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psycholojosh · 3 years

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Road to RPsy: A master's student's guide for Filipino psychology graduates in making a career headway in the Philippines - Part 1

Let's paint this picture for a moment...

You get into your psychology program (or any other program) in a Filipino college or university. You study hard. And then, you achieve your well-deserved bachelor's degree. While you shake hands and celebrate for about a month (just as you should), you sooner realize and ask, "Now what?" Then, you ponder on how to get your career in clinical psychology started. Possibly, you got anxious, confused, or maybe even determined.

If this is (or was) you, don't worry! You're perfectly okay. Trust me, I've been there before... and we shouldn't feel ashamed for this.

Which is why I'd like to take this time to write about my personal and professional experiences as a college graduate of psychology in the Philippines, and how I managed to craft my own headway into getting clinical training and graduate studies for clinical psychology. I sincerely hope that this little article would help a fellow psychology graduate craft their own headway into clinical psychology (or any other field of the sort). I'd also like to share some tips from my past and present mentors, colleagues, coworkers, and professors that I find useful to take note of.

I separated this into a series of articles to keep reading concise and organized. For this part, I start off with discussing...

What psychology careers in the Philippines looks like

How goals can be set in order to get an RPsy; and

Selecting the postgraduate school or program for you

Keep reading to find out more!

Key Points (TL;DR)

There are many myths and misconceptions that narrow one's view about psychology and its careers; but there are actually a lot of opportunities.

Keep yourself open to opportunities, be it for training or career, that will help propel you to snatching an RPsy license.

Clinical experience is key. But, do not discount non-clinical experiences as well.

Practice 'SMART' (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) goal setting for your career.

Choosing a school is dependent on your preferred training, scholastic interests, career goals, personal motivations, and (financial) resources.

Before I begin...

I'd like to first disclose what my biases and limits are, and what potentially could be a matter that you, dear reader, should consider before taking any advice from me. So, here's a little bit about myself...

Firstly, I am a young adult and pretty much novice to the field of psychology. I have gone through two years (and counting) of clinical experience as a licensed psychometrician. I do not declare myself an expert yet, nor do I pride myself as the most reliable person in the field of psychology. This article is written purely in my personal perspective and experiences. That said, I will do my best to offer you up-to-date information and objectivity that may support or criticize my views.

Secondly, I come from a very middle-class family. My parents made just about enough for us to pay the bills, to feed, clothe, and shelter us, and to give us a decent education. I firmly think this disclosure is very important since not everyone has the same privileges in terms of education, opportunity, and resources. There are some career decisions that I have made or experienced because I had the capacity to make them so despite certain critical tradeoffs (like, getting less pay). As of writing, I would say that our status is still the same, even if I make my own profit with my college degree. I will do my best to be considerate about the differing backgrounds among people, especially when it comes to privilege offered by social class.

Lastly, I'd like to emphasize that my word is not gospel and should not be taken easily by those who seek importance or utility to what I will share. The tone I will use will be very personal - as this is my personal blog. Plus, I will be largely biased towards clinical psychology, as it is the field I am in. You may find that some pieces of advice will resonate more with you than others. Conversely, you might find that some pieces of advice may be unhelpful for you. Hence, I welcome any criticism to my personal views and open myself to a healthy discussion. (Feel free to reach me through my Ask page here on my blog.) I highly encourage you, dear reader, to look for more opinions from more seasoned professionals in the field.

Now, on to the article...

The current scene of psychology careers in the Philippines

As I was graduating, it was important for me to look for information about careers in psychology in the country. After all, as you will see later, getting an idea of psychology's zeitgiest (a term used by historians to refer to the salient "mood" or "spirit" of ideas or beliefs of, say, an academic field) this country will inform you in your career goal setting and considering options that will lead you to where you want to be.

Psychology in the Philippines has a lot of stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions brought about by pop psychology spread across the masses. Here are some of the popular ones (and my personal favorites) which you may have already heard from people around you:

"Sa HR mapupunta ang isang Psych grad." ("Psych grads end up in HR [work].")

"Psych ka? Magme-med/Maglo-law ka ba?" ("You study Psych? Are you pursuing med/law?")

"Wala naman masyadong pera/future sa Psych." ("There's no money/future in Psych.")

"Psych? So yung mga baliw yung trabaho mo?" ("Psych? So you work on crazy people?")

And there's plenty more where that came from. Funnily enough, my college friends and I used to do a game where we take a shot of liquor for each myth said to us. (Drink responsibly, kids!) But, as psychology graduates, we know that these aren't completely true.

Now, let's take a look at how we can argue in psychology's defense and dignity and accept what the common person has gotten correctly.

Psychology practice in the Philippines

It's important to note that the term 'psychologist' or 'psychology practitioner' has different meanings in various contexts. Often, we think about psychologists as those who does therapy and plays around with psychological instruments. While this is somewhat true, a more academic language would refer to a 'psychologist' or 'practitioner' as someone who earned their degree in psychology - regardless of specialty - and has built their career in praxis of psychology. As I go along in this section, I'll refer to the 'psychologist' as the latter definition.

Clinical and counselling. In a 2004 article by Cristina Montiel and Lota Teh published in the International Handbook of Psychology, the authors enumerated on and expounded the most popular fields and specializations that psychology practitioners work in. Clinical or counselling practitioners lead in this list, often delving into psychotherapy, interventions, and assessment in various settings -- of which I have had experience on. I think this appears to be only partially true today, which I'll explain in a bit. You would find most practitioners doing their clinical practice in private clinics, hospitals, and schools. It's important to note, however, that most practitioners of this subfield have postgraduate degrees, and - since the year 2014, when Republic Act No. 10029 was enacted - a board license from Philippine Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). These licensed professionals have the names: 'RPsy' for psychologists.

However, bachelor's degree holders were also permitted to practice with their own little license: an 'RPm' or 'registered psychometrician' - which I have. These licensed professionals, get to practice assessment and several other supportive clinical functions - but not psychotherapy. The catch? You legally and ethically need to be supervised by a licensed psychologist. I'd like to get into the nitty-gritty differences and nuances of these two licenses, but I'll save that for another article. In the meantime, you must understand that these two have disparities in terms of their education attainment, clinical skills, and professional autonomy.

During my oath-taking ceremony as a psychometrician in 2018, Dr. Regina Hechanova-Alampay, a known Filipina in the fields of industrial-organizational and community psychology (and the mom of one of my dear friends), stated in her keynote address that the approximate ratio of each RPsy to each Filipino citizen is 1 to 100,000. A 2018 study has pointed this approximation to be accurate. Similarly, my former clinical supervisor approximated that the ratio of RPsy supervisors to RPm supervisees is 1 to 2,000. These numbers are quite a lot! Needless to say, there is a shortage of supply of clinical practitioners for the demand and a large influx of RPm's that have less clinical autonomy. And with an ever-growing relevance and awareness to the field of mental health in the country, these numbers are concerning. But -- hold on. If there are a lot of RPm's being produced yearly, where do they go?

Industrial-organizational and human resources. Montiel and Teh accounted that the second most abundant field in the country is in industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology or human resources (HR). This is where I think most psychology graduates usually end up in after college these days. Daresay, this is the fastest way to earn money as a fresh college graduate. But does that mean that the stereotype is necessarily true? It really depends on the way an employer values the employee and how much one is capable of doing a job. Sometimes, you get paid more, just right, or less.

I/O psychologists or HR practitioners often deal in corporate or organizational settings, often concerned with their person-related matters. They have skills like recruiting talent or labor, assessing worker needs, evaluating individual performances, or developing workers of a company - just to name a few. Do they need a license like an RPsy or RPm? Not necessarily.

You would often find job postings for HR positions that would often "prefer" a psychology graduate with a license, but sometimes "require" it. Therein lies some grey areas about how the professional licenses' stipulations are interpreted. But, let's not get into that just yet. But in my opinion, if people saw the utility of getting a license (which has its own financial costs of acquiring) as a way to improve compensation or marketability in the workforce, then they should get it.

Not all industrial-organizational psychologists, however, delve into the office hours and paper works. Some others go into research - particularly on topics like employee behaviors, group dynamics, and so on. It's important to think that these types of practitioners are just as versatile as other subfields in psychology.

Academia and other niches of psychology. As per Montiel and Teh, another large chunk of practitioners often end up in the academe. They become educators in various levels, researchers, or expert consultants depending on their interest, skill, and reputation. For example, developmental psychologists (or those who specialize in child psychology) get hired in preschools or alternative modes of learning. It was also mentioned briefly that social psychologists often find themselves in the social development sector, like the National Economic Development Agency (NEDA) or the Department for Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Other common settings for psychology graduates to work in includes government facilities and the military, where their knowledge about human behavior are often found useful.

Research skills are also found useful in areas like market research and analytics. Because psychology graduates have knowledge about fundamentals of statistics and psychological measurement, a lot of these businesses employ their help in order to understand their target market's consumer behaviors and make informed decisions to increase profit. Other information about making a career in business can come be read in a lot of psychoeducational websites, like in Verywell Mind.

Overall, there is a plethora of careers a psychology graduate can delve into, especially for a fresh graduate like yourself. Over time, you would find that certain subfields would resonate more with you than others. You may often wonder which one - or a combination of more - would lead you to your career or personal ambitions. Now that you know how vast a career in psychology can be, it's a matter of choice and planning ahead, which leads me to the next section.

Goal-setting: Which road to take and what to expect

Eyeing the precious RPsy license won't be an easy task. Then again, would the hardships matter if it's worth it anyway? It's important for you, dear reader, to think about how you want to get to that goal.

Should one want to take a straightforward path, she or he would have taken their master's or doctorate studies in clinical or counselling psychology for the following three to five years (with coursework, practicum, and perhaps thesis or dissertation), then take the board exam from the PRC. I have a couple of friends who have done so, and it works for them.

However, for the likes of many of us - myself included - we may not have the same luxury of time or resources to afford us this direct route. Because of many personal needs (ahem-- financial), we may need to find a way to secure these as we go along our road to the RPsy. And how could I forget the costs of postgraduate studies alone? Which is why we'll need to earn or find income.

The best job or experience that can afford you a good head start in clinical psychology is the one closest to it. As my former supervisor, Paula, once said, "Clinical experience is key." For example, you can find psychometricians assisting with psychological assessments in various settings. Others delved into social or community work -- sometimes as a volunteer. The likelihood for one to get accepted in clinical or counselling training programs, like a postgraduate degree or certification training, is increased when one has had a hand on a similar line of work. But this is not to say that any other job is unimportant -- no. There's growing research on the various applications of mental health practice on non-clinical settings, like schools, offices, and even micro-communities. The possibilities are actually numerous. That said, I cannot guarantee how abundant these opportunities are.

There are a few things to consider when looking for a job or a source of income:

In terms of career, what are your yes's, maybe's, and no's? Make individual lists of the occupations you can say these three answers to.

How soon are you planning to achieve an RPsy license? As soon as the next four years? Or, maybe you want to take it slow and say ten?

What job and/or study opportunities are available to you at the moment? How comfortable will the setup be for you?

How much resources and time are available to you for work, study, and personal matters? Which of these do you prioritize more?

How much are you willing or do you need to be compensated to afford such a lifestyle?

As you formulate answers to these questions (especially, the last two), keep in mind that a more effective goal setting follows a 'SMART' process. That is: it is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. (More info about this process right here.) Patterning our goals to these dimensions helps us look at ourselves objectively and find an integrated way to live our lives productively.

In my personal experience, after graduating college, I took a two month break to enjoy the fruits of my hard-earned college degree with a "vacation" (which mostly staying home, if I'm being honest). In my mind, I knew that getting a master's degree is a must for me; a ladderized doctorate program was also amenable but I wanted to get that training abroad. But, I wanted to make myself more immersed in the field before I can enter a graduate program. I applied to different jobs - a psychological services consultant (which I primarily wanted), a personal development teacher in senior high, and a research analyst. Luckily, I got the job that I wanted and reaped clinical experience. (I'll write more about my first experiences in the clinic in another post.) A year later, I applied and got into the clinical program of the University of the Philippines. And now, I've been taking coursework on clinical psychology while working as a research associate of a particular office in the same university.

I understand, however, that not everybody could find the "perfect" balance or ideal solution to all of these concerns. In fact, I don't think anyone can -- unless you were blessed with such a life. Why? This is where I reflectively talk about my privilege (as I did at the beginning). Awareness of your own opportunities makes us think fully or subconsciously about our own status in the social system. Whether we like it or not, it affects many of the career - and more broadly, life - decisions depending on where we stand in our lives. Which is why I advocate for practicality. We may not always select the ideal -- but the principle of survival is important, especially in an underdeveloped country like the Philippines. As Montiel and Teh pointed out, poverty and economics have affected psychology practice and it opportunities in the country.

Can goals or plans change? Short answer is 'yes'. There are many reasons why our plans change. It may be because we find ourselves being presented by new or better opportunities. Or perhaps, we discover more personal insights and realizations about the career we want and how to get it. Life can be complex to influence our decisions within or without our control. Whatever the reason is, it is important for one to be able to evaluate one's strengths and weaknesses, limits and boundaries, and our emotions and motivation to keep us going.

Choosing your school: Which one should I go to?

It's very common for a psychology graduate to ask: Where should I get my clinical training? Again, this is dependent on your resources, time, and preferences. Coupled with these is the opportunities (or as Bandura would put it - chance encounters and fortuitous events).

Locally, there are about 60% of schools that offer master's degrees in clinical or counselling psychology as per Commission of Higher Education (CHED). A fewer percentage offers Ph.D. or doctorate equivalent degrees in clinical or counselling psychology, the three most famous being (as per Montiel and Teh): the Ateneo de Manila University, the University of the Philippines, and University of Santo Tomas. However, there is a growing number of urban and rural schools that offer postgraduate studies and attract local aspirants to enroll in their programs. At the top of my mind, St. Louis' University in Baguio City has been regarded as one of the best in developmental psychology (currently considered as a viable alternative to clinical psychology). Likewise, the De La Salle University in Manila, a member of the colloquially regarded "Big Four Universities," is gaining traction for their clinical program very recently.

Focusing on a school's reputation is not enough, however. What, us, clinical psychology hopefuls often look over is the training itself. Circling back to my guide questions on goal setting, preferences often come into play when deciding your training. For most, who prefer a general track in clinical psychology, many schools offer a flexible education to ensure you get the wide knowledge of the field, without undermining the core or essentials. Others may teach clinical psychology in a more specific way, favoring practical experiences like internships over theorizing in the classroom. Factors like faculty composition and expertise, paradigm, and school culture often influence how these training programs are developed. What I find helpful to attain this information is to ask these departments and institutions directly. Another approach is asking a friend taking up a program in that school. No harm in inquiry! Ask away.

Of course, like what I have also emphasized in this article, is the sensitive yet important issue of money. To be specific, your tuition. Clinical training in the Philippines ranges from ₱10,000 to ₱50,000.00 a year. The trend (as I've observed from applying in different schools) is that the more privatized and more "complex" the education, the higher the cost. Public schools often come cheaper than private schools. Consider your capacities for funding your education (including where it comes from) and weigh it with your preferences to make an optimal choice of school or program.

A popular notion among graduate students, or those heading into graduate school, is that public schools, like where I study, often take longer to finish a master's degree than others. Well, there are many factors to this. One is faculty size, for example. How many qualified teachers does the school have that supplies a smooth progression for a graduate student to complete their degrees? Another factor - which many often forget to attribute as well - is the student's motivation. It is not uncommon for a graduate student to fluctuate in wanting to accomplish their degrees. It really depends on how determined one is to see things through (which takes a lot of doing, if I do say so myself).

Overall, choosing a school is much less of an issue when it comes to time, but more so when it comes to practicality. In my opinion, any school that gives you basic competencies, regardless of reputation, is enough. In fact, most of my supervisors did not even settle for their graduate training alone. The field of clinical psychology (much like the other fields) is ever changing and adapting to the times. You often find a lot of trainings, seminars, and specialization programs that practitioners study or enroll in order to keep their practice up to date and ethical. Learning and personal growth, especially as clinicians, should not stop after we receive our degrees and licenses. Again, this calls back to the point of keeping an open eye and open mind on the opportunities that come our way.

Now that we discussed the first three tips, I plan to take a break here and let you, dear reader, reflect on things that will help you make your headway to that RPsy license. Do more reading. Ask questions. Seek answers. And explore yourself and the world to get a better sense of the pathway ahead.

I do hope that this discussion helps! See you on the next one.

#psychology graduates #psychometrician #psychologist #RPm #RPsy #filipino psychology #career tips #philippines #RoadToRPsy #filipino psychometrician #grad school #grad student #RPmNotes

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maximumwobblerbanditdonut · 3 years

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How does his boat change direction?

His career summary is key to getting noticed. But his IG account is all about him as an actor, not as an author.

If his goal is to move away from acting (his profession) and he prefers not to be an actor, he has to be ready to face whatever might come his way. Certainly, one thing is clear, being an actor, it was worth it once he gained a steady audience of 3 million followers, which he will never repeat into his new pretentious persona, believing he is an author ✍️ when he is not. Hiring a ghostwriter to write his book and compile an almanac, there’s no such thing as a writer's idea. It makes him look like a snobby person.

