Hey folks. I already hated borders and governments prior to posting this but i just learned that i need 2 REFERENCES JUST TO RENEW MY FUCKING PASSPORT AND I HATE THE AUDACITY OF THIS GOVERNMENTS SO MUCH

LIKE ITS A GODS DAMNED JOB INTERVIEW? FUCK YOU

Toothpaste II

Here's the rest: Toothpaste

Here on 1d1195.tumblr.com we throw ethics and patient-doctor boundaries out the window. Proceed with caution.

~2.1k words

Warnings: Some smutty thoughts and innuendos present. We're getting there... 🤭

Now she was situated in the chair once more; looking prettier than she did last week. Perhaps because she was no longer in pain. Harry felt a bloom of pride swell within him. Grateful he could take the tears and pain away from her. She was too pretty to be sad.

Harry was insistent that she come back in for him to check on her teeth and the cavity he filled. He wanted to make sure that everything was correct and that she wasn’t in pain. He was analyzing her X-rays and consulted his colleagues to see if there was something he was missing when it came to her susceptible teeth. The thought of her in pain—especially after making her cry for several moments during her appointment—made him utterly distraught.

It took every spare ounce of decorum and professionalism in him to not give her his personal phone number. When he read her new patient form that she submitted online, he thought he was just being kind. He didn’t have anything to do that particular Wednesday she needed to be seen, so to him it was no big deal. He thought she was exaggerating—not that he thought patients exaggerated in general, but the idea of her pulling her own tooth out in the hardware store...

There was a reason one of the secretaries had Harry look it over while she laughed at the hyperbolic words on screen. But when Harry saw her, something shifted inside him. He didn’t know she was going to be pretty. So pretty it was hard to believe her teeth were stuffed with so many fillings. He read her dental history for the better part of the hour waiting for her to arrive. It felt like he knew her. The little quips that she expressed in previous appointments: “I’m in pain. Again. I always thought it was a joke that dentists were sadistic. But I think you like seeing me here.”

But the physical beauty was more than he ever could have anticipated. She was dressed for her job, and she was stunning. It made him wonder how anyone managed to work at all. It was hard for him to focus on his job while he was looking into her mouth. He never wanted to kick himself more than making her answer her boss’s phone call. He could see the resignation in her eyes. If Harry hadn’t intervened, she would have gone back to work. Completely in pain and he wouldn’t have gotten to fix her up. Wouldn’t have convinced her to come back in a week to make sure everything was alright.

Now she was situated in the chair once more; looking prettier than she did last week. Perhaps because she was no longer in pain. Harry felt a bloom of pride swell within him. Grateful he could take the tears and pain away from her. She was too pretty to be sad.

“Good morning, love,” he smiled kindly. She grinned back.

“Good morning!” Her voice was cheerful.

Harry busied himself with putting on gloves, checking the computer, and making sure that everything was in place for his examination. “Y’seem t’be in better spirits,” he shouldn’t have felt so prideful. It was his job to fix teeth. But something about her made him feel that way. It wasn’t just that he made her feel better. It was the fact that she looked happier and more relaxed.

“I think you should refill all my current fillings. I wasn’t in any pain. Not even from the Novocain or anything,” she sounded proud herself. It was adorable. Harry was thinking the least professional things about that sweet face of hers and how badly he wanted to kiss her. It didn’t help that he would spend the better part of his examination staring at her mouth. It was a bad profession to fall in love with someone. A sweet gentle smile like hers? He was royally screwed—she didn’t even need to talk.

He chuckled at her assessment. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, love. S’kind,” he pulled the mask over his mouth and sat on the little stool and grabbed the little mirror and dental probe to press to start examining. She opened her mouth instinctively without him having to say a word. Of course it wasn’t otherworldly, but he thought she was. So, it meant something to Harry. It was silly and insane, but he couldn’t help it. She was adorable. It made him nauseous to think she’d be in pain and continue working. Moreover, working for that sorry excuse for a man that screamed at her loud enough Harry could hear through the phone pressed to her ear. “Feeling better?” He asked quietly.

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled around the tools in her mouth. “Muh bett-ah”

He smiled; grateful it was covered by the mask on his face. He was sure he was smiling at her the way he wasn’t supposed to. He was glad he had the glasses and light to hide the adoration that was surely in his eyes as he watched her. “Good,” he nodded firmly.

“I got laid off,” she said. “I didn’t even realize how much I hated it,” she shook her head with distaste coloring her features. “I loved my work, but I hated my job. Does that make sense? Probably not,” she shrugged with a giggle that made Harry almost gleeful with the sound. “But I went right to a temp agency, and I’ve already had two job interviews. My boss didn’t write me a letter of recommendation, but the HR woman was happy to do so for me. Apparently, she was really sad I was let go,” she frowned. “I guess I caused the least amount of drama in the entire building, and it was right of me to stick up for myself. That’s what sick time was for,” she bit her lip. “So, thank you.”

“Me?” Harry couldn’t contain the surprise on his face or in his voice. He pulled the mask from his mouth, removed the goggles and light. Confusion lined his face as he tilted his head at her. “I jus’ fixed y’cavity love. S’my job.”

“But you made me stay so you could do that. If you didn’t tell my boss off, I probably would have gone right back to the office before you had a chance to help,” she explained.

He was glad his assumption was right, but it made him sad. Frowning, he tutted disapprovingly at her. “Love, s’not good.”

She shrugged. “It’s irrelevant now. I’m happy for the first time in like two years. Money is a little stressful, but I got a severance to keep me afloat. They have to give me insurance through the end of the year or until I get a new job so...” she shrugged. “I have good references. Plus, I always have dental school,” her smile was so cute. Like a secret for just the two of them. It nearly made him blush.

He chuckled. “Well...m’glad y’happy. If y’have trouble finding a job let me know. I know people...and I was serious. I’d hire y’in a heartbeat.”

“I’d be useless, Dr. Styles. I know next to nothing about dentistry other than my own history—”

“Harry,” he said quietly. A reminder that he told her to call him that last week.

She bit her lip. “Harry,” she repeated just as soft. Like she wasn’t supposed to say it. “Anyway, thank you,” she repeated, gratefully. “But I think I need a little break. I took that job because I was fresh out of college and wanted my foot in the door. I can wait a minute before taking a new job. I can research and make sure I don’t just like my work but my job too.”

God, he wanted to kiss her. “Well, m’offer stands,” he started to remove his glove from his hand.

“Actually,” she said and pointed to one of her molars in the back of her mouth. Harry left the glove in place. “One of my old fillings has a rough edge, could you look at it? I was so stressed-out last time I didn’t even get to ask.”

“Who was this dentist, love?” He frowned. She giggled sweetly leaning back in the chair. Harry grabbed the little mirror off the tray of tools. He didn’t replace his goggles or his mask. He just reached gently for her lower jaw and held the mirror in front of her lips. “Open.”

“Not even dinner first?” She asked quietly, with a smile. It was a reflex. Flirty and inappropriate beyond his wildest imagination. This time he did actually blush. His own lips parted, and his eyes flicked to hers unsurely and he almost released her jaw. “Oops,” she giggled, feigning innocence. Harry was so startled he didn’t know what to say to her. The words were lost. She flirted with him. It made the pit of his stomach flutter with butterflies and his heart skipped a beat. How was she so casual about it? She was so cute and so pretty he couldn’t believe it. “Sorry,” she whispered more seriously. “It just slipped out,” she promised. “I’ll be professional,” she assured him, straightening her posture and her eyes seemed to lack the light and playfulness that he witnessed only seconds before.

But he didn’t want her to be professional. He wanted to make another joke. Or lock the exam room door and take her up on the offer. But he needed to relax before his scrubs left little to the imagination for her innuendo and how it affected him below the waist. He cleared his throat and peered in her mouth trying to focus on the task when all he could focus on was how pretty her mouth was open and waiting for him.

He shook his head. “Fuck, love,” he mumbled.

“S-tha bah?” She asked around the tools in his mouth. Her eyes widening with fear again like they did last week.

“No,” he shook his head. “S’nothing. I’ll fix y’up in a minute,” he mumbled removing his hands and turned back to the computer to occupy his mind and hands before he did something stupid.

“A dentist has never cursed at my teeth,” she continued.

“Mm,” he was trying to play it cool. He didn’t want to think about what she said. Even though it was adorable and funny. Even if it was on the inappropriate side.

But Harry didn’t care if it was inappropriate.

“I have. God,I have,” she shook her head. “Sometimes I think I should just get dentures. But I need better insurance for that.” He didn’t even crack a smile, staring at his computer, trying to keep his composure. “Me and this mouth,” she mumbled. “Between what I say and my teeth I just always ruin something here.”

“Y’didn’t,” he sighed. “Y’didn’t ruin anything,” he murmured.

“You won’t even look at me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was inappropriate and honestly rude. You’re a professional. You’re taking care of my teeth doing my job. I’ve dealt with enough sexual harassment seminars in the workplace to know that was out of line and I shouldn’t—”

“I liked it,” he turned to her and caught her gaze, cutting her sentence off. Her lips were partially open, not helping any of the inappropriate fantasies that were plaguing his mind at all. She was speechless. Harry thought it was the first time in their two meetings that he had seen her speechless. “M’not supposed to.”

“Right,” she whispered quietly. “I’m sorry,” her cheeks flushed with the same pink color as the bubblegum toothpaste that the little ones requested in the office. “I...I won’t do it again,” she promised looking at her lap shyly.

“S’not what I meant. It was funny and cute,” he smiled at her. The first sign he was breaking when he really shouldn’t have. But she was a consenting adult. There weren’t any explicit laws in thinking she was cute and adorable. He wanted to get to know her more. It just wasn’t his best idea. Sighing, he rubbed his jaw. Caution to the wind. “Can I take you to dinner?”

She smiled, and despite so many cavities when he could clearly see her gums and teeth were otherwise so well taken care of, she had the best smile. A perfect smile. All that dental work must have stressed her beyond belief. There was a mischievous glint in her eye, and he should have known the second he suggested they get dinner what she would say. But he was so enamored already he wasn’t thinking clearly, obviously. In just two short appointments it was easy to see she made his mind all jumbled. But he should have known already what she would say, all the same.

“Just so I’ll open wide?”

--

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Last week was apparently “Some Tennessee Republicans Discover Tennessee Republicans Suck” week, which I was unaware was a statewide commemoration. But I honor the moral journeys of those faceless members of the “Leopards eat your face” party who have just now discovered that their party is exactly what it claims to be. ..... Bean writes: This past February after an anti-LGBTQ vote, Mannis decided to try to reason with some of his colleagues. He went to some of their offices and sent emails to others. “I asked them to think about what they were doing to LGBTQ students … just wanted to express from personal experience the impact this can have on children. Do you think I am gay because I had gay influences? Have you ever sat down and talked with a gay person?” His efforts were not well-received. One colleague came to his office seething with anger. Then he was summoned to House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s office where the entire leadership team was waiting to rake him over the coals for “insulting” his colleagues. ... The other example comes from this barn-burner of an article at Pro Publica by Kavitha Surana, who repeatedly got state Sen. (and doctor) Richard Briggs to admit to such absolute stupidities about the Tennessee Republican position on and conduct around abortion that I am stunned he hasn’t changed his name and grown a goatee so that he can plausibly deny that he is himself. Every bit of Surana’s piece is so good and so important. Just read the whole thing and imagine me shouting after every sentence. Republicans are flat-out coming for birth control and in vitro fertilization next. They want the ability to mine your medical records. They don’t want exceptions for abortion, at all. And they’re saying so out loud. Read it and absorb it. But back to Briggs. “When Tennessee Right to Life, the state’s main anti-abortion lobbying group, proposed the trigger ban in 2019, Briggs admits he barely read the two-page bill forwarded to his office," writes Surana. "He followed the lead of his colleagues, who assured state lawmakers that the bill included medical exceptions. He even added his name as a co-sponsor. ‘I’m not trying to defend myself,’ he says now.” He co-sponsored a bill he hadn’t even read. He couldn’t even be bothered to read a two-page bill. When I told you all last week that there are only two types of bills filed by our state legislature, I’m sure many of you thought I was just joking or being hyperbolic. Briggs is literally describing how “I’m going to say I wrote this bill, but actually some special interest group or lobbyists or a think tank wrote it and I’m not that clear on what’s in it” bills happen. And what has Briggs found now that he's pulled his head out of the sand and applied his expertise as a doctor to the Republicans’ stand on abortion? He has found that it’s horrific, that it calls for endangering pregnant people, and that it doesn’t line up with science. Which, yeah, this is all true. But it’s not new. I mean, they gave him a two-page bill that told him exactly what they were up to, and had he — as a doctor — read it and given it any thought, he would have realized the consequences of that legislation before he co-sponsored it and voted for it. For years, loads of us have been saying anti-abortion groups in Tennessee were disingenuous and seemed not to have even a basic understanding of pregnancy or its risks. .... If Briggs asked a nurse what medications a patient had been prescribed and she said, “I don’t know, I didn’t really read her chart,” he’d be pissed. You can’t make good medical decisions without having all the information. But Briggs is admitting (and let me be clear, we all know he is not alone; this is how it’s done) that when it comes to his political work, when his constituents are in the position of trusting him to have read the bills he votes on, he doesn’t do it. And we all know that many legislators don’t.

Date: Jean Havoc x Reader (w/ Big Brother Roy Mustang)

REQUESTED

-PRETEND ROY IS YOUNGER FOR THE SAKE OF THIS ONE-SHOT (say, like 20-ish) -sorry this took so long. I had an internship and it got a little crazy

-idc about the timeline because this is a one-shot and i’m not gonna use my big brain lmaooo

Summary: Overprotective Roy? Yes. You’re dating Jean Havoc and your bro watches your first date from the shadows.

Nervous. That was the first emotion you felt when you stepped out of the front door. Today was a big day, maybe more so than you’d like to believe. The sun shimmered overhead, where the sparse clouds drifted lazily across the sky. “Bye, Roy,” you called. “I’ll be back around sixteen o’clock.”

Roy was your elder brother by four years. If a guard dog had a human personification, it would definitely be him. For all your life, he wrote himself off as the responsible sibling. He acted like his grades were better than yours, like he was the one to take out the trash, or finish all the dishes before cockroaches decided to make home in them.

Anyone would have thought that to be true. After all, Roy was young and rose up the military ranks at an alarming rate. But you knew better, along with his close colleagues. Roy was stupid, overprotective, and impulsive. He would do anything that interested him, and if it didn’t, he’d pay no mind to it.

You prayed your brother would pay no mind today.

The front door slammed open with a creak. “Where do you think you’re going?” Roy inquired. He squinted at you as if you were about to do something stupid. “And what are you wearing? I hope you have shorts under that.” You rolled your eyes and adjusted the purse slung over your shoulder. 

This sun dress was a gift from Jean for your (age) birthday. The skirt flowed in the passing breezes like a flower, illuminating all the vibrant colours under the rays of sun. It was a beautiful dress. If Roy thought otherwise, you’d make him understand. “It’s called a dress, doofus.” you sarcastically replied. “Not like you’d know when you only see Riza in the Command Centre. Poor you. Haven’t gotten the chance to see her in a skirt, huh?”

Roy averted his gaze to the sky with a haughty huff. “What are you talking about? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Heat rose up his cheeks. “If you’re implying I harbour romantic feelings for my First Lieutenant, then you’re--”

“A hundred percent correct.” you stated with a smug smirk. “I’ll be back around sixteen o’clock. Don’t burn down the house.” If Roy accidently did, you wouldn’t be surprised. He was the Flame Alchemist, and above all, your stupid big brother.

“Where are you going (Y/n)?” Roy called. You flung your hair over your shoulder with a bright smile that could have blinded even the sun. “A date, of course.” Okay, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to rub salt in a wound. What Roy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. But then you saw look on his face. Nevermind, it was totally worth it to rub in his face: jaw agape, eyes as wide as saucers, and shoulders hunched down.

Ah, it was good to be you.

The city bustled with life. With the sun shining, and the beauty of living in your palms, you trotted down the street. There was nothing that could ruin your date.

"Jean!" Your tone was light as a laugh escaped your lips. "It feels like I haven't seen you in a while." 

Cherry red dusted his cheeks. He stuffed the unlit cigarette into his pocket and offered you a hand. In his other, he placed a single (f/c) flower between your hairclips. "I saw you yesterday," he said with a bashful smile. "What do you mean it's been a while?" You bumped shoulders playfully and intertwined your fingers together. "Hyperbole, Jean."

"Well, it's one hyperbole too many." He remarked with a grin. "Do you want to have sandwiches today or a hot meal?" You shrugged, leaning against his shoulder. It was comfortable to have him hold you like this as you made your way down the street. He always had this secure way of linking your arms with his.

Off to the side, Roy couldn't say the same. It wasn’t like he planned on following you. Curiosity just swept him out of the house. And besides, what you didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt, right? Right.

