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wicked-mind · 3 years

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Spark: Chapter Three

Summary: Y/N and Damon were apart of a Hydra experiment for over a decade until they escaped. When power outages through towns along with bodies of murdered Hydra agents start popping up across the country, Y/N becomes Bucky’s mission.

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Bits of violence, memories of torture

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*gifs not mine

Chapter Three - We all need to talk

Bucky managed to watch the rest of the movie unmoving, not wanting to disturb Y/N who was still sleeping on his shoulder. He watched the credits roll along the TV screen, reading each line as they passed. He didn’t want to move, he didn’t want to ruin the moment he was stuck in. Bucky felt almost normal for the first time in his long life as he sat there on the couch with Y/N asleep on his shoulder and a dog on the other side of him. But he quickly snapped out of his daydream when Sarge perked his big fluffy head up, “What’s up, boy?” Bucky asked the dog in a hushed tone as to not disturb Y/N.

Sarge stood on the couch, looking at the curtain covered window behind Bucky for a moment before jumping off the couch and going to the door. Bucky quickly noted that the hair on Sarge had stood up, making his brow furrow. He scooted himself up and away from his spot on the couch, gently shifting Y/N into a laying position without disturbing her sleep. Bucky walks to the window and moved the curtain to peak out, seeing a black van sitting outside. The owner of the van must’ve seen him peaking out the curtain as well because the van sped away down the road. It was at that moment Bucky decided he would be spending the night at Y/N’s house, concerned about who was in the van and what could’ve happened to Y/N if he wasn’t here. He walked over to Y/N’s DVD collection, finding the second movie of the Alien series and popping it into the DVD player as quietly as he could. He pushed play on the remote before taking Sarge’s spot on the couch, looking over at Y/N as she slept soundly before returning his focus to the TV knowing he wouldn’t be able to get much sleep tonight.

It was early morning hours, about 4:30 AM, when Y/N woke up with a gasp. Even the presence of Bucky couldn’t keep her nightmares away. She sat up, staring wide-eyed at Bucky as if she didn’t recognize him. She fell off the couch in an attempt to get away from him, scooting herself into the corner of the living room and curled up into as much as a ball as she could facing away from him. Sarge, knowing what was happening, kept his distance as to not be shocked but close enough that he could whine gently at Y/N to calm down.

The sudden jolt of Y/N waking up made Bucky jump as well, he wasn’t expecting her to be awake so suddenly. He watched her as she looked at him with terrified eyes, standing quickly when she fell off the couch and scooted away, “Hey, Y/N.” He said gently with his hands up to show he was non threatening, “It’s me… Bucky.” He said as he slowly walked towards her curled up figure.

Y/N looked up at Bucky still wide-eyed, shaking her head quickly, “Please…” She whimpers out, “Don’t take me back… Don’t hurt me…” Tears had started to form in her eyes and started to slowly drip down her red cheeks.

Bucky had never seen someone look so terrified as Y/N was curled up in the corner. It made him angry that something had happened to make her go into a frantic state like this, it was the total opposite of what she was usually like. He kneeled down in front of her, “Nobody is taking you anywhere,” He said, reaching a hand out to touch her, “I promi-“ As soon as he touched her, he felt a jolt of electricity go through his body that made him back away quickly from her. Yup, she was definitely an enhanced human with the ability to create strong currents of electricity. Bucky quickly realized touching her wasn’t going to work to snap her out of it and he would have to try something else, “Okay, no touching.” He muttered, “Hey, Y/N, remember last night? I brought you some soup and we had some drinks together. Then you showed me your favorite movie, Alien. I watched the second one without you, I hope that’s alright.”

Y/N was breathing hard as she looked at Bucky, her finger tips crackling with streaks of blue electricity. She tilted her head slightly at him as he spoke, then looks back to the TV to see the main menu for Aliens on the screen. It slowly started to come back to her where she was and what was going on, but then she snapped her gaze back to Bucky as the electricity from her fingers sizzled away, “Oh my god, Bucky! I’m so so sorry!” She said softly, uncurling herself from the wall and leaned towards him a little, “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

Bucky sighs in relief as Y/N seemed back to normal, not knowing what else he could try if that didn’t work, “I’m alright, just a little shocked literally and figuratively.” He told her, holding his hand out to help her up from the floor and guided her back to the couch where Y/N took a seat. Bucky sat down by her, watching her curiously. At least now he could ask her questions about being an enhanced human and maybe more about how she was tangled with Hydra, “You literally electrocuted me, how is that possible?”

Y/N bit her lip, knowing questions were coming. She sat still on the couch, her eyes flickering between Bucky and her hands, “I don’t know.. It started when I was about ten years old…” She began, watching him for his reactions, “My parents got rid of me after they found out, sent me to a psychiatric facility when I was thirteen because they thought I was a witch or possessed. I got discharged and put into foster care and eventually adopted… It all went downhill from there.” She muttered out the last part, not really wanting to get into it unless he asked her. She didn’t know what she would say. How could she tell Bucky, a guy she was currently having a crush on, that she had been given up by her adoptive family to be tortured for an organization that seemed made up? Y/N didn’t want to sound crazy and scare him away. She chewed on her lip persistently, waiting for him to speak.

Bucky nodded, knowing the story already from the briefing he had before he came into Y/N’s life but it was good to hear her version, “You said don’t take me back… you looked traumatized saying don’t hurt me. What happened, Y/N?” He asks, curious to hear what really happened while she was gone after she fell off the grid. He needed to know more about her and especially more about Damon. He needed to understand how Y/N got mixed up with Damon and why he was murdering Hydra agents.

Y/N sighs, that was the question she didn’t want asked and hoped with just the small amount of information would be enough to suffice Bucky’s curiosity but somewhere inside her she knew it wouldn’t, “When the adoption was finalized and social workers didn’t need to come check up on me anymore, these men with accents took me to Washington. They put me in a cell in a bunker with a silver collar around my neck to steal the electricity I could produce… When they needed electricity to power the facility and their experiments, the collar would have sharp prongs that’d dig into my neck and cause me to create electricity….” She gently touched the scars on her neck from the prongs as she talked about them before continuing, “I was there alone for a long time until Damon and Stefan were put in the cells across from mine, they were brothers. The people who brought me there would take Damon and Stefan away sometimes… One day Stefan didn’t come back and we were told he died as part of an experiment. We were there for ten years together, isolated and alone.” She looked down at the floor where Sarge had came to lay below her, “Damon said they injected him with something that enhanced every ability he had including speed and strength and then he told me they were talking about brainwashing him… I panicked and released a large surge of electricity until the power blew in the facility and Damon and I escaped…” She slowly turned her gaze to Bucky, knowing she must sound insane to him, “That’s why Damon is in Washington, he goes to look for Stefan’s body every year. And ever since we escaped, the people who took me have been trying to get Damon and I back.”

Bucky slowly nodded at the story. He finally had answers as to what happened to Y/N and from the sound of it, Damon was a super soldier like him. He couldn’t help but feel anger and sadness for both Y/N and Damon. He had been in a similar situation before when he was taken by Hydra, turned into a brainwashed super soldier experiment and forced to kill but at least Y/N didn’t have the guilt of murder on her hands, “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Y/N. I’ve been through some similar things…” He thought about his next words carefully before deciding he had to say something true about himself, “I was also a Hydra experiment, Y/N. That’s the people who did those awful things to you.”

Y/N narrowed and her brow pulled together at his words, tilting her head, “You… You were an experiment too?” She repeats his words before her eyes widened slightly, “Is-is that why you’ve been hanging out with me? Pretending to enjoy my presence?” She stood suddenly, taking a few steps away from Bucky, “Are you here to take me back to them or for your own use? Because I’m not a battery! And I won’t ever be a prisoner again!” She shouted towards him, her finger tips starting to spark electricity again.

Bucky quickly threw his hands up in a non threatening manner again at her sudden hostility but he understood where it came from. During the most important years of Y/N’s life, she was taken prisoner, kept isolated away from other people and taught not to trust anybody besides Damon, something nobody should have to go through but yet Y/N came out alive and kind which fascinated Bucky even more, “No, Y/N!” He told her in a stern voice, “I honestly like hanging out with you. I definitely do not work with Hydra in any aspect. I was sent here because somebody has been ripping out Hydra agent’s hearts and snapping their necks which I figure is Damon’s doing. I had to come see if there was a problem and why Hydra was snooping around.” Y/N clenched her jaw a little, her teeth gritting together slightly as she listened to him. But something about the way Bucky was looking at her made her trust him. He had pain in his eyes as well and it reflected the own pain that was inside of her, “Damon was just trying to protect me… They don’t stop, they never do. They’re always waiting around every corner and find me anywhere I go.” She told him, the electricity in her fingers disappearing as she calmed down. She moved back to sit on the couch beside Bucky but continued to watch him carefully.

Bucky felt relief again as Y/N seemed to calm down and her hostility towards him seemed to fade. The last thing he wanted to do was become an enemy towards her and someone she couldn’t trust in her life, “I know, I was chased for a long time too and Hydra made me do awful things.” He sighed, feeling like he had to share his story now to show she could trust him, “In the 19040’s, I was taken by Hydra. They had already turned me into a super soldier, like your friend Damon, but they brainwashed me successfully and used me as a weapon for decades until 2014. I’m 106 years old, doll.”

Y/N’s jaw dropped at Bucky’s words, “Oh my god..” She managed to say before giving him an apologetic look, “I’m so sorry, Bucky. That’s awful. I’m sorry.” She said, reaching out a hand to squeeze his arm without realizing what she was doing. It was just instinct for Y/N to try and be there for others, be kind and Bucky Barnes was no different.

Bucky’s lips curved into a small smile, he couldn’t help it. The way Y/N was instinctively kind made him feel some sort of hope inside him for something better for him. If she could live through the trauma she went through, maybe he could too and come out a better person like Y/N had. Just as Bucky was about to speak, the moment was ruined as Damon strolled on in through the door.

Damon’s eyes flickered between the two, narrowing at the sight. He wasn’t expecting this, he had expected to see Y/N alone curled up with her dog. Then he noticed the dry tear trails on Y/N’s face, causing him to frown and in an instant he grabbed Bucky by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against a wall, “What did you do?!” He growled out at Bucky.

Y/N’s eyes widened as Damon slammed Bucky into the wall, “Damon, stop!” She yelled at him but Damon didn’t back off. She quickly stood, watching it unfold. Bucky used his vibranium arm to grab onto Damon’s wrist, twisting it and pushing him away. That didn’t stop Damon from coming at Bucky again which caused Bucky to land a punch to Damon’s cheek causing him to fall backwards onto the floor.

“Bucky!” Y/N yelled this time, watching as Damon got back up and walked towards Bucky with anger all over his complexion. Y/N got between the two dark haired men before they could make contact with each other again, placing her palms on each of their chests to stop them from getting any closer to each other, “Hey, knock it off or I swear to god I’m going to shock both of you to the point you see tweety birds around your heads.” She turned to Damon, “I’m fine, Damon.” Y/N turned to look at Bucky, taking a deep breath, “I think we all need to talk.”

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ladymostdeject · 4 years

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I Use My Outside Voice (Because I Have No Choice) Chapter 1

Hamilton hurried into his office, Thomas right behind him. He flung his briefcase back onto his desk, heedless of the laptop inside.

Hamilton didn’t even flinch at the noise, and he doubled back to close the door.

“Why does Washington always send you when he wants something from me? It’s like he thinks he can irritate me into submission.”

“Nobody sent me this time.”

Thomas rolled his eyes so hard his neck popped. “What do you want, Hamilton?”

“I need this bill passed. It’s stalled right now, and I need it passed.” He moved Thomas’ briefcase to get at the papers he’d left on the desk. He clutched them to his chest, face earnest.

“You’re talking about the bank bill?” he asked. Hamilton nodded and shifted on his feet nervously. “Why are you this wound up about it? It’s just a weird little regulatory bill. Those die in committee all the time.”

Hamilton puffed up his chest. “I wrote it.”

Thomas sighed so hard it almost hurt. “Of course you did.”

“It needs your support. If you support it, the other moderates will fall in line. Madison, Woodhall-”

“No.” Jefferson leaned back on his desk and crossed his arms.

“Okay, while that’s a compelling argument, I was really hoping for a little bit more back and forth. Is that all you really have to say?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “No, I will not support that bill.”

Hamilton huffed, “Why not?! It doesn’t violate any of the major Republican Party stances, it doesn’t threaten you or Virginia in any way, it’s reducing certain banking regulations. Look right here, where it says-” Hamilton thrust a couple of the pages towards Thomas, who took them and promptly dropped them in the garbage.

Hamilton squawked. The mean little thing in Thomas’ chest purred.

“I can’t support it. Word has come down from on high, we have to object to anything y’all want. Doesn’t matter what it is. You can’t come down here anymore looking for compromises from the moderates, the answer is going to be no.”

“And you’re okay with that are you? Total gridlock for the next two years ?” he cried. No actually. It made Thomas sick. “It’s not the way things are supposed to work! We’re supposed to be making the country better!”

He circled back around his desk to give himself a moment. “I don’t know what to tell-”

“I didn’t know you were a coward!”

Thomas thought his patience was at its end already, but apparently it could stretch even thinner. He clutched his desk to keep from leaping over it and throttling Hamilton. “Fine! Do you want to know what I think? Even if I could help you I wouldn’t. It’s a bad bill. It is way too long. It looks like you’re trying to hide something in all that circular language.”

“It is not circular! Or too long! It’s exactly as long as it needs to be! It’s thorough and precise!” He gestured wildly.

“It needs to be about fifty thousand words shorter.” Thomas was starting to get his second wind. He had forgotten how much fun it was to wind up the other man.

“Fifty-” he sputtered. “That’s half of it!”

“And another thing, it puts an outrageous demand on an already strained system.”

“No, it utilizes a system that’s already in place to-”

“Also, if you really want bipartisan support, you need to remove the clause about omegas.”

Hamilton looked thunderous before, but suddenly he looked downright deadly. “I will not,” he growled. “That clause removes a century old system of oppression.”

Thomas shrugged. “You wanted my opinion.”

“I want your vote.”

He threw up his hands in exasperation. “You can’t have it! Just wait until the next time you have a congressional majority. That’s apparently how it works now. My god, Hamilton, learn some tact! You stormed in here demanding my help, you’ve shouted at me, and you’ve argued with every one of my suggestions. You can’t just strong-arm everyone into doing whatever you want. You’ll never get elected if this is the most diplomatic you can be!”

Something he said struck Hamilton hard. He looked gutted, and sounded hollow when he said, “I’m never going to get elected. That’s why I need to pass this bill.”

Thomas grimaced. “Oh, for- I didn’t mean right now, obviously. I meant that in the future, you need a good lesson on how to talk to humans beings, not that-”

“No. I’m retiring,” he spat like it was the filthiest word he knew.

Thomas surprised himself by laughing. It was a deep, belly laugh. “Sure from the White House staff, but we all know you'll move on to something else. The House maybe? Hamilton, you and I both know you're never going to truly retire. You're going to die at age 97 on the Senate floor after thoroughly dressing down Congress.”

Hamilton collapsed into the chair by the desk like his strings had been cut. “No, I’ve got two years.” Thomas opened his mouth to refute such a blatant lie, but he plowed on, “I'll never be able to successfully win any election, because that requires people to like you. Nobody likes me. No. I am un-electable. If I’m going to make my mark, I’ve got to do it now, while I’ve still got Washington backing me. Even if all I can do is write a weird little bank bill.”

Thomas feels ice crawl down his back, and even though he's never even considered it before, he suddenly knows it’s true. There's a handful of omegas in congress, but every single one is cute. Wholesome. Quiet. Every single one has a wife or husband and a gaggle of children. Hamilton has none of those things. He has a loud mouth and huge opinions and an inability to keep those opinions to himself. Most damning of all in the court of public opinion, he has a list of ex-lovers as long as his arm. He's not the kind of omega people like to see on TV.

“Moreover, I have very few positive connections. There is no one else who would be willing to hire me after we’re done in the White House. I make enemies everywhere I go. I have what I have because Washington trusts me. Sees what I can do. I've worked for him for twenty years. And in the beginning, I even had to fight for him to give me my due. I've been clinging to his coattails. I may be able to get some bullshit job to pay the bills after our term ends but probably never in politics again and definitely never somewhere with as much influence as I have now. I have fought tooth and nail for every single thing I have, and I've reached the end. I've peaked, and there's nowhere else for me to go. No, when George retires, so do I.”

Thomas feels the world shift beneath his feet. He'd never even considered Hamilton's future. He's never given a thought to how his gender might affect his career. He just assumed he'd always be hanging around DC, stirring up trouble and bothering everyone within hearing range. And if he'd been a beta, or hell, an alpha, Jefferson was positive Hamilton would be a thorn in his side until his dying day. But omegas get married, they have children, and then they leave the workforce.

He racked his brain for an omega that's over 40 still working in DC. He comes up with that same tragically short list of senators and representatives he'd thought of earlier. He thinks about the secretaries and assistants and baristas he sees around town. Every single one is a cute young thing, flirty and sweet the second they catch on that he's an unbonded alpha. Where do all the omegas go?

Surely they're not all chained to their stoves. They run charities and volunteer at hospitals, but are never on the payroll. They hang demurely on the arms of the people he rubs elbows with. They are mothers, PTA members, and soccer team chauffeurs. His own mother had never worked a day in her life.

But what if she had wanted to? She was brilliant, always keeping his father on his toes with their lively dinner debates. Would she have been happier with a career? How is this never a question he'd asked her when she was alive? How is this not a question he'd asked himself?

He's suddenly ashamed that he's 45 years old, and he just learned something so new and so big. He doubts she could have just gone out and gotten a job, certainly not one worthy of her intellect. Not back then, but if what Hamilton is saying is true, then maybe not even now.

Things are supposed to be different. It’s illegal to fire an omega when they get married or pregnant. It's illegal to discriminate against them during the hiring or promotion process. And before this very moment Thomas had never once considered the omega population's lack of upward mobility might not be due to genetic temperament and lack of desire.

But Hamilton certainly doesn't seem inclined to find a mate and settle down. And it's not that Thomas forgets he's an omega, it's just that it’s a lot easier to lump him in with the betas and alphas he knows. He's irritatingly bursting with ambition and pride. And if Hamilton can't have the career he deserves, how many other omegas are trapped in lives they don't want? Not everyone has the strength of will to fly in the face of hundreds of years of social conditioning, middle fingers held high, verbal abuse cocked and loaded. Not everyone has the fortitude to claw their way to the top. He has been blind. Worse than that, he's been stupid. He stumbled over to his desk chair and collapsed much like Hamilton had.

What was that clause in the bill about omegas? Something about removing the forty-eight hour wait period on omega’s requesting large withdrawals from their bank accounts without an alpha or beta’s co-signature? And removing the bank’s ability to vet the purpose of the withdrawal and deny the withdrawal if they deem it irresponsible.

Everyone knows that omegas are bad with money, and poor at resisting temptation. That law is there for their protection. To keep them from-

The scent of distressed omega finally registers through his haze of thoughts, a citrus-y tang overpowering his usual sweetness. Because Hamilton is an omega. The omega White House Communications Director wrote a comprehensive bill about bank regulations. And while the man himself is very controversial (and exhausting), with his fighting and his Twitter tangents and mile long list of exes, he has the ear and the unwavering trust of the leader of the free world. If the goddamn White House Communications Director wants to withdraw a substantial sum of his own money, he has to ask the bank nicely.

“Jesus, Jefferson.” Hamilton was smirking. Why was he smirking, didn’t he know Thomas’ whole system of beliefs is a lie? “I didn’t realize the thought of me retiring would be so upsetting. Are you gonna miss me?” Read the rest of Chapter One Here

#jamilton #hamilton #hamilton the musical #a/b/o #fanfiction #lady writes #lady talks

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sciencespies · 4 years

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What we don't know about parasites in our changing world could be deadly

https://sciencespies.com/environment/what-we-dont-know-about-parasites-in-our-changing-world-could-be-deadly/

What we don't know about parasites in our changing world could be deadly

In the salt water marshes of southern California, a splashing killifish is easy prey for a hungry shorebird. Like a jerking marionette, the helpless creature shimmies and flashes on the surface of the water. And all the while, hiding deep in its brain, an invisible other quietly pulls the strings.

The puppeteer in question is the super-abundant parasitic flatworm known as Euhaplorchis californiensis. Throughout its life, this one parasite will infect no less than three animals, and a bird’s intestine is the final destination it wants to reach.

To get there, the parasite’s larva must penetrate a killifish, crawl to its brain and lay down a carpet of cysts, which it then uses to manipulate the host’s swimming, sending it thrashing to the surface.

As it happens, infected killifish are preyed on by birds some 10 to 30 times more, which means that parasites are essentially increasing the amount of resources available in the ecosystem: a relationship we often overlook in the natural world.

The story of the infected fish is a tantalising peak backstage, but it’s also a reminder of our sheer ignorance. As the world’s climate changes, we can’t ignore our parasites any longer.

A parasitic dark matter

Though often hidden to the human eye, parasites are, by some estimates, more than half of all known species on Earth. What’s more, they can influence virtually every other free-living animal.

Humans alone play host to nearly 300 types of parasitic worm, and around a third of us are currently infected, whether knowingly or not, with at least one.

They’re everywhere, on all sides, maybe even inside. And yet when we picture a classic food chain, how many of us remember the lions, zebras and grass, only to forget their hidden puppeteers?

Compared to free-living species, scientists have collected relatively scant information on parasites. Historically dominated by medical researchers and overlooked by ecologists and conservationists (Darwin himself viewed them as “degenerates“), these organisms are often entirely missing from modern depictions of food chains; even though, in the average ecosystem, parasite–host links actually outnumber predator–prey links.

Only in the last 30 years or so have we realised our mistake.

(Cizauskas et al., Royal Society Open Science, 2017)

Above: Global distribution of parasite climate change research. Research on parasitic species is disproportionately oriented towards human emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), especially in countries where the majority of parasite research occurs.

When parasites like E. californiensis are included in the ecology of California’s salt marshes, the classic food web – with a few predators at the top and lots of smaller species on the bottom – is almost literally “turned on its head“.

“Essentially,” the authors of a 2008 paper explain, “a second web appears around the free-living web, and this completely changes the level of connectivity.”

Parasites are thus described as a sort of hidden “dark matter“, not only in our ecosystems but also in our models of infection. When Chelsea Wood, a parasite ecologist at the University of Washington, first started researching mass fishing nearly 15 years ago, she told ScienceAlert that we had virtually no idea how this practice might impact resident parasites.

Even now, she adds, when ecosystems are facing unprecedented changes, we have only the foggiest idea how more than half the species on Earth are coping.

Whether acknowledged or not, parasites are key indicators and shapers of healthy communities, influencing the survival and reproduction of whole host populations, causing food web cascades or even epidemics.

Some call them the “omnipresent agents of natural selection“, others the “ultimate missing links“, still others the “invisible puppeteers“.

Whatever the label, it’s about time we consider the parasite.

Shooting in the dark

If the history of medical science has taught us anything, Wood argues, it’s that the emergence of a new infectious disease can go unnoticed for a long time: the tale of HIV, jumping from primates to humans decades before we recognised it as a global epidemic, is a prime example.

Today, a similar story might be unfolding in our oceans, like a shadow, creeping up the wall behind us.

“We really are just starting to scratch the surface on whether a changing world means rising rates of infectious disease,” Wood told ScienceAlert.

In the last few years, scientists have grown ever more concerned that our planet is not only getting warmer, it’s also altering the spread and distribution of parasitic diseases.

