#Maryland home search

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

I am Sage's mother, better known as Nana. I adopted Sage after my son died when she was still a baby. She's been through six foster homes by then, but we loved her and she blossomed into a joyful, lively girl who made music and art.

Puberty began and COVID hit, and she was treated for depression and anxiety, at times very severe. Her teachers shared any concerns with me so her treatment could be adapted.

The transparency ended in August of 2021 when Sage started high school. She started a public high school and she told me that all the girls there were bi, trans, lesbian, emo and she wanted to wear boy's clothes and be emo. Because I saw it as just a phase, it was fine with me.

But at school, she told them something different: she was now a boy named Draco with male pronouns. Sage asked the school not to tell me, and they did not tell me even though I informed them of her mental health history and medication. If I had known, this would be a much different story.

She was terribly bullied. No one told me. But boys followed her, touched her, threatened violence and rape. Something happened in the boy's bathroom but for two days, the school told me nothing. They kept meeting with Sage alone and she became so distraught they called me to pick her up.

That evening, I found a hallpass labeled 'Draco' and Sage told me she was identifying as a boy, and that her counselor said she could use the boy's bathroom. She'd been jacked up against the wall by a group of boys. She was crying, terrified. I said just stay home, we'll figure it out. That was my last conversation with Sage for five months.

The night she ran, she thought, to a young friend she'd met online, she left a note saying she was scared of what would happen if she stayed. The sheriff, FBI, search dogs were called in. I dropped to my knees in prayer. Nine days later the FBI found her in Baltimore. My baby had been lured online, sex trafficked by DC then Maryland. She was locked in a room, drugged, gang raped and brutalized by countless men. It was night. The FBI told us to pick her up in Maryland the next morning.

We packed our cars with blankets and stuffed animals and arrived by 8 am, but we were told we couldn't see her, and were summoned before Judge Robert Kershaw late that afternoon. They didn't even tell Sage that we came for her. We finally entered the courtroom and Sage appears on a huge Zoom screen from a prison cell. She looks tiny and broken, and I cry out 'I love you Sage.' Sage responds 'I love you too, Nana.' But attorney Anisa Khan rebukes us. She is a 'he' and his name is 'Draco' not Sage. We were floored.

Khan accuses us of emotional and physical abuse, that we are misgendering her, even though we just learned she claims to be trans and we're willing to use any name and pronouns to bring her home. My husband was so tearful he kept forgetting the new pronouns, so the judge had the bailiff remove him from the courtroom. I was pleading for my child to be returned and treated for her unspeakable trauma. Judge Kershaw told me, if I use the word 'trauma' again, he would throw me out too.

For over two months, he withheld custody. He housed Sage in the male quarters of a children's home. Sage told me she was the only girl and repeatedly assaulted. She was given street drugs by the other kids and Khan told her she didn't care. She just wanted to win the case and all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Khan tried to prove abuse, but we were eventually cleared by both states of all charges.

Sage later told me Khan had told her to lie that we hit her. Khan even had Sage's school counselors testify against us, though they barely knew Sage and they didn't know us at all. Khan told my precious child I didn't want her anymore. I found out Sage never received any of the letters I sent her.

Sage ran from the Children's Home and disappeared for months. They told me she might already be gone forever, but I couldn't give up and I finally found a tip on her social media that led the marshals to her in Texas. She had been drugged, raped, beaten and exploited. This time I was able to be with her for the traumatic rape exam, and to bring her home.

Back in Virginia, she entered the mental health facility that Judge Kershaw had ordered, as it would affirm her as a male. The therapist began pressuring her to have her healthy breasts removed. Sage was too scared to protest, but she asked me to secretly buy her girl's clothes because she wanted to be a girl, but keep them in the car. It took a kind lawyer, Josh Hetzler to secure her discharge.

After almost a year. Sage was finally home. Safe. Alive. Sage is receiving professional trauma care. The first trafficker has already been convicted. Sage has nightmares, panic attacks, rape-related medical issues, but there's hope. I tell her she's not broken she's just scarred. And part of that hope is that in courageously sharing her story, others will be saved.

Sage said she doesn't know who she was back then. She wasn't a boy, she just wanted to have friends. But her school, the judge, the attorney and the doctor were all blinded by their ideology. The consequences for Sage were unspeakable.

Please don't let ideology harm another child. Let parents do our jobs. We know our children best and we love them a million times more.

Thank you.

==

Jesus Christ. This girl was exploited by everybody, except for her parents, who were villainized for literally nothing. It's opposite world.

And the fact that everybody with authority prioritized stupid shit like pronouns and trying to coax her further down into a fake identity, even against her will, and other ideological bullshit over her actual wellbeing is disgraceful.

The judge and attorney need to be disbarred, the therapist stripped of their license, and everyone who conspired to separate Sage from her parents fired.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Each time you search for something like “how many rocks should I eat” and Google’s AI “snapshot” tells you “at least one small rock per day,” you’re consuming approximately three watt-hours of electricity, according to Alex de Vries, the founder of Digiconomist, a research company exploring the unintended consequences of digital trends. That’s ten times the power consumption of a traditional Google search, and roughly equivalent to the amount of power used when talking for an hour on a home phone. (Remember those?) Collectively, De Vries calculates that adding AI-generated answers to all Google searches could easily consume as much electricity as the country of Ireland.

[...]

This insatiable hunger for power is slowing the transition to green energy. When the owner of two coal-fired power plants in Maryland filed plans to close last year, PJM asked them to keep running till at least 2028 to ensure grid reliability. Meanwhile, AI is also being used to actively increase fossil fuel production. Shell, for example, has aggressively deployed AI to find and produce deep-sea oil. “The truth is that these AI models are contributing in a significant way to climate change, in both direct and indirect ways,” says Tom McBrien, counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a digital policy watchdog. Even before Google’s AI integration this spring, the average internet user’s digital activity generated 229 kilograms of carbon dioxide a year. That means the world’s current internet use already accounts for about 40 percent of the per capita carbon budget needed to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

20 June 2024

[acquariusgb]

I had never been more proud of her. Chelsea enrolled as a Master’s candidate in the fall of 2001, accepted by University College, Oxford, thirty-three years after I became a student there. In November 2002, in her second year, Hillary and I flew to England to celebrate Thanksgiving with her. She and her roommate, Jen Lee, a Harvard graduate and Juilliard-trained cellist, had moved into a small house in North Oxford for their final year and invited us to share a meal with more than twenty of their fellow students, including Americans who couldn’t go home and British and other students who’d never celebrated the holiday. We liked our daughter’s eclectic collection of friends, including two U.S. Army officers soon to go on active duty, who invited me to join in a game of touch football the afternoon before dinner. One of them, Wes Moore, won the Maryland governor’s race in 2022 and is one of our most promising young political leaders. The other, Seth Bodnar, is now the president of the University of Montana. A typical rainy Oxford fall morning had left the playing field slippery and muddy, but they were used to it. The conditions didn’t hamper their enthusiasm or their efforts. I still had a pretty good throwing arm back then but the other team cut me no slack. I left the field covered in mud and a few bruises, glad to have survived. The dinner was a great success, as we devoured the traditional Thanksgiving meal, tightly packed around tables in two small rooms, all the while carrying on vigorous conversations. I remembered how intimidated I was when I was a student at Oxford more than thirty years earlier whenever I was invited to tea at a women’s college. Sitting through their conversations was like being the ballboy at a fast- paced tennis match as the verbal serves and volleys flew across the net. It was hard to keep up and not get hit. The women and the men were impressive this night, too, so I tried to draw them out and speak only to answer the questions they asked. Chelsea has had good judgment and good fortune in her friends, from her early years to today. I’ve always enjoyed spending time with and learning from them. After Chelsea finished at Oxford, we moved Thanksgiving to our home in Chappaqua, where Chelsea began inviting longtime friends from New York and England to join us. They soon brought their spouses, significant others, and visiting parents. Before long, there were kids, too. We couldn’t do it at all in 2020 because of Covid, had only a small gathering in 2021, but in 2019, we had forty-three people. About that many came to the restart in 2022. Since that first celebration, everyone has been invited to say what he or she was grateful for. Some came just after or still in the midst of steep personal or professional challenges. Yet everybody always found something to be grateful for. In our family, the toughest task fell to Hillary after the 2016 election. She found her voice when most of us, me included, were still searching for ours.

From Citizen- Bill Clinton quote about Thanksgiving

[saltsicklover]

Slamming Doors - BRB - Broken House

This was written as a oneshot but I have an idea on how to expand the story if there is interest for it! Please let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from you!

Title: Slamming Doors

Series: Broken House

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2700+

Rating: R

Warnings: Talks of death, sick parent, car crash, pet names, lots of crying, lots of yelling, ANGST, misunderstandings.

Doors aren't meant to raddle on their hinges. Doors aren't meant to be slammed that hard. 

Honey like to think it's always better to be on the in swing of the door, rather than on the out swing. 

If she is on the in swing, Bradley would be storming in. It is like this often, the picture frame hung next to the door perpetually crooked from how often that damn front door is slammed. The corners of that frame are even chipped from the time or two it hit the tile floor. 

At least, if he is coming home, she has a chance to calm him down. To take his face in her hands and comfort the man she loves. To kiss his lips and agree that the Captain is a dumbass who doesn't have a damn clue about how to do his job. She is always there to comfort him, to take the weight of the day off of his shoulders when things have been bad. 

Hell, it isn't even always bad. Sometimes, maybe more often than sometimes, Hangman or Phoenix would be toting Bradley in, his arm held tightly over their shoulder, and he would drunkenly kick the door shut, the front of the house rattling with the abrupt closure. He would slur his words and hiccup, but always be happy to leave his friend's arms the moment he spots her. 

It is different now, though. 

Now, Honey is on the out swing. Bradley has her walking out after a fight, too heated to work it out. 

The front door slams again, the picture frame rattling lightly against the wall. Bradley walks into the living room before dropping his duffle bag in front of the couch. It is filthy, he is filthy. The arms of his flight suit are tied low on his hips, his white t-shirt completely stained with grease and gear lubricant. It looks angry, deep brown and jet black against the stark white of the cotton. Days like this, Honey would be in his arms as soon as his bag hits the floor, but today is different. 

Honey stands on the other side of the room, her back to her lover. 

Bradley and Honey are somewhere between whole heartedly committed and casual. She practically lives in his small home with him when he isn't away on deployment and there to take care of his plants when he is. It has been this way for almost two years, a little house right down the road from the beach in Pensacola. 

NAS Pensacola isn't home to Bradley, and Florida isn't home to either of them. They met by happenstance, both stranded in a storm at a little bar-motel in Maryland. He was there for work, she was there trying to track down information on her father. One drink turned into three, one night turned into a long weekend, and the two have been intertwined ever since. Honey followed him to Florida, still on her search for her father, who she never called by name. She'd said it was too painful and she wasn't ready to talk about him until she could talk to him. They hadn't intended on dating, and Honey had intended on getting the information she was looking for and then be moving on. But they had to go and fall in love. 

"Honey?" Bradley finally looks up at her, taking in the slump of she shoulders. The whole energy in the house wrong. There is no candle burning on the coffee table, the blinds aren't open to let the sun in, and Honey hadn't found her way into his arms yet. Something is most definitely wrong. 

He bends down to untie his boots as he waits for his lover to answer his call. She doesn't move to turn around, nor does she say a word. Her eyes are locked on the photo of Bradley and Nick, his father, that is hanging up on the wall. In it, Bradley sits atop Nick's shoulders, both wearing grins so big she could practically see the ache in their cheeks. Her eyes trace over the frame, then Bradley, down to Nick, then back up again to repeat the process. Honey has been standing there, eyes glued to the photo for the better part of the last hour.  

Before she found herself in front of the photograph on the wall, she had been staring at the photo in her hand for much too long. She has been holding it so long that there are fingerprints on the glossy side of the photo, both in full and partial prints not kept to the edges. 

Honey had been dusting the mantle earlier that afternoon, her body poised on a stepstool to get the shelves above the fireplace too. As she was cleaning, she bumped a framed photograph of Bradley and his mother, Carole, posed together on his High School graduation, shortly before she had passed away. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his frame, partly out of love, partly to keep herself standing upright. She had insisted on standing for the photo, even though Bradley wanted her to stay in her wheelchair. 

