down hard by the Galahdians and the Crown slaps down any armed hostilities from breaking out because We Do Not Fight The Jungle Children FOR THE LOVE OF THE SIX. This likely results in some resentment from the Lucians and wariness from the Galahdians, but nothing too drastic.

-Second possibility, still fairly light, but a bit darker, is that the Lucians’ offers for high quality gems drives local prices up, making it harder for Galahdians to sell/buy their own gems. As such, local gems become much more scarce, until they are almost exclusively reserved for Clan Beads. This scenario is going to breed a fair amount of resentment from the Galahdians towards the Lucian mainland, specifically the nobility/wealthy.

-Third possibility, which is very dark, is that Lucian corporate interests manage to get a foothold in Galahd, and begin large mining operations - either with their own Lucian workers or with locals. Lucian workers would be paid more, lured by a promise of making money, but clashes between the workers and locals would be higher. Galahdian workers would likely be paid far less, and oh boy would that breed it’s own resentment, but there would be less possible conflict between Galahdians and Lucians, other than overseers management. This is going to breed a lot of resentment, to the point of possible outright rebellion from the Galahdians.

-Then we have Niflheim occupying Galahd. And things get a whole lot worse. Because Niflheim is only going to see the potential profit from Galahd’s gemstone resources and won’t care how they get it.

-In the darkest scenario, take that third possibility, and crank it up to eleven. Large scale environmental destruction, forced work in the mines, and pittance pay. Exploitation at its worst. Galahdians likely had to hide their Stones or have them confiscated by Niflheim overseers and sold overseas, and you can bet the Nifs would dig up the Galahdian dead just to get at those beads too. The Galahdians wouldn’t be allowed to keep any of the stones they mined either. Not even the inferior quality stone unsuited for jewelry - Niflheim would have dumped it in the sea just to spite them.

-(Look, there’s a reason Galahd hates Mors for pulling the Wall and leaving them to Niflheim’s ‘mercy’. There’s a reason the Galahdian refugees can’t go home, even after almost twenty years post-Burning. There’s a reason so many refugees left, even before the Burning. Why so many chose to fight for a mainlander king. Why so many Betrayed Regis when he surrendered to Niflheim. Why Luche and the others took Niflheim’s deal.)

-During the Occupation, there was probably resistance and rebellion everywhere Niflheim turned, until they decided to cut their losses and Burn it all. (Perhaps they were losing too many workers. Or perhaps they’d exhausted the mines and didn’t care to look for new ones.)

-In Lucis, any refugees likely had to sell their Stones just to survive. Those that didn’t wouldn’t be allowed to wear them if they lived in Insomnia, because of the Sumptuary Laws or for fear of being arrested on charges of theft. (And even if the charges were dropped, many of the stones confiscated as ‘evidence’ were coincidentally ‘lost’.) For those that lost their Stones, replacing them is near impossible - either they are too expensive, impossible to find, or in most cases both.

-Which is when carved and painted wooden beads become the norm.

#Shadow of Heaven's Light #ffxv #worldbuilding #galahd #galahd culture #braids #lucis #history #I have spent way too much time looking up gemstones #in other words I now have the exact stones everyone wears in their braids

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Portland protests see clashes between far-right, far-left groups (Reuters) Protests by rival far-right and left-wing groups in Portland descended into violence on Sunday, as the opposing sides engaged in clashes and at least one man was arrested for firing a gun at demonstrators. Nobody was hurt in an exchange of gunfire—and by Sunday evening there was no word on any injuries in numerous other skirmishes that saw opposing sides brawling, dousing each other in what appeared to be bear spray and breaking car windows of rivals. Police Chief Chuck Lovell said during a briefing on Friday that officers would not necessarily intervene to break up fights between the groups. But he added that “just because arrests are not made at the scene when tensions are high, does not mean that people won’t be charged with crimes.”

Henri hurls rain as system settles atop swamped Northeast (AP) The slow-rolling system named Henri is taking its time drenching the Northeast with rain, lingering early Monday atop a region made swampy by the storm’s relentless downpour. Henri, which made landfall as a tropical storm Sunday afternoon in Rhode Island, has moved northwest through Connecticut. It hurled rain westward far before its arrival, flooding areas as far southwest as New Jersey before pelting northeast Pennsylvania, even as it took on tropical depression status. Over 140,000 homes lost power, and deluges of rain closed bridges, swamped roads and left some people stranded in their vehicles.

Classes starting, but international students failing to get U.S. visas (Reuters) Kofi Owusu occasionally waits outside the U.S. embassy in Accra to ask fellow students what they have done to secure a timely visa appointment. Classes for his master’s program at Villanova University in Pennsylvania are scheduled to start Monday, but his in-person interview appointment for a first-time U.S. student visa is still nine months away. It’s the second time the political science student from Ghana won’t make it to the United States in time for school. Visa processing is delayed as U.S. embassies and consulates operate at reduced capacity around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving some students abroad unable to make it for the start of the academic year. The wait and the hassle threaten both the country’s standing as a preferred choice for international students and their economic contribution of around $40 billion annually to many universities and local economies. New international student enrollment in the United States dropped 43% in fall 2020 from the year prior, months after COVID sent the world into lockdown. The number of new students who actually made it onto campus in person declined by 72%, according to an enrollment survey by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

FDA approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Bloomberg) The pioneering coronavirus vaccine made by pharmaceutical companies BioNTech and Pfizer was granted full approval by U.S. regulators. The government imprimatur is expected to trigger a flood of mandates by municipalities, agencies and private employers that had been waiting for the Food and Drug Administration sign-off. Following the announcement, the Pentagon said it would make vaccinations mandatory for military personnel worldwide and President Joe Biden called for mandates by companies.

Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See Their Prices (NYT) This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers. The insurers’ trade association had called the rule unconstitutional and said it would “undermine competitive negotiations.” Four hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it, and appealed when they lost. They lost again, and seven months later, many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing. But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden. It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services: procedures as simple as an X-ray or a pregnancy test. And in many cases, insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would if they pretended to have no coverage at all. This secrecy has allowed hospitals to tell patients that they are getting “steep” discounts, while still charging them many times what a public program like Medicare is willing to pay.

