#organisations

A new survey of female cyclists from the London Cycling Campaign has unveiled the relentless abuse women are subjected to on London’s roads. Now, a new petition (link below) is calling on the Mayor Of London to take action.

If you’ve never done it before, the idea of cycling in London can be intimidating. Wrapping your head around all the different routes and cycle lanes can be confusing, and the roads are particularly busy and crowded. But these are things that get easier with experience. What doesn’t get easier is having to deal with abuse – something nine out of 10 women who cycle on the streets of London have experienced, according to a new report. 

The research from the London Cycling Campaign, which aims to make cycling in London safer and more enjoyable for everyone, is based on a survey of 1,000 women who travel by bike in the capital. It found that 63% of women experience abuse from other road users at least once a month, with that abuse including verbal, sexual and physical attacks – including women being groped or slapped on their bikes while stopping at traffic lights. 

Underwater Love

~ Organisations ~ The Resistance

The Resistance are a loose association of supernaturals (and even a few non magicals). They are acting against the Council and save and support supernaturals who had been suffering from the actions of the Council and other acts of violence. They operate in secret and none of them, except the three witches, knows of everyone who is with them. So even if the Council get’s the grip on one of them, the others cannot be revealed.

The Council does not even see a connection between Dtui and the Resistance. They think she acted at her own behalf. They wish they could get lost of her but are too afraid of her powers.

Theme Song: No Boy, No Cry - Stance Punks (which is also opening no 6 from the Naruto Anime. MV is with scenes from the anime. Original Stance Punks MV is -> here)

Inofficial Leaders

The three Witches Dtui, Demon mentor of Kiyoshi and caretaker at the Temple in Mount Komorebi Francine (Witch), grandmother of Jeb and potion master) Ms Coombes (species unknown), teacher of the boys and involved in the rescue of Vlad, Ji Ho, Siawa and Jack. Partner of Dtui.)

Inofficial Members (since there are no ‘official’ members ;) The Boys: Vlad, Saiwa, Ji Ho, Jack, Jeb, Kiyoshi

Barfolomew (Mawg. Half man - half dog, he’s his own best friend ;). Owner of the ‘Space (Balls) Bar & Grill & ‘Residence’ in Copperdale where homeless and traumatized teenagers find a home. Saiwa, Vlad and Jack lived there for around two years and Ji Ho about half a year. Like Jack and Vlad, Barfolomew likes Star Wars a lot.

Noxeema Jackson, vampiric Drag Queen of Moonwood Mills and caretaker (and nurse) of the Wolves Of Letters Bunker there. Now caretaker of the Boys at the Belgraves Institute in Copperdale.

‘Beware of Greg!’ Lunvik (the Werewolf), former menace of Moonwood Mill, now PE teacher of the Boys at Belgraves Institute and partner of Noxeema (I named them Grexee ;)

LY, athena and Fel-IX (Droids) live at the STaCKS in San Myshuno and helped Saiwa, Jeb and Barfolomew when they tried to find out what happened with Vlad’s dead body.

The Doctor (species unknown) at the Gang Doctor’s Hospital. Since Supernaturals are not allowed at common hospitals, they get treated at the Gang Doctor’s Hospital. The Doctor (Droid) at the Clinic at the STaCKS in San Myshuno. Overly obsessed with Jeb’s eyes. Sells all kind of ingredients too. From Herbs to body parts ö.ö’

Hector (Crocodile). Friend of Ji Ho and informant. Like LY, you can find him on almost each of my lots (with a pool ;)

Claude René Duplantier Guidry (Ghost), owner of ‘Guidry’s Paranormal Investigations Bureau’. We haven’t heard from him since he left for Sulani to rescue Ji Ho’s brother.

Horatio ‘Bones’ McCoy (Skeleton). Roams the graveyard in Forgotten Hollow and opens the ‘Diner de los Muertos’ in San Myshuno once a year (The whole chapter is -> here)

Bonehilda (Skeleton) and Magenta (Ghost). Friends of Ms Coombes. They live at Saarburg and helped Vlad and Saiwa with information how to claim Ji Ho back after he got bitten by Genji.

The Magic Guitar of Toro (Magic Guitar). Relic in the sanctuary of the temple at Mt Komorerbi. Likes to witness the boys’ ‘romantic interactions’.

Aleki Mete and Enrico Wagner from ‘The Organisation’ in Strangerville. They tried to rescue kidnapped and tortured Saiwa and Jack along with 16 year old Jeb.

last but not least DEATH - he helped Jeb and Saiwa to find out what happened to Vlad after he had died.

Here’s an old photograph from my ‘The Family Business’ story! Resistance members from a paralel universe: fltr Giga/Saiwa, Greatuncle Stefan, Jack and Vlad (omg look at them!)

In my ‘Love Hurts’ story, adult Vlad’s Castle is a haven for supernatural refugees and adult Jack is headmaster of the Impossible University and provides education for supernaturals who are not allowed to schools from non magicals. (that was june 2018!)