Roy wished Jean didn’t hold you like you were some stuffed animal. For all he knew, Jean was just playing you. It wouldn't be the first when he had over fifteen other girls in the past four months. If Jean broke your heart, he'd be sure to fry the man up to a crisp. "Damn him," Roy grumbled. He pulled down his fedora and adjusted the glasses over his nose. "What makes him think he can touch (Y/n) like that?"

You suddenly laughed loudly at some joke. “Stop!” you cried, playfully smacking his arm. “That’s the worst one I’ve heard all week!” 

Roy slinked out of the shadows with a low huff. He shouldn't have worn such a thick jacket. It had to be over twenty something degrees today. But that was no matter because you were being whisked away to the park--by Jean! Roy hurried down the street. Since when did you get lunch? And what was Jean going to do to you?

"The park's a good place." you noted. “Let’s go there.” The bag from Sally's Sandwiches hung from Jean's arm. It swung back and forth as he happily pranced along the street with you hand in hand. "Good thing I remembered to bring a blanket this time. We can sit under that tree."

Oh, what was Jean going to do to you? Roy couldn't stand the thought of you walking with him like that. There had to be an ulterior motive to this 'date'. Maybe Jean wanted to leech off you for money, or maybe he would try seducing you in the park? Roy shook his head. No, no.

Jean wasn't a bad guy. Maybe Roy was thinking too far ahead. But what if he wasn’t? What if Jean pulled some sneaky plan?

You crossed the street just as a car wildly swerved. Its tires screeched against the road like nails on a chalkboard, grinding against stone until it came your way. Roy frantically popped out of his hiding space. "What kind of idiot would--"

Suddenly, you slammed a hand into the ground. The stone transmuted, blocking the car from any unnecessary collisions. It smacked straight into the wall, smoke and steam rising from its engine. "(Y/n)!" cried Jean. "Are you okay?" He frantically placed a hand on either of your shoulders and looked you up and down. A smile rose to your lips. "I'm fine. Not even a scratch."

A sigh escaped Jean's lips. "That's good. I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt." You placed a gentle hand to his cheek and pecked it (Roy wanted to gag). "I'm an Alchemist. It'd be a shame if I went down by a car."

"Don't joke about that," Jean chastised. He hooked his arm with yours again and led you away from the screeching onlookers and police. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

Roy blinked. Did he hear Jean right? 'I don't know what I'd do if I lost you'? What was that supposed to mean? “Look at them, being all lovey-dovey...” Roy continued after the couple. They passed through a field of forest green grass, where flowers bloomed in straight, uniform lines all around. It was a beautiful spot to have a picnic. 

You swung your arm, hand in hand with Jean. The sun kissed your heads from the Heaven’s, illuminating a bright happiness Roy couldn’t look away from. Urgh. He wanted to kick something, or better yet, set a tree on fire. How could you two look so perfect? You were only (age) and that was far too young to be dating. 

Besides, you had a career in the military. If your little ‘relationship’ was sealed with a ring, you’d be separated. “Did they even think that through?” Roy grumbled to himself. He gritted his teeth together and ducked behind a bush. 

“Excuse me sir.”

Roy glanced over his shoulder with a false smile. “Ah, what is it?” A little boy ball up and down in his hand. The glare on his face could have been intimidating, but Roy was Roy Mustang. He wouldn’t let some kid look down upon him. “Are you lost?”

The kid clutched the rock so tightly his knuckles turned white. “My mama said to watch out for creepy people. I think you fit well, Mr. Pervert.” He took a step back and launched the ball at Roy’s head. “Take that!”

“What are you talking about?!” Roy exclaimed. He jumped out of the bushes and brushed the leaves from his jacket. Boy, it was getting terribly hot in the sweltering heat. Poor Roy found himself losing what little patience remained. “I’m not a creep, kid! Where are your parents? If I was a creep, you would have been kidnapped already. I’m just trying to make sure my sister...!”

At that very second, you so happened to come to a stop. At that very second, you so happened to stare. At that very second, you so happened to recognise a face among strangers.

Roy was royally screwed. 

The little kid pointed at Roy as if he were the most wanted criminal in all of Amestris. “Lady!” he screeched. “I saw this guy watching you since you got here! He’s a creep! Call the cops!” Jean squinted at Roy. At first, he actually believed the kid was telling the truth. What kind of normal person wore a winter coat, a fedora, and a pair of sunglasses if not to deal drugs in the alleyways?

“Hold up...” Jean blinked owlishly. “Colonel, is that you?!”

You released Jean’s arm. “Oh, it’s him alright.” A menacing glare rose to your face as you cracked your knuckles. What was Roy supposed to do? The wrath of his sister was not something he could brace himself for, especially when she could be just as impulsive as Edward Elric.

Roy waved his arms in denial. “I don’t know what that kid’s talking about. I just happened to pass by, and in the process, I ended up dropping my wallet, which turned out to be in the bushes, so--”

“Save it.” You cracked your knuckles and pulled on a glove. “It’s time to crank up the heat, because we’re having fried Alchemist tonight.”

Anger. That was the only emotion you felt as you chased your big brother around the park. Today was supposed to be a big day. You planned to walk around, maybe go shopping, and spend the night wandering around with Jean for a whole day. But no. Your stupid, idiotic, big brother had to be the creepy party crasher.

His Saving Grace - Part III

Title: His Saving Grace - Maxwell Lord x F!Reader  Words: 2700 Warnings: Swearing, a conversation about a domestic abuse case but nothing graphic Synopsis: Maxwell finds out what you’ve been hiding and confronts you about it

Part I  -  Part II

It was like the floor had been wiped out from under Maxwell’s feet, the wind knocked from his lungs. Had he seriously made a mistake again? Was his judgement really that skewed that once more he had done what he thought was right and it was turning out to be wrong? You had been so unassuming, the first to be truly kind to Maxwell when you could have been like everybody else. There had to be more to the story, surely?

It hadn’t taken Maxwell long to find your old place of work in the telephone directory. He had spent the morning finding law firms specialising in family law, and rang them one by one asking whether they had previously employed you and had hit the correct one on the sixth try.

Myles and Cooper were a family law firm in the centre of Washington D.C. The secretary who spoke to Maxwell had given him the spiel on when it had been established and what they could offer potential clients but he hadn’t really been listening. And as soon as he had mentioned your name the sickly sweet old woman had quickly turned sour. 

“Look, we’ve put out all the press statements we have, you’re not getting any more on the story.”

Maxwell frowned. Press statements? He knew there had been more to the story you were refusing to tell him, but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end and the feeling of being left in the dark was beginning to frustrate him. 

“I’m no journalist. I have recently employed your former colleague-“

“Oh you haven’t, have you? Dear me, do you not read the local newspapers?”

Maxwell bit his tongue at being interrupted, tapping impatiently on the arm of the couch he sat on. 

“I’ve been a little busy lately, would you mind telling me what happened?”

The woman on the other end gave an exasperated sigh.

“Will you be requiring any services from Myles and Cooper?” 

“What? No-“

“Then go to your local library and you’ll find out.” And with that the connection was cut off.

Maxwell took a second to stare at the handset before slamming down the phone and making a mental note to never employ that particular law firm in the future.

But that was how he came to be hidden in the shadowy back corner of his local library, a table to himself with various newspapers dating from 25th April, all the way up to the last article he could find with your name in it on 10th July. 

Maxwell knew how the media worked, the sensationalist headlines, the hyperbolic language, even the pictures they used of you, it was all contrived to make you into someone you weren’t. Usually someone worse, and he was ashamed to say it was working.

Shameful Lawyer Wins Case in Favor of Unfit Mother

Maxwell re-read the headline on the front of the earliest newspaper. It was tame compared to some of the later articles that unnecessarily picked apart your personal life and painted you as a heartless witch who hated children. In the short time he had met you Maxwell couldn’t believe any of that was true. 

Or maybe that was exactly who you were and Maxwell had been fooled. He had been desperate when he called you up, was practically begging for anyone to help him. Was this just an elaborate way of making him pay for all he’d done? Get close enough to him to give him false hope then tear him down even further? And he had fallen hook, line and sinker.

“I’m being paranoid, you can’t be as bad as this,” Maxwell mumbled to himself, eyes flicking over the pictures of you shielding from the flashing lights of the cameras, hiding behind your purse, head in your hands in coffee shops and even one picture of you sticking up a pixelated middle finger to the press. 

Maxwell had been scared before, anxious at times especially in recent weeks, but he wasn’t going to add ‘paranoid’ to his growing list of problems. Pulling up the hood of his coat, Maxwell knew he had to get your side of the story.

-

You hadn’t expected to meet Maxwell again so soon, but he had been insistent on the phone, demanding to see you that evening over an ‘urgent matter’ that he had to talk to you about in person. You had left his apartment the day before on such good terms that you weren’t worried. 

That was until you reached his door. He hadn’t been waiting for you like the first time so you had to knock and wait. When he opened the door he did so slowly, features emotionless, eyes not able to meet yours as he indicated to you to follow him inside. 

He didn’t say a word when you entered the apartment and headed towards the couch. 

“Has something happened?” You enquired, matching Maxwell’s stance when he stayed standing in the middle of the living room. His arms were crossed, hair slightly out of place as though he didn’t take the time to do much more than comb through it this morning. Something was on his mind and you hoped it wasn’t what you feared.

“I want to hear you say it. I want to know what your truth is.” Maxwell’s voice was stern but not unfair, you imagined it was his ‘dad’ voice whenever Alistair had done something naughty. It made you feel so small, pathetic even, that of all the people to be talking down to you it was Public Enemy Number One. 

You knew then that he had found out. And he saw that recognition in your eyes when you guiltily slumped down onto the arm of the couch, making yourself physically smaller under his intense scrutiny. Maxwell chuckled humorlessly and that made you sit up, a look of defiance taking over. Who was this man to judge you? When he didn’t know the full story, when he knew perfectly well what it was like to have the world against you? 

“It’s not what the papers say,” you stressed, swallowing down the lump in your throat before continuing, “I took on a case that had been passed on and on and that should have been the first indication that it wasn’t what it seemed.”

You couldn’t bare to look into Maxwell’s penetrating stare, but you saw his shoulders relax as you started to talk, encouraging you to keep going. 

“The case was a woman with three children, she’d already divorced her husband and wanted full custody of them. She claimed her ex was abusive, an alcoholic, that she was terrified of what he would do to the children if he was left alone with them. It was all lies. I didn’t realise this until it was too late.”

Maxwell quietly sat on the other end of the couch whilst you spoke, listening intently as you tried to keep your emotions under control and the shake out of your voice. 

“I only saw the ex-husband for the first time on day one of court. But I knew immediately she had been lying. Whilst she spent most of the time applying her make-up to look good for the judge, he was a complete mess. He couldn’t look away from his children. I felt terrible in that courtroom. But I had a job to do. I couldn’t have backed out of it if I tried.”

You shook your head, reliving the memories of that case like it was happening all over again. You dared to look up, to see disgust in Maxwell’s face but all you saw was understanding. 

“But you won the case?” Maxwell asked. You nodded.

“I had good evidence. Pictures of bruises on her arms, property damage in their shared home. Even character witnesses that painted her as the perfect wife. She was very good at playing a character. It was all lies to get her own way. I mean, who wasn’t going to believe her?”

“The press.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, moving to sit beside Maxwell when the arm became too uncomfortable, “there were a couple of journalists in particular, I can’t remember their names. They had tried to get in touch with me during the case but I ignored them, which made it look like I knew the truth and didn’t care what they had to say. As soon as the case was won, they were out for my head. They had evidence of their own, you see, that showed exactly what she was like. Paparazzi shots, secret recordings, stuff like that.”

“But you didn’t know, how was any of that your fault?”

“I won the case, everyone said I must have known. And honestly? I just didn’t bother to correct them. I felt like such a fucking idiot, Max. I should have known! So I hid myself away afterwards. My life was invaded, my career was in ruins so I hid.”

It wasn’t lost on either of you that this was the exact reaction Maxwell had to his own life being turned upside down. You shared a knowing glance, to which Maxwell reached over to place his warm hand on top of yours in comfort.

“I am sorry that happened to you,” Maxwell whispered, patting your hand before removing it, “but…” You watched as Maxwell bit his lip.

“What is it?” You frowned, not liking where this was going.Maxwell turned and offered you a sympathetic smile.

“I am sorry for what you’ve been through, truly, but how will it look if it gets out of all the people helping me… it’s you?”

You immediately felt your walls go back up, involuntarily shifting away from Maxwell on the couch.

“No one else is going to help you, are they?” It was more of a statement than a question, defensive in the face of Maxwell’s question. You felt anger rising as Maxwell continued to bite his lip and ponder what to do about the situation. You weren’t going to beg him to keep employing you, your pride wouldn’t allow that, but you weren’t going to leave without a fight either.

“You understand my predicament-“

“I understand you asked me here to listen to my side of the story, what more do you want?”

“I need somebody on my side that I can trust.”

“You can trust me!”

“I need somebody reliable, somebody who is good at their job.”

“I was brilliant at my job, it was one mistake-“

“That cost you everything!” 

Maxwell’s outburst made you leap from the couch away from him in frustration. You didn’t need to hear what you’d already told yourself hundreds of times. You knew you’d messed up, and you were here to put things right, to move on with your life. You took Maxwell’s case to help him as well as yourself, and here he was throwing it back in your face. 

“We are both in the same situation,” you replied calmly, hoping to quell the heated atmosphere, “we both need each other to pick the other up from where we’ve put ourselves. Nobody else will help you Maxwell because nobody else understands what you’re going through better than me.”

Maxwell, still seated on the far side of the couch, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes to the floor as he listened to your reasoning. He couldn’t disagree, but he was also scared. All he saw when he closed his eyes was the face of his boy looking up to him, he was so scared of letting him down. 

It was so long before either of you made a noise that you decided leaving would be the best thing to do. Let Maxwell calm down and come to you when he was ready. You didn’t want to push your luck too much with him. 

As you turned to leave you passed a pile of unopened letters on a table near the front door. You hadn’t meant to look, it was a quick glance whilst you took your time to leave his apartment (a small part of you hoped he would call out your name to stop you before you reached the door). You recognised the solicitors mark on the front of the envelope and the name above it, Spencer and Brown, a family law firm that were close rivals to Myles and Cooper. 

There was only one reason a family law firm would be in contact with Maxwell, his son.

You could have left it, Maxwell didn’t trust you and you doubted he wanted you poking into his personal business, especially when it came to Alistair. But you wanted to help him. Not out of pity, or even to prove that you could, it definitely wasn’t out of desperation for employment anymore either. 

You liked Maxwell. 

It really hit you as you stood in his entryway, heart heavy with disappointment at Maxwell’s shunning of you, head aching from your argument and the prospect of going home sad and alone. It wasn’t as shocking as you thought it should be, after all what was there to like about the man who nearly destroyed the world? 

It wasn’t that Maxwell that you liked though. It was this version of him, who had been kind to you when he hadn’t known your secret. The man who loved his son and wanted to be a better role model for him. The Maxwell who could be charming but not ashamed to be vulnerable in front of you. And because it was that man you were stupidly falling for, you knew you had to at least try to persuade him to let you help him.

“Maxwell,” you called, picking up the letter and walking back to the living room where Maxwell was pouring himself a glass out of a decanter. 

“You need to go,” he didn’t sound convincing though so you held up the letter to get his attention. He raised an eyebrow, curious as to what you thought you were doing with his mail.

“I can help you,” you urged, head held high and ready to stand your ground, “I might be a terrible person but I was really brilliant at my job.”

“You’re not-“ Maxwell began, before sighing in defeat before the battle had even begun. Maxwell swallowed his drink in one go and took the letter out of your hand. You watched as he opened it and read through it half-heartedly, though you saw a spark of sadness in his eyes.

“Is it Alistair’s mother?” You asked impatiently.

“Yes. She wants full custody.”

“Okay, well considering this is very special circumstances,” Maxwell frowned, silently asking what you meant, “I don’t think anyone has fought a case on the basis of ‘my ex-husband failed on his quest for world domination’, so you can use that to your advantage.”

“Listen, I know you’re trying to help me but you can’t win this for me.” 

You ignored him and asked, “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

Maxwell paused, mulling it over before shaking his head, already knowing what you were going to suggest.

“Weeks ago, she won’t talk to me unless it’s through her lawyer.”

“Then we need to arrange a meeting. We need to show her that you’re serious about turning over a new leaf for Alistair. We can’t do that without sitting down with her.”

Maxwell didn’t look convinced, his frown creating creases on his face that made you want to smooth them away. Clearing your throat you stepped away from Maxwell, feigning deep thought. You needed to keep this professional, you reminded yourself. Otherwise you would only get your heart broken. 

“You’ll help me?” You almost didn’t hear him he spoke so quietly. You nodded, a meek smile on your lips and offered him your hand to shake, just as you had the first time you met. Maxwell huffed in amusement and took your hand, allowing his to linger in yours a little longer than necessary.