‘A Beautiful Feeling’: Refugee Women In Germany Learn The Joy Of Riding Bikes (NPR) Like most Americans, I learned to ride a bike as a kid. I still remember the glee after learning how to ride a bike on a subdivision road where I grew up in Florida. But girls around the world don’t always get to experience the joy of a first bike ride. In some countries, conservative societies frown upon women and girls who ride bikes—it’s not considered dignified or appropriate—and gives a girl too much independence. Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer and activist, recalls riding a bike as an 11-year-old in the capital city of Damascus. “For the people [watching on the street], and even for the children, it was shocking to them that I was riding a bike. They started to say, ‘Oh, shame on you, you are a girl riding a bike,’” Seif says. “It just wasn’t in our culture.” But it’s never too late to learn. In Germany, a nonprofit group called Bikeygees is teaching refugee women from countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria how to ride. Since the group first started, it has taught 1,100 women how to ride a bike, says founder Annette Krüger. “It is possible to change the life of a woman in two hours. It is really magical,” says Krüger, an avid cyclist. “It’s a beautiful feeling when a person is riding a bike,” one refugee says with a broad grin.

Gunfire at Kabul airport kills 1 amid chaotic evacuations (AP/Foreign Policy) A firefight at one of the gates of Kabul’s international airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said, the latest chaos to engulf Western efforts to evacuate those fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country. The shooting at the airport came as the Taliban sent fighters north of the capital to eliminate pockets of armed resistance to their lightning takeover earlier this month. The Taliban said they retook three districts seized by opponents the day before and had surrounded Panjshir, the last province that remains out of their control. The tragic scenes around the airport have transfixed the world. Afghans poured onto the tarmac last week and some clung to a U.S. military transport plane as it took off, later plunging to their deaths. At least seven people died that day, in addition to the seven killed Sunday. Tens of thousands of people—Americans, other foreigners and Afghans who assisted in the war effort—are still waiting to join the airlift, which has been slowed by security issues and U.S. bureaucracy hurdles. Meanwhile, Afghanistan faces a quickly deepening economic crisis, with financial hardships increasingly affecting those in Kabul and other cities. Banks remain closed, food prices are rising, and the value of the local currency has plummeted. The suspension of commercial flights to Kabul’s international airport has in some ways exacerbated the crisis, halting the flow of some medical supplies and aid.

US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy (ABC News) Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they’ve become increasingly disillusioned and fed up with the U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned. One informal group, dubbed “Task Force Pineapple,” began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death threats. They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was therefore at high risk of reprisal. The former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter at the airport, where he shouted the password “pineapple” to American troops at the checkpoint. Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him. Other former members of the military and CIA have consolidated their own efforts with a separate group calling itself “Task Force Dunkirk,” a reference to the massive evacuation of British and other Allied forces from France in 1940 under threat of the Nazi juggernaut. Task Force Dunkirk and the groups it has banded together with have helped get at least 83 at-risk Afghans out of the country.

Lebanese hospitals at breaking point as everything runs out (AP) Drenched in sweat, doctors check patients lying on stretchers in the reception area of Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Air conditioners are turned off, except in operating rooms and storage units, to save on fuel. Medics scramble to find alternatives to saline solutions after the hospital ran out. The shortages are overwhelming, the medical staff exhausted. And with a new surge in coronavirus cases, Lebanon’s hospitals are at a breaking point. The country’s health sector is a casualty of the multiple crises that have plunged Lebanon into a downward spiral—a financial and economic meltdown, compounded by a complete failure of the government, runaway corruption and a pandemic that isn’t going away. The collapse is all the more dramatic since only a few years ago, Lebanon was a leader in medical care in the Arab world. The region’s rich and famous came to this small Mideast nation of 6 million for everything, from major hospital procedures to plastic surgeries.

China changes law to allow married couples to have three kids (NY Post) China will now allow married couples to legally have a third kid amid concerns that its shrinking number of working-age people will threaten the country’s future prosperity and global influence. China has tried for decades to control the population, beginning with a policy imposed in 1979 that strictly limited couples to one child. Couples who didn’t follow the rule faced fines or loss of jobs—and in some cases, mothers were forced to undergo abortions. A preference for sons also led parents to kill baby girls, causing a massive imbalance in the sex ratio. The number of working-age people, meanwhile, has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding more strain to an aging society. With growing fears that the country would grow old before it became wealthy, the family planning rules were changed for the first time in 2015 to allow two children.

Cases up down under (CNN) Australia, like China, New Zealand, and some other countries, has attempted to completely eradicate Covid-19 inside its borders. The strategy had largely worked until recently; Australia has just 44,026 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 981 deaths. But several major cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, and the capital Canberra, are again under lockdown as authorities struggle to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant. On Saturday, thousands took to the streets of Melbourne and Sydney to protest the long lockdowns; hundreds were arrested, and at least seven police officers were injured during violent clashes. In an opinion piece published Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison hinted at an end to the country’s zero Covid-19 infections strategy, but warned Australians to expect a rise in infections as restrictions relax.

#headlines #news

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anchanted-library · 4 years

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FFXIV Write Prompt 07. Nonagenarian

A sullen mood had fallen over the group when Olivier finished his story. Thancred, Y'Shtola, Alphinaud, Urianger, and every one of the present Merry Suns were lost in their thoughts, plagued by their bitter memories of the hours and the days and the months following the Monetarist coup. So much had been lost, so much that could never be recovered again.

But worse was the horrified expression on Minfilia's face. She seemed highly distressed by this last tale. She looked about at each of her guardians, finding them all too distracted. By her expression, she looked like she wanted to comfort them somehow. But words failed her and her eyes grew despondent.

Why had Olivier insisted on telling this story? Why hadn't anyone stopped him.

Disquieted, Erika rose and walked to the fringes of the camp under the pretense of wanting to take a look around.

"I can see that it truly was dark days for you," a voice came from her left. A figure with dark messy hair and black Fighter's armor materialized where empty air had been a moment before.

"The Crystal Braves were supposed to be a beacon of hope" Erika said softly. She hadn't yet told her friends about her silent companion. "Independence, hope. I know that no organization remains clean forever, yet they were tainted almost from the very start. They betrayed us within a month of their formation. And Ilberd..." She trailed off with a snarl.

"You looked up to him?"