A recent finding, not yet published by Wood’s lab, indicates that from 1978 to 2015, there was a 280-fold increase in Anisakis simplex, a cold water nematode responsible for some 20,000 cases of herring worm disease, usually contracted from eating raw or undercooked seafood.

Whether the trend is due to fishing, climate change or something else, is hard to say for now. In Arctic waters, where this nematode flourishes and climate change is at its worst, we often lack baseline and long-term data, even for the best known parasites and their diseases.

Unfortunately, this means our future projections can often fall short of the rich reality.

The domino effects of climate change on parasites and their hosts. (Cizauskas et al., Royal Society Open Science, 2017)

The latest climate-parasite models are trying to fill-in this blindspot, incorporating not only climate data, but also information on parasitic life cycles, ranges, and opportunities for new hosts.

The initial results suggest that climate change will play a much larger role in disease transfer than we once thought. But what that specifically means for bird-flu, human malaria, A. simplex or other parasitic diseases remains unresolved.

After all, wherever there’s few data, there’s plenty of doubt. Even Wood, who directly measures parasite prevalence, admits that her research may well contain a sneaking bias. Researchers, you see, tend to pay more attention to those parasites that matter to humans.

“No one cares about parasites that are diminishing into extinction, because they don’t hurt people, they don’t hurt animals, they don’t cause outbreaks, they don’t ruin your fish fillet, they don’t crawl across your plate at the sushi restaurant,” Wood explains.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t a vital part of our ecology. While an increase or change in parasite populations will no doubt have serious repercussions for health and agriculture, the flip side may well entail ecological upheaval. Some parasites are certain to flourish, while others will likely decline and go extinct.

A 2017 study on 457 parasite species predicts that five to 10 percent are committed to this fate by 2070, solely from climate-driven habitat loss. The researchers went on to create the first “red list” for parasites.

“Accounting for host-driven coextinctions,” the authors write, “models predict that up to 30 [percent] of parasitic worms are committed to extinction, driven by a combination of direct and indirect pressures.”

Will the aforementioned E. californiensis number among these wormy losers? Will another invasive parasite take its place? What then will happen to the size, distribution and abundance of killifish? The hungry shorebird? The precious salt marshes? The humans who rely on them?

Gathering answers on the complexities of parasite-host dynamics in all the thousands of mammal and bird species is a simply impossible task, says Konstans Wells, a parasite ecologist and modeller at Swansea University.

“We need more data for certain aspects,” he told ScienceAlert, “but we certainly can’t sample everything and we also can’t wait with the modelling because there is always a need to make better forecasting or maps where diseases are being distributed.”

As the clock ticks, researchers must act like ghostbusters, hunting down invisible foes, diseases that don’t yet exist or have yet to re-emerge in some new unexpected location.

Danielle Claar, a postdoc working in Wood’s lab, is studying the effect of El Niño events in the parasite-rich Tropics, because she says these can act as windows into future warming. Others in the team are sifting through countless museum samples and old journals for evidence of the past.

“When you arrive into science you think everyone’s got everything figured out,” Wood says.

“But as you get deeper in you realise there’s so much we don’t know. It’s staggering.”

As the climate crisis takes a firm grip, squeezing some parasites out and holding on to others, what we don’t know could very will kill many. And that goes for both parasites and humans alike.

A version of this article was first published in June 2019.

#Environment

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asphaltapostle · 5 years

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What I have long predicted is now coming to pass: Google believes it should assume control.

Out of all the technology companies that have made my knees knock and my voice hoarse and my [Tweets manic](https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q="google" %40ficklecrux&src=typd) as a technoheretic in the past several years, Jumbo Google would easily take home the winning trophy for Dystopian of the Millennium. I have been rehearsing an especially dear pet prophecy of mine, unsolicited, to family, friends, and podcast guests since 2011 in which I end up arguing quite convincingly that Google is a dead ringer for the 16th-century Vatican: an inherently self-isolating organization with an absolute monopoly yielding gargantuan levels of essentially passive income from a service which nearly everybody transacts with, but only Google understands (and is therefore assumed to be its only possible provider,) which inevitably develops such a distance from the rest of the populace and their way of life (in tandem with total notoriety and celebrity among them all) not intentionally out of malice, but from the delusion of mythically-bestowed philanthropic duty that is borned of and compounded by this economic and cultural isolation in a perpetual accumulation of power and wealth that radicalizes the monopolizers — the majority already highly predisposed to zeal as they would’ve needed to be in order to find themselves in this singular, universally powerful position over every other class — and leaves their egocentric minds to wander exempt from all criticism save for that of fellow radicalized monopolizers, who together begin to feel more and more comfortable wondering aloud about themselves in increasingly fantastic presumptions: what if all of this was bestowed upon us because we are superior to them? What if it is our divine responsibility as superior beings to take charge and shepherd the common people as our sheep — for they cannot possibly know as well as we what is truly best for them?

You see it, right? And you can feel a very specific flavor of terror that is both awed by the scale of the circumstances created by so few human minds and sincerely amused by the absoluteness of your own inability to alter them in any way. Perhaps you even recognize this taste as one perfected by Christianity’s ancient advertising business, but Google knows so much about you that it’s rumored to’ve been selling user data to the Judeochristian God for some time now at a 10% discount, and so we extrapolate and anticipate, yes?

Of course, it’s admittedly satisfying for me to deliver you to this godfearing place in the most perverse look what I saw first that you didn’t see because you’re just not as bright but lucky for you, I’m so fucking generous with my wisdom sort of thinking around which the entire personas and livelihoods of fringe movement fanatics are built upon, but this is my one thing, okay? I’ve been waiting years for the right time to formally argue this theory in depth, and — thanks to this year’s public spotlight finally pivoting on the giants who’ve been silently swallowing their competition and relentlessly forcing their already ridiculous margins higher and higher in relative obscurity for decades, the time has come, indeed. The common people’s trust in Google had a godawful week.

Don’t Be Evil

On Monday, Gizmodo reported that twelve frustrated Google employees were quitting the company in protest of their work assisting the Department of Defense to “implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones” for the detail fleeting Project Maven, despite some 4000 employee signatures on a letter addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai requesting (in full) that he “cancel this project immediately,” and “draft, publicize, and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology,” citing the infamous “Don’t Be Evil” motto, which Google then proceeded to remove from its code of conduct for the first time in 18 years the day after the New York Times article went to press, on April 5th.

On initial approach to the abstract of this story, from the ass to our thoughts arrives an easy narrative of a Silicon Valley mutiny comprised of twelve brave, conscientious souls who’ve been eaten up inside by their complicity in the filthy deals made by their power-obsessed CEO over scotch and cigars in a dark D.C. study — kept awake for months by the sound of his puffing cackles at satellite images of dead toddlers in a bombed-out street.

Ah ha, we say. That man is no good, and he just wouldn’t listen! They knew they didn’t have a choice… They only did what they had to do…

The reality of internal disagreements at Google, though, manages to be even more theatrical. The sheer volume of correspondence must surely be beyond anything capable of the enduser’s imagination, so let’s phone a friend: my favorite peek into the day-to-days of inter-Google existence is an old blog post by Benjamin Tilly on his first month at the company in which he was compelled almost immediately to describe in great detail how best to “deal with a lot of email in gmail” at peak efficiency using shortcuts and labels. “As you get email, you need to be aggressive about deciding what you need to see, versus what is context specific.”

Now we have a bit better idea of the aggressive emailing that was a sure constant on a normal workday at Google in 2010, so it must’ve been deafening after 8 years of Gmail development as 4000 employees no doubt vented, debated, and decided to organize last month, though without making much headway because the leadership’s response was apparently “complicated by the fact that Google claims it is only providing open-source software to Project Maven,” this new knowledge having significant effect on our mind’s image of Sundar Pichai’s activities in Washington: he is now swapping seats with a frustrated Colin Powell in order to install OpenOffice onto his desktop from a flash drive, and we recall that Google’s Googleplex headquarters resembles nowhere in modern life more than a brand new playground built in a design language borrowing heavily from Spy Kids. And though these Twelve disciples are unnamed for the moment, a few of them could immediately land book deals by going public, and every single one would always have by default not only the badge of “I landed a job at Google,” (which is really to say I have hit Life’s maximum level cap,) but “I worked at Google for a while, but ended up quitting to do something else,” which is guaranteed to make you the most interesting, intellectually superior person present in whatever crowd for the rest of your life. The ultra-cool Sarah Cooper quit Google to become a comedian and even got to talk to Kara Swisher! I won’t pretend to understand big tech’s diminutive bastardization of prestige, but “more than 90 academics” jumping to publish an open letter (adjacent to a huge DONATE: Support the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots button) in which they “write in solidarity with the 3100+ Google employees” who’s terrible boss decided to help some lackeys in the Pentagon set up their email and didn’t text back for a whole hour doesn’t sound 100% sincere. Notably, I don’t know how or why the fuck 90 people would go about collaborating on a single document, but if it really was managed, they definitely used Google Docs… At one point, it was fun to think about the history of the friendly side-scroller-playing garage ghouls and dorm dorks who gave cooky, wacko names to their dot com startups in parody and defiance of the lame-ass surname anagrams on the buildings of their established competitors, but those who’ve stuck around have only done so by becoming expert at SUCKING UP EVERYTHING around them, and it pisses me off every day how worried I am that my species will finally be done in by a company with a name like Yahoo! and be known only to a bunch of adolescent interdimensional silicon blobs 30 million years in the future as that bipedal race who remained dignified until the last 0.01% of their reign on Earth, when in way less than a single generation, they all just went FUCKING INSANE and blew themselves up because they suddenly hated all sense.

“Google” is perhaps the worst of these to have to shout in fear and/or anger in your last moments as it sounds in American English like you’ve startled your subject with a ticklish pinch followed so immediately by an esophagus-busting chokehold that the two events appear simultaneous, and in real English English, it almost always sounds like a parent speaking of a character on a pre-K children’s television programme whom they find quite foul and upsetting, but will manage to refrain from expressing so otherwise because they know that Teletubbies shit is the most quickly forgotten stage of television viewership. It’s fascinating how exclusive the word “Google” is to American English because in everything else it really is complete nonsense, but lets halt all etymological discussions right now because we’ve only now just finished with Monday.

The Soul Ledger

On Thursday, all of my Google experiences, suppositions, and soul-detaching screenshots were usurped when a thoroughly alarming internal company video called The Selfish Ledger was leaked to The Verge, which I watched once then and do not want to watch again for the sake of this piece, but I will. Though the big V has been disappointingly timid for years about editorializing — when tech journalism desperately needs some confident, informed opinion more than ever — Vlad Savov’s accompanying article should be read in its entirety, to which I can add my own terror where he perhaps could not. The production style is technically identical to that of the very popular thinkpiece-esque, motion-graphics-paired-with-obligatory-sharpie illustrated videos which you find playing at max volume on your mom’s iPad from where she’s fallen asleep on the couch at 9PM, but the repeating stock string soundtrack multiplies one’s discomfort as such that we would all end up in the fetal position without remembering the transition were it not for the appearance of trusty old Dank Jenkins, who’s face I thankfully associate heavily enough with his infamous down-and-out Tweet to be a welcome respite in attention before the very scary hypothesis for which it’s been buttering me up, as best summed by Vlad:

> The system would be able to “plug gaps in its knowledge and refine its model of human behavior” — not just your particular behavior or mine, but that of the entire human species. “By thinking of user data as multigenerational,” explains Foster, “it becomes possible for emerging users to benefit from the preceding generation’s behaviors and decisions.” Foster imagines mining the database of human behavior for patterns, “sequencing” it like the human genome, and making “increasingly accurate predictions about decisions and future behaviors.”

The next time the what if they do something scary question comes up in a casual conversation about Google, you’ll have something a lot more substantial than just speculation. Or will you? The Verge reached out for comment and got an awfully convenient response.

> This is a thought-experiment by the Design team from years ago that uses a technique known as ‘speculative design’ to explore uncomfortable ideas and concepts in order to provoke discussion and debate.

Wow! Leave it up to grand ole Googe to reveal the ultimate excuse for just about any suggestion or behavior, though it does seem almost deliberately uncomfortable, doesn’t it? No matter — whether or not this video was ever about a project or tangible product development, or simply to explore uncomfortable ideas because it is proof that the company has reached that critical Vatican stage — if you’ll remember — where they now feel comfortable exploring Very Bad, but Very easily made Real Ideas amongst themselves about what would happen if they allowed their system to nudge its users around a different, slightly less optimal route to the bar, let’s say — without their knowledge — in order for the system to collect traffic data for the sake of its own interests? Which would be, technically, in the interest of all Ledger users now and in the future, so why not?

> The ledger could be given a focus, shifting it from a system which not only tracks our behavior, but offers direction towards a desired result.”

This, my dear privacy-obsessed friends, is the real issue with data collection — its power over huge groups by way of their behavior and it is never going to be remedied in any significant way by ad-blockers or VPNs because the EndUser shall always out number you 50 to 1, even decades from now. EndUser does not understand — or, crucially, have any desire to understand anything technical about what leads to the PewDiePie videos playing on his filthy screen. Here’s a great opportunity to escape Silicon Valley’s technolibertarianism and resign your Darwinian empathy in favor of meaningful and truly-effective action: if you want to avoid a future Google Church (or Google Government, more worryingly,) you should invest your time, effort, and knowledge into electing officials more capable of understanding and regulating Big Tech.

Google Government

The internet as it stands is made possible by Google as the goto resource for online advertising. In 2016, “Google held 75.8 percent of the search ad market, bringing in $24.6 billion in revenue from search ads,” according to Recode. By 2019, “that’s expected to grow to $36.62 billion in revenue, or 80.2 percent of the market.” Google’s edge in user behavior and targeted advertising combined with their extensive resources available developers to integrate independent platforms with Google’s software services at various levels makes it very difficult for any advertising-funded individual or organization to compete online without dipping in to the Google universe. YouTube — a Google property since 2006 — has actively invested in and supported a new career path entirely within their own platform that is rapidly becoming popularly aspired-to by young children, while the reality of existence as a full-time YouTuber is far less glamorous than the immediately-visible surface would indicate, and the effort already expended by my generation in its pursuit has already made us insane.

So, what would the internet look like if Google didn’t exist? We know they’ve been working with the government now on various projects, but what if some terrible exposed transgression of theirs suddenly warranted an immediate shutdown and seizure of all Google properties? Well, we know from a post on Quora by Googler Ashish Kedia that even 5 years ago, the sudden absence of Google for “2–3 mins” set the internet into a bit of a panic, reducing overall traffic by 40%. In the time since, we’ve all grown exponentially more dependent on Google properties: billions of people rely on Google Maps for directions and, thousands of companies (including the Pentagon and other government institutions) rely on Gmail and GSuites for intercommunication, file sharing, task management, etc., and more and more academic institutions rely on Chromebook devices running connection-dependent operating systems. It’s not much of a stretch to argue that Google’s sudden disappearance would constitute a Civil Emergency in the United States, which will only become a stronger and more serious incentive for regulatory bodies to look the other way.

Though the tangible results of advertising have been quantified significantly in the past 20 years, one can’t help but wonder after watching YouTube ads for the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class on toy unboxing videos if the companies who spend big bucks on Google advertising understand where their money is going, but they know that if they don’t advertise there, their competitors will. This, of course, is a fundamental practice of a monopoly, and it’s yielded Google so much fucking money that they cannot possibly spend it fast enough, as evidenced by their investments in life extension — so that, perhaps, they will have more time on Earth to figure it out.

When you build a collection of the world’s smartest people in a self-sufficient environment that discourages exploration of other lifestyles and ideas, and you sustain the society with a gargantuan, relatively low-maintenance revenue stream, you create a culture which is not only well-primed for isolationism, but is also extremely inefficient. In fact, with its vast collection of abandoned products and properties, Google must surely be one of the most inefficient companies in history. Thinking back on recent software releases along with its recent entries into the hardware space, Google is also one of the worst competing tech companies. Very little aside from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Maps, and Chrome have found their place or garnered significant usership. Google Play Music is unintuitive and impossible, Google Allo and Google+ are all but forgotten addendums to other services, and Google Search — its core, original function — has been out of control for years, and all of them are designed blandly and excruciatingly tiring to look at.

Google Shun

If this all has stirred nothing more in you than a desire to eliminate Google from your own online life as much as possible, there are alternatives in almost every one of the sphere’s they dominate. As of late, DuckDuckGo has accumulated a fair amount of buzz and coverage as a private, more relevant alternative to Google’s plain old search engine. Though it is clever enough to list us as the first result for “extratone,” I’ve found it simply insufficient as a replacement in my own life because, essentially, it rarely delivers what I’m looking for. By contrast, Dropbox Paper is such an elegant cloud notetaking and word processing software that it makes Google Docs look simply idiotic (and warrants its own review very shortly.) For getting around, know that MapQuest is not only still around — it’s now a very competitive mobile navigation app.

I, myself, have allowed Google as complete of access to my information and behavior as possible because I believe “privacy” is a completely futile endeavor if one wishes to be a part of society, though I do often use alternatives to Google services simply because I fucking hate the way they look. If you want a more complete list of services and software that allow one to shun the Google God entirely, you’ll be forced to seek out less dignified sources like Lifehacker and Reddit and decide if the additional time you’ll spend using most of them to accomplish the same tasks is really worth your digital angst.

If Google were to be more explicit with its users and staff about its aspirations to take over control of our lives, there will be little to do but accept the future they intend to create because they’ve long been too powerful to control. In the meantime, I’d suggest you continue to use whatever software works best for you and refrain from wasting your time fretting on conspiratorial suppositions of what the tech industry may be doing to “invade your privacy,” because there is no longer any such thing, nor will there be ever again. However, I would also urge to you worship your own Gods, whomever they may be, for Google will never be worthy. I, for one, shall only pray to our Mother Sun.

#social #google #future #web #privacy

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chaoticnootrals · 6 years

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Hargrove

AN: This is going to be my first series! It’s pretty wordy at the beginning and there isn’t much Reader x Billy interaction in this part but there’ll be a lot in the next part!

Summary: The reader is one of Hawkins brightest students with a top notch reputation, it isn’t until the arrival of some newbies from California that she begins to break out of her shell. The blossoming of a beneficial relationship between y/n and the Californian bad boy himself.

Part summary: Introductions have gone better than this one... (Takes place in episode one of season 2)

Word count: 4.7k

First period. History with Mrs.Langham, or “Mrs Lang” on a good day when her husband isn’t spending so much time with his mother than with her. You sat poised in your assigned seat at the very front of the class, smack bang in the middle row. You watched with sophisticated intent as your teacher sprawled out details of the revolutionary war upon the dusted over black board. At this time of year when the seasons had settled and the spirit of halloween began to intensely consume everyone’s October lives, your school hours began to calm as teachers seemed more concerned about how they were going to manipulate the halloween season to get students to be more interactive in their classes.

With the dull and lifeless droning of Miss Langham’s voice, paired with the early hours of the school morning, you observed as your history class peers dozed off and entertained one another with Hawkins high’s latest tall-tales and teenage gossip rather than paying any notice to what was happening in today’s lesson, everyone except you. Instead you sat in your forward on position in your seat jotting down specific bullet points and information regarding who did what when and where what happened in regards to the war that won your country’s independence.

You sat silent. Everything around you was clouded by the intensity of your own concentration, a habit you’d developed from a childhood governed by the numerous expensive and strict tutors your parents had hired to get you a head start on your education. Since then, you’ve excelled in all of your classes throughout your schooling, earning the title of one of Hawkins’ most respected honour students, both socially and academically praised because of it, therefore lying the reason that you were the only one paying close attention to the lesson playing out in front of you, whilst your classmates swapped gossiping whispers behind you.

“Did you see the new guy this morning?” A feminine voiced chirped quietly.

“Oh my gosh, yes, and did you see his car?” Another sang cheekily.

As their whispers continued behind you, your focus fought with your curiosity as you desperately tried to block them out. To your own dismay, you are human, and a teenager at that, and from time to time you can’t help but indulge in the joys of being a teenager, if only for a moment. You watched Miss Langham closely as she continued to drone on about the war and wrote up crucial information as she spewed it. You watched and waited for an opening, for a moment in which you could engage with the girls behind you without getting singled out for not paying attention. Within seconds she picked up the old blue dusted history textbook from her desk to copy out information she hadn’t already memorized onto the blackboard, providing you with the perfect opportune moment to join in the conversation.

You swiveled your body around, immediately capturing the attention of the group, “I don’t mean to ease drop, but did you say something about a new guy?” You whispered coyly.

Carol shifted her eyes from left to right, examining her surroundings with such smugness. She looked looked as if she was about to reveal the information of a celebrity scandal she’d been forbidden to talk about, which only seemed to peak your interest.

“He just arrived this morning in a sexy blue Camaro.” She purred, “and apparently, he moved all the way from California to Hawkins. Isn’t that crazy?” Carol exclaimed in a whisper.

“It honestly just makes him hotter.” Tina added with a giggle, earning exaggerated gasps of surprise and a wave of mischievous giggles from the group.

You laughed along with them, despite having missed Tina’s comment, your mind adrift somewhere else. As the girls continued to exchange stories and information about Hawkins high’s hottest new gossip topic, your thoughts remained elsewhere as you pondered who exactly this new guy was and what in the world he was doing moving to Hawkins of all places. It baffled you to think that anyone from somewhere as lively and rambunctious as California would move to Hawkins. Yes, it was common for people from large cities to move and settle in small towns for new beginnings and fresh starts, yet such things never happened in Hawkins, nothing ever really happened in Hawkins. At least that’s what most thought anyway. Living in Hawkins for the most part of your life no one had ever been known to move from somewhere that big and that far just to settle down in your town. No one except for you.

Before you were able to piece your thoughts together, the flow of your concentration is interrupted by a familiar grating voice calling your name.

“Miss Y/L/N.” She repeated.

You leerily turned around to see Mrs.Langham standing in front of your desk, arms firmly planted upon her hips. She stared down at you disappointedly, her thick rimmed glasses sitting loosely on the bridge of her nose.

“I expect better from you, young lady,” She scolded, “but since you have so much to say, would you care to tell me who our first president, George Washington’s right hand man was during the war?” She had a smug expression slapped across her features, expressive and obvious through the way her lips tightened and her brows cocked.

The question was sudden, and you weren’t paying attention but you didn’t need to in order for you to answer, and although it may be rude you looked forward to putting her in her place.

“Uh, Alexander Hamilton, Ma’am. The main author of the economic policies of the George Washington administration and one out of the seven key founding fathers.” You finished with a sickly sweet smile.

“Well done, Miss Y/L/N, well done indeed, although I expect no less from you from now on.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Happily contempt with your impressive display of intellect she strode over to her desk proudly, internally praising herself for your own genius despite none of it being to her credit. A few minutes flew by before that same mundane ring of the bell echoed throughout the halls; at last, the end of first period. You hurriedly packed up yours things, wanting to get out as soon as possible you hadn’t been bothered to put away your textbooks. You had waited in anticipation for the remainder of your history lesson, prohibited from finding out anything else about this Californian new guy if you waited to stay on good terms with Mrs.Langham, and with class over you had a chance to group up with your friends to find out more, because if anyone knew about any new arrival it’d be Steve.

As you walked through the halls of Hawkins high, you notice yourself closely scanning those who pass you by, watching to see if you could find any unrecognizable faces in the sea of familiarity. It was cliché, but oddly you felt a weird connection with whoever this guy was. Much like him, you weren’t from Hawkins, you were from Washington, and you knew the heartbreak and detachment that came from abruptly leaving behind the only place you’ve ever called home, only to be suddenly being somewhere completely foreign to what you’ve known.

