#Also can we let this put to bed this other absurd conspiracy theory

[yesterdayiwrote]

Dear lord will this team just let it go for 5 minutes?

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 46 Review: 2 Theories About Jean Paul, Erica, and the Locket

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

In this great house on Maljardin, evil lives, even amongst the dead, and the poison this evil spreads threatens Erica Desmond, who lies frozen in this cryocapsule until the day a scientific miracle returns her to the living and back into the arms of her husband Jean Paul Desmond, who has defied powers real and imagined to assure his wife’s return from beyond the veiled curtain of death. Strange happenings are forcing a decision that could doom Erica Desmond...forever. 

Hello and welcome back to my Garden of Evil, where today we will examine Jean Paul’s reaction to Dr. Alison Carr’s new discovery about her sister’s bloodied locket and two possible explanations of what it may say about Erica’s death and Jean Paul’s state of mind. I could do an entire recap of this episode if I wanted to, but I'd rather narrow the focus of this entry to the theories that have been floating around my head for a while (one since before I started this blog, in fact).

A brief summary of the important stuff that happens in this episode: Alison learns that the blood on the locket is human blood, type AB-, which leads her to conclude that it must be Erica’s, because both she and Erica have that rare blood type[1]. She also tests the poison found in the glass of wine that Holly drank from two episodes ago and finds that it’s not the missing cyanide, but an unknown poison of vegetable origin. Elizabeth defends herself to Matt, telling him that she has no motive to kill Holly, not even her inheritance--and, surprisingly, he believes her. And then Raxl and Quito steal the rabbit from Jean Paul’s room and stumble upon that wonderfully sinister skull, which will co-star with Jacques in Episode 47.

Jean Paul receives irrefutable proof that the locket found around the rabbit’s neck belonged to Erica.

Outside of those plot points, this episode focuses primarily on Jean Paul’s confusion over how a bloodied locket even ended up in the cryonics capsule with his beloved Erica to begin with. When Alison shows Jean Paul the blood sample under the microscope, he's skeptical at first and tries to convince her that she either bled on it or someone else somehow put her blood there to confuse him. I would say it boggles my mind how someone with an IQ of 187 like Jean Paul can conceive such a ridiculous theory, but, honestly, it doesn’t. The popularity of conspiracy theories and other misinformation in our time has convinced me that human beings of any intelligence level can trick themselves into believing anything, no matter how patently absurd, if they want to believe it enough.

Subtle Dark Shadows reference?

I can’t tell how much of the next part where Jean Paul continues speculating about the locket is actually in the script and how much is just a particularly bad line flub. Listening to his dialogue, it sounds like a combination of both, but it’s hard to tell given that the character is supposed to be very confused already. Here’s an exact transcription of what he says:

Jean Paul: "Well, maybe I-I-I put the necklace on her neck without realizing it. I perhaps didn't put it on her when I put it in the capsule. It could have happened that way very easily. You see, I had thought I had. You didn't see me do it, did you, Raxl?" Raxl: "No." Jean Paul: "Quito, did you?" Quito: *shakes head* Jean Paul: "Well, there you are. You see? She could have cut her finger a while before she died, and so the blood got on the locket, and maybe I put the locket in the, uh, dresser drawer, and it was left there, and in my grief I didn't know what I was doing and I gave her another piece of jewelry which I put around her neck. Don't you think that probably is what has happened?"

Vangie isn’t convinced of any of these theories, and neither is Raxl. The latter believes that the locket appeared because of evil, “slimy like a snake, ugly like a black rabbit.” (WTF? The rabbit is adorable!) Jean Paul accuses Vangie of suspecting him, but she insists she doesn’t. Of course, he doesn’t believe her and he takes out his anger by breaking Alison’s microscope in half, throwing it to the ground, and accusing Erica of mocking him.

In the next scene, he ruminates in his room over the likelihood that he killed Erica, intentionally or otherwise:

Could I have killed my Erica? Could I have slain my love? That's impossible! Oh, you would like it, Jacques Eloi des Mondes, my bloody murdering ancestor. If it was so, how you would rejoice! But then, if I didn't put the locket in the cryocapsule with Erica as I thought, what other things that I believe as facts--things which are part of my life and experience--may be no more than creeping, malicious, lying fancies? Perhaps I didn't love my Erica at all. Perhaps I hated her!

Jean Paul pondering whether he truly loved Erica.

Getting dramatic!

Later, while lying on his bed in shirtsleeves, he realizes that he genuinely loved her, but that his memory is still faulty:

Jean Paul: "I loved her. I remember how I loved her. There was no world but the world outside, and then there was another world and that was us. Oh, how I loved her, so good, so beautiful, but what happened at the end? I can't…was the necklace with Erica when she was sealed in the capsule? I can't remember."

But later on when he visits the Great Hall (inadvertently giving Raxl and Quito the opportunity to retrieve the Rabbit of Evil), Jacques torments him by implying that Jean Paul, like him, is a murderer. “Think there’s a chance you may have murdered your sweet Erica?” he asks. “That blood was very interesting, wasn’t it?”

Jacques hinting again that they’re the same man, or just that the apple doesn’t fall far from the proverbial tree? Or perhaps this is like that one line from Game of Thrones: “You can’t kill me, I’m a part of you now.”

Then we get this exchange which acts as a segue into the next scene:

Jacques: "So maybe you killed your little love before you put her in that tin coffin, hm? Maybe there is no pristine, pure body to revive. That's what's been on your mind all day, isn't it?"   Jean Paul: "Even if it has been, I certainly wouldn't tell you."   Jacques: "You can have no secrets from me, anyhow. You know, if you ever are thinking of murdering again…" Jean Paul: "I did not kill her!" Jacques: "All right!" *laughs* "But whether you did or not, you might want to kill someone else one of these days." Jean Paul:  "Good night." Jacques: "All right, run away, but you might find an example of my skill nearer than you know and sooner than you think."

After he storms out of the Great Hall, Raxl and Quito return, the latter carrying the rabbit. Before they can sacrifice the rabbit in an effort to rid the house of its evil, it jumps from Quito’s arms. While trying to catch it, he bumps his head into a painting of mysterious ancestor Étienne des Mondes and knocks it off the wall, revealing a hidden cupboard with a skull swinging from a rope through its jaws.

We’ll discuss this skull in the review for next episode, where it becomes the focus. For the rest of this review, however, let us turn our attention to two possible interpretations of the Jean Paul and Jacques scenes in this episode. My theories are as follows:

Theory #1: Jean Paul killed Erica and is living in denial

Jean Paul’s reaction to learning that his deceased wife’s blood is on the locket and especially Jacques’ comments about it seem to imply that Dan Forrest’s theory about murder may not be a red herring after all as Ian Martin would have had us believe. Remember that, although Jacques is evil and Martin’s episodes portrayed him as the Father of Lies, he and Jean Paul may or may not be the same man. That could mean anything from Jean Paul having a split personality to Jacques having transported himself forward in time to live as Jean Paul Desmond before the events of Episode 1, but I’ll save those ideas for another essay. The point is that Jacques seems to know Jean Paul as well as he knows himself, and as such knows things about him that the other characters don’t.

It’s possible even that Jacques has observed and interacted with Jean Paul since long before Jean Paul freed him by removing the silver pin from the conjure doll’s temple. Think back to Jacques’ introductory scene in the pilot, where he responds to Jean Paul’s proclamation of “on this island, from this moment forward, I am God” with “bravo.” He could speak through the portrait and even give characters visions before Jean Paul freed him! Also think of all the things he’s referenced that a man from the 17th century wouldn’t be aware of: merry-go-rounds, bus time tables, the figurative expression “jack up by the bootstraps,” and whatnot. Assuming Jacques is a spirit like he claims, he’s been observing and learning things on Maljardin for a very long time! Sure, he looked confused about that fountain pen in Episode 4, but perhaps that was only because he hadn’t had a chance to practice using one before Jean Paul set him free. If Jean Paul killed Erica, Jacques would know about it and may even have encouraged it by communicating with him through the portrait. There’s no indication that the scene in the pilot is the first time he made contact with his descendant. It could be the second time, the fifth, the tenth, the thousandth, or more.

Also note that the exact cause of Erica’s death is never made clear. Jean Paul claims in Episode 5 that she died of eclampsia, but the Lost Episode summary for Episode 47 from the CBC program log indicates that Dr. Menkin’s missing notes would have eventually revealed her to have “died attempting to gain eternal youth.” The latter could have meant anything from plastic surgery complications to swallowing gold à la Diane de Poitiers. It’s not even clear if the attempt at eternal youth is truly the cause of her death, just what she was doing when she died. This leaves the possibility of homicide open.

