#'ignore the screaming that's normal for policy discussions'

[crossdressingdeath]

On the subject of Nathaniel, I think everyone needs to know that he and Aster absolutely have a friends-with-benefits situation going on. More specifically the sort of friends-with-benefits situation where they discuss Warden policy as pillow talk. Sometimes foreplay. Occasionally during sex, which has definitely given them both some weird boners during normal meetings. "Discussing policy" is a euphemism for sex among the Amaranthine Wardens specifically because of these two. Aster insists that creating a euphemism is his greatest achievement and no one can tell if he's joking.

[littlelonelyjournalist]

The Grave of the Damned - Prologue...kinda

SUMMARY: A damned soul trapped in limbo develops a connection to a young man beyond the living, and she’s not ready to let go of that.

AUTHORS NOTE: In late celebration of halloween, I wrote this story plot because I want to use the ghost/witch lore from the Originals and put it into Teen wolf, but I’m really not good at writing (Writing convincing dialogue without making it cringy but doesn’t sound like a robot is difficult guys) so please enjoy it and mind the terrible writing!!

Time ran slow. It dripped amongst reality like honey, and the young girl’s knees felt like giving up under her. She had been running around the crowd of cement mausoleums for what seemed like decades, or years, or hours. It was confusing. Constantly running through the aisles, which seemed to drown in silver fog in the forever moonlight. Everything around her felt hazy, like a dream. A weird, fucked-up, nightmare-inducing dream. She didn't know why she was running, and for some strange reason she didn't want to find out. It was a maze of graves, she thought. It was all she could think about. A never-ending movement of shadows and deafening whispers. Deafening, but alone.  

  

But she wasn't alone. Occasionally, she would pass still figures, standing silent. Ghosts of the past. She would call out but they would ignore her in the open wind. Their eyes would never meet hers. They all would look so different, but somehow all of them wore the same detached expression, forever lost in the grey fog. Whispers, however, followed her every step, constantly screaming in her ears. Unlike the people dressed in coal black clothing around her, she found herself wearing her white lace summer dress swaying gently in the soft breeze. It lifted just below her knees and the neck line would reach right below her collarbone. It was short sleeved, so from time to time she would often rub her forearms in hope of warmth.
 

She ran along the cement walls until she came to a crossroads, catching her breath in the cold air. Her eyes darted left to right, until she came across an sight that stopped her dead in her tracks. About twenty meters in front of her, as if shining through the fog, was a young man with his back turned to her strutting confidently in the other direction. Her breath hitched in her throat. He wasn’t like the others. For one; he was talking, which she had never seen in this realm before except herself. Two; instead of the cold charcoal clothes that were worn from the strangers around her, he wore a red flannel shirt with a black backpack strapped over his back. And three; his figure didn’t match her surroundings. To her, it had been always nighttime, but it seemed like orange and gold sun rays had shone over his body. It was a strange sight, indeed, but something in her jumped. She took a breath, and stepped in his direction. Then another foot. Then another. Of course, she wanted to be cautious as something deep in the pit of her stomach told her that something eerie indeed lurked in the shadows, but that didn’t matter anymore. 

 

“Hello?” She yelled quietly, hoping that he was the only one who could hear her. “Can you hear me?” He didn’t respond. As she started to get closer, she could hear him talking and laughing at himself. She could now see that he had jet black hair that was cut neatly on top of her head, and had olive brown skin on the back of his neck. At times, he stayed silent for a couple of seconds while his eyes often darted to the left of him, as if waiting for the air to response back. 
 

“So you’re telling me that, for some unknown supernatural reason, you found it? Just, by accident? In the forest?” The boy asked. A couple seconds of awkward silence went by until he spoke again. “You see Scott? That, my friend, is what is going to make us legends!”
 

Scott? The pattern kept going back and forth as she awkwardly stared. “Hello?” She found herself walking just a meter behind him, in order to keep up with him. Without thinking, she reached her hand out and touched the strap of his shoulder. Instantly, the air was sucked out of her lungs and she gasped, feeling a wave pass through her so violently she was nearly knocked to the ground. The dark blue light of the moon was replaced by a bright atmospheric light, and the large stone mausoleums changed into parallel grey plaster walls beside her with emerald green lockers lined up neatly. The noise changed too, as the eerie whisper in her ear automatically switched to voices and laughter of what seemed to look like students holding books passing by quickly. Was she in a school, she wondered. Where even was she?  
 

“Excuse me,” A gravelly voice said. She whipped around to see an old man with dark eyes wearing a violet vest glaring directly into her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” She froze, terrified. His eyes were almost as black as coal, and wrinkly pale skin seemed to be slapped onto his face. She had absolutely no idea what to do. She had been so used to silence that she unconsciously held her breath. Okay, this has to be a dream. As if the universe heard her statement, a body of a young blonde and a cherry pink scarf had gone through her chest from behind. A rush of cold air ran through her spine, causing her to yelp in shock. The man’s gaze had moved from her face to the blondes face as he walked beside her down the corridor, yelling “Yeah, and don’t make me find you out here again. You understand?” The voices in the hallway died down, until only a distant murmur could only be heard. 

 

She looked back to where the boy was walking, to have realised that he had disappeared. Shoot. Cautiously, she took one foot in front of her and walked down to the other side of the hallway. Multiple dark red doors seemed to have been placed on either side of her, with lockers closing the gap between them. It was mostly empty now, as all the students seemed to rush off. However, she stopped in front of a large glass cabinet containing golden trophies and wooden plaques, that read, “Beacon Hills High School: Lacrosse Championship award.” 

 

“Beacon Hills...” She whispered. Nothing clicked in her mind anymore. It was just one vague canvas now, with more questions popping up than answers. She kept walking and froze again at a door with a small window. She peeked in to see a room filled with students behind desks, and there sitting near the back was the lanky boy, writing down what seemed to be notes in his book. She exhaled. slightly fogging up the glass. Ghost physics were honestly weird; you would think that ghosts could just pass through walls as if it were nothing, but it was definitely not true. She went to grab the door handle, but it didn’t budge. Great. Just great. Perfect, even. Because people couldn’t see her, she thought it wasn’t the best idea to knock on the door, but she needed to get to him. 

 

A couple of hours passed, until the loud bell rang through the halls again. Rustles of students and conversations rippled through the hair tirelessly. She had to basically cling onto the lockers like a spider to avoid the bodies of students, but she couldn’t see the boy from earlier, until she found a clearance and spotted him still sitting alone at his desk, scribbling down on the page in front of him. It was only for a couple of seconds, when he stopped suddenly and glanced up in front of him, feeling a strange tingling on the back of his neck. Quickly, she ducked again behind the door before he could see her, practically holding her breath for only a couple of seconds. Stiles furrowed his brows at the notes in front of him in confusion, before shaking off the goosebumps that began to form on his neck and packing his notebooks into his bag. She carefully watched him get out of his chair and leave the classroom, descending into the crowd of students. Oh, she wasn't done with him yet. 

 

Stiles continued to head down to the field. Stands and grey bleachers entrapped the massive oval of green grass, where he could see (and hear) coach hustling and shouting at the other teams members, gripping their lacrosse equipment. He didn’t even know why he would come to practice, as most games he would end up on the bench (which was normally called the “Last Resort Policy” by the coach.” Meaning, he would only be on the field if either someone was seriously injured or didn’t have enough teammates. But hey, it would look good on his resume and college application so it wasn’t all for nothing. He could see Greenberg getting grilled down by their coach, which wasn’t unusual if he was being honest. He finally found Scott and Liam talking on the other side of the field, taking a break while watching the rest of the team on their throwing skills for lacrosse, and ran up to them.

“What are ‘ya guys talking about?” He asked.

“Just discussing some of the new plans for Mason’s party. Lydia’s been on it since August.”

“Wait, really? I thought she was joking about that.”

“Yeah, turns out not really. I guess she has a thing for surprise parties. She even showed me her binder that has all the details in it.” Liam chuckled softly, twirling the lacrosse stick in one hand. Stiles smiled until something was caught in his peripheral vision. Far out on the bleachers stood a girl with what Stiles could make out as long brown hair and a white summer dress. He couldn’t see the details properly as she was far away, but he could feel her empty gaze looking upon the group as well as the cold feeling on his neck prickled his skin once again like in the classroom.

 

"Hey, is that a friend of yours?" Stiles asked. Scott and Liam both faced Stiles and turned their heads to the bleachers where Stiles was pointing at. 

 

"What do you mean?" Said Scott, staring at Stiles in confusion.

 

"I mean, the girl who is directly in front of us on the bleachers, currently staring at us. She right over-" Stiles turned to look back at the white stands, but couldn't see anyone sitting on the stands. It was entirely empty, in fact the whole bleachers were empty. "What-" 

 

"I don't see any girl, man." Liam squinted his eyes to try and focus on the bleachers, but he truly couldn't see anything. Maybe he was seeing things, Stiles thought. It wouldn’t be the first time. Throughout the past years, the line between what was myth and what was real blurred as he dove head first into the supernatural world. Stiles rubbed his eyes and look back up to the bleachers, but the figure disappeared from sight, nowhere to be found.

"Hey, Stiles?" Scott whispered, the normal fierceness in his eyes that he was pretty used to looking at had softened with worry. "Okay, you feeling alright? You haven't been losing sleep again, have you?” At that question, Stiles whipped his head to face Scott.

 

"What? No no I'm fine. That’s all over.” He lied, as the group walked to the rest of the team. They both could hear Coach hollering and yelling at them, but something felt off. More off then usual. He could still feel the cold presence sitting impatiently on his neck, and the pressure in his chest tightened so much that he thought it might burst open. But whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let it phase him. He remembered the feeling of losing control and how worried he made everyone when he was possessed by the Nogitsune, so he shook his head and grinned sheepishly at Scott and Liam as they marched through the rest of the afternoon.

Unbeknownst to them, this new little encounter would shape how they live out the rest of their days.

[ma-gic-gay]

"What the fuck?" Michael asks, voice at a dangerous level. He startles them and they pull apart. "You two promised me you're not in a relationship, so what do you call this?"

They've been caught.

Shit.

"Kissing," Carly answers quickly, half lying and half telling the truth. "We're not dating."

"Then please explain to me what this is, Mom," he asks. "You too, Jason."

"Explain what?" Joss asks, walking into the room.

"They kissed."

"Avery owes me 5 bucks now," the blonde smiles. "I can buy a coffee with that money."

"Great, a free coffee. Are you at all having an emotional reaction to Mom and Jason kissing?" Michael asks his sister, who's ignoring him.

"Not my business who Mom and Jason kiss," she responds calmly.

When did she get so grown up? She had her "child of the corn" years a few years ago, but now she's an adult and not freaking out over this? His goddaughter's all grown up. One hell of a way to make you feel old.

"I can't believe you're so calm about this, Joss! They lied to us!"

"Did they? They said they weren't dating. First off, that's a present tense which could've changed, and they didn't say anything about kissing in hospitals," she says, confused.

"Here's that first aid kit for Jason, Carly," Elizabeth says, entering the tense room and handing it to the traumatized woman in the hospital bed. "Do you two need something?"

"My mother to figure out what the hell she feels for Jason Morgan," Michael answers bitterly.

"I'm not going to ask."

"They kissed! And they did it yesterday!" Michael exclaims, emotions getting the best of him before he can remember his tact.

Everyone's shocked he screamed that, Elizabeth especially. "Well. Um, I'm gonna head out. You guys enjoy... Whatever this is."

That's one way for it to come out.

"It's out in the open now," Carly chuckles, opening up the first aid kit and pulling out the bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and Neosporin.

"Mom, what are you doing with his hand?"

"He punched a wall so I'm cleaning up the cuts."

"Why'd you do that?"

"People were gossipping about your mother and what happened to her tonight. It pissed me off and I ended up punching a wall."

"By the looks of it you broke the wall."

"Nah, just a few scratches," Jason tells him before the stinging sensation of the hydrogen peroxide is on his hand. Not exactly a pleasant one.

"Well, are you okay?"

"Besides the fact your mother is stinging me with this stuff, I'm fine."

"Good. What happened to you tonight, Mom?" Michael asks gingerly.

Suddenly, the tension in the air amplifies by 50 if that's even possible. There's a good minute and a half where it's just an awkward silence before Carly answers him, filling the time with applying bandaids to his wounds, "Cyrus took me from the Metro Court. Well, one of his goons. But the goon took me to the Floating Rib, that little room above the bar. Somehow he knew the importance of that place to me and I was kidnapped. He raped me. I also got pretty beat up when I was resisting. Just when I was sure I'd never leave that room, Jason came in and saved me. Cyrus is in police custody right now and there's no way in hell he's getting off."

"He always saves all of us," Joss smiles at him. "Thanks."

"Anytime. I'll always save you guys, you know that," Jason returns her smile and sees one appear on Michael's face as well, though he's half ready to kill someone. It always happens when someone brings up rape, Michael gets distant and mad. Probably because of his own experience with it.

It's a good thing Cyrus is in police custody because if he wasn't, Jason has a feeling that he'd end up helping them cover up a murder.

"Mom, I'm so sorry you had to go through it. Cyrus is a sick bastard. You know that I'll be able to pull some strings and all of the Quartermaine's will testify in your behalf if you need to go to trial," Michael offers.

"Thanks, but I'm hoping he'll plead guilty and I won't have to sit through a trial."

"Well, if you do, you've got the best lawyer in the state on your side and all of us," Joss says, "besides, there's a bunch of evidence he did it. And everyone knows Jason's practically incapable of lying, so he'll be a great witness!"

"You, on the other hand, are a good liar, Joss," Michael counters.

"The law doesn't know that, Michael."

"I better never get a call I have to bail you out of jail."

"I'll call Cam or Trina. You'll be last on the list of people I'd call to bail me out, trust me," she playfully reassures her brother.

"Is that an insult or a compliment?"

"You pick."

"I'm sorry, but Mrs. Corinthos cannot have visitors anymore," Epiphany tells them, interrupting the group gathering.

Sadly, her kids say goodbye to her, promising to visit in the morning. Jason, however, doesn't leave his chair. "Mr. Morgan, did you hear me? No more visitors. Visiting hours are over."

"I'm family."

"So are her children. They don't get to stay the night, neither do you."

"I need him to stay. When I sleep, I keep having nightmares- screaming, terrifying nightmares, and he's the only one who can get me back to sleep. Come on, Epiphany, you know we always spend the night in each other's hospital rooms," Carly attempts to bargain with the nurse.

"And if this were normal circumstances, I would allow it."

"What about this isn't normal circumstances?" Jason asks.

"Well, first off, Michael told Elizabeth about your... Activity. And second, this is a police investigation too. Hospital policy says that he can't stay the night."

"Oh my god," Carly scoffs, "because my son discussed something with us that Lizzie overheard and then spread to the whole town by now, he can't spend the night? Epiphany, I've given myself panic attacks with these nightmares already and he's been here! He's the only person who can calm me down and I know how important rest is for recovery. Besides, it's not like we have no self control. I would never have sex in a hospital."

Epiphany cocks an eyebrow at Jason, who innocently raises his hands. "You know me better than that."

Carly starts laughing at him being stared down by Epiphany, who he simply stated blankly at back. It's a contest of who's going to back down first, and they all know he'll win. His stubbornness is one personality trait that always comes out in hospitals.

"Fine. But I swear, if you two go at it, there will be hell to pay," Epiphany threatens before leaving, letting Jason stay in there. A win. "And she cannot stay up all night making out with you, she needs her rest. So do you, you look like hell."

"Yes ma'am," they answer and she shakes her head before closing the door.

"I feel like I'm in high school again," Carly jokes.

"No clue what that's like."

"Hell, if you're me. You, though, I bet you were that one kid all the teachers loved and the students too. A golden boy. I'm convinced you would've hated me in high school."

"Well, I wouldn't have remembered it anyways," he reminds her.

"Nah, I'm unforgettable," she says, a smirk playing on her lips. "Even with an amnesia causing coma."

"That's not how it-" he gets cut off by her kissing him again.

This is becoming more and more normal and that scares him. He's comfortable in his reality and, as usual, she's ready to bring Hurricane Carly into his life and break his equilibrium.

Well, that and the thought she could make another of those lists. The list scares him more than breaking this state of equilibrium.

"We promised Epiphany we wouldn't do this," he reminds her when they break apart.

"No, we promised her I'd rest and that we wouldn't stay up all night kissing or have sex," Carly corrects.

"Yes, you need your rest, Carly. Please, try to sleep," he urges.

"I'm offended!"

"Carly-"

"You have a guy telling you you're wrong and shut him up and now you've got to sleep. God how times have changed."

"No, it's not that. You, however, need your sleep. Besides, if you have a nightmare, I promise you can kiss me again," he finds himself saying.

Well. That part was unexpected. He really needs a reevaluation of feelings for her.

"Well, if his Royal Highness-"

"I'll kiss you if you have a nightmare, alright?" Jason revises his statement and she smiles.

"Deal."

"Good, you need to rest."

"So do you."

"Just worry about yourself, I'm fine."

"Mhm," she haphazardly agrees, allowing herself to fall back into a slumber while he shifts in the chair he's mastered the ability of sleeping in over the years.

To be continued later in life when it's not 1:30 am est

go to sleep :)

[girlwiththelightson-god]

so the jail support mutual aid group that i’m a part of has been being antagonized by this cab driver who parks across from where we work. hes not a liscenced cabbie really - my understanding of his “origin story” is that he was a yellow cab guy who has hung out outside the jail for decades occaisionally picking up fares when people are released with money or have family members with cash at the destination. hes been there for so long in many ways its largely social - he has his other cabbie buddy, he rubs elbows with the COs - but he feels very much like its his space. at some point the jail told the yellow cab companies to buzz off, so he just stopped working with a cab company and still sits outside the jail waiting for rides.

since the beginning things were tense - hes a gregarious old school type of dude who can be pretty moody and unhinged. but i always felt deferential to him in a way - he can be a huge help, he can be a funny guy, and it doesnt feel right to gentrify out a cabbie just because we give out free rides. that being said most of the rides we give he wouldnt take anyway - people who cant afford a ride home, who dont have a conventional home to go back to, people who need to collect their seized property from the county -- and on top of that he really just chills in his car most of the time. but for a long time we were like, OK, when we’re at capacity we send some rides his way. No problemo.

Problemo. the things he says start to alienate people. he definitely does not know the agreedupon vernancular when discussing LGBTQ issues. this begins to make people feel unsafe, and he also becomes more moody as the weather gets colder. 

a chicago summer renders the city into a carceral boomtown - kids minding their own business get picked up on bullshit drug charges that get thrown out the next day, legal gun owners get caught in the midst of constantly changing regulations that mean that the way you store your legal firearm today can get you thrown in the pen tomorrow (of course, only if you’re black), everyones out enjoying the weather so if you have a warrant and some cop with a chip on their shoulder sees you, you’re screwed. that being said - in winter, things slow way down. i have no doubt that the economic impact of this seasonal change influences the broader drama of this situation from henceforth.

