#blames owner's conviction

[deepermadness]

For those not in the know, the Republicans are blaming Democrats because an (in)famous social media squirrel called Peanut was euthanised after it bit its owner.

For context, the squirrel was being illegally kept as a pet in NY, something that is prohibited, and after being bitten it is suitably precautionary to test for rabies. Euthanasia is part of this procedure. However, it's being treated as another conspiracy, and spread as part of the "They're eating the dogs!" lie that convicted felon Donald Trump and his campaign are pushing.

JD Vance has been quoted as saying: “Democrats murdered the Elon Musk of squirrels”.

And all I can this about is how The Simpsons predicted this inanity too.

Man, we should be so lucky that the “Elon Musk of squirrels” is gone. Maybe they'll do the “Elon Musk of humanity” next?

[justyouraverageficwriter]

Orange ~

Sana X M Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst (for the most part)

WC: 4.1K Words

Chapter 9: Keep Me in your Heart

A/N: Wrapping up Orange's story. No smut tho.

Reader –

“Now tell me, what are you planning to do?”

Sana was so serious in her tone, nothing of that respectful daughter demeanor, business-like and ready to hear the terms of a very unfavorable circumstance. The atmosphere was heavy inside your office, tension was high, thick and palpable. Both you and Sana have not been on good terms with her father, and then there was the hospital director, caught in the crossfire. You look at your girlfriend and admire her resolve, although it doesn’t come as a surprise now, she has been a fighter ever since you knew her, and it is clear she’ll fight this one too, even though you are doomed to lose. However, it is also clear that there is also vulnerability in her voice.

“I advise you to be calm, my dear daughter.”

You can already tell it’s not going to be easy, her father sounded too confident on the card he is holding. He cleared his throat, and took a seat on the couch, not in a hurry whatsoever. He is taking his time, maybe even enjoying the agony written all over your faces. He may be the father of the girl who means the world to you but you can’t help but curse him under your breath, he is giving you all the reasons to hate him, and probably also a little more. As it stands, it's you and Sana against the world.

“So I heard that the owner of the place you are staying needs a heart transplant. You know I can help you with that, Sana." Her father started his spiel with a smug face. He knew his gambit would finally pay off.  "You see, this should not have been your problem, but you have so much love to give and you can't help but care." The grin on his face grew wider which made you clinch on your fist tighter. But deep inside you can't argue his logic. You view care and connections as unnecessary. It's one of the reasons why you opt to keep to yourself; before this orange haired girl changed your life at least.

 "You know what you need to do, come home with me to Japan, and I'll make sure she'll have her new heart as soon as possible."

He acted so calm, so cool when he laid out his terms. Sana's father thought he had you both on a checkmate, a chokehold; and maybe he probably did. If you didn't hate him, you would for sure admire the man, respect his composure by not laughing hysterically because he had the upper hand. Although you think you didn't expect less from her father, it's really hard to run a hospital, especially if it's controlled by three big families. Well perhaps you do, you already do sound like it.

At that moment, you noticed your girlfriend sob. You've been focused on your own feelings to not be aware that tears are now falling on her face. Instinctively you wrapped your arms around her, she cried enough for the night. You hate her father for doing all this, but even more so you hate yourself for not being able to think of a solution; a way out. You just want to dig deep and find something inside the big brain of yours you always seem so confident about, but somehow the well just ran dry. It can't keep on giving it seems.

There was a brief pause inside your office, the kind that you could not be blamed for thinking the world stood still, and somehow time stops moving forward. It's not a moment of respite however, it's full of dread and uncertainties. Sana knows it, you know it, the odds are not in your favor. "I'll give you time to think, but remember time is of the essence if you want that landlady saved." Sana's father broke that silence with absolute conviction in his voice. He left the office with his shoulders high, and so was his spirit; he knew he had won. You and Mr. Cho's eyes met, and you could see that he is emphatic to your situation, but it's out of his hands too and there's nothing he can do about it. You gave him a smile of acknowledgement as he tapped you gently in the back, and he went out as well after that.

Your focus went back to Sana, and she's crying as she leans on your shoulders. But what more can you do? You just wrapped your arms around her and rubbed her back. "It's all going to be alright." Inside your head you are thinking, asking, do you really mean those words? Maybe not since you yourself are afraid of what will happen next, but it's all you can think of for now. And maybe she knows you are just spewing out words and not meaning them, because she cried even harder when she heard it.

–

Morning came, and you are still occupied with things that need sorting out. You notice your girlfriend roll over and wake up, making a mess of her orange hair. Normally, you would have found it cute but right now you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach. It's a completely different circumstance. "Did you have any sleep, Doc?" Her eyes puffed and her voice hoarse, as she asked you the minute her eyes found yours. It is clear she worries for you too.

"I'm fine, baby." You managed a weak smile. You've been up all night, trying to find answers, but all you could produce was the name of Mrs. Kang's nearest relative using hospital records. You also tried to find ways and cases that a patient was given the priority to receive a heart but that proved to be all for naught. Absent a personal donor pledging their hearts when they die to a specific person, given that the receiver is compatible with the organ; the only recourse is to sign up and be included in the waitlist. 

Then you felt your girlfriend sitting on your lap, you realized your attention was never really on her but on your computer, on the things that addled your mind because you did not notice her walk towards you. Sana wrapped her arms around your neck and rested her head on your shoulders; and you always feel at peace when she does that. But there's a feeling of sorrow in her embrace, the kind that screams goodbye, the kind that is making the most out of the remaining time. Anyone can walk in your office and see the both of you and be called unprofessional but those things don't bother you now, the world will understand.

"I already found a relative who can help us with the paper works of the operation." You are just hoping she will see it as good news, praying silently that she will not see it as you are already giving up by thinking about the operation already. Sana tightened her arms around you and you already knew that she understood what it meant. "We don't have any other options, do we?" Her voice trailed off as she tried to finish her sentence. For the first time today, you shifted your attention fully to your girlfriend. "I want to be selfish, you know. I just want to run with you and escape all these." You pat the back of her head and run your fingers through her orange locks. You mean those words, but you know as well that it's impossible.

Sana immediately removes her head from your shoulders to look at you straight into your eyes. "Then let's go, hmm?" There's pleading in her teary gaze, she's desperate just like you that she'll take any alternative without really thinking.

"We can't, baby. I know you can't. You're not capable of leaving the ones you care about." You hate to be the bearer of the grounding news, but you have to; even if it means putting an end to your selfish desires. "We will just go back immediately the moment we try to leave because of our conscience.” You fixed her messy hair, it has become your habit. After a long pause, of just both of you staring at each other, Sana went back to lean on your shoulders, vulnerable, defeated, devastated for the lack of choices. And your heart goes out with her.

Sana –

Sana is in a state of trance, her eyes are fixed on the face of her still unconscious landlady. In the background is a beeping noise of the electronic vital sign monitors, constantly reminding her that she too still exists, even though she thinks her mind has stopped functioning. As she holds the hands of the woman that serves as her guardian in a foreign country, Sana came to terms with what you said earlier. She really could not just run and leave it all behind. Unbeknownst to her, a pool of tears starts to accumulate again in her eyes. Perhaps, the choice is crystal clear now even if it means you two being away from each other. Sana resigns herself to let it all out again and cry but is stopped by the sound of the opening door. She immediately wiped her tears with her bare hands and tried to fix herself before turning to see who the visitor was.

“Unnie.” Dahyun’s head peeked on the small opening of the door, with her signature smile. “Doc said you haven’t eaten yet. Do you want to join us? Your boyfriend and Doc Jun Han still have a doctors meeting, and Sang Hun has a lecture to attend so it’s just us with Jihyo-unnie.” The anesthetist smiled brightly as she completed her invitation, obviously trying to exude positivity. Sana finishes to wipe her eyes dry and continues to fix herself, she can’t say no and frankly speaking she craves some company too.

Sana noticed that the two ladies tried to talk normally to her as the three of them settled on a table, careful to not bring up the topics related to the things that happened. No one seems to be giving her some weird looks in the hospital so she is thankful that the news didn’t really go out. Yet she could not shake off the feeling that it was a bit strange, normally Sana expected to be bombarded with inquiries but both of them talked about completely random things. "Did Doc tell the both of you not to ask me questions?" She just had to make sure, to confirm her suspicions. Both Dahyun and Jihyo awkwardly looked at each other but ultimately smiled in defeat and admitted that it was indeed the case.

"Are we that obvious, Sana?" Jihyo asked in defeat to which she nodded in response. "It's just highly unusual. You two don't want to be late with the news." Dahyun's mouth dropped in shock when Sana just casually calls them nosy but in a more sophisticated way. Then her lips formed a small smile in amusement, it's the first time she did for the day. It's just friendly banter, and the three just laugh about it.

"Did Doc fill you in with the details?" Sana considered both women more than just colleagues now so she decided to talk about the situation even though it is hard at the moment. Jihyo shaked her head."I only know about your landlady's situation, that she needs a new heart." Dahyun echoed Jihyo's response, also saying that she only knew the same information. "Doc seems to be avoiding the topic entirely so I didn't really pry and ask more." Dahyun added.  Sana immediately thought about you. Of course it's hard for you too, you just act tough because being a doctor requires you to be, and as a boyfriend it requires you even more. 

"This is basically saying goodbye." Sana tried to hold back her tears as she felt like a hand grips her heart again. It is heavy and it keeps on getting heavier that she closed her eyes and the flood gates of tears are now open. Concerned, both women at the table with her scoots closer. Jihyo sitting on the same side gently rubs her back while Dahyun offers tissue. However Sana gathered herself and proceeded to fill them in with the specifics, of how her father wants her to go back to Japan in exchange of securing a heart, of how there is no other choice, of how you two will be apart.

---

Sana looked at you, deep asleep. Probably the only place of peace amidst all the chaos. She examined every single line on your face and she was sure she memorized them all by now. The road to this very moment has not been easy, and Sana thought you deserve the rest you are currently enjoying. It has been your first taste of sleep ever since all of these ensued. She has been itching to touch your face and kiss your lips, but she was also afraid she might wake you up. 

She looked back on the long day you both had, on the emotions and struggles. You both wanted to spend the remaining time together. Even though both of you avoided talking about it, not wanting to make it hard while you are still together. But somehow Sana knew that you also knew that it is just a matter of time, that you need to do what is needed to save a life. She involuntarily sniffs as her nose and eyes swelled again, for which she panicked a bit thinking that might wake you up but fortunately didn’t. Sana then took the chance to slowly get off the bed, careful to not disturb you in the slightest. She fetched a letter from the pocket of her coat, and placed it on your lone bedside table making sure you would see it. Then she took an all look around your room, a bittersweet smile. So many great memories she will forever cherish. And lastly, her eyes landed on you and God knows how much she wants to go back to your side. The few inches apart has been such a torture already.

Reader (Three weeks later) --

You opened the door to see Mrs. Kang sitting up looking outside the window. This is the first time ever since the operation that she has been strong enough to do so. You know she is deep in thought and you hesitated to interrupt her, but you need to make your rounds to your patients and it is her turn. You carefully knocked on the open door to not surprise her, and as she slowly turned around you gave her your best effort for a warm smile.

“It’s much better that you stay lying down, Mrs. Kang. Recover as much strength as possible. The more you do that, the faster you can get out of the hospital.” Normally it takes an average of two to three weeks to recover from a heart transplant. But given her age, you decided to monitor her more than that. She also showed signs of slow recovery so you couldn’t take the risk.

You quickly assisted her in lying back down and proceeded to check on her vitals. “How are you feeling, Mrs. Kang? Not feeling any more discomfort in your chest area?” The old lady slowly shook her head in response. “Your vital signs are well within expected now so I am happy to say we are getting good results. Give it like a week and I can consider releasing you. Sounds good, Ms. Kang?”

“Thank you, Doc.”

“Alright, and don’t forget you can always tell your attending nurse if ever you feel or need something.” You take a final look and give instructions to her own nurse since no relative has even taken the initiative to care, really tragic. You gave her a smile again as you were getting ready to leave when she held your hand to stop you. “Would you allow me a couple of questions, Doctor?”

“Of course.” You obliged after much thought, you were debating internally if it was the right time to let her in on the news. But with her determined eyes, you knew it would just be wrong to not let her know, to deny her of the truth.

You pulled a vacant chair and sat in front of the frail woman, thinking that the conversation would not end that quickly. She looks so much better than before her operation, visibly pain free and presumably getting quite adjusted to her new heart. The heart that has so much weight for you and a particular someone. You immediately remembered how you cried your own heart and eyes out after the successful operation, given how much it meant to you. The hospital director voiced his concern to you, suggesting that you should let other doctors perform the operation because emotions can get in the way, but you have to do it. You just have to make sure that it’s gonna be all worth it, and besides it’s the very last wish she said to you. And today, somehow sitting across her landlady, you realized you did just that. But as for the question if it was worth it, your heart is not that professional after all.