But did Jean Paul (or Dr. Menkin) intentionally kill her, or could it have been an unpremeditated, spur-of-the-moment decision? I believe the latter is more likely. Jean Paul seems genuinely confused by her death, and even by whether he loved or hated her. It’s possible he already wasn’t in his right mind before her death and may even have blacked out during it (although probably not because of possession, as he had not yet freed Jacques). Perhaps the artificial intelligence hinted at by the reference to W. Grey Walter’s “Imitation of Life” factored into this: for example, the implant inside Erica’s brain may have malfunctioned, causing her to become violent and attack Jean Paul and/or Dr. Menkin.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)

Another thing to consider: Strange Paradise shares many plot points in common with the Roger Corman/Vincent Price movie The Pit and the Pendulum. In the film, we have (1) a husband whose wife recently died under mysterious circumstances, (2) whom he comes to suspect he accidentally murdered. (3) His doctor is living at the castle with him, when (4) a sibling of his deceased wife comes to investigate her death. Among the ghostly happenings in the house, (5) a portrait of the wife is slashed. Finally, (6) the husband goes mad and (7) is possessed by an evil lookalike ancestor, in this case his father. While I don’t think that we can accurately predict planned revelations in Strange Paradise using the events of a film written by someone unaffiliated with the show’s production, it is interesting to note that Vincent Price’s character accidentally buried his wife alive. This connects to the events of Episode 44, where Erica’s spirit possesses Holly and tells them to “let [her] out,” although in Erica’s case it’s more likely that she’s just been resurrected from death instead of being buried alive.

END SPOILERS

Theory #2: Jean Paul is imagining things

Another possibility is that he didn't kill Erica and is using the new (apparent) evidence to construct a false memory of killing her. Although most of us like to think of memory as infallible, numerous studies have proven that it's anything but. This can occur on a collective level, such as the famous Mandela effect where, prior to Nelson Mandela's actual death in 2013, many people misremembered him as having died in the 1980s. More often, however, individual people remember false versions of events from their own lives.

In the late 20th century, numerous psychological studies identified the way that even changing small details of a story--changing a stop sign to a yield sign, for example, or adding the detail of broken glass to the story of an accident--could alter a subject's memory of it, creating a "misinformation effect." During one such study, researchers used a fake advertisement showing Bugs Bunny in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland to trick their subjects into believing that they could meet Bugs at the park (despite Bugs being a Warner Brothers character and Warner Brothers being affiliated instead with Six Flags). For 16 percent of the subjects, it worked, and they described further false memories of meeting Bugs at Disney, adding details like that they touched the ear of his costume[2].

Speaking of false memories of amusement parks, I swore for years that I remembered visiting a dinosaur theme park in the northern Ohio woods back in 1998 or 1999, when I was five or six. I never questioned whether the memory was real until one day when my family drove past a drive-through dinosaur exhibit and my dad said to my mom, "They didn't have anything like that when Michelle was a kid." Skeptical of his claim, I did some Googling and discovered that there was a dinosaur-themed park in the woods near Sandusky called the Prehistoric Forest that looked much like what I thought I remembered[3]. When I sent my parents the link to the article about the Prehistoric Forest, both of them denied ever taking me there or even having heard of the place. Nevertheless, I swear I've been there or somewhere very similar. I think the most likely explanation is that I dreamt about it, but that the memory of the dream was so vivid that I mistook it as one from my waking life.

Much as a researcher can convince their subjects to believe that Bugs Bunny appeared at Disney or I convinced myself that I had visited a place like the Prehistoric Forest, Jean Paul is capable of brainwashing himself into thinking that he murdered Erica. This isn't even the only time he speculates without clear evidence that he’s guilty of murder. We'll see something similar in Episode 137 regarding the murder of a different character, whom Jean Paul will successfully convince himself he killed despite hazy evidence at best.

Note that these two theories are not one hundred percent mutually exclusive. It’s entirely possible that Jean Paul killed Erica, but misremembered specific details about her death or how he felt about her. Also note that this show contains quite a few retcons, one of which we saw last episode. Just as the trajectory of this show has changed significantly from Ian Martin’s original plot, the truth about Erica Desmond’s fate is currently in flux within the show’s universe.

The contents of the secret compartment that Raxl and Quito discovered.

Coming up next: A delightfully chilling episode where Jacques uses the skull that Raxl and Quito found to further terrorize his guests.

{<-- Previous: Episode 45   ||   Next: Episode 47 -->}

Notes

[1] While rabbits can have type AB blood (or type ZY blood, using the system from this 1954 study) and they cannot tolerate injections of Rh-positive blood, they have different antibodies in their blood from those of humans.

[2] Elizabeth F. Loftus, "Memories of Things Unseen," in Current Directions in Psychological Science 13:4 (2004), pp. 145-146. There are other examples from other studies, including one involving false memories of witnessing a demonic possession, but the Bugs one is my personal favorite. Also, this period of Strange Paradise puts me in a rabbity mood.

[3] Coincidentally, the Prehistoric Forest's entrance appeared in the 1995 film Tommy Boy, which also featured Colin Fox and Pat Moffat (Irene Hatter) in supporting roles. There was also an animatronic dinosaur attraction at Sea World Ohio called Carnivore Park that operated in the late 1990s. Despite having visited that Sea World many times as a kid, I couldn’t have gone to that exhibit because we couldn’t afford to go there in 1998 or 1999.

[thepanicoffice]

Brush with Death

[...]

Through plague, famine, financial crisis, and bourgeois summer music festival season, the Panic Office has always been there for its dedicated, maladjusted, slightly simple readership.

We have long prided ourselves on providing a faintly nourishing mental gruel of content – a sort of intellectual starvation rations – to keep your grey matter from wasting away entirely. This has never been more important than now, when you remain confined indoors reflecting on the senselessness of your own existence and the cruel accident of your birth.

But we also like to keep things light and cheerful.

So, let’s talk about DEATH.

I don’t regularly check the Office’s post-box but I would assume we have been inundated with glowing feedback on my semi-regular jaunts through art history. Having graduated primary education, I consider myself to meet all the criteria to be classed as a fine art scholar and well-equipped to take you on a brief tour of death in the visual imagination of the West.

It’s as well to remind ourselves that the darkness that dwells beyond the precipice of the mortal coil has occupied the thoughts of our ancestors since the first time some unwashed maniac picked up a wet clot of pigments and, for reasons best known only to them, decided to draw something they could only see in their head.

Let us go, and don’t fear the reaper. But don’t make eye contact with him either, for God’s sake. That’s just asking for trouble.

[...]

Unknown, Renaissance

Death has not always been a figure of fear – here we see his unmistakable skeletal form strutting and jiving along, barely clad in an entirely superfluous toga, like a slightly-less creepy John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Actually, it is probably that self-same fever that has claimed the life of this chubby-wristed infant. However, as I assume was probably the case for most people alive in the Middle Ages, he doesn’t look very sad to be going. If I’d have been born only to discover that I had no access to warm towels and was forced to empty my bowels out of a window like a common Welshman, I’d have embraced death as a friend too.

Death and Life, Gustav Klimt, 1915

This gaudily garbed grim cuts a sinister figure. He brandishes, with menace, the distinct gnarly form of a Nice ’n’ Spicy Nik Nak – its seemingly harmless, even comical, appearance at odds with the often-lethal sodium content contained within. The spectre leers at this writhing tissue of existence, threatening it with, presumably, heart disease and morbid obes– Ooh , is that a nipple? It is! Great painting. Though it is distractingly close to that child. That sort of spoils my enjoyment.

What were we talking about? Oh yes, Death. In summary, it’s hard to be too fearful when it’s stalking around in vibrant patchwork robes that Elton John would consider unforgivably tasteless and showy.

Death and the miser, Hieronymus Bosch, 1490

This irritatingly long and hard-to-crop image (it’s clear little if any thought was given to future generations of facetious technophobe bloggers by Mr Bosch) requires quite a lot of unpacking. Its dense and layered symbolism is obscure but, when one has assumed one can easily decipher art for as long as I have, its meaning becomes clear: bribe the ugly devils that crowd your life with a bulging sack of jealously-hoarded gold and perhaps Death will overlook you when your time comes. Most importantly, shun Christ and his shiny promises even when your demise looks inevitable – that’s exactly what he wants you to do, clever bastard.

Bosch, never one to know when to just put the brush down and step away from a canvas, has included all manner of largely meaningless additional detail. One feature, though, stands out: the hideous, stunted rat-gremlin carries a letter, waving it aloft, unnoticed by all. We will never know what it says. It’s almost a perfect metaphor for the Panic Office itself.

Unknown, 17th Century

Ye Gods! I don’t even know where to look. Someone get this man some damned trousers! And who thought it would be a good idea to equip a blindfolded man with a scythe? Absurd.

Der beste Arzt (The Best Doctor), Alfred Kubin, 1901

I can relate to this one. Death, mysterious and even slightly sexy, carelessly smothers this excessively long man with one hand. This is basically what my hangovers feel like when I’ve been trying to match Ann Widdecombe drink for drink at our monthly cribbage night. Like me, the slender victim clasps his hands in supplication, praying to the mercy of his nameless tormentor that his suffering might end. However, unlike me, this man doesn’t seem inclined drink a vial of baboon’s tears which I have found, after years of trial and error, is really the only effective remedy.

Unknown, Medieval

This is a fascinating depiction of Death as a sort of recognisable breed of pub bore, droning on, hectoring, sharing his conspiracy theories about how the dinosaurs really went extinct, deathsplaining to the living. Look at it, wagging its skeletal figure at this clearly disinterested person. It’s like, we get it: death comes for us all. But there’s no need to be such a dullard about it.

Danse Macabre, Thomas Rowlandson, 1815-6

This is the first work that makes me empathise with Death. All that power and yet every day the same tedium: more double pneumonias, more malarial fevers, more shower slippages. Yawn. Many of the best deaths – bubonic plague, the bloody flux, leprosy – have been all but eradicated (thanks a lot, modern medicine!) So what is left to look forward to? The odd atrocity or elephant goring, sadly few and far between. You think you’re having a boring lockdown? Take a moment to put yourself in Death’s shoes (black crocs I reckon; practical but essentially evil).