He pretends to be an intellectual, but does not learn or explore texts so that he can maximize his talents and expand his skills (if he has any under the sunlight)

He overlooks the obvious. You never become a dumb buyer when you get rich quick. He considers that having things makes him feel better. Not only that, but he has only renewed his emotional waste.

Intellectuals are people who read, think, learn every day of their lives because they need to; They can’t even conceive of not nourishing their brain as much as their bodies. It involves a lot of critical thinking, reading, research, analysing. He is also certainly very passive in that matter!

The reason he aspired to call himself “bestselling author” is because it increases his credibility and “personal brand.” He pretends to establish as an intellectual. Despite he supposes better get writing…😳😂 He’s able to convince that he not only wrote a book, but that the market has judged it to be better than other books out there (delusions of grandeur) It’s a status symbol, one of that cashes in on the prestige of one of man’s oldest past-times. At last, He had acquired this coveted title for himself.

If he has to do a job that doesn't align with his chosen career path, he’s going to be limited in terms of what he can do as an actor. How he communicates with others, whether if it’s through speech, influences how others perceive and evaluate him as a professional.

His ability to articulate his thoughts and ideas has a direct correlation to how he persuades others 🙄 an honorary doctorate didn’t convince anyone. Giving an academic qualification to him when he hasn't studied and done the course. I think it’s fairly clear. Well, that was ironic. That was making him sound ignorant.

youtube

Everybody remembers his university speech 💭 at the University of Stirling 🎓 badly prepared and self-promotion. Sam disrespected graduates and faculty at the Institution. He didn't inspire students or contribution to the university, not a role model.

If he’s still not sure about whether he wants to be an actor anymore or not, here is some clear sign that he’s just dragging his fans along and whatever relationship with his acting career has now is going nowhere. An alert to the Royal Conservatory of Scotland who trusted him and now he must prove that he is worth something.

😕 But, if he wants to act, stopped being obsessed with fame because he is more interested in being famous than practising his craft. He always seems slightly agitated, as if there’s something going on. He really is jumping off a moving train!

“I don’t approve of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying ‘Shucks, I ain’t no actor – I’m just a bridge builder or a gas station attendant.’ If they aren’t actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it.”

Humphrey Bogart

#Youtube

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livesincerely · 4 years

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dress you up, dress you down ch.1 - dress you up

aka the Tie Fic. Also on Ao3

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“So. Davey.”

Davey pauses mid-sip. He looks at Katherine, then down at the cup of coffee in his hand—it’s the expensive kind, the kind that comes with milk and sugar, the kind that Davey would never dare buy for himself—then back up at Katherine, and realizes that he’s been tricked.

He sets his cup down with a heavy sigh. “What is it?”

To her credit, Katherine doesn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “Jack needs new clothes.”

Davey’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Okay...” he says after a moment of consideration. “Why does Jack need new clothes? We got him that art smock so he’d stop getting paint on his selling shirts and I haven’t noticed any rips or tears—“

“No, not his selling clothes,” Katherine interrupts. “I want to get him a few outfits that he can wear for his shifts in the art department. He keeps coming in wearing his Newsies cap and he showed up at my father’s office on Friday with a piece of tie-line holding his pants up instead of a belt.”

“He didn’t,” Davey says, though he doesn’t find it at all hard to believe, torn between laughter and exasperation.

“He really did,” Katherine says, the corners of her eyes crinkling up in amusement. “I’m sure a lot of it is just impertinence for impertinence’s sake—understandable after all that’s happened—and god knows it’s good to have someone around that won’t jump at my father’s every beck and call, but Davey,“ Katherine leans forward, her expression turning serious, “you get why things can’t continue on this way, don’t you?”

Davey takes a long drink of his coffee to give his thoughts a chance to settle. Because the thing is, Davey absolutely understands Katherine’s concern.

Jack’s new position at The World is a fantastic opportunity, especially for someone who wasn’t born with the privileges of a full education, a comfortable home, or family connections to ease his way in life. This job might just be a weekly political cartoon, but it has the potential to one day be so much more: the start of a life-long career, where Jack can do something he loves and get paid a fair wage to do it.

Jack’s hard working and smart and so incredibly talented, but he’s also stubborn as a mule and dead set against submitting to any kind of authority, even over something as simple as an office dress code. Pulitzer and the other managers in the art department might be willing to look over Jack’s apparel for now, but not forever—the last thing Davey wants is for Jack to get passed up for promotions, raises, and projects because he can’t dress the part.

“Yeah,” Davey finally says. “I get it. It’s a good idea, Kath.”

“Great!” Katherine exclaims. “So now we just have to convince Jack to let us pick out some business casual clothes for him; I was thinking we could spend tomorrow uptown, my tailor will be able to see us right away, I’m sure, and we can get Jack’s measurements taken and have him fitted for a few—“

“Wait, hold on,” Davey says, suddenly wrong-footed. “How did I become involved in this? It’s your idea!”

“But it’ll be easier to convince him if he hears it from both of us,” Katherine says. She’s hitting him with the wide-eyed, pouty, please-Davey-do-this-favor-for-me face. Joke’s on her: if Les and Sarah hadn’t already indoctrinated him against that face years ago, the last couple of months spent as the lone voice of reason amongst the chaos that is the Lower Manhattan Newsies would’ve done the trick. “And it would be helpful to have your opinion when he starts trying things on.”

“You mean, it’ll be helpful to have me there to take the fall if Jack hates the idea,” Davey says.

“Oh, sure, like Jack’s gonna be angry with you,” Katherine says, rolling her eyes.

Davey patently ignores this comment. “I mean, you clearly have a handle on the situation,” he continues, fingers drumming against the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m sure you don’t really need me to—“

“If you come with me to pitch this to Jack, I’ll make sure he leaves with a new set of suspenders,” Katherine says.

Davey blinks, his protests thoroughly derailed. Katherine knows him too well.

“I hate you,” he says, blowing out a breath. “Fine, I’ll go. But I’m telling you now, Jack’s not gonna be happy about this.”

“All we have to do is present a united front,” Katherine states with incredible confidence. “He can’t argue if it’s both of us.”

“No. Hell no,” Jack says when they approach him the next day. The two of them have been talking for all of five minutes and Katherine and Jack both look ready to throw punches. Davey’s relatively sure it won’t come to that, though honestly, his money’s on Katherine if it does.

“Jack, would you please just—“ Katherine gets out through clenched teeth.

“I said no, Kath! How many more times do you wanna hear it? No!”

Katherine throws Davey an exasperated look—one that says ‘for the love of God, talk some sense into him.’

“Jack,” Davey starts, taking a step closer to him. “I think you should let Kathy take you shopping for some new clothes.”

Jack whirls around to face him, his eyes dark with irritation. “Dave, just ‘cause I’m workin’ a desk gig don’t mean I need some fancy geddup to do my damn job—“

“Jack, no one’s saying you need to start showing up to The World dressed to the nines,” Davey says, “but don’t you think having a nice set of office clothes would get the other workers to treat you with more respect?”

“I shouldn’t hafta dress a certain way to get treated decent,” Jack says, and he still looks upset but he’s starting to settle down. “Havin’ money don’t make ya a better worker and being poor don’t make me an idiot.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Davey asks, running a hand soothingly along Jack’s shoulders until the tension there eases. “I’m not saying it’s fair, of course it’s not fair—but stuff like this never is. It’s about knowing the game and learning how to play it. Katherine and I just want to make sure you got a decent shot at it.”

Jack holds Davey’s gaze for a long moment, then the last of the fight drains out of him.

“Fine,” he huffs. “What exactly did the two of ya have in mind?”

00000

Katherine doesn’t give Jack the opportunity to reconsider. She drags them uptown to a little tailor’s shop with a neat, simple storefront, but whose glossy windows and brass finishes make it clear that this is a place that caters to the upper class.

The bell above the doorway chimes gently as they enter. The young woman behind the counter looks up from where she’s taking inventory and greets them with a smile; a moment later an older gentleman with a head of salt and pepper hair comes out of a back room, his arms open wide in welcome.

“Miss Katherine,” he exclaims, taking one of Kathy’s hands in his own and kissing the back of it. “How good it is to see you once more! And you have brought friends!”

“Good morning, Giovanni,” Katherine greets warmly. “This is David and this is Jack. Jack’s the latest hire in the art department—he works on political cartoons.”

“Jack… Kelly?” Giovanni asks. “Yes, I have seen your work! I very much enjoyed the cartoon with the little shoe shiner. Was very funny!”

Jack looks a little caught off guard—like he wants to dislike Giovanni on sheer principle, but is finding it difficult in the face of such an honest compliment.

“Uh... nice to meet ya,” Jack says.

“We’re looking to get Jack fitted for a few things,” Katherine explains. “Business casual, office wear. Do you have time to see us now?”

“Of course, Miss Katherine,” Giovanni says. “We will get this taken care of right away. Abigail!” The girl at the front counter scurries over. “Turn the sign on the door—we have a project and must not be disturbed!”

Giovanni has Jack stand on a small footstool towards the back of the store. He makes a slow circle around him—pulling a tape measure out of one of his apron pockets and whipping it to and fro—eyeing Jack critically and muttering rapidly to Abigail, who trails behind him dutifully taking notes.

For his part, Jack looks deeply uncomfortable with having such careful scrutiny trained on him. Davey tries to seem calm and reassuring but he’s not sure how successful he is: he’s feeling a bit out of his depth as well.

Finally, Giovanni steps back. “This is enough to start with,” he says, nodding decisively.

“What options can we look at right now?” Katherine asks, with a kind of intensity that Davey would be hard pressed to muster up over any clothing, no matter its quality. “Ideally we’d like to leave here with at least one full outfit.”

“We keep a selection of our most popular styles on hand for customers to try on before purchase,” Giovanni offers. “Would you like to begin with those? I can think of several that would flatter the young gentleman.”

Katherine smiles. “That sounds perfect.”

The two of them have a quick conversation about colors and cuts and fabrics that goes over Davey’s head, then Giovanni is bustling Jack into a changing area, his arms weighed down with bolts of cloth and a mouthful of stick pins. In the meantime, Abigail ushers Katherine and Davey over to a pair of cushioned stools set up next to a tri-fold mirror, ostensibly so they’ll have the best view from which to offer commentary and cast judgement.

Or, really, for Katherine to cast judgement. Davey suspects his main job will be mediating when the argument between ‘An Actual Heiress’ Kath and ‘the paint stains on this vest match my hat so it’s fine’ Jack inevitably breaks out.

They’ve not been waiting very long when Jack comes out of the fitting room to model the first outfit. Davey glances over when he hears the rustle of the curtain being pushed back and—

Oh.

Jack is wearing a navy blue button down with a pair of dark gray slacks and a matching vest. The colors and cuts aren’t that much different than his usual garb, but the way everything fits makes a whole world of difference. Oh good god, does everything fit.

Davey’s eyes bounce here and there, his brain unable to decide which part of the incredible sight to focus on. There’s the strong line of Jack’s shoulders, which look even broader than usual because of how the vest tapers in at the waist. Or how the fabric of the pants drapes nicely around Jack’s thighs, perfectly highlighting the toned muscle underneath.

Jack looks back to ask Giovanni a question. Davey’s eyes trail up the backs of his legs as he turns, then up over the curve of his ass—

Davey ducks his head to hide his burning face. Oh no.

“That looks great, Giovanni,” Katherine says. “How does it feel, Jack?”

“Like it’s too damn expensive,” Jack mutters. He’s standing strangely: holding his arms out from his sides like he’s trying his hardest not to touch the clothes even as he wears them. “I’m still not convinced that all this is necessary.”

“Do not start with me, Jack Kelly,” Katherine says, one eyebrow lifted. “Now honestly, what do you think?”

“Well... it fits,” Jack says lamely. “That’s all that matters, right?”

“Jack,” Katherine starts with a huff.

“I’m serious!” Jack says defensively. “I’m not tryin’ta get on ya nerves, Kath, but I dunno what else there is to say.”

Katherine considers him for a moment, then sighs, disappointed but accepting the answer. “Davey, what do you think.”

Davey’s throat works. He still sort of feels like someone’s hit him over the head, but he manages to say, “The gray is nice. You can match it with a bunch of different colored shirts.”

“Hmm...” Katherine hums, tilting her head to the side. “Simple, versatile... sure, we can make that work.”

“Versatile?” Jack whispers to Davey.

Davey gets caught between not staring at Jack and trying not to look like he’s avoiding staring at Jack; his gaze lands somewhere around Jack’s left ear. “She means colors like black and gray and navy and brown—stuff that goes with everything.”

“Right, okay,” Jack mutters to himself. “That don’t sound too bad.”

Another quick conversation between Giovanni and Katherine, then Jack’s back in the fitting room to try on a second option. As the curtain pulls shut, Davey feels himself let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Katherine glances over at him and says, “Aren’t you glad you agreed to come with us?”

Davey’s blush had been fading, but it flairs up again with a vengeance. “You are the worst person.”

“I am the best person,” Katherine corrects. “I’m the reason you know what Jack looks like in pants that actually fit his waist—“

“Katherine,” Davey hisses, shoulders hunching in embarrassment.

“—and I saw you staring at his biceps. You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

“Katherine, oh my god—!”

Jack comes out again, this time in a black and white ensemble, and still looking far too handsome for someone who’s been safety pinned into his clothes.

“I like this, but it’s a little... plain.” Katherine says, mercifully distracted from tormenting Davey any further.

“And? What’s wrong with plain?” Jack grumbles. He moves as if to cross his arms across his chest, then seems to remember all the sharp pins sitting very close to his skin. He settles for tucking his hands in his pockets. “Plain works just fine for me.”

“It needs something to finish the look,” Kath muses, ignoring Jack completely. She looks at Giovanni and asks, “What sorts of ties do you have?”

“No. Absolutely not. Ya mighta talked me into a coupla shirts but ya ain’t gonna put me in no tie—“

“We have a fine selection, Miss Katherine,” Giovanni responds, joining Katherine in talking over Jack’s protests. “In fact, we just received a variety of silk ties in a number of colors. I will fetch the display—“

Jack’s eyes bug out a little when he hears the work silk, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly; Davey fairs only slightly better. Katherine and Giovanni don’t pay them any mind—examining the assortment of ties, weighing the pros and cons of each one, occasionally holding one up next to Jack’s face and frowning.

After a few more seconds of spluttering, Jack seems to come to terms with the fact that he’s leaving with a tie. He points at the array Giovanni has brought over and says, “What about that blue one?”

“You and your blue,” Katherine mutters, shaking her head. “How about something different for once? This silver one is nice. Or, how about this one, with the stripes—“

“If you’re gonna make me get a tie, you could at least let me pick it out,” Jack grumbles. “I like the blue one.”

“You can’t only wear blue, Jack,” Katherine says, a little testily. “You need to have different options.”

“Don’t seem so important to me,” Jack says with a shrug. “Blue’s a good color: it don’t stain too easy, it’s versatile.” His eyes dart briefly to Davey, and then away again. “And it’s my favorite.”

“Be that as it may, I still think you should choose something else—“

“Jeeze, why does it matter so much—“

“The red one,” Davey blurts out, and given that he hadn’t meant to say anything at all, it comes out much louder than he’d intended it to.

Katherine and Jack halt their bickering and they all turn to look at him. Davey regrets opening his mouth.

He swallows, then awkwardly continues, “You should try the red one. It looks nice—red is a nice color, I mean. You’d look good in it, or it’d look good on you. Either, really, I guess. And, um... yeah.”

“Uh, okay,” Jack says when Davey trails off. “Sure, let’s try the red one.”

Giovanni slips the tie around Jack’s neck and knots it for him with professional ease. Jack flips his collar back down, then tucks the ends hesitantly under his vest. He stares at himself in the mirror, twisting and turning as he checks himself over from all the different angles.

It looks nice. Better than nice, actually. Maybe even incredible. Davey tugs at the collar of his own shirt, suddenly feeling overheated.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Katherine declares. She’s not even looking at Jack, instead she’s watching Davey for his reaction. She pins him with a knowing smirk, and Davey blushes even harder, privately wishing for a nice, cozy sinkhole to open up beneath him and put him out of his misery.

“I dunno,” Jack murmurs dubiously, not noticing the exchange. “What do you think, Dave? Does it live up to your expectations?”

Davey really wishes Jack would stop asking for his opinion. He already feels like he’s suffocating—Jack could at least do him the courtesy of letting him die unharassed.

“...I think it looks good,” Davey mutters into the floor.

Jack does another turn. “I still think the blue one woulda been nice...”

“Get the tie,” Katherine orders.

“But—“

“Get the tie before I stab you with these fabric scissors.”

Jack ends up leaving with two vest-and-pants combinations, one in black and one in gray, four dress shirts in various colors, the promised suspenders, a new pair of shoes, and the red silk tie. Katherine leaves with an incredibly satisfied expression and Davey leaves with significantly elevated blood pressure.

As they walk back home, Katherine says, “So do you want me to hold on to everything, or do you want Davey to?”

“What?” Jack asks.

“Who do you want to keep your new clothes, me or Davey?” Katherine repeats.

Jack and Davey stare at her, not grasping her meaning.

“You don’t have anywhere to keep them at the Lodging House, and I would say you could see if Medda would let you keep them at the theater but I know they wouldn’t last the day before they were covered in paint,” Katherine explains. “So? Me or Davey?”

“I guess I’ll have Davey keep ‘em for me, if that’s okay,” Jack decides, glancing at Davey for permission. “Probably easier that way.”

