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Can a Rebrand Attempt Make Ted Cruz More Likable?

Locked in a tough reelection battle, Texas’s junior senator is trying to rebrand himself as a centrist problem solver.

But the former tea party darling turned Trump enabler has found it difficult to give up the pleasures of provocation.

Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger U.S. Rep. Colin Allred will debate Oct. 15 in a televised event in Dallas less than a week before the start of early voting for the Nov. 5 election.

Ted Cruz Would Like to Reintroduce Himself

Half a mile east of the U.S. Capitol stands a handsome three-story townhouse with red-brick siding, copper oriel windows, and a corner entrance inscribed with the name of its owner, the innocuous-sounding Conservative Partnership Institute.

Most passersby likely have no idea that Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 presidential election was largely coordinated behind these stately walls.

So was the January 6 rally that turned into a violent assault on the Capitol.

In recent years the CPI has spent tens of millions of dollars recruiting and training operatives to staff what its leaders hope will be a second Trump administration.

If the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 provides the battle plan, the CPI represents the staging ground.

Late on a balmy night this summer, though, the CPI headquarters was largely empty except for a cramped basement recording studio, where Texas senator Ted Cruz was preparing to tape the latest episode of his podcast.

Casually dressed in shirtsleeves and jeans, sporting black-rimmed reading glasses and a full salt-and-pepper beard, Cruz called to mind a college professor holding office hours.

A little after ten o’clock, he settled into a swivel chair and donned a headset.

This would be an unusual episode because Cruz had just done something unusual, at least for

him. Earlier that day he had introduced a bipartisan bill, the Take It Down Act, which would require social media companies to remove pornographic “deep fakes”—AI-generated images purporting to show real individuals, often young women, in compromising poses.

The issue attracted national attention when fabricated nude photos of Taylor Swift flooded the internet in January.

“Because Taylor Swift is a global superstar, she spoke out, and Big Tech took it all down,” Cruz said.

“But if you’re just an ordinary kid, you’re powerless.”

The Take It Down Act is a key element in one of the most audacious rebranding efforts in Texas political history.

Facing a tough election this November against Democrat Colin Allred, a centrist Dallas-area congressman and former NFL linebacker, Cruz is trying to transform his image from far-right provocateur to serious legislator.

He has good reason to do so.

Six years ago, Cruz won reelection by less than three points, narrowly beating a previously little-known El Paso congressman named Beto O’Rourke.

It was the closest any Texas Republican had come to losing a statewide election in two decades.

Cruz’s brush with political death shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

He spent his first term in the Senate largely ignoring his home state in favor of building a national brand.

In 2013, eight months after taking office, Cruz played an outsized role in shutting down the federal government—a doomed but profile-raising attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act.

The effort had no chance of success, but Cruz’s antics, including a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor featuring a reading of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, made him famous.

Other than engaging in similar acts of performative obstruction, he showed little interest in governing, introducing just two bills that passed in six years.

Instead he poured his energy into an ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign that ended in personal and professional humiliation.

“He was moving so fast that he kind of lost sight of where he was,” said veteran Texas lobbyist Bill Miller, who has worked with Republicans and Democrats.

“I think that close race with Beto made him get back to the basics of what you do as an elected official. You take care of your home base, you announce stuff, you get stuff done—or you take credit for it, anyway.”

Cruz seems to have gotten the message.

Leading up to this fall’s election, he has partnered with Democrats to pass several significant bills, including legislation securing the latest reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration and facilitating the construction of two new international bridges—and the expansion of a third—across the Rio Grande to bolster trade.

In an effort to broaden his appeal, his campaign launched Democrats for Cruz.

The group debuted online with a video featuring a dozen Texas Democratic voters discussing their concerns about immigration and crime.

“Democrats are not the way they were,” growls one elderly rancher. “Nowadays they’re too damn liberal.”

But Cruz has had trouble sticking to the bipartisan script.

At the Republican National Convention, in July, he delivered an incendiary speech accusing the Democratic Party of welcoming an “invasion” of undocumented immigrants because the party “decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children.”

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The speech won enthusiastic applause from RNC delegates.

But it was also a reminder of why Cruz, over his two terms in the Senate, has become one of the most polarizing politicians in America.

The televangelist-style delivery.

The self-righteousness.

The shameless dishonesty.

(There is no credible evidence that undocumented immigrants vote in American elections in significant numbers.)

“Fundamentally, he’s just not a likable person,” said one leading Texas Republican, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.

“He’s got a problem. There’s a reason he ran way behind the rest of the Republican field in 2018.”

Of the statewide Republican candidates that year, only Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was under indictment for securities fraud, received a smaller share of the vote than Cruz.

Whether Cruz can overcome his personal unpopularity to win a third term in the Senate depends in part on his ability to attract swing voters.

A June poll conducted by the University of Texas at Austin found that just 25 percent of self-described independents approved of Cruz’s job performance; 51 percent disapproved, and the rest had no opinion.

(Independents make up about 10 percent of the Texas electorate.)

But wooing undecided voters while maintaining support from Republicans is proving to be a tricky balancing act.

It took Cruz years to repair his relationship with the GOP base after the legendarily nasty 2016 Republican presidential primary.

During that campaign, Trump insulted Cruz’s wife and falsely accused his father of participating in the JFK assassination.

The Texas senator responded by calling Trump “utterly amoral,” “a pathological liar,” and “a serial philanderer.”

When Cruz refused to endorse Trump at the Republican convention, he was booed off the stage.

Desperate to save his political career, Cruz backed down.

Two months later, he endorsed Trump for president.

Four years after that, he took a leading role in the effort to overturn the presidential election on Trump’s behalf.

Cruz was unable to prevent the transfer of power to President Joe Biden, but he was successful in another sense: he had provided definitive proof to a sometimes wary Republican voter base that he will do anything for Trump.

The Cruz campaign granted Texas Monthly substantial access for this profile.

In Houston I attended campaign events and interviewed more than a dozen of the senator’s colleagues, staffers, supporters, and friends.

In Washington, D.C., I shadowed the senator for two days as he cast votes, grilled witnesses at committee hearings, held press conferences, and interacted with constituents.

In private, I found Cruz surprisingly thoughtful and self-deprecating, with a dorky sense of humor and a genuine love of pop culture.

(His favorite movie is The Princess Bride, which he can quote at length.)

“He’s a very serious man who doesn’t take himself too seriously,” Michael Knowles, Cruz’s original podcast cohost, told me.

I also saw another side of Cruz.

During a tense phone interview, Cruz became enraged as I frequently interrupted his evasive, filibustering answers to my questions.

When I cut short a monologue about his work to champion in vitro fertilization access to remind him I’d asked about his stance on abortion, he accused me of parroting Democratic talking points, suggesting that Congressman Allred had supplied my questions.

When I pushed back against his misleading assertion that 11.5 million undocumented immigrants have entered the country under Biden, he dug in his heels.

(In June the New York Times found that since Biden took office, 9.6 million migrants have been encountered nationwide, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

An estimated 25 to 60 percent of migrants apprehended are repeat crossers, and the Biden administration has turned away or deported more than 4 million migrants.)

I was left with a mystery.

Who is Ted Cruz in 2024?

The intelligent, well-read Harvard Law graduate or the belligerent, fact-challenged troll?

Could he reconcile the two identities to pull off one more electoral victory?

To say that nobody likes Ted Cruz would be incorrect.

On a hot, cloudless Saturday afternoon this summer, several dozen of the senator’s biggest fans filled the backyard of a picture-perfect suburban home in Jacobs Reserve, an upscale subdivision north of Houston.

This was the latest stop in what Cruz was calling his cul-de-sac tour, a series of intimate events in private residences around Texas.

In some ways the tour was a throwback to the beginning of Cruz’s political career, in 2011, when he crisscrossed the state in a rental car, speaking to local tea party groups.

Perhaps not coincidentally, holding small neighborhood events has allowed Cruz to dodge the demonstrations that often accompany his larger political rallies.

For years Cruz’s Houston home has been regularly picketed by protesters, most recently for his unconditional support for Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

In the spring, those protests became so intense that Cruz emailed his neighbors to apologize for the disruption.

At the Jacobs Reserve gathering, Cruz began his remarks by thanking his host, Jessica Hart Steinmann, the general counsel at the America First Policy Institute, a Fort Worth–based think tank staffed by former Trump administration officials.

Then he dived into his standard stump speech, which paints a dark vision of a nation in mortal peril.

“I have never seen so much damage done to our country in such a short period of time,” Cruz gravely intoned.

“In 2021 Joe Biden came into the White House, and he inherited peace and prosperity. And in almost every direction things have gone the wrong way.”

As Cruz surely knows, the country was mired in a pandemic-induced economic slump when Biden succeeded Trump in January 2021.

Since then, the U.S. has added 15 million jobs, unemployment has fallen from 6.3 percent to 4.3 percent, and the S&P 500 stock index has risen 49 percent.

Even inflation, which under the Biden administration peaked above 9 percent in June 2022, has now fallen below 3 percent.

But to hear Cruz tell it, things have never been worse.

Crime was up instead of down.

Filling up your gas tank practically required a home mortgage.

Widespread voter fraud was an existential threat rather than a myth rejected by every court that has examined it.

In recent years, such falsehoods have become articles of faith among many Republicans.

Cruz knows what fires up the Republican base, and it isn’t legislative solutions.

“Look at the chaos on the southern border,” he instructed the crowd at Jacobs Reserve.

“I gotta tell you, when you see the human suffering, when you see the people who are dying, when you look at the eyes of a girl or a little boy who’s been brutalized by human traffickers, when you see the women who have been repeatedly sexually assaulted, when you see the people die of drug overdoses.”

He didn’t quite finish the thought but rattled off disturbing statistics for his audience.

Polls show that immigration is the top issue for Texas voters.

Yet Cruz recently voted against a bipartisan border security bill—one of the toughest in decades—that would have significantly limited asylum claims and allowed the president to close the border if crossing numbers had averaged five thousand per day.

At the time, Cruz said the bill didn’t go far enough.

But Trump had reportedly ordered the bill killed so that Republicans could continue campaigning against a “broken border.”

Since Trump descended a gilded escalator in 2015 to decry Mexican migrants as rapists and drug smugglers, nativist hate speech has become a staple of many Republican politicians.

But few have pushed the envelope as far as Cruz.

Despite being the Canadian-born son of a Cuban refugee, Cruz has made unhinged xenophobia the leitmotif of his 2024 Senate campaign.

He regularly describes undocumented immigrants as an invading horde.

Like Trump, he is fixated on retelling lurid stories of brown-skinned migrants raping and murdering innocent, usually white, American women.

I asked Cruz about the similarities between his language and the rhetoric of mass shooters such as the 21-year-old white supremacist who killed 23 people and wounded 22 more at an El Paso Walmart in 2019.

Shortly before the massacre, the shooter released a four-page manifesto presenting himself as a defender of American values against “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

“That racist lunatic was a mass murderer,” Cruz shot back.

“Where do you think he got his ideas?” I asked. Cruz, in response, demanded to know my opinion of the Bernie Sanders supporter who shot Republican representative Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice in 2017.

At the backyard campaign event, Cruz described the U.S.-Mexico border as a lawless hellscape overrun by human traffickers and drug smugglers:

“As bad as you think it might be, it’s worse.”

But anyone who has spent real time in South Texas, instead of popping by for photo ops with U.S. Border Patrol agents, knows that the state’s border counties are remarkably peaceful.

FBI data shows that El Paso, Laredo, and McAllen rank among the safest cities in the country.

That’s not surprising, as researchers know that immigrants, both documented and not, commit far fewer crimes per capita than native-born American citizens.

(Most migrants who are in the country illegally try to avoid police attention, not attract it.)

Later, when I pointed this out to Cruz, he became incensed.

“That is an absolute logical fallacy!” he shouted. “Yes, it is true, we have murderers in America. And by the way, what should we do with the murderers in America? We should lock them up and put them in jail to protect our families. . . . It is utterly bizarre that today’s Democrats, supported by their media cheerleaders, want 11.5 million people to come into this country illegally, with no idea how many are murderers, rapists, child molesters. How many are gang members? How many are terrorists?”

I thought back to the senator’s 2015 campaign memoir, A Time for Truth, which describes his father Rafael Cruz’s adolescence in Cuba.

As a teenager, Rafael joined Fidel Castro’s armed communist insurgency against dictator Fulgencio Batista.

In 1956, Cruz wrote, Rafael was part of a rebel group assigned to attack an army base.

At the last minute, the raid was canceled.

Later, Rafael was arrested and tortured by Batista’s agents.

After his release, fearing for his life, he applied for and received a student visa to attend the University of Texas at Austin.

But given his inability to speak English and his participation in an insurrection, I couldn’t help wondering if Rafael would have been permitted into the country under the draconian restrictions favored by his son, who has repeatedly called for stricter screening of legal immigrants.

“When your father came to the United States, was he vetted?” I asked.

Cruz paused for a moment.

“My father was admitted legally on a student visa,” he finally said.

“But was he vetted?”

“You would have to ask the State Department that. I was not alive. But there is a right way to come to this country, and it is legally. It is following the rules.”

Cruz’s reverence for rules has always been selective.

“In my first conscious memory, I was causing trouble,” he writes in his memoir.

“I was in the grocery store as I put a kazoo in my mouth and blew it, repeatedly, loudly, and to the growing irritation of my mother.”

The family was living in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada, where Cruz’s parents, Eleanor and Rafael, owned an oil-field-services company.

Rafael had converted from pro-Castro revolutionary to anti-Castro conservative on his road to becoming a naturalized American citizen.

Eleanor, a second-generation American of Italian and Irish ancestry, earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Rice University before becoming a computer programmer.

The future senator was born Rafael Edward Cruz, in 1970, but everyone called him Felito—“little Rafael”—until he rechristened himself Ted in junior high.

In Cruz’s retelling of the grocery store incident, Eleanor warned him that she would take him home and spank him if he didn’t stop making noise.

He kept blowing, so she picked him up and carried him out of the store.

During the car ride home, Cruz recalls, he desperately tried “to turn the hand of fate. To strike up a conversation with her. To tell a joke. Anything to talk my way out of the punishment. But my mother bested me in determination. She also was a woman of her word. My spanking was forthcoming.”

Cruz has been tooting his own horn, pissing people off, and trying to escape the consequences ever since.

By third grade, he was already starting to think of himself as the smartest person in any room.

“The teacher would give the kids some homework, and Ted would do it in five minutes. Then he would go try to help all the other kids,” Rafael, who is 85, recently told me.

“It was getting him into trouble—the fact that he was so bright, he was using it to basically influence other people and disrupt the class.”

The teacher solved the problem by assigning Cruz extra work.

At the age of nine, Cruz could hold his own in family political discussions.

His parents had moved the family to Houston, where Rafael joined the board of the Religious Roundtable, a right-wing organization that supported Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign.

“Our conversation at the dinner table was all about why we had to get rid of this leftist, Jimmy Carter, and replace him with a constitutional conservative like Reagan,” Rafael recalled.

“Ted always wanted to participate and put his two cents in, make comments, ask questions, and so forth.”

That love of argument may have been welcome at home, but it made Cruz few friends at school.

In junior high, he embarked on a quest to make himself more likable.

“I decided that I’d had enough of being the unpopular nerd,” he writes.

“I remember sitting up one night asking a friend why I wasn’t one of the popular kids. I ended up staying up most of the night thinking about it. ‘Okay, well, what is it that the popular kids do? I will consciously emulate that.’ ”

It was the first of Cruz’s attempts at reinvention.

In his bid for popularity, Cruz joined his school’s basketball, football, and soccer teams.

He got his braces removed, started wearing contacts, and saw a dermatologist to treat his acne.

He “tried to be less cocky.

When I received a test exam back, even though I’d probably done well, I would simply put it away.”

Then came the name change, which infuriated his father, who considered it a rejection of his Cuban heritage.

For years Rafael refused to call his son by his chosen name.

Cruz may have dropped Rafael’s name, but he fully adopted his father’s conservative politics.

In high school, he became involved with a Houston organization called the Free Enterprise Education Center.

Founded by retired oil-and-gas executive Rolland Storey, the group drilled students in “the ten pillars of economic wisdom.”

(Second pillar: “Government is never a source of goods. Everything produced is produced by the people, and everything that government gives to the people it must first take from the people.”)

Storey paid for Cruz and other participants to travel around the state delivering twenty-minute orations based on the ten pillars to local Rotary Clubs and chambers of commerce.

Cruz also delivered lectures on the meaning of the Constitution and the dangers of socialism as part of another Storey-backed venture, the Constitutional Corroborators.

Over the course of his high school career, Cruz gave around eighty such speeches.

By his senior year, Cruz had his future mapped out.

“Upon graduation Ted hopes to attend Princeton University and major in Political Science and Economics,” reads the biographical blurb in a program for one of his Constitutional Corroborators talks.

“From there he wants to attend law school (possibly Harvard) and achieve a successful law practice. He then wants to pursue his real goal—a career in politics. Ted would like to run for various offices and eventually achieve a strong enough reputation and track record to run for—and win—President of the United States.”

Except for a few details—Cruz ended up studying public policy at Princeton—that forecast proved eerily accurate.

In 2015, when the 44-year-old Cruz formally launched his presidential campaign at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, in Virginia, he appeared to be on his way to achieving his ultimate ambition.

Just three years earlier, the insurgent tea party movement had boosted Cruz to victory in a hard-fought campaign to replace retiring U.S. senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

In Washington, Cruz’s incessant showboating repelled many fellow lawmakers in both parties but delighted his tea party supporters.

His rancorous battles with Republican congressional leaders such as Speaker of the House John Boehner, who once said he’d “never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch,” only made him more popular with the GOP base.

“Much of what he did as a U.S. senator upon election in 2012 was oriented toward the prize of the presidency,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones.

“He adopted a national persona that was focused on both fighting the Obama administration and reaching out to movement conservatives across the country.”

More than any other 2016 Republican presidential hopeful, Cruz seemed in tune with the angry mood of conservatives after eight years under America’s first Black president.

Then Donald Trump came down the golden escalator and ruined everything.

For the first eleven months of Trump’s Republican primary campaign, Cruz deliberately avoided criticizing the New York businessman turned television personality.

Like most political observers, he considered Trump’s campaign a publicity stunt that would collapse under the weight of its absurdity.

The strategy worked, until it didn’t.

In February 2016, Cruz won the Iowa caucuses, the first primary contest.

The effort he put into cultivating strong evangelical support and building a sophisticated, well-financed campaign apparatus had paid off.

Trump came in second but claimed, in a preview of things to come, that he had won.

The Cruz campaign had cheated, he said, by sending a misleading email to supporters on Election Day implying that fellow GOP candidate Ben Carson was dropping out.

After Iowa, Trump debuted a nickname for the man who was now his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination: “Lyin’ Ted.”

In the following months, as candidate after candidate flamed out, the field narrowed to Cruz and Trump.

That’s when things got ugly—and personal. Trump took shots at Cruz’s wife and father; Cruz held an impromptu press conference and called Trump a “pathological liar.”

Later that day, Cruz announced his withdrawal after Trump beat him by sixteen points in Indiana.

“When he dropped out, he was so broken that he could not even come out and address all of his supporters,” recalled Rafael, who was accompanying his son on the campaign trail.

“He just made a statement and went to the back, because he couldn’t contain the tears. He was in tears all evening. Just so disappointed.”

Cruz had no one to blame but himself.

In the Senate, he had pioneered the flamboyant, hyperpartisan style of politics that Trump used so successfully against him.

The New York real estate mogul was simply better at it.

In subsequent years, political trolls such as Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene employed similar showmanship—coupled with a disdain for legislating—to establish their brands in the lucrative right-wing ecosystem.

Although these politicians are often seen as mini Trumps, they were following a path blazed by Cruz.

In the months after his withdrawal from the presidential race, Cruz went uncharacteristically silent.

He spent a week with family and friends in Mexico—a country whose inhabitants he had spent the previous year deriding as dangerous criminals—sipping margaritas and licking his wounds.

Despite mounting pressure from the Republican Party, he refused to endorse Trump.

“History isn’t kind to the man who holds Mussolini’s coat,” he is quoted as telling friends in Tim Alberta’s book American Carnage.

During his speech at the Republican National Convention, in July 2016, he encouraged conservatives to “stand and speak and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

The arena exploded in jeers.

It was, in retrospect, the pivotal moment of Cruz’s political life.

Until then, he had enjoyed what seemed like an unbreakable bond with the base of the Republican Party.

Now he faced a choice.

Stick to his principles and risk his political career or endorse an authoritarian with little respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, or basic human decency.

Cruz could see which way the wind was blowing in Texas.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick reportedly threatened to run a primary challenger against Cruz if the senator failed to get in line.

Cruz did just that and has spent the past eight years trying to make up for his near-fatal mistake of asking conservatives to vote their consciences.

He put two conditions on his endorsement.

Cruz wanted Trump to commit to choosing a nominee to replace Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia from a list of right-wing jurists.

And he wanted Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican and Cruz’s close friend in Congress, added to that list.

Trump agreed.

In 2018 Trump unveiled a new nickname for his former rival.

“He’s not ‘Lyin’ Ted’ anymore,” he told reporters.

“He’s ‘Beautiful Ted.’ ”

Today Cruz explains his loyalty to Trump by pointing to the former president’s record in office, particularly his judicial appointments.

Because of his seat on the Judiciary Committee, Cruz wielded particular influence over Trump’s appointments to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which holds jurisdiction over Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Three of Trump’s six appointments to the Fifth Circuit were right-wing Texans:

James Ho,

Andrew Oldham, and

Don Willett.

“Those three people travel in the same circles as Cruz,” said Josh Blackman, a conservative legal scholar at the South Texas College of Law Houston.

“Cruz definitely put his imprimatur on them.”

By the end of his term, Trump had appointed three Supreme Court justices and nearly a third of the active judges on the thirteen circuit courts.

In the following years, those judges transformed the American legal system in areas ranging from reproductive rights to environmental regulation.

But none of this quite explains the lengths to which Cruz went in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Most congressional Republicans, whether from conviction or convenience, supported Trump’s unfounded claim that the election was stolen; 147 were willing to vote against certifying Biden’s victory.

But only a few could be described as principal organizers of the plot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Ted Cruz was one of those few.

Cruz had experience challenging a presidential election.

Two decades earlier, he was a junior member of the all-star Republican legal team in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush.

So it was no surprise when, after losing the 2020 election, Trump turned to the Texas senator for help.

“I told President Trump that he needed a team of world-class litigators, the kind you hire in multi-billion-dollar bet-the-company lawsuits,” Cruz would later recall.

At Trump’s request, Cruz tried to recruit just such a team, only to be turned down, he wrote, by every lawyer he approached.

The president was left with his old friend Rudy Giuliani leading a team of Keystone Cop attorneys who managed to lose every case they filed—including ones heard by Trump-appointed judges.

Cruz focused on amplifying Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud on social media and cable television, stoking Republican voters’ distrust of elections.

Throughout the fall, Cruz continued providing Trump with informal legal advice.

He even agreed to represent the Trump campaign before the Supreme Court in two long-shot lawsuits whose constitutional claims he privately doubted.

When the conservative-dominated Supreme Court declined to hear the cases, Cruz decided that the American legal system was shirking its responsibility.

“Something else needed to be done,” he concluded.

The Texas senator proposed that Congress establish an electoral commission to conduct an audit of the election results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all of which narrowly went for Biden.

Under his proposal, those states’ legislatures, all but one (Nevada) controlled by Republicans, would then have the power to overturn the will of the voters and deliver their electoral votes to Trump.

The former Constitutional Corroborator was laying the groundwork for the legal equivalent of a coup d’état.

On January 6, Vice President Mike Pence, presiding over a joint session of Congress, began running through each state’s presidential electors in alphabetical order.

When he reached Arizona, Congressman Paul Gosar, a far-right Republican who represents a district stretching from Phoenix to the Nevada border, rose to object.

Under the Electoral Count Act, such an objection must be joined by at least one senator.

“Is the objection in writing and signed by a senator?” Pence asked.

Cruz stood up, as he had promised.

“It is,” he said.

Cheers and groans filled the chamber.

Even as violent insurrectionists overran the Capitol, sending Cruz and his colleagues fleeing the chamber, the senator remained determined to challenge the results.

While hiding in a supply closet, in a secure location somewhere in the bowels of the Capitol, some of his coconspirators got cold feet.

Not Cruz.

When the Senate finally reconvened, he made one last unsuccessful attempt to rally enough votes to challenge the Biden electors.

In the early morning of January 7, Pence certified the election of Joe Biden as president of the United States.

Cruz’s actions on January 6 lost him the respect of some of his most valued friends.

Former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, a conservative legal icon for whom Cruz had clerked after law school, publicly blamed him for the mob attack on the Capitol.

“Once Ted Cruz promised to object, January 6 was all but foreordained,” Luttig told the Washington Post in 2022.

“Cruz was the most influential figure in the Congress willing to force a vote on Trump’s claim that the election was stolen.”

In his 2022 book, Justice Corrupted, Cruz describes an unnamed close family friend who ended his relationship with the Cruzes.

“Our lifelong friendship, which I deeply, deeply treasured—and for which I grieve to this day—was discarded as yet another casualty of these angry, divided times.”

Cruz has never accepted any responsibility for the January 6 attack, which resulted in injuries to at least 140 police officers and the death of one Trump supporter, who was shot by police.

In the senator’s version of events, a “small number of people” committed violent acts while the majority of Trump supporters were “peaceful protesters” who gathered in D.C. “to speak up for their nation and to defend President Trump.”

He rejects the characterization of the attack on the Capitol as an insurrection.

“An insurrection is an armed rebellion organized to overthrow the government,” he later wrote. “What happened on January 6 does not remotely meet that definition.”

During our interview, Cruz grew angry at my repeated questions about that day’s events.

“The only people obsessed with January 6 are reporters who hate Trump,” he informed me, appearing to forget that Trump himself brings up the failed insurrection at nearly every rally.

Like so much else about Cruz’s past, January 6 was merely a repressed memory, a bad dream that would go away if he closed his eyes.

What mattered, what folks ought to be talking about, was the glorious future Cruz saw for himself.

Just over a month after January 6, however, Cruz committed what may come to be seen as an even greater political blunder.

He fled to the tropical resort city of Cancún, Mexico, during a record-breaking winter storm that brought down Texas’s fragile, lightly regulated electrical grid in 2021.

Like many Texans, I spent much of the blackout in my bed, trying to keep warm under multiple blankets.

When I learned that Cruz had left the country, I drove to his house, in Houston’s wealthy River Oaks neighborhood, to see whether it had lost power.

In talking with neighbors, I verified that Cruz’s block had indeed gone dark.

I was getting back in my car to drive home when I spotted a small, forlorn-looking dog behind the glass panes of his front door.

I snapped a photo from inside my car and posted it on Twitter.

“Ted appears to have left behind the family poodle,” I wrote.

Social media exploded in indignation. Everyone wanted to know how the Cruz family could have left their beloved pet—whose name turned out to be Snowflake—alone in a freezing house.

Cruz later explained that a dog watcher had been taking care of Snowflake, but the optics were damning:

he had abandoned the poodle, it seemed, just as he’d abandoned his constituents.

Colin Allred, Cruz’s opponent in this November’s election, has used the Cancún trip as an example of Cruz putting his comfort and interests over those of the Texans he should be serving.

Yet another political vulnerability for Cruz is his longtime opposition to reproductive rights.

After the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the case that established a constitutional right to an abortion, fourteen states, including Texas, passed total abortion bans.

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Polling shows that these bans are deeply unpopular, including in Texas.

With pregnant Texas women regularly being denied medical care even when they face death or serious injury, pressure is building on the state GOP.

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that 26,000 Texas women have given birth as a result of rape in the years since the state outlawed nearly all abortions.

Allred supports federal legislation that would reinstate Roe v. Wade’s protections.

A Democratic bill expressing support for those protections was blocked by Cruz and other Senate Republicans in July.