Back to the problem - soon it feels like him screaming at us that we’re taking his fares, or don’t know what we’re doing, or are giving other cab drivers too many fares, is an every night occurence. People start feeling unsafe - you hear this guy say a couple slurs... and hes loud and angry......but to me i was like. Well you’re white. This is an elderly black man who is pretty much living hand to mouth. I wanted to be in a position where we could provide hims ome material financial support via pay for rides (that, due to our understaffing, we still needed help with) and everything seemed chill. We were sort of telling offended people to check their own privilege and assumptions. Because I don’t have a lot of energy and time for people who criminalize and pathologize black masculinity. 

Regardless our policies and attempts to play ball don’t matter - whatever we do still isnt good enough. Its clear that he views us giving any sort of rides to people as a threat to his livelihood despite, as i’ve said, us only really giving rides that he wouldn’t take anyway, and being as deferential as we can to give rides that seem like a good fit for him - to him -- which also is eating at our financials. And the contingent of people feeling hurt, threatened, burnt out by dealing with him grows.it becomes clear that ignoring this group of people is coming off as callous and silencing voices. there are people whos departure from the organization is clearly linked to this guy bothering us -- and his hassling is getting worse. He starts talking about burning down our tent, slashing our tires, etc.

Maybe coming from a more working class or hick town, being a str8 white boy, i never felt the fear in my dealings with him, just a lot of frustration. But i became one of the few people who can really get in the car with him and talk out how he feels, doing my best to act as a go between from the group to him. I take a lot of verbal abuse and shit talk throughout this but always call him on this. To me the key failure of the young american left is an unability to engage materially with real working class people who do not speak in such flowery language and have not been as understanding of the large-scale social developments that have been undertaken since the obama presidency especially around “microaggressions” and the defied canonization of identity politics from an aspect of Marxism to the underlying dogma of most centrist-to-center left projects. Le sigh! So I tried to fit in where I was effective and act as a filter - sifting out this guys bullshit and calming him down so we can have a good normal talk. Honestly? This begins to wear on me. Im a conforntantion averse person, ask anyone...

We have a referendum on everything and its clear that no one except me and my gf are even open to the idea of still working with this guy. So we (me, some other volunteers) decide to have a sit down chat with him this week. 

Well on Sunday i guess he was walking over to us hollering and talking major shit - normally we can handle this, but this time we actually had people who had been released from jail waiting for a ride as he was coming to talk shit. The people waiting couldn’t bear to hear the way he was yelling at his and start to intervene. He flips out and goes to his car, a beat up classic coupe, and produces some sort of steel pole weapon. He starts pounding on the light post by our tent with it and rushes our tent threatening to kick it down. The situation is deescalated, but holy shit.

So now we’re having a sit down chat with him tonight to figure how what  moving forward looks like. I dont think we’re ever going to work with him again, but he’s also cearly not going anywhere - he’s been at that area for a long time and again, considers himself the don of it - so I simply don’t know what will happen. I’m sick to my stomach thinking about this, how fucked up and weird and sad it all is to have to deal with, when this mutual aid project is otherwise such a beautiful and harmonious thing.

[ballerinaroy]

raised for a purpose

“He cuts himself off because they don’t understand. They don’t get it. For Harry, it doesn’t end with Voldemort. If he was born the power to defeat the dark lord then he has the power to defeat them all."

Looking back, it wasn’t as simple as a butterfly flapping its wings, or maybe it was. One decision after another has lead Harry Potter down a very different path from his friends. Now, twenty-six and under investigation from the ministry, Harry is forced to take a step back and re-evaluate how he went from the boy who lived to the man who went too far.

Read on Ao3

One.

The goblins take his money.

Harry’s never indulged in the fortune his parents left him, but he supposed he’d always taken comfort in the fact that money was not a concern of his. He’d never had to think about money, or providing for himself, so when he received a notice that they were charging him for the damages incurred in May, he realized he’d have to get a job.

But only after a good deal of shouting.

“We were in the middle of a war!”

“Goblins do not take part in trivial human matters,” the goblin said. “You broke into our building and caused a significant amount of damage-“

“Take it out of the Lestrange Vault!”

“They were the victims.”

“Victims?” he asked. “You’re defending two people responsible for crimes so terrible the Prophet won’t even print them all.”

“Again, Mr. Potter. Goblins do not take part in trivial human matters.” The Goblin looked bored. “Our only concern is ensuring that the gold and valuables of our clients are secure. You broke into a vault, stole and damaged our building. Thus, you must pay for the damages. If you would like to pay for those damages in a different form then we will gladly give you access to your vault, otherwise consider your account with Gringotts closed.”

Two.

Hermione decides to go back to school. Ron decides to join her.

“What do you mean you want to go back to school?” Harry asked as they casually discussed this over tea as if the news wasn’t life-altering.

“We’ve been talking about this for weeks, mate,” Ron answered, looking just as surprised as Harry felt.

“But we’ve been offered jobs as Aurors!” Harry pointed out.

“No, Kingsley asked if we’d be willing to help rebuild the department,” Ron replied. Harry stared at him. “There is no Aurors, the head was killed as soon as Thickneese took over and everyone with any sense fled. After everything we’ve been through this past year, do you really want to keep taking on Death Eaters with no help?”

“If not us, then who?” Harry asked.

“Literally, anyone else,” Ron said impatiently. “Look, if it were an actual job with someone there to help us then sure, but until there’s anyone with sense running the department then I don’t fancy going on goose chases for who knows how long.”

“Don’t you want something normal, Harry?” Hermione pleaded. “Haven’t you given enough?”

“No,” he said, staring at his best friends and wondering how they could even consider it being over. “How can you just go to school like there isn’t evil out there?”

They shared a worried look.

“There’s always going to be evil,” Ron replied. “But I think we’ll be much better fighting it if we take a year for ourselves and get qualified.”

Three.

Ron’s right. There is no Auror department.

It’s with bitterness that Harry admits to himself that Ron might have had a point. He shows up to a room full of people all staring at each other with distrust. The appointed department head instructs them to patrol Diagon Alley, attend Wizengamont sessions, monitor Azkaban. Mundane tasks that dark wizard catchers had no business doing.

When Harry spends more time being shown off to international wizards than he does battling evil and at Christmas, he finds himself jealous of Ron and Hermione’s stories about quidditch and classes and papers.

“You could come,” Hermione offered, “I’d help you catch up.”

“I already have a job to do.” He said bitterly and doesn’t see them off.

Four.

Harry goes rogue.

According to his orders, he’s to get information only. Not leave his post. They are to observe, build cases, not intervene unless they have sufficient manpower. But when Dolohov has the nerve to show his face in the middle of the day Harry can’t find it in himself to care that he’d not supposed to act. Particularly not when Dolohov gives him an evil smile and orders a pint like he’d never tortured anyone like he had as much a right to be in the pub as Harry.

So he stuns him, binds him and leaves behind a broken table and a screaming crowd.

The press have a field day.

“The Boy-Who-Lives does it again!”

“Evil Truphped by the Chosen One”

It feels good to be recognized for having done something beyond stand behind Kingsley at a press conference. And his boss can’t really argue because now, there’s one less Death Eater on the streets and he seems perfectly happy taking the credit for the work that Harry did.

When Harry seeing Dawlish accepting payment from Goyle in an alley he captures him too. He stops showing up for his assigned shifts and starts tracking down whoever he can find.

Five.

Ron and Hermione graduate. They get engaged. They get married.

They beg him over for dinner or out for drinks and he makes it when he can, but there’s so much work to do and not enough people doing it. He resents Hermione for taking a job with Magical Law because she is fierce and competitive and he could use her by his side but he resents Ron more for taking a job with the Aurors and following every rule he’s given.

“Not all of us are you, Harry,” Ron says, refusing to leave his patrol in Hogsmeade to help him track down who’s been trafficking entrumptment horn and selling it off in dangerous quantities. “If I were to do the things that you were I’d be fired.”

So Harry stops asking Ron to join him. Stops accepting invitations to dinner to avoid the gentle suggestions that he should take a day off, rest. Stops joining the Weasleys on Sundays. Starts pretending he’s not home with Hermione comes calling. Stops going into the office on the days he knows Ron is there.

He cuts himself off because they don’t understand. They don’t get it. For Harry, it doesn’t end with Voldemort. If he was born the power to defeat the dark lord then he has the power to defeat them all.

Six.

The ministry is perfectly happy to let a teenager sort out their problems until they aren’t.

Aside from some feeble attempts to reign him in during that first year, Harry has largely been left to his own devices. He’s lasted through department policy changes, three department heads, and countless initiatives to reduce dark wizards and address the inequities that plagued their society. Though it all, Harry had continued hunting down dark wizards with no repercussions to his actions.

It’s only when he’s injured on the job, stuck in a hospital bed to regrow all of the bones in his right leg that he gets the notice. Under investigation.

“For improper apprehension methods?” Harry raged at the letter that had been hand-delivered by the head of the department, flanked by two of his own bodyguards. “Since when has petrifying someone been improper?”

“Six months,” Ron frowned at him.

“They passed a law about it and everything,” Hermione told him. “They did a study and found that being petrified for more than an hour had the potential for long term effects, not to mention the psychological trauma. I sent you the article, didn’t you read it?”

Ron and Hermione had shown up before he’d even woken and though it’d been weeks since he’d last spoken with them, showed no sign of leaving.

“Didn’t have the time,” Harry said truthfully enough. In fact, he hadn’t opened any of their mail in a long time. It sat, piled on his dresser at home. It was too painful, remembering what they had once shared and he was no longer a part of.

“Well,” Hermione continued, “You’ll have plenty of time to read now, the healer said that you needed to take it easy.”

“I need to go back to work,” Harry countered.

“You’re suspended, Harry,” Ron told him in a surprisingly firm voice. “You need to recover.”

Seven.

Anger pt. I

They refuse to rise to his foul mood, act as if everything is the same between them when nothing is. It boils over when, even after a week, he’s unable to get dressed without Ron’s help.

“You haven’t been through what I’ve been through.” He spat at them angrily. “You don’t understand how it feels to be responsible for this!”

He’s been yelling for a while and they’ve been taking it which only makes him angrier.

“No,” Hermione agreed, a hitch in her voice. “We don’t.”

She hesitated and Harry spit, “But?”

They glanced at one another and then, in a hesitant voice.

“But we stopped,” Ron answered, “Because it was too painful. We gave ourselves time to recover, to sort out what had happened to us.”

“Things were bad,” Hermione whispered, “At school.”

They share another significant look and in a pained voice she went on. “We were irritable and hostile. I wouldn’t sleep for days because so long as I was working I could ignore everything that had happened.”

“We fought with each other, with others,” Ron told him. “I’d get up and leave class, hex people for talking bad about you. Had it been any other year, we would have been expelled for sure.”

“And of course there were flashbacks and nightmares but it was nothing compared to the intrusive thoughts,” she drew a shuddering breath, “Sometimes it felt like there was still a Horcux around our necks whispering terrible things. Sometimes I wish there was to explain away the lack of control. The guilt of surviving, the anxiety in thinking of all the ways we shouldn’t’ve been able to.”

“It took us a while, to even see that there was something wrong,” Ron said, reaching over to grab Hermione’s hand. “And when we did it didn’t give us any answers on how to make it better.”

“We spent a lot of time talking,” Hermione provided. “Talking it all to death, to the point that I wasn’t even interested in talking about it anymore.”

“And we set boundaries, on what we could handle from one another and from the world,” Ron said. “I gave up Quidditch because I’d get so angry during the games. Every missed goal felt like life or death and afterwords I’d berate the team win or lose.”

“And I set a routine so I ate every day and wouldn’t just hole myself up in the library and got to bed at a decent time.” Hermione’s voice was kind. “We didn’t graduate cured, but I felt like I had a handle on myself. I wasn’t terrified to be left alone.”

“We wanted to help you, mate, we’ve always wanted to help you, but you went barreling down this path and refused to even consider taking a second for yourself,” Ron said. “I couldn’t do that with you then, and I can’t do that with you now.”

Hermione reached over and grasped his arm. “You have to let us help you, Harry. And if it’s not us, you have to figure out something that will because if you keep going like you are-“ she broke off as if the thought was too terrible.

“Come home with us,” Ron said firmly, “Don’t go running off chasing the next horrible thing because it’ll still be there once you’ve had a chance to recover.”

Eight.

He sees a therapist.

Has too, if he wants any chance at his job back. His first appointment she smiles too much and seems a little starstruck and Harry found it hard to believe that she wouldn’t sell his secrets for the right price. Not to mention her questions. About his family, about his past, his friendships and it all feels a little too much like an interview with Rita gone wrong but then...

“Why does it have to be you hunting all these Death Eaters down?”

“But I was the one named and until I capture them all-”

“Named?”

“Until I killed him he was going to keep coming after me. I was the one prophesied to kill him, there was nothing anyone else could do.”

She looked at him patiently and Harry felt his anger spike.

“Voldemort tried to murder me when I was barely old enough to stand. He followed me to school at eleven, when I was twelve his Horcrux tried to murder me, fourteen, fifteen, I was the only one who could end it.”

“And what about now? Voldemort isn’t what’s coming after you.”

“No, but his followers are still at large and as long as they are my friends are in danger, the wizarding world is in danger.”

“Do you feel that there’s anyone else who is able-?”

“No one else was doing anything! Before I arrested Dolohov they were just sitting on their asses, twiddling their thumbs, not caring that the people who hunted down and cursed my friends were allowed to walk the streets.”

“Do you still feel that way? Like there’s no one else doing anything?”

“Well, no, but-”

“But what?”

“But the ministry always waited too long to act. Sure, right now things are functioning but what happens when another Dark Lord comes? What happens when a politician becomes corrupt? It’s really hard to believe that things will continue to get better because in my experience things only ever get better for a while.”

Nine.

The five stages of grief.

Anger (pt.II)

“Those wankers don’t know what they’re doing. Half the cells in Azkaban are filled because of me. The ministry won’t be able to do a thing without me.”

Denial.

“Any day now, the charges’ll be dropped. I’m Harry Potter, I killed Voldemort. The ministry can’t run without me.”

Bargaining.

“If they could just give me another year, I could round up who’s left.”

Depression.

“What’s the point, if I can’t defeat Dark Wizards? It’s not like I have any skills to speak of.”

Acceptance.

“I don’t think being an Auror is healthy.”

Pause.

“I don’t think I want to chase Dark Wizards any more.”

Ten.

It took some getting used to, life at Ron and Hermione’s.

There was the morning rush as they bumped into one another and got ready for work, but by in large life was a lot slower, neater. They came home by six and made dinner and drank wine on the couch as the dishes washed themselves in the sink. In the evenings, Hermione would work and Ron would entertain them with stories about his day as Crookshanks curled up on Harry’s lap with a warm weight that made him sleepily.

On the weekends they’d go to the market and Quidditch matches or listen to the wireless and the rain lashing at the windows. It was…peaceful. Calm.

George and Ginny would stop in for dinner. Percy would pop up for a quick consult with Hermione only to stay for an hour. Molly brought baskets of baked good and even though Harry insisted he didn’t need anything, she’d tidy up and do his washing.

When the fourth month passed and the matter had yet to be sorted, he gave up his flat at Ron and Hermione’s insistence. And when his healers said he didn’t have to be on bed rest any longer, he accepted George’s invitation to come and visit the shop. It was there that Harry found his own routine, stacking boxes, counting. It was soothing, calm. When he walked through the door in the evening Ron and Hermione would smile and in time he started to smile back.

Eleven.

His name is cleared.

He always knew it would be. What should have been an administrative disciplinary hearing is a full spectacle, standing room only. When they deliver the final verdict, people actually gasp and it takes several minutes to regain order.

“Mr. Potter will be placed under supervision for a probationary period of a year. Should there be no more issues, then he will resume his duties with all the authority the title of Auror carries.”

“Thank you, minister,” Harry replied, “I accept your judgment.”

Again, the buzzing.

“But I respectfully resign, effective immediately.”

His ears ring for days after.

Twelve.

Harry finds a different path.

He doesn’t visit McGonagall intending to apply for the ever vacant Defence post, just to ask to start a club, come and lecture. Harry is beginning to regret not going back to school and while he doesn’t think it will cure him like it cured Ron and Hermione, he hopes that it will return to him that hopeful feeling. But Harry’s never quite figured out how to argue with her stern look.

“There’s no point in trying to hire someone else,” she said firmly as they discussed Harry’s proposition over tea and ginger biscuits. “I don’t fancy hearing students attending your club and then arguing with the Professor that the only useful spell is ‘Expellimus’.”

Harry’s face grows hot and thinks about pointing out that he’s quite apt at a shield charm as well, but gives in. “A year, as a trial. The position is cursed after all.”

“You’ve never been one for rules, Harry. Why should you follow this one?”

Fin.

A year turns into two turns into ten. He trains his students on defensive spells and jelly-legs jinxes. Tells the story of how Ron defeated a troll when they were first years and how Hermione traveled in time to do too many classes. His students all ask for tales of battle and when he gives in he senses their disappointment because all his stories end in a lesson. Lessons of bravery and kindness. Of how Voldemort wouldn’t’ve existed at all if perhaps he hadn’t been loved more as a child.

He sees Ron and Hermione’s children through school who call him Uncle and act the same in his classroom as they do when he joins them on the holidays. He drinks tea with Neville in the staff room and offers Butterbeer to students who come to him late at night with fears. Sometimes, Harry wonders what might have happened if he hadn’t gone too far. But it’s painful to imagine a world where he doesn’t stay up late grading papers and sneak out after dinner to have a drink with his friends.

At seventeen he thought his only purpose was to defeat the dark arts but now he can see that fighting death eaters isn’t the only way to make the world a better place.

[berniesrevolution]

You have lived in the U.S. for 30 years. You’re speeding a little to get to work when you’re pulled over. First they realize you have no license. Then they realize you have no papers. You get thrown in jail. You need your wife, a U.S. citizen, to gather documents for you. But she is undergoing chemotherapy and her memory isn’t working right. After a few weeks, her phone number goes dead. Is she in intensive care? Was she evicted? You don’t know. You are trapped in prison and have no one else to call. You explain the situation to the judge and he gives you a few extensions. Then, finally, he says his hands are tied. You’ve presented him with no evidence. You are deported back to a country you haven’t seen since you were 10. You still don’t know if your wife is alive or dead.

You work in a factory where the boss won’t turn on the heat in the wintertime, where you aren’t allowed to use the bathroom, where you get paid less than the documented workers for the same labor. You and your colleagues take a list of complaints to your boss’s office one day. He greets you with a loaded gun. You are afraid to complain again after that. Then a SWAT team raids the factory and rounds you all up. You have young U.S. citizen children, so they don’t want to deport you immediately, because your children would become burdens on the state. But every day from now on, immigration is watching you. When they call you on the phone, you must answer. When they summon you to see them, you must go. Every few years, they slap an ankle monitor on you, and then take it off again, and then put it back on you, without explanation. Every so often, they threaten to make you buy plane tickets. They tell you they can deport you whenever they want. They have already deported several of your former coworkers who are in the same situation. You are always one slip-up away from being ripped away from your family. You can’t sleep at night. When you try to picture your future, all you see is a blind fog.

