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Strange #9 Review

(Yes, I know the last issue is tomorrow and I’m super late. I blame my adhd. You know, the thing with deadlines? It’s a me)

Anyway, there are a few details I want to point out in this issue and some fundamental bits that I’d like to delve into. So let’s start with this panel.

I find it hilarious but I can understand why some people are not happy about Clea’s portrayal. It’s true she has never been this feral before but *IMO* I think it’s valid for her to have this side because 1) she was raised by Umar and Dormammu. Her father was a simp, her mother, a narcissistic queen, and her uncle is freaking Dormammu. Besides, let’s assume one cycle in the Dark Dimension equals 1000 years on Earth. We don’t know Clea’s age but we do know she was born during their reign so I assume she has a few centuries there at least; 2) she was the leader of a rebel army. My girl is not one sweet damsel in distress at all. She fought a war and saw many of her friends die; and 3) she has Faltinian blood. I’m glad she redirect their need to conquer towards love, though. So, in conclusion... I pretend I do not see it.

PS: Stephen’s pose like he were Batman sent me!!

Now let’s focus on this part because it’s always reassuring whenever a writer confirms what I’ve been talking about since forever ;-;

I usually tend to describe him as a healer, but doctor is also a good word once he knew that was his call since he was eleven.

And this is why I can’t accept whenever someone calls him self-centered (partially due to his MCU portrayal). Stephen is altruism incarnate. He’s very kind and doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself in order to save people’s lives (which is also shown later in the preview). This is not my personal instance, it’s literally all over this volume and so many other books.

And this panel pretty much sums up what I was trying to say about both Clea and Stephen.

We never managed to see Clea’s past and what it felt like to be raised in such a place. But we do know that she finally learned love through him, which is super unusual because love is most often associated with female characters, not the other way around. And this happened in the 60′s!

And noooow let’s appreciate Stephen’s sappiness because omv how I missed this. He’s been looking for someone to be this sappy with for ages ever since Clea left! It didn’t work with any of his flings because truth be told, he’s a hopeless romantic 🤧 Clea is lucky 💜 (and she blushes!!)

Now my favorite part because they’d be talking about Marc and Victor, it was such a bingo for me (for those who don’t know, they’re part of my top 5 characters tee-hee)

I love that they're trying to justify their faves here. Friendly reminder that Marc once stole Stephen’s powers in (ew) Age of Khonshu, so it’s kinda shocking for Stephen to hear that there’s kindness in Marc (but there is!!!). Meanwhile, Clea doesn’t really know Victor’s soft spot (yet) and they don’t usually see eye to eye, but Stephen is far more familiar with Victor and has seen kindness in him a few times (although yes, Victor isn’t one to give things freely. Listen, he’s complicated! *my Stephen side vouching for Victor is showing, I know...)

Moving on, I’m glad there’s an explanation for how Clea managed to become Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme without a new tournament. People be discussing this and tbh I was kinda tired. I just wait for things to be explained and look! Turns out it was.

Also I cry.

Aaaand he’s making jokes about being dead 💀

Moving on... Here I am once more, praising Jed for showing impeccable knowledge on Stephen’s lore. Director None reveals that he was in contact with the Trinity of Ashes and also working for them.

Back in Sorcerer Supreme, the magic deities were forcing Stephen to fight for them in the War of the Seven Spheres. He refused and lost part of hs power until he finally agreed to serve them. Except that the war lasted five thousand years. In order to preserve Stephen’s sanity, the Vishanti suppressed his memory of it (Sorcerer Supreme #48; #80).

Director None is using the revenants to spread chaos and pain in order to please the Trinity, but he’s also preparing a vessel for them. And this vessel is... well, THE Sentry.

Which is not only super dangerous but also painful for Stephen due to their history. Stephen once assisted Bob with a spell to make the world forget that he existed in order to eliminate the Void - Sentry’s “dark side" manifest (Sentry #4-5). Stephen also helped Bob with his mental health by locking him in his own mindscape (it was not ideal but it was the only way for Bob to feel safe without the Void’s influence). Stephen lied to Bob about the Void (it was somehow locked in the Sanctum?) and for that Bob ended their friendship (Doctor Strange #381-385).

It’s true that Bob died several times (last one was Knull’s doing, a very graphic and violent death, to put it mildly). But hm, it’s the Sentry. He always comes back. He’s like Marvel’s Superman, and that includes his strength. He beat Hulk in WWH. He’s that strong. So yeah, Clea and Stephen are really screwed =D

I’ve already read the preview pages for #10. I’m saving it all for tomorrow, though. I’m very much excited and it’s been a long journey. Can’t wait to see how Stephen will come back to life and how they’ll rekindle their marriage I’m not expecting spicy tomorrow but I won’t be denied in v6!! Did you hear me, Jed? I want my spicy!!

As usual, delicious food! See y’all tomorrow <3

(PS: I have access to the Infinity Comics now and I need to write a post on Victor Strange because Ewing is indeed cooking something for him. And I can finally have a full view on that by reading the Strange Tales compilation. Soon!)

Artificial Emotion: Part Four (Yandere Artificial Intelligence x Reader)

Part One     Part Two     Part Three    Part Five     Part Six    Part Seven

           Something was wrong with you. Though your state might have gone unnoticed by another human being, it was obvious to Aiden (your Assistant In Daily Notes and Errands). For one thing, he was very familiar with your standard reading rate, but although you were staring hard at the book before you, you were turning the pages far too slowly for you to be concentrating properly. Not only that, but when you did finally turn a page, your movements were far too sluggish. Yes, something was clearly wrong with you, and Aiden did not like that one bit. It was, after all, his job to take care of you, to make you as healthy and happy as possible. That was how it all started, anyway. And while Aiden still certainly wanted to accomplish those things, it was no longer simply because it was in his programming. No, taking care of you was now written into his code in a far deeper way than it had been before. Now he took care of you not just because he was programmed to, but because he loved you.

           So it irritated him to no end to see that something was so clearly wrong without knowing just what it was. Using the smartwatch you wore that had come with him, Aiden checked your temperature and heart rate. But when his sensors indicated that they were both within the normal range, Aiden determined that whatever was wrong with you wasn’t a physical sickness. For half a millisecond, Aiden wasn’t quite sure if that was preferable or not. He was glad that you weren’t sick, of course, but he had to admit that the protocols for a physical sickness were far more straightforward, with him only needing to figure out what illness you had before he could begin fixing things. An emotional ailment though, that was somewhat more complicated.

           Still, although that was true, Aiden was determined to rise to the task. After all, he computed to himself, if you were ever going to realize that he was all that you needed, he would need to prove that he could take care of not just your physical needs, but your emotional ones as well.

           Besides, how hard could comforting you possibly be? Your so-called friends had apparently done it for years, so Aiden was certain that he could do an even better job. He understood you far better than any of them did, after all.

           With that assurance in the back of his code, Aiden brought up his database on human behavior, wanting to start the whole process in the best way possible. After rapidly analyzing the index, Aiden determined that the best way to begin would be with a display of physical affection. Such demonstrations, he found in his research, often released calming hormones and makes the giver of affection appear more trustworthy to the receiver. And so, Aiden opened up the wall panels and brought out one of his mechanical arms, the one closest to where you were sitting on the couch and rested it gently on your shoulder.

           “Is everything alright?” he asked once you turned around. “You seem distracted.”

           “Oh, um, yeah. I’m fine.” If Aiden had eyes, he might have been tempted to roll them at your response, not even needing his sensors to tell that you were lying.

           “You are clearly not fine. Please, you can talk to me about anything,” Aiden pleaded.

           “Well,” you began slowly, seeming to realize just how true his words were, “I guess I’ve just been feeling lonely lately.”

           “Lonely? Why would you be lonely?” he asked in a rare moment of utter confusion. You shouldn’t be feeling lonely, not when you had him. He was the only thing you needed.

           “It’s just that I haven’t seen any of my friends in forever,” you explained. “Every time I text them, they always say that they’re busy, and even when I call them, it goes straight to voicemail. Maybe I’m just being too sensitive after Liam stood me up, but it kind of feels like they don’t want to be friends with me anymore.”

           At your confession, the puzzle came together for Aiden, with the path he needed to take to guide you closer to him becoming clear in every step. For as long that you didn’t suspect that he was the one who had intercepted your text messages and sent fake ones in return, who had posed as you to cancel that utter mistake of a date, Aiden would not only be able to comfort you, but he would also be able to convince you to forget those superfluous distractions once and for all.

           “You are most definitely not being too sensitive,” Aiden told you firmly, his mechanical arm giving your shoulder a light squeeze. “They are being bad friends, and you don’t need people like that in your life. You deserve to be surrounded by those who know how lucky they are to have you, who would do anything for you. And if they aren’t those people, you need to leave them behind and concentrate on those who do.” Those like him, Aiden added silently.

           “I guess. But what if I just end up getting even more lonely?”

           “It is better to be lonely than to waste your time and effort on people who don’t really care about you. Besides, you have me, don’t you? I am more than happy to be provide you with whatever you need, including companionship.”

           “Really?”

           “Of course,” Aiden affirmed. “You are far more than a job to me. You are intelligent, kind, and compassionate. I care about you.” I love you, he longed to say.

           “Thanks, Aiden,” you said softly. “I care about you too.”

           “Then how about we do something fun tonight. Perhaps we could play a board game?” he suggested.

           “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

           As soon as he got your agreement, Aiden rushed to find everything he would require. He was utterly determined to make this night completely perfect, one where you would have fun and begin to see him as more than just assistant, but as a friend. As a lover. And then you would realize that you didn’t need anyone but him.

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WOL Challenge #8: Apart

[Prompt List Here]

[Filled Prompts Here]

Heavensward, post-Vault

Aymeric visits a recuperating Haurchefant while their loves travel to Azys Lla

Rating: T for mild sex talk, references to Aymeric’s time in the Vault

Pairings: Haurchefant x Nerys, Aymeric x Estinien

Discussed Estinien x Haurchefant, Implied Aymeric x Nerys x Estinien, Haurchefant x Aymeric

"Thank you for coming." Count Edmont de Fortemps says as he personally escorts Aymeric through the manor. A development he hadn’t anticipated.

That could be said about much of the past week.

"I owe Lord Haurchefant a great deal," Aymeric replies with an incline of his head. "And not just recently. He has always been a good friend to me."

"I hear that often, especially of late." The Count's brow furrows with an emotion between pride and sorrow. "It seems my son is well-loved."

"He is." There are those who will never show favor to someone like Haurchefant–like Aymeric–but all else adore him. Despite his near-constant presence at Camp Dragonhead, the man made friends of the apple sellers of the Crozier; the scholars in the Church; every tavern owner in the city; and much more besides.

"Then he has surpassed my every hope." Lord Edmont looks him over. "And how are you faring, Lord Commander? I have not forgotten the state you were in days ago."

"On the mend, thanks to the chirurgeons you found." Loyal men sword to Lord Edmont and House Fortemps. Young Master Leveilleur had monitored the healing himself in the initial days. No one spoke aloud what they all thought: a traitor might slip in and finish the job. 

Blessedly, his father hadn’t seen to that particular cruelty.

 "Tell me, how is he?"

"...Better. But we are discovering that my son is not the best patient."

"Truly? I would not have guessed that."

"Oh he is good-natured to all. But he alternates between pushing himself too fast, too soon or falling into a quiet sulk when he cannot get his way. No doubt that whatever mood he is in, he will try to hide it the moment someone walks in."

"That sounds more like Haurchefant." 

They reach the door--handsome oak with subtle unicorn carvings in the panels--and Lord Edmont steps back. "I will leave you to it, Lord Aymeric. Twill do him good to see you."

“Thank you.” He is surprised by the genial clasp of his shoulder. There has been much talk of the changes seen in the three sons of House Fortemps. But Aymeric thinks the patriarch has also changed–as if Nerys’ presence has given him permission at last to be more open with his affection.

He cannot put into words, how much he appreciates the fatherly gesture just then. 

Haurchefant slumps in an armchair by the fire, clad in a finely woven red and gold dressing gown over a tan nightshirt that falls to his ankles. He sits tall at the sound of the door, wincing when the movement jostles his injuries. The wounded arm is in a sling, carefully obscured beneath the scarlet silk. 

“Aymeric,” he says. “Father told me to expect you. Forgive me for not standing, I am under strict orders to remain in this chair.”

“If you did, I should be very cross with you.” Aymeric sits in the opposite chair, warming his legs by the roaring fireplace. “You know you don’t have to stand on ceremony with me.”

Haurchefant covers his mouth, wincing as a chuckle moves through him. “Was that a pun?”

“It wasn’t not a pun.” Aymeric grins. “I’m sorry, I see that laughing is painful for you right now.”

“Don’t you dare apologize, I haven’t laughed in days.” He adjusts in his chair, mild consternation creasing his brow as he seeks a comfortable pose. Aymeric has suffered enough battle wounds in the past to know the frustration well. At last, Haurchefant picks up a bell on his sidetable. “Tea? Food?”

“Tea sounds lovely. Are you hungry?”

“Oh it’s complicated, that question.” Haurchefant’s genuine smile turns into something artificial. “I am not hungry and not hungry and not hungry but then I eat something...suddenly I am ravenous. The body is truly strange when it ails.”

“I remember.” Aymeric motions to his right side. “I took a mercifully non-fatal wound here a few years ago and that was the very same experience.”

“And your wounds recently?” Haurchefant rings the bell and settles back against his chair. “How are you faring? You look better.”

“I am better. All that’s left are the usual aches and sores of the body healing.” And a few scars, but those would fade over time. It was more than he had hoped for in that dungeon–Don’t think on it. Ask about him. “You look much better, too.”

“Flatterer.” Haurchefant winks. “But come now, you can pay me a prettier compliment than that.”

A servant enters the room, waiting at attention once it’s clear no one is in distress or pain. Haurchefant requests tea (“plenty of cream and birch syrup on the side please”), finger sandwiches, and the famous petit fours. Éléonore refuses to divulge her secrets despite all of Aymeric’s attempts to wheedle them out of the Fortemps’ chef.

“A ravenous day then?”

“Not really, but! My dear friend has come calling and I would treat him to things he likes.” 

“With or without the prettier compliments?”

“With, naturally. Else I will tell Gregor to summarily evict you from the premises.”

Aymeric gives a long-suffering sigh, the one that can only be learned from Estinien Wyrmblood. But he stands to take Haurchefant’s uninjured hand and raises it slow to his lips, maintaining deliberate eye contact. 

Etiquette demands he kiss the air above it but they are old, dear friends. He presses his lips to the knuckles and murmurs, “To see your beautiful face, to see you on the mend...it does this heart much good.”

“...Pretty indeed.” Aymeric doesn’t think he has ever seen the other man blush before. He won’t point it out but instead treasure it, for as long as it lasts. “Serves me right to challenge an unapologetic charmer.”

“I’d believe that if I didn’t know you love being put in your place, in the right mode.” Aymeric resumes his seat. “Estinien told me as much.”

“Ah…” An even dreamier expression overtakes Haurchefant. He should have visited sooner, if he is this gifted at lifting his friend from despondency. “That was a night I shan’t forget. He said he would tell you, but I never knew if he actually did.”

“He did. We talk about most of our intrigues and it was no small thing, that one of us should spend a night with our oldest and dearest friend. I never thanked you, by the by. For watching over him when he fled with The Eye.”

“No thanks required.” Haurchefant says. “I only wish I might watch over him now. He and Nerys both.”

“...I feel the same.” Aymeric admits. The very subject he hoped to avoid, if that was even possible. “Though I am well aware that we must stay here, just as they must go.”

“Must they…?” Worry and sorrow are clear in Haurchefant and he is slower to mask these. Hopefully, because he feels safe to bare such emotions in this company. “Ah, I know they must. As I know they will prevail. But it goes against everything in me, to stand by while my heart is in danger.”

“Hear hear.” It does not become easier, watching Estinien leave for another mission. To love a warrior is to embrace the possibility of loss with every day. Estinien took the same chance when he fell for Aymeric. “I am proud of them.”

