#because not declaring a side would be branded taking a side by people inclined towards harassment

[outeremissary]

I believe this is the news article being referred to in this post- I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it already. It should be required reading for anyone who has contact with any form of online discourse.

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[vercopaanir]

Somewhere Safe

The Lovely Moons, Chapter 17

Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Blind!Reader

Summary: After a conversation with Venka and suffering nightmares, you confide in the Mandalorian and Kuiil your worries to keep the children safe. The bounty hunter forms a plan.

Words: 4.6k

Warnings/Rating: T, I think? Romantic themes with a little bit of heat!

Notes: I have gotten a few messages asking if this story will be going a certain route. This chapter, specifically the end, will answer those questions!

AO3

It takes nearly two weeks for the fathier to regain its health fully, and it is a tumultuous time. There are several days when Kuiil isn’t sure the creature would make it through the night, and oftentimes, both Venka and Corde ask to stay up with him while he nurses the sick animal. You worry for the aftermath of the beast, knowing the two children hold soft feelings for it. They are alike, abused and forgotten, sold and branded. Their unspoken bond brings mist to your vision that you fight to keep back.

You whisper your fears to the Mandalorian one night as you sit up in the bed that the Ugnaught continued to insist you sleep in, brushing your hair out and staring up towards the mesh window of the tent.

The Mandalorian sits on the edge of the bed, removing each piece of his armor with diligence. He finally gets down to his helmet and his thick layers beneath, shucking his boots with a grateful sigh. There are no qualms for him to flop back on the bed beside you, his visor trained on the way your hair falls in waves down to your waist. 

“You worry for them.”

“They have been through something that no child should ever have to endure,” you mutter, letting the brush drop in your lap. You wish you could throw it across the room instead. “More loss, more fear can break your spirit after the things they’ve seen.”

You feel warm, bare hands encircle your arms above your elbows, gently pulling you back to lay down. You go without resistance, glancing to the side, only able to see some of the visor that’s now obscured by waves of your hair. Unbothered, the Mandalorian intones, “We will protect them.”

“Not from everything. Not from everyone,” you murmur, turning to look up at the ceiling, only partially aware of his fingers picking your hair from his helmet. “You have so much already to worry about, and I...I can’t even-”

“Stop it.” His tone is harsh, and it makes you flinch from how demanding he is when his hand squeezes your arm tight. “If it weren’t for you, they’d still be in that hole on Cantonica.”

“If it weren’t for you, all three of us would still be there.”

“I’m not arguing about this,” the Mandalorian huffs, letting you go and leaving you cold. “You know how I feel about what you bring to us, what you do for us. Nothing changes that.” 

Us.

You bite your lip, your hand moving across the covers to lace your fingers through his. “I just think sometimes I can do more. I can be more for them,” you whisper, turning your face to look at the outline of his profile in the darkness. His helmet gleams beneath the moonlight. “More for you.”

Suddenly, he turns onto his side, bringing your hand with him so you hug his middle, your body pressed up against his back. You rest your cheek against the curve between his shoulders, listening to him breathe raggedly, and you squeeze him tight.

“You are everything to me.”

The next day, Corde asks if she can try to ride a blurrg. The Mandalorian immediately tells Kuiil he doesn’t like the idea, citing her small stature in comparison to the beat’s giant maw. You listen to them argue back and forth, your interest perking when the bounty hunter mentions how sore he’d been when he was thrown so many times from the foal he had learned with.

You sit in the shade of the stables, a few yards off, practicing Basic Galactic Sign with Venka as the child toddles happily between you and the Mandalorian’s boot. He finally gives in to Kuiil’s reasoning, a sound argument that riding animals will give her an advantage now when she grows older. He marches off to finish binding the dried vegetation that the blurrgs consume for their meal, determined to earn board and bed for all of you by loaning himself as a farmhand to the Ugnaught. You shake your head towards Venka, signing.

He cares for you and your sister very much. We both do.

Venka holds your hand and signs against your palm, since you can’t make out his fingers with your impaired vision, and you feel the motions. His small hands are a bit clumsy, but you incline your head to see what you can.

Corde says he is the best warrior in the galaxy. Is she right?

You smile, your fingers fluttering.

I think so. What do you think?

Venka grins up at you and nods fervently. You reach over and ruffle his hair with no small amount of affection, but you see when his eyes look down at your hands very seriously, slipping deep into thought. You grow concerned when he doesn’t say anything, cupping his chin with your other hand to tilt his face up.

I don’t want to leave you.

Your heart squeezes, eyes widening, and your hands shake as you reply, Who said you are leaving us?

He sighs softly, shrugging his shoulder. I dreamed it.

You open your mouth, wanting to ask more, to allay his fears, but a sudden, high pitched scream is followed by a loud thud. Both of you whirl around just as you see one of the blurrgs running to the other side of the pen, away from Corde who is sprawled in the dirt. It’s completely silent, but even you, without full use of your vision, see her entire body wracking with cries.

Before you can even get to your feet, the Mandalorian is sprinting across the yard, his armor doing nothing to slow him when he hops fluidly over the fence and stumbles toward the little girl. The blurrg has turned back to them both as he picks her up, its hind legs digging in the dirt as if to charge. Kuiil climbs through the fence, though, calling to it with wary hands outstretched to calm its energy.

“Stay here,” you murmur, both to Venka and the child, who holds onto the little boy’s arm with a worried expression, ears drooped in fear.

You follow the Mandalorian into the tent, finding him sitting the little girl down on a cushion and murmuring soothingly to her, “It’s alright. Let me see.” You sit beside her, petting her hair from her tear stained face as she leans into you instinctively. She’s sniffling, trying to swallow hiccups that choke her.

“What happened?” you ask, pressing your lips to the crown of her hair as she allows the bounty hunter to inspect her arm.

“A l-lizard spooked it,” she coughs wetly, her nose leaking. You coo, grabbing a cloth napkin from the table and returning to clean her face.

“Not broken, maybe a sprain,” mutters the bounty hunter, moving away to gather the bag you’d brought with you. You repress a sigh, knowing his tone is one of anger, though certainly not at the child. 

“Most people fall when they learn to ride,” you tell her softly, and when she looks up at you with hopeful, teary eyes, you know it's her pride that hurts more than her arm. You had worn that same expression once, when you’d fallen and tripped as a child unable to see. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I don’t want to learn anymore,” Corde whimpers, pressing her face back into your side.

The Mandalorian returns with a bottle, a clean cloth, and a syringe. His gloves have been removed, tucked into his belt, and the golden skin of his hands seem foreign. His tone is uncharacteristically rough, making you frown when he asks, “Why?”

“Because!” she fidgets as he pours some of the solution onto the cloth, cleaning the scrapes where the gravel had torn the delicate skin of her arm. She sniffles, “It’s scary.” 

You nudge the toe of your boot against his calf, earning a tilt of his visor toward you. Inclining your head toward the little girl, you give him a pleading look, and he seems to understand, glancing between you and the child before drawing himself up a little higher. He resumes the rhythmic strokes with the antiseptic solution against her arm.

“I got thrown trying to learn, too.”

Corde peeks up from your side, blinking doubtfully in his direction.

He focuses on his task, pressing the cold numbing agent against every scrape and scratch, sloughing the dirt away. “More times than I can count, but Kuiil helped me. And he can help you too.” He pauses, setting the cloth aside and taking up the needle. He works the syringe into a small bottle and fills it. She watches with contempt, curling into your side when he flicks the barrel to let out air. Leaning his arm against his knee, he looks up at her with a thoughtful air. His voice is much softer now, and you feel your eyes go misty again. “And we are not people who don’t do something just because we’re afraid. Are we?”

Corde stares at him, her eyes moving between his visor and the needle. She takes a deep breath before shaking her head, and she gives him her arm. He makes it quick, inserting the needle and pressing the plunger with a practiced air before wrapping her tiny bicep with gauze to keep it protected. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes,” he murmurs, turning away to clean up the few medical articles. 

You take the sleeve of your dress and gently wipe her salty cheeks again, smiling. “I told you that you are very brave. See how I was right?”

She gives you a smile, sniffling and nodding bashfully. “I want to be brave like you. Like a Mandalorian.” 

The bounty hunter’s hands pause over the medical supplies, glancing towards you as if to gauge your reaction. You are not sure what he expects to see, or what he fears he might, but your heart lifts when the girl smiles up at you.

“I think you are.” 

Corde holds her arm gingerly, standing up. “I’m going to try again,” she declares, her voice still edged with tears but determination setting her chin high.

“Give it a few minutes!” you laugh, watching as she marches out of the tent. You turn to help clean up the mess, but you frown when the Mandalorian swipes it all up, turning and stalking off. You frown, watching his back as he packs the items away, and when he turns, he finds you staring at him.

“What?”

You stand up slow, touching his arm lightly and inclining your head. “She’s fine, you know. Little girls are resilient that way.”

He grunts, stepping around you to rinse his hands at the faucet. “No thanks to Kuiil. Or you, for that matter.” 

Shock radiates through your entire body, and you think you would feel less stunned if he had struck you across the face. When he turns around, drying his hands on a towel, your arms are folded and you’ve schooled your expression into something more serene.

“What are you talking about?”

He throws the towel down, tugging his gloves from his belt with more force than necessary. “You could have said something. He listens to you more than me.”

“Are you...actually blaming me for her getting hurt?”

At his stony silence, your eyes flash, heat prickling beneath your skin in a brilliant flush. “Either you do, and you need someone to blame because of how scared it left you, or you’re angry and wanting to fight someone,” you breathe, your heart beginning to pick up speed in the face of conflict. Your hands flex against your sides when you let them drop, standing your ground. “I won’t be a whipping post, and certainly not because you didn’t like not having control.”

You can see the catch of light on the beskar covering his chest when his breathing begins to pick up, and the two of you stare each other down. In another life, you think he may have intimidated you into a forlorn, misplaced apology, but not now. Not with your heart so full, with everything you have tried so hard to preserve. 

“Fine,” you whisper, turning your face away, only marginally catching the tilt of his visor. You start towards the mouth of the hut. “If you want someone to blame, stay in here and blame yourself.” 

You don’t get far.

A grip of iron latches onto your elbow, tugging you back before you even see him move. You suck in a breath, stumbling as he drags you back behind the partition of the sleeping quarters, and you yelp when your boot catches on one of the rugs. “W-What are you do-”

His fingers grab the lip of his helmet, tearing it off, and in the same movement, his other arm hauls you against the front of his body, and he covers your lips with his own. You lose all the breath in your lungs, your hands hopelessly trying to grab onto something for balance as he seems intent on consuming you whole. It is nothing like the kiss you shared on the Razor Crest, nothing like the stolen kisses around the moisture farm with a touch of tenderness and desperation.

This is hungry, and it is violent.

You aren’t given a moment to see his face, not a chance to adjust to the tight space between him and the wall of the hut as he backs you flush against it, opening your mouth with his lips as if your body is under siege. His helmet hangs from one hand, and he presses it against the curve of your hip, his other cupping the back of your neck. You can’t keep up with the movements, the onslaught of his presence leaving you reeling with vertigo. You settle your hands on either side of his face that is shadowed in the corner of the hut, finding an anchor there, and you gasp when he tears his mouth from yours to bite at your jaw.

“W-What are you do-doing!” you whisper, the scratch of facial hair prickling your skin. The muscles in your legs begin to shake, and there is a fluttering dizziness in your belly that makes you want to pull him closer. Stars, you don’t know if you could handle more of this.

His mouth is hotter than a furnace, his kisses open mouthed and lascivious against your neck, and he stumbles into you, dropping his helmet with a loud thunk against the floor. His shoulders are tighter than a bow string, and you bring shaking fingers up to bury in the fluffy, misshapen curls that are usually hidden. 

“Why are you so soft?” he growls, sounding truly angry at this revelation as he keeps you pinned between his body and the wall. You drink in the humid air between you, eyes closing tight against the throbbing ache building brighter within you. “S-Soft and-and sweet and p-pretty,” he whimpers, teeth sinking harder into the warm flesh of your neck beneath your ear.

You tug his hair, wriggling against him for something. You don’t know what you want, what you need in that moment, but you don’t want him to stop. The raw, strangled tone he rasps with, a mixture of fear and joy that heats your blood is buried in your hair when he smothers his lips against the long tresses falling over your shoulder.

“I-It’s alright-” you pant, one hand falling to the back of his neck, and you feel his entire body shudder against you. Your own heart beats hard enough to reverberate against the chest plate pressing against your front, but you know his beats on the other side, too. “It’s alright-”

A scream pierces the otherwise quiet desert air, and suddenly the Mandalorian is gone, swiping his helmet up from the floor and donning it before tearing through the hut to get outside. There’s only a moment’s hesitation on your part before you fall forward after him, running into his back when he stops suddenly in the yard.

Corde screams again, giggling wildly as the blurrg practically hops around the pen with her on its back. The Mandalorian groans so loud his entire helmet seems to vibrate, dropping his head backward. You snort, belly laughs working their way out of you as you lean your temple against his pauldron. You’re dizzy with passion, with relief, with joy, and you’re thankful he’s so solid that you can sink against him and not worry he won’t be the mountain against the sea inside you.

Kuiil ambles his way toward you both, hands folded behind his back and bowing his head. “I will give you my apology. I did not think she would get hurt. She should not have,” he adds, and you can hear the subtle catch in his voice.

“It was an accident,” the Mandalorian says, beating you to the punch and drawing a smile from you. As if his biting words before simply needed to be expelled, to clean his mind from the ugliness a hurt child can bring. He seems to sway forward, as if he feels inclined to touch the Ugnaught on the shoulder in companionable understanding. He chooses not to, letting your gentle touch anchor him to his spot. He swallows hard, his voice hoarse when he adds, “It was no one’s fault.”

It is not an apology to you, but that night when you’re dozing beneath starlight, your back pressed against his, you feel his hand drift to brush over your hip. He whispers his remorse to you, his voice a crack that betrays the desperation you feel in his hand that holds your own. You fall asleep with your fingers entangled with his, but it doesn’t keep a nightmare from plaguing your sleep that night.

Or every night after.

One evening, after the children are put to bed and you and the two men are sitting around the table, you find your eyes growing heavy. You’re working on a second pair of shoes for each of the children, made from the leather that Kuiil had gifted you. The hide of the mudhorn he’d scavenged after the Mandalorian had left his first time on Arvala-7 had provided a good amount of resources. When your needle pierces the skin of your finger for the second time, the bounty hunter heaves a sigh and reaches over to confiscate your work. You shoot him a look of betrayal, scowling, but it is Kuiil who points out, “You aren’t sleeping.”

You ignore both of them as you cross the living space to the faucet, rinsing the blood from your hands. “No, I suppose not.”

“Any reason?” Kuiil asks sagely, glowering suspiciously at the Mandalorian who sits across from his table. The bounty hunter remains stoic and silent, and you clear your throat, hoping it’s dark enough that neither of them notice the bright flush in your cheeks.

“Venka told me something days ago that I cannot put from my mind,” you murmur, wandering back to your seat. You fall into it, rubbing your sore hands together in your lap and blinking hard against the pull of exhaustion. “He is still afraid of being abandoned. I...I don’t know how to assure them that they are safe,” you murmur, the growing ache between your temples making you wince.

Kuiil hums thoughtfully, his hands working a knife over a figure of wood. He told you he was making a toy for the child, and that it would be a surprise to all. “That may not be something you can take from him, my girl.” 

“Surely he can feel safe with us?” you ask weakly, gesturing between you and the silent warrior beside you. “It...it took me some time myself, but I grew more comfortable and secure.”

“It did?” The Mandalorian’s voice is surprised, and you shrug in his direction.