When we talk about enforcing immigration laws, it’s important to be quite specific about what we mean. Immigration enforcement is not words on paper. It is a constant, daily sequence of concrete acts. It is kicking down people’s doors, it is putting people in handcuffs, it is taking people’s photographs and fingerprints, it is locking people in cages, it is forcing people into cars and buses and planes. Some of these acts happen at the border, when the government tries to block people from entering. Some of them happen inside the country, when the government hunts down those with irregular status. Sometimes, this immigration enforcement is explicitly violent, like when Border Patrol officials unleash teargas (a chemical weapon banned in warfare) on toddlers, when they rip children from their mothers’ arms, when they kick women huddled on the concrete floors of border cells and scream at them that they are animals. Other times it’s something humdrum and largely invisible: the border guard who calmly tells an asylum seeker at a port of entry that there is “no more room” in the U.S., the judge who silently decides that the terrified person in front of them hasn’t done quite enough to deserve a favorable exercise of discretion, the police officer who has a funny habit of always stopping cars with Hispanic-looking drivers, the countless bureaucrats who review immigration applications and deny them without explanation. All of these acts, from the monstrous to the mundane, have real-world effects on individual people. They mean families separated, whether by deportation or by the hard border that keeps an undocumented breadwinner from ever again visiting the children he had to leave behind. They mean people dying horribly, because they are forced to return to life-threatening danger, or because they become ill in the U.S. and are scared to go the hospital for fear their lack of status will be discovered. They mean workers exploited, because the threat of deportation keeps them under the thumb of their boss, or because arbitrary territorial lines prevent them from seeking better employment conditions in another place.

Immigration policy in the United States cannot be discussed in the abstract. Unless we talk about what our immigration laws actually mean for people’s lives, we’ll have no way to sensibly evaluate them. There are about 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, and several hundred thousand arrested and deported annually. Beneath the statistics, there is fear and pain. Every choice of what laws to have and how to enforce them produces consequences: workplaces raided, kids pulled out of school, women being turned back to face domestic violence.

This context is important when we turn to Angela Nagle’s “The Left Case Against Open Borders,” recently published in American Affairs (formerly the explicitly pro-Trump Journal of American Greatness). Nagle confidently informs us that all mass migration is inherently tragic, and that incentivizing it with overly liberal immigration policies, although it seems kind, is actually cruel. The “open borders left,” Nagle declares, by embracing unrestricted immigration, is hurting the very people they are trying to help, and undermining the prospects for successful labor organizing and a restructuring of the global economic system. She goes so far as to argue that advocates of unrestricted free movement are the “useful idiots of big business,” because they are sanctioning the exploitation of imported laborers. Instead of addressing the root causes of economic migration, they have allied with the Koch Brothers in advocating “open borders.” This “open borders left” has a radically ignorant set of priorities, reacting to Trumpism by embracing Koch-ism, and ignoring the way that unrestricted migration serves the interests of the capitalist class by dividing workers and depressing wages.

ABOVE PHOTO: A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols along a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence on July 16, 2018 in San Diego, California. Getty Images/Mario Tama MAIN PHOTO: Government agents apprehend a landscaper during an immigration sting at Corso’s Flower and Garden Center, Tuesday, June 5, 2018, in Castalia, Ohio. Associated Press/John Minchillo

Now, because Nagle (supposedly) cares about immigrants, she doesn’t want to see them teargassed at the border or hunted down by immigration police. What she doeswant to see is employers who employ undocumented workers being punished by the state, so that they don’t hire undocumented workers anymore. This is the only concrete policy proposal in Nagle’s entire piece, and at no point does she discuss what its enforcement would actually look like. That’s because the enforcement of this policy proposal would look pretty fucking monstrous. In fact, the “E-Verify” system Nagle touts as a humane alternative to ICE is a system that people like Ann Coulterand Kris Kobach have long been putting forward as the ideal immigration restrictionist policy. (Given such political bedfellows, by Angela Nagle’s logic we might accuse her of being the useful idiot of white nationalism. Then again, Angela Nagle’s logic is terrible.) E-Verify is the central piece of a slate of an anti-immigrant policies designed to encourage “self-deportation”: that is, making life so miserable for undocumented people in the U.S., making them so poor and desperate and demoralized and afraid, that they decide to leave the country of their own accord. As the anti-immigrant Center for Immigrant Studies describes, the goal of self-deportation is to “create ‘virtual choke points’—events that are necessary for life in a modern society but are infrequent enough not to bog down everyone’s daily business. Another analogy for this concept to firewalls in computer systems, that people could pass through only if their legal status is verified. The objective is not mainly to identify illegal aliens for arrest (though that will always be a possibility) but rather to make it as difficult as possible for illegal aliens to live a normal life here.”

The fact that a self-described leftist like Nagle would openly support E-Verify shows that she is, at best, so grossly uninformed about immigration policy that it was irresponsible for her to commentate on it. At worst, it might be that she genuinely does not give a shit about the suffering of immigrants and is perfectly happy to sacrifice them to political expediency. Either way, she is not a credible exponent of what “the left” ought to think about anything.

However, ideas like Nagle’s have proven persuasive to a number of people over the years, so it’s worth going through her essay and dissecting each of her claims. First, Nagle argues that “the left” has historically (and wisely) opposed mass immigration as detrimental to worker interests. Secondly, she argues that there are no compelling arguments in favor of open borders or free movement other than those put forward by “big business,” whose only desire to exploit cheap labor. Thirdly, she argues that using the E-verify system to target employers of undocumented workers, rather than the workers themselves, is a humane way to keep undocumented people out of the workforce. Finally, she argues that immigrants don’t truly want to migrate anyway, so we should block them from doing so, and in the meantime just go about fixing all the problems that caused them to feel they needed to migrate in the first place.

(Continue Reading)

[bakwoodzman-blog]

Candace Owens confronted by Antifa protestors at restaurant

Antifa Mob Attack Against Black Conservative Woman At Philly Restaurant Ignored By Liberal Media That Was Outraged Over Starbucks Incident

- 'This is Maxine Waters’ America,' With Conservatives Being Attacked While Eating Out.

(TPUSA founder and communications director attacked by Antifa at Philly diner)

By Susan Duclos -

All News PipeLine

Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens were having a quiet, peaceful breakfast in Philadelphia on Monday, when a mob of approximately 25-30 people gathered with megaphones and chased them out of the coffee shop, then proceeded too attack them, throwing water and an egg at Kirk, who is white, and screaming vile, racist attacks against Owens, who is an African American woman.

Early on Monday,

Candace Owens sent a message out via Twitter

with a video that captured the incident, showing the police, largely made up of black and Hispanic officers, also being verbally attacked by the group as they stood in front of Owens and Kirk to protect them.

Her message was "Charlie Kirk and I just got ATTACKED and protested by ANTIFA for eating breakfast. They are currently following us through Philly. ALL BLACK AND HISPANIC police force protecting us as they scream 'f*ck the racist police'."

Both Kirk and Owens joined Sean Hannity to

describe what took place

.

“Water thrown on myself, they threw an egg at me. Here’s the interesting part, Candace and I were just minding our own business. We were just having a quiet breakfast and they mobilized within 20 or 30 minutes, at least 50 of them, came into the restaurant and started calling Candace a Nazi, which I can’t figure out how on earth they would come to that conclusion,” Kirk stated. “They drove us out of the restaurant and Candace and I said ‘let’s just stand here for a couple minutes and show them that we are not going to back down.’ Very peacefully we are not going to retaliate if things get thrown at us. Little did we know we’d actually have stuff thrown at us,” he continued. “We don’t want to play the victim card here, that’s what the left does all the time. This is what’s called on by Maxine Waters.”

The reference to Maxine Waters is about her statements to supporters that Trump administration officials should be

confronted by mobs of liberals

at gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants.

Owens then added "This is Maxine Waters’ America. We thought it was an important moment to show America exactly what we are fighting because not many people understand this is real. They’ve grown increasingly violent because they’re losing."

In the clip below, Hannity shows a small portion of the video that Owens put into her message earlier that day, with the cursing bleeped out.

In the interviews we see Kirk and Owens describe the harassment, with short clips shown of the incident, but the video directly below is what they went through on Monday after leaving the restaurant, to capture the unhinged nature of these mobs.

WHERE IS THE MEDIA OUTRAGE OVER A BLACK WOMAN BEING ATTACKED?

Anyone remember the media frenzy over the Starbucks incident where two black men refused to order anything, and were removed by police when they refused to leave the establishment. Starbucks had a policy that only paying customers could use the restrooms, and take up table space, but because the two men in question were African American, the media outrage machine went nuts. Starbucks' CEO ended up apologizing, then closed down

8,000 stores for a day for "racial bias training,"

for nothing more than an employee enforcing the company's official store policy.

In a Google search from April 14, 2018, when the Starbucks incident occurred, to April 15, we found that Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN, Snopes, Vox, New York Times, CBS News, ABC News, and NPR, had all had lengthy reports written about the incident. (Those were all on the first page of the Google search)

All outraged that two "black men" were arrested for trespassing, calling it racist on the part of the employee that followed the company's official policy.

Now we have a conservative black woman, Candace Owens, forced out of a restaurant by a white Antifa mob, calling her a white supremacist, and a whole host of other names, while screaming in her face and ear with a megaphone, harassing her, stalking her simply because she is the TPUSA Communications Director, which is a conservative group

that travels to colleges

to "identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government," and the media yawns.

Doing the same 24 hour search for Candace Owens, we see only two liberal media outlets that reported on the attack against Owens and Kirk, the Washington Post and Newsweek, with all the rest being conservative outlets.

Washington Post doesn't even mention racism, nor that Ms. Owens is an African American. Wapo starts their piece by writing "Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens are outspoken leaders of the pro-Trump organization Turning Point USA. Kirk, the founder, has been called a conservative provocateur with the ear of the president. Owens, the spokeswoman, has received tweet-based praise from Kanye West — and together Kirk and Owens say they are “culture warriors” trying “to save Western Civilization” from liberals."

The headline of the Wapo piece is "‘Maxine Waters’ America’: Protesters swarm pro-Trump organization’s leaders at a restaurant.' (

Archive.is link here

)

Turning Point USA is a conservative organization, so yes they support President Trump, but to call them a "pro-Trump organization" is quite misleading as the group was founded in 2012, years before President Trump even announced his candidacy, which Wapo could have easily found out on their

About page

.

Turning Point USA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded on June 5, 2012 by Charlie Kirk. The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government. Since the founding, Turning Point USA has embarked on a mission to build the most organized, active, and powerful conservative grassroots activist network on college campuses across the country. With a presence on over 1,300 college campuses and high schools across the country, Turning Point USA is the largest and fastest growing youth organization in America.

The only other liberal media outlet addressing this issue,

Newsweek

, again not focusing on how a black woman was accosted, as the liberal media highlighted the race of the men in the Starbucks' incident to claim it was a racist attack, but instead start their piece by questioning if the Kirk/Owens attack was "planned" by Kirk and Owens.

The entire piece focused on that spin, until the last paragraph which basically negates their entire premise of the headlined question of "Was Antifa Restaurant Confrontation Planned By Charlie Kirk And Candace Owns? Pundits Ask."

Here is the concluding paragraph:

Antifa Philadelphia shared an image on social media of one of its protestors throwing water on Kirk, writing that "Charlie Kirk's disgusting homophobic, racist, bigoted presence [was] met by some proper Philadelphia hostility."

So Newsweek, at the time of publishing, already knew the answer to their headline question, knew that Antifa members had already admitted it was one of their group members that threw liquid on Kirk, yet still published the piece, so the headline alone would cast doubt on the incident being real.

If that isn't misleading, I don't know what is.

BOTTOM LINE

What happened to Owens and Kirk on Monday is completely unacceptable, but has become normal behavior for liberals and Antifa thugs. The lack of outrage from the liberal media that apparently is outraged about everything these days, unless it is a conservative being targeted and accosted, just highlights their double standards, hypocrisy and bias.

The liberal media have two different set of standards in reporting incidents that involve African Americans, where everything that happens to a person of color is considered a racist event unless it happens to a conservative black woman, then race isn't even mentioned and it isn't about "race" or racism, but is about the politics of those harassed, as if that justifies the attacks.

The media also refuses to call out the thuggish and terrorist tactics of Antifa, forming mobs to attack a white man and black woman that were doing nothing but having some breakfast.

Candace Owens gets a little more in-depth about the incident below, followed by a great discussion about how things are getting worse, leading to the violence from the left, against conservatives, we have been documenting over the past two years.

[op-law]

One Piece x Reader {Join My Club} Ch 15

Law's Pov

If I had known (Y/n) would have gotten hurt while being in this house, I would have left her at home. She was a delicate one after all who needed protection. "Roll up your sleeve for me (Y/n)-ya and I'll check on the damage" I would most likely need to change the bandages since Baby 5 had traces of blood on her fingers but even as (Y/n) stared up at me from the bathroom sink she looked frightened. "Do you think she knows?" The girl in the other room wasn't a complete moron although I was sure Doflamingo convinced her everything was fine. "Doubtful. Careful (Y/n)-ya here allow me to help you"

The sweater was already loose on her but due to the dried blood, there was some resistance in rolling it back. "Thanks, Law you're the best" For whatever reason, that small compliment had caused me to smile although as I realized I only had a roll of bandages I stepped away from her. "I'm going to need a pair of scissors and some rubbing alcohol. Just wait here for a minute (Y/n)-ya. Feel free to lock the door while I'm gone" I didn't wait for a response as my hand reached for the doorknob however just as I started to turn it, she gave me very clear orders. "Okay but when you come back, you'll need to knock three times then pause before knocking twice more"

"I'll try and remember that. Don't fall off the sink while I'm gone" She was sitting comfortably but I knew the drop was pretty far due to the height being adjusted to accommodate the taller males in the house. "Why would I fall off the sink? I'm not that stupid Law" She was making a fair point although accidents could happen to anyone. "It's just a thought. The doors locked (Y/n)-ya so don't bother getting up" Once she gave me a small nod, I exited the bathroom and closed the door behind me. "Law I need something from you"

"Hm, what do you need Cora-san? I'm in the middle of something" (Y/n) was expecting me to return quickly but from the look in Cora-san's eyes, I knew he wasn't going to take no for an answer. "It'll only take a second but I need your advice on what to get Grace for our five-year mark" That girl hadn't been around for a while and I had figured they had broken up but I was glad to hear they were still together, she always made Cora-san happy. "Has it really been five years?"

"Yeah, I'm surprised she's stuck with me for this long. Any ideas?" I wasn't the most romantic of men and only had a few girlfriends but if they really had been together for this long, I didn't see why they didn't make it official. "Why not finally tie the knot?" Cora-san was always one to overreact to simple things and I tried my best not to grin as his mouth dropped open. "I- Wha- Don't be silly Law that would scare her away" Five years was half a decade and simply asking the answer wouldn't break a relationship this strong. "She's been with you this long I highly doubt she'd leave now. However, if wedding plans aren't for you then I suggest a pet"

"A pet? What kind of pet?" I didn't know that much about Grace but I'm sure if Cora-san thought enough about it then he'd figure out what his girlfriend liked. "You know her better than anyone Cora-san, think about it a bit. What pet does Grace talk about nonstop?" I allowed him time to think but still moved closer to the living room in order to grab the required medical supplies for (Y/n). "... Ah! She loves cats... but our apartment is pet-free"

"Maybe it's time you did some house shopping then" As I entered the living room, I noticed Doflamingo had left but didn't think much of it as I took a few items from the bag I brought. "Law I'm a cop, not a rich man. Have you seen the cost of houses?" The housing cost had been going up but I knew how much he paid for his apartment and a mortgage would be cheaper in the long run if he was approved. Although maybe his brother could part with one of his properties. "Ask Doflamingo-ya for one of his. I'm sure he can part with one of them"

"Doflamingo will do no such thing. I like all my houses and the clumsy Corazon will only burn it down within a week. Although if there's a wedding in the works maybe I'll be nice with my present. Fufufu" I couldn't lie that Cora-san could very well burn down an entire house without meaning to but right now Doflamingo was being a little selfish.

"Thanks for the suggestions Law but I should get going. Oh, and tell (Y/n) that she's expected to meet her father at the school for the parent-teacher night. I'll be there for you since apparently; it's required even for someone your age. Doffy, are you going as well? I don't suggest it but you're an adult who can make his own decisions" He was the guardian of three of the family members although Jora could always go instead of him since she had to go for her own son. "What time is it at?"

"Six to nine. You'll need to see Sugar, Buffalo, and Baby 5's teachers but I suspect you can leave after you see them all" Parent-teacher nights were never that interesting although it gave Cora-san such joy to attend. "Hm, might be fun. Fufufu" With Doflamingo there anything could happen but as I thought back to the events of last night, I turned to face the pair. "Cora-san there's something I need to discuss with you. It's concerning and I'm not sure what it means"

"What is it Law?" Since Cora-san was an officer of the law he could find out more than I could but it was still a risk to tell him about my criminal activities. "It involves (Y/n)-ya and one of her teachers. Can we talk in private?" His eyes showed confusion although it was probably due to how I had worded that sentence. "Sure, Doffy would you mind leaving?" That was for the best but in typical Doflamingo fashion, he started to complain. "Oh, sure kick the homeowner out of his own living room"

"Act like an adult Doffy" Without must more of a fight he did leave and the moment the door closed Cora-san's face turned serious. "I'm all ears Law. What's going on with (Y/n)?" There was no avoiding my criminal activities however I did try to leave out as many details as I could, mainly omitting Eustass' involvement. "Well, I had stumbled across something disturbing in one of her teacher's homes just last night" Cora-san was thinking over my statement but the moment his eyes narrowed I knew he was going to chew me out for breaking into someone's house. "Hold on just a second Law. Did you just imply you broke into someone's house?"

"That's beside the point Cora-san. Look at this picture and tell me what you think" I showed him the pictures from last night but as his fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, I knew this was putting the man into an uncomfortable position. "Law what am I going to do with you? You can't just go breaking into people's homes. What were you even trying to accomplish?" Now Cora-san always said honesty was the best policy although as I replied maybe I shouldn't have told him the truth. The original plan was to beat the teacher up but he wasn't home"

"Don't tell me that!" Ignoring Cora-san's outburst I continued to speak. "Can you find out more about this teacher? I had Penguin look into it but there wasn't much besides his daughter was locked up because Sakazuki" As Cora-san's hand moved away from his face he began to reply however it wasn't something I was thrilled to hear. "You do know I'm going to have to inform the Chief about this Law? He might not show it but his daughter means the world to him. Can you send me those photos and give me a name?"