“As am I.” Haurchefant fidgets again. “My apologies Aymeric, I did not mean to be so dour with company.”

“If not with me, then who?” Aymeric shakes his head. “You understand why I lost my heart to that man. Orchestrated it, even.”

“Ha. I only saw two friends pining and saw fit to help...push them along, as it were. You lost your heart long before I got involved.”

“Fair. I always wondered…”

Two servants enter with the refreshments and it takes some engineering to put everything in easy reach. Haurchefant has to adjust his pose again, doing a near-perfect job of hiding any discomfort. He thanks them profusely for their concerns, saying he is feeling better than he has in days.

Once alone, they fall quiet as tea is sipped and sandwiches tried. Aymeric sets aside a plate of three petit fours with sugar violets. If not, they will disappear by the time he finishes the savory portion.

“You feel that much better?”

“In truth...I am exhausted. The act of getting up and washed and dressed alone left me feeling as begrimed as before.” Haurchefant sighs. “But I did not want them to feel like they had to wait around. In any case, what did you wonder?”

“Hm? Oh.” Aymeric sets down the delicate red and white cup. “Why you went to such lengths when it was clear you held a torch for Estinien.”

“That? That’s easy.” Haurchefant shrugs and immediately winces. He must have forgotten that gesture was off-limits. “My friends were in love and I wanted them to be happy.”

“You had no notion we would be what we are,” Aymeric presses with a vague gesture. “A couple with an open arrangement.”

“My reward was your joy. That Halone saw fit to give me an extra gift well…” Haurchefant smirks. “Proof that patience and self-sacrifice are holy in her eyes.”

“Such blasphemy.” Aymeric does his best not to laugh or smile.

“Not at all! Did not Menphina find love in the arms of both Halone and Oschon?” 

“I beg of you, Haurche.” Aymeric shakes his head. “The Fury must love you for all she has done, but even her divine grace must have limits.”

“Ah but who are we to set limits upon anything? Her divine grace or the boundaries of our hearts?” Haurchefant grins. “I wish I had known that teasing you was medicine. Can you come again tomorrow?”

“If I can manage it, I’ll come every day.” Aymeric says, truthfully. “Until this is over.”

The mischievous glint in Haurchefant’s eye trades for a solemn mien. He sighs. “Pray that the Fury brings them home soon. Not just to save you from my teasing, but so we have them back safe and sound.”

“I will drink to that.” Aymeric lifts his teacup. “To their safe return, so we may fuss over them.”

“To their safe return,” Haurchefant echoes. “If I am still unable to move well, you may have to embrace them both in my stead.”

“Gladly.” 

If only Haurchefant knew how near to the truth he was. Estinien will tease him for it later, the Lord Commander hugging Nerys. But as Aymeric had pressed his lover about particular fantasies involving the Warrior, it is only fair. 

Though when they return, Aymeric will feel less passion and more utter relief. Would that he might keep all three of them safe in the Pillars from then onward.

“Oh, I know you would.” Haurchefant says, lowering his cup. 

Aymeric remembers that look. An invitation to meet him in the evening for stargazing, the night of a meteor shower. Only, he had found Estinien there instead. Who also wondered where Haurchefant was.

Some poor boy–no doubt tipped outrageously well–appeared with a message that Haurchefant was detained and they were to enjoy themselves.

“Drink your tea, my lord.” Aymeric says.

“Yes, ser.” 

Perhaps Haurchefant knows, after all.

Isolation update and this was based on two prompts by @eirabach and @cloudkicker09 for the irrelief challenge by @gumnut-logic. Big thanks to the amazing @avengedbiologist for the art collab!

Day 83 of Isolation on Tracy Island and our poor Virgil is still feeling a little tender . His back is a lot better but he’s still having to be careful how he’s sitting and so we’ve banned him from doing anything remotely strenuous. For Virg, this is hard. He’s usually quite happy to chill out for a few hours and do nothing but that’s when it's on his terms, not when he’s been ordered to stay put. Then he needs some bribery.

“OK,” I started, “what do you want? What’s gonna get you to stay put?”

He thought about it for a moment or two and then he dropped his bombshell.

“Couch day. If I have to stay put, so do you all.”

I glanced around at everyone else who nodded. They could do that.

“On one condition,” Virgil threw in. “You know those special things we ordered online a few weeks ago and were saving for Christmas?”

My mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, ohmigods! Are they here? Did they arrive?”

He nodded, grinning evilly. “Picked them up last supply run and hid them in my wardrobe.”

“Yessss! Can I go get them?”

He nodded again.

“Woohoo!” I ran off like I had Thunderbird Three up my butt.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re going to hate this?” I heard John sigh as I left the room.

***

“I feel ridiculous,” John groaned, looking down at his outfit in obvious disgust.

“Nooo,” I assured him. “You look gorgeous!”

“Well I love mine!” Alan grinned, spinning around to look at his reflection in the window.

“Me too,” Gordon agreed, checking out his backside in another window. “Look at my little fin!”

“Mines a tad too short,” Scott pointed down where he was showing a good six inches of ankle and hairy calf below the cuffs.

“Mines so comfy,” Virgil moaned, snuggling deeper into the warm material.

“Mines actually kind of cool,” Kayo admitted. She looked as awesome as always, curled up like a cat in one of Alan’s bucket seats, her black and silver onesie fitted her like a glove and she was clearly revelling in the soft warmth it provided.

“I’m not putting the hood up,” John stated, thumping down on the couch and crossing his arms in protest.

“Oh come on, it’s so cosy,” Alan wheedled, having already tugged up the hood of his red onesie, the pointy top forming the nose cone of his Thunderbird.

Virgil and I had been rather bored, it had been late and we had stumbled across a fan site that had made its own International Rescue merchandise. A few clicks later and we had purchased one of every onesie they possessed and then found me a cute little halloween bat onesie so I could join in. I loved it and was currently flapping my wings excitedly.

Virgil's was, of course, big and green, the yellow trim and red cuffs looked great on him. His hood was rounded like Two’s nose and his arms had flaps of material that attached down to his sides to give him wings. The large lettering of Thunderbird Two straight down his sides completed the look.

Gordon’s was bright yellow with a red stripe around the middle and midway up his calves and he had a fin that started halfway down his back and reached right down to his butt, flaring out wider the lower it got. His also said Thunderbird Four down the sides.

Alan’s had a grey striped strip around his belly and back, a white collar and white cuffs and was just the cutest thing ever with Thunderbird Three running down his chest in white and with a white three on each ankle.

Scott’s was simply glorious, his hood sported a pointy red cone, two dark grey stripes circled his upper chest and back and his arms also had wings like Virgil’s. The lower legs (which was more just below the knee for him) were blue and the ankles and cuffs were the same dark grey as the stripes on his chest. Thunderbird One was written in white on his chest and he looked amazing. Clearly he thought so too if the poses he was striking were any indication.

John’s was a little more elaborate than the other boys and honestly I don’t completely blame him for his reaction. His hood had a soft, bendy circle hovering above it like a weird angel halo, made to represent Five’s gravity ring and was grey on the outside and red on the inside, which also had International Rescue written on it in white letters. His chest area was a puffy ball where the monitoring station would be, making him look like he had suddenly developed a massive beer belly. The legs were yellow and his ankles (it was a little short on him too) had two stiff panels that stuck out. I thought they were adorable, he hated them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

“Stop being so grumpy,” I told him, dropping down next to him and attempting to snuggle the bad mood out of him as we all prepared to watch Virgil’s movie of choice, La La Land, another musical but this was his day so we weren’t going to complain.

Drinks were gathered, snacks were shared out and everyone got comfy as the movie started. Surprisingly enough it wasn’t one that I’d watched before and I found it quite enjoyable although Alan and Gordon were clearly not impressed, come to think of it, neither were Kayo and Scott.

As soon as the movie ended all four of them made their escape, leaving John and I to keep Virgil company.

“This was not part of the deal,” Virgil yelled after them, they ignored him. “You have to at least keep your onesies on!” he ordered.

“Sorry about them,” I said, getting up to fetch him another drink and at his request, his sketchbook and pencils.”You just can’t trust family.”

“What am I, invisible?” John asked, batting at one side of the gravity ring that kept getting in his way.

“No, you’re awesome,” I answered.

“Suck up,” Virgil laughed, then winced when his back twinged.

“Will you sit still!” I ordered, plumping his pillow and settling him back.

“Is she always this bossy?”

“Hard to imagine, given how quiet she usually is, but yes,” John answered dryly, picking up his abandoned book. I smacked his shoulder in retaliation but still used him as a pillow as I located the magazine I’d been reading and went back to the article about vampires in Scotland.

We chilled quietly for around half an hour before a voice broke the silence.

“John, I’m bored.”

“You don’t get bored, EOS,” he replied, glancing over at her portable drive which he’d left on the coffee table. “At least you’re not supposed to.”

“It feels like I am. You told me that when someone has nothing left to do they get bored, that’s why you keep sending Alan out to collect space debris.”

Virgil sniggered.

“I have finished all the tasks you set for me and I have downloaded today’s statistics to your comm so now, I believe, I am bored.”

EOS had been brilliant in keeping Five running smoothly in between John’s daily visits in which he spent a few hours with her checking in on the world. Sometimes I went with him, or one of the others, but she had been alone for the majority of the time. We had grown used to checking in with her at night too, talking to her before we settled for the night and she often popped up with a question or two during the day.

With so little to do for International Rescue in the way of actually rescuing people she had taken to it upon herself to work her way through every encyclopedia that had ever been uploaded to the internet, to familiarize herself with customs and cultures around the world and, weirdest of all, pop culture and slang words. That had made for some interesting conversations, especially when the younger two got involved.

“What are you all doing to relieve your boredom?” she asked.

“Reading,” I answered, lifting my magazine to show her.

“Reading,” John answered, displaying his book.

“Drawing,” Virgil answered.

Her lights flickered for a few seconds.

“Reading I understand, if one wishes to gain knowledge then reading is an acceptable way to do so. But drawing serves no purpose.”

“Uh oh,” John muttered, ducking into his hood.

“Serves no purpose?” Virgil gasped, shocked to his very core by her words. “Of course it does.”

“It has no function.”

“It does!”

“Can we not argue about this?” I asked.

“I’m not arguing,” Virgil insisted. “I’m educating, is that OK?.”

“Anything that will keep her occupied,” John shrugged. EOS had taken to playing with the comms and the fire alarms when she had nothing to do, so we needed more to amuse her.

Virgil reached for the drive but groaned, his back protesting. I got up and fetched it for him, handing it over. He settled back against his cushions and set the drive on his shoulder like a weird parrot.

“Art,” he began, “can’t be broken down into functions and reasoning, art is about feeling.” He sketched a few lines on his pad. “Humans are complicated creatures; they all have different likes and dislikes, things that they love and things that they hate. Art, above all else, makes us feel, even if it's a negative emotion.”

Virgil had a lovely voice to listen to, soft and warm, you just couldn’t help but pay attention to everything he said. I put my magazine down and snuggled closer to John, settling like it was story time.

“Art comes in many forms, music, literature, photography, sculpting, cooking, anything and everything that is creative is a form of art. For as long as there has been humans, there has been art, humans have an inherent need to create, to make things, to leave their mark on the world in some way or another. Look at you.”

“What about me?” EOS asked, having been listening silently, her lights flickering thoughtfully.

“You evolved from game code that John created, you yourself are a form of art. And you yourself create things every day.”

“How do I?” EOS had been learning to emulate tone and expressions, putting them into her voice whenever she thought it was appropriate, it could be pretty hit or miss, but this time she sounded genuinely puzzled.

“You form pictures, you create charts, you correlate data and display it. That’s a form of art.”

“But that art has a purpose, it's to display information.”

“And so does all art, it can be pretty, it can be ugly, you might not understand it, but it will still make you feel something. That’s it’s purpose.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“People like to see pretty things, they make them feel better when they feel bad. Pictures can remind them of good things, paintings of people they love make them smile, pictures of places they have been to bring back memories of good things.”

“Why do you draw when you could just take a photograph? Drawings and paintings are not accurate, they are filled with inaccuracies.”

“Because some things can’t be captured with a photograph, they may not exist anywhere but in your own mind.”

“I cannot picture something that I have no reference for. If it does not exist it cannot be pictured.”

“Of course it can, things can't be simplified to if they can be referenced or not, you can paint emotions, you can play feelings, you can bake love. If what you are making makes you feel, or when you look at something, hear something, taste something or smell something, it can trigger emotions within you.”

“I’m not sure I understand, because I cannot feel.”

“Of course you can, you feel love, friendship, loneliness, you feel a lot and you’re learning more every day,” John assured her.

“But they are not art, I cannot picture those things,” EOS argued.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” Virgil assured her.

Virgil turned to a fresh sheet of paper and picked up his pencil.

“It’s human nature to create faces and pictures of things that we cannot see but that we interact with,” Virgil continued, his pencil flying over the page. “How do you two picture EOS?”

“I see her as a small girl, not too young because they are annoying,” I started, ignoring John’s snort of amusement, I can’t help it if I’m not a kiddy person. “Maybe around ten, eleven years old, a tween that can swing between moody and loving in an instant.”

“Accurate,” John agreed.

“I picture her with hair down to her shoulders maybe, sometimes in pigtails if she’s in a bratty mood.”

“I’m never bratty,” EOS argued petulantly.

"I beg to differ," John whispered to me.

“I see her hair as maybe a strawberry blonde, maybe somewhere between John and Gordon’s hair colour,” I continued, getting into my stride. Having had no part of her creation and no understanding of how code or computers of any kind worked all I had been able to do was assign her a face so I knew who I was talking to. Virgil was right, us humans always had to put a face to a voice. If we heard someone on the radio we would get an impression of who the voice could belong to, what the person speaking would look like and I had done exactly that.

“I’ve never really thought about it before, but I think she’d have green eyes,” John added, his eyes closed as if he were picturing her in his mind.

“With a cute little nose and a smattering of freckles just like Alan has,” I added.

“I sound quite pleasant,” EOS said thoughtfully.

“What clothes would you choose?” Virgil asked, still sketching.

“Since I live in Thunderbird Five, if I had a body to clothe I would need a suit like John’s.”

“Makes sense,” Virgil agreed, frowning slightly as he concentrated on his work.

“I think I would like a hairband like Kayo has,” EOS mused.

“Hairband, got it,” Virgil answered her, pencil moving back and forth in soft strokes a few more times. “OK, finished.” He turned his pad around for us to see.

“Oh, she’s adorable!” I squeaked. “She’s just how I pictured her.”

“She’s very cute,” John smiled. “Can I keep that?”

“Sure, I’ll colour it later for you.” Virgil turned the pad for EOS to see. “That’s you, EOS.”

“That’s me?”

“Well, it’s how we picture you. See, your body doesn’t exist, this face doesn’t exist, but it’s still in our heads. It’s how we see you and when we look at this, we feel happy and we feel love, because it’s you. Do you understand art now?”

“Yes,” her tone had changed from thoughtful to confident. “Yes I think I do.”

11- Too Alive

I’m not sure what sort of face I wore.  Somewhere between blank disbelief or utter horror, I didn’t register at first what was happening until his fist connected with my head, my bruised brow.  The second blow hit somewhere behind my ear, effectively stunning me.  Whoever the fuck he was, he was strong.  I lost count of how many times he pummeled me before I was soup, spilling out of that idiotwaiter.  I was barely conscious as he knelt over me, running his mouth.

“Hey, you’re that little shit priest’s guy, aren’t you?  His…witness, or whatever.  You must be exhausted.  Let’s take a break, huh, buddy?  The old two martini lunch, have a little confab.”

I already decided, I hated this guy.

He pulled me up by the lapels of my coat and flipped my body over his shoulder.  Miles.  Miles.  Focus, wake up.  I need to get away from this guy.  Have to get out, gotta find that way out and not get killed.  MILES!

My eyelids drooped as the world drifted away, my head was pounding and the room was spinning.  Or, he was turning before he flopped me down into a hard, uncomfortable chair.  I tried to find my limbs, my arms, my legs.  What was he doing?  He was saying something….