Graphic illustration of Lubeck mural, after 1463

We’ve all been to parties like this, cajoled into dancing by others regardless of whether your outfit really allows for it. Now imagine those other partygoers are the dead themselves. Terrible evening.

The Hypochondriac, Richard Dagley, 1827

Speaking as someone who’s died of hypochondria twice before, I know this scene only too well. One sits at home, trying to quietly contemplates one’s… eery painting of a prancing clown… only to spy, from the corner of your eye, Death’s chittering mandibles lurch from the gloom. Meanwhile, your pet cat (or monkey; the quality here is rather poor) offers you no comfort as you descend into a clammy-browed panic. Jesus, I need to get my blood pressure checked. Some days I can’t sleep for the hammering arrhythmia of my backfiring heart, I can feel it behind my eyes, and my sight fades until I am left to face…

La Jeune Fille et la Mort, Marianne Stokes, 1900

…Oh Christ, this guy. This morose tosser. This gloomy dullard. This Sisters of Mercy album cover reject, come to bore you with his self-indulgent monologues about the ‘black lips of encroaching night’ or whatever GCSE poetry he’s most recently written after his parents have sent him to bed for failing to use a drinks coaster on the good table. I don’t know where he got that robe from but the big lads in his form are going to give him hell for that come Monday. But that’s fine, he doesn’t care, he’s used to being misunderstood, as he thinks no one apart from him has ever worn pale makeup and been really into the ‘complex, violence artistry’ of 80s slasher films. Tedious prick. Just get over yourself and end me! No, I’m not impressed by your lamp. Arse.

[tarithenurse]

On my mind, in my soul - 4

Prompt: Blue, floor, Foreigner’s God by Hozier (passages in block quotes) Pairing: Loki x Burglar!reader. Content: Swearing, angst, pain (mostly emotional), arguing, sadness, mention of trauma, LEMONS (with a hint of dom/sub?)...fluff? A/N: Link to previous chapters in Masterlist (check bio or tab). If you want a tag, then just ask (yay). Please reblog if you enjoyed...or comment! Comments are nice too. When that’s said...probably a shitload of typos etc bc i’ve not proofread ‘cause I’m in a shitty place mentally after a too social weekend (so worth it though). “Resume”: (Because this takes off right where we left last chapter)  The heavy sigh rattles you to your core. “I’m sorry for this, [Y/N].” Glancing briefly, you see how he runs a hand over his face, rubbing the tired eyes momentarily. “I can only imagine what you must think of me, truly…but I need you to hear me out, alright?”

It’s not like you have a choice, really, and this conversation has started nothing like you’d expected. “Then talk.”

Holding the Devil’s Hand

Waiting impatiently for the worst too happen, it surprised you when you realize he’s sitting down on the floor as far away from you as possible. There are other options for him to sit comfortably, still he’s chosen the least threatening option. It’s on purpose…trying to make me at ease. Drop my guard. Regardless the reasoning behind it, however, the silence still hangs heavy in the air, threatening to explode if neither of you say anything.

Her eyes look sharp and steady Into the empty parts of me

“I’m not good at these sort of things…apologies.” Stalling already with a sigh, Loki settles down more comfortably in the corner by the door. “I realize that…nothing I say can make it up to you…” You can feel his eyes on your back and it paralyses you, afraid what might set him off. “I…I’m prone to think very highly of myself and my skills as the God of Mischief and Chaos. Finding that I had been tricked and by a Midgardian girl no less?” He snorts in disbelief at his own words, releasing a hot prickle of anger in your chest. “I was intrigued. Amused more than offended…”

You grab the chance as he trails off. “So far you’ve said nothing that warrants fucking kidnapping me! Either get to it or let me go now!”

“Easy, tiger,” the god smirks, “my point is…your skills, personality…you…I see potential. The few testes I arranged proved that you’re exactly the partner in crime I need for a very delicate…challenge. I’ve been spending almost every waking hour since we parted to try to find you in the hopes of…convincing you to return so I could explain myself and extend an offer I think would be mutually beneficial,” Loki’s voice lowers to a purr, “because you can’t deny that we’re good together. Although…complementing each others’ baser instinct was a bonus which I thought you had no problem with until the…misunderstanding we –“

“Misunderstanding?” Spinning to face him, all the fear’s been flushed away by anger-fueled adrenaline and you can feel the nails dig into your palms to keep your hands from shaking. Anger at him. And anger at the heat in your core at the memories he awakens. “Misunderstanding!? Are you fuckin’ serious right now??!! You hit me so hard that I landed at the other side of the bloody room!”

He’s on his feet quicker than you can fathom and you jerk backwards until you collide with the bench by the window, sending you hard on your ass. The fearful retreat stops him short. Burning indignation reigned in in the same way he returns to the far side although he stays standing.

“What you accused me of being willing to do…” Loki’s voice’s shaking with anger although he tries to hold it back, “people may never think of me as good, but I have a code if you will. Some things that I’ll never lower myself to.”

“H-how should I…” The words are hardly getting across your lips as you stutter meekly along, so you try again. “Ho-ow should I know that?” It’s hardly a victory to finish a sentence, but this time it feels as though you’ve accomplished something grand, the little thrill enabling you to continue. “Prone, held at knifepoint by a guy who was accused of all sorts of shit. And not just here on earth.”

You know from experience how good Loki’s at using his tongue, but words don’t come easy as he opens and closes the pretty mouth of his until eventually, he stops trying and withdraws into himself. Once more, the only sounds is the faint buzz from the lamps and a gurgle in the waterpipes hidden behind the rich wallpaper. Rubbing the back of your legs where you’d slammed them against the seat, you assure yourself that not even a bruise will hint at your clumsiness.

The sound of a lock makes you look up to see Loki opening the door and stepping well out of the way, granting a clear path out of his bedroom. He doesn’t look at you, so you doubt your ears when he tells you that you are free to go.

Hesitantly at first, you tread across the soft carpet, each step bringing you close to freedom yet also fanning a doubt in your mind. Five steps to the door, Loki’s standing still in front of the mirror by the dresser. Four steps, you ignore the frown and glistening trail on his cheek. Two steps, and your legs are slowing, body fighting against the logic that urges you to hurry out and down the stairs, whishing no one will stop you. One step, and a memory presents itself, uncalled for at an inopportune moment which causes even your logic to hesitate. In the doorway itself, you come to a halt.

She feels no control of her body She feels no safety in my arms

“What was it?” Don’t hear the quiver of my voice, please.

You can see the staircase from where you stand, the broad steps granting a glimpse to the hall below.

“What was what?” Loki answers flatly.

“What was the reason the charges were dropped? About your role in New York?”

Everyone had been stunned when the news leaked, and it had been the rage in the media and online where the most absurd conspiracy theories went unchecked because really, what arguments were there anymore now that it was a fact that aliens existed?

“It’s of no consequence.” Arms cross over his chest, defiant and protectively. “Just leave. Forget about this. I will not bother you anymore.”

Dimwitted, emo-loving freak, your logic begins a rant to get you from doing exactly what you end up with anyways. A few steps back, while cussing yourself to Antarctica and back, brings the reflection of the god’s face back in view. Pale and hard. A hand nimbly swipes a wet shimmer away before it reaches the sharp jaw. Don’t fucking do it. It’s a trap. He’s a trickster. A liar. The sharp sting from the teeth sinking into your lower lip shuts up the inner monologue for a moment, allowing you to breathe deeply and way the risks.

All that I've been taught And every word I've got Is foreign to me

“You’d never given me a reason to actually…fear you…despite your majorly creepy stunts of breaking in to my place and shit…” The exhale comes as a puff, that stirs the fine particles dancing in the air between the open door and you. “The rules of our…game...thing…they were never clear, but you…you…uhm…” Struggling to put the chaotic thoughts into words, you know that you’re trying to convince yourself more than him and you hate yourself for it. “You’d not done anything I didn’t want be-before I accused you of wanting to…y’know…and you hadn’t even hinted that that was something…”

Loki has gone completely still, barely even breathing as he listens to the mumbled mess, but you’re at a loss at what you actually want to accomplish. Comfort him? He’d hurt you physically. Scared you. But if anyone had said something similar to you, wouldn’t you have lost your temper? Difference is, of course, that you don’t have the strength to literally knock someone through a wall.

“Gimme one good reason to trust y’again.” The harshness you’d tried to summon is inaudible, reducing your order to a plea.

“Not that.”

Staying quiet, you absentmindedly try to rub some warmth into your arms as you wait for the man to quit being stubborn. It’s going to be a long wait, but now that the door’s open you aren’t in as bad a rush as before.

“There’s an item which I greatly desire, but it’s of dire importance tha–“

“You can take the item and shove it unless you don’t answer my question,” your voice cracks like a whip, silencing Loki quite efficiently and you notice how the god’s body tenses.

A rustle accompanies the stubborn, no, haughty answer. “I told those who need to know about…the background for New York.”

“Then there’s no more to talk about.”