"He was one of the leaders of the Ala Mhigan resistance. I've told you I was from Ala Mhigo, right? He smashed against Imperial forces time and again... and though his people lost most engagements, they always lost so few soldiers. In return, they always took a hundred Garleans down for every one of them they lost. He and Raubahn, they were like two gods of war on the battlefield. It took the Black Wolf—Gaius Baelsar himself—to finally crush their band. But even then they both escaped. Throughout his years as a sellsword, he always continued to speak for liberty. But even that noble goal was corrupted in the end. And my dearest friends paid dearly because of it."

"Ryosen and Minfilia you mean?"

Erika's head jerked up, and she laughed ruefully. "Them too I suppose. But no, I was speaking of a few of my Merry Suns. They were ambushed while on patrol in the hour before the coup, and interrogated before they were killed."

"Oh." Ardbert looked sad. "How many Merry Suns were there? Were you all such a close bunch?"

"Oh, no! At the height of our numbers there were thirty of us. Around the time we began hunting Primals and fighting the Garleans in earnest. At the start though, there were just six of us."

"You, Desmond, Olivier, and E'Nisse among them?"

"Yes, no, no, no!" Erika laughed. "It was me and five of my childhood friends:Tobase Arabase, Marta Talbot, Willahem Ty, Romat Hamat, and Crimson Whale. Tobase was killed by an Ascian, but the rest of them were killed by Ilberd and his thug Yuyuhase."

"And you knew them from childhood?"

"That's right!" Erika sighed. "We formed the Merry Suns at age seven. We were refugees living in Little Ala Mhigo. Play at adventuring. We pretended to spy on suspicious merchants, slay dragons, turn back legions of Garleans. That sort of thing. And of course we took turns being Raubahn and Ilberd. When we came of age, we decided to do it all for real. The name which we had made up for playtime as children, we adopted as our band's official name."

"That sounds so sweet!"

"It was!" Erika grinned. "We had a lot of good times together. Until everything changed." Her smile slipped off her face as she returned to her gloomy mood. "Tortured to death by their own hero so that they'd reveal our safehouses and shief contacts. No one could have seen that coming. Nothing good came of that day."

Ardbert came to face her. "I'm sorry, Erika. I truly am." She nodded. After a while he stirred and looked around. "I hate to say it, but you are wrong about no good coming of that day."

"What?" she glared at him in furious shock.

"Sorry, it's just... look around." He gestured broadly at the land. "This world, what's left of it... it persists because of Hydaelyn; and Minfilia. it may look desperate, sad, bleeding, sick... but it's here. But for Minfilia's heroic sacrifice that day—going back into certain death the way she did—Norvandtr would have been successfully Rejoined a century ago."

"Huh. That is true," Erika admitted.

"Hey, I'm glad some wisdom came from staying around till I hit the nonagenarian range!"

"Aren't you over a century old?" Erika asked.

"Yes, counting my time alive. But as a ghost, I'm a sprightly ninety-seven!"

Erika laughed again despite herself. He seemed pleased with himself.

"And speaking of all not being as bad as it sounds," Ardbert said as though something had just struck him. "I don't think it was a bad thing necessarily, for Olivier to bring up that particular story."

Erika arched an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because it is an important tie to the question of whether to bring Ryosen here. You cannot make that decision without taking such an important event into consideration."

"Oh, I see!"

"But in any case, it's still a bad story to go to bed brooding over." He smiled at her. "Why not head back over and tell another cute little tale?"

"An excellent idea!" Erika beamed. "I'll do just that!"

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2020 #ffxivwrite #ffxiv writing challenge

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pocketseizure · 6 years

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I expected to like The Shape of Water for different reasons than I did.

The central love story between a human woman and an amphibious man came off as more than a little creepy to me, and not because of why you might think it would.

Thankfully, the movie contains two other stories of border crossing that I found far more emotionally satisfying. One of these stories is about a Russian immigrant who came to America seeking intellectual freedom, and the other is about a black woman carving out a space for herself in the white-dominated society of the 1960s.

If you're wondering why The Shape of Water hasn't been given a wide theater release and has been playing in mostly arthouse cinemas, I'd have to say that it's probably because of the opening ten minutes, in which the lead actress, Sally Hawkins, is shown disrobing and masturbating while naked in the bathtub. Just in case the first depiction of masturbation was too subtle for the audience to catch, the director helpfully provides a second masturbation scene accompanied by a sexy moan. I think the point of this is to establish that Hawkins's character, a mute janitor named Elisa, is an adult woman with sexual needs, but it still felt unnecessary to me, especially since Elisa is so innocent as to be almost childish.

When it comes to interspecies romance, I am all for it as long as both parties are consenting adults. The problem with the romance between Elisa and her fish boyfriend is that I'm not sure that it can necessarily be called consensual. I'm also not entirely certain that the fishboy is an adult. The ways in which he's visually characterized, with huge eyes and a lanky body, make him seem more like a teenage member of a boy band than an adult male of his species, and his narrative characterization of wide-eyed wonder and almost complete passivity makes him seem more like a child. Moreover, he is either a prisoner at the scientific laboratory or a prisoner in Elisa's apartment, and he depends on Elisa's goodwill not just for food and shelter but also, essentially, for the ability to continue breathing. Although she does not take advantage of him physically, and though he could easily kill her if he wished, the power imbalance (and strongly implied age imbalance) in their relationship is too pronounced for me to feel comfortable about his ability to give consent.

Moreover, Elisa makes very little attempt to communicate with him. He seems to be able to understand the basic sign language that she's shared with him, but she does not teach him enough to have an actual conversation. According to what the viewer sees, she knows nothing about him, including his name. She never attempts to tell him about what has happened to him or where he is or what she intends to do, and she also never tries to ask him what he wants.

There's a scene about halfway through the film in which the villain, a military officer charged with overseeing the lab's security, sexually harasses Elisa in his office, physically intimidating her while invading her space and telling her that he finds her inability to use her voice erotic. The viewer is supposed to understand that his attraction to her difference is nothing more than a fetish that transforms her into an object that serves his pleasure while denying her subjectivity. In the same way, however, Elisa's attraction to the fishboy is also fetishistic. She is drawn to him because... He resembles a healthy and attractive adolescent human male? Because she masturbates in the bathtub and associates water with physical pleasure? Because she's just lonely and needs to see what she considers to be her own pathological difference reflected in a romantic partner in order to feel secure? To me, a woman who is old enough to worry about the creases in the skin of her neck when she looks in the mirror is old enough to at least try to talk to her partner, or at the very least ask him what his name is. Elisa is not a stupid lovestruck teenager, and it's borderline offensive that she acts as though she's only about as emotionally mature as one.