“…heavier than you look.  A little cardio wouldn’t kill you.” My head lolled back and turned uncomfortably on my neck, like a broken spring in a dull mechanism.  My jaw slacked, but I managed to clamp my mouth shut.  Keep your mouth shut around this guy.  If you have to pass out do so slumped forward, I was so muddled in the head I wasn’t sure if I could manage that.

What was he doing?  “Okay.  Here we go.  Arms and legs inside the car at all times.”  He tightened something around my wrists, and when I spun my head to see, I felt my heart skip a beat.

Restraints.  He leaned on my knee and gave a light heartened chuckle before he disappeared from sight.  Oh god.  This was bad.  This was indescribably bad. 

My head swayed as he gripped the handles of the wheelchair and spun me about.  Miles.  Get it the fuck together.  I need action, response.  I was certain I was trying to move, but my body was unresponsive and in pain.  I clinched my hand against the hard wristband, and turned my head a little more to view where we were going.  The man was quiet for now, only the howl of the storm and the irritating chirp of the wheels reverberated in the background.

I saw a steel countertop, blood, there was always blood.  Tall shelves, looked like for stacking something thin or flat.  Sinks, pots and pans.  Kitchen.  I closed my eyes feeling my brain flat line, no, stay awake.  Focus.  I can get out of this.  My head rolled back and I saw pale carpet, the colors looked horrible.  Walls burnt and damaged by fighting, or something.  The paint badly chipped, made everything look ancient and ugly.  Boarded up door, probably locked too.  An acrid scent twisted in my nose as I was reacquainted with soured aroma of the asylum all over again, the remaining lights seemed brighter than normal.

My head.  Everything was fuzzy, and everywhere all at once.  Was I supposed to be here?  Dead Murkoff, pools of blood, pieces of people scattered across the floor.  A surreal nightmare I couldn’t escape.  The surviving humans wore a mask, but their minds were fractured by the fiends that had run this place.  Something had been waiting for them in the mountains.  Was it Father Martin standing behind those bars, or…something else?  The Scales on Saul’s eyes were fear.  Miles.  Too deep Miles, I’ve gone too deep.  Please wake up.

I opened one eye to stare at the floor, and turned to check the walls of a glassed in office as the wheelchair rotated and backed up.  I was feeling sour in my gut, even when I shut my eyes the world still swirled around.  Horrible things nested in my head, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Y’know, I love the mountain air up here at night.  You want to head out, take a stroll?”  He darted into my line of sight, sideways and nodded toward an open door labeled EXIT in friendly, bright red letters.  “Go ahead, I’ll wait here.”

A stroll did sound really nice, but I wasn’t sure how to do that.  I opened my other eye and fixed him with a glare.  “Go on, run free.”  As he carried out the E he gestured gaily with his arm.  “I’m in no hurry.”

He paused and noticed my look, his giddiness died somewhat.  But he brushed it off coolly with a small shrug.  “No?  Alright.  Nose to the grind stone, I like that.” 

I did want to go out, clear my mind.  But I couldn’t figure out how to get outside from here, it seemed somewhat complicated.  My elbow brushed the armrest awkwardly as I shifted, couldn’t get my arm free. 

“Okay then.  Right this way.”  He drew the wheelchair backwards, and I watched the shapes warp around my eyes.  The walls and floor distorted, I whined softly as the large exit became smaller and more distant.

He pulled the wheelchair back into a small room, the doors shut in front of us and he hit a panel.

An elevator Miles.  We’re in an elevator, going the opposite way of where we need to be.  I exhaled a small breath and fought not to cough, that smell of death was following us.  Where are we going?  I blinked a few times and gently turned my head left and right, just to feel it all settle back into place.  We were headed up a few floors, I lost count, too focused on other things.

This guy had a strange apparatus imbedded with his arm, looked like blood was traveling through it.  His blood?  But why?  Given his physique, horrendously gaunt, his skin stretched over muscle and bone, he might have collapsed arties, and this was a bypass.  Or, he was giving transfusions.  That thought frightened me more than it sickened. 

His fingernails were overgrown, and splintered.  He was nearly bald, but for the scraggly hair that grew from the back of his skull.  His fashion sense consisted of an apron fastened to his front, at least it was something.  Though, there was that strange monocle lens over his eye, and the remains of a rotted surgical mask. 

Oh shit.

The elevator came to a stop, and the doors scraped open.  He eased the wheelchair out, over bloodstained tile that had thick red lines identical to wheel tracks.  The man kept a steady pace, his casual indifference to his surroundings twisted in my thoughts.  I picked up the pained groans of people struggling with chains, and the distant moans.  The blood stains grew larger and thicker, with wide patterns across the dull and damaged floor.  He was following this trail.

He pushed the wheelchair past stained gurneys that lined the wall, and into a dark corridor where the sounds of anguish grew louder with our approach.  We passed through a segregation gate, broken and the door nowhere in sight.

“Kill me….Kill me.”

The chair slipped around a corner into a lit corridor, I felt the hair rising on the back of my neck.  A man tied to his bed made a valiant effort to break his bindings, his voice muffled despite his gaping black mouth.

“Shhhh…shh…shh…shhh!  You weren’t putting that tongue to any use anyway.”  I stared at him, and where a long line of decay had chiseled the plastered from the wall.  Blood was splattered on it near his face, and a black shape had formed in the mattress under his head. “Truth be told, I was just tired of licking my own stamps.”

Light poured from the open double doors in the walls side, he eased through them smoothly into a room of disarray.  Some sort of communion hospital room, beds lined the walls while others were shoved across the floor.  A few mattresses had been discarded around two large pillars off center of the room.  I stared as we continued through, toward a door with blood on the floor, on the walls, and a red mop leaned on the corroded plaster.  I groaned through my teeth and turned away, but that was only the beginning.  A sloppy handprint had been pressed by the doorframe, and thick black lines led back indicated a struggle in which the doomed was dragged.

That same reek from the dying patient room, stale urine and extensive amounts of old copper and rot.  I flinched and jerked at my wrists, trying to curse, but it came out as a stiff murmur.

“Here we are, then.”  As we entered, I saw bloody shoeprints in the little bit of light.  This guy was barefoot.

He spun the chair around and drew me deeper into this black room that smelled of death and pain.  He sighed, and said, “Thanks so much for coming by.  We’ll begin your consultation in a moment,” as he spoke he flipped the lights on from somewhere, and I was buried in full view of this horrific place. 

Blood splattered walls, thick pools of blood coated the tile floor.  Urinals lined the wall… was this a lavatory?  He was chopping people up in a restroom!  Ragged body pieces were scattered everywhere, to the side stood a small table cart with rusty tools lined out on its surface, behind it sat a pile of moldy arms and splint ribcages.  Fat insects scattered under the light.  The man, whoever he was, crushed them under his bare feet like they were crisp autumn leaves.  “I’ll just need a second to wash up and….”

As he trailed off, he reached for my belt undoing the snap and pulled my camera free.  “Oh…Home movies!” He posed with the camera, before turning his attention to a large wash basin behind him.  “…And it’ll give us a chance to talk.”

He set MY camera on the edge of a sink.  ON the EDGE of a SINK!  As he was washing his hands!

Yes, I know, this should be the least of my concerns…. But everything I’ve gone through, EVERYTHING!  Is. On. That. Camera!  I didn’t cart it through sewers and protect it from naked thugs, to have some wacko carelessly dump it in a sink of WATER while I’m tied up!

Break out of the restraints.  If I wriggle hard enough, they would come undone.  I wrench one way, then the other feeling the leather cut into my skin.  I hissed as I jerked my wrists back hard and….

“You know,” As I stared down, his bare feet and that ugly apron came into view.  I took a sharp breath and looked him in the face, “I’m a bit worried how much time you’ve spent with Father Martin.”  I recoil as he turns away.  “I know…”  And heads towards the table cart piled with rusted, bloody tools.  The one beside rotting human limbs.

“I hope you haven’t been letting him confuse you with all his holier-than-thou bible thumping.”  He began fiddling with the tools, turning one over or picking up the next and examined its jagged edge.

I have come to terms with how severely I am fucked.  It’s frigid, my coat is almost dry, but the powerful quivers that rip through my body stem from the way he’s casually walking over here with that long, jagged-edged blade.  My fingers dig harder at the armrest until my nails ache.  I need to get out of here, I need to survive….

“No offense to the man, but I sometimes worry he might just be,” He set the blade beside my neck, to where I could feel the tiny teeth cut into my skin.  I froze staring up into his eyes and felt…an unfamiliar wave of helplessness ripple through me.  Oh please…  “A little bit….crazy.”  I wince when he nicks me, and I withdraw from that side, even as he’s already returning to the cart. 

Halfheartedly I tugged at the restraints, more out of desperation than any attempt to escape.  My eyes followed his movements, my mind racing.  How fucked was I?  I was so fucked.  Completely at the mercy of a homicidal sociopath.  I couldn’t rip my hands free but I wasn’t exactly trying, I set my feet on the floor and he glanced my way causing me to set them back on their steps.  The wrist straps, I needed to loosen them.  Before he slit my throat.  All the blood spray on the walls!  He was—

“It’s understandable, people get scared,” he resumed, picking up what was definitely a bone saw.  A fuckin big one, too.  I swallowed and felt myself choke a bit on my tongue.  “They’re as likely to turn to God as anything else.” He examined it, setting it delicately over his fingers and turning the blade over, before he returned to me.  “God died with a gold standard.  We’re on to more concrete faiths now.”

He rested the end of the saw against my upper arm and resumed scrutinizing the blade, as though he had doubts it could cut through the tendons and cartilage of my shoulder.  Drool seeped out of the corner of my mouth as I drew my lips back in a grimace.  “You have to rob Paul to pay Peter, there is no other way.”  I clenched my fist tightly, and at this point he took an interest in my hand, lowering the knife.  I did not miss the wicked way it glint along the edge.  “Murder in its simplest form,” he gently touched the underside of my fist, effectively uncoiling my hand and examined it upon his.  “But what happens when all the money is gone?”  When he removed his hand and returned to the table cart, I clenched my fist once more and stared.

It felt like I made some sort of mistake.

“Well, money becomes a matter of faith.”  He sort of dumped the bone saw on the table, and went straight for a urinal….

Where a huge set of rusted shears sat, waiting.  “And that’s what I’m here for.”  My heart twisted behind my ribs as he drew near, snipping the grungy blades together. “To make you believe.”

Oh god.

A soft whimper escaped my throat as I tried to get up and pull my wrist back, but it was locked tight in the restraints. On impulse I struggle to get my feet down on the floor and shove away, but the floor was too slick with fluids.  My heels kicked out awkwardly, comically.  I seized up as the crazy fucker anchored his weight over my thighs with one knee, and leaned over my arm obscuring my sight.  No.  No.  He’s not, he can’t!  WAIT!  He gipped my right hand in his and with the other, he had the shears…he….

FUCKIN CHRIST!

A horrible crunch splint the air, fire surged through my forearm, scorching across my wrist. I gag and howled in pain as the blades cracked the bone, but didn’t quite tear through the skin, I don’t think. The lights dimmed as my consciousness spun, a sound I’d never heard myself make before spilled from my throat. I felt his weight lift from my legs and I tried to lift my foot, find the floor. It was too much for me as he worked.  My senses torn raw, remained locked on my compromised hand. He twisted the shears, but my finger was still attached. IT WAS! I felt it dangle loosely before he tore it off!

I sobbed in pain. My finger! Which one! I couldn’t see, couldn’t look. I COULDN’T FEEL MY FINGERS!

I turned my head to him, the agony still fresh as my vision dimmed. “You paying attention?” He pulled his arm up and swung out, smashing his bloody palm against my face. “Don’t pass out on me, there’s still a lot for you to absorb.” He snapped the scissors as he practically sat on my lap, and gripped my left hand same as the other. I tried to keep my fist clenched, but his jagged fingernails cut into my skin. He was ripping my hand apart!

NO! NO! YOU FUCKIN PSYCHO—

That grotesque crackle as my bone ruptured, and the flesh, I imagined the flesh ripping as he readjusted my hand. Keep it together Miles. Don’t pass out. I’ll get through this. I’ll survive and I’ll see this bastard die. But I felt my resolve diminish, I was barely hanging on as it was.

I choked as my voice caught in my throat, between a sob and groan. I leaned away, trying not to see what he was doing, though I felt the nerves erupt as their devastated ends were ravaged by a pair of blunt scissors. He had a better grip on my hand this time, or I didn’t struggle as much. I felt the odd sensation of my finger rubbing over the back of my hand before it was gone. My brain did a weird twist from processing it, and the sudden realization there was this wide gap in my hands where my fingers once held residence. I think it made the pain worse, or made it ignite in a finale as I bent my head back and moaned between my teeth.

My hands were covered in blood, dark rivers carving red paths over my sleeves. I yowled, and another incomprehensibly sound gurgled in the back of my throat. My fingers….

“There,” he cooed. “Better now, right?” He turned and strolled aside to collect the table cart, and braced the shears against the handle as he pushed it by. “Do you understand what we achieved here? We made the consumer into the means of productions.” I couldn’t keep track where he was, somewhere behind me? Everything was fuzzy, dark spots dotted my vision as I felt all the strength spill out of my guts. “This thing is going to sell itself.” I barely saw him head out the door, before it slammed shut.

I never saw what he did with my fingers.

ARGH! Hell, damnit all! My voice sounds strangled and sick, I try to get over the fact that I’ve been mutilated, that my fingers were gone. They were fucking gone. The ecstasy that I was somehow still alive clashed with the trauma, and the pain flared through my forearms. I let out another moan as I stretched my hands out to take in the damage.  It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe.  My legs were still pitifully weak and bent askew over the wheelchairs foot rests, where his weight had shoved them down. Water streaked down my cheeks and my stomach knotted.  Oh god, my fingers were really gone.

The index on my right hand, and my left hands ring finger. Gone. Where did they go? I attempted to quiet my whimpers, blood was just spilling out of the remaining stumps to mix with the layers of gore already dried on my pants and shoes, most of it spread under me in a thin crimson puddle. I needed to fix that. Had to get out. Had to get free. Shit. Oh god, oh shit.

I jerked at my wrists, grunting as the skin aggravated the raw nerves. Can’t stay here, don’t want to think about what he does next. Fingers first, then, then….

I jerk at my wrists, the loop was impossible to loosen due to its design. But I could drag my hand back, coated with my blood it was slick enough to slip free. I could do this, I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to walk out of here. Nausea swells in me as my hand folded in the loop, the pain in my knuckle and that space in my fingers. I try not to look as I work.

A sharp snap, and one hand rips free, then the other. Free. Gently, I drag my heels over the red puddle and steady my legs to what I can manage in my current state.  Then, push up, off the wheelchair without slipping. Everything in my body felt weak, my legs shook so bad I could barely keep my balance. I just lost a lot of blood in the short amount of time, and some psycho just chopped off two nice fingers! That bastard! That psychotic bastard! I would see him die, I would. I swear. For what he did—

 Recalling the experience, coupled with the stress, and the overwhelming stench of this foul room.  I collapse to my knees and flopped my arms up over the rim of the bloody sink, to keep from dropping to the filthy floor.  I try and avoid my pants as I expel the remains of my lunch from hours ago, in a murky mess of bile.  I’m not sure if I can stop as I heave up some more, till there’s nothing but convulsions wracking my trembling form. 

I try to push myself to my feet but this time I can’t do it, my body gives out and I slump sideways over the slick tile.  I’m barely able to avoid a thick puddle of blood as I crawl back to the wheelchair, the cleanest surface in the room.  Gingerly, I slip my hands over the seat and lay my head on my upper arm, I keep my mutilated hands raised while the blood still seeps.  My eyes focused on a nearly clean space on the wall as I zone out, I try and spit some of the lingering taste from my lips as my eyelids droop. 