“You are Sana’s boyfriend, right? She always talks about you.” Mrs. Kang reaches out to hold your hand again, soft and gentle.

“Yes, her boyfriend.” It’s technically true, you did not separate that night; in fact not much was really said aside from a couple of lines. Yet you still hesitated, it has been almost a month that you haven’t seen her, not in any shape or form of conversation wahtsoever too.

“I haven’t seen her visit, she told me she works in the same hospital as you. I would very much like to see her.” There is a certain anticipation in her expression, you can clearly see how Sana means to her as well. However, you hate to be the bearer of the disappointing news.

“Sana-” you paused to clear your throat, you once again feel the grip that very fact holds upon your heart. Just her name solicits so much emotion from you. Yet you have to gather yourself and persevere, keep a straight face as much as possible. You have to soften the news to her, she is your patient after all. “Sana is back in Japan, Mrs. Kang. But don’t worry she already knew that you had a successful operation.” The last sentence was a lie. In truth, you don’t have an inkling of news about her, none whatsoever. Not even knowing if she safely arrived. Although, you thought it’s safe to assume that she does, you want to assume. And besides you really could use that particular white lie.

You saw the change in expression in Mrs. Kang's face. From hopeful anticipation to visible sadness. You didn’t do a great job of what you intended to do. "But you don't have to worry, all expenses have been taken care of too already." You tried to distract her with positive news. Yet you know, just like your heart, only a certain someone can fill that void. 

“Can I talk to her at least?” That request was full of desperation, somehow it reflects your heart's desire. You would give the world to just have the chance to hear her sweet bright voice.

“I’ll make sure to let you talk to her once she calls, I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear you well and healthy. But right now, you just need to think about one thing, and that is recovering.” You immediately stood up, desperately wanting to get out of the conversation. You don’t want to lie anymore, but most of all of you just couldn’t hold on to your tears if you keep on talking about Sana. So with the last bit of perseverance, you remained professional. Telling her that you have to go to check on other patients, it’s the last lie you will tell her today.

–

You head to your office after completing your afternoon rounds, you just want to be alone. Unknowingly, you started to go back to your old self, loner, grumpy and unapproachable. And you realized that when you opened the door of your office hearing some laughter but it completely went silent when they saw you walk in the door, well except for one person who was confused about the situation. For the first time in what feels like forever, there was some semblance of joy in the corners of your office; the office that was once a well of happiness when Sana shared it with you and made it her own. Somehow in your heart, you wish she was one of the visitors you have but that is just wishful thinking of course.

“Are you this strict on them that they can’t laugh when you’re around, Oppa?” Your sister was ready to scold you. Jihyo and Dahyun immediately react that it was not the case but Tzuyu’s eyes were fixed on you. 

“What are you doing here?” You disregard your sister’s question. However she was not having it.

“My sister can be a bit feisty.” You smiled at your colleagues. The two of them laughed again, looking more relaxed. They already understood you are a man of a few words. “It’s the first time I saw someone you can square up to you aside from–” Dahyun stopped on her sentence and looked away, conscious about what she almost did. Of course you picked up on it, in fact everyone did as Jihyo was shooting some lethal side eye to the anesthetist. However, you decided to let it go, nothing really good will happen if you mind it. “Will you excuse us, ladies?”

Both Jihyo and Dahyun of course obliged and immediately headed out the door after taking their leave. You sat down on your chair, legs gave out as soon as you reached it. Perhaps you are now done acting tough, you are with someone again where you are not afraid of showing vulnerability. “You didn’t answer my question, little sis. What brought you here?”

“Just checking on you. Anything wrong with that?” Tzuyu took a seat on the chair in front of your table. There was a pause after, yet somehow you know she didn’t expect any kind of answer. “You should stay with us for the meantime, you know. It will do you good to have company.” Ever since Tzuyu and your father met, they have been catching up so fast with each other’s life up to the point that she now lives in his house. You can see that your sister is happy so you are just as happy for her. Her happiness should not be hindered just because you still have your wounds.

“I’m doing fine, Tzuyu-ya.”

“Fine, I brought some food by the way. You should eat it. I won’t linger long, I still need to visit my shop.” She immediately ran to your side and gave you a hug.

“You can tell your father, I might invite him for some drinks.” You told her after the hug.

“He will be happy to hear that.”

–

The next morning rolled around and you woke up as the sunlight from your windows slowly creeped up on your eyes. Every morning has been pretty much the same ever since that night. Just like as you recalled, the first thing that grabbed your attention is the letter waiting for you to be read. And without fail ever since that morning, you reached out for it and unfolded the piece of paper that brings you both hope and sadness; the piece of paper that she left her heart with. Then you start to read again, each line somehow feels like it's the first time you ever read it:

You know I love you, and I will always do.

I’m such a coward for choosing to do it this way. But I know I wouldn’t be able to do this with proper goodbyes. I know it would be impossible for me to go seeing you cry the moment I leave. So allow me to go like this, while you are peacefully asleep.

This is not goodbye. Keep me in your heart until the day that we will see each other again. Promise me that I will still be your Orange.

Lastly, I will go because it is the right thing to do. Because you and I both know we can’t live if we took the selfish path. So let us make it worth it, promise me you will save her. Do all you can, I know you will.

I have so many things to say, but let’s just talk about them when we see each other again.

You know I love you, and I will always do.

Yours,

Orange

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

Fin.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

... And Back: Final Part

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Summary: Knowing the Turner Brothers killed nearly one hundred people, the FBI, Detroit police, and the Canadian police work hard to figure out three things: Where is Kelly, who has been murdered here, and what will happen when Lucas is caught? That’s not the only thing you have to worry about as a nightmare is about to come your way.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

x

Derek and Emily are working with the Bloodhounds and walking around the property trying to find Kelly and Lucas. It's weird to think you've been with the team for over four years, working nonstop, and these two brothers were out here killing eighty-nine people without you even knowing.

Well, you know now and it's going to stop. However, no matter what you do, how hard you work, or how good at your job you are, there will always be someone out there hurting people for fun. Your job is never going to end.

Some of the Bloodhounds found scent markings on some trees but lost them when they reach a small stream of water that runs in the back of the property. If the dogs lose the scent for good, it's going to be like searching for a needle in a stack of needles.

Meanwhile, Penelope is working hard inside the house trying to figure out what's really going on here. No one kills eighty-nine people and counting without some kind of reason. It doesn't take long to figure out what Mason is researching, and it's actually shocking considering what's going on here.

Mason has been looking for a cure for his paralyzed body. He needs stem cells from people in order to cure himself, but they've all been unsuccessful experiments. Mason deems it right because the people Lucas took were transients, prostitutes, and drug users. He wanted to give their lives purpose by being part of a revolutionary cure.

He claims it's science.

Lucas has drawn what their lives have been like for the past eight years. He's the reason why Mason is how he is. Lucas accidentally pushed Mason down something that paralyzed him, so Mason blames and faults him for something that was an accident, so he has his chunky younger brother kill to help cure something that was Lucas' fault.

You and Spencer leave the barn to tell the others what you've found.

"They were doing experiments for spinal regeneration. He was trying to fix himself," Rossi says.

"How?"

"Stem cell research."

"Wait, this equipment is far too unsophisticated. There's no way it would have ever worked," Spencer says.

"You were a prosecutor, Hotch. Could you convict this guy? A quadriplegic who clearly never touched any of the victims?" you ask.

"I don't know. We need to concentrate on Kelly. We can't worry about the other stuff right now."

"Son of a bitch. He might get away with this. Come on, Rossi. Let's talk to Mason again." You look to the right and see Will leaning against the pig pen just listening in. You hope he doesn't do anything stupid. You and Rossi walk back inside the house and over to Mason who has a slight smirk on his face. "Tell me about how you got hurt."

"Does it matter?"

"Humor me."

"My brother pushed me out of the loft. I wanted to sell the farm. I had just finished medical school. It would have given me a nice down payment on a practice in the city, but the farm was all he knew. He doesn't handle anger very well."

"Is that why you hate him?"

"Hate him? He's done nothing but take care of me every day since then."

"You said not to even try talking to him if we find him. That sounds like you want us to kill him, right Rossi?"

"Sounds right to me."

"That's not hate. That's a favor. My brother couldn't survive without me."

You and Rossi leave the room to join Penelope in the next.

"Did you find anything else?" you ask.

"Nothing that'll help find his brother. There's a cell phone he calls dozens of times a day, but that appears to be off. I tried to activate the GPS locator on it, but I think it's an old phone so that's not gonna work either."

"Will you know if it comes on?"

"I hope so."

"How's it going?" JJ asks when she walks in.

"Just waiting for--" The computer dings and Penelope gasps. "Oh, my God. The phone just turned back on. Oh, my God!"

"Answer it."

"Hello?" Penelope asks.

"Hello? My name is Kelly."

"Kelly? This is Penelope Garcia with the FBI."

"Oh, my God, you have to help me. I'm somewhere in the woods being held by a man named Lucas, and he--"

"Kelly?" Lucas stutters.

"Please help me!"

"Hey, that's mine!"

"Please--"

The call cuts off. Lucas has Kelly somewhere on the property, and you need to find her quickly.

"The phone's disconnected."

"Garcia, can you find the signal?" Rossi asks.

"Yes. I'm hooked on the system. I should be able to--Got it! It's west of here, less than half a mile."

"That's all you can tell?"

"It's the woods. There aren't any reference points."

"We don't need one. I can take it from there. Come on," you urge.

You, Hotch, Rossi, and Spencer meet up with Emily and Derek who are already out in the field. JJ and Penelope stay with Mason in hopes the phone turns back on and Kelly calls again. The Bloodhounds run alongside you to where the last known location of the phone is, but the scent dies off.

She's not here.

"She should be right here. This is where the signal came from," Hotch says. "There's nothing here. Y/N, anything?"

You close your eyes and allow Kelly's panic to reach you. The trail of energy isn't coming from the sides or above you. It's coming from down below. There is a hatch here somewhere that must lead down to a cave.

"They're in a cave. Follow me!"

You lead the group to where the energy trail leads off, and you allow Hotch and Derek to lift the heavy wooden board Lucas tried so hard to hide.

"Kelly!"

"Down here! Don't make any sudden moves when they come down, okay?" she begs Lucas.

"I'm bad," Lucas repeats and whimpers.

"Lucas Turner, this is the FBI."

"Just put your hands up, okay? Everything is going to be okay," Kelly says.

Hotch removes her from Lucas and passes her onto you and Emily. Emily gets her out of the cave but you can't help but look back at Lucas. He's scared and confused, and he doesn't know what is going on.

"Be gentle with him! He's scared!"

Jeff's team doesn't listen and perceives him as a threat. Lucas gets confused enough to where he starts lashing out. He gets up to attack, and that's when Jeff's team starts firing at him.

"Stand down!" you and Derek yell.

The deed is done. Lucas is dead. Will grabbed the nearest gun he could find and shot Mason knowing he was going to get arrested. But hey, at least he got his sister's killer. Both brothers are dead, just like you thought was going to happen.

All you want to do is go home. This case has drained the life out of you. The entire ride home, no one said a word. No words needed to be said. The killings will stop, but you'll have to deal with another murderer the next day.

It's never gonna stop.

"Ready to go home?" you ask Spencer once you two have packed everything away.

"More than you know."

"Can I hold your hand?"

"Listen, it's nothing you did but ever since I was poisoned, I have this fear of germs now. That's all I see everywhere I go. I don't want to get sick again."

"I understand. I'll never do anything that makes you uncomfortable. Can I give you a hug?"

"Yes," he smiles.

You wrap your arms around his waist and kiss the part where his heart is over his clothes. Spencer kisses the top of your head with a loving smile.

Everything is as it should be.

--

He is angry. No, pissed is more like it. He should have never let you go in the first place. You could still be with him safe and sound, and he would never have to worry if he's going to get that one phone call that's going to put him away for life. He's tried to be nice about it. He tried to offer you everything you could need and more.

But no, you'd rather go home to him. He's getting so sick and tired of hearing about Spencer Reid. He stole what was his to begin with.

The man takes inhales from the cigarette longer than he should have before letting out the smoke into the air. He looks down at the man he's just murdered. Blood spatters and pools all over the ground, but there is no one around to witness this. He made sure to pick a desolate road so that he wouldn't get caught.

He's been doing this for a long time, he knows how to evade the law.

He takes another puff of his cigarette before ripping it in two. He drops the untouched side of the cigarette onto the ground and throws the touched side into the trash can inside his car. He removes the latex gloves on his hands and throws them away in the same trash can. He grabs another pair of fresh gloves and slides them on.