“Perhaps if he could see others like him, he would know it is possible to allow himself happiness,” Kuiil intones, looking down at the wooden figure in his palm. He turns it several times before beginning the process once more.

You lean your face into your hands, feeling just as helpless as the moment the child spoke his fears to you. It’s on your shoulders even as you lay down that evening, Kuiil once again deferring the cot to you by insisting he was to watch over the fathier. If the creature could survive the night, it would be out of danger.

The Mandalorian moves around the small sleeping quarters, and you don’t pay any attention until you notice he’s taking an awfully longer time removing his armor and boots than usual. He’s busy shoving something in his bag, and you can see the hesitation in his frame before he seems to think better of it and remove whatever it is, stuffing it in another pocket.

When he turns around to find you staring, he tenses, moving slowly toward the bed as if you might strike him. You smile his way, and he seems to relax, sitting on the edge of the bed to look at you.

“Do you think the fathier will survive?” you ask softly, your eyes becoming harder and harder to keep open.

His hand, bare and smooth, lays over your own, atop your stomach. “I don’t know.”

You sigh deeply, letting your eyes fall shut. “I hope so. It did not deserve its fate in that place,” you whisper, feeling your eyes begin to sting. “And the children will be heartbroken.” The Mandalorian traces his thumb back and forth over your hand before squeezing your fingers. He says your name, and when you’re too close to sleeping, he gently shakes your hand and repeats it. “Mm?”

“I need to...ask you something.”

His other hand trails tenderly over the outline of your face, picking a stray strand of hair and moving it from your eyes. You open them once again, fighting a yawn. “What is it?”

His helmet is tilted towards you, and you can see just where the moonlight cuts his visor in half, as if he wears another mask of darkness over it. He lays his hand against the side of your neck, warm and comforting. “I want to take the children somewhere...somewhere they will be safe.”

Your eyes float open and closed, watching him as he seems to brave through the words. “I want that, too.”

He nods once, and you imagine he must be licking his lips. His fingers flex atop your hand, and he inhales deeply. “I want to take them to my covert. You and them. To the tribe.”

“W-What?” Your eyes widen when you realize you did, in fact, hear him and are not dreaming. Your other hand cups the wrist that holds your neck, and you slowly sit up in bed, clumsily pawing for him in the shadows. “B-But-can you...do that?”

The Mandalorian takes a measured look at your face, and you wonder what he sees, what he looks for. Or perhaps, what he hopes not to see. His thumb presses just against the pulse point beneath your ear, where he bit you, and you swallow hard at the possessive touch. 

“You are my clan. It is your place, your people, too.”

Your lips tremble, but you don’t feel the threat of tears. No, in fact, you feel electricity flooding your veins, sparking in your fingertips and toes, and you clutch at his wrist and his hand with earnest need, tugging him into the bed beside you. 

“Tell me everything.”

When you finally fall asleep, it’s closer to dawn, and your head is pillowed against the Mandalorian’s chest, soothed by the gentle breathing and heartbeat of his form beneath your cheek. It is the first night in more than a week you do not have a nightmare, and you’re a hair more than annoyed when Corde bursts through the curtained partition, falling on top of you both to declare, excitedly, that the fathier not only survived the night but is nearly recovered completely.

The Mandalorian rolls over, shoving his helmet beneath the shared pillow when the little girl leaves, and growls through the vocoder, “Perhaps we should leave them here.” You slap his back playfully, smirking, before laying back down.

Once fully awake, the idea settles in your mind with no small amount of anxiety. One Mandalorian is intimidating on his own. An entire tribe of them is another beast itself, and you catch yourself wringing your hands. When the bounty hunter tells the children of his intentions, you think, perhaps, they share your feelings.

Venka signs to the Mandalorian, his little face stern and serious.

Will they like us?

He draws the child close, cupping the back of his head to gently bump the brow of his helmet to his. “There is no way they could not.” 

It doubles as a chance for him to turn his bounties in, as well. Nevarro is the seat of Greef Karga, he explains, and though he cannot truly accept guild work, Karga has agreed to smuggle his bounties and pay him for the work under the table. You worry that there will be hunters nearby looking for the child, but the Mandalorian seems confident that will not be the case.

“Many of them were taken out when we left,” he explains, changing the wiggling infant’s clothes upon the cot. The green eared baby giggles and grabs his feet proudly, making the task into a chore for the bounty hunter. “To go back wouldn’t be on their radar for a move we would make.” 

“And you trust Greef Karga not to sell you out?” you ask softly, full of doubt. You’re brushing out Corde’s hair, which is a feat in itself from how tangled it’s been by the desert wind. Braids keep it tamed well enough, but the small child isn’t the most disciplined when it comes to sitting still. You and the Mandalorian have a shared patience, feeding off of one another when it comes to bearing the endearing nuisances.

“He won’t sacrifice his chance at fattening his wallet,” he mutters, looking for the clean outfit you’d sewn for the child. When he turns back, the baby has crawled half way across the bed and is reaching for the mesh window of the hut. He grabs him with a huff. “And as long as we keep our heads down, no one will have a reason to think we are even there.” 

The way he makes it sound so possible is enough to quell some of your fears, but you still find yourself playing with the cuff of your dress, too preoccupied with your thoughts even when you part ways with Kuiil. You kiss his brow, forcing a smile over the curdling in your stomach, and fuss over the child in his pram. You don’t hear what the Ugnaught says to the Mandalorian before you begin your short trek back to the Razor Crest, and that alone is enough for the bounty hunter to see how worried you are.

You busy yourself with the list of pre-flight checks, the motions familiar and comforting to you. Keeping your hands busy is something that comes naturally, and you’re only dimly aware of the noises in the hull where the Mandalorian is busy ensuring all three children have a proper meal before they sleep. When you’re sure that everything is ready for take off, adjusting the coordinate settings to Nevarro (for he’d shown you, after all, how to locate the pre-programmed destinations), you sit back in the pilot’s chair and close your eyes.

It isn’t the bounty hunters that worry you. It isn’t the threat of the Empire, either.

No, your fears are much simpler: you are to meet his tribe.

And you want to be good enough.

-

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[cristalknife]

Kadam Week 2021 Day 4 ~ You are my treasure, can I keep you as part of my hoard? 1/4

This is me trying to not start something on a platform only to post solely somewhere else aka AO3 and ff.net  you can find the complete list of Kadam Week 2021 prompts and you might find more stories on the Kadam Week 2021 AO3 collection Someone please take the time to appreciate me not dumping a 23K+ story into a single post, OK thanks for coming to my Ted talk 4° prompt is I Had the Strangest Dream

namely kadam AU... And what you got is a dragons!kadam au where Kurt got into Nyada after his first audition, the story starts with Kurt still in Lima and still with Blaine. Because Klaine needed to die a painful death and you deserved to see that ship crash and burn... I present to you You are my treasure, can I keep you as part of my hoard?  (In four parts Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 or read complete on ao3  or ff.net)

It was a rather well known fact that Nyada, being so exclusive and with limited opening every year, had a policy to never take more than a single student from the same school, even if there were more than one valid finalists.

What was not that well known, and certainly not at all advertised, was that such rule did not apply to supernatural beings.

If prospects were inclined toward the arts, and willing to join at least for the time of their education, the colony and the current ruling council.

Then they would be evaluated more on aspirations and skills, disregarding the presence of other finalists from the same school.

Once evaluated they would then be offered a position within one or more of the majors the school had that were in tune with the candidate's ability and affinities, rather than the candidate's preferred and declared choices.

Sometimes those two things matched, other times they didn't match at all.

In the end, once the offer was made, and it was cleared up that it was a non negotiable one, the prospect had to choose whether to accept the position offered by the Nyada's council, or simply choose to attend a different school.

When Kurt aced his audition he could hear the gears in Madam Tibideaux's mind turning, and humming pleasant vibrating sounds all around her. She was not at all like Kurt expected her to be, she felt like more, a more he couldn't place.

His dad had always been larger than life, Carole simply didn’t have the same presence about her.

And he knew that, despite loving how good she was for Burt, Kurt had yet to properly warm up to Carole. She was ok, he guessed, and she made his dad smile and feeling happier than Kurt could remember since his mom died.

But also she felt different... He felt awful for thinking so, but she sort of felt less...

Kurt had no idea who had come to examine him, or better he knew who she was, he just did not know there was also a what she was part that was making Kurt feeling even more invigorated and able to express himself fully.

Rachel on the other hand choked up, on a song she knew by heart, that she had sung so many times she should have muscle memories of how to produce those lyrics...

When the time got closer for their letters to arrive Kurt started to receive condescending looks full of pity, especially from his boyfriend.

When Rachel's letter arrived and she miraculously got in, everyone felt like they simply had to come to Kurt and offer their condolences and unique brand of what was supposedly comfort…

And worse of all Blaine had been the first in line to do so…

"Oh Kurt it's so bad you got to compete against Rach for the position at Nyada, but on the bright side you can stay here with me until I graduate and then we can move together to New York. Of course you'd have to wait another year before you'll be able to try again join Nyada, but at that point at least you'll have worked enough that maybe your cv won't look so anaemic..."

Kurt went rigid at Blaine's words and pressed his lips "Excuse me? Are you implying that you know already and more importantly you fully believe that I've been rejected when my letter didn't even arrive? And you dare to talk to me about my CV after you took the male lead part that was supposed to go to a senior in our only production? When you knew I needed it"

Blaine didn't even have the good grace of looking ashamed nor did he even give any indication of understanding why Kurt might be upset.

"Oh come on Kurt don't be so dull, we all know that only one student per institution can get in. And Rachel got her acceptance letter already, so clearly you've been rejected, but as I was saying it's ok. It even works out better this way. You'll stay here with me while I graduate and then we'll move to New York together, and we'll have enough money to have our own place"

That things with Blaine hadn't been that good was neither a good nor a new news, but this was taking the cake and Kurt huffed irritated "So you expect me to fail in reaching for my dreams, stay in Lima of all places, waiting a year for you to graduate and then do what exactly? Move to New York to work before I try to join my dream school, is that what you see and hope for my life?"

Blaine frowned confused "There's nothing wrong with that Kurt come on, you know what I mean, it's not like you're what people expect from a leading man anyway... I mean I support you but you do stand out too much, and you know, there's being a star and then being a little too unique to ever get a role. It's not a bad thing, it’s just, it makes things difficult and I don't want you to fail, I just want you to have realistic expectations... You know I love you, it's just you can be a little too much for people who don't get you..."

With every additional word that kept pouring out of Blaine’s mouth, Kurt felt something changing and growing at the very centre of his being.

Something he hadn't felt since he was a small child, and got so mad for the first time in his life that he pushed back one of the other kids that were tormenting him...

An action that then his mom scolded him thoroughly, making him promise to never seek violence as a way to solve a conflict. To always take a step back when he felt the sensation of something crawling under his skin ready to explode and make whatever was troubling him disappear.

This time however, it was starting to become harder to resist the temptation to just let it all go, just for this once.

Was this really how love was supposed to be? Because it was starting to seem like he was the only one with expectation to fulfil. And the worst of those expectations was the fact that apparently he was supposed to be the one making compromises…

It was becoming tiresome to say the least.

"Blaine tell me honestly is this what you think?"

Kurt's tone was clipped when he asked that, and yet Blaine once more gave no indication of seeing what was going on.

On the contrary, the boy had the gall to start getting upset, his voice turning into a whine

"Kurt come on, why are you being so difficult, I'm trying to be considerate here but you always make such a fuss about nothing, You're such a drama queen"

And with that something inside Kurt broke...

Whether it was something finally breaking free or simply a dam breaking down he did not know. Nor did he know whether where or how the growling sound reverberating in his throat originated from…

But one thing he did know. This was it, he had reached the point where he couldn't stand the being in front of that, that boy anymore...

With what was Kurt's iciest tone he said "If this is how you feel, then I believe we have nothing else to do. You are never around even for things you planned and scheduled. You don't answer when I call, and if you do answer my messages it’s hours later without apologies or explanations. And if what I've been told is correct, you'd rather spend your time with your friend Sebastian rather than staying with me"

Blaine didn't even let Kurt finish as he started countering "It's not my fault if you seemed so intent on leaving me behind as soon as you'd get your diploma from here. I was just trying to survive without you . Excuse me for being happy about not having to worry about being left behind by my boyfriend. Who I might add, was all too happy to discard me like yesterday trash for a shiny new life in New York, over six hundred miles away from me. How is it a bad thing being happy about having more time together?"

And Kurt was beyond furious "So as long as you are not left behind who cares if my life and my dreams get destroyed? Seriously what's wrong with you. You always comment on how supportive I am of you, and I've tried even when it hurt, even when to be honest I shouldn’t have. So why you never ever try to reciprocate? Why does it always have to be me, the one compromising?"

Blaine assumed that half irritated, half hurt that seriously implied that Kurt was being unreasonable and hurting him for futile reasons, as once again he started to talk over Kurt "Kurt stop being so unreasonable, why are you hurting me? I never asked you to compromise, in fact how can you even say such hurtful things? I was the one who left Dalton to transfer here for you, I was the one who didn't audition for Tony even if I could have used the role as well… It's not my fault if Artie, coach Beiste and Miss P thought I was a better Tony than you. Why are you blaming me for the decisions of others? Especially since it's not exactly my fault if you keep flaunting such extravagant outfits at all times... Why do you ask me that? It's not a matter of your dreams going up in flame or your life being destroyed, don’t you see that was exactly what I was talking about... You're just being overly dramatic instead of taking things with a pinch of maturity, you are such a crybaby at times, can we please stop this nonsense? It's just upsetting me, and it's not like it'll change the content of your nyada letter anyway. There's no need for us to fight over something so stupid..."

Then Kurt relaxed and nodded, and for the first time he saw exactly the moment when Blaine's expression shifted from hurt and pleading to a complacent one, clearly thinking that once more things had gone his way...

To a certain extent he was right, Kurt was going to at least partially grant him his wish for this to stop…

The only part Blaine might not yet realise was that Kurt would make it stop forever.

This was it, any chain, any bond that could have ever existed before, was now absolutely left in tatters on the floor as Kurt was going to soar high in the sky and fly free.

"You're right"

Blaine nodded and grabbed Kurt's hand patting it condescendingly.

Kurt hastily removed his hand from Blaine, motion that provoked Blaine's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise as he started to say "What.."

Kurt took a leaf out of Blaine's own book and started talking over him continuing with determination "You are right that we need to stop this nonsense, clearly you feel this way and I'm not going to ask you to change your mind."

Blaine's surprised expression softened into a pleased smile as he nodded, only to turn into a shocked frown as Kurt continued unrelentlessly "But I won't change my mind either. Whether I've been accepted or rejected from Nyada it won't matter. For one, I have other colleges I've applied to that I could attend coming fall, some of which I already have acceptance letters from. Something that had you been around like a boyfriend ought to be, you would have already known. So either as soon as I graduate or at the end of the summer I will leave Lima behind. But don't worry I won't leave you behind then"

Blaine was still frowning but offered a tentative smile and a nod. That until Kurt smiled back at him, in the same icy and sarcastic way that he had seen Kurt smile at Sebastian in those moments, right before and after they started one of their rounds of bickering.

"I won't leave you behind then, because I'm breaking up with you right now. Clearly we want different things from life, and hey we both know we had problems long before now... Who sets up appointments to make out? I might not have had other experiences before, but I can tell you this is not what I expected being with someone to be like. And you are not living up to the teenage dream you promised me either. So here's me growing up and taking things with a pinch of maturity. We’re done."

Blaine blinked confused and looked up at Kurt with his patented wounded puppy eyes, and for the first time Kurt started to wonder if what was going on wasn't as much as adorable obliviousness, as he had always assumed, but rather a masterful use of emotional manipulation.