Despite moving to somewhere quite the opposite to Washington, you knew Hawkins fairly well. Every summer break your parents would send you and your older brother to Hawkins to stay with your grandmother. When she fell severely ill, unable to care for herself, your parents decided to buy a house in Hawkins so they could move and take care of her since she sternly refused to be admitted to a retirement home. Looking back now, you’re certain she just wanted her family back with her one last time. When she finally passed, you never moved back to Washington. Your parents liked the quiet, they liked the atmosphere, and it was easier for them to work in a secluded area rather than a loud and hectic city, and it wasn’t like they’d have any trouble traveling elsewhere for work, if need be. Since then, you’ve lived in Hawkins, but you never stopped missing the life you left behind in Washington.

You proceeded to scan the faces of the students who passed you by, with none seeming to stick out. Your eyes continued to browse when your gaze landed on three familiar faces, faces in which you were rather over joyed to see. You began to speed up your step to catch up with the group when of course, Steve and Nancy shamelessly display their affection to everyone passing, by making out in the hallway. You can clearly see the discomfort in Jonathan’s face as he slips away from the two and you can’t help but giggle at the motion; these were you’re closest friends, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Not wanting to third wheel the couple, you decided to pass them by and catch up with Jonathan instead as you had the same class.

“Hey, Nance!” You called out as you ran past the pair, “Hey, Steve!” You greeted.

When you finally caught up to Jonathan’s side, from the momentum you’d built up trying to catch up to him, you lightly placed your hands on his shoulders and used them to assist lifting you off the ground for the jumping greeting you decided give Jonathan. “Hey there, shutterbug!” You announced giddily upon landing on the smooth hallway floor.

“Hey, jumpy” He replies timidly, yet still mockingly so. “How’s it going?” He says, looking down at you curiously.

“Pretty good, found out I aced my history test.” You answer with a gushing smile.

“As usual.” Jonathan comments with a half smirk.

“Shut up,” You nudge him playfully, “How about you?”

“Same old, same old. Had English first period, so y’know.” He shrugs. You know.

A lot of your casual conversations were simple and plain, but you enjoyed them thoroughly. So much so, you found yourself often looking forward to them during the day. It’s always been like this between you and Jonathan. One minute you could be talking about the dullness of your school days and the next you two could fall down a hole of what the true function of the male nipple is, no matter what, it was always refreshing with him and it’d been like this since the beginning. Your grandmother used to babysit Jonathan in the summers you would visit so naturally you spent a lot of time together, and just as naturally a friendship blossomed between the two of you, and your move to Hawkins only strengthened your bond. The two of you grew closer with age and even though you had managed to branch out and make more friends over the course of your school years, whereas Jonathan seemed to become more recluse and isolated himself off from others, you always had him within arms reach. He was more than a friend after all, arguably more than family.

The two of you continued to walk and talk about the most odd topics you could conjure up to discuss, when out of the corner of your eye a glint of vibrant blonde hair flashed in your passing sight. From what you could see, it had been styled in a way you had only ever seen on rock stars on TV. Accompanying such a hairstyle, you saw that their body had been fully covered in light denim which seemed to cling to them in all the right areas. It was natural for the school halls to be crowded, but it seemed that whoever this rockstar-esque person was, had a small group of people trailing after them.

Initially you were intrigued, but for the most part it just seemed odd. Who could possibly be so important (at Hawkins no less) that they could cause a band of people to follow after them so desperately? Despite thinking it silly, due to your curious nature, you still wanted to know who it was, and judging by the attention, all signs pointed to it being the new guy. You stopped mid conversation to turn around and get a better look, Jonathan walking a few steps ahead of you before stopping to see you weren’t by his side. Your eyes darted over the waves of students, your head tilting and feet tip toeing to get a better view, focussed on finding that same cluster of unruly blonde hair and denim, but just as quickly as it’d appeared, it seemed to melt away into the ocean of Hawkins teenagers.

“Hey, are you okay?” You heard a small voice peep in front of you.

It was calm and quiet but it’s familiarity dragged you out of your own mind and landed you back into reality. Looking in front of you, you see Nancy now standing before you with an expression of concern and confusion painted across her features, mellowed out by her trademark Nancy Wheeler smile.

“Oh, hey! No, yeah, I’m fine.” You said giggling at the realisation of your own distraction.

“Okay, good.” She sighed, linking her arm with yours, “You scarred me for a second there.” She continued, pulling you along to meet up at Jonathan’s side.

“Sorry about that, I just thought I saw the new guy everyone’s been talking about.” You laughed.

“New guy?” Jonathan asked, looking cluelessly between the two of you.

You simply shrugged in reply, being just as clueless as him on the matter.

“Wait- I think I saw him this morning?” Nancy chirped, drawing both yours and Jonathan’s attention, “Yeah, I was helping Steve with college applications when some guy shows up in the parking lot in a blue Camaro.”

“Seriously? A Camaro?” Jonathan asked with furrowed eyebrows, jaw practically dropped.

“A blue one too.” You added cheekily, hiding your mischievous smile. Your comment earning a playful bump from Jonathan.

“Yes, a blue Camaro.” Nancy giggled, “I think he has a sister in Mike and Will’s grade too?”

“So, what grade’s the brother in?”

“Ours? Maybe Steve’s?”

With no other curiosities, you nodded with content as the three of you continued to walk to your classes. You felt comforted by the fact that Jonathan was just as oblivious to the situation as you were, at least you weren’t the only one out of the loop.

“On another note,” Nancy began, “Unlike Jonathan, I expect to be seeing you at Tina’s Halloween party?” She continued, practically bouncing with anticipation.

Your lips tightened and your eyes narrowed as you scrunched your face in response, humming in a higher tone than your usual. Parties were never really your thing, yet you weren’t opposed to the idea, but you had other commitments you tended to prioritise over parties. You had your job, school work and grades, not to mention all of the clubs you were involved in that added to your busy schedule. So, just like all the others, you weren’t planning on going, even if Nancy begged you to change your mind.

“Come on, y/n! Don’t be a party pooper like Jonathan-“ She whined.

“Hey-” Jonathan interjected, half offended.

“Oh, hush, you know you are.”

Jonathan scoffed.

“I dunno, Nance? I’m just so busy with work and school, a-and I’ve got cheer practice as well-”

“Please, y/n? It’s just one night.” Nancy pleaded with clasped hands. You laughed at her seeming desperation, but with how anxious she was to have you there it was almost impossible to say no to her.

“Maybe, okay? I’ll think about it.” You sighed, flashing her a reluctant smile.

Nancy clapped her hands together happily and quickly wrapped you in a hug of excitement.

“I’ll take that as a yes” She exclaimed, flashing you a triumphant smile, “and I will see you two after bio”

With that Nancy skipped off down the hall towards the science labs, leaving you and Jonathan at the entry of your shared calculus class. As students began to flood into the room past you, you noticed Jonathan looking straight ahead smugly, avoiding eye contact with you. His arms were tightly tucked into his pockets by his sides as he tried to hide the mischief that was so clearly written across his face.

You looked up at him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips before speaking, “What?” You stated bluntly, piercing him with narrowed eyes.

Finally looking down at you, you can see just how pleased Jonathan looks. You stare at him expectantly, which only seems to amuse Jonathan’s more.

“You’re so easy.” He says chuckling and shaking his head at how easily Nancy had coerced you into (basically) saying you’d go to the Halloween party. He’s now leaning against the door frame of the classroom, still laughing at your own dismay.

“I am not!” You protest.

“You so are.” He detests, “I just said no.”

“Wait- You’re seriously not going?”

“Nope, I’m taking Will trick or treating. Plus, me and parties don’t really mix.”

“Ugh, really? Can’t I just, I don’t know, come with you? I’ll help look out for Will and I haven’t seen the kids in ages and I just-“ As much as you wanted to plead your way out of it, by the way Jonathan stood there with crossed arms and content facials, you could tell that there was no way out of it. Yet, it wasn’t his expression that gave it away, it was the familiar look in his eyes you’ve seen too many times before. He was studying you; listening without taking it in since you both knew there’s no turning back.

You slump your head and shoulders, sighing heavily, “I’m going to that party aren’t I?”

Jonathan pushes himself off the door frame and places a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

“Hey,” He speaks with a soften tone. You look up at him with an exaggerated bummed out expression, “You’ll have fun, I know you will. Besides you definitely fit in with that crowd a lot better than I do and you’ll have Nancy and Steve with you too”

You reply with a groan, but you can’t help but smile when Jonathan laughs at your extravagant reactions.

“It’ll be fine,” He drags the ‘i’, “Plus, you might get to hang out with that new guy you’ve been looking for so much.”

“I don’t-“ Is all you can manage before your words are caught in your throat, and before you can recollect yourself, Jonathan’s already walking into the class and finding his assigned seat near the back of the room. You follow his lead and sit down in your seat beside him. “Shut up.” Is the best comeback you could think of.

Jonathan simply chuckles and ready’s his books for class.

You had to admit to yourself that Jonathan wasn’t one hundred percent off the mark with his last remark. Your curiosity had been peaked and in a town where seemingly nothing happens you couldn’t help but find yourself interested in the new and exciting strangers from California.

From then on your classes went by like a breeze as the majority of your teachers were focussed on incorporating the topic of halloween into their lessons rather than the actual subject lesson. It was corny but nonetheless entertaining. As your day drawled on, you were surprised to find no trace of this supposed ‘new guy’, you were beginning to wonder if there even was one. Were your classmates all in on the this joke about a new kid from California? If you were honest with yourself, you wouldn’t be surprised if it was all a rumour. Hawkins wasn’t exactly the most exciting town to live in. As a matter of fact the last most exciting thing to happen other than the sudden disappearance, death and revival of Will Byers was when your family moved to town, other than that, Hawkins was as dry as a desert when it came to eventfulness.

Before you knew it, it was your last period. You had senior english with Steve and Nancy, a class in which you had both been moved up a grade; a natural progression as a result of your grades. While Nancy and Steve sat closer than need be in a classroom, you sat beside them, quietly listening to your walkman since your teacher, Mr.Harlock, had so carelessly popped in a tape for the class to watch while he reclined in his chair for an afternoon nap. That’s when it happened, the door to your classroom opened with purpose as Hawkins high’s principal stepped in, causing Mr.Harlock to whip forward in his seat.

“Good afternoon, seniors,” She paused, eyebrows raised at your teacher, “Mr.Harlock.”

“G-good afternoon, Ms.Valli,” He stuttered, trying to compose himself. “What seems to be the occasion of your visit?”

“Class, we have a new student joining us at Hawkin’s high. I am here simply because he had seemed to lose his way to this class, so I thought I would escort him.” The sarcasm was blatant in her speech. “Therefore, I would like to introduce you to Mr.Hargrove.”

With that, a tall and rugged figure walked through the door. He was the spitting image of confidence and trouble, all clad in denim and hair product. He was who everyone at Hawkins High tried to be, but failed tremendously, you could hardly believe your own eyes.

“Feel free to introduce yourself, Mr.Hargrove.” Ms.Valli continued.

He looked over the room of dumbfounded stares and smirked, “The name’s Billy. Billy Hargrove.” His voice was gruff yet smooth, more matured than a teenager’s should be, leaving you and what seemed like half of your class speechless.

“Oh, so you’re the Californian, huh?” Commented Mr.Harlock.

“That I am.” Ms.Valli then cleared her throat with expectancy. Billy merely looked at her with defiant eyes before complying with a simply, “Sir.” to conclude his sentence.

“If he’s any trouble, you let me know. I’ve had two of his teachers come to me already.”

“Will do, ma’am.”

The principal then proceeds to exit the classroom, leaving Billy to stand before your class in an aura of superiority.

“Alright then Mr.Hargrove, you may take the free seat at the back of the class.” Your teacher directed before continuing to play the film.

You watched as he walked down the rows of students to his newly assigned desk. You watched as your classmates stared up at him as if he were some kind of celebrity, an idol, a deity, and understandably so, he was definitely a sight to behold. Although, you were more intrigued by the fact that there was legitimately a new student at Hawkins high. Yes, his looks were something to behold but his presence was a rarity which sparked your interest more than anything.

He’d taken up the desk three seats over from yours at the back of the class. You wouldn’t normally be seated so far from the front, but Steve and Nancy insisted. For the remainder of that class you kept sneaking involuntary glances across at him. He leaned back in his seat carelessly as he etched whatever defacement he’d thought of into the desk’s surface. His hair was styled to look messy, but you could tell it was done thoughtfully so. His personality screamed indifference, but his clothing labeled him with desired popularity. He was definitely an anomaly in Hawkins. An anomaly you couldn’t keep your eyes off.

Before you knew it class was over, and Nancy was dragging you out the door alongside Steve who looked more in love than ever.

“So I was thinking we could go in themed costumes y’know like we could-“

“Uuuh, I wasn’t really gonna dress up for the party.”

“What? Why not?” Nancy said in a puppy soft voice.

“You know me Nance, I’m not really into all that stuff.” Steve said, guiltily rubbing the back of his head.

Their conversation went on, but you were disinterested, your mind still on Billy. You got to your locker and let the couple continue their usual petty argument beside you as you loaded and unloaded schools books. It wasn’t until you shut your locker that you caught a glimpse of the anomaly himself. His locker had been located on the opposite wall across from yours. A sudden determination came over you. You didn’t know what it was, but you wanted to make yourself known to likes of him.

“I’m gonna go introduce myself.” You blurted out, shutting your locker behind you.

“Oh, Y/N, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea-“ but it was too late, you had already made your way into the crowded stream of students to meet Billy on the other side.

You took in a deep breath and with that, “Hey there,” You said sweetly.

He looked down at you with hungry eyes, giving off no intention of speaking.

“It’s Billy, right? We’re in Mr.Harlock’s English class together.” You smiled.

“Funny,” He said leaning against his locker, now facing you, “You don’t look like a senior.”

“Oh, I’m not, I’m a junior. I was moved up a grade for English.” You laughed, attempting to seem more relatable.

“Is that right?” He replied lowly, a smirk plastered across his lips as he looked you up and down like a predator does it’s prey.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m-“ Before you can finish, Billy cuts you off.

“Oh, I know who you are, Y/N.” Your name feels dark rolling off his lips, unlike any other way you’ve heard your name spoken before, “and I got one question for you, sweetheart. What is it that you want from me?” With that sentence, Billy’s entire composure shifts. He’s no longer looking at you like he could devour you in seconds, his gaze is now cutting through you with malicious intent; you’re nervous.

“I’m not sure I get what you mean-“

“I said what do you want from me?”

“Why would I want something from you?” You ask timidly, trying to make sense of Billy’s brash question to which you had no answer.

“Well, from what I’ve been told, considering that you’re known around school as Hawkins high’s signature good girl, next to Wheeler over there,”

“Good girl?” You interject, slightly aggravated. Billy only talks over you.

“Y’know, perfect grades, perfect life, a scholarly reputation, and I bet you belong to at least a club or two. With all that under your prim belt, I have serious doubts that you would waltz your ass over to me without a motive. So, what is it, Princess?”

You look up at Billy, at a loss for words. It was a rhetorical question, yet you could see he still examined your face for any sign of an answer. How could you say anything, when really there was nothing to say? Normally you would’ve stood your ground, called Billy out on his rude and crude behavior, but in that moment he had you stumped. Be it the way his eyes burned right through you with their piercing blue, or the way that Billy had gotten progressively closer towards you, close enough that he was looming above you like a grim reaper; you were stunned, and all you could do was study him.

“That’s what I thought.” He spat, finally breaking the intense silence between the two of you. “Now, you stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours, okay sweetheart?”

With that sentence, Billy firmly jolted himself off the lockers he’d leaned on and walked past you, acting as if your encounter hadn’t just happened. That was it, your first encounter with the now infamous new kid, Billy Hargrove.

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #Billy Hargrove #Billy Hargrove x reader #stranger things x reader #Dacre Montgomery #Dacre Montgomery x reader #Nancy Wheeler #Steve Harrington #Jonathan Byers #Jonathan Byers x reader #protective brother jonathan

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supernaturalfreewill · 6 years

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Words: 3,557 Demon!Dean x Reader Warnings: swearing? always. A/N: THAT'S RIGHT IT'S FINALLY HEEEERE! This is the third part of a mini-series! Read Part 1 and 2 first!

Dean was leaning his elbows on the worn and scratched bar, a double of something in a glass with melting ice, yet untouched, sitting in front of him. Vastly unlike his usual bouts of karaoke and boisterous laughter, he was silent and brooding. His face was covered by a shadow that had nothing to do with the dim, recessed lighting.

After Crowley had made himself scarce, Dean had rushed to get as far away from that shell of you as he could. He wondered now if he should have stayed. What would Crowley have his minions do with (he hesitated on the next word) you? Would they burn you? Surely not… They would want every chance to bring you back if they could—if Crowley could still use you as a pawn he would. Dean wouldn’t put it past Crowley to try to have some other demon use your body as a meatsuit, maybe even pretend to be you. The idea sickened and infuriated him. Or, Dean wasn’t sure if this was worse, the thought of you rotting in a hole somewhere. Or in some makeshift morgue in hell… frozen like just anybody on a steel slab.

He slammed down his drink and raised a finger to the bartender to ask for another. Why was he tied up in knots about this? He was a fucking demon! He nearly shook his his head, as if that would shake out the thoughts of you… but what was this thick, heavy brick in his chest?

Just as his glass was being refilled, two demons he didn’t know sidled in through the door. Dean was immediately aware of them, like a sixth sense, but they didn’t seem to take any note of him sitting like a loner at the empty bar counter as they made their way to a nearby table.

This bar was home for many misfits and representatives of the seedier side of Chicago’s underbelly—human and non-human, both an underworld meeting place and parting of ways. It wasn’t uncommon for other demons to spend time there, which is part of the reason Dean had chosen it, and it looked like he was in luck. He was hoping to overhear news without having to lower himself to contacting Crowley—or worse… Sam and Cas.

Relieved that they hadn’t yet detected him, Dean hung his head. He realized that any one who was on the lookout for him probably was used to him announcing himself with drunken antics and Jimmy Buffet karaoke. No one was looking for him as the solemn nobody at the bar, keeping a hangover at bay with more than a little hair of the dog, quietly and solitarily.

Fortunately, the two demons took a couple of stools at the end of the bar. They were close enough that Dean would be able to overhear, but not close enough that he needed to be worried about being discovered. Still, he turned his shirt collar up and hung his head lower, blocking the bottom half of his face with his glass.

”It’s not as if it’s our fault,” began minion #1. He was clearly worked up and had a twitchy kind of nervous energy, apparently as a result of some distress. “We aren’t the ones that—you know… Somehow it always falls down on us little guys! We’re just average joes! We just follow orders!”

The second demon was much calmer and ordered two drinks before responding. “That isn’t the point. It’s not about it being our fault… Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If what I’ve been hearing is true, none of our allegiance to the King or anyone or anything else will matter. I’ve been in contact with some of my old, old allies. They’ve been hearing some whispering over the deep waves that Crowley may have made a miscalculation.”

The first demon stopped dead in the middle of a sip. “What do you mean? Miscalculation?” He glanced around the bar, apparently nervous, and Dean took that moment to take a deep drink. “…about Winchester?” the demon whispered.

Now Dean was on high alert.

”Mmm,” the second demon shook her head through a sip. “No. About the one he tried to turn.”

The first demon leaned in ever closer. “So… so what? It worked? She’s a demon now?”

The woman demon laughed. “Maybe.”

”Well, what?” The first demon’s voice was somewhat demanding now, clearly sick of his friend playing coy with her information.

”You know how we collect souls? Well, the whole reason behind it is the amount of concentrated power contained in just one human soul...” She gave her a friend a conspiratorial look, seemingly waiting for him to work out the rest of what she was saying. When he didn’t seem to understand, and only stared intensely, she scoffed and finally continued. “Think about it. Y/N still had an entirely human soul in her body when Crowley tried to turn her. If it did work, and I have reasons to believe that it did, there is going to be a demon powered by a supercharged nuclear reactor walking around.”

”Holy shit,” remarked the first demon. His friend scoffed and rolled her eyes.

”Y/N could be the next big thing. Bigger than Crowley, bigger than the Knights of Hell, bigger than Lucifer.”

Eyes wide, there was only one final question asked. “Well, what does that mean… for all of us?”

”Hell if I know. Nobody knows which way this is gonna swing. But me? I’m getting the hell out of here. If you’re smart, you will too.”

When next the two of them glanced around, all that was left of the loner sharing the bar with them was an empty glass the door swinging closed behind him.

_ _ _ _ _ _

”We should stop,” Cas said. He kept his eyes straight ahead, staring through the windshield.

”Why?” Sam asked, doing the same.

”You haven’t eaten today,” Cas replied.

”I’m not hungry.”

”Humans need food, Sam. You need to eat.” He finally turned his piercingly blue eyes over to Sam behind the wheel. “You also haven’t slept in two days.”

”So what?” Sam said. “We’ve got bigger things happening here.”

”Sam…” Cas’s tone was stern and elicited a sigh from Sam.

”Every time we stop, we just waste time and fall farther behind.”

”We won’t be any use to Y/N or Dean with you in a weakened, sleep-deprived, starved condition. Besides,” he said, smoothing his hands down his coat, “we have little to go on right now.”

”Little isn’t nothing,” Sam contradicted, but he put on his turn signal before the next exit and followed the curve off the main highway.

Cas said nothing as Sam brought the car to rest in a parking space by the motel office. “I’ll get a room, order a pizza, and sleep for a few hours. Then we hit the road again, okay?” Cas nodded.

Sam threw his duffle bag down on one of the beds. “What are you going to do?” he asked Cas. “You know I can’t sleep if you’re just going to be sitting in here.” There was exhaustion in Sam’s voice, and Cas was relieved he had managed to convince him to take some food and sleep.

”I have some places I could go to try and find some information. Nothing dangerous,” he added in response to the look on Sam’s face.

”Alright… well, don’t let me sleep past six am.” Cas only nodded.

When Sam turned around after placing his order for a pizza over the phone the angel was gone. He placed his pistol and demon knife on the nightstand and salted all the windows. The door would have to wait until his food arrived.

Later that night, Sam fell asleep in a slumped pile against the headboard, sleeping with the hilt of the demon knife in his hands.

He was startled awake by the once familiar sound of his cell phone ringing… It had been so long since he had even ventured out of the bunker that it now sounded foreign and unexpected. Nobody called him anymore… Not since—Sam shook himself awake and dove into his bag to dig it out. He was hoping that your name would be flashing on the screen, but he was disappointed.

”Hello?”

”Sam?”

Sam rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. Yeah, who is this?”

”It’s Everett.”

Everett Hanson was a hunter from Washington state that Sam and Dean used to keep in touch with on a regular basis. They’d helped him with some jobs, and he had returned the favor. He was a good man and a good hunter, but the call was perplexing. Everyone in the hunting community knew about Dean… and everyone had left Sam well alone after their initial calls trying to get through to him, trying to offer help, went unanswered for months. Eventually the phone had just stopped ringing. They’d all started to just call Y/N on occasion instead. “Hey—yeah, hey. Sorry. Didn’t recognize your voice at first,” Sam said.

”Well, it’s been a while…” he replied. There was a stretch of thick silence and Sam felt that familiar sickening sensation rising in his stomach.

”Yeah… yeah. Sorry. I just woke up so I’m a little out of it. Umm, what’s up?” Sam asked.