There is no way he's going to leave behind any evidence that would incriminate himself.

There is a box on his passenger seat that has items he's stolen from your house. It's so easy to sneak inside when he knows where you keep the spare key. You're always forgetting where you put your keys. It's so like you to be so fucking stupid. Inside the box is a plastic baggie with a cup inside.

When he was snooping around your apartment, he made sure to take the cup you always use, a cup that would have half a dozen good fingerprints on it. With his clean thumb, he presses the latex over the fingerprint so that the print is transferred to the glove. With his left hand, he grabs the murder weapon and transfers the print onto the handle of the weapon.

Once finished, he tosses the weapon into a box in the backseat. There have to be at least seven different weapons with seven different kinds of blood used to kill seven different kinds of victims. All with your prints on them.

Seven victims scattered around where you work and where you live.

The man takes out another baggie filled with the hair he gathered from your hairbrush. You really need to clean that thing. It's like you're begging him to ruin your life. He removes some strands of hair and sprinkles it over the dead body at his feet.

This will ensure that you're linked to this murder along with the six other victims he's done this to. The man lights another cigarette but this time, he smokes it calmly. He leans against his car and takes his time enjoying the fresh air and the night sky. When he's done, he gives this cigarette the same treatment and gets back into his car.

He removes the gloves, throws them into the trash can, and leans back in his head. He thinks about you, the way you smell when you're near him, the feel of your body when he used to sneak into your room when he knew you were asleep, everything about you. You were his first, and no matter how far you move away from him, he's going to remind you that you'll never be able to leave.

If you refuse to listen to him, refuse to come back to him, then he's going to make sure no one will ever see you again as you rot in prison for the rest of your life.

"Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what's happened that day. Sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right, and still you feel like you've failed. Did it need to end that way? Could something have been done to prevent the tragedy in the first place? Eighty-nine murders at the pig farm. The deaths of Mason and Lucas Turner make ninety-one lives snuffed out. Kelly Shane will go home and try to recover and reconnect with her family, but she'll never be a child again. William Hightower, who gave his leg for his country, gave the rest of himself to avenge his sister's murder. That makes ninety-three lives forever altered, not counting family and friends in a small town in Sarnia, Ontario, who thought monsters didn't exist until they learned that they spent their lives with one. What about my team? How many more times will they be able to look into the abyss? How many more times before they won't ever recover the pieces of themselves that this job takes? As I said, sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what's happened that day. Sometimes the day just... ends." - Aaron Hotchner

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[badgraph1csghost]

Everyone standing back and blaming people voting for 3rd party candidates better watch this and then come back and tell me a 3rd party ballot did this.

Video transcript below cut

[announcer] This is the story of how the world's richest person, the owner of Tesla and X, bought the global town square and then corrupted it, using his own immense wealth to help elect a convicted felon.

April 14, 2022. Elon Musk makes an unsolicited offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion. He claims the site has become politically skewed and says, "for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral."

October 27th, the deal goes through. The next evening, a far-right conspiracy theorist breaks into the San Francisco home of democrat, Nancy Pelosi, intending to kidnap her. Pelosi is away, but the man attacks her husband, Paul, hitting him repeatedly on the head with a hammer. Paul Pelosi escapes with his life, but requires surgery for a fractured skull. While most people take the chance to decry political violence, the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, posts a tweet sharing an entirely false claim that Paul Pelosi was, in fact, injured in a drunken fight with a male prostitute with whom he was involved. Musk includes a link to a false claim on a website that has a history of publishing conspiracy theory, including a story asserting that Hillary Clinton is dead and has been replaced by a body double. Musk's post is retweeted 24,000 times before he deletes it.

November 18th. Musk's Twitter starts to unlock previously banned accounts. Misogynist and far-right influencer, Andrew Tate, was permanently banned from Twitter in 2017 after urging women to "bear some responsibility for rape." Now, he's back. Tate posts, "I've decided to fly to the failed state of California, walk into Twitter HQ, and tell @elonmusk he's a legend. On my way." 2 months later, Tate will be arrested in Romania on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organised crime group.

December 8th. Three members of Twitter's trust and safety council resign. In their resignation letter, they cite research that found slurs against African Americans and gay men jumped 195 percent and 58 percent respectively since Musk's takeover. Three days later, the remaining members of Twitter's trust and safety council are dismissed. Musk then tweets that "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci", a reference to a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was exacerbated by America's top infectious-disease doctor.

December 16th. Having claimed he is a "free speech absolutist", Musk bans @elonjet, a Twitter account that tracks the movements of his private jet using publicly available data. Musk also bans the accounts of a number of journalists who have written about @elonjet.

February 12, 2023. Ahead of the Super Bowl, both Musk and President Joe Biden tweet their support for the Philadelphia Eagles. Biden's tweet is seen 29 million times, Musk's just 9 million times. Incensed, Musk leaves the game early and calls an impromptu meeting of Twitter engineers at 02:36 AM. Their job? To change the Twitter algorithm to artificially inflate the reach of Musk's tweets by a factor of 1000, making him the pre-eminent presence on the site.

July 23rd, Musk announces Twitter is now called X.

August 25th, Donald Trump, once banned, returns to the platform by posting a picture of his mugshot from Fulton County Jail with the words "Election Interference, Never Surrender". Musk reposts the shot. Four days later, X reverses Twitter's longstanding ban on paid political advertising.

November 15th. In a post promoting the racist conspiracy theory that Jewish people are importing immigrants to America to fix elections for democrats, one X user writes, "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them." Musk replies, saying, "You have said the actual truth." In response, several advertisers, including Disney, Warner Bros., and Comcast pause their advertising on X. Musk then tells advertisers concerned by hate-speech on the platform--

[Elon Musk] Fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear?

[announcer] Over subsequent months, Musk will become obsessed with the false claim that democrats are allowing immigrants into America to create more democratic voters, in effect, stealing the upcoming election, sharing the claim numerous times with his followers and pushing it to tens of millions more who choose not to follow him. A year later, it will be revealed that Musk, a South African immigrant, worked illegally in the US in the 1990s.

November 25th. On X, Musk boosts the Pizzagate conspiracy theory; a long-debunked claim alleging high-profile democrats ran a paedophile abuse ring from a Washington pizza restaurant.

March 25th, 2024. Musk loses a lawsuit against the Centre for Countering Digital Hate. He'd sued them after they flagged a rise in hate-speech after Musk bought Twitter. In his ruling, a US district judge calls Musk's case "vapid" and that "this case is about punishing the defendants for their speech."

May 2024. Musk creates a political action committee which he calls America PAC. Its objective is to mobilise 1 million republican voters in swing states in an effort to hand the election to Trump. Musk commits to putting tens of millions of dollars of his own money into the Get Out the Vote push and clears his calendar every Friday morning for 30-60 minutes to meet with the team he's assembled to run the effort.

July 14th. Musk calls Trump on behalf of JD Vance, urging Trump to select Vance as his running-mate. Vance says abortion is murder and scolds women who haven't become mothers.

[JD Vance] --A bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made.

[announcer] Musk's phonecall is part of a broad effort by Silicon Valley billionaires to ensure Vance is selected. The next day, Vance is unveilled as Trump's vice presidential candidate.

September 6. Trump says that, if he wins, he will appoint Musk to head up a government efficiency commission.

[Donald Trump] --And Elon, because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that task force.

[announcer] The idea came from Musk, whose companies are currently facing at least 20 federal investigations. If he gets the role, it would give the world's richest man the power to regulate the regulators who won't sway over his companies. Last year alone, his companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts with 17 federal agencies.

September 9th. Musk spreads a conspiracy theory that immigrants in Ohio are eating people's pets. The following day, Trump repeats the slur during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

[Donald Trump] In Springfield, they're eating the dogs.

[announcer] The false claim leads to multiple bomb threats against the Springfield immigrant community.

September 15th and 16th. Over a single weekend, Musk amplifies a conspiracy theory that ABC leaked debate questions to the Harris campaign, falsely claims that "the dems want to take your kids", further fuels racist lies about immigrants eating pets, shares with his nearly 200 million followers on X that "Trump must win…to preserve freedom and meritocracy in America" and insinuates that "it is suspicious that no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala", adding a Thinking Face emoji. The US Secret Service confirms that it is aware of the post. The White House issues a statement saying "Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible."

October 4th. Musk posts, "Unless Trump wins and we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations, that have nothing to do with safety, humanity will never reach Mars. This is existential." Musk is the owner of SpaceX, and stands to make billions from US government space contracts.

October 5th. The X handle @america is taken from an X user and given by Musk to his America PAC. That evening, he joined the former president onstage in Pennsylvania, jumping about wildly.

[Elon Musk] Fight, fight, fight, vote, vote, vote.

[announcer] By now, he's moved with his senior team to a war room in a hotel in Pennsylvania to focus full-time on the Trump campaign. He speaks to Trump multiple times a week, is doing a series of pro-Trump townhalls across the state, and has recruited lieutenants from his companies to join.

October 15th. Legal filings for Musk's political action committee show that he has personally donated at least $75 million to the effort to re-elect Trump.

October 18th. It's revealed that another Musk-funded group called Future Coalition PAC is targeting Muslim voters in Michigan and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania with diametrically-opposed political advertisements about Kamala Harris. In areas with large Muslim populations, the group is painting Harris as a close friend of Israel and is suggesting that she is beholden to the beliefs of her Jewish husband. But in areas with large Jewish populations, the ads say Harris panders to Palestine. Simultaneously, Musk is offering $100 to any Pennsylvania voter who signs his online petition in an effort to build the list of likely Trump voters. He also starts giving away $1 million a day to a randomly-chosen voter who signed the petition.

October 19th. It's revealed that the Building America's Future PAC, another Musk-funded campaign group, is impersonating the Harris campaign by setting up a fake website containing fake policy positions, then sending out text messages driving voters to the fake site.

October 24th. It's revealed that Musk gave his America PAC another $44 million in the first 16 days of October.

October 25th. The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk has been in regular contact with Russian president, Vladimir Putin, since 2022.

October 27th. Musk speaks at the now-infamous Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, a gathering characterised by racism, misogyny, and threats of violence.

[Elon Musk] USA! USA! [exclaims]

[announcer] Musk has posted more than 3,000 times on X in the last month, including dozens of unfounded claims about the election which have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. Apart from Trump himself, Musk is now the single-biggest spreader of election disinformation.

November 5th. Trump wins the presidential election. Elon Musk, a far-right conspiracy theorist, has succeeded in using his immense wealth to help swing the election in favour of the convicted felon.

[ten-cent-sleuth]

A Galling Yoke, Part 11

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for the Cathartic Shower or Sudden Realisation, Drowning or Drowning Your Sorrows, and Fingore or Electrocution squares on my July Break Bingo card

See this post for main info, including a masterlist and synopsis. See this post for warnings.

Word Count: 3.7k

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x f!Reader

Rating: Mature (for potential triggers, not for sexual content)

BEWARE THE CONTENT WARNINGS POSTED ABOVE. If you are not comfortable with them, you can read the first part of the chapter, stop at the line break, and skip to the author’s notes for more information.

Nobody bothered you for the coming days. Acquaintances steered clear of Voss House, though the Little Season was by now in full swing, and your staff steered clear of you, though you tried your best not to be too dull or ill tempered with them. Mrs Rogers still kept you company, but you could not entertain much conversation despite your yearning to confide in her all your devastation about William and all your doubts about what you’d gone through with Sherlock. The closest you had managed was a few minutes’ exchange—

“Sherlock knows about Edmund. He knows about me.”

“Oh… I am sorry, ma’am; I know you do not like to be reminded of it.”

“It was terrible, Mrs Rogers. It is terrible.”

“Did he react badly? He never did strike me as the sort to judge a lady for a cad’s behaviour.”

“No, I believe not that he… That is, I know not. I gave him not a chance to properly react, whether it would have been badly or not. But no, his core reaction seemed to be one of concern—and one of apology.”

“Then…he made you not feel pitied, or shameful?”

“Not the guilty sort of shame, merely…merely humiliated, the way one would feel if one made a fool of oneself in public and was laughed at. If… If that makes any sense…”

“It does, my dear. I understand.”

“Perhaps a little pitied, as well. Though I suppose I ought not to be surprised by that. If a battered wife is not blamed, she is to be pitied, is she not?”

“I do not pity you, and you know I do not blame you.”

“…It is only, he had such a sad look about him when he found out. His eyes…”

“There is nothing wrong with being sad about such a situation, is there, ma’am? I am sad some days, when I recall how the master treated you solely to feel better about himself. I am sad whenever I recall how he made you feel—whenever I see how he still makes you feel. Are you not?”