I knew he would make things right though I'm not sure how (Y/n) would react when all this came to the light. Hell, I hadn't even told her about the photos I found last night. "I'll do you one better and point him out later tonight" She was his student so there was no doubt her father would meet the man but if I had anything to say about it those two wouldn't be having any interactions. "I'd still like the name so I can conduct some research before then"

"Sure"

~~~~~~~~~~~

(Y/n)'s Pov

'Knock' Knock' 'Knock' ... 'Knock' 'Knock'

Once I had heard the knocking, I slipped off the sink and unlocked the door since I knew it had to be Law. "Sorry I took so long (Y/n)-ya" He had to help me back onto the countertop but I was fine with that. "That's alright. I overheard you and Corazon talking about the parent-teacher night" That had completely slipped my mind but then again my father already knew my grades were terrible. "Yeah, if you want, I can drop you off at your house after this" That would be nice since I did need to change and try to think of a lie about why I was gone last night. "I still need my phone from your house plus my other stuff"

"Sure, we'll stop there first then I'll take you home" My father was most likely still at work but maybe I could invite someone to spend the day with me so I wasn't alone. Baby 5 came to my mind although I'm not sure if she had plans or not. Law, unfortunately, couldn't stay since my father would have a screaming match with him. Speaking of the man I had noticed his teeth were grinding together. "Is something wrong Law you seem upset?"

"I'm alright (Y/n)-ya there's just something I need to take care of sooner than later and it's been distracting me" He was graduating this year so maybe it involved some forms that needed to be completed or something of that nature. "Oh, really?" Law was busy rebandaging my wrist, he only needed to do the left. "Don't worry though since it's being handled" I wasn't worried about it but as he continued to work, I started to bite my lip. "Well, that's good then... Law are you going to be busy next Friday?"

Now I normally didn't put myself out there but I was just trying to take the advice of a friend. "I usually work every second Friday so that would be my day off if I'm not mistaken. Why do you ask (Y/n)-ya?" I had just met Law but I really liked his company. "There's this spirit dance and I thought i-it would be nice t-to go together. You know as friends" I had never attended a dance before but I'm sure Law had been to at least one. "A school dance? That does sound nice. I'd love to go with you (Y/n)-ya. There you're all patched up. You can have this sweater and I'll take yours if you want"

"Why?" Law had already taken off his sweater but since he wasn't wearing anything underneath it, I had looked away. "There's just some dried blood on yours so I want you in something clean" It had made perfect sense although since the sweaters weren't the same, I hesitated. "But Law we're not wearing the same sweater. Won't people notice?" I didn't want anyone to think something weird happened in this bathroom and switching sweaters would only cause them to talk. "It's fine (Y/n)-ya"

"Okay but turn around"

~~~~~~~~~~

Later That Day...

Law's Pov

"I'll see you later tonight (Y/n)-ya. Do you want me to walk you to the door?" Our day had gone well but I was a little disappointed we had to part. Normally I wasn't a people person however with (Y/n) things were better. "Law... did you want to stay? I know my father wouldn't approve but I don't care" Hm, I didn't need to be anywhere until later tonight. "Sure, I'd love to (Y/n)-ya" Turning off the car I climbed out but something burning at the back of my skull caused me to look around the area.

"What's the matter, Law?" I couldn't see anyone looking in my direction though that feeling of being watched was definitely there. "It's nothing (Y/n)-ya. Let's go inside" It was probably just a concerned neighbor but as I joined (Y/n)'s side I completely forgot about it as she fished around her bag looking for the key. "So, what's the plan for the afternoon (Y/n)-ya?" By the time the key was in the lock I heard it click before she tilted her head back to stare at me. "Movie marathon with lots of snacks. Unless you're opposed to the idea?"

"Alright, and when is your father supposed to be home?" I didn't know what the man's reaction would be to me being in his house but if (Y/n) wasn't worried then I shouldn't be either. "No clue. Come on before the neighbors get nosy" She had stepped over the threshold and I followed after kicking off my shoes once I settled onto the carpet. "I'm pretty sure one already noticed us" At that she looked up from untying her shoes but there was some concern on her face about what I had said. "Which one was it?" I haven't seen exactly who it was but I had my suspicions. "I think it's the one across the street"

"The bastard? Hm, hurry up Law before he decides to pick another fight with me" Stepping aside I allowed her to close the door and lock it however she had peeked through the blinds for a second before quickly moving back. "Another? I didn't take you for the type (Y/n)-ya" She was a quiet girl and I couldn't imagine her starting any kind of fight. "Hm? Oh, I didn't start a fight on purpose and it was really only him trying to slap me"

"What did you do to provoke him?" The reasoning wouldn't have mattered since even if (Y/n) had pissed him off an adult had no business targeting children. "He's an abusive person and I stood up to him. Which movie do you want to watch Law? I'll let you pick first since you're the guest" She had changed the topic so as I looked over at the DVD shelf, I picked out the first one I saw. "Oh, that's one of my favorites. I'll make us some popcorn and you can start it up"

"Alright just don't take too long (Y/n)-ya I might start without you~"