“There’s no one more responsible in the state of Texas than Ted Cruz for the situation we’re in now,” Allred told me.

“He is someone who has championed extreme abortion bans for some time. He’s championed every extreme policy you can talk about when it comes to this.”

In the past, Cruz has expressed support for banning abortion without exceptions for rape or incest.

During his current Senate campaign, however, he has declined to go beyond his mantra that reproductive rights should be determined by each state.

“Abortion is an issue on which people of good faith can disagree,” Cruz told me.

“The particular restrictions that the state legislatures adopt reflect the values of the citizens of each state.”

“Does the Texas law reflect your values?” I asked.

“At the federal level, we’re not making those determinations,” he carefully replied.

Rather than discuss his position on abortion, Cruz preferred to highlight a bill he’d introduced earlier in the year purporting to guarantee national access to in vitro fertilization, which has been used by millions of American parents who have struggled to conceive a child.

But Cruz’s bill simply made states that banned the treatment ineligible for Medicaid funding.

This would likely be little deterrent to the ten Republican-led states, including Texas, that have already turned down billions of dollars in additional Medicaid funds offered by the Affordable Care Act because of their ideological opposition to “Obamacare.”

After touting his IVF bill, Cruz pivoted to blaming Democrats for being too extreme on reproductive rights.

I brought up a recent University of Texas poll showing that just 11 percent of Texans supported an abortion ban in cases of rape, and 12 percent supported a ban in cases of incest.

Wasn’t it Cruz’s position on abortion that was extreme?

“My position is let the voters of Texas decide,” he responded. “If you think letting the voters of Texas decide is extreme, then maybe you’ve been a reporter for too long.”

Allred’s attacks appear to be working.

A University of Houston/Texas Southern University poll from early August showed Cruz leading by just two points.

Allred has raised more money than Cruz so far, collecting $38.1 million in donations to Cruz’s $26 million.

The national Democratic Party has poured money into the race, which it believes represents its best chance at flipping a Senate seat from red to blue.

Cruz warned his supporters in Jacobs Reserve that the election would be close.

“My biggest challenge in this race is complacency,” he said. “People say, ‘Look, it’s Texas, it’s a reelection, you’re a Republican. This is easy, this is a layup.’ And I think that’s just objectively false.”

These days, the pursuit that seems to give Cruz the most pleasure is not legislating or campaigning but podcasting.

During our conversations, he came to life when discussing his burgeoning broadcast career.

“For years I had been telling my team, ‘Let’s figure out a way to do this,’ ” Cruz told me.

“We’ve got to communicate with people—we’ve got to go directly to them. And then as podcasts emerged, that became an obvious way to do it.”

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Verdict With Ted Cruz launched in 2020, during Trump’s first impeachment trial, topping the iTunes chart in its first week.

Since then Cruz has recorded nearly five hundred shows.

New podcasts are released every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, supplemented by occasional special episodes prompted by major news events.

Verdict remains one of the top political podcasts in the country, attracting an average of 60,000 listeners per episode, according to Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers Magazine, the industry’s leading trade journal.

For the first two years, Cruz cohosted the show with conservative political commentator Michael Knowles.

In 2022 the show was picked up by San Antonio–based iHeartMedia, the nation’s biggest radio and podcasting company.

“They provide tremendous economics of scale, tremendous muscle, and tremendous know-how,” said Harrison.

“They also provide tremendous legitimacy and prestige.”

To replace Knowles, who was under contract at right-wing media platform the Daily Wire, Cruz chose his longtime friend Ben Ferguson, a native Tennessean who now lives in Houston and hosts his own podcast on iHeartMedia.

“I wanted people to get to know the Ted Cruz I know,” Ferguson told me.

“The one that’s actually really funny and personable and sincere. I don’t think people get to see that side of him.”

The show is produced around Cruz’s schedule.

His podcasting equipment travels everywhere with him, packed neatly inside a black carry-on case.

Shows typically tape between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., after Cruz finishes his congressional business.

In Washington, D.C., Cruz often records at his townhouse, which he described to me as a bachelor pad littered with empty pizza boxes.

In Houston, he records at his home studio after his family has gone to bed.

“Other than his wife and kids, I probably spend the most one-on-one time with him,” Ferguson said.

On each approximately 45-minute episode, Ferguson acts as Cruz’s setup man, serving him softball questions about the news of the day and amplifying Cruz’s arguments.

On show days, they text back and forth about potential topics of discussion before choosing to focus on three or four issues.

Because little postproduction work is needed, podcasts are released within a matter of hours.

Cruz does not receive a salary for the show, but he benefits in other ways.

Since 2022 iHeartMedia has contributed more than $787,000 of advertising revenue from the show to a pro-Cruz super PAC.

The Cruz campaign, which is prohibited from coordinating with the super PAC, denies directing iHeartMedia to make these payments.

But in April, two D.C.-based groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that Cruz had “brazenly violated” campaign finance laws.

The FEC has yet to rule on the complaint.

“It’s highly improbable to me that iHeartMedia would just come up with the idea to send ad revenue to a super PAC that supports Cruz all on their own,” said Andrew Cates, a Texas campaign-finance attorney.

“There’s got to be some kind of written agreement in place.” Cates said he had never heard of a similar arrangement.

“It’s clever, and it’s new. But these types of things were bound to happen at some point.”

Cruz told me that he records the podcast as a public service for his constituents—a way to keep Texans informed about what’s going on in D.C.

But he spends the vast majority of his time talking about national politics and culture-war issues.

Nearly every episode features a section on the conservative outrage du jour, from university protests against Israel to the Paris Olympics opening-night telecast supposedly mocking the Last Supper.

The show’s content is almost indistinguishable from what you might find on Fox News—including frequent ads for “antiwoke” companies such as Blackout Coffee Co. and Patriot Mobile—except that the host is a sitting U.S. senator.

The more I listened to the podcast, the more I wondered whether Cruz was a legislator moonlighting as a podcaster or a podcaster moonlighting as a legislator.

On the campaign trail, Allred has repeatedly hammered Cruz over the podcast.

“Senator Cruz has spent his time doing everything he can to advance his own career, to advance his own notoriety, often at the expense of Texans,” he told me.

“The point of his podcast isn’t to inform, or to try and shed light on something that folks might not understand. It’s just a platform to advance himself and the kind of extreme issues he’s most interested in.”

The amount of time and energy Cruz devotes to the podcast has led some observers to wonder whether he plans a future in right-wing media if and when he leaves the Senate.

“I have no doubt that Ted Cruz would be able to go forward with a broadcast career if his political career came to an end,” said Harrison.

“He’s quite talented.”

But the podcast presents a challenge for Cruz’s rebranding effort.

Anyone who listens to a few episodes will quickly realize that he’s still the same far-right bomb thrower who burst onto the political scene in 2012.

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“He made his name by being a hyperpartisan, divisive person in the Senate,” said Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic PAC.

“And the fact that he’s trying to rebrand just shows his audacity and willingness to lie with a straight face.”

Throughout my reporting of this story, I was struck by the ease with which Ted Cruz slips from one identity into another.

All politicians dissimulate.

Many adopt a public persona far removed from their private self.

But few politicians seem as comfortable changing their positions as Cruz—a man who sounded just as sincere calling Trump a pathological liar as he now does calling him “a strong leader” who “fights for American people.”

“Ted Cruz would be a communist if communism got him to the top,” said Angle.

“He would be a fascist if fascism got him to the top.”

On a Monday evening in June, as the sun set over the nation’s capital, I tagged along behind Cruz as he exited the Senate chamber and descended the grand stone staircase leading to the east side of the Capitol grounds.

He paused for a moment to gaze toward the Supreme Court, where he had once been a law clerk and where he had argued eight cases during his tenure as Texas solicitor general.

To the southeast, hidden behind the facade of the Library of Congress, was the Conservative Partnership Institute building, where he would record his podcast later that night.

“I try to walk down these stairs at least once a day,” he told me. “If this view ever gets old, you’ve been in Washington, D.C., too long.”

It had been nearly four years since a violent mob, seeking to stop the certification of a presidential election, had charged up these very stairs on their way to ransacking the Capitol.

But if Cruz was thinking of January 6, he didn’t show it.

He jogged down the remaining steps, climbed into the back of a Mercedes sedan, and disappeared into the twilight.

#Youtube

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kpopfanfictrash · 4 years ago

Text

Raise the Barre (Ch. 1)

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Creative Content Contributor: @baebae-goodnight (WHO MADE THIS PERFECTLY GORGEOUS MOODBOARD)

Pairing: Jimin / Reader

Rating: 18+ (Eventual Smut)

Genre: Enemies to Lovers / Dance Academy!AU

Word Count: 7,003

Summary: You and Park Jimin have been rivals for as long as you’ve known one another; ever since he tripped you in the front row of your first dance convention. When you graduate from high school and enter Russet Ballet Academy, you tell yourself you’re leaving all past quarrels behind. The main problem with this though, is that your past seems determined not to leave you alone.

Worse still, the obstacles you face while out in the real world might prove more challenging than anything your enemy has to offer.

Thumbs hooked beneath the straps of your backpack, you paused on the sidewalk to tilt your head up. A sign reading Russet Ballet Academy hung from the building above, detailing the location of the next four years of your life.

It was the dream of many to attend and yet, few ever came to walk these halls as its students. Only eighty dancers were accepted to their dance program each year; the fiercest competition from all over the globe.

Somehow, you were amongst them.

The day you’d received your letter still felt like a dream but here you were, standing under the sign and knowing you’d made it. You stared at it a second longer before your mom came up and squeezed your shoulder.

“Wow,” she said, also reading the sign. “Seems like just yesterday you fell on your ass at Hall of Fame, huh?”

“Mom!” You laughed, the moment effectively broken. “Why would you bring that up now? I was twelve!”

She grinned and glanced in your direction. “You just had such enthusiasm! Picked yourself right back up and kept going. I should’ve known then you would make it.”

Despite yourself, you felt your insides soften again. It sounded like something your old dance teacher, Miss Katie, would’ve said. She’d always had faith in your perseverance and ability. You hadn’t started competing until the age of eleven; in dancer years, this was considered late and yet, you grew quickly through the ranks. By the time you reached high school, you were known on the competitive dance circuit as one of the elites.

Your parents joked it was your contrariness that kept you going. Growing up, you’d never much liked hearing the word no – something your parents applauded and bemoaned in equal measure.

Hiking your bag higher, you turned to face your parents. “So, are you going to take a photo, or what?”

“A photo! Great idea.” Scanning the sidewalk, your mom found your dad. “Honey, come here! Honey! Hone – honestly,” she huffed, waving both arms overhead.

Finally, your dad noticed and hurried in your direction. “Have you seen the gargoyles?” he asked, clearly impressed. “The architecture of this building is incredible, Y/N. When you get settled, maybe you can find out for me who the builder –”

“Take the picture, darling,” said your mom, handing over the camera.

She moved beside you, hugging you tight enough to make breathing difficult. You were happy though, smiling brightly as your dad took the shot.

“Okay, okay,” you said, laughing after the tenth frame. “I think you guys have embarrassed me enough for one day, don’t you?”

“Debatable,” said your dad, grabbing your luggage to haul up the steps. “We’ve got to make up for all the days we won’t see you. You’re not coming home until the holidays, right? That’s a long time!”

At this, a small pang went through you and you nodded. He was right – your parents lived a plane flight away and you’d never been the wealthiest of households. You wouldn’t be able to return until three months from now, which was the longest you’d ever spent away from your family.

It was such a strange thought, you didn’t know what to do with it. As crazy as it was, since they often drove you crazy, you hadn’t ever lived far away from home and the thought made you sad. It was just another way your life was being upended.

As you entered the arched door of Grace Hall, your soon-to-be home, your head spun from the newness. In your small suburban town, you’d had a reputation. The best dancer, the straight-A student, the person with her act together – never mind what you did behind the scenes to make it appear that way. The point was, you were known.

Here, you were just another small fish thrown into the big pond. It wasn’t that you were a bad dancer – far from it – but here, everyone was the best. Everyone at Russet had passed the same bar, which meant the stakes would be higher than ever before. You had never danced under that kind of pressure and scrutiny.

Stomach churning, you once again wondered if you’d made the right choice. You’d been accepted into other Universities; ones without dance programs where you’d have a more secure future. Instead, you chose to pursue dance as a career.

It wasn’t that other majors were without risk or difficulty, but there was a certain physical and mental exhaustion associated with dance which most found to be a deterrent. You once had a teacher who said if you needed to think twice about dancing, you shouldn’t do it. Way too many people never made it to the top; if you weren’t prepared to make sacrifices for what you loved, then this wasn’t the path for you.

At the time, you hadn’t thought twice about your decision, but that was before the events of Senior year.

A week before the final dance competition of the season, your tendonitis grew so bad, you physically winced whenever you landed a jump. Your teachers finally caught on and forced you to see a doctor, who forbade you from dancing in the upcoming competition.

It had been the last one of the year; your final chance to compete and show everyone – well, someone – why you were considered the best. You went to the competition despite your injury, determined to cheer on your teammates, but something hollow settled into your chest as you watched, realizing your time on the stage would someday come to an end.

You realized how tenuous your body was and, by extension, your career. Of course, you’d known this before, but it had been your first time to face this knowledge head-on and it scared you. Tendonitis wasn’t something that went away, although it was a condition you could work through and manage. Still, your body would only get worse and although you knew you wanted to dance, now you had doubts.

As you stepped through the doors of Russet Academy, these doubts reared their ugly heads once again.

Hiking your bag further up on your shoulder, you plastered a smile on your face and pushed these thoughts away. That was last year. You were better now, fully recovered and approved to dance by your doctors. So long as you took care of yourself, there was nothing to fear.

More suitcases waited in the trunk of your dad’s rental car, but your roommate had already texted her arrival, so you headed upstairs. Noelle Carmichael was from California, a Sagittarius, had begun dancing at the age of three and loved caramel popcorn more than anything else in the world. All this information had been thrown at you during your first text conversation, which might have seemed like a lot, but after a summer of talking, you knew it to only be Noelle.

As you lugged your bag from the elevator – the singular service vehicle had been repurposed for move-in – a head poked itself from a room down the hall.

“Y/N?”

When you nodded, your roommate whooped and leapt into view.

“It’s me – Noelle!” she called.

She rushed to help you with your bags, chattering excitedly as you walked down the hall. Noelle’s move-in time had been yesterday, and her parents had already left, but they couldn’t wait to meet you the next time they visited.

You found her enthusiasm contagious and before long, most of your worries had been banished to the sidewalk outside. It felt like you’d known Noelle for much longer than the few months you talked over the summer. This greatly relieved you, since you’d been worried about making friends at Russet Academy.

Dancers weren’t always the friendliest, especially when it came to institutions like this. So much of dance was competition – competition for that ranking, that medal or that place in that dance company. It was hard to make teamwork a priority when so much of success was judged on the individual.

Noelle didn’t seem to think this way though, which helped ease some of your fears. You had both entered the ballet track at the Academy. You weren’t naturally a ballerina, but Russet recommended those who wanted to go into jazz or contemporary start with ballet. Smaller majors existed for tap and hip-hop, but those had never been your forte.

Meeting Noelle was enough for minimal tears to be shed while saying goodbye to your parents later that night. Your dad ended up crying, which of course set you off, but by the time they got in their rental car and turned the corner, you’d managed to mostly pull yourself together.

Noelle remained in the dorm while you said goodbye, lounging on her bed with a book in her lap.

You paused on the threshold of your room when you returned, taking in the strangeness of all your surroundings. Your old comforter on a lofted bed, your laptop perched on a strange desk, your clothes hung in an armoire. It was both strange and familiar; the sight of it brought tears to your eyes.

“Oh, no!” Noelle said, hopping down from her bed. “Don’t cry, Y/N! I only just stopped crying this morning. If you cry, then I’ll cry and people will think something terrible is happening here.”

You laughed when she hugged you, hugging her back in the middle of the room. It was comforting to know someone else felt this way; after a moment, you pulled back to wipe your eyes.

“I’m fine,” you groaned, shaking your head. “Damn. I didn’t expect that.”

“I know.” Noelle smiled. “I was so excited to leave I forgot that deep down, I’m a gigantic baby. Huge mama’s girl.”

Stifling a laugh, you crossed the room to grab a Kleenex.

“If it helps,” Noelle said. “Some girls down the hall are having people over tonight. We could go and meet some of our classmates before orientation starts tomorrow. It should be fun!”

“That does sound fun,” you said, and you meant it.

A few hours later, you found yourself seated on equally horrible carpet in a room down the hall. Several other freshmen were seated beside you, sharing similar parting stories, which lifted your spirits.

“I bawled,” said Irene, clutching her chest. “I’ve had this giant countdown in my calendar all summer. I crossed each day off with a marker and then suddenly, I’m here and I miss my sister. Pathetic.”

Noelle laughed. “I’m just glad I was part of yesterday’s move-in day. It means only half of you heard my gigantic breakdown last night. Mad embarrassing. Pretty sure I told my brother I love him.” She shuddered. “He’s only supposed to get that honor on his birthday!”

The room cracked up, another girl chiming in and you swirled your cup, happily buzzed from the drink in your hand. You hadn’t had alcohol many times before, but it seemed appropriate for a night of new experiences. No one here was drinking to get drunk, since orientation began tomorrow, but some social lubricant tended to help in times like this.

Ballet wouldn’t start until Monday morning, so this was your last chance for a while to indulge. It wasn’t that you couldn’t drink during the semester, but you’d learned the hard way hangovers made for terrible class the next day. You’d only done it once before deciding to ban the idea of alcohol the night before dancing.

The other girls on your floor did their best to put you at ease. Aside from your roommate, there were five other girls who’d congregated in the room.

Ari and Jasmine lived in the room you all sat in. Ari lived within driving distance of the city, had the largest collection of gel pens you’d ever seen and had started dancing later in life (at age ten), which made it all the more impressive that she’d gotten in. Jasmine was from a tiny city in the south and was also a studio dancer; you recognized her the moment she spoke, having run into her as a teacher’s assistant at a dance convention you went to.

Also present were Irene, a ballerina from Chicago and Lia, who was on the hip-hop track. They were also roommates and although you probably wouldn’t have many classes with Lia, orientation tomorrow would be the same. As you got to know them better, the bubble of trepidation in your chest slowly deflated. Everyone here seemed nice – intense, but not as though they were out to get anyone.

As though conjured into being by your very thought, a girl appeared in the door.

She was tall, slim and had her hair pulled back in a French twist. Everything about her screamed ballerina, from her light blue warm-ups to her arched expression. The moment she appeared on the threshold, several people in the room quieted.

Noticing this, you glanced at her with renewed interest. It seemed the girl’s reputation preceded her, but you honestly had no idea who she was. Rather than introduce herself though, the girl merely sighed.

“I thought I heard something,” she said, her tone piqued.

Forcing a smile to her lips, Jasmine rose from the floor. “Hey, Sabrina!” she said, making her tone bright. “We were just getting to know one another. Did you change your mind about coming? We have room if you want to join.”

Despite her forced smile, you detected a glimmer of want beneath Jasmine’s words. Clearly, this Sabrina was considered a big deal. Jasmine’s hopes were immediately crushed the second Sabrina opened her mouth.

“No, thanks,” she said, her gaze sweeping the room. “I need to get to sleep soon. I want to wake up early and get in a quick barre before breakfast.”

Noelle, seated beside you, stared at Sabrina in amazement. “You already have access to rooms?”

Sabrina turned; a faint, amused smile crossed her lips. “Yeah. I went to Russet Prep. I’ve known most of the teachers here for years.”

Hearing this, your stomach sank to the floor. You’d known, of course, there was a feeder school into Russet Ballet Academy. You’d received the same audition letter many years ago, but the cost and distance had been too much for your family to consider.

While you’d understood the fact that you’d be amongst great dancers, you hadn’t thought specifically about Russet Prep ballerinas. Sabrina’s presence instantly dampened your mood, since the way she glanced at you confirmed what you already knew.

She had a leg-up, she knew it and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

Leaning back on the futon, you slowly sipped your drink. “Did you just come here to say that?” you asked. “Or did you want something else?”

Multiple heads turned to face you. Irene’s lips twitched and beside you, Noelle let out a laugh. Based on their reactions, you got the feeling that Sabrina wasn’t very well-liked by her peers.

Smile vanishing, Sabrina met your gaze. “That was all,” she said. “Just wanted to ask if you could keep it down. Some of us are trying to take this opportunity seriously.”

With that, she turned and stalked from the room. The door slammed shut behind her and silence lingered – until Noelle snorted and others began to laugh.

“Some of us are trying to take this opportunity seriously,” Noelle mimicked, rolling her eyes. “Give me a break. Like we all didn’t bleed into our pointe shoes to be here.”

The rest nodded in agreement and slowly, the conversation shifted to other topics. Although you joined in, uncertainty lingered in the back of your mind. It seemed some of dance’s cattiness had followed you after all. You weren’t truly surprised by this; after all, you were barely three months older than you’d been in high school. It was too much to expect people to become adults overnight.

Still, at least there was one cause for celebration this evening. The fact that you’d arrived at Russet meant you no longer had to compete against your most fierce rival.

For the next four years, Park Jimin, utter bane of your existence, would be nowhere in sight.

Early the next morning, you stood in line for registration at Danley Hall and awaited your schedule.

“Honestly.” Noelle stood on her toes to peer down the hall. “Why do they insist on handing these things out in person? We could easily get them online and skip all this nonsense.”

“We need to take our ID card photos,” you pointed out. “But yeah, it sucks. You’d think they could’ve at least assigned us time slots.”

“Dancers.” Noelle shook her head. “Great at conceptualizing abstract choreography – not so great at administrative tasks.”

You laughed, facing forward as the line started to move. It stopped shortly thereafter, as did you, rearranging the bag on your shoulder. You recognized several people from last night and waved hello to them all, receiving greetings in turn.

When your phone vibrated in your pocket, you jumped in surprise. Pulling it free, you smiled when you saw the name of your boyfriend.

“Oooo.” Noelle peered over your shoulder. “Who’s that? Boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” you laughed, swatting her arm as you opened his text. “It’s my boyfriend, Finn.”

“Finn’s a good name.” Noelle moved forward in line. “Strong. Noble. Damn, though – are you two doing long distance? Brave souls.”

“No – thank god. Finn’s at Redfield University. His orientation was last week, so we’re planning to meet up later tonight.”

“Redfield? That’s so close!” Noelle gushed. “Wow, you two are so lucky. And Redfield is a great school, too. I wholeheartedly approve.”

“Well, as long as you do,” you laughed.

“What’s he saying? Wishing you luck with registration?”

“That, and asking where I want to get dinner tonight.”

“Sickeningly cute. I’d be jealous if I weren’t such a great person.”

You snorted, about to respond when someone called your name.

“Y/L/N, Y/N?”

Head jerking up, you saw a man at the office waving you forward. It seemed your time had finally come.

“That’s me!” you said, stepping from line.

The first stop at registration were two, tiny desks set before the main office. Past these, you could see someone finishing up their student photo. A bright flash went off, momentary blinding as you winced and faced forward.

“Here you go!” you said, placing your paperwork down. “Everything should be in order.”

The paperwork man barely nodded, grabbing the folder to rifle through. He seemed content to take his time and you quickly grew bored, glancing around the lobby. Much of your class was waiting in line, looking amusingly enough like a middle school dance. There hadn’t been general orientation yet, so most people had only met those in their (single-sex) dorm last night. Groups of boys and girls awkwardly faced off from across the hall.

While you waited, you began to size people up. It was unintentional, but you knew you’d be paired with someone for ballet and it seemed better to get a head start than not. Most people were unfamiliar to you, and you’d made no meaningful progress when a new voice said your name.

“Y/N?”

Freezing in place, you continued to stare at the hallway before you.

You knew that voice. It was one you could’ve identified in the depths of Tartarus itself – which honestly, was the only place you’d imagined hearing said voice again, since it belonged to Park Jimin. Top hellion of the underworld.

Slowly, you turned and had your worst suspicions confirmed.

Park Jimin stared back at you in the hall.

He wore a jean jacket, white t-shirt and golden sunglasses perched on his head, despite being indoors. Every part of his attire screamed pretentious, but no one around you seemed to notice. Instead, a buzz spread over the crowd as more and more people realized who you were talking to.

Before you could compose yourself, you demanded, “What are you doing here, Park?”

Jimin’s smile disappeared. Slowly, he walked forward and closed the distance between you.

“So, you’re not even going to try and be pleasant?” he asked, coming to a stop. Casually, he looked you up and down. “Surprised to see you here. Thought you’d stopped dancing, or something.”

Subconsciously, your hands balled into fists. Jimin had a way of getting under your skin that no one else did – even though admittedly, you could’ve just said hello. You didn’t have to act like he was the anti-Christ, even if he was.

“I didn’t stop dancing,” you said to him through gritted teeth. “You know that perfectly well.”

Jimin shrugged. “How was I supposed to know that? The last time I saw you, you were limping around like you were on your last legs. I just assumed.”

“I… was not limping,” you said with as much dignity as you could muster.

“Weren’t you on crutches?”

“My doctor made me use those!”

“Aha!” Jimin grinned, triumphant. “So, you were injured.”

“I had tendonitis,” you shot back. “Hardly fatal, Park. I’m fine now.”

“Right.” Jimin glanced at your feet. “Hope it doesn’t come back.”

From anyone else, you might’ve taken the words at face value, but this was Jimin. He’d never wished for your success before, so it would be foolish to imagine otherwise now.

Gaze hardening, you took another step forward until you stood nose-to-nose. Well, nose to chin was more like it. Jimin had grown since you first began competing against one another. You remembered a time when you both were the same height. This had once been a source of great amusement for you, choosing to stand directly before him at awards ceremonies.

You opened your mouth to tell him off when the paperwork man said your name again.

“That’s me!” you blurted, spinning around.

Jimin would have to wait, you decided as you strode forward. The paperwork man looked at you in alarm, clearly not used to having such enthusiastic participants.

“Uh, I know,” he said slowly. “You confirmed your name earlier. The photographer is ready,” he added, nodding towards the room Jimin had vacated.

Cheeks burning, you accepted your paperwork and nodded. Although you purposefully didn’t look at Jimin as you left, you could feel him smirking at you from behind.

Refusing to give him the time of day, you brushed past – or you would’ve, but the space was too small for dramatics. You nearly elbowed him in the spleen as you went, forced to squeeze against the wall in an undignified fashion.

Still, you didn’t look back as you entered the ID office. Some of your anger became transparent in your photo-taking, though – this much was obvious when you were handed your ID. Staring at this in horror, you remained frozen in the hall when Noelle finished and joined you.

“Oh, shit,” she said, glancing at your ID. “I feel a lot better about my photo now.”

“Hey!” you said, hand curling around the photo.

Despite this, you laughed, since she was right. On a scale of model to mug shot, your ID was definitely on the latter end.

As you walked away, you shook your head and shoved the ID in your bag. In the corner of one eye, you could see Jimin lingering while he talked with other students. You recognized no one in his group, except for a guy you thought you’d seen on YouTube. Hope on the Street, or something. Probably on the hip-hop track.

“Seriously, though.” Noelle looked at you sympathetically. “What happened? Photographer tell you he was going to murder your family?”

“Ugh, no,” you groaned. “Just got in my own head.”

“Uh-huh. And the fact that you were talking to Park Jimin right before had nothing to do with it?”

Blinking, you glanced at her in surprise. “You saw that?”

“Kind of.” Noelle looked a bit guilty. “I mean, it’s hard not to notice Park Jimin wandering the halls.”

You couldn’t help but scowl at this.

It was unprofessional, but your feud with Jimin went back so far, it was hard for you to be completely impartial. Your rivalry had begun when you’d both been picked to demonstrate the combination at NUVO dance convention and Jimin had tripped you while in the front row. He’d apologized afterwards, claiming ignorance, but you’d seen enough of his dancing by then to know Jimin didn’t make mistakes.

He’d tripped you on purpose.