“Indeed, I suppose there are times… Sad, and angry also. I wish I never had to recall.”

“Of course, my lady. But there is nothing wrong with remembering and thinking about it either. Ignorance is a much graver failing than knowledge.”

You had thought of Sherlock then, of how much he prized knowledge, of how much he was discomfited by lack of it, of how much he had wanted knowledge of you.

“Was Mr Holmes’s failing making you feel exposed and embarrassed, or making you think about what you have not spoken of in a very long time?” she had asked, and the answer you felt in your breast had been too tumultuous and nebulous to verbalise.

Mrs Rogers had given you much to think about, but you tried to not have time to think. You busied yourself with catching up on the household affairs you had neglected for the investigation, and then getting as far ahead as you could with them; who knew if Lord Coltidge would have the time to ensure Voss House was running smoothly when things inevitably got hectic once you turned yourself into Scotland Yard?

Then that got you thinking: once you were convicted, your widow’s portion would revert to its original owners, wouldn’t it? Which meant your father would get the house back—it had been bestowed to Edmund as part of your dowry and only became yours upon his demise—and you could not leave your servants vulnerable to him, so you prepared protections for their jobs and arranged for alternate incomes if they had to leave.

You sent the Sulyards an invitation to come by Voss House at any time and at long last clear out Edmund’s effects. You finished up needlework projects lying around and said your goodbyes to your book collection. You went through your chambers and chose what could be given away. You did everything you could to ensure you would slip away from this world, this life, with as few ripples as possible. No unfinished business, no loose ends—

Blinking, you set down the ledger you’d been reviewing and stared out the study window. As you drifted over to the glass pane, the thoughts whirled faster and faster around your head until the tornado sucked the breath out of you: Sherlock had said professional killers didn’t leave loose ends—yet Miss Algar, a trackable witness who had seen the entire murder, remained breathing and even comfortable—so William must have gotten involved—how?—not sure, but somehow he kept the hitman from getting to Miss Algar—so William must have hired Mrs Kinley too—makes sense, who else but Viscount of Pashbroke would expend such liabilities—but it would be equally in character for Viscount of Pashbroke to hand over the reins of everything to the Earl of Coltidge once he broke about the murder—when it rains, it pours—but if your father hadn’t gotten rid of her, he approved of her, which meant she was the talebearing sort of employee—goodness, remember when Mrs Tattershall promised not to tell Father about the frog incident but then she did?—goodness, remember how he knew about your visit to Miss Algar before anyone in London had?—but if Mrs Kinley had always been indiscreet, might she be in contact with the hitman?—no loose ends—yes, ’tis possible she was not even aware, ’tis possible the hitman had snuck into her circle of acquaintances—she had called her charge’s attack an “accident”!—oh yes, ’tis entirely possible she blissfully did not realise the danger she was in, the danger of being a loose end.

By the time you pressed a steadying palm to the window, you were resolved to make sure Mrs Kinley and Miss Algar were safe. Even if it were a long shot, verification that they were prepared should your arrest upset whatever precarious balance with which the hitman had gotten comfortable was not a task you could leave for someone after the fact.

In the hackney to Cable Street, you couldn’t help but think that Sherlock would have come to this conclusion sooner, if only you had kept him apprised of all that you had learnt. If you had told him about Lord Coltidge’s uncommonly familiar knowledge of London on dit… If you had told him William was responsible for Edmund’s death but you felt responsible regardless…

You shook your head. Stop. You could not forget the very valid reason you had not told him: these were your burdens to bear, and he would be better off not learning of them, just as he would have been better off not learning how much pain you carried in you.

Mrs Rogers’s recent words popped into your imagination, and you stewed in them for the rest of the carriage ride.

As you alighted from it in front of Miss Algar’s building, wincing at the aching stiffness in your right leg, you regretted not having spent your time planning what to say instead, but that did not turn out to be so great a problem.

The conversation with Mrs Kinley did not last very long.

The landlord had once again happily led you to the correct flat, but this time, the nurse did not even let you past the threshold. Dogged, you had pleaded your case to her on her doorstep, you whispering furtively your concerns and she exclaiming unreservedly her indignation.

“I have no doubt that you know of whom I speak,” you had thrown out as a last-ditch effort.

“Oh, the impudence! Always a-comin’ hereabouts and a-tellin’ me what to do, just because you’re a great lady and I’m a lowly worker! A noble or not, I think I’d well know if a man I knew had bloody hands!”

“If you would merely tell me if my description sounds like anybody you—”

“Out with you! Out, out, else I scream for the peelers!”

You flinched as the door slammed in your face.

Massaging your vindictive knee—it still had not quite forgiven you for forcing it to run from 221b Baker Street; a part of you couldn’t help but agree—you thought once again of Sherlock. Ignorance is the curse of God indeed. He would have had no patience for Mrs Kinley’s pride getting in the way of the case. Gracious, was this even within the purview of an investigation anymore?

With a sigh, you walked haltingly to the side of the building, leaned against it, and looked up at the sky. What to do? What to do, what to do? You had not planned—or particularly wished, though you did paradoxically long—to see Sherlock, at least not outside of Whitehall Place, but perhaps his assistance would be necessary to protect Miss Algar…

Deliberating over your options, you let quite some time pass. You had not come to a conclusion when movement in your periphery caught your attention. You started to turn, but something else in the air caught your eye: Was it flurrying? Could these really be the first snowflakes?

Before you could confirm, something struck you in the side of the head and—

—cold. Hmm. What? Your thoughts were sluggish—treacle dripping through your fingers. What had you just been thinking? What had been the first half of…?

A shiver wracked through you. Oh, right. It was too cold. You hated the cold. Why was it so cold?

You shivered again, and this time you noticed something strange: your arms were held down. Held…or tied? And your legs. Your legs too. Tied down.

Now that you were really waking up, you could also tell something was on your face—rough, musty, but light and not completely opaque. That wasn’t so bad, though you endeavoured to keep your breaths shallow so you didn’t inhale too much of the material or whatever dirt it might carry. The real discomfort was under you, a stiff board that was brutal on your shoulders, not to mention the cramps sure to come with your right leg being unable to stretch or relax properly. All in all, you had no clue how you had ended up in this situation.

Clue. Heavens, if Sherlock were here, he’d have probably deduced which sector of London you found yourself in and how much time had passed.

But Sherlock wasn’t here—and he wasn’t coming.

You shuddered, this time not only from the cold.

“Oh, apologies, m’lady—oughtay get a fire goin’?”

You squirmed at the unfamiliar voice. Had the speaker been there this whole time, watching you? If he had just arrived, how had you not heard a door creak?

“Who are you?” Foolish; he would never answer that. “Why did you take me? What are you going to do?”

Now that you were listening to yourself, you realised your voice had a peculiar echo. You must be in a large chamber of some sort—at least as wide and as tall as a ballroom, but where in London could he have taken you that was like that yet secluded enough for nefarious activities?

“Y’sure y’wish fo’ me to answer tha’?” mused your abductor.

You gulped. If he were the hitman—and, really, who else would he be?—you were now a loose end.

“It won’t be so bad, m’lady, if y’just tells me wha’ oi wanna know.” His pause was as menacing as his words. “Why’s ’olmes lookin’ into the ole nemmo on Cable? He know ’bout me?”

“Does he know what about you?” you huffed wryly. “I do not know who you are, you—”

The frigidity hit you first—it was acute, stinging, and miserable. It pierced your skin, freezing you right to the bone all across your body. You didn’t realise it was really only touching your face until it stopped.

“Now that weren’t a very prudent answer, m’lady. You gots a be’ah one?”

“What do you mean? What do you mean?” This time, you were entirely sincere in your confusion: you were so breathless and so cold you couldn’t quite remember what he’d asked you, much less figure out how to answer. And you didn’t know what he had done to you—your senses were too restricted and disoriented for that—but you knew you didn’t want him to do it again, ever.

But then he heaved a sigh, and your heart seizing with realisation, you tensed for—

A thick, heavy paw clamped over your mouth and nose, the now smothering cloth across your face tight against your nostrils. And it was damp, now. It was then that you realised what exactly was happening: he was pouring water on you, right onto you, and you couldn’t breathe.

For minutes—or perhaps seconds, instants, but for a long time, you clawed at your restraints and jerked around on the board, all in vain, all the while flailing to tell whether you were inhaling or exhaling. Filthy water cascading down your nose, muddy panic flooding up your airway, you begged, you sobbed, for it to stop.

Could he hear? Could he understand?

“Anything, I shall tell you anything,” you screamed—your drowning mind screamed—your drowned mouth tried to scream.

Would you drown? Would you die here?

And then it stopped. The water stopped. The pleading and the pain did not.

You heaved as much as you could while still strapped to the board, your lungs shrieking for air.

Air, air, air—

Please, please, please—

“Bleedin’ toffah,” scoffed your tormentor. “Y’need a minute t’stop bla’erin’ nonsense, does you? Blasted no-abilities can’t ’andle nuffin’, not even a bi’ ov fisherman’s dau’er wivout all the box ov toys…”

Quivering with panic and hiccuped tears, you listened to him walk away and sluggishly understood that you indeed hadn’t spoken aloud. A quiet, drenched part of you was grateful—and ashamed that you had tried to—but largely you were horrified that this meant he would return and that meant the water would return and—

The suffocating material, with your shaking, falls, falls to the floor but more importantly falls off. You gasp with relief, even if you still can’t see or breathe clearly from the force of your sobs. Through blurry vision, however, you actually managed to see where you were: a warehouse, dusty and empty, nothing of note, nothing of use… But it’s so bare that your darting eyes notice holes in the wall with wires sticking out—wires not entirely covered in rubber. Naked wires.

And you started to properly calm down as a plan took shape…

“Awite, m’lady, I ’ope you— Wo’ the—!”

Your gaze shot to the man approaching you, walking out of the shadows, and your brow jumped up. That nose, that jawline, that forehead—those were memorable features that you had seen before, that you had seen on Miss Algar’s nurse. You had a rapid stream of thoughts then—of course, of course, William would have accepted a recommendation from his murderous employee about whom to hire for their witness!—but it was dammed by the stony look on your present company as he stormed over to you. Close up, he was a veritable boulder, large and robust, strong- and angry-looking.

“You seen me face!”

You blinked up at him. It had escaped you that anyone knowing his identity would be a big deal to him, but yes, you had seen his face, and you weren’t likely to forget it.

“Dratted Barney Rubble,” he snarled as his calloused hand grabbed at the board you were lying on.

You went rigid in anticipation as he dragged the board—and, you realised now, it was more of a worktable with wheels—in the direction whence he’d come. But when you saw where he was taking you, a rusting basin double the volume of a clawfoot slipper tub, your rising fear went the way of your previous panic. The plan was solidifying.

Chest tightening, you steeled yourself to do just one last little thing…

“Y’re gonna give me the answers oi want,” he muttered, “’cause y’re a ’ole lotta wo’k, m’lady. Take my lump of ice and make this wurf my while, eh?”

His sinister chuckle was the last thing you heard before he threw cloth once more over your head and your ears greyed out with a dull pounding. You knew what was coming. And you had just enough time to hold your breath; then the water started pouring.

For as long as you could, you resisted, determined not to feel that tidal wave of wild terror and compromise your honour again. And you made it over the first swell. You even fought down some of the second surge of rolling nausea and desperate fright! But confound it, how did the water keep coming, simply water and water and—

“Gaugh!”

Exhale—

No, no, no—

Inhale—

Water, constant, splashing, filling—

You gagged as it invaded what should have only had air.

Water, crisp, biting, freezing—

And you kept gagging, unable to find equilibrium now that your defence had crumbled.

Water, mucky, churning, nauseating—

You panted for oxygen, but in its stead your mouth sucked in liquid and moistened cloth. Your only recourse was this: The plan. The plan, the plan, the plan. Remember the plan.

And after some eternity, the tide receded, the pounding quieted, and the sinister chuckle repeated.

“Well, yer maiden-crypt?” he questioned. “’Ow much’s ’olmes know ’bout me an’ the ole Draylus—whatsit—Mistuh ’onourable E’mund?”

The plan. The plan. The plan.

You nodded rapidly under the cloth and rasped out, “Yes, I—I shall tell— He— Mr Holmes, he knows that— Oh, oh goodness— But he still cannot be certain whether—”

There was a rattling slam, and you didn’t have to pretend to flinch. “Ge’ i’ togever!” he shouted. “Oi don’t understa’ nuffin’ y’re sayin’!”