“Um, sure, that’s fine,” Davey says, taking the garment bag when Jack hands it to him. “You can get changed at mine, and we can clean and press them for you too.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jack agrees. “I’ll just pop over before my shift tomorrow, yeah?”

Davey imagines tomorrow, imagines trying to deal with Jack in a suit and tie first thing in the morning, and can feel his expression start to falter. “Sounds good,” he says weakly.

00000

Chapter two here

#newsies #javid #Jack Kelly #davey jacobs #*the writing desk #*final cut #*editor's note #the tie fic #tease series #this was not supposed to be this long #but im really happy with how it turned out

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ahsoka-lives · 4 years

Text

Apprentice pt. 3 (REWRITE)

A/n: Yikes, I didn’t like the original one too much so I edited it and added a bit more perspective and changed the over all plot structure a bit. The beginning is largely the same, it’s the end and the dialogue that changed the most. I appreciate the kind words given from the original but I am critical of myself and will always find ways to pick apart what I wrote, whether it was good or not. I promise this one is staying up! Thank you all for almost 150 followers!! And thank you for being so patient with me as I repost work and take so long to update. I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and that you enjoy this chapter!! Gif is by @wiccangoddes

Warnings: Descriptions of death, threats, Soulmate AU

Word count: 3199

The past month alone on this ship was tiresome, the only consistency was a dull ache in the base of your skull, a side effect of not being with Cal. Luckily, yesterday was the final portion of tests aboard the training vessel.

There wasn’t much about the final test you remembered, only going into the sensory deprivation chamber and succumbing to the sedative. When you woke up you were cleared to return to “Cal’s supervision”, a phrase you were growing tired of.

Secretly, you’d grown bitter the past few weeks, you were treated far worse when not around Cal. The technicians weren’t exactly pleasant and while you may have worn their uniform, they knew who you were and where you came from. They treated you like the Bracca trash they saw you as. Now, when looking at you there were no remnants of your upbringing in your appearance. Long gone was the poncho that served you comfort all those years. No one could tell that the Empire tore you away from the only place you could call home and attempted to brainwash you. You couldn’t help but feel like you let this happen, mesmerized by the idea of a happily ever after with Cal, you willingly walked aboard the transport. Then not even a day later, you watched him walk away from you and onto his ship with only a few kind words and the promise of his return.

All personnel walked the halls with their heads high and shoulders back. Their uniforms blurred them together, erasing any personality within them. They were only of the Empire, nothing else. The fluorescent lighting reflected off the white tile, giving the ship a sense of sterility. Now, you stood in the mirror of your small, cramped room aboard the training vessel. The brandishing of the Inquisition was displayed on your shoulder, this was their training armor. It was similar to Cal’s chest plate, only yours lacked his sense of authority. You knew that was something you’d have to make for yourself starting today.

Today was your first time back into the real world since being taken into the Empire and because of how fresh your training is, Cal was going to keep you under a microscope.

- Cal’s POV

Cal Kestis stood inside the small bay of his ship in front of the holotable, his eyes fixated on the projection in front of him. It was the case file containing every ounce of data the Empire could procure on you. Every test, every simulation, every behavioral pattern that could be used to predict your future actions in the field. On your last test, you performed abnormally well with the exception of one minor infringement that resulted in the test ending sooner than expected, written off as a technical difficulty. Nevertheless, they sent the recording to him, just as he requested for every test.

Cal looked fondly at the intake photo that was shown next to your name one last time. He knew all too well what was to come, how could he not? The Empire was exceptionally skilled in controlling its subjects and as such, they had a knack for identifying those who would give them trouble. He wondered what you would think of the name they’d given you and if you would soon prove them right.

Y/f/n Kestis, FLIGHT RISK.

-Reader’s POV

The walk to the hangar was a short one, within minutes you were walking on the bridge that hung over it. You looked down onto the ship that had just docked. Standing beside it talking to a small group of troopers was Cal, instantly upon seeing him your muscles relaxed, the ache in your neck and shoulders lessened. The closer you got the more the tense feeling of anticipation in both of you slipped away. That’s not to say the bitterness you felt was gone, only lessened with the feeling of normalcy returning to your body

.“Apprentice.” He nodded to you in acknowledgment. You stayed silent as he dismissed the troopers and let them walk for a moment before pulling you in for an unexpected hug. The headache left you almost instantly and you melted into his arms. The energy around him fought to suffocate you further against him, you weren’t sure if this was a conscious effort or just a reflex for him. He took a deep breath in, balance returning to him after a long few weeks without having you around. Was he happy to see you or happy to feel his power returning?

While on your way to the new living arrangements that the Empire set up for Cal and you, a distress signal was intercepted by the ship. A small outpost on a nearby moon had a small squabble with the locals, nothing out of the ordinary according to Cal.

Across from you in the bay, Cal’s helmet sat in the chair next to him as he meditated, there was something peaceful about this. His face was relaxed with the exception of his brows furrowed in concentration. Seeing him like this humanized him, it made a hopefulness bloom inside of you, maybe his intimidating manner was all a facade.

But as soon as the ship landed, the helmet returned, with it your memory of what he’s done while wearing that uniform. The uniform reminded you of the time you spent in the labs on the training vessel. They showed you what the Empire had in store for you. The Empire wanted to turn you into a weapon just like they had Cal. The simulations were designed to warp your view on reality, to plant the false narrative of the Empire’s savior complex, and to tempt you into accepting its enemies on as your own. Perhaps their biggest mistake was showing you what the Empire does to force sensitives. They showed you that if it weren’t for your ties to Cal, you would be lying dead in the scrapyards at this very moment.

The Force-sensitives in the simulations were painted as burdens, as insignificant evils that needed to be removed from the galaxy with a swift and heavy hand. But, if that were true, what did that make you? How could you in good conscience kill someone like you? Someone who may not even understand their role in the universe yet or what it even means to be Force-sensitive. It’s thoughts like these that made the idea of running more tempting.

You desperately tried to smother these thoughts, you’d hate for Cal to catch on. You’d learned that those skilled with the Force could tap into the thoughts and feelings of those around them and slight paranoia followed you ever since. For all you knew, he could be trying to see inside your head right this moment.

“Apprentice, let’s get going.” Cal snapped you out of the mental spiral you’d gone down. The fresh air washed over you and with it a fleeting moment of happiness.

“Let’s see if any of that training paid off.” He spoke as he held a saber out in his hand for you. It was cold and heavy in your hands, heavier than the training saber you used with the droids. Side by side, you walked with Cal, a squadron of troopers trailing behind you. The grass was near your knees and the trees towered over you providing shelter from the sun.

This wouldn’t be a bad place to disappear.

The group walked for miles in near silence until a column of smoke emerged from beyond the trees.

“Eyes up, that’s coming from the outpost, this might be bigger than we thought.” Cal’s modulated voice called out. The troopers fanned out from behind you and raised their blasters. The air felt tense and the hairs on your neck stood, every sound suddenly more clear.

Cal raised his fist to halt the troopers and looked down at the scanner on his forearm. Your eyes remained on the trees in front of you. They looked to Cal for direction who only pointed two fingers ahead of the group at the thick wall of trees and shrubbery. In unison, you and Cal reached for your sabers.

Suddenly, high pitch blaster shots whizzed past you in a red flash, you braced and brought your saber up to block as many as you could. One by one the troopers were shot down, leaving only you and Cal standing. You gave a nervous glance up to his helmet and dug your feet further into the ground to solidify your position. He felt oddly calm.

“Cal Kestis, we meet again.” A woman emerged from the trees, her voice was steady and smooth. Her cream-colored robes flowed gently in the wind, her dark hair was tied back out of her face that adorned a small smile. Behind her were a few soldiers dressed in similar green and beige clothes, not quite a uniform but close to it.

“Trilla, how disappointing.” Cal mocked the woman. “How’s the leg doing since I last cut it off?”

“Well, the prosthesis business is booming, apparently a lot of sword-wielding maniacs have been running around” She joked and raised an eyebrow at the Inquisitor. “Aren’t you interested as to why I lured you here?”

“Not really, no. I’d rather skip to the part where I finish you and your little band of men off for good this time.” He sassed and flipped his saber up in his hands absentmindedly.

“We got word of another Jedi being abducted by you and your sisters, am I right to assume this is her?” She sneered, gone was the playful banter between them.

“She’s no Jedi, and she’s none of your concern.” He growled and put an arm in front of you protectively.

“On the contrary, innocent life in the hands of the Empire is and will always be my first priority.” She paused and looked at you this time. “I’m here to help you, what’s your name?”

“I’m Y/n, and I don’t need your help.” You bit back and grabbed hold of his arm to lower it, allowing you to step forward. He was more than hesitant to allow this and you could feel his distaste for the situation arising.

“Y/n, a little early for blind allegiance to them, isn’t it?” She urged and took a small step forward making Cal tense visibly.

“At least she knows where she belongs.” He bit from behind the mask.

“With the enemy? With the government who hunts down people like us?”

“There is no us, Trilla.” He chuckled darkly as he continued to berate her. “The order is gone, only the ashes of its failure remain along with insolent, naive padawans like yourself.”

“You forget that you were once a padawan, that you once wore the symbol of the Jedi with pride.” Her voice was saturated in emotion and she seemed to be choking back tears.

“For a Jedi, you sure cry a lot.” He rolled his eyes under the helmet, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. “How about I really give you something to cry about?”

His gloved hand raised in front of him and one of the soldiers rose from the ground and flew toward him. He swiftly impaled the soldier with his saber before letting the body fall to the ground at his feet. Without hesitation, he moved forward and lifted another off the ground only this time his fist curled tightly, and with a subtle movement of his head, he snapped the man’s neck.

The woman named Trilla cried out, sprung forward and clashed her saber against his, their duel ensuing. You were torn from your state of shock by a blaster shot grazing past your shoulder. Your eyes flew to the source and you reflexively brought your saber up to block the next one.

“Apprentice, you’re going to have to be more offensive than that,” Cal called out, his tone playful as he kicked Trilla in the chest sending her flying back.

His hand stretched out and lifted the soldier who fired at you up and with a flick of his wrist the soldier was flown into the ground in front of you. The man was visibly shaken but his intent to finish his mission seemed to take precedence over what just happened. You screwed your eyes shut and swung your saber forward, slashing the rifle in half.

The soldier, seemingly unfazed, swept your ankle with his foot making you fall to the ground, your saber falling a few feet away now lifeless. A knife was pulled from his boot and he lurched forward in an attempt to impale you with it. You shuffled backward away from him, your back near the dirt, panic flooding your chest.

Your eyes looked to Cal who was preoccupied with a fight of his own and you realized that you were alone in this. You scrambled to your feet and took cautious steps back as the man in front of you seemed to be calculating his next attack. The saber, your only chance of survival, was at his feet. The soldier grunted and leaped toward you, you barely managed to avoid it. Your hand reached out desperately for your saber and every ounce of effort was forced into calling it to you, but the saber barely shifted on the ground.

You groaned in frustration, why wasn’t it working?

“Y/n, behind you!” Cal yelled but it was too late, you were tackled to the ground, your head slamming into the firm grass.

“Commander, I have her!” The man yelled to Trilla.

The trees around you seemed to spin and you struggled to move as he had you pinned down, your saber was resting on the ground just a few feet in front of you and just beyond it was the fierce duel between the Jedi and the Inquisitor. You had to admit, Trilla was skilled but she lacked something that you saw in Cal. He was downright violent, while Trilla fought to defend herself, he fought for the sake of fighting. She fought toward an end but he relished in seeing the frustration on his opponent’s face as he evaded their attacks and inflicted pain onto them.

You let your eyes shut and you tried to recall what you felt all those weeks ago on Bracca. Your hand flexed open and you let your mind feel the air around you, imagining that the world around you was still. You gave up on trying to physically will the saber to you and allowed your mind to do the work for you. You just had to get out of this, you weren’t going to let someone else take you away to stars knows where.

You sighed in relief when the cool metal of the hilt was in your hands. When your eyes reopened, the deep red of the saber was alive in front of you. You caught it in reverse and the blade had opened directly into the man’s chest, his limp body falling off of you. You stood up panting and looked to Cal who had single-handedly taken on the four other men and Trilla.

“Your men are dead, Trilla, are you ready to join them?” Cal taunted, his arms gesturing around to the dead bodies that lay around the three of you. The pain on her face was evident as was her exhaustion. She looked to you with an earnest glint in her eyes, a silent plea but you didn’t know what for.

“Can’t you see what he is? What he wants you to become?” She begged and gestured to Cal, his face still hidden by his armor. “A monster in a mask who spends every waking moment in darkness.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Trilla, she knows.” He chuckled and lazily twirled his saber in his hand. “Besides, she couldn’t leave me if she wanted to, we are bonded by the Force, inseparable.”

“You? The Force gave you a soulmate?” She spit, sheer disbelief written over her face as she shook her head. “That doesn’t matter, you’ve known her for what? Four weeks? The bond isn’t complete, there’s still time for her.”

“None of this matters, but, I’ll tell you the best part.” He laughed, he was thoroughly entertained by all of this, the pain she felt included. “She knows no family, no past worth holding onto. There’s nothing for you to tempt her with. Only I can give her what she wants.”

He was right, you had nothing pulling you back, no family for you to return to. But if what Trilla said was true, you had nothing keeping you here either.

Maybe you didn’t have to become another pawn.

You took another look at the man in front of you, the memory of his comfortable arms still fresh in your memory. Cal promised you a lot, a soulmate...stability, but at what cost? Your eyes moved to the woman that was now kneeling on the ground, wounded and exhausted from fighting your partner. She offered a way out of the Empire’s schemes but that was it. Surely you could find that for yourself. In a moment of pure thoughtlessness you raised your palm up toward Cal, gaining his attention.

“My dear, that’s a bold move, even for you.” He chided and raised his hands to remove his helmet. “Are you sure you have what it takes to go against me?”

“I’ll be long gone by the time you’re moving again.” Your voice was shaky as you tested the waters against him, guilt of your betrayal arising in you.

“Oh, I’m sure. I’ve seen what you can do but you have only seen a taste of what I can do.” He promised with a chilling intensity, a wicked smile on his handsome face, his excitement growing by the second. His irises tinted yellow and his pupils were blown.

“Go ahead, I can handle it, sweetheart.” You felt the past few weeks of suppressed emotions and near torture bubbling inside of you. “Come on, gorgeous, I’ll give you a head start.”

He deactivated his saber and hooked it onto his waist, seemingly unbothered by the Jedi watching this unfold. While this meant he was going to let you run, it wasn’t nearly enough security for you. You mustered up all the strength that you could and forced Cal over the wall of bushes and away from you.

After a moment of silence, you assumed him to be unconscious and stalked over to Trilla with a determined look on your face.

“I knew you’d do the right thing, y/n.” She sighed and rose to her feet. The words made you roll your eyes, his arrogance was rubbing off on you. “I’m glad you’re joining the right cause.”

“I’m getting tired of everyone talking and thinking on my behalf, who said I was joining you?” You growled and shot your hand out to pull her saber into your hand, her unfounded trust in you left her guard down.

Now, with both sabers in hand, you pointed one across her throat, the other in a block position above your torso. “Take me to your ship.”

#inquisitor!cal #soulmate au #apprentice part 3 #cal kestis #cal kestis x reader #inquisitor cal #jfo fanfiction #jfo #star wars

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notgonnarememberthis · 3 years

Text

today (of all days) - pt 5

Surprise!!! Through encouragement of friends I’ve decided to release one chapter a day to finish this story off the day before prodigal son returns! So the next one will be the plus one coming out tomorrow and a bonus chapter coming Monday. Hope y’all like this one!

The knock is soft and hesitant, Gil almost misses it while he’s combing over files. He checks the time with a huff, he should probably get dinner soon anyways. Maybe he’ll roll by Malcolm’s and make sure he’s eating, knowing all too well that he’s throwing himself into this case just as hard, if not more, than he is.

He stretches himself out before walking to the door, mindful of Icarus who has half the mind to trot beside him to try to dart out the door if he opens it too wide. He opens it slowly, foot placed in front of the ginger cat to keep it back.

Jessica stands in front of the door, a bag in one hand and a drink tray balanced on the other. She sucks in a breath and he can see her carefully planned speech falling apart. This was the first time he’s seen her since that day in the station, when she admitted she was talking to Martin again. When he offered to be her ear again. She swallows heavily only able to get out, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” He nods. “Of course.” He steps aside letting her slip by with ease. She smiles down at Icarus who takes the opportunity to rub along her legs. He knows if she hadn’t had her hands full, she’d be scratching his head right now. “Is that?”

“Mel’s diner, yes it is. I got the cherry pie too.”

“How’d you know, I was just about to make dinner.”

“You and Malcolm have remarkably similar eating habits. Meaning it’ll be the last thing on either of your agendas until either a case is finished or someone snaps you out of it.” She settles everything on the table, pulling the food out of the bag with an almost robotic motion. He recognizes it, her mind and body has flipped into pure survival mode. She’s able to mask it when talking but her body language gives it away.

He sits on the couch next to her, eyes trained on her face the entire time. “Jess?”