"Four minutes tops!"

~~~~~~~~~~

Corazon's Pov

'Knock' 'Knock'

I really didn't want to tell this man anything about what Law had told me but it was his daughter and he deserved to know that she was in danger. He was sitting with two other officers although as his eyes narrowed, I must have interrupted something. "Chief Sakazuki do you have a minute?" Talking to the chief was never easy but hopefully, he would take the time to discuss his only child. "We're in the middle of a meeting"

"It's about your daughter" She wasn't brought up often and I only discovered who she was this morning but when his eyes widened, I knew he cared. "What did (Y/n) do this time?" I had gathered everything I could about the man targeting her and as I handed over the folder I replied. "We got a tip this morning and I followed up but take a look for yourself" There wasn't much in that folder but that was the problem. It was as if he didn't exist until two years and the records, we did have on him seemed off. "What the hell is this, Corazon?"

"He was dormant for the last two years Sakazuki. If my suspicions are correct then we need to act quickly" I didn't even need to bring up that case file for him to know who I was referring to but as he stood up, I could only assume where he was going. "Where is (Y/n)?" I felt slightly sorry for the pair although I didn't hesitate to inform him of what his daughter was doing in her spare time. "She went home with Trafalgar Law" The pair were still together based on where Law's GPS was however, I just hoped he remained with her. "Why is that criminal with my daughter?"

"It's better someone is there to protect her Sakazuki. As you can see this man is one of her teachers so he'll be there tonight. Do we have a plan?" It was foolish to think a plan could be put in place so quickly but I wasn't going to allow another cold case to be added to my pile when I knew exactly who needed to be dealt with. "This isn't enough evidence to make an arrest. Follow up with this Corazon and let me know when you find what's necessary. I'll assign Vergo to work with you. Make sure you put an end to this quickly" I hated working with him though at least he could bend a few rules while I kept my hands cleans.

"Understood"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

To Be Continued...

[darkfire1220]

Viridescent Chapter Six: Control

Summary: As a child, Izuku decided it would be better if he were Quirkless than to have a power that scared everyone. Now a teenager and looking to enter U.A, he finds himself as the protege of All Might and a student of the best heroes in the nation- but there’s no running from a part of you, and he’s learning the hard way that you have to accept all of yourself to be a real hero.

Their third day of class started with an unexpected and (for most, rather unwelcome) surprise; the media had discovered that All Might was teaching at U.A and had come in force to investigate. The reporters couldn't actually get into U.A without the school's permission, so they parked themselves outside by the door and interviewed everyone they could with single-minded ferocity.

Izuku jumped when he was singled out by a woman who was probably in her mid-twenties. "What kind of lessons does All Might teach?!"

"E-eh?!" Izuku recoiled from the mic that was practically shoved in his face. "I-I-I umm…"

"Geez, everyone's so noisy," Katsuki grumbled, grabbing Izuku by the back of his collar and dragging him along to the school.

The reporter flashed towards him instead. "What do you think of All Might- wait, aren't you that kid from the Sludge villain incident?!"

A vein bulged in Katsuki's forehead, prompting a snarl. "Fuck off!"

From what Izuku could see as he let Katsuki drag him away from the chaos, Tenya was taking the whole interview thing pretty well- too well, in fact. The reporter questioning him looked annoyed by his long-winded and over-the-top answers. Elsewhere, another reporter had cornered a group consisting of Ochako, Tsuyu, Kyoka, and Mina, all four of which looked more than a little eager to get the hell out of there.

They were all saved when Mr. Aizawa showed up, his exhausted and scruffy appearance causing many of the cameramen to cut the feed almost instantly. The guy just wasn't suited to being on the news.

"All Might is off-duty at the moment. You are disturbing our students and the classes here," Aizawa told them bluntly, waving his hand as if to shoo them away. "I need to ask you to politely vacate the premises."

He glanced at his students, who eagerly ran over to him and then into the school, before turning away from the reporters. It nearly started an uproar of frustrated and unsatisfied questions.

The reporter who had interrogated Izuku and Katsuki puffed up her cheek angrily. "Geez, just a little time is enough! Come on, send All Might out- "

"No, wait!" An older reporter shouted as she walked too close to the entrance gate.

With a loud slamming of metal, the gate crashed shut, providing several layers of impenetrable steel between the reporters and the school. The woman who had tripped the sensor fell on her rear in shock.

"It's the U.A Barrier," the reporter who had tried to warn her explained with a sigh. "That's what we call it, anyways. Without a staff or student ID, the doors snap shut automatically. There are even sensors all over the campus on the off chance someone actually breaks in."

"That's so lame!" She retorted, rising back to her feet and dusting herself off. "Why are they going so far to keep us out? They haven't even given us a cheap lie or some boring information to report!"

While the media raged in front of the barred gate, a man dressed in a long, black sleeve hoodie and worn out pants behind them watched the scene in silence. Tired-looking red eyes gazed at the school with malevolence.

"Pick a Class President," Aizawa told them the moment everyone had settled in their seats. "I don't care how you decide it, just get it done before the period is up. We don't have much to discuss in Homeroom today. Most of what we'll be doing is going to be handled during Hero Studies later."

Instantly, pretty much the whole class was up and clamoring for themselves to be president. Even Izuku wouldn't deny he was kind of interested in the idea, but he was really nervous about it, as well.

"Enough!" Tenya suddenly interrupted. "This is no small decision that can be made just because you want to! The Presidency is a sacred office that only the chosen may find themselves tasked with! Therefore! It should be decided by a democratic vote!"

"…he says with his hand raised up as high as the rest of us," Mina finished, grinning at the sight of the young man with his back ramrod straight and his hand held high in the air.

Tsuyu held a finger to her chin. "It's a bit early to have developed any trust in each other, isn't it? Everyone will probably just vote for themselves."

"Is that not why the person who earns multiple votes will be truly worthy of the task?!" Tenya demanded. "If their charisma is such that they can earn the trust of many this early amongst class relations, they must possess the qualities worthy of Class President!"

Kyoka sighed and leaned back in her seat. "Sure, why not? Let's vote guys. I, Robot isn't going to let up on us anytime soon if we don't."

The votes were made anonymously so no one could be singled out for their vote, but by the end of the next ten minutes, all the votes were tallied and written up on the blackboard. The scores were as such:

Izuku Midoriya: 5 votes

Momo Yaoyorozu: 3 votes

Katsuki Bakugo: 2 votes

Eijirou Kirishima: 1

Mashirao Ojirou: 1

Minoru Mineta: 1

Koji Kouda: 1

Mezou Shoji: 1

Denki Kaminari: 1

Hanta Sero: 1

Fumikage Tokoyami: 1

Rikido Sato: 1

Yuga Aoyama: 1

Needless to say, Izuku was a little happy, extremely shocked, and absolutely terrified from the results.

"I GOT FIVE VOTES?! HOW?!" Izuku half-squeaked, half-screamed.

"Who the hell voted for you!?" Katsuki demanded, flabbergasted.

Hanta looked at the blonde teen with a stunned look. "More like who the hell voted for you of all people?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Kyoka made a show of plugging one of her earphone jacks into her phone and played some music, ignoring the rest of the class. I'm only doing something nice for him this once because he kicked Minoru's ass yesterday and won the exercise for us. I'm still kind of glad he didn't win, though.

In the back of the classroom, Ochako was whistling innocently as she studied the wall. It'd probably be really scary if Katsuki found out I voted for Izuku…

He's waaay nerdy and shy, but he lined up that kick for Katsuki so perfectly yesterday that I don't care, Mina grinned to herself as she watched Izuku flail in a panic. I'd rather vote for someone who looks out for us and isn't a dick. Plus, he's kinda cute!

I couldn't decide between voting for Momo or Izuku, so I just flipped a coin, Tsuyu thought. She was satisfied with the result since they were both President and Vice President.

"Guys, why didn't you vote for ME?!" Minoru whined to his fellow males. "Didn't you hear my policies for all the girls to expose at least thirty centimeters of thigh?!"

"Yeah, and we also heard you hit the wall yesterday when Katsuki punted you like a thousand yards from across campus," Mashirao sweat-dropped. "No thank you, I choose life."

"Also, that's disgusting," Rikido added. "No one wants that."

"Learn some common decency before you try to do something like become Class President," Fumikage told him.

Minoru waved his fists in the air desperately. "All of you are so gay!"

"And they're way smarter than your dumb ass."

Minoru felt death itself touch him as Katsuki Bakugo's hand lay itself upon his shoulder with false kindness. "I haven't had to murder a P.A.L twice before, but I wonder how far I could blast you from here…we're on the third floor and there are fewer obstacles on the way to whatever level of hell you land in this time. Should I try it…?"

"Y-you wouldn't dare…" Minoru squeaked, looking over his shoulder and nearly pissing himself at the monstrous grin on Katsuki's face. "You got detention for it last time!"

"And it was worth every second," Katsuki cackled, his eyes becoming almost deranged. The hand on Minoru's shoulder made a fews tiny explosions, causing the short teen to squeal in panic. "Go on, say another perverted thing. I'm begging you."

"NO! I CHOOSE LIFE!" Minoru screamed, diving under the nearest desk.

Katsuki looked a little disappointed. "Ugh, fine. You get off with a warning this time."

"Normally I'd call you out for bullying, but what Minoru is doing is blatant sexual harassment, so I'll overlook it this time," Mina commented with a smirk. Katsuki merely grunted in response.

Tenya had his fists clenched in frustration upon his desk. "Zero votes…It's only fair since I insisted upon the sacredness of the role…"

"You didn't even vote for yourself despite wanting the job so badly," Hanta sweat-dropped. "What's up with that?"

Mr. Aizawa got out of his sleeping back and stood up, giving the class the final announcement. "So then it's President Midoriya and Vice-President Yaoyorozu."

Now standing at the front of class, Izuku looked like he would panic at any second. "A-are you s-s-serious?"

Momo sighed. "It was pretty close."

"That's it for Homeroom today," Aizawa told them. "Do your best in your other classes and prepare yourselves for the trials that await you in in Heroics Training later.”

Izuku sighed, poking at his rice with his fork as he considered what had gone on that morning. Around him, Tenya, Ochako, Tsuyu, and Mina were also eating, though more enthusiastically than he was.

"What's the matter, Deku?" Ochako asked after she swallowed a bite of her lunch. "You look kinda worn out."

"Huh? Oh, it's nothing!" he said quickly, snapping out of his little mental checkout. "I was just wondering if I've really got what it takes for this whole Class President thing…"

Mina elbowed his arm playfully. "Sure you do!"

Tenya nodded. "You'll be fine. You've got the guts and snap judgement when it counts, Izuku. That's why I voted for you."

So one of the votes was you! Izuku gave the other teen a perplexed look, shaking his head before leaning his chin on his palm. "That's another thing, how did I get five votes?"

"Well I assume you voted for yourself, plus Tenya voted for you," Tsuyu held a finger up, adding more as she listed off names. "I flipped a coin between you and Momo since I couldn't decide and you won that flip, so three. Mina voted for you, too."

"Wait, what?!" Izuku whipped his head to gape at the two girls and his jaw fell open. "You two voted for me?!"

"Duh," Mina snickered and poked his freckles with a pink finger, causing the teen to blush furiously. "You set up one hell of a kick for Katsuki yesterday to stop Minoru from doing perverted things to us! I saved one of those pictures as my screensaver, even. But Katsuki is still too much of an ass for us to vote for him. That's how you got my approval. Ochako too, right?"

"Eh?!" Izuku spun back to Ochako, who half-choked on her rice when Mina called her out.

"I-I-I-I," Ochako managed to swallow the bite down and sighed in relief for a second. She grinned bashfully and rubbed the back of her head. "Um, yeah. Guilty! Ehehe…"

Izuku wasn't sure what shocked him more. The fact that he'd somehow managed to become Class President, or the fact that more than half of the votes for him came from teenage girls his age. Seriously, he barely knew anything about them! They were an alien species to him!

"But I'm surprised you didn't vote for yourself, Tenya!" Ochako said hurriedly in an effort to swing the attention away from her. "You wanted to be Class President so badly! You've got the glasses look down, too."

Izuku sweat-dropped. That's not exactly a quality we should be using to choose a Class President.

"I merely followed my own judgement on the matter," Tenya replied. "Besides, even if I had voted for myself, the rest of your votes would have assured Izuku the Presidency."

Suddenly, the room was filled the the ringing of an alarm, causing the five of them to jump. An announcement rang over the speakers. Security level three has been breached. Students, please promptly evacuate.

Tenya's head jerked towards one of the nearby upperclassmen. "What's security level three?"

"It means someone's infiltrated the school grounds! This hasn't happened in three years! We gotta hurry out of here!"

The whole lunchroom immediately became a scene of mass hysteria as students scrambled to get out. Izuku knew there'd be no getting out if they got swept into that crowd, so he pushed aside his lunch and jumped onto the table to get a better look around. His eyes locked onto the windows nearby, spotting Present Mic and Mr. Aizawa standing outside. They were facing a crowd of reporters, who were clamoring at the pair of Pros for All Might.

Izuku blinked in disbelief at the sight. The press got into the school? How?

He spun around, trying to figure out how to settle the panicking students. If it was just the press, then this whole mass hysteria thing wasn't worth it and would only get someone hurt. Izuku tried to speak up, but it came out as a squeak. "H-hey! Everybody calm down! I-it's just the news…"

No one heard him, not even his friends, who had taken a point from him and were standing on their seats. Tenya was snapping at the other students to form an orderly line, but it was no good. Everyone was panicking.

It's no good…how do I get their attention?! Izuku wondered frantically.

Suddenly, he had an idea. Albeit a crazy idea, but…he took a deep breath and clenched his fists tightly.

When in doubt. Speak Katsuki.

"DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"

Everyone in the room froze at the scream and spun towards the source; one very red-faced Izuku, standing on the table with both hands clapped over his mouth. He couldn't believe he'd gotten the nerve to do that, but he did his best to act as soon as he got their attention. "I-I-It's just the press! L-look!"

He pointed at the window, prompting the rest of the students to look over and confirm for themselves that he was right. The moment they all started figuring it out, Izuku jumped off the table and did his best to hide. Holy crap, that was waaaay too much!

"Not exactly what I'd call a great way of getting attention, but…" Mina grinned a little. "Nice!"

"Why are you hiding now?" Tsuyu asked him bluntly.

Izuku was sweating, his face still cherry red. "I-I've never yelled at a bunch of people l-like that b-before…it's scary."

Ochako put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from giggling. "You sounded like Katsuki for a second, there."

Tenya chopped a hand towards them. "While I applaud Izuku for settling the hysteria, we must still evacuate! Press or not, we still have evacuating instructions!"

"H-he's right," Izuku said, fanning his face. "L-let's go."

Mina smiled and pat him on the shoulder, causing him to tense up again. "Good going, Mr. Scaredy Class Prez!"

Once the reporters had been dealt with, the rest of the day went by as usual. As soon as it was time for Heroics Class, they dressed up in their costumes and made their way out to the entrance to the same training field as yesterday for the battle trials.

Mr. Aizawa and All Might both were waiting for them. The former of the two Pros cleared his throat and started explaining the lesson. "Right, this is going to be somewhat similar to the Entrance Exam. There will be combat robots all over the city, but this time your job is going to be about working as a team. Yesterday you got to work together in pairs- this time you will be working as a whole class. On occasion, Pros have to work in large groups. This is meant to simulate that kind of scenario. We'll be doing this exercise today and tomorrow, followed by Rescue Training on Friday. I want you all to keep in mind that this is merely a rough outline of much more advanced training for later."

"Your task is simple; eliminate as many of the enemy 'villains' as possible by working together as a team. You should also focus on keeping the amount of damage done to buildings to a minimum. In the field, leaving behind destroyed buildings is obviously not ideal. I'm looking at you, Katsuki."

Katsuki looked away from them all, slightly red in the face. "Shut up."

"I'll be watching with Recovery Girl in case things get out of hand," Aizawa went on. "Oh, and one more thing. Izuku, you're not participating in this training today. You're working with All Might."

"EHHHH?!" Pretty much the entire class exclaimed, including Izuku.

"Wait, Izuku's getting lessons from All Might?!" Eijirou's jaw was hanging open.

"Why just him?" Mezo questioned.

"Yeah, why's the Class President getting extra lessons from the world's greatest hero?! Favoritism much?! I think we need a better President!" Minoru tried to convince the others to join his side, but to no avail.

Aizawa sighed tiredly. "Would you lot quiet down? We're wasting time."

The class quieted (albeit reluctantly) as All Might took center stage. "I'm sure you're all wondering why young Izuku is getting extra lessons separate from the rest of you, but it's not what you think. I'm not training him personally or giving him special privileges. He's getting…shall we call it a corrective course?"

"Corrective course?" Tenya echoed. "Did he do something wrong?"

"He blew his body up twice in as many days with his Quirk," Aizawa replied bluntly. "That's the problem. His main method of fighting with his Quirk critically damages both himself because he lacks control, and could endanger the lives of anyone fighting him. That's where All Might comes in. He's an expert on Quirk control."

"How?" Denki asked. "I mean, no offense, but all you do is punch and kick stuff."

"No offense taken, young Denki! But it's a bit more complicated than that!" All Might answered. "When I use my Quirk, I have to gauge the amount of power I put into it very carefully. For example, against a giant robot, I can go full throttle and blow it away! But if I used that same level of power on a person, what would happen?"

A few faces paled at that thought. All Might nodded gravely. "You've guessed. Yes, as gruesome as it is to say, I'd probably kill them with that kind of force. In order to avoid that, I must gauge the degree of power I release with each attack carefully. Too much can kill a person. Too little might not be enough to capacitate my opponent. Power is just power without the finesse to guide it properly. Young Katsuki and young Shoto are good examples of this!"

Aizawa grunted. "The two of them have a high power capacity, but they have the control to manage it well without overdoing things. For the time being, that's a skill Izuku lacks, so All Might is going to grill him until he doesn't blow himself up anymore. But that brings me to another thing I need to talk to you all about."

"Do any of you have trouble controlling your Quirks?" He asked. "I know it might be embarrassing to admit or perhaps you think you can control it in time, but I need to know right now before we get into any more serious training. If someone loses control and we have an accident, it can be forgiven, but I won't be the one picking you up if you get upset with yourself. Is that clear?"

The class was silent for a few seconds before one teen raised his hand.

All Might looked at him, still smiling. "Young Fumikage."

"It's somewhat situational," he began a little quietly. "But on occasion, my Quirk, Dark Shadow, has been known to run wild. I'd rather explain it more in private."

"I understand," All Might gave him a thumbs up. "Anyone else?"

"Um…" Ochako rubbed the back of her head nervously. "I-I don't know if it's because I lack control or not, but if I use my Quirk on myself for too long, I get really nauseous…"

"Hmm, that could be because you haven't trained your Quirk enough yet, but I would still like to see it for myself," All Might replied. "Is there anyone else?"

When no one responded, All Might set his hands on his hips. "In that case, young Fumikage and young Ochako will meet with me after class ends today to discuss their Quirks. You'll likely have a training session with myself and young Izuku tomorrow. If that's all, then I'll leave you to Mr. Aizawa! Young Izuku, you're with me!"

Izuku dipped his head quickly and chased after the Pro as he walked off. "Y-yes, sir!"

They ended up going to TDL, the place that Izuku had been brought before school started to show his Quirk to the teachers. All Might led him inside and cleared his throat, immediately getting the boy's attention.

"I'm sorry that I singled you out from the rest of your classmates today," All Might began. "But I felt it would be unwise to hold off training you to use One for All any longer. Recovery Girl gave me more than a few choice words when you destroyed your finger the other day."

"S-sorry about that," Izuku mumbled. "I was just..desperate."

"It's fine. It's my fault for holding your training off for so long," the Pro reassured him. "But that stops now. We're going to get you to the point where you can use One for All safely. The easiest way to do that, in my experience, is through combat."

Izuku paled. "Wait…y-you mean, like I have to f-fight y-you?!"

"I'll go easy on you," All Might said gently, turning to face him. "Today at least, I won't strike back. There's no point in beating you black and blue if you can't use your power properly yet."

That wasn't exactly the most reassuring thing in the world, and Izuku still had a few concerns. "W-wait! What about what you said to the rest of class? If I can't control One for All and hit you full power, then…"

"You won't hurt me," All Might lifted one huge hand to tousle the teenager's curly hair. "Fortunately for us, One for All comes with a sort of mental 'training wheels' for new users."

"Training wheels?"

"Yes. When you use One for All against a person for the first time, there's a tendency to think that you don't want to kill that person. One for All usually responds to that and your body sets it to a 'low power setting' that you should be able to handle without destroying yourself."

Izuku blinked and began to mutter to himself. "I see, so it's kind of like the mental restraints the brain puts on the human body to prevent it from destroying itself with the full capability of its muscles…"

All Might cut him off before Izuku could fully nerd out. "That's the theory. But the idea is that you'll eventually get a grasp of that 'low power setting' whenever you attack until you can use it at will. We'll continue training here until you get it down. Also, we'll be working on your own Quirk as well. Ideally, I'd like to get you to the point where you can wield both One for All and All Flare at the same time."

The Pro pulled out a tablet that was similar to the one Nezu had used back when they tested Izuku's power for the first time and just like before, the bunsen-burner like device emerged from the floor. Izuku frowned at All Might nervously. "I won't hurt you?"

"My costume is fireproof," All Might chuckled, flexing his arms. "No worries, young man!"

"Okay…" Izuku forced a smile on his face as he started using All Flare, green flames licking at his body. It wasn't even close to the full-body flare, but he got his hands and feet ignited on his own easily enough this time. He reached out towards the bunsen-burner to gather more flames until his arms, legs, and most of his torso were all ablaze.

All Might grinned as the flames finally covered the teen's whole body, including the two extensions of his costume that resembled All Might's hair. They started to sway gently with the fire, hiding the fact that they were really horns. "Come at me with everything you've got, young Izuku!"

"Yes!" Izuku shouted back, then rushed All Might head-on. He brought a fist back, clenching it tightly to wind up One for All. All Might raised both arms to block and took the blow directly, shifting into a crouch so that his center of gravity was lower.

The punch struck All Might's thick arms, but it didn't even make him budge. Izuku gaped in surprise. He hadn't blown his arm up with that, but he expected it to have more of an effect.

"Don't stop now," All Might told him, still grinning. "I told you the power output would be low! Just get used to the feeling of it! Keep going!"

Izuku jolted into action and began to punch and kick at All Might with One for All, never letting up on his blows. The Pro weathered them with ease, not so much as flinching from every strike that landed. After a few minutes of attacking him, All Might suddenly dodged one of Izuku's punches, causing him to yelp and overextend. He nearly fell over, but regained his balance.

All Might laughed. "You're getting it, but a villain isn't going to stay put and let you attack them! Come and get me!"

The teen lunged after his Pro mentor with a yell, who caught the blow with his hand and simply diverted the attack before he jumped away again. All Might wasn't even using One for All himself, otherwise there would be no way Izuku could keep up with him.