Pushing past your dread, you yanked at your restraints and cried, “Forgive me. Please, forgive me—I shall tell you anything, but no more water, please, please, I cannot—”

You allowed a bit of the hysteria you were feeling deep within your ribcage to spill out in gasping breaths and incoherent pleas. It was cathartic, but above all, it worked.

“Damnation,” he hissed through clenched teeth as he threw away the rag on your head and untied the straps around your arms and legs. “Wou’ja calm it now, m’lady? Oi promise you, no mo’ wa’er iv you tell me—”

Sitting up and scanning the room to reorient yourself, you let his aggravated appeasements wash over you, and when you were ready, with a deep breath, you leapt off the table and shoved him into the basin.

It was deep enough that his head actually went underwater, his shoulders banging into the bottom. You didn’t wait for him to regain his senses and scramble back to the surface.

“Please, God, let this work,” you whispered, grabbing the closest wire exposed in the wall. You shoved it into the water, as close to the man thrashing for purchase in the basin as you dared—but nothing happened.

Sherlock’s face flashed in your head, animated as he explained open and closed circuits. Open: no current. You glanced back at the hole in the wall and saw more heads of copper. Need current. Grinding your jaw, you snatched one with your free hand and had your hard-earned breath knocked right out of you.

Electric agony jumped out of the wires and punched straight through you. Your body felt crumpled from top to bottom with the force of it.

But through the contractions violently commanding your muscles, Sherlock’s voice rang out between your ears: “Electricity shall move more easily through the pump water…” Well, this water was dirtier than any pump water, certainly more so than Sherlock’s fancy deionised stuff.

“…but it always takes the most direct path.” 

Move, you ordered yourself, struggling to eye the “most direct path” through the sweaty haze of sheer hurt. Move. Move. MOVE.

Just as your captor pushed his head out of the water, you threw your spasming fists open and watched the wires fall on opposite sides of the man. He screamed. He screamed, and you stumbled back, not so much because the volume deafened as because the despair punctured.

Between pushing him into the water and dropping the wires beside him passed mere seconds—seven, maybe eight—but your mind was hurtling at such breakneck speed with all the ways the plan could go wrong that it felt like you were waiting before you could finally leave him behind and run.

You did not run very well.

Your right leg was taut, the knee barely creaking along; your arms were dead weight at your sides, your entire torso felt weak and fuzzy, and the nerves throughout your body were quite literally fried.

But you did very efficiently drag yourself out of that crumbling building, onto the street, and down many sidewalks of the City in search of an area of London you recognised.

Dear Lord, is it snowing? was your first lucid thought. And it was. You hobbled along, pressing a palm to walls and fences to keep yourself upright and awake, and watched the flakes drift to the ground. The thought that now you would die, watered down as you were in freezing temperatures, entered your mind and was met with much less perturbation as the thought that you would die there had been. Perhaps because you would not be as ashamed to lose your life to nature as you would be to lose it to a hired killer. Or perhaps simply because you were in shock.

Yet your brain did not feel muddled, but rather cleared of many troubles, of thoughts as large and as weighted as pennies. Indeed, when the first person to approach you among all those giving you strange looks asked, “Madam, are you in need of assistance?”, you had an answer ready—

“I am. Please, know you the way to Baker Street?”

For with a mind newly cleared, you knew that you—even if it meant feeling exposed and embarrassed, even if it meant speaking of things you didn’t want to think about, even if it meant letting him in—would only ever want to go to one person for help, for safety: Sherlock Holmes.

Thank you for reading. If you stopped at the line break (provided by @firefly-graphics, whose graphics are very cool), you can DM me (or send an ask, but you’ll have to be off anon) and I’ll give you a summary. This is not necessary though; the skipped section has some character development and meaningful parallels, but nothing plot-wise that you can’t figure out in the next chapter. Everyone else, I hope you enjoyed the warehouse scene (which I am Quite dissatisfied with and will be revising the heck out of for AO3). I have no doubt that I screwed up some facts; to a certain extent, I did so knowingly for the plot, but still feel free to point out errors or inaccuracies with the science or the Cockney and I’ll hope to rectify them. Feedback is always welcome!

Taglist [comment below if you’d like to be added!]: @theyaremorethanjustfictional

[haphazardlyannotated]

Prompt: Consider a vindictive Pearl who guilt trips and trolls the diamonds at every opportunity. She goes on long rants, saying all the things she wishes she could have said in Era 1. She may not be able to stab the diamonds like she wants, but she's gotta avenge Pink (and herself) somehow.

Pearl had spent the first three thousand years of her existence hearing the other Diamonds berate Pink.

The way she ran her colony, how she talked to "lesser" gems, even when she dared to talk- it seemed like there was no aspect of Pink her fellow Diamonds couldn't strenuously disapprove of.

Pearl remembered countless times Pink's shoulders had slumped, her bright eyes dimmed with just a few sharp words, until Rose stood in front of Pearl, telling her that Blue and Yellow had never cared about her with a conviction that wasn't even resigned anymore.

The memories had been burned into Pearl's mind with helpless fury for millenia.

So honestly, when Blue and Yellow Diamond showed up on Earth, nearly killed Steven AGAIN, and then had the audacity to talk about Pink like they hadn't made her life a living hell for as long as Pearl had known her, and when Blue Diamond then grimaced at the moss Rose had once painstakingly tended to and loudly wondered what Pink could have possibly seen in this planet- well, Pearl couldn't be blamed for indulging in just the tiniest crumb of revenge.

"Well, she liked food, for one thing," Pearl said with the perfect, bland smile of a good, subservient pearl. She caught Amethyst's eye and was met with such complete understanding that by all rights they should have formed Opal on the spot. "I'm sure Amethyst will be happy to prepare some for you," Pearl continued, watching Amethyst struggle to contain a giant grin. "She's an expert in human nourishments."

Amethyst's creation was a precarious tower of everything in their fridge, some of it still in the packaging, liberally seasoned with engine oil.

Blue and Yellow Diamond, regretably, ended up deciding they didn't want to connect with Pink's past that badly, but the sheer vindictive delight Pearl felt at their expressions when Amethyst presented her masterwork to them (and then proceeded to swallow it whole when it became clear the Diamonds weren't going to) lasted her the whole day.

_

Pearl had intended for it to be a one off.

It should have been a one off, especially considering how badly they all needed the Diamond's goodwill to have any hope of healing their corrupted friends.

Unfortunately, Pearl had not anticipated how much being a pearl on Homeworld again would grate.

She hadn't been prepared for how angry it would make her to be once again looked at like a mindless possession, a trinket to adorn an owner.

She'd fought for her freedom in the war for hundreds of years, and thousands more in her own mind. She refused to be pushed back into the mold of what Homeworld thought a pearl should be.

She knew better than to make a grand gesture. Not now. Not when the fate of countless gems depended on it.

But she could keep her posture loose where she was expected to stand like a statue, could speak up unprompted, walk in front of ‚her owner‘ rather than behind him.

Most gems probably wouldn’t even notice, let alone know what a rebellion these little gestures were. But they mattered to Pearl, and when Blue and Yellow Pearl’s eyes flickered to her when they shouldn’t (because stars forbid a pearl showed curiosity for anything other than her owner’s amusement!) Pearl knew they at least had noticed.

Watch me, Pearl told them with every time she raised her voice like that, moved her feet just so. I am a pearl and they hold no power over me. They tried to destroy us, but we’re still here and free. You can be, too. They can’t stop us.

Homeworld would never own Pearl again, and if she had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t keep owning anyone else for long either.

_

When it was all over, the Diamonds approached Pearl on the beach in front of the temple.

They tried to seem casual. They failed utterly.

„Hello… Pearl,“ White Diamond greeted her, with an expression like treating Pearl like a person was the most perplexing task she’d ever put her mind to.

Pearl tilted her head a fraction to indicate she was listening. She had no inclination to play the accomodating servant. If White Diamond wanted something from her, she would have to figure out how to ask herself.

In the end it was Blue Diamond who spoke up.

„We know that we failed Pink,“ she began, an admission so utterly unexpected it briefly gave Pearl the sensation of being in the wrong form. „We would like to do better with Steven.“

That too was unexpected. The Diamonds Rose and Pearl had run away from would never have considered even the possibility that they could be flawed, let alone need to do better.

Rose, Pearl thought. Look at this. We changed them. Your son changed them.

Out loud she only said

„That’s nice.“

Yellow Diamond cleared her throat impatiently.

„We were hoping you would have some insights,“ she said.

Once again, Pearl felt like the ground had been pulled away beneath her feet.

If someone, even Garnet, had told her a year ago that the Diamonds would stand in front of her, admitting that what they’d done to Rose had been wrong, asking Pearl for advice - she would have thought it absurd.

The Diamonds she’d known would have sooner shattered their entire courts than admit their own faults. The fact that they were willing to put all of this, everything they had spent millenia trying to embody away for the sake of Rose’s memory and Steven’s future…

Rose had been wrong, too, Pearl realised. The other Diamonds had loved her. They’d done it badly, without ever truly seeing her, but they’d loved her all the same.

And now they wanted to learn to do it right.

Maybe Pearl could forgive them one day. Maybe.

Not today though.

„Well, for one thing,“ Pearl said, „I think Steven enjoys not being locked in an empty room for years on end.“

[feraltuxedo]

Good Omens Hidden Gems fic recs

Inspired by @goodbyevanny and @moondawntreader, here are some outstanding Good Omens fics with <200 kudos:

Take the Monet and Run by SilenceDogood117 (@lookunderfoot) M, 44142 words. Summary: Convicted art thief Antoinette Crowley is fresh out of prison, fresh out of a marriage, and determined to settle an old score with one last heist. She’s certainly not going to be distracted by the reappearance of a face from the past. That would be entirely counterproductive.

Ineffable wives art heist AU full of romance, revenge, and adventure.

MatchMade! by amaruuk (@naefelldaurk) E, 37270 words. Summary: Crowley tests a new dating app for an online publication. When his match dumps him for another man's match, he and his fellow dumpee take a chance on each other.

A blind-date-gone-wrong AU that takes a number of surprising twists and turns.

Cryptic messages by HolRose (@hasturswig) T, 20048 words. Summary: Aziraphale desperately wants to come clean about his feelings for Crowley, but cannot seem to find the words. On a typical lazy Saturday morning at the bookshop, he decides to try to express his affection in a novel way via a series of clues supposedly for that morning’s crossword. Crowley, gloriously ignorant of the angel’s intentions, reluctantly agrees to assist with the puzzle. The ensuing conversation results in more than Aziraphale bargained for, but perhaps it will all be worth it in the end, if only Crowley can decipher that one remaining clue…

Interactive canon-compliant fic in which an angel and a demon communicate via cryptic crossword.

I Will Choose Free Will by sapphose (@sapphosewrites) T, 14031 words. Summary: When Crowley woke up and saw a stranger in his bedroom, he did the only reasonable thing. He jumped so hard he fell out of bed, and swore loudly. --- In which human Crowley is visited by the angel Aziraphale, setting off an existential crisis and a series of events that will change Aziraphale forever.

Human Crowley meets angel Aziraphale for an identity crisis that's both hilarious and heartbreaking.

Fell's Land of Wonder by journeytogallifrey (@journeytogallifrey) T, 31187 words. Summary: Theme park owner and visionary Aziraphale Fell dwells at the top of the sorcerer’s tower in the middle of Fell’s Lands of Wonder, somewhere between the superhero training academy, the crashed alien spaceship, the alchemist’s workshop, and the animatronic dinosaurs. When solicitor Crowley is sent to broker a deal with Fell, he is quickly swept into a world of magic where anything can happen. But his employers have sinister intentions, and he’s sure there is no possibility for a happy ending. Fell has his sights set on Crowley, and he always gets what he wants. By the end of the day, Fell is sure he can win him over. And if his ambitions stretch beyond a business deal… who can blame him? After all, what’s more wondrous than love at first sight?

Fairground owner Aziraphale takes lawyer Crowley and the reader on an absolutely magical journey.

[traditional-with-a-twist]

lxx. Beauty and Her Beast

<<Previous || first arc || second arc || third arc || fourth arc || AO3 || Next>>

She was even more beautiful than Obi had remembered her.

Her face glowed with the brilliance of her determination, that inner fire he had blamed himself for extinguishing through his ill-timed attentions.

To find himself now the focus of that radiance felt like stepping from night to day, directly into the heat of the sun.

A strange giddiness swept over him — the release of a burden he had grown accustomed to carrying. She was safe and, still better than that, she was herself.

...

Whatever he had done to her, the damage had been temporary; his poor judgment had not harmed her irrevocably.

Her beauty, her passion — he saw again what had captivated him from the first, that contradiction of so much strength in so small a frame.

Then, before his reason had fully grasped the significance of her appearance, what it must mean for him, for her, for everyone involved, he felt anew his yearning for her.