”I was sorta hoping that you could tell me that,” Everett said with a laugh. “You haven’t been hunting up my way lately, have you?”

”No. No, I’m, uhh, about twenty-five hundred miles away actually,” he said with a dry laugh. “Why?”

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. “It’s the damndest thing. I’ve been tracking a few things around here. I’ve had a werewolf in the works for about a month and a suspected nest of vamps I’ve been keeping an eye on. All of the sudden, gone.”

Sam stopped in the middle of his pacing toward the table where he had a notebook laying out. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

”I mean gone. I found the werewolf dead in the national forest, body full of silver. I went to do some more surveillance on the vampires and after a whole night of no activity I went up to the house, peaked in through the window. Blood and decapitated vamps everywhere. I’m telling you, Sam. I walked through that whole house… I have no idea what went down in there, but a couple spots looked like something had been vaporized.”

”Vaporized?”

”Just solid uniform blood spray on every damn wall, like a red mist. Maybe it was a hunter, but I don’t know anything about anything that can vaporize vampires. Does that mean anything to you?”

Sam was scribbling notes in his notebook as fast as he could. “Not off the top of my head. Maybe another rival group came in, nest on nest action?” Sam offered.

”I’ve seen that before. Those scenes are usually a total mess,” Everett said. “Nothing but chaos when you have two groups of vamps fighting. There was blood everywhere, but somehow this was clean, methodical. And I didn’t see any bodies I didn’t recognize. All those dead vamps, at least that I found in that house in identifiable pieces, were the same ones I’ve been watching.”

”Right,” Sam said, rubbing another hand over his face.

”And what about the werewolf?” Everett asked. “I’ve been in this job long enough… I don’t believe in coincidences. And there’s one more thing…” Sam waited for him to continue. “We’ve had a couple homicides in Seattle lately that have raised an eyebrow or two.”

”How so?”

”No sign of forced entry, everything locked up from the inside. Every one of the victims was a suspect in some real nasty crimes—murder, rape, kidnapping, that type of thing.”

”Huh. Sounds like you’ve got a vigilante running around in Seattle,” Sam said.

”That’s not the weirdest part… every one of them was killed in the way their suspected victims were tortured or killed. And for a few of those cases, that information wasn’t even public knowledge.”

Sam’s head was spinning. “So--so, you’ve got someone murdering suspected bad guys and someone taking out our kind of bad…”

”Yeah… I thought I’d call you because, uhh, you know. It could be a hunter or somethin’ and you and—you’re the best out there.” Sam knew he had stopped himself from mentioning Dean.

Sam said it for him. “Or Dean.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Yeah, I thought of—I thought of that. What do you think?”

Sam sighed into the phone. “I don’t know. Maybe. But from the little bit I’ve heard he doesn’t seem to be much concerned with anything as a demon, let alone hunting down humans for justice killings…”

”Hmm. Well, keep it on your radar. I think something funny is going on here.”

”Yeah. Will do. Hey, thanks for the call,” Sam said.

”I’ll keep you updated if I figure anything out,” Everett said. “You take care of yourself, Sam.” Sam could hear the concern and pity in his voice, and he tried to ignore it.

”You too. And hey, Everett?”

”Yeah?”

”It was good to hear from you. Stay safe out there.”

”You too.”

Just as Sam ended the call, he heard the rustling of Cas’s wings behind him. “Cas? Where have you been? It’s 10 o’clock.”

”I know,” Cas said.

”You were supposed to wake me up at six,” Sam said.

”I know,” Cas repeated, clearly unconcerned. “But you needed to rest.” He looked at the cell phone in Sam’s hand and his eyes narrowed. “You had a call?”

”Huh? Oh. Yeah. Everett Hanson, out in Washington. He’s had some weird stuff happening out by him. Wanted to know if I had any ideas.”

”What exactly has been going on?” Cas’s expression was now intense, and Sam thought he could read more meaning behind it than the simple question. He quickly explained the monsters, both human and non-human, disappearing and the more he talked the darker the shadow on Cas’s face became. “So, what do you think?”

Cas paced the length of the room away from Sam, hands in the pockets of his trench coat. When he turned back to face Sam, his face was even darker.

”Cas?” Sam prodded.

”You remember when I said something it felt as though something had shifted, that there was some sort of change in energy or power?” Sam nodded at the angel. “A suspicion has been growing in my mind and while you slept I did what I could to gather information from some secure and friendly sources.” Cas hesitated. He seemed concerned about how Sam was going to react.

”And?” Sam urged, taking a few steps toward the angel. “Is it Dean?”

Cas shook his head. “No… I believe it’s Y/N.”

_ _ _ _ _ _

Dean was seated on the end of the bed, sinking into the fluffy down comforter, kicking his boots off and eyeing the room service menu. A rhythmic buzzing distracted him from his debate about whether he should order two or three bottles of Blue Label and he caught sight of his phone buzzing on the nightstand, the glowing blue screen casting a faint glow in the dim room.

Perplexed, Dean grabbed it and eagerly looked at the incoming number: blocked. Strange. This was a brand new and completely clean phone. He’d stolen it on his way out of Chicago simply to have in case he decided he needed to make a call out. He hadn’t expected anyone to be calling in. Curiosity got the best of him, though he figured he would probably just be annoyed to hear Crowley’s douche-y accent on the other end of the line, and he answered.

”Hello?”

He was met with only silence, but he let it stretch, straining to hear anything on the other end.

Finally, at length, he broke it. “Hello?” This time he spoke a little more demandingly.

Still complete silence. Nothing. He could hear nothing but his own breathing. But Dean could feel that someone was on the other end. And he could also feel that he was being toyed with.

”Crowley?!” Dean roared, but he was still met with nothing more than a little hushed white noise. “How did you get this number?” He didn’t like feeling challenged, or played with. He was a fucking demon! “Answer me!” Dean roared.

Click. The call had disconnected. Dean looked angrily down at the phone in his hand, completely perplexed. Stomping across the room he considered the locked screen for only a few seconds before he snapped the phone in half.

Fuming, but also unsure of why he was so angry about just a stupid, probably spam, phone call, Dean wrenched open the fridge and pulled everything out of the mini-bar. Just as he was dumping the contents of the first little bottle in his mouth, the hotel room phone range loud enough he nearly jumped.

He stared hard at the little red light on the phone, burning with every ring. He knew he could just not answer. He could just ignore it.

So he did.

Four rings.

Five rings.

Six rings…

And finally silence.

Dean continued to stare at the phone, waiting with baited breath to see if the light would blink to indicate a message had been left.

There was nothing.

Why was he so on edge? He knew the answer. Of course he did. But he kept reminding himself that he was a fucking demon! Why was it nagging him so much? He couldn’t get that image of you on that slab out of his head.

Dean let out a frustrated yell and smashed his fist down on the little table, sending a splintered crack across the top. And just as he grabbing his next little bottle of liquor and making his way back to the room service menu—that goddamn phone rang again.

This time Dean rushed to the receiver and pressed it to his ear—but he said nothing. And at first there was only silence again. And he waited.

He knew there was someone on the other end. He could feel it. And his heart was racing in his chest.

And finally--

”Hello, Dean.”

Dean was stunned—frozen where he stood—but there was no mistaking it for anyone else. It was your voice on the other end of the line. And still he asked, “Who is this?” His voice deep and quiet, almost a whisper.

There was a light laugh, almost just an exhale. “Don’t kid yourself. You know it’s me.”

And he did. It was undeniably you. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t what version of you this was. But he had a feeling--“I saw you. You were—“

”Dead?” you interrupted. “I guess not.”

Dean didn’t know where to go next. He felt unbalance. It was obvious that you were the one in control in this situation, and he hated it. ”So, what are you now? You’re a demon?” His voice was almost demanding and you smiled, knowing that you had managed to shake Dean Winchester, not something many could say.

”What do you think?” you countered.

Dean gulped at the tightness that was inexplicably forming in his throat. “I don’t what this is—or if this is even really—“ he hesitated to say your name, “But I’m not playing your games. I have plenty of better things to be doing,” he said.

”That’s too bad,” you said.

Dean hesitated. There was a twinge near the base of his skull, something that just felt… odd. And still he couldn’t just hang up the phone. It was almost out of his control. He needed to hear the next word. And the next. “Why?” he finally asked.

”It’s just a shame. I was just thinking of you. In fact, I’ve been thinking of you since I woke up again.” You waited to see if Dean would say anything more, but he wasn’t sure how to interpret your response. “You don’t want to see me?”

Utter confusion was all consuming now and he actually sighed into the phone. “What the hell is this?” he asked in frustration.

Your tone of voice changed completely when next you spoke. Now it was hard and cold. “Don’t you want to replace that limp, pale, dead version of me you have been carrying around in your head?” you asked.

Dean felt a lurch somewhere between his lungs. “…How did—“ he cleared his throat, angry to find that his voice had betrayed some of his unbalance, “How’d you know that?”

There was that light laugh again, really just your breath in his ear. It made Dean feel like you were standing right behind him, sending the hairs on the back of his neck rising like there was a wave of static electricity behind him. “Because I put it there.”

#supernaturalfreewill #dean winchester #squirrel #dean imagines #dean fanfics #dean fluff #dean x reader #demon!dean #deamon #spn #spn fanfics #spn imagines #gif imagines #supernatural #team free will

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werezmastarbucks · 6 years

Text

The Good One

in which you are the only one who makes Bucky fall asleep for some reason.

warnings: Buck’s depressed but it okei

word count: 1366

Bucky Barnes x reader

adding my taglist for Flame for one here bc you guys are the only thing I got

taglist: @moistpotatobear @heytherepartner @sebbytrash @thewinterher0 @lbouvet @areuforreal @allofthesearetakendafuq @thesalsafic @rhaeneris

It was getting pretty obvious that Bucky wasn’t okay. Not like he was ever completely fine, but these days he was having it especially hard, and, though pretty understandable, it was unbearable nonetheless. He started to go off on others, yelled at Sam over one of his stunts, and became very short-tempered with Steve. And if Sam always had it coming, him being the biggest irritator for Barnes ever, Steve definitely didn’t deserve it. Bucky was trying to be good, the good guy, the good one. But he simply couldn’t sleep.

First week he was holding up alright; like Rogers, he did not really need eight hours’ rest every night thanks to all advances his body and brain overcame through the years. He was now more of a flesh cyborg, almost invincible, everlasting and collected. Cyborg my ass.

On the second week he became hectic and exhausted, his face went greyish, and he was losing it pretty quickly. Insomnia wasn’t anything new for him; sometimes he preferred it to nightmares that waited for him should he dream a little. But complete lack of rest, the ache in the muscles, and sleepless brooding, the migraine, the uneasiness, the dizziness that came with it would turn anybody into a monster. The drained mind was about to eat itself, turning the remaining energy into the dark matter. Bucky didn’t tell anyone that he couldn’t fall asleep, smiling darkyishly to himself at the thought of close death. No one can live and not sleep. He was still partially a human – more than he used to think, even. After several nights of agony by the end of the second week, after he dozed a little only to be woken by sudden electric zip his own brain charged into him, he felt like the humanest human alive. And he didn’t really want to die, but… like, he didn’t have a choice.

He tried to take pills, and he stopped drinking coffee, and by the night time he would disappear to his room, leaving everyone silently concerned; he would walk a lot alone to get as much fresh air as he could. Nothing helped. He was thinking about trying to knock himself unconscious, and then couldn’t stop laughing. Steve found him gagging from the laughter, and his brave face went so white you could draw on it. Everyone knew what’s happening to him; Y/N looked sad. Nat was frowning sometimes, when he didn’t look. Benner looked lost; this guy grew wary of his mood swings, and Bucky would honestly feel guilty about it if he weren’t so numb. Stark did something no one expected: he reached to him and tried to help. He called Barnes a broken robot and gave his head a powerful charge. Bucky fell asleep right in the lab. It smelt like plastic and water there for some reason. He never felt better in his life. For twenty minutes. After that his body shook violently again, like it usually does when you dream about tripping on stairs or falling over. Bucky Barnes didn’t want Bucky Barnes to sleep, or to survive. Tony gave him a bottle of that disgusting green smoothie that smelt like dill and lime. Bucky thanked him with all he had and poured it down the sink. He was almost done.

You were watching news really quietly. You wanted to see what’s happening, but didn’t really want to know. The living room was a great space, and you never really felt completely comfortable there, but the TV set here was the best. The bent-inside screen itself was fascinating. Had it not been for the other people at the compound, walking around, looking, seeing things, you’d spend a lot of time just staring at yourself in this blackness. Modern art for one person. If you can appreciate that kind of thing.

Barnes landed on the couch near you barely acknowledging your existence. God wasn’t he massive. He stretched his legs and pouted at nothing, his eyes moving lazily while he was looking at the TV. He had those black bags under the eyes, and his face was now peaked. He hasn’t shaved in four days. He looked miserable. You realized you didn’t take the problem too seriously up until now – the idea of something so simple as insomnia, so random and physical, so typical for people like all you, ruining his life, was absurd. Like, it’s Bucky. His life is shambles by default. Why does it keep happening to him. It was psychological, you were sure, but your understanding didn’t help a bit. Bucky couldn’t sleep, and he was growing grey, moody, and powerless. You heard him hiss at Wilson the day before, and Sam’s voice sounded the way you hated to hear. Serious and defensive.

“How much time can you go on like this?” you asked.

“It’s not like I’m going anywhere”, he said vaguely. You turned back to the TV and watched. Ah, riots. People still hate the Avengers. Nothing gets done. The Damage Control is not enough. Angry. Helpless. Exhausted. On the edge. Familiar.

You blinked and stretched. You had insomnia, too, but it was pretty human, like all other cases. Rolling back and forth until five am, and then falling asleep like someone snapped their fingers – fast, deep, and with no dreams. You thought you were irritated and weary before you’ve seen what’s happening to Bucky.

You recalled staring at the window last night, while you laid in your bed. The sky was slowly getting pale pink, and your spine was moaning and sweating. Your eyes were burning and dry, and when the first ray of the sun poked through the clouds, a witch somewhere clicked her claws, and you drowned into sleep. You got up at noon, tired but alive, and didn’t have breakfast. The day was rainy, the job was none. Tony was in Washington with some infuriating business about not fighting people who are trying to prevent him getting them help. The latest news was, Tony was a tyrant who was trying to starve people to death.

You could hear Bucky breathe next to you. You didn’t speak last couple of days because you weren’t in the best mood and didn’t really want to bother him, though sometimes you felt like he’s watching you closely, more often than could be considered polite. But he got a pass, being Bucky. Everybody loved him, including you, or so you thought.

The quiet mumbling on the TV was putting you to sleep. You didn’t have problems with sleeping in daylight – it was the darkness that startled you to death and took away your composure. You started nodding and slid down the couch, putting your head on the pillow. You could still hear Bucky breathe very near, but at this point he was more of a surrounding.

You dreamed you were covered in spider’s web, but not like Peter’s, sticky and hard, - warm and very soft. It wouldn’t let go of you though. You tried to release your arm to get the white satin off, but it was unbreakable. You felt very tired in your dream, and decided to rest a bit more. Something poked you in the ribs, and you realized you were lying on a huge, broad branch of a giant tree. Hey, just like in the Hobbit! you thought. You tried to roll onto your back so that the hard bark of the tree wouldn’t bruise you. You couldn’t move. The fresh air was soothing your skin. You felt so good, despite being in the dark forest, possibly surrounded by gigantic human eater spiders.

FRIDAY’s soft voice woke you up.

“Y/N. Tony’s on the phone. Can you talk?”

You sighed, trying to figure out the parts of your body. Bucky’s metal arm was warm and hard beneath your right shoulder blade. He was almost falling off the couch, his right arm weighing a metric ton on your ribs. He was soft, and big, and breathing in your neck and tickling it a bit. You fought the sudden desire to lay a palm on his impressive side going up and down with the tempo of his breathing. Bucky Barnes was finally sleeping.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #avengers imagine #Bucky Barnes

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xtruss · 3 years

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Does the Great Retreat from Afghanistan 🇦🇫 Mark the End of the American 🇺🇸 Era?

It’s a dishonorable end that weakens U.S. standing in the world, perhaps irrevocably.

— By Robin Wright | August 15, 2021 | The New Yorker

The humiliating U.S. retreat from Afghanistan is now part of an unnerving American pattern. Photograph from EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

History will surely note this absurdly ill-timed tweet. On Monday, August 9th, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul posed a question to its four hundred thousand followers: “This #PeaceMonday, we want to hear from you. What do you wish to tell the negotiating parties in Doha about your hopes for a political settlement? #PeaceForAfghanistan.” The message reflected the delusion of American policy. With the Taliban sweeping across the country, storming one provincial capital after another, the prospect that diplomacy would work a year after U.S.-backed talks in Qatar began—and quickly stalled—was illusory. By Thursday, the Afghan government controlled only three major cities. President Joe Biden, the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, announced that he was dispatching three thousand U.S. troops to Afghanistan to pull hundreds of its diplomats and staff out of that Embassy. And, by Sunday, it was all over—before dusk. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, his government collapsed, and the U.S.-trained Afghan security forces simply melted away as the Taliban moved into the capital. American diplomats—having evacuated the fortress-like U.S. Embassy—were forced to shelter in place at the airport as they waited to be evacuated. America’s two-decade-long misadventure in Afghanistan has ended. For Americans, Afghanistan looks a little, maybe a lot, like a trillion-dollar throwaway. Meanwhile, Afghans are left in free fall.

It’s not just an epic defeat for the United States. The fall of Kabul may serve as a bookend for the era of U.S. global power. In the nineteen-forties, the United States launched the Great Rescue to help liberate Western Europe from the powerful Nazi war machine. It then used its vast land, sea, and air power to defeat the formidable Japanese empire in East Asia. Eighty years later, the U.S. is engaged in what historians may someday call a Great Retreat from a ragtag militia that has no air power or significant armor and artillery, in one of the poorest countries in the world.

It’s now part of an unnerving American pattern, dating back to the nineteen-seventies. On Sunday, social-media posts of side-by-side photos evoked painful memories. One captured a desperate crowd climbing up a ladder to the rooftop of a building near the U.S. Embassy in Saigon to get on one of the last helicopters out in 1975, during the Ford Administration. The other showed a Chinook helicopter hovering over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Sunday. “This is manifestly not Saigon,” the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, tried to argue on Sunday, on ABC’s “This Week.” It didn’t wash. And there are other episodes. In 1984, the Reagan Administration withdrew the U.S. Marine peacekeepers from Beirut after a suicide bomber from a nascent cell of what became Hezbollah killed more than two hundred and forty military personnel—the largest loss for the Marines in a single incident since the Second World War. In 2011, the United States pulled out of Iraq, opening the way for the emergence of isis. The repeated miscalculations challenge basic Washington policy-making as well as U.S. military strategy and intelligence capabilities. Why wasn’t this looming calamity—or any of the earlier ones—anticipated? Or the exits better planned? Or the country not left in the hands of a former enemy? It is a dishonorable end.

Whatever the historic truth decades from now, the U.S. will be widely perceived by the world today as having lost what George W. Bush dubbed the “war on terror”—despite having mobilized nato for its first deployment outside Europe or North America, a hundred and thirty-six countries to provide various types of military assistance, and twenty-three countries to host U.S. forces deployed in offensive operations. America’s vast tools and tactics proved ill-equipped to counter the will and endurance of the Taliban and their Pakistani backers. In the long term, its missiles and warplanes were unable to vanquish a movement of sixty thousand core fighters in a country about as big as Texas.

There are many repercussions that will endure long after the U.S. withdrawal. First, jihadism has won a key battle against democracy. The West believed that its armor and steel, backed by a generous infusion of aid, could defeat a hard-line ideology with a strong local following. The Taliban are likely, once again, to install Sharia as law of the land. Afghanistan will again, almost certainly, become a haven for like-minded militants, be they members of Al Qaeda or others in search of a haven or a sponsor. It’s a gloomy prospect as Americans prepare to mark the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks next month. Since 2001, Al Qaeda, isis, and other jihadi extremists have seeded franchises on all six inhabited continents. Last month, the United States sanctioned an isis branch as far afield as Mozambique, the former Portuguese colony in southern Africa where almost sixty per cent of the population is Christian.

Second, both Afghanistan and Iraq have proved that the United States can neither build nations nor create armies out of scratch, especially in countries that have a limited middle class and low education rates, over a decade or two. It takes generations. Not enough people have the knowledge or experience to navigate whole new ways of life, whatever they want in principle. Ethnic and sectarian divisions thwart attempts to overhaul political, social, and economic life all at the same time. The United States spent eighty-three billion dollars training and arming an Afghan force of some three hundred thousand—more than four times the size of the Taliban’s militia. “This army and this police force have been very, very effective in combat against the insurgents every single day,” Mark Milley told reporters back in 2013. He is now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yet, by March, when I was last in Kabul, the Taliban controlled half of the country. Between May and mid-August, it took the other half—most just during the past week. Last month, Biden said that he trusted “the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped and more competent in terms of conducting war.” In the end, the Taliban basically walked into Kabul—and the Presidential palace—on Sunday.

Third, America’s standing abroad is profoundly weakened, symbolized by the U.S. Embassy’s lowering the Stars and Stripes for the final time on Sunday. Smoke was seen rising from the grounds of the Embassy—which cost almost eight hundred million dollars to expand just five years ago—as matériel was burned in the rush to exit. Washington will have a hard time mobilizing its allies to act in concert again—whether for the kind of broad and unified alliance, one of the largest in world history, that formed in Afghanistan after 9/11, or for the type of meagre cobbled-together “coalition of the willing” for the war in Iraq. The United States is still the dominant power in the West, but largely by default. There aren’t many other powers or leaders offering alternatives. It’s hard to see how the United States salvages its reputation or position anytime soon.

America’s Great Retreat is at least as humiliating as the Soviet Union’s withdrawal in 1989, an event that contributed to the end of its empire and Communist rule. The United States was in Afghanistan twice as long and spent far more. The Soviet Union is estimated to have spent about fifty billion dollars during the first seven of its ten years occupying the mountainous country. Yes, the United States fostered the birth of a rich civil society, the education of girls, and an independent media. It facilitated democratic elections more than once and witnessed the transfer of power. Thirty-seven per cent of Afghan girls are now able to read, according to Human Rights Watch. The tolo channel hosted eighteen seasons of “Afghan Star,” a singing competition much like “American Idol.” Zahra Elham, a twentysomething member of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, became the first woman to win, in 2019. But untold numbers of the Afghans encouraged by the United States are desperately searching for ways out of the country as the Taliban move in. Women have pulled out their blue burqas again. And the enduring imagery of the Americans flying out on their helicopters will be no different than Soviet troops marching across the Friendship Bridge from Afghanistan to the then Soviet Union on February 15, 1989. Both of the big powers withdrew as losers, with their tails between their legs, leaving behind chaos.

For the United States, the costs do not end with its withdrawal from either Afghanistan or Iraq. It could cost another two trillion dollars just to pay for the health care and disability of veterans from those wars. And those costs may not peak until 2048. America’s longest war will be a lot longer than anyone anticipated two decades ago—or even as it ends. In all, forty-seven thousand civilians have died, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project. More than twenty-four hundred were U.S. military personnel, and almost four thousand were U.S. contractors.