You’re in the hallway, when he calls out for you, broken and beaten by his own demons. I should continue. Already, your feet are rooted on the polished wood. I should leave. Soft footsteps are drawing near, urging you to run rather than turn to face the man the way you actually do, watching his cautionary movements and the tremble of his hands, feeling the cold roll over you once more. This is a trick. Eyes meet and you have no doubt that the pain he’s exhibiting is real.

“Tell me what happened.” It’s a soft murmur, spoken into his raven hair as you awkwardly pat his back.

It takes a minute or two before he straightens up, freeing you shoulder from the weight of his chilly head but taking your hands instead to tug you gently with him back into the room.

The door closes softly behind you, no click of the lock this time at least, as Loki silently offers the bed as a seat for you. You accept hesitantly, afraid of how long or short a time is left before the trap’s sprung. A trap you’ve walked into freely this time. Thankfully, he leans against the wall by the bathroom door with his head hung low as you fidget with the hem of the purple silk, trying to find some way to soothe your nerves. Can I take the cover? The air’s freezing.

“If you ever tell anyone about this…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t have to, really, mostly because even in your world there are some things that are sacred. He’s not the only one with a code. And then he begins talking about event long passed, about wrongs he had done of his own free will where not even the despair he’d felt was an excuse and no promises from neither him nor his family could right the many wrongs that had been committed. It had let to his fall. Literally and figuratively.

Then the tale takes a turn for the worse. To a darkness where words fail along with the god’s human appearance. As Loki talks about torture and pain beyond any you’ve experienced, his real form breaks free as if trying to protect him from the memories. Red eyes blur and burn in stark contrast to the ice that form around him, creeping towards you. And still you inch closer to him, to hear the words that are whispered hoarsely and to tentatively extend a quivering hand, placing it on his dark-clawed fingers.  Squeezing as he whispers the name of a Titan.

Screaming the name Of a foreigner's God The purest expression of grief

“I don’t want your pity,” he growls, trying to shake off the hand.

I know. “Good. ‘Cause you’re not getting it.” You manage to contain the sigh. “You’re still a fucking lunatic, but at least I know why…I can work with this…”

“You can…?” Eyes like blood scorch your skin.

Yeah, it’s not smart of me, though. “Gonna clear up some things if it’s gonna work…and you’ve got a shitload of sucking up ‘fore I forgive you for bashing me ‘cross the room.”

The reaction’s immediate, perfect proof that you’ve chosen the wrong words. A low frequency makes the air hum, and the face folds into that of a predator that’s both hungry and amused because it knows where to find the next meal without putting any real effort into it. Catching your wrist before you can pull your hand back, so you tug hard, pulling Loki’s on his knees before you as you scuttle back along the wide bed. Raven hair partially obscuring the smirk curling his lips, falling away grant a view of the shoulder blades oscillating under the thin, white shirt that’s stretching tight over the wider-than-normal body.

“How convenient.” The lip that darts out have an effect on more than just Loki’s lips. “I’ll do more than just…suck…up.”

Pressed up against the headboard, your only escape would be off the other side of the bed, but of course you don’t go for it because you’re a fool with no backbone to resist the silver-tongued god even now. That’s why you let him grab your ankles and pull you slowly to the edge of the bed, kissing each inch of skin as it gets within reach all the while he bunches up the thin fabric of your dress until his lips ghost across the very top of your inner thigh. A cold nose brush the soft lace as he switches attention from one side to the other, almost distracting you from the fingers that are wandering past your hips and across the expanse of you belly, straining the fabric and setting off shivers that have nothing to do with the cold of the room.

There’s a warm shimmer, a sign that you know very well already, exposing more of your body and granting Loki a chance to slither the exploring hand further until it skims the valley between the breasts to trace the delicate lace that does absolutely nothing to hide the perking nipples. Teasing and pinching them through the bra ads a lovely contrast to the feathery kisses and licks below the waist until you’re breathing raggedly, chasing Loki’s mouth with your still covered cunt.

Wide strokes of blue palms towards your hips send new waves of anticipation rushing along, and you can feel how slick your core is becoming even though the god hasn’t even touched you there. The moment his fingers hook on the panties, you can’t help but hold your breath. Glancing down between your legs to see delight warming the features decorated with lines…lines that you know from experience are practically everywhere on his body. But the green eyes are trained on the reveal happening before him as, inch by inch, your pussy’s bared.

“So beautiful.”  The words are carried on cold breath but hold more warmth and adoration than anyone else has ever shown for your body. “Perfect…and eager.”

You know somehow that you moan the moment his mouth finds your folds and begins to tease, driving you to writhing and whimpering to the precipice of release all while Loki’s kneeling on the floor between your feet. Each moan from your lips makes him hum with pleasure, sending vibrations into your core in a way that shouldn’t be possible. Every gasp and panting breath from your lungs causes him to suck greedily at your clit.

Somewhere in the process, you realize as Loki spreads your legs further, he’s removed your panties completely, but a particular strong lick that curls his tip of his tongue inside you chases any coherent thoughts away. Then you feel his fingers pushing and wiggling against the fluttering walls of your pussy, finding the g-spot and running over it again and again in slow pumps matching the pace of his lips. Teeth nibbling and tugging in a masterful feat of balance between pleasure and pain.

“Let me hear you…then I’ll let you cum.” Even when talking, Loki doesn’t let up but applies a thumb deftly to your clit. “Say my name.”

In the foggy storm of you mind, the words annoy you. That wasn’t the deal. It’s a struggle to get as far as to rest on your elbows because each movement requires coordinated use of your muscles that are trembling due to Loki’s ministrations. Finally in place, you catch his hooded, red eyes.

“N-no-o.” Your answer makes him slow down, but not stop. “You’ve no…right…to demand anything.”

You’re gasping for breath and in no condition to assert any imagined power, but pure stubbornness fuels you even as the man arches an eyebrow at you in disbelief. Lazy circles around the nerve bundle keeps you on edge, fingers slide effortlessly through the tight wetness in a way that sweep your g-spot gently.

“My dear, I believe you’re right…I did give my word.”

The low growl should have been warning enough in it’s own, but you’re too tightly wrapped in the ecstasy his adept handling has you stewing in to notice how his arms wrap around your thighs. All you know is that the world seems to shift around you sending you off the edge of the bed and impaling you swiftly around the ridged cock. All air leaves you in a warbled moan as the sudden intrusion topples you over the edge, back arching so you shoulders rest on the mattress, holding you partially in place like a safety in case your grip on Loki’s shoulders should fail. Even then, he’s got your hips in a bruising grip, lifting and lowering you effortlessly at a reckless pace without any risk of you slipping away.

Your core is spasming, sending thundering waves of heat each time the icy shaft bottoms out, ridges passing the sensitive spot each time. Sharp keens spur the god to rut into you wilder, practically shoving you back onto the bed as he leans over you to taste your skin. Lavish kisses and love bites soak up the pearls of sweat and he sucks greedily at your neck, you breasts, your mouth. The two of you share breaths through the superficial pantings, causing you to slowly black out from the mix of restricted air and the continuous orgasm burning through your body.

A cold thumb presses against your clit, rubbing tiny circles simultaneously bringing you even higher than you thought possible as Loki succumbs to bliss, your name woven into the shameless moan fanning your throat an instant before his leaves your lips as a ragged, breathy scream.

Screaming the name Of a foreigner's God …

Wrapped in Loki’s (now pale) arms, your thought are barely coherent enough to wonder if it’s a good idea to linger. He’s taken care of you gently and sweeter than you thought possible from someone like him.

Who am I kidding…there’s no one like him!

Those are your last thoughts as sleep claims you.

[ernmark]

God bless you and this amnesia au 🙌🙌🙌🙌 May I ask to see what happens next?

I keep writing this and somehow my outline keeps getting longer.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

As a thief, Peter’s familiar with the transformations of day and night. He’s been in this office after hours, when its drawers were cavernous and the filing cabinet along the wall was never-ending. Now that the lights are on, the room feels cramped, crowded by three bodies that feel far too many: his own in this chair, Juno on the other side of the desk, and Juno’s secretary on the other side of that door. Juno, too, seems transformed– in the night he was vulnerable and needy, his body soft and pliant under Peter’s touch; now he’s closed off, all sharp corners and hard edges, leaning on the desk like he’s bracing up a barricade. 

Peter has seen these changes a thousand times in a thousand places. They’ve never made him feel remorse before. But this isn’t the time to dwell on those feelings.

“You said you’ve done some digging on your own,” Juno says, curt and businesslike. 

“I’ve searched for all of my aliases, and I’ve come up empty.”

“Isn’t that the point? Being hard to track down is kind of your thing.” 

“Juno–”

He cuts Peter off before he can finish the thought. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

And so Peter walks him through it. First backwards– first boarding the spaceship, then arriving at the spaceport, then fencing the golden record, and then the heist in exacting detail– and then he has him go over the whole ordeal in the proper order. Juno writes down every detail, every name, every place, every object of note.

Theories are starting to accumulate on the far side of the notebook.

Security guards?

Mutagenic dust on the record?

Pissed off insurance agents?

But there’s one note his pen keeps coming back to: Ancient Martian tech?

Extinct aliens seems rather far-fetched, doesn’t it? 

“Maybe it happened more recently?” Peter suggests. “As far as I know, you’re the last person who saw me. Was I with anyone when I left you?”

Juno doesn’t look at him. “You’re not the one who left.” Before Peter can ask, he changes the subject. “I’ve got what I need. You go back to… wherever the hell you’re staying, and I’ll let you know what I find.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stay.”