Jimin was known on the competitive dance circuit, like you, but he had an almost cult-like following on YouTube and TikTok. Rumor had it, he’d been asked to join Ariana Grande on tour the previous summer, which was why you’d thought for sure you were rid of him. It seemed this was no longer the case.

“Yeah,” you grumbled as you neared Jimin in the hall. “He’s here, alright.”

Noelle hid a smile. “You don’t like him.”

“He’s an ass.”

“Yeah, he does,” said Noelle, gazing wistfully at his butt as you passed.

“Noelle!” you snorted. “That’s not what I said.”

“Huh?” Blinking innocently, she returned to you. “Oh, you said – oh. Sorry. Though you said something different.”

The smile she gave was incorrigible though and, despite your best interests, you laughed.

“I mean, he does have a nice butt,” Noelle argued. “Come on, Y/N. You have to admit that,” she continued once you were out of earshot.

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“Liar.”

“I mean, he’s a dancer!” you sputtered. “We all have nice butts.”

“Valid counter-argument,” Noelle said as you walked outside. “But seriously, he’s not a good guy?”

Paused on the sidewalk, you turned to glance at the building. Danley Hall rose above you; the location of class every day for the foreseeable future. Some of that now felt tainted by the prospect of seeing Jimin every day, as well.

With a sigh, you met Noelle’s gaze. “No,” you said at last. “We were rivals all throughout high school and believe me, there aren’t enough terrible superlatives to describe Park Jimin. He’s the most annoying, most childish, least humble–”

“–biggest suck-up, least trustworthy, mind-numbing idiot,” you finished, stabbing your salad with a fork.

Finn laughed at you from across the table. By this point, your feud with Jimin was old news to him. Shaking his head, curly brown hair flopped into his gaze.

“Damn, Y/N,” he said sympathetically. “That sucks. Can’t believe that jerk had the audacity to follow you to Russet. Sounds to me like he can’t get enough of you.”

Ignoring this, you rolled your eyes. “Believe me, it’s not that. Park Jimin doesn’t care about anyone but himself. It’s just Russet, you know? The most prestigious dance academy in the country. I just don’t understand how I didn’t know this,” you sighed, still troubled by the thought. “How come I didn’t know he’d be in the freshman class?”

“I don’t know.” Finn shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t have a Facebook?”

Most of the freshman class had connected on Facebook, at least before someone made a What’s App chat for the group. Finn was probably right about Jimin not giving out his social media.

“That’s probably true,” you grumbled. “But still.”

Finn laughed at your expression. Reaching across the table, he squeezed your hand in his. “Hey,” he said gently. “You beat him for what – four years? So, this is just another four years of putting him in his place. You’ll be fine.”

He was right, although in all honesty, Jimin had won about fifty percent of the time against you. It was one of the reasons you’d pushed yourself so hard in high school.

“You’re right,” you said, somewhat mollified.

“Of course, I am,” Finn said, letting go of your hand. “You’re talking to a man who put his loft bed together alone. By hand.”

You looked at him in alarm. “Did you at least use the manual?”

“Please, Y/N. Men don’t use manuals. We don’t believe in them, much as we don’t believe in cleaning, cooking, or coming in second.”

“Gross,” you groaned, throwing a cherry tomato at him. “Worst ad ever for the male sex. Besides, it’s not true – I beat Jimin in dance plenty of times.”

“Oh, come on,” Finn laughed. “He doesn’t count.”

Something about the way he said this made you sit a bit straighter. Finn resumed cutting into his steak, but you continued to stare at him across the table.

“What do you mean by that?”

Finn looked up in surprise. “Well, you know. It’s not like he’s super manly.”

You stared at him, bewildered.

“I mean, he wears tights, Y/N.”

At this, your eyes narrowed. It wasn’t like you were Jimin’s biggest fan – you despised him, actually – but Finn’s argument was just stupid, even if he meant it as a joke.

“And?” You tilted your head. “He also bench-presses women above his head for fun. Are you being serious? Just because he –”

“Whoa, wait – I was kidding,” Finn said, looking stricken. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I just meant it as a joke, you know, since you hate the guy. Truce?”

You hesitated, still miffed, but ultimately deciding it wasn’t worth it. Finn truly looked sorry and this was Jimin, after all. Not that this made it better, but sometimes you grew tired of lecturing your boyfriend. Sometimes, it was just easier to let things go.

“I – yeah,” you said after a long pause. “Fine. Truce.”

“Come on.” Finn smiled and reached for your hand again. “You’re not really mad, are you?” He looked hopefully at you from beneath his curls. “Jimin’s the worst. What’s got you this upset?”

Sexism and toxic masculinity, you wanted to say, but he was right. This was Jimin and you hated that guy. It felt kind of weird to want to defend him to your boyfriend.

Still, though. Finn’s comment was annoying; it was one thing for you to insult Jimin. You did it based on Jimin’s merit, his talent, and the way he kept beating you. You’d never once insulted Jimin because of his gender. In the oddest of ways, it felt like your boyfriend had insulted you when he put down male dancers.

“I’m just annoyed by the whole situation,” you said at last, settling on a half-truth. “I hate the fact that Jimin won our bet.”

Finn nodded in sympathy, settling back in his seat to eat the rest of his meal.

You stared at your salad, no longer as hungry as you had been before. Remembering the bet had thoroughly ruined your appetite.

The bet had been made Senior year, a consequence of years of competition with no real declared winner. Jimin had been the one who suggested it, albeit after you goaded him into it.

It had been your first competition of the season and you’d taken home the top trophy – First Overall in the Senior solo category. Jimin had come in second and when you met backstage, both holding your awards, you’d come to a stop to size one another up.

“Nice trophy,” Jimin said, his tone dripping with derision.

“Right?” Turning it over, you examined it. “Not sure where I’ll put it, though. My shelves at home are pretty full.”

“I think you’ll be fine,” Jimin said. “Competition is pretty stiff this season. I doubt you’ll win again.”

“Are you referring to yourself as my competition, Park?”

“Who else?”

“I wouldn’t worry about me,” you said, stepping closer. “After all, I beat you today. I can do it again.”

“Really?” He smirked. “What competitions are you going to this season?”

You told him, listing them off one by one without looking away.

Jimin listened and nodded. “I’ll be at four of those. How about a bet, then? Whoever wins First Overall at three of the five competitions declares themselves the winner.”

“Hm. What’s the catch?”

“No catch.”

You paused, considering the implications of such a bet. “I don’t get it, though. What does the winner win?”

“Uh, our rivalry? Bragging rights for eternity? Pride? Take your pick, Y/N.”

“Pride,” you said with a snort. “Like you have any of that.”

“I don’t. Let me win it.”

You had to clamp your lips together to keep from laughing; it would’ve ruined your image to laugh at your declared enemy’s joke.

“Alright, fine,” you said with a shake of your head. “But here’s what I want in return – are you listening, Park?”

“Trying to.”

“At the end of this season – when I win – I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me I’m the better dancer.”

Jimin’s smile widened. “And what if I win?”

“Impossible. But if you do,” you allowed. “I’ll tell you you’re the better dancer. Deal?”

“Deal.”

And that had been that.

Shaking your head, you returned yourself to the present and took another bite of your salad.

“We were tied,” you said, the same anger returning. “Jimin had won twice and I had won twice. It wasn’t fair that he just got to win because I forfeited the last competition. I was injured!”

Finn nodded in agreement, just as he had every other time you’d told him this story.

Feeling a little bit guilty, you pushed your tirade aside and tried to focus on dinner. A bet from Senior year wasn’t really important in the long run. All that mattered was that you and Jimin had ended up at the same place.

Still – you couldn’t help but worry he’d pop up one day to make good on the promise. You still hadn’t told him he was the better dancer; it’d be even more humiliating to do so now, surrounded by all your classmates from Russet.

“Anyways,” you said with a sigh. “Enough about him. How was your day?”

Finn began a story about the supposed shower-caddy thief on his floor and you settled back, nodding and laughing at all the right times. Listening to Finn talk was comforting. He reminded you of home, of family dinners and long drives and date nights at the movie theatre.

Being in his presence felt like second semester Senior year – that invincible feeling of knowing where you were headed and feeling unstoppable. Having him in the city made the transition to Russet slightly less terrifying. He was your single known in a future of unknowns.

Well, except for Jimin. Jimin was also known, but in the opposite way. The thought of him was anything but calming; he made your jaw clench, blood pound and heart start to race.

Even in looks, Jimin was the complete opposite of Finn. Where Finn had floppy, brown curls, Jimin’s blonde hair was usually swept back from his face. Finn was a light-hearted guy, always talking with his hands and laughing at nothing, whereas Jimin was nothing but intense. Every time you saw him at competitions, he was either practicing or sleeping. There was no in-between.

Finn took things one day at a time, which was something you envied. You always felt you were hurtling towards something, the days passing by too quickly to do everything that you wanted. It was part of what made you a good couple, you decided. Finn took things slowly and you sped him up.

Aside from his major, Finn’s future was wide open. He had no real direction other than to learn and have fun, which you also envied. As much as you wanted to have fun at Russet, you knew there wasn’t much time on your chosen career path. Each second counted and you couldn’t afford to waste one.

Starting that night.

Finn walked with you back to campus, dropping you off at Grace Hall with a lingering kiss. It became more heated than you anticipated, each of you panting when you broke things off to head inside. It had been a week since he’d come to Redfield, which was the longest you’d been apart since you lost your virginity to Finn at the start of the summer.

The sex had been good as of late, but Noelle was inside and you had no desire to hook up with your boyfriend in the bushes outside your dorm.

Once you’d returned, you collapsed on your futon and groaned when you read the schedule for tomorrow.

Noelle laughed from her bed. “Copson’s ballet class?”

“Copson’s ballet class,” you agreed with a sigh.

Vlad Copson was known, even to the incoming freshmen. He was a brilliant dancer and choreographer, but utterly terrifying as a teacher. Rumor had it every freshman was assigned to him their first year just to lower the class number from eighty to seventy.

You didn’t believe this, of course, but that didn’t keep your insides from churning. As you tried to fall sleep later that night, you realized with certainty that this was a beginning. Everything you’d done before now, everything you’d once achieved no longer mattered.

Everyone at Russet was on the same foot and all that mattered was what lay before you. Not at all cheered by this thought, you pulled up your covers and eventually fell asleep.

Vlad Copson turned out to be exactly what you had pictured; an immaculate man with a stern demeanor, wearing the exact same dress code he expected of his students.

He stood before the class the next morning, next to the stereo with both hands clasped before him.

“Welcome,” he said, looking over his students. “I’m Vlad Copson, but you may call me Mr. Vlad for the duration of class. This is Ballet, Level 1.”

Approximately twenty faces stared back, caught in a mixture of certain awe and terror. You knew yourself to be among them, standing at the back of the room with Irene and Noelle. You’d been relieved to find them both in your classes, since there were two other schedules they could’ve been sorted into.

Unfortunately for you though, prep school Sabrina and hellion Jimin were also part of your schedule. They stood at the front on the opposite side and you did your best not to look at them, knowing no good would come from it.

Everyone in class was dressed exactly the same. The women wore leotards, buns, ballet belts, tights and pointe shoes. By this stage in your career, you were expected to do the entirety of ballet class on pointe. There had been much rosin-ing and banging of shoes before the class had started.

“Thank you to those who were on time,” Mr. Vlad said, casting a pointed glance at a boy near the front. Said boy had entered the room a few seconds after 8:00 AM. “For today, I’ll be lenient and let everyone stay. From now on though, class will start promptly on the hour. Those who aren’t ready will be asked to leave and come back when they can respect my time. Understood?”

A ripple of voices chorused yes.

“Good.” Mr. Vlad arched a brow. “You may have heard I’m a tough teacher. This is true. I am hard on my students, since you’re expected to be the best. Do you know how many applications Russet received this year alone? Nearly two thousand, and these were only from those who felt qualified to apply. Russet is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I expect everyone who enters my classroom to act like it.”

Listening to him speak sent a bead of sweat down your neck. Although he didn’t say it specifically, you knew what Mr. Vlad meant. There were two thousand qualified individuals waiting to take your place if you failed. And that didn’t even include other students at the Academy, or even other dancers who waited out in the real world.

“For those who make it to the end, this will be a life-changing event.” Mr. Vlad paused. “There are teachers here who are far better than I – and I’m considered to be one of the best in the world. You’ll be pushed to your limits, but you’ll also grow at a tremendous pace. We gave you a spot because we believe in each of you. Prove us wrong, though,” he warned. “And that will be that.”

A lingering silence fell and in that quiet, you and Noelle glanced at each other. Again, you were glad for a friendly face. The entire speech would’ve been unbearable without one.

The boy who’d been late was as red as a tomato, clearly embarrassed at having been singled out. You would’ve felt bad, except you knew it wouldn’t be the last time Mr. Vlad put someone on the spot. The attention could easily swing to you before the end of class.

“That’s enough chit-chat, I think.” Mr. Vlad turned towards the stereo. “We’ll start at the barre.”

No one moved and once he’d reached the music, he arched a brow. “Why is everyone still standing in the center, gawking? Barre!”

Had you been watching from outside, it might’ve seemed comical how quickly everyone scattered. You and Noelle chose a barre near the front, setting water bottles down and moving to stand at the center.

Placing yourself in first position, you turned your head and surveyed yourself in the mirror.

“Eyes on me, not the mirror!” Mr. Vlad called, forcing your gaze his way. “Before we get started, I’ll assign your ballet partners for the semester. You won’t do anything with them until across the floor, but I hate to disrupt our flow later on. When I call your name, raise your hand.”

Your heart sank as you turned to face forward.

This was something you’d known was coming. Ballet partnering was part of the set first year curriculum, but you’d been under the severe misimpression you’d be allowed to choose your own partner. Information on the process had been limited and you’d heard conflicting accounts from upperclassman before your arrival. Apparently, the teachers did something different each year.

“Ahn, Irene!”

Irene raised her hand, waiting awkwardly to hear her partner’s name.

“Olson, Brian! You two are partners.”

The red-faced late boy looked at Irene in alarm, then nodded. Irene nodded as well, lowering her hand and Noelle winced.

“Sucks,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Already paired with trouble.”

Privately, you agreed. It’d be unfortunate to be partnered with someone who’d already been singled out. You could only hope your assigned partner would be better than that.

Mr. Vlad turned. “Y/L/N, Y/N!”

Your hand immediately lifted, waiting for what seemed like forever, until –

“Park, Jimin!”

Author’s Note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIMIN! Thank you for reading 😊 New chapters of Raise the Barre will be posted weekly; dates are listed on the series Master List. Requests for updates will be deleted.

RAISE THE BARRE MASTER LIST

#btsbookclub #smutcentralnet #bangtanarmynet #bts fanfic #jimin fanfic #bts series #jimin series #jimin writing #bts writing #bts e2l #jimin e2l

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fatliberation · 3 years ago

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I’m Abandoning Body Positivity and Here’s Why

In short: it’s fatphobic.

“A rallying cry for a shift in societal norms has now become the skinny girl’s reassurance that she isn’t really fat. Fatness, through this lens of ‘body positivity’, remains the worst thing a person can be.” (Kayleigh Donaldson)

• • •

I have always had a lot of conflicting opinions about the body positivity movement, but it’s much more widely known (and accepted, go figure) than the fat liberation movement, so I often used the two terms interchangeably in conversation about anti-fatness. But the longer I’ve been following the body positivity movement, the more I’ve realized how much it has strayed from its fat lib origins. It has been hijacked; deluded to center thin, able, white, socially acceptable bodies.

Bopo’s origins are undoubtedly grounded in fat liberation. The fat activists of the 1960s paved the way for the shred of size acceptance we see in media today, initially protesting the discrimination and lack of access to equal opportunities for fat people specifically. This early movement highlighted the abuse, mental health struggles, malpractice in the medical field, and called for equal pay, equal access, equal respect, an end to fatphobic structures and ideas. It saddens me that it hasn’t made much progress in those regards.

Today, the #bopo movement encapsulates more the idea of loving your own body versus ensuring that individuals regardless of their weight and appearance are given equal opportunities in the workplace, schools, fashion and media. Somehow those demands never made it outside of the ‘taboo’ category, and privileged people would much more readily accept the warm and fuzzy, sugar-coated message of “love yourself!” But as @yrfatfriend once said, this idea reduces fat people’s struggles to a problem of mindset, rather than a product of external oppressors that need to be abolished in order for fat people to live freely.

That generalized statement, “love yourself,” is how a movement started by fat people for the rights of fat people was diluted so much, it now serves a thin model on Instagram posting about how she has a tummy roll and cellulite on her thighs - then getting praised for loving her body despite *gasp!* its minor resemblance to a fat body.

Look. Pretty much everyone has insecurities about their bodies, especially those of us who belong to marginalized groups. If you don’t have body issues, you’re a privileged miracle, but our beauty-obsessed society has conditioned us to want to look a certain way, and if we have any features that the western beauty standard considers as “flaws,” yeah! We feel bad about it! So it’s not surprising that people who feel bad about themselves would want to hop on a movement that says ‘hey, you’re beautiful as you are!’ That’s a message everyone would like to hear. Any person who has once thought of themselves as less than beautiful now feels that this movement is theirs. And everyone has insecurities, so everyone feels entitled to the safe space. And when a space made for a minority includes the majority, the cycle happens again and the majority oppresses the minority. What I’m trying to explain here is that thin people now feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces.

Regardless of how badly thin people feel about their bodies, they still experience thin privilege. They can sit down in a theater or an airplane without even thinking about it, they can eat in front of others without judgement, they can go the doctor with a problem and actually have it fixed right away, they can find cute clothes in their size with ease, they do not suffer from assumptions of laziness/failure based on stereotype, they see their body type represented everywhere in media, the list goes on and on. They do not face discrimination based off of the size of their body.

Yet diet culture and fatphobia affects everyone, and of course thin people do still feel bad about the little fat they have on their bodies. But the failure to examine WHY they feel bad about it, is what perpetuates fatphobia within the bopo movement. They’re labeled “brave” for showing a pinch of chub, yet fail to address what makes it so acceptably daring, and how damaging it is to people who are shamed for living in fat bodies. Much like the rest of society, thin body positivity is still driven by the fear of fat, and does nothing to dismantle fatphobia within structures or within themselves.

Evette Dionne sums it up perfectly in her article, “The Fragility of Body Positivity: How a Radical Movement Lost Its Way.”

“The body-positive media economy centers these affirming, empowering, let-me-pinch-a-fat-roll-to-show-how-much-I-love-myself stories while failing to actually challenge institutions to stop discriminating against fat people. More importantly, most of those stories center thin, white, cisgender, heterosexual women who have co-opted the movement to build their brands. Rutter has labeled this erasure ‘Socially Acceptable Body Positivity.’

“On social media, it actually gets worse for fat bodies: We’re not just being erased from body positivity, fat women are being actively vilified. Health has become the stick with which to beat fat people with [sic], and the benchmark for whether body positivity should include someone” (Dionne).

Ah, yes. The medicalization of fat bodies, and the moralization of health. I’ve ranted about this before. Countless comments on posts of big women that say stuff like “I’m all for body positivity, but this is just unhealthy and it shouldn’t be celebrated.” I’ve heard writer/activist Aubrey Gordon once say that body positivity has become something like a shield for anti-fatness. It’s anti-fatness that has been repackaged as empowerment. It’s a striking double-standard. Fat people are told to be comfortable in their bodies (as if that’s what’s going to fix things) but in turn are punished when they’re okay with being fat. Make it make sense.

Since thin people feel a sense of ownership over body positive spaces, and they get to hide behind “health” when they are picking and choosing who can and cannot be body positive, they base it off of who looks the most socially acceptable. And I’m sure they aren’t consciously picking and choosing, it comes from implicit bias. But the socially acceptable bodies they center are small to medium fat, with an hourglass shape. They have shaped a new beauty standard specifically FOR FAT PEOPLE. (Have you ever seen a plus sized model with neck fat?? I’m genuinely asking because I have yet to find one!) The bopo movement works to exclude and silence people who are on the largest end of the weight spectrum.

Speaking of exclusion, let’s talk about fashion for a minute.

For some reason, (COUGH COUGH CAPITALISM) body positivity is largely centered around fashion. And surprise surprise, it’s still not inclusive to fat people. Fashion companies get a pat on the back for expanding their sizing two sizes up from what they previously offered, when they are still leaving out larger fat people completely. In general, clothing companies charge more for clothes with more fabric, so people who need the largest sizes are left high and dry. It’s next to impossible to find affordable clothes that also look nice. Fashion piggybacks on the bopo movement as a marketing tactic, and exploits the very bodies it claims to be serving. (Need I mention the time Urban Outfitters used a "curvy” model to sell a size it doesn’t even carry?)

The movement also works to exclude and silence fat Black activists.

In her article, “The Body Positivity Movement Both Takes From and Erases Fat Black Women” Donyae Coles explains how both white people and thin celebrities such as Jameela Jamil profit from the movement that Black women built.

“Since long before blogging was a thing, fat Black women have been vocal about body acceptance, with women like Sharon Quinn and Marie Denee, or the work of Sonya Renee Taylor with The Body Is Not An Apology. We’ve been out here, and we’re still here, but the overwhelming face of the movement is white and thin because the mainstream still craves it, and white and thin people have no problem with profiting off the work of fat, non-white bodies.”

“There is a persistent belief that when thin and/or white people enter the body positive realm and begin to repeat the messages that Black women have been saying for years in some cases, when they imitate the labor that Black women have already put in that we should be thankful that they are “boosting” our message. This completely ignores the fact that in doing so they are profiting off of that labor. They are gaining the notoriety, the mark of an expert in something they learned from an ignored Black woman” (Coles).

My next essay will go into detail about this and illuminate key figures who paved the way for body acceptance in communities of color.

The true purpose of this movement has gotten completely lost. So where the fuck do we go from here?

We break up with it, and run back to the faithful ex our parents disapproved of. We go back to the roots of the fat liberation movement, carved out for us by the fat feminists, the queer fat activists, the fat Black community, and the allies it began with. Everything they have preached since the 1960s and 70s is one hundred percent applicable today. We get educated. We examine diet culture through a capitalist lens. We tackle thin, white-supremacist systems and weight based discrimination, as well as internalized bias. We challenge our healthcare workers to unlearn their bias, treat, and support fat patients accordingly. We make our homes and spaces accessible and welcoming to people of any size, or any (dis)ability. “We must first protect and uplift people in marginalized bodies, only then can we mandate self-love” (Gordon).

Think about it. In the face of discrimination, mistreatment, and emotional abuse, we as a society are telling fat people to love their bodies, when we should be putting our energy toward removing those fatphobic ideas and structures so that fat people can live in a world that doesn’t require them to feel bad about their bodies. It’s like hitting someone with a rock and telling them not to bruise!

While learning to love and care for the body that you’re in is important, I think that body positivity also fails in teaching that because it puts even more emphasis on beauty. Instead of saying, “you don’t have to be ‘beautiful’ to be loved and appreciated,” its main lesson is that “all bodies are beautiful.” We live in a society obsessed with appearance, and it is irresponsible to ignore the hierarchy of beauty standards that exist in every space. Although it should be relative, “beautiful” has been given a meaning. And that meaning is thin, abled, symmetric, and eurocentric.

Beauty and ugliness are irrelevant, made-up constructs. People will always be drawn to you no matter what, so you deserve to exist in your body without struggling to conform to an impossible and bigoted standard. Love and accept your body for YOURSELF AND NO ONE ELSE, because you do not exist to please the eyes of other people. That’s what I wish we were teaching instead. Radical self acceptance!

As of today, the ultimate message of the body positivity movement is: Love your body “despite its imperfections.” Or people with “perfect and imperfect bodies both deserve love.” As long as we are upholding the notion that there IS a perfect body that looks a certain way, and every body that falls outside of that category is imperfect, we are upholding white supremacy, eugenics, anti-fatness, and ableism.

#body positivity #bopo #body posi #body positive #body acceptance #fat acceptance #fat activism #fat liberation #anti fatness #anti blackness #anti fat bias #lookism #beauty standards #self acceptance

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the-infamous-coat-of-baron-zemo · 4 years ago

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Fall Into You | Laszlo Kreizler x Reader

Alright my friends. Here is my latest piece of insanity.

It is completely raw and unedited. So, if there are a ton of mistakes, I apologize in advance.

What a whirlwind thing this was. I literally only planned to write the last little bit at the end, that was the entire premise and then 7000 more words came along with it.

-----

This is a partial crossover fic.

TFATWS | The Alienist | Dr. Strange | Loki | universe all mushed together in bits and pieces.

But mostly The Alienist.

Hopefully the characterizations feel okay. Dr. Kreizler and John Moore can be a bit tricky to write and I've never written them before. So, please bear with me on this.

Buckle up. It's going to be a doozy. Kinda.

-----

Word Count: 6,900 - ish

What happens when you wind up 124 years into the past and meet a relative of Baron Helmut Zemo's?

A lot.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It was early evening and you were perched on one of Dr. Kreizler's fine couches, in front of the fireplace, reading a book.

You were waiting for Stevie to drop by and drag you to some musical street performance not terribly far from Dr. Kreizler's residence. Normally, you would have stayed hidden indoors, but you took a liking to the kid when you first met him, and decided you couldn't let him down.

Hopefully Stevie wouldn't drag you out too long, otherwise Dr. Kreizler would start to worry. Although, he would never outright admit to it, but it was the subtle things he did that indicated his concern. Or perhaps it was annoyance. That wouldn't surprise you either. You were loud and very talkative. He'd probably grateful to have to leave his house; so he can finally get some peace and quiet.

Dr. Kreizler always kept to himself and rarely made a display of his feelings to anyone, but you were a good friend of his in the short time you had come to know him. So, you got little peeks into what lay hidden away.

He was gracious enough to allow you stay in his home until you could figure out a way to get back to your own time. One minute you were talking to Wong inside Dr. Strange's sanctum in New York, and the next a portal opened up underneath you and you were falling.

After travelling through an empty void that seemed to go on forever, you finally exited through the other side, which landed you in front of a police precinct. You had looked around after picking yourself up and realized you were in quite the pickle. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was not your New York.

People were starting to stare at as you took in your surroundings. You initially thought it was because you had randomly fallen out of the sky, but realization had dawned on you; it was because of your clothing.

Ah, yes. You suppose compared to what all the other women were wearing, you were a sight to behold. Jeans, a forest green blouse, and short brown leather jacket, would draw some attention, when all the other women were dressed so conservatively in dresses. You laughed nervously backing away from the small crowd on the sidewalk. You calmly but quickly darted over to a newsie holding up a paper for sale.

You paid the kid a dollar and snatched the paper out of his hand. Not paying attention in the least to his shouts of joy on making so much off of one measly paper, but you were too focused on finding out what time period you were in.

You caught the date at the top of the newspaper: April 1st, 1897.

April Fool's Day.

Typical, something like this would happen to you. Joke's on them, as someone is going to have a hell of time trying to figure out where you went. You're quite sure Wong was trying to sort through what happened and had already calling Strange.

Well, you hope he had.

You put down the paper and tried to think of what to do, but a small crowd of people were still stopped and whispering to each other, pointing in your general direction.

One man was gesturing in your direction and started shouting, but not at you.

"Hey Kreizler, this one looks like a crazy. Should probably haul her off to Bellevue!"

You raised your eyebrow at the man, but didn't say anything, instead choosing to turn and see who he was yelling at.

A very well dressed man wearing a bowler hat was walking down the steps of the police precinct in a rushed sort of manner. He had a cane with him, and it appeared his right arm was tucked against his body as if protecting it. A few steps behind him there was another man darting to catch up with him, also well dressed and carrying what seemed to be a sketchbook.

The guy on the street had yelled at the gentleman in the bowler hat again, which you had assumed at this point was Dr. Kreizler. As the two men reached the bottom of the steps and were about to step into their carriage, the incessant yelling had managed to grab Kreizler's attention. At least it seemed so, because the man with the cane had paused and turned his attention towards the direction of the yelling.

You could see from his body language he wasn't all that interested, but when his eye-line landed on you, he backed away from getting inside.