She tenses, her eyes closing as she’s found out so quickly. Her posture deflates and she drops her head into her hand. “Please.” Her voice comes out more tired.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.” She tries to hold him at arm's length, instead focused on her food but he takes her hand in his. She may not have come with the vintage bourbon like usual but he can see through it all. Mel’s is her comfort food. After a rough day, they’d bring Malcolm and Ainsley there, enjoy the atmosphere of anonymity. The noise of the customers was always enough to drown out her own demons. He’s more than able to see through it all.

“Talk to me.” He says, his voice soft as he runs his thumb along the back of her hand.

She sighs, tipping her head back. Her jaw clenches, emotions bubbling to the surface that she forces back down again. “I’m writing a memoir.” She doesn’t look back at him, she knows what his reaction will be, or she thinks she does.

“A memoir?” His eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head. “You said you’d never give in. That they could say whatever they wanted but they wouldn’t get a word from you. What changed?” She sighs, in the way she did any time they were brought up. “Birdie.” He nods in understanding.

“She’s been cut off. She’s emptied all her assets and she came to me… to publish her own book.”

“Why not just pay her off?” She’d done it before. Paid reporters, journalists, and other nosey bastards for her family’s privacy. She paid good money so that it was never leaked that Malcolm had changed his name. As far as the public knew Malcolm Whitly had faded into obscurity.

“They were going to publish with or without her. Another author would take helm. We’d be exposed. I checked the information and it’s true. The publishing company is desperate. They’d already been looking for a writer who would take the chance for years.” No doubt, any writer who stepped up that would risk Jessica Whitly’s wrath would be one without good intentions. The book would be a slander on her family. No amount of burying the story would protect her, Malcolm, or Ainsley from that blowback. And Martin would revel in that chaos.

“So you’re taking the reins.”

“I don’t have a choice.” He wants to argue with her. That there’s always another choice but here, he finds it difficult. With Jessica writing it she’s telling her story, It’s not going to be tampered with by a second party. When it hits the shelf she’ll only do interviews with people Ainsley trusts, no Barbara Walters situation ever again. No second hand writers will hound Malcolm or Ainsley for their comments, knocking down boundaries that her kids aren’t even aware exist most of the time. It’s not about them. It’s about controlling the narrative.

The words feel awfully familiar. “Do Malcolm or Ainsley know?” She doesn’t even need to answer by the look that passes over her face, fond exasperation with some worry.

“No, and I intend on keeping it that way for a while.”

“Jess.”

“Ainsley will just talk about how this is a good thing. She’s always excited about stories. Having them read mine is,” She lets out a bitter laugh. There were aspects of the aftermath that she kept from them. How it tore her apart more than she would ever admit. It was only recently that Ainsley got a peek past the incredible intricate persona Jessica put on for others. “Then Malcolm, he won’t like it at all. He’ll worry. He has enough on his plate right now. I’m not going to pull either of them into this if I can help it.”

“They will find out eventually.”

“I’ll keep it a secret as long as I can. I would appreciate it if you would too.”

“I won’t tell. But I think you should.”

“Not,” She shakes her head and he can see she’s trying to blink away tears. “Not yet.”

“There’s something else, isn’t there.”

Jessica laughs but nods, “The publisher pitched a name today. He wants to call it The One Who Survived. Bullshit, if you ask me.”

“Jess,” He moves to place a hand on her shoulder but she stands, anger flaring up with the movement.

“Why does it always go back to him?” She asks, he’s not sure if she’s looking for an answer but she continues before he can make a sound. “I raised two children. Both of which were stellar students. My son went to Harvard, worked with the FBI. My daughter is a critically acclaimed journalist and a newscaster.” She rakes both hands through her hair pacing across the living room. Atlas watches from a perch, his tail flicking with interest. “I have contributed to hundreds of foundations, I am a businesswoman. Why, why am I only the ex-wife?”

Gil steps up, his hands settling on her shoulders. She stops her rant, eyes falling on him in the same shocked and vulnerable gaze when he holds her. They haven’t been this close since… He pushes that to the back of his mind. “This is your memoir Jess. Not theirs. You’ve got the control here. Use it.”

“But-”

“But what? They’ve been asking for 20 years and you’re finally giving them what they asked for. It’s your story.”

“Where do I even start?”

“Wherever feels right.” She lets out a slow breath and for a moment they stay like that. Standing in the remains of a connection that never dies. Her movement is slow, when she finally does, making sure that he stops her if he wants to. Her arms wrap around his torso and she tucks her head into his chest. He returns the hug, holding her close with his chin resting on top of her head.

“Thank you Gil.” She mumbles into his shirt. He runs a hand down her back in a comforting gesture. Having her this close makes his heart race and he’s certain she can hear it too. They’ve missed out on so much time. But for now he’s just happy to have her back again.

“Always.” He whispers, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

#prodigal son #gilica #jessica whitly x gil arroyo #gil arroyo x jessica whitly #jessica x gil #jessica whitly #gil arroyo #take some fluff #before more angst tomorrow #5+1 Things #5+1 fic #notgonnarememberthis fics #fanfic #prodigal son AU #today (of all days) pt 5 #today (of all days) part 5

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christinaroseandrews · 3 years

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Marketing Matters - Strategy - Fanfiction

Strategy - Fanfiction

So this is a bit of a taboo subject in the publishing world, but I’m going to be upfront with you all.

We write fanfiction.

There, I said it.

Writing fanfic is also a viable marketing strategy for authors who are choosing to go the self-publishing route and not always for the reasons that immediately spring to mind. In addition, the skills, fanbase, and tricks learned while writing fanfic can also apply to traditional publishing. However, I’m going to give you one caveat right up front: many big name publishers don’t like authors who write fic. Or at least they say they don’t. It’s becoming more common, but most publishers and agents want authors to be focusing on original fic not fanfic. Several smaller presses don’t care as much, so long as your author persona and your fic persona are very separate and you don’t rub it in their faces. But the big name publishers may require you to pull your fanworks. So that’s something to keep in mind.

So now it’s time to break it down.

About Us and What we’ve done:

We’re probably best known as fanfic writers in the Hunger Games fandom, where we have a few well regarded fics. We’ve also dipped our toes into other fandoms including the MCU, Harry Potter, DBZ, and more drive-by one-shots in various fandoms than you can shake a stick at.

We also both were/are a part of the Sims 2 writing community and had a few well known stories there as well. ^__^ We may or may not have met in this fandom. LOL

Both of us have been part of these fandoms for years and were active members in them. Lark started in fanfic back in 1994/5 as a beta reader (which she then parlayed that experience into becoming an editor that summer). While Rose discovered fic in college in 2002. In these fandom communities, we met people that we now call friends in real life as well as mentors, betas, advisers, and cheerleaders. We learned skills that apply both to fic and to original writing. And, most importantly, we learned how to listen to our audience.

Let me stress that again: we learned to listen to our audience.

When we transitioned, we hit up the people we met in these fandoms to help us with various aspects of publishing life (either paying or trading favors for work done) and we’ve also given status updates about our original writing, along with links to our author tumblr in the authors’ notes of our fics. Nothing that will violate the terms of Ao3′s Terms of use - but links to our professional website/social media.

While we write fanfic less, we still dip our fingers in now and again.

Cost:

Time.

Straight up time.

The cost of writing fic is time, energy, and creativity. Time spent writing fic is time NOT spent writing original works that can be published. Time that is not spent editing or plotting or doing other sweat equity types of marketing. Which is why some authors refuse to write fic once they turn professional and it is completely understandable. Fanfic authors don’t get paid for their work and for some, getting paid is a big deal. Especially when most of your income comes from writing.

It’s a cost we willingly pay sometimes, but if a fanfic author you know also writes original works for publications. It does mean that updates may be slower and there is often less motivation to keep publishing stories -- especially if the stories don’t get much in the way of response/feedback.

It’s about return on investment.

Return on Investment:

I’m going to do this a little differently since sometimes the return isn’t monetary. This is also likely to sound really clinical and analytical; that’s because I’m trying to be objective and I may be going too far the other way. We write fanfic because we love it, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t give back to us too.

Monetary (Language of Flowers only):

Units sold: 20

Mailing list subscribers: 6

Social media followers: Twitter - 15, Tumblr - 60, Facebook - 8

Not Monetary but Cost Saving

Editors - 9

Cover Designers - 3

Mailing List Trades - 3

Skills Learned:

Editing (Line, Content, Story Doctoring -- Yes, all of these)

Proofreading (not the same as editing)

Creating Characters

Keeping Characters in Character

Plotting

Engaging an audience

Finishing what you start

How to handle ConCrit

How to handle Trolls

How to write to an audience

How to prevent plot holes

As you can see, the biggest return on investment of the time is in the skills section. Fanfiction is not to be taken lightly.

And as for me, Lark, I literally parlayed my experience working in fandom to actual paying jobs as an editor. I honed my skills as an editor on fanfic which I then turned around and used to get a job editing professionally. I did that multiple times for a bunch of different publishers/clients. I got my start in fanfic.

As an editor, one of the biggest problems I see with developing authors is a “sameness” in voice. AKA all of the characters sound the same. If you want to see this in traditionally published book action, then look at Laurel K. Hamilton... Her Merry Gentry and Anita Blake heroines sound almost exactly the same. (Which not coincidentally, sounds like how she speaks in real life.)

With fanfiction, you can’t do that. You’ll get called out for being OOC. So you have to learn to adapt your voice. (Or only write characters that sound like you but that gets boring after a while.)

So in my actual job as an editor, one I get paid to do, I legitimately tell my clients to pick a character from a show they like and use them as a template for a character they’re having trouble giving a good character voice to. And unsurprisingly, it works. It’s a good trick and it subconsciously teaches your brain how to create different characters/voices.

They other HUGE takeaway from the skills is in regards to concrit and being able to take it. If you want to publish for a living and not just half-ass it, you have to develop a thick-ish skin. And fanfiction can help with that. I straight up learned to deal with harsh reviews from writing fanfiction. But more importantly, I learned how to listen to what the person was telling me and then become a better author because of it.

In fanfiction, unlike in the publishing world, the reviews are meant for the authors... not potential readers. If someone really hates your work, or worse, is apathetic to it. They just won’t comment. They’ll hit the backspace and you’ll never hear anything. Most comments, especially critical ones, are from people who legitimately like the story that you’re telling but have a problem with part of it. The comment may be harsh, it may even be mean. But it tells you something and it gives you an idea where you may be turning off readers. People aren’t always good at phrasing criticism constructively. We’re not really trained how to do that. But when someone tells you why something isn’t working for them or why they didn’t like something, listen. You don’t have to agree -- we certainly haven’t -- but listening and thinking critically about the feedback will help.

This can be seen in our first novel, The Language of Flowers, which started out its life as a fanfic. The story pissed several readers off. And we realized as we were writing it that we needed to explain something and we weren’t doing a good job of doing so. So the scene that every single one of our readers loved was born of that concrit. Our story is better and reached the top 100 in its categories on Amazon because of the feedback we got as fanfic authors.

Seriously, writing fanfic has gotten us to where we are today.

Takeaways:

My biggest take away is that writing fanfic is a great skills builder and audience builder.

Pros:

Skills. Oh so many skills. But the biggest is that you will be writing and no writing is ever wasted. It’s practice. Like an artist has to sketch or a musician practice. You’re honing and toning your writing muscles. And fanfic is absolutely valid for doing that.

Cons:

Time. Straight up Time.

Rating:

It’s been so long since I’ve done one of these that I don’t remember. But honestly, the rating varies. You get out of fanfic what you put in and what you’re willing to take from it.

(Note: This has been sitting in our drafts for about 4 years. I finally finished it up because I was bored and waiting to go to a doctor and didn’t feel like doing nothing.)

If you like our marketing posts, please consider supporting us here!

#marketing matters #fanfiction #writing advice #on writing #writing #long post #oh gods #this has been in our drafts forever #we love fanfic #we love fandom #fanfic is a gift #to both the reader and the author #don't disrespect the genre #queue me up

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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

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A WEEK IN BRITAIN...

1. Boris Johnson announced a new 3 Tier lockdown system, with the lowest Tier being “medium”, like at McDonalds

2. As part of the announcement, the Chief Medical Officer reassuringly said the plan wouldn’t work

3. The govt said “in all cases, we are following the science”

4. It was revealed the SAGE science committee told the govt to lockdown weeks ago, but that bit of science wasn’t followed very far

5. SAGE went on to say the govt’s “world-beating” £12bn Test and Trace system was having only “a marginal impact on transmission rates”

6. Dido Harding, head of Seemingly Everything, said Test and Trace would be “local by default” and be “highly efficient”

7. She then handed £12bn to Serco, which is highly efficiently charging us £7360 per day for consultants. To trace Covid infections. Which they aren’t doing

8. Serco’s CEO is the brother of an ex-Tory MP. His partner is a Tory donor. Serco’s ex-head of PR is now a Tory Health Minister

9. If you feel all this is a bit corrupt, you can complain to the govt’s Anti-Corruption Champion, John Penrose, who is married to Dido Harding

10. Meanwhile an investigation by the Good Law Project found PPE suppliers owned by Tory donors or associates were paid 30% more per item than similar businesses globally. I'm talling you: John Penrose. He’s your fella. He’ll get to the bottom of it, fo shizzle

11. And only 34 days since the announcement of Boris Johnson’s "brainchild", the £100bn Operation Moonshot, it was quietly scrapped, along with (apparently) Boris Johnson’s brain and around 28% of his children

12. A Tory MP said Boris Johnson’s “personal skillset this doesn't play to this. He's not a details, manager type. He's a picture painter”. On the side of wine-boxes, mostly.

13. Another said “I think it's obvious this is a government happier picking fights than governing”

14. Another said Boris Johnson “prefers to get on with dog-walking” and “let’s Dominic do the work”

15. Chastened by reports local authorities were given only 5 minutes notice of previous lockdowns, this time the govt gave them ... 7 minutes notice of the meeting to discuss it

16. Except some MPs didn't even get that, and were only invited after the meeting had started

17. And the govt invited the MP for Sunderland, who had to inform them she was only of 3 Sunderland MPs. The govt was “surprised to be informed” of this

18. The dep Chief Medical Officer said the infection rate in the north “never dropped” meaning the relaxation of lockdown was at the expense of lives oop north

19. Then the govt said they would “devolve more decision-making” and “give more financial aid to local authorities”

20. But the aid is conditional on the "devolved" local authority doing what the govt wants, which is quite a novel a definition of "devolved"

21. So, following criticism, the govt briefed the press that it was going to consult more with regional govts

22. Literally 2 hours later, the govt briefed the press that Manchester was moving into Tier 3 restrictions. The Mayor of Manchester was not consulted (or even informed) about a decision he must implement, and which affects the largest city-region outside London.

23. A Tory MP, anxious about the lockdown affecting businesses over the party season, asked the PM “what can you tell us about Christmas”. Boris Johnson replied, “it’s a religious festival that’s been celebrated 2020 years”, which I’m sure helps us all

24. Matt Hancock insisted we all follow the science and adhere to the 10pm pub curfew that scientists say makes absolutely no improvement on infection rates

25. Then Matt Hancock broke that curfew, in a House of Commons bar

26. And then Matt Hancock said “The drinks are on me but Public Health England are in charge of payment methodology so I will not be paying anything”

27. In August, Public Health England was scrapped by [checks notes ] Matt Hancock

28. But prior to that, Tories imposed budget cuts of 5% to 10% on Public Health England for each of the previous 7 years

29. Unsurprisingly, it was reported that hospitals in the north of England would run out of beds within 7 days

30. The govt said "Hospital Trusts should consider cancelling all non-urgent treatments"

31. The govt then refused to drop fines it imposes on Hospital Trusts which cancel non-urgent treatments

32. So Matt Hancock announced the reopening of Nightingale Hospitals, which were closed last time because nobody could send patients to them, due to them not being staffed

33. They still aren’t staffed: Matt Hancock's' "urgent boost to nursing training" doesn’t start until 2021

34. Fortunately, the govt began a campaign to get ballerinas to retrain, and then scrapped the campaign 24 hours later

35. In June, Boris Johnson announced an "urgent" £1.57bn Arts Rescue Plan

36. A mere 127 days later, it "urgently" got around to paying out some of that money

37. And then Lord West reassuringly said, “we need to deal with migrants in a concentrated place, a camp or whatever”. He didn’t mention whether Arbeit Macht Frei, but it’s still only Thursday, and who can tell what the remainder of the week will bring?

38. Speaking of dates: 15th Oct, the absolute, immoveable deadline for trade talks that mighty, fearsome Boris Johnson laid down to the cowed and quivering EU

39. Talks continue tomorrow. Because obviously, duuur

40. The Road Haulage Assoc pointed out we have only 1,668 of the 33,000 EU Haulage Permits we need on 1 Jan

41. Software to control our borders won’t be ready until 4 months after 1 Jan

42. And the govt is “still in the planning stage” of the “Kent Passports” we need on 1 Jan

43. And construction of Kent's “world’s largest lorry park” is behind schedule, so probably not ready on 1 Jan

44. Fortunately the govt is well-prepared, and plans to install 1000s of Portaloos in Kent, the garden of England, to be used by lorry drivers trapped in 2-day queues

45. And our food standards will still be fine, as Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi tweeted “Our manifesto was clear. We will not compromise our animal welfare and food standards”

46. He then voted to compromise our animal welfare and food standards, as did the rest of the Tory Party

47. And then govt used an obscure rule to deny MPs a vote on whether to allow chlorinated chicken

48. Meanwhile, 20 years after North Sea Cod became so overfished the WWF declared it “economically extinct”, Tory MPs voted to reduce protections designed to let fish stocks recover

49. So, after Brexit, our current plan is to accept tariffs that will destroy our manufacturing sector, and border delays that will destroy farming exports and imperil food supplies, and destroy the farming sector ... all so we can go and catch a fish that doesn’t exist

50. But at least we’ve now "got back control", and therefore we can level up the playing field by implementing the govt's landmark “digital tax” policy on giants such as Amazon

51. This week it was announced Amazon will be exempt from the digital tax

52. Speaking of tax exemptions, it was revealed Dominic Cummings has had a £30,000 council tax bill “written off” because he built the house illegally, so it doesn’t count as a real house, or summat. Sorry, my hurricane-force sarcasm briefly turned me more northern.