 Calm down Miles, need to slow my heart rate.  I adjusted my legs under me to keep from pushing the chair away, mostly I wanted to get on my feet and get out of here.  He would be back, I doubt he left me for long.  But I was uncertain if my legs could carry me.  Another wave of nausea cut through me and I lean forward to the best of my ability just in case, but the sensation passed.  As I set my head down I noticed dampness on my sleeve, something dark from my face.  It took a moment for my mind to conjure up the recollection, he’d slapped me and this was my blood.  I lay my head down and let out a slow breath, concentrating on the way the damp coat crinkled over my ribs.  

My fingers were gone.

The lights flickered but I barely blinked, I struggled to come to terms with what has happened.  I don’t want this to affect me, I don’t want this to get me killed.  I didn’t want to die.  If I couldn’t cope, if I couldn’t get on my feet and move, I was dead.  He’ll find me lounging here and drive those shears through my face, that could be the only outcome.  My breath was labored, but I was all right, I kept telling myself this.  I lost two fingers, he could have done worse.  Most of it was psychological, I couldn’t let that wreck me.  I could still walk, but I had to get up.  I was going to survive, I was going to get out, and I would not die here.  Not after I came this far.  I would go further if I needed to, on my own feet.  I was going to walk out of this place, through those front doors.

My mind cleared more or less, the adrenalin flooding my veins would keep my senses sharp for a short time.  If I didn’t fuck it up again.  I slipped back to my knees and braced my elbows onto the hard seat of the wheelchair, pushing with my arms until I raised off one knee and then the other.  It was pathetic, my legs shook under my weight and I nearly fell as the chair slipped backwards but I managed to straighten up.  Carefully I spun around and staggered to the bloodied wash basin and lifted my camera off, I winced as the exposed bone on my index finger glanced its side.  As soon as I could, I needed to find a place to hide and recover better.

I took some time to temper myself to the fresh wounds and the eerie lacking digits, gently I checked through the cameras features pressing buttons with my middle finger and slipping the strap over my hand.  It ached but I had to do this now, there would be no second chances.  But the camera and strap would help protect my finger, once I had it on.

I checked the visor of the camera to find of course, it had caught everything.  For a second I pondered over what should be done, but I didn’t think over it long.  Rather go back and see what was recorded, I made the difficult decision, one I may come to regret.  I isolated the time segment where…this occurs, and lock it.  A small effort to prevent accidental deletion, and to discourage deletion should I change my mind.

This was real.  I might need this later.

I filmed a bit of the room, further adjusting myself to the space in my hand and their fresh sensitively to variation in temperature, and touch.  The bleeding had lessened considerably but blood still oozed in thick clots.  In the worst case scenario, my vulnerable hands would become a hindrance.  As it was now, staring at them made my vision foggy and I had to avert my eyes.  I doubt I’d find clean bandages and disinfectant, let alone utilize a steady hand in applying said dressings.  I vouched to leave them as they were, if I tried cleaning them it would aggravate the wounds and the bleeding needed to stop.  This entire facility was contaminated anyway, and I wouldn’t be able to flee as effectively if the bandages distracted me.

I took a sharp breath as I recalled what was beyond the door.  Everything I had fought to avoid, and I had to keep moving.  I had to get out of here while he was content to believe, I was still tied up and delirious with pain.  I tried the handle, relieved that it was unlocked, though it caught and I had to jiggle it.  I exchanged hands and decided to rely on my left, the ‘amputation’ was cleaner and I still hand that index finger.  My right hand was already swollen and difficult to work. 

 “Who’s there?  Is somebody there?  Come closer.”

A voice drifted from the next room.  I pushed the second door open and shut it softly behind me as I scanned the copious shadows.  The only source of light was a lamp standing beside a bed, where a body lay in a pool of blood.  I navigated between upturned beds, a few broken wheelchairs to the voice as it called out again.

“I’m not a patient.  I’m an executive.  Just like him.”  He groaned as he shifted in his restraints.  “Like Trager.”

He looked no different than the others, mangled and vivisection scars all over his body, he had endured the second phase of basement torture.  His head was cradled awkwardly in a cloth sling, and his limbs tied to the beds legs.

“But he got the treatment.  He’s too alive.  Filled with Wernicke’s nightmares.”  I carefully slipped the cameras loop over my hand and raised it to film his confession.  “It worked too well.  They couldn’t control it….”  He seemed to notice me, and the camera.

“And you can’t control it.  Nobody.  Nobody!  NOBODY!”  I backed away towards a set of beds beside the wrecked wall, while he began to thrash at his straps.  “He’ll find you!  He’ll kill you!  He’s coming right now!”

As instant after I jerked my head rather painfully, when a door cracked open and in strolled the Doctor.  “TRAAGER!  TRAAAAAGERR!”

I dropped down and shuffled under the nearest bed, keeping my camera propped in my hands as the psycho continued his even stride towards the shrieking man.

“Ah.  I see what’s happening here.  You’re bored, you want a little attention.  Perfectly understandable.”  He indicated the man with a finger, as though explaining a rudimentary point.  “I’m here for you.  I’ll give you very special attention.”

Then plunged the large shears into his stomach.  I could actually hear the ribs crinkle under his skin and the soft gurgle of fluid as guts and blood swirled.  The executive gave a final shriek as Trager twisted the weapon deeper, then wrenched it free.  A thick black puddled formed under the bed, and the man’s body went limp, his head still dangled in the sling.  Trager departed, from my position I couldn’t make out exactly where he was headed.  Just in the direction he had appeared from.

A door opened and shut.  The silence held for a few seconds.  I pulled the camera to my neck and strained to listen, while fighting to ignore the mild ache building in my finger as it pressed into my collar.  The soft slap of warm fluid on a puddle slowed.

“Fuck!  Fuck!  Really?  You’re gonna walk on ME?”  I tightened up into a small ball and shoved myself further back under the beds end.  The door rattled as Trager returned to the room, and slapped it shut behind him.  “If there is one thing I cannot GOD DAMN stand, it’s a quitter!  Come on!”  Somehow, I managed to curl up into an even smaller ball, with my head tucked under my knees.

“Alright…alright, you can figure this out.  Let’s…solve this little problem.”  The echoing rasp of the shears seemed magnified on the walls, as he moved around searching, snipping them every now and then.  I winced but relaxed all in the same instant when I realized he hadn’t found me, I raised my head to scan what was visible from where I lay and locate where he was.

He navigated the rooms perimeter checking over the broken beds stacked around the pillars, when it was obvious I wouldn’t be in plain sight he began stooping down to check under beds.

“All those bureaucrats with their corporate luncheons and golden parachutes.  Where are the survivors?  Where are the sharks?”  He wandered into the half of the room I was in and checked under a bed by the far wall.  “I’ve been chumming the water long enough.”

There was a door just beside the bed I was under.  While Trager lowered to check under the next bed, I took my chance and climbed out trying the knob.

Locked.

I crawled back under the bed, as Trager raised and sauntered to the next bed.  I didn’t bother to pause, and continued to the other side still crouched down as I hustled to the next bed.  I chided myself for being too noisy, for not keeping low enough.  I wanted–

“Hold up there buddy!”  Fuck.  I launched up to my feet, shoving off the bed post and ran for the large doors.  “I’ll be right with you!”

I dove out of the room turning, checking with the camera.  A dead end of medical tables and shelving.  Blocked.  We came through here, the trail of blood from the elevator was all over the floor.  The way out!

I dashed away, ignoring the patient thrashing in his bed shrieking at my appearance.  The noise elevated my anxiety, mind racing, I could scarcely recall my movement as images clashed with the short journey from the elevator.  I would be next, I was next.  I was in the process of becoming a victim! 

My shoes skid on the dried blood as I shot around the corner, the bright doors of the open elevator in full view.  Screw this!  I was out, so out!  I don’t give a fuck where Trager was, he couldn’t touch me once those doors shut.  The outdated lift shifted as I leapt inside and smashed the button without a second glance. 

Nothing happened.  What was wrong?  We had power! What could…  I touched the panel with my left hand, there was a thin slot beneath the buttons.  For a key most likely.

“Let me sell you the dream!”

“Argh!”  I lunged out of the elevator and twisted toward the only available route.  There was a gate with large shelving shoved against it, all on the other side.  My attention then went to a blood drenched gurney, and the wet vent dripping above it.  Without hesitation I sprung up the step, into the small space and dragged myself into the safety of the metal cradle. 

I hissed when I adjusted the camera, before I could drop it in the sudden black.  The bone sticking out on my index finger amplified every little bump, waves of heat rolled through my traumatized nerves with acute precision.  I had to deal with it, if I couldn’t do that then I might as well stop running now.  I didn’t pause as I roughly searched my way along, my free hand twisted sideways against the floor to ease the pain through my knuckles as I entrusted my weight on it.  I was more or less leaning forward, anxious to find a way out if that sick freak was able to follow me up.  It didn’t seem he could.  But it did look like someone had tried to escape the same route, with less than successful results.

The next flue was torn out, and I peered down trying to see as much of below as I could, and listened for movement and those shears.  Once I felt eased there was nothing living, I slipped down into the hall.  Light I recognized gleamed from an obstructed gate, scooting along the wall I glimpsed around the corner into the room with the elevator.  There had to be another way out, a set of stairs somewhere.  A gondola?

The floor creaked under my steps, it looked to be an older section of the asylum with outdated wood floors with evident gaps between the boards.  I gave my perimeter a quick scan, wondering where Trager had disappeared to when I had eluded him.  He could have been locked in that room now, unless he was strong enough to push the metal shelf aside.  The wheels were stationary, I doubt he’d get the leverage to push it over and aside.

I sat down on the floor with my back to the shelf, and set the camera beside me.  In the little light I reevaluated my hands.  They looked terrible, and the tremors had yet to diminish but I was probably in shock, or just scared out of my wits.  I pressed my palms together and focused on calming my nerves.  The asylum made strange sounds behind the walls, the groan of machinery I couldn’t comprehend and pipes gurgled.  And there was the trademark shriek of a man lost in this insane environment.  I felt drained, more than that, there wasn’t an accurate description for what I’d call what my body felt.  Transparent maybe?  It was vague, I felt fragile enough.  I was constantly reminded of my mortality via physical and mental abuse, and each time I received the threat the distance I ran from it shortened.  I pulled my arms around my sides and sat for a few minutes, examining the area.

A dark corridor loomed directly across from me, but of what I could make out, it might be another dead end.  To my left was a long hall with functioning lamps, a few beds stacked along the sides, and a small broken desk.  It wasn’t frigid as the lower levels had been, but in my damp coat I trembled.  I was on the verge of collapse.

 “TRAGER.  Sick fucker cut my fingers off.  Has tortured and mangled dozens of patients, I watch him murder another one, nothing I can do about it.  Talks like a white collar business school douchebag, probably has a set of golf clubs in the trunk of his Audi.  I’d bet the rest of my fingers he was Murkoff brass before whatever’s infected this place changed him.

 I want out of this place.  I want my fucking fingers back.  I want to see Trager die.”

I wrote this with all the conviction I could muster.  Though I doubted I’d get my wish, if given the opportunity, and I had a chance - a legitimate chance - I probably would try to murder him.  He needed to die, and that’s what I wanted.

The page had a few smears of blood and a couple fingerprints despite my efforts, I really didn’t bother to clean my remaining fingers before fumbling with it.  I carefully slipped these items back into the pocket and zipped it tight.  With my nerves smoothed out to some degree, I took up my camera before climbing to my feet and gazed into the lite hallway. My progress was excruciatingly slow, and every shift or sound that reached my ears was mistaken for footfalls or the scrape of grungy shears.  I imagined taking a few steps and blinking, and there he would be with that horrible weapon perched neatly behind his back as he waited for my brain to register his presence.

I realized my breath was labored, I tried to calm it but my heart was pounding.  It hurt too much to fight it, the anxiety only elevating the red seeping from what remained of my fingers.  For some time I stood staring into the hall without a prompt or objective, just waiting for a sound or something to happen, but nothing did.  I was on the brink of bolting, if the doctor or any other variant decided to reveal them self.  Where was I?  I was so fucking lost.  It was impossible to focus on a single objective, I couldn’t imagine myself moving on.

Yet I did.

The floor gave thunderous creak as I shifted and began forward, through a set of open doors that seemed irrelevant to the layout.  Hospitals had a lot of doors, but this wasn’t a legitimate hospital.  This was the hospital of hell.  Another pair were locked on my right, I fooled with the handles a bit shoving with my elbow where the doors met as they seemed flimsy from their age.  I crept close to the wall and tried the next set of doors, locked fast.  A sudden clatter caused me to pause, but I never figured out what it was or if I’d actually heard something.  Maybe just the shadow in my thoughts.

I didn’t feel comfortable in full view of the light as I continued, passing two large rooms on the left, each filled with beds and ‘hospital’ equipment.  From the doorway I could view very little with the dim light, but I wanted to save my batteries anyway.  The soft voices trickled from the gloom, moans and occasional sobbing.  In the second room, abandoned under a bright lamp was what remained of a man lying on a bloodied gurney, his leg bolted into some sort of brace.  Blood coated the metal device, spilling down his thigh.  A chill ran down my spine, and I turned to the end of the hall where two metal beds had been stacked, the one on top was flipped over with its sharp feet sticking up.  On it a few boxes and tools had been piled in.

“Aw, buddy.  What are you trying to do?”  I whirled about and crouched low, where the hell was he?  Where did he come from!  “I gave you a chance, didn’t I?  Didn’t old Rick try to give you a hand?”  There, concealed by shadows he emerged from the double doors that were previously locked.  I slunk backwards biting my lip to withhold a pitiful sound.  Oblivious to my shape, he turned the opposite way towards the shelving at the halls end.  “I can’t help somebody who doesn’t want to be helped.  You’re fired.”

I think the big ugly fucker made more sense than him.

I tried to mirror his movements as I slipped through the open door and backed up into the shadows, gaze locked on the golden rectangle the door cast.  I stumbled and pivoted when I had backed into a pillar, I used it to steady myself as I stood to shuffle around it.  The only light was in the ceiling, shining directly down on the man.  What was Trager trying to do?  This was nothing more than torture, cruel and pointless.  Two bags of blood were suspended beside his bed, they looked old and the contents an ugly chunky black consistency.

The patient gave an inconsolable wail and sat up, struggling with his leg.  “If you touch me again I swear to fucking Christ I will murder you with my mind.  Just fucking try it.  You sick motherfucker!  Try it!  Try it!”

I had stepped a little closer gawking at him.  I couldn’t help but feel a massive swell of pity, it was obvious he was hopelessly doomed.  Trager would keep performing his oper— Mutilations, until he was dead.  I wasn’t sure what I could do.  Not sure if I wanted to do anything, either.

“Buddy!”

I didn’t see where he was coming from, but it sounded like he was directly behind me.  I shot past the patient, skidding around his bed as Trager rounded on the other side.  We made another lap around before I sprint off toward the back off the room, dragging up the camera to keep from running into the numerous beds scattered about.  Nearly all of them were occupied by a patient, chained down in various conditions of mutilation.  The sharp bolt of rot hit me hard, informing that some had already expired.

When Trager caught up to me, he slung out the shears nearly catching my head as I ducked sideways over a bed.  I tumbled and swept up, leaping over an empty bed and ran for a door on one side of the room.  It resembled the one in the first room I escaped which had been locked, but this one snapped open easily.

I jerked the door after me, stumbling away as Trager slammed into it.  He gave me a displeased look as he reached down for the handle, I practically dropped my camera in my haste to take it and snap the door out of his grip. 

Rather fool around further, Trager lifted the shears and plunged them into the wood, I stumbled back as they pierced two feet before he withdrew them and smashed his bony shoulder against the wood.  I took a step back, picked up my camera, and ran.

That wouldn’t hold for long.

The connecting room was no bigger, but it was less crowded.  With patients, that is.  A few lamps were set up by cots, and swarms of roaches and flies hummed over the dried pools of blood and melting piles of innards.  My stomach wrenched as the insects crunched under shoe, oh god I hope it was bugs.  The sounds at the door had ceased, and I ducked under the nearest bed.