The other gentleman that was accompanying him, the one with the sketchbook, said something to him, but Dr. Kreizler just waved him off as he started to walk over to you.

Great.

You look over to the rude gentleman that had now drawn even more attention to you and gave him an unappreciative stare.

You steeled yourself, ready for whatever this stranger was going to say to you, but your guard had dropped slightly upon getting a better look at his face.

No way.

This was not possible.

The man that had come over to you was the spitting image of one genius, criminal mastermind and general pain in your ass, you knew all too well. One who's currently locked up in The Raft.

If it wasn't for the beard, you'd swear you were looking at Baron Helmut Zemo.

As Dr. Kreizler stopped a few feet from you, he tilted his head to the side and eyed you warily, but not unkindly.

That head tilt, a family trait for sure. Zemo had to be some distant relative of this man in some way, there's no chance they aren't with how closely the two resemble each other. She'd have to make a trip to The Raft and ask him about it sometime, if she ever got back home.

"My dear, you seem out of sorts. Are you alright?" the man inquired, gazing at the small gathering of people and then back to you.

"I kinda stick out like a sore thumb, yeah?" You laughed as you answer his question, peering down at your outfit.

"Quite," he replied.

You saw while he may be cautious around you, you've seem to grab his interest with the scrutiny and intensity of his gaze.

"If I may introduce myself, my name is Doctor Laszlo Kreizler," the gentleman stated.

Ah, so this was indeed the man who was being called out from the street. You noticed he didn't extend his hand in greeting, but then again perhaps it wasn't a pertinent gesture for the time period either. So, you didn't take offense to it.

Your eyeline moved behind Dr. Kreizler and could see his friend at the carriage watching with interest, but also growing impatience.

You gave a kind smile as you introduced yourself and added, "Thank you for humoring the nosy man over there, but I'm not in need of a doctor. I'm terribly sorry for interrupting your day."

"Not in the least. And I may be a doctor, but I am an alienist more specifically," Kreizler explained.

Your eyebrows shot into your forehead and then contemplated his title. An alienist? Where had you heard that before? If you remembered correctly, an alienist was someone who assessed individuals for competence?

Oh.

The shouty man had mentioned Bellevue. Okay, now you understood.

"An alienist! That term is...." you paused trying to think of a better way to phrase you response. "The term is outdated where I'm from. Instead we simply acknowledge your specific doctorate profession as psychologists, since the very definition of what you do is to study the mind and behavior of individuals," you answered, satisfied with your explanation.

"Outdated. How intriguing. Perhaps we could continue this conversation away from prying eyes and gossipy busy-bodies?" Kreizler asked.

You wouldn't be able to read it on his face, but you can tell you've piqued his interest even more so now with his body language. And his eyes had this sparkle in them as you spoke of his profession so specifically.

Though you felt you could trust this man, you couldn't take the chance that he might, in fact, lure you into his carriage and ship you off to the nearest mental institution, such as Bellevue Hospital.

You'd be lying if you weren't equally intrigued by this enigma of a man standing before you. The resemblance to Baron Zemo was uncanny, and that alone made you want to find out more about him; however, Zemo was not to be trusted as far as you could throw him. Though he did have his moments. You'd give him some credit. Doesn't mean distrustful behavior runs in the family, but it also could. It was a difficult decision.

Your eyes narrowed assessing Dr. Kreizler as you came to decision.

"Shouldn't you give me a mental health assessment test before asking a complete stranger to travel off to who knows where with you? Why shouldn't I be suspicious you aren't going to drop me off at the nearest institute? No offense," you replied warily.

"Thank you!" the man with the sketchbook at the carriage shouted at both you and Dr. Kreizler, clearly in agreement with your answer.

You snickered at his sarcastic reply, but attempted to cover your ever growing smile by coughing.

The corner of Dr. Kreizler's mouth ticked up in a smile as well.

"No my dear, if anything you've just proven you're at least slightly more sane than my counterpart, Mr. John Moore," Dr. Kreizler shook his head and jutted his thumb behind him.

"Heard that Laszlo!" Moore responded with indignation.

"That was the point John," Dr. Kreizler answered back with dry wit.

Yeah, she liked him already.

"Shall we?" Kreizler turned slightly to gesture to his carriage.

You sighed internally. Why the hell not? You had nothing better to do and no idea what your next move should be trying to get home. Dr. Kreizler would no doubt be curious about your attire and that alone with most likely bring up a slew of never ending questions. You'd have to be careful how to explain your situation and make sure what you revealed was limited, but truthful. You wanted to tell him the truth about where you were from, but you needed to word it in a way that doesn't make you out to be a crazy person, but present the information with facts and evidence that Dr. Kreizler could not refute. Luckily you had some tech with you that could prove your point rather efficiently should the need arise you convince him of what time period you come from in the future. 124 years it a length period of time. It would be difficult for anyone to accept your explanation, but Dr. Kreizler seemed to be different. Let's hope you aren't wrong about him.

"I accept your offer Dr. Kreizler, thank you," you spoke kindly.

You were formally introduced to Mr. Moore and to Stevie before getting in the carriage. Mr. Moore seemed uneasy, but went along with Dr. Kreizler's acceptance of you. He was a trusting friend of his, you could tell right away. And something told you, Dr. Kreizler was a tough nut to crack and didn't seem to be the type of person who might have very many. Only a close few.

"What made you decide to take Dr. Kreizler up on his offer so quickly," Moore asked standing outside the carriage as Stevie was getting the horses ready.

Dr. Kreizler had held the door open for you and waited patiently.

You looked at Dr. Kreizler before turning back to Mr. Moore, "You mean besides his sparkling personality?" you winked and got in the carriage.

John leaned into Kreizler before adjusting his hold on his sketchbook and climbing into the carriage himself.

"Oh, well I like her already Laszlo," he grinned incessantly and gave Kreizler a clap on the back.

You saw Dr. Kreizler bend his head down in amused exasperation as a small huff of laughter sounded with the movement. He sighed somewhat dramatically before getting in the carriage and closing the door.

"You know, I've never actually ridden in one of these before," you say slightly awed.

Both Moore and Kreizler gave you confusing looks before Dr. Kreizler used his cane to tap on the rear enclosure signaling Stevie to head home.

Home. Well, this should be interesting indeed.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

You closed your book with a snap and slumped into the couch you were perched on. It had been six months, since that day. Six months, you've been trapped in this pocket of 1897.

You had reflected back on how well John and Dr. Kreizler had taken the explanation you were from the future. As you told your story, your only requirement was that they wait until the very end before asking any questions. That gave you the chance to be very methodical about how you explained the future and how it was you ended up in 1897, which to be fair, you don't know exactly how that portal opened still, but magic was involved to say the very least.

It was oddly reminiscent of when Loki used the space stone, which gave her pause. All the infinity stones had been destroyed, and yet you knew that there was an errant 2012 Loki running around the universe with one. It is plausible, he could factor into this, but how or why you, you have no idea.

After you had explained your fanatical circumstance, to help prove you weren't absolutely off your rocker and have Dr. Kreizler change his mind about you, you showed them your phone.

Yes, there may not be any service available, but you could still access all your photos and videos and holographic imagery, etc. That was what allowed John and Dr. Kreizler to accept your story; paired with your unique clothes; they had a surprisingly open mind. John had gaped like a fish for a good 10 minutes before Dr. Kreizler told him to get over it already. John was somewhat outraged that he wasn't more shocked by your existence. But like all things, Dr. Kreizler took everything in stride, which was quite a relief to you. He was incredibly understanding and offered a room in his home to you until you were able to get back to your own time. You made a promise to Dr. Kreizler that you would never lie to him, about anything. It was the least you could do since he opened up his home and essentially part of his life to you.

You understood why he was an expert in his field. His patience and intellect allowed him to be open-minded and grasp concepts others word merely scoff at. However, there was another side to that coin; he was also closed off, and could at times, be calculating and manipulative. Though, none of these traits were used in any nefarious manners, they were there all the same.

He reminded you of Zemo to be sure in this regard. Some personality traits apparently do get passed down through the generations. In some ways, after meeting Dr. Kreizler, you felt you knew Helmut Zemo a bit better. And somehow, you missed him. Not that you were ever particularly close to him, but the time you spent with him in Latvia with Sam and Bucky forever altered your opinion of him.

So while you've been living at Dr. Kreizler's residence, in your spare time, you had been working different avenues of how to achieve ways to get home. You couldn't just solely rely on your friends to get you out of this mess. So, while Dr. Kreizler was at work, you enlisted the help of Stevie to run down leads of potential scientist and gathering of general information of the time period to help you put together some sort of road map. None had turned out to be very promising.

You had, over time, gotten more acclimated to living in 1897, though you mostly refused to wear the clothing of the time period. John Moore would always comment about how you would draw attention in the public eye, should you dare to go out. But you refused to give in most of the time, saying that 1897 would just have to catch up to your fashion sense, and you weren't about to apologize for it. If you were going to be stuck here, you were going to be stuck here, comfortably. You fondly remember Dr. Kreizler's reaction. He seemed pleased, possibly proud of you in that moment. Probably because you had refused to conform to the times, and set your own rules to live by. Not giving in to anyone.

The question lingered, how exactly did you get away with living in this time without having to dress in the clothing of the period? Well, a friend of yours, Scott Lang, had gifted you a device that allowed you to chose one object to shrink and return to it's normal size. So, of course, since you traveled so often with the Sam, Bucky and the other Avengers, you chose your wardrobe. You were just thankful you had it on you already when you got dumped into that portal. So, essentially you had all your clothes with you, making things a bit easier.

Life was not fast paced here, which made things a bit difficult for you. You were used to always being on the go, another crisis to fight through, another area of the world that needed help. But here, here everything was, for the most part, quiet.

It drove you nuts sometimes. Made you antsy. You managed to weasel your way into helping John, Sara and Dr. Kreizler on one of their serial killer cases recently to pass the time. Dr. Kreizler was unhappy at first. You were able to prove your usefulness though with advanced techniques and theories on how to potentially catch the killer in question. Be that as it may, Dr. Kreizler still seemed grumpy, if that were the correct word to use, about you working on the case. You confronted him about it one evening, but he glossed over the whole thing. He was holding back, but what that was, you weren't sure. Maybe he still didn't fully trust you yet. It was a fair assumption, but he was always so hard to read. Though you've managed to get a few good laughs out of him from time to time. Those were the days that really made you smile. Seeing him happy, as most of the time he was always so guarded. It made you feel like you and Dr. Kreizler shared this little secret when no one else was around.

Dr. Kreizler let himself relax ever so slightly around you, but it was far and fleeting. On rare occasions. You savored all those memories and tucked them away. Everyone was so refined and conservative in their mannerisms. You missed just wanting to hug someone. You craved some sort of physical affection, and it was hard, realizing just how different the times were from the future. They weren't terrible by any means, but the social norms of the times had been trying on you, to say the very least. Dr. Kreizler, ever astute, had picked up on this.

He had been gracious enough to offer himself if you ever needed to hug someone. This had been roughly 4 months into your stay at Dr. Kreizler's. You both had gotten more comfortable around the other, and even had a routine of sorts. You had thanked him for his offer, and told him you would not abuse the privilege he had bestowed on you.

Something told her there was more to it, but you hadn't dwelled on it, you were simply appreciative of his friendship.

However more recently, it was more than just friendship you felt. You kept squashing your feelings down, telling yourself this was the worst possible time to develop feelings for someone. Especially someone like Dr. Kreizler. There would never be a happy ending. At some point, you would return home, and that would be that. But there was that nagging sensation in the back of your mind, reminding you, you might not ever get back home. You tried to reason to yourself that you were possibly transferring some of your fondness of Zemo to Dr. Kreizler because of how he reminds you of him. But then you were just lying to yourself. Dr. Kreizler was a person all on his own and one of a kind. You knew better, you were just fighting yourself tooth and nail to live in denial a bit longer.

Footsteps from the kitchen were headed in your direction knocking you out of your musings.

You twisted on the couch to see Dr. Kreizler had returned home from his institute.

"Dr. Kreizler! Good evening," you voiced into the low lit parlor room.

"Good evening to you as well, I trust your day was fruitful?" Dr. Kreizler inquired, coming to rest on the opposite end of the couch.

"It was, thank you. I was somewhat restless earlier, so I took it upon myself to work on the cryptogram the killer left his last victim, with the hopes of figuring out his next location before he strikes," you sheepishly stated.

Dr. Kreizler ruefully smiled at you and shook his head. At one time, he might have gotten upset, but he had been taking your antics more in stride, and you managed to be helpful providing much needed information. So, he'd act unhappy, but silently was thrilled.

"And did you uncover anything useful?" Kreizler queried, he got up from his seat and walked over to the chalk board.

"Not completely, I believe I've broken the code word and the book that the killer has been using to write his cryptograms, but I have yet to comb through all the evidence to gather the page numbers, line and word number to crack the full message. I planned on working on it when I got back with Stevie later this evening," you happily expressed while fidgeting with the watch on your wrist.

"Impressive work. And what book has our killer been using?" Kreizler asked, eyes still going over the work on the board.

"Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. You'd think we could have figured that one out sooner given our killer's eclectic methods of murdering people," you answered sarcastically.

Dr. Kreizler bent his knees in utter annoyance, "Of course it is. Of course. How ridiculous to have missed such an obvious choice."

You smiled knowingly. He was irritated he hadn't figured it out sooner.

A companionable silence continued for a few minutes after his outburst.

Dr. Kreizler was still staring at the board with mild interest when he spoke next, "May I ask you a personal question?"

You had just reached over to place the book on the coffee table next to you when he asked his question and you froze mid motion.

Dr. Kreizler generally didn't push too much into your personal life, so this was somewhat out of left field for him. Never-the-less, you recovered after a beat and placed the book on the table.

"Of-of course Dr. Kreizler. I told you I would always be truthful with you regarding anything. Please, go ahead," you answered, motioning for him to continue.

"Why do you always regard me as Dr. Kreizler and not by my first name?" he questioned softly, almost hesitantly.

This was not the question you thought he would ask. There were a million questions he could have chose, but it was this one he went with.

This really was personal.

You glanced down at your hands sitting in your lap as you pondered how to answer his questions. You could lie about it, and he'd be none the wiser, but it's not who you are. And you promised.

Dr. Kreizler went on to further express his inquiry with a bit more confidence, "You call John Moore by his first name and the same with Ms. Howard, including our other friends we work with, but not me. Why?"

You opened your mouth to answer him when the front door slammed open and Stevie came barging in.

"You ready?" he exclaimed loudly. Stevie was clearly excited at the prospect of showing off his musical talent. "Oh, excuse me Dr. Kreizler, I didn't realize you'd gotten home yet. Thought you were working late," Stevie took off his hat and looked sheepish as he apologized for the disruption in his home.

You sighed. This was your saving grace. You could probably make an excuse and make a run for it with Stevie. You mulled over what to do, battling with the decision.

"Hey Stevie. Nice to see you too! Go on outside, I'll be right there. I just need to put my coat on," you laugh at his enthusiasm.

He nodded at you and dashed back down the hallway and out the door. You could hear one last shout as he exited, "Okay, but don't be too long, we're going to be late!"

Dr. Kreizler gave a look of displeasure at Stevie's unrefined outburst, but didn't say anything as he knows his antics all too well from over the years.

You stood up grabbing Dr. Kreizler's attention.

"Walk me to the door?" you ask, jutting your head in the direction of where your coat hangs.

"Do you plan on providing me with an answer?" he kindly jabbed as he nodded his agreement to follow you out.

You outwardly sighed, trying to figure out how to best answer his question. As you both walked to the front door, you start to answer him.

"Okay, so I address you as Dr. Kreizler 33% of the time, because you deserve the respect that comes with that title. You went to school for many years, and you earned it. So, it's only fair to address you as such," you tell him confidently.

A completely reasonable and partial explanation, you thought.

You both reached the front door, and you grabbed your jacket. Dr. Kreizler, the gentleman that he is, assisted you in putting your coat on. You gave yourself a once over in the mirror, making sure you looked okay before heading out.

You caught Dr. Kreizler staring at you in the mirror as you adjusted a stray hair that had fallen onto your face.

"You look lovely," he quietly voiced.

You turned to face him as he had opened the door for you and stepped outside.

"Thank you," you said, a bit bashful by his sudden compliment.

His expression had gotten softer and his eyes were glowing in the evening lit night.

Your resolve was crumbling even more so now.

"And the other 67%?" Kreizler softly spoke, head cocked to the side.

"Hey - Miss! We need to be going!" Stevie cried.

You turned to Stevie and hollered, "One mo, Stevie! Don't lose your head!"

"I'm sorry I have to go otherwise Stevie is going to have a coronary," you apologized to Dr. Kreizler.

You walked down a few steps, but stopped. You couldn't not answer him.

You go up a step but not completely back to where you where standing in front of Dr. Kreizler. You inhaled a deep breath and exhaled before continuing, looking up to see Dr. Kreizler eyeing you with slight confusion and anticipation with your hesitance to answer his question in full.

"And the other 67% of the time, I call you Dr. Kreizler because..because," you drifted off closing your eyes. You open them again with quiet resolve shining through, finding your confidence. You take another step up to now stand just a foot away from where Dr. Kreizler was.

"Because, I love you Laszlo. And I use your professional title as a barrier, to - to remind myself I have boundaries. It's just easier to separate you this way or well, to keep myself living in denial," you quietly and defeatedly said, laying it all out for him.

You wanted to open your mouth to say something else to him, to let him know it was okay he didn't feel the same way, but you could never quite form the words that needed to come out.

The shock was written clearly on his face. You had completely gob-smacked this man. His eyes had widened considerably and his jaw had gone slack from your answer.

But he never said anything back. You weren't expecting him to.

So instead, you did what you did best. Ran.

"You've got your answer. I-I really have to go now, I'll see you later," you stuttered out, suddenly drained from your revelation.

You took one last glance at Dr. Kreizler before making a mad dash for it with Stevie.

You were gone before Dr. Kreizler recovered from what just happened. And you never got to see the expression on his face after.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

#the alienist #laszlo kreizler #laszlo kreizler x reader #helmut zemo x reader #tfatws #helmut zemo #mcu fic #crossover #my writing

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rosy-cheekx · 3 years ago

Text

Alone Again, Naturally

Three times Martin should have called for help.

(I twisted my ankle on Sunday and was bummed bc I missed my partner so…this happened…oops.)

Martin’s phone was missing, though he was pretty sure he knew where it was. That thing, that wormy, writhing mass of a woman had it. Destroyed it. His only chance of rescue from this nightmare. Replaying the image of dropping the phone, abandoning it as he ran, would do him no good. His coworkers hadn’t noticed he was missing, or if they had noticed, they hadn’t stopped by. And they shouldn't, of course, it would only put them in danger. But still, it stung a bit, to know that he’d been gone for what, three days now? and no one cared.

He could become a statement from this, Martin realized, his death narrated in Jon’s smooth, clipped voice, and then they would finally learn what happened to that large, oafish researcher who was transferred to the archives with them and disappeared overnight.

Martin sighed through his nose noisily, as if he could expel the dark thoughts with the sound. “Christ, Blackwood. Getting awful morbid there.” Talking to himself had become a staple of his isolation. For one, it drowned out the ever-present knocking on the door and the squelching rustle of the worms. He honestly wasn’t sure whether the sounds were still real or if they had become such a constant that his brain just filled them in anyways.

His voice was the only other sound available to him with his computer not working and his phone gone. His clock radio had played static on every channel, and he had been grateful for the white noise at first. But the longer Martin left the radio on, the sound began to morph from the hissing of dead air to a choir, indecipherable and haunting. There were no words and yet he could understand the message: come home to us. We need you, we miss you, let us show you how much we love you. With us, you’ll never feel lonely again, we promise. Martin had come to, hand on the doorknob to his flat, radio in hand. After that, he had removed all the batteries from anything that could make noise. Since then, he could only trust his own voice; everything else was a trap.

The can opener, unfortunately, had been electric too. He had been so proud of his purchase, a real attempt at adult cooking. (He never seemed to use the manual ones and could never get the grip right.) With the power out, assumedly caused by Prentiss, he had to get creative when it came to “making dinner.” For Martin, this meant sawing open a tin can with a serrated knife, eating it with a fork, and praying no metal shavings were lurking in each mouthful. Tonight’s feast: another can of tinned green beans and the last can of pineapple. He didn’t even like green beans, why had he ever bought these?

Martin gritted himself against the awful sound of metal on metal as he cut into a tin of beans, hissing sharply through his teeth and letting his mind wander. Maybe he could strain the beans? Let them dry? It would probably be better than the wet and soggy mush he was bound to find. Maybe he could put some crackers on them for a crunch? Pretend it’s a bad soup? As he was finishing his indelicate surgery, Martin tipped the can into the sink a little, hoping to strain the bean juice and improve the meal even a little. As he removed the last of the lid, he saw it.

There, in the sink, wiggling its way out of the drain. Another worm. Martin shrieked and jumped back, dropping the can in the sink with a clatter. He grabbed a roll of paper towels and began to stuff them down the sink, plugging up the drain as best he could. For extra measure, he plugged the faucet as well, suddenly terrified of accidentally swallowing one in a glass of water. Once the adrenaline rush had passed, Martin felt it: a stinging in his palm. They must have jumped at him, must have bitten him. It would be over soon, he knew it. He would be like Prentiss, a mass of tiny bodies. He braced himself to feel something, but nothing changed. Martin frowned, chewing on his lip in confusion, and hazarded a glance down to his hand. There was no worm in his palm, nothing wriggling and biting deep into his muscle, just a slice along the flesh of his thumb, dripping blood from where he must have cut himself on the tin can.

Sheepishly, Martin rolled his eyes at his defeatism. Did it hurt like hell? Yes. But he wasn’t going to become a worm monster. Not today. Grabbing a few more sheets of paper towel, Martin hissed in pain as he pressed them to his wound, making his way shakily to the paltry first-aid kit he kept in his bathroom. He was clumsy in his wound care, only able to use one hand to open the kit and the individually wrapped plasters, while the other pooled blood in his palm uselessly. The antiseptic had stung like hell and the plaster was off-center, but eventually, the job was done. Martin had managed.

“See?” He asked himself softly. “All better. We didn’t want the green beans anyways.” Martin was alone, but he would be fine. He could take care of himself.

——

Martin’s phone had become less and less useful since his time in the Archives. Sasha and Tim had been distant in the end, their group texts dwindling into occasional messages regarding whether not someone had contacted so-and-so regarding their statement. He and Jon had called and texted quite a bit, before the Unknowing, when Jon had been in China, America, and wherever else Gertrude’s breadcrumbs had led him. But since the explosion, their messages lay at a standstill, a “good luck! come home safe :)” still waiting to be sent to “Jonathan Sims--Boss.” He used to call his mother every week, but the outgoing calls had dwindled as she returned less and less of them, until he received an apologetic voicemail from Steady Waters Care Home a few months ago.

Now, the only messages he received were his work emails and an occasional text from Peter with a request or two regarding The Magnus Institute. Not even spam calls reached him anymore. That was all fine by Martin. He was busy running the institute; he didn’t have time for social calls, even if he wanted any, which he didn’t. Martin had taken to leaving his phone in his work office, knowing he wouldn’t need it outside the building anyways. It was becoming something like a desktop mouse to him in its versatility.

It was a Thursday, and it was late--Martin’s watch read 11:09. Thursdays were Martin’s days to deliver paperwork to the archives. He could only ever do it at night when he was sure Jon had either gone home (or was asleep at his desk at the very least). Peter Lukas had been working Martin to the bone with all the paperwork he would hand off with a wave of his hand and an “I’ll be back next week Martin. Please don’t call me,” and this week’s stack of statement requests, financial approvals, and quarterly reviews would fall to Martin instead. Who knew running a front for feeding an all-seeing eldritch deity would require so many business expenses?

Martin. Martin knew. He had reviewed and approved each and every one.

It was the week after Halloween, so the list of those eager to give a statement was longer than usual. Hellweek, Tim used to call it, a grin on his face as Jon would frown and shake his head. The stack of folders Martin carried in his arms eclipsed his eyesight as he carefully made his way down the hall, the Lonely silencing his footsteps and the shuffle of his clothing. The elevator was broken this week, thanks to a visit from one of the Fairchilds. Martin clumsily opened the door to the stairwell, turning to the side slightly to see the steps that descended into the basement he knew so well. Cautiously, he began his way down the stairs, arms clutching the stack of paperwork and binders tight to his chest. The basement was eerily silent; even Martin’s muted steps echoed in his ears.

The door to the Archives creaked slightly, and Martin realized his mistake: he hadn’t propped the door. The thin streak of light that painted his way down the steps thinned and faded in time with the slow squeak of the door. The click of the latch sealed his fate: Martin was in the dark. He didn’t mind the dark, in principle, though his new awareness of the Fears heightened his concern considerably. He stepped down slowly, feeling for the steps with his foot as he went.

Halfway down the stairs, Martin heard a soft flutter as a few papers shifted in his stack. He hoisted the pile and tried to readjust it as he stepped once more. The combination of the changes in the balance of the papers and his weight combined were too much for his brain to process at once and he overcompensated on his step, putting his weight down a little too early. Martin felt the rush of adrenaline as he tried to catch himself, hands clutching uselessly at the paperwork in his hands as if it could save him and he felt himself tumble to the ground. Falling sideways, he hit his shoulder hard on the steps, momentum carrying him down the remaining steps to the floor. The loose papers not held in binders and folders scattered in what Martin was sure was every direction.

Martin was frozen on the floor, pain pulsing through his shoulder. He sat up tentatively, patting himself down as he set down what remained of his stack of folders. He wasn’t bleeding, but his ears were ringing and his arm hurt like hell. Listening carefully for the sound of anyone reacting to his presence, he rotated his shoulders carefully, wincing as throbbing radiated up his arm. He must have dislocated it. Patting his legs down, Martin found his phone in his pocket. He must have forgotten to put it on the charger. He...he could call someone, should call someone. His shoulder was dislocated.

He could call Jon.

He pulled up his text messages, the cursor blinking back at him, blinding in the dark. Jon was surely awake, he knew that man’s sleep schedule was worse than his.

good luck! come home safe :)

safe :)

safe.

“Shit.”

He couldn’t call Jon. It would undo everything he and Peter were trying to build up. It was all for Jon anyways, to keep him safe, to keep them all safe. No. He had to do this alone. It was best that way.

Martin sat himself up carefully. He had taken enough first aid courses (rather, he had watched them for free on the internet) to know how to set it back in place and he knew it would not be pleasant. He drew his right knee up, and clumsily unknotted his tie, using it to secure his arm to his knee. Martin closed his eyes tight and leaned away from his knee, rotating his shoulder as he stretched away, wincing in anticipation until he felt the wet pop of his arm slotting back into place. Sparks shot through his vision, his only grounding point in the dark, and he huffed out a cross between a moan and a curse.

He carefully made a fist with his re-set hand, tensing the muscles in his arm. Determining it to be good enough, Martin felt his way to his feet and grabbed the wall to steady himself. He knew there was a light switch somewhere--ah.

The light clicked on and he winced at the sudden change, letting his eyes adjust behind the safety of his lashes. When he opened his eyes again, he surveyed the mess of his paperwork, gathering it methodically. It took him another half hour, back against Tim’s old desk, to resort his files before setting them in the file basket he had installed on the door to the Archivist’s office, the rest going on the desk of Jon himself. He would see them all in the morning. At least Jon was home, resting.

When Martin emerged from the Archives, he glanced down at his watch, wondering if it was too late to hail a cab. He frowned at his watch; the face was cracked, the hands stuck at 11:11. He must have cracked it in his fall. “Make a wish,” Martin mumbled to himself, rolling his eyes. He was pretty sure his wishes were out of reach, hopeless. As long as he would be safe after all this, Martin could sacrifice a few wishes.