Izuku suddenly missed one of his punches and ended up smashing his fists into one of the cement pillars in the room. He winced, but grinned a moment in pleasant surprise. He hadn't accidentally unleashed the full 100% by striking the rock. And he was starting to get a feel for this 'low power setting'…but it took him time to wind it up in each limb one after another.

A thought struck him. Maybe if I spread it all over me like All Flare…

He tensed up and slowly let One for All spread through his whole body. The power crackled like lightning through his muscles, bones, and blood. It was tricky to maintain and he didn't think he could hold it for long, but this would be a lot faster and more efficient than just firing up one limb after another.

All Might noticed the change and grinned widely. He could see that Izuku's body was starting to adapt to One for All just as it had with All Flare. In fact, the two Quirks were starting to mix.

Izuku whipped towards All Might and lunged at him, this time much faster than before. With the low power setting spread throughout his whole body, he was able to push off with his legs using that enhanced strength and a burst of his flames. The sudden increase in speed caught All Might off-guard momentarily, but he responded with inhuman reflexes.

He ducked underneath a kick that would have caught him in the side of the head and reached up to grab the teenager by the ankle, then threw him aside. Izuku hit the ground with a yelp, but he rolled back to his feet and charged again, still intent on fighting.

All Might started laughing as the teen attacked him in earnest, firing off blow after blow at him with the fusing Quirks. It wasn't a perfect fusion by any means and Izuku was visibly struggling to maintain the combination, but he could do it.

Let me try this! Izuku was starting to feel excited by his new capabilities. He gathered all of the flames covering his body into his right arm until he had created an enlarged arm of fire that would extend his reach. With a battle cry that freed itself, unbidden from his lungs, he struck at All Might with it.

The Pro's hand shot out to catch the blow, but his upper body was engulfed in emerald flame as Izuku launched the fire fist at him upon impact.

Izuku suddenly realized that he'd practically buried his teacher in fire and immediately shut them down, freeing All Might from the blast of flames and simultaneously stopping the flow of One for All throughout his body. "I-I'm sorry! I got c-carried away! A-are you-"

All Might started laughing wildly, uproariously, making Izuku go quiet in confusion. The Pro's hair looked a bit singed and he was practically steaming from the heat, but his grin persisted nonetheless.

"That was excellent!" All Might exclaimed. "You're learning quickly!"

Izuku felt a swell of hesitant pride rise up in him. "R-really?"

"Indeed! Did you break any bones?"

The teen looked himself over and gauged the feeling in his body. He didn't think he'd broken anything, but his right fist felt a little strained and it was definitely tender from that last blow. "I don't think so, but I might have overdone things with my right…"

"Considering this was your first go using the low power setting of One for All, I think we can call that a success," All Might gave him a thumbs up. "The whole point of this training is to help you reach a point where you can use One for All without destroying your body. At the moment, I'd say you're capable of wielding about 5% or so."

"Only 5%?" Izuku wilted slightly. That was it?

"We've all got to start somewhere," All Might patted his shoulder. "Your body still needs training before it can handle the full power of One for All. We'll just work our way up from here, right?"

Izuku smiled a bit and nodded. "Right."

"Good," All Might took a few steps back. "Back to it, then. Go easy with your right and don't throw that huge fire punch again for today. I want you to be able to use that 5% for as long as possible without going over the limit. Flare yourself back up and come at me, young man!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Ow…" Izuku winced as he walked to the lockers. His body hurt all over and his right hand was starting to throb. He hadn't broken any bones, but everything hurt from his extensive use of One for All, plus he felt a little too hot after using his flames for so long.

As he approached the lockers, he realized that his whole class was gathered outside the girl's locker room and all of them were still wearing their hero costumes. Frowning, Izuku approached them.

Ochako spotted him coming over and waved. "Oh, Deku! How'd it go?"

"Great," he replied, smiling. "I didn't break any of my bones this time. What's going on?"

Momo turned towards him with her arms crossed. "We can hear strange noises coming from inside our lockers. None of us girls have gone inside, so we're not sure who could be in there."

"It sounds like an animal," Kyoka muttered. One of her jacks was plugged into the door. "There's loud breathing and something keeps hitting the lockers."

"How could an animal get into the locker room, anyway?" Eijirou asked, perplexed.

"No idea," Mina replied with a grumble. "But I'm not going in there until I know what exactly it is."

"Move it, heart throb," Katsuki pushed Kyoka aside (who was a little flustered by his choice of a nickname) and placed his ear against the door. His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Hey, Deku. Listen."

Izuku did as he asked and mirrored his pose, listening to the odd sounds. It sure sounded like an animal was in there. Heavy breathing, something rattling the lockers, and yet also…

He stiffened. Katsuki heard it too and snarled. "My P.A.L senses are tingling."

"You did not just use that quote," Denki accused in disbelief.

Izuku leaned away from the door, his face serious and his tone all business. "Right, Katsuki and I are going in. Bar the door and don't let anything out until I say so."

"Wait, you intend to enter the girl's locker room?!" Tenya demanded, chopping his hand at Izuku. "Mr. President, that is a blatant disregard of the rules!"

Momo did her best to ease his concerns. "It's fine, I trust them not to mess with our stuff. If a teacher comes by, we'll explain the situation. Be careful, you two."

Izuku nodded and gripped the door handle slowly. He looked at Katsuki, who cracked his knuckles with an eager grin. "Ready?"

"I was born ready, motherfucker!"

Izuku smirked at that, then quickly yanked open the door, letting Katsuki in before he dove in after him. Momo immediately shut the door behind them.

Things were quiet for a few seconds. They still heard the loud breathing as Kyoka plugged one of her jacks into the door. It was several moments before everything went absolutely silent.

Ten seconds of no sound passed by eerily. Class 1A waited, the air becoming thick with tension.

Then they heard a shrill scream, followed by a roar of fury from Katsuki and a yell from Izuku. The sounds of metal clanging loudly began to ravage the lockers, along with several explosions courtesy of Katsuki.

"DIE! DIE! DIE!"

"DROP THEM! DROP THEM RIGHT NOW!"

"NEVER! THEY'RE MY TROPHIES!"

"YOU LITTLE FUCKER! COME HERE!"

"YOU'LL KILL ME!"

"THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT!"

"YOU WON'T TAKE ME ALIVE!"

"I'M GONNA MURDER YOU ANYWAY!"

"CORNER IT IN THE SHOWERS!"

"IT'S TRYING TO CLIMB THE WALLS!"

"I'VE GOT IT!"

"LET ME GO!"

"DEKU! DON'T DO IT!"

"YOU HAVE TO FINISH IT KATSUKI! GO ON WITHOUT ME!"

"DEKU NOOOO!"

"NO! MY TROPHIES!"

"THE ONLY TROPHY YOU'RE GETTING IS A COFFIN! THIS IS FOR DEKU YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

There was a loud squeal, followed by a scream from Izuku. "CLEAR THE DOOR!"

The class practically leapt away from the door as Katsuki screamed at the top of his lungs.

"PLUS ULTRA DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!"

A horrifying scream tore through the locker room, followed by an explosive projectile that literally blew the door clean off its hinges. The object in question flew through the air for several hundred meters (perhaps even a thousand) before it crashed into the wall surrounding campus and hung there, six feet off the ground.

The utterly stunned class realized the projectile had been one Minoru Mineta, now bloodied and beaten within an inch of his life, and once more stuck on the wall of U.A by his own, sticky hair.

Katsuki emerged from the devastation gasping for breath and slumped to the ground once he made it out. "Holy fuck."

Eijirou and Kyoka ran up to him. "Are you okay?!"

Katsuki waved them off. "Forget about me, get to Deku. It could already be too late for him."

Exchanging anxious looks, the other girls ran inside while Momo stopped the rest of the males from entering the lockers.

"Deku!" Ochako called through the smoke. Christ, the place looked like a war zone. "Where are you?"

"I'm here…" His voice sounded weak and shaky.

Ochako ran over to the showers with Mina, Tsuyu, and Toru right behind her. They found Izuku curled up in a corner, breathing heavily and shaking.

She was alarmed that maybe he'd been really hurt. "Deku, are you okay?!"

"N-no," he whimpered, turning to show them his hands. "Now I'm the pervert!"

Stuck to his hands were two of Minoru's purple spheres, and also stuck upon each one was a pair of panties. Minoru had, after pillaging the garments form the lockers, stuck them to his hair in an effort to keep his prize until Izuku yanked them from the thief's head at the grave cost of his own morality.

Mina's cheeks puffed up to stop herself, but she couldn't hold back and busted out laughing until she was doubled over and her sides hurt like hell. "Ahahahahahaha!"

The other girls joined in, though they sounded slightly more sympathetic to Izuku's plight. They did feel bad- the preciously innocent and sweet teenage boy was almost in tears since there was no way to remove the spheres (and thus the panties) from his tainted hands.

Mina finally regained control of her breathing and eyed the frilly pink pair of underwear stuck on Izuku's right hand. She giggled and wiped a stray tear from her eye. "Izuku, you can just burn them off with your Quirk. I don't want those since Minoru touched them, anyway."

"Same here," Toru agreed, recognizing her own pair of blue and white striped panties in the teen's left hand.

"B-but," Izuku's already crimson face started to steam from embarrassment. "Th-then you w-won't have any u-u-underwear f-for of the d-day…"

Toru shrugged. "That's fine, no one will notice if I don't wear any."

"Besides, it's almost time for us to go home," Mina reassured him. "We'll just head straight back to get new ones, ok?"

Izuku nodded after a moment, still blushing furiously.

Ochako couldn't help but smile at him. "C'mon, let's get you out of here before a teacher shows up."

She carefully helped Izuku stand without touching his hands and they walked the teen out of the lockers. Upon arriving at the door, however, Izuku bumped into someone and yelped. "I-I'm sorry! Please watch out for my…hands…"

All Might stared down at him, unsure what to even think when he saw Izuku walking out of the girl's locker, two purple balls in his hands and a pair of panties stuck to each. Moreover, by bumping into All Might, Izuku had instinctively recoiled and caused the sticky spheres to land on his own chest. Now it appeared as though he had two purple breasts with panties on top and was groping them.

The blood drained from Izuku's face faster than should have been possible as All Might just tried to process what in the actual fuck he was looking at. The Pro slowly turned, following the path of destruction to the door that lay a hundred meters away, and then to the bleeding ruin that was Minoru attached to the wall.

He eventually looked back at Izuku, opened his mouth, closed it, and then finally walked off to do something about Minoru. "Okay."

And that was that.

[fapangel]

November Fourth. Antifa and BLM take up arms. The problem is too massive for even the FBI to handle, and several states descend into civil war (coastal Cali, cities of Chicago and Detroit, etc.). Geopolitical response?

Antifa and BLM combined might manage to take over a single apartment block. The Illinois Nazis can barely muster enough people to occupy a single fucking gazebo. What worries me with things like “CalExit” and such aren’t the relative handful of thugs - the FBI has taken down cartels with more hardware, willpower and killers then they have combined, after all - but rather the cultural forces that allowed them to rise. The thing that really caught my attention during the last brouhaha in Berkeley was the “normal people” in the crowd shouting “thank you!” at the antifa thugs, as claimed by the left-wing’s own propaganda outlets. (Source from a distinctly different viewpoint saying the same thing.) And we cannot dismiss the significance of California’s legislature’s “resistance,” which has signed a unilateral treaty with a foreign state, (a direct violation of the Constitution,) has passed multiple “travel bans” in an attempt to punish select other US states who’s policies they dislike, and have openly flaunted Federal immigration law by making it illegal for local law enforcement - state-wide - to even co-operate with Federal authorities in certain ways. 

California is acting like they’re an independent state, to be blunt - and I’ve heard more than a little arrogance coming from Californians. They’re the “sixth largest economy in the world all on their own,” and even their state legislators have been arguing that they pay more into Federal coffers via taxes than they get back, so if they did go their own way, they’d be just fine. 

There’s rural areas in California, yes - but the laws of the state are completely dictated by the far-left-wing urban centers - and the differences between these areas couldn’t be starker. Just ask anyone who’s actually went to California and compared/contrasted the fabulously wealthy urban centers, with their thriving tech and entertainment industries, and the rural areas, where people are struggling to make ends meet. Or consider this article. Or this piece, run by fucking NEWSWEEK, of all places! Or this article, that describes how the urban/rural inequality divide is nowhere worse than in California. Or consider how rural California is plagued by lawlessness and criminal activity so unchecked that most rural Californians can’t trust their own mailbox anymore, and must pick up correspondence at the Post Office directly, and vast volumes of trash are dumped on their property daily, with the authorities unwilling - or unable - to stop it. People in rural California are either fleeing to the coast - and if they can’t afford that, as many cannot, they flee East.

This isn’t an isolated example - it’s happening all across the country, and it’s getting worse, as this Stanford study shows. Our ideological and class divides are driving geographic divides; a closed feedback loop that is widening the gulf between one half of the nation and the other. This is a large source of the “smug liberal” phenomena; there’s an America that’s wealthy, deeply involved with a thriving and growing information economy that can afford to pour millions of dollars into kickstarting fucking Wi-Fi enabled juicers, and utterly confident about their future. Politics to them aren’t a matter of life-and-death, of immediate employment opportunities, or something that will significantly determine their future prospects. Politics to them is a social affair, a clique, an in-club, an opportunity to showcase their moral superiority in much the same way the rural South’s elite social circles revolved around church-related events and showcasing their superior piety. Is it any wonder then that they regard the rural people, who’s troubles are alien and opaque to them, with sneering mocking disdain at best, and outright, frothing hatred at worst? 

Read those last two articles I linked. I mean it. Read those, and then look me in the eye and tell me there isn’t a civil war brewing in this country. 

And know that I’m not beating up on the clannish mean lefties and ignoring the right-wing’s equally rigid hatred of the “city dwellers.” As the New Yorker’s review of “Hillbilly Elegy” points out, this is a chicken-and-egg problem: 

It’s one thing to criticize a culture. It’s another to see that the culture being criticized is formed partly in response to other cultures, and that those cultures are, in turn, worth criticizing. This is why explaining human behavior is so difficult: the buck never stops. The explanations don’t come to an obvious, final resting place.

There’s blame enough to go around, for sure. I beat up on the left wing because they currently control the broadcast media, the print media, the vast majority of the information/tech industry (silicon valley, for instance,) and Hollywood - in addition to the major urban centers, which often dictate the politics of an entire state that’s overwhelmingly rural outside of the suburban sprawl (witness Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan.) California exemplifies this effect due to its sheer size, and that’s why we’re seeing things coming unglued there, first. 

The people with the power to influence our opinion and thought en-masse, the people with deep pocketbooks for political fundraising and the people in charge of the most important sector of the American economy are telling rural/conservative dwellers to go to hell, and to take their concerns and complaints with them.  

Antifa and the Illinois nazis are just the beginning - the symptom, not the disease. And because of that, they’re only going to persist, and the problem’s only going to get worse. Some nations see low-level, constant violence for years or even decades before things really erupt - but the drawn-out smoldering claims plenty of lives before then, and is not easily extinguished. The seeds of the American Civil War were visible at the nation’s founding over a hundred years prior, with that silly “3/5ths of a person” thing - representing the South’s fears of total political disenfranchisement that would be realized when Lincoln (an abolitionist) was elected without bothering to get on the ballot in a single southern state. It wasn’t oppression or abuse that drove the Revolutionary War, remember - it was disenfranchisement. No taxation without representation. 

Now we have a situation where rural conservatives are being disenfranchised and suffering, materially and greatly and for the second or third generation in most places. And the backlash has been a long time coming -the Tea Party was the first rumbling, and Trump is just the first significant salvo. Not for nothing does he leap feet-first into stuff like the NFL protests - as a commentator on Twitter put it, Trump is providing “culture-war covering fire.” 

That’s where we’re at - not political strife, but cultural war. We are, in every way you care to name, a nation divided - and while the people predicting the Third Coming of Xenu, riding the dark moon Nibiru literally next Wednesday are the same chemtrail-cataloging kooks they’ve always been, it doesn’t mean that any discussion of this national malaise on sub-decade timescales is foolish. It’s one thing to observe that this divide is extant, steep, and growing - but it’s quite another to see a GQ.com article calling you and everyone you know, live and work with a fucking evil racist who doesn’t deserve a voice in the nation they live in. When a Presidential election can trigger over a week of constant street protests, demonstrations and riots, America looks less like America and more like those third-world countries we see on TV where every election is occasioned with screaming mobs in the streets that seem to have more say on the actual results of the election than the votes do. 

It’s not going to happen tomorrow. We have “time.” But when you consider how steep the divide is, how relentless the momentum, and the speed with which things are deteriorating, you’d be foolish not to be scared.

All in all, I doubt it can be stopped at this point. The forces in play are too vast for any dialogue to really penetrate - Scott Adams was absolutely correct when he said we’re living in two complete realities, closed-loops with their own vast contexts and truths, and never the twain shall meet. 

But until the eleventh hour, all we can really do is try. 

[topfygad]

Is It Harmless to Travel to Egypt in 2019?

I was startled awake in the center of the evening by a strange Egyptian male shouting loudly at me in Arabic.

He seemed indignant, but I couldn’t determine out what was going on. Why was he yelling at me? I stared back with baffled eyes, only discovering the power to mumble a single phrase.

“Huh?”

A lot more screaming. More pointing and flailing of arms. A small pack of Egyptian gentlemen had surrounded my seat on the bus and, even with the reality that I obviously couldn’t speak their language, they appeared to assume that shouting even louder would make me recognize.

“Is there a issue?” a regional lady across the aisle asked in English. “I was sleeping,” I explained to her, “and these guys just commenced yelling at me.”

She pointed at my ticket, indicated that I experienced been sitting down in the erroneous seat, and enable me know that this was incredibly much towards the policies. Seemingly, bus-goers are extremely really serious about seat assignments below.

The Egyptian mentality will take some getting utilized to. And immediately after only a single week of traveling there, I definitely can’t say that I comprehend it.

The tomato person of Giza.

The chicken gentleman of Giza.

On the nearby bus in Cairo a single working day, I struck up a conversation with a beautiful youthful Egyptian girl. Her English was approximately perfect and, following the standard pleasantries about exactly where we ended up from, her next question was, “What do you assume about the folks right here?”

I believed for a 2nd, and I advised her I experienced achieved some people who acted really intense in the direction of me, but that I had also fulfilled some of the kindest, most genuine people of all.

She nodded slowly but surely in considered, and then, immediately after a couple of times, she seemed back again at me and mentioned, “Good. Several don’t get to see the two sides. That’s the serious Egypt.”

Is Egypt Secure? This is the Actuality of Touring to Egypt

While Egypt is a widespread travel spot for Europeans, Egypt is not the initial place most Americans feel of when they’re getting ready to travel. And to be sincere, there’s great rationale for it. Not only is it a bizarre put, considerably from the reaches of knowing for most Westerners, but tourism in Egypt has dwindled to just about absolutely nothing right after turning into a conflict zone in the latest several years. Thankfully, that conflict has lessened and, in 2018, there is quite very little to panic.

Sunset from the roof of my hostel in Dahab, Egypt

Lantern Shop in Dahab, Egypt.

It is legitimate that there is terrorist exercise in Egypt. Our bus was checked for bombs. Officials questioned every single overseas passenger. Guys with huge guns and riot gear stood guard driving personal barricades on the aspect of the highway. Big police shields with bullet holes lay on the ground future to them.

In Dahab, I viewed as a drunk Arabic person was overwhelmed by law enforcement for resulting in a scene in community.

In Cairo, I encountered the most aggressive taxi drivers I have ever come throughout. At the Pyramids of Giza, the touts are a lot more than hawkish, and they are pretty, pretty clever. You’re going to want some thick pores and skin if you want to travel below. But belief me, it is truly worth it.

Outside the El-Hussein Mosque in Cairo, Egypt.

If you are thinking of touring to Egypt, this is the fact. There is conflict here, and you will face it in several kinds. But which is not to say you should not visit—I satisfied several other tourists in Egypt from all more than the earth. I fulfilled solo woman vacationers, scuba fanatics, and other basic ol’ typical people.

No, Egypt is not your standard getaway. If you want to journey to Egypt and take a look at the Pyramids of Giza, you ought to be prepared for what is waiting for you. It’s an within seem at a very distinct location of the earth, and an inside appear at what is actually going on in the Middle East.

But is it secure to journey to Egypt ideal now? The answer is relatively difficult to make clear.

Inside of Al-Hussein Mosque, Cairo, Egypt.

Is it Harmless to Vacation to Egypt?

Once on a time, the triangular Sinai Peninsula in Egypt was a popular vacationer destination for individuals from all around the Center East and even Russia. They would arrive from Israel and Moscow to scuba dive, drink beer, smoke weed, and social gathering on the seashore.

Having said that, these days, federal government web-sites mark the overall northern half of Sinai in blatant crimson. A lot of terrorist groups have been lively in Egypt, and each and every vacation warning for northern Sinai reads basically: “DO NOT Travel.”

Though I think many journey advisories to be over-exaggerated, the types in Egypt should not be ignored. Place blank, northern Sinai need to be avoided and southern Sinai really should be traveled working with warning. The moment on the mainland, just about anything east of the Nile River is frequently safe, whilst anything west must be traveled with prudence.

Cheeky banana person in Giza. He was all smiles

But I really do not imply to scaremonger. There are some locations which are not risk-free, but there are also areas in which are perfectly great. Search past the warnings.

What you really should be concentrated on is in which it is protected to journey, not exactly where it is not harmless to travel.

In accordance to GOV.Uk, “previous assaults have pretty much solely qualified the stability forces, their services and other governing administration properties.” As a tourist in these regions, it is not likely that you’ll have any difficulties. But the warnings are apparent, and any individual touring in Egypt should really at least be cautious.

Can I explain to you it’s definitely safe and sound to go to Egypt? No, I simply cannot, for the reason that if you go there and die, it would be my fault. But I can explain to you that I went there and I did not die. So, I guess you can make your decision primarily based on that!

For far more facts on no matter whether or not it is safe and sound to journey to Egypt, consult your community embassy. (USA / United kingdom)

If you are organizing on touring to Egypt—or everywhere in the globe for that matter—travel insurance policies is your number one safeguard against just about anything that may well go completely wrong. I generally use Entire world Nomads for ease of use, price and breadth of protection.

If you’re preparing to travel to Egypt, read our comprehensive Environment Nomads evaluate or use the type below to get a quotation.

Assembly Rami Elshaer

The 1st fifty percent of my travels in Sinai ended up performed on my own. I had just 1 7 days in Egypt, but I was identified to make the most of it. In Dahab, for four times, I relaxed in beachfront hookah bars and went scuba diving at the well-known Blue Gap.