Permanent tag list: @autumnleaves1991-blog @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @galactic-rhi @phoenixhalliwell @thewayofthemandalorian @computeringturtle 

I don't really have anything specific in mind, I'm actually kinda lost as to what to look for jkjsksjk I know I identify with some traits, like sensory issues and difficulty communicating (I do have a diagnosis of social phobia, though I've been thinking maybe autism would better explain other aspects of my life beyond social interaction). I've been reading some articles regarding late discovering of autism and mostly looking for experiences, so I can compare to my own. I feel like I should be looking for something else but I don't really know what? lmao I don't think that was really helpful, anything you can share would be good to me

This is a really long post so I'm going to put it under a read more to not clog up other people's feeds but I think the main areas to cover are:

- verbal communication issues

was your vocabulary/reading ever under/over developed as a child? Having a really advanced vocabulary is just as much a sign of autism as having delayed development in this area. Also, having a very hard to pin down accent, or taking on others' accents Really easily is common amongst autistic people. Do you ever have trouble speaking? I experience selective mutism and when I'm overwhelmed/stressed/upset I often find it hard to speak out loud and have to communicate through messages/notes, though when I'm not mute I'm very eloquent and have always had a vocabulary that was advanced, other kids found it hard to talk to me when I was younger bc they couldn't understand me, but equally comprehension/vocabulary can be delayed/compromised and you might find it hard to understand others because you struggle with that sort of thing yourself. Do you have issues with your tone of voice ever? I find that I can't read my own tone of voice or my volume, some things will come out really bitchy-sounding or angry-sounding and I won't be able to tell, or I might be shouting and not know it because it all sounds the same in my head really.

- sensory issues

do you have issues with certain types of sound? volume? quantity? volume doesn't bother me, but too many different sources of noise will send me into a meltdown so fast. Do you struggle with certain smells, bright lights, tastes, textures of food or of clothing, certain sensations, for example I get really stressed out by having wet skin/hair, and I can't stand the sound/feeling of something rubbing over carpet. I also find some tastes to be overwhelming. Under-sensitivity or processing issues can also be a symptom. Do you ever struggle to process reading/listening to something? I have absolutely awful retention for auditory information, I can't hold more than around 4-5 words in my mind at any one time, and I can't follow auditory instructions at all if there's more than one step, it needs to be written down. I also often struggle to read things because I don't process the words and they just look like meaningless letters on a page to me. I also really struggle to process my own thoughts and order them, I'm able to talk out loud but there are times where I can't write my thoughts without speaking them first because ordering my thoughts while they're still inside my head is very difficult. I also have an under-sensitive sense of smell and taste at times. I can't even smell when meat has gone bad and everyone else I know says it really stinks, and like I can't tell the difference between chicken gravy and onion gravy, for example, because they taste almost identical to me. And senses aren't just the basic five, either. Do you have a particularly high OR low pain threshold? interoception is the perception of bodily functions. Do you have trouble identifying/noticing when you're hungry/thirsty or when you need to go to the toilet e.g. you didn't need to go pee a minute ago but now you're Suddenly absolutely bursting to go because you didn't notice it earlier at all. Proprioception is your perception of your movements, balance and of where your limbs are in relation to your surroundings. Do you bump into things or fall over seemingly nothing a lot? Have you ever been told/noticed you move "strangely"? Do you ever walk sort of on your tiptoes or toes-first rather than heels-first?

- social issues

do you have trouble reading body language? facial expressions? figurative language? tone of voice? not every autistic person will experience all of the above, I know people who can't read body language but can read tone of voice, or can't read figurative language but can read facial expressions, etc. etc. Personally I struggle with tone of voice a lot, I can't tell when people are being serious or not, or whether they're upset or not, tone of voice doesn't really tell me anything about how they're feeling of what they mean. Figurative language varies, I understand metaphors and I often understand sarcasm, although I won't get it if it's too deadpan, and I sometimes miss hyperbole and think people are being serious. I also can't tell whether people are teasing me or genuinely being mean the vast majority of the time. I tend to rely on speech patterns and word choice a lot to understand people, personally. I pick up on what sorts of words they use in what moods and use that largely to inform my interpretations of their current mood based on the words they're choosing. Do you ever struggle understanding what is/isn't socially appropriate? I overshare a lot bc I don't rlly understand what is "too much information" and what isn't, and I also don't understand really how to treat people differently based on their "social role", like I treat someone like a friend regardless of whether they're a stranger, a classmate, a friend, a family member, a colleague, a boss, a teacher, etc.

- need for routine/dislike of sudden/significant change

this isn't always as clear as like needing an entire day to be a routine, it can be little things. I'll give some examples: I have to brush my teeth in a specific way - I count the number of passes of the brush over each section of my teeth, I have to eat a sandwich in a specific order of bites, many food places I will order the same thing every/nearly every time and I will eat that order in the same way, I wash my body/hair in a certain way/order in the shower every time, sometimes I get weirdly obsessed with symmetry and I have to walk in a certain way and if I step "wrong" I have to hop around on one leg until I feel "balanced" again, I have to do my daily tasks on genshin impact in a certain order, etc. etc. I could probably think of more if I tried. I will often get distressed/overwhelmed/upset if any of these "routines" are disrupted somehow. My original method of eating a sandwich applied to when they're cut across into rectangles, so I used to hate eating triangle sandwiches because I couldn't eat them "correctly" until I figured out a similar way to eat triangle sandwiches, and now I Have to eat them in that way because it's "correct" and I'll feel uncomfortable otherwise. Note that this isn't like OCD because it's not anxiety-based, it's based on the fact that it feels like the "correct" way to do it, and that any other way is simply "wrong" and you don't like doing it "wrong". The need for routine and dislike of change might also manifest in needing to plan things ahead days in advance, you also might be like me and be very capable of impulsively doing things like going out if You decide to do it, but if someone Else suggests it, then you need the preparation time. - stimming/special interests

stimming can be honestly anything. I tap my foot, I sing, I have a whole folder names "stim games" on my phone, I type, I eat, I chew gum, I flap my arms, I scratch fabrics, I smell blankets/clothing. Stimming just means self-stimulation and is absolutely any repeated action that you find soothing/cathartic in any way. Under here I'm also going to mention samefoods: foods that you feel comfortable eating even when you don't feel comfortable eating anything else. Like if too much flavour/smell/texture feels overwhelming, most autistic people will have food/s that aren't at all stressful to eat and they can default to at those times. Mine is a specific brand of chicken nuggets, I'll often fall back on those when eating anything else feels overwhelming but I need to eat Something, and I can usually handle those when I can't handle other things.

as for special interests, they are anything that you're kind of obsessed with. You can have multiple, they can change over your life, but your interest tends to go much deeper than that of a neurotypical person's and you feel a need to know everything about it and struggle to hold conversations about other topics because it kind of just takes over your brain. when I was younger some of my special interests were final fantasy, anime, hello kitty, languages/linguistics has always been a special interest of mine, kpop is definitely one, astrology is also for sure one. I fall in and out of being obsessed enough with genshin to call it a special interest. I had a friend in highschool whose special interest was the periodic table, for a while they were obsessed with the 8 times table, and then it became dinosaurs. My little brother is autistic and his special interest has always been video games, he's really interested in retro games, he loves Minecraft and Mario too, when he was younger it was ben 10 for a while, there was also a period where all he wanted to do as a kid was rewatch the cars movies. Media likes to portray special interests as being academic but they can truly be absolutely anything. A desire to know absolutely everything about trains or flowers or kpop is just as much a special interest as neurology or maths or physics or smth like that.

Another thing I've just thought of to be noted, is hygiene:

some autistic people might appear to have borderline OCD tendencies where they can't handle dirt/mess and need everything to be tidy/clean all the time. This is definitely one of the stereotypes. But struggling with hygiene is just as much a symptom of autism. If you struggle to remember to shower/wash hands/brush teeth/do laundry/etc. that could well be an autism symptom. I found out I'm sensitive to mint and especially to toothpaste, it makes my mouth feel like it's burning and like I'll actually cry if it touches my tongue bc it hurts that much lmao. I discovered a toothpaste that's unflavoured and doesn't foam up and now I can brush my teeth without pain but for a long time I struggled with consistently brushing teeth bc of that. I also struggle with showering bc of being stressed out by wet hair/skin. Sometimes it's also a memory thing, and I forget to do these things. I also absolutely suck at keeping my room clean, idk why I just Really Can't lmaoooooo

I'm certain there are things I haven't covered, these are mostly pulling from my own experiences of autism from myself and those around me. All of this might apply to you, it might not, but I hope it makes sense and has given you a good starting point of things to examine within yourself and questions to ask yourself <3 I wish you well bub and please always feel free to ask more questions and/or talk to me more about your experiences <3

Tales of Fandom Past: Harry Potter and the Shipping Slaves

So, in my spare time I read a lot, lot . . . lot of fandom_wank. A lot. More than should be possible, considering it’s a dead website linking mostly to other dead websites, but I’m a woman addicted to drama who has the gift of long periods of quiet at work, so I’m working my way through almost 2 decades of fan history and it’s just fascinating.

Fandom, back in the ‘00s? Was so much more wild than it is now.

Plagiarism! Fake suicides! Fraud! Theft of real people’s actual money! Stalkers, both real and made up! Fanfic writers so popular they finagled it into mountains of free stuff and a book deal! Everyone was really gross and homophobic! 

There were no rules, and that made it a terrible and incredibly fun time to be part of a fandom.

And we’re not talking enough about it. I guess that’s where I come in.

I’m interested in telling these stories -- not in the incredible level of detail of the MsScribe Saga or the Cassie Claire Plagiarism Debacle, but enough for us to all have a moment to think: Hold on, what the fuck was fandom doing during the entirety of the Bush administration?

A lot, it turns out. Much of it totally wild.

Today’s topic: Shipping wars are as bad as slavery

Date: August 2005

Fandom: Harry Potter

Supposed topic(s): Shipping, canon

Content warning(s): Accidental and ironic diminishing of slavery, complaints about political correctness and free speech, racism in general, lots of hurt feelings and drama

"Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want."

Background

In August of 2005, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been out for a little less than a month, the film version of The Goblet of Fire wouldn’t come out until November, and the last Potter movie had been released over a year ago. In terms of shipping, fans had just discovered, to either their delight or horror, that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione were canon; while some would continue to hold out hope that there would be a last-minute reversal of expectations, most of the fandom both on and off the internet was in agreement: 

The shipping wars were over, and the Harry/Hermione fans (a.k.a., H/Hr fen, or “Harmonians”) had decisively lost.

The Harmonians’ ire seemed to have been pretty evenly split between J.K. Rowling -- who they felt had let them down -- and the R/Hr and H/G shippers (a.k.a. “Herons” and “Chocolateers,” respectively, though I’m not sure anyone actually used those terms for themselves; they appear to have been given from without), who were taking a victory lap. Depending on one’s perspective, this was either a long-overdue celebration by two groups of shippers who’d faced the fandom’s ire for approximately 5 years and were now vindicated, or it was the tactless gloating of sore losers who were thrilled to get one over on their hated enemies. Either way, tensions were no lower just because canon had decided the victors, and the battleground seemed to shift from the books to the movies -- where shippers of all kinds were in debate over which romance would win out onscreen.

Enter Emerson Spartz, a teenager in charge of one of the most popular fansites at the time and king of creating controversy . . . who had very strong opinions about shipping, and Harmonians in particular.

The Inciting Incident

Emerson had already incited the ire of Harmonians by calling them “delusional” in an infamous interview with J.K. Rowling. The wound was still raw, having come shortly after the release of Half-Blood Prince, and in some circles Emerson was already Public Enemy #1.

Therefore, when Emerson was one of two “anti”-Harmonians interviewed in a San Francisco Chronicle article about the shipping wars, some fans cried foul.

More responses can be found in a summary of the incident here, but personal favorites include a letter sent to the author of the SF Chronicle piece:

The majority of Harry/Hermione shippers are not merely upset that we didn't get what we wanted in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That makes us sound childish. While I'm forced to admit that there has been much bile and vitriol posted on various H/Hr shipping sites, the majority of us are reasonable people. What really hurt our feelings was the way the Mugglenet/TLC article made it seem as if J. K. Rowling herself felt we were really dense, missing her "anvil-sized clues." Emerson's subsequent "apology" for the harsh words directed at the Harry/Hermione 'shipper community was a non-apology, which you [the author of the SFC article] would have known if you had done more than just take his word that he apologized. He simply used the "apology" as an opportunity to issue another dig. I suppose not much better can be expected from a child of 18 who has suddenly become a bit of a celebrity. But I do expect better from a colleague; a professional writer. ...

You have assisted one side of the argument and failed to represent the other. Did you attempt to interview the webmasters of any Harry/Hermione shipping sites or did you merely cut and paste posts that were pointed out to you by Emerson and Melissa? Your article shows no evidence that you made any attempt to give the other side equal time, so to speak, and as a result, you have contributed to the perceprtion [sic] that ALL H/Hr 'shippers are irrational, bitter, spoiled brats. And that's quite unfair. (Hughes, 2005, paras. 13 & 18)

Or this comment in a Harmonian forum by a disappointed reader: 

History is written by the victorius [sic] (or something like that), isn't it how the saying goes?. I'm afraid we are witnessing it firsthand. Herons feel they are the winners on this war, and as such, they feel they have a right to treat us anyway they want to, and they think we have no weapons to defend ourselves since even J.K seems to have sided with them. Even if most of us are pretty reasonable people, at this point anything we say in regards of J.K's apparent disregard for our feelings (thoughts, opinions, whatever), will be gladly taken as the lashing out of sore losers. ::sigh:: I say, just ignore Emerson, he's just some lost kid desperate for attention. And how good can the guy who wrote this article be if he didn't bother to check the facts before he went slandering us?, not much me thinks. (Remolina, 2005, para. 21)

These responses, while perhaps silly or overblown, were not enough to make history. That honor belonged to a Harmonian going by the username Panther.

How, one might wonder?

The Blowout

Ya know, come to think of it, people like Emerson were probably the kinda people that started slavery. I mean, think about it, they thought the slaves were animals, just because they had different colored skin. Emerson thinks we're stupid and delusional for having different beliefs. Get the similarities here, people? Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want. (Panther, 2005, paras. 23-25)

The reaction was immediate and explosive from Panther’s fellow Harmonians. Some understood and empathized with Panther’s view; they saw it as a bit hyperbolic, but agreed with the underlying point being made.

I can see where they were going with this...a different analogy would probably have been better. Maybe the religious persecution during Mary Tudor's reign, or the Salem Witch Hunt/Trials, the religous [sic] crusades, the wars in Bosnia etc. We harmonians are being "persecuted" for our differening viewpoints/perspectives. (Anndee Granger, 2005, paras. 30-32)

The belief that H/Hr shippers were being persecuted for their beliefs was a pervasive one, and extended to fans, Emerson and other fandom “authorities,” and the author herself.

No, what we are experiencing is not at the same extreme level because of the world we now live in, but the base level is still the same. The base level taking us back to different beliefs and views without the ability to be heard in the correct manner, and yes it does feel like a form of persecution. (*Under your Skin, 2005, paras. 36-37)

While not on the same level as slavery, the intolerance of their ship did call to mind other examples of discrimination and bigotry:

Of course no one is dying because of this, but all in all we are being persecuted for our different beliefs. "Bloody" Mary Tudor, killed Protestants because she so hated their different views on Christ. This is an extreme indeed, but the mentality behind it, the vitrol [sic], is the same. (Andee Granger, 2005, para. 38)

This extreme point of view, while widespread, was not universal among the Harmonians. Many of them were . . . understandably appalled by the comment and those agreeing with it:

No wonder other people find it easy to portray us as reactionary and vicious. Some of you bloody well are. (jane99, 2005, para. 43)

I agree that it is very vicious and out in left field . . . Slavery was an oppressive movement for hundreds of years, resulting in the deaths of millions. I would hardly regard that with 'shipper treatment, nowadays. However, the schoolyard bully is a very appropriate analogy, in my opinion. Hopefully you understand the difference. (myrhlyn, 2005, para. 52)

The Response

NarcissaM brought the subject to the outside world by posting it in fandom_wank -- a defunct LiveJournal specializing in fandom drama, which now exists primarily in archives -- and the result was universally disbelief and amusement. The responses ranged from insightful, if crass, commentary . . .