53. And on the subject of extreme dodgy dealing, let me direct your attention to Robert Jenrick, who set up the £3.6bn “Towns Fund” for the 101 most deprived town, and then gave the maximum grant of £25m to his own constituency, which is the 270th most deprived town

54. His explanation was that he, Jenrick, did not make the decision. It was made by a colleague, Jake Berry.

55. Jake Berry also got money for his constituency. By a dazzling coincidence, that decision was made by – you guessed it – Robert Jenrick

56. Finally: at a meeting led by Liam Fox, the TaxPayers Alliance (insanity-pushers to the Tory Party) advocated cutting pensions immediately because half of old people “won't be around to vote against you in the next election”, and the other half “will have forgotten by then”

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howtowhumpyourhiccup · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 15: Your Blood On My Lips

Summary: Written for Whumptober Day 15. Set in a Modern Vampire AU. A human/vampire relationship is taboo amongst vampires as it endangers the long-kept secret of their existence and as a result, humans simply don't survive these relationships for long. After spending the last five years with Astrid, it finally catches up with him, too.

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hiccup, Astrid

Pairing: Hiccstrid

Words: 4 204

Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon

Prompt: "Magical Healing”

Whumpee: Hiccup

Author’s Notes: Written for the Whumptober prompt "Magical Healing" because that is technically what happens here, which is why it's not an actual death fic.

Was really excited to get this one done when I first started it, but then I suddenly lost motivation for it and finished it TODAY. Hopefully, it won't be too obvious. :'D

But hey! I reached the halfway point of Whumptober! That's exciting!

Constructive criticism is appreciated!

Enjoy!

Ao3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Long after midnight, Hiccup is still up and awake. Having been working on an art commission at this hour, he straightens in his chair and stretches his back before following that up by rubbing the back of his neck.

He's so stiff and he shouldn't still be up at this hour as there is plenty of time for him to be working on this paid commission. It's supposed to be a digital art piece of a dragon that he'd promised by the end of the week.

But then again, that isn't the only reason why he hasn't gone to bed yet as there is still one other reason why.

He's waiting for someone, the love of his life, and she should be here soon.

As a matter of fact, she just got home. He can tell by the soft opening and closing of the front door of their shared apartment, but that is about the only way he can tell. And all because she wants him to know when she's home instead of sneaking up on him like some kind of intruder. Thankfully, those days are far behind them.

He doesn't hear her footsteps in the hallway or the door to their living room opening.

"You're still up." He just hears her voice and feels her hands glide down from his shoulders followed by a peck on the top of his head as she stands behind him.

"You're back!" Hiccup remarks happily and looks up to face Astrid, his girlfriend. His hands are on hers. Hers are quite cool while his are always warm, something she quite likes.

"I am. Not as early as I intended to be, but I'm here now." She tells him, smiling.

"You know you don't need to wait up for me."

"I know I don't, which doesn't mean that I won't." He tells her in return and a kiss is placed on his lips this time. He returns it because how can he not.

They break apart and smile. Her piercingly blue eyes that almost seem to glow gaze down at him while strands of her hair fall down from the sides of her face.

"You are adorable when you look at me as if you're lovesick," Astrid tells him, similarly as engrossed in his beauty as he is caught in hers. Her fingers run through his hair, playing with the wild locks. It's from the dragon-riding, though Toothless isn't allowed to leave the Dragon Sanctuary he lives on.

"As if?" He asks and takes her hand into his own.

Astrid smiles down at him, but then it falters just a tad bit as something pops into her mind, like a reminder. She bites her bottom lip, both out of growing excitement and a slight bit of guilt.

As they haven't changed position at all, Hiccup can't help but notice.

"Hey, I recognize that face. You know you can ask, right? I'm feeling better." He tells her, his neck starting to hurt from all it's been through this evening.

"And you know that I don't want to take more than necessary." She responds, reminding him of her vow to never take more than she needs to, though she hungers.

"But you need it. I can see that you do." His hand strokes her forearm, which is just as cold as her hand is, just as cold as the rest of her is.

She can't argue with him on that. She's been feeling a little weak, a little under the weather, and that means she needs to feed. She needs blood and Hiccup is always ready to offer up his own.

She's a vampire, has been at least for the past couple of decades, maybe a century. She doesn't really care how long it's been, she hasn't cared about time ever since she got turned. Not until she met Hiccup about five years ago when he was 20 years old.

"You're welcome to my blood, you always are." Hiccup tells her, encouraging her to take care of her needs.

"Okay, fine, if you're being this insistent." Astrid straightens and moves to his front. Her eyes never leave his as she walks with a look of both love and a deep desire in them.

Hiccup watches her with slight nervousness, never quite certain what to expect from her. He's been through this a million times by now, but it's still a little bit of a surprise every time. It's her method, that's what changes every time just a bit.

This night, she goes for the direct approach, climbing up on his desk chair with him and straddling his lap. She presses their bodies together and then their foreheads. She can almost feel his pulse against her unmoving chest.

"Thank you for always welcoming me." Astrid thanks him, more grateful than she can ever express.

Smiling, Hiccup wraps his arms around her.

"Of course, I love you." He shrugs, feeling like this is only natural. She'll always be welcome to their home and to him.

Astrid places a peck on his lips, another one he returns, and then she places a hand on his jawline while he cocks his head to the side at the same time. It happens so smoothly, it tells of how many times they've done this before.

Licking the front of her teeth and then her lips, her fangs grow in the excitement of what she's about to do. Bringing her mouth closer to his neck, she lets those fangs caress his neck, forcing him to take a deep breath.

Gently grasping his hair, Astrid pulls his head to the side and places feathery kisses on the side of his neck, taking her time before she bites down and makes her fangs sink into his flesh.

They dig into his neck and Hiccup's body naturally jumps at the pain. He's still holding onto her, hands on her hips to keep himself grounded, as his blood leaves his body to feed and strengthen her. He can feel it leaving him, can feel her draining him. He knows better than to fear for his life, but the instinct to escape from her remains.

He can't deny the rush this gives him, however. It's like jumping from a cliff without ever needing to leave the comfort of his own home. His heart is pounding, it's pounding so loud. But then, he's already full of bitemarks, so he's not unfamiliar with this sensation and he expects it, anticipates it.

There are more than one on the sides of his throat, one side having a few more than the other. One on a shoulder that was put there simply for fun during a moment much more intimate than this. His wrists carry a few of these marks, too, and there is even one mark on a thigh of his. That spot, like his shoulder, wouldn't provide Astrid with any blood either and had been put there purely out of lust.

She likes seeing those marks on him and they will probably stay there for the remainder of his life. They've taken to calling them lovebites and it isn't far from the truth.

Astrid's eyes closed, she can feel him trembling beneath her, can detect his quickened pulse, can hear the barely repressed moans of pain, discomfort, and enjoyment. Hopefully, the neighbors can't hear them like last time.

He doesn't have a bite kink, not quite, but there is still something he's getting out of this. Something only Astrid can give him. There is something intimate about this, something only the two of them can have.

Once fed and back to her original strength, Astrid leaves his neck, and her tongue licks at the blood escaping from the bite mark. She can feel the rush in her body as her significant other's blood revitalizes her.

"Are you okay?" She asks, whispering in his ear, and feels Hiccup nod.

Pulling back, she gazes at his slightly paler complexion, the sweat on his brow, the shivering of his body, the blood running down his neck in a thin line and nearly reaching the collar of his shirt.

She's always liked seeing him this way, trembling beneath her and his blood staining his skin. But only like this, when it's something he has welcomed her to.

Seeing the look in her eyes, Hiccup lets out a breathy chuckle.

"You are such a sadist." He tells her.

"Hiccup, you know I don't do this without you telling me it's okay," Astrid responds with a laugh of her own. And then she leans down again and rubs her nose against his.

"Besides if this makes me a sadist, what exactly does that make you?" She asks, her voice low. Hiccup smiles up at her.

"Tired, for one!" Astrid returns it and moves off him.

"You need some help getting to bed?" She offers, holding a hand of his as she figures he won't be getting up when he feels so weak. Not with his prosthetic.

"I would like to get to the couch. It's movie night!"

"It's almost 3 am," Astrid argues. No way are they pulling another all-nighter, if he even makes it that far.

"Perfect time for a movie, then!" Hiccup insists on having one. There aren't a lot of things a vampire-human couple can do without drawing attention to themselves. So when a movie night arrives, Hiccup looks forward to having them.

Ah, dork. it's the only thing Astrid can think as she relents.

"Fine, movie night." She sighs, knowing he'll be out like a light in less than half an hour.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Knowing that vampires exist means knowing that there are vampire communities everywhere and that means knowing that the occasional dirty look he gets is from a vampire who knows he shouldn't even be alive. And since Berk has grown from a small fishing town to a slightly bigger fishing town, that means he knows they are here, too.

And seeing him, well, that just makes some of them so angry.

Because there is a reason why every living human still believes they are made up stories and that's simply because humans don't tend to live for very long after they find out. So why should he be any different?

At the very least, he can take comfort in the fact that he may very well be the record holder for "longest-lived human who knows vampires exist". Not the catchiest title, but a title nonetheless.

It's late one night when he's closing up Gobber's blacksmithing and mechanics shop that he feels like he's being watched. Though always on his guard, he doesn't have any reason to think that there's actually something there. All he has to go on is the tingling feeling of eyes watching his back and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He rolls the garage door down and takes a look behind him, seeing nothing but a streetlight and an empty field as Gobber's is quite isolated. Right next door, there is a gas station, probably the only one in the entire town, but that isn't too comforting.

Seeing nothing behind him, Hiccup decides to take a chance and crouches down to lock the place up with a heavy padlock before heading home for the night.

But then he stands back up and there is a man now standing there, under the light of the nearest streetlight and Hiccup jumps at the sudden appearance. He hadn't heard any footsteps at all.

It's a man, someone he only vaguely recognizes as being from around here. And a vampire, too. The unnatural silence in his sneak gives him away.

"So you're him?" The man asks, no greeting or anything. Never in his entire life, has Hiccup ever heard so much contempt be spoken in three simple words.

Two more people appear and Hiccup only vaguely recognizes them as also being from around here. They definitely dress the part of local vampire. So does Astrid, so maybe that's a vampire thing.

"Hi-him?" He asks, stuttering. He knows that there is no use hiding his growing apprehension from them, they can tell either way.

"Astrid's blood bag."

Hiccup stares at the three, unable to form any sort of meaningful reply. The insult, while on the more unusual side, is not appreciated. It makes him feel like a piece of meat and not as eye candy, but as one meant to be eaten.

Not taking his eyes off them, Hiccup attempts to back away, but hits the garage door and it rattles behind him. They've got him cornered.

"Are you scared?" The one left of him asks as the three stalk closer, nonchalantly approaching as if they aren't planning on ripping his throat out. That or sucking him dry of everything he has.

"When three complete strangers paler than my bleak life expectancy corner me in the wee hours of the night? Not at all!" Hiccup replies, inching towards the shop's door, which he hadn't locked yet.

"Oh look, this one's got jokes, fun." The woman on the right remarks.

"Ah well, what's the point of facing death if you're not going to have at least a little bit of fun? You know, before life flashes before my eyes and I take my very, very last breath." He reaches the door as he talks, planning on diving inside, locking it behind him, and hoping that'll buy him enough time to grab something to defend himself with.

It's not like he's completely unprepared, he's known since Astrid told him what she was that this day, or night, would come.

"Last breath, yes. But it'll take a while." The middle vampire says and as he licks his front teeth and his fangs appear, appear on all of them, Hiccup takes this as his cue that things are about to go down.

As all three of them hiss at him, Hiccup throws the door behind him open, hurrying it closed behind him and locking it. Safe for now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Hiccup is late that night, Astrid worries. It's not like he hasn't been late before, but knowing the taboo nature of their relationship and those who are against it, she can't help but worry.

She decides to check out Gobber's workshop first, knowing that was where he was supposed to work this afternoon and evening. Sometimes Hiccup can lose himself in a project or job and he needs someone to tear him away from it, she hopes that is what is going on here.

But then she arrives and sees the door to the shop broken open. And if her heart were still beating, it would've stopped.

"Hiccup," She mutters, panic setting in, and she rushes inside. Whether this is a simple burglary or her worst fear come true, she doesn't need to think of her safety. What worries her the most is Hiccup's.

Her worst fear is that vampires are here, that one or more have come to do what Astrid has been refusing to do; finish him off.

She enters the workshop and finds chaos as glass cracks beneath her feet. Not quite like someone ransacked the place in search of valuables, but still messier than she's used to.

"Hiccup?!" Usually, she wouldn't just call out like that, but she can't hear anything and can only conclude that, whatever danger has been here, has already gone.

Hiccup doesn't respond.

So he managed to get away? He's had to, right? Otherwise, this place wouldn't be so quiet and it would be crawling with live vampires.

Is it silly to hope that's what happened? That Hiccup got away and is on his way home now?

But then something catches the corner of her eyes and she looks over, spotting a pair of legs lying on the concrete floor.

The shoes and jeans, they don't look like anything her boyfriend would wear and so she knows that it can't possibly be him, but that only comforts her for so much.

She comes over, caring little for what she thinks can only have been someone with ill-intention, but still needing to take a look as the body may be able to tell her something.

And tell her something it does.

What's lying dead before her in the doorway leading to a small storage area is a male vampire, she can see the fangs and she can see the wooden stake. Though seeing one of the few things that can kill her stuck in another of her kind's chest can still send chills down her spine, what makes her feel cold the most is that only one person could've put that there.

After she told him what she was and that their relationship means others like her might come to kill him, she'd told him to keep a stake, garlic, any and all vampire repellants somewhere closeby. So when she isn't around, he can still protect himself.

He thought it was ridiculous at first, why would anyone be coming for someone as harmless as him? But it turns out he has listened to her concerns.

And clearly, it worked, clearly, he managed to take at least one down by his own hand before he was... So where did he go?

The sound of shuffling and something metal falling to the floor reaches her ear.

"As-Ast-trid?" A wheezy voice reaches her and only because her hearing is exceptional. It's so quiet.

She looks over, gaze traveling deeper into the storage area, and she finds someone lying in a pool of his own blood.

"Hiccup!" She shouts and hurries over, jumping over the dead body to reach him.

He's lying on the ground in a corner, curled up after having slid down from the shelves he was leaning against. She can tell from the red smeared on them.

She kneels by him, helping him when he makes a move to sit up.

"There-there were... There were vampires, three of them. I-"

"Shhh, we'll talk about this later, we need to get you to the hospital." As she's helping him up, getting him to lean onto her and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, she looks at the blood quickly covering her and her clothes.

This time it doesn't make her heart flutter in want and the urge to lick it up and savor every drop of his essence isn't there. Though she's a vampire, all of this blood isn't doing anything for her. As much as she likes the taste of him, this only disturbs her.

There's so much of it.

"Where are you hurt?" She asks, knowing they need to put pressure on the bleeding if they want him to survive. She searches and finds his hand clutching a completely soaked cloth to the side of his throat, exactly where she had bitten him last days earlier.

"Oh no," She gasps and doesn't dare remove his hand to take a peek.

He's not going to make it, she won't get him to a hospital in time. He's already on the verge of bleeding out.

Looking at his face, she can see him slowly blinking, struggling to stay awake.

She's going to lose him. If she doesn't do anything now, he's going to die.

"Hiccup, Babe, I need to hear you say it!" She tells him, reminding him that she can't do anything unless he invites her, too. She has bound herself to this vow after she was turned, she can never break it.

Hiccup gazes up at her, eyes glazing over as he's losing focus.

"Hiccup, you have to give me your consent!" She tells him again.

Slowly, despite his struggles to stay awake, he's going limp in her arms and Astrid watches on in horror, his weight becoming heavier, head resting on her shoulder.

She's losing him.

She's losing him!

But then finally, with his dying breath.

"You're-you're always... You're always w-welcome t... to me." He's giving her his consent. He's agreeing to stepping into this new unknown with her and that is all she needs.

His hand fruitlessly stopping the bleeding falls and his neck is exposed, the horrible wound there is revealed. Astrid leans forward and sinks her teeth into his neck, creating the last bitemark that will ever mark his body. This time not to drink, but to give him a little part of herself that will return him that twinkle in his eyes.

There is no reaction, he doesn't startle like he usually would. There is nothing left inside of him, nothing but the slowly dying embers of his life.

Though the living dead, there are still plenty of tears for her to shed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Days later, they're back in their apartment.

That evening, Astrid managed to bring Hiccup back home and put him to bed after cleaning him, dressing him, and treating his injuries. Not the easiest things to do with a dead weight. She also succeeded in getting back to Gobber's shop and removing the dried blood after hours of intense scrubbing.