This dive website, notoriously regarded as the most perilous dive web page in the environment, has taken hundreds of lives around the yrs.

One extremely awkward right away bus journey later (screaming Arabic adult men incorporated), and I observed myself in the business of Rami Elshaer, a member of a Bedouin tribe who now lives in the town just 100 meters from the Pyramids of Giza.

It was an early morning in Cairo and we sat down at a local cafe for introductions, breakfast, and a Turkish coffee.

Rami Elshaer and his son, Loai.

“When you are with me, you are my relatives, do you comprehend?”

Rami was explaining how his hospitality was likely to get the job done.

“Never consider revenue out of your pocket. If you try out to fork out as a tourist, you will fork out vacationer rates. When I pay out, I pay back local price ranges. At the end of the day, you will spend me back again. This is how it will perform. Do you have an understanding of?”

I nodded.

“And I will do all of the talking. If you have to have anything, just tell me, and I will make it materialize. Do you have an understanding of?”

Rami was stern but fair. He cared. He understood how factors worked and needed to make absolutely sure I would get the most out of my time in Egypt.

In 3 shorter times, Rami turned my Bedouin brother.

Thumbs up at the Wonderful Pyramids of Giza!

The Bedouins are a tribe of men and women who have been roaming the Center Japanese desert for thousands of a long time. Actually translating to “desert dweller,” they are a hugely highly regarded group of persons who are identified for protecting their conventional values and solid loved ones bonds.

Rami did not like to notify men and women he was an Elshaer unless of course he had to. He just wanted to reside out his lifetime. But, as he discussed, whenever he desired a authorities official to look the other way, 1 flash of his ID was all it took.

Camel on the edge of the desert at the Pyramids of Giza.

Rami’s father came from Libya and his mother from north Sudan and then Sinai. The Elshaer’s had been among the initial to settle by the Pyramids of Giza countless numbers of yrs ago, directing traffic and trade along the Silk Street, and they have remained below at any time considering the fact that.

It’s humorous because everywhere I went with Rami, I met a lot more cousins. Extra Elshaer’s. In Giza by yourself, I’m explained to his family members numbers between 2,000-3,000.

Pyramid selfie!

Rami paid for my Turkish coffee, took me to his house, offered me with a bed, and allowed me to dine with his loved ones for 3 days straight.

When I observed out that he would be sleeping on the floor, I insisted that he take his mattress back again and permit me to rest there rather. He demanded not, and refused to permit me to snooze any place apart from the significant bed in his tiny home, which was normally reserved for him and his youthful son, Loai.

The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt.

You see, as travelers them selves, the Bedouins are no stranger to supplying hospitality. When I asked Rami why he hosted people today from Couchsurfing, he informed me of his worldwide travels. He instructed me that the hospitality he been given overseas was existence-switching and that he preferred to devote substantially of his everyday living to returning the identical hospitality he experienced located.

These days, Rami spends his time raising his son, getting ready barbecues for his family members, and displaying vacationers the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Rami now goes again and forth concerning Egypt and Switzerland as he works to present a improved existence for his son. If you desire to make contact with Rami, electronic mail him at [email protected]. However he may not personally be equipped to meet you in Egypt (dependent on his program), his family—all of whom I met—are happy to demonstrate you all over and are some of the nicest people I have ever achieved!

Examine Much more:

source http://cheaprtravels.com/is-it-harmless-to-travel-to-egypt-in-2019/

[alightinthelantern]

Oh my god, I want to die. My mother was an abusive cunt to me for twenty years and she’ll never get any punishment, not so much as a slap on the wrist. She got away with it scot-free. All of my abusers got away scot-free, Delaina and Marcus and all of the cunts at Howard Center. I suffer flashbacks nearly every day and they all have positions of power over other children just as vulnerable as me. Delaina is principal of a special-needs school, my mother is on the board of directors at Howard.

They locked me in a basement at Howard Center for whole weekends at a time as a teen when I misbehaved, a dingy little apartment with an electronic keypad lock and a bedroom with a deep square window that glowed red with city lights at night. I had Chef Boyardee from a metal cabinet to eat every day, and I had to ask permission to use the bathroom, and I was locked into the bedroom at night. I wasn’t allowed to talk to whatever staff member was On Duty except to ask to use the bathroom or for food because the metal cabinet was kept locked and I wasn’t allowed to touch anything myself, and they just sat in their little staff room watching tv all day and night. The stays were so traumatizing that it was multiple years before I could look at Chef Boyardee without having flashbacks. And Delaina, the Case Manager who instituted the policy of locking me up and traumatizing me into behaving, runs a school full of vulnerable special-needs children like I was.

“YOU ARE SUCH A SPOILED, SELFISH CHILD, AND I PUT UP WITH SO MUCH FROM YOU!!” my mother and grandmother would scream at me once a week growing up. My mother once served tomatoes with dinner when I was nine and I hated the taste and texture of them so much I spit mine up while gagging. She ordered me to eat them but I refused, unable to bear it, so she put them on a plate in the fridge and punished me by taking away all my toys and other privileges. The next day she served them to me at lunch, and I refused to eat them. She punished me until dinner, when she served them again, and I refused. This went on for multiple days, she getting ever more violently angry at me all the time, and I finally caved after two or three days under fear of physical violence.

She forced me to grow up as a boy when I wanted to be a girl, but I’ve been abused by so many shitty (White) women, who’ve all treated me like a villain because I’m “a boy” and I’m Autistic, that I don’t want to lump myself in with them, and now I don’t know what I am. Once when I was nine I went up to my teacher in school, and said on the verge of tears, “I wish I were born a girl!” And the teacher, an adult woman in her forties, rounded on me, saying “You know, men rule the world, and women have it so hard! You are so lucky to be a boy, and you are so selfish if you don’t realize it!” Those were her exact words. And yes, she was a blonde White woman. Thus, gender is inextricable from trauma for me.

I tried to kill myself when I was 14, and I spent my entire teenage years borderline-suicidal. She spent her entire upbringing of me alternating between neglect and abuse, withholding her “love” any time I had misbehaved, punishing me whenever I tried to show independence, leaving me with no self-esteem and no ability to care for myself. She isolated me from the rest of the world, preventing me from having literally any social life outside of school my entire teenage years, and she always punished me with whatever hurt me the most for even the most minor infractions.

I’m 26 years old and I’m fucking broken, I moved out at 19 and I’ve spent the past 7 years trying to heal myself but I can’t do it, the abuse and trauma haunt me every day. I have Asperger’s, OCD, Bipolar, PTSD, and depression from all of these. I wish I had a gun, I can’t fucking take it. I have a major breakdown every year and a medium-sized one every couple months. And now, when it’s too late to make a difference, when I’m already broken for good and have given up completely on life, she thinks being nice to me will get me to forgive her, being nice by lending me money for a needed new desk, or some clothes, or whatever. This stupid Catholic cunt thinks she deserves forgiveness, when even now she’s so self-absorbed and fragile that the slightest perceived insinuation that she wasn’t a stellar parent makes her purse her lips and glare and shut down and start ignoring me altogether, even when I wasn’t saying or implying anything. Once, a few years ago, we were discussing the movie The King’s Speech, and she said that King George VI’s father was a jerk in the movie. I said “Oh yeah, he was abusive to his children!” which was true. The conversation wasn’t even about her but she made it about herself, and got angry and defensive and stopped talking to me for several minutes. I recently said that I thought I was suffering burnout in response to my childhood, and she just started sarcastically uh-huh-ing (like nasty women do), and took her smartphone out and started scrolling on it so she could ignore me to my face. Even now I’m forced to babysit my own selfish cunt of a mother.

And I love my dad, he’s the only person in my family who’s ever been good to me, but he is such a fucking moron, and he does not understand when I try to talk to him about it. He remembers how my mom treated him during their divorce, how he suffered a life-threatening brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him, how he was rushed to the hospital and when they cut his skull open blood shot out and splattered on the wall over ten feet away from the sheer pressure inside, and how she didn’t care enough to visit him once. But he thinks she’s just a normal person who was going through a rough time, he gives her the benefit of the doubt, he lived a state away and never saw the abuse my mother inflicted on their children behind closed doors, the constant screaming and shaming and pitting us against each other to maintain her obsessive control over us, and it’s exhausting trying to convince him of my childhood was not normal. That most of the problems he was told I had were made up.

I wasn’t an easy child to raise, but I was not the fucking monster I was treated like. I was the scapegoat for all my family’s troubles, and my sisters, angry and hurting at our mother’s abuse, were encouraged to take it out on me, because of course I was ugly and awkward and talked too much and didn’t know how to behave and embarrassed them in public, and for selfish, shallow people there really was nothing likeable about me. And my sisters bullied me and my mother never punished them for it and she always punished me when I fought back. And I tried to kill myself when I was 14, and my mother cared more about how her daughters were upset by my attempt than the fact that I was miserable with life enough to literally try to kill myself. How awful do you think my life was to have forced a naive little Autistic boy who sang along with the hymns in church to think death was the only way out? And still I am villainized! Still I am the bad guy, everyone in my family both immediate and extended view me as the devil incarnate, everyone has always and will always hate me!

And all these snotty young women on the street and in stores glare and snap at me for being Too Male, acting like I’m their oppressor, because I’m male-shaped and I don’t have Good Socialization Skills (when I was isolated growing up and never allowed to develop them), and I talk Wrongly (which is ableism), when I’m just an ugly, awkward, gangly person with such debilitating mysophobia and social anxiety I literally will not leave my apartment if I don’t have to. I can’t work, I live on disability benefits, and I only leave the house for laundry and groceries.

No one has ever taken me seriously, no one in law enforcement or any of the equally imbecilic, incompetent health organizations in this fucking backwater state have ever believed me. Fuck Vermont.

Well fuck the Catholic God and fuck the devil too, and fuck any and every Higher Power that may or not exist. I am so fucking tired. Fuck my life. Just end me already.

[kingsofchaos]

What do you think it would be like of the fakes got arrested (probably at different times cause they are better than that) and got psych evaluations. The police would probably get even more of an realization that they are freakin monsters. (If you could somehow maybe put freewood in that would make me very happy, but you don't have to if you don't want) ALSO I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!!!

THANKS FRIEND! That makes me feel way worse for what i’m about to do but apologies i’m not super comfortable playing around with psychological evaluations, sorry to disappoint! In lieu i offer you a bit of a more generic, though infinitely more melodramatic, insight into that one time the cops got their hands on Ryan and Gavin then instantly wished they hadn’t. 

To get the Vagabond and Free in custody, to not only pin them down but catch them without killing them in the process, is more or less a goddamn miracle and everybody knew it. There’s a weird energy amongst the LSPD officers, half smug pride at the triumph, half quiet terror at what comes next.The entire journey back to the station is fraught with tension, the completely legitimate fear that the Fake AH Crew may come for their own keeping everyone on high alert. It doesn’t help that despite the fact that there’s no way it could be possible Free and the Vagabond are acting like getting arrested was their intention, like everything is going according to plan. As relaxed as two handcuffed men surrounded by armed officers can possibly be they’ve ignored all demands to shut their mouths in favour of critiquing how well they think everything has been going so far.Ryan asks for the time any chance he gets, responding to each update with a pleased grin so unsettling that officers begin to refuse to answer. In response Ryan has taken to humming a quiet tick tock tick tock tick tock under his breath while he stares them down.The less said about the transfer between van and station the better. Six officers swarm around the Vagabond while only one moves to escort Free, a choice that leaves Ryan shaking his head in utter disbelief and Gavin smirking away like the cat who caught the canary. He leers all over his increasingly uncomfortable guard while Ryan is yanked roughly to his feet and pushed out of the van, followed moments later by a grunt and a scream as Ryan is tazed without provocation and Gavin’s new friend loses a chunk of his arm to that sharp grin. It’s a traumatising experience across the board.By the time Ryan’s head clears they’ve already dragged him into the station, frogmarching him towards an intake room, with Gavin somewhere behind him making lewd comments about the muzzle he’s apparently been threatened with. Shifting to take his own weight has all the officers around Ryan stiffening, but all he does is ask for the time, chortling to himself at the way it makes them flinch.The weapons pat-down is rough. Even the cops know Gavin’s not really in the hands-on half of the crew, aren’t expecting much more than maybe a knife or two, certainly aren’t expecting the arsenal they uncover. Gavin has knives in his pant pockets and shirt pockets and jacket pockets, he has knives in his belt, tucked into his shoe, sewn into linings. There’s so many knives the officers quickly roll from smug superiority into increasing alarm; it borders on comical, on intentional, and Free’s careless grin only grows.  Ryan though, god. On Ryan they find nothing, not a gun, not a knife, not even wire or nail-file; absolutely nothing. It should be a relief but it isn’t, how can it be when there’s no way the Vagabond is actually unarmed? When history has taught them that they surely must have missed something. Ryan bears the increasingly frustrated search with exaggerated compliancy, lips twitching in amusement as Gavin sniggers beside him, the mercenary entirely unresisting yet still exuding an insufferable degree of cheerful insolence.When one man tries to get a rise out of him by sneering out some less than savoury comments about Gavin and his prison prospects the whole room holds its breath, bracing for a sudden act of unstoppable violence, but it doesn’t come. Instead, after a long tense moment of Ryan staring the man directly in the eye, it’s Gavin who breaks the silence, shaking his head and looking far too pleased as he shrugs and sends chills down spines with a cavalier ‘Well that was rude. I do hope your affairs are in order, this one’s really rather overprotective.’ The extended weapons frisk is declared over rather quickly after that.The pair are placed in cells on opposite ends of the station’s holding bay; with walls and doors between them there is absolutely no way legible sound could possible travel between the two. To the disturbed awe of an increasing crowd of officers watching and listening over the cctv the pair proceeded to have a complete conversation at normal talking volume anyway; speaking and responding as though they can hear one another, with appropriate pauses and logical replies, never acknowledging that anything is out of the ordinary. It’s alarming enough that they are frisked again on their way to separate interrogation rooms but no hidden transmitters are found and no one has any idea how on earth they were doing it.You don’t go into an interrogation room armed, that’s just police policy 101, but particular precautions are certainly made for members of the FAHC. Ryan is just about as chained as he could be, handcuffs locked to the table, leg cuffs chained to the floor, and still, as long as there are detectives in the room with him two heavily armed guards will wait just outside the door for the first sign of trouble. On the flipside Gavin, whose teeth are still stained red, bears only handcuffs and a delighted grin. There are no armed guards, the detectives have no fear about leaning into his space, but after the first few are left shell-shocked with their personal secrets dragged into the light there is a serious discussion about getting the LSPD’s in-house psychologist on standby.For the first half of Ryan’s interrogation he says nothing at all. The detectives, all over the moon about finally nabbing the Vagabond, all desperate to show they’re the one who can crack him, throw just about every interrogation trick in the book at him and Ryan just watches on calm as you please, only moving to look up at the clock on the wall. When at last he does open his mouth the relief is short-lived; carefully meandering around confessions Ryan talks in hypotheticals and television plotlines, discussing supposedly fictional violence in such vivid detail his interviewers start looking a little green. It’s quite a talent, to balance technical innocence with an undercurrent of undeniably remorseless responsibility, all while casually discussing the fascinating sounds humans make when they are pulled apart.  In another room Gavin slouches in his metal chair like it’s a throne, like the worst kind of entitled, like the grown-up version of the trust-fund baby sneering at the principle’s threat of discipline, utterly untouchable and he knows it. All grinning swagger Gavin asks the detectives if they’ve thought this through, if they know what they’re doing, how they think it’s going to end. He asks if they haven’t heard all those terrible rumours people have spread about his family, shares a few of his favourites, the darkest and most deplorable things people have said about the Vagabond. Isn’t it funny? Could you even imagine if the stories were true? If that was the kind of man you’d captured? Can you picture what he would do to you when he got free? And that’s saying nothing of Ramsey, have you heard what they say he’s done for his family? What he’d do for his son? Chilling stuff that, terrifying. Especially for someone like you, with kids at home. Someone who’d just gotten married, who has reliant parents, who’s sister’s about to have that baby. Wouldn’t it be awful huh? Aren’t you glad they’re only stories.It’s late by the time the detectives give up for the night, but there is an undeniable sense of relief in locking those two away again, in washing hands of those horrors for a couple of hours, going home to hug loved ones close and stave off technicolour nightmares. To kick things off at midnight is appallingly cliché, but things kick off a midnight. The station is never empty, particularly not when it’s housing criminals this high profile, but at midnight everything goes quiet. Still. Just long enough for every officer’s well-honed instincts to start blaring in alarm. And then the screaming starts.When the bigwigs try to piece it all together later even frantic reviews of security footage won’t reveal what happened. They see Gavin’s cell suddenly go dark, and when the light returns he’s gone. Changing angles there’s a flash of him wandering down the hall, utterly unhurried and blowing a winking kiss at the camera before it flickers out. When they find him again it’s on the camera outside the Vagabond’s cell, leaning through the bars and chattering away to the Mercenary looming on the other side as calmly as you please, like they’re playing instead of launching an escape.Free’s in no rush, waiting for his crew-mate to grab his collar and yank him into the bars before he laughs and shakes his way free, finally trotting over to unlock the door, unleashing the Vagabond into the hall. As Gavin turns to answer the phone he shouldn’t have the Vagabond looks up, directly at the lens, shaking his head as he points to an imaginary watch before flipping off the camera just before it, too, goes dark.From there the LSPD have only witness accounts to work with, tales from those who survived and those who came in after; the ones who saw the cavalcade of big black cars pulling up in front of the station just before everything went to hell, who didn’t have the chance to raise the alarm before the FAHC were raining bullets down on them. Those who had to clean blood from linoleum, tape up shattered windows, carry bodies to the morgue. Those who can no long bear the sound of clocks ticking, who swear they can still hear the echoes of that monstrous laughter. The ones who witnessed death slinking through the station in a leather jacket and designer jeans, who observed the birth of Los Santos’ newest horrifying rumour firsthand.

[ballerinaroy]

raised for a purpose

“He cuts himself off because they don’t understand. They don’t get it. For Harry, it doesn’t end with Voldemort. If he was born the power to defeat the dark lord then he has the power to defeat them all."

Looking back, it wasn’t as simple as a butterfly flapping its wings, or maybe it was. One decision after another has lead Harry Potter down a very different path from his friends. Now, twenty-six and under investigation from the ministry, Harry is forced to take a step back and re-evaluate how he went from the boy who lived to the man who went too far.

read it on Ao3

One. 

The goblins take his money. 

Harry’s never indulged in the fortune his parents left him, but he supposed he’d always taken comfort in the fact that money was not a concern of his. He’d never had to think about money, or providing for himself, so when he received a notice that they were charging him for the damages incurred in May, he realized he’d have to get a job. 

But only after a good deal of shouting.

“We were in the middle of a war!”

“Goblins do not take part in trivial human matters,” the goblin said. “You broke into our building and caused a significant amount of damage-“

“Take it out of the Lestrange Vault!” 

“They were the victims.” 

“Victims?” he asked. “You’re defending two people responsible for crimes so terrible the Prophet won’t even print them all.” 

“Again, Mr. Potter. Goblins do not take part in trivial human matters.” The Goblin looked bored. “Our only concern is ensuring that the gold and valuables of our clients are secure. You broke into a vault, stole and damaged our building. Thus, you must pay for the damages. If you would like to pay for those damages in a different form then we will gladly give you access to your vault, otherwise consider your account with Gringotts closed.” 

Two. 

Hermione decides to go back to school. Ron decides to join her. 

“What do you mean you want to go back to school?” Harry asked as they casually discussed this over tea as if the news wasn’t life-altering. 

“We’ve been talking about this for weeks, mate,” Ron answered, looking just as surprised as Harry felt. 

“But we’ve been offered jobs as Aurors!” Harry pointed out. 

“No, Kingsley asked if we’d be willing to help rebuild the department,” Ron replied. Harry stared at him. “There is no Aurors, the head was killed as soon as Thickneese took over and everyone with any sense fled. After everything we’ve been through this past year, do you really want to keep taking on Death Eaters with no help?” 

“If not us, then who?” Harry asked. 

“Literally, anyone else,” Ron said impatiently. “Look, if it were an actual job with someone there to help us then sure, but until there’s anyone with sense running the department then I don’t fancy going on goose chases for who knows how long.” 

“Don’t you want something normal, Harry?” Hermione pleaded. “Haven’t you given enough?” 

“No,” he said, staring at his best friends and wondering how they could even consider it being over. “How can you just go to school like there isn’t evil out there?” 

They shared a worried look. 

“There’s always going to be evil,” Ron replied. “But I think we’ll be much better fighting it if we take a year for ourselves and get qualified.” 

Three. 

Ron’s right. There is no Auror department. 

It’s with bitterness that Harry admits to himself that Ron might have had a point. He shows up to a room full of people all staring at each other with distrust. The appointed department head instructs them to patrol Diagon Alley, attend Wizengamont sessions, monitor Azkaban. Mundane tasks that dark wizard catchers had no business doing. 

When Harry spends more time being shown off to international wizards than he does battling evil and at Christmas, he finds himself jealous of Ron and Hermione’s stories about quidditch and classes and papers. 

“You could come,” Hermione offered, “I’d help you catch up.” 

“I already have a job to do.” He said bitterly and doesn’t see them off. 

Four. 

Harry goes rogue. 

According to his orders, he’s to get information only. Not leave his post. They are to observe, build cases, not intervene unless they have sufficient manpower. But when Dolohov has the nerve to show his face in the middle of the day Harry can’t find it in himself to care that he’d not supposed to act. Particularly not when Dolohov gives him an evil smile and orders a pint like he’d never tortured anyone like he had as much a right to be in the pub as Harry. 

So he stuns him, binds him and leaves behind a broken table and a screaming crowd. 