Emerson did not kill your dog, tell you that Santa wasn't real, and touch you in your swimsuit areas. And the more I read the more I'm convinced that H/Hr fans aren't angry because what he said was insulting, they're angry because what he said was *accurate*. (iczer6)

I'm also wondering where keeping slaves was a matter of, y'know, people having different beliefs, and not the subjugation of an entire culture by another which had more money and more powerful weapons, and needed a lot of manual labor but didn't want to pay for it. (slackerbitch)

To good old-fashioned sarcasm and snark:

That's not the stupidest thing I've ever read, but it's in the top five. (Anonymous)

That's right. There is a conspiracy, Hermionians! The world is against you and want to take a shit on all your fan fiction! XD (Anonymous “Mary”)

QUICKLY! SOMEBODY CALL A WAAAAAHBULANCE! WE HAVE INTERNET PERSECUTION! (aerobot)

F_W, known for good and ill as a site that takes nothing seriously except the desire to laugh at themselves and especially others, took the slavery comment and ran with it:

So how much does a healthy H/Hr fan with good teeth go for these days? (xero-sky)

Which H/Hr's are in the big house and which ones are working in the fields? ... We didn't land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth rock landed on us! *throws up the fist* (prettyveela)

If we're going to start enslaving delusional people, I want to start with the scientologists. Who's with me? (ladybirdsleeps)

Big Daddy Heron:*hits the H/Hr fan with a whip* Your ship name is H/Hr, H/Hr! Say it! H/Hr shipper: H-Harmony (sewingmyfish)

Bully for the slaves! In fact they would have been sooo much better off if all we 21st century people could trade places with the whites that lived back then. Not only could we tell them to get a life, none of us would have kept slaves! (chief)

You know, just like slaves, they have to work out in the hot sun for no wages and be beaten and whipped and raped and sold like cattle deal with an author not writing the fictional pairing they wanted. (slackerbitch)

Mere hours after the controversy was reported to F_W, a user named ahiru created some icons to celebrate the controversy:

And with some more chuckles about the inherent ridiculousness of such a claim, the fandom and its onlookers dropped the subject.

For a few months.

The Aftermath

In November 2005, some users rediscovered the icons made by ahiru and found them insensitive and racist. This is immediately reported to F_W not once but twice, and the folks there were no longer entertained, responding with less amusement than outright hostility. A couple of F_Wankers understood to at least some extent why there might be people who didn’t love the icons, though they did generally come down on the side of parody and feel those upset were missing the point of the joke. A lot of F_Wankers were upset about political correctness and free speech, and were eager to point out the oppression faced by other groups of people.

Someone anonymous entered the fray with racist guns blazing, and was summarily eviscerated by gleeful F_Wankers.

After that, the dust settled, and all was quiet on the fandom front . . . at least, until the next inevitable disaster.

Further Reading

The Interview that sparked the Emerson outrage

An offshoot of Harmony that believes in Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson’s undeniable chemistry and romance

A collection of Harmonian controversies, 2006-2010

Other HP controversies

swanto - downfall (nightclub)??? ;👀👀👀

ALRIGHT SO. (i’m grinning just thinking about this stupid au). This all started like nearly 2 years ago when my coworker invited me to go to a club with them. I’d never been to a club before (not my scene and with experience still isn’t). So I go home at a reasonable morning hour but I can’t get to sleep cause on the way back my brain is full of Eli/Cygni brainrot with the silliest idea that basically. what if Eli was undercover in a nightclub (because fanfic plot reasons). And Cygni was there. and then they flirt and hook up. and that was meant to be it. that was the plot. i just wanted random cute one-shot swantos.

and then my brain made angst happen by giving thrawn a bigger role and slapping in some one-sided thranto. so then the fic kept going and we have thrawn meeting eli in the hotel the next morning and being Concerned but also jealous and hurt. and so thrawn confesses he’s got feelings for Eli but eli basically has none of it cause he’s kinda fed up with the manipulation schtick. in this au Pryce and Thrawn never meet and thus never help one another and so eli is stuck as an ensign and we get a lot of thranto angst and possibly some very vindictive space cowboy. it was initally titled “nightclub au” for ages before I gave it the temp. name of “downfall”. I have a playlist for this au also. i just checked and there are 18k words i don’t remember writing all of :’) it’s really fun writing eli/cygni interactions with cygni being a lil snarky and eli getting riled up but also getting snarky right back at him. and also being soft n cute. and also thrawn just pining really hard. and also eli’s frustration at a stagnated career path.

uhhh select snippets under the cut?

- - -

Cygni shrugged. "Spice, Dust, people... not my modus operandi."

"And I'm to believe you?"

"I told you - I'm in no position to lie. Besides, why would I? Is it that difficult to believe I'm not keen on those who profit off of the stuff? I've seen what it does to people. And I'm just me tonight."

"Just 'you'?" A flat statement more than a question. He didn't understand Cygni's words.

"Yes." The damn smirk was equal parts infuriating and attractive and infuriatingly attractive. Clearly there was a punchline he wasn't getting. Whatever. Eli pushed it aside, not caring for games. He cleared his throat.

"So," Eli ventured. "Whatever you're doing, it's not some kind of play. Or trap."

"Of course not. How would I even know you were to be here tonight?" Cygni smiled wryly. "You think if I knew I would show up, considering our previous encounter?"

"No. I don't think you'd be that bold. Or that stupid."

Cygni snorted from across the table. "Well, I'm glad you think so, at least. I'd say we're getting along just fine, wouldn't you?"

-

(at the hotel)

He watched as Cygni shuffled backwards to sit cross-legged on the wide bed. He followed suit and made himself comfortable facing him. The way he leant back and propped himself on his hands was very appealing. Eli let his gaze wander, down along the scrunched creases of his shirt at the shoulder, his arms, a little more muscular than he'd first thought, pale scars catching on his dark skin that gave Eli a twinge of cold uneasy recognition, of remembrance, and to those solid hands that had felt so good on his scalp. He dropped lower down to the drape of his shirt - really if he'd wanted to blend in at the venue he could have worn something a little more... exciting - past the strained fabric of his trousers, nicely fitting, quite tight, actually, and a strange blue-green colour that Eli wasn't sure blended well whatsoever with the pale shirt or dark skin but really he was just focussed on the want for their absence; and then with rising heat down elsewhere, to Cygni's feet. Eli suddenly felt very strange for wearing his shoes whilst on the bed. He gulped, getting back to the matter at hand - that being the growing desire inside of him for the man before him. He raked his eyes back up to Cygni's wry grin, though not entirely free of tension.

He must've had a strange expression on his face because Cygni spoke up in a jovial tone. "Not going to try and weasel some information out of me are you, Vanto?"

Eli huffed quietly, tension lifting. "As if you'd fall for that. And it's Eli," he said, and leant forward to kiss him again. "You can call me Eli."

-

(thrawn confronting eli the morning after. which is very rude of him)

"You are well aware it is against protocol--"

"I know, sir," Eli muttered, pained.

"--and more so it was unwise. There is conduct to follow, Ensign."

Eli flinched. He knew better than to try answering that.

"However, I do not expect any individual to solely rid themselves of any desires they have. As you said, the path of duty can oft impede or interrupt chances at proper rest or indeed.. indulgence. What I wish to understand is that it seems there are those on the Thunder Wasp who would respond positively from such an advance from yourself, and despite regulations I see no reason why you could not engage in sexual activity with those you wish to, whoever they may be,//such colleagues albeit within appropriate timeframes, provided it does not impact your work. Yet you have chosen to ignore this in favour of a different party. I do, of course, notice these things."

Gods what the fucking weirdest thing Thrawn was saying.

"Oh yeah," Eli replied sarcastically, unable to help it now. "I'm sure the Empire’s finest are dying to get a shot at screwing a Wild Space hick who barely made the cut at the Royal Academy and is getting such special treatment – all for being bilingual. Care to name a few?”

"I myself, am one such example."

"What."

-

(after thrawn and eli’s fallout)

Oh right - Thrawn was talking to him. Of course he was. And didn't seem to care that Eli wasn't listening. It's not like he wouldn't notice. He just expected Eli to pay attention to him. Like usual, he expected Eli to give him every waking moment. No time to think for himself, about himself, lest it lead to foolishness.

"Sir?" Eli said bitterly. All of this clamouring in his head was driving him mad. He felt sick. He couldn't remember half of what he'd been driving round and round in his skull, and from the rest of it he couldn't tell if it was his own spiteful hyperbole or if it was truthful. He didn't know which was worse.

A small flicker of something crossed Thrawn's impeccable features. Eli didn't know and didn't care what. He supposed he should. He paid attention. "I was suggesting, Ensign, that you be taken as ill. I have noticed your demeanour becoming--" he paused. muttered something, or maybe just mouthed it. Eli was frowning at him, hardly trying to stop himself, and could see the word was Sy Bisti. Still on translation duty after all these years. Only useful because it wasn't worth the hour programming a droid. Eli's existence could be quantified in a measly number of credits in that regard. And yet he hadn't even bothered to say the word, to ask Eli for that translation. Was he trying to be nice, or polite? What a first. Or maybe he wasn't even worth that anymore.

-

tldr: what if... we hooked up in a nightclub while i was undercover on a mission... and the encounter really gets to some hidden emotional part of me for reasons unknown... and then it turned out my commanding officer has been madly in love with me the whole time but my head’s too busy with whatever spell you put on me when we had sex that one time to even look his way... haha jk.... unless..?

20 and 55 with Logicality?

Teacher AU and EstablishedRelationship 

ooooo okay let’s see where this one goes

Dr. Trevisan had a reputation for being, well, a hardass.

It’s not like it was undeserved, mind you. Logan expected his students to not only succeed, but exceed in most everything they did, and while he consistently encouraged and believed in them in order for them to get to where he knew they could be, he also was not the most tactful man at the best of times.

Professor Halle, on the other hand, was the school’s sweetheart.

Far from his hardworking counterpart, Patton understood that sometimes the kiddos needed to take breaks, and just goof off for a bit. Not that they didn’t in the AP Astronomy course the good Doc taught, but Patton had somewhat of a... gentler hand when he taught his Psychology courses, and his students could always count on him to tell whether they were exhausted, overworked, or otherwise in need of a break, and take them all outside for a quick game of dodgeball – which would almost inevitably turn into an explosively competitive dance-off.

Now, there weren’t too many student who’d had both professors, as, let’s be honest, astronomy and psych weren’t the most overlapping of sciences, but those who had had the two were prone to agreeing that they couldn’t be more different. Professor Halle – “Come on, kiddo, just call me Patton!” – was notoriously chatty, and was always down to listen to the latest gossip, talk about the cute thing his cat had done the other day, or go on lovingly about his husband. Dr. Trevisan, on the other hand, could just as well be a brick wall, for all his students knew about his personal lining – and not for their lack of trying.

So really, it came as quite the shock when, one period before he got off for break, Logan took a pause in his class to answer his phone, and what could only be called a dopey grin grew, slowly but surely, on his face. “Yes, dear,” he said over the line, completely unaware of the shamelessly eavesdropping students but a few feet away. “Certainly, that’s- that’s absolutely possible. Yes. Love you too. Goodby- no, don’t you dare turn that into a- aaaand, it’s a pun. I’m leaving you.” A sigh. “No, I’m not. Now goodbye. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Ending the call with a soft click, he glanced up at his students. “What are you all doing? Don’t you have a paper to be completing?”

Hastily pretending like that’s what they’d been doing the entire time, the students’ heads turned back to their laptops – though not before Roman leant over to his best friend and whispered that they absolutely needed to tail Trevisan and find out who he was talking to. Virgil shoved him, but begrudgingly agreed, and as the period ended, the two followed from a careful distance behind their normally oh-so-uptight teacher.

“What’s he doing with Halle?” Roman wondered aloud as the two watched the doctor casually stride towards his shorter colleague from the relative safety of a nearby cafe.

“Dunno,” Virgil whispered back. “Maybe he’s asking him about someth-”

He cut himself off abruptly then, not because he thought he’d been overheard, but because he had caught a glimpse of the look on Trevisan’s face.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “Holy shit.”

Roman furrowed his brows. “What’s u- oh my god.”

“Did you know that they-?”

“I literally never would have guessed in a million years.“

“Okay, hyperbole, but go off, I guess-”

“Oh shut up, you!”

“...”

“Seriously, though. Talk about odd couple.”

“I dunno, actually. It’s... kinda cute, if you think about it.”

Roman sighs, and places his head into a hand. “They really are, aren’t they?”

And from their place strolling through the university plaza, Patton Halle swung his and Logan Trevisan’s linked hands, and he grinned up at his husband as they went out to lunch.

oh my goshhhhhhhh i love them so much aaaaa

Send me a ship and two tropes!

Pets! Pronunciation, Saints and Souls | #12 | November 2019

I was helping the Buddhist monks understand the English alphabet one Friday, when I found they had trouble hearing me teach the sounds /ch/ and /j/. These two sounds are and have always been two I’ve struggled with since birth. Finally, I just chalked on the board, /ch/ = /ч/ and /j/ = /ж/. So, those who understood explained it in Mongolian to the others. My speech problems go way back.

I often say, I struggled with my native language too, when my Mongolian students struggle to speak English. Today, I return you to my childhood to share how personal English pronunciation problems affect my teaching today (plus stories about pets).

While a Peace Corps Volunteer, I’ve watched over both a kitten and a puppy, too. They made me reflect on life. And November begins with Allhallowtide. So I’ll wrap up today’s stories living my first full triduum to the dead.

The Challenging Child

Growing up, I fumed when siblings and especially Father kept telling me to, “Stop mumbling.” I never intended to sound inarticulate. My words just came out that way. 

After graduating high school, while packing to move from home to university, my eye caught my kindergarten teacher’s file on me. I flipped through it. Astonishingly, the teacher’s notes described month after month her concerns that I seemed slow to make friends, seldom spoke and sounded hardly audible when I did. I never realized kindergarten-me troubled her. 

While in Catholic elementary school, a friend and I maybe a few times per month attended a separate speech class from our classmates. Among our activities there, we sometimes played “Uno” and “Go Fish”—games I now adapt to teach English here in Mongolia (though “uno” is a Spanish word, hehe).

Before the first of those years of sessions began, my entire class underwent phonics testing. I’ll never forget this particular moment. The tester raised cards with a picture and asked me to name objects. I saw a small box with a screen and button grid. “Cell-a-phone,” I spoke with certainty. 

I felt frustrated, then, when the card-holder asked me to repeat, insisting I was wrong. Finally, I said “cell phone” as she said, not, “cell-a-phone.” But I didn’t understand. Later, I later, that phonics person was correct. So I felt betrayed by my mother, who taught me wrong. 

Mother read aloud to me, while I was in kindergarten and first grade. She sometimes pronounced words differently than I heard at school. I felt grumpy wondering, who could I trust? Elementary school or Mom?

As I later learned in high school and came to understand after Mother’s death, her career as an English professor let her to immigrate to America from China. So, teaching English surely mattered to her personally. She taught her second language to me to learn my first.

My Pronunciation Improved

From late middle school into high school, I wore braces. I realized my speaking problems associated with my teeth. After braces, sounds like /s/ and /th/ became easier. I recalled that elementary school tutor had drilled me on those sounds, plus /sh/, /ch/ and /j/.

At university, while singing four years in choir, I learned to articulate to help convey emotion in music. Similarly, I realized articulation helped convey emotion in speeches to bring clarity. These took vocal warm-ups, as we did in my senior storytelling course.

But, in China last summer, I learned my Chinese pronunciation was terrible. I started new regimens, like using only audio recordings to communicate instead of writing messages. I also learned to listen for exactly the right sounds. And despite my poor tonal pronunciation, instructors commended my listening. I could transcribe the right pīnyīn, for even unfamiliar words. 

As a Chinese instructor now, though I, too, at times struggle to pronounce words from memory, I can recognize almost at once when I hear an off sound. For, I know how it should sound. My Chinese-instructing colleagues even notice I speak alright. I’ve come a long way.

Instructing English With Compassion

These memories lead to why, when I teach pronunciation, I give the benefit of the doubt that students aren’t trying to mumble, even when they seem to. I focus on asking students to speak louder and move their lips more. I focus on visual articulation, too, so I can see how they form sounds.

One of my university colleagues specializes in pronunciation and amazes me by how well she knows the phonetic alphabet. When I clarify pronunciations for her, she notes in phonetic letters. We bleat about English’s inconsistent phonetics sometimes, haha. 

Yet, learning phonetics helps me plenty. When I catch multiple students speaking the same error, I write a series of words to course-correct. For examples, to drill, “brown,” I might write, “crown, round, down.” Or, to drill, “orange,” I might write, “or, door, floor.” I link troublesome vowels to familiar ones. 

Curiously, the Mongolian language lacks the /ə/ sound, one I often spell as “uh.” I first noticed the missing sound while teaching Chinese, when my students struggled to pronounce the most basic question, “什么？(Shénme?).” It has /ə/ (or /uh/) in its second character. Thus, students misprounounced “么 /muh/” as /meh/, instead. This Mongolian lack of /ə/ makes authentic pronunciation of basic English words like articles “the” and “a” challenging. 

Still, my fixation on pronunciation has its fun. Apparently this trickles into my Mongolian! Lately, I find my students gleefully giggle with amazement when, as we might be walking and chatting together, they hear me slip briefly into Mongolian to say passing pleasantries to employees or locals I know speak no English. My students often insist I sound authentic and beautiful. And I assume there’s hyperbole in those. But my colleagues, too, have said I’ve improved. They’ve no doubt I’ll speak wonderfully by this time next year. More on this at the end.

Pets! Kitten and Puppy

During my Peace Corps service I watched in the capital, Ерөө /Yeröö/, the kitten of one Volunteer, and in my current city, Azzy, the puppy of another. I saw myself in those pets. 