——

Martin was on a walk. He had been doing that a lot, since his and Jon’s escape to Scotland. There was something comforting about the long stretches of rolling hills and rocky cliffsides, utterly devoid of menacing fear entities or bosses hellbent on destroying the world. Jon would come with him sometimes, especially in the early days when leaving each other’s presence was challenging to say the least, but Martin sometimes just needed the space. He loved Jon, he knew he did, and Jon did too, but sometimes the presence of another would build up and stifle him, an unbearable heat radiating off of Jon until Martin had to just go for a bit.

It was raining today, a bassy rhythm beating down on Martin’s umbrella as he walked a familiar cliffside path. He could see a rocky beach below him, waves made of roiling ink, more black than blue. The rain was comforting to him, distinguishing this ocean spread before him from the ocean of the Lonely and drowning out any thoughts that passed through Martin’s head. He stepped around a patch especially muddy gravel, glancing down and seeing a ghost of a reflection staring back at him.

Martin had been in a cold place today, withdrawn from the rest of the world. He had felt the fog blossoming over his mind and had known he needed to go for a bit, center himself, remind himself he was real. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither would his sense of self again, though he was making progress. Jon understood that sentiment, perhaps better than anyone else in the world, and had kissed him softly at the doorway, squeezing his hand in an unspoken promise. Martin tensed his own hand in a fist, still feeling the heat of Jon’s calloused palm under his, reveling in the idea that someone loved him the way Jon did, that someone loved him the way Jon did and that Martin loved Jon back. Martin felt his body solidifying under the rain, felt the wind buffet against him rather than pass through him.

Martin was thinking about going home when it happened.

Home, or Daisy’s safehouse, was a humble affair: reinforced windows, minimalist, a few guns hidden in the floorboards, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables from the village down the hill. It had been easy to reassign this place in Martin’s mind as home. He hadn’t felt at home since...well, definitely not since Prentiss. Maybe not before either.

The rain was letting up, and the brolly was forgotten in favor of letting the rain drop down into his hair, sopping his curls and plastering them to his skin. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so content to be in the rain. Things weren’t good, but they were the best they’d been in a while.

The next thing Martin knew he was on the ground, ankle twisted and both shins scraped, blood and dirt mingling on his legs. He tried to stand up and cried out as his ankle immediately gave way, the hope of putting weight on it dashed on the rocks of the beach far below him.

Martin Blackwood crawled to a tree, leaning his back against it, not minding the dirt that was sure to collect on his back and rump. He winced and massaged his ankle, already feeling it begin to swell under his fingertips. With his free hand, a silver scar shining between his forefinger and thumb, he reached for his phone from his jacket pocket, hands shaking as he clumsily dialed the only number in his list of favorites.

“Martin?” Jon’s voice was warm through the tinny speakers. “I hope you’re well.” It was carefully not a question, though Martin caught the notes of careful concern.

“Tch-” Martin sucked air through his teeth. “I fell, Jon. I twisted my ankle, I think? Can’t-ah-can’t walk.”

“Oh. Martin, dear,” Jon’s voice was softer, and Martin could practically see his love’s fingers, itching to do, to fix. “Do you need me to—I can come get you, if you like. I haven’t…I haven't looked. But I can, if you want me to.”

Martin smiled despite himself, hearing Jon’s cautious phrasing. “Please, yes. I’m pretty sure I’m near a picnic park, if you want to drive there and get me? Not sure this is a drivable trail.”

“Did you pass anyone?”

“…no?”

A pause. Martin heard static crackling through the phone. “No one will be there. I Know where you are, Martin. I’ll be there soon.”

Ten minutes and enough ice packs to ease the pain of a full rugby team later, Martin was laying in the back of Jon’s small car, heat blasting on him to dry his now-soaked clothing. There were perks to having an all-knowing partner, it turned out.

Later that evening, Martin was tucked into the couch, his head pleasantly nestled in cushions and his feet in Jon’s lap, who was carefully massaging his feet and ankles, probing for any long-term injuries with his Eyes. A mug of tea grasped between his hands, Martin sighed softly and felt warmth flood his face. He hadn’t been alone this time. He wouldn’t be alone ever again.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jmart #magnuspod #jon sims #fanfic to a tea #I twisted my ankle a few days ago and was sad my partner couldn’t comfort me #so this blossomed #enjoy!#hurt comfort #TMA fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic

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underthewingsofthblackeagle · 4 years ago

Photo

Foto: Panorama Helsinki / Finland - Dom und Parlamentsplatz (by tap5a)

“We only do this for Fergus!” is a short Outlander Fan Fiction story and my contribution to the Outlander Prompt Exchange (Prompt 3: Fake Relationship AU: Jamie Fraser wants to formally adopt his foster son Fergus, but his application will probably not be approved… unless he is married and/or in a committed relationship. Enter one Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp (Randall?) to this story) @outlanderpromptexchange

Note to reader: This chapter mentions abortion and involuntary childlessness. If these topics trigger negative thoughts or the like in you, please skip it.

Chapter 10: Meeting the 'enemy' (3)

When Claire and Geillis returned to the living room, the two men were standing in front of the fireplace. To Claire's surprise, Jamie extended his right arm to her and when she came within his reach, he immediately pulled her to him. He smiled and kissed her gently on her left temple.

“Champagne glasses” by Myriams-Fotos

"It's nice to have some 'guy-on-guy' time, but without our 'better halves' we're missing something, aren't we Dave?"

Dave, who had also pulled Geillis close and welcomed her back with a kiss, nodded to Jamie. Geillis whispered something in Dave's ear, to which Dave smiled and let out a loud

"Oh!"

Jamie looked at him questioningly.

"Is there any news I don't know about yet?"

Dave cleared his throat, still smiling.

"Well, since Claire already found out, we shouldn't keep it a secret from you."

"I'm listening," Jamie said, turning his questioning gaze now to Claire.

To Claire's, Jamie's, and probably Geillis' surprise, they heard Dave say:

"Geillis and I are expecting our first child!"

A moment of surprised silence fell. Jamie was the first to recover his voice:

"Dave! Geillis! Congratulations!"

Fraser walked up to the couple and enclosed them in a light embrace.

"Claire! We've got a wonderful reason to celebrate!" he exclaimed as he broke away from the couple a moment later.

Without waiting for a reaction from his 'fiancée', he then said:

"Come, sit down. I'll get us a bottle of champagne. This calls for a celebration! Claire, why don't you take four champagne bowls from the cupboard?"

Then he was gone through the door to the dining room. While Dave and Geillis took their seats on one of the sofas again, Claire went to the cupboard and got the desired glasses.

Shortly after, Jamie returned with a champagne bucket filled with ice and a bottle of "Moet & Chandon" sticking out of it. He pulled the bottle out of the ice and opened it with a loud pop. Then he poured for everyone. He then raised his glass and said:

"To a strong and healthy child! And to the happy parents!"

They toasted each other and drank. Then they all sat down again and a conversation developed about children in general, then about siblings (to this part of the conversation Jamie and Dave contributed quite a few very funny anecdotes from their childhood), and of course Dave and Geillis asked about Fergus.

“Paris bridge” by pierre9x6 When Jamie told about how he found his now foster son in Paris and the effort it had taken him to bring the child to Germany, his face literally blossomed. From the very first day at the Fraser house, Claire had been aware of how much Jamie loved the boy and it was quite obvious that he had always wanted children. Then she heard Jamie say:

"But it's only since Claire has been looking after him that Fergus has been developing better and better. It's a joy to watch him grow up. You're so limited in time when you're a single father who has to run an international business. I am so grateful for Claire's support. She has the ability to nurture his creativity, to channel his thirst for knowledge - it's just a joy to watch him grow up. But none of this would be possible without her."

Claire, who had already been sitting next to him the whole time and around whose shoulders he had put his right arm, as if it were the most natural gesture in the world, felt him pull her even closer. She looked at him and then saw him smiling all over her face.

Just before midnight, Dave and Geillis set off. The chauffeur appeared and together with Jamie he lifted the 'Vase No. 4' along with the Protea flowers into a prepared wooden box, which he then - a small double-ended cart - took to the elevator and from there to the garage to the car in. Jamie and Claire escorted the guests into the hall and, after Geillis and Dave had put on their coats, to the front door. After giving each other another hug, the friends walked to the car, which had already pulled up in front of the house. Jamie and Claire stopped on the top step of the small staircase that led to the front entrance and waved at them. When the car had disappeared from their sight, they returned to the hall together.

“Protea” by nagra76

"Excuse me a moment, I'll just go ...," Jamie said, pointing to door of the guest bathroom.

Claire nodded and went back to the living room. There she cleared the glasses and the champagne bucket from the table and brought everything back to the kitchen. When she returned, Claire took the flat jewelry box from the closet and sat down on one of the sofas. While she was taking the jewelry off and putting it back in the box, she had to pause for a moment. She noticed how the strength with which she had held herself upright since the conversation with Geillis was drying up more and more. And then she just couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

Just at that moment Jamie also returned to the living room and he immediately noticed that Claire was not well. But he had already had this impression since the two women had returned to the living room. When he had reached out his arm and pulled Claire to him, she had put one of her arms around his back and the other over his stomach. This could have been seen as a gesture to make it clear that he was hers. But Fraser had rather had the impression that Claire felt an urgent need to hold on to him.

With a few sweeping steps, he hurried to her.

"Claire, what is it? Are you not feeling well? Has ... Has this evening overwhelmed you? Did I do something wrong?"

Without even consciously realizing it, he knelt in front of her and grabbed her hands, which were folded in her lap.

Claire disengaged her right hand from his, placed it on Fraser's right, and squeezed it:

"No, Jamie, you didn't do anything wrong. It … has nothing at all … to do with you … or Fergus … or with us."

Then she burst into heavy sobs and slapped both hands to her face. Jamie put both arms around her and pulled her close. They stayed like that for a while, until Claire calmed down a bit.

She reached for the handkerchief Jamie held out to her, wiped her tears and blew her nose. Then she said:

"I already had the impression that Geillis was pregnant when I greeted her in the hall. As soon as I saw her dress. Then when were at my apartment …. I voiced my suspicions and she confirmed it."

"But why does that make you so ... sad. It's a great thing that they will have a child, isn't it?" asked Fraser in wonder.

Claire looked at him, wondering if she should really tell him. But then she decided to:

"It's … not a wanted child, Jamie. It … wasn't planned and ... Geillis ..."

"Does she want to a ..."

"No! No! They're going to have the baby. You saw how excited Dave is and how proud he is to finally be a father."

Claire paused for a moment. Then she continued:

"Geillis ... Geillis is afraid that she can't love the child because she actually envisioned her life without children. She's afraid it's all going to have a negative impact on her relationship with Dave."

"And that makes you so sad. I understand."

Jamie's expression darkened. He looked down at the floor and nodded.

"No," Claire objected, "I ... it's perfectly normal for her to be so upset right now. A lot of women feel that way in a situation like this. But it doesn't have to stop there. As a nurse, I've many women where that feeling changed over time and they're really good, loving mothers to this day. And of course, I will try to help her. I would like to meet with her later this week and talk to her. Then we'll go from there."

“Taschentuch” by bloomingnakanishi

Fraser looked at her in wonder. He paused for a moment. It was clear to him that the question he was about to ask would probably cause Claire pain, but he needed to know what was bothering her.

"But, if this can change, if you can help her, Claire ... why are you so sad?"

And, as he had guessed, Claire's pain immediately erupted:

"Because it's so terribly unfair! It's so unfair Jamie!"

From Claire's suddenly wide-open red eyes, sheer desperation looked at him. He felt her hands clench under his and she trembled with inner rage and despair. It took only a few seconds, then another flood of tears streamed down Claire's cheeks and again she was shaken by deep sobs. Jamie put his arms around her and pulled her close. A foreboding formed in his mind, but he didn't dare speak it. When Claire had calmed down a bit and dried her tears again, she said:

"It's so unfair, Jamie. Why do women who don't want children have children, and why do women who would love nothing more than to be a mother have to resign themselves to never having children?"

Fraser was silent. What could he have said? But he would have had little opportunity to speak either, for Claire continued immediately:

"Every year in this country alone, more than 130,000 children are aborted. 130,000, that's the number of inhabitants of a city like Heidelberg. Can you imagine that? And no! Before we misunderstand each other, I am not passing judgment on these women. I don't know the individual fates, I don't know what moves them, what they go through and I don't take the right to judge them. But, in this country, there are many institutions that advocate for them and that care about them. And that's a good thing, because no woman should be alone in a situation like this. There has been support for them for many years. But involuntarily childless people hardly have a lobby! And yet every tenth couple between the ages of 25 and 59 in this country is involuntarily childless! One in ten couples, Jamie! And what are these people advised to do? Well, if you can't have children of your own, then adopt! That's what childless couples are told. But you don't need me to tell you how hard that is. Not only as a single man like you! Even as a married couple! Even if the man has an extremely well-paid, prestigious job at a world renown university and the woman is willing to stay at home! Even if the couple has their own house with a garden and a good reputation! Even then it can take years! Why do so many married couples go to the former Eastern Bloc countries and adopt a child from a Russian or Ukrainian orphanage? And then, when you are a couple and decide to ... for this terrible, ... this infinitely exhausting .... fertility treatment, then you also only get some financial support for it since 2012! Only since 2012!"

Again, Claire's eyes welled up with tears, which she wiped away with the large men's handkerchief. Jamie, meanwhile, was silent, inwardly praying for the right words.

"I never told you, but.... my late husband, Frank, and I, we wanted children. Very much so. For Frank, it was especially important. But also, me ... It was already decided before we got married. The house we bought when we moved to Berlin had two children's rooms. We always called them that, too. For many years we tried again and again, by all means. We both wanted it, but ... In the end, it tore our marriage apart. Frank... he... turned to other women until... until he found one with whom he wanted to start a family. I didn't find out the details until after he had passed away. It was one of his colleagues and ... well ... it had been going on for several years. Shortly before he died, he had made the decision to leave me. Frank had already set everything in motion. Only death prevented him from putting it into action. He wanted to divorce me so that he could marry her. Frank never said it, but I knew him well enough. It was clear that he wanted to marry this woman because he hoped to finally have the children with her. Children! The children I couldn't give him."

Again, Claire was silent for a moment, then it burst out of her again:

"In this country you are nothing if you remain childless - as a woman. If you are a single man - or even a married one - and have countless affaires, you are looked at as a Don Juan, a Casanova, a womanizer, a lady-killer! In the old boys' clubs and at the young boys' parties, such a man is celebrated. But if you are a married childless woman … Without knowing the reason for your childlessness, judgment is passed on you. You are seen as selfish, egoistic, irresponsible, less helpful, less mature and less happy. And you feel yourself to be so ... unnatural, inferior, deviating from the norm, as if you are not a real woman at all. The social pressure is enormous … My parents had died early and Frank's parents were already dead. So, there were no grandparents who kept asking us about grandchildren. But in our circles of colleagues, the question naturally came up again and again. 'Don't you want children?' - 'How long are you going to wait?' - as if that was the question!"

“Leere Krippe” by congerdesign

A distinct bitterness was visible on Claire's face.

"My Uncle Lambert would never have asked such questions. But on his face, I saw it again and again. How he would have loved to have had 'grandchildren.' How he would have liked to see something of him, of the Beauchamp's, live on … Frank and I, of course, tried the medical methods. You read about it again and again in magazines and ... The fertility clinics also do a lot of advertising. But nobody talked about the possible risks, the side effects of the high hormone doses for a woman, or the very low success rate of getting pregnant at all, let alone the probability of giving birth to a child. Nor did we tell anyone in our circle of friends or colleagues about the artificial procreation attempts. Not even Geillis knows. Who wants to explain this complicated and embarrassing procedure to friends or colleagues and then have to answer questions all the time? When will the baby finally come? Two of these attempts and two more within the following two years failed. We finally had to realize that we could never become parents. Frank then converted the children's rooms into a guest room and into a ... storage room ... a ... storage room. However, ... we hardly got any guests after .... He was more and more absent in his spare time ... well, later I found out where he was."

Claire blew her nose and Jamie saw her eyes fill with tears.

"It's so unfair! It's so unfair!"

Claire's voice had gone hoarse, yet the words continued to flow out of her.

"Imagine that in your neighborhood, in your circle of colleagues, women get pregnant who don't even want to be, and you, you remain childless. And this happens not once or twice, but many times. And then you are left by your husband because of that. Left behind like a ... broken, useless object of utility! ... Nobody thinks much about what women like me go through. Nobody! We have no lobby. Do you hear me? Absolutely no lobby! Do you hear me, Jamie?!"

Jamie pulled her close and gently pressed her head against his left shoulder. As Claire's sobs slowly subsided, he felt her tears soaking his shirt. Then he said softly, but clearly:

"I hear you, Claire. I hear you, I really do. And I know how it feels. Believe me."

Claire lifted her head and looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"I've always wanted a family, too. But I never found the right woman. And then I found Fergus, and it was ... like a sign. He ... he's a gift. A wonderful gift. A precious gift. I will do everything for him ..."

"Yes, he is a wonderful child. A rascal, but a beloved rascal," she said, still sobbing.

"And he loves you, Claire. He really loves you. I haven't even had a chance to tell you yet, but do you know what he asked me one of the nights I put him to bed alone?"

Claire shook her head.

"I read to him from the book I bought him at the museum village. You remember, 'A Year in the Middle Ages: Eating and Celebrating, Traveling and Fighting, Ruling and Punishing, Believing and Loving.' Under the theme of 'Loving', it is of course about how people got married in the Middle Ages. It is said that people married much earlier than they do now, and Fergus asked me how old you had to be to get married today. I told him that usually you could get married from the age of 18. He looked at me and I could almost see the little wheels turning in his head. So, I told him that he would soon be seven years old and that it would only be eleven years until he was eighteen. He said nothing, but suddenly looked at me very grumpily. When I asked what made him so angry, he replied, 'Then it will be forever before I can marry Claire!'"

"Oh, no!"

"Yes, Claire!"

Now even Claire had to smile a little.

"He loves you, he'd marry you on the spot. If he could."

Again, tears rolled down Claire's cheeks.

"I love him very much, too, Jamie. I'm ... so glad you took him in."

She wiped the tears from her face and Jamie, slowly rising from his knees, sat down beside her.

"Claire, I heard you, really heard you, and I know what it means to feel this way, too. Now I'm asking you to listen to me carefully."

She nodded.

"Fergus loves you, he really does. And I, I am deeply grateful for everything you do for us and .... We're both very fond of you. You're not an employee to us, you're ... our best friend. And you matter to us … very much. I want you to know that... whatever happens after these three years, whatever you decide, you will always have a place in our hearts, Claire. And you will always have a home with us. Always."

"Thank you. Thank you so much. That's ..."

"Perfectly natural," Fraser finished the sentence. Then he rose and held out his hand to her:

"Come on, I'll take you up to your apartment."

Claire grabbed his hand and carefully let herself be pulled up by it.

#Outlander #Outlander Fan Fiction #We only do this for Fergus!#Fergus Fraser #Jamie Fraser #Claire Beauchamp #Gedillis Duncan #Potsdam #Berlin #germany #Modern AU

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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

Note

Another thing about how rwby views trauma survivors reacting to their abuse or unfortunate background is that it frames the solution to healing is by serving in armed forces. Weiss and Blake joined Beacon to escape their abuser. Ren and Nora joined Beacon after the loss of their families. Winter joined the military to escape Jacques and I'm assuming will become the new Atlas general after Ironwood's death. The Huntsmen Academies are all framed as these safe havens (literally with Mistral) for anyone who can carry a weapon, meanwhile anyone who can't or doesn't want to join, or joins a group outside of the institution is depicted as bad.

To say that this is all muddied would be a huge understatement because even if we put aside the complicated message of, "Overcome your abuse by learning to punch back," at this point the combined huntsmen-military is no longer presented as a means of escape. Rather, between the rewriting of Winter's history – she has apparently been manipulated by Ironwood this whole time rather than choosing the military as a means of escaping her abuser – as well as the military aligned huntsmen – FNKI aren't heroes like RWBYJNOR anymore, willingly protecting their home, they're children who have been forced into this conflict – there's now this major divide between fighters-on-their-own and fighters-as-part-of-the-institution. We could even read this as extending to the huntsmen academies themselves, given that one has fallen, one was destroyed, and the other lost its figurehead. They used to be presented as havens for struggling individuals... now, not so much. The plot's message is not that heroes win by banding together through established structures that were designed to help those coming from bad circumstances (note how aware Ozpin is of these backstories: Qrow's bandit tribe, Blake's White Fang history, looking into Ruby's defense of the store, etc.), but rather you win by rag-tag individuals making decisions based on friendship.

Yet simultaneously, that divide is by no means neat and tidy (since plenty of stories have that latter message). As we've discussed elsewhere, RWBYJNOR is ingrained in these structures despite the story rejecting them. They got their initial training at Beacon (how many fans have argued that they learned enough there? That they're basically full-fledged huntsmen already? So, that school was pretty important, yeah?). They worked with Ironwood for months. They're using the prestige of their licenses to get people to listen to them. They're hijacking military equipment to give the world orders to prepare for an attack. Ruby became a general in all but title in that moment, in the same way that Weiss became the Remnant equivalent of a cop when she tried to arrest her father. Volumes 6-8 suddenly wanted to send an anti-military message without considering the context of their story (what does a military mean in a world where unambiguously evil monsters attack, as opposed to a world where these "monsters" are minorities?) and they failed to separate the heroes from the structures they so passionately reject. You cannot have the group stand in opposition to Ironwood and everything he represents while also encouraging the audience to oohh and ahhh at Jaune whipping out his huntsmen license to lead a group of civilians to safety. The supposed cruelty of the former and supposed heroism of the latter are meant to exist simultaneously, despite the contradiction. We went from the message that huntsmen academies, including Atlas', are a haven from abuse, poverty, etc. but now, suddenly, certain types of escapes are no longer morally sound. So just ignore how many of the heroes took the "wrong" path.

And then on top of all of that we have Rhodes. RWBY is pushing the individualism message hard nowadays – that a group of friends is better than a general and his soldiers just ignore that Ruby is their leader and they all follow her orders – yet it's Rhodes' individuality that is criticized in Cinder's flashback. He, as a single person, tries to take on the complex situation of helping an abused child and he failed. The fandom's reaction to his efforts is pretty telling because most kept falling back on structural solutions: "Why didn't he just call CPS? Why didn't he get her admitted early like Ruby? Why didn't he approach some superior to fix all this?" Most fans seemed to grudgingly acknowledge that kidnapping Cinder and raising this traumatized kid on the road while hunting grimm was... not the best idea, so they turned to the very things they've rejected in Ruby's part of the story: laws that people have to follow, schools with an hierarchy that can serve as support, someone above you whose orders you follow and whose seniority can help you in a tough situation. In Cinder's flashback people wanted Remnant to have structural solutions because, clearly, leaving one flawed man to fix this situation on his own didn't turn out so well. They (and the writers) just don't want Ruby to have to obey those same structures because Ruby is the title hero they've grown to love over eight years. We feel like we know Ruby and we assume that if Ruby is in charge she'd totally make the best decision. But Rhodes? He's a stranger, someone we see for less than ten minutes, so his flaws are far easier to home in on. Few are willing to acknowledge that Ruby is Rhodes on a much larger scale, trying things because she wants to help, but ultimately doing far more harm because she's incredibly inexperienced and is just running on her own, individual ideas, not any of the structures in place that are meant to deal with such crises. Rhodes' "Idk what else to do, so I guess I'll teach a tortured kid how to defend herself and hope for the best" is Ruby's "Idk what else to do, so I guess I'll drop Atlas on Mantle, leave with the Relics, move everyone to Vacuo, and hope for the best." The primary difference is that while Rhodes is punished through his death and the narrative makes it clear that this was the wrong choice (Cinder murders everyone and becomes a villain), whereas Ruby's screwups are continually framed as heroic. And that's because the show can't make up its mind about this structural vs. individual approach. Do huntsmen need to be held responsible for their actions, or do they need complete freedom to do the right thing with the belief that anything that goes wrong was completely out of their hands (Yangs' take)? Well, that depends entirely on which huntsmen we're talking about. RWBY's idea that some people are intrinsically good and others intrinsically bad means that the writing – and the fandom – can demand rogue huntsmen be held accountable while simultaneously cheering the group running away from arrest; curse Clover for following orders while simultaneously gushing over how loyal the group is to Ruby; condemn lies that Ozpin gives while simultaneously justifying the ones Ruby gives, etc. RWBY has no clear message, just the insistence that whatever our heroes does is good. The path they've taken, learning to fight to escape horrific situation is a good thing. The path Rhodes laid out, teaching Cinder to fight to escape a horrific situation, is a bad thing. It comes down to the characters, not the situation.

Finally, yeah, there's a complete lack of acknowledgment that either option – structural or individual – alienates those who don't know how to fight. This is seen most clearly in Whitley who asks why he'd want to be a huntsmen when he can afford an army, yet when armies are painted as unquestionably bad, the story won't admit that this leaves Whitley stranded. He had no way to escape his abuse like Winter and Weiss did. He had no way to defend himself when Weiss shoved a weapon in his face. The story never had to grapple with where it's left characters who can't fight and who shouldn't make the evil choice of relying on soldiers because Whitley unexpectedly got on Weiss' good side and gained her protection. It doesn't matter anymore because Whitley is a Good Guy now who the group will take care of. But if he'd continued to disagree? Gone to his room instead of calling Klein? If, in the future, he does something that annoys his sisters and they decide to ignore him like they did before? Well, Whitley is screwed. In a world besieged by grimm – with attacks growing with each volume – he wanted to rely on an army to help solve these problems. But then that was said to be wrong, the general died, and the army, far as we can tell, was left behind to die as well. So what's left? Rely on the huntsmen. Just hope that there are enough (there aren't), that you get a good one (not a Lionheart, or a Raven, or a Cardin, or a Dudley, or...), and that the good ones care enough to bother protecting you. Even if the story hadn't gone out of its way to show how terribly flawed individual huntsmen are – from Lionheart's devastating betrayal to Qrow teaming up with Tyrian – from a practical perspective it's just not enough. Volume 8 showed without a doubt that in a war like this, one built on a witch's ability to summon endless grimm, an army is necessary. Salem would have been into Atlas in a second without those soldiers holding her forces back. Yang, Jaune, and Ren wouldn't have gotten to the whale without that army. Yet the story never acknowledges this, instead pretending like the few individuals we see – the limited numbers the characters keep admitting are horrendously limited – could have somehow saved the day without that assistance. Everything we're seeing nowadays – which characters can use these institutions to escape abuse, which can lie to help the war, which should rely on structures as opposed to their own ideas and physical power – is a mess of inconsistent, often contradictory messages.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #abuse tw

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timac-extraversal · 4 years ago

Text

Big Dumb Legitimacy, Part I

(TIMAC #004, ~2,300 words, 10 minutes)

Summary: When the mythic basis for a country's government is disputed, the government should consider justifying itself by successfully delivering practical, easy-to-measure projects instead.

Epistemic Status: Political speculation.

-☆☆☆-

In early 2019, I discussed the appeal of Trump's Wall.

Previous government programs were seen as ineffective, it's difficult for voters to tell if a program is working, and congress could always quietly defund or nerf a program when voters aren't paying attention. (Lobbyists for companies that employ unauthorized migrants might also have something to say to the senators about any immigration control program that works.) If you think that illegal immigrants coming over the southern border are driving down wages, and you don't trust the government, the appeal of the wall is obvious:

It's a big dumb object.

You know exactly what it is. You know it can be done. And you can easily tell if the government followed through. Even if you don't trust the newspapers, or the President, you can simply drive down to the Texas border and check if it's physically there.

Many on the left (and among the liberals) abhor the idea of Trump's wall, but with the Trump era coming to an end (for now), some are now starting to admit what was once more of a right-contrarian viewpoint - America's institutions have spent down some of their social capital. People just don't trust them as much.

And that's why the big dumb object may be an echo of things to come.