I first went to Afghanistan in 1999, during the original Taliban rule. I drove through the breathtaking Khyber Pass from Pakistan, past the fortified estates of the drug lords along the border, on the rutted, axle-destroying roads to Kabul. The images of the Taliban’s repressive rule—little kids working on the streets of Afghan towns to support widowed mothers not allowed in public, checkpoints festooned with confiscated audio and video tapes—are indelible. I went back with Secretary of State Colin Powell on his first trip after the fall of the Taliban. There was hope then of something different, even as the prospect of it often seemed elusive, and the idea sullied by the country’s corrupt new rulers. I’ve been back several times since, including in March with General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, Jr., the head of Central Command, who is now overseeing the final U.S. military operations. On Sunday, as America erased its presence in Afghanistan in a race to get out, I wondered: Was it all for naught? What other consequences will America face from its failed campaign in Afghanistan decades from now? We barely know the answers.

— Robin Wright, a contributing writer and columnist, has written for The New Yorker since 1988. She is the author of “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World.”

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baseballlibertarian · 3 years

Text

Hillary Gets Emotional On Campaign Trail

The pressure of a surge by Barack Obama may be overwhelming Hillary Clinton as she choked up Monday unexpectedly when answering a question about how she keeps up the pace on the campaign trail.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Pingback by » Clinton Feels Heat, Lashes Out at Obama Ahead of New Hampshire Primary You Decide 08!

January 7th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

[…] Click here to watch the report on Clinton getting emotional. […]

Comment by Chad

January 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

ohhh, she’s good! I don’t buy it for a second! She’s desperate and is tugging at the heart strings. When Ahmadine-Whack-o-jad gets nasty…I don’t think I want a President that tears up when the times get tough and they will.

Comment by Florida gal

January 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

FOXNEWS, you should not make it soooo obvious that your an Obama “Hussein” supporter. You are doing an injustice to this country!! Keep your opinions to yourself and report the news!!

Comment by eisenmond

January 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

This is not a shocker to me. Clinton’s experience is balled up in watching her husband be president. Watching her break down due to this stress is going to be nothing comparred to those long lonely nights when your ratings are in the tank, the world is up in arms against us, and the economy is crumbling under the pressure of your increased taxes.

The only difference is that, for now, she can break down without her finger on the button!

Comment by David

January 7th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

How would she handle the pressures that the presidential office requires? This is a fatal campaign move. I can also guarantee the great presidents have shed tears during tough times…privately.

Comment by Kat

January 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Fox news has become ridiculous. I used to watch you exclusively but I can’t believe that you are taking this comment in which she was totally composed yet sincere and turning it into something weak. You are turning me toward her because of your disgusting tactics.

Comment by drew

January 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

couldn’t happen to a better person. tough when you’ve been exposed as a complete fraud!

Comment by Citizen Gal

January 7th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

Reframe this: she’s talking about the democratic process, and the meaning of participating in a campaign—-her meaning and that of others running. Her voice and expression seems motivated with meaning—-emotion, yes, but not weakness. I am not going to vote for Senator Clinton, primary or otherwise, but this reporting seems like a real stretch to me. Even if she or Huckabee or Obama or McCain cry, haven’t we evolved as a nation more than this? Emotion as weakness. What baloney. GW Bush cried and cries—is he not a strong leader? No. Same, too, for Senator Clinton.

Comment by Peter Stockdale

January 7th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Next stop Hollywood with a performance like that!

Comment by Renegade

January 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

If you think this is the peak of pressure the Presidential candidates and Presidents get, think again. I don’t think it would be a good idea to vote for someone who got emotional this early in the elections.

Comment by RANDY BRIDGEMAN

January 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Mrs. Clinton is not strong enough to lead this country, in my view. We need a leader who is strong in every sense of the term. She would be better off ministering to husband Bill on a full-time basis. Pollitics is too rough and tumble for the young lady. GOD bless her, though.

Comment by David Olson

January 7th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

If Hilary gets emotional over something like Obama surging in the polls, then how will she react to a nuclear crisis? If she can’t handle the pressure of the race, then she certainly will not handle the pressure of being this country’s President. Hopefully, she will drop out of the race after she loses a few more primary elections.

Comment by Polly/Arizona

January 7th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

I don’t buy it. She is probably tired and feels sorry for herself. But as for feeling sorry for the working man and our country, she is play acting! She and husband Bill have an agenda they planned years ago and nothing will deter them from walking over anybody or anything. If she was really a good person, good things would be said about her. Nothing nice is ever said about her.

Comment by skies11

January 7th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Another example of her incompetence.

Comment by ChristforBarackObama

January 7th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

I watched the video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfRLEvQsv9A and I’m still doubting whether she faked the tears as part of her ‘warm personality tour’ or whether she was emotional because she is too fatigued. Which makes me think she will not be ready on Day One to be our president in the White House.

Comment by Jan L.

January 7th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

Hillary is obviously feeling overwhelmed, at least momentarily, and very, very challenged. After all, she was expecting something akin to a coronation, and now it dawns on her that she is in a genuine political decision. Do the tears make her more “human”? Sort of, but they also leave one to realize that she might not be as tough a commander-in-chief as we truly require.

Comment by Michael Thomas

January 7th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Well heck, Hillary, cry me a river. Just make sure it’s a river in New York, not in Arkansas or the White House.

Comment by Ken Wendt

January 7th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

At least she is not afraid to show her feelings. She feels strongly about this country and the direction it has gone in the past 8 years under Mr. Bush. I think the news media is blowing this out of proportion. I didn’t see any tears when I watched this.

I hope this country wakes up and puts someone in the White House that will fight for the white collar - that person is Hillary Clinton.

Comment by Elsa St-Pierre

January 7th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Go ahead Mrs. Clinton, you has shown compasion, love for our country, commitment , most of all humanity and soul.

I don’t see anything wrong showing emotion when we believe and love our country. We don’t need another President of the United States that doesn’t care what happen to this wonderful country, we need someone with Hart, Soul and Human emotions.

God Bless you and I am praying and hoping to be my President. Thank you very much for all your time and efforts to make us better, not only in this country but around the world.

Please help us and the United States to be “number one again”. Thank you very much. Elsa

Comment by Tom Colley

January 7th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

Take a look at La Gov Kathleen Blanco at a post Katrina news conference, crying. When I saw that I knew we were in for a long bad experience and history proved me right. It goes on even as she is leaving office. Hillary gave me chills, I thought I was ahving a flashback!

Comment by T. Graves

January 7th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

There is no crying in baseball and there is no crying in politics. Growup.

Comment by Pattie in Parker, CO

January 7th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

As a Republican, I find it hard to appreciate much of anything from the Clintons. Having said that, I truly understood Hilary and her “emotional” reaction to questions regarding dealing with the enormity of this campaign. I perceived her repsonse as true passion for this country and I appreciated it. Maybe what Washington needs is a little more realistic emotion versus the scripted, rehearsed garbage we are continually force-fed from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Comment by DWilson

January 7th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

It’s obvious that Hillary is not up to the task of being President…..The President will face much more serious things in the future and we need a strong leader……

Comment by mike

January 7th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

I think that Hillary is showing her limit. How can she possibly lead a big and great country such as America with all thechallenges that are awaiting our country if she can not hold the pressure during her own party’s primary elections. Come on! we are not even yet in the midst of the presidential. What did she expect? Great leaders are ones who show what they are truly made of in time of challenges and pressure. Where is her smile, where is her confidence? Being the president of United States of America isn’t a easy task. She still have enough time to drop off the course if not she will become creasy before the end the primaries because the pressure has just started.

Comment by Philip Marsala

January 7th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Regarding Clinton’s emotions coming to surface. Because of His identification with humanity, “JESUS WEPT.” John 11:35. I’d say this verse speaks volumes regarding Jesus and all of humanity. Needless to say, there is absolutely no major reason to decry one who displays his or her tears. Needless to say, human tears may well be the spirital expression of the heart at it’s very best. Don’t knock it!

Comment by tony

January 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Oh, Pa-lease!!! Yeah, I want her to be my president. One day Iran goes nutty like today only worse, and she starts crying to their leaders, “Oh, this is so tough! Stop attacking us!”. Gimmie a break!

Comment by LaDonna Bangeman

January 7th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Okay, that’s scary. She is getting emotional over the polls on the campaign trail. Think about it folks…..is she going to cry if things don’t go well when she meets with the heads of foreign countries. I am a woman but I doubt I would ever vote to elect a woman as president. We are loving and nurturing………but we are also too EMOtional.

Comment by j

January 7th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Hillary can’t take the heat in the kitchen, so she should get out. Immagine her losing her temper to world leaders as she did in the debate. There are much better, more experienced people on both sides of the isle.

Pingback by The Dan Lee Report » Blog Archive » There’s a lifeboat waiting for Hillary, unless she jumps too late.

January 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

[…] does not look like someone who can overcome her lack of likeablity, & her little sniffle festwhen she was “talking” to the girls at that cafe in Portsmouth? Completely planned […]

Comment by jackie

January 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

YEAH… that’s what this country needs for a leader - an emotional cry baby

Comment by richard tyler

January 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm

God help the Islamofascists if President Clinton starts her mences while in office.

Comment by James E. Settle

January 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm

She is NOT qualified - she does NOT have the emotional stability - she does NOT have the judgement - she does NOT have the experiecne needed - to be President of the United State of American

Comment by John Bacon

January 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm

It is about our Country! We Don’t want Hillary!

Pingback by Hillary’s Emotional Moment « FOX Embeds « FOXNews.com

January 7th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

[…] her full response from my imperfect vantage point, or check out Major Garrett reporting on the incident — complete with a head-on […]

Comment by Richard Goddard

January 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

I am an observer from a far distant country and feel that my views are nonpartial. However I must state here that I do not know your viewing audience very well, but do feel that if they believe you are reporting news completely in a nonbiased position they must be brainwashed, or that far into persuasion that like an adicted drug they are drawn into argreement without a reasonable question. Sorry but this comes from a person firmly in the middle of the road that can see both sides. Thank you for taking the time to read my views. A small shout from England RJ Goddard

Comment by Travis Nave

January 7th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

This will probably happen every 28-days or so if she gets elected.

Comment by Victoria

January 7th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

Some people will say that it makes her look weaker, but I think it makes her look more human and more likeable, and may well translate into more votes from women…

Comment by LM

January 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm

She is DONE!!!

You might as well stick a fork in her!!! I dont care how human, she may seem and all that. The American public does not a want a soft president.

Comment by Jeff Jacob

January 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Yeah, she’s ready to be commander in chief on day 1. NOT. Back to being the Senator from New York. Go Obama!

Comment by Steve Russell

January 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

This is typical Clinton trickery. Don’t think that everything she does is not scripted. She is desperate. Her one and only ambition on earth is to be the president. She probably had an advisor tell her this would make her more likeable or bring voters closer to her. Her ambition is unprecedented. She cracks a joke in Jan. 2007 about how she is used to dealing with “bad men” an obvious slam to her husband but she still stayed with him for political ambitions. Her newest rediculous line is that everyone that voted for George Bush did so because he was someone you would want to have a beer with. Personally I wouldn’t want to have a beer with someone that is a self-professed alcoholic that has turned away from that life and has become a better man for it. That shows her lack of respect for the office and the man. We all know what respect her husband had for the office. President Reagan wouldn’t walk into the oval office without his suit jacket on he had such a high reverance for the office. Clinton didn’t even feel the need to wear pants!

Comment by David Robertson

January 7th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Desperate times call for desperate acts, literally. This was nothing more than a staged attempt to rescue a dying campaign in New Hampshire.

David Robertson Danville Iowa 52623

Comment by Tom

January 7th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

go hard or go home. See ya Billary, and take Bill with y’all. Try agin in ‘02

Comment by Linda Wilson

January 7th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

Poor Hillary. The Clinton’s have somehow gotten the misguided idea that they own American politics. Sorry Hill, welcome to the world of reality. If she is elected, we will go right back where we used to be just like the pictures from Iowa of her surrounded by Bill and Madelaine Albright. God help us! And what’s this about Chelsea can’t speak to the media, except to say “your cute” ? She’s an educated 27-year-old woman! Why does she need to be protected from the media. I am glad to see American is waking up and hopefully we will put the Clinton’s back where they belong. They are sickening!

Comment by Chuck

January 7th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

No surprises here!…. Hope all Clinton supporters remember this in November.

Comment by Lauren Delpesce

January 7th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

On Hillary getting emotional….give her a break! The last thing I am is a Hillary fan, but these candidates have been keeping a 24/7 pace for at least a month. Anyone could have an emotional moment. She never lost composure and quickly regained her steely demeanor. Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill!

Comment by Melinda McAfee

January 7th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

I am not a fan of Hillary’s - not by a long shot - but I do think that people who campaign so relentlessly and who have invested themselves so much are bound to be subject to emotional glitches. She is tired. It might actually be a plus for someone who is perceived at times as hard, manipulative and calculating. I don’t think anything negative about her having tears in her voice any more than I would President Bush’s voice cracking when he is concerned about the troops. She cares a LOT if she makes this campaign work. Melinda in Oklahoma

Comment by Terri Garcia

January 7th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

And, if the Iranians point nuclear warheads at us, what will she do?? Cry? What an unfortunate display!

Comment by Brian

January 7th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

Hillary gets emotional and you Fox bag on her. Well then what is arrogance but another emotion? One we have repeatedly seen from W. W is very emotional…mostly negative emotions which have twisted the American perspective into something our founding fathers and mothers would be aghast at.

Hey, emotion and passion are what founded this nation. Americans should never become robots or cyborgs, responding only to convoluted logic supported by lies and secret agendas.

You guys at Fox are incredible, and that ain’t a compliment. Yellow journalism and mud slinging. My emotion to your reporting…YUCK!

Comment by david devore

January 7th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Hillary is phoney and a loser. I still can’t figure out why my party caters to her and her adulterous husband!!!!

Comment by TS Cooke

January 7th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

Major,

Your story about Hillary’s emotions makes me concerned you’ve been following her too closely, too long. You’re starting to sip the Clinton Kool-Aid.

Don’t forget Bill’s ability to manufacture emotions at opportune, made-for-TV moments, such as getting teary over the white rocks on Omaha Beach back in ‘94. Nothing about any of the Clintons is genuine. The last thing we need is for someone we count on, like you, getting sucked into their web.

Other than that, I think you and Carl Cameron are absolutely the best campaign reporters in TV history.

Major Tim Cooke, USAR (ret.) Keauhou-Kona, HI

Comment by Esther Plexico

January 7th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

Hillary Clinton did not show weakness. She is a GENUINE person. We love you Hillary.

Comment by allen bradley

January 7th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

She is a woman. she responds like a women; not like an exective, not like a Leader, but a confusioned, disapointed, disillusioned woman who NO management no business being in the us senate let alone the white house. The spouse of a president who counts her husbands years of demonstrated political experience as Hers; at best has no concept of reality. HILLARY HAD LESS EXPERIENCE UNDER BILL THAN MONICA LEWINSKI!!!!!!!!!!!!

Better now, than later (after elected to show tlhis cruical FLAW.

Comment by Katherine

January 7th, 2008 at 6:31 pm

It was a breath of fresh air to see real humanity coming from a strong, multi faceted, human, woman, such as Ms. Clinton. A focused, dedicated, insightful, capable, woman forging ahead in a male dominated system that is in need braking through it’s strong hold on an old, greedy, pit of a thought system.

I believe it would be difficult for any person with humanity and emotion to deal with physical, mental and emotional exhaustion in an un-relentless, un-natural, political game.

What she showed me through this interview was humanity. I have seen where others in such a situation deal with pressures and truth with a false face, almost hidden under a cold well rehearsed, liner, non-dimensional, robotic, political responses, then head for that “end of the evening party” and a well deserved cocktail, most likely paid by “WE THE PEOPLE”

I believe “This humanity” she holds does not affect her ability in any way to lead this country. On the contrary……I see a dimension to Ms. Clinton that most candidates (with the exception of Thompson) in both parties appear to lack…..

I hope we as Humans “REALLY ” look a the mess that “WE THE PEOPLE” have allowed to unfold, while we blindly covered the eyes of our souls……selling out our future for “OIL”

I am but a pimple on the cheek of the creator…..And still I have a haunting question….. It’s the same question I had all those years ago while waiting in those long gas lines back in the 70′S ……How could we have allowed ourselves be so over powered and reliant on one commodity…..

Comment by Jan Neveu

January 7th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

Although I am a Republican … I found it interesting to read about Clinton’s emotional moment … there is no room for this kind of behavior from a presidential candidate … tears are inappropriate coming from candidates on either side of the contest … I didn’t like her before … now I really don’t like her and feel that she will resort to anything to become a winner … even crying like a big baby. Or shall I say ‘tearing up’ like a bigger baby.

Comment by Lloyd Johnson

January 7th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

Hillary needs to take acting lessons to try to appear to be emotional.

Comment by Julia

January 7th, 2008 at 6:55 pm

This really scares me…I cannot imagine a President in a world crisis and falling apart and crying or getting emotional…talk about loosing clout with the world!

Interesting…Condolesa Rice has been under heavy stress, pressure, and even attack and I have never seen her get emotional or loose it! There’s a contrast for observation.

Julia CA

Comment by Advance!

January 7th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

Awwwww. Poor wittuw Hiwwawy don’t get to be a princess. I love it. She’s weak. We’ve known of her weakness since the Monica scandal. She’s never had what it takes to be president, she should have known better. I’d like to see her drop out, but she’ll force herself on us no matter what until she just can’t do it anymore, probably after the 8th round of recounts somewhere.

Comment by gene

January 7th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

mrs. clinton left a definite question in my mind. how would she react to a difficult negotiation if she were president ? she allowed her feminine side show. not strong in a foreign table negotiating. they now have her weak side. especially the far east where women are 2nd class citizens

Comment by mary

January 7th, 2008 at 7:20 pm

If she can’t stand the pressure she needs get out of the race.

Comment by Ike

January 7th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

When opposition comes, she gets angry. When the pressure comes up, she cries. What a mess !!!! Ready to lead? She can’t even lead her own self.

Comment by John Graham

January 7th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

I will start out by saying I am conservative. I have NEVER voted Democrat … and, I NEVER WILL vote for a Democrat … I couldn’t stand Bill Clinton, and I don’t like Hillary Clinton… but for the average undecided, uninformed voters who are swayed by things like Hillary almost crying and getting emotional … It will HELP HER POLL #’s. That is what this is all about. I don’t mind emotion. I like emotion. I am emotional. Some people out there will say to themselves that- that is what they were looking for … actual genuine emotion from her. And, now, they will feel more compelled to VOTE FOR HER because of it. I -actually- believed her for a moment; that she was actually human! That DOESN’T mean she should be the President of the greatest, most powerful, and most influential country in the world! Almost, to the contrary. She almost fell apart emotionally from a simple question, from an admirer, on the CAMPAIGN trail, to maybe win a PRIMARY, to maybe win enough primary’s to be on the ballot as the Democrat candidate, to maybe be elected as President of THE UNITED STATES! What would happen to her, if, GOD FORBID, she actually would become the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES? There are some pretty tough questions coming your way. Thank GOD that she will never get that opportunity. I did believe her though. But…. NO… I would never vote for her.

Comment by Jean

January 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

How refreshing to see some real emotion from Hillary. I like seeing this side of her instead of the usual forced smile.

Comment by Lisa

January 7th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

While I am not a Hillary fan, I do not think this was staged…unfortunate for her that through the actions of some of her campaign people, this thought entered my mind, as well as a lot of other peoples, too. I think she gets the short end of the stick on some things that don’t seem “fair” to me, and again, I am not a supporter. While she didn’t gain the ire of so many by having a lot of these moments, I don’t wish for this to be a big issue for her, or our country.

Comment by Ed Kenneth

January 7th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Is Major reporting the news or trying to creat a story about Hill’s “crying” Why don’t you folks just report the facts and let us viewers do our own analysis? Or do you not think we are smart enough? Or maybe we whould come up with a different view then major’s? Ed

http://bourbonroom.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/07/hillary-gets-emotional-on-campaign-trail/#respond

Comment by Chuck

January 7th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

I just watched the video of Hillary and it made me sick to my stomach. Hillary talking about what’s good for our country and the what’s good for the future of our children? Give me a break. All Hillary cares about is what is good for Hillary.

Comment by JUDI FULKERSON

January 7th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

WHY IS IT CONSIDERED WEAK FOR SOMEONE TO SHOW EMOTION ABOUT THEIR COUNTRY? IT GIVES ME HOPE TO KNOW THAT HILLARY IS ABLE TO SHOW FEELINGS. ISN’T IT ABOUT TIME THAT WE LOOK COMPASSIONATELY AT WHAT WE AS HUMANS ARE DOING TO THIS EARTH AND EACH OTHER. I FIND IT DISTASTEFUL TO TRY TO CREATE NEGATIVE DRAMA JUST SO SOMEONE CAN HAVE A STORY WHEN EMOTION IS SUPPOSED TO BE WHAT MAKES US AS HUMANS ONE STEP ABOVE OTHER CREATURES ON THE EARTH.

Comment by Katherine Murray

January 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

It’s too much of a microscope. Campaigning can be exhausting. Hillary Clinton is a human being. Let’s move on.

Comment by Harv Holley

January 7th, 2008 at 10:26 pm

If Hillary has a MELTDOWN at this point in just running for the highest office in the land, how would she handle a REAL CRISIS when our nation and our security is being threatened?

Comment by Gervis Webb

January 7th, 2008 at 10:45 pm

I am an independant; but may god help us if Hillary Clinton becomes president of this USA. The baggage she carries of her unfaithful husband and the fact she was a part of Whitewater is too much to bear. May the Clinton’s just disappear from the political scene and bring some decency to our political process. She cares nothing for this country except for what this country can give to her. She as Bill think they are above the law in their business dealings and personal relationships; may they drown in their own ambitions. May God bless America by removing the Clinmton’s from ever governing any part of this country. Gervis Webb.

Comment by Morris Lentz

January 8th, 2008 at 12:20 am

what a fake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment by Niki

January 8th, 2008 at 12:24 am

IF Hillary is already showing such turmoiled emotion this early in the race, what can we expect as her being the leader of our country in the reality of the world today? I’m a woman and it is a known fact that our hormones are different from males - we cant afford for her to break down when times get tough or she gets tired - the President of the United States must always be tough!

Comment by Terry Moore

January 8th, 2008 at 1:32 am

I think this “show of emotion” was as contrived as the dance on the beach with Bill. Or the Southern Black dialect. I simply will never trust either Clinton.

Oddly enough, it crossed my mind that if she always used the same tone of voice and vocal inflections as in the “emotional” moment, she would be much more likable than with her usual strident and condescending tone of her speeches. OH NO! Please don’t tell her. The last thing Republicans need is for her to actually be LIKABLE!

Comment by Kannan

January 8th, 2008 at 2:49 am

I felt sorry for her. Some say it is a sign of wekness. I think it is a sign of her heartfelt empathy. She became emotional not when she was talking about her electoral prospects but only when she was talking about America and its future. Give her a break please.

Comment by Chris

January 8th, 2008 at 7:11 am

Whether I would vote for Hillary or not matters not. I LOVE a candidate that shows themselves human! The compassion that showed in her inflection was awesome. I have a new reverence for Hillary now. I used to think she was made of stone. I am very glad to see her compassion!! Whomever I vote for, I want to know that they care about me, my family and my country. I saw that in her today!

Comment by Jana

January 8th, 2008 at 7:22 am

Oh Please! Men are stupid! If this country wants change get men out of the White House. This is all the men saying “Oh look she’s crying”. They are worse, they are lying. Everyone needs to look at Obama on all the news reports. Look at the difference in how cockey he is acting. He acts like he has already won. Hillary keep doing what you have been doing. Stick to your program and what you believe in. He will crash and burn all on his own.