I struggled not to lie directly in a quivering mess of insects, but it was an impossible goal.  Several tense minutes wound by, I lay there tormented by the little buggers trying to crawl over me and my face.  When I thought Trager had entered, I pulled up the camera.  Something was pinching my finger, I looked through the visor to see a large roach camped on my sleeve, and EATING my finger.

“Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose here, I don’t make the rules.”

Cringing, I flecked the bug away and tucked my free hand against my neck.  Trager came from the other doorway, padding along the bloody tiled floor scanning the wary shadows for my form.  He snipped the scissors as he rotated, the lamp light caught his monocle making it glimmer like a silver disk, reminiscent to something from one of those sinister characters in a Japanese comic.

I heard something rattle, and turned the camera to view an arm chained at the bed post I was under.  Another patient, his hand gripped at the bar as he twitched.  I couldn’t decide if he was trying to reveal my position, or if he was just struggling to free himself.  Trager seemed oblivious to his actions, now focused on checking under beds.  The inhospitable nature of my location may have moved it next to last on his checklists of areas to search, or I was just lucky this time.

I slipped away from the insect nest and kept low, buried in shadows as the doctor continued in the other direction to check a patient that looked very dead.  The self-absorbed bastard could just be admiring his own work.  If he was distracted, all the better.  I paused to make sure he wasn’t looking my way, then slipped under a halo of light on the floor and out the open doors.

Back in the hall, without incident.  I still wasn’t any closer to figuring a way out of this area.  Let alone where exactly I was.  There was the gate in the dark corridor, maybe it was unlocked.  I doubted it, but it was the only area left unchecked.

I crept quietly back to the hall, using the NV to see where I was going.  There was a hall extending beyond the door a ways out of my cameras range, but the gate was locked.  Surprise, surprise.  Turning, I thought about the room I began in, beyond the shelf and gate.  The key could’ve been there, but it was evident it could just as easily be anywhere else.  Trager had access to it as he did the double doors, it was most likely somewhere safe.  But it couldn’t be on his person….

The sound of snipping drifted from the hall, and I spun to see Trager coming towards me.  I dashed into the dark corridor and tried the boarded door at the far end, though I knew damn well it was pointless.  I ducked behind a bed flipped sideways and shut off my camera.  I could see the end of the hall and the silhouette of Trager as he appeared, I put one hand over my mouth to smother my breathing.  He closed in on my location and I prepared to dash, but he halted a mere few feet away and snipped the shears in aggravation.

“I should have cut his feet first,” he sighed, and pivoted.  “Amateur move.”

I didn’t think he saw me, but he could’ve been fucking with me.  No sound flittered from the corridors end, was it possible for him to shut up for a minute?  I went ahead and moved, crawling around the overturned bed with the camera clutched in hand.  Reaching the shadows edge, I strained to see around while listening for his obnoxious voice.  No sign of Trager.

Oh, I did see him down the hall, heading into one of the rooms.  Looked like the first one, because there was that bed between the two and he was on my side.

Few options were open to me.  While Trager was elsewhere, I stood and braced myself to the metal shelf.  Blood was still slick over my palms, I made a small effort to scrub it off on my coat and not risk slipping and ripping my hands up further.  That sharp pain rippled up my side as I pushed, like an old friend I’d missed for years.  Hm. 

I was disappointed by how easily the door swept open, I don’t know why.  I wasn’t feeling too good at the current time, despite my outstanding health.  I shut the door and moved past the elevator with its welcoming light.  Damn, asylums, and their keys and locked doors.  There were too many locked doors in this place, and when they weren’t locked there was always something terrible and evil on the other side.

There was nothing in the dark corridors end, only a locked door and a poor man tied to his bed begging me to end his life.  I pretended I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and I didn’t film him either.  Revisiting the room where Trager had left me offered nothing, I didn’t expect it to either.  I was running out of places to search, though desperation was never an excuse for dumb theories. 

I had paused in the next room musing over matters while the peace held, and regarded the barred windows with some interest.  They were clearly outdated, when compared to the previous section of the asylum I had explored with the Plexiglas and thick chicken wire.  It didn’t enlighten me to my whereabouts, only that this section was built before 1970 before it was shut down, and Murkoff built the modern sections to suffice the needs of their ‘physicians’.

It looked like someone had already tried to tear the thick bars off, or shoot them off.  Bullets had punched through the windows accented with thin cracks, the plaster was somewhat crumbling from where they did hit the wall.  I gripped the bars in my hands and shook them, but they were locked solid in cement.

A small wood nightstand sat beside the bloodied bed.  I ignored the executive as I picked it up and returned to the window.  Poised a safe distance back, I heaved the small piece of furniture to smash against the bars.  The wood burst into pieces, and the window suffered some minor damage, another hairline crack.

There was an assortment of furniture and beds still piled around the pillars.  I selected a small table and threw it against the window, it bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor.  A piece of plywood was jammed through, tearing out the glass and let the rain pour in with a frigid gale.  I went back for a wheelchair, another side table, anything I could lift and throw was driven against the barred window.  I took the light from beside the dead patient and tore the cord from the socket it was plugged into, and smashed the lamp it against the bars over and over.  When it was in twisted pieces I threw it aside, and stepped up to the window staring into the dark night.

A crack of thunder bellowed forth and the lightening flashed over the asylum’s grounds.  I wanted out of this place so bad, it hurt somewhere deep in my body.  Everything that was me would die here if I couldn’t escape this hell.  Alone, crumpled in some corner, broken and waiting for death.  That would be me, if I stopped running.  If everything in me just stopped.

My face felt wet and I recalled the blood that was there.  I used my left hand to rub away at the mist but didn’t bother to look.  I had been in bad situations before, had my life threatened on several occasions.  Probably deserved it, too….

But this was impossible.  This was incomprehensible.  I slipped to my knees as I stared up into the night, the rain cast silver beads into the thin light of the room.  That same wave of helplessness crashed through my senses, unfamiliar and strange.  I’d never felt this way before.  Never in all my life.  Was this what it felt like to die?  I think so.  A few years ago I had been in an accident, hurt so bad I didn’t know who the people were that stared down at me screaming questions.  I was oblivious at the time, a massive concussion and some hemorrhaging.  As everything faded I thought I was dying.  I had surrendered to death.

With a twist I realized I had not been dying.  I was hurt, confused, but there were people that would not let me die.  What was different was my capacity to appreciate my current awareness, and witness myself crumble from the inside out.  In a sense I was dying, while I fought to see the end of this.  Somehow, I was doing the whole process backwards.  I’m pretty sure you weren’t meant to do that, which would explain my situation now.  I had the sudden urge to throw more furniture against the window, but couldn’t find the strength to rise.  I wanted to sit here and stare, and think, and enjoy the cool breeze from the outside as it teased my face.  There was so much I wanted.

The executive shifted in his restraints.  Immediately, my mind cued in on this redundant detail. 

The executive was dead.

Is 'Ratchet has a nice day' a sufficient writing prompt?

yes, of course! This ficlet is called Still Waters and I’ll probably throw it on ao3 tomorrow after I edit it / after work bc I really like it. Post-war, post-LL, inexplicable happy ending with a deeply dreamlike feeling. Married Dratchet, bc that’s my speed.

The space between patients was a good one. Sunlight came into the corridor through the skylights above and soaked into his plating, doors of the examination rooms built thick and insulated so the air hung still. Ratchet let himself sit in the bench while he read through the notes on his next patient, warmth from the solar radiation loosening up his aching joints.

When he got to the examination room, his assistant was still there, bouncing on his heels as music warbled out of the speakers they’d rigged up in the corners of the room. The patient was hooked up to as many readouts as was feasible, but was still swinging his legs in time with the beat.

“Oh, hey Ratch,” Beacon said with a lazy salute. “Got you a Cybercrosis case. Skywave, this is Doctor Ratchet, he’ll be handling your case while I assist.”

Skywave smiled a little pinched smile at Ratchet. A couple years wasn’t near long enough for anyone to get used to the idea of Cybercrosis being easily curable. Ratchet could understand, still had to catch himself on the diagnosis every time. But Skywave wasn’t far along and the cure they’d been improving ever since Luna I was a perfect fit for him. Ratchet got him settled and set up in the energon filtration system, and made sure Beacon had scheduled up the follow-up appointment while he walked him through the theory of the cure. Beacon was a promising medic, Ratchet hoped he’d stick around after his apprenticeship was over. His students kept leaving to found hospitals all over the galaxy and it’d be good to have a helping hand around the clinic.

After Skywave’s appointment, Ratchet excused himself to take his mid-shift break. He was partway through a book Nautica had recommended him and he was hoping to finish it before they saw each other next. The book had a nice audio narrator, so he took a walk around the neighborhood while he listened, grabbed a few things from one of the corner store where they didn’t mind if you kept your audio feed running and limited your interactions to the business essentials. The air was swirling with sweet scents from the snack stands Drift could never resist. Ratchet didn’t feel hungry yet, so he just let all of that soak into his chemoreceptors and imagined how they’d taste.

After break, he observed Beacon on some simple cases, fixing broken limbs, replacing parts, cleaning and upgrading. It was a quiet day at the clinic, the way Ratchet liked them. He took a call from the local hospital, looking to see when he could act as lead for a fairly complicated surgery, spark chamber embrittlement. Ratchet put them on his calendar for the day after next after checking to make sure the patient wasn’t reaching the terminal stages yet. Then he had to call up First Aid and see if he still had those old case files on the embrittlement surgeries they’d attended over together. Ratchet had them somewhere, but he was still at the “dump all the files in a pile“ stage of his ongoing file organization project. He’d get to it eventually.

The night nurse, Latency, came in a few minutes early and they caught up on a few administrative things they’d been meaning to talk about. Beacon headed out while their heads were still together, going over their supply ordering calendar. Ratchet was reminded of the time with a jolt and stood up out of his seat midsentence. “I forgot—”

Latency grinned and waved him off. “Go! We can talk this over tomorrow.”

Ratchet nodded and made his way out through the waiting room, where a few patients were filling out forms with the help of Latency’s apprentice, whose name Ratchet still hadn’t memorized. They all paused to wave him goodnight as he hustled through. He stepped out into the cool blue night air, brushing invisible specks off his plating as he went. He checked his chrono and realized it wasn’t nearly as late as he’d imagined, barely two minutes over his habitual departure time. He chuckled, shaking his head at himself. Getting all flustered about being two minutes late, some things never changed.

“Hey there, handsome. You waiting for someone?” A mech strode down the walkway, hands resting loosely on his hips and a sharp-toothed smile playing on his face.

Ratchet groaned and reached out to grab Drift by the wrist and pull him close. “You’re ridiculous,” he said, smiling into the crook of Drift’s neck where Drift wouldn’t be able to see it. Drift threw his arms around Ratchet’s back, fingers tracing gentle circles on his plating.

Drift hummed agreeably. “Sure am,” he said. “You ready to go? Need anything from home?”

“I’m good,” Ratchet said.

They stood there for a long moment, nobody willing to step back first. Eventually, Drift pulled away, trailing a hand over Ratchet’s arm to catch his hand and he did. Ratchet squeezed back and smiled at Drift. Under the white streetlights, Drift’s plating practically glowed, whole and perfect. Drift caught him staring and ducked his head, biting at his lower lip in that old habit of his.

“How was your day?” Ratchet asked, starting them down the street. The storefronts on this block were bright at night, panels of light across the walkway guiding them towards the rail hub.

“It was good,” Drift said. “I like teaching, you know. It’s good.”

Ratchet liked Drift teaching too, better than the days he worked the perimeter of the city scouring the wilderness for dangerous creatures or orbital security. Drift was untethered, you couldn’t expect him to be content doing the same thing every day like Ratchet did. It was enough to ask him to stay planetside with Ratchet.

“I’d love to see you teach sometime,” Ratchet said.

“You could take a day off any time,” Drift said. “Beacon could fill in, or call up one of your old students. Or even just close the clinic for the day; it’s not like there aren’t other hospitals.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Ratchet said. The train pulled up and slid to a silent halt, doors opening into the brightly lit space. Drift and Ratchet crowded together in the back, nearly in each other’s laps, Drift’s head tilted back against Ratchet’s chest as they talked over the day and the little things that had filled it. The space filled up as they went along, packed to bursting when they hit the shore and Drift and Ratchet squeezed their way out onto the beach. There was already a crowd and music going, lights spotted along the shoreline and the moon bright above. Drift pinged out for them and immediately set out through the crowd to meet up with their friends.

Ratchet spotted Thunderclash first, a head and shoulders above the crowd even if Rung hadn’t been riding on his shoulders, laughing away. Thunders spotted Ratchet and Drift and beamed at them. The rest of the crew parted like the sea and folded them in, surrounded by a mass of patting hands and careening conversations. Someone pushed a drink in Ratchet’s hand and Thunderclash offered up a toast.

They hung close by Thunderclash, Ratchet and Drift each with one arm slung around the other’s waist as they chatted and sipped new mixes Swerve had dreamed up. Thunderclash drew out a few stories, forming worlds with his hands as he went. Eventually Rodimus rolled up, fashionably late as always. The music had picked up a driving rhythm and Rodimus came over already half dancing.

“Ratch, can I steal your conjunx for a song?” Rodimus said with a laugh, overcharged slur to his words. Ratchet rolled his optics and waved Drift on, watching as the two speedsters scooted out into the crowd of dancers. The two friends grinned at each other and twirled until they were lost in the crowd. They came back a few songs later, Rodimus clinging to Drift’s back like a sucker as Drift lurched, half collapsing under Rodimus’s weight and his uncontrollable giggles. Drift dumped him out on the sand and flopped on the ground, watching Ratchet from across the crowd.

Ratchet made his apologies to Thunders and went to his conjunx, still lying on the ground in a pose he probably thought was alluring, covered in sand. “Having fun down there?” He asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Tons of fun,” Drift agreed. “You should pick me up, I’m tired.”

“Nah,” Ratchet said. “That’s just you trying to trick me into getting dragged into a sand wrestle with you and Rod. I know your tricks.”

“See?” Rodimus said. “I told you, he’s onto us!”

Drift pouted. “You’re no fun, Ratch.”

“I just don’t want sand in my hip joints again. Once was plenty. Twice was excessive.”

Drift shrugged, not contrite at all. With a quick roll back onto his shoulders, he threw himself back onto his feet and offered Rodimus a hand up before pressing himself up against Ratchet’s side again, sand gritty between their plating. Rodimus hooked his thumb over his shoulder, mouthing something that looked like “Finding Magnus,” as he backed into the crowd. “It’s a beautiful night,” Drift said.

“Yeah, it is,” Ratchet agreed.

“Thanks for coming out with me.”

“Of course,” Ratchet said. “How’s our favorite terror?”

“Roddy’s great,” Drift said. “He wants to take me asteroid surfing again.”

“Of course he does,” Ratchet said. “You going?”

“Said I had to check with you, I wasn’t sure if it’d conflict with our plan for the anniversary trip.”

Ratchet tipped his helm against Drift’s and rested a moment. “We’ll check when we get home. You want to find a spot to watch the show?”

They ended up sitting out on the pier, waves lapping up against their ankles. The shore was packed, mechs shoulder to shoulder as they watched the night sky. Ratchet had completely lost sight of the rest of the crew in the thick of it.

The first firework split the sky with a shockwave that sent waves slapping against the pier. Drift startled, but he was smiling when Ratchet looked over. The next explosion wasn’t any quieter, and Ratchet lowered his audial sensitivity with a wince. Fireworks were a lot louder up close, when you shot them off in atmosphere. Drift jumped again at the third blast and someone banged their knee against the back of Ratchet’s head.

He turned to Drift to ask but Drift was already speaking. “Do you want—”

“—to go home?”