I found much more emotional resonance with the lead scientist of the team investigating the fishboy, who is a Russian named Dmitri posing as an American named Bob. Although this man is acting as a spy, it's clear that he considers himself to be first and foremost a scientist. It's unclear how much of his backstory is fabricated, but he seems to have held a tenure-track research position at an American university, which means that he would have gotten a PhD at an American institution as well. If this is the case, it's likely that he trained at a Russian university and then, after realizing the severe educational limitations enforced according to Soviet ideology, he came to America like many other Russian scientists and intellectuals of his generation.

Due to Cold War politics, Dmitri has been forced to report to Soviet operatives, which he does unwillingly and in full knowledge of the precarity of his position. This reads like a dramatization of the way that many immigrants and refugees coming to America during the latter half of the twentieth century were torn between cultures and languages and identities. Also, because of his cultural liminality, Dmitri is forced to insist repeatedly and to multiple parties that he is a scientist, and that his knowledge and qualifications need to be taken seriously. When push comes to shove, however, Dmitri is neither Russian nor American but rather a human who not only sees the fishboy as a fellow sentient creature but is also able to perceive and unconditionally trust the intelligence and competence of the two female janitors whom he observes making plans to rescue his charge.

The woman who helps Elisa break her fish boyfriend out of the lab is Zelda, who's played by literal goddess Octavia Spencer. Despite being set in Baltimore, a city with an African American majority population, The Shape of Water is very much a movie about white people, and it's somewhat aggravating that Spencer was cast in the role of the sassy black friend. Still, the film does not shy away from how her character navigates the space of the research lab, which is filled with white people. As a black woman, she is more or less invisible, a status that's emphasized by the way that she and the other black workers have figured out how to take advantage of the blind spots in the lab's system of security cameras. Because the white scientists and military officials have been socialized to ignore "the help," Zelda is able to see and hear everything and go anywhere without attracting attention, and ability she is able to use wisely at her discretion.

There's a scene late in the film when the white military officer hunting the fishboy storms into Zelda's apartment and attempts to intimidate her. In the process, he performs an act of terrible violence, but she stands up to him like an absolute boss and then immediately runs to the phone to warn Elisa without even bothering to check if the man who just threatened to kill her has left. She then calls the police, which I find extremely interesting. Like the city itself, the police force of Baltimore is comprised of a black majority, and the way that a black woman was able to call on the black local police to resist the white federal government reflects the history of the city as a major site of resistance against white supremacy during the Civil Rights Movement. For a movie that could very easily have taken the Stranger Things route to a comfortable and uncontroversial type of cultural nostalgia, this is subtle but sharp reflection of what was actually going on in the United States during the 1960s.

Ultimately, the love story between the human woman and her amphibious boyfriend feels like a fairy tale version of the various cultural changes and border crossings that are represented elsewhere in the film. The fairy tale version of this story has a relatively happy ending, but the reality of the people who have to remain above water in the real world is far more bitter than sweet. This is why, when I watched The Shape of Water, I found myself sympathizing far more with the supporting characters – and, in the end, I'm still not sure why the movie had to go out of its way to show the audience Sally Hawkins masturbating in a bathtub. Regardless, it's just as weird and gorgeous as you'd expect, and let's be real, that fishboy is super hot.

#The Shape of Water #interspecies romance #long post is long #minor spoilers

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doomedandstoned · 5 years

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Talking the End of Days with Pale Grey Lore

With the release of their new record 'Eschatology' (2019) on Small Stone Records, Doomed & Stoned caught up with Pale Grey Lore frontman Michael Miller to talk about the Doomsday Clock and apocalyptic riffs....

Photo by Tristan Weary

I’m intrigued by the title of the new album, “Eschatology.” Being a P.K. myself (preacher’s kid) it had been a while since I’d heard it used. What does the word signify and how did you come to be inspired by the concept for this album?

Eschatological doctrine lays out a particular religion’s conception of the ultimate fate of humankind and how the world is destined to end. It typically includes a salvation narrative which is designed to tie up pesky philosophical loose ends like the problem of how there could possibly be an all-good, all-powerful deity who allows so much unnecessary suffering to occur in the world. The standard line is that, despite appearances, all this suffering is actually part of some kind of divine plan for cosmic justice, and when the world ends as prophesied, everything will be sorted out in some kind of eternal hereafter.

Nobody in the band is religious at all, but we all grew up in (more or less) Catholic families, so these ideas are familiar enough. And although I’m highly skeptical of the idea of salvation or the prospect of an afterlife, the end-of-the-world aspect of eschatological doctrine struck me as particularly fitting given the way we’re marching toward impending climate disaster under late capitalism.

Artwork by Adam Eckley

It seems like we’ve had a kind of love-affair with the idea of apocalypse and living in a post-apocalyptic world for at least three or four decades, ever since Mad Max captured the popular imagination. How inevitable is an “apocalyptic” event in humanity’s future, do you think?

Recently, we’ve seen increasingly dire warnings about what the planet is in for over the next few decades (see the IPCC report from last October and if that doesn’t rattle you, go ahead and search “Deep Adaptation”). The fossil fuel industry has known about the coming climate catastrophe and how to prevent it since 1977. It’s still unreal to me to think about that.

Instead of sounding the alarm and fundamentally changing how they operate, corporations did everything in their power to suppress that information and sow public doubt about the link between carbon emissions and climate change. When scientists finally convinced the public that climate change was real, corporations cleverly dodged responsibility by pushing the false narrative that individual consumer choice was the real problem, rather than the structural dependence on fossil fuels that they imposed on us without our informed consent.

Meanwhile, the Doomsday Clock moves closer and closer to midnight as nuclear non-proliferation treaties continue to expire without being renewed and states race to develop deadly new weapons. What happens when coastal regions are inundated by rising seas, food production takes a nosedive, and we find ourselves in the midst of the worst global refugee crisis in human history?