“It’s not.” Juno’s eyes are as hard as his surname. “Which part of ‘get out of my life’ is so hard to understand?”

Peter only wishes he knew. “Perhaps there’ll be something to jog some memories?”

Juno tries to stare him down, but he can’t hold Peter’s gaze for long. “Fine. Whatever. Stay here if you want, just keep your mouth shut.”

Really, for all the drama and aesthetic, a surprising amount of detective work is incredibly boring. Juno spends most of the day on his comms, calling one name and then the next, while his secretary provides him with numbers and background details that might be useful. So much of it is drudgery that Peter genuinely doesn’t know whether Juno is ignoring him, or whether he’s just hurrying from one call to the next because there are so many of them to make.

Peter watches him intently, listening for any detail that might spark a memory, but nothing comes. His mind keeps going back to what Juno said earlier– you’re not the one who left.

A week ago, Peter would have called the notion absurd– he’s the one who does the leaving, after all– but it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched when he looks at Juno Steel.

He envisions something not too far removed from what he experienced so recently: a tender night followed by a lonely morning. Perhaps not entirely like the one he recalls– what he imagines is devoid of accusations and shouting and bitter, painful laughter. In his mind it’s a quiet disappointment, waking up to a broken promise and an empty bed.

He doesn’t need to guess why that thought hurts so much, not when he’s woken up with Juno beside him.

Finally Juno hangs up.

“Any luck?” Peter asks, but Juno is too busy writing something on a fresh sheet of paper to reply, and then he holsters his blaster.

“Rita, I want you to put a call into Julian. There’s lab work I need done and it has to do with their copyrights. If he gives you trouble, let him know that this might save him from a few potential lawsuits down the line from unhappy customers.” He grabs his coat and hat off the hook by the door and dons them with a flourish. He’s showing off– he must be. He must realize that he cuts a fine figure in that coat. And so it’s understandable that Peter takes it as an invitation. 

But Juno simply stares at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“With you, of course,” Peter says. 

“No, you’re not.”

“But detective--”

“You can go back to your hotel or wherever the hell it is you’re staying, or you can stay here and help Rita look up some more of your aliases.” He smacks down the sheet of instructions on Rita’s desk for emphasis. “But you’re not coming.” 

That isn’t going to work. Peter’s already done what searching he can on the computer; if he’s going to find answers, they’ll be in places that he can’t reach through a screen.

“I’m sure I could be of assistance,” he suggests. 

“Where I’m going, I won’t need it.” 

He tries again. “Perhaps it’ll stir up a few memories.” 

Juno’s already on his way out the door. “These are memories you don’t want back.”

Peter straightens out of his languid curves, rising to his full height, sharp and rigid in a way he rarely needs to be. When he speaks, every word carries an edge. “That isn’t your choice to make.” 

Juno sighs. “I don’t have time for this. Fine. Come along if it’s that important to you.” 

Maybe Peter imagines the note of apology in his tone. 

“Last chance to change your mind,” Juno mutters, turning off the freeway and onto the ragged, pot-holed streets. 

“I’m sure I can handle it.”

Of course, Peter’s anticipating mobsters and conspiracies-- the sort of seedy underworld that Hyperion City is known for. He’s slightly less prepared for Juno to drive through the edge of the dome that protects the city. The difference is stunning; one moment a hundred tenements and apartment building are stacked on top of each other in a rickety attempt to make use of their limited space, and the next there’s nothing but empty desert stretching out before them. A low desert wind whistles across the landscape, eerily quiet after the bustle of the city.

Juno’s also quiet, his eyes fixed intently on the dunes, his knuckles pale around the steering wheel. The drive is long, with nothing by sand and dust to break up the monotony or dispel the mounting tension. Hours pass, and Peter can feel his nerves on edge, taut as piano wire under his skin. It’s a dangerous attitude to take into a bad situation-- there’s no telling when one of them is going to snap. And so he does what perhaps he should have done far earlier.

“Juno, I want you to know,” he says carefully. “I am sorry for misleading you before.”

Juno’s eyes flick to him for half a moment, then return to the dunes. “Don’t worry about it.” It isn’t acceptance, but dismissal.

“I realize that the way I went about it was tactless...”

“I get it,” Juno says, sharper. “I know what your anonymity means to you. You did what you had to do to protect that. I shouldn’t have expected anything else.”

The barb stings, but it’s a shallow wound; Juno’s deflecting him from the real issue. So Peter fields a guess. “You thought you would be special to me.”

Juno’s grip tightens. He couldn’t have given a clearer signal if he wrote it in neon.

Peter leans in. “For what it’s worth, detective, it took losing a whole year for me to forget you.”

“I don’t blame you, okay?” Juno’s voice rises, punctuated by the creak of faux leather under his hands. 

“Juno--”

“Don’t.” His voice shakes. “Just... don’t. I can’t deal with this right now.” 

“Alright.” Obediently, Peter leans back in his seat, putting more distance between the two of them. He keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon, pretending not to notice when Juno’s hand scrubs over his face. Peter’s still looking out that window when the horizon shifts. 

It’s a building, hewn from the ravine and eroded by wind and sand until it could almost be mistaken for a natural formation in the stone, if not for the unnatural symmetry of its spires or the stalactites that descend like teeth in a gaping maw. “Well. That’s exciting.” 

“That’s one word for it.” 

Juno turns the car and drives inside, parking in what could only be some sort of loading bay. Theirs isn’t the only vehicle here-- there are several trucks and vans beside their own, though the accumulation of sand around their tires suggests that they haven’t moved in quite some time. 

The color has completely drained from Juno’s face by the time they come to a halt. It takes him a moment of sheer willpower to dislodge his hands from the steering wheel long enough to put it into park, but the moment he commits to the action, he rushes through it, as though caught in a freefall. 

“Stay in the car.”  

Peter follows him out anyway, shutting the door with perhaps more force than necessary. He expects a fight, but none comes. Juno doesn’t argue against him. He simply starts walking down a steep corridor deeper into the structure.

The corridor turns abruptly, and then again snaking ever lower until the red sunlight and the Martian wind are far behind them. It should be pitch dark this far below ground, but the corridor is illuminated on both sides by hieroglyphs of some sort, glowing so bright that his eyes sting when he looks directly at them. Fascination is tainted by a feeling of unease as his gaze lingers over the symbols.

“Why are we here, Juno?” His voice echoes oddly off the glowing walls.

For a few moments he can only hear their footsteps on the weathered stone, and he assumes this is just another question that’s going to be ignored.

And then Juno answers.

“The Ancient Martians invented some kind of drug that let them read each other’s thoughts. Didn’t just work for them, either-- it’s just as effective on humans. I figure they might have made something else that messes with people’s heads. Maybe some kind of Ancient Martian virus, or something in this dust, or some of the radiation in those symbols on the walls. We were down here long enough. Maybe something got to you.”

Peter didn’t miss the plural in that sentence. “Both of us? Then why weren’t you affected?”

“I… had more noticeable symptoms.” Juno looks uncomfortable. “Besides, I was in the same room as the bomb when it went off, and that burned anything Martian out of me.” 

"I see.” Peter tries to stay clinical as he integrates those details but he feels ill. Why was Juno in a room with a bomb? Where was Peter during all of this? “Did I…?”

“If you can’t handle it, then go wait in the car. I’m not coming back here again.” 

The thought of being alone in these tunnels leaves a pit in Peter’s stomach. “No, I think I’ll stay here.”

“Then hold this.” Juno hands him a large plastic bag and stoops down, scraping a sample of dust and stone off the floor and putting it inside a sample bag. He takes another sample from the wall, and another from the clearly human-made ventilation system hanging down from the ceiling. As soon as the samples are collected, he tosses them into the bag in Peter’s hands. 

“I take it these are for Saffron Labs,” Peter muses.

“They did some research on Martian medicine. If anyone’s qualified to see if this stuff is affecting you, it’s them.” 

They come across another room, filled with boxes and equipment. On the floor close to the door lies a polymer face mask, covered in fine Martian dust. The sight of its cold, empty eyes makes the hairs on the back of Peter’s head stand on end, but Juno picks it up and puts it in another evidence bag, and then they continue going. He moves hesitantly, peering at each of the turns and corridors as if he’s reading the messages written on the walls, as if he’s seeing something that isn’t there.

There’s something wrong with the way he steps into the next room. He’s too unsteady, swaying like a sleepwalker as he strides past a pair of bed rolls and a cheap chemical toilet. 

A chill crawls down Peter’s spine as he watches Juno kneel between two splashes of dried blood.

“Juno?” His voice is too high. “Juno, what happened here.”

“What do you think?” Juno asks. “This is where she kept us.”

Peter looks closer. There are other blood splatters-- smaller and more scattered, focused primarily around one of the bed rolls. Near the door there are scuff marks where someone’s been bodily dragged. 

Whose blood was that? Whose body? 

What happened here?

“Goddammit,” Juno mutters, and Peter turns back. Juno’s still on his knees, trying to take samples of the rust-colored bloodstains on the floor, but his hands are shaking. 

Peter sinks down beside him, laying his hands on Juno’s. “Juno--”

Juno pulls away like he’s been burned, but not before Peter can feel the racing of his pulse. “It just takes some getting used to, okay? Last time I was here, I couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.” He backs further away, avoiding Peter’s eyes. “It’s fine. I’m over it.”