Kurt looked down at Blaine, and for the first time he felt the bile rising up at the mere thought of having bowed down to this for over an year now, for having allowed himself to become nothing more than a spineless whipping boy. And in exchange for what exactly? For a boy who apparently had no care for him at all despite proclaiming his love? For a relationship in which he was the only one having to renounce things to make the other happy?

He didn't know anymore, and he wasn't that sure he even wanted to know at this point. He just wanted out of this situation for good.

Blaine was still staring like he couldn't understand Kurt at all as he voiced his confusion "What? I don't understand... Why are you trying to get back at me this way Kurt? Look I'll leave now, you clearly need the time to cool down, don't worry I won't hold this against you. I can see you're upset, and I do get how much it must hurt not having been accepted to the only school you applied to. There is no need to invent stories about how you applied to other schools and how you'll leave Lima after graduation or at the end of the summer just to get back at me. Rach told me you both applied only at Nyada and she got in, so clearly you would have no other place to go to..."

Kurt shook his head and felt the profound disappointment in seeing that even now Blaine simply either wasn't listening to him or didn't care at all about what Kurt had to say...

In a way it was a pity, he looked around and for the first time he was grateful that there were witnesses listening into every word they were exchanging, in fact Kurt thought he had also seen Jacob Ben Israel...

So he simply shrugged and left to go to his locker. He picked up what he needed, then simply walked out of the school without a second thought. Just to be on the safer side he sent a quick text to the whatsapp group chat that had all the glee club members on it that read simply ‘I just broke up with Blaine, I will never get back together with him so if someone is not happy with it either keep your mouth shut and your nose out of my own business or feel free to stay the hell out of my life for good. This is all I'll say on the subject and that's not up to debate. I hope we'll manage to finish the time we have until graduation with civility. Kurt’

Then as a second immediate action, he went and changed his status on facebook making a quick work of removing any trace of him and Blaine together from his albums and shared pictures, proceeding to repeat the procedure also on instagram and from his own phone.

The more he purged his profiles of Blaine, the more he noticed how much of a shadow of his former self he had become in the time they had been together. It was staggering seeing how, by removing Blaine from his storyline, only few traces were left of what happened to him in the past year.

Shaking his head he shot a quick text to Finn, letting him know he was going to pass by the garage to see dad before going home, and that he was leaving immediately because he didn't want to be cornered by anyone wanting to talk about the fact he broke up with Blaine.

Finn simply sent a smiley face and two thumbs up, apparently, despite all his fears, Kurt was still going to have someone on his side by the end of the tragedy... It was a comforting thought.

He relished in it as he drove to the garage, once there he called out "Hey dad do you have a minute?"

Burt called out from the farther aisle, and Kurt smiled and waved at Carl and Kenneth as he passed by the two other mechanics at work.

Once Kurt was close by, Burt tensed and looked completely frozen in worry and surprise a low growling "Damn" escaped Burt's lips as he grabbed the rag and cleaned his hand "Kurt we need to talk"

Kurt smiled and nodded "Yeah we do I just broke up with Blaine and I'd really appreciate your support if you could make sure to not let him into the house next time he comes around. Because despite telling him I was breaking up with him, he was acting like he wasn't listening to me, so I just wanted to make sure you knew. I am going to tell Carole as soon as we get back home, but... Dunno why, I felt like I had to come to you first and that it couldn't have waited till you'd get home, I'm not sure exactly on the reason behind such reasoning"

Burt kept a close look on his son and then said without preambles "Something else happened, didn't it?"

When Kurt didn't say anything but reluctantly nodded once, before looking surprised he had done that, Burt had all the answers he needed.

Kurt was as a dagon just like himself, just like Elizabeth had been, it was strange that it took so long for his supernatural heritage to pick that up, he should have taught so many things to Kurt already, but he never smelled like a hatchling or a youngling, Kurt had always smelled faintly like his Lizzy did... And a doubt started to creep up on Burt, Elizabeth and him had never discussed their supernatural heritage, he had always assumed that it was because Elizabeth was an orphan and she had ended up in Lima living with a distant relative that didn't have any trace of supernatural vibe to her, hence making the subject taboo in her household.

But now he wondered if she was simply not sure about Burt's own knowledge on the subject, or even possible reactions, if he was honest he could admit to have never been that interested in properly grooming that side of himself. He was more than happy to pass his live as a good mechanic, restoring cars to their original beauty.

He always felt too out of place in the sanctuaries, or trying to fly with other dragons living in the neighbourhood. He was nothing as impressive as the others, his own scales dull and his wings barely able to lift him off the ground and be serviceable, nothing like the spectacular acrobatics of the likes of Alexander Smythe or even Matt McNamara.

But that was still at a time when Lizzy was still alive. When she died, he simply didn't want to see the signs of what losing his mate had done to him, he had a normal kid, who apparently wasn't really normal at all, and in his grief he never looked deeper.

But something must have happened, because for the first time his son smelled like mint honey and rosemary, not at all like the sweet vanilla and ginger that was Lizzy’s scent, nor his own sandalwood and musk, nor was his son’s scent a mingle of those two scents as it would have been for a youngling.

Kurt had already grown into his own individual, and Burt had not prepared him yet for what it meant to be a dragon... And on top of that his kid was more than ready to leave and abandon this small town to live his life as soon as possible, giving Burt even less time to try to remedy to the many years they had already lost.

He was wondering exactly what happened for Kurt to break through, what probably was meant to be a temporary block that Lizzy had put on their child when he was very young, maybe to help him control his emotions, preventing emotional escalation and incidents that could have revealed their supernatural status to people without any prior knowledge of it, in a traumatic way.

"Let's go take a ride son and you can tell me what happened in details"

Kurt blinked confused, he had seen his dad looking at him rather surprised and then contemplative, and to be honest Kurt hadn't really intended to say or let his dad know that something had happened, mainly because he couldn't really explain it, he wasn't sure what had happened, even if he was sure something did…

While lying to his dad had not been an option, even when he managed to keep his mouth shut, preventing what seemed insane rambling to escape his lips, a part of him had wanted to just obey.

Somehow recognising the authority Burt still had over him, and it was a strange feeling, nothing like he had felt before, not that he didn't respect his dad, but at the same time he had never felt compelled to cower enough to tell him the whole truth…

As they walked out the garage Burt said softly "Do you want us to take the Navigator or shall we take my truck? We are going to do some off the road driving"

Kurt looked at his dad through slitted eyes, "I'll tell Finn to get a lift to pick my baby and take her home, we're taking your car to go wherever you want us to go, without me having to scrub mud from my baby for the next fortnight."

Burt chuckled and while Kurt took care of talking with Finn, he made a quick call to Carole telling her that something had happened with Kurt beside him breaking up with his boyfriend, and that he needed to get to the end of it, see if he could get his son to talk, and that he would tell her later what he found out...

He left behind that probably what he was going to share was going to be an edited version of what happened if his suspicions were proved correct. Burt, in a sudden strike of inspiration grabbed from the locker room Kurt's coverall and the changing bag his son had taken to keep here at the garage, if his nose wasn't wrong, then those might come in hand to make their journey back home more comfortable if things went wrong.

It took less than Burt remembered to reach the sanctuary's valley, and the closer they got, the more he could see Kurt's fascination growing, "So buddy what else happened, tell me please, even if it sounds crazy I want to know what went down with you"

Kurt looked a little worried before starting speaking "This might end up sounding crazy, but it felt like something broke, and at the same time it felt like I was free to fly for the first time... The way Blaine was speaking was making me so mad, and I know, I know I promised mom that I would never try to go with violence as a way to find a solution to an unpleasant situation. But I swear if you could have heard the bullshit he was saying, he was so condescending... Did you know that they are all assuming that just because Rachel got her acceptance letter from Nyada, that I would be automatically rejected? And I mean Rachel choked on her audition... If she did get in and I didn't I’m not even sure I'd want to get into a school with such screwed up criteria of selection."

Burt nodded, in that sea of words there were some things that clearly resonated with him. If Lizzy thought she and Kurt were the only dragons in their family then she probably had put a block around Kurt's powers to keep them tamed while he was growing up. Probably expecting to be there when he should have started to learn control over his abilities, around his twelfth birthday…

Burt hummed and nodded, totally understanding his son's point of view, and then prompted "And how did it felt? I'm not judging, but you sounded more surprised rather than upset about this whole ordeal"

Kurt took a deep breath and looked outside the window "I felt free... Like things were finally right, and Blaine, Blaine felt all wrong. Like I couldn't even believe why I had him in my life, like he wasn't supposed to be next to me at all. And it made me mad seeing that he wasn't even listening to me. I was there, telling him I was done with him and he left saying that he would not hold against me things I said when I was clearly upset... As if his assumption of me being rejected by one school would be the reason why I'd broke up with him, and it wasn't for example how he expected me to stay in Lima for another year until he graduated, in the meanwhile while I would surely fail again to get into nyada because he was applying..."

Kurt's rage was rapidly brewing up, and Burt could hear his son's breathing slowly turning into steam, only for his son to surprise him taking a deep breath and exhaling it with just a low hiss.

"He made me so mad I really fished to roast him, incinerate him right there where he standed, but alas even if I could have done that it was going to create so many problems that it wouldn't have been worth the satisfaction of doing it..."

Burt grinned amazed at his son's natural control, or maybe it was just that he trained in a whole different way than Burt himself had been trained...

He stopped the car and then patted his son on the shoulder "You did good son, I'm so proud of you, now come with me there's something I need to show you,"

Kurt felt himself preening under the unexpected praise. Burt directed them to what looked like the edge of a rather deep canyon, and Kurt looked worried at his father as he asked questioning "Dad?"

Burt smiled softly, in a way that Kurt hadn't seen since before his mom got sick "Buddy I don't know how else to do this, and I really wish your mom was here to help me out, so please forgive me for what I'm about to do."

The words made Kurt's blood freeze inside his veins, and in less than a second Burt had taken three steps back and was falling over the edge.

Without even realising he was moving, Kurt dived in after his father, and all of a sudden his vision changed, the world got blurred for a moment and the image of Burt falling body blurred as well, before being replaced by a bulky reptilian dragon, with sturdy wings to carry the compact body.

Kurt felt the wind offering resistance to his fall, and in a blink of an eye what was resistance was actually offering him support. Instead of keeping him from falling, like it had seemed in the beginning, Kurt found himself raising up above the canyon and into the sky.

And the dragon that used to be where his father was, suddenly raised up into the sky as well, emitting a sound that Kurt knew were not words, but that he could surprisingly understand anyway. They were directions telling him to land down on the clearing in the middle of the trees on their left. Kurt saw exactly the spot and dive in with surgical precision, landing exactly where he wanted, on the sandy patch on the lake shore.

Once there, in what felt a little mixed up curiosity and vanity he peered on the water to see his own reflection, and discovering that indeed he looked like a dragon too, he could see a silvery reflection, and he could feel something in on the top of his head, floating, he instinctively knew those appendices were having the same function as a cat’s whiskers.

As he tried to look at himself the only difference he could see, compared to what he saw of his dad, was that where his father was compact and sturdy, with wings short and strong, his own figure seemed to be made for agility and precision, his wings complimenting his agile body shining in the afternoon light.

With a lot less grace than Kurt had, Burt landed in the middle of the clearing where the grass was, he then turned into his human form to smile at his son "You did well buddy, now can you figure out how to return to your human form or do we need to find a way for you to get home this way?" the tone was teasing, and Kurt wasn’t amused at all.

He didn’t know exactly how it happened, but he could distinctly feel the need to express his frustration into a way this form’s language would not be able to properly express.

There was no such sound he could find that would carry on the meaning of your stunt scared me to death or the you don't get to make jokes like that.

There were some words that could be translated but even putting them together Kurt knew they wouldn't be able to carry on the same message he needed to rant at his father.

So there was no other option but having access to his human mouth, that was what he needed at the moment, and without even realising what he did, Kurt found himself standing in front of his grinning father.

He took exactly ten milliseconds of taking in his father’s expression for him to take a breath and starting to deliver a well deserved dressing down to the other man for his actions.

"How could you do that to me? I was scared to death, you made me think you were committing suicide in front of me. It sounded like you were saying goodbye and instead you just wanted to go for a fly? What the heck dad? Come on couldn't you have sat with me, safely inside your truck, and told me calmly Kurt we are dragons we can transform in giant flying reptiles and that's ok it's just who we are and there's nothing wrong with it, and then maybe actually telling me how that happened instead of jumping that way???"

If Kurt had been less scared and traumatised, maybe then he would have noticed the mischievous look into his father's eyes, as things were he completely missed that and when Burt opened his mouth and started answering Kurt’s immediate reaction was to groan "Well son, when a female dragon meets a male dragon and they love each other very much, they end up mating in human form, and the the female becomes pregnant, and then their offspring has high chances of having their supernatural heritage as well, meaning that he is born a dragon as well..."

Kurt scoffed irritated "Funny dad, very funny ah-ha"

Burt chuckle stopped and he sighed softly as well before saying sincerely "I'm sorry Kurt, I didn't want to scare you or upset you that much. I just didn't know how to do this. And I really didn't want to do to you what my pa did"

Kurt raised an eyebrow in silent question as he crossed his arms on his chest, realising for the first time that he was wearing clothes, and that those ere not the ones he had on before he transformed...

Burt shrugged and offered a tight smile "He was doing very much a lion king scene, you know that moment when Mufasa is telling to Simba about one day having to rule over all that was touched by the sun moment…”

Kurt nodded slowly releasing his arms listening as Burt continued "Only for him to then give me a pat on the back that sent me flying over the edge, making me feel like I was falling to my death before I figured out how to transform and fly"

At the scandalised look that Kurt was sending his way he simply shrugged "These were other times buddy, and I was a lot younger than you are... He didn't know any better, and that was exactly how his father had been taught him."

Kurt wrinkled his nose unsatisfied "I'm not sure I would have like any of those options…”

Burt scratched the back of his head and said wistfully "All I knew for sure was that I didn't want to do that to you, like ever, but now I'm not so sure my own was that much better"

Kurt sent him a levelled glare and shook his head, Burt then continued "But I had promised myself that I wouldn't do that to my son"

Kurt's eyes softened, as Burt finished softly "I wish your mom was here, she would have probably have handled all of this a lot better than I am"

Kurt smiled softly "If you can manage to avoid other scares like that, I'd appreciate it very much, but it's not like you're doing a terrible job of it dad"

Burt hummed softly and grinned "If you think you can figure out how to shift at will we can then head home and call it a day, putting all of this behind us."

Kurt attempted the shift a few more times, each time getting faster and easier than the time before. He kept repeating the action until both of them were satisfied with the results.

Burt smiled proudly and said "You are doing great son, once we're at home we'll get you a couple of books that will be useful and that you really need to read before leaving town."

Kurt nodded and simply followed his dad, they both shifted into their dragon form and flew to the car, before driving back home.

Once they reached the house, Carole hugged them both and then offered Kurt a sealed envelope "This was waiting for you when I arrived home."

It was the Nyada's letter Kurt was waiting for. As soon as he took it in his hands, and it got within Burt’s sniffing distance, his dad frowned and took a step closer so he could read its content over Kurt's shoulder, as he opened it up and read the school’s decision. ~End of Part 1 of 4~ Next

[chaniters]

SUNKEN TOWN

Episode 4 of my Awan Cormac second series! (Belonging to @kruk-art)

Spoilers in this one too!

Enjoy!

__________________________

Rangers HQ

“There’s nothing there!” Anathema says, enhancing the image

“We just need to go over the parameters. Can you switch to thermal readings?”

“Already did and it’s not turning up anything” 

“Why are we letting the civilian into the city’s camera security feed again?” Steel complains.