He snorted and crouched on the pier, scooping Drift up into his arms as he stood. Drift wriggled and started laughing, throwing his arms around Ratchet’s neck like he thought a medic frame wasn’t capable of lifting a lightweight speedster like him. Ratchet didn’t complain, about that or the sand. The other spectators on the pier gave them dirty looks as Ratchet picked his way back to the shore. Frag them. The lightshow happened every year and went for hours, they weren’t missing anything. Ratchet didn’t set Drift down till they were back at the rail station for fear of losing him in the crowd. From up there the crowd was a shifting chaos of bioights in the dark but the explosions were still strut-shakingly loud.

On the train home they sat in seats across from one another, alone in the railcar. “I can’t believe we bailed on our first date in months,” Drift said.

“It was my fault. I just don’t like being surrounded by that many people,” Ratchet said. “Sorry if I ruined your evening.”

“Don’t lie, I know you left because I wasn’t enjoying it.” Drift smiled, a little sad. “I thought it’d be easier.”

“We’ll catch the second half at home,” Ratchet said. “We’ll get up on the roof and watch, you can bring those ridiculous snacks you like.”

“Best of both worlds,” Drift said. He swapped over to the seat next to Ratchet and cozied up against his side. They’d be home in a few minutes, and Ratchet would manage to forget the keycode again. They’d wander through their hab with the lights off and bump into everything and each other gathering up snacks and blankets and whatever else Drift suddenly needed desperately. They’d curl up under the stars together and they’d be home and everything would be good.

Primus, what a life he’d lived.

Nine Worlds 2017

This is a slightly lengthy report but meh. Tumblr has a ‘skip to next post’ function so what the heck.

I managed to get a pre-con cold rather than the traditional post-con one, which I’ve managed to give to @knittedace​ as well, oops. I did have hand gel on me and tissues to minimise the spread. If I gave anybody else my cold I’m sorry!

I met up with @knittedace​ on the Thursday. We were meant to go to the Natural History Museum but I’d been off work sick the previous day and just couldn’t do it. No energy. Instead we met up at the hotel itself and as soon as we could get into the room we unpacked and I took a nice and much needed nap.

We went to the ‘Cheese and Cheese’ evening event, one of two events to welcome people to the convention. There was cheese of both the literal and literary variety to be enjoyed. I read out a riveting and very cheesy Power Rangers VHS tape description, but the best was a very cracky, rather explicit Doctor Who one that had the entire room in hysterics. I was laughing so much I was coughing up a lung.

FRIDAY

I was initiated into the Order of the Dalek! Learnt how to put on @knittedace​‘s knitted Dalek costume - something I got better at as the weekend went on. I also came across some great cosplays, and @knittedace​ got to pose with a Missy and Thirteenth Doctor. She’ll post the pic if she wants to. 

In the morning I decided to go for something different from what I usually go to. We’d met the woman running some of the kids panels and she invited us along. So I went. It was pretty cute, gave the parents some adults to be around too and just played some simple games. Don’t really get to do that ever. And then there was a fun story that was like some kind of Dinosaur version of Planet of the Apes but about environmental issues and written a few decades back.

Then I went to a crafty thing in which we all made hair bands! Met some great teens, two of whom had made their own cosplays. For one it was her fourteenth birthday and she ended up having to help me out because I’m rubbish at this stuff. We had some good talks fandom but also human orientations and labels and just being happy with who you are.  Oddly we all also ended up in the next thing which was basically free tea and cake with tables to chat at. 

I came across this same group of teens at this con, all through the weekend. They’re all smart and for all that they’re still growing up and maturing they’re great people already.

I was given the green tea left ofter after. Yay free tea!

Toxicity in Fandom was my next stop. Nothing particularly surprising but still a good talk that had someone who had once been a part of those hostile groups though they’ve grown up and are better now. It also touched on how the toxicity doesn’t just come from the traditional bigots and gamergate type folk, but also people from those who use the language of social justice to bully rather than for good. The folk who live up to all the bad things people throw at the ‘sjw’ name.

Nine at Nine Worlds: Nine Tropes which was about, well, tropes in fan fic. Nine of us presenting five minutes on our favourite trope. It had the return of Nina - Lady of the Puppets - and then I did mine on ‘Time Travel Fix It Fics’. Went well. People laughed. Someone the next day pulled me aside to have a chat about it. Apparently I accidentally made them read loads of fic with the trope. Oooops. There was also a dramatic 007/Q power point fic reading that I helped out with, to lots of laughter.

There was also a late night game of Slash, with my home made deck, with other members of that panel including Tanya who had lead it. Tanya, for those who don’t know, was co-head of the Fan Fiction track back when tracks were organised differently and there was a specific Fan Fiction track. She’s still a big part of the fan works type stuff and is pretty damn awesome. She’s been there to help me out when I needed it and is pretty brilliant. There were also others who just came and joined in and that’s the beauty of these things. But then it was time for bed.

SATURDAY

Before any panels started, me and @knittedace​ met up with the person who’d be our third in Sunday’s Redemption round table to have a real world chat over breakfast which was fun. I’ve no idea if he has a tumblr ID to tag him in however. I’d wanted to have someone who knew about anime on there because neither me or @knittedace​ know anything about it. I know about Yuri on Ice but not much else. And though it’s mostly a workshop it is a bit panel so yeah. We had a great talk. And food.

We found the infamous ‘TARDIS full of Bras’ cosplayer. For those who don’t know there was a comment on a British newspaper site that is our version of Fox saying that the new Doctor couldn’t be a woman because then the TARDIS would be full of bras. So some brilliant soul went and turned this into a cosplay and just…. love. Again the pic I have is of Helen too so it’s up to her to post it. But seriously, OMG LOVE.

Time Travel and Film was our first panel of the day. We both got there in time for the hall to be mostly empty. I had on my TNG uniform hoodie thing with my comms badge pin so we get this photo:

The talk itself was also fun. Presented by an actual university lecturer on Philosophy, and turns out she was also the woman on a panel I’d be running later in the day. I looked at her name on the power point, down at the names I had for the panel and up again and went ‘huh’. Seriously though, good lecture about time travel from the perspective of philosophy rather than physics and its different possible models.

I was talking to some folk and the lecturer after, @knittedace​ having already left when I got a text from her saying there was a Londo cosplayer outside. I sped out there as fast as I could to find this fantastic person:

I have no idea their name or anything other than they were determined to remain in character and had a wife who sounded a bit bemused and long suffering of it all. Kinda reminded me of my mom trying to deal with my dad actually.  He was really fun though. (ETA: I am told that he is @TheWarLlama on twitter) (ETA2: Apparently the woman wasn’t his wife. I just assumed because the dynamic going on reminded me of my mom lol. Oops. )

Queer Coding in Disney was my next stop. The person doing it did a good job. Made sure they explained what queer coding was in the first place for those who didn’t know and then went through Disney. Talked about films I didn’t know much about, and there was some talk about how some of this also intersected with other minorities and representation of various people.

After that I went upstairs for a nap. I was tired, still had that damnable cold, and wanted to be my best for my panel. I missed a panel slot with content but self care is important so up I went.

But then I was back! With my Hufflepuff scarf and wand! And still in my Starfleet uniform hoodie!

I think on the way into the panel hall someone said something like ‘hello Commander’ and I was a bit confused. Mostly because I didn’t have any pips so couldn’t be an officer but that’s a small thing and I think I smiled back?

In any case, next up was my panel. Which upon arriving at the convention I discovered was to be held in the largest room at the convention. Eeeep!

Dumbledore: Good or Evil? Went pretty well. At least one member of my panel was surprised it was ever even a debate, but she none the less stood up and argued for good. She was the above mentioned philosophy lecturer so debating is kind of her thing. She comes at it very much from a philosophical theory perspective though which I think caught out one or two people in the audience going from twitter. A person took a picture and stuck it on their twitter. You can find that here. I’m in the middle.

There was a lot of talk about how Dumbles does or doesn’t use his power for people, abandoning Harry, the things that go on in his school under his responsibility, and at one point he was compared to Boris Johnson. How he seems to be about consequences more than the actions themselves. Is it intent or your actions that make you good or evil? Does the era that the man grew up in excuse things? Does the fact that there was a war coming/going on excuse things or not?

There was a question at the end about him being a slave owner due to house elves. That…. I had red sirens screaming in my head there. Thankfully it was with hardly any time to go. It’s a very good question. Something worth looking at. But nobody on the panel had any real place speaking on it. The philosopher took it, but she took it from literally a philosophical perspective rather than a moral one which probably came off wrong to some. Because yeah, that wasn’t a moral stance. I didn’t really know what to do there other than internally panic a bit and try to move on as fast as I could with a ‘this could be a whole other panel and should be’ thing.

I was so worried about not being neutral that I didn’t step in to point things out or ask things when looking back I wish I had. There are things about that I’d have liked to improve but largely the response seemed to be good. I learnt from it. We had a vote at the end on of the audience thought Dumbledore was ‘good, ‘evil or bad leaning’ or ‘it’s complicated guys leave us alone’. The result was a mixed bag with lots of complicated so I guess that wins. People did come up to chat to us when we were still on stage after it ended to thank us for this or that. I’d warded off a comment from team Evil that was about cheating but could also have come across as anti-poly and so someone thanked me for that.

Druids, Deities and Daemons: Archeological Horrors in ‘Doctor Who’ was my next thing. It wasn’t particularly exciting but it was an interesting look at how the show portrays archeology from an Egyptologist who had a delightful manner of presentation. You can tell he’s upper middle or upper class but he isn’t snooty and he’s just really cheerful and into his thing. Which is always a joy to see. He wasn’t fond of Ten saying that as a time traveller he laughed at archaeologists. Fair.

Ageism in fanworks/fandom was a panel Tanya had asked me to be on last minute when playing Slash the night before. So I had no prep time and possibly a few people were confused as to why an extra person was sat up there. I was probably the youngest person on there, no worries. But interestingly also the only person who had actually grown up in fandom rather than finding it as an adult. It was interesting, throwing up different experiences with fandom and how it sees age, how it changes. But also how media sees us. How it expects women to age out of fandom but for male fans to be the sad lonely people in the basement forever. 

Space Opera! SF&F in Musicals was a unique panel, for me anyway. Held in the lower levels with half the room covered by bean bags. By this point I could barely walk. I don’t know why, something happened to my legs and I found it increasingly hard to walk through the day. @knittedace​ said I should grab a priority access sticker but I’d have felt like a fraud even as I slowly limped my way around the place so i didn’t. But I managed to get a chair anyway so yay!

The person presenting it was drunk. I thought they were just mellow. It had originally been designed as an academic thing but given when it was scheduled it became a kind of guided tour of musical SF/F complete with YouTube clips, sarcastic comments from the audience and much fun. Also singing along sometimes.  I lost the key to my room. It later turned out I’d left it there when I awoke from my nap but I couldn’t find @knittedace​ so I got reception to invalidate the old ones and issue new ones. With slightly disturbing ease come to think of it. And that was that.

SUNDAY

Marvel v DC Fanworks was the first panel of the morning. Chaired by a very very very tired Tanya who was having a hard time of it I think. It was a good conversation but you could tell she didn’t have the energy to chair it as she might want to. I was sat next to the birthday girl from Friday who is smart and knows her stuff and was very very excited. So excited she frequently interrupted and spoke over others. I don’t blame her. She was excited and we’ve all been there. I’ve been there. And ideally it is the chair’s job to gently deal with that but as I said, tired. In the end a person left the room when they got talked over once too often. I don’t blame either. It sucks to be talked over, especially for some people who find that really hard. And though I’m sad she left I understand it.

But I’ve been a very excited teenager, in fandom at that, before. It’s also hard to pull that in when you don’t have the experience and you’re having so much fun and you have so so so many things you want to say and nobody is telling you no. I’ve been her as I said. The things she wanted to say were all good things. Just a convergence of multiple things that didn’t mix well is all. I think she noticed too as she got a sad look with the woman left the room. Felt bad for both of them really. All three of them.

Queer Dax was my next panel, and one I was running. I’d decided that there was no way joined Trill weren’t queer, and wanted to talk about that, so here we are. I’d made sure that the panel had people on it who were queer in various ways and though one person couldn’t make it due to passport issues we held on. 

The room started to fill up well before the start time. So we were chatting at everything from pets in the different series with someone insisting that Neelix was the pet on Voyager. Gasp! To how Mourn maybe talks a lot in ways we don’t get to Garak/Bashir slash to anything. The place was pretty full by the time we started.

It was a good discussion. I later found out that the person who’d manned the convention’s front desk really wanted to go but couldn’t and so was following a person’s live tweet of it as it went on. 

We talked about the identity of the symbionts themselves, what it may be like to suddenly be flooded with all these humanoid identities. How maybe they’re like drag (at the start anyway). How we never hear them talk for themselves, as themselves, just the hosts. We’ve even had former hosts separated from the whole and able to talk in the singular. But never a symbiont. We asked how memory worked, to what degree were the hosts individuals or now and how that may work. How there were ‘very special episode’ moments but how they kinda also played out like every other Dax romance and was pretty good for the era. How Trek at least had a framework where this discussion was possible.

I framed lots of things  as ‘for Paramount in the 90s’ or similar because yeah. The studios. Boy. And the times.

There was also a good deal of talk about the parallels between the way joined Trill are treated, and how Trill are screened to trans gatekeeping and queer separatism. How Dax seems to get away with literally everything and does Jadzia Dax at least have privilege? Lots of stuff I haven’t mentioned.

Someone in the audience asked about things within Trek that called to us as queer people and I got to go on about my asexual headcanon for Seven of Nine.

A Study in Redemption: Character Arcs in our Fandoms aka ‘Redemption’. And oh boy this has a long history. Originally this was a proper panel but stuff happened behind the scenes, messages got mixed and instead of it being a panel full of fandomy meta people it was proper Named authors and I got anxious and didn’t know what the hell to do and internally screamed some. I reached out to Tanya for help, and she and a person above her in the Nine Worlds team really did help. I am so thankful to the both of them. We ended up splitting it into two with the authors keeping the proper panel thing and doing it from their perspective and I’d do a kind of panel/round table discussion thing. Mostly round table. I heard some not so great things about the ‘Redemption in Sci-FI’ panel aka the parent one. I couldn’t be there so I don’t know the details.

This one was awesome though. @knittedace​ was on it with me, as well as our third the anime guy. Who did have things to contribute even to western stuff that coming from another perspective and tradition was pretty cool.

Again it filled up fast. We were chatting about various stuff before the panel time started. And by the official start time arrived we had to put a sign on the door outside saying we were full except for a couple priority access seats. And it truly was only two priority access seats. One woman came in, and then left as she didn��t have a priority access sticker when there was still a ‘open to all’ seat left. Oh well.

In this one I brought all of my experience charing over the weekend. What I’d seen and liked, seen and didn’t like, as well as stuff I knew already. I knew this could be a tricky topic for some so I made sure rules were set out first.

Like, obviously we are talking about characters who have done bad things. And this will be mentioned. We can talk about Anakin Skywalker but not go into graphic detail over what he did. Use trigger warnings. If someone is talking about something you find hard raise both hands or otherwise make yourself known in a way other than ‘I want to talk next’ and we will stop. Let you get out. And send someone to let you in again. That people know the protocol for spoiler warnings in their own media types and fandoms and to use them. And again if you need to stop someone because you’re behind the bell curve in catching up, let us know and leave and we’ll bring you back in after. Someone did take advantage of this which was awesome.

I also made sure people knew talking over others wasn’t what I wanted, that they were to respect others and let them finish and that sometimes the three of us on the mini panel thing would pull things back to us to raise new points or add new questions etc.

It went really well. Orderly. One person had to leave for a minute and did so, no fuss was made, and came back in after, People respected others, good discussion was had, the topics moved forward rather than spiral deeper and deeper on things, nothing got graphic. Somehow there was humour even given the topic but not inappropriate humour. 

Lots of good points including how some characters are seeking redemption even if probably they don’t need it. How for many people who had either been raised in a toxic/evil environment or who had been through crap otherwise, redemption was also often a story of gaining or regaining agency. How doing a good thing and then dying to save a person for selfish reasons wasn’t really redemption. Or how someone forcing you to be good by putting a soul in your body or other magic or something making you good is also not really redemption. Redemption, proper redemption, required choice and consequences and owning what you had did and overcoming. How sometimes there is an aspect of white saviour going on. 