No, he isn’t, but Peter doesn’t say so. All he can do is pretend not to notice how many times Juno has to try to scrape the blood off the stone floor.

“I’ve got all the samples I need. Let’s just get out of here.”

[libertariantaoist]

The House Intelligence Committee’s reenactment of the McCarthy hearings dramatized  Marx’s famous aphorism that history repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy,  the second as farce.” The only thing this circus was lacking was ringmaster  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California”) rising to declare that “I have in my hands  a list!”

War was on the minds and lips of the Democrats. Rep. Denny Heck  (D-Washington) compared Hillary Clinton’s loss to the 9/11 attacks, because  the killing of over 2,000 people on American soil is just like the publication  of emails that exposed the corruption at the heart of Democratic party politics.  Oh, and “the attack didn’t end on Election Day” – because isn’t that a Russian  hiding under your bed?

If political humor, albeit unintentional, is your shtick, there was plenty  of that: my own favorite was Rep. Jackie Speier – from where else but California?  – likening Vladimir Putin to a  tarantula spider who has “ensnared in his web” a whole list of Trump supporters,  including Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  Echoing a common phrase at the hearing, she declared that alleged Russian interference  in the 2016 presidential election was “an act of war,”  although she gave no hint as to when the shooting will start.

Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) asked:  “Is an iron curtain descending across Europe?” Yes, the Russians are going  to rebuild the Berlin Wall – and make Angela Merkel pay for it. Of course, the  US-erected iron curtain of anti-Russian sanctions doesn’t come into it. Carson  also took up a favorite Democratic theme: the GOP platform had been “changed”  at the insistence of Trump supporters, a  falsehood that’s been debunked yet still persists. What happened was that  an attempt to insert a paragraph calling for sending “lethal weapons” to Ukraine  – which had never been in there in the first place – was defeated. But in the  War Party’s campaign of innuendo and fake news, facts don’t matter: what matters  is the effort to equate dissent from a foreign policy of perpetual aggression  with “treason.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) spent most of his time referring to the “dirty  dossier” published by BuzzFeed, which has long been discredited, and bringing  up the names of various Trump supporters, asking FBI Director Comey if they  were targets of the investigation into Russian influence on the elections –knowing  perfectly well that Comey would not and could not answer. The idea was simply  to bring up the names in a forum in which they couldn’t defend themselves: that’s  what the politics of innuendo is all about.

Aside from Schiff, the Speier-Carson-Castro trio, posing as defenders of our  national security, were among the shrillest in their insistence that the Trump  administration is a nest of Russian spies. Which is ironic, since the Daily  Caller recently reported  an odd coincidence:

“Brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks  at the House of Representatives Thursday, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative  Group has learned.

“Three members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House  Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the  suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation’s  most sensitive issues, information and documents, including those related to  the war on terrorism.”

Those three intelligence panel members are Speier, Castro, and Carson. Now  aren’t you reassured that our national security is in their capable hands?

These three were merely sideshows, however, because the head clown was undoubtedly  the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California). Schiff’s  opening statement  is a model of McCarthyite smear-mongering. His first target is Carter Page,  an oil company consultant tangentially associated with the Trump campaign, who  is attacked by Schiff for the “crime” of criticizing US foreign policy in a  speech delivered while on a trip to Russia. He then cites the unverified (and  largely nonsensical) “dossier” compiled by MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who  paid his informants for dirt on Trump, to the effect that Page had a secret  meeting with a Putin confidante. Page was supposedly rewarded financially in  a murky sale of the Russian gas giant Rosfnet: he was also supposedly offered  “documents” to be published by WikiLeaks, “which give the Russians deniability.”

Let’s stop here and ask a question: Why would the Russians offer Page “documents”  that portray Hillary Clinton in a unfavorable light – presumably the Podesta/DNC  emails – if WikiLeaks was going to publish them anyway? But logic has nothing  to do with Schiff’s conspiracy theory: the idea is to simply make “links” based  on a bought-and-paid-for  “dossier” and smear as many people associated with the Trump campaign as possible.

So what was the price of all this? What did the Russians want? According to  Schiff, a Trump foreign policy that “de-emphasizes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine  and instead focuses on criticizing NATO countries for not paying their fair  share.” As “proof” of this sinister plot Schiff notes that Page, Paul Manafort,  and other Trump supporters “attended the Republican convention” (!) in Cleveland  where Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak was also present. Kisylak was there  along with 80 other ambassadors at an event dubbed “Global  Partners in Diplomacy.” Similar events, staged to acquaint foreign diplomats  with the American democratic process, have been staged since the 1980s. Clearly  a case of espionage.

Schiff then goes into the by now familiar trope about how the GOP platform  was “changed” to remove a section calling for the provision of “lethal defensive  weapons” to Ukraine, which would be “against Russian interests.” To begin with,  there was never any such provision in the platform, so it could not have been  “removed.”

Secondly, Schiff is betraying his own rather specialized interests here: on  July 18, 2013, a fundraiser  for Schiff’s reelection campaign was held at the home of Ukrainian arms  dealer Igor Pasternak in Washington, D.C. Price of admission: $2,500 a head,  and $1,000 for guests. Why is Pasternak such a fan of Schiff’s?

The answer may be found in a Washington Times story published in January,  headlined “Ukraine  Desperate for Surveillance Equipment in Stand Off With Russia,” which details  the efforts of the Ukrainian government to get around the Obama administration’s  reluctance to provide them with the “defensive weapons” Schiff is so eager to  shower them with. Yet the Times tells us that Pasternak has somehow managed  to get around the prohibition imposed by the administration, at least to a limited  extent:

“In the meantime, a private, State Department-approved transaction has a  Montebello, California, company, Worldwide Aeros, set to erect eight sensor-mounted  towers that would deliver immediate surveillance along the southeastern border  this winter.

“’This system will provide a much more robust capability to detect incursions  into their territory,’ said Drew Shoemaker, vice president of government relations  for Aeroscraft, a division of Worldwide. ‘It detects with the radar and then  confirms with the camera.’

“With a maximum range of 40 miles, the Elevated Early Warning System, he  said, ‘can look quite a distance into whatever territory they are looking at.  They can track movements of goods and services in and out of the rebel-held  territories. There’s still a large of amount of military equipment in there.’

“Ukraine eventually may opt for blimplike aerostats with even more powerful  ranges.

“Worldwide Aeros was founded by a Ukrainian-born engineer, Igor Pasternak,  who has won Pentagon contracts to develop different  sizes and shapes of airships.”

Follow the money. Pasternak is selling the Ukrainians military hardware, and  is doubtless eager to sell them more – paid for by US taxpayers, of course.  According to news reports, Pasternak is deeply  involved with the Ukrainian government’s military production, which is seeking  to eliminate its dependence on Soviet era military hardware:

“On Jan. 3 [2017], as part of a long-term plan to adopt NATO military standards,  Ukraine took a step toward ditching this Soviet military carryover.

“Ukroboronprom, Ukraine’s nationalized defense industry conglomerate, announced  a partnership agreement between the Ukrainian defense manufacturer Ukroboronservis  and the U.S. company Aeroscraft to produce in Ukraine a variant of the US M16  assault rifle.

“’The M16 project was conceived some time ago, as the Ukrainian armed forces,  border guards, and National Guard will with time switch to NATO standards,’  Aeroscraft founder and CEO Igor Pasternak said during a Jan. 3 press conference  in Kyiv.”

Pasternak raises thousands for Schiff, and Schiff raises millions for Pasternak.  It’s a sweet deal all around.

Schiff bloviates that his campaign to restart the cold war with Russia is an  ideological crusade: “We are involved in a new battle of ideas,” he avers. “Not  Communism versus capitalism, but authoritarianism versus democracy.” Yet this  is about capitalism – crony capitalism of the sort that enriches both  Schiff and Pasternak. As Major General Smedley Butler put it in 1935: “War  is a racket.” And Schiff is one of the biggest racketeers in Washington.

The cynical, absurd campaign to tar the Trump administration as a Russian plot  to take over America is based on nothing but lies, innuendo, political opportunism,  and naked greed. Trump famously pledged to “drain the swamp” that is Washington,  D.C., and it was inevitable that Schiff, one of the nastiest of the swamp creatures,  would arise from the muck screeching in protest.

Let him. He and his party are consigning themselves to the margins of American  politics. Their loony conspiracy theories are so far removed from the concerns  of ordinary Americans that the distance can only be measured in light years.  Polls show  that even the majority of Democrats don’t think Trump’s relations with the Russians  involved illegality: independents and Republicans disbelieve Schiff’s tales  of Russian plots by an overwhelming majority. No normal person cares about  Russia: but the Democratic activist base is very far from normal.

That doesn’t mean that this witch hunt isn’t dangerous: it is. The news that  the FBI is investigating  “far right” and “pro-Russian” web sites ought to send a chill up the spines  of civil libertarians, no matter what they think of Trump. And for those who  want to see a more peaceful foreign policy, the McCarthyite hysteria generated  by Schiff & Co. is bad news indeed. Jackie Speier, for example, has in the  past been a reliably pro-peace vote in Congress, but as the Democrats become  the party of born-again neoconservatism, at least in the foreign policy realm,  the pressure is on to toe the Russophobic party line.