It’s difficult not to feel powerless in the face of these realizations. For me, the best and most appropriate reaction is creative expression. So that’s really what the whole concept of the album is all about. Weaving a fictional narrative that explores these themes in a fantastical context provides a sense of control and an opportunity for catharsis. It’s in some ways escapist, but it’s also deeply rooted in reality.

Eschatology by Pale Grey Lore

Can you take a moment to walk us through each of the tracks and draw out any themes or points of interest (e.g. background, composition, recording, performing, etcetera).

Like the first album, each song on ‘Eschatology’ is a sort of vignette--a brief (though not necessarily temporally adjacent) episode in the grand timeline of our concept world.

Album opener “Sunken Cities” is told from the perspective of the survivors in the aftermath of the greatest and most destructive war the planet has ever seen. “Greed Springs Eternal” depicts disaster capitalism and unaccountable oligarchy in a flashback to the pre-war era. On “Before the Fall,” revolutionaries who resisted corporate neo-feudalism in the final days of the empire struggle to cope with nuclear winter. Flashing back in time again, “Regicide” depicts an assassination attempt that, had it succeeded, could have radically altered the course of history. The final track of side A, “Waiting for the Dawn,” is a morbidly romantic number that takes place after the nuclear winter is over and the surface finally becomes (more or less) habitable again.

Side B kicks off with “The Rift,” which describes the reality-warping arrival of cosmic horrors that feed on entropy, attracted to destruction and suffering like moths to a flame. We flash back to the great war on “Void-Cursed,” with the ruling elites fleeing into space as the planet burns behind them. “Silent Command” depicts the fate of unwary travellers who stumble across the strange towers that appear across the landscape once the cosmic rift has closed. “Undermined” is part of the liturgy of a pre-war religious sect that started out critical of the rapacious oligarchy but later transformed into an accelerationist death-cult. And finally, the title track “Eschatology” is a nihilistic sermon from the death-cult’s high priest urging his followers (who are largely members of the ruling elite) to achieve salvation by actively doing whatever they can to make things worse.

Film by Cleveland Underground Scene

What was the studio experience like for you this time around? Did you find it refined any of the songs written or that it brought more cohesion to the album as a whole?

Like the first album, Eschatology was recorded and mixed by our friend Andy Sartain at his Columbus home studio. Andy is very chill and always creates a relaxed and supportive environment, which is what you want if you are trying to coax the best possible performance out of a band. One big change from the first album is that in the interim we added a new member, our guitarist Xander, who went to college for audio engineering. His background in music production was immensely valuable and made a huge impact on the record.

We definitely didn’t rush the recording process on this one. I think the fact that we took our time with it definitely helped create more cohesion. We did the initial live tracking of drums, bass, and rhythm guitar in early December and spent the next month and a half doing the overdubs and adding layers. Some of the newer songs that we hadn’t really played live much only developed into their final forms in the studio environment after we were able to hear some early playback. Even the songs we had played a good amount live benefitted from the extra layers and dimensions we were able to add in the studio. The time spent in the studio really was a kind of final capstone component to the songwriting for us.

Photo by Tristan Weary

What are some of the tools of the trade that you’re using to produce your sound?

Adam plays a Gretsch drum kit and uses Zildjian K Custom cymbals. Donovan plays a Rickenbacker bass through an Ampeg V4b and an early 70s Sunn cab. Xander runs a Vox AC30 and an Orange Dual Terror and primarily plays a modded Fender Strat. I run two late 60s Sunn amps and alternate between a Gibson SG and an Epiphone Casino Coupe hollowbody, both with P-90s. We have many, many pedals. We also have a theremin.

You recently played Ohio Doomed & Stoned Festival. What are some of the things you do to ensure that your live sound comes across just the way you want it to?

Ohio Doomed & Stoned Festival was an absolute blast. I was very happy to help fest organizer Dan Simone (of the killer Cleveland band Black Spirit Crown) put together the lineup. Last year was the first year we did the fest, and it was a great success. This year was even better, and I’m sure the best is yet to come. Ohio has so many great heavy underground rock bands, and this fest is one of the best showcases of that talent. As anyone who plays heavy music knows, we need to be pretty loud to do our thing properly. That doesn’t translate well in some spaces and sometimes the person running sound at a venue is inexperienced or just doesn’t know how to work with heavy music.

What do you see are some of the common mistakes bands make when translating their songs to the stage?

As far as advice for up and coming bands goes, I would say the best way to ensure that you sound decent live is to practice your ass off beforehand so that even if you can’t hear anything on stage, you still play well because of the muscle memory.

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#D&S Interviews #Pale Grey Lore #Columbus #Ohio #Stoner Rock #heavy metal #Small Stone Records #Doomed & Stoned

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krispyweiss · 7 years

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Roger Waters at Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio, July 20, 2017

Roger Waters’ Us + Them tour is a brilliant, beautiful and high-intensity assault on the senses - more than two hours of extraordinary music delivered with enough visual and audio extras to ensure even the most attentive concertgoers missed something.

Inside a virtually sold-out Nationwide Arena in Columbus on Thursday, the former Pink Floyd bassist and his impeccable band - three guitarists, two keyboardists, a saxophone player, a drummer and the two vocalists from Lucius - played 24 songs culled from Meddle (“One of These Days”); Dark Side of the Moon (all of it but the instrumentals); Wish You Were Here (the title track and “Welcome to the Machine”); Animals (a significant chuck of it - that is, two songs); six cuts from The Wall; and five from Waters’ just-released Is This the Life We Really Want?, derivative numbers that worked much better in the context of the show than they do on the record.

All of this was delivered through a 360-degree sound system that filled the hall with not only music, but all of the delicious effects that color Pink Floyd’s decadent discography, plus ambient sounds that rendered the 140-minute performance as much a tone painting as a concert.

Though he did plenty of singing, Waters wisely ceded most of David Gilmour’s vocal parts to one of his guitarists. While he was away from the mic, Waters busied himself on bass or six-string guitar and engaged the crowd by mimicking the lyrics and cheerleading.

Clad entirely in black, the band played before a gigantic, high-definition screen that showed images that illustrated Waters’ songs - and his distain for the current political environment and the current president - with vivid clarity for those who didn’t know the words already.