VISIONS OF THE DARK SIDE

Today is the 24th of June 2024, and I had an uncomfortable dream/vision that I feel compelled to share. I was in the heart of town and was passing through a seemingly mundane alley, that I had never seen despite living in my town for over 20 years. As i awkwardly made my way through service exits of an ordinary looking building, I stumbled into a werid and unnerving situation. I saw a group of elderly men in matching designer suits, with white gloves and red saches. Their suits were black in colour but even without touching them, I could tell that they were top of line and probably imported. The furniture in the room was a mix of brown leather and oakwood chairs and sofas. There was a bar (also made brown oakwood) that stocked expensive spirits from from and wide. The bartender was wearing a black waistcoat with matching trousers and a white shirt. The waiter had a matching uniform and both he and the bartender were distinguished from the other members, by the absence of white gloves on their hands. The former quickly noticed me as i walked into the room, hooking my right arm with his left arm before he started ushering me to one of the exits of the room. He chastised me for being lost, but surprisingly, it seemed like the members within the room did not react to my presence. After being led out, i quickly left the building before I woke up.

What was the point of the above?

I would love to ask about the logistics, legal and financial options for a world with worldwide secret organisations that are not the government because they deal with things unknown by the government. I'm not sure how to deal with this other than completely ignoring all that and say it's just the way it is or if they ever do get on the government radar, the government is just given the complete runaround with no consequences.

Addy: So first off, you're going to need to think about the dynamics of how this all is going to actually work.

- where do they get their money

- what sort of regulatory body controls them/do they have relations with (as in who protects them/organizes things as they go abroad, how do they deal with political fallout if an agent gets caught, how do they bargain for access into closed countries, who do they have in their corner)

- how do they hire people

When you get any kind of organization with power, governments want to have some kind of relation for their own security. If some random person gets caught in a high-security area, the government officials in charge aren't going to go "oh, they refuse to answer our questions, I guess we'll give up"

You're going to get invaded. You're going to get a highly organized military force breaking down your doors, taking your family hostage, and tying you up and prying your jaws open so you can't crack open a suicide tooth. If you refuse to answer questions or play along, and they know nothing about you, they are going to assume that you are a threat that has infiltrated the area to an unknown extent, and they are going to excise that influence in their country.

That happened to a mafia family once when some of their guys ended up in the secure areas of a naval base that did work on nuclear subs. Their houses got broken into in the middle of the night with strange figures holding automatic weapons, and the whole family got strung up, strip-searched, and had their teeth checked. 

When the Navy found out that it was just a small gambling ring, they let 'em all go, because they didn't really care about that.

They cared about people trying to get access to highly sensitive files in a sensitive location in a controlled & classified environment.

You can do something like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, where it's an international service organization, but with a sort of dedicated task force for supernatural threats or diseases, but... governments don't like threats to their security

You could also have something like the Plumbers, which was an illegal group run by Nixon. They're the people who did Watergate. 

But also like... if you are *ever* part of an intelligence organization (like if you worked at the FBI food court or something), you cannot work in the Peace Corps. They will not accept you, because they do not want their reputation tarnished by aspersions of spies or whatever 

.... I think the closest equivalents I can think of are

- human trafficking organizations

- drug cartels (which are known *about,* to an extent, though the details are unknown)

- Epstein's island (money from an external source used to fund interior operations and stuff)

But seriously, how do you hire people? Who runs your food courts, how do you find interns? Who does your plumbing? What if they switch jobs (say they had a kid and want a different life), and they need to explain what they did on their resume? What about the daily commute?

Thought about it a bit more, have some extra thoughts:

I think it's really easy to look at something and go "oh, they'll just refuse to answer" without thinking about what that looks like for the people asking the questions. If I have someone in custody who I think may be part of some kind of terrorist cell (planting weird devices, asking strange questions, found in a place they were not supposed to have access to), I'm going to think that we have a security leak. Leaks are not be left to fester - leaks are arrested, charged with espionage, and imprisoned to use later as a political bargaining chip.

Everyday social interactions, if someone refuses to answer your question, you back off and let them be. That isn't how a government works, not with threats.

For the suspected terrorist/spy… Warrants, warrants everywhere. Your house, your family, your friends, your workplace, your digital information, everything - all of that is going to be pulled and examined because you are a threat and you are not talking.

If you want to give the government (any of them, really), you need to think about what that looks like and who your organization has in their corner to back them up. What's their leverage?

… can you tell I like spy dramas?

Licorice: the main obstacle to your scenario is this: “they deal with things unknown by the government.”  There are no things on the scale you’re thinking of - worldwide secret organisations - that are unknown to all governments. The security agencies of powerful governments know far, far more than they ever make known to the public. Worldwide secret organisations normally have a base of operations  in at least one friendly country where the government is sympathetic to their objectives. If those objectives are nefarious, then their activities are usually directly at some specific country, group of countries, or ethnic group. If, on the other hand, they are working for the good of humanity, then there usually isn’t much reason for them to be secret unless they’re handling something so scary (like aliens from outer space) that it’s deemed better the general public never know about it.