Without conscious thought, his being inclined towards hers; she drew him like a magnet. That hadn’t changed either.

His lips moved to form her name, but the sound was buried in the rough cloth enforcing his silence.

...

Then his mind caught up with him, and Obi remembered.

The trial, the captivity, the accusations all came back to him.

He remembered where they were, what he was doing there — why she, by all means, must not be here, too.

Little enough protection could he offer her, even if he had not been bound and gagged, surrounded as they were by a none-too-friendly crowd, in the midst of a foreign land famed for its harshness, faced with an aggrieved and powerful personage.

As it was, she had followed him into the lion’s mouth.

...

Hot on the heels of yearning came the sense of mission that had become instinct — then life itself — the drive to defend, protect, keep her safe.

Obi had pushed himself too far, however.

His mind buzzed, but his thoughts were fuzzy: no clear plan presented itself to him, only an anxiety rendered painful by the accompanying sense of impotence.

He must – he could not – but what?

His thoughts chased themselves in incoherent fragments, dizzy with mingled purpose and immobility.

...

The scope of his vision had shrunk to Shirayuki, like a spotlight in a darkened theater, but it expanded now, wavering and blurring at the edges like an out-of-focus lens.

She stood before the platform, hood thrown back, fierce eyes fixed on the judges set to decide his fate, and the magistrate bent forward to address her.

“Madame,” he began, his tone cold though not discourteous, “I fear you have arrived too late. These men stand condemned for arson and sabotage, deliberate destruction of property. It falls now to this tribunal to decree the manner of their punishment.”

...

“It cannot be,” Shirayuki answered, conviction unwavering. “They would never do such a thing. I know them, and I swear to their innocence!”

The magistrate spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. Something about Shirayuki had arrested him, and he seemed almost regretful as he replied, “A thousand pardons, madame, but according to our laws, the testimony of a single witness may not stand before the judgment seat. This honorable merchant and all his household have spoken against them—” 

He nodded to the accuser, who watched with beady eyes, gaze flickering from Shirayuki to the tribunal and back again. “Curses be upon us if we were to deny him justice, when none but you would speak in their favor.”

“I speak for them.”

A new voice broke in clear, cultivated, controlled. Its very calmness commanded attention, as its owner made herself known: fair and slight, the snowdrop to Shirayuki’s red rose, Kiki bared her face before the court.

...

“I witness,” she called out above the crowd. “I testify to the character of these men.”

The magistrate sat back, eyes hooded and expression impenetrable. After a long silence, he said only, “Your name?”

“I am Kiki Seiran,” she declared. “I serve the Crown of Clarines, as do they.”

...

At this, the tribunal exchanged glances. “Servants of the crown,” the magistrate repeated. “I beg of the ladies to name these men before the court.”

Inclining her head, Kiki returned, “The dark-haired man is Obi, heir to the Haruka earldom.”

The words struck like a wave, rocking the judges in their seats and rushing through the crowd. Visibly unsettled, the chief magistrate spoke sharply, “And the other?”

Kiki turned her head and looked straight into the eyes of her partner-in-arms. “Sir Mitsuhide Lowen,” she answered simply, “is the bravest knight I know.”

...

The judges fell to muttering amongst themselves, and the noise of the crowd – unchecked by authority or spectacle — swelled to a roar.

Kiki and Shirayuki stood unruffled in the midst of it all, radiant in their confidence like a lighthouse in the storm. 

The accuser had found his voice, and he was urging something, haranguing, perhaps in his own tongue, or perhaps Obi’s ears could simply comprehend no more.

...

He could spare a thought for Mitsuhide — wonder if his friend felt as dumb and deaf, powerless to move as Obi did — but mostly his mind was taken up with this thought: She had come for him, and he had not deserved it.

Somehow that seemed more important than everything else, though he knew not what to do about it. He could only think it, over and over, while his eyes drank in the sight of her like a parched land receives the rain.

She was gazing at him steadily, holding him in her eyes like a lake holds the moonlight, and he might have drowned there – except that something drew her gaze away.

...

The chief magistrate was signaling for silence, and a short blast on a trio of horns followed when the crowd did not attend.

“In light of further evidence,” the magistrate began. 

A howl from the plaintiff drowned out the rest.

“Silence!” the magistrate roared, his mouth an angry square. The merchant subsided, quivering with suppressed rage.

“In light of further evidence,” boomed the chief magistrate, unassailable now in his awful authority, ‘the judgment is stayed. The prisoners will submit to further questioning.”

He signaled the guards with a lifted finger. “Remove them.”

...

Obi saw more than heard this decision, because he was watching Shirayuki’s face.

When the set, fierce look melted into delight, he knew that she had won her point – as she always did.

The guards had surrounded him and Mitsuhide now; someone was fitting a key into the locks that secured them to the platform.

...

Ahead, a commotion broke out. Dark shapes had arisen from the rooftops. They descended now into the crowd, swinging down from their perches to the square below.

More guards, Obi’s brain surmised, struggling to make sense of the unexpected while laboring under the repeated shocks of exhaustion, injury, and whatever the word was for what Shirayuki had just done for and to him.

He understood the advancing shapes as military – armed and dangerous – but it was not until the first arrow flew that his brain substituted the correct assessment: 

Ambush.

[steelbluehome]

AP News

Trump film ‘The Apprentice’ made noise in Cannes, but it still lacks a US distributor

BY  JAKE COYLE June 7, 2024

Earlier this week, Abbasi’s frustration seemed to boil over on X, the social media platform. In a response to a news article blaming a stream of sequels and remakes on the recently dismal performance of films at the box office, Abbasi offered “a new proposition.”

“Its not a (expletive) sequel nor is it a (expletive) remake,” wrote Abbasi. “Its called #The_Apprentice and for some reason certain power people in your country don’t want you to see it!!!”

NEW YORK (AP) — Two weeks after its much-anticipated premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, a film about Donald Trump in the 1980s is still seeking distribution in the United States.

In Cannes, “The Apprentice” unveiled a scathing portrait of the former U.S. President as a young man. The film, starring Sebastian Stan, chronicles Trump’s rise to power in New York real estate under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the defense attorney who was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s Senate investigations of suspected communists.

“The Apprentice,” directed by the Danish Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi, immediately sparked controversy. After its premiere, Trump’s reelection campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, called the movie “pure fiction” and said the Trump team would file a lawsuit “to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.”

Whether influenced by that threat or not, “The Apprentice” is yet to secure distribution from either a major studio or a leading streaming service — none of whom have put in a bid on the movie. While the film has picked up international distribution in most territories worldwide, it doesn’t yet have a home in the country where Trump is running for president.

Though high-profile films typically find buyers either before or shortly after their festival debuts, negotiations can drag on. A spokesperson for the film’s sales team declined to comment. A person close to the film who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly said there are numerous offers for the film domestically.

Earlier this week, Abbasi’s frustration seemed to boil over on X, the social media platform. In a response to a news article blaming a stream of sequels and remakes on the recently dismal performance of films at the box office, Abbasi offered “a new proposition.”

“Its not a (expletive) sequel nor is it a (expletive) remake,” wrote Abbasi. “Its called #The_Apprentice and for some reason certain power people in your country don’t want you to see it!!!”

Representatives for Trump didn’t respond to requests for comment. Last Thursday, Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

One scene in the film is especially explosive. Late in the movie, Trump is depicted raping his wife, Ivana Trump (played by Maria Bakalova ). In Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, she stated that Trump raped her. Trump denied the allegation and Ivana Trump later said she didn’t mean it literally, but rather that she had felt violated.

Variety earlier reported alleged behind-the-scenes drama surrounding “The Apprentice.” Citing anonymous sources, the trade publication reported that billionaire Dan Snyder, the former owner of the Washington Commanders and an investor in “The Apprentice,” has pressured the filmmakers to edit the rape scene. Snyder previously donated to Trump’s presidential campaign.

Attorneys for Snyder didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Releasing “The Apprentice” in most years could be challenging. In an election year, it’s a potential lighting rod. Distributors would be faced with the option of launching it either shortly before the election in November or after it.

“The Apprentice” received largely positive reviews in Cannes but didn’t factor into the festival’s juried awards. Strong’s performance was particularly praised as a possible awards contender.

At the film’s premiere, Abbasi argued for the movie’s direct approach, saying “there is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.”

The following day, the filmmaker shrugged off the threat of a lawsuit.

“I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike,” said Abbasi. “I don’t necessarily think he would like it. I think he would be surprised, you know? And like I’ve said before, I would offer to go and meet him wherever he wants and talk about the context of the movie, have a screening and have a chat afterwards, if that’s interesting to anyone at the Trump campaign.”

[beardedmrbean]

I testified Thursday against the City Council Fair Chance for Housing Act, my second time in Council Chambers. The first was in May 2019 when I spoke personally and passionately about protecting New York City’s specialized high schools.

The bill, also known as Int. 632, is another City Council measure designed to protect lawbreakers at the expense of the law-abiding. It would prohibit criminal background checks on prospective tenants and buyers of residential housing.

After testifying, I left City Hall. It wasn’t until hours later that I heard the racist response to my testimony from Douglas Powell, who spoke on behalf of city-funded nonprofit Vocal-NY. He and his organization want individuals such as Powell, who has a criminal record and is a level 2 registered sex offender, to be able to access housing without criminal background checks.

His testimony laid out his criminal-justice experience and his lived experience of anti-black discrimination at Asian stores — culminating in a racist attack on the Asian community where he lives. In his three-minute tirade, he called Queens’ Rego Park the most racist neighborhood because it is majority Asian. “It’s not their neighborhood — they from China, Hong Kong,” he said. “We from New York.” 

Convicted sex offender spews anti-Asian slurs during NYC Council meeting — and pols do nothing to stop him

This anti-Asian, perpetual-foreigner, “You don’t belong here” rhetoric is dangerous hate speech that incites violence. Unprovoked attacks on Asian New Yorkers are on the rise.

Powell’s racist rant was delivered in the presence of three councilmembers without interruption or admonishment. Committee chair Nantasha Williams even thanked Powell for his testimony. It’s as if his anti-Asian hate speech in the chamber was unremarkable white noise. It took hours, after online pressure from constituents, for those present to issue generic disapproval statements, retweeting other electeds’ condemnation, and say “both sides” share blame for systemic racism.

Like many Asian Americans, I am a property owner and small landlord. When I graduated, my parents encouraged me to live at home, pay off my debt and save to buy a property. I lived at home for a few years and paid off my student loans as quickly as I could. Decades later, I bought my first investment property. I rented mostly to young men and women at the start of their careers. As a landlord, I treated my tenants the way I wanted to be treated: fairly and responsively. I’m fortunate real-estate brokers and condo management could conduct criminal and credit checks, not only for my benefit but for the safety of neighbors in the building.

Powell spewed hateful, anti-Asian rhetoric at the council meeting.Stephen Yang

Asian Americans have the highest rate of home ownership in the city, 42%. The stability of owning property as a means of building wealth is deeply rooted in Asian culture. New York’s pro-tenant policies, especially the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, have resulted in heartbreaking stories from small-property landlords. The laws, intended to help tenants, some of whom lost jobs during COVID, disproportionately hurt immigrant landlords. Not only have they not been paid rent for three years; some living in multi-family units are terrorized by tenants who know they can’t evict. Many Asian property owners are working class, and their modest rental income helps pay for the mortgage, property taxes and unit upkeep.

While bad tenants existed before this bill, it would make things worse. Private-property owners should not bear the burden of unknowingly renting to convicted arsonists and murderers and letting them live next door to New Yorkers who want a safe place after a long day braving our unpredictable city streets and subways. We worry about higher insurance, liability in endangering other tenants and frivolous lawsuits in tenant-friendly courts. That becomes a cost-benefit question for owners — whether it’s worth it to rent with little profit.

Like most landlords, I don’t live in the building I rent, but I do worry about the tenants I rent to. I think of the kindhearted young Asian professional who pleaded with me to let her have a Hurricane Sandy rescue dog. I worry about the wheelchair-bound young man grateful to find independence in living in an accessible building and appreciative of me letting him install an automatic door opener for his convenience. I want them to have the peace of mind that when they return to their small haven in the city, they will be safe, among neighbors who won’t pose a risk to them.

The fight to save specialized high schools that brought me to council the first time galvanized many Asian voters who had never been involved in city politics before. I am one of those newly politicized voters. This year, I co-founded Asian Wave Alliance to make sure that Asian-American New Yorkers’ needs are not ignored by the very councilmembers who sat quietly and listened to Powell’s racist attacks.