Comment by Setmose

January 8th, 2008 at 7:38 am

She’s up against Oprah Winfried, what do you expect? Look at the way she’s holding the microphone even as she is getting emotional. You couldn’t do better on an Oprah segment about chronic cheaters and the wives that stand by them. Completely manufactured.

Comment by Joan Garrison

January 8th, 2008 at 8:23 am

My comment is I am worried about Hillary,but after hearing her this morning on c span her speech yesterday, she hit on every concern that the people of the people of US are concerned about, If the independent vote for Obama, in the end they will realize that all he has said was Change, but how.Hillary has said what she will do for the people . This speech should help her get more votes in NH, and onto the other states.If Obama gets the votes, The democrats will not make it in Nov’ because of his inexpierence. Good Luck Hillary

Comment by Barbara Aiello

January 8th, 2008 at 8:44 am

Dear Friends,

Quite interesting to see how New Hampshire is shaping up. As I sit here in my studio in southern Italy, I reflect on my ex-pat status and what these primaries mean to those of us Americans who live and work in Europe. Hillary is “verklempt” over her heavy campaign schedule. Oh my. We here in Europe who watch the daily rise of Islamist extremism, who see honor killings now go vitrually unreported because there are so many of them they have become commonplace and who see unrestrained immigration and its consequent parallel societies dominate Europe’s major cities… we get the message. Blow your nose, dry your eyes and give me Giuliani and McCain.

Comment by patriciajsasha

January 8th, 2008 at 10:27 am

I don’t care about her emotion however let us not forget her campaign speech after she lost in IA. She stated it ws a game, she stated she would be the winner. She brought the on the comparision of the electorial process in our country to being as little as “a game”. After I saw that speech and heard her myself say “its a game” one day and “its not a game” the next I have offically changed my vote. I was questioning Hilary before since I didn’t care for her husbands time in office and I don’t agree with most of what she says. But I have had enough of double politics and flip floppin. So good bye Hilary.

Comment by patriciajsasha

January 8th, 2008 at 10:37 am

I was a Hilary supporter until I saw this, and not because of the break down. For those of you who are following her campaign like I was(I saw her 3 times, shook her hand twice) you will remember her speech after she came in 3rd in IA. Now in that speech she compares the election to a game. She states she will win the game of approval. She will up the stakes in “the game of politics”. That jarred with me when she said it because I don’t think of the election process of the leader of our nation as a game, however even if she hadn’t have “broken down” or “fake cried” or whatever her words were “it’s not a game, it’s peoples lives ect” now that I don’t understand. 6 days ago with a different crowd it was a game and now it’s not. I had my disagreements with Hilary and some mistrust but really felt she was the one to be behind. Now I SEE and HEAR differently. I have had enough two sided in the White House. I’ve had enough “I will do this” and then nothing gets done. You have lost my vote Hilary!!! You need to get a better speech guy, one who remembers what he had you say last week either that or you need to remember what you said last week.

Comment by David Finch

January 8th, 2008 at 11:31 am

You have to ealize that Hillary has had her eye on the presidency since she was very young, but ambitious. For having this final ambition be crushed in defeat was and is a terible moment for Hillary. She never criticized her husband or divorced him because it would hurt her chances to become president. Every moment in Hillary’s life has been to be elected as president of the United States. So imagine what this potential major defeat means to her. I am an independent voter and I always vote for the candidate that I feel will do the best for our country, therefore I will vote AGAINST Hillary because of her crooked politics, business and life. Don’t forget the time she and Bill took furniture and other items from the White House that belonged to the country and not her and Bill! Don’t forget “White Water” and all the other things that represented her corruption in seeking the ultimate position. How could you elect someone that you couldn’t trust with your country or your money! Hillary is morally corrupt!

Comment by Terry

January 8th, 2008 at 11:47 am

Heaven help us. I can just imagine the Arab leaders watching a laughing while Hilary was “showing her emotional side.” Vote for her, not a chance.

Comment by Andrea

January 8th, 2008 at 11:49 am

I didn’t see Hillary breaking down, but something deep within her that finally broke through the ice and came to surface. I think I’d be able sense crocodile tears or breaking down–but when I saw the clip, I saw it was someone who felt so deeply about wanting the best for her country and that she was somewhat overwhelmed with emotion at that time–”caught in the moment”, so to speak. If anything, no matter her views, it shows she really does care about the US. That small moment showed that Hillary is not the Ice Queen that many of us believe–perhaps she should have the courage to be herself more often.

Comment by Billy D

January 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

I can’t help but wonder if the question that her so “emotional” was PLANTED lol

Comment by Deborah

January 8th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

What a good actress. She is such a manipulator. You just wait until she gets some real power and you’ll see the show of your life. Be afraid; be very afraid. She has nothing but her own personal interest in her heart; not Bill; not anyone but herself. She has hungered for this office and has done everything in her entire life to get there. I really feel sorry for her because she has subjected herself to a lot of scrutiny but it cannot compare to what she has done to other people. What goes around comes around. Obviously I do not like her but I do pray for her because I am commanded to pray for my enemies and I consider her a true threat to our country and our children and grandchildren. I can’t even imagine how difficult it is to campaign but surely it can’t compare to the schedules and decisions that have to be made by the President of the United States. She can’t handle it if she can’t handle this. It is so easy to say anything you want to say when you are out there campaigning. So many empty promises. Everything she says scares me.

Comment by Jennifer

January 8th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

I think some of you are missing the point. It’s not about showing emotion or seeming more human. This is not about how tough campaigning is or how rigorous her schedule is. HRC is a consumate liar (as is her husband) and will do ANYTHING to further her agenda. She will scheme, double-cross, and trample on whoever she has to in order to achieve what she believes she rightfully deserves. I am an intelligent woman who will NOT vote for a woman for President just because she is a woman. HRC isn’t strong enough to handle leaders of nations who treat women worse than dogs. She wouldn’t be able to handle it without getting her feminazi sensibilities in a twist. She is a socialist/communist who hides behind the “liberal” (which is just another word for socialist/communist) mask just waiting to pounce so she can make America into a socialist state (it’s half way there already, Thank you FDR!!). She’s a pandering fraud who will have us overrun with terrorists in no time.

Comment by PCM 01

January 8th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

Hmm…wrong political experience…questionable acting abilities…tendency to crack under pressure…Next!

Comment by sinna mani

January 8th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

In the company of a senior Labour politician I spent a few minutes talking to Hillary at UN development conference when she was first lady and realised how shallow her thinking was. She was very uptight when you critisised her position. She belongs to celeb culture and sound bites scripted by others whereas Obama seem to bea thinker as well as listener. I hope I am right.

Comment by Edward Primeau

January 8th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Hillary has had a good life and enjoyed being first lady for eight years. Let put it to rest Hillary and GO HOME!!

Comment by Edward Primeau

January 8th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

One last comment, I have been married for 38 years and know how moody a woman can get we don’t need a female holding a button that can bring it all to an end. Think about it !!

Comment by Mark

January 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

My comment is you have an eight year first lady with a failed healthcare program running against a one term Senator running against a failed Vice Presidential candidate. Where’s the experience? They can talk all they want, and promise the world, but without proven concrete actions of fixing problems, enhancing a person’s lifestyle, and making you feel confident in the leadership of this country, what gives a person hope in future success by supporting one of the three?

Comment by AmyDGC

January 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

I gotta say I just don’t get it. I heard about this on the radio and they made it sounds as if she were balling her eyes out or having some sort of weeping, sobbing, ranting PMDD episode. And I just watched the video…her voice shook slightly people. I’m not a Hillary fan…quite frankly I’m surprised to be defending her…but I see no proof or indication here that she’s either incapable of being a decent President (couldn’t be any worse than our current one…as if that should be the gold standard) or that she’s attempting to fake anything to show her “softer side”. Fox News is comparing this to Muskie’s breakdown, perhaps somebody needs to pull that footage from the vault and compare and contrast. This was quite simply no big deal and anyone who lets it color their opinion of the candidate is clearly not interested in issues or substance.

Comment by Jennifer

January 8th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

LOL I agree w/the other Jennifer from 1/8 @ 12:42. When I ran for State House, I knew better than to have a crying fit in front of the press. Hillary should too. I fully believe that it was staged to try to grab the soccer mommy vote. She reminds me of Eva Peron on the balcony of the Casa Rosada — the only difference is America’s not a dictatorship (yet).

Maybe the above Jennifer and I should run on the same ticket… I think we’d do better than Hilly and the NOW gang ( or shall I say the NAG gang?!?!?) Besides, if she were a real feminist, she would have gotten rid of Bill a long time ago.

Comment by California Jack

January 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

If Hillary cries over something petty like that, how will she be able to hold up under the pressure of making command decisions in tense national security related incidents? I can’t put any faith or trust in her! Jack

Comment by Ronda Pullen

January 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm

I wonder where her tears were for “the country” and her “deep” feelings about it when she and her husband watched Americans killed and injured in the first terrorist bombing in NY, our embassies and our ships being bombed, and did nothing about it … until the Monica story broke … and her husband agreed to bomb an aspirin factory to get the news away from that sordid mess with all his affairs. I could certainly see she had no feelings for Americans as she watched friends go to jail for deals the Clintons were deeply involved wth, or when Foster committed suicide, or her husband was impeached in the House, or Berger stuffed documents in his socks … the list goes on and on. This woman “feels” nothing for anyone but herself and her blinding ambition to turn this country into a socialist one. Talk about fear … she scares me as almost as much as terrorists do.

Comment by republicanmommy

January 8th, 2008 at 7:19 pm

I’ve heard so much about Hillary cying that I was curious to see it for myself. COME ON! I can’t stand Hillary, I would never vote for her, but get over this crying thing. She wasn’t even crying, she was just a little emotional when someone asked a sympathetic question. I’ve seen strong leaders, male and female, do the same. I tear up more than she did at some commercials. This time, I have to side with Hillary and tell the world- define crying. Just because I don’t like her doesn’t mean that she can’t have an ounce of humanity in her.

Comment by michelle

January 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm

There are plenty of sexist pigs commenting today I see. I have seen plenty of politicians cry and I have never heard anything about their leadership abilities because of it, but as soon as a woman cries she is woman and not able to compete, an actress, manipulator,contrived, weak etc….. one poster said if she is cries now how can we expect her to lead this country. All the Presidents in my life that I remember have cried at one time or another including both Bushes and Bill. This is ridiculous and sexist and some of the women on here disappoint me the most. Saying that a woman cant do it because of differences in horomones!!! You are an embarrassment to women everywhere.

Comment by Becky

January 8th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

I don’t think it is sexist.. this is minor situation and won’t compare to some days in the life of the President. If she can’t take the heat, get out of the fire.

Pingback by everyone was wrong | This Is Me Ranting

January 9th, 2008 at 3:51 am

[…] data to start making new type of predictions. Two days ago the only thing you could see on TV was how Hillary cried, how they’re campaign is out of money, how they’re so desperate they’re sending […]

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pendragonfics · 6 years

Text

Just You

Paring: Bruce Banner/Reader

Tags: female reader, Christmas, stranded, cabin fic, marriage proposal, Christmas fluff.

Summary: Horribly lost in the forest in late December, ________ and Bruce have to make do with Christmas in a safe house since everyone else has gone off for the holidays.

But maybe, it isn't so bad.

Word Count: 2,586

Current Date: 2017-12-24

At this minute, in somewhere, U.S.A., the young ________ and her boyfriend, Bruce Banner, were completely, and totally, lost. It was not because they had been arguing over a map, or had turned left when they arguably should have turned right. No. They were lost simply because of a mistake, or, if asked later, fate itself. Bruce Banner, had Hulked out, and taken his fellow Avenger and girlfriend with him. It was the first time the Hulk had taken the wheel, in that sense, and took their mutual interest away from danger.

But, the facts were these; ________ and Bruce were surrounded by snow in a forest, feeling cold. And they decided that, in hindsight, what had happened was not a good call. But the Hulk was the Hulk, and what had happened had happened. So, these two lovers, and Avengers, had become lost to the wilderness within their own home country.

“________,” Bruce said, reaching for her. At his touch, the other hero wakened, shivering. “Where are we?”

The thing with being people, or really, sentient clusters of atoms, was that they were matter, and mass, and took up a place in the world. They could not be ultimately lost, or really, unfindable, because there was always a here and a there in the world.

They north-east of the forests of Minnesota, U.S.A.; over a thousand miles from where they had fought alongside their teammates against HYDRA.

“I’m – I’m not sure,” ________’s teeth chattered, cold beyond her belief. They lay in a small drift of snow. From what Bruce could see of ________, and what ________ could see of Bruce, they were both pale and blue-lipped, exposed to the elements.

“What happened?” Bruce began to sit up, gingerly touching his head. “I can’t remember much after I Hulked out.” He admitted.

________ nodded. “We were winning, until we weren’t.” That was true. There had been a surprise attack, and the Avengers had been split in two. Unable to see the rest of their teammates, the Hulk realised that the warrior beside him who could see the past, was in more danger than ever before. And, fled the scene, his battle partner and girlfriend in arms, away. “You saved me.”

He chuckled at those words. “And now we’re going to freeze to death.”

That was a probability, as they were in the elements, exposed, in December, wearing little to no clothing, and had been inert for hours. ________ touched her Avenger-issued wristband, a relic from the days when S.H.I.E.L.D. micro-managed the team. The band came to life, revealing holographic images of different intel and things that they were granted access to. Her frozen fingers sifted through the holographs, tossing things aside. Until,

“There’s a safe house nearby,” she whispered. “Almost a mile away.”

Together, our heroes trudged toward the safe house. Bruce helped ________ stand, ________ helped Bruce’s bare skin by shedding her jacket. As kind a gesture as it was, Bruce took it, even though the sizing was off. They plodded together, off in the direction of ________’s wristband.

Now returned after the battle from Washington state, Mr. Tony Stark heard a small beeping in the mainframe in his lab. Dashing from where he worked out the kinks and dings in his suit, a wide smile came over his face.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” he calls out, overjoyed. He’d jump for joy, but it’s too early to say a thing. Just because the wristband had been accessed, didn’t mean the two Avengers would be safe. “Tell everyone to come here. ASAP!”

The computer system responds in her Irish lilt, “There is nobody here, sir.”

Tony stills, his fingers stopping where they were above the keyboard. He’d forgotten. After finishing the last-minute mission, the team had disbanded for the holidays. Scott Lang was staying with his ex-wife for his daughter’s Christmas. Wanda Maximoff was celebrating Hanukkah with Vision with Clint’s family. Natasha had taken a plane to New Zealand to celebrate the holidays in warmth. Steve and Bucky were in Brooklyn, having a quiet holiday in his brownstone. Peter Parker was at home with his Aunt and her boyfriend. Thor and Loki were in Norway, as far as he knew. And yes, he was alone in the Avengers facility. Pepper was braving the Christmas Eve shopping scene with Happy in central New York.

“Right,” he mutters, and goes to work. Within five minutes, he’s hacked into the wristband. He finds ________ and Bruce are nearby the Carlton Peak safe house. He writes a line of code, and works in a way to contact them, and then, wraps up the sequence. He sits there at his desk, elbows upon the desk, fingers balancing his forehead, and sighs. He looks to the roof, and mutters, “I'm hoping for a Christmas miracle, right now.”

Perhaps it was that which happened later.

Within twenty minutes, the pair of Avengers had made it to the location. Incensed by the threat of losing limbs, they marched onto the property, where S.H.I.E.L.D. had a small safe house. But when ________ tried the door, she found it locked. Bruce found a retinal scanner, but it didn’t respond to his eye, or hers. Standing by the locked door, with not a thing left to do, ________ lifted her wrist, the band touching the door.

The door unlocked.

The two stumbled inside, and found themselves in a nice cabin. There was a fire crackling in the brick fireplace, a small couch, what looked like a pantry, and a bed in the corner. Bruce rushed to the fire, warming his hands before the red-umber light. ________ went to take off her wristband, and scope the safe house. But as soon she took the band from her wrist, the holographic images were back, accompanied by a large sound. Bruce flinched, ready to fight whatever enemy had arisen.

But, there was no enemy. Only a good friend.

The facts were these: Tony Stark, the Iron Man, a former child genius who had grown older over time, had added a fail-safe code to the wristband. It allowed contact between himself and the two Avengers holed up in Minnesota, and once removed, allowed for a one-way holo-video feed.

“Oh, good, you’re not dead,” Tony Stark’s floating head from the watch exhaled, relieved. “Didn’t look forward to that.”

Bruce scrambled from the fireplace to where ________ stood, holding the watch. “What – is this a recording?”

The face shook its head. “No, Bruce, it’s me.” His face winked, and turned to ________. “So, you’re at the safe house? I already set a fire, glad you're making use of it...records say it hasn’t been used for a year, but I bet any canned food is safe to eat. It used to house agents like Romanov and Barton, back before the fiasco.” He told them.

“Wait, canned food?” Bruce repeated. “You’re not going to rescue us?”

________ passed the wristband to Bruce. She went to explore the rest of the cabin, and zoned out their conversation. Busying herself counting the supplies in the place they were in, ________ made stock of what they had. Most of the canned food was in date, and in a blanket box, there were thermals, blankets, and spare clothes and shoes. There was a bathroom, and a small kitchenette, and, the bed in the corner was a single, and there was only one. As she touched the frame, she saw images in her mind. An agent with blonde hair taking the bed, her partner taking the couch.

“What do you mean, you’re not coming?” Bruce exclaimed. ________ shook the retrocognitive vision from her mind. Grabbing a blanket, she draped it over his shoulders. Bruce added, “Send a Quinjet on autopilot! One of your suits! Someone!”

________ took the wristband back from her boyfriend, facing Tony Stark. “It’s okay if we have to stay here for a couple of days, Stark. It’s nothing we haven’t done before on a mission.” She sighs, and adds, “I mean, we'll have Christmas here, but we can make that sacrifice.”

“I’ll have someone extract you before New Year’s, okay? I promised Pepper it’d be us, no Avengers or disasters for five days.” There’s a noise in the back of the feed, and he perks up. “She’s back! Okay, got to go.”

Before Bruce can add anything, Tony has disappeared.

At that minute, in the safe house in Minnesota, U.S.A., ________, and her boyfriend, realised this. They were left to their own devices for a week. The two shared a look, and then, with a sigh, decided to buckle down to find what they could do for the next five days. ________ went for a warm shower, and Bruce pulled on a pair of pants, and a blue-grey sweater from the box of supplies. Before making do with canned beans and canned meat. It looked awful, and he threw it away. Bruce Banner made do with an assortment of legumes and beans from cans, heated over the gas stove.

When ________ withdrew from the shower, she stood there, towel drying her head, watching her boyfriend. The facts were these: a week before the impromptu battle between Avengers and HYDRA, ________ had made a reservation. It was at a nice restaurant in the quieter side of the city, at the recommendation of her old friend Foggy Nelson, and, hidden away in a sock in her draw, was a ring.

________ was a human being, who loved another human with all her heart, and after spending almost five years dating, wished to take it to another level. She knew her quiet, demure boyfriend would not take the stand, and despite this, she loved him with all her heart. And watching him then, she knew that she was right in her choice.

“You’re staring,” Bruce mutters, dishing two servings of the meal.

She shakes her head, the memories leaving her sights, and moves to take a serving. “Sorry, Bruce…” she whispers, and kissing his cheek, goes to sit upon the couch.

After her kiss, he stands there. He's frozen in his spot, yet, warm inside. Usually he felt the presence of the Hulk in his mind, but then, there was only him in his mind. The voice in his head was whispering all the wonderful things about ________, how much he loved her.

Bruce had met her off-duty seven years ago, when she had been working in a spiritual store. He’d been browsing the incense for mediation, and not looking, he bumped into her. Their hands had touched as they scrambled to pick up the fallen stack of books on Reiki. She saw his past at that moment, and right then, he saw a future with her. It was because of him that S.H.I.E.L.D. caught wind of her mutation, and trained her to become a new Avenger.

Ever since, Bruce had become almost love-sick with her. It took two years’ worth of courage to work up the nerve to ask her out. It was now seven years after he bumped into her. He had a ring picked out, hidden away between his computer and his copy of A Brief History of Time. He knew that ________ would expect him to ask her to marry him. But with all the work they had had over the last three months, there had been barely any time for him to sit down and ask her. Except, right now, and he didn’t have it with him.

Together they sat before the fire, watching as it licked the log before it. It was a while before the both of you would speak, or any thing more than process what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Soon, his eyes were growing tired, and hers too, and together, they fell asleep before the fire, their hands intertwined.

When Bruce woke, the next morning had begun, the sun spilling over the icy wonderland outside the cabin like a cold warmth. Beside him, the space where ________ had been the night previous was empty, and cold, and his heart raced, afraid. But when his eyes went to the window, he saw her, her face pressed up against the pane, breath hot against the glass.

“Good morning,” his girlfriend turned to him, eyes wide with wonder. “Merry Christmas!”

Bruce rose from the couch, his hair tousled from his sleep. As he looked at ________ and saw a woman he loved for all she was, ________ looked at him, and saw the same thing. He met her at the window, and linking fingers, followed her gaze outside. It was a winter wonderland, and for once in his life, he was glad he had survived the ordeal and come to be where he was. Even if he was fifty percent Hulk, one hundred percent of him loved her.

“Merry Christmas,” he smiled, kissing her.

She laughed, and nuzzled her head into his neck. “As much as it sucks to be stuck here, I’m glad I’m stuck here with you,” she kissed just below his ear, and giggling, added, “This would be very much different if you’d taken Hawkeye. Or Thor.”

But Bruce shook his head. “But I don’t love those guys. Just you.” He let go of her, and slowly, went down on one knee. ________’s eyes widened, but at the same time, she followed him to the floor, also balancing on a knee. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Well, if you’re grabbing something from the floor, I’m doing that too,” she said. “But it looks like you’re proposing. Which I wanted to do too.” She licks her lips, and says, “Okay, you go first.”

Bruce nods. “________, I knew ever since the day I met you that you were special. And you are. You make me a better man, a better Avenger – and I know that I want to live the rest of my life alongside you. This isn’t just me asking, but Hulk too – we’re a whole. I promise to stay by your side, to share all the good times, and bad times too,” Bruce stammers, and adds, “But I can’t make any promises for Hulk, he does what he wants.”

________ felt tears forming in her eyes. “I know he loves me too.”

“…________, I don’t have the ring with me, but,” he continues, looking deep into your eyes. “Will you marry me?”

She nods. “Yes, Bruce,” she whispers. “Before I met you, I was surrounded by people who I knew the past of, but who had no intention of knowing my future with me,” she tells him. “Ever since I’ve been with you, you’ve been a rock, strength I cannot have fathomed before. You’re a strong man, a strong fighter, and I know that I will fight alongside you, and love and live with you for as long as we live.” She wipes the tears from her eyes, and add, “Bruce Banner, it would be an honour to marry you.”

And it was then, at that minute, that ________ and Bruce Banner, knew were stuck in a cabin in the woods with only beans, pasta, and the warmth of each other’s body. Sure, it wasn’t a reservation in New York City that took a lot of pulling of strings from ________’s lawyer friend, or a picnic on the roof of the compound, but they were together. And that wasn’t half bad at all.