Bradley had told Honey about his mother so many times before. He loved showing her the photographs and telling her stories. He is so proud of his parents; but Honey knew he was a Mama's boy. That was likely because she was the only parent he had for a majority of his life, between deployments and his father's untimely passing. 

The relationship he had with his Mother was special. It was something that allowed Bradley and Honey to bond over when they first began dating. Her father walked out on her and her Mother before she had her first birthday. Honey was a Mama's girl too- her Mother passed away five years prior due to a driving accident. Black ice in the middle of winter was no joke, and Honey's mother should not have been out driving in the first place. 

Both effectively orphans, the pair bonded quickly. Lack of family tended to do that to people. 

Bradley tired to get Honey to talk about her father, to share just a little bit of information about him. All he ever managed to learn was his Navy association. He grimaced when he found out, knowing just how many deadbeats there are in the Military. 

After Honey had knocked the photograph off the shelf with her elbow, it hit the floor and shattered. It took her ages to clean up the glass, and she even managed to save the photo of Bradley and his mother from being ruined. What she was not expecting was the photograph hidden behind it. 

In her hand, she clutches a photo of Pete Mitchell and Bradley at his high school graduation, both smiling and happy. Bradley has the hope for his whole future in his eyes, that much is clear enough to see. Pete has an arm around Bradley, pulling him close as he holds a photo of Nick in his other hand.

The photograph lead her to where she stands now, unwavering in her place, even as Bradley calls her name again.

"Honey, what's wrong?" Bradley crosses the room, his untied shoelaces hitting against his boots with small clinks from the plastic aglets. He reaches a hand out to her, gently pulling her hair over her shoulder. "Honey?" 

She turns to him, eyes glassy. The sight of Bradley swims, tears distorting her vision. Her cheeks are red, like she has been straining to hold back her tears. Quickly, he eyes the rest of her form, taking her in in her entirety, trying to pinpoint her distress. His eyes land on the photo she has creased in hand. Gently, he takes the photo from her hand before pulling her into his chest. 

The grease smeared shirt across his chest becomes a home for a lose tear as he brings her into his frame, her face pressing into the expanse of his chest, near his shoulder. 

"I broke a frame while I was cleaning," Honey begins, her voice so quiet he almost misses it, "I'm sorry, Bradley," 

"Oh, Honey," Bradley coos lightly, "You don't have to be sorry, it's okay. The frame can be replaced, no need to be upset, Sweet Girl,"

Honey sniffles against his chest, bringing a hand up to try and brush a tear from the fullness of her cheek. She almost chides him for thinking she would be upset over something so small, but she can't find it in her to make the joke out loud. 

Bradley smiles to himself, thinking about how caring his girl is, but the smile immediately disappears as he looks at the photo he had taken from her moments before. This is not the photo that was on display. Bradley would never have a photo of Maverick up in his house, not after the older man pulled his papers for the academy. Absolutely not. 

"Honey," Bradley pulls back, his eyes glued on the photo, "Where did you get this?" 

"It was in the back of the frame- behind the- behind the photo of you and your Mom," She hiccups through the sentence, anxiety rising up in her chest again. The taste of bile is sour on her tongue as she looks over Bradley's expression. His brows are furrowed, eyes narrow and angry as he locks eyes with the photograph. 

"Who is that?" Honey asks, even though she already knows. 

"Pete Mitchell," Bradley's voice is laced with so much venom it gives her goosebumps. She raises her eyebrows but Bradley doesn't need prompting to continue. "He flew with my Dad, was the reason for his accident. If they didn't have to eject, my father would still be here today. And then, when I applied for the Academy, he derailed my career by years when he pulled my papers. I haven't spoken to him since," 

A noncommittal hum is the only thing Honey can muster in response. Honey can feel her skin flush hot and cold but tries to push the feeling aside. 

"I need to talk to you about something," Honey's words sound heavy coming off of her tongue. The tone snaps Bradley's eyes right up to her, the picture being abandoned on the coffee table. 

"What is it?" 

There are so many things Honey wants to say. She wants to plead for Bradley to tell her everything he knows about Maverick. There is a part of her, deep inside, that is still eight years old, still the same little girl who realized for the first time that her father wasn't coming back not because he couldn't but because he didn't want to.  

Honey wants to tell Bradley that Maverick is her father, to explain that the man standing next to him, clad in a leather jacket and dark washed jeans is her father. The man who didn't want her. She wants to bond over their appeared shared hatred of the man. Honey wants to curse his name and burn every photo of him that the two are in possession of. She wants to say fuck you to Pete Mitchell all together, with the man she loves by her side. 

But instead, the words that leave her mouth are much, much worse. 

"You can't talk about your father anymore," 

The words aren't tactful, but they aren't exactly a lie either. She has always had a hard time listening to Bradley talk about Nick. There has always been something so fucking bitter inside of her whenever he would talk about him. The knowledge that her father is a Naval Aviator, just as Bradley's had been was just too close for comfort for her. But now? Knowing that the stories of his father are also stories of her father. That broke her. 

"Excuse me?" 

The statement catches Bradley off guard so much he almost feels dizzy. If it weren't for the clunky air conditioning unit in the window behind Honey humming away, he might've blamed the feeling on stifling Floridian humidity. But, unfortunately for them both, he heard her correctly. 

"That's not what I meant! Shit!" Honey starts, but Bradley's expression doesn't turn any more pleasant. 

"I mean, fuck, I can't listen to you talk about your father anymore!" That sentence isn't any better. Honey can hear her own blood rushing through her ears, the same way she can feel the heat rising to her face with it. 

"What?" 

The venom is back in Bradley's voice, anger is beginning to boil behind the color in his eyes. Suddenly Honey wishes she could rewind time, just two fucking minutes. 

If there is one thing for sure, Honey may just be fragile like that picture frame, but Bradley is fragile like a bomb. 

Bradley's fists ball at his sides, knuckles going white as he squeezes them tight. Honey can't take her eyes from his face, from the vein that bulges in the side of his neck. She notices how his lip curls forward, his mustache sloping downward with his frown. 

"I just-" Honey takes a deep breath; it's ragged as it goes in and back out, catching on the broken pieces of her heart, "I can't have flashbacks from memories that aren't mine- I can't have this image in my mind of a man that I didn't know," 

Bradley is fuming now, listening to the words as they come out of his lover's mouth. He already had a shit day, having come down on new assignment back to TOP GUN. He didn't want to tell Honey, worried about what she might say. Worried that she might not pack up her life and go with him, or worse, that she wouldn't be here waiting for him to come back. 

Honey isn't explaining herself well, but he doesn't know that, nor can he calm down enough to figure out exactly what she is talking about. At face value, she is bad mouthing his father, the great Nick Bradshaw, mother Goose, and Bradley won't stand for that. He misses the words coming out of her mouth and the new tears that have made their way down her cheeks. 

"Shut up!" Bradley yells, his hands coming up to grip tightly in his hair. The words cut Honey off mid-sentence, and she obeys the command, more out of stunned compliance than choice. 

"Brad-" 

"No!" He points a finger right into her face, anger fully taking him over. He hasn't been this angry since Mav pulled his papers, the almost forgotten feeling burning beneath his skin. Honey's lip quivers, but she pulls it into her mouth, between her teeth to keep him from seeing it. "You do not get to stand here, in my house, and talk shit about my father!" 

"No! Brad-" Honey holds out her hands, pleading for him to just listen, for just one second. Just long enough for her to get this mess of a miscommunication figured out. 

"Enough!" Bradley's voice practically shakes the room, "Get out!" 

"What?" Honey's voice is so unbelievably small now, like she doesn't trust herself to speak. 

"Get. Out. Now." Bradley can barely look at her. Honey knows when she has lost a fight. So, she moves past him, grabbing her purse from the couch on her way past. She makes it to the door, her hand still on the handle before she speaks one last time.

"You like to think you are so much like your father, all good heart and good man, but in reality, you are just like mine," 

Honey slams the door behind her, the sound echoing though the house. She doesn't stop long enough to hear the picture frame fall from it's place on the wall, the glass shattering against the tile. 

There is too much left unsaid, the words that made it out taken to far and just wrong. Nick was the kind of man she always wished her father would have been. Kind, good, loving. And when she didn't find that in her own father, she found it in Bradley instead. Bradley liked to say that his father would have loved her, enough for both himself and her father combined, and she believed it too. But now, as she walks away from Bradley, she can't help but know just how disappointed Nick would be in her. 

Because, doors aren't meant to raddle on their hinges. Doors aren't meant to be slammed that hard. And now, Honey knows exactly just how much better things are on the in swing of that front door. 

[bestfrozentreats2]

"Born 11 September 1935, New York State Died 8 December 1996, Maryland

Ben Hewitt made four fine records for Mercury Records in the late fifties, then disappeared from view until he was tracked down, in 1983, by Colin Escott and Hank Davis, who were in the process of compiling a Bear Family LP of Ben's recordings. He is sometimes described as a Canadian artist, but though he did live close to the Canadian border for much of his life, he was in fact a US citizen.

Hewitt was born in 1935 in a one-room, dirt-floor log cabin on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in New York State. He wanted a guitar from the time he was nine or ten and kept bugging his father who finally broke down when Ben was about 12 and bought him a ukelele. About a year later, he got his first guitar, a $12.50 Stella. Influenced by Elvis and Sun Records, Ben started performing in bars. For over 13 years he played at DeFazio's in Niagara Falls, NY. It was there that Hewitt was approached by one Julian Langford. Hewitt told Escott and Davis: "He looked exactly like Colonel Tom Parker. He was up from Florida working in construction. He asked us what we'd charge to do some demos for him. He thought of himself as a songwriter, but he had the same tune to everything. The lyrics were nothing to write home about either. He'd come to us week after week and sing us the latest song he'd written. For the hell of it, we said, ' We'll do it on one condition. You supply the booze. Plus you gotta pay 20 bucks apiece and rent the hall'. "

It was this Julian Langford who secured Hewitt a recording contract with Mercury in 1958. The sessions were held in New York City and produced by Clyde Otis. Four singles were released, 1959-60. Clyde Otis didn't want Langford's material (except for "Whirlwind Blues"), most of the Mercury sides are Ben's own compositions. Otis himself also contributed a song, co-written with Brook Benton, "I Ain't Givin' Up Nothin' (If I Can't Have Something From You)". Hewitt's version of this song is the original one ; there were later versions by Clyde McPhatter and Jimmy "Frenchy" Dee, with Mickey Gilley on piano.

Ben's records did not sell particularly well, but enough to secure him plenty of bookings through the Shaw Agency, where he was the only white artist. Ben soon got tired of touring and after a nasty incident with Julian Langford, which hurt his (Ben's) reputation at Mercury, he lost interest in making records. He did not record again until 1975, when he cut a country single ("Border City Call Girl") for Broadland Records in Toronto, which was leased to Shelby Singleton's Plantation label."

Ben Hewitt - My Search https://youtu.be/dJp9WLfGDMc

[atths--twice]

Practical College Applications

A college AU, in which Mulder and Scully meet and get to know one another as they apply college courses, to real life scenarios.

I first posted this story nearly five years ago. I searched for it, in order to add the new chapter to it, but I could not find it. So... I am just going to repost the whole thing. Perhaps it will be new to some and perhaps it will be a reread for others. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. 💓

Chapter One

Botany 101- A Nice Trip To The Forest

Fox Mulder, known to everyone as Mulder, as he hated his first name, shifted his backpack for what felt like the twentieth time in the last half hour. It had not been problematic when he had worn it at home and around town, as he had gotten used to the weight of the things he would need for this weekend away, but now it felt as though his items had been replaced with rocks. 

He had been looking forward to this trip since the class began. It was one of the main reasons he had signed up for a botany class in the first place - the eventual excursion into the forest it had promised. 

School had been keeping him busy and unable to escape the noise and the fast pace of the city. Since he had transferred to the University of Maryland, he had been working harder and buckling down. He had saved enough in the past two years of working to not have to worry about anything but his studies. 