I mentioned we Peace Corps Volunteers played, “The Shining,” for Halloween. As the film began, we Volunteers exchanged smirks when the mountain lodge’s owner explained concerns about fears of isolation during the harsh, trying winters. We sat through such talks about choosing to serve in Mongolia. But the film’s symbolism, about confronting our psyches in the mirror of isolation, felt fitting to me. 

Many Mongolians fear dogs. Dogs are protectors not companions, for many. In the States, even my mother feared dogs. In fact, we had two pet dogs. I feared them a bit, too. When my parents went walking with my siblings and I, neighbors’ dogs would run up beside the road and yap at us. But Dad would always laugh and yap back, teasing Mom about how they just wanted to play. I remembered those walks even throughout college, when I strolled neighborhoods and heard barking. They gave me peace. And whenever I visited friends’ houses, their dogs most always loved me for reasons I never knew.

Azzy the puppy he would weave around my legs or leap up and cling to me momentarily, when I visited to feed him. He seemed so lonely without me. Then he would hop down, zoom around at my feet and scamper to a corner of the room. He freaked out over the simplest things, too, haha. But one morning, after his owner had come back, while I was walking into the city, Azzy zoomed to me and accompanied me from the area where we live, all the way downtown. I felt surprised, though I appreciative.

Ерөө the kitten had fun darting about our hotel room, zooming with wide eyes at light speed to achieve nothing particular. And she would flick her paws at the jingling toy I dangled, while she lept from table to chair. And, when I was journaling a little, Ерөө would hop on the bed, then leap to the desk and plop on my arm. I would pick the kitten up by her middle and set her on the floor, then she would zoom back to me again. I loved her energy, even if she seemed a little too hyper, hehe.

The pets were ecstatic for me to visit. I considered my own longings for companionship. But pets are relationships that take responsibility. And I’m hardly certain I could commit. Still, maybe because I accept others, they come. Maybe that’s all there is to it. They don’t just want love. They want to love. How sweet.

I’m glad our Peace Corps Mongolia director allows pets. They let my energetic soul see itself in the crazy creatures. Such joys, even for the effort!

All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days

The second and third day after Hallowe’en, in the Catholic tradition, celebrate first, “All Hallows,” the Saints and holy ones, living and had lived. Then we celebrate, “All Souls,” all who have passed away. The triduum has always been difficult for me the past three years, since they inevitably return to mind my loneliness since Mom’s death. 

But this year was kind, for people asked me how I was doing when they greeted me. I also remembered to pray for my friends who’d lost close family. In my suffering, I remember my chance to heal others. At Mass on the last day, while others lit incense sticks for relatives, I lit one for Mother. I burned my finger. But I liked the sting. It reminded me I live. Hearing the readings of how we’re always surrounded by the saints and how the teachings assure that none of us can compare this life to the next, I felt consoled, these holy days. By the end, I’d attended Mass five days in a row! Woah.

Nowadays’ Love

I like the compliments from colleagues, students and friends that my Mongolian pronunciation’s rather good. And I know it can still be better. But they gives me great hope. My students can improve, as I have.

In our Toastmasters Club, I’ve been assigned weekly as Grammarian, tasked with correcting pronunciation for all speakers. They’re so grateful I come, and I’m so glad to help. 

I recently spoke on the topic of how I chose this English teaching profession, while chatting with my senior students to prepare them for their TOEFL exams.

I recounted how Mother was an English professor and her parents were both secondary school Chinese language teachers. And it struck me how I teach both English and Chinese at both university and secondary school levels. I teach everything those two generations before me had done.

Whether children from Номгон, adults from our community speaking clubs, or new friends from the orphanage, I love the little messages I get from locals striving to improve their English. And, sometimes, those many Mongolians striving in their English remind me of Mom. She always strove. Even before I became an English instructor like her, I helped her. Maybe that’s why I aid anyone trying in English, always. They’re her.

 Up Next: Thanksgiving and the Orphanage

I am extremely excited to share with you my next story, for it’s about the orphanage. I adore its community. Our children and teachers touch my soul.

As for the puppy, it’ll be a shame to say goodbye when he moves to the capital by Thanksgiving. But perhaps I’ll see him again when I visit the city sometimes! 

Meanwhile, check my Instagram at memoryLang and Facebook for this year’s Thanksgiving novena of photos and memories bridging my summer life to today’s.

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :) 

HEADCANON: RAPHAEL

Under the cut are a bunch of canon scenes between Raphael and Martel. I’m putting them up here so that people have some idea of the dynamic between them, as it’s likely that anyone who meets Raphael in his village is going to meet him through Martel first - most people coming up the mountain will be stopped by some of Martel’s men and taken to his inn, as he has a number of lookouts in his employ to tell him if foreigners (especially white men) come up that way. Martel generally assigns Raphael as a guide for people going up the mountain - and, though he doesn’t mention this, as someone who will kill them or chase them away if they try to steal quinine from the cinchona woods near Raphael’s village.

TW for abuse, racism, and slavery, as well as Stockholm Syndrome. 

‘Don’t be silly,’ the Spanish man laughed. He was lifting Clem onto the couch near the fire. His face was broad, harsh strokes that would have been ugly if he hadn’t had huge eyes and a sweep of well-cut hair. His clothes were meticulous too, his coat richly cut with a green velvet collar that would have been dandy on me but suited him. 

(...) 

‘You give it to him, I think, Hernandez, I don’t know how much is right. Quispe - go upstairs and fetch Raphael out. Make sure he’s fit for human company.’

(...)

When he had mentioned Raphael, I’d thought Martel was talking about a dog, but Quispe came back with a man. Martel pushed out the chair opposite mine with his ankle but didn’t introduce him and left a vague impression in the air of some kind of clerk or bodyguard, someone whose name wouldn’t matter. The man didn’t seem like either. He held himself very straight, not like a servant, in good but old clothes that must just have been ironed, because I caught the smell of hot cotton when he came in past me. He was Indian, but from a different nation to Quispe and Hernandez and the boys. He didn’t have the Incan nose and his hair was cut short, and he was far taller. He moved so slowly it was ostentatious, the way very strong men do, and I wrote him off after about half a second as probably an arrogant bastard, although after meeting so many beaten-down people on the road, it was a relief to see someone who looked like he might punch anybody trying to make him sweep a yard.

He stopped when he saw me, just before reaching his chair. His expression opened as if he knew me, but then he saw he was wrong and sat down. Martel thumped him to say hello. It didn’t sway him in the least and Martel looked as if he might have hurt his hand. Raphael was still watching me hard, taking measurements. Whoever he had mistaken me for, I must have been a good lookalike.

(...)

‘What was all that?’ I asked him, but it was Martel who answered.

He was pouring me some wine. ‘The Indian nations beyond the mountains are known for their savagery, you see. It’s often hard to make any Indians from this side work with them. They call them all Chuncho. They say it means barbarian, but I think barbarian sounds rather more genteel than what it really is. Heard the term?’

‘Viking (...) I mean, raiders.’

Martel laughed. ‘No, that’s good. I’ll steal that from you, if you don’t mind. It’s rather difficult to explain to foreigners what they are.’

Raphael looked away from us in a way that made it clear he thought it was all hyperbole. It was hard not to agree with him. If he was from one of the tribes in the rainforest, he was thoroughly Hispanicized. His clothes were all Spanish, and he had a rosary around his wrist; no tattoos, no native jewellery, not even an earring.

‘But… you two are colleagues?’ I asked, still not sure why Martel had called him down.

‘Raphael works for me. He’ll take you over the mountains.’

(...)

Martel swivelled in his chair to face Raphael, a theatric precise ninety degrees. ‘Well? How are you for frosty coffee?’

‘Well off,’ he said.

‘It exists?’

‘I’ve got a garden full of it. You’ve had some. It tastes like chocolate.’ The other Indians we had met, including the boys, spoke Spanish mixed with Quechua, but his was glassy. He was quiet too. It was elegant.

‘Oh, that. God, I didn’t realise it was coffee, I thought you just didn’t know the Spanish for whatever it was.’

Raphael gave his wine glass a blank look and didn’t say anything.

‘Don’t look like that. You didn’t know the Spanish word for the cathedral, remember, the other day?’

‘No,’ he said, without looking up from the glass, ‘you didn’t know. It’s the Qorikancha in Spanish too.’

‘It’s Cuzco Cathedral.’

‘And what do you call the much older place it’s built over?’ Over anything more than a sentence, he had a strange voice. It sounded like he was dragging it up through a shale quarry.

‘The foundations,’ Martel said firmly.

‘For God’s sake.’

I looked between them, prickling and sure that Martel had run on with that to keep me waiting for his verdict about my coffee story. Raphael lifted his eyes just enough to catch mine while Martel was still laughing. There was something bleak in them. He hadn’t smiled once. My heart was going fast again. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t believe me or if he only would have preferred to be elsewhere.

(...)

Raphael sat forward. It made the bones and muscles in his shoulders show. I leaned back without meaning to. It was like sitting across from a big animal. There was a right-angled nick in his eyebrow, not old. Someone had smacked him over the head with the butt of a gun. It was a scar I recognised, common in the Navy, common in all the expeditionary arms of the East India Company. I realised he had moved to get a little further away from Martel. He didn’t want to be sent out with us. 

(...)

‘And you’re happy to take us?’ I said.

Raphael was staring into his wine, but his eyes came up when he realised I was talking to him. They were black, real black like I hadn’t seen even in Asia. He set his glass down softly. The cross on the rosary around his wrist chimed against the crystal. ‘Yes.’

‘R...ight,’ I said, not full of confidence. ‘You don’t sound very happy.’

He glanced at Martel. ‘He’ll burn my village down if I don’t keep you safe.’

‘Only way,’ Martel said cheerfully. ‘Firm hand. Negotiation not a Chuncho strong point.’

Raphael gave him a look full of threadbare hate. Resignation showed through the worn-out places. Martel saw it too and clapped the back of his neck, only gently. Raphael turned his head away but not fast. It looked like token resistance to me. Nearly like a joke between them.

‘Are you allowed to do that?’ I said to Martel.

‘It’s my land. It’s all my land, out that way. The villagers all work for me. It’s their only livelihood. I wouldn’t like to burn it down, it’s a charming place. Unless Raphael does something especially Indian to change my mind.’

‘I’ll show you especially Indian one day,’ Raphael murmured, with no force. 

Martel snorted. ‘You get used to him.’ He watched Raphael for a second or two, looking quietly pleased.

(...)

‘I don’t need paying,’ he said, as if the idea were halfway to alarming. ‘Mr Martel looks after me.’

(...)

I needed a few minutes (...) not trying to understand the strange way they were with each other.

(...)

Martel had been holding Raphael’s shoulder, which I’d seen men in charge doing to men not in charge all the way across Peru, and now he leaned on it more. ‘Are you making bombs, my dear?’

Raphael inclined his head away. ‘Leaving them in your wardrobe.’

(...)

‘Didn’t you go to the antiques shop on Monday?’ Martel asked, shooting me a little sideways look to say, watch this. I shifted, not wanting to see it, whatever it was.

‘No, I said I’d go next Monday on the way home,’ Raphael said. He moved his hand back, towards his shoulder, like he was pointing at something behind him. (...) ‘And I asked you last Monday. You said no.’ This time he brought his hand down in front of him, not too close. I was confused until Martel slapped his hand. Forward was the past, behind was the future.

‘Don’t talk about time in Spanish and think in Quechua, dear. It doesn’t match and it gives me a headache.’

Raphael turned his head slowly to look at him properly. ‘Can your superior Spanish brain not recognise ordinary things when they’re backwards? You must be a menace around reversing horses.’

Martel laughed. ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ he said to me.

(...)

‘Yes, off you go,’ Martel murmured to Raphael, who ghosted away back up the stairs, chaperoned by Quispe again. (...) At the top of the stairs, Quispe opened a door just off the landing, put Raphael inside, and locked it. He came down the stairs still fastening the keys to his belt.’

(...)

‘Fair enough,’ said Martel, who was making something at a side table where there were steaming kettles and cups. ‘But if any of them come back with a broken ankle, dear, I’ll break yours.’

‘Yes,’ said Raphael.

(...)

‘It’s local,’ Martel said. ‘From my cocoa farm, actually.’ He nodded towards Raphael to say he meant the one in New Bethlehem. ‘Marvellous stuff. Grows back very fast if somebody sets it on fire, too,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Doesn’t it?’

He was talking to Raphael, who almost smiled. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never set your cocoa on fire.’

‘Look, take care,’ Martel said to him, more seriously. ‘The weather’s mad. It’s going to be madder up on the passes.’

‘I’ll be careful with the horses.’

‘I did mean with yourself too. Here you are. Sugar cake for the way. Make sure you don’t give it all to other people.’

Raphael lost some of his usual stiffness and took it. Martel rubbed his shoulder. In his fine velvet waistcoat, he looked like the most accomplished sort of ringmaster, with a lion that was just getting used to him.

(...)

He smiled. ‘Coming back from where, my dear?’ he said to Raphael. ‘Just at the moment one of the expeditionaries dies and ends up on your altar. Think about it carefully.’

‘I was in the forest. I lost a day and a night.’

Martel must have known about the catalepsy, because he didn’t question it. (...) ‘So, Raphael, did you kill him or did you only tell someone else to?’

‘Neither. It was just - I was just stuck. It’s happened before. You know it has.’

Martel’s gun was on the table, a pretty revolver with filigree work on the handle. When he picked it up, around the barrel, I thought he only meant to put it away, but he hit Raphael in the face with it. ‘Not good enough. I’m afraid I’ve got to arrest you. We’re going back to Azangaro.’

(...) it wrenched at something in me to see how the blow had spun him. (...) Raphael looked like he was about to collapse and I had a strong feeling they would have been happy to leave him on the floor.

(...)

‘Why aren’t you escaping?’ I asked (Raphael). ‘If he accuses you of murder…’

‘He won’t. He knows I didn’t do it.’

(...)

Raphael pulled himself up onto the island.

‘Martel, you idiot, stop shooting before you set fire to the whole forest! Get over here. (...) I’ll get you out of here if you leave us alone,’ Raphael said tightly.

‘Excellent,’ said Martel. ‘Come along, gentlemen. What have you done with Mr Tremayne?’ he added as he waded across.

‘He’s here. Touch him and I’ll walk you straight back the way you came.’

‘Yes, no need to labour the point. Help me up.’ 

Raphael pulled him up on to the rocks and Martel squeezed his shoulder, pleased to see him despite everything and, I thought, reminding him who he belonged to. 

(...)

He touched Raphael’s shoulder. I thought Raphael would throw him off, but he only glanced at him and it was there in the lines and the small scars around his eyes, that he was glad Martel was all right. 

(...) He was still holding Raphael’s shoulder. He looked shaken and I realised that knowing he had the reins of someone so strong was giving him a kind of strength too.

(...)

He was quiet for a second. ‘Don’t touch the statue.’

‘Oh, why would anyone touch your wretched heathen statue?’ Martel said, but not rudely exactly. He sounded glad to have a familiar argument. I could imagine they had disagreed about the markayuq quite often. ‘My God.’

(...)

‘Raphael, come up here, I don’t want to eat by myself. Mr Tremayne?’

‘I’ll be along in a second. My leg hurts,’ I lied. (...) From there, I watched Martel brush his knuckle over the graze through Raphael’s eyebrow and ask how it was, like he hadn’t been the one to do it. Raphael knocked his hand away, but not hard, and under his ordinary roughness he looked glad. 

(...)

(after Martel gets KILLED, AS HE SHOULD)

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve never done anything more useless than that.’

‘You couldn’t have done anything.’

‘I would have taken that gun off anyone else.’ He looked away and seemed to have to push hard to look back again. ‘I would have shot anyone else a long time ago.’

‘Familiar devils are important though after a while, aren’t they? Better than nothing,’ I said, and then shook my head. I could hear how incoherent I sounded but I couldn’t see a way to sort it out. 

Raphael watched me and I misread him. His neutral expression was a half-frown and it seemed cold. I had time to worry he was angry before he hugged me.

Fic:  Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Part Three)

Timeline: Season 10 (replaces My Struggle in the All The Choices We’ve Made ‘verse - Visitor + Resident + etc.) Rating: PG Characters:  Mulder, Scully, Tad O’Malley, Sveta (established MSR) Content warning:  canon-typical body horror (mentions of abduction, forced pregnancy, etc.) A/N:  I’m collecting all the related stories that go with Visitor/Resident under the title “All The Choices We’ve Made”, because it felt right at the time.  This story is an alternate My Struggle that reflects M&S’ growth/change in the ATCWM ‘verse. I’m weaving canon dialogue into the stories in an attempt to keep the reframing plausibly in line with canon.  

Part One  |  Part Two

They drop Scully and Sveta off at the hospital.  Driving the limousine into the non-emergency lot at Our Lady of Sorrows feels even more pretentious than cruising the streets of DC, but at least Scully can still leverage a few privileges there.   

