Dr. Nicolas Kokoris

What have you forgotten?

An man walks slowly up a flight of steps. He is thin, his face lined, the hair just visible under his hat grey, his clothes old-fashioned and just a little worn. Still he moves with a certain impressive certainty of purpose; his eyes sparkle with intelligence and focus. He does not raise a hand, but the heavy iron doors swing open before him in perfect silence.

A young man appears in a blur in the entrance hall, and accepts his hat, gloves and coat, bowing and vanishing. A green haired girl with fangs slides out of the darkness to lead the way. A mountain of a man opens the doors for him, with mocking pomp. The old man knows them all -- he thinks this might be the point -- but he says nothing.

The person he has come to visit -- and the old man hesitates to think of it as a boy for all its youth, or even a man; he has never been given reason to trust much of anything and certainly not appearance -- is standing in front of belching fire. Red-orange-yellow light sweeps across them in flickering waves.

"Dramatic," the old man says dryly. It earns something of a smile.

He takes a seat close to the fire without being asked. The arm-chair is brown leather, warm and just soft enough beneath him. A pot of tea lifts itself, and the old man nods, watching it pour into bone china cups.

"Terrible weather, lately," the old man says, and sips his tea. It's rich and smoky, full of subtle flavours that he savours while he watches the other. "No? To business then. And what name are you using today, Mister Connor? Should I address you by title, perhaps? ( Hile rex; hile the Crimson King )

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We've made some additions and improvements to Notes!

The Notes feature has been added to two action-taking pages:

• You can now add a Note directly on the Add a friend page - handy if you'd like to mark down where you met them or another name you know them by!
• On the Ban and unban users page (under Account -> Privacy) you can now add a Note, including to a group of users all banned at the same time (so that next year you won't need to ask yourself "hey, why did I ban these guys?")

Other changes:

• When you're viewing your existing Notes they're grayed out; click in a field to activate it to change the text (this page can be found from the header by using Profile -> Manage Notes)
• Changes to editing:
  • When you're going to create a new Note but one already exists, you'll get a warning that you're editing an existing Note
  • You can now delete a note from the "Edit note" pop-up in the hover menu
  • You can now delete notes for multiple selected users on the Manage notes page
  • When you change Notes on "Ban|unban users" page, they can be edited and saved with "Save Changes" button

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

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Thank you to whoever just gifted me with more paid time! (And now I feel bad about how far behind I am, oops.)

I've turned anon-on and IP logging off for a bit if you wanna comment anon and ask me to write you something!

(To be honest, I only have IP logging on so I can see where I was when I posted a comment anyway; I wish there was some way to do that in everybody's journals.)

ETA: Also, someone spoil Dark X-Men for me. I don't get my comics for weeks/months after publication. :(

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EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

>>> music drabble meme thing

Hi.

So, I applied for Dani and then I got the email for an acceptance weeks later.

It came when I was very busy, so I, myself, was delayed in responding back to it.

And since there was mod changing hands thing going on...

This is Dani's journal for TM.

In case there was more delays with emails.

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Fireworks

"What was that?" Charity demands, barging onto the top floor so hard the doors leave marks in the walls.

"No one died," Mike says without looking around. Papers and gadgets cloud around him, rotating in and out of his reach as he signs things or moves them, filing cabinets sliding open and closed.

"There was a riot! How the hell was there a riot? That was pretty fucking convenient right there! I mean, what the hell?! And you just--"

"No. One. Died," Mike repeats, flicking a look her way. His eyes are red-gold, glittering. She flinches and his lips curl up, a mockery of a smile, before he turns back. Draws slide open, close empty. Chairs and tables stack themselves neatly.

"What--" She frowns at them, and then at him. "What are you doing? Are you-- You're packing! Are we leaving? I like New York."

There's no answer. A set of papers ignites, burns away to nothing. Another lands on the desk, sorted into neat piles.

"Oh," Charity says. "Not 'we'. You."

"Yes," Mike agrees. "Me."

#

"--politics now, and Michael Connor, a major and founding member of the Neo Genosha council today stepped down from his position as co-leader of the island nation. The usually gregarious mutant made this notably terse statement by television broadcast early this morning.

"'For personal reasons, and of my own accord, I hereby resign all commissions, effectively immediately. I will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you.'

"Chairwoman Kincaid, effective head of the country, was equally terse:

"'We are, of course, saddened by his choice, but we respect Mister Connor's decision, thank him for his aid, and wish him all the best in the future.'