“If he thinks he’s onto something,” Ortega says tiredly “We ought to try”

“Combine thermal and visual trough this filter,” you say handing him a Data-rod.  “That should get us what we want” 

“Sure, but I think we’re a bit past filters by now. This isn’t going to… “ he stops mid-sentence as the image changes radically 

“...wow. You’ve got to be joking!” he says as the image shows a ghostly figure walking the streets, unseen by all civilians.

“I told you he was using cloaking devices!” you say exasperated.

Ortega goes silent as he observes Void leave the camera’s fixed angle. 

Anathema doesn’t wait for your cue and applies the same procedure to other cameras. Soon, they begin showing images of Void, setting up the hospital attack from the shadows. 

“That’s enough, the tech team can take it from here,” Ortega says putting a palm on Anathema’s shoulder. Technicians begin duplicating the procedure over the rest of the city-wide security feed as you all follow him to the meeting room. 

“Good job, Sidestep,” he says with a smile

……………………………………………………….

It takes hours, and they won’t even let you back into the tech-room. Your access got rescinded after Steel started quoting regulations. Nothing to do but wait and you’re in no mood for Ortega’s shenanigans. 

You keep fiddling with your targeting jammer, trying to amplify its powers, since that’s all you can really do. The ranger tech-tools you stole are admittedly better than your old work tools at home, and you want to fine-tune the hell out of it for the next time you meet Void. 

An annoying tingling at the back of your skull starts distracting you from your work, while you do your best to ignore it. Contrary to what you would expect, It doesn’t go away but begins burning mercilessly, like a hot iron. No. Not iron.

“What?” you say without turning, as you feel you can’t take it anymore.  

“I see you already helped yourself to our tech,” Steel says, arms crossed, staring at you. 

“I shared something, so it’s only fair you share something in return, don’t you think?” you retort. You generally respect Steel but you’re on edge. 

You. Are. Not. Having. It. Today. 

“I want to stop that asshole, just like you and rescue all the patients while at it. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about Void”

“We do have a history. Ortega knows that already, I think he told you unless I imagined that part”

“No one fully explained what that history is, and I don’t think he knows either.”

“I helped stop him last time in case you forget!”

“Maybe so, but I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on. And I think we’re going to be at risk because you’re holding on to information.”

He’s right, and you know he’s right. But you can’t really tell him that Void was trained by a government program that creates artificial humans because that would lead to a whole different can of worms. “I told you everything I know about his mods!”

“Yes, you did. Still, I also know cloaking devices like that are experimental army tech that you’re not even supposed to know about. How you have a filter capable of seeing through it, that’s what I’m wondering.”

“Experimental stuff gets misplaced all the time, right? Like drugs that kill people or give them powers. You’re seriously coming at me because the army lost another toy? I’ve just happened to have seen this stuff before” At least this is the truth. Void’s cloaking is government made, and they misplaced it. Big time. How Void got authorization to even use back when you were both in the farm it is something that you always wondered about. Whoever handled it to him back then must be regretting it very much now that he’s gone rogue. 

He says nothing, so you take the chance to speak again.

“If that’s all you got, please go away? I don’t like being stared at”

“I’ll stop when I figure out who do you work for.” 

“What the fuck are you implying?!” you say standing up and facing him… 

“ENOUGH!” Ortega says entering the room. “Can’t I leave you two alone for more than a couple of minutes?”

“I WISH I was alone” you complain under Steel’s glare.

“You know what? You two should just…” Ortega starts before realizing the futility of it all “... whatever. I’m not your nanny… Just came to let you know that we lost them. The trail goes cold when they reach Sunken Town. The cameras end there”

“So when do we leave? I’m ready right now” you state standing up and shoving the scrambler on your backpack

“Nobody’s going right now ... What we’re going to do is keep working on it day and night. There are other… whoa. Wait!” 

You’re already walking to the door, Steel stepping to the side more than happy to have you out of the HQ

“That’s it, I heard enough. I’m going to Sunken Town alone then”

“That area’s not even mapped! And it’s huge! You’re never going to find them like that. And they’ll see you coming from miles away! Our teams are trying to trace their comms… something’s going to show up, we just need to be patient, that’s how these things work!”

“Well, that’s not how I work!”

“But… one does not simply walk into …”

You slam the door leaving him and Steel behind.

“...Sunken town” he finishes the sentence groaning. 

--------------------------------------------

Sunken Town. 

Blacked out on tourists maps of Los Diablos, the government would have it be looked at from afar but never visited. 

Former Los Angeles’ city center, the area was sprawling with skyscrapers right until the big one hit. The city’s iconic skyline turned wasteland in a matter of minutes, as the earthquake seemed to hate this area hardest. What remains now is a labyrinth, of interconnected toppled buildings leaning unsteadily onto each other in odd angles, along with a series of tunnels,  garages, basements and old subway installations.

 The new system combined to create a massive man-made cave system that is constantly expanded further by its duellers in (often catastrophic)  attempts to create new passages and recover pieces of sellable wreckage and valuables.  Everyone refers to it as the “Sunken Town” and only the most desperate dare venture -or live- here, the population consisting mostly of criminals, treasure hunters, social outcasts and the desperate. 

Declared unsafe by virtually every engineering survey, the whole area became abandoned after attempts to bulldoze the rubble caused heavy tremors and deadly incidents with the locals. By all accounts, it is a death-trap with buildings collapsing almost every week and populated by hostile and armed pariahs under the ugly shadows cast by of Los Diablos brand new buildings.  

Ortega wasn’t kidding when he said you’d never find Void like this. Even with your telepathy, the residents simply don’t know the layout well enough beyond their own turf and have confused and conflicting ideas about the rest. Picking their minds to create some sort of map won’t be effective if the pieces won’t add up. 

You switched strategies to focus on rumors of the kidnapped victims, but all you get is some silly urban legend about people getting taken in their sleep and murdered by some sort of cult hiding somewhere in here. You have a hard time imagining Void joining a cult, and while Psycopathor and his fans are actually a sort of cult, their killings tend to be public.  

You’ve been at this almost the whole day now, and not a single mention of them. It’s maddening. You might as well go back to the rangers and see if they got something by now, but that’d be admitting defeat.  The night-vision setting on your mask is really giving you a headache by now but there’s no electricity here.

Your thoughts are interrupted by stray thoughts atop one of the inclined buildings. You can hear gunshots as you lift your gaze, and then a figure jumping several stories down onto the pile or rubble below, the fall slowing down into a glide before her feet touch the ground.

Impressive. Some sort of levitating boost?

 You’re getting an adrenaline rush from her mind. Someone’s after her… and soon enough you can see her pursuers, wearing night-vision goggles. All of them jumping down behind her.

 Unlike her delicate fall, they’re using a simple combat exoskeleton enhancement over their clothing, landing heavily and leaving cracks on the old pavement. You considered getting one of those, but the batteries are faulty and need recharging all the time. 

But more importantly… Matching uniforms and equipment, and all of them chasing the same individual…? This stinks of supervillain minions. 

Without another thought, you start running towards them with your gun drawn. If you don’t act, she’s going to get caught. You hide behind a corner and pull her by the arm the moment she runs next to you. 

She tries to pull away, but you hold her arms and look into her arms while trying to calm her mind. It takes a few seconds for her to realize who you are, and then she stops struggling. In turn, you can see she’s no ordinary civilian… she’s wearing her own costume.

“I’m Sidestep, and I’m here to help.” 

“Wow. I thought I was the only one in this dump, less of all someone famous. I’m Elyise, nice to finally meet you!” 

“Any idea why those goons are chasing after you ?”

“I don’t know.. Maybe my magnetic personality? No?” she laughs nervously “Help me take those jerks down and I’ll share what I know”  

“You’ve got it,” you say to that peeking at the rubble pile from your hiding spot. 

Your mind’s sensing something odd about her. Some sort of telepathic ability bouncing off yours, too faint but it’s there. She might be an empath?. 

No time to give much thought to it as you can see her pursuers catching up. 

“She can’t have gone far! Find her now!” one of them demands, furious. 

The enemy starts running in your direction, four males and a woman, all armed, all furious and charging with their exo-skeleton suits, so it’s do or die. You pull quickly and take a shot at the one who spoke. He collapses with a shriek as the energy blast hits him squarely on the chest, while the other one avoids you taking cover. He shoots his own gun right back at you, but you’re behind cover now. Telepathy always gives you an edge in shootouts.

Elyise jumps to the side, waving her arm… causing several pieces of debris to lift from the ground and rain in her general direction. Telekinesis… magnetism? Hard to tell.  One of the enemies gets hit by a piece of wreckage and falls flat, while the other covers with their exoskeleton’s arms. Your mind tells you the one hiding is about to shoot Elyise, and thus you’re ready to take a shot the moment he pokes his head from his cover,  taking him down as well.

Only two left.  

“It’s Sidestep!” one of them screams

“I don’t care who he is, he’s not gonna get past me!” the woman answers in turn, ripping the door from a rusted car, and charging towards you. The old door blocks your shots and Elyise’s wreckage rain, letting the other minion follow.

Both of you are forced to duck as the one closer to you flings the door in your direction, missing narrowly. Falling to the side, you roll to avoid getting stomped by the male minion, but end up taking a hit to your hand, forcing the gun out of your fingers. Elyise’s got her plate full, gliding to the side to avoid the other one.

“You're so beautiful in that suit… I’m going to enjoy turning you to a pulp!” the woman screams charging her, sending fist after fist, edging closer to her.

Your opponent gets ready to finish you off, pulling his fist back, ready to crush your skull… but luckily he’s forgotten who you are. You haven’t. 

Stepping to the side, you let his fist get stuck in a decayed brick wall.

You can’t help the smile under your mask as he struggles to free himself realizing his mistake, not fast enough to avoid the spinning kick that turns light’s out for him. 

Turning to help Elyise turns unnecessary, as she’s lifting her opponent in the air as she flails her arms fruitlessly before being slammed into the dirt so hard it makes you close your eyes. 

“Who’s the pulp now, asshole??” she says kicking her a few times. Perhaps there are some anger management problems there…?

“Well, that takes care of the trash,” she says dusting her hands “We have to bind them so they don’t report back on us and…”

“Leave that to me,” you say focusing on their unconscious minds. It takes a few moments, but it’s relatively easy now that they’ve been taken down. “They won’t remember a thing,” you say standing up.

“You… you did something to them?” she asks uncertainly. Of course, you were right, she is a telepath of some sort. This just confirms it, that she could tell you did anything in the first place. 

 “Just a minor thing. Let’s get far before they wake up” you say taking a tunnel formed by a collapsed structure as she follows. 

……………………………………….

“Come in! Come in Elyise” the intercom says

“I’m here! Stop yapping already!” she answers

“Oh thank god! I thought they’d get you! And it’d be all my fault!” 

“Nobody’s going to get me, you hear me?. I had it under control! And now Sidestep’s here so we have an even better chance!”

“Sidestep? Sidestep is that you?” the voice sounds different than what you remember… he seems confused. You look at the image… Reaper’s on the other side, sitting on a sofa with a cast arm and a cigar on his mouth in a very richly decorated room, a half-empty whiskey bottle next to him. What the hells is going on…?

“Hey, Reaper… it’s me” you say

“Thank you! Thank you for looking after my protegee.. She’s…”

“I’m not your protegee!” she interrupts “I found you drunk at Owl’s wailing about what Psycophator did, and took the case, remember? I needed your resources and your computers! You’re the one helping me, not the other way around!”

“Thank you Sidestep…” he goes on and on ignoring her. 

Elyise groans, turning off the audio. “He’s under meds for the pain… his doctors are a bit… liberal about painkillers. He’s been in high cloud nine right now since the fire, and he’s also drunk because he thinks it’s somehow his fault” she says before turning the audio back on.

“... and if something happened to her, it would be like Hood’s death all over again! She’s even telekinetic like him… I mean not exactly like him, she’s not nearly as insufferable but still, if something happened I wouldn’t even know what to…”

“Nevermind that! Did you find any extra intel?” she cuts him off

“Intel?” Reaper asks losing his previous train of thought. “Oh… right. Yes, Charon found a lot actually interesting details”

Charon… his supercomputer named after the mythical ferryman according to the comics. Supposedly an AI. You never thought it was real.

“The structure you found, is part of a collapsed chemical plant” he explains showing a diagram in the intercom's screen. “The plant’s been abandoned since before the big one. Also, hear this out… It’s the original plant where they first manufactured the hero drugs, back when they were just diet pills!  It was a big scandal back then when the media broke the entire story, the corporations, they  stole this researcher’s papers and used them without her consent to develop...”

“You can spare us the history lesson… we could use plans of the place tough” Elyise interrupts again. It would seem she’s officially had it with wasted Reaper by now. 

“Hm.. here,” he says the intercom updating with schematics. “The building’s partially collapsed now, but many floors and labs should be intact, and it had several basements, you’d have to go check on them yourselves.”

“It wasn’t abandoned now,” she says “It’s been turned into some sort of clinic, guards everywhere, and they’ve got the patients from Houswald captured inside. I think they’re experimenting on them… “ she says looking at you.

“Those bastards! They can’t do that!!!! You just hold right there… I’ll go get my suit and…” he says suddenly enraged.

“Enough!” she yells “You’re wounded, and in no shape to fight Reaper, and besides you’re retired! If you want to help, you need to pass on the coordinates to the rangers, your the only one with the tech in place to have communications in this dump!” Reaper’s gizmos are the most advanced you’ve seen yet rivaling farm’s experimental tech, and way ahead of the rangers. No wonder he was the top hero for so long if he had that much money to burn on it...

There is a silence on the other end and you can tell Reaper’s trying to process the words in slow motion. He’s so darn high, it’d be funny if your lives didn’t depend on him right now. “Fine… I’ll tell the rangers. Just wait till they are close before you make your move, you don’t want to get caught without reinfor..-” 

“I know!!! It’s not my first time doing this!” Elyise complains, but Reaper keeps going on about the dangers of the job until she simply turns off the intercom frustrated. 

“Wow… you’re really harsh on him” 

“Spare me,” she says walking onwards “I’ve been taking his tale of woe for three days straight while Charon investigated. And the worst part? The AI It only works with HIS voice recognition. HIS. Not mine. So I had to get him to repeat every question I asked, and you’d think he ‘d stop drinking while at it?  He did not. And the crying. God, the crying is the worst… You wouldn’t believe how bad he…”

You smile as you keep walking behind her hearing her huge list of complaints.

____________________________

My fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[quarterfromcanon]

Evading

Heather & Valencia - Femslash February - Day 27 - Quiet [2,207 words] 

Valencia sank onto the outdoor lounge chair with a weary sigh that seemed to rise from the depths of her soul. She shut her eyes and tried to let the pleasant evening temperature mute her thoughts. The glaring sunlit afternoon gave way to a moderate nightfall around her. Splashes of warm colors seeped across the faded blue sky.

A sliver of tentative optimism, or at least the willingness to fight for a brighter outlook, had at last been restored inside the house. Their friend had accepted her recent diagnosis and was prepared to seek treatment. It was the most hope they’d had since before Rebecca disappeared, but such a potentially fragile thread did not provide the type of irrefutable comfort Valencia craved. 

She reached for one of the throw pillows and clutched it near her chest. Even though she had finally allowed herself to cry, Valencia’s throat ached from the countless times she’d suppressed sobs over the past six days. She hid her face behind the fabric of the cushion and curled onto her side.

“Hey.”

Valencia tensed. She sat upright to turn toward the sound. Heather leaned against a nearby pillar with her arms folded over her stomach.