Torn between which electives to take for the year, he had settled on botany. He had always enjoyed nature and discovering new things within, so it seemed perfect. The class was not too full from the offset, and it had dwindled down to even less soon thereafter. Mulder however, found the class intriguing and enjoyed the lectures. The professor was funny and kept the class entertained. 

There was also, though Mulder would not freely admit it, a woman in the class he found very beautiful. He had not spoken to her, save the occasional hello as they passed each other, but she captivated him. This was actually the second course they shared, and though he enjoyed the more intimate class size, he knew he would appear a fool if he spoke to her. His words got tripped up by his tongue when he was around her. 

“Hey, Mulder,” said a voice, and he sighed as he saw Kyle Dale walk up beside him. He really did not care for Kyle. He was very rich and made sure to let everyone know it. “You know there’s only the two girls here, and there are us six guys. We need to be the ones to make a move, the other guys are losers.” Kyle nudged him as he raised his eyebrows, and Mulder adjusted his backpack yet again. 

“I’d recommend you don’t let the women hear you say that, Kyle, not girls. In fact, maybe don’t say that at all. This isn’t some bar, it’s a college course. We’re all here to learn and you know, I haven’t seen either of them show any interest in you at school, I can’t imagine the woods will change their opinions,” Mulder said, glancing at the two women and then back to Kyle. “Just, let them be.”

“Jesus, you’re such a fucking downer, man. Do you ever get laid?” Kyle shook his head and walked away, catching up to Brian Harding and glancing back at Mulder as they both laughed loudly. 

Assholes, he thought, shaking his head. He looked back at the women again and watched the one he found attractive, hoping he was not being too obvious. 

She laughed at something her friend Hannah said, tossing her long red braid over her shoulder. God, he was such a sucker for redheaded women. He had been since third grade, when Jenny Lipton had moved into town halfway through the year. She was introduced by his teacher, and when she smiled at the class, his hands got sweaty. He shyly brought her dandelions at recess, and she took his hand, pulling him to the swings. He pushed her for as long as she wanted, not caring that he never even had a turn. 

This woman though, she was on another level. Her smile made his heart race and when he heard her laugh, he always wanted to hear it again. She also smelled amazing. She sat across from him in class, and every time she moved her hair, he caught a whiff of flowers and clean soap. It drove him wild and sometimes caused his attention to wander from the lecture. 

Yes, Jenny Lipton had been his first real crush, but she could not hold a candle to Dana Scully. 

“Class, we’re going to stop here for a bit. I want each of you to take out the journals you were to bring and identify the plants of the area. You should have your guide pages with you as well. We’ll be here for about forty five minutes and then we’ll be moving on to the campground,” Professor Morrow said, taking his pack off and setting it on a rock. He was about forty, a hippie with long blond hair and a full beard. He was a kind teacher and cared deeply for the subject he taught. “Break into teams or on your own, whichever you prefer.” 

Mulder glanced quickly over at Dana and saw her and Hannah, slip off their backpacks and take out their journals and guide pages. She stretched and rolled her neck as she picked up her things and walked with Hannah into the woods. He took off his backpack, took out his own journal, and headed into the woods behind them. 

An hour later, they all met up to collect their packs and move on. Mulder put his things away and put his pack back on, adjusting the straps so it sat better this time. They trudged on for another hour, before arriving at the campsite. A round fire pit sat in the middle of a clearing, thick round tree stumps encircling it. 

Everyone sat their bags down and Kyle loudly announced he would make a fire. He walked away to gather some wood and the others began to set up their tents. Mulder had a one man tent, as he had no intention to share one with anyone. He had it set up quickly, and as he pounded the stakes in to secure it, he heard Dana laughing. He looked up to see her and Hannah struggling to get their tent up, laughing as they did. Dana was bent over, clutching her side, and then her head was thrown back as she laughed. Watching her, he missed the stake, and hit his thumb. 

“Fuck,” he seethed under his breath, sticking his thumb in his mouth, the pain sharp and throbbing. He glanced up quickly to see if Dana noticed, but she and Hannah were still struggling with their tent and laughing. 

Finished with securing his tent, he tossed his backpack inside, intent on setting out his sleeping bag later. He stood up and brushed off his hands, swallowing hard, as he walked closer to the women and cleared his throat. As Dana turned around and looked at him, he was struck again by the blue of her eyes. 

“Uhh … would you … do you need a hand?” he stammered, and she smiled at him, making his heart race. 

“I think we got it, but thanks, Fox,” she said with another smile. 

“Mulder,” he said without thinking, realizing he would not mind his hated name being said by her. She tilted her head and stared at him. 

“Really? You go by your last name with everyone? It’s not just a guy thing?” she asked. “Do you really not go by Fox? No one calls you Fox?” Her eyes twinkled and he felt he would let her call him anything, if she kept smiling and looking at him that way. 

“Uh … my family, but not really anyone else,” he said, even as his brain screamed at him to shut up and walk away. “Whatever you … either is fine.” He turned and walked away, exceedingly embarrassed, wishing he could disappear. 

“Thanks for the offer of help‍ … Mulder,” she called after him, and he turned quickly, her dancing eyes on him, her red hair shining in the sunlight. He nodded and turned around again, walking aimlessly away from them, shaking his head at his idiocy. 

He walked around for a while prior to heading back to the campsite, needing time to recover from his own stupidity. He headed over to the fire pit and watched Kyle trying to build a fire. He was doing it all wrong, laying the wood haphazardly as he added kindling under it. Mulder shook his head, stepping closer to show him how to do it correctly, when he heard a voice behind him. 

“You’re not doing that properly.” He turned and saw Dana standing there, her hair down and wavy from the braid. She was looking at the fire pit, but cut her eyes at Mulder, causing him to smile slightly. “You need to build it like a chimney so the oxygen can feed through the kindling and the wood -”

“Excuse me, sweetheart,” Kyle said, looking up at her with a sneer. “I don’t need help from you on how to build a fire, okay?” He went back to trying to get the fire burning and Dana stepped closer to him. 

“If our warmth and the ability to eat tonight is dependent on you, sweetheart, then I’m going to have to insist that you either build the fire properly, or get out of the way so I can do it,” she said, in a low controlled tone that made Mulder both afraid and highly aroused. Kyle stared up at her and then stood up, towering over her. She did not back down or show any fear, and soon Kyle stormed away, claiming he needed more wood. 

Dana glanced over at Mulder and rolled her eyes as she pushed up her sleeves and restructured the fire. She had it lit within minutes, stood up and brushed off her hands. She looked at Mulder with a grin, and he smiled back, nodding at her appreciatively. 

“Make sure he doesn’t overload it with wood, okay? I’m going to find Hannah. I wasn’t going to stop and help, but he was being an idiot about it,” she said as she walked away. He grinned and watched her before turning his eyes back to the fire. 

Hours later, after everyone had eaten, they were discussing the plant life they had found that day. Kyle sat quietly, still stinging over the fact that a woman, a younger woman at that, had shown him up, The other guys kept razzing him, which he was not taking well. 

Mulder sat to the left of Dana, with Hannah on her right. As the others discussed the plant life, he knew they were mistaken with their findings. Not only did he know, but he heard Dana repeatedly muttering, wrong under her breath. He huffed and she looked at him with a grin. 

“Well, they are wrong,” she whispered, and he smiled. “We had the guide papers, I don’t know how they could be so mistaken.” She shrugged and he coughed to cover up a laugh as she turned around and watched the fire. 

Not long later, everyone headed off to bed, the fire dying, but not out completely. Mulder watched Dana and Hannah walk into their tent as he was going into his own. Laying his sleeping bag out, he changed his clothes, adding an extra zip up hooded sweatshirt to take away the chill. 

Getting inside the sleeping bag, he rested his head on his backpack but quickly pushed it aside, finding it too bulky to be used as a pillow. Putting his arms behind his head, he wished the tent had a mesh top so he could see the stars, but he would make do with the sound of the crickets and owls in the trees. 

After the day’s activities, he should be tired, exhausted even, but he was wide awake. Sighing, he decided to go sit by the fire for a little while. Putting his boots back on, he opened his tent, stepped out, and zipped it up again, to avoid allowing in any unwanted critters. Hands in his sweatshirt pockets, his head down, he did not notice that he was not the only one with the idea to sit by the fire. 

“Oh!” He heard and looked up in surprise. Dana was standing there, poking at the fire with a long stick. “I didn’t wake you, did I? I wasn’t too loud?” 

“No, not at all. I … uh … I wasn’t tired, surprisingly, and thought I’d check on the fire. Guess you beat me to it,” he said and she smiled. He walked closer and stood beside her, the fire still burning low and giving off heat. 

She added another few small pieces of firewood and stirred at the fire as she sat down on a stump. Mulder sat beside her and they quietly stared at the fire as it began to slightly grow. He glanced at her and then back at the fire. 

“So, did the fact that we all went to bed, in the middle of a forest with a fire smoldering, bother you a bit, too?” she asked him quietly, and he laughed softly. “Or were you also a dumb idiot, who forgot to pack an extra sweatshirt, thus needing to seek out the warmth of said fire?” 

He turned his head to look at her and realized she was definitely not dressed for the cold night air. She had a long flannel on, but it was absolutely not enough to keep her small body warm. He watched her wrap her arms around herself, and he stood up, already unzipping his sweatshirt. 

“Oh no,” she said, putting up her hands. “Please don’t think I was implying I expected you to do that, I was just making conversation. I can’t take your sweatshirt from you. It’s my own fault for forgetting an extra shirt. Please … no.” She shook her head and pushed at the item he offered her. “I can’t.” 

“You can,” he said, holding it out to her and staring at her. “It’s an extra. Well, I mean I have two shirts and this long sleeved one as well. I’ll be okay without the sweatshirt. That flannel won’t keep you warm enough. Take it. Please.” He held it out and she finally accepted it, standing up to put it on and zip it up. It was big on her of course, but wearing the flannel under helped it to fit better. 

As she pulled her hair from inside it and tossed it back, he was treated to the most wonderful scent of flowers. She kept her head down for a second before raising her eyes to his. “Thank you,” she said quietly, and he nodded at her, seeing the flames from the fire reflecting in her eyes. He smiled and sat back down, as she sighed and did the same. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes and watched the fire, when she suddenly stood quietly, and walked to her tent. She did not look back, but stepped inside and zipped it shut. He was left wondering if he had done something wrong, but then he smiled slowly, as he realized she was still wearing his sweatshirt. 

He sat by the fire until it burned down low enough to not be a hazard, and then headed to his own tent. Laying down inside the bag once again, he smiled, imagining her sleeping comfortably because of the warmth his sweatshirt provided her. Closing his eyes, he was asleep in minutes. 

_______________________

The next morning, Mulder woke with the dawn, dressed, and rebuilt the fire. He shivered as he waited for it to warm up, his eyes flicking towards Dana’s tent, hoping she had been warm enough last night. Stirring the fire, he stood with his hands extended, feeling the warmth beginning to build. 

Not long after the fire was burning steadily, others began to emerge from their tents, happily seeking the warmth of the fire. Each person thanked him as they stood around it, warming their hands and backs in turn. A few of the guys started to prepare some peanut butter sandwiches for the group. Brian handed one to Mulder, who took it with a nod. 

After nearly everyone had gotten up, Dana and Hannah finally came from their tent, ready for the day. Dana glanced his way and then looked down, walking over to grab a sandwich from Brian. Hannah continued on to speak to Craig, a quiet guy who Mulder actually got along with. Dana stood on the fringe and then came closer to him. 

“Your sweatshirt is in the tent. I didn’t want to bring it out in front of everyone,” she said, glancing up at him, her eyes begging him to understand. 

“You keep it for tonight, just in case,” he shrugged, and she shook her head. “You can.” He repeated his words from last night to her again and she sighed with a nod.  

“Thank you,” she whispered, and then walked away. 

The tents were taken down and packed up as the sun began to rise higher in the sky. They left on a trail and Mulder followed behind Hannah and Dana, listening to their conversation while trying not to appear too creepy. They discussed dating and Dana admitted to Hannah that the last couple of dates she went on was a while ago, with one of the men standing her up. 