There were flying pigs and floating satellites hovering around the arena; a three-dimensional pyramid of lasers; a recreation of the power station that graced the cover of Animals; and children who lined the front of the stage and doffed orange prison jumpsuits to reveal black T-shirts emblazoned with RESIST in white, which was the first of many times Sound Bites got goose bumps and a lump in his throat.

The children filed onstage as a helicopter spotlight searched the arena just before the first-set closing run of “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” and parts 2 and 3 of “Another Brick in the Wall.” When this climax to the 14-song opening stanza ended, the arena fell dark and the crowd - save for a relatively small number of displeased Trump supporters - roared as RESIST appeared in huge letters behind the band.

Waters and company had eased into the show an hour earlier with a languid and faithful run through “Breathe.” A thumping bassline signaled the chaotic “One of These Days” that followed before the band returned to the Dark Side for “Time,” with the sound of clanging and banging clocks echoing from all corners of the house.

The energy continued pulsating through the subsequent “Breathe (Reprise)“ and “The Great Gig in the Sky,” which found the women of Lucius facing off at the front of the stage, wailing away in wordless beauty and demonstrating the power of the human voice to communicate forcefully even when it’s saying - or in this case singing - nothing at all.

Politically charged new songs like the delicate, foreboding “The Last Refugee” and the angry anti-Trump screed “Picture That” - picture a leader with no fucking brains, Waters spat, as he stalked the front of the stage - blended in perfectly with the even-more revolutionary feel of set 2, which showed how little has changed in the four decades since Pink Floyd released Animals.

With the house lights still on, the sound of a riot and police action to quell it flew at the audience from all corners of the arena. As the lights dimmed, a bank of horizontal screens descended to just above the patrons on the floor and divided the hockey arena in half; smokestacks slowly rose from the faux power plant and billowed white steam as the band kicked into “Dogs.”

For the next 30 minutes, through this song and the following “Pigs (3 Different Ones),” Waters and his band took performance art to a new level as they cranked out virtually flawless recreations of the prescient songs; donned pig and dog masks to have a small party for the wealthy at a table set up on stage; and generally gave 45 a ginormous, musical middle finger as pictures of the fascist president depicting him with a tiny penis, with vomit spewing out of his open mouth and the word Charade flashing across his grinning face. Some his most egregious statements shone in white letters on a black background while a pig flew overhead and the band just sizzled.

It’s impossible to overstate the power of these performances and the electricity carried through the versions of “Money” and “Us and Them” that followed as the screens expanded and contracted above the audience before being sucked back up into the ceiling.

Before long - after the new “Smell the Roses” - a 3D, multi-colored pyramid appeared for the set-closing twofer of “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” while the sounds of madcap laughter ricocheted around the arena.

Without leaving the stage, the players moved into what served as the encore, as Waters, strumming an acoustic guitar, and Lucius gathered for sparse, gorgeous renditions of “Vera” and “Bring the Boys Back Home.”

Confetti was wafting from the rafters by the time Waters began wading through the audience to trade fist bumps with the first few rows while the band vamped on the coda of “Comfortably Numb” and a feeling of stunned disbelief settled over the crowd. Waters had just proved age - he’s 73 - and the maturity that comes with it don’t necessarily lead to mellowing.

Grade card: Roger Waters at Nationwide Arena,7/20/17 - A+

#roger waters #pink floyd #david gilmour #lucius #meddle #animals #dark side of the moon #the wall #wish you were here #is this the life we really want?

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beacon-of-chaos · 7 years

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Defenders of Aura 2 - A Battle Century G Sequel