“Hi,” Valencia replied softly.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Valencia tilted her chin at the vacant lounger. Heather shucked her jacket and swung it across the chair. She reclined to observe the lingering clouds. They were stretched thin and etched in purples and grays like the passage of hours had left them ashen and bruised. Valencia studied them too, but doing so left her feeling small and overwhelmed all over again.

“God, this has been the longest week of my entire life.”

A humorless laugh puffed out of Heather’s chest on an exhale. “Same.”

The two shared space without talking while the gradient above deepened its hues -- carmine becoming vermilion yet somehow blending seamlessly with saffron and amber.

“V?”

“Mm?”

“Are we okay?”

Valencia smoothed the ruffles on her shirt. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “... but I want to be.”

“Me, too.” Heather pushed stray curls aside and grimaced. “The past one hundred and forty-nine hours have really driven home how everything can go from fine to fucked up with no break in between.”

“You counted?”

“I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands once it gets dark. You weren’t wrong about that... during our fight last night... I haven’t been sleeping. Like, almost at all.”

Valencia craned to look at Heather, although her view was limited given the angle of their chairs. “Yeah, well, I can’t take too much credit for riddling that one out. The shadows under your eyelids gave it away.”

Heather rolled over and propped her chin on both hands. “I’m surprised you didn’t throw some new concealer at me from one of your swag bags.”

Genuine giggles felt impossible to muster, but they offered each other feeble smiles.

“I really spiraled, didn’t I?” Valencia tucked her lower lip into her mouth.

Heather brushed Valencia’s forearm with her fingertips but did not allow the caress to linger. “We both did. Yours was just on a broader scale.”

“Global.”

Heather inclined her head in recognition. “Even when you’re avoiding your problems, you don’t do anything half-assed.”

“No. That wouldn’t be on-brand.” Valencia’s expression was self-deprecating. 

Heather put a pillow under her face to take the pressure off her palms. She wrapped both arms around the cushion and stared into the middle distance. “I shouldn’t have brought Hector to the hospital,” she declared without preamble. “He was a distraction, like you said. I needed to be there physically but not mentally, and he was the only person removed enough from the situation that I could do that. I was able to talk about something else - anything else - and I couldn’t pass it up because that little waiting room made me so antsy. The thing is, I already wasn’t alone before he tagged along. I had you. But once Hector came to keep me company, you didn’t have me. And that wasn’t fair. Paula was keeping watch; I was checking out, and there you were, dealing with a lot of this by yourself. I should’ve realized that before, but it didn’t register until after everything. I’m sorry.”

Valencia blinked and inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry, too. I took it all too far. The vlogs, the way I’ve been acting around Hector, how I’ve treated you -- everything.” 

Their eyes met. For a moment, the events prior to the crisis hung in the air between them and they paused, motionless. Valencia fought to avoid the memory of their kiss, but she felt the contact as vividly as if it were happening again in the present. 

Heather gulped. Her response was so faint that Valencia read her lips to verify the words. “It’s okay. I forgive you. Do you forgive me?”

Valencia’s eyes burned but she held Heather’s gaze. She nodded as her vision swam.

“Good.” Heather turned to the side, concealing her features from scrutiny.

Their conversation tapered off once more. The night descended in earnest, leaving their surroundings shrouded, and Heather briefly departed to turn on the courtyard lights. When she returned, she pulled the jacket onto her shoulders and rubbed the sleeves.

“It feels weird. This is the first time since it happened that the silence hasn’t made my skin crawl. Living with Rebecca, there’s kinda always a lot of racket, y’know? She’s making a reference, cooking up some scheme, going on a rant, or nagging me to try something new. It never stops. So, when it did, when the house was actually quiet...” Heather shuddered.

“It was a constant reminder that she wasn’t around,” Valencia supplied, “like her absence left a void of white noise and emptiness.”

“Yeah.” Heather jammed both fists into the pockets of her shorts.

Valencia drew her knees up to her torso. “I kept wanting to go outside, thinking it would help me breathe, but for some reason it only pissed me off.”

“Why?”

“I hated that nothing was different. The weather was good. The people passing by were busy with their own business. The planet just kept spinning the same way it always does. For all of them, existence was the same, but for me, everything was a single sentence away from falling apart. It made me want to scream.”

Heather joined Valencia on the second lounger. “I don’t think any of us would’ve blamed you if you had.”

“I was just afraid that, once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.” Valencia watched as a few stars winked into visibility beyond the glow from the city. “The only thing I wanted, all this time, was for my life to go back to how it was. But now that our routines are picking up where they left off, and we have to go back to work, I don’t know if anything will ever be truly normal.”

Heather mirrored Valencia’s seated position and draped her elbows over her kneecaps. “I think what we consider ‘normal’ changes with us. There’s not a set standard. I mean, think about the years before Rebecca. Would literally anything that’s happened since have been ‘normal’ to you back then?”

Valencia’s mouth twitched. “Not at all.”

“Exactly.”

They adjusted by degrees until they were angled toward one another, almost facing directly but not quite.

“Heather?”

“Yeah?”

“I really need a hug.” 

Heather glanced up to see Valencia looking so weary and forlorn that she couldn’t help but give her a sympathetic pout. “Fine. The sad Tweety Bird eyes are wearing me down. Scoot over here.”

Valencia gratefully did so, and Heather draped an arm across both her shoulders. Heather’s cheek rested atop Valencia’s hair. Though Valencia attempted to keep her voice steady, fresh tears spilled along her cheekbones. “This friend group... what we have... it’s what matters most to me. I can’t lose that now. I just can’t.”

Heather tightened their embrace while the bridge of Valencia’s nose pressed against her neck. “I know,” she whispered. “Neither can I.”

Valencia succumbed to helpless weeping for the second time that day. The warm droplets fell onto the skin pressed flush with her own. Heather’s breathing became uneven yet she somehow maintained her stoicism. Her knuckles rubbed Valencia’s shoulder blade in absentminded ellipses. 

The curtain over one of the double doors folded away and Paula appeared on the other side of the glass. Heather awkwardly raised her free hand in greeting.

Paula jerked a thumb in the direction of Rebecca’s bedroom then lifted folded hands beside her cheek, pantomiming sleep. Heather nodded in response. She pointed to Valencia and dragged a fingertip down her own jaw to indicate crying. Paula moved her index fingers back and forth in a gesture that clearly said, ‘Should Mama Paula step in?’ Heather subtly shook her head and rested a palm over her chest. ‘I’ve got this.’ Paula gave an encouraging salute. She held her fists at ten and two while mouthing, ‘I’m going home.’ Heather waved. Paula blew them both a kiss even though Valencia wouldn’t see and then departed.

“Is she heading back to her house?” Valencia mumbled.

“Who?”

“Paula.”

“How--”

“I could feel you moving,” Valencia explained. “Also, Rebecca would’ve come outside if she knew Heather hugs were available for a limited time only.”

“She does appreciate a good cuddle,” Heather acknowledged.

“We’ll offer her a rain check for tomorrow since she missed this one.”

“Deal.”

They let the tension leave their muscles while the sounds of distant cars and a neighbor’s muffled music drifted through the night. Valencia leaned away just as Heather looked down at her. She noticed how Heather’s gaze drifted to her lips and found herself similarly distracted. Her pulse quickened and Valencia shivered with fear and longing. Heather’s expression changed in a way that brought about a stomach twist of guilt, a frown-forced-into-a-smile that Valencia had learned to recognize as the instant personal feelings were put on the back burner in favor of sympathy. 

“We should probably go back.” Heather let her arm fall to her side and stood.

Valencia worked to ignore the tingling left behind by Heather’s touch. “Okay.”

They went inside but only took a few steps before their movement stilled again. Heather glanced in the direction of the bedrooms while Valencia reluctantly peered through the darkness at the front door. 

“Does it make me a coward if I really want to put off going to my apartment for one more night?”

Heather hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “Is it pathetic that I’m so tired my vision keeps going out of focus but I don’t think I can sleep in my bed?”

They answered one another in unison: “No.”

Heather walked backward and held up a hand. “Wait here.”

She returned a minute later with two pillows from her room, a sheet, and a quilt. Heather dropped a pillow on the right side of the couch and, after brief hesitation, let the sheet pool beside it. She put the second pillow and quilt on the chaise. 

Valencia accepted the unspoken invitation and stretched along the sofa. “Thank you.”

Heather shrugged. “We can navigate the revised definition of normal tomorrow, right?”

Valencia gave an affirmative nod as she slid under the sheet. “The world can wait just a little longer.”

Heather spread the quilt across her legs and gripped a corner of the cloth in her fist. “Cool.”

Valencia situated herself more comfortably. A familiar blend of outdoor smells rose from the satin case when she nestled against it. She circled her arms around the pillow and relaxed. Valencia crossed the line between waking and dreaming without marked delineation, but her return to full awareness was easy to pinpoint due to its catalyst. 

Heather was stuck in a nightmare.

The sharp gasp roused Valencia first, followed by a nearly imperceptible whine. She twisted to squint through the gloom. Heather’s body twitched and her fingers clenched by her sides. Her face angled into the moonlight, and Valencia thought for a second that she saw moisture glistening on the ends of her eyelashes.

Valencia’s mouth formed her name without sound. ‘Heathe...’

She untangled herself from the sheet and knelt on the floor. Her hands flitted through the air with uncertainty. The simple act of drifting off had been so difficult for Heather lately that Valencia hesitated to wake her, but leaving her tormented by a troubled mind was out of the question. Valencia tucked the quilt more securely around Heather’s restless form, cocooning her, and ran a soothing palm over her furrowed brow.

“Everyone’s all right. Just rest. It’s all right. We’re all here.”

Heather’s features smoothed and her breathing slowed to a steady pattern. Valencia sighed with relief. She waited on the ground a while longer, just to make sure no further distress arose. Heather remained serene, mercifully restful after an exhausting ordeal.

“Why do I get the sense you’d be angry your subconscious made you vulnerable?” Valencia joked in a gentle murmur. She shook her head and returned to her spot on the couch. “Well, for what it’s worth considering you’re too fast asleep to hear this right now, I’ll keep your secret safe.”

[orbemnews]

MyPillow C.E.O.’s Trump Conspiracy Theories Put Company on the Spot For the past four years, most American corporations have tried to avoid the appearance of partisanship while also distancing themselves from the inflammatory rhetoric of former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters, walking a tightrope to keep customers and employees happy. It has been a different story for MyPillow. Mike Lindell, the company’s founder and chief executive, has remained one of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters. His sustained peddling of debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud got him barred from Twitter on Monday night. With retailers like Kohl’s and other major companies cutting ties with the privately held manufacturer, Mr. Lindell has managed to make his pillows partisan. “It goes to my money, you know where my money’s going,” Mr. Lindell said in an interview this month with a pro-Trump online channel called Right Side Broadcasting Network, offering a discount code for viewers to use on MyPillow’s website. Mr. Lindell’s baseless claims of election fraud have prompted a backlash against MyPillow in recent weeks, with several retailers deciding to stop carrying its products, an example of just how strongly his personality dominates the public perception of his company. Mr. Lindell, a former crack cocaine and gambling addict, founded the company after the idea for MyPillow came to him in a dream in 2004, according to his memoir. He is now a devout Christian and credits God with aiding his recovery. MyPillow is based in Chaska, Minn., and Mr. Lindell said in an interview this week that it employed nearly 2,500 people. Its products — it carries more than 100 — have been widely distributed in national chains, and Mr. Lindell’s face is prominently featured in infomercials and boxes carrying its patented pillows. Two former MyPillow employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said they were asked to display multiple cardboard cutouts of the executive in stores and to play his infomercials. Politics became a bigger part of Mr. Lindell and MyPillow’s identity in the past decade, following the success of its infomercials, which first aired in 2011 and were later a hit on Fox News, according to the memoir and interviews with former employees. The company has said in court filings that it spends an average of $5 million a month on advertising. While Mr. Lindell said he had advertised in The New York Times and on CNN, much of his spending has been with Fox News — 59 percent of the company’s total television spending last year, according to data from MediaRadar — which raised his profile with the former president, an avid viewer of the network. “Politics does not hurt your business,” he said in the interview this week. “I have not alienated anybody except for the bots and the trolls and the hit jobs of the media.” Mr. Lindell said MyPillow’s 2019 revenue exceeded $300 million. MyPillow sells through its website and is carried by retail behemoths like Walmart, Amazon and Costco. The company is tightknit, and its leadership leans conservative, with Mr. Lindell employing many members of his own family and even a sister of former Vice President Mike Pence, according to Aaron Morgan, a procurement planner at MyPillow between September 2019 and last March. “Most companies say don’t talk about politics,” Mr. Morgan said, noting that Mr. Lindell was pleasant. “But a lot of people there talked about politics. People there leaned obviously toward Mike’s beliefs because they were all family. It was not uncommon to see MAGA hats on desks.” Mr. Morgan shared photos of playing cards that Mr. Lindell offered to employees last year, which used a king card to display Mr. Trump as a proxy for Julius Caesar, Hillary Clinton in an orange prison jumpsuit on a queen card, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer as jokers. Mr. Lindell, whose likeness was also in the deck, said that the cards were given to him as a gift and kept in his office and that employees were able to take them if they wished. Business & Economy Updated  Jan. 26, 2021, 4:58 p.m. ET Mr. Lindell’s politics entered his company in other ways. On Jan. 6, the day of the riot at the Capitol, MyPillow’s website was accepting a “FightForTrump” discount code that a conservative radio host had promoted on his show. Mr. Lindell, who retweeted the discount code that day, claimed without evidence that Twitter employees gained access to his account and retweeted the post in his name. “We have reviewed the rule violations and consequential enforcement activity and have found no evidence supporting Mr. Lindell’s allegations,” a Twitter representative said. The violence in Washington set in motion a social media campaign against MyPillow and Mr. Lindell, spearheaded by the group Sleeping Giants, which was created in 2016 to stop companies from advertising on Breitbart News. The pressure prompted retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s, H-E-B, Today’s Shopping Choice in Canada and Wayfair to drop MyPillow products, according to Mr. Lindell, who said without providing evidence that the protest was led by “bots and trolls.” Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s cited the brand’s poor performance for their exits, while Today’s Shopping Choice did not comment beyond confirming the removal. Wayfair declined to comment, and H-E-B did not respond to requests for comment. Zulily said it stopped carrying MyPillow in July. Affirm, the financing start-up, separately confirmed that it severed ties with MyPillow last week. Matt Rivitz, a co-founder of Sleeping Giants, said the claim about bots was “ridiculous.” Throughout the Trump presidency, he said, consumers grew more aware of their collective power, beginning with ads on Breitbart and boycotts of Ivanka Trump products at Nordstrom. This has been the culmination of those efforts. “There were a number of videos that came out with Lindell doing these rants about how the election was stolen and clearly that led to violence,” Mr. Rivitz said. “It was just a natural inclination to ask companies if they supported that because ultimately these companies have greatly benefited from democracy and they likely don’t want to see the country fall into chaos because of these lies.” Mr. Lindell said only one of the companies that had dropped his products cited false information about voting machines, but added, “It’s pretty coincidental when over nine companies do that the same day.” Still, he said he was not concerned about the impact on his business. He added that he did not view his comments to Right Side Broadcasting as “politically skewed” and blamed “cancel culture” for the retailers’ actions, though he anticipated they would return to selling his products. This month, Mr. Lindell was photographed at the White House carrying notes that mentioned the Insurrection Act, by which a president can deploy active military troops into the streets. Until around 2011, MyPillow was run out of a former bus garage in Minnesota, with roughly 40 employees, according to Tonja Waring, who worked there from 2009 to 2012 and appeared in its infomercials. Ms. Waring said Mr. Lindell was fiercely loyal and regularly pushed back against conventional wisdom on issues like maintaining manufacturing in the United States. “He doesn’t care what people think or what they say — he cares about doing the right thing,” she said. She added that Mr. Lindell had grown more comfortable in the spotlight than when she first met him, when he was “barely able to go on TV.” While the infomercials fueled MyPillow’s rise, they have also drawn complaints. In one settlement in 2016, MyPillow paid $995,000 in penalties after a group of district attorneys in California took issue with the company’s claims that its products could soothe insomnia, fibromyalgia and other medical conditions. Last year, Mr. Lindell also faced criticism after pitching an unproven Covid-19 “cure” to Mr. Trump. When customers asked about health claims made in MyPillow commercials, the two former store employees said, they would try to evade the subject without confirming or denying promises made in the ads. One former employee said Mr. Lindell also pushed stores to sell other products that workers were wary to endorse, such as a powder that claimed to stop wounds from bleeding within seconds. In his memoir, Mr. Lindell wrote of “a shady bankruptcy” he declared in 2003 to avoid a lawsuit involving a bar he owned, working with a lender he had met through his bookie’s stepson, who encouraged Mr. Lindell to concoct fake creditors. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’d colored outside the lines of the law,” he wrote of the episode. Even now, as retailers cut ties and he has been kicked off Twitter, Mr. Lindell is defiant, convinced that “real people” do not care about the claims he has been perpetuating. “The people on the left, the Democrats, they’re buying the same amount of product they always buy from me,” he said, “and the people supporting me standing up to cancel culture are buying more.” Source link Orbem News #CEOs #company #conspiracy #MyPillow #put #spot #theories #Trump

[technomanish]

The Galaxy Fold has been probably the most polarizing product I can recall having reviewed. Everybody who noticed it wished to play with the long-promised smartphone paradigm shift. The outcomes, then again, had been much more blended.