"Asked if the resignation had something to do with Proposition X and the subsequent mutant-started riot that lead to the shooting of noted controversial activist Jean-Paul Beaubier, Chairwoman Kincaid declined to speculate. The following statement was released by his former office an hour later:

"'Mike would like it known that this is a personal decision, reached after much deliberation, and should not be seen to reflect upon the council of Genosha, whom he wishes all due providence in their ongoing endeavours. The plight of Genosha and the continued struggle to build something new in the wreckage caused by the massive, whole-scale slaughter of millions and millions of innocent men, women and children at the hands of Sentinels continues to be of importance; however, Mike wishes to now pursue his efforts to establish and maintain equitable human rights on a personal, rather than official, level. Given how much he has done for so many, I feel it would be bad form to begrudge him this little.'

"While Genoshan sources continue to deny that Connor was fired and that the island is politically unstable, speculation continues to run rife, with some commentators suggesting that drugs or infidelity may be behind the move. Whatever the cause, tensions are running high in the area, and Madagascar's navy has tonight returned to a status of high alert.

"In other news, Senator Petrelli today--"

#

He arrives in New York without fanfare, not even light to herald his presence, just there between one moment and the next. From the outside, the mansion looks old, empty, overgrown and boarded up. He walks up the stairs and through the doors as if they weren't there -- perhaps they aren't -- and looks around.

(Memories fight. He fought here, but he didn't. He remembers Wyngarde, the whisper of ages, past and present colliding in one. He remembers fighting Scribe, ripping Mountjoy from her body. He remembers too many things. Plots and conspiracies and backstabbing upon backstabbing. How many Inner Circles have there been now?)

There is a global transmat system that allows the Lords Cardinal to travel discretely. He activates it with a thought, dissolving the security measures, following the energy traces as the cross and recross the world. Some he can not find. Selene masks her presence far too well. Some he discards; Pierce is of no use to him, and da Costa has, for all his faults, a modicum of morals.

(They did this once before, he remembers suddenly, he and Emma and Scott, taking the club in order to use its resources to kill Sinister, except, of course, Rachel had made that moot. His ... whatever she was to him. Mother-sister-daughter. Time-travel, multiverse, issues in every impossible direction.)

They arrive, intrigued or cursing, and he waits until there is quiet. It takes a while. He closes Sat-Yr-9's mouth for her.

"I'm taking my seat," he says.

"As?" someone asks.

"Red King," he says, sitting at the head of the table. "We are at war. If you join me, I'll tell you how the Hellfire Club can help win it."

"And if we don't?" Fitzroy asks.

Mike smiles, and fire explodes in the hearth, bathing them in heat and flickering light and, in the half-shadows, his hair is white as bone, and the dark-red-brown of dried blood.

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The weather ha' turned for the worst. When I woke tae find mi cave's openin' blocked by snow I knew tha' the days I'd been dreadin' were once more upon me. Tis nay bad enough tha' I already must spend all but the time it takes tae scavenge for whatever beastie will be tha' night's dinner hidden away. Now, e'en tha' wee time of freedom puts mi life at greater risk as the snow betrays me wi' each step I take.

In these months of isolation, I'll live on rations barely big enough tae keep as the bairns at Lallybroch alive, but, I canna risk their makin' the trek here while snow covers the ground. I canna risk the English tying those at Broch Tuarach, tae this cave, and worse tae me.

Each winter mi life here becomes worse than the last. The comfort I once found in familiar books, the comfort tha' sustained me in years past is no longer here. Jenny tries sae hard. Wi' ev'ry bundle of food comes a note, or a trinket meant tae strengthen me, and though I know she means well, all I see is the danger tae all those who are a party tae keepin' me hidden.

How much longer can I keep doin' this tae them? As their Laird, mi job is tae see them safe. Tis not tae put them in harm's way, and yet wi' ev'ry day tha' dawns, I do jus' tha'. As hard as it may be for Jenny tae hear, the time may well hae come for me tae make mi presence known tae the English. The time may well hae come for me tae join mi Clanmates at Ardsmuir, and spare any others from Lallybroch the danger of imprisonment or death. The time may well hae come for me tae leave mi beloved Broch Turach, e'en knowin' I may ne'er see her agin.

Muse: Jamie Fraser
Fandom: "Outlander" book series/Misc Books
Words: 318

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