Latino Voters

In Texas, Trump made big gains in 18 counties where Latinos made up at least 80% of the population. A state Democratic party official said Latinos were worried about threats to the fracking industry, a major local employer, and that Republicans were also helped by 'a network of Border Patrol agents, families and unions.' [1☆] That Latinos are in the Border Patrol shouldn't come as a surprise. Latinos climbed from 7.8 to 12.5% of the country's police forces between 1997 and 2016. Previous efforts at integration were in part driven by policing as well-compensated, blue collar work. [2☆]

Latino voters might be more interested in practical issues than abstract ones. Are they productively employed? Are the places they live safe and secure? Philosophical debate and moral posturing can last all day, and with social media, well into the night. But at some point, someone actually has to get out of a truck and pour asphalt if we want to fix the potholes.

At least one hispanic man was not amused with last year's rioting and, infamously, showed up with a chainsaw and shouted for protesters to go home - and that wasn't the meanest thing he had to say. [3☆]

Spiritual Legitimacy

...and practical issues may be for the best.

To pile up recent heated rhetoric, it would be difficult for a "white supremacist" government of a country "built on stolen land" "by the hands of slaves," founded in slavery 1619 (rather than, more famously, in freedom in 1776), to legitimize itself on intergenerational moral grounds. We would need to repair or replace its legitimizing myth.

Countries are social phenomena, not just physical ones. A country is an idea, not just a place or a people. [4] The narrative of what makes a country legitimate is the story that binds the population together towards a shared project, and convinces the people to accept what, due to the limits of information, must necessarily be the rule of a small number of individuals. A country without a legitimizing myth is vulnerable, and from multiple directions at once.

The state is a shape in the minds of the population, and in a high-energy society its boundaries are maintained by the invisible threat of force. If a police precinct building is set on fire where everyone can see, rival rioters might get the idea that they can just bust open a few windows and pay a visit to the national Capitol building, perhaps smiling as they carry off the speakers' podium or live-blog from the offices of congressional representatives. [5]

There is no such thing as a safe riot. The entire point of a riot is that law enforcement is unable to control the situation. There especially isn't such a thing as a safe riot in the national Capitol building, where rioters might make contact with the nation's lawmakers (who carry much of government's sins), and where, for that reason, security personnel may be even more jumpy than usual. It's the sort of thing that might spark the fires of revolution, either in showing the weakness of the central government, or in retaliation for a massacre.

January 6 was bad, but it could have gone much, much worse.

A spiritual struggle for the soul of the nation is certainly exciting. We might imagine it gets excellent television ratings, social media engagement scores, and clicks. In fact, CNN declined from 2.5 million primetime viewers during what we might call the 'President Trump season finale' to 1.6 million primetime viewers after Biden took office. [6☆] Michael Bloomberg's failed candidacy suggests that you can't buy the kind of entertainment provided by pro-wrestling's now most legendary and infamous heel.

...so it might be better to focus on a form of legitimacy that can be achieved more easily, with something more concrete, like bulldozers.

This does not mean we need to 'abandon' suffering minorities or struggling rural residents 'to their fate.'

Streets Before Trust

On the last day of 2020, Alon Levy of Pedestrian Observations posted Streets Before Trust. Alon notes that in a "trust before streets" approach, the focus is on getting community buy-in before starting a project. Often the idea is to avoid disrupting low-income or minority neighborhoods. However, Alon writes that,

The reality of low-trust politics is about the opposite of what educated Americans think it is. It is incredibly concrete. Abstract ideas like social justice, rights, democracy, and free speech do not exist in that reality, to the point that authoritarian populists have exploited low-trust societies like those of Eastern Europe to produce democratic backsliding.

His theory is that the state proves to people that it can provide tangible goods by successfully providing tangible goods. However, he writes,

Such provisions of tangible goods cannot happen in a trust before streets environment. This works when the state takes action, and endless public meetings in which every objection must be taken seriously are the death of the state. ... Low trust is downstream of low state capacity. Build the streets and trust will follow.

On January 6th, Matt Yglesias expanded the concept and provided more examples. [7☆]

The correct way to respond to a low-trust environment is not to double down on proceduralism, but to commit yourself to the “it does exactly what it says on the tin” principle and implement policies that have the following characteristics:

◆ It’s easy for everyone, whether they agree with you or disagree with you, to understand what it is you say you are doing.

◆ It’s easy for everyone to see whether or not you are, in fact, doing what you said you would do.

◆ It’s easy for you and your team to meet the goal of doing the thing that you said you would do.

That’s not a guarantee of political or policy success. Maybe you will pick terrible ideas and be a huge failure anyway. But this triad for success under conditions of distrust at least creates the possibility of success, where people will look back and decide that what you did worked. Committing yourself to that triad may involve some waste and inefficiency relative to a more theoretically optimal scheme with more means-testing.

There's been a running joke among some parts of right-contrarian twitter that Matt Yglesias is a secret reactionary. After a passage like that, we might joke that he's secretly a Rationalist. (He isn't either, of course.) [8]

Who Do You Trust?

Alon writes,

Low trust in many cases exists because people perceive the state to be hostile to their interests,

Right now, many Americans, both left and right, don't trust the state. Even a writer from Sri Lanka wrote that America is in a collapse - and that collapse isn't a single moment, but a low-level hum punctuated by violence that's in the background unless it happens to you. [9☆]

Many liberals will blame this on Trump. From their perspective, the logical thing to do to restore trust is to criticize Trump. The thinking goes something like this: if Trump is discredited, it follows that all his criticisms of other institutions are discredited - and if those criticisms are discredited, you should trust those institutions as much as you did back in, say, 2013.

This will not work. First, the doubt is not solely caused by Trump. Second, if right-wingers trusted the institutions (such as newspapers) needed to make the criticism of Trump, they would not have voted for Trump a second time. (Trump received about 11 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. [10☆]) Their trust in these institutions seemed to erode after 2015, [11☆] accelerating in 2020, culminating in the spectacular fireball of the Trump election fraud allegations and the 2021 MAGA Capitol Riot.

For the left and liberal people, a rising 'consciousness of racial injustice' leads them to question (and distrust) every Western institution. "Will this program benefit People of Color?" Historically, there have been some serious questions about that. [12] If the program is complex or difficult to measure, it will allow those suspicions to sneak in, or even dominate: could the criteria, even if they look reasonable, have been chosen by a racist? What if it's subconscious racism ("implicit bias")? Some institution might tell us the program isn't racist, but what if that institution is itself racist, or unwittingly working from racist data? Etc.

Each of these worldviews has layers of memetic defenses - complex procedures to handle opposing arguments. Each also has a network of paid actors that perpetuate them. The New York Times cannot criticize a MAGA into trusting the New York Times. A self-identified progressive is unlikely to be convinced that a MAGA's criticism of 'racial justice' rhetoric isn't motivated by 'a desire to protect white privilege'. [13] And contemporary political constellations [14] can fabricate entire scandals that would take months for a normal person to fully disprove.

You can't go through it. That's too expensive. You have to go around it.

-☆☆☆-

[1☆] How Latino support for Trump grew in Texas borderlands Los Angeles Times, (2020/11)

[2☆] Latino officers are helping diversify police. Can they help reform the ranks? NBC News, (2020/05)

[3☆] McAllen man who waved chainsaw at protesters charged with assault KRQE, (2020/05)

[4] A country is also a people, not just a proposition, as well as a process and a place. But that's an essay for another time.

[5] Perhaps fittingly given the Florida Man genre of news stories, the man carrying off Nancy Pelosi's lecturn was from Florida. But unlike the more whimsical examples of the Florida Man genre, which might see an alligator thrown a drive-through window, people did die during the 2021 MAGA Capitol Riot, including one of the white women who entered the Capitol building. There were even early reports that a police officer was mortally wounded after being hit with a fire extinguisher, though this may not have been accurate.

[6☆] CNN viewership plummeted after Trump left office New York Post, 2021/03

[7☆] Making policy for a low-trust world Matt Yglesias, Slow Boring, (2021/01)

[8] In both cases, he's just integrating information from outside the current consensus and presenting the resulting outputs from adding it to his considerations politely. This creates a sensation of coherent but novel depth under the surface, in the same sense that Japan is an entire culture with its own sets of unspoken cultural assumptions, providing more novelty to manga and anime for Western readers.

[9☆] I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. Indi Samarajiva, (2020/09)

One day, I was at work when someone left a bomb at the NOLIMIT clothing store. It exploded, killing 17 people. When these types of traumatic events take place, no two people experience the same thing. For me, it was seeing the phone lines getting clogged for an hour. For my wife, it was feeling the explosion a half-kilometer from her house. But for the families of the 17 victims, this was the end. And their grief goes on.

As you can see, this is not a uniform experience of chaos. For some people it destroys their bodies, others their hearts, but for most people it’s just a low-level hum at the back of their minds.

[10☆] An Australian news piece from Nov 5 reports Trump had about 63 million votes in 2016. A later USA Today piece reports a final total of about 74 million for 2020.

[11☆] This is my personal judgment, but tracks a Gallup Poll that ends in 2019. Trust in government remains near historic lows (2019).

[12] From a right-wing perspective, if we consider some norms, beliefs, values, or expectations a form of "social technology," there are even more questions.

From a left-wing perspective, during the Obama Administration, I remember one writer suggesting that Black Lives Matter wanted to convince politicians to want to help black folks rather than agreeing to a specific policy, because they didn't trust the details of policy (which could easily hide implementation details that disadvantage black people).

[13] If members of the white working class seem suspicious of this antiracist explanation, however, it might have something to do with white privilege theory lowering white liberals' sympathy for poor white people.

[14] Networks of interrelated organizations and actors acting semi-independently in a way which, due to conditions, gives the appearance of coordination. No one is specifically 'in charge,' and many actions take place in the open.

#timac #politics #racepol

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concussed-to-pieces · 4 years ago

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The Mettle Of A Man; Part Ten

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm

Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills

Part Nine: Domestic Ruminations

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains mentions of dubious medical procedures. Stay safe!]

Saying that she was in over her head would imply that, at some juncture, she had not been. Backhand couldn't recall a time when she hadn't been struggling to reach the damn surface.

There was so much. An entire underground compound, sprawling and winding like a rabbit warren, filled with synths and the scientists who seemed to style themselves as their betters.

Shaun had been the worst part about it all, if she was honest. The knowledge that it hadn't been ten years she had lost, but sixty ...and the now-elderly Shaun's bemusement at her emotional response to the child synth he had been leading her across the Commonwealth with was like a slap in the face.

The fact that he had the gall to suggest that she should take over the Institute once he had passed on was infuriating in its own right. Vega wanted nothing to do with any of this. She obliged him to the bare minimum. He wouldn't permit her to leave until she fully took in ' the wonders of the Institute ', everything that 'he' had built, so it was with a reluctant heart that Backhand agreed to think about the choice.

She didn't hate the Institute. It was odd to realize that, but at the end of the day what she truly hated was the way Shaun had continued to hoard all of the advancements they had made. The lives that could have been saved, the differences he could have made in the Commonwealth-!

Time passed strangely away from the reign of celestial bodies, simply separated into 'work cycles'.

Vega apparently spent the entirety of her first work cycle after arrival watching synths be created, the woman observing perfect bodies emerging disoriented from their vat of red liquid. The scientists overseeing the operation, after briefly introducing themselves, all but ignored her. For that she was grateful, because the process was equal parts fascinating and horrifying in its minutiae.

"Hello." One newly-formed synth said, sounding dazed when they addressed her. "I'm...new here?"

She wanted to cry at how confused the synth looked, she wanted to cry because she knew the life they would have down here. She didn't even have the chance to offer them a word of encouragement before they were spirited away to be properly calibrated.

Shaun came across her in the Robotics lab, her arms wrapped around her knees as she just... stared . "Ah, Mother. You will tax yourself mentally if you keep this up." Her son, who was now older than her by over forty years, scolded her in that insincere, saccharine manner. Backhand was reminded of Nate every time she heard Shaun speak. Even though he couldn't possibly have any memories of his father, his patronizing tone reeked of the casual superiority Nate had displayed in and out of the courtroom. "I have brought one of our coursers to escort you back to your room, Mother. If you would please cooperate with him."

"Hello ma'am." The courser intoned as she looked up. "I am X6-88. It is an honor to meet the woman who helped to create Father." He was tall and dark-skinned with narrow shoulders, his body wholly sheathed in the courser uniform to mask whatever bulk he might have. He wore mirrored sunglasses, even down here.

Backhand thought of the courser she had to kill to tear the chip out of it and her heart dropped. X6 must know about the courser. What if they had been friends? She hesitated on that thought. Were the synths down here even permitted to form those sorts of attachments? Curie, Sturges and Nick were her only real exposure to non-hostile synths, and all of them had their own personalities, likes and dislikes. Well, Sturges wasn't entirely certain as to whether he was a synth or not, but he believed he was and that was good enough for Vega. Did synths who were still under Institute programming actually have the capacity to create those bonds with one another?

"X6-88 is one of our finest coursers. Due to your combat history and... affinity for getting into scuffles, I assumed being in the presence of another combat-minded individual would help to put you at ease." Shaun's shrug was almost uncouth , as if he didn't particularly believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Backhand knew that the real reason he was giving a courser babysitter duty was because he didn't trust her not to meddle where she shouldn't. "The majority of the Institute is dedicated to much more lofty goals than synth retention, but why wear out the wrench with a job the hammer can perform?"

Backhand slowly got to her feet. "Very kind of you to think of my needs." She remarked, praying her voice wasn't too flat. She had yet to get used to how Shaun spoke to the synths. Or rather, how he spoke around them. Despite his insistence that they call him Father, the elderly man treated them like objects. Tools , or furniture items. These were living, breathing, thinking beings, reduced down to nothing more than careless analogies of hammer, wrench and screwdriver. It was heartbreaking.

Shaun simply inclined his head, the smile on his face more of a simper. "X6, I expect you to treat my mother with the utmost courtesy. She is, after all, the future of the Institute. During the work cycles following her rest, please escort her around the facility."

"Of course, Father." X6 replied immediately, his face and tone entirely devoid of emotion. "If you'll follow me, ma'am."

Backhand obediently followed X6 back out of the manufacturing laboratory, quickening her steps so she could keep up with the courser. He seemed to realize his legs were longer than hers a split second before she drew up alongside him, the synth slowing abruptly. Backhand ended up in front of him by half a step, chuckling a little as she paused and then fell in beside him.

"Sorry, my fault." She apologized.

X6-88 was silent for a moment, and then muttered, "that is foolish, ma'am. Why would you be sorry about something you have no control over?" Backhand hummed, trying to think of a way to explain. X6 quickly tacked on, "not that I'm questioning you, ma'am. I know questions are unwelcome."

Vega tilted her head, giving the man a confused look. "Unwelcome?"

"Father has instructed us not to ask questions. He says they will disrupt you settling in." The courser answered bluntly.

Backhand laughed, but the noise had no humor. "I've been disrupted for months , X6-88. You can ask me whatever you like."

"How did you do it?" X6-88 whirled on her, his tone and posture suddenly hostile. "Z2-47 was incredibly skilled. Deadly. Effective. And yet you killed him."

Backhand nodded slowly, and she heard X6's gloves squeak with how hard he clenched his fists.

" How ." The courser demanded.

"I...I don't know if I'll be able to explain it in a way you can understand." Backhand replied quietly. "Was Z2 one of your friends?"

"I-!" X6 jerked to a halt, seeming to realize that he had raised his voice. "My apologies if I have given you the wrong impression, ma'am. I merely sought to...find the weakness you must have exploited." He practically growled through his teeth, "I meant no offense."

"No no, you didn't offend me at all." Vega said sincerely, nearly putting her hand on his arm in a comforting manner before she reined herself in. "It's just not a conversation I would want other people to hear. Um, is my room…?"

"We only have a short ways to go. You will explain it to me there?" X6-88 asked curtly.

"I'll do my level best." The longest seconds in the history of man slipped by as the courser studied her from behind those sunglasses. "It's not that I doubt your intelligence or anything, I'd be an idiot to doubt your intelligence." Vega tried to elaborate after the silence grew uncomfortable. "I just don't know if I'll be able to...get the story to make sense."

"You are allowed to do as you please, ma'am." X6 said, his voice back to that monotone.

Backhand shook her head ruefully. "Never mind. C'mon, before somebody gets uptight that you're looming over me."

The courser took a hearty step back at that, his brow furrowing. "It was not my intention to make you uncomfortable, ma'am."

"X6, I was in the army. You're going to have to do a lot more than that to make me uncomfortable. I'm more concerned about what someone might do to you . You know, if they think you're trying to threaten me."

X6-88 was silent for the remainder of the walk to her quarters, which turned out to be just as sterile as everywhere else. Backhand felt extremely awkward, afraid that she would get dirt on the pristine white furniture.

She settled gingerly into one of the chairs, gesturing to indicate that X6 should sit as well. He did so after a moment, perched on the very edge of the chair and leaning towards her.

Vega clasped her hands in her lap. "X6, has there ever been anyone in your life that you wanted to protect?"

The courser responded without hesitation. "G5-19." Backhand squinted, trying to figure out why she knew that particular--oh. Oh . But X6 wasn't done. "They were efficient at performing their tasks. Helpful. Useful. An asset to the Institute." He tilted his head at her. "And weak. Poor at combat."

"You would have done anything to keep them safe?"

"I did everything that I could." X6-88 said sharply. "I was ineffective in the end, however."

"Take that feeling and multiply it tenfold, and that's how I felt about Shaun. I knew that I would do everything I could to get my child back. Even if it meant I would have to take down an Institute murder machine." Backhand explained. "There was nothing to exploit, I promise. Just a sad mom's desperation to find her son. Z2-47 gave as good as he got."

"I find it very difficult to believe that you employed no underhanded tactics." X6 remarked. "G5 was taken via the use of a pulse grenade, so I assume you must have used something similar."

"A pulse grenade?" Backhand asked incredulously. "Who the hell were you fighting? "

"It was a group of raiders that found one of our salvage teams. I was away on another assignment, so I was not physically present." X6's hands gripped down on his thighs. "Had I been there, I assure you things would have played out differently." He muttered.

"Oh no." Backhand felt a rush of sorrow, and then felt ridiculous. Untold hours ago, she had been standing in Sanctuary Hills, certain that the relay would do absolutely nothing and she would be back to square one. And yet here she was, inside the Institute, listening to a courser talking about losing someone.

"I am under the impression that the raiders must have tortured and killed her. Even if she did not die immediately, there is no possibility that someone as weak as her survived on the surface for very long." If Backhand didn't know better, she would have sworn that he sounded grieved. "I asked to be spinally recalibrated and have her memory removed from my processes but my request was denied."

"Why would you want to-"

"G5-19 is a distraction." X6-88 growled. "As a courser, I am not permitted distractions."

"But they denied your request." Backhand repeated.

"Correct, ma'am."

"I don't understand why they would say you can't have distractions but then also refuse to remove them." The woman mused, resting her chin in her hand as she thought. "What's the spinal calibration process like?"

"All synthetic cerebrospinal fluid is drained from the body, wiped of signature and then reinserted via a series of lumbar, thoracic and cervical injections." X6-88 elaborated curtly. "Posture is also corrected during the procedure, as the vertebrae must be properly aligned in order for the fluid to redistribute as intended."

Vega got a little queasy at his description. "I'm going to assume this isn't a painless undertaking?"

"It is extremely painful." X6's tone was flat, giving no indication of his feelings on the matter.

"But you would have gone through that, just to-"

"I am an effective instrument of the Institute. If I remove distractions, I am even more effective." X6 interrupted her. "G5-19's memory does not make me more effective. Therefore it is useless to cling to it. I made the mistake of mentioning how distracting I found their memory, and Dr. Ayo wished to study the effects over a period of time. So my request was denied." The leather of his uniform made a soft noise as he shifted in the seat. "I do not prefer one over the other, but if I am not as sharp as possible, there is always an enemy willing to exploit that crack in my armor."

Vega extended a hand and the courser stared down at it blankly. "May I?" The young woman asked, deliberately keeping her voice even and soft. X6 glanced at her over the tops of those impregnable sunglasses and Backhand was startled to see that his eyes were in fact a light, steely gray.

"Why?" The synth queried.

"I'm a tactile person. A lot of times I feel like it's easier to make my point if I'm connected to the person I'm speaking with."

"I am a tactile learner as well," was all he said in reply. X6-88 didn't move, warily watching her.

Backhand relented after a moment, clasping her hands in her lap once more. "I just want you to know that sometimes memories aren't a bad thing, or a distraction. Like with me. Memories were all I had to get me here." She explained pragmatically. "They were my sole, driving force. I was going to get my baby back."

"Now that you're here, and you can see all the wonders of the Institute firsthand, was it worth it?" X6-88 asked sharply. "Or would it have been better if you woke up without recollection, just another nameless Vault dweller? Can you honestly say you're better off having been reunited with your son?" He challenged her, " especially since you were under the impression that he was still a child via the ruse facilitated by Kellogg and S9-23?"

Backhand, reeling from the courser's impromptu interrogation, nearly missed the flicker of confusion that twisted his features. She tried to formulate a response, wondering all the while why he was so bent out of shape over her being tricked.

"I...I meant no offense, ma'am." He said slowly before she could reply. "I am not supposed to ask questions. Why would I ask so many?" He seemed troubled, muttering about needing a full calibration as, " this is getting out of hand ."

"Look," Backhand said finally, corralling her thoughts into some semblance of order. "I can admit that I don't have all the answers. Despite what every human down here says, we're not actually all-knowing beings. But if you have questions, questions that other people can't or won't answer, I can always take a crack at 'em." She offered.

"Ma'am, are you implying that our brilliant minds may be keeping information from me?" X6-88 said, a slight uptick in his tone indicating his incredulity.

Vega held up her hands in an attempt to appease the courser. "Whoa whoa, I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just saying that if you feel like you're not getting the full story, you can ask me. After all, I'm a wellspring of firsthand pre-war knowledge." Her smile turned wry as she recalled Danse's words to her. "A relic, if you will."

…

X6-88's first question opened as a statement, oddly enough. "You do not like it down here." The courser observed as he watched her.

He had been like a dubiously-benevolent shadow throughout her stay, the work cycles ticking away as she soaked up the Institute's fluorescent ambiance like a sponge. "You're right." Backhand replied. No use denying it . "I don't."

"Why not?"

She leaned silently on the railing overlooking the atrium for several long minutes. "I don't feel like I deserve it, I guess." She admitted softly. "I'm not made for a place like this. Hell, I didn't even feel like I deserved my spot in the Vault. Only reason I went was because of Shaun."

"You would have died were it not for the obligation you felt towards your offspring?"

"Well, when you put it like that …" Backhand chuckled sadly. "In a way, yes."

"Explain."

"I'm not a good person, X6. Back in the war, I...there's stuff I'm not proud of. I let people goad me into doing things that were out of character for me." She tried to keep it simple, a little less messy than her piecemeal recollections. "I didn't deserve to have a baby. I didn't deserve to have that second chance, that life outside the military." She stared off into space, her eyes unfocused. "I had no one else to love, so I poured all of the affection I had into caring for Shaun. I didn't have a lot after the divorce, but we had a house and food."

"Divorce?" X6-88 sounded curious. "What were you divorced from?"

"My husband. Shaun's father."

"Oh, Progenitor Nathan." X6 mused. "Father has no memory of him."

"He wouldn't. Nate wanted nothing to do with him." Vega murmured.

"I cannot fault him. Infants are highly unsettling." The courser said bluntly, making Backhand burst out laughing. "Ma'am, please attempt to control yourself."

"Of course, of course. I'm sorry, X6. I just...the way that you said it, and you being what you are, I couldn't keep my composure." The woman wheezed, grinning up at him.

"I'm afraid I don't understand your amusement, ma'am."

"Well you're this deadly killing machine and yet something so innocent is something you find unnerving."

"I am...unused to their noise." X6-88 explained. "They are shrill. Their hunger cries are akin to torture."

" Oh ." Backhand didn't bother trying to hide her smile. "I guess that would be a problem for you. Back before the war, there were kids everywhere . More chances for people to uh, get used to their racket."

"That sounds like a nightmare."

" Everything about pre-war sounds like a nightmare to you." Backhand retorted petulantly.

"You are correct, ma'am." X6-88's mouth curved up ever so slightly at the left corner. If she hadn't been watching, she would have missed it. "Children and heights are loathsome to me and from what I learned via browsing archival data, the pre-war world was rife with tall buildings and wailing infants." He cocked his head to look at Backhand over his sunglasses, his expression downright human . "Mankind's ivory towers and dreams of the future did them very little good."

Backhand suddenly took note of the death grip the courser had on the railing of the balcony.

"G5-19 enjoyed children. She was very weak." X6 remarked reluctantly, like the words were being dragged out of him. "I still don't know what she was doing on surface detail. She had never expressed any interest in the surface. She was a simple maintenance synth."

"I notice that you refer to her as 'she'. The rest of the coursers just call the other synths 'unit'." Backhand pointed out.

"Another fault of the memories I am plagued by. Speech processor issues. I assign gender due to some form of...error in how I perceived her." X6 shrugged. "Doctor Ayo does not believe it is detrimental for the time being."

"Do you think it's because she was a real person to you?" Yikes, too direct , Backhand realized as X6-88 stiffened up. "I mean, because you got to know her. She obviously had some kind of personality that left an impression on you." She tried to amend. The courser was already in turmoil over the memories he didn't want to keep, it wasn't her place to pry.

"She was weak." X6 seemed to default to that as a descriptor for his... friend , his brow furrowed. Backhand resigned herself to that being the end of the conversation, and then, "she was weak like you are, ma'am."

"Like me?" The woman asked, surprised. "I don't think I understand."

X6-88 nodded, his stony expression far from encouraging. "She wanted to help, even if it was detrimental to her. Constantly working. Truthfully, her disregard for the work cycles was what put us in touch in the first place. I was sent to find her when several jobs turned up as incomplete and I located her in a supply closet, fast asleep." He sighed heavily. "I was supposed to reprimand her and send her for recalibration. I still don't understand why I didn't. I even lied and said that I did."

The honesty of his admission was unsurprising to Vega; all the synths in the Institute seemed to have very few qualms about telling the truth. She imagined that must be part of their programming, so the scientists could maintain their grip on the synths that vastly outnumbered them.

"She asked to be transferred from Facilities to Bioscience. She wanted to help, even after her request was denied. She spent all of her free time in Bioscience." His gloves squeaked on the metal bannister. "Then one day I came back from an assignment and she was...gone." He actually sounded pained now, the most emotion she had heard out of him yet. "It was a break in my routine and I do not cope well with such interruptions."

Translation: I'm sad and I'm not allowed to be , Backhand theorized privately.

"I would greatly appreciate it if you would not do the same." The courser said abruptly, turning to face her. "Take care of yourself, ma'am. You are, after all, the future of the Institute."

"X6-"

"I am being given a new assignment in the following work cycle and will no longer be responsible for you. So I will reiterate my suggestion to you." He said sternly. "Take care of yourself."

Backhand didn't have the heart to tell the synth that a suggestion and an order were two different things. "Alright." She replied. "I'll do my best, if you promise to do the same. And I...I hope that someday you'll find that friend of yours."

"Doubtful. But I appreciate the sentiment, ma'am." X6 inclined his head, and then departed.

…

With X6 out in the field, Vega felt like she could finally get down to business. She had a veritable laundry list of to-dos, and she had no idea how long she had even been down here for.

There was sneaking into the old branch of Bioscience for the serum to cure Virgil. It was surprisingly simple despite the security measures, to the point where Backhand was almost suspicious .

Then there was the holotape Sturges had given her to scan the Institute network, easily managed. " I'll be makin' copies of it. I imagine my boy Johnny D. will be mighty interested in what the suits have been up to, and then of course one for your friends in the Brotherhood ." He had informed her right before she had relayed, pressing the tape into her hands.

Next there was a bit of a...pet project. X6 had mentioned that his friend (alive and well, unbeknownst to him, functioning as Curie's new body) had expressed no real interest in the surface to the courser, and yet had somehow ended up on a salvage patrol. That sounded like a scheme. A well-meaning scheme. It was possible that there was a scientist sympathetic to the plight of the more self-aware synths.