At the dawn of the cold war, as McCarthyism was rising, the formerly “isolationist”  (i.e. anti-interventionist and anti-NATO) Republican party became the party  of warmongers: the alleged threat of a domestic “communist conspiracy” logically  translated into an international crusade to “roll back” communism by military  means. What we are witnessing today is a similar transformation of the Democrats.  Which is, as Trump would put it, sad!

Get ready for a massive attack on our civil liberties, as the FBI takes out  after “pro-Russian” “subversion,” and the Democrats (in alliance with John McCain  and Lindsey Graham) conduct their circus-like hearings throughout the year and  beyond. A more sickening display of ideological emptiness and brazen self-dealing  hasn’t been seen the 1950s.

[eviloof]

It's a Conspiracy - The Pakistan Army Is Still Awesome

Ever since Osama Bin Laden's assassination, the western media has been wondering why Pakistanis refuse to accept the truth and believe in wild conspiracy theories. As one particularly scathing article puts it, "This is the salve that now comforts millions of Pakistanis at a time of fundamental crisis. They choose the magical world of conspiracy." As an expatriate Pakistani, I've also been asked by confused Britons, Arabs and Indians: "Why don't you guys admit that things are out of control? Why is everything that goes wrong in Pakistan always a CIA conspiracy?".

Let me explain.

In the 1980s, every 5 year old in Pakistan wanted to become a commando or a pilot. Nobody wanted to become an accountant or an architect or a civil engineer. Ever wonder why? I'll tell you why.

It's because the army was awesome.

One of my earliest memories was waking up early in the morning on 6th September to watch the Defense Day Parade on TV. It was amazing. There were planes, commandos and missiles: everything that makes up the fantasy toy world of a young boy. As we watched the tanks roll by, my mom told me that 6th September is celebrated to commemorate the valiant defence of the country against an Indian attack in 1965. The Pakistan Studies book in school later taught me that India attacked Lahore in the dead of the night, without any provocation or formal declaration of war. It as a "cowardly attack" it was absurd how an Indian General wanted to have dinner at Lahore Gymkhana the next day. We won the war and caused major losses to the Indian military machine. Maj. Shaheed Aziz Bhatti was my hero.

The next chapter talked about 1971. We learned that India created a terrorist group called the "Makti Bahni", which terrorized the population in Bangladesh. While a massive conspiracy engineered by the Indians misled the East Pakistan population and eventually led to partition, our army still won the war and the Indian army was left licking its wounds. Shaheed Rashid Minhas was the hero this time.

School books told us that India never accepted the creation of Pakistan and their army would invade Pakistan the first chance they got; we would then be forced to lead terrible lives, just like Muslims in India lived a life of servitude and backwardness.

We were awed by the army. We were indebted to the army. They were, after all, the defenders of Pakistan. The army was awesome.

A career in the army was a dream. Regardless of economic background, if a young man made it into the Pakistan Army as an officer, it was guaranteed that he would have a nice house, a decent car and access to the prestigious Services Club. His children would study in good schools and he would be eligible for discounts on everything from grocery to airline tickets. Never again would the police harass him and petty burglars would think twice before trying to break into his house in the military Cantonment. He would get to play golf and polo. A career in the army meant a lifetime of stability, respect and security. When he retired, he would end up with a couple of plots of land in prime neighborhoods, allowing him to grow old in peace. Whenever it came up that the perks enjoyed by army officers were excessive, the conversation would be dismissed by saying, "Come on yaar, they spend their career risking their life for the country, the least we can do is let them retire in comfort."

Over the years, we realized that everything that was good, pure and reliable in the country was associated with the army. All government departments - everything from the police to utility companies to the national highway authority - were corrupt. The army was not. The state infrastructure was inefficient and lazy, while the army was disciplined and efficient. Policemen in the street were overweight, unshaven, and unkempt - they traveled in banged up pickups. Soldiers, on the other hand, were lean, well groomed and smartly dressed. They drove around in Land Cruisers and big shiny army trucks. Army officers wore Ray Bans. Girls dreamed of getting married to dashing young lieutenants. The army was awesome.

Everything the army did was of top notch quality, better than anyone else. If they built a neighborhood, it was well planned and well maintained. If they built a road, it had proper drainage and would last longer than any road built by the government. During the 90s, scenes of soldiers rescuing people from ravaging floods and patrolling the troubled streets of Karachi were portrayed daily in the Khabarnama (daily new bulletin on state TV) and are engraved in the nation's memory. The army was a symbol of righteousness in a society riddled with corruption and nepotism.

The army was also obviously successful in the pursuit of Pakistan's strategic interests. In addition to the fending off the Indians, the army had now also saved us from the wrath of the Soviet juggernaut. The creation of the Taliban and a pro-Pakistan government was a success in our effort to achieve "strategic depth" in Afghanistan. We had a highly skilled, extremely powerful and deadly efficient military. We were a nuclear armed nation which basked in the glory of our military strength - we were the world's most powerful defenders of Islam. Allah-o-Akbar.

The nation was enamored by the army. Instead of protesting, we breathed a sigh of relief whenever the army threw politicians out and took over control of the country. The army was here, which meant that we could return to what the army stood for: security, stability and quality. It was agreed that a country as crazy as Pakistan can only be governed by the strong arm of the army. Thank God for the army. The army was awesome!

Then the 21st century happened and things started going wrong. Information that was locked up in books that nobody read was suddenly available on TV and in people's email boxes. Internet articles told us that Pakistan started the 1965 war on 5th August by sending soldiers into Kashmir (and that the 6th Sep attack from India was a retaliation). Wikipedia showed us a news item from the LA Times that referred to our beloved Gen. Tikka Khan (the martial law administrator for East Pakistan) as "The Butcher of Bengal". Googling "Operation Searchlight" gave gory details of the mass atrocities committed by the Pakistan army in Bangladesh during 1971, including mass murder and rape. The media started complaining about how 80% of our budget was consumed by the army with no accountability to the public. Journalists wrote openly about how Gen. Zia manipulated the judicial process to hang Z.A. Bhutto, left the country with the infamous Hudood Ordinance and a Kalashnikov culture. Investigative journalists unearthed evidence that the ISI was involved in the rigging of elections to keep Benazir Bhutto out of power. Musharraf was blamed in 2001 for hastily jumping into bed with the US after 9/11. Books were written on the multi-billion dollar businesses owned by the army. Bomb blasts started happening. Was the army still awesome?

Fast forward 35,000 dead Pakistanis later to 2011. The Pakistani nation finds itself in a situation where Swat has been taken over for a few days by Taliban. For a brief moment of brilliance, the GHQ has been overrun by terrorists. Osama bin Laden has been found and killed by a covert US raid which our airforce couldn't detect. The airforce has admitted that the UAE actually controls an airbase in Balochistan. The ISI exhibited a massive intelligence failure on OBL's existence in Abottabad. Wikileaks has proven that our top General secretly asked for drone strikes and lied in public. Last but not least, one of our largest naval installations (PNS Mehran) has been held taken over by 5 terrorists and it took hundreds of commandos 16 hours to regain control. The media, emboldened and angered, started highlighting the complete lack of accountability of the army on a range of failures including the 1971 debacle, Bhutto's hanging, Ojhri Camp, Kargil, Red Mosque, Benazir Bhutto's assassination, PNS Mehran and GHQ attacks.

Suddenly, 180 million people are forced to come to terms with the possibility that their armed forces might not be as awesome as they thought. The incidents imply that the army is ineffective, incapable and inefficient. The army is not infallible and is not top notch. In a world where the army is the only thing in Pakistan that is reliable and true, this is a fundamental shock to the nation's value system.

Jokes ridiculing the ability of the armed forces are going viral on the internet - peoples' statuses on Facebook are anti army like never before. Suddenly, the army is not awesome anymore.

Denial is a natural reaction when everything that you believed in is suddenly taken away from you. That's why most Pakistanis prefer to hide in the safety of a conspiracy theory. It's a plan by the CIA to malign our armed forces and take over our nuclear assets. Maybe it's an effort by RAW to hurt our defense capabilities. In fact, it's probably an evil scheme by Mossad to destroy the world's most powerful Muslim army. Any conspiracy is better than having to face the grim reality that the Pakistan army might, just might, suck.

It's never us, it's them. The army does not suck... the army is still awesome.

Nzaar Ihsan is banker by day and aspiring journalist by night. He has been educated by Americans and Pakistanis - that's why he's a bit confused.

He has lived in Pakistan and across the Middle East. He currently lives and works in Doha, Qatar. If your are looking more about Pakistan news for today then you need to go Times Pakistan.

[nancygduarteus]

<em>New Amsterdam</em> Is a Medical Drama That Fails Doctors—and Viewers

In an early episode of NBC’s medical drama New Amsterdam, viewers see a 10-year-old boy named Leo sitting on a hospital floor, listless and unspeaking. “He used to be energetic. Silly,” his mother laments. She explains to a doctor that, for several years, Leo has been taking a powerful cocktail of antipsychotic medications following a series of violent outbursts at school. “Who needs breakfast, am I right? Fistful of pills like that every morning,” the child psychiatrist Dr. Iggy Frome (played by Tyler Labine) quips as he reviews Leo’s list of prescriptions.