This time, I went to council to convince the Committee on Human and Civil Rights and the bill’s sponsors that the Fair Chance for Housing Act is not “fair” at all to small landlords and already-existing tenants. Getting rid of reasonable safeguards like criminal background checks is not “fair” to the city’s law-abiding citizens and will put people in danger. True fairness requires listening to all New Yorkers and prioritizing safety and transparency. 

[itsmemateinnit]

Whitechapel series 4 press pack

Whitechapel IV – references to historical crimes used in the series

Block 1 (Ep 1 & 2) Witch hunts and espionage

Georgi Markov 7th September 1978, Georgi Markov was a Bulgarian dissident who was poisoned with the tip of an umbrella while walking across Waterloo Bridge. The murderer was never found and the assassination became one of the great mysteries of the Cold War. There was speculation that Markov’s death was a result of his criticism of the Bulgarian regime, and that the Bulgarian Secret Police and KGB had some involvement.

Matthew Hopkins The Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins the Witchfinder General who set out to rid England of its witches, put hundreds of men and women to death between the years 1644 and 1646. They were convicted on 'evidence' such as 'third nipples' considered to be a witches mark; a 'dead spot' that wouldn't cause pain or bleed when pricked; or even owning a cat (not necessarily black) or other pet that Hopkins considered to be 'familiars'. Many died by drowning - the idea was that if the accused floated, she had been saved by her master, the devil, and so was guilty for rejecting the baptismal water. If she sank and drowned, she was innocent, but at least she died without a stain on her character.

Matthew Hopkins was never directly appointed by Parliament, he appointed himself. Belief in witches was widespread, and he was paid by local authorities to find them. Many people blamed any misfortune on witches and a language of ‘apotropaic marks’ was used, symbols scratched in doorways and around fireplaces to try and ward off witches.

Peine Fort et Dure A form of torture used in the 16th Century. One of the methods used to elicit confessions to witchcraft. Lying face up on the ground, a person would have heavier and heavier stones placed on their chest until they entered a plea, or died.

Ergot Poisoning Ergot is a fungus which infects rye crops, which if eaten can cause Ergot Poisoning. In 1646 there was an outbreak following the freezing of the river Thames and lack of supply of flour. Afflicted people behaved like they were bewitched and suffered from delusions. It can also cause deformation of the limbs and gangrene. It has also been suggested the bewitched accusers of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials may have been suffering from the delirium associated with ergot poisoning.

Block 2 (Ep 3 & 4 ) Flaying and historic art

Ed Gein Aka The Plainfield Ghoul, Gein had an obsession with his mother and became a murderer in the 1950s after her death. He abducted and killed Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957. He wanted a sex change and wore a suit made of female human skin and exhumed bodies to gather more skin. He tanned this skin and used it to make various items in his home, from lampshades to belts.

Judge Jeffreys “The Hanging Judge” A noose hangs over the riverside at the Prospect of Whitby pub in Wapping. Judge Jeffreys used to drink there in the 17th Century while the death sentence was meted out. It was a macabre pastime: he enjoyed watching criminals hang, especially those whom he himself had sentenced to the rope.

Historic art references “The Flaying of Marsyas” by Titian - A painting of Marsyas a Satyr, half man half goat, flayed alive.

Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” – A painting in which St Bartholomew holds his peeled off skin, thought to signify awaiting a new rebirth during the final judgement of humanity by God.

“The Flaying of the Judge Sisamnes” by Gerard David. Depicts a judge who was flayed for accepting a bribe and delivering an unjust verdict. His skin was then used to cover the seat in which his son would sit in judgment.

Russian Criminal Tattoos Tattoos with recognised coded meanings, giving information about a person’s time in prison, offence, gang affiliation, date of birth. In the early 1950s, it became customary for thieves to tattoo dots or small crosses on the knuckles, the number of dots indicating the number of terms. Following the break up of the Soviet Union and the fierce gang wars that took place, the tattoos and coded meanings became more intricate. A prison guard made a study over years of the different tattoos and their meanings, often seen on members of gangs such as Vory v Zakone.

Dr Richard Smith Richard Smith, a surgeon at the Bristol Royal Infirmary in 1821, dissected the bodies of executed murderers and then used their skin as book bindings. Smith had the body of John Horwood skinned, tanned, and used to bind the papers in the case of the murder of John’s ex-girlfriend, Eliza Balsom. This document is now kept in a museum in Bristol. This technique is called anthropodermic bibliopegy and is known to have been practised since the Seventeenth Century, and it was common to use the murderer's skin in this manner during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

Burke and Hare William Burke and William Hare sold the corpses of their 16 victims to Doctor Robert Knox as dissection material for his well-attended anatomy lectures. Burke’s skin is rumoured to have been preserved using the anthropodermic bibliopegy technique.

Block 3 (Ep 5 & 6) Underground tunnels, exotic dining and doomsday cults

The Black Swine Victorian Sewer Pigs which roamed around underground early 1850s in Hampstead. The story originated from among Victorian sewer workers who were interviewed in 1851. A pregnant sow is said to have accessed the sewers through a broken drain, in Hampstead, as the sewers were poorly maintained at this time. Getting lost in the underground tunnels she is said to have littered the piglets there and feeding on the offal and rubbish in the drain, the pigs bred and became numerous and feral.

Sawney Bean A story from folklore of 15th/16th Century cannibals in Scotland. Sawney Bean was the head of a bloodthirsty clan allegedly responsible for the murder and cannibalisation of hundreds of people. They stole from travellers on the roads, and lived in coastal caves, where they dismembered their victims, pickled parts of them and littered the ground with bones.

The Acclimatisation Society The Acclimatisation Society had many aristocratic and eminent members, who hoped to diversify the range of meats eaten in Britain in the 1860s. These Acclimatisation Societies existed around the world in the mid 19th Century, and imported strange and exotic animals, hoping to set up breeding programmes and offer a wider range of meats for the dinner table. Frank Buckland led the London Acclimatisation Society in introducing exotic species. Reportedly he had tasted buffalo, earwig, field mice, giraffe, kangaroo, leopard, mole, ostrich, porpoise, sea slug, snake, whale and zebra.

Doomsday cults The series mentions cults which ended in mass suicide motivated by a leader, such as the Solar Temple in 1994 and the Heaven’s Gate members who committed suicide in 1997 in order to reach an alien spacecraft following Comet Hale–Bopp. 909 members of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, aka "Jonestown", died in 1978, in an event termed "revolutionary suicide" by the leader Jim Jones.

[mariacallous]

Even before the midterm elections – when the vaunted “red wave” dried up – influential Republicans, over drinks in Washington, casually discussed the fate of Kevin McCarthy as a short-timer.

The man who would be the speaker of the House had already been taking a victory lap before a single vote was counted. “I’m better prepared now,” he recently told New York magazine. “If I’m not going to be acceptable to the body having that scenario this time, no one’s acceptable,” he boasted to Punchbowl News. The failed frozen yogurt shop owner from Bakersfield, California, envisions himself at last standing as the hero of his Horatio Alger success story atop the greasy pole. McCarthy now trumpets that he has won the confidence of the far-right Freedom Caucus that previously opposed his elevation. He clutches its leader, his twitchy former foe Jim Jordan, as a great friend. “Probably my biggest advocate is Jim Jordan,” he has said.

McCarthy’s bravado discloses a hint of insecurity. The talk of the steakhouses is that he will not last long.

Donald Trump’s ragtag minions of horned madmen and militias could not seize the Capitol on January 6. But when the 118th Congress is sworn in on 3 January, Trump’s coup will have broken through more than a police barrier to enter a new phase. That’s because Trump will, for all intents and purposes, become the de facto speaker of the House. If and when Nancy Pelosi ever so gently passes the gavel to Kevin McCarthy, “it would be hard not to hit her with it,” McCarthy said to the raucous laughter of a Republican crowd in 2021. The ultimate power will be held in the hands of Trump. From his gilded tropical palace, he will phone dictates to Jim Jordan and other acolytes who will transform the House of Representatives into his 2024 presidential campaign committee, virtual law firm and bludgeon for revenge. The House will be his hammer.

Trump still looms over the party, contemptuous of the bitter Republican finger-pointing blaming him for the midterm disappointment. Rupert Murdoch’s overnight order to Fox News to hype Florida Governor Ron DeSantis cannot suddenly cancel the Trump show Murdoch has been instrumental in producing, though for years he reportedly privately called him “a fucking idiot”. Trump is hardly dislodged.

In the 117th Congress, 147 Republicans out of 213 refused to certify the results of the electoral college. The margin of the slim new Republican majority will uniformly be election deniers, who will pad the Freedom Caucus before which McCarthy cowers. When the “red wave” was revealed to be a mirage, while the votes were still being tallied and the House Republican majority still uncertain, representative Matt Gaetz of Florida labeled McCarthy “McFailure”, pledged his eternal fealty to Trump and called for a challenge to McCarthy as speaker. Jason Miller, a former Trump official and his echo, went on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast to declare that if McCarthy “wants a chance of being speaker, he needs to be much more declarative of supporting President Trump”. Bannon, free on appeal from his conviction for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the January 6 committee, replied that “the Maga-centric nature” of the House and the Republican party would intensify.

When Trump’s mob ran through the corridors of the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence!” and “Nancy! Nancy!” and were yards away from breaking into McCarthy’s office, he desperately reached Trump at the White House to ask him to call it off. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to the journalist Robert Draper. “Am I upset? They’re trying to fucking kill me!” McCarthy shrieked. “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?”

In the days after the trauma, McCarthy raised the idea that cabinet members invoke the 25th amendment to remove Trump – then defended Trump from impeachment, which did not preclude Trump calling him a “pussy”, and on 27 January flew to Mar-a-Lago to bend his knee in supplication.

McCarthy, even as he tries to balance along a fine line, chronically abases himself. Occasionally, he tries to cover his naked ambition with a transparent fig leaf. In May 2020, when Trump falsely claimed that Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and an MSNBC TV host critical of Trump, had murdered a young female aide in 2001, despite being 800 miles away when she fell and fatally hit her head, McCarthy responded with a statement he must have thought displayed his political cuteness.

“I was not here with Joe Scarborough,” he said. “I don’t quite know about the subject itself.”

But abasement in the service of self-interest is not loyalty. Trump, who recalls every slight as lese-majesty, has taken McCarthy’s small measure as “my Kevin”. He knows that McCarthy thinks, as McCarthy blurted to the House Republican conference in 2017, that Putin “pays” Trump – “swear to God”. He will never be judged sufficiently loyal, nor trusted to do absolutely everything he’s ordered to do, especially when those orders are to lay siege to the justice department in a bid to interfere with its investigations of Trump.

Kevin McCarthy’s McCarthyism, like the previous McCarthyism, is rooted in personal ambition, but in Kevin McCarthy’s case it is more motivated by a desire to to go along than by the feral instinct displayed by Joe McCarthy, with Roy Cohn whispering in his ear before he got into Trump’s.

Kevin McCarthy has always known the score: that Republican mendacity, from little white lies to big lie, is born of sheer cynicism. From time to time, he inadvertently spills the beans. His impulse to babble the truth was uncontrollable in 2015, when he blabbed about the House investigation on Benghazi, revealing its political intent: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

McCarthy surely knows that the cruel Republican culture war is hypocrisy. When it comes to Trump’s handpicked senate candidate from Georgia, Herschel Walker – who is facing a runoff election with senator Raphael Warnock, and who allegedly paid for girlfriends’ abortions, allegedly abandoned both his legal and illegitimate children, and allegedly engaged in violence against his ex-wife – McCarthy has maintained radio silence.

His passivity in the face of vice is the price he willingly pays to sustain the virtuous sheen of the culture war. While he advances himself through each cowardly act, his performance does not inspire confidence from his own cohort, who see through the cellophane man. He must dance faster and faster just to stand still.

McCarthy will obediently issue blanket approval for House committees to launch a thousand inquisitions. Democratic groups engaged in voter turnout efforts will be investigated. Democratic attorneys who defend voting rights will be targeted. Progressive nonprofits involved with elections and criminal justice will have their nonprofit status challenged. Secretaries of state who have frustrated Trump election deniers will be pressured. Biden administration officials, from national security to homeland security, will be subpoenaed to scandalize their policies. Military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, already assailed by the Republican pro-Putin caucus, will be squeezed. No “blank check”, McCarthy has said.

Corporations and banks that invest in green energy, or adopt diversity and equity policies, will be pressured. Tech platforms will be hauled before the klieg lights for depositions on alleged political discrimination against conservatives, to intimidate them into following the example of Elon Musk, who attended McCarthy’s private political retreat in Wyoming this past August. (“Elon believes in freedom. Elon is an entrepreneur. Such an American success story,” McCarthy said.)