We return to our regularly scheduled prison breakout, already in progress. Fauna finds herself frustrated with her magic being blocked and tries to find a way around it. A couple of us suggest she simply cut off the arm with the implant in it but for some reason this idea doesn't appeal to her. An idea occurs to her however; the implant blocks manifestations of magic, but not necessarily the flow of mana in the body. It's possible she can divert her mana around the body in such as way as to numb the arm containing the implant, effectively negating its effect. This will leave her with a useless arm but it's better than cutting it off. A lucky willpower roll releases her magic and even leaves her arm functional, though weakened. Katari creates a distraction long enough for Fauna to get to Lucis and heal him. Fauna then uses her magic to create a portal between the potted plant she was holding and another she can see on the other side of the guards. She and Lucis teleport across, where Katari is pinned down. Fauna heals his wounds as best she can and Katari then proceeds to seal the door where the guards are by bending the metal with his bare hands. Badass. Luckily, they now appear to be near a medbay, so they pick up some supplies before heading towards the hanger. A voice begins speaking over the tannoy. It's the cult leader (I forgot his name) who encourages his followers to rise up and defend the prison against the military who have been alerted to the break out and are coming to put a stop to it. Sinclair attempts to trace the location, only to find that the voice is a recording. The hanger is well guarded now and while Bloody Mary and Amir are able to hold off the guards there's no way we can advance. Sinclair hears the voice of his mysterious friend, who he has dubbed "Space Face". Space Face: You were brought to life through the blood of your planet. There are others out there that can also be brought to life. Reach out to them. Sinclair concentrates and sure enough he detects that there are other robots nearby. Just two: a large loader bot and a human-sized welder bot. The GM says they are left over from when this place used to be a factory (that explains some things). Both are broken and rusty but Sinclair gets the feeling that they want to move again. He focuses his strange new power on them and sure enough they begin to stand. GM: You can issue one order to them. Sinclair: These people are trying to kill us! Stop them! The robots get to work, attacking the guards who are completely blind-sided. Emboldened by the sudden help, Amir and Mary begin moving forwards, using as much cover as they are able. Kirt, the teenage hacker, on the other hand, decides the best solution is to run straight at the turret with no cover. GM: He's going to get himself killed. Sinclair: Well, it was nice knowing him. Who was he again? The GM informs him that the only way to get to him in time to save him would involve moving the robots in between Kirt and the turret, sacrificing them. Sinclair hits on another idea. There's one big robot and one little robot. Fastball special, anyone? Of course the GM makes Sinclair roll for the robots in question, but he rolls a measely 4. The little robot makes it to the turret, but doesn't survive the journey. Oops. Still, the turret is thrown off its aim enough to avoid hitting the kid. The rest of the fight works out well and we make it into the hanger at the same time as the others. GM: There are four ships- Lucis: Excellent! We can split them between us- GM: Two of which are on fire- Lucis: Well, okay we can still take two- GM: And one of which is being boarded by the cultist and his gang. Lucis: Yeah, okay. The cult leader takes off before we get to the ships. Lucis radios Zack to try and see if he can get the prison air defences to take out the cultist's ship but it looks like the defences are now down. Zack suggests we get to the remaining ship and shoot down cultist guy ourselves. Sinclair ponders why we are doing so until Lucis and Katari point out that this guy asked his followers to basically throw themselves at a much stronger military force in defence of a building that he himself is now running away from. We board our ship and Lucis asks who intends to pilot it. Sinclair: I can do it! Plug me in, cheif! Sinclair's head is plugged into the control console and Katari co-pilots while Lucis and Spectre man the weapons. We take some shots at the cultist ship but he's able to boost away without a scratch. Military interceptors then turn up, forcing us to retreat, though Sinclair is able to crit his piloting check and we get away with ease. We set course for a town where one of Lucis' contacts, Karen, has agreed to meet us. While we are on the way, Spectre gets to work creating a new body for Sinclair, using parts from the powered armours the guards at the prison used. By the time we land, the robot has a brand new shiny body, possibly better than the old one. Several hours later, we land in the forests outside of town. We decide that we need info and supplies so Lucis determines the best way to do this is pick up rumours at a local bar. He was, until recently, a student so he uses his keen bar senses to find the most appropriate one. Of course, we need disguises. Lucis and Spectre put on guard uniforms from the prison, while Sinclair already makes a passable military droid Lucis: We should also get him some paint in town. GM: Okay. What colour? Fauna: Red and gold! Sinclair: Yes! Katari wants to come too, but his injuries are still not fully healed. Fauna forces him to stay behind so she can patch him up. There's only so much magic can do. So Lucis, Spectre and Sinclair head to the bar. On the way, Sinclair plugs in to a public terminal and decides to try and fix his programming errors by downloading firmware updates. Curiously, the GM tells him that with the way his systems are, he shouldn't actually be able to function as he is. Downloading the updates feels odd, like "dying and being reborn, while staying awake". The bar in question is quiet, only a few patrons sitting in their own corners. It's at this point we remember that we have no money, so we find a table with some half-finished drinks and sit down, hoping no one will say anything. There's a news report on the TV that we listen to. There is already news about the prison breakout. Unusually, there is no mention of us at all, or even pictures. Instead, the cult leader is the one getting the screen time. This should be good for us but there's something very fishy about the whole thing. Afterwards there's a message from the new leader of Camelot. It's basically a propaganda piece justifying the coup the ousted the previous preseident, claiming that the war against China was illegal and harming Camelot citizens. It's a speach full of xenophobia and nationalism and mid-way through one of the other patrons, a shabby-looking woman, throws her cup at the TV and yells obscenities. A bouncer gets up to throw her out, but Lucis takes initiative. Lucis: Leave this one to us. We're the military and that sounded a lot like anti-government sentiment to us. We'll deal with her. Lucis gets a great check on his deception roll, and the bouncer not only allows us to take her away, but gives us a little bit of cash out of respect. As we're carrying her, she passes out. The GM then asks us for awareness rolls. Sinclair is the only one who makes the roll. GM: *to Spectre* I can't believe you didn't notice this. It's Orion. Your girlfriend! Spectre: Well, she wasn't exactly my girlfriend... Sinclair: Facial recognition software for the win! We get Orion back to the ship and wait for her to sober up a bit. When she comes to, she tells us that she was able to get on an evacuation transport leaving Aura when the Chinese attacked. She had hoped that Camelot would have done more to help her, but when the Auran refugees started getting arrested, she set out on her own. She tells us that she'd planned to rescue us herself, though exactly how is not clear. Unfortunately she ran out of money and had turned to stealing drinks to cope. Things only got worse when she saw an advert broadcast from Aura. She brings it up on a console, showing us an image of Ax. With a new band. Sinclair and Spectre are fairly convinced that this must be some sort of trick, as the last they'd head of Ax was that he was in jail and heavily drugged to supress his powers. Orion doesn't sound convinced. Sinclair asks about the other members of Break the Abyss but Orion doesn't know what happened to them, assuming they are dead or captured. She did hear about where Delta Team's mechs were taken, however. Some kind of military base not too far from here. It's around now that we get a knock at the door. It's Karen, Lucis' contact (and by all accounts, the brains behind the resistance). We talk about our options and mention getting the mechs. It seems like our best option for fighting back. Spectre, on the other hand, has been looking into information on his father, Victor. It turns out that he had a research base here on Camelot and it was the last place he was seen before he disappeared. He insists that he wants to check it out, not really caring about the whole resistance thing. Sinclair agrees that it's important to check out, having pledged to help Spectre find his father before. The android also has his own reason for going: Victor was researching dark space before he vanished. Sinclair believes this research could be the key to finding out why he is still able to function despite his programming effectively being unusuable, as well as the origin of Space Face. The team agrees that this would be a good place to look, but that getting the mechs is the best place to start, making everything else easier. With Karen's help we begin making a plan... Session ends. Bonus quotes: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=473

#battle century g #campaign diary #mecha #sci-fi #longpost

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politicaltheatre · 7 years

Text

The Mouths That Roared

What's the difference between a campaign and a movement? It's actually a really good question to ask, especially after the past week, with the president's "campaign event" in Florida and the CPAC appearances by Trump and his staff, and tonight, with the president preparing to unveil his first budget before a joint session of Congress.

The thing about politicians, and doubly so for politicians claiming not to be politicians, is that they are always campaigning, each campaign setting up the next, each word said and action taken setting up the next. A campaign has short term goals with short term decisions made to attain them, all of which necessarily and inevitably leads to short term thinking and all of the flaws that come with it.

A movement, on the other hand, is made of people who share and work towards a long term goal. Think of the abolition of slavery or women's suffrage or civil rights. Think also of the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life movements and, sadly, the too focused Wall Street deregulation movement and the too unfocused gun control and gun rights movements. These movements have encompassed many campaigns, with new generations still fighting wars that may never see an end.

The reason to explore the differences between those two terms is because they tell us something about the motivation and tactics on ample display by the Trump administration (and in their allies in Congress and in the media) over the past week and the year and a half leading up to it. What we have seen from them is a series of campaigns, seemingly chaotic but rooted in a single, all-encompassing belief: the right and virtue of selfishness.