Her gentle inquiries put her back in touch with a scientist by the name of Doctor Alan Binet, whom she had met during the first work cycle she spent in the Institute. He worked in Robotics, supervising the creation of synths from the ground up.

He was delighted to exposit upon his theories of synth cognitive capabilities. The good doctor had apparently witnessed synths experiencing REM sleep, and that fueled him to study their behavior even closer than before. Because if they could dream, why couldn't they have a soul as well?

But strangely, he seemed adamant in the stance that he would never release the synths to the surface, stating that it was a living hellscape. Backhand couldn't exactly refute his claims either.

Vega left Robotics stumped and defeated. If not the man who was performing social experiments with the synths, then who?

She left it alone for the time being, moving on to her last, arguably most important objective.

Convincing one Doctor Madison Li to take up her Brotherhood mantle once more.

Part Eleven

#fallout four #fallout 4 #paladin danse #paladin danse imagine #paladin danse x sole survivor #paladin danse/sole survivor #Eventual romance #paladin danse x f!sole #fallout fandom #fallout fanfic #fo4 companions imagine #fo4 paladin danse #fo4 companions #x6-88 #the BOI #brotherhood of steel

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365days365movies · 4 years ago

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April 9, 2021: Some Like it Hot (1959) (Recap: Part One)

If there was ever a movie more hyped than this one...

Ever heard of the American Film Institute? Well, according to them in 2000 (recent, I know), this is the funniest comedy...period. At the time, anyway. That beats Tootsie (getting there), Dr. Strangelove (love it), Annie Hall (also loved it), Duck Soup (classic), Blazing Saddles (classic, topical, and fantastic), M*A*S*H (maybe later this year), It Happened One Night (maybe next year), The Graduate (later this WEEK), and...THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN Airplane! IS NUMBER 10? You CANNOT be seri...yeah, OK, you know where I’m going.

Anyway. Yeah, so, maybe AFI has Oscar syndrome, because that’s a little bullshit. So, uh...how about the BBC? In 2017, they asked 253 film critics ACROSS THE GLOBE what the best comedy of all time was, and number ONE was Some Like it Hot. Other than beating Airplane! again, it also beat Groundhog Day, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, This is Spinal Tap, The Big Lebowski, and His Girl Friday, and...well, every comedy you can think of. This movie CANNOT be that funny.

...Can it?

But there’s more to this film than that. Apparently, it was made without the approval of the MPPDA, which means that it wasn’t Hays Code adherent! Damn! In fact, this film was partially responsible for its collapse about 6 years later! But what is the Hays Code? Well, briefly covered, it was a set of standards laid out by Will Hays and his Motion Picture Produces and Distributors of America, or the MPPDA. It was enforced in the mid 1930s, and stood firmly in place until 1968, when it basically disappeared.

So, what are these standards? Well, there are a lot, but in a nutshell:

No cursing or taking the Lord’s name in vain in any way.

No nudity, real or suggested. And sex is kind of OK, if consensual and between a man and a woman ONLY. But, they can’t be in bed together, and they can only kiss one time, IF one of them isn’t a villain.

No weddings, no wedding nights, and barely any reference to marriage.

No prostitution, or what was called “white slavery”. Yes. Really.

Oh, also, no weird race-mixing stuff. What’s a “civil rights”?

Buuuuuuut...don’t insult any races either. Of course, considering the time period, “insult” or “offense” is probably subjective, so...fuck that, I guess.

PRIESTS ARE HOLY AND CANNOT BE MOCKED

No guns, fire, American flags, murder, smuggling, drugs, hanging, electrocution, or...law enforcement?

No childbirth, seen or inferred, and no naked kids. I mean...that’s common sense, to be completely fair.

NO RACE-MIXI-oh. Oh, I said that already, didn’t I? Well, OK, I’ll pare it down a little. They can’t have sex, but I guess...looking at each other is OK? Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with that. I’m progressive!

That about covers it. And this movie wasn’t adherent to it? Oh...well, I am excited! Let’s jump right in! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The whole thing starts with a bang; literally. It's Chicago in 1929, smack dab in the middle of the Prohibition Era, and a group of gangsters are smuggling some alcohol inside of a coffin, while riding in a hearse. The cops aren't fooled, ad a shootout takes place between the gangsters and the cops, but they eventually drop off as the group takes the coffin into a funeral home. At the funeral home, a man named “Toothpick” Charlie (George E. Stone) meets with Mulligan (Pat O’Brien) a detective who’s got Charlie as his informant. With his help, he makes his way into the funeral home, actually a speakeasy in disguise.

Said speakeasy is run by “Spats” Colombo (George Raft), and within the speakeasy is a massive party, which the partygoers call a funeral. Spats arrives there shortly afterwards, and Mulligan watches all the while. Also at this party is a group of dancers accompanied by a band, which contains two partners, ladies’ man and sax player Joe (Tony Curtis) and anxious double bassist Jerry (Jack Lemmon).

The two talk about what they’re going to do with their upcoming paycheck, with Joe planning on using it for gambling on dog races. Jerry is understandably worried about this, as they owe rent, but Joe rattles off other things that he might was well worry about.

Suppose you got hit by a truck. Suppose the stock market crashes. Suppose Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks. Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn! Suppose Lake Michigan overflows.

Fun fact, though: the stock market’s about to crash in a year, Pickford and Fairbanks divorce in 1936, and the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1957, famously. Lake Michigan has not overflowed...YET. It’s actually at record high water levels, and could cause flooding around it in the next few years. So, although those middle three were DEFINITELY part of the joke...that last one wasn’t at the time. Of course, it’s actually there as a line to set Jerry up with a way to tell him that the streets are “about to flood”, as he spots Mulligan and makes him. He tells Joe, and they both quietly pack up their instruments and leave, BEFORE the ruckus is about to begin.

And begin it does, and the cops raid the place almost immediately afterwards. As the party’s broken up and people are loaded into the paddywagon (Spats included), Joe and Jerry take their chance to escape behind the cops’ backs. However, this also means that the two musicians aren’t getting paid after all. Joe’s still set on betting money on the dog the next day, and get the money for the bet by selling their coats. However, while they do sell their coats, they instead end up looking for jobs at a local music agency, run by Sig Poliakoff (Billy Gray).

The agency is recruited by band owner Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee) and her nebbish band manager Bienstock (Dave Barry), as they need a bass and a sax player to replace two of their own, in their band in Florida. On hearing this from Poliakoff’s secretary Nellie (Barbara Drew), the two barge into the office. However, much to their dismay, the only ones they’re looking for are women. While Jerry tries to weasel their way in, it doesn’t quite work, and they instead take a job up north for a Valentine’s Day dance. The two go to a garage to borrow a car from Nellie in order to get to the job. There, playing cards, is Toothpick Charlie with a group of men. But then...somebody else arrives.

Spats and his men arrive at the garage, and tell all of the men to stand with their hands on the wall. Joe and Jerry, however, manage to hide in the garage. And if you know anything about Valentine’s Day during Prohibition Era Chicago...then you know exactly what’s about to happen to Toothpick and the guys.

After the massacre (based upon the real St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jerry makes a noise and alerts the gang to their presence. This is a problem, because Spats isn’t keen on the idea of witnesses, and immediately orders the musicians killed.With a distraction caused by the still-alive-but-dying Charlie, the two manage to escape Spats’ wrath. Now needing a fast way out of town, Joe figures out a plan. See, that job, the one from Sweet Sue, is in Florida, which is far enough away that they should be able to escape. But, uh...the band is only looking for women. And so...

This is the second most famous thing about the film. Meet Josephine and Daphne, the female aliases of Joe and Jerry respectively. As Jerry realizes the difficulties of the female wardrobe (namely skirts and heels), the two walk up to the band of women, known as “Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators.” But they aren’t the only arrivals, and the other is the MOST famous thing about this movie...

This is Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk, the lead singer, ukelele player, and...OK, look, it’s Marilyn Monroe, and I think I need to acknowledge this now. Marilyn Monroe is an underrated talent today, but she had a hell of a lot of potential as an actress and as an individual. She had a lot of troubles, and her early death by suicide is an absolute tragedy, no matter how you slice it. She’s a talented actress and singer, and she deserves recognition for that.

SHE IS ALSO INSANELY HOT I’M SORRY I’M WEAK

Look...it’s Marilyn fucking Monroe, OK? I know, I’m a straight cissexual man, but I wanted to make a point to acknowledge the fact that Marilyn Monroe is a talent far outside of her beauty and physicality. She (and all women) deserve that much, and deserve not to be objectified by the male gaze. I genuinely agree with this, and I do understand that concept. I’ll never personally understand the female experience, but it’s my responsibility and duty as an individual to understand experiences foreign to my own, including this one.

But DEAR LORD, her physicality is not easy to ignore, now and then! I mean COME ON! The woman’s considered a standard of classic beauty to this day by many (not by all, and not by herself), and it’s unfortunately her most famous feature to nearly everybody. But, of course, Monroe got a lot of grief for her looks as well (which is bullshit), and the stress of her life sadly led to her terrible suicide. But that doesn’t mean that her beauty inside and out shouldn’t be appreciated for what it is: beauty.

ALSO SHE IS DROP DEAD GORGEOUS I’M WEAK I KNOW

See, the train agrees with me! Oh...OH RIGHT, THE MOVIE! OK, where was I. Well, Joe and Jerry agree with me about Sugar Kane, but it is the 1950′s when the film is made, so of course they do. They watch her get on, and they follow suit, meeting the women of the band, and Sugar Kane. Sugar, see, has a teensy bit of an alcohol problem. That’s not necessarily to say she’s an alcoholic, but she is admonished for it by Sweet Sue and Bienstock, also being a repeat offender of drinking during working hours. That (and men) is something that Sweet Sue doesn’t tolerate.

She’s almost in trouble that night, when her flask falls from her stocking during a performance. However, Jerry covers for her, much to her appreciation. As they settle in for the night, all of the girls (including Joe and Jerry) sleep in the same cabin, much to the, uh, frustration of Jerry, despite Josephine’s urgings to keep it together. As Jerry continually reminds himself that he’s posing as a girl, he’s surprised that night with the appearance of Sugar, who comes to thank her for her help that night. Sugar tells “Daphne” that she owes her one, and also climbs into the cot with him to hide from Sweet Sue. Jerry...that poor mother fucker.

Well, Jerry tries to ease the tension by offering some of Joe’s whisky. But more of the girls overhear this, and eventually, a massive party erupts, with all the girls mixing drinks and sharing the single space of Jerry’s bed. Joe wakes up from all of this, and tries to help end the party, only for Sugar to climb out of it, and ask Joe for help with a block of ice for the drinks.

It’s here that she reveals that she used to work with men’s bands, but joined this band to get away from men. This is especially to get away from her weakness: tenor sax players. This intrigues Joe, the tenor sax player. However, she’s essentially sworn off of tenor sax players because of multiple bad relationships, and is instead hoping to find a millionaire in Florida, preferably one with a yacht. Meanwhile, Jerry’s bed is getting a little too full, and the girls are getting a little TOO familiar. They start to tickle him, and to prevent his cover being blown, Jerry pulls the train’s emergency brake. All of the girls scatter as the train stops, and they manage to get away with the party as Sweet Sue and Bienstock wake up only then.

The train gets to Florida, and the girls make their way into a hotel. As they check in, Jerry (as Daphne) is spotted by Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), a millionaire, and a man with eclectic tastes in women. And those tastes apparently include Daphne, as he unsubtly (and unwantedly) hits on her. And Jerry’s having none of it. After Osgood pinches him in the elevator, he gets off after slapping him. Unfortunately, that makes Osgood only want Daphne THAT MUCH MORE. This man...this man may just be the legendary alpha simp of which the stories tell.

Meanwhile, Joe manages to get ahold of Beinstock’s luggage and glasses. He steals his clothes (after fending off an overeager bellboy), and uses them to dress as a millionaire. Why? Why, to seduce Sugar, of course!

This is right at the halfway point, so we’ll pick this up in Part Two! See you there!

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missinghan · 4 years ago

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「 what am I // stray kids 」

❖ genre : sci-fi; superpower au; platonic relationship au

❖ word count : 3,9k (bullet points only)

❖ warning : explicit language, most likely ain’t scientifically true at all

❖ summary : superpowers manifest in certain individuals once they hit puberty and naturally, those odd abilities will vanish as soon as adulthood occurs; but how will those teenagers protect themselves from the curiosity of science?

❖ a/n : this isn’t a proper fic since I don’t think I’ll actually write smth decent out of this but I don’t want the idea to rot inside my dungeon either- so yea, bear with me through this character intro post(?)

— bang chan ↠ locating ability-wielders & teleportation

· sometimes when he’s running errands for his parents, chan can feel a distinct ‘zing’ ins his bones if someone else with unusual abilities is nearby and can describe their power perfectly to the t; he ignores it at first but learns to make do with it eventually; can teleport another person with him and also needs to calculate carefully before teleporting because he once ends up in the middle of a freeway instead of school resulting from lack of sleep.

· looks intimidating but is the first to talk to a new kid in class and show them around as he’s president of the school’s student council; smiles and laughs a lot once you get to know him, and is also very caring, reliable.

· he wishes to apply for a music production company after his college graduation but his family turned the idea down almost immediately and sent him to a boarding school in Europe.

· chan starts taking notice in strange things at his new school after the first few weeks; for example: how they unreasonably force students to have a daily health checkup, how their food taste like medicine most of the times, teachers don’t really seem to care about what they’re teaching and some of his classmates mysteriously ‘move away’ whenever security shows up at their dorm in the middle of the night.

· after finding out where they actually are via photos of students being locked up inside cells, arms and legs chained up like domestic animals, injected with odd substances on a daily basis which were taken by an anonymous individual, chan secretly packs his stuff and decides to ditch this so-called boarding school for good.

· he works hard to hide his identity ensuing flying back to his hometown for a solid three weeks and the fact that there are more people cursed with supernatural abilities begins dawning onto him; cutting off contact with his family completely, moving from one crusty apartment to another every month, chan tackles this crazy idea of assembling a group consisted of extraordinary people to give him a hand with creating a safe environment for the ‘gifted’ youths.

— lee minho ↠ collapse

· law major, quite the loner, raised by a single mother; didn’t have much since little but his mother’s love and affection make up for everything.

· looks intimidating, is actually intimidating; the only person he talks to in college is his dance coach, doesn’t like school nor has many friends; his slightest glare is as cold as a wife trying to win custody of her children in court.

· minho can make his surroundings crumble and fall apart with his mind, which shouldn’t be confused with telekinesis since he can’t physically move objects to his will; this deadly power is triggered whenever he’s experiencing extremely negative emotions like fear or anguish and he’s not (still isn’t) very good at getting a hold of it.

· a group of suspicious men shows up at his house one day as he returns home from dance practice; they claim to be an agency looking for up and coming talents but by the way that his mother is staring at the ground nervously with her legs trembling, his institution tells him that something’s off.

· he firmly declines their offer with a stiff “I’m uncertain that I’m the talent you gentlemen are looking for, but you should know that when the cops are here to fill out their reports, I’m gonna be very helpful, as helpful as possible.”

· “what other random merry of fucking misdemeanors are going to pop up once they go through your records? domestic violence? illegal substances and weapons possession? human trafficking?”

· with a gun to her head, his mom scrambles to her knees and begs him to go with them, admitting that she’s already signed the contract; if he follows their orders and agrees to become an experimental subject, she won’t have to worry about any financial problems for the rest of her life.

· in the heat of the moment, they ultimately force him to activate his power for the very first time; as a result, his house collapses, the death of his only family and the group of men following suit.

· “I’m too late.”

· chan manages to find minho under the aftermath, severely injured and is hanging by a string of life so fragile that can only be saved after undergoing a twelve-hour operation at the hospital.

— seo changbin ↠ sound waves manipulation

· a good student, reputable within his social sphere at school, and comes from a pretty well-off family.

· changbin is able to bend and control sound waves to his advantage; whether it’s simply for his musical instruments or moving objects around, he can also use something as minor as his own heartbeat when he’s emotionally unstable; using the ability continuously for too long can give him severe migraines and potentially damage his brain to a degree if he’s not mindful of it.

· he stays up late at night to write and produce his own songs, keeping it a secret from his parents; posts his own songs on a SoundCloud account, or performs even live at a random underground club under the alias SpearB if he has the chance to.

· an organization full of outlaw scientists comes across a video of his performance on the web, analyzing how he can enhance the beat, his vocal cords without the help of any form of technology, and just like that, he easily tops the list of their targets.

· having no choice but to do what they want when those men hold his parents hostage inside his family’s mansion, changbin gets sent to the same boarding school as chan but they’re being observed in different buildings for his power is on the more useful and dangerous side; hence, his classes consist of a smaller amount of students and they are put through checkups more constantly.

· he doesn’t really pay attention to the skepticisms that reek off all over the place as he’s too busy being homesick and studying because he fully believes that the harder he works, the more obediently he acts, the sooner they’ll let him go; all hell breaks loose when those photos are scattered everywhere, from the hallways to the bathrooms; changbin takes advantage in the riot to get himself out of there as quickly as he can possibly run to the airport.

· changbin swears to never trust anyone again until chan and minho find him sleeping inside an abandoned grocery store with a pistol inside his sleeping bag, two daggers concealed in his sleeves at all times.

· “are we seriously going to contain some headass who was this close to blowing my brain out of my head?”

· “huh, funny, last time I checked, you almost smothered me to death under a gigantic block of cement when I was trying to save your life.”

· “who are you guys and how the hell did you get in here? I don’t recall not locking the door.”

— hwang hyunjin ↠ permeation & memory manipulation

· a true theater kid, meaning he knows almost everyone but every single student at school knows him; naturally, becomes the Prince after playing one too many male lead roles because of his godly features; rather well-mannered and diligent though he doesn’t look like it.

· mistaken to be a player by every new batch of freshmen that only ever gets to watch him practicing his lines from afar, swooning tremendously whenever he ties up his hair; always carries a camera around, doesn’t like to have too many friends but if you get close enough, he’s probably the most fun to be around, won’t ever judge your questionable life choices.

· hyunjin’s ability allows him to walk right through walls as well as any other solid matters but it will drain his stamina painstakingly, causing him to run short on breaths after using his power to change his costumes faster between scenes; the thicker the wall is, the more strength it takes for him to pass through completely.

· he can also erase a certain chunk of memory from someone’s mind but he needs to physically touch them; has only used this ability one time to wipe his existence out of a childhood best friend’s mind before moving away from his hometown.

· his interest in photography sparks the moment his uncle comes back from a business trip and gives him a toy camera, it’s nowhere near the real ones but the ten-year-old hwang hyunjin sure takes it very, very seriously; after a decade or so, he has replaced it with cameras that actually work and developed quite the talent for taking photos of sceneries and people (jisung is his number one victim but he can’t care less as long as he looks decent and that hyunjin won’t save any crack ones to blackmail him).

· suddenly gets a sketchy summer scholarship to a boarding school in London (the same so-called school that Chan and Changbin went to), his mom encourages him to go after looking it up on the internet without knowing the chances of her own son being exploited for twisted science is shockingly high.

· and the culprit who takes those photos during a wandering around school after curfew is none other than hyunjin himself; he knows damn well posting those photos means getting himself into trouble but heck, his conscience forbids him to leave this hell-on-earth place without alerting these innocent people.

· so the night before those photos are spread everywhere, in every corner, every edge of the building, hyunjin smashes his camera completely with a baseball bat and burns the broken bits in the school backyard; he tries getting through those sleep-deprived men in their fifties who aren’t likely paid enough with his ability and flees.

· surprisingly, he comes rushing into his best friend’s house right after his horrendous flights only to find him being surrounded by three mysterious men.

— han jisung ↠ plunder

· the jokester of the class, takes great joy in stressing the living daylights out of his professors with irrational questions that aren’t necessarily relevant to the lesson, procrastinates, and sleeps through lessons like there’s no tomorrow but still keeps that shiny ‘A’ on his report card nonetheless.

· being friends with hyunjin results in occasional admirers here and there for him but he does kinda have his own fandom base after being pulled upstage out of the blue in the middle of last year’s spring music festival, musing him an opportunity to show off his rapping skills; because of that event, he takes writing music more seriously with the stage name J.One.

· if jisung is being honest, he hardly uses his power since it’s basically taking over anyone’s body and mind for a maximum of five seconds meanwhile his own body is immobile; and if any physical effects occur (for example, a basketball hits him on the head spontaneously), he’s obligated to endure that pain for that person until they become conscious of their own body again.

· he’s not a creep, he swears.

· and who knows? what if his body gets kidnapped within those five seconds?

· hyunjin and jisung know about each other’s ability but don’t really discuss nor talk about them because they don’t find walking through walls or temporarily possessing someone’s body cool.

· well, that’s that until chan, minho and changbin show up at his house the same day when hyunjin returns from his summer exchange program with a cut lip and bruised knuckles.

· “han jisung, you’re going to have to come with us unless you want to live inside a cage for the rest of your life.”

· “I’m sorry, are you threatening me?”

· “we’re trying to protect you, smartass, you’re far too dangerous to be roaming the streets so freely.”

· “....me? I’m dangerous?”

· jisung not knowing the slightest bit about his own ability downright baffles chan—he’s only scratched the surface of it at this point; his true potential is if he’s taking over another ability-wielder’s body, he will then take their power for himself; and jisung can’t remember the last time he properly uses it either.

— lee felix ↠ imperfect invisibility

· initially lives in Australia but after finding out about his ability, he moves to Seoul with his parents to live a quieter, more covered-up life without being surrounded by too many relatives.

· an absolute sweetheart, smart, kind, honest, a little slow to read in between the lines at times; can concentrate relatively well on an empty stomach, but gets drowsy quickly after eating, especially big meals.

· lix is also homeschooled up until high school in order to avoid any unwanted situation; later on, applies for a course that can be taken online for the most parts at an average-ish university to not draw so much attention.

· since he stays at home most of the time, he spends lots of time playing different video games, experiences random cooking recipes without burning the house down, and teaches himself how to dance through online tutorials, getting awfully good at it fast partially thanks to his natural flexibility.

· he can disappear from a single person’s field of vision for as long as he wants to but it’s still limited and considered flawed since felix can only disappear from the sight one person of his choice at a time; although it can come in quite handy whenever he gets shoved into a dark alleyway by random people varying from cheap pickpockets with a box-cutting knife to muscular men dressed in black.

· learns boxing during middle school so he can still kick asses to preserve his own life.

· felix once punches jisung in the gut and slaps hyunjin in the face with a cabbage after seeing them follow each and every one of his movements the moment he steps out of the supermarket—he’s got used to listening to people’s footsteps over time.

· “okay, first of all, ow, and second of all, why did I get the punch and he got the cabbage?!”

· “oh, don’t be such a baby.”

· “you two don’t look like those balding dudes in money-dripping black suits...what are you on? crack? what do you want from me? money? food?”

· “of course we’re not balding men in their forties! I take personal offense to that! and please, who do you take me as? a total creep who only ever knows how to follow people with his stupid sidekick tagging along for background noises?”

· “HEY! I NEVER AGREED TO BE YOUR SIDEKICK!”

· “well, it’s time you fucking did then, han.”

· “you know, I suppose this is the part where you two put me to sleep with some kind of drug and bring me back to your excuse of a headquarter.”

· “oh, did you bring the anesthetic pills?”

· “I thought Changbin gave it to you, no?”

— kim seungmin ↠ time-leap

· born in a middle-class family, very studious but also enjoys playing baseball during retreats, takes time to open up to people so he has more acquaintances than close friends but he doesn’t mind, that way he has more time for himself.

· definitely and never will be the kid who lets his classmates take advantage of his wit, he does do a good chunk of every group project but makes sure everyone has at least one decent thing to do (low-key loves bossing people around); can be pretty distant at first, but he just weirds people out after getting closer and doesn’t hold grudges.

· seungmin is capable of bringing himself back to a specific past event to alter the future outcome though it won’t work most of the time unless he really, really has to for safety purposes or the situation gets out of hands; time-leaping won’t activate if he wants to retake a test but works like a charm when he tries to save a kid on the street from a car accident.

· actually does deep, proper research into other ability-wielders and often stays in school during nighttime to read the news, articles or anything that he can find on the web to learn about how that one cryptic boarding school in Europe that’s accused of abusing their students got shut down all of a sudden, the students never return and family members never bother to look for them.

· hence, he adapts to hiding his ability and himself fairly well—never takes the late-night buses, doesn’t try to become close and bond with other people, asks his parents to change the door lock every month, burns bills each time he purchases something but he tries not to go out as much as possible.

· seungmin has seen hyunjin use his power once by accident but decided to say nothing about it; eventually finds chan’s headquarter (which is just his crusty apartment) by following jisung and hyunjin after their practice hour, baffles them all a little but joins in no time.

· after asking hyunjin to erase his parents’ memory about himself, seungmin gives everyone a hand for their plan of building a school and campus, completely safe and under the radar for other ability welders until their adolescence is over; he time-leaps back to back in order to collect as much information about lottery tickets as he can.

· another flaw occurs when he travels to the past for the third time: his eyesight gets weaker and weaker every time he time-leaps so he starts wearing glasses as a temporary resolution but chan stops him when he tries to do it for the fifth time, saying that they would rather work hard for a little longer than have seungmin lose his vision forever.

· after over a year or so, they successfully repurchase an education organization and officially establish an exclusive academy for ability-wielders, reaching out to those individuals before scientists can get a hold of them.

— yang jeongin ↠ superhuman speed

· the quiet kid who most likely won’t talk unless the teacher asks him to answer a question or someone tells him to let them copy his homework; has his earbuds in most of the time to pretend he can’t hear what people are saying so he won’t have to interact with them.

· joins after you when chan finds him hitting a wall head-on at an abnormal speed while trying to save a kitten in the middle of the streets.

· jeongin has extremely enhanced agility and reflexes but he still lacks accuracy for he is naturally a clumsy person; therefore, changbin tells him to wear a protective layer under his uniform so even in the worst-case scenario, he can jump off a building and make it out with minor scratches.

· reluctantly buys lunch for every member of the student council (aka 00 liners + you) on a daily basis although he can’t really see which kind of sandwiches he’s grabbing at and they end up being mushy most of the time.

· and for those people who say his resting face is scary, he’s mainly just frustrated because of his friends.

· also usually is the one who returns with the most injuries because of his own ability—he always flees like his life depends on it to save jisung’s ass from being hit by a truck and hyunjin’s camera from being crushed (the sole purpose of the student council will be explained more thoroughly later).

· has single-handedly saved everyone inside a bookstore when a sudden fire breaks out.

· minho scolds him and felix a lot for spending too much time at the arcade after school instead of doing their required tasks.

· acts all tough and mature since he’s the youngest of the squad, loves to make fun of jisung for his height but still is and probably will always be a complete child who hates eating vegetables with a passion; gets yelled at a lot whenever there’s a BBQ party since he only ever eats meat.

· “corn? why are we raiding the Asian market for corn at one AM?”

· “an outdoor, wholesome BBQ isn’t complete without corn, duh.”

· “do you want to get us caught?!”

· “oh please, they’re going to show up either way.”

· “YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE!”

— y/n (reader) ↠ telepathic manipulation

· president of the student council, stubborn, slightly less bossy than seungmin, appears to be apathetic and cranky mainly because you can’t sleep that well; with that being said, you don’t feel too tired during ungodly hours when people are tossing around in the comfort of their bed but snap at irritating people a lot in the morning if they’re making too much noise.

· your ability allows you to control people to your will, from something as meaningless as slamming their head through a wall to life-threatening actions like forcing them to point a knife at their own throat; it’s somewhat similar to jisung’s power though you don’t have to physically feel what your target is going through and you don’t need to worry about taking over their body.

· the only downside to it is that you easily fall asleep the moment you set your target free.

· minho is the one who gets you out of the laboratory where your parents were working on a huge, secret project about individuals with supernatural abilities for an unknown organization; you’re unfortunate enough to become their first-ever experimental subject which only nourishes resentment slowly, gnawing at your sanity while you’re dreading each day behind those cold metal bars.