If nothing else, the Fold has a remarkably excessive Q-Score. Every one who noticed me utilizing the product had not less than a obscure thought of what it was all about. I actually can’t keep in mind the final time I’ve had that response with a non-iPhone system. That’s nice from model perspective. It means lots of people are curious and doubtlessly open to the notion that the Samsung Galaxy Fold is the long run.

In fact, it additionally means there are lots of people trying on if you happen to fail.

In some methods, this previous week with the Samsung Galaxy Fold has been a particularly public beta. A handful of samples got out to reviewers. Most labored effective (mine included), however not less than three failed. It’s what we within the business name a “PR nightmare.” Or not less than it might be for many firms.

Samsung’s weathered bigger storms — most notably with the Galaxy Note 7 a number of years again. In fact, that system made it a lot additional alongside, in the end leading to two large-scale remembers. The character of the 2 points was additionally vastly completely different. A malfunctioning display doesn’t put the person at bodily threat like an exploding battery. The optics on this stuff don’t get a lot worse than having your smartphone banned from planes.

As of this writing, the Fold remains to be set to go on sale, most probably this yr. To be completely frank, the April 26 launch date appeared overly optimistic effectively earlier than the primary studies of malfunctioning models. It’s by no means an incredible signal when a tool is introduced in February and is just made obtainable for evaluation a number of weeks forward of launch. It’s sort of like when a studio doesn’t let reviewers watch a movie earlier than launch. It doesn’t essentially imply it’s unhealthy, but it surely’s one thing to regulate.

That’s the factor. The Galaxy Fold is the sort of system you need badly to succeed. You need it to be nice and also you need Samsung to promote a billion as a result of it’s a genuinely thrilling product after a decade of telephones that look principally the identical. There’s additionally the truth that Samsung has primarily been hyping this factor for eight years, because it debuted a versatile show at CES 2011.

Regardless of that, nonetheless, the house stretch feels rushed. Samsung little question noticed the writing on the wall, as firms like Huawei readied their very own foldable. And whereas Royole beat the fold to market, Samsung nonetheless had an excellent shot on the declare of first commercially viable foldable available on the market, with a decade of Galaxy units beneath its belt and hand-in-hand work with the Google workforce to create an Android UX that is smart on a pair of very completely different screens.

[Source: iFixit]

However this iFixit teardown speaks volumes. “Alarmingly” isn’t the sort of phrase you need/count on to listen to about an organization like Samsung, however there it’s, adopted straight by “fragile” — itself repeated 5 occasions over the course of the write-up. iFixit’s findings match up fairly carefully with Samsung’s personal studies:

A fragile show means knocking it the flawed method may end up in catastrophe.

A spot within the hinges permits dust and different particles to wedge themselves between the folding mechanism and display.

Don’t peel off the protecting layer. I do know it seems to be like you must, however that is most likely the simplest option to wreck your $2,000 cellphone that doesn’t contain a firearm or blender.

What makes all of this doubly unlucky is that Samsung has about as a lot expertise as anybody making a rugged cellphone that works. I really feel assured that the corporate will do exactly that in future generations, however except the corporate can come again with definitive proof that it’s overhauled the product forward of launch, this can be a tough product to suggest.

Samsung knew the first-gen Galaxy Fold can be a tough promote, in fact. The corporate was fairly clear about the truth that the experimental kind issue, coupled with the $1,980 price ticket, meant the system will solely attraction to a small phase of early adopters.

Even so, the corporate managed to promote out of preorders — although it didn’t say how massive that preliminary run was. Nor are we certain what number of customers have canceled within the wake of this previous week’s occasions. Actually nobody would blame them for doing so at this level.

However whereas the apocalyptic shit-posters amongst us will declare the loss of life of the foldable earlier than it was ever actually born, no matter doesn’t kill Samsung has solely made it stronger. And this misfire may in the end try this for each the corporate and the class, courtesy of its casual beta testing.

Rewind a mere week or so in the past (severely, it’s solely been that lengthy), after we lastly obtained our palms on the Galaxy Fold. I used to be impressed. And I actually wasn’t alone. Admittedly, there’s a little bit of a glow that first time you see a tool that’s seemingly been teased without end. The truth that it exists seems like a sort of victory in and of itself. However the Fold does an admirable job marrying Samsung’s {hardware} experience with a brand new kind issue. And extra importantly, it’s actual and works as marketed — effectively, principally, not less than.

The reality is, I’ve principally loved my time with the Galaxy Fold. And certainly, it’s been enjoyable chronicling it on a (almost) every day foundation. There are some issues the shape issue is nice for — like taking a look at Google Maps or propping it as much as watch YouTube movies on the elliptical machine on the gymnasium. There are others when the cumbersome kind issue left me wanting to return to my common previous smartphone — however these trade-offs are to be anticipated.

I each just like the Fold’s design and perceive the criticism. Samsung’s finished a superb job sustaining the Galaxy line’s iconic design language. The foldable seems to be proper at residence alongside the S and Note. That mentioned, the rounded backing provides some bulk to the product. And whereas open, the system is thinner than an iPhone, when folded, it’s greater than double the thickness, owing to a niche between the shows. It’s fairly skinny on this mode, nonetheless, so it ought to slip properly into all however the tightest pants pockets.

In observe, the folding mechanism could be probably the most spectacular a part of the product. The within options a number of interlocking gears that permit the product to open and shut with ease and let customers work together with the system at numerous states of unfold. I discovered myself utilizing the system with it open at a 90-degree angle fairly a bit, resting in my hand like an open ebook. The Fold incorporates a pair of magnets on its edges, which allow you to shut it with a satisfying snap. It’s weirdly therapeutic.

Actually, the most important strike towards the system from a purely aesthetic standpoint is that it’s not the Mate X. Introduced by Huawei a number of days after the Fold’s massive unveil, the system takes a decidedly extra minimalist strategy to the class. It’s a sublime design that options much less system and extra display, and, actually, the sort of factor I don’t assume most of us anticipated till not less than the second-generation product.

The gulf between the 2 units is very obvious with regards to the entrance display. The entrance of the display is round two-fifths bezel, leaving room for a 4.6-inch show with a clumsy side ratio. The Mate X, in the meantime, incorporates a 6.6-inch front-facing AND 6.4-inch rear-facing show (to not point out the bigger eight-inch inner show to the Fold’s 7.3).

There’s motive to suggest the Fold over the Mate X, as effectively. I can’t converse to the distinction in person expertise, having solely briefly interacted with the Huawei, however the value level is a biggie. The Mate X begins at an much more absurd $2,600, thanks partially to the truth that it would solely be obtainable in a 5G model, including one other layer of area of interest.

That value, thoughts you, is transformed from euros, as a result of 1) The product was introduced at MWC in Barcelona and 2) U.S. availability is prone to be a nonstarter once more, as the corporate continues to wrestle with U.S. regulators.

In fact, the Fold’s U.S. availability can also be in limbo in the meanwhile, albeit for very completely different causes.

I in the end spent little time interacting with the entrance display. It’s good for checking notifications and the like, however making an attempt to sort on that skinny display is near unattainable, with shades of the brand new Palm system, which implements its personal shortcuts to get round these shortcomings. The within, in the meantime, takes a butterfly keyboard strategy, so you’ll be able to sort with each thumbs whereas holding it open like a ebook.

There’s additionally the problem of app optimization. Loads of this may be chalked as much as an early model of a first-gen system. However as with each new system, the equation of how a lot developer time to speculate is essentially depending on product adoption. If the Fold and future Fold’s aren’t a hit, builders are going to be far much less inclined to speculate the hours.

That is most painfully apparent with regards to App Continuity, one of many system’s major promoting factors from a software program perspective. When working as marketed, it makes a compelling case for the twin screens. Open one thing on the entrance and broaden your canvas by unfolding the system. Google is among the many firms that labored straight with Samsung to optimize apps this fashion, and it’s significantly useful with Maps. I used it a good quantity on my journey final week to Berkeley (shout out to the effective folks at Pegasus Books on Shattuck).

When an app isn’t optimized, Samsung compels you to restart it, or else you get a nasty case of letterbox bars that retain the side ratio of the entrance display. Continuity isn’t designed to work the opposite method, both — opening one thing on the big display after which transferring to the entrance. That’s a bit trickier, as shutting the cellphone is designed to supply a sort of finality to that session, like hitting the facility button to place the system to sleep.

I get that, and like many different items right here, it is going to be attention-grabbing to see how folks put it to use. Apart from the apparent {hardware} issues, a lot of the work on the second-generation system will focus on learnings from how customers work together with this mannequin. I do know I stunned myself after I ended up utilizing the 7.3-inch display to snap photographs. It felt foolish — like these individuals who carry iPads to {photograph} occasions. However it’s in the end a significantly better viewfinder than that measly 4.6-incher.

That’s actually simply the tip of the iceberg for the within display, in fact. The scale, which is someplace between phablet and mini pill, supplies ample actual property that may nonetheless be held in a single hand. It’s an incredible measurement for brief movies. I’ve watched loads of YouTube on this factor, although the audio system (a small sequence of holes on the higher and decrease edges) go away quite a bit to be desired.

And the seam. I discovered myself uttering the phrase “it may very well be worse” quite a bit. Like a lot of the final aesthetic (together with the odd green-gold shade of my Fold’s casing), it’s lighting-dependent. There are many occasions while you don’t see all of it, and different when the glare hits it and makes it seem like a line proper down the middle.

I noticed after snapping a few photographs that it’s significantly obvious in lots of photographs. That most likely provides a misunderstanding of its prominence. It sucks that there’s one in any respect, but it surely’s not a shock, given the character of the design. You principally don’t discover it, till your finger swipes throughout it. And even then it’s delicate and completely not a dealbreaker, in contrast to, say, the large hole that made the ZTE Axon M seem like two telephones pasted collectively.

I like the power to face the system up by having it open at a 90-degree angle, so I can watch movies whereas brushing my enamel. However this orientation blocks the underside audio system, hampering the already iffy sound. Fortunately, your $1,980 will get you a pair of the wonderful Galaxy Buds in field. It’s laborious to think about Apple bundling AirPods with the subsequent iPhone, however I suppose stranger issues have occurred, proper?

Multi-Energetic Window is the opposite key software program piece. It’s one thing that has been obtainable on different Samsung units and positively is smart right here. Open an app, swipe left from the precise facet of the display and a tray will open. From there, you’ll be able to speak in confidence to three apps on the show. As soon as open, the home windows characteristic a small tab on the prime that allows you to rearrange them.

It’s useful. I used it probably the most throughout these occasions I had a video taking part in on an train machine, so I didn’t have to shut out of all the things to examine emails and Twitter. I’m a gymnasium multi-tasker. I’m sorry, it’s simply who I’m now.

It labored fairly effectively on the entire, courtesy of sturdy internals, together with 12GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 855. The first problem I bumped into was how among the apps maintained that half-screen format after I closed out and reopened. I’m certain some folks will want that, and I’m actually unsure what the best resolution is there.

The Fold’s additionally obtained a beefy battery on board. Like Huawei’s, it’s break up in two — one on both facet of the fold. They work out to a beefy 4,380 mAh. That’s simply barely lower than Huawei’s 4,500, however once more, the Mate X is 5G by default — which suggests it’s going to burn by mAhs at a sooner fee.

In the end, the Fold’s best power is Samsung itself. I perceive why you most likely simply did a double take there within the wake of the corporate’s newest {hardware} scandal, however the reality is that the corporate is aware of tips on how to construct telephones. The Fold was very a lot constructed atop the inspiration of the profitable Galaxy line, even whereas it presents a curious little fork within the household tree.

Which means a strong and well-thought-out person expertise exterior of the entire fold factor.

That record consists of nice cameras with glorious software program options and intelligent methods like the brand new Wi-fi PowerShare, which helps you to fold up the cellphone and cost up these Galaxy Buds or one other cellphone whereas it’s plugged in. For higher or worse, it additionally consists of Bixby. Our mannequin was a European model that didn’t have the complete model, however I believe I’ve made my ideas on the sensible assistant fairly well-known during the last couple of years.

The devoted Bixby button could be very a lot right here. And sure, I very a lot by chance pressed it an entire bunch. The headphone jack, then again, is conspicuously absent, which is little question a giant driver behind the choice to incorporate Galaxy Buds. The Fold is an anomaly in a lot of methods, but it surely’s laborious to shake the sensation that this may lastly signify the start of the top for the port on Samsung’s premium units.

Additionally absent is the S Pen. The stylus started life on the Note line and has since branched out to different Samsung units. I think the corporate would have had a tricky time squeezing in house for it alongside the twin batteries, and possibly it’s saving one thing for future generations, however this does really feel like the best display measurement for that accent.

I’m parting methods with the Fold this week, per Samsung’s directions. Not like different merchandise, giving it up gained’t really feel that robust. There wasn’t some extent prior to now week when the Fold didn’t really feel like overkill. There have been, nonetheless, occasions when my iPhone XS display felt downright tiny after switching again.

In some ways, the foldable cellphone nonetheless seems like the long run, and the Fold seems like a cease alongside the way in which. There are loads of first-gen points that needs to be/ought to have been hammered out earlier than mass producing this system. That mentioned, there are particular points that may solely actually be discovered in real-world testing. Take the truth that Samsung subjected the system to 200,000 mechanical open and closes. That’s quite a bit, and doubtless greater than the lifetime of nearly any of those units, however folks don’t open and shut like machines. And with regards to the display, effectively, a bit of dust is certain to get between the gears, each metaphorically and actually.

As I shut this Galaxy Fold a remaining time, it appears protected to say that the system represents a doubtlessly thrilling future for a stagnant smartphone house. However that’s the factor in regards to the future — it’s simply not right here but.

Samsung Galaxy Fold evaluation: future shock The Galaxy Fold has been probably the most polarizing product I can recall having reviewed. Everybody who noticed it wished to play with the long-promised smartphone paradigm shift.