A lot of good analysis has already been made on the tactics the president and his staff have been using, going back years, even before they knew each other. It's almost as though they were drawn together by fate, their aggressively selfish world views and ability to talk around facts both complimenting and reinforcing each other.

It wasn't fate, of course. Much like the little Duchy of Grand Fenwick in "The Mouse That Roared", Trump and his original team launched what they imagined was an insurgent campaign, something, if they could be honest, they expected to lose but not before getting just enough shots in to garner headlines and earn their candidate and themselves a nice wad of money when it was over.

That was Grand Fenwick's plan, too. All they wanted was the money America had paid to the countries it had defeated in World War II. It would have worked, too, but then Grand Fenwick ran into sheer dumb luck. First, no one took them seriously. Then, having not taken the threat seriously, they didn't bother defending themselves from Grand Fenwick's so-called "army", a band of ill-equipped, poorly trained buffoons.

How could they know that they'd face such weak resistance? How could they know that they'd stumble into possession of a doomsday weapon and face even more incompetent resistance? Before anyone knew what had happened, the campaign was over and the mighty United States had been defeated.

Having won, though, Grand Fenwick found that they had to keep the campaign going. They were now a superpower, with all of the threats and responsibilities that come with it. What to do? Some of Trump's most prominent advisors didn't join his campaign until he had already dispatched with the historically weak Republican field.

Reince Priebus, for example, scoffed - SCOFFED - at those who doubted the Donald when interviewed at CPAC this week. Yet when the White House Chief of Staff was still Chairman of the Republican Party, he attacked Trump on the very issues he now defends, such as the anti-Muslim travel ban. At the time, Priebus worried that Trump might hurt whomever might be the eventual nominee's chances against Hillary Clinton. Now, well, now Priebus works for the guy.

Kellyanne Conway, whose ability to contort any question to suit her choice of answers is becoming legendary, could be viewed shilling for other, non-Trump candidates not too long before she joined the cause. She's a merc with a mouth, after all, not a true believer. Sean Spicer, forever one eye twitch away from losing his grip, is one, too.

And Nigel Farage, the racist, misogynist instigator of Brexit now representing the United Kingdom in Europe? He sees in Trump not merely vindication in his own cravings for power, but as a means of increasing his power by association. How else to explain the Swedish rape fantasies Farage was peddling last week on his way to Trump's dinner table? If Trump had made something up about Zimbabwe, rest assured Farage would have offered up something about evil Zimbabweans or evil refugees in Zimbabwe to help his man out.

Trump may appreciate the shows of loyalty, but this isn't the behavior of someone with a plan. Offers of bullshit to back up Trump's bullshit mark all of them firmly as hangers-on, and hangers-on lose their grip (looking at you, Spicer).

Trump's true inner-circle, therefore, are those who were with him from the start, such as chief speech- and executive order-writer Stephen Miller, son-in-law and real estate protégé Jared Kushner, and daughter, Ivanka. Trump clearly trusts and relies on each of them far more than mere hangers-on. Short of a full-blown scandal, each will continue to be by his side.

Then there's Steve Bannon, the spider perched on Trump's shoulder whispering poison in his ear. OK, maybe it's more like listening to Trump's own poison, laughing, and whispering a condensed, even more toxic version of it back into Trump's ear. This is a man who found in Trump not just a kindred spirit but, truly, a vehicle for his own aggressively selfish mind.

Like the others in Trump's inner circle, Bannon genuinely believes in the virtue of never having to be accountable to anyone, of those specific ends truly justifying any means. Bannon himself is a kind of opportunist, someone who took that toxic worldview of a spoiled childhood and sought out people and things throughout his life that would not only justify and reinforce that worldview but help him gain enough power to proselytize it.

It's hard to call it a movement, though. It's hard to imagine, even when they are together behind closed doors that any of them, Trump, Bannon, Miller, or the Kushners, openly acknowledge what they do and for what true reason. So they campaign, hopping from one stone to another, grasping for the next rung up any ladder, always afraid to look down at who they're stepping on.

When Bannon used his speech at CPAC to denounce the "administrative state", his intent was to launch a new campaign to "deconstruct" it. He's packaging his plans as part of a movement but also as something new, as the way for the aggressively selfish finally to win their war.

The truth, however and not shockingly, is quite different. Bannon's new campaign is really just based on other right-wing campaigns that came before. What he, and the right-wing think-tankers he's cribbing from, mean by "administrative state" is a central, federal government with too much power over the states. Rather than restore balance, they argue, it is better to reverse the imbalance, making the federal government permanently weak.

Another discarded term for this doctrine was "states rights", and if you recall that having something to do with protecting the right to own slaves and later to segregate water fountains, housing, schools, and busses, well, you understand Bannon and those he's appealing to very well. Deconstruct far enough and you have a master and his castle, and no one with the power to stop him from his appetites.

Bannon doesn't expect to take things that far, of course. Who needs a castle? His presence by Trump's side, though, is still a means to that end, just as the campaign to "deconstruct the administrative state" is, just as Breitbart is, just as the antics of his protégé Milo Yannopoulos are. Each is a separate campaign, something grasped for its short term potential and left behind in favor of the next rung on the ladder. Each reveals the man behind them and the world he desperately wants to see. Each reveals the truth behind the jargon, the euphemisms, and the bald faced lies.

Tonight, when the president speaks to Congress, telling them, us, and the rest of the world how great and unprecedented his budget is going to be, how taxes will fall and incomes will rise, how our enemies will come to fear us, how safe we will all feel in our homes and streets and new jobs, and most of all how he made it all possible with his greatness, we must remember that however much Trump believes or wants to believe in the goals his budget may achieve, the fingerprints of others, especially Bannon and Miller, are all over it.

What we'll get tonight is another campaign, in this case an advertising campaign for cuts to taxes and regulations spending that we cannot afford, least of all because of the damage they will do to us and the rest of the world in the long term. Whatever so many Americans have held onto in the hopes of turning a campaign slogan on a hat into a movement, what they and us will get is one more sales pitch, and not a terribly convincing one.

This is a small troop of poorly equipped, badly trained men and women reaching out for the doomsday weapon. If we're foolish enough to give it to them, we deserve what we get.

- Daniel Ward

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