But now at home, she's sitting by him, watching him almost every hour of the night. The dark curtains have been closed to keep out as much of the sun as she can.

She has bitten him and this time not just to feed. But turning is a process and it always takes a while. It had taken her an entire week. He hasn't grown stiff yet and that means something has interrupted the decaying process. A good thing, it means that she now has to wait until he wakes up again.

Astrid strokes his pale face with the back of her fingers, caressing his cold skin and feeling guilty for being unable to protect him. They took every measurement they could take and Astrid couldn't stay with him 24/7, but though she knows this, she still feels responsible.

She dressed him in his nightwear as if he's just asleep and his throat is bandaged. She doesn't know how that wound will heal after he's turned.

His wrists, they're tied to the bed as you can never know how a newly turned vampire is going to react. He could be completely fine or he could be mad with hunger. Astrid vaguely remembers having lost control when she first woke up.

Then his eyes open and the moment of truth has finally arrived after five days of waiting. Astrid stands up from her chair to settle on the edge of the bed, leaning over him with a hand on the mattress.

"Astrid?" Though confused at first, his eyes find hers and he says her name.

Astrid is relieved and smiles. For a moment in that shop, she feared she would never get to hear him say her name ever again and she's been dying to hear it since.

"Hey there, how're you feeling." She asks and brushes his hair out of the way.

"I don't know... Weird? I thought I was going to die, but then again, I'm not really alive anymore either, am I?" He asks and Astrid doesn't miss the sad tone in his voice.

They both wanted him to live, but this didn't need to happen. He's going to grieve the loss of his own life. Astrid has been through the exact same thing, there's always a grieving process.

Pulling on his wrists, Hiccup finds them tied and he gives Astrid a look, who responds to with a smile before she unties them. So far Hiccup seems to be in control of himself, it's safe to release him.

"I'm sorry for tying you up. You can never tell how a new vampire is going to react when they wake up." She explains and Hiccup sits up, rubbing his wrists.

He thinks for a moment, hands stilling and ending up on his lap. He feels weird and is suddenly very aware of the lack of beating that's going on inside his chest. He's not breathing either, something he also just realized. He's talking without the need for air. Is there anything about vampires that makes scientifically sense?

"This is going to take some time to get used to, huh?" He asks, confused about his feelings concerning this sudden new life of his. Astrid quietly nods, knowing it will.

They've never talked about turning him before. Though they've had plenty of talks about vampires in general, they never talked about whether he would ever end up being turned or if he would get to grow old as a mortal human. He hasn't even given the matter any thought, so he doesn't know how to feel about this.

He does know something, though. He's grateful to Astrid for saving him.

He takes her hand and holds it in his lap, Astrid squeezes it.

"Thank you for saving me. No matter what happens from now on, I'll always be thankful. I wouldn't be here anymore if it weren't for you." He shares his gratitude with her, gazing at her with all the love his unbeating heart has for her.

They kiss and this time Hiccup's lips are just as cold as hers. She'll miss his warmth, but she also finds that she doesn't mind. He's still with her and that's all that matters.

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literaphobe · 4 years

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How do you feel when you get a critical comment on a fic?

idk if ur asking this because you want to know how to deal with critical comments, or if you’re asking for permission to leave a critical comment on my fic, or if it’s some other reason, but here’s the general consensus i have: don’t leave critical or negative comments or even ‘constructive criticism’ on a fic unless the author asks for it

which means to say, i don’t fucking like it lmao. if i don’t know you, i’m not interested in your hot takes on something i poured my heart and soul in. if you don’t like it, leave. unless i did something super horrible or damaging, i don’t want to hear about it. say something nice or don’t say anything u know! i’m not getting paid for this, pretty much all fic writers aren’t getting paid for this, and sometimes what you think is good/bad in writing is actually very subjective. not all fic writers are doing this to like. ~train~ for some eventual writing job. so don’t give unwarranted criticism even if you think you might have good intentions!

#ask #i have not received any criticism on my she ra fics or even most of my fic so don’t worry #but as someone who wrote some kinda cult fic when i was 17 #that got actual HATE on a fucking daily basis #as someone who had to go on twitter and see people tweet hate #and talk shit about my fic in public forums #only to defend themselves by saying that if i dared to put writing online #receiving hate/criticism is allowed/a given #anyway. unless ur my friend. just like. Don’t ❤️#just realized this ask might sound a bit hostile #which i intend it to be!#but anon if you’re reading this its not directed to u at all ok ✨✨✨✨#thanks for the question ❤️

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Friday, August 6, 2021

US plans to require COVID-19 shots for foreign travelers (AP) The Biden administration is taking the first steps toward requiring nearly all foreign visitors to the U.S. to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official said. The requirement would come as part of the administration’s phased approach to easing travel restrictions for foreign citizens to the country. No timeline has yet been determined, as interagency working groups study how and when to safely move toward resuming normal travel. Eventually all foreign citizens entering the country, with some limited exceptions, are expected to need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the U.S.

Big tech companies are at war with employees over remote work (Ars Technica) All across the United States, the leaders at large tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook are engaged in a delicate dance with thousands of employees who have recently become convinced that physically commuting to an office every day is an empty and unacceptable demand from their employers. The COVID-19 pandemic forced these companies to operate with mostly remote workforces for months straight. And since many of them are based in areas with relatively high vaccination rates, the calls to return to the physical office began to sound over the summer. But thousands of high-paid workers at these companies aren’t having it. Many of them don’t want to go back to the office full time, even if they’re willing to do so a few days a week. Workers are even pointing to how effective they were when fully remote and using that to question why they have to keep living in the expensive cities where these offices are located. Some tech leaders (like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey) agreed, or at least they saw the writing on the wall. They enacted permanent or semipermanent changes to their companies’ policies to make partial or even full-time remote work the norm. Others (like Apple’s Tim Cook) are working hard to find a way to get everyone back in their assigned seats as soon as is practical, despite organized resistance. In either case, the work cultures at tech companies that make everything from the iPhone to Google search are facing a major wave of transformation.

At least 10 dead as van carrying migrants crashes in Texas (AP) An overloaded van carrying 29 migrants crashed Wednesday on a remote South Texas highway, killing at least 10 people, including the driver, and injuring 20 others, authorities said. The crash happened shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday on U.S. 281 in Encino, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of McAllen. A surge in migrants crossing the border illegally has brought about an uptick in the number of crashes involving vehicles jammed with migrants who pay large amounts to be smuggled into the country. The Dallas Morning News has reported that the recruitment of young drivers for the smuggling runs, combined with excessive speed and reckless driving by those youths, have led to horrific crashes.

Turkish wildfires are worst ever, Erdogan says, as power plant breached (Reuters) Turkey is battling the worst wildfires in its history, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, as fires spread to a power station in the country’s southwest after reducing swathes of coastal forest to ashes. Fanned by high temperatures and a strong, dry wind, the fires have forced thousands of Turks and foreign tourists to flee homes and hotels near the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. Eight people have died in the blazes since last week. Planes and dozens of helicopters have joined scores of emergency crews on the ground to battle the fires, but Erdogan’s government has faced criticism over the scale and speed of the response. In the last two weeks, fires in Turkey have burnt more than three times the area affected in an average year, a European fire agency said. Neighbouring countries have also battled blazes fanned by heatwaves and strong winds.

Sri Lanka’s financial problems (Foreign Policy) Sri Lanka is threatening to become South Asia’s economic weak link. It’s mired in a severe debt crisis, and its budget deficit exceeded 11 percent of GDP during the last fiscal year, which ended in March. The country’s foreign reserves can only pay for three months of imports, prompting Colombo to cut back on many foreign imports, including turmeric, a staple product. Fitch Ratings has warned default is a real possibility. Sri Lanka’s woes stem in great part from a floundering tourism sector. Tourism typically accounts for at least 5 percent of GDP, and some estimates even put the figure at 12.5 percent. The sector’s troubles began before the coronavirus pandemic, when suicide bombers killed at least 290 people in churches and hotels in April 2019, keeping visitors away. But the pandemic still dealt a giant blow. A 2021 assessment found tourist arrivals between January and April fell nearly 100 percent from the same period in 2020.

Australia to spend $813M to address Indigenous disadvantage (AP) Australia’s government on Thursday pledged 1.1 billion Australian dollars ($813 million) to address Indigenous disadvantage, including compensation to thousands of mixed-race children who were taken from their families over decades. The AU$378.6 million ($279.7 million) to be used to compensate the so-called Stolen Generations by 2026 is the most expensive component of the package aimed at boosting Indigenous living standards in Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the compensation was a recognition of the harm caused by forced removal of children from families.

Israel launches airstrikes on Lebanon in response to rockets (AP) Israel on Thursday escalated its response to rocket attacks this week by launching rare airstrikes on Lebanon, the army said. The army said in a statement that jets struck the launch sites from which rockets had been fired over the previous day, as well as an additional target used to attack Israel in the past. The IDF blamed the state of Lebanon for the shelling and warned “against further attempts to harm Israeli civilians and Israel’s sovereignty.” The overnight airstrikes were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time. Israel’s new eight-party governing coalition is trying to keep peace under a fragile cease fire that ended an 11-day war with Hamas’ militant rulers in Gaza in May.

‘Winning a medal doesn’t make him Jewish’ (Washington Post) When gymnast Artem Dolgopyat stepped off the podium as only the second Israeli to win an Olympic gold medal, he triggered one of Israel’s many cultural tripwires: It quickly emerged that the country’s newest sports hero is banned from marrying his fiancee here because he is not considered Jewish enough by the rabbis who control Israel’s marriage law. Immediately after Dolgopyat took top honors in the men’s floor exercise, his mother took the chance to complain that Israeli religious law is keeping her engaged 24-year-old son from tying the knot because only his father’s side of the family is Jewish. Marriage law is tightly controlled by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. And for generations, couples who are of mixed religions—or who are atheists, gay or inadequately Jewish—have been forced to marry outside the country. Dolgopyat’s training schedule has made that impossible, said his mother, Angela Bilan. “I want grandchildren,” Bilan said Sunday in an interview with Israeli radio.

Talking to strangers (Atlantic) A hefty body of research has found that an overwhelmingly strong predictor of happiness and well-being is the quality of a person’s social relationships. But most of those studies have looked at only close ties: family, friends, co-workers. In the past decade and a half, professors have begun to wonder if interacting with strangers could be good for us too: not as a replacement for close relationships, but as a complement to them. The results of that research have been striking. Again and again, studies have shown that talking with strangers can make us happier, more connected to our communities, mentally sharper, healthier, less lonely, and more trustful and optimistic.

But tanks make such handy snowplows... (BBC) A German retiree was fined nearly $300,000 by local authorities on Tuesday following the discovery of a World War-II era tank in his basement along with other items of the period, including a flak cannon and multiple machine guns. The Panther tank was removed from the man’s property in 2015, a job that took 20 soldiers almost nine hours to complete. The unnamed 84-year-old might have been able to hold on to his tank and the rest of his collection—which must now be donated to a museum within two years, according to Tuesday’s ruling—had he kept it a better secret. “He was chugging around in that thing during the snow catastrophe in 1978,” Heikendorf Mayor Alexander Orth told reporters.

#headlines #news

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xtruss · 3 years

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The Invention of the Police

Why did American policing get so big, so fast? The answer, mainly, is slavery.

— By Jill Lepore, A Critic at Large

— July 13, 2020 | July 20, 2020 Issue | The New Yorker

The Chinatown Squad, a notoriously harsh police unit in San Francisco, in 1905. Photograph courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

To police is to maintain law and order, but the word derives from polis—the Greek for “city,” or “polity”—by way of politia, the Latin for “citizenship,” and it entered English from the Middle French police, which meant not constables but government. “The police,” as a civil force charged with deterring crime, came to the United States from England and is generally associated with monarchy—“keeping the king’s peace”—which makes it surprising that, in the antimonarchical United States, it got so big, so fast. The reason is, mainly, slavery.

“Abolish the police,” as a rallying cry, dates to 1988 (the year that N.W.A. recorded “Fuck tha Police”), but, long before anyone called for its abolition, someone had to invent the police: the ancient Greek polis had to become the modern police. “To be political, to live in a polis, meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through force and violence,” Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Human Condition.” In the polis, men argued and debated, as equals, under a rule of law. Outside the polis, in households, men dominated women, children, servants, and slaves, under a rule of force. This division of government sailed down the river of time like a raft, getting battered, but also bigger, collecting sticks and mud. Kings asserted a rule of force over their subjects on the idea that their kingdom was their household. In 1769, William Blackstone, in his “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” argued that the king, as “pater-familias of the nation,” directs “the public police,” exercising the means by which “the individuals of the state, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behavior to the rules of propriety, good neighbourhood, and good manners; and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations.” The police are the king’s men.

History begins with etymology, but it doesn��t end there. The polis is not the police. The American Revolution toppled the power of the king over his people—in America, “the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote—but not the power of a man over his family. The power of the police has its origins in that kind of power. Under the rule of law, people are equals; under the rule of police, as the legal theorist Markus Dubber has written, we are not. We are more like the women, children, servants, and slaves in a household in ancient Greece, the people who were not allowed to be a part of the polis. But for centuries, through struggles for independence, emancipation, enfranchisement, and equal rights, we’ve been fighting to enter the polis. One way to think about “Abolish the police,” then, is as an argument that, now that all of us have finally clawed our way into the polis, the police are obsolete.

But are they? The crisis in policing is the culmination of a thousand other failures—failures of education, social services, public health, gun regulation, criminal justice, and economic development. Police have a lot in common with firefighters, E.M.T.s, and paramedics: they’re there to help, often at great sacrifice, and by placing themselves in harm’s way. To say that this doesn’t always work out, however, does not begin to cover the size of the problem. The killing of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, cannot be wished away as an outlier. In each of the past five years, police in the United States have killed roughly a thousand people. (During each of those same years, about a hundred police officers were killed in the line of duty.) One study suggests that, among American men between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four, the number who were treated in emergency rooms as a result of injuries inflicted by police and security guards was almost as great as the number who, as pedestrians, were injured by motor vehicles. Urban police forces are nearly always whiter than the communities they patrol. The victims of police brutality are disproportionately Black teen-age boys: children. To say that many good and admirable people are police officers, dedicated and brave public servants, which is, of course, true, is to fail to address both the nature and the scale of the crisis and the legacy of centuries of racial injustice. The best people, with the best of intentions, doing their utmost, cannot fix this system from within.

There are nearly seven hundred thousand police officers in the United States, about two for every thousand people, a rate that is lower than the European average. The difference is guns. Police in Finland fired six bullets in all of 2013; in an encounter on a single day in the year 2015, in Pasco, Washington, three policemen fired seventeen bullets when they shot and killed an unarmed thirty-five-year-old orchard worker from Mexico. Five years ago, when the Guardian counted police killings, it reported that, “in the first 24 days of 2015, police in the US fatally shot more people than police did in England and Wales, combined, over the past 24 years.” American police are armed to the teeth, with more than seven billion dollars’ worth of surplus military equipment off-loaded by the Pentagon to eight thousand law-enforcement agencies since 1997. At the same time, they face the most heavily armed civilian population in the world: one in three Americans owns a gun, typically more than one. Gun violence undermines civilian life and debases everyone. A study found that, given the ravages of stress, white male police officers in Buffalo have a life expectancy twenty-two years shorter than that of the average American male. The debate about policing also has to do with all the money that’s spent paying heavily armed agents of the state to do things that they aren’t trained to do and that other institutions would do better. History haunts this debate like a bullet-riddled ghost.

That history begins in England, in the thirteenth century, when maintaining the king’s peace became the duty of an officer of the court called a constable, aided by his watchmen: every male adult could be called on to take a turn walking a ward at night and, if trouble came, to raise a hue and cry. This practice lasted for centuries. (A version endures: George Zimmerman, when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, in 2012, was serving on his neighborhood watch.) The watch didn’t work especially well in England—“The average constable is an ignoramus who knows little or nothing of the law,” Blackstone wrote—and it didn’t work especially well in England’s colonies. Rich men paid poor men to take their turns on the watch, which meant that most watchmen were either very elderly or very poor, and very exhausted from working all day. Boston established a watch in 1631. New York tried paying watchmen in 1658. In Philadelphia, in 1705, the governor expressed the view that the militia could make the city safer than the watch, but militias weren’t supposed to police the king’s subjects; they were supposed to serve the common defense—waging wars against the French, fighting Native peoples who were trying to hold on to their lands, or suppressing slave rebellions.

The government of slavery was not a rule of law. It was a rule of police. In 1661, the English colony of Barbados passed its first slave law; revised in 1688, it decreed that “Negroes and other Slaves” were “wholly unqualified to be governed by the Laws . . . of our Nations,” and devised, instead, a special set of rules “for the good Regulating and Ordering of them.” Virginia adopted similar measures, known as slave codes, in 1680:

It shall not be lawfull for any negroe or other slave to carry or arme himselfe with any club, staffe, gunn, sword or any other weapon of defence or offence, nor to goe or depart from of his masters ground without a certificate from his master, mistris or overseer, and such permission not to be granted but upon perticuler and necessary occasions; and every negroe or slave soe offending not haveing a certificate as aforesaid shalbe sent to the next constable, who is hereby enjoyned and required to give the said negroe twenty lashes on his bare back well layd on, and soe sent home to his said master, mistris or overseer . . . that if any negroe or other slave shall absent himself from his masters service and lye hid and lurking in obscure places, comitting injuries to the inhabitants, and shall resist any person or persons that shalby any lawfull authority be imployed to apprehend and take the said negroe, that then in case of such resistance, it shalbe lawfull for such person or persons to kill the said negroe or slave soe lying out and resisting.