[saleggdbshoes-blog]

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How Long Do You Plan to Keep Me at the Back of Your Mind?

Heather & Valencia - Femslash February - Day 21 - Basic [2,442 words]

“Hello, ladies, and welcome to the trial run of Hallmark & Hummus.” Rebecca splayed her fingers. She waggled them as if the name were appearing in lights. “On this very special evening, we will be enjoying some unarguably bland dip only made interesting with other foods. Whatever film is selected by our vote will be much the same: devoid of flavor until the added ingredients -- us, in this case, the added ingredients are us -- come along to spice things up.”

Valencia offered a strained but well-intentioned smile. She turned to the right and consulted with Heather. “Translation, please?”

Heather’s beleaguered sigh preceded the reply. “She wants to watch sappy made-for-TV movies and eat tortilla chips while we talk about them.”

“Ohhhhh,” the rest of the group chorused. 

“I wanna take this opportunity to just apologize to everyone,” Heather told them, ignoring Rebecca’s background indignation. “The theme tonight is my fault and I am already so sorry.”

“How’d that happen?” Paula draped her arms over the sides of her chair.

“We were kicking around viewing options for Girls’ Night earlier this week and everything totally snowballed outta control. I was trying to steer her away from them by pointing out that they’re usually a little boring and unoriginal... which, like, ‘a little’ was being generous, honestly... and she just really latched onto the metaphor.” Heather folded her arms and shot Rebecca a ‘Why are you like this?’ look. 

Rebecca tried to mirror the stance but ultimately just stuck out her tongue. “I still think we can make it fun. Plus, your cleverness sparked the creative spin! You should be owning this with pride! You were my muse.”

Heather wrinkled her nose. “I accept full responsibility for the apt comparison but not its application.”

“Compromise met.” Rebecca clapped her hands into a clasp. “Now, before we get into any of that, the first order of business is to greet our special guest. Thank you for joining us tonight, Beth. Welcome.”

Beth was clearly not expecting an individual shout-out like that. Still, she leaned forward to acknowledge them all with a salutatory wave before settling back against the couch. “Thanks for inviting me.”

Heather readjusted on her respective cushion. She pulled one leg up to her chest and locked both arms around the kneecap.

“Okay, so, drinks are in the fridge,” Rebecca continued the hostess explanations. “There’s wine, juice, water, beer, et cetera. I originally floated the idea that we take shots of Hennessy for every glaring instance of sexism to keep going with our letter ‘H,’ but Heather did actually talk me out of that one because we would all die of alcohol poisoning.”

She gathered a tall stack of borrowed cases in her arms, each labeled with a barcode from the local library. “I grabbed all the ones I could find. Their collection was unexpectedly extensive, so let’s see if we can start the process of elimination.”

“Nothing with a cover that looks like pretty white characters are gonna fall in love or die at Christmastime,” Heather declared.

Rebecca pouted and removed six boxes from the tower. “That’s practically their entire yuletide catalog - heh, yule log, that was unintentional - but fair enough. It does whittle the options down by a significant margin.”

“No movies with sequels,” Valencia suggested. “The last thing we need is to get stuck with these people for more than one.”

“And none with punny titles,” Paula added.

“Why not?” Rebecca countered.

“Check how many that eliminates and you’ll see.” Paula assembled a plate while she waited.

“Oh wow, you guys are going after their whole brand,” Rebecca muttered as she continued to weed out entertainment that matched the criteria. “Hallmark came out to have a good time and is honestly feeling so attacked right now.”

“What does that leave?” Beth peered at the titles one by one when they passed through her acquaintance’s hands.

Rebecca held up a single DVD. “Something called The Love Letter.”

“Hang on a sec.” Valencia’s brow furrowed. “Can I see that?”

Rebecca passed her the box. Valencia tapped the name in the bottom corner. “I knew it! That’s Jennifer Jason Leigh.”

Beth chuckled. She rubbed her palm along her girlfriend’s spine. 

Valencia peeked to the left self-consciously. “What?”

“Nothing. I just think it’s cute you followed the career of an actress with a big gay fan following before you even figured things out.” Beth kissed Valencia on the cheek.

Rebecca joined in the affectionate laughter. “Adorably oblivious.”

Heather popped the lid off her beer and drank.

Paula tucked a diced piece of pepper into the side of her mouth and lifted her own bottle. “Let’s get this party started.”

She tapped the alcohol against her friend’s serving. Just for a moment, Heather thought she saw a flicker of sympathy in Paula’s eyes.

They all settled more comfortably while Rebecca turned out a couple of the lights and readied the selection. Rebecca stretched across the chaise lounge. She pointed the remote control toward the censor. “Drum roll... play!”

Within the first sixty seconds, a store owner made a comment about women dragging their boyfriends into the building to look at a white dress in the window. Valencia and Rebecca automatically flipped their middle fingers at the screen. 

“Damn,” Valencia commented just shy of the seven minute mark. “She likes some imaginary pen pal better than the guy who just proposed to her. Are we sure she’s not a closeted lesbian in this, too? Fixating on an unrealistic man-of-her-dreams seems like a handy excuse.”

“You would know,” Paula teased with a smirk. She sipped more of her drink.

Valencia arched an eyebrow but inclined her head. “Touché.”

“Ooo, it’s near Salem!” Rebecca enthused. “Witches?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“Dude, again, late ’90s Hallmark,” Heather reminded her. “They aren’t gonna throw us a lot of surprises. Also, wrong time period.”

“If Hocus Pocus taught us nothing else, it’s that they don’t have to be bound to their own era. Spooky shit happens,” Rebecca reasoned.

Heather shook her head and laughed quietly.

The female lead was finally introduced. Valencia and Beth exchanged knowing glances when her first onscreen act was writing a poem for a flower consistently referred to with “she” and “her” pronouns. ‘Gay,’ they both mouthed.

Half an hour into the run time, Beth whispered, “So, is this basically The Lake House with a more cockblocking year gap?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Heather confirmed. “This one’s just eight years older.” 

“Good to know.” Beth smiled with genuine appreciation for the trivia.

Heather felt a twist of guilt that her first internal response was ‘ugh.’  Then the story randomly included a scene involving kitchen spices and she choked on a scoop of hummus.

“Are you okay?” Valencia murmured.

“Yeah, just went down the wrong way,” Heather managed to reply.

A strange reaction crossed Valencia’s features but she periodically hovered a concerned hand over her friend’s back until ten minutes later.

“It must be true love if you get turned on by air touches, amirite?” Rebecca joked. Heather and Valencia froze before they realized she spoke in reference to the film. They scooted to opposite ends of their couch space.

Beth’s fingers interwove with Valencia’s when the movie’s ill-treated fiancée got to confront her betrothed’s emotional infidelity. Heather’s eyes found the ceiling as she tried not to notice.

The end credits rolled. Rebecca wiped away a few tears. She tucked both legs beneath her body as she faced the other women in the room. “So, what did you guys think?”

“I really liked that checkered dress. Oh, and the giant cloak when she left for Gettysburg!” Paula stayed seated but pantomimed donning the aforementioned clothing while sweeping away in a hurry. “I mean, c’mon, can you really call it a dramatic exit without some kind of cape to swish behind you? It’s the only way to go.”

“Right? So pretty. So stylish. And when they got into the rowboat and she read her poetry to him?” Rebecca pouted and held her hands over her heart. “I loved that.”

“He was kind of an asshole, though,” Valencia concluded. “Waffling between them both like they were equally viable options. Pick a path and stick to it. And for the love of God, invest in wax or a razor.”

“That’s a justifiable point,” Rebecca acknowledged. “I’m a big advocate of a person having as much or as little body hair as they see fit so, you know, more power to him. But, practically speaking, that stuff is gonna scratch your tits to hell when you’re pounding it out together. R.I.P. reincarnated lady’s boobs.”

Heather and Paula concurred with empathetic nods.

“I’m not super into the reincarnation angle itself, though,” Heather decided. “They had a few set traits because of the whole same-internal-essence thing, but Caleb and Scotty were still different guys living different lives, y’know?”

“They did each have their own vibe,” Paula concurred. “The two were very similar but not identical. Close, but no cigar.”

“Exactly! And I think they knew people weren’t gonna be as into modern JJL after ninety minutes with Civil War her. That’s why her name went from Elizabeth to Beth so it’s like, ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s cool for us to just end the movie now because she’s literally the same,’ but she’s not. She wasn’t there for any of it. Beth doesn’t share all the history and she doesn’t know everything that happened before she came into the picture. It’s like, dude, she’s a separate person and eventually you’re gonna have to explain everything. I guess go ahead and get attached to someone who’s superficially a match, but it doesn’t make her your soulmate.”

Heather finished her rant and stared down at the empty bottle in her hands. She could feel Valencia tense beside her but neither risked eye contact. 

Heavy fabric pelted against the top of Heather’s head and fell to the floor. 

“What the...”

She looked up to realize Rebecca had chucked a throw pillow at her. 

“Start believing in romance, you cynic! Stop deflating love bubbles with your logic!” Rebecca reached for another to lob, but Heather held her hands aloft.

“Yeah, there’s an open container of salsa literally two feet away from me, so I’m thinking we should call for an armistice.” Heather forced her expression into a semblance of contrition. “No more mood-killing. But also no more furniture attacks. Deal?”

“I can agree to those terms.” Rebecca let the second pillow fall from her grip.

“Cool. I’m gonna go use the bathroom before we start whatever’s next.” 

Heather departed for that location and locked the door. She splashed water on her face and met her own gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “You are acting like such a jealous douche,” Heather reprimanded herself in a low voice. “That may be the literal brand you represent, but it’s not who you are as a person. Cut the crap.”

She towel-dried her skin and sighed. Somehow, she had to come to terms with the chasm between where she used to think her life would be at this point and where things were actually headed. It wasn’t fair to Valencia to keep letting an undercurrent of bitterness guide the course of their interactions. Then there was Beth, genial and charming, who had done absolutely nothing to earn a cold shoulder. Heather frequently hashed and rehashed it all out in her mind, and she knew Beth had proven herself to be an exemplary first girlfriend. Whether the process of doing so was easy or not, she had to step aside. After all, Valencia wasn’t the only one in a new relationship. Heather had someone, too. Hector... No, she couldn’t tackle her feelings about him right now. The main thing to focus on was turning over a new leaf, and she intended to do so once she rejoined the others.

Heather left the bathroom, pivoted out of habit toward the living room, and almost ran right into Beth. She pulled to an abrupt stop. “Sorry. All yours.”

Beth hooked her thumbs in her belt loops. “Thanks. Hey, I don’t now if it’s a breach of that treaty you and Rebecca have going to tell you this, but you made a pretty solid point earlier.” She cast a covert glance at the rest of the group, playfully following along with the faux tension as well as the subsequent peace. “What makes a person isn’t just what they’re starting with, but how they’re affected by things, and what they do in response to that. Like you said, it’s from their ’90s collection, and I don’t know if they were really encouraging us to look that deep, but still.” She shrugged. “V told me you’re good at reading people, and she was right.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Heather nearly crossed her arms, but instead she slipped her palms into the pockets of her vest. “I may need to call on you for backup in the event of another pro-tearjerker uprising, so, be ready with a strong argument. Rebecca loves a debate.”

Beth laughed. “You got it.”

They parted ways and Heather turned around again. Valencia was watching. She twitched her lips upward timidly. Heather flushed with remorse that things had become so difficult between them. She returned the greeting with a sincere smile. Valencia beamed and approached to talk. 

“How’s movie vote number two going?” Heather asked.

Valencia looked back at their companions with loving exasperation. “We’re officially in Eeny Meeny Miny Mo territory, but Rebecca and Paula got into a discussion about whether it should be the full rhyme or just those four words. I feel like I don’t need to tell you which friend was in favor of which option.”  

“It’ll be all right. Paula will wrap things up one way or another,” Heather said confidently. “My money’s on her grabbing something out of the pile and shouting ‘This is it!’ just to cut the rounds short.”

Paula’s voice suddenly projected over Rebecca’s. “Oh, look! It’s the brunette from Down with Love. A Christmas Wedding -- we have a winner!” She held the box aloft and then carried the disc to the player. 

Rebecca was miffed by the interruption for only a few seconds before her shoulders rose and fell. “Works for me.”

“You called it.” Valencia nudged Heather. “You know us all too well.”

“I feel like you could probably make an educated guess what I’m thinking sometimes, too.”

“Like right now?”

“Sure, if you want.”

Valencia considered Heather with exaggerated scrutiny. “Switching from beer to wine before we start another cringey movie?”

Heather elbowed her and they both smiled. “Bingo.”

[savagegardenforever]

TO THE MOON AND BACK Rolling Stones Magazine - Australia june 1998

All Darren Hayes could think was "This is not happening!" It was a mantra the Savage Garden vocalist kept chanting to himself, but it wasn't taking. The nascent pop star went to take a sip of his Powerade, but then the Edge cracked a joke and Hayes involuntarily laughed, spitting purple liquid all over himself. Supermodel Helena Christensen giggled as the singer coughed and spluttered. The rain clouds were clearing in the aftermath of the Sydeny leg of U2's PopMart tour, and Hayes had climbed the various levels of celebrity patronage - the shitkicker VIP tent; the serious VIP tent where Midnight Oil were rubbing shoulders with Keanu Reeves and Samuel L. Jackson - to here: U2's dressing room, "The Bunker". He was on his own. The other half of Savage Garden, the calm, assured keyboardist Daniel Jones, was back on level two. "This is not happening! This is not happening!" he told himself. When Bono's assistant bought Hayes in, he walked past Adam Clayton and had to remind himself to be cool. But f**k it, there he was, sitting there in the corner wearing a boxing hood and those black wraparound shades: Bono himself. The Fly, McPhisto, the man who wrote "One", the man who'd just left 50,000 people enthralled. Darren Hayes's goldstar was sitting a few metres away. It was happening. Hayes was dripping wet. The Powerade had simply added to the downpour he'd already stood through, dancing at the tip of the catwalk, alongside the other true believers, lost in the music. He'd had the chance to meet Bono the previous August, when PopMart was in Los Angeles. Hayes had been transfixed bu the show but decided not to go backstage. He didn't want to be the millionth hand Bono shaked, another beaming face to be forgotten. It was different now. Over the last year Savage Garden had sold approximatley four million albums around the world - they were on the course to double that - including a phenomenal 800,000 in Australia alone. They'd scooped the 1997 ARIA Awards and had a number one single in America with "Truly Madly Deeply", the first Australian act to do so since INXS with "Need You Tonight" in 1987. But Darren Hayes didn't want to meet Bono because he felt successful. He would never dare compare Savage Garden's achievements to U2. No, Darren Hayes wanted to meet Bono because he was starting to realise the baggage that came with the success. Savage Garden were in the midst of a sold-out national tour and he was starting to feel like he had nothing more to give, that he'd been stretched so thin he would either break in two or simply dissipate. A few nights before, in Tasmania, he'd been asking himself before a show if he could go on, if not tonight, then next week, or next month in New Zealand, or the month after that in Asia, or the looming months beyond that in Europe and America. He was wondering why they'd become a teen sensation, if he could keep his marriage out of the public eye. All of these thoughts were racing through Darren Hayes's mind. And then Bono was looking at him, gesturing for him to come over and talk ...