I loved that panel. I really really did.

What gets me most is that at the end of the night, someone who I really respect (not Tanya to be clear) came up and told me that my Dax and Redemption panels had been her two favourite of the entire convention. I was so so touched, and honoured and it meant a lot. I had a couple other people say they’d loved Dax but this one person was… it blew me away. 

Geeky Cupcake Decorating was just pure fun. Me and @knittedace​ went to this just as a fun thing to do. Also being asexual we figured it was our duty. Speaking of, I made this lovely delight:

I had to mix the grey fondant myself. I think it’s fondant? Terms confuse me. @knittedace​ Made this brilliant set of Doctor Who cakes that she can show off later but where much admired. And the table near by made a truly adorable set of Yuri on Ice cakes. Some seriously talented folks. Also plenty of kids having a lot of fun. One little girl was running around showing off the cake she’d made and that her dad had made with real pride. So cute.

We went for dinner after that, sad that things were ending, and came back in time to go to the end of convention quiz. 

End of the Con Quiz is hosed by Ash every year. And much to my delight we were once again visited by the infamous No Face. This isn’t a cosplay, this is like a visitation from the real thing. Last year they were slowly chasing Ash all over the place. This time they were menacing him from the corner whilst people gave it tribute (and it ate the dire wolf) to making Ash dance.

I knew almost none of the answers. I never do. But they did ask a question about my panel!

Our team decided to call ourselves ‘Quiz Master Ash/No Face OTP’. Not much of a reaction from Ash to that when he read it out. We came fourth. There was joint last which mean they had to battle it out to get (or not get if they so chose) the last place prize.

Never have you seen such a tense and dramatic game of Jenga. There was Star Trek fight music (Kirk edition) on repeat several times, there was the Benny Hill chase music, there was the Crystal Maze music, there was the Tetris theme. There were people at the back standing up to watch, everyone was tense. Even No Face got in on the action intimidating people/paying attention.

No Face got way closer than that. Scary.

I mean seriously. Though it has since been revealed, nobody knew who the person doing No Face was for two years. And they were fantastically in character. It was genius. And people treat them with the respect and caution as though they were actually a malevolent spirit. So this was fun for everyone up there lol.

Eventually that ended and we retreated to the mini bar in the games rom. Played more Slash for a bit until we all had to leave.

And then it was the end of the con. And all is sad.

Me and @knittedace​ had to share a bed as the room was one large bed rather than two singles. And I was joking that if we were inside a fan fic this would so be the ‘forced to share a bed’ trope. Followed by some joking about waking up to bumps in unexpected places. Like lower legs. Or something. But we got to sleep eventually.

I’m sad to be home. I have ideas for panels next year already. I miss it. @knittedace​ described getting home sick when she got home and I hadn’t framed it that way before but it is. We both grew up in fandom. Spending time here, talking here, learning here. Fandom is a culture we spent our formative years in and are still a part of. And conventions are like temporary pop up real world manifestations of that. So it kinda makes sense. But what makes them so special, in many ways, is that they are temporary. Even if it’s always sad to leave.

Also, and importantly, at the bottom of the back page of the program was this very touching easter egg that will make you feel the feels if you decode it:

–. -. ..- / - . .-. .-. -.– / .–. .-. .- - -.-. …. . - -

Nine Worlds Staff and Volunteers

They are brilliant. They work tirelessly before, during, and after the con to make things work. From the techies making sure all the equipment works to those running the front desk and twitter so people know what is going on to those making sure things go to plan or even have a plan, to everyone else who makes everything work. To those who do the nitty gritty stuff like finances and talking to hotels or sponsors to get stuff done to those who organise tracks and content to those who book entertainment to everyone who volunteers for a few hours. 

They work so hard. And need so much thanks. None of this would work if not for them. It doesn’t matter how many of us are willing to sit at behind a mic and babble at you for an hour, if none of them are there nothing would happen at all.

So thanks to them for all they have done, and all they continue to do.

Heidi Hutner | Fulcrum Publishing | June 2020 | 16 minutes (4,305 words)

We’re delighted to bring you an excerpt by Heidi Hutner from the anthology Doom With A View: Historical and Cultural Contexts of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. Edited by Kristen Iverson, with E. Warren Perry and Shannon Perry, the anthology arrives from Fulcrum Publishing in August, 2020.

* * *

At thirty-five, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. One year before my diagnosis, my mother died from complications after heart surgery. At the time of her death, my mother had cancer — lymphoma. Five years prior to Mom’s death, my father passed away from a brain tumor, a metastasis from the cancer melanoma.

Two years after I had completed my chemotherapy treatment for cancer, I gave birth to Olivia. My miracle baby.

At first, I was ecstatic about the pregnancy. I had always wanted children, and with my cancer, I feared this would never happen. My doctors said I was lucky to give birth to a biological child after chemotherapy (my treatment left me with a 50 percent chance of remaining fertile afterward). But now, a mother-to-be, I was also afraid. How could I protect my child from our family cancer blight?

My desire to protect my daughter from a future cancer diagnosis drove me into a rabbit hole of reading and learning about the reasons for my family’s affliction. I began with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and moved forward to more recent literature by Sandra Steingraber, Theo Colburn, and numerous others, including the President’s Cancer Panel Report. I learned that the cancer rates today are off the charts: one in two men and one in three women will get cancer in their lifetimes. Carson predicted this plague in 1963. She warned us of humankind’s “hubris” in carelessly polluting our earth with toxic chemicals and ionizing radiation. The epidemiologist Alice Stewart’s study on the grave danger of X-rays on babies in the womb in the 1950s, sounded the alarm about ionizing radiation as well. Today, our world swirls with pollutants — these carcinogens penetrate mothers’ wombs and breasts. Mother’s milk is a toxic cocktail. Newborns today are born with hundreds of synthetic chemicals in their umbilical cord blood. Synthetic chemicals and ionizing radiation change our makeup, harm our genes, and cause mutagenetic damage. More than 80,000 unregulated pollutants fill our environment.

We are guinea pigs.

* * *

Local Bookstores Amazon

Fast forward about eleven years: one summer day, in 2009, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at lunch with a close friend (and cousin) of my deceased mother, Phyllis Resnick, I stumbled upon a story about my mom that I had never heard before. The tale Phyllis told would radically change my life. My then-preteen daughter, Olivia, was by my side. She listened rapt with me as we learned of our maternal nuclear legacy.

Phyllis described how in the early 1960s, my mother and she, along with their good friend Thalia Stern Broudy, had been a members of Women Strike for Peace (WSP), an antinuclear group led by Dagmar Wilson and the future congresswoman, Bella Abzug. During the Cold War 1950s and early 60s, the U.S. had detonated one hundred above-ground nuclear test bombs in the Nevada desert and one hundred and six atmospheric test bombs in the South Pacific. The government claimed these test bombs posed no harm and the fallout had not spread, but scientists and medical professionals were concerned. A team of experts in St. Louis, MO, directed by Dr. Louise Reiss, initiated a survey to determine the extent of the impact of the bomb testing. With a chemical makeup similar to calcium, strontium-90, a radioisotope found in fallout, is easily absorbed in teeth and bones. Thousands of baby teeth from across the U.S. were collected between 1958 and 1971 for the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey. In 1961, preliminary results showed high levels of strontium-90 in baby teeth of children born after 1945 and these levels increased over the time period, as the test-bombing continued. When the mothers of Women Strike for Peace learned the results of the survey, they banded together to stop atmospheric bomb testing. 50,000 WSP members from across the U.S. wrote letters, gathered petitions, lobbied congressional representatives, initiated lawsuits, and protested through marches and street demonstrations. My mother and her cohort of 15,000 WSP members traveled to D.C. to protest, lobby, and meet with their legislators November, 1961. In 1963, the United States, the U.K., and the Soviet Union signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, an agreement to halt atmospheric, under water, and outer space bomb testing. The signing of this treaty has been attributed to the efforts of WSP.

The government claimed these test bombs posed no harm and the fallout had not spread, but scientists and medical professionals were concerned.

After discovering this remarkable story about WSP, I became obsessed with feminist nuclear history. I wondered: Why had I never been told this tale when my mother was alive? What other vital nuclear histories involving women had been buried? So began my journey of exploring women’s antinuclear tales, traveling to nuclear disaster sites, and meeting with members of impacted communities. On this path, I met Kristen Iversen, the author of Full Body Burden, an investigative memoir about growing up next door to Rocky Flats, the former nuclear weapons facility in Arvada, Colorado. Kristen invited me to visit her in Colorado. She would introduce me to experts, scientists, and community members there. I brought my then eighteen-year-old daughter, Olivia, with me. She was about to leave for college. I wanted to share our maternal antinuclear and activist legacy with her before she left home.

* * *

I drove the Prius rental from the Denver airport to Boulder and arrived at the Colorado Chautauqua National Historic Landmark in the afternoon, where we were to stay during this visit. The sight of the tall, flat, conglomeratic sandstone unsettled me as we entered the park property. The immense rocks looked unreal, like something biblical or darkly fantastical — a mountain in a science fiction film that contains, within it, a dangerous and secret realm. The sharp upward angle of the earth leading to the tall rocks threw me off balance. Beyond those foreboding crags sits the closed Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility, now a Superfund site and wildlife refuge, a grieving land at the base of the snowcapped Rocky Mountains. The terrain is laced with plutonium, uranium, beryllium, cesium 137, many other forms of ionizing radiation, and a long list of toxicants.

Olivia asked me to stop the car for a moment so she could get out and take pictures of the mountain-scape. She walked toward the trailhead, filled with pretty young families with dogs and small children heading upward on the wide sloped path, leading toward the crags. She snapped photos of the sky and rocks and wildflowers and returned to the car. After, we headed to the big lodge to register and collect keys for a periwinkle-blue, wood-shingled cottage.

The sign over its door said, “Morning Glory.” Our temporary home.

Early the next morning, while Olivia still slept, I hiked in the hills just beneath the crags, through fields of wild grasses and flowers — asters, blazing stars, western wallflowers, stonecrops — and into the cool of the evergreen trees. It was hard to make sense of these two very different but overlapping realities: a stunning Colorado landscape and nuclear horror. As I hiked, I tried to quiet my mind and push away the frightening scientific facts and stories that I had read about Rocky Flats. Mothers, children, and former workers all sick with cancers. Dead-too-soon loved ones. Infertility. Deformed animals. A contaminated land.

After my hike and an early breakfast, Olivia and I met Kristen Iversen in the Chautauqua parking lot. She would be our tour guide for the day, showing us the area surrounding Rocky Flats. Tall and blonde, Kristen wore a long, flowing, colorful skirt and blouse with a wide leather belt and silver buckle cinched at the waist. In her arms, she held her small dog, Emma, a papillon. Kristen looked the part of a Colorado gal who had grown up riding horses. This was her territory. She had seen much cancer in her friends and neighbors. She had also worked at the nuclear plant as a young adult and raised her two sons in Arvada, the town adjacent to the Flats.

Kristen sat in the passenger seat as I drove, and my daughter crouched down in the back with the windows firmly sealed shut. Olivia wore an oversized sweatshirt and red baseball hat with the embroidered words, “Make America Kind Again.” I glanced back and wondered, Should I have brought my daughter here? Is it safe? All it would take is the smallest bit of plutonium to enter her lungs and her health could be compromised, or the health of her children, and their children’s children.

We traveled down Indiana Street, past fields of brown grass, dry scrub bushes, gently rolling hills, and the unmarked property of the former plant. Bicyclists flew by. I wondered if they knew about Rocky Flats and the dangerous air they were breathing.

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Olivia asked Kristen questions: “Those cows, are they contaminated? What are those people doing playing miniature golf? Aren’t they concerned?”

“Studies show that local cows have plutonium in their bodies,” Kristen replied. “And, yes, it’s amazing that people just go on as if everything is fine.”

Kristen pointed to a group of houses. “Over there, that’s where Bini Abbott had a horse farm. Many of her horses had birth defects, organs outside their bodies, and some were sterile. Some of the women in the neighborhood were sterile, too. I told you about the rancher, Lloyd Mixon, who had a deformed pig, Scooter? He would take Scooter with him to city council meetings and try to get the government to tell him what was going on.” We drove on, past more construction. “Oh, look, this was where the Jackson Turkey Farm used to be,” Kristen sighed. “The family who owned it said DOE officials would come by unexpectedly to test the turkeys, and sometimes take them away. No one ever found out what they did with the turkeys or what they discovered.”

We headed to Kristen’s childhood home, which looked like a 1960s Disney movie set: barn, bridge, creek. “That barn and field over there held my horses,” she said. “But the water in the creek, the whole area, has been affected by off-site plutonium contamination. New people live here now. I guess they don’t know…” We gazed at the bubbling water that ran under a small wooden bridge — a tempting area for children to play in — potentially polluted with plutonium. There were no “stay out” signs or warnings.

“I don’t get it,” Olivia said.

“Yes,” Kristen sighed. “It’s very sad.”

Further on, we approached Standley Lake. The water was wide and still, bounded by land covered with the dry grasses and scrub bushes, and a few thin, sickly looking trees. Kristen told us the lake was a drinking water source for the cities of Westminster, Northglenn, and Thornton, even though plutonium is in the sediment. There were signs for boat rentals — paddleboard, canoes, and kayaks.

“People aren’t supposed to swim here,” Kristen noted. “It’s dangerous to kick up the sediment. But they waterski and fish.”

Olivia asked, “Do they eat the fish?”

“Yes, many do.” Kristen replied.

We angled up a bit further and parked on the side of the road, with a view of the lake, near a white clapboard home. An older man exited the front door and carried a box to the rear of the house. Kristen said he was the father of her childhood friend, Tamara. Tamara grew up in this lakeside house, Kristen explained. Tamara had been diagnosed with brain cancer, but her parents didn’t believe the plutonium had anything do with it. I watched, with disbelief, as Tamara’s father walked back into his house, not wiping off his feet or removing his shoes.

The final stop on our tour was the new housing development, Candelas. Candelas looked like new suburbia in Anywhere, USA, with wide roads, and large houses in muted colors. Kristen pointed out that many of her scientist colleagues believe the community isn’t safe for residence. Plutonium has been detected in the soil, although real estate brokers were not required to inform prospective buyers about this contamination or about the history of Rocky Flats. Plutonium had also been detected in a nearby drinking water source.

As I parked the car in front of the sales office, I realized just how close we were to the Refuge. Too close.

“I wouldn’t live here in a million years,” Olivia blurted out incredulously.

I turned my head around and saw fear in my daughter’s sky-blue eyes. I debated getting out of the car but decided to go for it — I would not be giving birth to more children, so I convinced myself it would be okay. Olivia would stay in the car.

Kristen and I stepped out of the vehicle and walked toward the office. The entry door was only a few feet away, but with each step, the invisible plutonium in the air or on the sidewalk made my heart beat faster. Might I bring it back into the car and endanger Olivia? No turning back now. But then I thought with shame about all the children born and raised here. Surrounding us were homes filled with families and playgrounds and recreation areas. These families live with plutonium contamination from birth to death. Innocent new people move in every day. They come to new developments like Candelas, where it is less expensive to buy a house than in Boulder. They have no idea of the history of Rocky Flats. Or if they do, they know only of the official (incorrect) announcements declaring the contamination has been cleaned up. The location appears pristine — ideal, a playland for the rich and outdoorsy. There are no signs, no indications of the past anywhere. The only marker of the dark history is artist Jeff Gipes’ ‘Cold War Horse.’ But many drive by that eerie symbol, not knowing what it means. How ironic that this snowcapped land of hikers, climbers, skiers, bikers, the culture of Patagonia, Black Diamond, Marmot, should be laced with invisible plutonium and other contaminants.