Mulder scoffed at the stupidity of whoever that man was, and Dana turned around quickly and looked at him. He stopped walking abruptly and stared at her, embarrassed beyond belief. He saw her lips twitch as she turned around and began to walk again. He fell back a few paces, intent on that not happening again. 

An hour or so later, they came to a shallow but wide stream they needed to cross. A log had fallen, creating a natural bridge, and they took turns walking across it carefully. Mulder had almost neared the end when his foot slipped and he fell into the stream. He luckily had not broken or sprained anything, but everything he was wearing was thoroughly soaked. 

Everyone laughed, including Dana, but she was the only one to come over and help him, as he spluttered and tried to stand up. She reached for his backpack, and he handed it to her, rising to his knees and then his feet. 

“Shit,” he muttered, unbuttoning his flannel shirt. He took it off and the one underneath, leaving him in a very wet tank top, cargo shorts, socks, and boots. He glanced up and found that Dana had turned her head, his backpack held in her hand, as it dripped steadily into the stream. 

“I’ll take that back now,” he said softly, and she nodded, glancing at him as her eyes quickly moved up and down his body, before she turned and walked away, running her fingers through her long ponytail. He smiled as he watched her, not seeming to notice how wet he truly was. 

Up another hill, they came to their camping site. A large fire pit was surrounded by small, single occupancy cabins. Everyone exclaimed at the sight of them, each of them going to check them out. Mulder set his wet pack on the step and walked inside. There was a cot, a small table made from logs, a lantern, and an oval hooked rug on the floor. It would be warmer than the tent, and for that he was relieved. 

Stepping out of the room, he began to unpack his bag, shaking his head at the sheer wetness of everything. His clothes inside were soaked, but they would hopefully dry soon. It was warm out and there was still a few hours of sunlight left. He laid out his clothes and reached for his sleeping bag, thankfully finding it still dry. 

He put it on the cot and checked the rest of his things. His snacks and other first aid items were okay, but his notebook was wet, his inked words running together. Shaking his head, he set it down. It would be easy to redo the work, he had it memorized. Taking out his spare shoes, a pair of old flip flops, he took off his wet boots and socks, again shaking his head. 

Picking up his clothes, he went to find a place to hang them to dry while the sun was still shining. His shoes … well they would hopefully dry, but he doubted it would happen by the time they journeyed back to their cars tomorrow morning. 

Clothes laid out in the sun on a bush, he walked back to the fire pit where everyone had gathered. He glanced down at the empty pit, and then looked up, catching Dana’s eye, as he raised his eyebrows. She smiled and covered her mouth as she laughed softly. He grinned as he looked toward Professor Morrow. 

“All right! Congratulations on making it here unscathed, well, most of us anyway,” he said, with a glance toward Mulder and everyone laughed. He shook his head and smiled. “Tonight, as well as food that we’ve brought, we’ll be gathering edible plants to add to our meal. Berries, plants, whatever you find that you’re sure is edible. So be double, even triple sure that you’re correct. We don’t want to poison our friends.” Everyone laughed again and soon headed off, each one with a container to collect items. 

Mulder found himself near Dana as they walked into the woods. He could hear her humming and he smiled, happy she was enjoying herself. They spread out, foraging the bushes for food. 

“How can you just walk away from me? When all I can do is watch you leave?” He heard, and turned his head to see Dana singing quietly as she cleaned a bush of its berries. “So take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space. And there's nothing left here to remind me, just the memory of your face …” She looked up and saw him watching her and she grinned. 

“I’m a little obsessed with Phil Collins right now. Sorry to expose you to my horrible singing voice,” she said, with a laugh. He shook his head and continued gathering items. 

“It’s not horrible,” he told her, his eyes downcast. 

“Liar,” she called, and he looked up to see her smiling. He looked back down, smiling as he continued his work. 

Fire warm and food eaten, even the items they had all collected, of which Mulder and Dana had brought in the most, everyone sat around that night laughing and talking about many things. Mulder saw Hannah speaking to Craig once again, a huge smile on his face. 

Mulder glanced at Dana as she put another log onto the fire, debating whether to speak to her. As he was contemplating it, she walked over to him, standing close and crossing her arms. She glanced at him and smiled and he smiled back. 

“So, we’re obviously the smartest ones in class, we definitely need to stick together from now on.” She shrugged and he laughed. They both looked at the fire and were quiet, Mulder constantly feeling tongue tied around her. 

“So you —” he started to say, but was cut off by the professor telling them all to head to bed, warning of rising early in the morning. Mulder glanced at Dana again, but she was busy smothering tonight’s fire, the area they were in more heavily wooded. 

“Can’t take any chances,” she said, and he began to help her. Nodding her thanks, she caught his eye, and headed to her little cabin. 

Making sure the fire was completely out, he took out his flashlight, and gathered all his items from the nearby bushes he had laid them on earlier. Finding them to be relatively dry, he walked into his cabin, took off his shoes, and changed his clothes. He lit the lantern on the small table and laid down on his cot. 

Sighing, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A knock sounded at his door and he sat up in surprise, his brow furrowing. Standing up and crossing to the door, he opened it to find Dana standing there, a flashlight in her hand, her long hair down, his borrowed sweatshirt pulled tightly around her, and a worried expression on her face. 

“Hi,” he said simply, his surprise undoubtedly evident. 

“I need you to look at something. Please,” her voice shaky and scared. 

“Uhh … come in,” he told her, stepping aside to let her inside before he closed the door. She hurried past him and stood in the middle of the small room in his large sweatshirt, a pair of shorts, and her boots. 

“I was changing my clothes and … I felt something, on my back. It was itchy earlier, but now it feels worse. I can’t see it and I need to know what it is. Can you look at it, please?” she stared at him and he nodded. She turned around, moved her hair, and dropped his sweatshirt down past her butt. His breath caught and he froze in place. 

She was not wearing anything under the sweatshirt, clearly whatever she found, had scared her badly enough to forego extra clothing as she hurried to his room. 

“Mulder? Fox? What is it?” Her worried voice snapped him into action, and he reached for the lantern, turning it up to see her back better. Stepping closer to her, he held the lantern as he knelt down. “It’s down on my lower back.” 

As soon as he was close enough, he saw it- an angry looking rash covering a good sized area of her lower back. He touched it gently and she hissed and then she groaned. 

“Sorry,” he said, feeling the heat even without touching it again. “Stay like that for a second.” He turned around and grabbed his backpack, rummaging around until he found the container of salve he had brought with him. “Okay, this might hurt a little bit.” 

“What?” she asked, but he did not reply, instead taking two fingerfuls of the salve, and gently rubbing it across her back. “Oh my God, what is that? Mmmm, oh Mulder, that stings … ohhhh … no it feels good. What is it?” He rubbed in the salve and smiled as he listened to her finding relief from the comfort it provided. 

Wiping his hands, he put the lid on the salve and stood up. He brought his sweatshirt back up her body and placed it on her shoulders. She grabbed at it and zipped it up. Letting her hair fall, she put her hands in the pockets of the sweatshirt and turned around, looking up at him. 

“Seriously, what is that? And what’s on my back?” she asked, reaching for the container in his hands. 

“It’s a rash, probably from a plant you touched unknowingly,” he told her, reaching in his bag again, taking out a bottle of aspirin and handing two of them to her. “It’s pretty hot and inflamed; this will help it feel better.” He handed her water from a canteen bottle he had and she took the medicine, just as a huge crack of thunder sounded, causing her to jump. A second later, rain began to fall, hard, on the tiny cabin. 

“Whoa,” they said simultaneously, looking up as the rain pelted the roof from above. He looked back down at her and turned to the door, opening it and looking outside. She stepped closer to him and they watched as the rain obscured their vision beyond anything not directly in front of them. 

“I … “ she started, and then stopped. 

“No, you can’t,” he finished for her, knowing she was going to suggest she make a run for it. “You’d be soaked through, that salve will wash off, and you’d be in pain. Best to stay here, at least until it lets up a bit.” He closed the door and turned to find her right behind him, and his mouth went dry. The one person who seemed to short circuit his brain was now going to be sitting alone with him in a small room during a rainstorm, for the night possibly. 

Her expression was unreadable as her eyes seemed to search his face. He waited until she nodded in agreement and stepped over to the bed, sat down, and took off her boots. She looked at him and he gave her a small smile as he picked up the lantern off the floor, set it on the little table after turning it down a bit, and then sat on the floor facing her, his back against the wall. They were both quiet as they listened to the heavy fall of the rain on the roof, thunder rumbling and then cracking loudly. He saw her jump again and he smiled slightly. She obviously did not like thunder. 

“Tell me a story,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear her above the deluge of rain, as though she was not sure if she should be asking for something like that. 

“A story? About what?” he asked, looking at her in surprise. She shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. 

“I don’t know, anything, I’m not picky,” she said. “I don’t really like thunder and I thought maybe a story might take my mind off it. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.” She shrugged again, looking down and touching at her back lightly over his sweatshirt. She hissed and closed her eyes. 

He watched her for a second, thinking of stories that would not only interest her, but help to loosen his tongue. Leaning his head back, he knew she would not be looking for some silly fairy tale to be retold to her, and so he thought back to the science fiction and weird stories he loved to read and know more about, until he had a perfect one. 

“Have you ever heard the story of the star-crossed lovers, Maurice and Lyda?” he asked, lifting his head and watching her, hoping she would say no, as he knew this story by heart. He could recite it from memory, thus making it easier to speak to her. 

“The only star-crossed lovers I know of are Romeo and Juliet,” she said, shifting on the cot. He smiled and nodded as that was the case with most people. 

Clearing his throat, he began his story. “Christmas, 1917, it was a time of dark, dark despair. American soldiers were dying at an ungodly rate in a war-torn Europe, while at home, a deadly strain of the flu virus attacked young and old alike,” he began, and then he forgot about her as he closed his eyes, lost in his own story. “Tragedy was a visitor on every doorstep while a creeping hopelessness set in with every man, woman. and child. It was a time of dark, dark despair.” 

“You said that already,” she said, with a smirk, and he opened his eyes to find her now lying on her side facing him, leaning on her elbow, one eyebrow raised. He grinned and then chuckled. 

“But,” he continued, “at 1501 Larkspur Lane, for a pair of star-crossed lovers, tragedy came not from war or pestilence, not by the boot heel or the bombardier, but by their own innocent hand.” He stared at her and waited, seeing if he could get that skeptical eyebrow to go down. 

“Go on,” she said, both eyebrows going up, and he knew he had piqued her interest. 

“His name was Maurice. He was a ... a brooding, but heroic young man, beloved of Lyda, a sublime beauty with a light that seemed to follow her wherever she went,” he said, waving his hands around slowly, and she laughed softly. “They were likened to two angels descended from heaven whom the gods could not protect from the horrors being visited upon this cold, grey earth.” Again he paused and stared at her, waiting to see what she would say. 

“And what happened to them?” 

“Well, according to legend, driven by a tragic fear of separation, they forged a lovers' pact so that they might spend eternity together and not spend one precious Christmas apart,” he said with a shrug and a half smile, his tongue loosened now from a story he had always enjoyed. 

“Wait. They killed themselves?” she asked, frowning as she stared at him. 

“Yeah, and supposedly their ghosts return to haunt that house every Christmas Eve,” he said, and then shivered. “I just gave myself the chills.” He stared at her with a grin and she frowned with a smile. “What?” 

“Do you really believe that story?” 

“I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of hard not to believe it when it —”

“Sounds so believable?” she cut across him, with a tone of disbelief. 

“You don’t believe in ghosts?” 

“Does that surprise you?” 

“Well … yeah, a little. I thought everybody believed in ghosts,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“Like that slimy one in Ghostbusters?” she teased him and he shook his head. 

“No, not like Ghostbusters. What a joke that movie was at portraying ghosts. They are benevolent entities … well, mostly. I have read stories of places where ghosts have done horrible things and people —” He stopped talking as he looked at the barely contained grin on her face. It spread as she tried to stop it and he saw a dimple in her cheek. 