#hulk #bruce banner #bruce banner x reader #bruce x reader #bruce banner/reader #hulk x reader #avengers x reader #marvel fanfic #marvel x reader #chaotic--lovely #pendragonfics #Female reader

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sciencespies · 3 years

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As our world changes, what we don't know about parasites could be deadly

https://sciencespies.com/nature/as-our-world-changes-what-we-dont-know-about-parasites-could-be-deadly/

As our world changes, what we don't know about parasites could be deadly

The story of the infected fish is a tantalizing peak backstage, but it’s also a reminder of our sheer ignorance. As the world’s climate changes, we can’t ignore our parasites any longer.

A parasitic dark matter

Though often hidden to the human eye, parasites are, by some estimates, more than half of all known species on Earth. What’s more, they can influence virtually every other free-living animal.

Humans alone play host to nearly 300 types of parasitic worm, and around a third of us are currently infected, whether knowingly or not, with at least one.

They’re everywhere, on all sides, maybe even inside. And yet when we picture a classic food chain, how many of us remember the lions, zebras and grass, only to forget their hidden puppeteers?

Only in the last 30 years or so have we realized our mistake.

(Cizauskas et al., Royal Society Open Science, 2017)

“Essentially,” the authors of a 2008 paper explain, “a second web appears around the free-living web, and this completely changes the level of connectivity.”

Even now, she adds, when ecosystems are facing unprecedented changes, we have only the foggiest idea how more than half the species on Earth are coping.

Some call them the “omnipresent agents of natural selection“, others the “ultimate missing links“, still others the “invisible puppeteers“.

Whatever the label, it’s about time we consider the parasite.

Shooting in the dark

Today, a similar story might be unfolding in our oceans, like a shadow, creeping up the wall behind us.

“We really are just starting to scratch the surface on whether a changing world means rising rates of infectious disease,” Wood told ScienceAlert.

In the last few years, scientists have grown ever more concerned that our planet is not only getting warmer, it’s also altering the spread and distribution of parasitic diseases.

A recent finding by Wood’s lab indicates that from 1978 to 2015, there was a more than 280-fold increase in Anisakis simplex, a cold water nematode responsible for some 20,000 cases of herring worm disease, usually contracted from eating raw or undercooked seafood.

Unfortunately, this means our future projections can often fall short of the rich reality.

The domino effects of climate change on parasites and their hosts. (Cizauskas et al., Royal Society Open Science, 2017)

The latest climate-parasite models are trying to fill-in this blind spot, incorporating not only climate data, but also information on parasitic life cycles, ranges, and opportunities for new hosts.

As the clock ticks, researchers must act like ghostbusters, hunting down invisible foes, diseases that don’t yet exist or have yet to re-emerge in some new unexpected location.

“When you arrive into science you think everyone’s got everything figured out,” Wood says.

“But as you get deeper in you realize there’s so much we don’t know. It’s staggering.”

As the climate crisis takes a firm grip, squeezing some parasites out and holding on to others, what we don’t know could very will kill many. And that goes for both parasites and humans alike.

A version of this article was first published in June 2019.

#Nature

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paulbenedictblog · 4 years

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New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Usa today Coronavirus updates: US death toll reaches 114 as Kansas cancels in-person classes for entire school year

Usa today

The lights went out on the authorized Las Vegas Strip, the worldwide death toll topped 8,200, and stocks took one more hit Wednesday because the coronavirus tightened its grip on the globe.

The U.S. death toll reached 115, and The United States's sense of fashioned persisted to adapt. President Donald Trump's promise of monetary help did present hope to the possibly millions of employees facing layoffs and furloughs.

"For the of us that are now out of labor on story of the valuable and valuable containment insurance policies, to illustrate the shutting down of accommodations, bars and restaurants, money will soon be coming to you," Trump tweeted Wednesday.

Kansas grew to was the first pronounce to narrate that colleges would stay closed for in-particular person educating for the remainder of the faculty year. Nevada's governor ordered the statewide shutdown of all casinos and totally different nonessential corporations beginning Wednesday.

An epidemiologist answers the perfect questions she's getting about coronavirus. Wochit

There had been extra than 6,500 confirmed instances in the U.S. as of Wednesday morning, in step with the Johns Hopkins College files dashboard. One week ago, the U.S. death toll had climbed to 33, the preference of U.S. instances rolled past 1,300, and federal successfully being officials stated the virus has spread to on the least 38 states.

Worldwide, the virus has killed virtually about 8,200 of us; extra than 204,000 infections gain been reported. A week ago the death toll had reached 4,600.

Our are residing weblog on the coronavirus is being up to this point during the day. Refresh for doubtlessly the most silent news. More headlines:

'Netflix Birthday party' lets friends gain film nights whereas distancing. Right here's how it in truth works.

Faculties are extreme about how to make up for the time college students are losing, asking if online college will seemingly be ample.Will adolescence gain to be held wait on?

Too many coronavirus patients, too few ventilators: Italy's successfully being heart concern would possibly well preview what's about to play out in the U.S.

When will coronavirus pause? What wartime and human kindness can show us about what occurs next.

'Substandard misjudgment': Experts pronounce Trump's resolution to disband pandemic crew hindered coronavirus response.

Usa today US stocks stocks fall sharply

The U.S. inventory market opened sharply lower as lockdowns and restrictions rattled patrons despite Washington’s promises for economic relieve. The Dow Jones industrial averages dropped extra than 1,200 aspects, and Current & Sad’s 500 additionally sank. Stocks quick gave wait on the score gains from a day earlier after President Donald Trump promised relieve to get the U.S. economic system thru the outbreak.

“There’s no clarity. We don’t know what the right effects from these monetary and monetary insurance policies are going to be,” says Filthy rich Sega, world chief investment strategist at asset supervisor Conning. “We must observe files that presentations that the infection payment has peaked."

– Jessica Menton

Usa today US-Canada border shut down for non-mandatory high-tail

The border between Canada and the U.S. will finish for non-mandatory high-tail. Trump confirmed the news in a tweet on Wednesday: "We are in a position to be, by mutual consent, quick closing our Northern Border with Canada to non-mandatory traffic. Commerce is possibly not affected. Minute print to apply!" Trump tweeted.

On Monday, Canadian Top Minister Justin Trudeau announced he modified into as soon as closing the country's border to noncitizens, however American voters had been exempt. Trudeau is in self-isolating – his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, has examined obvious for coronavirus.

– David Oliver

Usa today Correctly being care experts brace for ventilator shortage

Italy’s scurry to find ventilators for the booming preference of coronavirus patients with extreme lung concerns is a concern that would possibly well soon repeat in the U.S., experts warn. Hospitals here are on the cusp of too many severely sick patients without ample intensive care unit beds and ventilators to preserve up those patients breathing. Or not it's why successfully being officials are desperately attempting to lengthen silent infections thru social distancing measures much like college closings and work-from-home mandates.

Italy is a "preview of a film that is about to play" in the U.S., stated Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins College surgeon and successfully being policy expert. Read extra here.

– Ken Alltucker and Prick Penzenstadler

Usa today Contemporary York Metropolis debates lockdown as numbers swell

Contemporary Yorkers awoke to an intensifying debate over a that it's essential to well mediate of "shelter in residing" voice that would possibly well preserve the city's 8 million residents of their homes other than for food browsing and emergencies. Town added extra than 100 confirmed COVID-19 instances on Tuesday alone, pushing the whole to virtually 1,000.

“It’s unbelievable how speedily this crisis is rising," stated Mayor Invoice de Blasio, who already has shut down colleges and Broadway and exiguous restaurants to remove-out and present. He stated federal monetary intervention to present "income change" is desperately wished to remain away from Despair-know-how, huge soup traces. He additionally warned city residents the lockdown voice would possibly well near as soon as Wednesday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on the opposite hand, flatly rejected the root, announcing a lockdown would drive of us to follow friends and family initiate air the city. Terminate tuned.

Usa today Kansas becomes first to abolish in-particular person educating for college year

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly canceled in-particular person K-12 college and lessons for the remainder of the faculty year, announcing college students would proceed online discovering out. The resolution leisurely Tuesday modified into as soon as the first of its form by any pronounce in the nation. Better than a dozen states gain canceled primitive lessons for two or three weeks, however none to this level has stopped in-particular person educating for the remainder of the educational year.

A job drive of 40 educators modified into as soon as getting prepared to bring guidelines for Kansas college districts by Wednesday night. Challenges embody little one care, offer of meals and alternative instruction for college adolescence who lack devices or web get admission to.

Usa today Nevada orders all casinos, totally different nonessential corporations closed

In Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered the statewide shutdown of all casinos and totally different nonessential corporations beginning at noon Wednesday. The pronounce’s most silent coronavirus containment effort will observe to all bars, gyms, beauty salons, barber retail outlets, malls and restaurants that produce not present takeout and present services and products.

Sisolak stated casinos and accommodations will seemingly be given time to preserve their guests sooner than closing for 30 days. Retail malls and retail outlets will additionally be mothballed for a month. Gaming machines are to be emptied and shut down by unimaginative night. A few of Nevada’s perfect on line casino corporations – among them MGM Motels, Wynn Motels and Las Vegas Sands – voluntarily shuttered their properties earlier this week.

“My closing plan here is to finish wait on together as Nevadans to put lives,” he instructed newshounds in Las Vegas. “That requires aggressive solutions aimed at limiting community spread.

– Reno Gazette Journal

Rep updates in your inbox. Be a half of for our newsletter.

Usa today Coronavirus news: More headlines, guidelines, files

Desire a utilize? Coronavirus ruined their Las Vegas marriage ceremony, so this Michigan couple improvised.

Self-isolation, home violence: What produce you produce when the hazard is at home.

Six counties in the San Francisco Bay Home gain been ordered to shelter in residing. Whereas you happen to get the same voice, what does that imply?

Usa today Some retail outlets dedicating time for aged, inclined prospects

Some retail outlets are environment aside time for their most inclined prospects to store. The aged and of us with underlying successfully being prerequisites are extra at risk of COVID-19, so some retail outlets are dedicating time or opening earlier for senior prospects and totally different at-menace teams.

All Target retail outlets will devote an hour of browsing a week for the aged and folk with underlying successfully being concerns. Albertsons, which has 2,200-plus retail outlets below banners along side Safeway, Acme and Vons, says it's miles reserving two hours every Tuesday and Thursday morning for inclined prospects, along side senior voters, pregnant ladies folks or those with compromised immune methods. Total Meals Market retail outlets will let prospects who're 60 and older store one hour sooner than opening to the public. The firm, owned by Amazon, has roughly 500 retail outlets in the U.S., U.K., Canada.

– Kelly Tyko

Usa today Canned water only on Southwest Airlines flights, beginning Wednesday

Southwest Airlines is suspending primitive drink provider on its flights to limit interactions between flight attendants and passengers during the coronavirus crisis. The silent policy takes produce Wednesday.

Southwest, the nation's perfect home provider, will offer only unopened cans of water to passengers requesting a drink on most flights. The airline will silent wait on pretzels and, on longer flights, totally different packaged snacks.

On short hops – dozens of Southwest flights below 250 miles, along side Atlanta-Nashville, Dallas-Houston and Los Angeles-Las Vegas – the airline will not wait on any drinks or snacks so the crew can level of curiosity on totally different facets of in-flight hygiene.

– Rupture of day Gilbertson

Usa today Contrivance: All 50 states now gain on the least 1 case of coronavirus

Usa today Listed below are additional valuable tales from USA TODAY:

You would possibly well be asking how dangerous is this? Are we headed for a recession? Ought to I rebalance my portfolio? What extra or less stimulus ought to silent Congress circulation to rescue the economic system? Our experts Jessica Menton and Paul Davidson gain a rundown of answers.

Amazon is prioritizing shipments for medical affords, household staples. Right here's where else it's essential to well decide bathroom paper.

When will college reopen? No date in gape. Is there any "correct news" connected to the coronavirus? Presumably, in diminished air pollution and carbon emissions– and in some areas, lives saved.

Contributing: The Connected Press

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chicagoindiecritics · 4 years

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New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: COLUMN: The 10 Best Movies of 2019

Before talking about this year-end best list from one of the most back-loaded ones in recent memory, reflection is needed and a deep breath for the next decade to come. I am forever proud of what I do. I wouldn’t chase all the press opportunities and commit the time into it if I didn’t. In 2019, a great deal of change came to me and this website of mine this past year. I am forever proud of what I do.

The critics group I helped found and co-direct, the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, rebranded into Chicago Indie Critics. We celebrate our fourth annual awards this week and our industry reach and reputation grows every year. Best of all, it’s a pleasure to count my peers there as friends in the press row trenches. It’s nice to share smiles and handshakes at every screening I can.

Speaking of professional standings, I answered a call for writers and began contributing for another website this year. Since June, I’ve been providing film reviews for 25YL, short for 25 Years Later. Founded by Andrew Grevas, what started as a Twin Peaks tribute site has turned into “all your obsession in one place” to cover a wide range of entertainment. I became their first Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic and have greatly enjoyed the new audience, increased exposure, and a chance to be a part of a bigger thing.

Here on Every Movie Has a Lesson, this was the first year the site has featured monetized ads. I’m no longer doing all this for free, so thank you for dealing with the visual noise to help pay the bills. Also, my site has been open to guest writers looking to get published. I was honored to help an astounding 44 writers get their work seen in 2019, including 21 Washington State University architecture graduate students with their movie-centered essays. This school teacher couldn’t resist helping folks and I’ve enjoyed their content and contributions.

Alright, let’s get to the scoreboard. In all, I published “only” 94 film reviews in 2019, which is plenty, but down from 110 last year and my high mark of 126 in 2017. I saw a dozen and a half more, but full-time school teachers, husbands, and dads like me only have so much free time to put 1000 words down every time. Work-life balance, so to speak, is always a challenge, one that I aim to do better in the life direction. No matter, I think I’ve got 2019 figured out. Here are my picks for the ten best films of the year accompanied by, as always and true to my site’s namesake niche, their best life lesson:

THE 10 BEST MOVIES OF 2019 AND THEIR LESSONS

1. 1917

Full Review

I’m going to sound like an Olympic figure skating judge, but no film received higher technical marks on my scorecard in 2019 than Sam Mendes’ harrowing war thriller. At the same time the filmmaking prowess captivated me, I was overwhelmingly swept up by the human elements as well creating a complete experience. Most people haven’t seen it yet and I cannot wait until you do.

BEST LESSON: WAR MUST BE ENDURED— All of those World War I combatants from over a century ago, including a family member of the Mendes lineage named in tribute during the end credits, may not be distinctly special or flush with a mythic history of certain destiny. Yet, what they endured was shattering and strengthening at the same time. The draw to see summoned bravery and weatherd tragedy in conflict will always be hugely magnetic. Rising with ambitious scale and a colossal level of enthrallment, 1917 will join cinema’s greatest exemplars of such captivation.

2. Little Women

Full Review

Greta Gerwig took Louisa May Alcott’s seminal novel, something that could have easily been stiff and stale, and brought new spirit to it. Yet, in doing so, she didn’t force anything. She didn’t shove showy modernity into faces, just for the sake of doing so. Her Little Women is a mainstream PG rarity. The spirit she, the cast, and the artists brought was genuine, sumptuous, and vivacious. What a marvelous achievement!

BEST LESSON: THE STRENGTH OF FAMILIAL LOVE — To borrow this time from the Greeks and a dollop of The Bible instead of the Fab Four, the level of “storge” love in this saga is exquisite. When family is in need, the annoyances and competitiveness of these sisters go away and bonds are renewed. As they say in the dialogue, “life is too short to be angry at sisters.” Once again, thanks to Gerwig’s tonal choices, you see it, plain as day, in the way the cast in character interacts. The emotional wreckage that results is incredibly genuine.

3. Marriage Story

Full Review

Neck and neck with Little Women comes the Netflix drama with the courage to bare truths from the maddening and draining process that is divorce. Thanks to dynamite and Oscar-worthy lead performances from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, heartstrings are plucked, tightened, and unraveled by Noah Baumbach’s deeply personal tale of resiliency.

BEST LESSON: WHAT WOULD YOU DO? — It is impossible to watch this movie and not have it be a barometer check towards your own relationship status and integrity. Regardless how much yearning desire floats every now and then in Marriage Story, this trauma recovery. Normally in movies like this, we see the indiscretion itself, then the collapse, ink hitting paper, and maybe a gavel banging for a suspenseful decision. Few films go in between and beyond those decision points to show the fractured orbits and restarts of continuing life with heart and honesty. There is blame to be shared, but you feel for both leads and wonder about yourself externally. That is a substantially powerful effect of this film.

4. Luce

Full Review

Until the awards season parade of November and December releases arrived, this was my #1 in the clubhouse coming out of the fall. Even though this is a wildly fictious morality play stretched into the settings of cinema, this movie gave me, the school teacher, a jaw-dropping heart attack. Between Luce and Waves, you need to keep an eye on Kelvin Harrison, Jr., a certain star for this new decade.

BEST LESSON: VENDETTAS ARE PROBLEMATIC — Simmering behind classroom smiles, what the mounting drama of Luce becomes is a straight-up vendetta, one between teacher and student. The bloodless lines of bitterness fortify to hurt people and force chosen sides. This is a saint versus a monster, with little middle, and a guessing game of which one is really which. It’s a battle the actors sell without flaw.

5. Parasite

Full Review

I was better late than never to this party for the most talked about niche film of the year. Leave it to a foreign director in the form of Korean Bong Joon-ho to blow our American minds with the sharpest social commentary of a film this year. Parasite’s bottle film suspense comes from the smartest and most cunning premise and screenplay of the year. Subtitle-haters, get over your hangup and see this movie.

BEST LESSON: THE DEFINITION OF “PARASITE”— When you dig into this title (as it digs into you), three variations of meaning present themselves:

an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.

a person who receives support, advantage, or the like, from another or others without giving any useful or proper return, as one who lives on the hospitality of others.

(in ancient Greece) a person who received free meals in return for amusing or impudent conversation, flattering remarks, etc.

You read those definitions and wonder, gosh, which one of the three will this buzzed-about Korean film seize or probe. Big or small, any one of them could take a toll. The staggering thing is, with many flourishes, Parasite, is all damn three of them, in twisted and overwhelming fashion.

6. The Peanut Butter Falcon

Full Review

The Peanut Butter Falcon was one of a few “Little Engines That Could For Me” this year. I couldn’t be more pleased that this labor of love and offbeat road movie, starring Zach Gottshagen and Shia LeBeouf, has been able to find a sizable audience. There’s always one movie a year that becomes my top casual recommendation when people ask me for something that haven’t heard of that is simply a good time. This is the one for 2019. This is independent filmmaking done right.

BEST LESSON: HAVE A GOOD STORY TO TELL WHEN YOU DIE — The Peanut Butter Falcon doesn’t just tell a good story. It tells a great one worthy of attention, praise, and undying appreciation. The purifying freedom that churns throughout this movie could cultivate even the most barren heart. This little lovable film is the kind of experience that makes one rethink how their own story is going. That is a mighty, motivating accomplishment for something that couldn’t stand out more from the usual summer blockbuster fare.

7. The Farewell

Full Review

Plenty of critics like myself (though I try so often to say it other ways) will use the expression “through the wringer” often when it comes to weathering difficult or excitable experiences at the movies. Well, no movie executed that as many ways this past year than Lulu Wang’s family dramedy. It’s got the comedic peaks and the dramatic ones that both crush with frank honesty and genuine love. The premise of this movie is the curveball of curveballs.

BEST LESSON: COULD YOU DO THIS WITHIN YOUR OWN FAMILY? — The crux of The Farewell makes for several of those soul-searching quiz questions every viewer must ask themselves in a film plot as specific as this one. Should, or even could, you carry on like this? To do so would be illegal in the U.S. Can you justify your position? How long could you live with or act out what everyone calls a “good lie?” Is there even such a thing? In this culture, it is characterized as the family carrying the emotional burden for the dying. Sure, but if you’re helping them, who’s healing your internal injuries of the heart living with that weight? How you answer these will inform your connection to this film straightaway.

8. Joker

Full Review

I found what has stood to be become the most polarizing movie of the year to be one of the year’s best. Go ahead and judge me. Called a masterpiece by some and trash by others, I fall definitely on the high end with this maniacal comic book tangent. Joaquin Phoenix was too good to ignore. On every level, I admire the sheer cajones of this blockbuster to pulverize us with kitchen sinks filled with cajones and questions.

BEST LESSON: THE DEFINITION OF “GALL” — According to Dictionary.com, the four possible meanings of the noun span impudence, severity, bitterness of spirit, and rancor. To saunter a little cruder, which is fitting for the movie in play, the Urban Dictionary defines the word as audacity, balls, or something risky. Hot damn, Joker is each one of those descriptors from both sources and then some.

9. Jojo Rabbit

Full Review

Yes, it is categorically crazy to reach a point of embracing a movie about Nazis, but leave it to Taika Waititi to pull it off. He imbues enough heart into this satire to present a transformation of wrongs into rights that is entertaining and affecting in its own way. The filmmaker said he was making a movie of hope and love that could echo into our own present times. He did that with infinite panache without sacrificing hard reality.

BEST LESSON: WHEN ACTUALITY HITS — Using the word “reality” in this comical setting is leaping too far. Stick with actuality instead and just look at the objects and actions. Knives hurt people. Grenades explode. Soldiers die. War destroys. Germans are fallible. Jews are regular people too. When the wrongs and horrors of war arrive, the movie shifts. Jojo Rabbit swells and elevates beyond farce with this actuality.

10. Knives Out

Full Review

This will sound poster-quote cliche like that “wringer” sentiment over in The Farewell at #7, but Knives Out was flat-out the most entertaining film of the year for me. To name-drop a film lower down the list, the second most entertaining and surprising one was The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot at #13. Back ti Knives Out, my review says it all deeper and better than cliches, but Rian Johnson absolutely nailed subverting the murder mystery blueprint to create pitfalls of depravity and delight. Everyone involved is clearly having a blast and we do too.

BEST LESSON: HOW TO SUBVERT AN ENTIRE GENRE — The trope-filled mechanics of most murder mysteries create an antagonist while Knives Out has you pining for the killer instead. In flipping the rooting interests from the pursuing authorities to the identified perpetrator, the dexterous filmmaker shifted goals and bolstered energy to a different gear. Where the typical pulse rate of this kind of story opens and ends with a bang between a tedious, saggy middle, Knives Out is all about that rich center. What an equally delectable and sinful treat it is!

SPECIAL MENTION: Apollo 11

Full Review

I don’t see as many documentaries as I should, and I don’t find it completely fair ranking them alongside feature narratives that have completely different purposes, crafts, and objectives. That said, the argument can be had that Apollo 11 was the best thing to touch a silver screen this year, no matter the discipline and genre. Edited like a bullet from thousands of hours of content and tuned to IMAX perfection, this chronicle of the first lunar landing mission was incredible in every facet. I’ll be the school teacher that sees every science student in the country needs to see this documentary.

THE NEXT 10:

11. Clara

12. Booksmart

13. The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot

14. Us

15. Uncut Gems

16. The Two Popes

17. Waves

18. Ford v Ferrari

19. Ad Astra

20. Wild Rose

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jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets · 7 years

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Avengers: Storm

Summary: The avengers have just defeated Ultron, a much needed victory for the weary team, but another storm is coming their way. A new member joins the team and has some very unexpected effects on everyone, especially the Captain himself, Steve Rogers. Secrets are revealed, scars revisited, and new wounds formed as they battle one of their toughest and most personal battles yet. All they can do is hope this wont be their breaking point…

characters: Steve Rogers/Captain America, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Widow, Hawkeye, Banner, Thor, All the Avengers, and a few original characters

Rating: Mature (just in case, still haven’t fully decided yet)

Pairing: Steve/Original character

Note: So yay, I’m finally posting this after I said I would do this a week ago… opps! And this is my first Avengers fic so be nice :) But before you read, just a little tidbit about my writing. I love to add in new characters and it usually involves some sort of romance of some kind, so if you don’t like OC’s then this might not be the fic for you, and that’s ok! I also love making everything into series which this will probably end up being, so be prepared for that. But for those of you who do read it I hope you enjoy it!! And be sure to let me know what you think and if you would like to be tagged for future updates!! :D

Masterlist!!!