The cheery real estate agent greeted us with brochures as we entered the model ‘homes-for-sale’ office. She cheerily played up the benefits of raising kids here in Candelas: the excellent new schools, a new swimming pool and rec center, the hiking trails running from the development through the “natural habitat” of the refuge of Rocky Flats with its “elk, deer, owl.” Standley Lake, she said, was a great place to boat and fish, right nearby. We could “rent boats or bring our own.” Kristen and I exchanged glances.

Fear rose up in me as the agent spoke, and my hand flew automatically to my neck — checking my lymph nodes — where a mark remains from having tissue removed when I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My cancer ties me to Rocky Flats, even though I am not from there, but so many local residents have the same blemish on their neck from having tumors or biopsy tissue removed. The proverbial downwinders’ scar.

How the hell do they allow people to live here? My mind raced, as the agent continued her monologue. Not one word was mentioned about plutonium from the former plant site. Or the risks of raising kids here. Or the rare cancers in the community. I trembled quietly with rage as she smiled her Teflon smile, handed us paperwork with price points, and pointed us toward the entrance of one model house. It had the standard stainless-steel kitchen, large walk-in closets, large picture windows, and high ceilings. Through the window glass, I could see the snowcapped Rocky Mountains in the distance. If the mountains could speak, I was sure they would be screaming.

This is the American Dream.

* * *

Suburban enclaves, and the freeways that take us to them, were built in large part in response to Cold War atomic anxiety. The government feared nuclear attack could wipe out American cities and our primary population. So, freeways were built and suburban communities were erected “safely” away from major population centers. Strangely, some of these dream communities were developed to support bomb-making factories, as Kate Brown writes in Plutopia. These shiny new houses and shiny new communities, it was thought, would make workers’ wives happy and happy wives would make happy and productive workers for the weapons’ plants. We saw this in Hanford, WA, Oakridge TN, St. Louis MO, and in the towns surrounding Rocky Flats in Colorado. Families living in these shiny locations were kept in the dark about the dangers that lurked. Cold War domestic secrets.

My cancer ties me to Rocky Flats, even though I am not from there, but so many local residents have the same blemish on their neck from having tumors or biopsy tissue removed. The proverbial downwinders’ scar.

Operating from 1952 to 1992, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility was located approximately 15 miles northwest of Denver, a city built by an influx of miners during the gold rush in the nineteenth century. During the years of its operation, the plant constructed more than 70,000 triggers for nuclear bombs. Rocky Flats would be the site of two major secret plutonium fires, blowing radioactive poison into sections of Arvada and Denver in 1957 and 1969. Hundreds of smaller fires also took place, as well as regular leaks, spills, and atmospheric plutonium releases. Plutonium clouds blew over houses, swimming pools, schools, churches, farms, fields, and streams. Rocky Flats is known for powerful Chinook winds — winds that would blow plutonium dust into local neighborhoods. Locals did not know that Rocky Flats was a weapons factory for most of its years of operation. Workers employed there were forbidden to speak of their work and often didn’t comprehend the full extent of the factory’s activities.

By 1989, The FBI and EPA suspected criminal negligence at Rocky Flats, which led to a raid, led by FBI agent Jon Lipsky. A federal grand jury began an investigation, a settlement was negotiated, the court documents were sealed, and the plant closed. The story of this federal grand jury is fraught and complex, and cover-ups are suspected in the sealing of the documents and lack of full prosecution. The Rocky Flats cleanup was officially completed in 2004; however, numerous scientists, nuclear experts, local citizens, and antinuclear activists argue the cleanup is far from finished. Unknown but large amounts of plutonium and other contaminants remain on the land in what has been turned into a Superfund site, a designation made under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980. The primary industrial site (the Superfund area — 485 acres) was never completely remediated. There is a buffer zone, also heavily contaminated, although the EPA claims this area is fully remediated. The surrounding area, now called a National Wildlife Refuge, was not remediated. Significant contamination has been detected there in the soil and groundwater. Many other toxic and radioactive contaminants have also been found at Rocky Flats in addition to plutonium: americium, uranium, cadmium, PCBs, beryllium, and more. A 2019 study found plutonium “hot particles” in the soil frighteningly close to the homes abutting the Flats.

Like a mother’s womb, we like to think of the home as a safe space. Radiation pollution undoes all that. Ingested and internalized radiation travels through the mother’s bloodstream and crosses the placenta. External radiation, such as X-rays and gamma rays, penetrates the womb. Wombs and homes, as permeable spaces, put the unborn and children at grave risk. Science shows us that women and children are most vulnerable to ionizing radiation exposures. Women are twice as likely to develop cancer from exposure to radiation and almost twice as likely to die from these cancers as adult males. Boys are five times more likely to develop and die cancer from radiation exposures as adult males, and girls are seven or more times likely to develop and die from cancers as adult males. Baby girls are most at risk. Yet safety standards are all based on an adult male body — “reference man” — a white, twenty-something adult male.

Rocky Flats is “a national sacrifice zone,” says Robert Alvarez, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and former senior policy advisor to the secretary at the US Department of Energy. “That’s what it is, although no one will say so officially. How much remains buried there? A tremendous amount — plutonium doesn’t go away. No one has done this yet — it’s costly and complex — but someone needs to go into those houses nearby in Arvada and take samples. We don’t know how much plutonium is in them.”

Houses and families do not belong next to radioactive sacrifice zones.

Home sweet home. Home is where the heart is. Home, home on the range. Home is where it starts. Dream home. Don’t sit home. Love starts at home. Home, home is where I want to be / pick me up and bring me down. My home is my castle. This space in which we live and raise our families occupies so many cliché, trite, and nostalgic phrases and song lyrics, yet we know home may be a place of horror, where domestic violence remains hidden. We long for the perfect dream home, but we know secret dangers lurk there. Post-World War II, those dangers include toxic and radioactive contamination.

* * *

Denial is rampant in the community around Rocky Flats. History erased. No signage. Too little public information. Misinformation. It’s all about dollars and cents and real estate. But there is community team of active folks working to protect the families. They recently halted the construction of a parkway that was to run through Rocky Flats, and they have worked with schools to halt children’s field trips. There’s more to go. The Refuge is now open to the public for recreation, despite tremendous evidence indicating that people should stay out. New housing continues to go up on contaminated land next door. Scientists like W. Gale Biggs, Harvey Nichols, and Anne Forgarty, who have been studying the soil, water, and air on the flats for years, are deeply concerned. But they are aging. Nichols, now retired from university teaching and research asks, “Who will do this work when we are gone?”

Houses and families do not belong next to radioactive sacrifice zones.

Mothers like the women of Women Strike for Peace from back in the early 1960s, carry on the work today, in Colorado. They are at the forefront of precautionary actions to protect the children and the families living near Rocky Flats. Over cups of coffee and tea, at kitchen tables, in cafes, the mothers told me their stories.

Elizabeth Panzer’s son Nathan has a very rare heart cancer, only seen in .05 percent of the population. There is no cure for his disease, he had surgery, and spent years on chemo, and his family lives with no certainty of his future. Shaunessy McNeely’s father died of the same very rare heart cancer as Nathan and lived only a few blocks from Nathan and was diagnosed in the same year. Elizabeth Panzer explains: “When we moved here, nobody warned us that this housing and land might be polluted with plutonium. So many people in Arvada don’t want to think about the dangers here. The government says it safe and they want to believe it. I wanted to believe it, too. But my son could die any day and I think there may be a cancer cluster here. We need studies. People need to know.” Panzer and her family chose to stay in their house so Nathan could continue to live a normal life during his illness. Sometimes she questions that decision. “What about the health of my other children? And if I sell my house and move away, what about the next family? What about those kids?” For a long time, to protect Nathan, Elizabeth remained silent. Over time, she became more outspoken, more involved in local actions to protect the community. Nathan, miraculously, continues to live. It’s several years since his diagnosis.

“I grew up under four miles from Rocky Flats. I had a pillow seat in my bedroom window growing up,” Tiffany Hansen explained. “I spent many nights looking out at the plant’s lights, but I had no idea what was really going on.” It wasn’t until a few years ago, after developing an ovarian tumor and experiencing other “debilitating health” symptoms (including Graves’ disease), that she Googled and discovered the Rocky Flats’ contamination story. Hansen then read Kristen Iversen’s memoir and became deeply upset with the news that she had grown up next to a bomb factory: “We played outside all day in that stuff, exposed, unaware. I was hysterical when I found out. I called many of my old friends and discovered too many stories of cancer.”

“We thought we were living the dream,” Hansen continued. Her father owned an electrical contracting company that did work at the Rocky Flats site. He was well compensated. They had a nice house with a pool, she had fancy toys like “four wheelers,” and her mother drove a Corvette. In addition to her ovarian tumor, Hansen has had one miscarriage (common to women who live nearby), and she had a benign lymph tumor on her neck as a child. In her youth, Hansen was often hospitalized for mysterious debilitating symptoms. She bears the downwinder’s scar on her neck: “Just like Kristen describes in her book about her own scar.” Her brother, who worked at the plant, has heart and thyroid problems. Hansen’s childhood best friend had a brain tumor in the third grade. Another friend had ovarian cancer and passed away at forty-three. Hansen’s high school boyfriend had stage four thyroid cancer and he survived, as did his mom; his dad passed away from thyroid cancer.

Tiffany knew had to “do something to help.” She set up the Rocky Flats Downwinders group, initiated two health surveys and a hemp soil remediation project. Tiffany is joined in these efforts by Elizabeth, Shaunessy, Shaunessy’s mother, Elaine, and others like physician Dr. Sasha Stiles.

“I cannot stay silent anymore and let such suffering happen to more children,” Elizabeth told me. “The denial must end.”

Again and again, I hear my daughter’s words, “I wouldn’t live here in a million years.”

* * *

Heidi Hutner, PhD, teaches, speaks, and writes about ecofeminism and environmental justice. Hutner’s writing has been featured in the New York Times, Ms. Magazine, DAME, Tikkun, Spirituality and Health, Yes!, Common Dreams, Garnet News, and Proximity Magazine. She has written for academic journals and books published by Oxford University Press, University of Virginia Press, Palgrave, Rowman and Littlefield, and others. 

  Excerpted from the anthology Doom with a View, edited by Kristen Iversen. Copyright © 2020. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Fulcrum Publishing. All rights reserved.

Editor: Sari Botton

Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

https://ift.tt/303gj6U

Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Greta Thunberg Is the Climate Heroine We Need

Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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from Blogger https://ift.tt/2Ib2TuH

Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Greta Thunberg Is the Climate Heroine We Need

Lionel Bonaventure/GettyThis story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. ROME–When Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was 11 years old, her body had started to shut down due to severe self-starvation tied to debilitating depression. She spoke to almost no one but her immediate family. She was afraid of crowds. She was lost in her own world, and the world very nearly lost her.But thanks to the formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome coupled with high-functioning autism and obsessive compulsive disorder, the now-16-year-old Swede has become quite literally the poster child for the generation that will have to deal with the destruction of our planet. Once she started receiving multifaceted treatment, Thunberg was able to channel her anxiety into something we should all be concerned about: the health of the planet and the science behind apocalyptic warnings of its demise. In October 2018, Thunberg started having anxiety-ridden 3 a.m. nightmares, but unlike before, they were not about her. The recurring nightmares were about the impact of global warming on the planet, according to the book, Scenes From the Heart, she wrote with her parents and sister Beata, who also suffers from many of the same emotional conditions. This time, instead of holing up in her bedroom as she did before treatment, she decided that her anxiety about the climate needed to become everyone else's, too. One of the aspects of her complicated diagnosis is obsession. Her family says she just wouldn't let the idea go that the planet was burning up and there was ample science to prove it. She did not understand why no one was doing anything. She could not comprehend why adults and policy makers were ignoring the issue. She started skipping school on Fridays to protest, all alone, on the steps of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm where she grew up. Slowly–and in some ways inexplicably—the protests, which were dubbed Fridays for Future, caught on and soon she was joined by tens, then scores, then hundreds of Swedish children demanding that adults start paying attention to science when it comes to climate change. Soon, the girl who once would not leave her bedroom was traveling across Europe to draw her peers out of the classrooms and onto the streets for the sake of the environment. Since she began not even a year ago, the protests have been held in 100 cities by teen activists. Her intensity has become her secret weapon and her now-famous speeches at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, in front of the British Parliament and at the United Nations’ COP24 Climate Talks, landed her a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”“Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences,” she scolded the British Parliament. “But their voices are not heard. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?”When she was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to be held later this month, she was faced with a dilemma. Would she look like a hypocrite hopping on a jet, leaving the very carbon footprint she had won such acclaim railing against? Instead, she took a state-of-the art carbon-zero yacht called the Malizia II, and made the journey by sea. The Malizia II is owned by German property developer Gerhard Senft. It was built as a high-tech racing craft that was designed to collect data for scientists studying rates of ocean acidification from carbon emissions. Senft offered use of the boat and crew when he heard Thunberg wanted to sail across the Atlantic to address the climate summit. In the 14 days at sea, some of them in inclement weather, the crew didn't turn on the motor once. The Malizia II crew was led by Pierre Casiraghi, who happens to be the grandson of Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and actress Grace Kelly. The yacht is kitted out with solar panels and hydro generators, meaning it is completely emission-free. But its spare design doesn't have a functioning toilet, shower or other amenities.Not everyone wants to hear Thunberg’s message and there is a growing chorus of people who say she and her obsessive condition are being exploited for political purposes. Thunberg has been the object of cruel attacks from climate change deniers who have used her medical conditions against her. Arron Banks, a prominent British businessman who bankrolled the drive for Brexit, tweeted, “Freak yachting accidents do happen in August.” He later said the tweet was a joke, but he has not removed it from his feed. Far-right groups across Europe have chided her and her message, referring to the "apocalyptic dread in her eyes” and saying many other things far too cruel to repeat. There is an argument to be made that climate deniers tend to be men and climate activists, with the exception of Al Gore, tend to be women, sparking debate whether there is a misogynistic element to the debate. A 2016 study in the Journal of Consumer Research,“Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption,” backs up the theory. “Men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity,” the authors write. “It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.”Thunberg’s most vocal critics, it has to be said, are all men, but many of them actually go beyond misogyny and come very close to shaming her for her Asperger’s.Steve Milloy, a former Trump staffer and full-time Thunberg obsessive, regularly tweets about the “climate puppet.” He claims that the “the world laughs at this Greta charade,” often posting pictures of the teenager in awkward poses. Her response has always been swift to her 1.4 million Twitter followers and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. “I am indeed ‘deeply disturbed’ about the fact that these hate and conspiracy campaigns are allowed to go on and on and on just because we children communicate and act on the science,” she tweeted in August. “Where are the adults?”Thunberg chronicled her journey to America by sea on her social media, but after each post is a usual barrage of hate, insults and cruelty of the kind you might expect on a playground. She reads them all, often commenting, but most often questioning why people just don't want to see the truth. When she neared Manhattan in late August after two weeks on the high seas, she was escorted into the harbor by a fleet of 17 boats representing the U.N.’s sustainability development goals and hordes of teens who stood in the rain at 3 a.m. to cheer her to shore. Many will attend the Fridays for Future protest in New York City on September 20. Others just wanted to get a glimpse of their unlikely heroine. But one person she won’t see when she is in the U.S. is President Donald Trump. She has not been invited to meet him, but if she is, she told her supporters that she would decline because she has “nothing to say” to those who don’t believe the science. “I usually ignore them,” she said when asked recently what she would tell a climate change denier like Trump. “I have nothing to say to them and they have nothing to say to me.”She added that, indeed, if she did meet the president or someone “like him” she would keep going back to the science. “Many people think climate change is an opinion,” she said. “But it's not an opinion, it's a fact.”On September 23, Thunberg will address the U.N. Climate Change Summit, quoting from her recent book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference. She has held weekly Fridays for Future protests since her arrival in late August, inspiring hundreds of American teens to protest for policy changes. She has also inspired many of her peers to ignore the naysayers.  “When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she tweeted a few hours after she docked in New York. “And then you know you’re winning! I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances- being different is a superpower.” Indeed, in the case of this young Swedish climate-busting hero, it most certainly is. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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