God, he was in so much trouble … 

“You believe it all, don’t you?” she asked, with a huge grin. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked back, shrugging his shoulders. “I haven’t seen it disproved, so …” He shrugged again and she laughed as she shook her head. She laid down on her back, and he looked at her profile. 

So much trouble … 

“Umm … I should check your back again, just to be sure the salve is helping,” he said, getting up and picking up the container again as he knelt down beside the bed. She looked up at him, her eyes so blue, he knew that if she asked him to do anything, no matter how questionable, he would. “You need to turn over.” 

She nodded and did as he asked. He lifted his sweatshirt over her butt and up just enough to expose her back. It was looking better already and felt cooler than earlier. Still, he would apply another layer and have her lay on her stomach for a while, let it soak in better. 

“It looks better, not completely gone of course, but better than earlier. I’d say you had an allergic reaction to something. Obviously not poison oak, you would’ve been smart enough to avoid that, but at least it’s topical and nothing serious,” he said as he slowly put more salve on, both to make sure it was applied well, and because her skin was so soft, he wanted to touch it forever. She had a freckle just above the rash and he had an overwhelming desire to bend forward and kiss it. 

“What is that stuff?” she asked again, her voice muffled in her arms, hissing and then moaning, as he applied it. 

“It’s a homemade salve my mom has made for years. My sister and I were always getting scrapes and rashes as children and so she made this natural stuff because my sister cried with the stuff from the pharmacy,” he told her, rubbing slow circles across her back. 

“What were you two doing to meet such catastrophes?” 

“Well, we grew up in Chilmark, and spent a lot of time outdoors. Climbing trees, baseball games, races, playing widespread games of hide-and-seek. Inevitably, one of us would come down with some ailment and so my mother kept this on hand at all times. She called it the “Super Salve,” as we were both into superheroes then. Plus, it works really well, so …” He smiled as he thought of those days spent outside, no care for anything but being home on time for dinner. He finished applying the salve and closed the container. “Stay like that for a few minutes and let it really set in, it will help a lot.” He wiped his hands on the shirt he had worn earlier and leaned against the bed. 

He heard her turn her head and he looked at her over his shoulder. “You’re a Vineyard boy, huh? And here I thought you were all right,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face. 

He laughed and she turned her head back, sighing as she did. “Well, whatever she puts in that, it’s like magic. Please tell your mother that I can't thank her enough. It stings for a second, but then … ohhhh …” she said in a low voice, and he was glad she had turned her head away. Her moan shot straight to his groin and he was horrified at its betrayal in such tight quarters as the rain fell down, preventing any chance of escape. 

“Tell me more about your family,” she said and he smiled, thankful for the distraction. 

“I have a sister, she’s twenty-one. Parents still married, still live in Chilmark. My sister is living in Europe with some friends right now, for “life experience” as she calls it,” he said, looking down at the floor. 

“A single trip to Amsterdam ought to take care of that for her,” she said, and he laughed. 

“You seem awfully ... normal for growing up on the Vineyard, if you don’t mind me saying,” she said, once again turning to look at him. He raised his eyebrows at her and she smiled. 

“What exactly are you implying, Dana?” he asked with a smile. She stared at him, her face serious and then she smiled softly. 

“I think that’s the first time I've ever heard you say my name,” she said quietly. “In this class or the last one we had together.” He stared at her and he knew she was correct. He had been nervous to speak to her, in both classes, and now he was seeing how ridiculous that was to do. Besides being smart and beautiful, she was easy to talk to, and funny. 

“Yeah, I … uh … I’m not really a … I don’t hang out with many people and I don’t really engage in many conversations,” he said, and she nodded. 

“I don’t like it.” She shook her head and he frowned. “You saying that name, I mean. I just think that if you insist on being called Mulder, you should call me … Scully.” She shrugged and he stared at her, trying to decide if she was teasing him. She smiled and he knew she meant it. 

“Okay … Scully,” he said, and she grinned wider. He smiled back and she nodded. 

“Scully. I like it.” She smiled, and he cleared his throat, looking down at the floor. “And to answer your question, Mulder, I wasn’t really implying anything about Vineyard people. I was just teasing.” 

“I know … Scully,” he said, looking up at her and she smiled at him again. “I know what people think about those of us on the Vineyard and I understand. My family does belong to a country club, I went to cotillions when I was younger, and my sister was even a debutante, but only because my mother insisted on it. My sister didn’t want to do it, and in fact, the night of the ball, she left about halfway through, changed out of her ridiculous dress and gloves, and came back in jeans, a Rolling Stones t-shirt, and black Converse high tops. My mother was nearly apoplectic, but my sister just shrugged and kept dancing.” 

“I like her. She sounds like someone I’d like to know,” Dana laughed, and he nodded and smiled. Samantha was definitely someone he could see her befriending. 

“What about your family?” he asked, and she shook her head, moving to lay on her side, facing him, but keeping his sweatshirt up above her rash. 

“I’m not terribly interesting,” she said, waving him away. He stared at her as she licked her lips, biting the bottom one, and he wished he could taste them. “My parents are married, my father is in the Navy. We’ve lived in a lot of places, but have been here for the longest length of time. My older brother is also in the Navy and he’s stationed in Germany. My younger brother is starting college this coming year. I have an older sister, but I don’t really know where she is right now. She’s kind of flighty and the last time I heard from her, she was in Colorado. I think she was anyway. She’s always on the move, ‘following the wind and the sun,’ she says.” She paused and sighed. He looked at her again and she shook her head. 

“What?” 

“I don’t know,” she sighed, looking down. “I’m still not completely sure what I want to do with my life. I have always loved science and pursuing answers that are not readily available. But I know that’s not a field most women enter into, as if it’s odd a woman would find science interesting.”

“Pssh!” Mulder said forcefully. “It’s incredibly hot and sexy when women are interested in science.” Realizing what he said, his face became flushed, and he fell silent as he chanced a glance at her. She smiled, her own cheeks pink, as she looked down. Thunder cracked again and this time he jumped. 

They were quiet for a few minutes and she sighed again. “I just wish that I was more like my sister sometimes. She’s not afraid to do anything. To just up and leave, follow her passion, live in a cabin with some guy she just met and make jewelry to sell at swap meets. She’s flighty, yes, but she’s also passionate and caring, and doesn’t care how she’s perceived. She’s ballsy and tough, despite her hippie outward appearance.” She fell silent and he looked at her, wanting to tell her she was all of that and more, but he worried it would scare her, so he tried a different tactic. 

“Every person is given the personality that’s right for them,” he said, looking at the wall across the room. “We see in others what we imagine we are lacking, and yet it’s there, just perhaps not right at the surface. Every person is exactly who they are meant to be.” 

“Wow, you and my sister would get along really well,” she told him with a quiet laugh. “Dare I say, even make a good couple.” 

“Hmm, what’s her stance on science?” he asked, watching her out of the corner of his eye. 

“The whole idea of it?” she laughed. “I wouldn’t say she’s against it, but she’s more prone to believe in the healing power of crystals than modern medicine.” 

“Oh, well, then I'm sorry, I’m gonna have to pass. A firm grasp in the belief of science is high on my list. I’d put it at top five, easily,” he said, turning his head to find her staring at him. She did not blink for a few seconds, holding his stare, until thunder cracked again, and she jumped. 

“It’s late,” he said quietly. “You should try to get some sleep. Is your back feeling better?” She nodded, staring at him again, as she pulled his sweatshirt down and covered her back. She got inside the sleeping bag, glanced at him once more, and then turned toward the wall. 

“Good night, Mulder,” she said softly. 

“Good night … Scully,” he replied with a smile, shifting until he was lying on his back on the floor, his arm behind his head, listening to the rain falling unrelentingly on the roof. A few minutes later, he heard her soft breathing and he smiled again, as he himself fell asleep. 

________________

Mulder woke early, wanting to be sure Dana was out of his cabin and back in her own, before anyone else was up and about. No need for anyone to suspect anything, especially as it pertained to her. 

She walked to her cabin, slipping in the mud a bit, as she arrived at her door. She turned and looked at him as she walked inside, an odd expression on her face. He hoped it was not one of regret or worry over what they had shared last night. Then just as the door was about to close, she poked her head out and smiled at him, and his heart pounded wildly against his rib cage. 

The campsite was a muddy wet mess that morning. No chance for the warmth of a fire, as the fire pit was full of water, and every piece of wood in the forest was wet regardless. 

Once everyone was up, and that discovery was made, the grumbling began. Foul moods abounded, but Mulder was not fazed by any of them. He could not stop grinning, remembering Dana’s laugh and the beautiful blue of her eyes. 

He saw her speaking to Professor Morrow, showing him her back, though not in the same manner she had to him last night. He could not hear them speaking, but the professor glanced his way and nodded, telling him without words that he had done the right thing. 

Bags packed and everything ready, they began the long hike back down. The weather made it harder, but they were meant to be back that day, so everyone kept a steady pace. As the car park came into view, Kyle slipped and fell, much to everyone’s amusement. Covered in mud, he swore and yelled, trying to wipe himself clean, and failing. 

Gathering by all the cars, Professor Morrow reminded them to finish their workbooks and to write a 2,000 word essay about the weekend and what they experienced. Some groaned and others grinned. Mulder saw Dana smile softly and he wondered what she was thinking about. 

People began to leave and soon it was just a few of them. Dana walked over to him, his sweatshirt in her hands, and a smile on her face. He stared at her, feeling Hannah’s eyes on them, making him feel awkward. 

“Thank you for the use of your sweatshirt, Fox … Mulder.” She handed it to him and he took it, laying it over his arm. 

“You’re welcome, Dana … Scully,” he said and she grinned. They stared at each other, and the desire to kiss her was stronger than anything he had ever felt. Her eyes flicked to his lips and his mouth went dry. Looking back into his eyes, they continued to stand there, staring at one another. 

“Dana! Come on, let’s go!” Hannah called from across the car park, causing Mulder to jump, and Dana to sigh. 

“Okay,” she called back, looking at her over her shoulder. She looked back at Mulder and smiled sadly. “See you in class.” 

“Yeah,” he said quietly, feeling deflated and low. “See you in class.” She stared at him, waiting, and he stepped back with his head down. He heard her sigh again and then the crunch of her boots on the gravel of the car park. 

Looking up, he watched them drive away and felt like a complete fool. “You are such an idiot. So stupid.” He threw his backpack in the backseat and then got in the car, heading for his little apartment off campus, berating himself the whole way, knowing he had completely missed his chance. 

Arriving home, he went around back and sat on his porch, dumping out his backpack, making sure no little creatures had hitched a ride home. He looked through everything, made piles of things to put away and to be washed. He looked at his sweatshirt and shook his head. Dana’s naked body had been inside it, but he still needed to wash it. 

Taking off everything but his undershirt and shorts, he walked barefoot to the front door and unlocked it. Coming through his small one bedroom apartment, he opened the back door and began to bring things inside. Once that was done, he stripped, tossing his clothes outside, and took a shower. 

Changed and feeling better physically, but still like an idiot, he scooped up his pile of clothes from outside, grabbed the laundry soap and some quarters, and headed to the laundry room. He opened the lid, added the quarters, and started to put his clothes inside. Taking the time to go through his pockets, he found a rock and some small pieces of dried leaves, which he threw away. 

His sweatshirt was last, and he sighed as he reached inside the pockets, and frowned as he touched something. Taking it out, he saw it was a folded piece of paper. Opening it, he grinned and then laughed as he read the words written on the page. 

How could you just let me walk away? Just let me leave without a trace?

Scully 

(301) 555-0134

P.S. I’m working on those hidden personality traits. 

He threw the sweatshirt in the wash, dumped in the soap, closed the lid, pushed in the quarter tray, and ran upstairs. Slamming the door, he grabbed the phone and dialed her number. His heart pounding, breath ragged, he waited. Two rings and then her voice made him stop moving. 

“Scully.” 

“Hey, Scully, it’s me.” He grinned as he moved again and walked to the couch, flopping down on it. 

“Well, it’s about damn time, Mulder,” she teased. 