In eighteenth-century New York, a person held as a slave could not gather in a group of more than three; could not ride a horse; could not hold a funeral at night; could not be out an hour after sunset without a lantern; and could not sell “Indian corn, peaches, or any other fruit” in any street or market in the city. Stop and frisk, stop and whip, shoot to kill.

Then there were the slave patrols. Armed Spanish bands called hermandades had hunted runaways in Cuba beginning in the fifteen-thirties, a practice that was adopted by the English in Barbados a century later. It had a lot in common with England’s posse comitatus, a band of stout men that a county sheriff could summon to chase down an escaped criminal. South Carolina, founded by slaveowners from Barbados, authorized its first slave patrol in 1702; Virginia followed in 1726, North Carolina in 1753. Slave patrols married the watch to the militia: serving on patrol was required of all able-bodied men (often, the patrol was mustered from the militia), and patrollers used the hue and cry to call for anyone within hearing distance to join the chase. Neither the watch nor the militia nor the patrols were “police,” who were French, and considered despotic. In North America, the French city of New Orleans was distinctive in having la police: armed City Guards, who wore military-style uniforms and received wages, an urban slave patrol.

In 1779, Thomas Jefferson created a chair in “law and police” at the College of William & Mary. The meaning of the word began to change. In 1789, Jeremy Bentham, noting that “police” had recently entered the English language, in something like its modern sense, made this distinction: police keep the peace; justice punishes disorder. (“No justice, no peace!” Black Lives Matter protesters cry in the streets.) Then, in 1797, a London magistrate named Patrick Colquhoun published “A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis.” He, too, distinguished peace kept in the streets from justice administered by the courts: police were responsible for the regulation and correction of behavior and “the prevention and detection of crimes.”

It is often said that Britain created the police, and the United States copied it. One could argue that the reverse is true. Colquhoun spent his teens and early twenties in Colonial Virginia, had served as an agent for British cotton manufacturers, and owned shares in sugar plantations in Jamaica. He knew all about slave codes and slave patrols. But nothing came of Colquhoun’s ideas about policing until 1829, when Home Secretary Robert Peel—in the wake of a great deal of labor unrest, and after years of suppressing Catholic rebellions in Ireland, in his capacity as Irish Secretary—persuaded Parliament to establish the Metropolitan Police, a force of some three thousand men, headed by two civilian justices (later called “commissioners”), and organized like an army, with each superintendent overseeing four inspectors, sixteen sergeants, and a hundred and sixty-five constables, who wore coats and pants of blue with black top hats, each assigned a numbered badge and a baton. Londoners came to call these men “bobbies,” for Bobby Peel.

It is also often said that modern American urban policing began in 1838, when the Massachusetts legislature authorized the hiring of police officers in Boston. This, too, ignores the role of slavery in the history of the police. In 1829, a Black abolitionist in Boston named David Walker published “An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,” calling for violent rebellion: “One good black man can put to death six white men.” Walker was found dead within the year, and Boston thereafter had a series of mob attacks against abolitionists, including an attempt to lynch William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of The Liberator, in 1835. Walker’s words terrified Southern slaveowners. The governor of North Carolina wrote to his state’s senators, “I beg you will lay this matter before the police of your town and invite their prompt attention to the necessity of arresting the circulation of the book.” By “police,” he meant slave patrols: in response to Walker’s “Appeal,” North Carolina formed a statewide “patrol committee.”

New York established a police department in 1844; New Orleans and Cincinnati followed in 1852, then, later in the eighteen-fifties, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Baltimore. Population growth, the widening inequality brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and the rise in such crimes as prostitution and burglary all contributed to the emergence of urban policing. So did immigration, especially from Ireland and Germany, and the hostility to immigration: a new party, the Know-Nothings, sought to prevent immigrants from voting, holding office, and becoming citizens. In 1854, Boston disbanded its ancient watch and formally established a police department; that year, Know-Nothings swept the city’s elections.

American police differed from their English counterparts: in the U.S., police commissioners, as political appointees, fell under local control, with limited supervision; and law enforcement was decentralized, resulting in a jurisdictional thicket. In 1857, in the Great Police Riot, the New York Municipal Police, run by the mayor’s office, fought on the steps of city hall with the New York Metropolitan Police, run by the state. The Metropolitans were known as the New York Mets. That year, an amateur baseball team of the same name was founded.

Also, unlike their British counterparts, American police carried guns, initially their own. In the eighteen-sixties, the Colt Firearms Company began manufacturing a compact revolver called a Pocket Police Model, long before the New York Metropolitan Police began issuing service weapons. American police carried guns because Americans carried guns, including Americans who lived in parts of the country where they hunted for food and defended their livestock from wild animals, Americans who lived in parts of the country that had no police, and Americans who lived in parts of North America that were not in the United States. Outside big cities, law-enforcement officers were scarce. In territories that weren’t yet states, there were U.S. marshals and their deputies, officers of the federal courts who could act as de-facto police, but only to enforce federal laws. If a territory became a state, its counties would elect sheriffs. Meanwhile, Americans became vigilantes, especially likely to kill indigenous peoples, and to lynch people of color. Between 1840 and the nineteen-twenties, mobs, vigilantes, and law officers, including the Texas Rangers, lynched some five hundred Mexicans and Mexican-Americans and killed thousands more, not only in Texas but also in territories that became the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. A San Francisco vigilance committee established in 1851 arrested, tried, and hanged people; it boasted a membership in the thousands. An L.A. vigilance committee targeted and lynched Chinese immigrants.

The U.S. Army operated as a police force, too. After the Civil War, the militia was organized into seven new departments of permanent standing armies: the Department of Dakota, the Department of the Platte, the Department of the Missouri, the Department of Texas, the Department of Arizona, the Department of California, and the Department of the Columbian. In the eighteen-seventies and eighties, the U.S. Army engaged in more than a thousand combat operations against Native peoples. In 1890, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, following an attempt to disarm a Lakota settlement, a regiment of cavalrymen massacred hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children. Nearly a century later, in 1973, F.B.I. agents, swat teams, and federal troops and state marshals laid siege to Wounded Knee during a protest over police brutality and the failure to properly punish the torture and murder of an Oglala Sioux man named Raymond Yellow Thunder. They fired more than half a million rounds of ammunition and arrested more than a thousand people. Today, according to the C.D.C., Native Americans are more likely to be killed by the police than any other racial or ethnic group.

Modern American policing began in 1909, when August Vollmer became the chief of the police department in Berkeley, California. Vollmer refashioned American police into an American military. He’d served with the Eighth Army Corps in the Philippines in 1898. “For years, ever since Spanish-American War days, I’ve studied military tactics and used them to good effect in rounding up crooks,” he later explained. “After all we’re conducting a war, a war against the enemies of society.” Who were those enemies? Mobsters, bootleggers, socialist agitators, strikers, union organizers, immigrants, and Black people.

To domestic policing, Vollmer and his peers adapted the kinds of tactics and weapons that had been deployed against Native Americans in the West and against colonized peoples in other parts of the world, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, as the sociologist Julian Go has demonstrated. Vollmer instituted a training model imitated all over the country, by police departments that were often led and staffed by other veterans of the United States wars of conquest and occupation. A “police captain or lieutenant should occupy exactly the same position in the public mind as that of a captain or lieutenant in the United States army,” Detroit’s commissioner of police said. (Today’s police officers are disproportionately veterans of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many suffering from post-traumatic stress. The Marshall Project, analyzing data from the Albuquerque police, found that officers who are veterans are more likely than their non-veteran counterparts to be involved in fatal shootings. In general, they are more likely to use force, and more likely to fire their guns.)

Vollmer-era police enforced a new kind of slave code: Jim Crow laws, which had been passed in the South beginning in the late eighteen-seventies and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1896. William G. Austin became Savannah’s chief of police in 1907. Earlier, he had earned a Medal of Honor for his service in the U.S. Cavalry at Wounded Knee; he had also fought in the Spanish-American War. By 1916, African-American churches in the city were complaining to Savannah newspapers about the “whole scale arrests of negroes because they are negroes—arrests that would not be made if they were white under similar circumstances.” African-Americans also confronted Jim Crow policing in the Northern cities to which they increasingly fled. James Robinson, Philadelphia’s chief of police beginning in 1912, had served in the Infantry during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War. He based his force’s training on manuals used by the U.S. Army at Leavenworth. Go reports that, in 1911, about eleven per cent of people arrested were African-American; under Robinson, that number rose to 14.6 per cent in 1917. By the nineteen-twenties, a quarter of those arrested were African-Americans, who, at the time, represented just 7.4 per cent of the population.

Progressive Era, Vollmer-style policing criminalized Blackness, as the historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad argued in his 2010 book, “The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.” Police patrolled Black neighborhoods and arrested Black people disproportionately; prosecutors indicted Black people disproportionately; juries found Black people guilty disproportionately; judges gave Black people disproportionately long sentences; and, then, after all this, social scientists, observing the number of Black people in jail, decided that, as a matter of biology, Black people were disproportionately inclined to criminality.

More recently, between the New Jim Crow and the criminalization of immigration and the imprisonment of immigrants in detention centers, this reality has only grown worse. “By population, by per capita incarceration rates, and by expenditures, the United States exceeds all other nations in how many of its citizens, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants are under some form of criminal justice supervision,” Muhammad writes in a new preface to his book. “The number of African American and Latinx people in American jails and prisons today exceeds the entire populations of some African, Eastern European, and Caribbean countries.”

Policing grew harsher in the Progressive Era, and, with the emergence of state-police forces, the number of police grew, too. With the rise of the automobile, some, like California’s, began as “highway patrols.” Others, including the state police in Nevada, Colorado, and Oregon, began as the private paramilitaries of industrialists which employed the newest American immigrants: Hungarians, Italians, and Jews. Industrialists in Pennsylvania established the Iron and Coal Police to end strikes and bust unions, including the United Mine Workers; in 1905, three years after an anthracite-coal strike, the Pennsylvania State Police started operations. “One State Policeman should be able to handle one hundred foreigners,” its new chief said.

The U.S. Border Patrol began in 1924, the year that Congress restricted immigration from southern Europe. At the insistence of Southern and Western agriculturalists, Congress exempted Mexicans from its new immigration quotas in order to allow migrant workers to enter the United States. The Border Patrol began as a relatively small outfit responsible for enforcing federal immigration law, and stopping smugglers, at all of the nation’s borders. In the middle decades of the twentieth century, it grew to a national quasi-military focussed on policing the southern border in campaigns of mass arrest and forced deportation of Mexican immigrants, aided by local police like the notoriously brutal L.A.P.D., as the historian Kelly Lytle Hernández has chronicled. What became the Chicano movement began in Southern California, with Mexican immigrants’ protests of the L.A.P.D. during the first half of the twentieth century, even as a growing film industry cranked out features about Klansmen hunting Black people, cowboys killing Indians, and police chasing Mexicans. More recently, you can find an updated version of this story in L.A. Noire, a video game set in 1947 and played from the perspective of a well-armed L.A.P.D. officer, who, driving along Sunset Boulevard, passes the crumbling, abandoned sets from D. W. Griffith’s 1916 film “Intolerance,” imagined relics of an unforgiving age.

Two kinds of police appeared on mid-century American television. The good guys solved crime on prime-time police procedurals like “Dragnet,” starting in 1951, and “Adam-12,” beginning in 1968 (both featured the L.A.P.D.). The bad guys shocked America’s conscience on the nightly news: Arkansas state troopers barring Black students from entering Little Rock Central High School, in 1957; Birmingham police clubbing and arresting some seven hundred Black children protesting segregation, in 1963; and Alabama state troopers beating voting-rights marchers at Selma, in 1965. These two faces of policing help explain how, in the nineteen-sixties, the more people protested police brutality, the more money governments gave to police departments.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on crime,” and asked Congress to pass the Law Enforcement Assistance Act, under which the federal government would supply local police with military-grade weapons, weapons that were being used in the war in Vietnam. During riots in Watts that summer, law enforcement killed thirty-one people and arrested more than four thousand; fighting the protesters, the head of the L.A.P.D. said, was “very much like fighting the Viet Cong.” Preparing for a Senate vote just days after the uprising ended, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, “For some time, it has been my feeling that the task of law enforcement agencies is really not much different from military forces; namely, to deter crime before it occurs, just as our military objective is deterrence of aggression.”

As Elizabeth Hinton reported in “From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America,” the “frontline soldiers” in Johnson’s war on crime—Vollmer-era policing all over again—spent a disproportionate amount of time patrolling Black neighborhoods and arresting Black people. Policymakers concluded from those differential arrest rates that Black people were prone to criminality, with the result that police spent even more of their time patrolling Black neighborhoods, which led to a still higher arrest rate. “If we wish to rid this country of crime, if we wish to stop hacking at its branches only, we must cut its roots and drain its swampy breeding ground, the slum,” Johnson told an audience of police policymakers in 1966. The next year, riots broke out in Newark and Detroit. “We ain’t rioting agains’ all you whites,” one Newark man told a reporter not long before being shot dead by police. “We’re riotin’ agains’ police brutality.” In Detroit, police arrested more than seven thousand people.

Johnson’s Great Society essentially ended when he asked Congress to pass the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, which had the effect of diverting money from social programs to policing. This magazine called it “a piece of demagoguery devised out of malevolence and enacted in hysteria.” James Baldwin attributed its “irresponsible ferocity” to “some pale, compelling nightmare—an overwhelming collection of private nightmares.” The truth was darker, as the sociologist Stuart Schrader chronicled in his 2019 book, “Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing.” During the Cold War, the Office of Public Safety at the U.S.A.I.D. provided assistance to the police in at least fifty-two countries, and training to officers from nearly eighty, for the purpose of counter-insurgency—the suppression of an anticipated revolution, that collection of private nightmares; as the O.P.S. reported, it contributed “the international dimension to the Administration’s War on Crime.” Counter-insurgency boomeranged, and came back to the United States, as policing.

In 1968, Johnson’s new crime bill established the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, within the Department of Justice, which, in the next decade and a half, disbursed federal funds to more than eighty thousand crime-control projects. Even funds intended for social projects—youth employment, for instance, along with other health, education, housing, and welfare programs—were distributed to police operations. With Richard Nixon, any elements of the Great Society that had survived the disastrous end of Johnson’s Presidency were drastically cut, with an increased emphasis on policing, and prison-building. More Americans went to prison between 1965 and 1982 than between 1865 and 1964, Hinton reports. Under Ronald Reagan, still more social services were closed, or starved of funding until they died: mental hospitals, health centers, jobs programs, early-childhood education. By 2016, eighteen states were spending more on prisons than on colleges and universities. Activists who today call for defunding the police argue that, for decades, Americans have been defunding not only social services but, in many states, public education itself. The more frayed the social fabric, the more police have been deployed to trim the dangling threads.

The blueprint for law enforcement from Nixon to Reagan came from the Harvard political scientist James Q. Wilson between 1968, in his book “Varieties of Police Behavior,” and 1982, in an essay in The Atlantic titled “Broken Windows.” On the one hand, Wilson believed that the police should shift from enforcing the law to maintaining order, by patrolling on foot, and doing what came to be called “community policing.” (Some of his recommendations were ignored: Wilson called for other professionals to handle what he termed the “service functions” of the police—“first aid, rescuing cats, helping ladies, and the like”—which is a reform people are asking for today.) On the other hand, Wilson called for police to arrest people for petty crimes, on the theory that they contributed to more serious crimes. Wilson’s work informed programs like Detroit’s stress (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets), begun in 1971, in which Detroit police patrolled the city undercover, in disguises that included everything from a taxi-driver to a “radical college professor,” and killed so many young Black men that an organization of Black police officers demanded that the unit be disbanded. The campaign to end stress arguably marked the very beginnings of police abolitionism. stress defended its methods. “We just don’t walk up and shoot somebody,” one commander said. “We ask him to stop. If he doesn’t, we shoot.”

For decades, the war on crime was bipartisan, and had substantial support from the Congressional Black Caucus. “Crime is a national-defense problem,” Joe Biden said in the Senate, in 1982. “You’re in as much jeopardy in the streets as you are from a Soviet missile.” Biden and other Democrats in the Senate introduced legislation that resulted in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. A decade later, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden helped draft the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, whose provisions included mandatory sentencing. In May, 1991, two months after the Rodney King beating, Biden introduced the Police Officers’ Bill of Rights, which provided protections for police under investigation. The N.R.A. first endorsed a Presidential candidate, Reagan, in 1980; the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, first endorsed a Presidential candidate, George H. W. Bush, in 1988. In 1996, it endorsed Bill Clinton.

Partly because of Biden’s record of championing law enforcement, the National Association of Police Organizations endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008 and 2012. In 2014, after police in Ferguson, Missouri, shot Michael Brown, the Obama Administration established a task force on policing in the twenty-first century. Its report argued that police had become warriors when what they really should be is guardians. Most of its recommendations were never implemented.