"Call me when you're done," Mulder says to Scully.  They're standing in the corner of a hospital waiting room with their heads close together.  It feels like old times.  He's aware of how easy it would be to slide back into that life.  There are some things worth salvaging from their days on the X-Files, but they've worked hard to rebuild the rest.  

"Where will you be?" she said, tipping her face up to his.  It always made him want to kiss her.  It still does.

"I don't know.  He seems to have a plan."  He jerks his head slightly at Tad O'Malley, who is staring into his phone again, conspicuous by the door.  "Divide and conquer, right?"

"We're too smart for that, aren't we?" she murmurs, more than a hint of irony in his voice.  "Mulder, he's got to have something he wants only you to see."

"Don't take the bait," he says.  

"You too," she says.  He leans down and kisses her on the cheek, because what the hell, he can.  Their attachment to each other is no secret.  She closes her eyes briefly.  "Be safe."

"You know me," he says, and winks.

"That's why I worry," she tells him.  He chuckles as he turns away and strides back over to O'Malley.  

"I think they've got this," Mulder says.

"Good, because I've got something to show you," O'Malley says.  "Something for the eyes of true believers."

"And seekers of truth?" Mulder asks.

"Them too."  O'Malley nods at the limo.  Let's get going."

It doesn't take that long to get there, or at least, not as long as it took to get to Low Moor.  They stop at a gas station, and O'Malley reaches into a bag Mulder hadn't noticed and takes out a black hood.

"Top secret," O'Malley says.  "I'm afraid I have to ask you to wear this."

"I'm not signing any dungeon-related paperwork," Mulder jokes.  He reaches for the hood.  "Allow me."

"I expected more resistance than that," O'Malley says.

"This isn't my first top-secret rodeo," Mulder says.  "At least it's not a rubber gorilla mask."

"Didn't see that in any of the reports," O'Malley says.

Mulder slips the hood on.  "Just don't break any fingers," he says.  His voice is muffled by the cloth.  It's hot, of course, but at least it's smooth, and it smells fine.  Could be worse.  He doesn't try to keep track of the twists and turns.  There's no point.  He just sits back and relaxes until the limo stops.  O'Malley opens the door and then helps Mulder out.  Mulder walks obediently wherever he's guided.  He hears the creak of heavy metal doors opening.

"I want to prepare you," O'Malley says, a little too close, "for what you're about to see."

He pulls the hood from Mulder's head.  Mulder blinks and looks around.  It's what he expected: empty space, esoteric equipment, men in blue coats.  A scientist sees them and starts walking toward them.  Somehow there are rarely any women doing this kind of science.  At this point, he's convinced it's because women have more sense than to fall for it.  There's something recognizable, though.  

"A Faraday cage?" he says.  "For what?"

"Do you know what an ARV is?" O'Malley asks in a smug voice.

"That's what you brought me here to see?" Mulder asks.  

O'Malley just smirks.  "This is Garner," he says as the scientist arrives.  "He'll walk you through the science."  

"Right this way, Mr. Mulder," Garner says, and Mulder and O'Malley follow him through a gate into the Faraday cage.  There's a craft inside, triangular and glossy.  It's surrounded by a team of scientists who are making adjustments and taking readings.  The thing is covered with little panels.  

"That's an alien replica vehicle?" Mulder asks.

Garner nods.  "Given your background, I would've thought you'd seen one before."  

Mulder gazes at it.  "Seen the real thing, or as real as it gets.  Seen some convincing fakes too.  Never seen one like this."

"What we're showing you, we do at great risk," Garner tells him.  "Colleagues have had labs burned to the ground and work destroyed by our own government."

"I know how that feels," Mulder says.  "May I?"

"Of course," Garner says, inclining his head.  "Be my guest."

Mulder reaches out to touch one of the panels.  It's smooth under his fingertips, warm and vibrating gently.  The craft hums slightly louder and begins to hover, rising until Mulder's hand slides off it.  One of the scientists is controlling it, he's certain, but it is impressive.  

"It's running on toroidal energy," Garner tells him.  "So-called zero-point energy.  The energy of the universe."

Mulder imagines Scully would have something to say about that. "You're talking about free energy?"

"We've had it since the '40s," O'Malley interjects.  "No fuel, no flame, no combustion."

"A simple electromagnetic field," Garner says, frowning very slightly.  

"Kept secret for seventy years while the world ran on petroleum," O'Malley says dramatically.  "Oil companies making trillions.  The Middle East tearing itself apart.  For nothing."  

Mulder refrains from commenting on the quality of O'Malley's political analysis or the fact that O'Malley profits from every conflict.  He gazes at the craft.  Garner steps to his side.

"What I'm going to show you next is the most unbelievable part," Garner says.  He's talking only to Mulder, Mulder thinks.  O'Malley believes a little too much, tries to build hype around it when the facts are shocking enough.  Garner thinks Mulder will see past the hyperbole to the actual miracle.  Garner waves two fingers at one of the other scientists, who nods and flips a switch.  The surface of the craft flickers and the air around it almost shimmers.  When the glimmer clears, the craft has vanished.  

"Gravity warp drive," Mulder breaths, and Garner nods.  "How?"

"Element 115," Garner says.  "Ununpentium."

"Where did you get it?" Mulder asks.  "We can create it under lab conditions, but not in any stable state, and not in any quantity."

"Salvaged," Garner says.

"From where?" Mulder asks.

"You know where," O'Malley says.  "Roswell.  1947.  Along with the original craft and its pilots."

"Of course," Mulder murmurs.  

"That's where it all came from," Garner says.  Another flip of the switch and the ARV shimmers back into existence.

"It all comes back to Roswell," O'Malley says dramatically.  "Every advance we've made.  Every war we've fought.  Do you see?"

"I do," Mulder says.  It's the only answer O'Malley wants.

"We should be getting back," O'Malley says.  "It's late."

"That sounds like my cue," Mulder says, and O'Malley hands him the hood.  

"You see how important my pursuit of the truth is," O'Malley says in the car, once he's freed Mulder from the hood again.

"I see that it's made you rich," Mulder says.  "Funny how much truth looks like conspiracy."

"You of all people would know," O'Malley says.

Mulder shrugs.  "My pursuit of the truth has never been lucrative.  I lost everything."

"And yet you fought to get it back," O'Malley says.  "I respect the struggle."

Mulder smiles tightly.  There's nothing to say to that.  O'Malley cannot conceive of what he and Scully and their families have been through, to say nothing of the countless people he's interviewed with stories like Sveta's.  Stories of pain and suffering.  Stories of loss.  Not clickbait to spook the masses and sell airtime at a steep markup to war profiteers.  

They drive back to collect Scully and Sveta from the hospital.  Scully looks a little pinched and Sveta looks tired.  Mulder gives Scully a questioning look and she shakes her head almost imperceptibly.  <i>Later.</i>  

"I think we'll just get an Uber back to our car," Mulder says.  "It's a long drive back to Low Moor.  We don't want to keep you."

"Oh, I'm putting Sveta up in a hotel for the night," O'Malley says.  "I've got a show to tape in the morning.  Got to look fresh."

"I could stay if you will need me again, Dr. Scully," Sveta says.

Scully hesitates.  "That might be wise."

"Don't worry about it," O'Malley says, patting Sveta on the shoulder.  "It's my privilege to help her share her story with you."  He hands Mulder a card.  "This is my personal number, if you need me."

"Glad to hear it," Mulder says.  "Good night, Sveta.  Mr. O'Malley."

"Good night," Sveta says.  

It doesn't take long to find an Uber.  Mulder and Scully climb inside and talk about nothing, as if their day hasn't been filled with abductees.  Scully checks her email.  Mulder reads a message board.  Not until they get into their own car does she turn to him.

"Mulder, whoever that girl is, something has definitely happened to her.  I don't know about alien DNA, but she's traumatized, and her body shows signs of something strange.  She has stretch marks that could have resulted from a pregnancy.  She also thinks she can read minds."

"Can she?" Mulder asks.

"She knew we're together," Scully says, "but that isn't a stretch.  She said that you had been depressed in the past."

"That isn't a stretch either," Mulder jokes, merging into traffic.

"She said we had a child together," Scully says quietly.

Mulder says nothing for a moment.  "I don't think that's a secret," he says finally.  "We were being watched.  Surely that information is out there."

"She doesn't seem like the kind of person who would have dug that deep," Scully says.  

"Did Byers?" Mulder asks.

Scully sighs.  "She also claims to be telekinetic, but says she can't move things with her mind all the time."

"That's the rub, isn't it?" Mulder asks.  "Can't get that Vegas gig bending spoons for the crowd unless you're consistent."

"She says it comes from the alien DNA," Scully says, and he knows she's thinking of William.  

"When will you have the results?" Mulder asks.

"Soon," Scully says.  

"Do you believe her?" Mulder asks.  He pinches his lower lip between his fingers.  God, he could go for some sunflower seeds.

"She seems to believe in her memories," Scully says.  "I've seen strange things in the course of our work.  Inexplicable things.  I'm inclined to accept the possibility that something happened to her that has not been fully investigated."

"But not that it was aliens?" Mulder teases.

"It wasn't aliens who took me," she says.  "At least, I don't think it was."

"There was a ship, Scully," Mulder says.

"There was a light," she says.  "A light so blinding it could have obscured the less-than-extraterrestrial origins of an experimental plane.  Whoever did what they did to me was human, Mulder, starting with Duane Barry and ending with the chip that CGB Spender gave you to put back in my neck."

"I remember chasing the train," he says.  “One of the trains where they did their work.”

"Cassandra Spender was taken to one of those trains," she reminds him.  "If aliens took her, humans took her apart."

"She reminds me of Max Fenig," he says.  "Sveta, I mean."  

"I agree," Scully says.  

They are silent for a moment, remembering Max.

"I don't trust Tad O'Malley," Scully says at last, as they're parking on their street.

"Nobody should," Mulder says, setting the emergency brake.  Just one of the many precautions he takes these days.  "He's a snake oil salesman peddling poison."

"He wants to divide us," she says.  

"I agree," Mulder says.  "And I think you're right, he'll come to you next."

Scully makes a disgusted noise.  

"Not ready for the lifestyles of the rich and famous?" Mulder teases.  "I'm sure he'll offer you all that and more."

"He's a sleazebag," Scully protests.  "Handsome enough, but a sleazebag."

"And what do you say behind my back, Agent Scully?" Mulder asks, reaching for the door handle.

Her face softens.  "I love you," she tells him.  

"The most inexplicable thing," he teases her, and they go into their house together.

When I’m With You I’m In Utopia [Chapter 11]

Summary:  9 years ago, the world split in two halves, Utopia and Dystopia. One of the laws allows citizens of both worlds to visit the other once in their lifetime, for a whole week, after which, they’re forced to return home. If by any chance, they don’t return, a death punishment is sentenced. Jeon Jungkook, a citizen of Dystopia seemed to be desperate enough to challenge that exact law.

Genre: Utopia!au, Dystopia!au, fluff, A N G S T, drama, to be added~~

Words: 2,1k

Warnings: none!

<Previous | Part Eleven | Next>

It had been minutes, hours, days, since she was taken away. Faith’s hurt eyes haunted him, each second less bearable than the last one. Jungkook wasn’t able to sleep properly for the previous three nights, always somehow kept awake by the image of Faith’s eyes screaming for help. How they played between a man inducing fear and another one causing disappointment. Jungkook never wanted to be a letdown, not again at least, yet that’s exactly what happened. He could remember every rational thought in him screaming run, fight, help, while the heaviness of his limbs refused to cooperate. That’s your faith slowly disappearing, that’s the only hope you have, wiped away. Jungkook was an asshole, an utterly egoistic animal.  

Somehow, after the whole accident, Jungkook managed to hurriedly pick the lock on Faith’s door and enter inside, mind still in complete fuss over what just happened. There really was no reason as to why he didn’t react, or why he was currently spending time doing absolutely nothing. Maybe it was their huge physique or their formal outwear that intimated the smaller boy and made him obey their silent orders. There also was no reason why Jungkook wasn’t cuffed and forced inside of the black car together with her. Not sure if that was a part of a plan, he decided not to think about it for long and get on with making a ploy of his own.

On the kitchen counter, Faith’s shopping bags remained unopened, vibrant hair color and bleach peeking through a layer of bright t-shirts. Jungkook eyed them often, eventually unpacking the contents and finding out that the shirts were bought for him. Although not so certain about the dye, Jungkook decided to use it when a sudden idea popped up in his head.

As if on que, the TV screen flashed a bring red, bold white letters spelling out HOT NEWS on the obnoxiously vibrant background. After a five-second-long intro, a woman dressed purely in white, with short black hair that barely reached her shoulders, started apologizing for the sudden interruption. Mrs. Wells, as she introduced herself, seemed just as out of place as everyone else, the urgency of situation providing so much tension for the panicked woman. Jungkook’s full attention was on the screen, patiently listening to every single word that left her thin lips.

“Today, marking the 25th of September, debates around the experiment Utopia/Dystopia coming to an end, after nearly a decade, have officially begun. Sessions will be held throughout the rest of the week and one final decision will be made at Sunday, 9am.”.  

»»————-　♡　————-««

In a miniscule room, the single light source seemed way too bright. In that same room, the walls seemed to close in with each passing second, suffocating the tiny creature inside. Air felt too thick and hard, temperature couldn’t stop rising, only to drastically drop at, what Faith assumed was, night. If someone was to ask her what day it is, Faith wouldn’t know how to reply. That awful thought bothered her too, the loss of awareness in time and space aroused confusion.

Maybe it was because of the way she was handled food on a cheap plastic tray, or the way she was spoken to, that made Faith feel vulnerable and gullible. Only a slight raise of their strong tone was enough to get her exhausted muscles to obey and follow in whichever direction they walked towards. Faith just had no more energy or will to stand up and show her fangs, allowing whoever and whenever to throw her body around and have their way.

In reality, it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. In crucial moments of one’s life, their brain tends to overthink and believe in an extremely hyperbolic picture of the situation. Not being any different than the next person, Faith fell victim to her own deceiving.

She was handled meals regularly, three times a day, with enough proteins to keep a human healthy. The guards only ordered for her to move one room to the right, every other day, but they did that to everyone else. What happened to the person whose room she took yesterday, was unknown. Or maybe, she just didn’t want to think about it.

She didn’t want to think about it because there was a chance that she could be next.  

There was a vent through which fresh air entered daily, at 5pm, but Faith failed to notice it. She also failed to notice how every once in a while, a speaker placed outside of the cell, played calming music. It sometimes even transmitted important news from a radio that was connected to it. News and music were rarely ever loud enough to reach past the thick unknown material of Faith’s door, cutting her out even more.  

People on this floor were all like Faith. Every single person here felt emotionally attached to someone they shouldn’t have, which was only normal. They have ended up behind the bars for being human, for wanting to save and cherish someone who offered them comfort. Everyone was fighting, counting down seconds and flinching each time their name was called. Their hearts stopped too whenever the rooms were exchanged, expecting quick and sharp pain of a small caliber against their temple.

It was a constant game of cat and mouse, although this time, the cat was already the winner.

At 2pm, right after lunch, the music suddenly and drastically increased in volume, sending waves of vibrations throughout the whole floor, only to abruptly stop. Not for long though, as the calming noises were replaced with a powerful, yet shaky voice of an unknown woman.

“Today, marking the 25th of September, debates around the experiment Utopia/Dystopia coming to an end, after nearly a decade, have officially begun. Sessions will be held throughout the whole week and one final decision will be made at Sunday, 9am.”.  

Faith’s ears perked up at that, a slight sparkle of hope overtaking her weak body. The female grew extremely pessimistic in a matter of days, but one could argue that being optimistic while waiting for a death sentence was insanity. She rarely smiled, only letting a pair of lips curve up during occasional day dreams, images of life back to normal filling her tormented mind. The description of a Dystopian was more fitting for Faith than who she actually was.

That exact glint of hope was soon blown away as the door to Faith’s room were opened and one of those two strong men walked in. It was the one that didn’t dare speak a word while his colleague handled all the harsh talking and emotional abuse. He was swearing the same suit and neck tie from a few days ago, although today, there was a nametag stuck on his front pocket, presenting a shiny, calligraphed Lucas. Faith looked up and flinched upon noticing his towering figure in front of her. Just a thought about that monster was enough to freeze Faith’s tense muscles, let alone such proximity in person.  

“Ms. Keith?” Lucas spoke up, tone somehow soft, harmless and, friendly. His eyes showed deep remorse as he crouched down next to the bed Faith was sat on. It seemed as if there were a thousand words on his tongue, but no time to say them all because time kept disappearing and every second was important.

“Yes?” Her voice was quiet, eyes wide and attention sharp, “that’s me”.

“Please follow me” He replied, slowly standing up and offering a strong hand for Faith to hold on to. Eyeing him cautiously, then moving on to the held-out hand, she shook her head and looked away. The man nodded along and beckoned for her to follow as they left the tiny room together.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you, sorry”  

Faith remained silent for a couple of moments, trying to keep up with Lucas’ long strides. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, that had no right time for an answer. Maybe even now, wouldn’t be the most suitable, but it was the best opportunity she was given in a while.