“I’m inclined to agree.” He laughed, sitting forward and shaking his head. She joined his laughter and then they fell silent. His heart began pounding, but if she had been braver than usual, then he could be too. “I … I wanted to kiss you.” 

“I know,” she said quietly. “Me, too.” The honesty they expressed, left him tongue tied once again. Just hearing her voice in his ear made his body feel warm. 

“So, Mulder … do you suppose that house on Larkspur Lane is haunted only on Christmas? Surely it could do with a scientific investigation, just to see,” she said, and he could hear her smile. He sat back with a grin, ready to discuss haunted houses, or any other damn thing she wanted. 

For the next ten minutes, an hour, or for the rest of his life. 

[beardedmrbean]

Mystery continues to swirl after nearly a month of drone sightings over New Jersey and other US states, alarming some residents.

US authorities have been unable to provide definitive answers, saying only that the objects are not believed to pose a danger to the public or national security.

On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas confirmed the sightings included drones, as well as manned aircraft commonly mistaken for drones.

He added that he knows of "no foreign involvement" to do with the unmanned aerial vehicles.

Some lawmakers have criticised the government's handling of the drone reports and the lack of public information.

The drone sightings have prompted a wide-range of baseless conspiracy theories, including that they are searching for nuclear weapons, radioactive "dirty bombs" or are form part of an impending invasion by aliens.

Here's what we know.

Where have drones been spotted?

Dozens of drone sightings have been reported over New Jersey since 18 November, but others have been reported around the US north-east.

Some of the flights were spotted near Picatinny Arsenal - a sensitive military research facility - as well as near President-elect Donald Trump's golf course in the town of Bedminster, New Jersey.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has since issued temporary flight restrictions prohibiting drone flights over Bedminster and Picatinny.

Sightings have also been reported in several other states:

In New York City, several drones were reported flying over the Bronx on 12 December

Stewart Airfield in New York state had to shut down for about an hour on 13 December because of drone activity, Governor Kathy Hochul said

In Connecticut, police confirmed "suspicious drone activity". A drone detection system is now in use near the towns of Groton and New London

In Maryland, former Republican Governor Larry Hogan said he saw what appeared to be "dozens" of drones over his home in Davidsonville

In Massachusetts, two men were arrested on 14 December after a "hazardous drone operation" near Logan International Airport's airspace in Boston, police said

Multiple sightings have been reported in eastern Pennsylvania, including over Philadelphia

In October, the Wall Street Journal reported that mysterious drones were seen for 17 days near US military facilities in Virginia

In Ohio, a US Air Force base was briefly closed on 13 December after small drones were detected flying nearby. More drones were reported on 16 and 17 December, although the airbase's operations were not impacted

In late November, drones were also spotted over three US airbases in the UK, with British defence sources telling the BBC suspicion had fallen on a "state actor".

Drones were also reported near the Ramstein US military airbase in Germany in early December.

Are mystery drones above US bases in England something sinister?

What have investigators said about the drones?

In a call with reporters, officials from several US agencies said there was no evidence of any threat to public safety.

"I think there has been a slight overreaction," an official from the FBI said.

The homeland security secretary told ABC News on Sunday he knows of "no foreign involvement with respect to the sightings in the north-east".

"And we are vigilant in investigating this matter," he said.

Mayorkas added: "If there is any reason for concern, if we identify any foreign involvement or criminal activity, we will communicate with the American public accordingly."

What are these flying objects?

Following a briefing with the Department of Homeland Security on 11 December, New Jersey assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia said the drones appeared to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio.

Fantasia said the aircraft were up to 6ft (1.8m) in diameter, travelling with lights turned off and "operate in a co-ordinated manner".

Secretary Mayorkas told ABC that an explanation for the uptick in drone sightings could be to do with a change in federal law last year that allowed drones to be flown at night.

"That may be one of the reasons why now people are seeing more drones than they did before, especially from dawn to dusk," he said.

A joint statement released by the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and defence department on 16 December said the sightings are a "combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones."

"We have not identified anything anomalous," the statement said, adding that the government still recognises "the concern among many communities."

President-elect Donald Trump, for his part, claimed that the "government knows what is happening".

"For some reason, they don't want to comment," he added. "I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our president knows."

While he declined to answer whether he had been briefed on the sightings, Trump said that he "can't imagine it's the enemy."

Where are they coming from?

It is unclear who might be operating them.

New Jersey Republican representative Jeff Van Drew said that the drones were coming from an Iranian "mothership" in the Atlantic, while Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi said there was a "non-trivial" chance that China could be involved.

The Pentagon, White House and homeland security department have all insisted that there is no foreign origin for the objects.

A northern California man was charged on with flying a drone over and taking pictures of Vandenberg Space Force Base, located near Santa Barbara, on 30 November.

The man, 39-year-old Chinese national Yinpiao Zhou was arrested just before he boarded a flight to China.

But there has been no suggestion this incident has any connection with the spate of drone reports on the other side of the country.

Can the drones be stopped?

President-elect Trump has suggested the drones couldn't be flying without the government's knowledge.

"Let the public know, and now," he wrote on his Truth Social media platform. "Otherwise, shoot them down."

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, also said the drones should be shot down.

Shooting down drones is illegal, however.

New York State Governor Hochul has called on the federal government to allow states to crack down on the drones.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has requested that federal officials send drone detection systems to New York and New Jersey.

In a statement, the FAA warned that drone operators who conduct unsafe or dangerous operations could face fines of up to $75,000 (£59,000) and have their drone pilot certificates revoked.

[solntse111]

if you didn’t know, western north carolina and appalachia as a whole was hit extremely hard in hurricane helene. like a true katrina level disaster. here’s a very poorly organized diary of my time since the storm. please pray and donate to restoring the magical mountains i call home.

september 29

flooding and rain started wednesday

helene hit thursday thru friday

the clouds have yet to clear

county refusing to acknowledge why black mountain got water over the rest of buncombe.

87 year old woman found dead on route nine in black mountain.

30 found dead in buncombe county alone.

ag center and almost every other shelter is at capacity. schools closed indefinitely.

94,000 in city limits without power.

100 people and 11 animals airlifted to safety.

1000 missing.

a man in apartment says the dam is about to break, people are sending out misinformation that even the police stations are sharing

4,000 national guard deployed to wnc, a non commercial plane passed over the apartment at 9:01 pm

“beyond what anyone could prepare for”

united cajun navy arrives in asheville, “the gloves are off… hardcore rescue at its finest”

September 30

went to my dads for supplies

mom came home from maryland

vermont search and rescue at the church

120 confirmed dead in buncombe county

lake james rose to 14 feet, water covering second story homes.

looting throughout biltmore

national news finally picks up the story, harris has spoken to fema about asheville

military helicopters in the upstate

25 counties have major emergency declarations; all of wnc

people found dead in the trees in sawananoa

nationwide craft beer shortage

October 1

Rosh Hashana

power returns to the complex

food and supply lines into asheville are secured

October 3

mcrig is in asheville providing free meals

october 6

me and chris leave for charlotte

we see go to dinner and see the second joker movie

hearing people talk about things like cleaning their garage or touring their sons new apartment feels ridiculous knowing we have been a week without water

when my friends have lost their homes

when hundreds have lost their lives

we stay in a dirty yet crisp hotel room

two beds and a broken mirror

showering was nice

[londonfoginacup]

An Essay about Carolina, the classic song by Harry Styles, that becomes slightly unhinged as it goes along

Harry Styles has long been known for his incredibly nonsensical lyrics. By now he features a three-album catalogue of songs that the average listener thinks, “I might know what this is about”. The more advanced listener, who has then looked up the lyrics, follows that thought up with, “Actually I have no clue what he’s talking about.” This has long been a problem for Styles’ fans, who love to extract knowledge from his lyrical essays. I, personally, have spent hours pouring over lyrics in order to bring you, dear reader, the truth. 

In this essay, I will show how the classic Harry Styles song Carolina is, in fact, a song about the Queen of England.

Now the first thing to remember while deep diving on this topic is that Harry is British. This may be a difficult thing to remember, because his accent has only become more and more transatlantic nonsense over the years, but is very important to the context of this song. 

Now, to take a look at the first set of lyrics;

She's got a family in Carolina

So far away, but she says I remind her of home

The Queen could, of course, have any number of family members in Carolina, as North and South Carolina, as the combined populations of the two states amount to over 15 million. However, I believe he’s referring to Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of North Carolina, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. Sir Walter married one of her ladies-in-waiting, which the Queen at the time did not appreciate, but that does make him an in-law of sorts. 

Now, it is pertinent to point out that the first American football that the Queen ever watched was a Maryland v UNC (University of North Carolina) match, so she could be referring here to her family-on-the-field, as it were. Regardless, while attending a football game, the Queen would think that Harry, with his British sensibilities of preferring to watch men in shorts running around, would remind her of home. 

Feelin' oh-so far from home

She never saw herself as a west-coaster

Moved all the way 'cause her grandma told her

"Townes, better swim before you drown"

The Queen’s grandmother was Mary of Teck, a woman who didn’t look particularly like a queen when I looked her up just now on Wikipedia. Mary of Teck died when Queen Elizabeth was reigning, although she had not yet been crowned. We can see how the phrase “better swim before you drown” would be used here, as the Queen was in her mid-twenties at the time and, as they say in the hit musical 1776, there was “a war on.”

(Okay there wasn’t actually, but I had read the year as 1925 instead of 1952, and had already written that stellar line, so we’re keeping it).

Regardless, the Queen obviously never saw herself as a west-coaster because she lives in England, not North or South Carolina. 

She's got a book for every situation

Gets into parties without invitations

How could you ever turn her down?

There's not a drink that I think could sink her

Now this may seem obvious, but one would never turn down the Queen if she were requesting to get into one’s party. Can you imagine turning her away from a rager? From a kegerater? Obviously you cannot. She is the Queen, and probably had very large bodyguards who would be more than willing to force their way in so that she could daintily sip her lukewarm post-beerpong-beer. 

Now, on the subject of books, a quick google search will come up with article after article. “4 Fascinating Books About Queen Elizabeth II”, “8 Best Queen Elizabeth II Biographies to Get”, “The 20 Best Books About Queen Elizabeth II”. I think we do not need to name every book about her to be sure that there is a biography for every situation. My personal favourite is an odd comic book I found where a younger version of herself seems to be crowning an older version of herself. Very mysterious. 

How would I tell her that she's all I think about?Well, I guess she just found out

Obviously, we can know this song is about the Queen because Harry has put so many references to the Queen in it, and she is a wise woman who listens to all of his albums on release day, because he is a British icon.

I met her once and wrote a song about her

I wanna scream, yeah, I wanna shout it out

And I hope she hears me now

I do not know whether the Queen ever heard him, although I assume she did, as I stated above.

Now, dear reader, this concludes my deep dive into Carolina, but this does not conclude Harry’s tributes to the Queen. Just two albums later, he followed this clear Queen-love-letter up with a second, just-as-obvious love letter.

Love of My Life.

Harry has stated in interviews that this song is about England. And it clearly is, but it is moreso about the ruler of England, the woman who made England what it is (or something. She sold some plates with her face on them at least, that wouldn’t be there otherwise).

I take you with me every time I go away

In a hotel, usin' someone else's name

I remember back at Jonny's place, it's not the same anymore

This song is a crooning sigh of longing for Harry’s good old friend the Queen. Clearly he uses the name Elizabeth in hotels. Someone should check on that.

Baby, you were the love of my life, woah

Maybe you don't know what's lost 'til you find it

It's not what I wanted, to leave you behind

He lost the Queen, likely while they were playing hide and seek. But then he had to leave on a plane for a show, and it seems as though he never found her again.

Don't know where you'll land when you fly

You usually do, actually.

It's unfortunate, ooh

Just coordinates, ooh

Maybe Harry doesn’t know how to read a map.

I don't know you half as well as all my friends

I won't pretend that I've been doin' everything I can

To get to know your creases and your ends

Are they the same?

This is a complaint that, after Styles started his many world tours, the Queen began going to parties without him. Which is fair, because she can’t just be sitting reading books about herself waiting for him to come around.