Let it be said again: Savage Garden are a phenomenon. Together with the Spice Girls they have spearheaded the return of pop music to the top of musical charts around the world, giving focus to the desires and needs of a generation of teenage, on the whole female, fans. But behind all this is two young men from suburban Brisbane. Polite, inquistive young men who worry a lot about what's happening to them, how they should handle success, how they can prove that their brand of pop is one which will mature and grow, which will reach for resonance and a sense of belief. When I first meet Savage Garden they are preparing to have thier photo taken. It is a Saturday afternoon and Savage Garden are standing in a Sydney hotel suite, looking at clothes, prior to shooting new press shots for America. On the Sunday and Monday, with a show also scheduled on Sunday night, they're to shoot a high-budget clip for the US release of "Break Me Shake Me". Hayes is wearing all black, most noticeably a pair of jeans armour-plated with PVC. With his locks now cropped, his dewy features have lost some of their femininity. He moves around constantly, even if he fights the flu, breaking into snatches of song, delving off into varied topics of conversation without warning. Now he's appraising outfits. "How much is this stuff?" he asks the stylist, who's lacing up Hayes's boots for him. "$290 for the top and $220 for the pants, less 10%," comes the reply. Hayes pauses, then snorts. "Tell 'em to get f**ked," he retorts. Sitting on a bed, patiently having his makeup done, Daniel Jones laughs. The keyboardist is tall and rangy, with blond, spiky hair. Up close, you can see the handful of acne scars which pit the right side of his face. When he smiles, which he does often for someone so observant and low-key, his angular face becomes quite disarming. He watched the PopMart show at the mixing desk, standing beside Helena Christensen. "I said hello and then spent the rest of the show trying to smell her," he notes, grinning broadly. Because they own their very successful records - they only lease them to Roadshow Music in Australia and New Zealand and Sony Music for the rest of the world - Savage Garden have a degree of control most bands can only dream of. "There's not one cent spent, not one colour used on a front cover that we don't approve," Hayes later explains. "It's very comforting." Right now, Savage Garden are working it for photographer Robin Sellick's camera. Hayes is a natural, staring off into the middle distance while standing in the foreground, masking his face in the very definition of broodiness. Jones stands behind him, biding his time for a practice he clearly doesn't place a great deal of faith in (although he's never less than professional). As the shoot moves from hallway to penthouse, Hayes takes front and centre in every shot. "I'm always aware that I'm in the front in every photograph, but it's not because I step in front of him," he says. "Daniel takes two steps back. People just assume I'm an egomaniac." The first album that both Hayes, age 25, and Jones, age 24, bought was Michael Jackson's Thriller. George Michael is a name they both mention with respect. Out in the suburbs of Brisbane both youngsters were pop fanatics, giving vent to their obsessions. Jones was so taken with the video for "Thriller" that he and a friend started digging graves behind his house so they could recreate the video; he even began work on making the famous red jacket. Hayes went one better: he built a paper maché ET and rode around with it in the basket of his bike. But the divergent paths the two took towards Savage Garden illustrate the differences between them. By the time he was 13, Jones was more interested in making music than listening to it. He'd started buying keyboards and sequencers, creating musical beds for songs. On the New Year's Eve of 1989, aged 15, he did his first two gigs back to back, with a covers band, and walked away with $400. He never went back to school after that. Financially astute, by the time he was 17 he owned his own PA, which he regularly loaded in and out of every pub and club in Queensland. "I kind of miss those moments," Jones recalls. "I enjoyed some of those innocent pressures more than these serious ones." Darren Hayes had far more trouble realising his dreams. "My whole life," he declares, "being a singer or performer was all I ever wanted to do." But growing up in one of Brisbane's rougher suburbs didn't make this easy. There's an undercurrent of anger in Hayes when he describes those years, as if he's still upset at how people tried to deny his dreams. "Most people I went to school with had two babies before they were 20. One guy is in jail for armed robbery. Another one died in a car crash while on cocaine. Another one is a pimp. That was the level of my peers. I didn't know a single person who was even a singer. My family weren't that encouraging - which is not a criticism - but my career choice was the most alien thing you could do in my family." Hayes started studying journalism at university, but then threw it in. "My mission was to be a star," he remembers, speaking with an earnestness which can easily veer into melodrama. With his then girlfriend, a fellow Madonna fanatic, the pair auditioned for theatre college. "I got in, she didn't, so I gave it all up for her. And three months later she dumped me. I was gutted." Hayes started a Bachelor of Education majoring in Primary School Teaching, "something I did not have a drop of passion about." Still obsessed with his dreams of fame, he was sitting in a lecture in 1992, reading a Brisbane street paper, when he saw a "Singer Wanted" ad for a local covers band, Red Edge. Replying to the ad he found himself in a band room, being stared down by Jones and the rest of the band. Red Edge didn't know any of Hayes's favourites, while the prospective vocalist ("I always knew I could sing, I knew I had soul") hated their Oz rock/top 40 repertoire. He sang a piece from Little Shop of Horrors, and even though his voice broke halfway through, he was in. It was not an easy adjustment. Hayes is not technically inclined, and he perversely refused to learn the words to the band's set, relying on lyrics sheets instead ("I still don't know the words to 'Khe Sanh'," he announces with pride). The experience, he concludes, was "hideous". Hayes is walking down a corridor to a meet and greet. In the lounge, Hayes is joined by Jones, fresh from dinner. Five girls - before some shows the number has been as high as 50 - appear breathless and nervous. There's nothing studied about teen hysteria, it has an immediacy which distances it from the adult world. Savage Garden are comfortable with it. "So, would you like us to sign some stuff?" asks Jones genially. Tickets, CDs and a stuffed bear are produced. Photographs are taken. One of the girls is red in the face because she's not taking in enough oxygen. "You all go to school, don't you?" asks Hayes. The girls indicate yes. "Well let me give you a lesson about school. All the kids that were popular end up on the dole with babies. All the nerds end up pop stars." "Hey!" retorts Jones. "I was never a nerd." "Darren is brutally honest, even to himself," answers Jones when asked to describe his bandmate. "Sometimes he's his own worst critic. He's so honest that anything he's feeling comes to the surface, which really helps clear the air in the type of intense relationship we have. He reminds me of a kid, not in a bad way, but in his naivity." Asked the same question, Hayes replies, "He's probably the most intelligent person I've ever met in my life. He doesn't say anything unless he's thought it through and it's right. It might take him two or three days, but he'll come to you and say, 'I think you look really insecure when you do that. I'm just being honest.' And you'll go red because he's absolutley right. Intelligent. Calm and confident. He's devoid of insecurity." When U2 brought the Zoo TV tour to Australia in 1993, Red Edge was scheduled to play a residency in Alice Springs. Darren Hayes didn't have to think for long. He left the band. But the other thing he was pondering was writing songs with Daniel Jones. The two had slowly developed a rapport, and Hayes was impressed that Jones and several other band members already had a music publishing deal. The actual songs, however, he hated. "They were watered down 1927," he laments. "It wasn't really my thing," says Jones. "But then I hooked up with Darren and left that band." The pair began to experiment. Happily working by himself at home, Jones would create the musical backing, Hayes would suggest refinements and then add his vocals. The fourth song they wrote together was their astral retooling of "She's Leaving Home", "To The Moon & Back," and afterwards they knew they were on to something. "I turned around," says Jones, "and said, 'This is as good as anything out there. It's as good as U2, or a Seal song - the benchmarks.' That's when we became really serious." Savage Garden's five song demo - the duo envisaged themselves as a studio project and were heavily influenced by U2's Atchung Baby - was well-recieved, although the pair were disheartened by the amount of music industry players whose first queries to them were, "What do you look like?" and "Can you dance?" The duo eventually signed with veteran manager John Woodruff (Baby Animals, Diesel, Icehouse) in 1995 and he remains the linchpin of the Savage Garden organisation and their business partner. It was a relationship forged in adversity. Because they couldn't get a record deal (whether because no one could see the band's potential or because no one was willing to give Woodruff a deal for his own record label is unclear), Woodruff self-financed the album, bringing the pair to Sydney for eight months to record at the home studio of veteran producer Charles Fisher )Hoodoo Gurus, 1927). Hayes first choice for a producer was George Michael. Living in a Kings Cross Hotel on a diet of noodles and missing their families, Savage Garden struggled to finish their album. Their doubts were constant, their aims shifting each month. Woodruff licensed the album to start-up label Roadshow Music, whose early signings had been anything but auspicious. Their first single, "I Want You" - a Hayes tale about an extraordinarily vivid dream where he met and fell in love with someone so deeply that when he lost them upon waking he became depressed - was released in June 1996. "What makes me laugh about our record is that we couldn't get a deal, so we signed to the joke of the industry, Roadshow," Hayes explains. "We had dodgy artwork, dodgy videos. We had trouble getting airplay at the start. Basically, we fulfilled every criteria to be unearthed by Triple J." [Triple J is an Australian youth radio station that plays alternative music] "The day I realised how commercial we were was the day I realised that Triple J didn't playlist 'I Want You'. I was thinking that it would be an indie-pop hit that they'd play. Then it was like, 'Actually, you're the most played band on the Austereo network.'" He pauses, then smiles. "And I'll take that any day." The band did their first in-store appearance as "I Want You" climbed to number three on the charts. "All these 13 and 14-year-olds turned up, screaming 'Darren! and 'Daniel!'" remembers Jones. "I was like, "Oh f**k!' I didn't want to go through that." By the time "Moon & Back" and then "Truly Madly Deeply" had gone to number one, to be followed by their self-titled debut album in March 1997, Savage Garden had acclimatised to their new surroundings. Hayes and Jones make no bones about making commercial music, but under that banner they see a world of subtle differences. "I think the best pop is the one that shoots from the hip," asserts Hayes. "What troubles me sometimes is that we've always wanted to be completely true to ourselves, but people always assume that since we make pop music it has to be calculated and all about marketing. It was never that. There are a lot of pop bands and vocal bands which just aren't real. They're not coming from a real place." "What's so magical about the record we made is that it's so innocent and earnest. It went out there and said this is what we want to be. We didn't care about hip or cool. It was unassuming. I think we write really good pop songs, we have a great ear for a melody and we have a directness when it comes to emotion." Savage Garden's show is mildly choreographed, well-designed and given to U2 homages (which Hayes happily admits to) that the young audience (seeded with the over-30s brought in by "Truly Madly Deeply") scream along to. With just one album and a handful of b-sides to draw on, there are noticeable low points. But live, Savage Garden are a guitar band. Jones plays more guitar than keyboards, while their stage sound is fleshed out by a rhythm section, extra guitarist and backing singers. "I think we're a pop band desperatley wanting to be a rock & roll band and I think that's what's funny about us," claims Hayes. The strangest moment is when Hayes, who has so much desire and extreme emotion projected at him from an audience he works relentlessly, dedicates a song to his wife, Colby. Fans want their pop stars to be free and magical, not married with a home in the Brisbane suburbs. Hayes is vocal on every topic bar one: his wife of three years. "I think it's strange to be young and married," he says, choosing his words carefully. "Imagine being young and married and a pop star. It's tough. We refuse to be an example pf a happy marriage to anyone. The reason I very rarely talk about Colby or do a Women's Weekly spread about our new glamour house is that it's hard enough being married without being a celebrity couple. When you're happy together they love you, but Jesus, when there's problems they don't care, they tear you to bits. And I'm not ready for that." Both Hayes and Jones (who is also in a long-term relationship) decided from the start not to discuss their private lives with the media. On their first tour in May 1997 a tabloid journalist who wanted to follow up his interview with Hayes with a quick phone chat was directed by Woodruff to call him on his mobile: "His wife Colby has it." "The next day he writes some article in the paper: 'Exclusive: Singer Tries to Hide Wife!'" spits Hayes, recalling the spectre of John Lennon, who really did keep his first marriage a secret under management orders. "When did I ever say I wasn't married? When did I ever say I wanted to talk about my private life? What the f**k does it matter? Is my music different because I have a wedding ring?"

For one second I knew what it was like to be Savage Garden. After their solf-out show I leave the Entertainment Centre. Their road manager directs me out the door to the car park. As soon as I open it the 500 fans awaiting the band's departure scream in anticipation. It is electrifying, even a little scary. But when they see it's only an anonymous figure, 500 fans go, "Ohhhhh." Pop music is a cruel, cruel mistress. Last October, the flight to Sydney for the ARIAs, where they would clean up 10 awards, Daniel Jones told Darren Hayes that he couldn't take it anymore and that he was ready to leave Savage Garden. The music, which is all Jones really cared about, had been overtaken by promotion. Instead of being allowed to hide away in a recording studio, Jones was giving 40 interviews a day in America, traipsing across Europe miming on TV shows in every country. "It was pissing me off. Music was becoming more about talking about it than actually making it. I had to get back to the studio. I enjoy it and I miss it. The whole moster size of this machine takes it away from you," he notes. "The whole pep talk I now give video directors and photographers is that I don't want to be up the front. I've drawn a line for myself, and that's the compromise I had to make to deal with being in this band. Now everyone understands what it is about these two people. One wants to be here, the other wants to be here." He holds up his hands to indicate the difference, the gap between them is a metre wide. "That's the deal we made around the time of the ARIAs, but to be honest I think I've always done it," claims Hayes later. "I've always been lumbered with it because everyone assumes I love it. And lately I'm the one saying I want out, I can't do this anymore. If we ever broke up it would be because one of us wanted to be George Michael and one of us wanted to be Dave Stewart." Right now though, the topic the pair are focusing on is their next album. "We matured faster than the album," Jones says. In their mid-20s now, they're not always comfortable playing the songs they wrote as 19 and 20-year-olds. At the end of their concert Hayes tells the cheering crowd, "We have to go away now and think it all up again." "It's seriously not about chart position," clarifies Hayes. "I want a career, so if it sells half as well as this one, thank you, I'll take that. I believe a career is about ups and downs. It shouldn't be a steady gradient. The next record has to be true to itself. It won't be a knee-jerk reaction to critics. To turn around and make a Portishead album would be a big mistake. We'll f**k around with technology, we'll f**k around with drumbeats. We're courting William Orbit at the moment, because we heard the new Madonna record and I thought, 'I like what you added to that record. You added spice and flavour without taking over.' And that's what we're looking for. We want to grow up a little bit. And we're prepared to do whatever it takes." Darren Hayes was thinking that Bono was a wise old man, a wizard. The icon was talking about life, how he searches every day for new inspiration, music, their show, and Hayes was rapt, once more the little boy in love with a mysterious extra-terrestrial. And then he started to tell Bono how he felt, like a rag doll that had been twisted around too much. How sometimes after a show he considered himself a prosititute because he had to give so much from his soul to every person in the room. Bono leaned closer to Hayes and grabbed his hand, putting it to his chest. Hayes could feel the pulmonary kick of the Irishman's heartbeat. And then he spoke: "As long as the music comes from here," he said, pushing Haye's hand harder against his chest, "then it's going to scream louder than any of the kids will." And for the few seconds that followed, Darren Hayes felt at peace with himself.

[autistichalsin]

#I feel kind of weird about this post framing this as a Fandom Event but at the same time I was on twitter when it happened#and on some level it was. it was very much something that was coming to me via people who were really involved in promare discourse#and at that time everyone seemed to have gotten sucked into pro/anti discourse whether they wanted to be there or not#because not declaring a side would be branded taking a side by people inclined towards harassment#the fandom logic that drove the explosion of 'anti ship' content on my TL had a lot of crossover with non fandom stuff#sometimes targeting large well known cishet male authors but often seeming to target small independent marginalized authors#who were writing from very messy and personal places and being given absolutely no grace#idk what else to say. shit's dark and also isabel fall is a higher profile example of a thing that happens all the time online#part of the larger narrative of online rhetoric around the moralizing of discomfort and complexity#and the ways that moral stain are used to remove people from public life

I completely understand your hesitation about framing it this way! I feel like it was just adjacent enough, with just the right players involved, to count as a fandom event even though it wasn't technically a fandom event. I consider it similar to other pro writer incidents, like the Ana Mardoll "war crimes factory nepo baby" incident, or Kidneygate.

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.