“Do you enjoy your job?” She asked, small hand reaching out quick to hold the strong man back.  

“Miss, I-”

“Do you enjoy sending people to slaughters for being human?” Faith’s eyes began to slightly water, voice beginning to break as the sole weight of the whole situation hit her. Her book is already entering the last chapter, leaving thousands of pages after it clear.

Lucas looked hurt, face showing slight discomfort at the straightforward addressing. If he had to be honest, the reply would be no. There was no moment that the feeling of pity towards every imprisoner wasn’t present. He shared the same opinions like the female in front of him, it was all too wrong. Hunting down innocent people, invading their privacy, leading them to secure death, just for loving. Surely, if he wasn’t blackmailed, Lucas would be out of this place for good.

“Do you think I gain pleasure from knowing that I’m someone’s last memory? That I cheer when I hear an agonizing scream twenty seconds after we said our goodbyes? It’s a constant burden of counting one more life on my soul, gosh Miss Keith there’s nothing I can d-”

In that moment, a woman formally dressed in all grey appeared around the corner, surprising the man. Lucas jerked his hand out of Faith’s grip, an unreadable expression reappearing on his facial features, before turning away quick. Faith regained her own cold expression, trailing behind a tall and strong physique that still led her towards an unknown location. Faith wondered when will her time arrive, when will she come face to face with someone who’ll be able to justify murder in a couple of short sentences. Someone who’ll throw 20 years of life into water for simplistic moral reasons.  

There was no time to wrap her head around the passing thought, well maybe that moment might be just now, as Faith was shoved inside of an obnoxiously light room. Squinting and trying to adjust to the sudden change of light, her eyes tried to make out the silhouettes of three unknown men. It took a couple of seconds, but even when she was able to see normally, their faces remained unrecognizable. The three men seemed to be shocked at the sudden intrusion, obviously not expecting to see their next case in person.

“Miss Keith, welcome to the discussion room” The tallest of them said, extending his palm for a shake, which Faith felt obliged to accept. “My name is Mr. Cole, I’m in charge of monitoring imprisoners during special sessions”, he motioned towards the other two, somehow not bothering to formally introduce them, “these are my co-workers”. On the quick mention of monitoring, Faith’s eyes scanned the room quick, immediately noticing a rather big mirror. A one-way mirror.

Got you.

“We won’t be bothering you for long, just the formalities, in case we see each other around” Mr. Cole made sure to emphasize the last bit of his sentence, clearly sure that Faith would understand what he meant. Just when his crew was beginning to clear out, Mr. Cole moved away, letting Faith’s eyes glide over a man that had his back turned to them, reviewing a couple of papers. His posture seemed familiar, especially in a black suit that expressed his figure perfectly.

“This is the man that’s going to have a talk with you. You’re free to leave if you feel uncomfortable, although I advise you not to” Pulling out a sickening smile, he excused himself and left the room with a loud “she’s yours”.

Faith was hesitant to move and approach “the man”, already feeling a slight urge to leave. The aesthetically and morally unpleasant mirror provoked her attention, calling out for a glance every two seconds. Faith was aware that there was a team of at least five people behind that glass, and she wasn’t certain if that relaxed or freaked her out more. Flipping a middle finger towards what she calculated was center of the glass, Faith cautiously walked towards a lone table and chair in the middle of the room.

As if on que, a second after Faith’s bottom was safely placed on a strong hold of the wooden chair, the man turned around, throwing Faith’s documents all over his workplace. His huge palms were outstretched on it, fingers and arms shaking in fear and anxiety.

A few moments and flinches later, she dared to look up. Faith’s eyes roamed from their vibrating fingertips to strong biceps and eventually focusing on the scrunched-up face that she could only recognize as,

“Namjoon?!”

AN: Hi I’m aware this might seem rushed, but I’m really under so much pressure bc of school and I’m trying to deplete the last of my inspiration before I turn into an unmotivated mess. Anyway, there are like 3-4 more chapters to go, and it’s all really just high-end tension and cliffhangers from here. I already have the ending written so I can with confidence say it’s staying like that till the end. Thank you for reading, have a great night/day!

Why is there no debate about ‘leaky’ vaccines?

18 September 2021

Do you know what “leaky vaccines” are? There’s a good chance you don’t because discussion about them has been mostly shunted to the fringes of the web, with videos on the subject even excised from Youtube. The subject is treated as though it is something only tinfoil hat-wearing loons would take seriously.But leaky vaccines have been an established concern in the medical community for years. A paper discussing the potential problems with them was published in a reputable medical journal by experts well before anyone had heard of Covid.

In brief, leaky vaccines don’t offer full protection against the virus they are designed to deal with. Such vaccines don’t stop you from catching the virus. They work in the sense that they are likely to reduce your symptoms and lessen the chance of transmission to others.That’s a good thing, but researchers have worried that leaky vaccines can have potential drawbacks, possibly very serious ones. If a vaccine erects an imperfect barrier against a virus, one the virus can sometimes breach even if weakly, the virus persists and has every incentive and opportunity to adapt. That is, it is encouraged to grow stronger.Over time, variants of the virus are likely to find a way past the immune system’s defences mounted by the vaccine. Because the new variant has an evolutionary advantage over the original strain of virus, it comes to dominate – until a new variant supplants it in turn.

Endless arms race

In short, a leaky vaccine is at risk of becoming less effective over time. New vaccines may be needed in an endless arms race against the virus that encourages it to keep adapting and evolving to become ever more potent.Most of us should be able to understand this problem because we have heard about it in a closely related medical context: so-called “superbugs“.Antibiotics were invented nearly a century ago to put an end to deadly bacterial infections. They proved highly effective and saved many lives. They were so effective that doctors were encouraged by profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies – as well as the public’s desire for a pain-free life – to prescribe antibiotics for every tickly throat.Making things worse, farmers looking to maximise profits had every incentive to routinely use antibiotics on livestock – to prevent illness and deaths among animals they packed into warehouses in unnatural and unsanitary conditions.This abuse of antibiotics led to the current situation where some strains of bacteria have adapted so effectively they can resist every antibiotic on the market. These superbugs put hundreds of thousands of Americans in hospital every year and are reported to kill 35,000 of them annually.‘Waning immunity’

So what does this have to do with Covid?As you may have already guessed, the Covid vaccines are all leaky vaccines. In fact, it appears they were known to be leaky before the first person was vaccinated with them. It’s just no one thought to highlight it to us – not our politicians, the vaccine-makers or the corporate media.We can see quite how leaky they are in the current obsession with “booster” shots to deal with what are being called “breakthrough” cases – only months after most people received what they assumed would be their one and only round of vaccination.The justification for these boosters is framed as dealing with “waning immunity” and the fact that the delta variant is more “transmissable”.

But this medical jargon, though reassuring, may in fact be concealing something significant about the direction the virus is heading in – something that was evident in earlier vaccine research.‘Nastier’ viral strains۔ Until Covid, the only way to research how leaky vaccines worked in the midst of a major epidemic was by studying their use in animals. These studies were carried out in part because of concerns about what the effects of leaky vaccines might be if used during a human pandemic.We now have that pandemic.In 2015, four years before anyone had ever heard of Covid, the scientific journal PLOS Biology published a paper titled “Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens”.

It examined what happened in the treatment of chickens for a virus called Marek’s disease, caused by a strain of herpes more virulent – if you’re a chicken – than Ebola.As one of the researchers concluded: “Our research demonstrates that the use of leaky vaccines can promote the evolution of nastier ‘hot’ viral strains that put unvaccinated individuals at greater risk.”Uncharted territory۔

In other words, once you start routinely using a leaky vaccine, the very leakiness of the virus in the vaccinated population risks putting the unvaccinated in greater danger by exposing them to turbo-charged variants of the virus their immune systems struggle to overcome.Because the vaccinated are less aware of being ill – they don’t take to their beds – they can become the equivalent of super-spreaders.So the solution is simple, no? Just ensure everyone gets vaccinated. (We’ll draw a veil over the issue of what to do with those who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons.)But there is a potential problem here too. Because if the leaky vaccines simply allow the virus to adapt and evolve, never putting out the fire, the virus keeps spreading and could get more deadly over time. As with those superbugs, we could reach a point where much nastier strains of the virus become resistant to all the vaccines we have. Delta may be an early indication of how this might happen.

That’s the theory anyway. No one can be sure whether that is what will happen with the Covid pandemic for two reasons.First, because – from what I can tell – a leaky vaccine has never before been used in the midst of a global pandemic. This is uncharted territory.And second, because in the case of those chickens, the spread of the disease could be halted, in addition to vaccination, through the culling of infected animals. That – I should hope – is not a solution anyone is contemplating for dealing with Covid.

No debate

Now for the disclaimer. I am not a doctor. I don’t know what the most likely outcome of using leaky vaccines against Covid is, and I don’t claim to. In any case, I doubt most readers care what I think on the subject.What I am concerned about – and I would hope most other people are too – is that experts in this field be allowed to have a medical debate about these issues in public.Which is exactly what isn’t happening at the moment. Corporate media companies, from the New York Times and BBC to Facebook and Youtube – many of them invested in pharmaceuticals themselves – are deciding that you shouldn’t even know that the Covid vaccines are leaky, let alone the potential pitfalls.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so serious if we could trust the medical establishment and regulatory authorities to be doing that job for us. But it seems clear we can’t.The truth is that most doctors, even eminent ones, are little better placed than you or me to judge the dangers of leaky vaccines. This is a very specialist field of research. Those qualified to have an expert opinion on the matter are mostly those doing advanced and very costly research for vaccine companies, especially those working on mRNA technology which has been so central to the Covid vaccination programme.

Difficult to whistleblow۔

But if there were really a problem with the leaky Covid vaccines, why isn’t this small group of experts not speaking up to warn us? Isn’t their silence proof that this is pure hyperbole?Here we get to the rub.Let’s take a comparable case. The first scientists to predict the current trajectory of climate change – to an extremely high degree of accuracy – did so back in the 1970s and 1980s and they worked for the oil companies. They kept their findings secret, as we now know many decades later. Exxon, BP, Shell and the others invested huge sums in modelling climate change so they would be the first to understand the risks to their industry. They needed to know how long they could get away with destroying the planet before the damage became so apparent they would be required to reinvent themselves as pioneers of green technologies.The crunch moment those scientists predicted was reached a few years back – about the time the oil companies indeed did start reinventing themselves as pioneers of green technologies.Similarly, the scientists who best understand the risks of leaky vaccines are those employed by the vaccine companies.There is no more reason to believe that they will whistleblow on the pharmaceuticals industry than the scientists who worked for the fossil fuel industry, or the tobacco industry, or the car industry.

Any scientist who does have concerns about leaky Covid vaccines knows that by speaking out they will make themselves unemployable, they will be labelled a crazy conspiracy theorist by the media, and in any case they will be unable to reach large audiences because social media companies will censor them either directly or through changes to the search engine algorithms.

Captured by the elite

So what is needed if we are to learn about scientific concerns relating to leaky vaccines in general and leaky Covid vaccines specifically, and not simply the talking points of Big Pharma, is for the odd expert to step forward as an industry whistleblower. Any who do are almost certain to be mavericks – those who have little to lose, those who have retired, those who already hold grievances with the way public health policy is made.And these are precisely the people who have been raising their voices.A few disgruntled, former insiders are speaking up – while most of their colleagues keep their heads down. Is that because their colleagues think that they are wrong? Or is it because their colleagues have more to lose – like all those scientists who worked for Exxon and BP and never got round to telling us about the evidence for climate change they had unearthed.The problem is we just don’t know. And we don’t know because our system of information dissemination is entirely captured by corporate interests. The wealth-elite that profits from rapacious, conscience-less, profit-driven, consumption-led capitalism is also the elite that buys our political class, owns our media, funds our regulatory authorities.

Playing with fire

One expert whistleblower is Dr Robert Malone, who was given a platform this week by Jimmy Dore to express his fears that what happened to the chicken virus may also happen to Covid.His view is that we are playing with fire by trying to enforce a mass vaccination programme through a mix of mandates, incentives and social pressure . He believes only the most vulnerable to Covid should be vaccinated. Meanwhile, doctors should be working on developing an armoury of repurposed drugs for the small numbers of younger and healthier people who suffer serious ill-effects from Covid.This, in his view, would have been the wisest and safest strategy.I don’t know whether he’s right, but I sure would like to hear his and other experts’ concerns being addressed in public – and ideally refuted – instead of what is happening: their concerns are being brushed under the carpet.I don’t know whether these concerns have been ignored because they are fanciful nonsense, or because the medical establishment has no good arguments to counter them and doesn’t want to frighten us, the children.

Gutter journalism

My worries have only been heightened – and yours should be too – by the fact that no one appears willing to engage in any kind of debate about the potential problems with leaky Covid vaccines.There should be no doubt that Dr Malone qualifies as an expert. He describes himself as the inventor of the very mRNA technology that is the basis of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.But in practice, that authority to speak on the subject is being used against him. Which should set off alarm bells.

Here is one execrable attempt to discredit Dr Malone rather than address his concerns – this one from the supposedly prestigious Atlantic magazine. The article’s headline, “The Vaccine Scientist Spreading Vaccine Misinformation”, is designed to make us assume – as the author and editors doubtless hope we will assume without reading on – that the piece proves Dr Malone is peddling conspiracy theories.

That headline suggests that the doubts Dr Malone has raised about the safety of leaky Covid vaccines will be discredited in the article with countervailing scientific evidence, presumably from other experts.The article, however, does nothing of the sort.It is dedicated instead to painting Dr Malone as an embittered fantasist. It does so not with evidence but by quibbling over whether he can in fact be credited with inventing mRNA technology, as he says, or whether he was simply one of its leading pioneers.

Is Dr Malone the most knowledgeable person on mRNA technology or just one of a handful of them? Unless the first is true, the Atlantic implies, everything he has to say about the potential dangers of leaky Covid vaccines based on mRNA technology is worthless and can be safely discounted.The Atlantic’s article is what we journalists call a hatchet job. It’s what journalists do when they have no evidence to make a stronger case. You play the man, not the ball. It is the very worst kind of gutter journalism.

Treated like child

I don’t know about you but that simply isn’t good enough for me. I want to hear what Dr Malone is saying and I want to hear experts who are as eminently qualified as him address his concerns. I’m not interested in having corporate journalists and editors no more qualified than me declare me a gullible fool for listening to him or for wanting to hear a scientific rejoinder to his arguments.I also don’t want politicians and social media corporations deciding whether Dr Malone gets to speak, or the medical establishment pretending that he and the research literature he draws on don’t exist.And I don’t want Pfizer and Moderna deciding for themselves – and without a proper discussion – whether I and my children should be made to take vaccines for the rest of our lives and whether that is a safe or wise strategy.I can’t understand why anyone would not feel the same, unless they would prefer to be treated like a child, cocooned from taking any responsibility for their own and their family’s health, safe in the illusion that the establishment has never made a mistake or ever told a self-interested lie.I want to be treated like a grown-up. I want Dr Malone treated like the expert he undoubtedly is. I want a conversation – before it’s too late to have a conversation.