But, baby, you were the love of my lifeNote the use of the past tense here. This album came out in spring, and the Queen passed in the fall (I think. I’m not looking anything up anymore). Could this be… premonition? Planning? Another vehicular manslaughter crime under Harry’s belt? Who’s to say? Certainly not the Queen…

[moonlight26posts-blog]

In Maryland! Meet Ghost, a charming 4-year-old pup in search of a special foster or forever home where tranquility reigns supreme. Found in a local shelter amidst unfortunate circumstances of cruelty and hoarding, Ghost swiftly captured the affection of shelter staff and volunteers who absolutely adore him.

Despite his past, Ghost possesses endearing qualities that are bound to steal your heart. He craves human connection and delights in being close to you, showcasing his affectionate nature. A proficient leash walker, Ghost exhibits remarkable tolerance towards other dogs while on walks, though his social interactions are still a work in progress.

While he may have battled heartworm previously, Ghost is now in good health, albeit with a few missing teeth—a minor detail that doesn't dampen his hearty appetite. Given his history, Ghost requires a serene environment where he can unwind and bask in your companionship. Are you ready to be Ghost's cherished companion? If you're seeking a furry addition to your family and possess the patience and understanding Ghost deserves, he could be the perfect match for you. Plus, Ghost is very, very housetrained and loves anything that squeaks!

If you can foster or adopt this sweet boy, please email: foster@aaha-rescue.org or adopt@aaha-rescue.org

[lambstokill]

⠀

⠀

𝗕𝗜𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗜𝗡𝗙𝗢. 𝗢𝗙 . . .

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ˖ ⠀࿇ ཾ ⠀༼ ⠀( JUDITH STARLING )

⠀
⠀ ⠀ { trigger warning for the contents below:

family loss, car accident, death, etc.}
⠀
⠀


⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ 𝟎𝟎𝟏 ┊ ⠀ 𝗜𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗬 .⠀⠀

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀────────────
⠀
⠀

⠀
⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: judith annora starling.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬: jude, annie, starchild.

⠀༝ ༝⠀ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫: cisgender female.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐚𝐠𝐞 / 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲: july 2nd, 1993 / 23 at the

beginning of the show.⠀ ⠀

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬: human ⠀

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞: asheville, tennessee.⠀ ⠀

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: brooklyn, new york.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: cases that involve children,

car accidents, parental / family deaths. ⠀
⠀

⠀
⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ 𝟎𝟎𝟐 ┊ ⠀ 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 .

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀─────────────

⠀

⠀

⠀
⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 5’6”
⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫: hazel.

༝ ༝⠀ 𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫: dark brown, but overtime

she begins to develop grey strands due to stress.
⠀

⠀

⠀
⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ 𝟎𝟎𝟑 ┊ ⠀ 𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 .⠀⠀
⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀────────────
⠀
⠀

⠀
⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: bisexual, openly.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: in total, Judith has only ever

been with five people, three women & two men,

and only two of those relationships were serious.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬: married. ⠀
⠀
⠀
⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ 𝟎𝟎𝟒 ┊ ⠀ 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬 .
⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀─────────────
⠀
⠀

⠀

⠀⠀⠀

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: true neutral.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ 𝐳𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐜 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧: cancer. ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀
⠀
⠀
⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ 𝟎𝟎𝟓 ┊ ⠀𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 . ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀─────────
⠀


⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Rafael Barba — husband.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Natalia Barba — daughter.

༝ ༝⠀Emelio Barba — son.

༝ ༝⠀Lennon Starling — 𝖿𝖺𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋, deceased.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Marley Collins-Starling — 𝗆𝗈𝗍𝗁𝖾r, deceased.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Lukas Starling — older brother, deceased.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Silas Starling — older brother, deceased.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Dane Starling — older brother

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Jakob Starling — older brother, deceased.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Maverick Starling — older brother, deceased.

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀Bonnie McClain — paternal aunt / guardian.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀

𝟎𝟎𝟔 ┊ ⠀ 𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 . ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀
⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀─────────

⠀ ༝ ༝⠀ Life was boring in Asheville … Judith always

searched for an escape — running away, only

to be brought back just twenty-four hours later,

or, her favorite memory, at just fifteen years old,

hopping into the back of a truck bed, where she

managed to get all the way to maryland before her

picture was put out into the paper & she had to be

brought home via police escort.


this life of running away all came to a halt when

she was seventeen. Judith was at home with her

brother, Dane, on house sitting duty for their aunt,

Daphne, as she packed up to move to New York,

when they got the call about a horrible accident.

no survivors.

With no one else able-bodied to care for the kids,

Daphne signed up to take them in, formally

adopting the two as she left Tennessee for

the big apple.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀──────────────────

[no criticism, hate, or unnecessary opinions please.

creating ocs is just a creative outlet for myself <3]

⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

[shuxiii]

Everyday pt.15

Hanni Pham x reader pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4, pt5, pt6, pt7, pt8, pt9, pt10, pt11, pt12, pt13, pt14, pt16

a/n 5 more to go, credits to ''every day'' by David levithan

Day 6022

My plan is to wake up early—around six—and email Hanni.

But my plan is foiled when I’m shaken awake a little before five.

''Jini, it’s time to get up.”

It’s my mother—Jini’s mother—and unlike with Dana’s mother, there’s only apology in her voice.

I figure it’s time for swim practice, or something else I have to do before school. But when I get out of bed, my foot hits a suitcase.

I hear my mom in the other room, waking up my sisters.

“It’s time to go to Hawaii!” she says cheerily.

Hawaii.

I access and find that, yes, we are leaving for Hawaii this morning. Jini’s older sister is getting married there. And Jini’s family has decided to take a weeklong vacation.

Only for me it won’t be a week. Because in order to get back, I’d have to wake up in the body of a nineteen-year-old who was heading home to Maryland that day. It could take weeks. Months.

It might never happen.

“The car’s coming in forty-five minutes!” Jini’s dad calls up.

Under no circumstances can I go.

Jini’s wardrobe consists mostly of T-shirts for heavy metal bands. I throw one on, as well as jeans.

“You’re just asking Homeland Security to give you a full cavity search,” one of my sisters says as I pass her in the hall.

I am still trying to figure out what to do.

Jini doesn’t have her license, and I don’t think it would help for me to steal one of her parents’ cars. Her older sister’s wedding isn’t until Friday, so at least I’m not jeopardizing her attendance there. But who am I kidding? Even if the wedding were this evening, I wouldn’t get on that plane.

I know I am going to get Jini in a huge amount of trouble. I apologize to her profusely as I write my note and leave it on the kitchen table.

I can’t go today. I am so sorry. I will be back later tonight. Go without me. I’ll get there somehow by Thursday.

While everyone else is upstairs, I walk out the back door.

I could call a cab, but I’m afraid her parents will call the local cab companies to see if they’ve picked up any metalhead teens lately. I am at least two hours away from Hanni. I take the nearest bus I can find, and ask the driver the best way to get to her town. He laughs and says, “By car.” I tell him that’s not an option, and in return he tells me I’ll probably have to head to Baltimore and then back out again.

It takes about seven hours.

School isn’t out yet when I get there, having walked about a mile from the center of town. Again, nobody stops me, even though I’m an intimidating, jet-black-haired, sweating girl in a Metallica T-shirt storming up the steps.

I try to remember Hanni’s schedule from when I was inside her head, and have a vague recollection that this period is gym. I check the gymnasium and find it empty. The natural next stop is the fields, which are behind the school. When I walk out, I find a softball game in action. Hanni is at third base.

She sees me out of the corner of her eye. I wave. It’s unclear whether she recognizes me as me or not. I feel too out in the open, too much in the line of the gym teacher’s sight. So I retreat back to the school, by the door. Just another slacker, taking a smokeless smoke break.

Hanni walks over to one of the teachers and says something. The teacher looks sympathetic, and puts another student on third base. Hanni starts heading toward the school. I step back inside, and wait for her in the empty gym.

“Hey,” I say once she steps inside.

“Where the hell were you?” she replies.

I’ve never seen her this angry before. It’s the kind of anger that comes when you feel betrayed by not just a single person, but the universe.

“I was locked in my room,” I tell her. “It was awful. There wasn’t even a computer.”

“I waited for you,” she tells me. “I got up. Made the bed. Had some breakfast. And then I waited. The reception on my phone went on and off, so I figured that had to be it. I started reading old issues of Field & Stream, because that’s the only reading material up there. Then I heard footsteps. I was so excited. When I heard someone at the door, I ran to it.

“Well, it wasn’t you. It was this eighty-year-old guy. And he had this dead deer with him. I don’t know who was more surprised. I just screamed when I saw him. And he nearly had a heart attack. I wasn’t naked, but I was close. I was so ashamed of myself. He wasn’t even sweet about it. He said I was trespassing. I told him Artie was my uncle, but he wasn’t believing me. I think the only thing that saved me was that Artie and I have the same last name. I was there in my underwear, showing this guy my ID. There was blood on his hands. And he said there were other guys coming. He’d just assumed my car was one of theirs.

“The problem was—I still thought you were coming. So I couldn’t leave. I put on my clothes, and had to sit there as they came and gutted that poor deer. I waited there after they left. I waited there until dark. The cabin smelled like blood, Yn. But I stayed there. And you never came.”

I tell her about Dana. Then I tell her about Jini, and running out of her house.

It’s something. But it’s not enough.

“How are we supposed to do this?” she asks me. “How?”

I want there to be an answer. I want to have an answer.

“Come here,” I say. And I hold her close, because that’s the only answer I have.

We stand like that for a minute, each not knowing what comes next. When the door to the gym opens, we pull away from each other. But we’re too late. I figure it’s one of the gym teachers, or another girl from class. But it’s not even that door. It’s the door from the school side, and it’s Minji who’s walked through.

“What the hell?” she says. “What. The. Hell?”

Hanni tries to explain. “Minji—” she begins. But she cuts her off.

“Yeeun texted me to say you weren’t feeling well. So I was going to see if you were okay. Well, I guess you’re real okay. Don’t let me interrupt.”

“Stop it,” Hanni says.

“Stop what, you bitch?” she asks. She’s on us now.

“Minji,” I say.

She turns to me. “You’re not even allowed to speak, bro.”

I’m about to say something else, but she’s already punching me. Her fist crashes right against the bridge of my nose. I’m knocked down to the ground.

Hanni screams and moves to help me up. Minji pulls at her arm.

“I always knew you were a bitch,” Minji says.

“Stop it!” Hanni cries out.

Minji lets go of her and comes back over to me. She starts kicking my body.

“This your new girlfriend?” Minji yells. “You love her?”

“I don’t love her!” Hanni yells back. “But I don’t love you, either.”

The next time she kicks, I grab her leg and pull her down. She crashes onto the gym floor. I think this will stop her, but she jabs her boot out again and gets me in the chin. My teeth rattle.

At this point, some whistle must blow outside, because within thirty seconds, girls from softball are streaming into the gym. When they see the carnage, they cluck and gasp. One girl runs over to Hanni to make sure she’s okay.

Minji gets up and kicks me again, just so everyone can see it. It barely grazes me, and I use the momentum of dodging the blow to stand up. I want to hit her, hurt her, but I honestly don’t know how.

Plus, I have to leave. It will be easy enough to discover that I don’t go to this school. And even though I’m the clear loser of this fight, they can still call the police on me for trespassing and brawling in the first place.

I teeter over to Hanni. Her friend makes a move to shield her from me, but Hanni gestures her off.

“I have to go,” I tell her. “Meet me at the Starbucks where we first met. When you can.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder. Minji, pulling me around. she won’t hit me with my back turned.

I know I should face her. Hit her if I can. But instead I duck out of her grip and run. She’s not going to follow me. She will bask instead in the victory of seeing me run.

It is not my intention to leave Hanni crying, but that is exactly what I do.

I make my way back to the bus stop, then use a nearby phone booth to call a cab. Nearly fifty dollars later, I am at the Starbucks. If before I was an intimidating, jet-black-haired, sweating girl in a Metallica T-shirt, now I am an intimidating, jet-black-haired, sweating girl in a Metallica T-shirt who’s beaten, bruised, and bleeding. I order a venti black coffee and leave twenty dollars in the tip jar. Now they’ll let me stay as long as I want, no matter how scary I look.