The press have a field day. 

“The Boy-Who-Lives does it again!” 

“Evil Truphped by the Chosen One” 

It feels good to be recognized for having done something beyond stand behind Kingsley at a press conference. And his boss can’t really argue because now, there’s one less Death Eater on the streets and he seems perfectly happy taking the credit for the work that Harry did. 

When Harry seeing Dawlish accepting payment from Goyle in an alley he captures him too. He stops showing up for his assigned shifts and starts tracking down whoever he can find.

Five. 

Ron and Hermione graduate. They get engaged. They get married. 

They beg him over for dinner or out for drinks and he makes it when he can, but there’s so much work to do and not enough people doing it. He resents Hermione for taking a job with Magical Law because she is fierce and competitive and he could use her by his side but he resents Ron more for taking a job with the Aurors and following every rule he’s given. 

“Not all of us are you, Harry,” Ron says, refusing to leave his patrol in Hogsmeade to help him track down who’s been trafficking entrumptment horn and selling it off in dangerous quantities. “If I were to do the things that you were I’d be fired.” 

So Harry stops asking Ron to join him. Stops accepting invitations to dinner to avoid the gentle suggestions that he should take a day off, rest. Stops joining the Weasleys on Sundays. Starts pretending he’s not home with Hermione comes calling. Stops going into the office on the days he knows Ron is there. 

He cuts himself off because they don’t understand. They don’t get it. For Harry, it doesn’t end with Voldemort. If he was born the power to defeat the dark lord then he has the power to defeat them all. 

Six. 

The ministry is perfectly happy to let a teenager sort out their problems until they aren’t. 

Aside from some feeble attempts to reign him in during that first year, Harry has largely been left to his own devices. He’s lasted through department policy changes, three department heads, and countless initiatives to reduce dark wizards and address the inequities that plagued their society. Though it all, Harry had continued hunting down dark wizards with no repercussions to his actions. 

It’s only when he’s injured on the job, stuck in a hospital bed to regrow all of the bones in his right leg that he gets the notice. Under investigation. 

“For improper apprehension methods?” Harry raged at the letter that had been hand-delivered by the head of the department, flanked by two of his own bodyguards. “Since when has petrifying someone been improper?” 

“Six months,” Ron frowned at him. 

“They passed a law about it and everything,” Hermione told him. “They did a study and found that being petrified for more than an hour had the potential for long term effects, not to mention the psychological trauma. I sent you the article, didn’t you read it?” 

Ron and Hermione had shown up before he’d even woken and though it’d been weeks since he’d last spoken with them, showed no sign of leaving. 

“Didn’t have the time,” Harry said truthfully enough. In fact, he hadn’t opened any of their mail in a long time. It sat, piled on his dresser at home. It was too painful, remembering what they had once shared and he was no longer a part of. 

“Well,” Hermione continued, “You’ll have plenty of time to read now, the healer said that you needed to take it easy.” 

“I need to go back to work,” Harry countered. 

“You’re suspended, Harry,” Ron told him in a surprisingly firm voice. “You need to recover.” 

Seven. 

Anger pt. I

They refuse to rise to his foul mood, act as if everything is the same between them when nothing is. It boils over when, even after a week, he’s unable to get dressed without Ron’s help. 

“You haven’t been through what I’ve been through.” He spat at them angrily. “You don’t understand how it feels to be responsible for this!” 

He’s been yelling for a while and they’ve been taking it which only makes him angrier.

“No,” Hermione agreed, a hitch in her voice. “We don’t.” 

She hesitated and Harry spit, “But?” 

They glanced at one another and then, in a hesitant voice. 

“But we stopped,” Ron answered, “Because it was too painful. We gave ourselves time to recover, to sort out what had happened to us.” 

“Things were bad,” Hermione whispered, “At school.” 

They share another significant look and in a pained voice she went on. “We were irritable and hostile. I wouldn’t sleep for days because so long as I was working I could ignore everything that had happened.” 

“We fought with each other, with others,” Ron told him. “I’d get up and leave class, hex people for talking bad about you. Had it been any other year, we would have been expelled for sure.” 

“And of course there were flashbacks and nightmares but it was nothing compared to the intrusive thoughts,” she drew a shuddering breath, “Sometimes it felt like there was still a Horcux around our necks whispering terrible things. Sometimes I wish there was to explain away the lack of control. The guilt of surviving, the anxiety in thinking of all the ways we shouldn’t’ve been able to.” 

“It took us a while, to even see that there was something wrong,” Ron said, reaching over to grab Hermione’s hand. “And when we did it didn’t give us any answers on how to make it better.” 

“We spent a lot of time talking,” Hermione provided. “Talking it all to death, to the point that I wasn’t even interested in talking about it anymore.” 

“And we set boundaries, on what we could handle from one another and from the world,” Ron said. “I gave up Quidditch, because I’d get so angry during the games. Every missed goal felt like life or death and afterwords I’d berate the team win or lose.” 

“And I set a routine so I ate every day and wouldn’t just hole myself up in the library and got to bed at a decent time.” Hermione’s voice was kind. “We didn’t graduate cured, but I felt like I had a handle on myself. I wasn’t terrified to be left alone.” 

“We wanted to help you, mate, we’ve always wanted to help you, but you went barreling down this path and refused to even consider taking a second for yourself,” Ron said. “I couldn’t do that with you then, and I can’t do that with you now.” 

Hermione reached over and grasped his arm. “You have to let us help you, Harry. And if it’s not us, you have to figure out something that will because if you keep going like you are-“ she broke off as if the thought was too terrible. 

“Come home with us,” Ron said firmly, “Don’t go running off chasing the next horrible thing because it’ll still be there once you’ve had a chance to recover.” 

Eight. 

He sees a therapist. 

Has too, if he wants any chance at his job back. His first appointment she smiles too much and seems a little starstruck and Harry found it hard to believe that she wouldn’t sell his secrets for the right price. Not to mention her questions. About his family, about his past, his friendships and it all feels a little too much like an interview with Rita gone wrong but then...

“Why does it have to be you hunting all these Death Eaters down?” 

“But I was the one named and until I capture them all-” 

“Named?” 

“Until I killed him he was going to keep coming after me. I was the one prophesied to kill him, there was nothing anyone else could do.” 

She looked at him patiently and Harry felt his anger spike. 

“Voldemort tried to murder me when I was barely old enough to stand. He followed me to school and eleven, when I was twelve his Horcrux tried to murder me, fourteen, fifteen, I was the only one who could end it.” 

“And what about now? Voldemort isn’t what’s coming after you.”

“No, but his followers are still at large and as long as they are my friends are in danger, the wizarding world is in danger.” 

“Do you feel that there’s anyone else who is able” 

“No one else was doing anything! Before I arrested Dolohov they were just sitting on their asses, twiddling their thumbs, not caring that the people who hunted down and cursed my friends were allowed to walk the streets.” 

“Do you still feel that way? Like there’s no one else doing anything?” 

“Well, no, but-” 

“But what?” 

“But the ministry always waited too long to act. Sure, right now things are functioning but what happens when another Dark Lord comes? What happens when a politician becomes corrupt? It’s really hard to believe that things will continue to get better because in my experience things only ever get better for a while.”

Nine. 

The five stages of grief. 

Anger (pt.II)

“Those wankers don’t know what they’re doing. Half the cells in Azkaban are filled because of me. The ministry won’t be able to do a thing without me.” 

Denial. 

“Any day now, the charges’ll be dropped. I’m Harry Potter, I killed Voldemort. The ministry can’t run without me.” 

Bargaining. 

“If they could just give me another year, I could round up who’s left.” 

Depression. 

“What’s the point, if I can’t defeat Dark Wizards? It’s not like I have any skills to speak of.” 

Acceptance. 

“I don’t think being an Auror is healthy.” 

Pause. 

“I don’t think I want to chase Dark Wizards any more.” 

Ten. 

It took some getting used to, life at Ron and Hermione’s. 

There was the morning rush as they bumped into one another and got ready for work, but by in large life was a lot slower, neater. They came home by six and made dinner and drank wine on the couch as the dishes washed themselves in the sink. In the evenings, Hermione would work and Ron would entertain them with stories about his day as Crookshakes curled up on Harry’s lap with a warm weight that made him sleepily. 

On the weekends they’d go to the market and Quidditch matches or listen to the wireless and the rain lashing at the windows. It was…peaceful. Calm. 

George and Ginny would stop in for dinner. Percy would pop up for a quick consult with Hermione only to stay for an hour. Molly brought baskets of baked good and even though Harry insisted he didn’t need anything, she’d tidy up and do his washing. 

When the fourth month passed and the matter had yet to be sorted, he gave up his flat at Ron and Hermione’s insistence. And when his healers said he didn’t have to be on bed rest any longer, he accepted George’s invitation to come and visit the shop. It was there that Harry found his own routine, stacking boxes, counting. It was soothing, calm. When he walked through the door in the evening Ron and Hermione would smile and in time he started to smile back. 

Eleven.

His name is cleared. 

He always knew it would be. What should have been an administrative disciplinary hearing is a full spectacle, standing room only. When they deliver the final verdict, people actually gasp and it takes several minutes to regain order. 

“Mr. Potter will be placed under supervision for a probationary period of a year. Should there be no more issues, then he will resume his duties with all the authority the title of Auror carries.” 

“Thank you, minister,” Harry replied, “I accept your judgment.” 

Again, the buzzing. 

“But I respectfully resign, effective immediately.” 

His ears ring for days after. 

Twelve. 

Harry finds a different path. 

He doesn’t visit McGonagall intending to apply for the ever vacant Defence post, just to ask to start a club, come and lecture. Harry is beginning to regret not going back to school and while he doesn’t think it will cure him like it cured Ron and Hermione, he hopes that it will return to him that hopeful feeling. But Harry’s never quite figured out how to argue with her stern look.

“There’s no point in trying to hire someone else,” she said firmly as they discussed Harry’s proposition over tea and ginger biscuits. “I don’t fancy hearing students attending your club and then arguing with the Professor that the only useful spell is ‘Expellimus’.” 

Harry’s face grows hot and thinks about pointing out that he’s quite apt at a shield charm as well, but gives in. “A year, as a trial. The position is cursed after all.” 

“You’ve never been one for rules, Harry. Why should you follow this one?” 

Fin. 

A year turns into two turns into ten. He trains his students on defensive spells and jelly-legs jinxes. Tells the story of how Ron defeated a troll when they were first years and how Hermione traveled in time to do too many classes. His students all ask for tales of battle and when he gives in he senses their disappointment because all his stories end in a lesson. Lessons of bravery and kindness. Of how Voldemort wouldn’t’ve existed at all if perhaps he hadn’t been loved more as a child. 

He sees Ron and Hermione’s children through school who call him Uncle and act the same in his classroom as they do when he joins them on the holidays. He drinks tea with Neville in the staff room and offers Butterbeer to students who come to him late at night with fears. Sometimes, Harry wonders what might have happened if he hadn’t gone too far. But it’s painful to imagine a world where he doesn’t stay up late grading papers and sneak out after dinner to have a drink with his friends. 

At seventeen he thought his only purpose was to defeat the dark arts but now he can see that fighting death eaters isn’t the only way to make the world a better place. 

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of Spotlight Saga presents... A Rewind Review of the final episode of Quarry on Cinemax whose cancellation was just announced yesterday. As you'll see in the language of this article, I personally hold the show in high regard, even including it the Top 5 #BestOf2016 series we ran. Cinemax, who is owned by HBO claims they are revamping the network that is just now gaining a good wave of steam and building a respectable library. The Knick was also a groundbreaking series that recently received the axe from the same network, yet Strike Back that last ran in 2015 is already getting a reboot. What say you, Cinemax? We are incredibly disappointed by your decision to cancel this incredibly thought provoking Crime Drama set in a very real to life 1972 Memphis. Michael D Fuller, executive producer and co-creator of the show (along with (Graham Gordy) is a huge inspiration for me and for 'Spotlight Saga', inspiring me to include a more honest approach to political standpoints, something at the time I was very afraid to use in my writing. The following article was written shorty after the end of Quarry's Legendary 8-Episode run. Going forward, as much as I am frustrated with Cinemax, I think it's important to focus on the positives here and follow & support both Fuller & Gordy in any future projects or endeavors they may have. Thank you, Fuller. Thank you, Gordy. You have earned more than a few lifetime fans. Kevin Cage of Spotlight Saga reviews... Quarry (S01E08) Nuoc Cha Da Mon Airdate: October 28, 2016 (Cinemax) Ratings: Premium Cable/Streaming - Nielsen is Guessing! Score: 10/10 (An Extremely Rare Perfect Score) **************SPOILERS BELOW*************** *Poltical Views do NOT represent Spotlight Saga* Well, I asked for it... Basically begged for it, I even considered taking a day off work to just sit at home and watch it. Now, I've finally watched it, and I feel...changed. 'The Vietnam Scene' let's us peak into the PTSD origins and Mac's time at war, as well as providing a provocative theory on just what we might have been doing over there in the first place... Losing lives on both sides, our veterans returning home to a chorus of boos, met with thick walls of human disdain, and stop signs in every direction they turned. Single Camera, long take shots can be risky. Just look at Daredevil, a show that successfully used them in S1, then overused the same hallmark shots in S2. They simply cannot be your whole show, because one continuous 'sequence shot', particularly those that surround an upsetting action or disturbing sequence linger with the viewer, like the shots themselves linger on the situation at hand. In this case, a raid in Vietnam 🇻🇳 on a village with mainly fisherman, women, and children... Innocent lives lost in a war that in the end meant nothing but death, heartache, and terror. Of course that asshole of a captain commended Mac (Logan Marshall Green) and praised him to The Broker (Peter Mullan) at the end, 'He's a good soldier.' Yup, cuz he does what he's told without hesitation... Like firing the first shot without thinking, snowballing a cascade of death and chaos, topping off the whole experience by throwing a grenade into a covered pit that contained a toddler... A toddler who we are shown blown right out of the pit into fucking pieces. That's one thing that Quarry never does, shies away from violence, from the money shot... And it never feels exploitative, it just feels like that's the reality, a reality that the viewers should not be protected from. And so it goes... The Broker is no vigilante, tho he does give the people that he employs the benefit of small 'in-between' jobs that make them feel like they are doing good in the world. It's a game of chess, and he is Bobby Fischer in his prime, and a patriarch of the 70's... A king of a dirty unferbelly ruled by the almighty dollar and poppy fields as far as the eye can see. The day I wanted to take off work, just so happened to have three or four people at the bar discussing Vietnam. Of course, right? I immediately throw Quarry in the mix and of course, none of them had heard of it... Unsurprising, considering how hard it is just to obtain Cinemax, thank god for Amazon Video now! We discussed the length at which protesters treated the returning war veterans; Picketing, spitting, throwing objects, screaming and shoving homemade signs in their face... As if the soldiers ever had a choice in the matter. You enlist, You're drafted, you're trapped, you're owned, and just like Mac... If you are a good soldier you do what you're told like a goddamn robot, a machine without empathy, and then when you return home you have nothing. PTSD? In '72? Here's a pamphlet. 'Be glad the man has his legs and his arms,' the man at the VA tells Joni (#JodiBalfour) when she desperately seeks help for a man she cannot save herself. So there you have the people in control of our government, sending our brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers over to fight a pointless war. Then you have the rich men, the patriarchs, who are able to come through and buy a slice of the action... A poppy field... A goldmine just waiting to make the rich man richer. And then you have protesters, mainly uninformed Regular Joes who only see the picture that's painted before them, like the SJW's today that picket and march through our major cities furthering the divide they claim they are trying to stop. Oh yes, that's the truth of the matter, a truth that blind rage and ignorance stop people from seeing. There is something inherently terrifying about the parallels of Vietnam 🇻🇳 to the wars and thousands deployed in countries like Iraq 🇮🇶 Iran 🇮🇷 Afghanistan 🇦🇫 Pakistan 🇵🇰 Kuwait 🇰🇼 Bahrain 🇧🇭 Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 Syria 🇸🇾 Yemen 🇾🇪 And I could go on and on and on, places we have no business being, places that our country backwardly depends on for oil, or countries that have militias and terrorist organizations just sitting on oil fields holding them captive to prevent the chaos countries like ours and others have caused attempting to police the world and secure access to natural resources, while they themselves use the guns we have directly armed them with to oppress their people and then line the pockets of people like Hillary Clinton's with hundreds of thousands of dollars. No, I am no sympathizer, both sides make me sick. The whole thing makes me sick. Mostly, the human race makes me sick. A long time ago while living in San Francisco, I realized that the most beautiful and pure people are mostly at the bottom sleeping in the street or struggling at a minimum wage job, while the ugliest and ruthless people are at the top inviting a lucky few up to share in a night of debauchery, caressing their insecurities with thoughts of becoming their protégés or possible arm candy while their young and their beauty is still intact. Just last week, less than a month to go in his final term, Obama abolished the 'Wet Foot, Dry Foot' policy, a policy that helped save thousands of Cuban 🇨🇺 lives and helped build the great city of Miami that I call home... This done in the spirit to 'normalize relations with our one-time foe.' While abolishing this policy *COULD* indeed do just that, hidden behind that very controversial and well known policy; Another policy, The Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, was also nixed. That lesser known policy allowed the opportunity for Cuban Medical Professionals to come to the US through other countries to earn residency, citizenship, and jobs. A sneaky move, one disguised as a way to strengthen the relations between The USA 🇺🇸 & Cuba 🇨🇺. Just one of many examples that not everything in the painting is portrayed as it should be or relaid to the public highlighting the big picture as a whole. This is a man who promised us CHANGE, but the majority of these promises of change were broken. Under the Obama Administration more Whistleblowers were jailed under the Espionage Act of 1917, imprisoned, or forced to seek asylum, like Snowden in Russia 🇷🇺 and of course famous Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, who is literally living in an Ecuadorian 🇪🇨 Embassy in London 🇬🇧. Then today Obama grants clemency to Transgender Whistleblower Chelsea Manning, shortening her 35 year sentence to end 3 decades early in May of this year, 2017. Why, Obama? A PR move to distract from other last minute changes and to surge an approval rating on the way out? Something to think about, especially when he was so adamant about putting those that expose our government's truths, lies, and nasty cover-ups behind bars or strand them in foreign countries that don't exactly provide the same freedoms. Meanwhile last year was the first year that I was forced to pay taxes, and not just because I'm penalized for seeking affordable medical treatment for cash, and not pumping money into the Insurance Industry, the failure of Obamacare. All of this happening, and a rich white New York female actress named Lena Dunham tells the world that she's never had an abortion, but she wishes she had. WHY?! Meryl Streep uses an acceptance speech to rile up SJW's. And to add insult to injury, she says an art form and sport older than her 50x over, MMA and Combat Arts are not really arts. WHY?! God bless some of Meryl Streep's performances, they are truly cinematic gold, but that doesn't automatically make her the High Queen of all Art, deciding what earns that prestigious label and what does not. I try and promise myself that I will not get political in my reviews, but honestly when I write emotional parallels I seem to get the most responses. And because of great television series like 'Quarry' that most definitely gets my stamp for my list of #BestOf2016 TV Series), they inspire me to put my ideas out there, my life stories, my origins, my secrets, my heartaches, my tales of happiness and tragedy... Because of series like 'Quarry' I am more honest with you than I am with anyone else in my life. It's scary to put these very personal, private, and passionate views and experiences out there. Like I said, the one rule I try to set for myself is try to keep politics (or at least pick and choose my crusades and battles) out of it, and to treat those with opposing opinions with respect and class... But here we have a moving, haunting portrait of political injustice, and it's inspiring. It's hard to stay quiet when there is so much injustice surrounding us, so much ignorance. I have literally seen people I love with all my heart throw away meaningful, lifelong friendships over this sham of an election on both sides. I am not a conservative. I am not a liberal. I am a man who is happy with very little... I have a slice of paradise in a city where I am very much the minority. I'm happy living life one day at a time, living a quiet life and practicing different forms of artistic expression, over the years learning that my gift is worth a bit of money, but still getting the hang of making it the center of my universe. I'm no hired hitman, but I've abused this body with serving, bartending, and even go-go dancing... At one point I was literally working day shifts serving tables in Miami, getting off at 4 or 5pm, then driving to Ft Lauderdale, dancing without my clothes at night until the early morning, trying to catch a few low-paying DJ gigs in between. Like Mac, we all have our demons, demons that many of us will never quite shake. We can defeat them, learn to live as harmoniously as possible with them, or let them destroy us slowly. Quarry is a vivid and honest tale of political injustice, racial divides, struggling human beings just trying to survive in a world where the odds are stacked up against them, a tale of broken men and women, the moments that make us feel alive, the moments that haunt us, a tale of a human being struggling with their sexual identity in a brutally violent and unaccepting world, one that is engraved and hardwired into them, broken egos, and a tale of how people can easily be turned into puppets with the almighty dollar and a simple plant growing from God's green earth. I found it very fitting that before the last sequence of scenes Mac goes to cast his presidential vote. Unfortunately it always comes down to the lesser of two evils... Republicans or Democrats, but both are evil and wicked in their own individual ways. To #VoteLibertarian or Green is unheard of (though this idea is changing and becoming more of a reality now, thank god) and for many years I considered the act 'throwing away' my vote, but with the candidates becoming increasingly hard to differentiate the pros and cons... Maybe it's time that everyone starts voting Libertarian, Green, some sort of other growing Independent Party... Or like Mac, just write in the late, great Otis Redding. My Step-Father has taken to the practice, and he's right... If you can't beat em', don't join 'em, vote for somebody else, ANYONE. Ive been told this is a problem in all countries, so on a worldwide scale I'm not sure if even Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump was even the hardest decision a voter has had to face... We had it easy, The Philippines 🇵🇭 had to settle for Rodrigo Duterte, a MADMAN who encouraged the people of his country to hunt down and murder people suffering from the disease of addiction. Somethings gotta give, the division I see in our world today frightens me, but most of all it saddens me. For now, here in the US, what's done is done. We must allow things to play out as if the world 🌎 was our television series. Stop the division. Stop the hate, on BOTH sides... And let's take things as I have learned to live, one day at a time. Being unified if things go wrong will be a lot better than being a nation torn apart. Maybe the future will surprise you, maybe it won't... Just hold on to your empathy and everything will be alright. It's the only thing we have left. We have to do better.

[barryfreese71841-blog]

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