In 2016, the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump, saying that “our members believe he will make America safe again.” Police unions are lining up behind Trump again this year. “We will never abolish our police or our great Second Amendment,” Trump said at Mt. Rushmore, on the occasion of the Fourth of July. “We will not be intimidated by bad, evil people.”

Trump is not the king; the law is king. The police are not the king’s men; they are public servants. And, no matter how desperately Trump would like to make it so, policing really isn’t a partisan issue. Out of the stillness of the shutdown, the voices of protest have roared like summer thunder. An overwhelming majority of Americans, of both parties, support major reforms in American policing. And a whole lot of police, defying their unions, also support those reforms.

Those changes won’t address plenty of bigger crises, not least because the problem of policing can’t be solved without addressing the problem of guns. But this much is clear: the polis has changed, and the police will have to change, too. ♦

An earlier version of this piece misrepresented the number of Americans between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four who were treated as a result of police-inflicted injuries in emergency rooms.

— Published in the print edition of the July 20, 2020, issue, with the headline “The Long Blue Line.”

— Jill Lepore, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is a professor of history at Harvard and the author of fourteen books, including “If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future.”

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terramythos · 4 years

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TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 20 of 26

Title: Wolf by Wolf (Wolf by Wolf #1) (2015)

Author: Ryan Graudin

Genre/Tags: Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Dystopian, Science Fiction (...ish?), Young Adult, Third Person, Female Protagonist, Duology

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 7/12/2020

Date Finished: 7/18/2020

In an alternate 1956, the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan won World War II. They host an annual motorcycle competition known as the Axis Tour, in which young people from both powers race across Europe and Asia. Yael, a death camp survivor with the ability to skinshift due to Nazi medical experiments, poses as Adele Wolfe, Germany’s only female competitor. Her goal? To win the race, get a private dance with Hitler, and assassinate him for the world to see.

But years of training and preparation are thrown off balance when Adele’s past relationships come back to haunt Yael in the form of her twin brother Felix Wolfe, and the presence of Luka Lowe, a fellow competitor and former victor, both of whom have complicated, unknown histories with Adele. Now Yael must keep up the charade while still assuring her victory in a difficult and deadly inter-continental race.

Who are you? (On the inside?)

The answer to this question was something Yael had to fight for. Her self-reflection was no reflection at all. It was a shattered mirror. Something she had to piece together, over and over again. Memory by memory. Loss by loss. Wolf by wolf.

Minor spoilers under the cut.

Wolf by Wolf was a surprise; I did not expect to like it nearly as much as I did. While it has a fascinating premise, it's certainly complicated enough to mess up. Alternate history, especially World War II, can be sketchy if not done well. Add in some science fiction elements, and I was skeptical. But while Wolf by Wolf isn't perfect, Graudin does pull it off rather well, and it was thoroughly enjoyable to read. She states in her author’s note that, with the troubling rise of alt-right movements in recent years, books that examine the true horrors and implications of Nazi ideology are important, and something like this could have very well been our world. I find myself agreeing, and I think she treats the subject with both the delicacy and brutal honesty it requires.

The novel’s inherent suspense is excellent. Wolf by Wolf has all the appeal of a spy novel with an extra layer that comes with the skinshifting aspect. All of Yael's interactions with the other leads (Felix and Luka) mean they genuinely think she's Adele, and it's interesting to see how Yael struggles to play the part. There's a lot of tense moments where she says or does something that Adele wouldn't, and she has to use her wits to get through it. I like the "becoming the mask" trope and it's in play here as Yael finds herself becoming attached to the other characters. The inherently fantastical element of skinshifting does protect her, as almost no one would guess it's why Adele is acting odd, so the fact she's able to keep up the ruse despite everything does make sense. That being said, I would have loved to see someone, especially one of the two male leads, figure it out. I spent the novel wondering how a scene like that would play out, and was disappointed it doesn't happen. There are certainly multiple teasing fake-outs. Presumably this will be A Thing in the next book, but it's still something I wish had paid off here rather than consigning it to the sequel. Semi-related, I found the ending twist and callback pretty interesting, and it has some fascinating implications for said sequel. I guess we'll see what Graudin does with all this material.

Probably the strongest aspect of the novel for me, personally, is how the book balances flashbacks. I think Graudin does a fantastic job (with some exceptions) doling out information, and gradually revealing Yael's backstory and pain points. Unsurprisingly, her past is heart-wrenching in a variety of ways. The part where her mother doesn't recognize her and the scene with Vlad and the numbers hit me especially hard. It's satisfying when the full implications of a symbol or line of dialogue aren't revealed until much later in the story. For example, the wolf tattoos are introduced early (literally the second chapter) but the emotional payoff is gradual, and I think that strengthens the impact. The pacing in general is really well done-- slow when it needs to be, and action-packed at other times. This is something I struggle with even in books I adore, so I’m really impressed with how this book handles it.

YA gets a bad (often undeserved) rap, and I adore the genre when it's done right. Unfortunately many YA novels fall into trends and tropes that just get annoying after a while, so I find I have to be selective. For the most part Wolf by Wolf avoids these. Yael is a distinct, interesting character who avoids typical YA protagonist cliches. Her tragic past is all the more poignant for being something real people faced (albeit with creative liberties), and her struggles with identity are extra compelling. That being said, I didn't find the romantic subplot with Luka very interesting. I think there's supposed to be some narrative tension where he seems to be a bad guy but has Hidden Depths etc etc... but it was so painfully obvious that I guessed his entire arc based on the first scene. I think there's some potential considering the Yael/Adele dichotomy, but again, it doesn't really pay off in Wolf by Wolf, which is a disappointment. The few romance scenes just take away from the more interesting base story. From what I can tell we get more of Luka’s backstory and perspective in Blood for Blood, so... fingers crossed that I can appreciate him more in retrospect? In general I found Yael’s interactions with Felix more interesting and genuine.

As for the writing itself, I'm torn. This novel makes heavy use of symbols, and consistently incorporates them into the prose. Usually, this is done to great effect, and there are plenty of excellent poetic and introspective passages. There's also stylistic elements such as heavy repetition and an occasionally-bolded INTERNAL MONOLOGUE. I also noted a lot of dramatic irony and narrative callbacks, which always hit with a punch. When these aspects are done well, it's great. But sometimes Graudin just doesn't seem to trust her readers. There are multiple incidents where the story REALLY wants you to know that X Symbol Means Y Thing and accomplishes this by... just telling you. There's also some clumsy expository dialogue that's jarring to read (very much "as you well know, this thing is true"). These may be in the minority, but are especially noticeable because the rest of the book is subtle about it. No idea why some parts are just like that, and this might be a nitpick, but it really bothers me. Young adults aren't stupid, and it's annoying when YA novels assume they need their hand held. As I said, it only happens a few times, and I am willing to look past it considering the other strengths of the novel.

Wolf by Wolf has its faults, but overall I had a great time reading it. The ending has some fascinating implications, so I'm interested to see what happens in Blood for Blood. From the brief preview at the end, it looks like we get more backstory for Luka and Felix, which I think might smooth over some of my criticisms depending on how it’s handled. I guess we'll see!

#2020 reading challenge #8/10 #taylor reads

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plantangora3-blog · 4 years

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destroyyourbinder · 5 years

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A few more very interesting things from that well-researched Medium piece, about the pharmaceutical world's investment in hormone replacement therapy and the timing of transgender advocacy's inroads into public activism, including a connection to the controversy about menopause-related HRT which ended the widespread marketing of Premarin to aging women that I had failed to notice, the lucrative dynamics of promoting and prescribing drugs off-label (all transgender HRT is given off-label), the absolutely absurd amount of money in hormones for pediatric transition (the author gives numbers for Lupron from age 10 to 16, which in the US costs multi-thousands of dollars), and the entanglements of some of the most notable pediatric transgender doctors with pharmaceutical companies producing these drugs : The most common use for HRT over the 20th century was instead [of treating transgenderism] to treat menopause. That particular train derailed in 2002, when the National Institutes Of Health’s Women’s Health Initiative, a large clinical trial to test HRT’s safety and efficacy, found out that HRT in women led to raised rates of strokes and breast cancer among other deleterious side effects. Lawsuits, particularly against the pharmaceutical company Wyeth (purchased by Pfizer in 2009), quickly followed, and the number of prescriptions of one of Wyeth’s most profitable medications dropped 66%. Overnight, HRT for menopause was no longer understood to be the automatic course of action. It later emerged that Wyeth and other drug companies marketing HRT had known about the risks but had deliberately concealed them to continue selling profitable drugs. This caused some issues for pharmaceutical companies. Premarin, manufactured by Wyeth, was the best-selling drug of the 90s. HRT became accepted by women and physicians alike, and HRT was encouraged as safe and effective for menopause — which was untrue. It has been described as a time when patients request the medication, and physicians prescribed it, without checking on whether this medicalization of a natural process was needed or not. 42% of American women between the ages of 50 and 72 were on some form of HRT in 1999. Yet clinical trials instead proved that HRT was dangerous, and that the risks outweighed the benefits. And the prescription of HRT for menopause ended almost as quickly as it started. Pfizer, which makes the estrogen drug Premarin after purchasing Wyeth in 2009, is a major corporate partner of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and received a 100% score on the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index. Wyeth was no stranger to targeting minorities for drug experimentation. [...] Wyeth again engaged in unethical behavior with Prempro, another estrogen hormone replacement therapy drug, which is also used for transition. Wyeth used ‘medical ghostwriters’ to build a brand around Prempro and various off-label uses of the drug. What’s medical ghostwriting? Essentially, it’s a pharmaceutical company producing a peer-reviewed article promoting use of a drug it makes, often for off-label uses.This is done by hiring a commercial medical writing company to produce papers that can then be published in academic journals. An academic is attributed authorship, even though they have not written the paper. The paper contains conclusions that support the pharmaceutical company’s marketing desires for a particular drug. In the case of Prempro, legal documents that emerged from a lawsuit brought by 14,000 patients were released to PLoS Medicine, an open access journal (viewable here). It revealed that Wyeth hired a medical communications company, DesignWrite, who then produced a first draft of a paper, received advice on a second draft from Wyeth, then sent it to an academic who would ‘author’ the paper by attaching their name and claiming authorship. Typically, the papers are review articles — they review a body of literature on a particular drug, then draw conclusions on its use. While the academics weren’t paid, political currency in academia has become the number of papers published in journals, so it added to their credentials. DesignWrite sold over 50 articles to Wyeth about HRT and produced conference posters and symposia materials. The material produced by DesignWrite promoted off-label uses of HRT. DesignWrite also promoted its advisory board creation and management capabilities to pharmaceutical companies. While medical ghostwriting is clearly unethical, it’s not illegal. Because academic publications aren’t considered promotional, it does not fall afoul of off-label marketing laws. Pharma companies can ghostwrite as many articles as they like, building a message that the off-label use of drugs is safe, acceptable. They then publish that in an academic journal. Wyeth would produce studies that sang the praises of HRT for things it could never market it for, like curing wrinkles. Because the fact that the paper is ghostwritten is never disclosed, it means that people could potentially be receiving biased information that favors a drug company and using that when making decisions around patient health. If a large body of ‘research’ is promoting a use for a drug, then it must work, right? How prevalent is medical ghost-writing,? The New York Times estimated in 2009 that 5–11% of medical articles are ghostwritten, though this ultimately depends on the drug. With one drug (sertraline), between 18% and 44% of articles on the subject were funded and ghostwritten by Pfizer. But without disclosure, we do not know how prevalent the problem might actually be. Disturbingly enough, similar evidence is beginning to come out regarding HRT in men, who have been sold similar stories about ‘Low T’ and testosterone therapy. Unlike HRT in women, this has not come through a large drug trial, but nearly 7,000 lawsuits, directed at the makers of low testosterone treatments. Side effects include strokes, elevated risk of heart attack and blood clots. In fact, the makers of Androgel, AbbVie, were ruled against in a lawsuit brought by one Jesse Mitchell, described as a ‘bellwether’ case, to the tune of $150 million, for misrepresentation of the safety of their testosterone gel, Androgel. Mitchell suffered a heart attack after four years of using the gel, which was ruled to be directly caused by the Androgel treatment. AbbVie aggressively marketed Androgel on television, despite the fact that testosterone treatments were causing elevated rates of heart attacks. The $150 million lawsuit was later tossed, but a second trial again ruled against AbbVie, awarding Mitchell $3.2 million . 4,500 of the nearly 7,000 lawsuits involve AbbVie’s Androgel, which is considered the ‘Low T’ market leader. It is notable that AbbVie promoted the Androgel drug off-label. In fact, a former FDA head, David Kessler, told jurors in an another testosterone lawsuit, that he believes that AbbVie illegally promoted the testosterone supplement to aging men, without testing the safety of doing so. To quote his testimony: “What the companies in essence did was to take those indications of low testosterone in men for specific reasons [and] the company in essence broke that link,” “It was no longer [being marketed] for specific diseases; it was for low testosterone for a broad range of issues.” The drug companies pushed to market the drug off-label, regardless of whether ‘Low T’ was a scientifically valid condition or simply the natural aging process. What relevance this does have to the transgender movement? Hormone Replacement Therapy is the primary drug prescribed for the treatment of transgenderism. It has a long history of illegal marketing, medical ghostwriting, and unethical behavior towards vulnerable patients.Many of these same side effects have been reported in transgender people who take these drugs. For example, it is well known among female-to-male transgender people that after long periods on testosterone they require a hysterectomy, as they have higher risks for uterine cancer. They also frequently experience incontinence and vaginal prolapse. Many trans women experience heart attacks and strokes. These side effects have been dismissed as hormone therapy is ‘necessary’ — so that this population don’t kill themselves. [...] HRT is prescribed and intended for the patient to take for life as they begin a journey into being their ‘authentic self’. A transgender person expects to take hormones for the rest of their life. This is significant because every drug prescribed for transgenderism is prescribed off-label. There are no approved drugs for treating transgenderism. Not puberty blockers, nor HRT. For transition, many of the drugs used by transgender people are common brand name HRT drugs that are being used off-label. Premarin, Androgel, and others. All of these drugs have histories of off-label marketing. Androgel as aforementioned has thousands of lawsuits pending against it. This history of pharmaceutical companies using illegal marketing practices and ignoring deleterious side effects can’t possibly be the case with transgender use, can it? Stephen Rosenthal, former president of the Pediatric Endocrine Society and transgender scientist media star and one of the primary researches on transgenderism describes this off-label status as a hurdle for puberty blockers in an article in Endocrine Today: “One critical issue at this point in time is that none of the options for pubertal blockers on the market are FDA approved for transgender use. No pharmaceutical company has taken the steps necessary to change their labelling to include this category.” A look through the names of the scientists that study and promote transgenderism and the use of HRT to treat it, and you will see Rosenthal’s name repeatedly. You will also see other names repeatedly, particularly in transgender children research, and you will find the same group of people are always responsible for such research, such as Dr. Norman Spack, of Boston’s Children’s Hospital and Robert Garofalo, from Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Many of them only began producing research on transgenderism, particularly in children, during the past decade. For example, Rosenthal’s publications are on topics such as insulin metabolism until 2012, when his entire output becomes focused around transgenderism. [...] Oh, here’s a fun fact the article [A PBS interview with pedriatric gender doctor Robert Garafalo] also includes: “Most of these treatments are still very expensive and often out of reach for people without the help of insurance. The cost of puberty blockers is approximately $1,200 per month for injections and can range from $4,500 to $18,000 for an implant. The least expensive form of estrogen, a pill, can cost anywhere between $4 to $30 a month, according to Simons, while testosterone can be anywhere between $20 to $200 a vial.”Using these figures, and taking a ten-year-old child, the total cost of transition for a ten-year-old who takes puberty blockers until they are 16, is $86,400. There are 725 children being treated for gender dysphoria at Lurie’s, which gives us a figure of $62 million dollars over 6 years in Lupron prescriptions were all those 725 children starting to take puberty blockers right now. Transition is an expensive business. [...] Let’s look at three doctors in particular. Their names are Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, Stephen Rosenthal, and Johanna Olson. Why?All three of those names have had a financial relationship with AbbVie, maker of Androgel and Lupron, amongst other hormone replacement therapies and GnRH agonists. All three have gone on to promote the off-label use of AbbVie products to treat transgenderism. Both Joanna Olson and Diane Ehrensaft attended an AbbVie advisory board on gender care, Olson in 2015 and Ehrensaft in 2014. Olson discloses this as a conflict of interest in the paper Care of a Transgender Adolescent Commentary, which was published July 2015 — she attended this advisory board after submission and was compensated for attending. Olson then continued promoting off-label use of AbbVie drugs. Diane Ehrensaft does not declare this as a conflict of interest on any research papers, but it appears in her Curriculum Vitae (scroll to page 16), which she submitted to court while an expert witness, and is hosted on her website. Her CV reports, that in 2014, she was a board member of the ‘AbbVie Trans Advisory Board’, while promoting their drugs for off-label use in transgenderism, both in academia and through popular science books she wrote, such as The Gender Creative Child. Was she compensated for being on this advisory board, like Olson? Stephen Rosenthal frequently discloses that he is a consultant for AbbVie as a conflict of interest in both interviews and research, and then continues to promote the dangerous off-label use of their medication in adolescents. Why is this concerning? The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services advises that among the methods of spotting unlawful, off-label promotion, is paying physicians to serve as advisory board members.

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