I clean myself up some in the bathroom. Then I sit down and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

She doesn’t arrive until a little after six.

She doesn’t apologize. She doesn’t explain why it took her so long. She doesn’t even come to my table right away. She stops at the counter and gets a coffee first.

“I really need this,” she says as she sits down. I know she’s talking about the coffee, not anything else.

I’m on my fourth coffee and second scone.

“Thank you for coming,” I tell her. It sounds too formal.

“I thought about not coming,” she says. “But I didn’t seriously consider it.” She looks at my face, my bruises. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Remind me—what’s your name today?”

“Jini.”

She looks me over again. “Poor Jini.”

“This is not how I imagine her thought the day would go.”

“That makes two of us.”

I feel we’re each standing a good hundred feet from the real subject. I have to move us closer.

“Is it over now? With the two of you?”

“Yes. So I guess you got what you wanted.”

“That’s an awful way to put it,” I say. “Don’t you want it, too?”

“Yes. But not like that. Not in front of everybody like that.”

I reach up to touch her face, but she flinches. I lower my hand.

“You’re free of her,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. I’ve said yet another thing wrong.

“I forget how little you know about these things,” she says. “I forget how inexperienced you are. I’m not free of her, Yn. Just because you break up with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re free of her. I’m still attached to Minji in a hundred different ways. We’re just not dating anymore. It’s going to take me years to be free of her.”

But at least you’ve started, I want to say. At least you’ve cut that one attachment. I remain silent, though. This might be what she knows, but it’s not what she wants to hear.

“Should I have gone to Hawaii?” I ask.

She softens to me then. It’s such an absurd question, but she knows what I mean.

“No, you shouldn’t have. I want you here.”

“With you?”

“With me. When you can be.”

I want to promise more than that, but I know I can’t.

We both stay there, on our tightrope. Not looking down, but not moving, either.

We use her phone to check the local flights to Hawaii, and when we’re sure there’s no way Jini’s family can get her on a plane, Hanni drives me home.

“Tell me more about the girl you were yesterday,” she asks. So I do. And when I’m done, and a sadness fills the car, I decide to tell her about other days, other lives. Happier. I share with her memories of being sung to sleep, memories of meeting elephants at zoos and circuses, memories of first kisses and near first kisses in rec-room closets and at Boy Scout sleepovers and scary movies. It’s my way of telling her that even though I haven’t experienced so many things, I have managed to have a life.

We get closer and closer to Jini’s house.

“I want to see you tomorrow,” I say.

“I want to see you, too,” she says. “But I think we both know it’s not just a matter of want.”

“I’ll hope it, then,” I tell her.

“And I’ll hope it, too.”

I want to kiss her good night, not goodbye. But when we get there, she makes no move to kiss me. I don’t want to push it and make the first move. And I don’t want to ask her, for fear that she’ll say no.

So we leave with me thanking her for the ride, and so much else going unspoken.

I don’t go straight into the house. I walk around to run out the clock more. It’s ten o’clock when I am at the front door. I access Jini to find out where the spare key is kept, but by the time I’ve found it, the door has opened and Jini’s father is there.

At first he doesn’t say a word. I stand there in the lamplight, and he stares.

“I want to beat the crap out of you,” he says, “but it looks like someone else got there first.”

My mother and sisters have been sent ahead to Hawaii. My father has stayed back for me.

In order to apologize, I have to give him some kind of explanation. I come up with one that’s as pathetic as I feel—there was a concert I had to go to, and there was just no way to tell him ahead of time. I feel awful messing up Jini’s life to such a degree, and this awfulness must come through as I speak, because Jini’s father is much less hostile than he has every right to be. I’m in no way off the hook: the change fee for the tickets will be coming out of my allowance for the next year, and when we’re in Hawaii, I may be grounded from doing anything that isn’t wedding-related. I will be getting guilt for this for the rest of my life. The only saving grace is that there were tickets available for the next day.

That night I create a memory of the best concert Jini will ever go to. It is the only thing I can think to give her to make any of it worth it.

[morbidology]

On 26 September, 2008, the police of Lusby, Maryland, received multiple phone-calls from worried citizens that reported seeing a young girl running down the street. She was wearing pajamas and appeared to be covered in faeces and blood. The little girl, who was 7-years-old, was taken to a local hospital. An examination revealed that she had been the victim of violent abuse and neglect. She confessed to police that she had jumped from her bedroom window to escape from her mother, who she thought was going to murder her. 

The police made their way to the home of her mother, Renee Bowman, armed with a search warrant. What they discovered inside would haunt them forever - two small frozen bodies, hidden in the basement freezer. Bowman then confessed that the two small bodies belonged to 7-year-old Jasmine and 9-year-old Minnet, her two adoptive daughters. An autopsy revealed that they had both died from asphyxia.

Renee was quickly arrested and her surviving daughter was the lead witness during her trial. She revealed that all three of the girls had been confined to one room where they were forced to use a bucket as a toilet. The girls were frequently beaten and choked. An investigation revealed that Renee had adopted the young girls for financial benefits - these benefits were continued even after she had murdered the two young girls. She was sentenced to life.

[boltedgarlic]

taglist~

you’ll have to use the search function unfortunately :( i am no longer linking all my tags. if you’re on desktop, my theme should have a search bar!

dated by year

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Ween

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11:11 | baby tag | birthday tag | fav | grandmas house | magic tag | personal | thank you post

updated: 09/13/2024

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA’s Europa Clipper Gets Set of Super-Size Solar Arrays

The largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for planetary exploration just got its ‘wings’ — massive solar arrays to power it on the journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft recently got outfitted with a set of enormous solar arrays at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Each measuring about 46½ feet (14.2 meters) long and about 13½ feet (4.1 meters) high, the arrays are the biggest NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. They have to be large so they can soak up as much sunlight as possible during the spacecraft’s investigation of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is five times farther from the Sun than Earth is.

The arrays have been folded up and secured against the spacecraft’s main body for launch, but when they’re deployed in space, Europa Clipper will span more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) — a few feet longer than a professional basketball court. The “wings,” as the engineers call them, are so big that they could only be opened one at a time in the clean room of Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where teams are readying the spacecraft for its launch period, which opens Oct. 10.

Flying in Deep Space

Meanwhile, engineers continue to assess tests conducted on the radiation hardiness of transistors on the spacecraft. Longevity is key, because the spacecraft will journey more than five years to arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030. As it orbits the gas giant, the probe will fly by Europa multiple times, using a suite of science instruments to find out whether the ocean underneath its ice shell has conditions that could support life.

Powering those flybys in a region of the solar system that receives only 3% to 4% of the sunlight Earth gets, each solar array is composed of five panels. Designed and built at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Airbus in Leiden, Netherlands, they are much more sensitive than the type of solar arrays used on homes, and the highly efficient spacecraft will make the most of the power they generate.

At Jupiter, Europa Clipper’s arrays will together provide roughly 700 watts of electricity, about what a small microwave oven or a coffee maker needs to operate. On the spacecraft, batteries will store the power to run all of the electronics, a full payload of science instruments, communications equipment, the computer, and an entire propulsion system that includes 24 engines.

While doing all of that, the arrays must operate in extreme cold. The hardware’s temperature will plunge to minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 240 degrees Celsius) when in Jupiter’s shadow. To ensure that the panels can operate in those extremes, engineers tested them in a specialized cryogenic chamber at Liège Space Center in Belgium.

“The spacecraft is cozy. It has heaters and an active thermal loop, which keep it in a much more normal temperature range,” said APL’s Taejoo Lee, the solar array product delivery manager. “But the solar arrays are exposed to the vacuum of space without any heaters. They’re completely passive, so whatever the environment is, those are the temperatures they get.”

About 90 minutes after launch, the arrays will unfurl from their folded position over the course of about 40 minutes. About two weeks later, six antennas affixed to the arrays will also deploy to their full size. The antennas belong to the radar instrument, which will search for water within and beneath the moon’s thick ice shell, and they are enormous, unfolding to a length of 57.7 feet (17.6 meters), perpendicular to the arrays.

“At the beginning of the project, we really thought it would be nearly impossible to develop a solar array strong enough to hold these gigantic antennas,” Lee said. “It was difficult, but the team brought a lot of creativity to the challenge, and we figured it out.”

More About the Mission

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

TOP IMAGE: NASA’s Europa Clipper is seen here on Aug. 21 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers and technicians deployed and tested the giant solar arrays to be sure they will operate in flight. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

CENTRE IMAGE: NASA’s Europa Clipper is seen here on Aug. 21 in a clean room at Kennedy Space Center after engineers and technicians tested and stowed the spacecraft’s giant solar arrays. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

LOWER IMAGE: This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. The mission’s launch period opens Oct. 10. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[mariacallous]

Following a mass shooting at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston, Maine, yesterday evening that left at least 18 people dead, state police urgently warned residents to “stay inside your home with the doors locked” as they mounted a manhunt for the suspect.

Misinformation about the suspect flooded social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and TikTok moments after the shooting. On X, verified accounts pushed out bogus claims that the threat had been neutralized and a suspect had been arrested. Police have since identified 40-year-old Robert Card as a “person of interest” in the shooting. While Card remains at large as of 10 am ET this morning, posts featured videos of the supposed arrest that have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

A prolific verified X account with almost 300,000 followers was among the first to post the claim that the suspect had been arrested, and while the account subsequently posted an update stating that the suspect was still at large, the original post—which has been seen over 170,000 times—remains active.

The top result for the search term “Robert Card arrested” on X was a post featuring the same video that has been viewed over 1.9 million times, even though it had a Community Note attached making it clear the claims in the post were false.

The same video circulating on X was also being shared on TikTok, where one post had been viewed 80,000 times by this morning.

Another of the main false narratives circulating in the hours after Card was identified was that he had been arrested in 2016 for possessing and disseminating sexually explicit materials. This was also inaccurate: It refers to a different person named Robert Card, who is also 40 years old and from Maine.

Some accounts labeled Card “a far-left lunatic” based on the unverified claim that he voted for former US president Barack Obama. Others wildly tried to link the incident to the current crisis in the Middle East, claiming, without evidence, that Card “was a Hamas supporter.”

While misinformation about the mass shooting proliferated across social media, the problem was acute on X, where owner Elon Musk has incentivized people to post engaging and viral content even if it’s not accurate. As a result, users rushed to be the first to post updates about the shooting despite being blatantly false.

“It’s as if everyone thinks disinformation is a problem, but not for them personally—only for other people,” Caroline Orr, a behavioral scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland who tracks disinformation online, wrote on X, adding: “When 20+ people are murdered in a mass shooting, and the reaction of most people on this website is: ‘How can I use this to push a political agenda?’ or ‘How can I use this to attack XYZ person?’ … that reflects something far more disturbing.”

X, Meta, and TikTok did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

At 3 am ET this morning, Lewiston Police Department confirmed on its Facebook page that Card, a certified firearms instructor and a member of the US Army from Bowdoin, Maine, was still on the run. The department said Card “should be considered armed and dangerous” and that members of the public should not approach him.

Law enforcement believes the shooter killed at least 16 people and 13 more at around 7 pm yesterday at the Sparetime Recreation bowling alley and the nearby Schemengees Bar and Grille. Officials said the death toll is expected to rise, with one local city councilor telling CNN that it could be as high as 22.

The incident was the nation’s worst mass shooting this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Card, whose own X profile was filled with conspiracy theories about trans mass shooters and pro-MAGA content, had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks earlier this year after he reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, Maine,” according to a police bulletin circulated by law enforcement and reported by AP.

Notably, Card also liked two posts, one from Donald Trump Jr. and another by far-right personality Dinesh D'Souza, about their opposition to gun control.

The rapid unchecked spread of misinformation last night and into this morning mirrored the response earlier this month when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7. In the hours and days following the attack and the bombing of Gaza by the Israeli government, X was overrun by disinformation shared by verified users, who rehashed old footage, video game content, and photoshopped images to push partisan narratives.

Updated at 10:55 am ET, October 26, 2023, to include the latest casualty and wounded figures provided by Maine governor Janet Mills during a press conference this morning.