“My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain. I have had the dubious honor over the years of giving some eulogies for fine women and men that I’ve admired. But, Lindsey, this one’s hard. The three men who spoke before me I think captured John, different aspects of John in a way that only someone close to him could understand. But the way I look at it, the way I thought about it, was that I always thought of John as a brother. We had a hell of a lot of family fights. We go back a long way. I was a young United States Senator. I got elected when I was 29. I had the dubious distinction of being put on the formulations committee, which the next youngest person was 14 years older than me. And I spent a lot of time traveling the world because I was assigned responsibility, my colleagues in the Senate knew I was chairman of the European Affairs subcommittee, so I spent a lot of time at NATO and then the Soviet Union. Along came a guy a couple of years later, a guy I knew of, admired from afar, your husband, who had been a prisoner of war, who had endured enormous, enormous pain and suffering. And demonstrated the code, the McCain code. People don't think much about it today, but imagine having already known the pain you were likely to endure, and being offered the opportunity to go home, but saying no. As his son can tell you in the Navy, last one in, last one out. So I knew of John. and John became the Navy liaison officer in the United States Senate. There's an office, then it used to be on the basement floor, of members of the military who are assigned to senators when they travel abroad to meet with heads of state or other foreign dignitaries. And John had been recently released from the HanoI Hilton, a genuine hero, and he became the Navy liaison. For some reason we hit it off in the beginning. We were both full of dreams and ambitions and an overwhelming desire to make the time we had there worthwhile. To try to do the right thing. To think about how we could make things better for the country we loved so much. John and I ended up traveling every time I went anywhere. I took John with me or John took me with him. we were in China, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, England, Turkey, all over the world. Tens of thousands of miles. And we would sit on that plane and late into the night, when everyone else was asleep, and just talk. Getting to know one another. We'd talk about family, we'd talk about politics, we'd talk about international relations. we'd talk about promise, the promise of America. Because we were both cockeyed optimists and believe there's not a single thing, beyond the capacity of this country. I mean, for real, not a single thing. And, when you get to know another woman or man, you begin to know their hopes and their fears, you get to know their family even before you meet them, you get to know how they feel about important things. We talked about everything except captivity and the loss of my family which had just occurred, my wife and daughter, the only two things we didn't talk about. But, I found that it wasn't too long into John's duties that Jill and I got married. Jill is here with me today. Five years, I had been a single dad and no man deserves one great love, let alone two. And I met Jill. It changed my life. She fell in love with him and he with her. He'd always call her, as Lindsey would travel with her, Jilly. Matter of fact, when they got bored being with me on these trips, I remember in Greece, he said, ‘Why don't I take Jill for dinner?’ Later, I would learn they are at a cafe at the port and he has her dancing on top of a cement table drinking uzo. Not a joke. Jilly. Right, Jilly? But we got to know each other well and he loved my son Beau and my son Hunt. As a young man, he came up to my house and he came up to Wilmington and out of this grew a great friendship that transcended whatever political differences we had or later developed because, above all, above all, we understood the same thing. All politics is personal. It's all about trust. I trusted John with my life and I would and I think he would trust me with his. And as our life progressed, we learned more, there are times when life can be so cruel, pain so blinding it's hard to see anything else. The disease that took John's life took our mutual friend’s, Teddy [Kennedy]’s life, the exact same disease nine years ago, a couple days ago, and three years ago, took my beautiful son Beau's life. It's brutal. It's relentless. It's unforgiving. And it takes so much from those we love and from the families who love them that in order to survive, we have to remember how they lived, not how they died. I carry with me an image of Beau, sitting out in a little lake we live on, starting a motor on an old boat and smiling away. Not the last days. I’m sure Vickie Kennedy has her own image, looking, seeing Teddy looking so alive in a sailboat, out in the Cape. For the family, for the family, you will all find your own images, whether it's remembering his smile, his laugh or that touch in the shoulder or running his hand down your cheek. Or, just feeling like someone is looking, turn and see him just smiling at you, from a distance, just looking at you. Or when you saw the pure joy the moment he was about to take the stage on the Senate floor and start a fight. God, he loved it. so, to Cindy, the kids, Doug, Andy, Cindy, Meghan, Jack, Jimmy, Bridget, and I know she's not here, but to Mrs. McCain, we know how difficult it is to bury a child, Mrs. McCain. My heart goes out to you. And I know right now, the pain you all are feeling is so sharp and so hollowing. And John's absence is all consuming, for all of you right now. It's like being sucked into a black hole inside your chest. And it's frightening. But, I know something else, unfortunately, from experience. There's nothing anyone can say or do to ease the pain right now. But I pray, I pray you take some comfort knowing that because you shared John with all of us, your whole life, the world now shares with you in the ache of John's death. Look around this magnificent church. Look what you saw coming from the state capitol yesterday. it's hard to stand there but part of it, part of it was at least it was for me with Beau, standing in the state capitol, you knew. It was genuine. It was deep. He touched so many lives. I’ve gotten calls not just because people knew we were friends, not just from people around the country, but leaders around the world calling. Meghan, I'm getting all these sympathy letters. I mean, hundreds of them, and tweets. Character is destiny. John had character. While others will miss his leadership, passion, even his stubbornness, you are going to miss that hand on your shoulder. Family, you are going to miss the man, faithful man as he was, who you knew would literally give his life for you. And for that there's no balm but time. Time and your memories of a life lived well and lived fully. But I make you a promise. I promise you, the time will come that what's going to happen is six months will go by and everybody is going to think, well, it's passed. But you are going to ride by that field or smell that fragrance or see that flashing image. You are going to feel like you did the day you got the news. But you know you are going to make it. The image of your dad, your husband, your friend. It crosses your mind and a smile comes to your lips before a tear to your eye. That's who you know. I promise you, I give you my word, I promise you, this I know. The day will come. That day will come. You know, I’m sure if my former colleagues who worked with John, I'm sure there's people who said to you not only now, but the last ten years, ‘Explain this guy to me.’ Right? Explain this guy to me. Because, as they looked at him, in one sense they admired him, in one sense, the way things changed so much in America, they look add him as if John came from another age, lived by a different code, an ancient, antiquated courage, integrity, duty, were alive. That was obvious how John lived his life. The truth is, John's code was ageless, is ageless. When you talked earlier, Grant, you talked about values. It wasn't about politics with John. He could disagree on substance, but the underlying values that animated everything John did, everything he was, come to a different conclusion. He'd part company with you, if you lacked the basic values of decency, respect, knowing this project is bigger than yourself. John's story is an American story. It's not hyperbole. it's the American story. grounded in respect and decency. basic fairness. the intolerance through the abuse of power. Many of you travel the world, look how the rest of the world looks at us. They look at us a little naive, so fair, so decent. We are the naive Americans. that's who we are. That's who John was. He could not stand the abuse of power. wherever he saw it, in whatever form, in whatever ways. He loved basic values, fairness, honesty, dignity, respect, giving hate no safe harbor, leaving no one behind and understanding Americans were part of something much bigger than ourselves. With John, it was a value set that was neither selfish nor self-serving. John understood that America was first and foremost, an idea. Audacious and risky, organized around not tribe but ideals. Think of how he approached every issue. The ideals that Americans rallied around for 200 years, the ideals of the world has prepared you. Sounds corny. We hold these truths self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain rights. To John, those words had meaning, as they have for every great patriot who's ever served this country. We both loved the Senate. The proudest years of my life were being a United States Senator. I was honored to be Vice President, but a United States Senator. We both lamented, watching it change. During the long debates in the '80s and '90s, I would go sit next to John, next to his seat or he would come on the Democratic side and sit next to me. I'm not joking. We'd sit there and talk to each other. I came out to see John, we were reminiscing around it. It was '96, about to go to the caucus. We both went into our caucus and coincidentally, we were approached by our caucus leaders with the same thing. Foe, it doesn't look good, you sitting next to John all the time. I swear to God. same thing was said to John in your caucus. That's when things began to change for the worse in America in the Senate. That's when it changed. What happened was, at those times, it was always appropriate to challenge another Senator's judgment, but never appropriate to challenge their motive. When you challenge their motive, it's impossible to get to go. If I say you are going this because you are being paid off or you are doing it because you are not a good Christian or this, that, or the other thing, it's impossible to reach consensus. Think about in your personal lives. All we do today is attack the oppositions of both parties, their motives, not the substance of their argument. This is the mid-'90s. it began to go downhill from there. The last day John was on the Senate floor, what was he fighting to do? He was fighting to restore what you call regular order, just start to treat one another again, like we used to. The Senate was never perfect, John, you know that. we were there a long time together. I watched Teddy Kennedy and James O. Eastland fight like hell on civil rights and then go have lunch together, down in the Senate dining room. John wanted to see, “regular order” writ large. Get to know one another. You know, John and I were both amused and I think Lindsey was at one of these events where John and I received two prestigious awards where the last year I was vice president and one immediately after, for our dignity and respect we showed to one another, we received an award for civility in public life. Allegheny College puts out this award every year for bipartisanship. John and I looked at each and said, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ No, not a joke. I said to Senator Flake, that's how it's supposed to be. We get an award? I’m serious. Think about this. Getting an award for your civility. Getting an award for bipartisanship. Classic John, Allegheny College, hundreds of people, got the award and the Senate was in session. He spoke first and, as he walked off the stage and I walked on, he said, Joe, don't take it personally, but I don't want to hear what the hell you have to say, and left. One of John's major campaign people is now with the senate with the governor of Ohio, was on [TV] this morning and I happened to watch it. He said that Biden and McCain had a strange relationship, they always seemed to have each other's back. Whenever I was in trouble, John was the first guy there. I hope I was there for him. We never hesitate to give each other advice. He would call me in the middle of the campaign, he’d say, ‘What the hell did you say that for? you just screwed up, Joe.’ I'd occasionally call him. Look, I've been thinking this week about why John's death hit the country so hard. yes, he was a long-serving senator with a remarkable record. Yes, he was a two-time presidential candidate who captured the support and imagination of the American people and, yes, John was a war hero, demonstrated extraordinary courage. I think of John and my son when I think of Ingersoll’s words when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate and honor scorns to compromise with death, that is heroism. Everybody knows that about John. But I don't think it fully explains why the country has been so taken by John's passing. I think it's something more intangible. I think it's because they knew John believed so deeply and so passionately in the soul of America. He made it easier for them to have confidence and faith in America. His faith in the core values of this nation made them somehow feel it more genuinely themselves. his conviction that we, as a country, would never walk away from the sacrifice generations of Americans have made to defend liberty and freedom and dignity around the world. It made average Americans proud of themselves and their country. His belief, and it was deep, that Americans can do anything, withstand anything, achieve anything. It was unflagging and ultimately reassuring. This man believed that so strongly. His capacity that we truly are the world's last best hope, the beacon to the world. There are principles and ideals more than ourselves worth sacrificing for and if necessary, dying for. Americans saw how he lived his life that way. and they knew the truth of what he was saying. I just think he gave Americans confidence. John was a hero, his character, courage, honor, integrity. I think it is understated when they say optimism. That's what made John special. Made John a giant among all of us. In my view, John didn't believe that America's future and faith rested on heroes. we used to talk about, he understood what I hope we all remember, heroes didn't build this country. Ordinary people being given half a chance are capable of doing extraordinary things, extraordinary things. John knew ordinary Americans understood each of us has a duty to defend, integrity, dignity and birthright of every child. He carried it. Good communities are built by thousands of acts of decency that Americans, as I speak today, show each other every single day deep in the DNA of this nation's soul lies a flame that was lit over 200 years ago. Each of us carries with us and each one of us has the capacity, the responsibility and we can screw up the courage to ensure it does not extinguish. There's a thousand little things that make us different. Bottom line was, I think John believed in us. I think he believed in the American people. not just all the preambles, he believed until the American people, all 325 million of us. Even though John is no longer with us, he left us clear instructions. ‘Believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here.’ Close to the last thing John said took the whole nation, as he knew he was about to depart. That's what he wanted America to understand. not to build his legacy. he wanted America reminded, to understand. I think John's legacy is going to continue to inspire and challenge generations of leaders as they step forward and John McCain’s America is not over. it is hyperbole, it's not over. It's not close. Cindy, John owed so much of what he was to you. you were his ballast. when I was with you both, I could see how he looked at you. Jill is the one, when we were in Hawaii, we first met you there and he kept staring at you. Jill said, go up and talk to her. Doug, Andy, Sydney, Meghan, Jack, Jimmy, Bridget, you may not have had your father as long as you would like, but you got from him everything you need to pursue your own dreams. To follow the course of your own spirit. You are a living legacy, not hyperbole. You are a living legacy and proof of John McCain’s success. Now John is going to take his rightful place in a long line of extraordinary leaders in this nation's history. Who in their time and in their way stood for freedom and stood for liberty and have made the American story the most improbable and most hopeful and most enduring story on earth. I know John said he hoped he played a small part in that story. John, you did much more than that, my friend. To paraphrase Shakespeare, we shall not see his like again."

Vice President Joe Biden

Analysis: What the immigration 'crisis' debate is missing Cillizza: How did we get here so quickly? Biden has only been president for 51 days! Is this the result of one specific policy change? Or a series of them? Shoichet: People who follow immigration closely will tell you the latest situation at the border has been building for a while. We were seeing numbers climbing in late 2020, too. It’s really important to remember that people migrate for many reasons, and who is president of the United States is often not a huge part of the equation. Sure, it might be a factor that nudges someone who’s undecided one way or the other. And some migrants near the Mexico-Guatemala border who recently spoke to CNN did mention that they were hopeful that the new administration would be more sympathetic to immigration. But we have seen a number of major events recently impacting the region of the world where many of these migrants are coming from — two devastating hurricanes and endemic poverty issues that were exacerbated by a pandemic being chief among them. Experts call these “push factors” (compared to “pull factors,” which would be things in the US that incentivize people to come). And they really should be a big part of the conversation about what’s happening right now and why. In terms of what has changed during the Biden administration, a significant policy change that’s led to some of what we’re seeing is that the US is no longer using the pandemic to immediately turn away children at the border — many of whom are seeking asylum. That’s something the Trump administration did pretty early on, along with a lot of other changes that used the pandemic to crack down on immigration. The Biden administration has been very clear that they want to take a more humanitarian approach at the border. And that means they are no longer turning away the unaccompanied minors that are showing up. Cillizza: Is it fair to describe what is happening on the southern border right now as a crisis? Why or why not? Shoichet: I am very careful about using that word because when we call things a “crisis” the conversation goes into a pretty hyperbolic place very quickly, where the facts sort of fade into the background and political debate takes over. I’ve been covering immigration for years and we’ve seen periodic frenzy around the border over and over again. At a certain point, you have to ask, is this a crisis, or is this a regular migration pattern that ebbs and flows because of a number of factors? Having said that, there are very serious issues going on at the border that we should all be paying attention to. Among them: * There’s a record high number of kids in [Customs and Border Protection] facilities, and they’re being held there longer than [the limit] the law requires. * There are still thousands of people waiting in Mexico — many of them in dire and dangerous conditions — while their immigration cases make their way through US courts. * There appears to be an uptick in the number of migrants arriving (though we need to be careful about these numbers, because they may be counting individuals multiple times). And climate change and natural disasters are likely one reason why. Cillizza: What is the Biden administration doing — in terms of concrete actions — to deal with what is happening? Shoichet: This is a fast-moving situation and we’re still waiting to learn more about what the Biden administration is doing. One effort that was discussed at a White House press briefing this week is an effort to address the “root causes” of immigration (these are the push factors I mentioned earlier). Ambassador Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the southern border, said the administration wants to spend $4 billion over four years to do this (one big question to keep in mind about this: We’ve heard other administrations say they’re going to do this before, too — and they’ve tried. What could the Biden administration do differently this time?) Jacobson also said the administration is trying to open up more avenues for people to immigrate legally, such as the Central American Minors program, which provides a pathway for children in the region to reunite with parents in the United States. Cillizza: Republicans have seized on the border situation and Biden’s immigration plan as “left-wing amnesty.” How fair is that? Or not? Shoichet: I don’t want to get into putting a value judgment on political rhetoric on either side of the aisle. But one thing I can say is the Biden administration would feel that’s an unfair characterization for a number of reasons. It’s certainly true that from the beginning of this administration they have said they’re prioritizing immigration and pushing to create a more just and humane and functional system. Legislation President Biden has proposed would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people. That would be a huge change, the likes of which we haven’t seen since President Reagan’s amnesty measure in the 1980s. There was a brief honeymoon period at the very beginning of the Biden administration. But advocates on the left have started to become increasingly critical of this administration and I think would argue that there’s nothing radical about various things that are being proposed — and also that there’s a big gap still between words and actions. They’re waiting for this administration to start really walking the walk. But one key point is that painting immigration as a partisan issue is problematic. I have traveled all over the country talking to people on many sides of this topic, and when you are actually talking with people about their communities it ends up being a lot less political than you might think. Back in 2011, for example, I profiled the Republican mayor of a small town in Georgia — a farming community — who counted a family of undocumented immigrants among his closest friends. And if you look at polling data, there are a lot of people who agree that the existing immigration system isn’t working. Cillizza: Finish this sentence: “The single best metric to watch as it relates to when we will know the border situation is improving is ________.” Now, explain. Shoichet: I’ll take a stab at answering this question, but one thing I would like to point out first is that we get really caught up in numbers and data about the border because it’s information that’s more readily available and of course it gives us some sort of big-picture indicator of the situation. But these are people’s lives we’re talking about — many of whom have fled danger, or who are desperately seeking economic opportunities, or who are doing what they can to survive. And I fear sometimes the focus on numbers is so abstract that it’s dehumanizing and also gets us away from talking about what is really going on and what that means for a person’s life or for a community. OK, now I’ll fill in that blank. I’d say at this moment the best metric to watch is a number our colleague Priscilla Alvarez has been following very closely — the total number of kids in CBP custody and the average length of time they’re being held. The reason why this is so important is because right now, there’s sort of a perfect storm of circumstances that could really put people’s safety at risk. In part because of the pandemic, and in part because of the sheer number of people arriving, there isn’t enough bed space in the shelters for unaccompanied minors run by the Department of Health and Human Services. So children are being held on average in CBP facilities longer than the 72-hour limit the law requires. The reason there are those limits is because there have been a lot of concerns about making sure children who are in US custody are adequately cared for. And we’ve seen and heard alarming things about conditions in CBP custody before when there have been increases in the number of immigrants held in facilities that don’t have enough capacity or aren’t designed, for example, to take care of children. And I think no matter where someone stands on immigration as an issue, everyone should be able to agree that it’s extremely important for children not to be put at risk by any government policy. Source link Orbem News #Analysis #crisis #debate #Immigration #Missing #Politics #Whattheimmigration'crisis'debateismissing-CNNPolitics