· perhaps joining the student council is what makes your life less depressing, perhaps; you’re far too busy facepalming at the beautiful monstrosity of their friendship and feeding them ensuing returning to the dorm after school since those boys only know how to eat, cooking is too much for them to comprehend (albeit felix).

· when your family was still… normal, your parents sent you to martial art classes every weekend so like felix, you don’t actually need your power to save yourself from some random mobsters on the streets.

· you’re also the only person who eats vegetables properly and even tries to incorporate more fiber into their diets but as always, they never listen, especially hyunjin when it comes to green onions.

· don’t have the best reputation in the academy because the idea of letting the new girl with a seemingly useless ability become president of the student council isn’t very appealing to many people, and it doesn’t help when every member of the council is exclusively allowed to drop out in the middle of a class to ‘collect’ any ability-wielders that chan manages to locate that day since he’s always worn out with changbin and minho from boring paperwork as well as other businessy stuff.

· even when your ability is considered almost perfect, you’ve only used it once when you thought minho was going to sell you off to another place and almost made him put a bullet through his own brain; you’ve refrained yourself from using it since that day.

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kny111 · 5 years ago

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Apocalyptic novelist Max Brooks is something of an expert on planning for pandemics and other disasters. The author, whose books include World War Z, Germ Warfare and the forthcoming Devolution, has toured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has reviewed government response plans related to various emergency situations — all in the course of research.

"We have a network in place that we as taxpayers have been funding to get us ready for something just like this," Brooks says of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, he adds, "we have been disastrously slow and disorganized from Day 1."

Brooks says the notion that the U.S. government was blindsided by the pandemic is "an onion of layered lies."

"What could have happened when this virus exploded — even when Wuhan was locked down — is we could have put the word out," he says. "The government could have put the word out to ramp up emergency supplies to get them ready and then have an information strategy in place."

Instead, Brooks says, President Trump was slow to acknowledge the virus as a real threat. And thus far, the president has resisted using the Defense Production Act to force private companies to manufacture masks, gloves and other essential supplies in the fight against the coronavirus. Many government task forces that plan for disasters have yet to be activated in this crisis.

White House Not Using Defense Powers To Boost Medical Supplies

"One of the biggest problems we're facing now is panic. You see it in the stock market. You see it in panic buying," he says. "All of this panic could have been prevented. ... If the president had been working since January to get the organs of government ready for this, we as citizens could have been calmed down knowing that the people that we trust to protect us are doing that."

Interview highlights

On the task forces that plan for situations like this

Max Brooks has researched disaster preparedness for his novels and has lectured on the subject at the U.S. Naval War College. He has also been a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His new book, Devolution, will be published May 2020. Michelle Kholos/Penguin Random House

I can tell you that the federal government has multiple layers of disaster preparedness who are always training, always planning, always preparing, regardless of how much their budget gets cut. I have toured the CDC, and I've seen all their plans. I have witnessed what was called a "vibrant response." This is the homeland nuclear attack scenario, which was a coordination of FEMA, the Army, the National Guard, state and local officials, all working together in a massive war game to prepare us for a nuke. I have also witnessed what was called a "hurricane rehearsal of concept drill," where not only did the same players come in, but also bringing in our allies from Canada and Mexico. So I have seen that we have countless dedicated professionals who think about this constantly and they're ready to go. And they have not been activated.

On why these task forces haven't been activated yet

There is no excuse not to mobilize the full forces of the federal government right now and to centralize the response.

This all has to come from the federal government. This is why we have big government. Politically, you can argue about the role of big government in everyday society, but this is not every day. This is an emergency. The entire reason that we have these networks is when the bells start ringing — and they have not been activated. I don't know. I'm not sitting in the White House. I don't know whether the president is being lied to, whether he is holding onto a political ideology. I honestly don't know. But there is no excuse not to mobilize the full forces of the federal government right now and to centralize the response.

On how the Defense Production Act works when mobilized properly

What is supposed to happen is the federal government has to activate the Defense Production Act immediately. Now, what Defense Production Act does is it allows the federal government to step in and aggressively force the private sector to produce what we need. And what is so critical in this is timing. Because you can't simply build factories from scratch; what you can do is identify a supply chain in order to make it work.

Novelist Max Brooks On Doomsday, Dyslexia And Growing Up With Hollywood Parents

For example, if New York needs rubber gloves, New York cannot simply build rubber glove factories overnight. However, there might be a rubber glove factory in Ohio that could produce it, but they might not have the latex. So therefore, the Defense Production Act allows the federal government to go to the condom factory in Missouri and say, "Listen, you have barrels of latex we need. We are requisitioning those. We are giving them to the rubber glove factory in Ohio. And then we are transporting the finished rubber gloves to New York." That's how it is supposed to work.

On how Trump warns about nationalizing private industry — but that's not how it works

President Trump is spinning some sort of tale about, I don't know, the federal government — black helicopters coming in and taking over factories. That's not how it works at all. What happens is the federal government has the network to identify where the production chain is and how to help the private sector work through this, because the private sector doesn't know.

And as an example, I have a World War II rifle made by the Smith Corona typewriter company. Smith Corona worked with the federal government to then partner up with the Winchester company, to then share resources and to share tools and talent to then produce the rifles that we needed. That's how it works. It's not some sort of KGB coming in and taking over everything. It is guidance and streamlining. And only the federal government has the experience to know how to do that.

On what the U.S. military would do in a pandemic

I can tell you that the military has a vast transportation network here in the United States that is ready to go. We don't have to put truck drivers or private individuals at risk, because the military is already trained to do this. And I've watched them do this. The military spent years working out the legal framework of how to transport goods from one place to another around this country, because it's not like Afghanistan, where the army builds a road and then they own the road. The army has had to go through a tremendous amount of training and adaptation to work within state and local governments to make sure everything is done legally and safe without infringing on our rights. And they have done this. The Army's logistics corps can deliver anything that we need anywhere in this country within a matter of hours or days.

When it comes to sheer massive might, getting stuff done, getting stuff produced and getting stuff moved from Point A to Point B, there is no greater organ in the world than the United States military. We did it in World War II. We've done it all over the world. We can do this now. This is the thing the military is good at, and we need to let them do that.

On how the pandemic is revealing flaws in our social structure

I think there are massive gaps in our systems that are being exposed right now, which, by the way, this is not news to the experts. Anybody who works in these fields could have told you years ago that we were vulnerable to this. It's going to rip through our prisons. It's going to rip through our homeless population. God willing, it doesn't rip through our nursing homes. But what no one is talking about, what terrifies me, what keeps me up at night are the secondary casualties that will occur because of hospital overflow. What I mean is we're only talking about now how many people are going to die if the coronavirus really rips through our country. What is not being talked about enough or what needs to be talked about are the people who are still going to die of cancer, of accidents, of other diseases, because they simply can't get into the hospitals because the hospitals are choked with coronavirus patients.

On how we share some of the blame for this mismanagement as voters in a democracy

In China, every single death will be laid directly at the feet of the Chinese Communist Party. They have all the power; therefore, they take all the responsibility. When we look back at this, we — all of us individual citizens — are going to have to take a measure of personal responsibility, because we are the government. If we don't like our leaders, we shouldn't have put them there. And as much as we would love to blame this historically incompetent captain of our ship of state, we have allowed the ship to rust underneath us. It's not just President Trump's fault that institutions like the CDC have been defunded for years. It's not just President Trump's fault that we have allowed anti-vaxxers to spread misinformation throughout this country. It's not just President Trump's fault that we are continuing to build a society in support of a tech world that is based on comfort and not on resilience. We as voters and we as taxpayers must accept our share of the blame.

There is a massive amount of blame that will be laid at the feet of Donald Trump and his enablers. And when this is all over, when the dead are buried and the sick are healed, there will be a reckoning. But there were systemic issues way before Donald Trump. When Donald Trump was a carnival barker on a reality show, we as a people, as a nation, were dismantling the systems that were put in place to keep us safe. And we need to look at that damage, because the one thing we don't want to do is assume that when Donald Trump goes away, that the problems will go with him.

On the difference between panic and preparation

Panic never helps. Panic implies that you lose your mind, and that in a war — even a war against a microscopic enemy — gives aid and comfort to the enemy. When you panic, you don't think rationally, and in times of crisis, rational thought is the greatest weapon you could possibly have. So preparing, No. 1, means clearing your mind and thinking about what you have to do. It means making a list of what you need to buy, prioritizing what needs to come first, thinking about how you're going to take care of the people around you. That is preparing. Panicking is freaking out and getting in a fistfight in the grocery store over bottled water when you don't even need the water, when the tap is already running. That's panic.

I think right now we have to be so careful about who we listen to, because panic can spread much faster than a virus. And I think in addition to social distancing, we have to practice good fact hygiene. What I mean is we have to be careful what we listen to, what we take in — just as if it were a virus. And we have to be careful also what we put back out, as if we were spreading the virus. So we cannot pass along rumors. We cannot pass along misinformation. We must be critically careful not to scare people into doing irrational and dangerous things. So we need to listen to experts, the CDC, Dr. Fauci [director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases], the World Health Organization, our local public health officials. These are the front-line soldiers that are doing everything to keep us safe and are literally putting their lives on the line. These are the people we need to listen to. What we cannot listen to is random facts on the Internet supposedly, things that people are passing along to us, conspiracy theories. And I'm very sorry to say this, but I think that everything our president says at this point must be fact-checked.

#covid-19 #sars cov 2 #information #info #education #authors #health #cdc #virology #viruses #virus #biology #max brooks #articles #stuff im reading

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vs-redemption · 5 years ago

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Crime is Common. Logic is Rare. (Ch 10)

Chapter Ten: A Real Date (HawksxGN!Reader)

Plot summary: You thought your hands were full as a regular quirk geneticist, but then you meet Hawks and things get even more exciting!

Warnings:

⚠️This story contains spoilers from the manga.

⚠️Some events and plot points have been altered from the original manga

Next Chapter : Chapter Guide

After a thirty minute train ride and a short walk, you arrive at the burger shop that Hawks had chosen for your lunch date. Of course, the winged hero was already there. He was standing outside with a small crowd around him. They were asking for photos, autographs, and who knew what else. You waited until he was able to free himself before approaching him. No need to spark any rumors or draw unnecessary attention to yourself.

“Are you sure it’s all right for me to take you away from your hero duties again?” you ask him as you both head inside. Every pair of eyes in the place tracked your movements until the two of you were settled in at one of the empty tables. You personally preferred a booth, but you’d learned that the design wasn’t very accommodating of Hawk’s wings.

“Of course it’s all right! Heroes have to eat too!” Hawks grins while taking off his gloves and visor.

“Yeah,” you frown while grabbing a menu and looking over the options. “But do they all eat as much junk food as you do?”

“Probably not,” he says sheepishly and you shake your head. “So, what brings you out here on a weekday?” he asks conversationally. “I was surprised to get your call.”

“A work thing,” you say vaguely. Hawks stares at you, waiting for more details. When you don’t continue, he lets out an awkward laugh.

“A work thing, huh?” he repeats.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” you ask him. You had thought at first that perhaps Hawks was the person who’d told Dr. Garaki about you. That would make much more sense than one of the doctor’s colleagues contacting you out of hundreds of other authors that published research about quirk genetics.

“Uh,” Hawks tilts his head in confusion, “am I supposed to?” You watch his face carefully, looking for any sign that he was withholding information.

“So, you’re not the one who gave my name to Dr. Kyudai Garaki?” you ask cautiously. Hawks furrows his eyebrows before letting out a sad sigh, even going as far as to droop his head and wings pathetically.

“I thought this was a date,” he groans dramatically, “but now it feels like I’m under investigation.”

“All right. Fine.” You put your hands up in surrender. Even though you knew he was exaggerating, it still made you feel guilty for being so suspicious of him. You couldn’t help it though. You were interested in more than just his number two hero persona. All the charming confidence and handsome smiles were enough for the fans, sure, but who was this guy really?

“So,” you lean back in your chair, trying to seem more casual even though you were in your work clothes. “If this is a date, we should get to know each other better. Why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself?” Hawks perked up a bit, but seemed confused by your question.

“You already know about me,” He says with a laugh. “I’m the number two hero. I have an agency in Kyushu. I like chicken.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your childhood or something?” you suggest. That really threw him for a loop.

“My childhood?”

“Yes,” you encourage him. “Despite your flawless appearance I’m guessing you were a child at some point and not created in a secret lab somewhere. Where did you grow up? Who was your best friend? Do you have any family?”

Hawks humbly waves off your compliment. “Flawless?” He shakes his head, “I don’t know about that. To answer your questions though, I grew up around here but I was born in Kyushu. I don’t know if I’ve ever really had a best friend.” He shrugs before scratching at his fluffy feathery hair. “As for family, I have parents but I haven’t seen or talked to them since I was really young.”

“I’m sorry,” you hoped the conversation wasn’t about to get awkward. You didn’t expect him to talk about his family if it was a sore subject, but it did sit strangely with you that he never had a best friend. “If you grew up around here though, you must’ve graduated from UA, right?”

“Nope,” Hawks shrugs. “I actually got my education and hero training through a private institution. Someone saw the potential of my quirk very early on and sponsored me to enter the program.”

“I guess the whole ‘fast’ thing isn’t new then,” you smile. “You’ve always been a few steps ahead of everyone else.” The waiter finally comes up to help you as Hawks lets out a laugh. You wait until you’d both placed your orders before moving on to your next question.

“So, when do I get to call you by your name?” you ask.

“You can call me ‘Hawks’ whenever you want,” he grins while leaning his cheek into his hand.

“That’s your hero name,” you scrunch up your face. “I want to know your real name.”

“Real name?” he made it seem like that was a foreign concept. “Hawks is my real name.”

“Seriously?” you were taken aback. It wasn’t unheard of for heroes to use their real names, but it was almost never the case for heroes in the top ten. In this day and age, it was impossible to keep your identity a secret, but that wasn’t really what hero names were used for anyway. It was more like a brand name that reflected each individual hero’s style and personality. Hawks shrugs with an apologetic look on his face.

“How am I supposed to feel special if I address you the same way that everyone else does?” you shake your head. “Now I’m going to have to think of a nickname or something.”

“Like ‘babe’ or ‘honey’?” Hawks asks while tilting up his chin and smirking.

“What?” You blurt out as the waiter brings your food. “No!”

“Why not?” the bird teases. “We’re dating, aren’t we?” You take a deep breath, trying to calm down before he realized he’d been able to fluster you. The last thing you wanted was for him to see you blushing or something over his flirting.

“Just because we’re on a date doesn’t mean we’re dating,” you keep your voice steady.

“Well how many more dates do we need to go on then?” he asks with a charming smile. He definitely knew he’d gotten under your skin.

“You know, this is an example of something you shouldn’t do fast,” you tell him. “And this is barely a date anyway. We’re both in our work clothes and you have to get back to your patrols soon.”

“I’m going to take that to mean you want to spend more time with me,” he winks across the table before picking up his burger and taking a bite. He smiles at you with his cheeks puffed up with food and you wonder for the millionth time what you were getting yourself into with this guy. He was smart, hardworking, witty, and attractive. There was a lot of mystery though. He didn’t really have any family. He had no friends. He had no real name. It was just weird. It was like he didn’t have a personal life at all. You decide to keep the fact that Dr. Garaki had synthesized Nomu blood right in front of you to yourself for now and just enjoy the rest of your lunch. You needed time to think about that whole situation before deciding to reveal the scientist’s secrets. You insisted on paying for the meal since it was your idea as long as Hawks promised to take you somewhere nicer next time. He walked you to the station so that you could get safely on a train back home.

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #hawks x reader #keigo takami x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #hawks #keigo takami #my writing

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thanksjro · 4 years ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #14- Everything’s Coming Up Overlord

Our issue opens up with a prologue.

Two miles below the surface of the moon, two miners are going at it, as they discuss the merits of their respective tools. As the guy with the pickaxe hits the floor below him, he exposes a bright green light hiding in the ground.

The miners, amazed, make a call to their boss, Momus; the very same Momus who would one day become a Senator and eventually be killed by the Senate for his Decepticon sympathies.

Momus, once made aware of the situation, makes his own call to the Functionist Council, siting that a Code 113- because of COURSE it is- is taking place. The Council responds by shutting down the mine and sending a representative to check things out. The representative claims his name is Three of Twelve, but I know The One Electronic when I friggin’ see him.

The green light, once authenticated, is scheduled for retrieval and “nurturing”. Because Momus is in charge of the mine, and this green light is a super big deal, Three of Twelve grants him the status of Alt-Mode Exempt; he can basically do whatever the hell he wants, free of Functionist meddling. Dang, Whirl should have tried digging one of these things up! Would’ve saved him a lot of heartache.

Guys, c’mon, it’s Momus! You ought to know by now that he’ll fuck you, but he doesn’t fucking need you. You ain’t getting a thing, and you also won’t have any time to unionize, because you’re going to be dead by the end of the day.

That green light turned out to be a spark, the sort of “soul” that a Transformer has at the core of their being. That murderous little ball of light is a robot zygote.

…They really let the guy with the well-documented thing with pregnancy handle the reproductive aspect of the world building, huh?

Anyway, it’s time to see what Milne’s take on Last Stand of the Wreckers looks like.

Wow, that is just the uncoolest line. I mean, wow.

Make note of Overlord’s lips here. We’ll be seeing a lot more of them once the lady robots make an appearance.

Overlord makes quick work of Springer, punching him into the dirt, and we see someone who most certainly was NOT present for the events of Last Stand.

We do that, jumping to the part where Ironfist explodes Overlord with his mind.

He didn’t say that! My immersion in this story about giant space robots is broken!

This obviously leads to Overlord being reduced to a flaming skeleton, and he screams at Chromedome to scoot his boot so he can get at Verity. Chromedome refuses, antagonizes the guy who’s at least three times his size, then initiates a scene change with a literal snap of his fingers.

Lot of good reference material for Chromedome in this issue. Artists take note.

Here is our first taste of mnemosurgery on someone who isn’t dead or dying, as well as our first taste of Chromedome having something resembling self confidence.

Outside of Overlord’s brain foyer, Chromedome stands on a forklift, with both of his horrid, needly hands punched into his patient’s head. Overlord is still very much in the position we saw him in issue #6, hooked up in a full body harness in something called a slow cell.

Overlord, still very sad that he got stood up by Megatron, tells Chromedome to kill him. Chromedome refuses, saying that he wouldn’t even if he could.

Hey, Chromedome. Maybe don’t tell this guy you can’t kill him. Just seems like maybe not the best idea.

Chromedome gets back to work, getting perhaps a bit too comfortable as he pulls himself up a chair from- I dunno, Overlord’s brain aether.

This really is your element, isn’t it, Chromedome? You’re just straight-up power tripping right now. No wonder Rewind has to literally beg you to not do this.

We jump into another one of Overlord’s memories, where’s he’s getting his shit absolutely destroyed by Megatron in a gladiator fight. We get our first taste of information creep as a concept, which is referred to as eidetic decay here.

I wanna know what the purple guy with the blue visor’s face situation is. Don’t think we’ve run into anyone like that before. It’s a little concerning, if I’m being honest.

We move on to the next memory, but it looks like “same shit, different day” is a huge part of who Overlord is as an individual, because it’s just more of him getting whaled on by Megatron.

After this uncomfortably intimate moment, Megatron puts his bucket helmet back on and states that Overlord is finally “ready.”

Ready for what, you might ask?

You remember that obscene sort of fascination of Roberts’ that we keep running into? We’re about to delve into some of that right now. But first- the set up.

We’re in a new memory, in a place called the Foundry, and Overlord’s been stripped down to his robotic skivvies and placed in a large glass tank. Megatron walks up, berating Rossom (of Rossom’s Trinity fame) and saying “to hell with safety protocols, I’m Megatron and I say we make Overlord into a Phase Sixer, meh meh meh.” Shockwave is there.

Rossom’s concerned about this project, because A) they’re going to be using the last of their ununtrium to do this, and B) if it works, Overlord’s going to be the strongest motherfucker ever, and he’ll probably try to kill Megatron.

Ununtrium is something that actually exists in the real world, though it in no way works like it does in MTMTE. Ununtrium is actually an outdated name for the element Nihonium, a synthetic chemical element, whose most stable form has a half-life of 10 seconds. It has no known properties or qualities, because it simply doesn’t last long enough to be studied that in-depth. So why use this element in the story? The answer lies in the placeholder name itself. Ununtrium was named so because it’s the 113th element in the periodic table.

In other words, Ununtrium was used because Roberts is a massive nerd.

Because Overlord’s a Point One Percenter, and in fact that murderous little spark we saw at the beginning of the issue, he ought to be perfectly fine. Shockwave has planted a killswitch in the guy’s brain in case he tries something funny on Megatron.

The narrative is interrupted for a moment as Chromedome chastises Overlord for being kind of sleepy in his memories. Then Chromedome lets something slip that he probably really shouldn’t have.

With the contingencies in place, it’s time to get the Phase Sixer show on the road.

Well, there it is.

Oh, and a bit more.

Overlord thanks Rossom for all his hard work by crushing his skull, and thus the story of how he became a Phase Sixer draws to a close.

Megatron, you had literally zero reason to say that. This is how you can tell Roberts wrote this scene to fuck with people.

Back in the white void, Chromedome’s patting himself on the back over a job well done. In the background, Overlord’s smiling.

It’s never a good thing when Overlord smiles.

If Chromedome had just kept things professional and didn’t keep bringing up their shared history, Overlord wouldn’t be able to have another flashback- this one’s got Starscream and Thundercracker in it! No word on where Skywarp’s gotten to. Skywarp doesn’t get a ton of attention in IDW Transformers.

The three of them are bombing what appears to be a wasteland, on word from Decepticon intel that there’s something worth looking for in the area. Turns out, intel was right.

Chromedome, suddenly antsy, pulls them out of the memory, demanding to know why this is happening. Overlord just smiles.

Oh, hey Brainstorm. What brings you to the New Institute?

Chromedome, your war crimes are showing! Turns out Mnemosurgery and Shadowplay are the same fucking thing.

As Chromedome assists in what appears to be an empurata in progress, he’s shot in the gut, as present-Chromedome screams and reaches for himself.

Overlord and company release Soundwave, who is in no way grateful for the assist. They leave quickly, Overlord taking Trepan as a souvenir, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. He kidnaps people.

As Chromedome in the past lays bleeding out on the floor, Chromedome in the present decides it’s time to share his feelings.

Prowl did Chromedome a solid after Zeta came into Primehood, and got him an internship at the New Institute. The one time Prowl was nice to his partner, and it’s to hook him up with a job that can and will kill him the more frequently he does it.

Chromedome was so good at poking people in the brain, he got a nickname out of it. That nickname? Chromedome.

Yeah, his real name is Tumbler.

Chromedome remembers himself, and the fact that they shouldn’t be seeing any of this, because Overlord is the patient and he wasn’t there for this info dump.

Overlord’s still smiling.

Overlord may be a lot of things, but he’s no dummy. He took Trepan with him to learn mnemosurgery, in an attempt to learn the secrets of the Achilles Virus Shockwave planted in his brain. He didn’t complete his training, because Megatron caught wind, but major smart boy points to you, Overlord.

Now he’s going to use his own mnemosurgery skills to bust on out of here.

Chromedome, Overlord has been killing fools since literally before he was born, and you basically handed him a rope to hang you with.

SMASH CUT TO:

There he is, Cybertron’s #1 Bastard Bachelor! Of course he’s involved with this!

All that stuff Rung told Fort Max in issue #6, about Overlord’s spark being in a whiteout vacuum? A giant ruddy lie fed to the public, to give High Command a chance to figure out what they were going to do with him.

Prowl, they are MARRIED, you giant space ass.

Prowl has a theory that Phase Sixers aren’t born, but made. We as the readers, of course, already know this, but we’ve got to know where we’ve been before we can figure out where we’re going. He’s invited Chromedome to his office to ask him to mnemosurgery Overlord up and get the secret Krabby Patty formula Phase Sixer recipe.

Chromedome, doesn’t want to do that, though. He wants to live in a peaceful world, where Rewind doesn’t have to worry about his impending, work-related death.

How exactly mnemosurgery kills practitioners is never exactly explained. I, however, have a theory.

We’ve already established that if you inject enough times, you start getting crossover with your patients’ memories in your own brain. We’ve seen it happen with Chromedome in the Annual, and it was vivid enough that he wasn’t sure if the memory of committing suicide by way of Gideon’s Glue was his own or not.

Because Transformers are very similar in bodily functions to humans- because this isn’t hard sci-fi- it stands to reason that more than just memories reside in the brain module. The brain controls movement, organ regulation, chemical balances, all that jazz.

Where does the line for memory get drawn? Who’s to say that bodily functions wouldn’t start bleeding through the connection? If you can have memories bleed through and have to double-check with someone on whether or not they’re yours, who’s to say that it can’t happen with other parts of the brain? Like programming for your robotic organs? If a patient clearly remembers how hard their fuel pump was going during a stressful situation, does that stress response translate for the surgeon’s body type, or does it stay at what it had been for the original brain?

If Chromedome’s fuel pump starts going at a rate designed for a guy the size of Fort Max, it’s probably going to explode.

Getting back to the story at hand, Chromedome says “thanks, but no thanks” and is walking out of the room, when Prowl does something kind of stupid:

He starts threatening to blackmail the guy who has pointy mind-wiper fingers and doesn’t really like him all that much.

This is one of the larger seeds involved with a dropped story plot, in which it would have been revealed that Chromedome had been part of the mission that led to Dominus Ambus’ disappearance. It was seeded very early on in MTMTE, but never came to fruition, mainly due to the fact that Roberts didn’t want to give Chromedome and Rewind’s relationship that much of a trench to jump over. I mean, how would you even handle that, finding out that your current husband was complacent in the disappearance of your first husband? It’d be messy. Way too messy to be wrapped up cleanly. There’s other aspects of that plot thread that I’ll cover later on, but trust me when I say it would have needed its own spin-off series to be properly handled and resolved. A spin-off series that it wouldn’t have gotten.

As it currently stands, the interpretation of what exactly Chromedome did that would warrant him getting cagey here is wide open. Was he involved with the Ostaros situation in Sins of the Wreckers? Did he have a past with a Decepticon that Rewind wouldn’t have approved of? Was he a Decepticon at some point? Does he not like dogs? It’s up to YOU, dear reader!

Prowl’s threat goes about as well as you’d expect.

I mean, really, what did you THINK was going to happen?

Chromedome wipes the memory of making the threat, as well as the information that made the threat possible, then leaves, and Prowl is none the wiser.

Overlord’s not done yet, though. He moves on to the next memory, which involves a giant, naked human. Chromedome enters Brainstorm’s lab, while he’s hard at work on the holomatter avatars. Brainstorm has stolen Perceptor’s sniper sight and is wearing it on his head. Why does he have it? What purpose does it serve him? Who knows!

Drift is accompanying Chromedome on this little visit, and thus the identity of the mystery door-whisperer from issue #12 is revealed.

Watch out for his hands, Drift.

The mystery of the oddly threatening medical drone is also revealed- Brainstorm had them all loaded up with a speech recognition program that would alert Drift whenever Overlord was mentioned.

With introductions to Project: Total Insanity out of the way, it’s time to get technical.

Five seconds for Overlord is thirty minutes for the rest of the Lost Light. In theory, if he somehow broke loose from his bindings and escaped his cell, they’d have plenty of time to scramble the troops and get ready for him.

Let’s see how that theory works when applied to real world testing, shall we?

Overlord gets the code to the cell, thanks to this merry little jaunt inside Chromedome’s brain he’s decided to take, rips free of his bonds, and makes his exit. Chromedome, temporarily paralyzed and mute from the strain of doing such a long deep reading on Overlord, can only watch as he walks out the door, making a promise to find Rewind first when he starts killing everyone on the ship.

Oh man, this next one’s gonna be a doozy.

#transformers #jro #jro punches me in the face #mtmte #issue 14 #maccadam #Hannzreads #overthinking about robots #text post #long post #comic script writing

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