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Chapter 2:

Tony returned to the circle of friends sitting around one end of the large dining room table, looking completely exhausted as he took a seat beside Bruce.

“So, Uncle Tony,” Natasha mocked, “what's the story with this one?”

Covering his face with his hands he said, “Wait till Rogers comes back, I'm not explaining it twice.”

Seconds later Steve came walking in the same way Tony had, sitting on the other side of him. Placing a hand on Tony’s shoulder as he sat saying, “She's asleep.”

Everyone then turned to Tony, eyes fixed on him waiting for an explanation and after a lifetime of press conferences and countless speeches, Tony found himself lost for words. “I don’t even know where to start,” Tony mumbled into his hands.

“Well let’s start with Uncle,” Clint chimed in, “we thought you were an only child.”

Running his hands down his face he prepared himself for a long night as he began, “As I'm sure you're all slowly figuring out, like many things you all think you know about me, that’s very obviously not true. Turns out my Dad was a bit of a playboy back in his younger days.”

“The apple didn’t fall for from the tree then, did it?” Natasha quipped.

Staring her down Tony replied, “Funny, Natasha.” Turning back to the rest of the group he continued, “I spent my life thinking just as you all did, that I was Howard Stark’s only child. It was later in life after my father died that I discovered that indeed was not the case. After his funeral Nick Fury handed me a file marked classified. He told me that up until now he was the only one besides my Father that knew the contents of this file and that he thought I had a right to know the truth. Inside was information on my Father’s secret second family. He had a daughter to another woman before having me with my Mother, not even she knew this information. Turned out I had a twenty-eight year old sister, Marina Stark or rather Burke her married name, and I also had a two year old niece who is currently sleeping down the hall.”

“You mean to tell us that your father kept all this information secret? How could he do such a thing?” Thor spoke for the first time, a hint of disbelief in his voice.

Standing in defence Tony spoke directly to Thor, “If I remember correctly your father kept a secret that in the end ruined your brother and almost destroyed several planets.”

“Hey!” Steve placed himself between the two men, pushing them aside, “We just finished a war, the last thing we need is another one. Tony, please go on.”

Returning to his seat he continued his story, “It took almost a year before I contacted my sister. We agreed to meet so I drove to her place, met her and her husband Richard, and Leeanna. She was this adorable, perfect little porcelain doll, almost three at the time. I was never one for children but…she was different. After that I spent as much of my time as I possibly could with her but we all agreed that with my line of work it was in their best interest for my father’s second family to remain a secret, Leeanna too, so I had to see them away from the eyes of people, press, and it’s a good thing we did. After Leeanna's seventh birthday, her and her parents showed up at Stark Tower in the middle of the night. They had to sneak her out of the state after she started a tornado in the playground at school after some kid pushed her. She was so scared the poor kid ran all the way home.

They told me that they had to grab what they could and run, every cop in the state was looking for my little girl. I did tests on her that night, discovered that for some reason her genes had begun mutating themselves and that’s the cause of her powers but I can’t explain why, after her seventh birthday, this started happening or how. Every so often her genes mutate again and create more powers, what you saw today was just the beginning of what that girl can do. And it seems to be linked to her emotions which, once they reach a certain point, they take over and she can’t stop.

I did what I could to help them start a new life, after what had happened that night there was no way they could return to their old home. I gave them a new name, Collins, a new home, new jobs. As she grew and her powers multiplied and became harder to control she spent more time here with me. When it became to overwhelming for her, her parents and I would sneak her into the tower and I would take care of her. This became her sort of…sanctuary, somewhere she wasn’t so trapped.”

“Trapped?” Steve cut in.

“Yes. Her parents tried everything they could to give her a normal life, but after several accidents that luckily were not as eventful as the playground incident, Leeanna locked herself away. Afraid that one wrong move from her would find someone hurt or worse she cut all human contact besides her parents and me. Her parents somehow managed to convince her to vacation in Washington with them this weekend and, well, now we’re here and that’s the story of my poor little girl.”

“How old was she when she locked herself away?” Bruce asked.

“She was nine.” Tony answered with a distance to his voice.

“If my math is correct she would be twenty-six now and if she locked herself away at nine then…that’s seventeen years alone.” Clint sat back in his chair with a hard sigh, “that can’t be easy.”

“I did everything I could to make her life a little more bearable, but my poor little girl…” tony stared into her past, only sorry he couldn’t do more for her.

Steve stood from his spot beside Tony, placing his hands flat on the table leaning forwards, “It’s late. We’ve all had a rough night and so has she, but none of us are going anywhere for the next little while so I say we carry on tomorrow. I think everyone needs some rest.”

All in agreeance the group got up from the table, slower then usual due to the days earlier events, Tony showing them all to their rooms for the night before peaking in on his sleeping niece. Tears still streaked her cheeks and her breathing remained laboured. Closing the door behind him he entered her room quietly, climbing softly into the bed beside her and pulling her close. Tucking her head under his chin he too eventually fell into a deep sleep.

#the avengers #avengers #captain america #steve rogers #iron man #tony stark #hawkeye #clint barton #black widow #natasha romanoff #the hulk #bruce banner #thor #Avengers: Storm #chapter two #original character

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x-compendiums-of-castiel-x · 7 years

Text

Just A Crush

Chapter 7: To Learn Something New

CastielxReader

Word Count: 3,991

Summary: After the last few crazy days you've had, you wake up feeling a lot better. Today is a day for new things and you think you're ready to conquer anything that comes your way. Though, life always has its ways of throwing curve balls.

Warnings: Poor Sam has known just how you've felt all along, too bad your feelings were for Cas...(if thats even a warning...)

The sunlight streaming through the curtain woke you as it beamed in your face. The air around you was chilly, but you were cozy under the mounds of blankets that coated the bed. Naturally, you began to stretch, yawing as you extended your arms before you pulled the blanket back around you, sneaking a peak over towards Cas. He was still asleep; soft, quiet snores escaped from him and you couldn’t help but giggle. Castiel was beyond cute, especially when he wasn’t even conscious; your heart swelled in your chest just watching him. The ex-angel slept on his back, one arm against his side and the other laid limp across his chest. You couldn’t help but smile as you sat up; the blanket falling off of you once again, but this time you were actually getting up. Making your way over to the table, you pulled your phone off the charger; taking it into the bathroom with you. Originally, you went in to brush your teeth, but the huge jacuzzi tub behind you grabbed your attention. Usually you weren’t one for baths, but this was kind of a vacation; what better way to relax than soaking in a jacuzzi? As you were drawing the water, your mind wandered off thinking about the boys; deciding to give them a call.

“Hey!” Sam greeted, overly enthused.

“Hey Sammy,” you greet, smile growing just from hearing your best friends voice, “Where have y’all made it to?”

“Bozeman, Montana. We should be in Washington by tonight,” he explained, “How are things with you and Cas?”

“Well, he’s sleeping so…things are great,” you snickered. Because how could anything go wrong when you’re asleep? Right?

“Cas, still asleep? You must of wore him out, huh (y/n).” You could feel Dean’s smirk though the phone and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. You were smiling a little, but you’d never let him know that.

“Make all the jokes you want Winchester, I wouldn’t quit your day job if I were you,” you remarked rather proudly.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But only because the world needs saving,” he joked and you heard Sam chuckle too. Both of them seemed to be in a good mood, and for some reason after everything that happened yesterday, you were feeling happy too.

“ Seriously though, how are things?” Dean repeated.

“If we’re being honest… we sort of had this weird fight last night. I don’t know that you’d even call it a fight but….”

“What do you mean,” Sam pushed curiously. Dean stayed quiet so he could listen.

“Right after I got off the phone with you yesterday, my mom called. Anyway, something was said and when the call ended, Cas and I started talking about my past,” you gave, thinking back as you tried to remember exactly what all you had said to him.

“And?” Dean pressed.

“I was telling him that my family doesn’t know what I really do. He got mad when I told him I basically lie to them so that I can protect them."

“That's weird,” Dean mustered, confusion clouding his thoughts.

"I know right. I thought so too, I figured him of all people would understand. Not that he’s been human as long as he’s been an angel, but still. Given that he’s been an angel, I still felt like he’d grasp my intentions,” you shrugged, turning the warm water off.

"Wait, what all did you talk about before that?” Sam debriefed. As you thought the conversation over, you placed your feet in the tub and sat on the edge with the bathrobe still around you.

“I don’t know, I talked about Erin for a second but that was it,” you gave, swishing your feet around in the water.

“Who’s Erin?” Dean quizzed gruffly.

“Dude seriously?” Sam grumbled, clear annoyance in his tone.

“What?”

“It’s her ex… the reason she started hunting with us. Do you seriously not remember any of that?” Sam explained, and you could tell he was either rolling his eyes or shaking his head at his brother.

“Right,” Dean agreed, his confusing tone transformed into understanding.

“Maybe he got upset about Erin. What all did you say about him?” Sam turned his attention back to you.

“I told him a brief summary of the relationship. I didn’t exactly have time to explain every single detail, we were fixing to head over to my parents for dinner,” you explain. There was so much more to your’s and Erin’s relationship but yesterday wasn’t the time to sit down and talk about it with Cas. Maybe one day, if you two could actually get to know each other better.

“You think he got jealous?” Dean’s question wasn’t for you. He asked Sam in a soft whisper but you still managed to hear it.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Sam tried to whisper back. They needed to work on talking lower and learning to actually whisper.

“Why on earth would he be jealous?” you question, no humor in your tone. Seriously? Cas being jealous of Erin? Erin was a complete asshat.

“Have you ever thought that Cas might like you too?” Dean said straightly, waiting for you to answer.

“Why would Cas ever like someone like me? I’m just… me,” you gave.

“Maybe because you are more than you give yourself credit for,” Sam spoke softly.

“Yeah, well thanks for the words of encouragement but can we start being realistic? Cas was an angel and I’m just a human.”

“Well currently Cas doesn’t have his grace, which makes him a human too,” Dean explained the obvious. Cas was in fact human too, but that still didn’t change the fact that you weren’t really anything special. Cas had been an angel, a freaking angel. How were you supposed to compare to that? Angels were beyond understanding the depths of human emotion; Cas was human but it wasn’t that long ago that he lost his grace either.

"Okay, if I’m just so great like you two are trying to make me out to be, how come neither of you asked me out before?” you press, not really looking for an answer, but just trying to prove your point.

"Because you’re in love with Cas,” Sam stated sorrowfully. His tone was different and it made you think over his words again before realization hit you.

“Sam?….Sammy… you didn’t…,” you shook your head; it couldn't be true. He was just messing with you, right? But his tone didn’t change; all humor from earlier had vanished and the younger Winchester was being completely serious. Not even Dean was speaking. Did he know how Sam had felt?

"I do. But you have feelings for him and I get that. I just want you to be happy,” he explained, sadness still in his voice.

“I- I'm sorry,” you blurted out. Not meaning to say it as sadly as you had. Sam completely caught you off guard with this. How could you make him feel this way, you knew how bad this kind of pain felt.

"Don’t be sorry, I came to terms with how I felt a long time ago. I’ve had multiple chances to tell you and there have been times where I almost have… but you love him, (y/n). I see it in your eyes when he walks in the room. I hear it in your voice when you talk about him. I could never make you feel that way and that’s not your fault. You can’t help who you fall in love with,” he described solemnly.

"Sam, I do love Cas but that’s not what I’m sorry for. I’m sorry that you have to feel the pain of a broken heart…I wouldn’t put this on anyone….especially you…."

"It’s okay, really. I just want you to promise me something... When you come back from this trip..., make sure you don’t regret not doing something.” His words echoed in your mind, you knew what he was talking about. He wanted you to tell Cas how you felt, even for Cas to know whether it came from you or if it slipped from someone in your family. Which was probably going to happen anyway.

“(y/n), Dean was right to push the other night. I promised you I would never say anything but he needs to know, you need to know…” he continued when your clear hesitation to respond was evident.

“I know,” you give wholesomely. You did know, it was way overdue for this to happen. “I promise Sam,” you agree, exhaling slowly.

“Alright. Were fixing to stop up here and get gas and some snacks. We’ll call when we make it to the motel tonight, okay?” Sam’s voice was cheery, but you knew he was faking it. This excruciating, inhumane feeling of being heartbroken did that to people though. It made them lie about their feelings, it made people wear a mask so others couldn’t see how badly they were hurting.

“Okay,” you spoke and a few seconds later the line died. Sam ended the call and he left you speechless as you sat on the side of the tub. Your water felt cold now. Whether it was the water or your loss of appeal, you stepped out of the tub and dried your feet; draining the bath before heading back into the room. Cas remained asleep in the bed, the blankets wrapped around him to keep him warm and cozy from the chilly air from the ac. You sat down at the table, putting your elbows on top and resting your head in your hands. What were you going to do? Would things between you and Sam change? You didn’t want them to…. Who knows, by the time you head back to the bunker you might lose your best friend and your crush for the last nine years might not feel the same for you…Then again, things with you and Sam might stay great and Cas might reciprocate your feelings… it would be one or the other, but which one would it actually be?

_________________________________________________

"You loved her,” Dean questioned, sending this little brother a raised brow. They just pulled into the gas station and he shut the engine off.

"I do, yeah,” Sam answered, looking straight ahead like he had been since he hung up the phone with you.

“Why don’t you fight for her?” Dean clenched his jaw, completely astounded by the love triangle that's been in front of him for years and he hadn’t even noticed.

"She’s never been mine to win over Dean. I honestly don’t see how you’ve never seen the way she is with him. He is everything to her and he doesn't even know yet.” Dean looked his brother over for a moment, curious about quite a few things.

"That's why you’ve never said anything about it to him all these years?"

"No. I’ve never said anything because she asked me not to. If anything, I want him to know the truth, I want her to be happy for once; truly happy. And if she can find that happiness with him, then that's all I need. She deserves it."

"What about you?” Dean quizzed protectively. He loved the idea of you and Cas getting together before; he still did, but he was watching out for Sam.

“I still have my brother and my family. Cas is basically our brother and you consider (y/n) your little sister,” Sam chuckled lightly. His mood was improving slowly, it was just going to take some time.

“What do you consider her?” Dean didn’t understand the last statement. Were things going to be different now?

“Nothing between me and her has changed Dean. She’s still my best friend and she always will be, I put those feelings behind me a long time ago. It's just the fact that they’re resurfacing because I’m trying to prove a point to her."

“Which is what exactly?”

“If you don’t go after what you want, eventually it will be too late.” Sam explained as he watched his brother before opening the car door. After he stood, he shut the door and walked into the store; leaving his older brother alone, lost in thought, as he continued to sit in the car.

_______________________________

You were still seated at the table when Cas began to stir from his sleep. Like you had done, he stretched and the covers fell from him. Pulling them back up around him, he turned his head to look for you but your spot was empty. The covers from your side were cool, proving that you hadn’t been lying there for a while. You watched him but you didn’t move, the chair you were sitting in was mostly hidden from his view. He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes; his hair was tousled every which way and you couldn’t help but think what it would be like to run your fingers through it. His dark locks, entangled in your grip as you held him to you. Shaking your head, you exited fantasy land and came back to reality. Cas stood up from the bed, his shirt crinkled up on one side of his hips, showing his perfectly sculpted hip bones. His brows furrowed as he searched for you, noticing the bathroom door was open and the lights were off but yet you weren’t in bed.

“Cas,” you called to him softly. His gaze moved towards the kitchen and his eyes searched until they met yours. He approached you slowly, you seemed to be lost in thought.

“Are you still upset with me?” his question pulls you away from your thoughts of Sam. At least for a second they did, you couldn’t help but hope things between you and the younger Winchester really would be okay.

"Cas, it's not you… I just… I talked to Dean and Sam…” you explain, scooting out the chair in front of you with your foot so he would take the hint to sit with you. He noticed your intentions and took his seat as he waited for you to continue.

“Can I ask you something?” your chin rested in your hand for a moment before you sat up and rested your hands in your lap. Cas nodded a reply so you continued.

"Yesterday in the car… you said something about me and Sam fighting and that we shouldn’t fight because we had feelings for each other,” you stated, giving him a few seconds so that you were both on the same page.

"You have feelings for him.” Cas remarked bluntly, thinking you might have lied yesterday and were here to tell him the truth today.

"No, no Cas, I don’t. I wasn’t lying about that. I do love Sam, but I love him in a brotherly way,” you described eagerly for him to understand that you didn’t have romantic feelings for the Winchester.

“Okay."

"But you also said that he had feelings for me?” you press. If Cas said that and now after what Sam said today, how did Cas know?

“I did,” he vouched, watching you curiously and wondering what you were getting at.

"How did you know?"

"I felt it when I healed him from his experiences in Hell. Lucifer… he used you as a pawn towards Sam. Not you, you, but... a hallucination of you… if you will,” he explained. Wait, did he mean...

"When you went crazy Cas on us and then fell into a coma?"

“Yes,” his brows drew together curiously, what were you getting at?

"Why did you never say anything,” the question is out before you could stop it. After saying it you felt silly.

"I thought you and Sam were together… you also never really talked to me back then; not very much,” he cleared. You couldn’t help but sigh. Hiding away in your room instead of just taking twenty seconds of insane courage to tell him how you felt, really cost you a lot of time with him.

"I’m sorry for that… I shouldn’t have been so distant with you….” you mumble out, placing your head back in your hands.

"Will you tell me why? Or do I have to wait until I figure it out?

"I think it's better if you wait. Not that I want you to find out but you need too and it'll probably wind up happening anyway,” you exhale, before laying your head down on the table; your arms circling around you so he couldn’t see you.

"Are you okay?” concern etched in his voice as he asked you.

"No… not really. I just found out how he’s felt and I can’t help but feel guilty. No one should ever have to feel this way,” you sigh, mumbling since you refused to lift your head up and speak to him properly.

"By that you mean?"

"To have to live every single day with a broken heart,” you raised your head, eyes instantly meeting his. He watched you carefully, concern still clear across his features.

“Do you still have feelings for Erin?” His question was thrown out rather quickly.

“No, but I do love someone and I can’t seem to do anything about it,” you explain, looking him straight in the eye. Why couldn’t he just catch on already? Then again, why couldn’t you just come out and tell the poor guy?

"How come?” he cocked his head, tilting his head in that adorable way of his. Your heart fluttered, sending butterflies to swarm your stomach.

"I don't know… I just…can we talk about this some other time? I’m kinda hungry..., do you want to come downstairs with me and we can get some breakfast?” you insist, ready to push the Sam thing from your mind; you had a big day ahead of you. You and Sam were going to be fine, when you got back you were going to make sure of it.

“Okay,” he agreed. Not even five seconds later, his stomach growled and you couldn’t help but let out a girly giggle. He turned his head slightly, slowly losing the confusions from earlier as a smile grew on his lips.

“Why are you laughing?” his teeth were now shining through his lips as he watched you.

“I don’t know,” you finally calmed, smile still evident, “The last few days have just been really crazy and stressful…and then today I woke up really happy for some reason. Not just okay, but legitimately happy, inside and out. When I called the boys to see where they were and if they had made it, that’s how we got on the subject of feelings. But me and Sam…, we'll be okay... and after the last few days I’ve had, I really just want to be happy while it lasts, you know? I don’t want this to dampen my mood, and things with us… what happened last night, I’m sorry. But I’m not just sorry for last night, I’m sorry for the last nine years. I shouldn’t have shut you out like that... but I want things to be different while we’re here,” you answered.

“I would like that,” his smile was just so pure.

“Okay. Then let's go get something to eat,” you smiled, teeth gleaming through. You stood and walked towards the door, sliding your pair of flip flops on as you walked by.

“(Y/n), shouldn’t we change first?” he questioned, making you turn around. He had stood from his chair, but he stood curious with his hand on his bag.

“Its customary for hotel guests to wear their pjs while getting breakfast. At least, it was when I was a kid,” you answer, smiling at him again as you grabbed the room key. He nodded, agreeing with you before following you out towards the elevator. When you both made it to the lobby, you noticed there were quite a few families already eating; some were still in line. You and Cas waited patiently in line, not saying anything but people watching and checking out what was being served.

“What are you getting?” Cas whispered down to you as he searched the breakfast buffet.

“I think I’m going to check out those muffins,” you explained, turning to him, “what about you?” Watching him closely, you knew he wasn't sure. His typical curious Cas stare was plastered on his face.

“There’s cereal, toast, waffles, doughnuts, biscuits, eggs, bacon, bagels, and muffins,” you point out each item as you list them, glancing back to him occasionally. He still seemed unsure about what exactly he wanted for breakfast.

“You’re only going to get muffins?” he questioned, brows furrowing as he looked down to you.

“What’s wrong with muffins? Why you hating Cas?” you tease playfully and his deep blush doesn’t go by unnoticed.

“I-I wasn't… I just…,” he stammered. You chuckled a little bit and he stopped to examine you. “You’re messing with me,” he figured, his smile returning.

“I am,” you quirk. The line seemed to be moving fast and you and Cas were not far from the plates. “Have you decided?” Cas shook his head no, moving his gaze back up to the booth.

“I don’t want to pressure you too much, but you’ll have to decide on a drink too. They serve apple juice, orange juice, milk, water and coffee” you explain, motioning over to the drink counter. He nodded as his eyes followed over to it. As the line moved forward, you grabbed a plate and handed it back to Cas before grabbing your own. You went straight for the muffins, deciding on a blueberry, banana-nut, and a strawberry creme; they were big but you couldn’t decide which one you wanted. Making your way over to the drinks, you filled your cup with apple juice before finding a table; you weren’t paying attention, but Cas hadn’t left your side as he followed behind you. When you took your seat, Cas sat across from you; his plate mirroring yours.

“For a muffin hater, you seem to like them quite a bit,” you smirked and he grinned.

“I didn’t say I hated them,” he gave, peeling off the wrappings just as you were doing. You laughed and shook your head before taking a bite from the blueberry. Grabbing your napkin to wipe your face, you noticed Cas looking back to the booth.

“What are you looking for?”

“Do they do this every morning?” he questioned skeptically.

“Yeah, its another upgrade for us huh,” you agreed. Turning back, he watched you for a moment before picking up one of his own muffins. As the two of you ate, you didn’t say much until you were almost finished; Castiel’s gaze seemed to be burning a hole through you for the last couple of minutes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you press curiously, a blush surfacing upon your cheeks. His eyes fell from you as he began examining his muffin.

“What are our plans for today?” he quizzed, completely ignoring your question altogether. You finished chewing your bite and placed the rest of the unwanted muffin back on your plate.

“After we get dressed, I figured we could go back over to my parents. It's been awhile since I’ve seen them and after we leave, I don’t know for sure when I’ll see them again,” you clarified, wiping your hands off on another napkin. He nodded, swallowing his last bite as well. Once you finished your drinks, the two of you made it back up to the room. You dressed and Cas took another shower; he enjoyed being in water. You couldn’t wait to take him to the pool, he’d love it.

On the way over to your parents, music resonated through the speakers of your car. Cas watched happily out his window and you could only hope that the rest of the day, would be a good day for the both of you.

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