Within minutes of meeting Leo, Frome decides to take him off his meds, later exposing the boy to the absurdly risky process of “rapid-detox dialysis” to remove the medications from his system as quickly as possible. This detox, viewers are told, is intended to allow a trial course of behavioral therapy. But by the end of the episode, therapy is largely unnecessary. Freed from his psychotropic prison, Leo is restored to his old self: He smiles, hugs his mother, and freely articulates the guilt he’s been feeling over his father’s death. It’s a storyline that caters to nebulous fears and conspiracy theories about health care and pharmaceuticals. It’s also one of many times on New Amsterdam when complex medical problems evaporate as soon as anyone cares enough to address them.

Medicine is approaching a moment of reckoning in the United States. Costs are skyrocketing, physician burnout is rampant, and the health-care system is plagued by inadequate staffing, rushed appointments, and byzantine insurance rules as the population continues to grow sicker. Addressing these challenges is the raison d’être of Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold), the new medical director of America’s oldest public hospital in New Amsterdam, which aired its fall finale Tuesday. The current state of medicine is a topic ripe for incisive critique and could offer fodder for meaningful TV drama. Unfortunately, the NBC series grossly oversimplifies the issues it portrays and leans into hero worship, which may lead viewers to troubling—even dangerous—conclusions about health care.

Since debuting in September, the show has followed Goodwin as he tries to overhaul New Amsterdam Hospital, a fictional behemoth based on the real-life Bellevue Hospital in New York, where I’m a resident physician. (The series was inspired by the 2012 memoir Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital.) Goodwin’s character is a familiar archetype: a maverick Man of Principle who jogs to work every morning, delivers self-righteous diatribes, and shows cynical onlookers the errors of their ways.

Soon after taking charge, Goodwin fires every cardiac surgeon (for placing “billing over care”), eliminates “untrained residents” from the hospital workforce, and does away with the emergency-department waiting room. In a recent episode, he encourages physicians to defraud the hospital through “downcoding”—providing expensive and time-consuming care to patients, then lying about it in the medical record. In doing all of this, Goodwin claims to be putting patients first, defying the nebulous higher-ups of the hospital, who, despite having only recently hired him, now seem bent on thwarting his efforts. That Goodwin also has cancer, as it’s revealed in the first episode, only adds to his zeal. “Let’s get into some trouble. Let’s be doctors, again,” Goodwin tells the hospital staff on his first day on the job, implying that health-care providers today are, somehow, something else.

From left to right: Tyler Labine as Dr. Iggy Frome, Finn Egan-Liang as Leo Chen, and Anupam Kher as Dr. Vijay Kapoor in the episode “Rituals.” (Francisco Roman / NBC)

New Amsterdam, which was the first new show of the fall to receive a full-season order, has proven popular with audiences, despite widespread critical consensus that it is simplistic and patronizing. I took a personal interest in the series ever since its television crew first appeared in the lobby at Bellevue a few months ago. At the time, it was easy for me to separate the telegenic TV doctors from the overworked, under-hydrated real ones, and the disparity between on-screen and real-life medicine is equally vast. But while accuracy has never been a requisite of primetime programming, skewed medical dramas like New Amsterdam can have a more insidious effect, poisoning how the health-care system and physicians are viewed by the public.

Television doctors can hold powerful sway over how people perceive medicine. Research has found that programs depicting physicians in an unflattering light correlate with negative and distrustful feelings toward doctors in the real world. Meanwhile, frequent viewers of valiant and courageous doctors on shows like Grey’s Anatomy tend to have positive beliefs about physicians, as well as higher satisfaction with their own medical care.

[Read: Health care in the time of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’]

This is worrying in light of the fact that over the past 50 years, TV doctors have devolved from caring, honest, and authoritative figures—as in the 1954 drama Medic, for example—into the arrogant and unethical characters we often see today. The hit series E.R. was among the first to depict hospitals as cold, inhumane environments staffed with callous and overworked (yet sympathetic) physicians, paving the way for the eponymous Dr. Gregory House, a pompous, rude, and drug-addicted (yet brilliant) diagnostician. Recently, Fox’s The Resident has taken the notion of bad doctors to the extreme, portraying physicians who routinely kill patients through medical error then cover up the deaths as accidents, all while belittling and abusing their patients and one other. Against this backdrop, distrust in physicians is rising, with only 34 percent of Americans now expressing confidence in medical leaders, down from 73 percent in 1966. Crucially, this decline has occurred despite the fact that most people still trust and admire their own physicians; it’s the medical profession more broadly that many see as increasingly suspect.

New Amsterdam is a throwback to the old-school, superhuman TV doctor with a notable twist. While Goodwin and his apostles are unflinchingly noble, they’re also clearly intended to be exceptions to the rule. Other doctors, the audience is told, are the problem: They are “corrupt and lazy,” perform unnecessary procedures to inflate billing and prioritizing golf over patient care. Even the lone surgeon who escapes the chopping block scoffs at Goodwin, saying: “You do know the whole system is rigged, don’t you? I mean, they’re not going to let you come in here and just … help people.” In another episode, Goodwin meets a homeless woman who is “skeptical” of doctors. “So am I,” he tells a colleague.

Working with patients, I’ve come face to face with the end result of this distrust, which often manifests as a deep reluctance to accept evidence-based treatments like vaccines, antibiotics, and needed medications and procedures. Frequently, patients and their families mention seeing something on TV, online, or in the news that scared them, though they often can’t express more than a dark, nagging suspicion that something nefarious is lurking behind the scenes. Once, a woman told me that The Resident had lifted the veil for her on how medicine really works. Other patients, perhaps bolstered by fictional storylines like Leo’s, have told me they believe doctors will only make them sicker. It can sometimes be impossible to assuage my patients’ fears, to the real detriment of their health.

There are, unfortunately, doctors who game the system, and who care more about money than about helping people, though they are outliers. There are also patients who are rightfully frustrated and angry due to negative or harmful encounters with these doctors. But in New Amsterdam, valid critiques of the incentives that allow bad actors to enter (and flourish) in medicine are supplanted by vague fear mongering and outlandish claims; scapegoating all doctors means overlooking the real, serious flaws with the health-care system.

Ryan Eggold as Dr. Max Goodwin (Francisco Roman / NBC)

If New Amsterdam has erred in identifying depraved doctors as the single biggest problem with American health care, the solutions the show proposes are equally disturbing. Never mind that banning residents from patient care, as Goodwin suggests, would dismantle the pipeline for training new doctors, exacerbating the impending physician shortage. Or that removing the emergency-department waiting room would mean filling beds on a first-come, first-serve basis rather than by medical need. Or that hiring 50 new attendings and an unspecified number of nurses, as Goodwin does in the first few episodes, would strain any hospital’s budget. In the only episode thus far to directly address the finances of the hospital, Goodwin offers a rare glimpse into his ostrich-like mindset, declaring, “The fiscal thing is really not my strong suit. I prefer to talk about the patients.” The absurdity of this statement, coming from the director of a hospital, confirms that Goodwin lives in a world without consequence. There are no trade-offs in this medical fantasy.

At the forefront of the show is Goodwin’s haphazard, manic leadership style, apparently inspired by Jim Carrey’s character from Yes Man. Goodwin’s colleagues repeatedly note that the medical director previously ran, and turned around, a failing clinic in Chinatown. Yet viewers are left with no sense of how he accomplished that—unless it was by uncritically accepting every offhand suggestion from the people around him. Attention spans, like cardiac surgeons, seem to have no place at New Amsterdam. Whims become policy, facing only token, if any, objections from the quietly skeptical administrator who tails Goodwin through the hospital, the business-minded Dean of Medicine, or the comically mute board of directors. The audience is meant to admire Goodwin’s fast-moving, shoot-from-the-hip reforms (he’s the anti-bureaucrat!), but the reality is that in medicine, pure intuition has fallen out of favor. With evidence-based medicine still in its relative infancy, many doctors are only now coming to terms with how frequently our gut instincts can be wrong.

Part of the problem with New Amsterdam is format. If the medium is the message, primetime procedural dramas venerate the quick-fix at the expense of substance. They rely, by necessity, on simplified, stylized versions of difficult medical problems. Surgical and medical “cures” abound. Ideas invariably work—if not on the first try, then certainly on the second or third. Storylines wrap up neatly by the end of each episode. Relative to real-world medicine, which is often messy and uncertain, TV medicine can be intensely satisfying and comforting to watch, tapping into an ever-growing societal obsession with instant gratification. The danger is that an inability to delay gratification, and to weigh nuance, is what brought about much of the dysfunction in the health-care system in the first place. Good medicine, and effective reform, takes patience.

Max Goodwin’s obvious redeeming feature is that he does seem to genuinely care about his patients. The fatal error of the show is assuming that other doctors don’t. Without Goodwin, physicians in the New Amsterdam universe are apathetic and inert, waiting to be inspired into action. At the real Bellevue, I have yet to meet a doctor who doesn’t care deeply about the well-being of their patients. Medicine is also teeming with people who are passionately working to reform health care through advocacy and research. The reality is that if good intentions alone were enough to improve American health care, the problems facing Bellevue—and so many other hospitals—would’ve been solved long ago. Addressing medicine’s many ills requires acknowledging their complexity; New Amsterdam does the opposite, leaving only frustration and fear in its wake. For a show about healing the system, it may do real harm.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/new-amsterdam-nbc-show-physician-distrust-bellevue/576712/?utm_source=feed