The subpoenas will fly. And, quite predictably, the House will manufacture a conflict over the federal budget to shut down the government in an attempt to enforce its draconian policies, as Republicans have done before as a tactic against Bill Clinton in 1995 to 1996 and against Barack Obama in 2013.

Then the House may impeach President Biden – and possibly Vice-President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, among others. The writer Barton Gellman recently laid out the coming strategy in the Atlantic. “McCarthy wants to oversee subpoenas and Benghazi-style hearings to weaken the president ahead of the 2024 election, not issue a call for Biden’s removal,” Gellman writes. “But there is little reason to think that McCarthy can resist the GOP’s impulse to impeach once it gathers strength.”

Gellman further quotes Ted Cruz, from the senator’s recent podcast, pressing for Biden’s impeachment, “whether it’s justified or not”, as payback for Trump’s two impeachments. Like many Republicans, Cruz uses the word “weaponize” in the same way that Republicans have adopted the word “grooming” to accuse public school teachers of trying to turn children transgender. “The Democrats weaponized impeachment,” said Cruz. “They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

After the January 6 committee is disbanded, the House judiciary committee will paint a bull’s eye on the Department of Justice (DoJ). The committee will act as Trump’s team for the defense. As the investigations circling Trump close in, from the fake electors’ scheme to the Mar-a-Lago archives theft, Trump and his allies will intensify their charges that the justice department is “weaponizing” the law. Jim Jordan will claim that the DoJ is unfairly persecuting Trump while failing to investigate properly the “Biden crime family”, only beginning with Hunter Biden.

The House Republicans will demand the internal documents and sources in every case the DoJ is pursuing about Trump. When the justice department refuses to hand over materials from ongoing investigations, subpoenas will be issued for them, and when the DoJ invariably declines – because to comply would violate the law and all of its protocols – contempt charges will be filed against attorney general Merrick Garland, his deputy, Lisa Monaco, and individual prosecutors. The dismissal of those contempt filings will have no bearing on the House proceeding to the impeachment of Garland, Monaco, et al.

The point for the Republicans will not necessarily be to remove Garland, which would be highly unlikely, but instead to discredit any justice department case against Trump as politically motivated, to portray Trump as the victim, and to rouse the Republican base. Most importantly, the judiciary committee interference would attempt to severely cripple the investigations.

If this sounds like conjecture, consider that Jim Jordan wrote to Merrick Garland and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, on 2 November – a week before the election and under the letterhead of the judiciary committee, as if he were already the chairman – demanding information and sources in current cases involving Trump, extremist militias and far-right figures.

In his lengthy list of requests, he asked for “all documents and communications between or among employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the executive office of the president referring or relating to classifying or reclassifying domestic violent extremism cases, for the period of January 1 2020, to the present”; “all documents and communications referring or relating to the decision to seek a search warrant for President Trump’s residence”; and “all documents and communications referring or relating to the use of confidential human source(s) in connection with the search of President Trump’s residence”. Jordan followed up by releasing a dense 1,050-page compendium of conspiracy theories – 1,050 rabbit holes he promises to go down.

If McCarthy exhibits the slightest queasiness, commits another of his trademark gaffes that reveal too much of the truth, or is simply not militant enough for Trump, his speakership will become unstable. The jackals already surround him, and there is a ready alternative waiting in the wings to replace him. Elise Stefanik, adored by Trump, seamlessly transmogrified from moderate to Maga, emerging as Trump’s defender during his first impeachment. “A new Republican star is born,” Trump tweeted. The 38-year-old congresswoman’s ambition is a raging fever.

Once a classic Bush Republican – an assistant to George W Bush’s eminently reasonable chief of staff Josh Bolten, no less – Stefanik has since become Trump’s full-throated champion. She whipped up the purge of Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican conference for Cheney’s heresy and engineered herself into the job, profusely praising Trump as “the leader”. This year, she introduced a resolution to expunge his second impeachment over the insurrection as “a sham smear”. Since the midterm elections, she has thrice endorsed Trump for president in 2024. The leaning tumbril awaits McCarthy too.

Trump declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination the third time, after two impeachments and a coup attempt, one week after the Republican midterm debacle, in which many of the loyalists bearing his imprimatur fell before the voters. Nor has he been deterred by the prospect of a contest with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, to claim the prize, would have to murder the king and be tainted with his blood.

It was a grand illusion that Trump would somehow fade away, Biden restore the spirit of civility of the old Senate, and Garland prosecute the January 6 rioters to be done with the mess, shelving the whole episode as a thing of the past, with decency and the rule of law prevailing again.

The Republican fear campaign in the midterm elections, projecting the menaces of inflation, crime and trans rights, will dissolve the instant the contest is over. On January 6, Trump waved his mob forward: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.” Trump’s coup, which has never ended, will now continue with the House of Representatives as his chief political tool.

TS Eliot, in The Hollow Men, wrote:

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow

On 13 September, Trump retweeted a kitsch portrait of himself wearing a “Q” on his lapel, the symbol of the QAnon conspiracy cult that venerates him; its slogan, “The Storm Is Coming”; and the cryptic letters, “WWG1WGA”, which mean “Where We Go One, We Go All”. As Trump tweeted on 23 December 2020 to promote the January 6 insurrection: “Will be wild”.

[staircasewitttt]

Michael Bello better not fuck up with my brother hes taking care of Georgia and shes disowned and kicked out of this reeal Michael Jordan other Michael Jordans using his name who always finds me and watches me for centuries hes really a good boy whos being to blame not even a criminal or convict and we invaded his life that im with John 1st and Vladimir. My brother in shock that I screamed at the owner of the jail house that im his nurse and he was sitting in his car dying in laughter so happpy!

[moblitswife22]

Rise of the Darkess Characters:

Humans:

Justin Holmes- He is Jessica's ex boyfriend who is rich but an ex convict . Justin is also become psycho once Jessica broke up with him but Justin appeared to be decent man.

Lastly, Justin is also Jessica's classmate and first crush way before Toby .

Birthday: January 23rd , 1996

Height: 6'2

Proffesion: Engineer

Appearance: Messy dark brown hair with bit of hair falling in front or he had tiny bangs . Justin also appeared to be muscular . He loves wearing red colored shirts.

Ike pikney: Ike is also Jessica and the boys classmate back in Junior high . When he was born, he supposed to have a twin sister however, she died during childbirth . Ike also stayed in Nicu for months because of his health.

When Ike was in high school he uses to bully Tong but despite his nature. Ike is good in academics and sports. Now years later he become part of their squad along with Gina.

Personality: Comedic , Witty but sometimes serious.

Birthday : September 15th, 1996

Height: 6'0

Profession: Pilot and and Ceo

Appearance: Blonde half shave hair . Ike also appeared to be muscular less than Justin or more like average . Ike also have tattoos at his back .

Gina Lauren: She is Jessica's best friend and only girl best friend. Sure , Jessica have friends but the way Gina is with Jessica is like sisters.

Aside from that,Gina is also an Southeast Andromadenian or She is an Asian and a Filipina . She was raised in Terrian isle/Philippines until she was 11. And lastly she is Hellion's cousin. She is also married with Marcel Galliard and have quads named after Jess and her friends.

Personality: Bubbly and witty. She is also have those typical Filipino personality that is helpful to others . She is also talkative and loves to share random stories without insulting others.

Birthday: April 10th, 1997

Height: 5'11

Appearance: Tanned skin , black medium hair and she also have brown eyes . Similar to Justin She also loves wearing red that is mostly dresses and long skirt .

Profession: Fashion designer/Model

Paula Pikney- Also known as spy child because of her creepy behavior when she was age where she really stalked the four . But in reality, she just want an attention and Paula is the first one (in humans) who knew their secret that they're more than aliens.

Also because Paula loves extra terrestrial stuffand fantasy . And the reason? Paula was an unwanted child and never be the favourite worse, her parents abused her. But now, she is married with kids and cut her ties with her family (except with Ike) .

Paula's personality become serious and mature than her brother . More like, she have black cat personality and workaholic . But she never neglect her family.

Birthday: February 5th, 2000

Height: 5'8

Appearance: Short bob cut dark brown hair, she also have green eyes like her brother . Her outfits are usually formal .

Profession: Journalist

Lords of Nature:

Toby Tripp- He is the oldest and Jessica's first crush but he had never or he may not realized yet. Though hating Paula when he was young . But he relate most on the girl . He may not be abused, but Toby also carried the toxic raising of his parents where he was always blamed.

And sometime hated . Toby also dealing with depression and trauma . But now, Toby became successful.

Personality: Goofball and prankster but also intelligent. Toby is also hardworking and and very loyal to his friends. He may be the sunshine of the group but the scariest when angry.

Birthday: March 22nd , 1995

Profession: solo rock idol (will later form his own band) and buissness owner . Toby is also an Architect.

Appearance: He have golden blonde hair that is really long and almost reaches his back . Toby is also muscular and have a clean beard. He loves wearing street style blue .

Heights: 5'11

Hellion De Leon- He is Gina's cousin and also a Teriannian or Filipino . When he was born his mother died who was only 15 and he was a product of r#p3 . Now, he was being raised and still lived with his grandparents.

When Hell was 19 years old, his fathered appeared but never acknowledge him but he did forgive him before he died .

Appearance: black messy and almost wavy hair he also have dark brown eyes like his cousin . He appeared to be muscular as well and tanned skin like Gina.

Height: 6'1

Profession: Kakanin Vendor, Formerly a teen idol and a police who get destined in Venture falls

Personality: Always serious making him others judge him because of his black cat Personality . But in reality, he wasn't really grumpy but very sweet.

Jessica Herlains- She is the only girl in her squad other than Gina if we talk about lords. She is also like Ike, who stayed in Nicu . Like Hellion, she is also pruduct of r#p3 .

Since she was stayed in Nicu , she nearly died but was saved by Old sage . Now, Jessica is successful business woman as well .

Personality: Bubbly and witty too but she also goofball and prankster and always targets Nick but when she's pissed? She's the scariest but the mother of the group .

Appearance: Long wavy purple and pink blonde hair . She now wear glasses and she's muscular and Curvy.

Height: 6'0

Profession: Model, Writer and Fashion designer

Nick Tripp- Nick is Toby's golden brother and also the youngest. He was the one who's parents favourite. He had twin brother but died during 2 months.

Nick is the only one who loss his virginity and be those men who get girls but he never boast them .

Personality: He is the most intelligent of the bunch. Nick is also well mannered and very serious but unlike Hellion he still smiles and loves making jokes.

Height: 6'4

Appearance: messy hair with bit of bangs and have dark brown eyes. He is very muscular but not too much like a body builder .

Caleb Evans- Caleb is Nick's long lost brother . He was taken away by a 19 year old mother who used him to cope up with the loss of her child .

Caleb was raised by a teen mother who still treats him like their own . But they did try to distance him on his parents . Though it is very obvious that they were never.

Appreance: Brown hair like Nick but he doesn't appear to have glasses and less muscular than him or same as Toby. He also have same hair as him.

Height: 6'3

Personality: Witty, and a jokester like Toby. He is also sweet and workaholic.

Profession: Action star , Model and business man

Gabriel Castro- Similar to Gina and Hellion he is also a Filipino. Unlike Hellion, he was raised by rich but those toxic Filipino parents where he was treated like puppet and be those thr one who should or force to help his parents.

But Gabriel never hates them so did his parents but they just have negative personalities agaisnt their son. But when Gab was young he was being bullied .

Height: 6'0

Personality: Loves to be alone or he's shy but very talented and always loves to help people.

Appearance: brown hair (dyed) and his hair is similar to Levi Ackerman. He also have dark brown eyes and tanned skin. He is also muscular. And loves to wear gray and black.

Birthday: December 25th , 1996

Profession: Chef and politician

Lucas Wanson- other than Paula, he was the youngest among the bunch. He is also Gina's first crush but they never end up . When he was 13 just month after Neorganic. His parents died in a car accident.

So The Tripps helped him and raised by his aunt. And when he's 18, he starts to move with the Tripps . When he was born he stayed in nicu due to his health issues like Ike.

Personality: He is the sweetest among the group not just that but loves nature and sometimes being a jokester .

Appreeance: Long braided hair that is tied he also have green eyes that connected to his nature . And like his friends, he loves green color and always wear casual outfit or depend on his taste .

Height: 6'2

Birthday: November 12th , 1997

Profession: Lawyer, Cosplayer ,Model and Biologist

[39minormovements]

excerpts from "uk border crossings: 20 years of dying in lorries but still ‘no change’" by maël galisson in open democracy (13 feb 2024)

"'The majority of the 39 victims of this deadly crossing come from regions that are not only the least developed in the country, but also the most vulnerable to climate change,' said Danielle Tan, an independent researcher who has studied Vietnamese migrants stranded on the French-British border."

"'The next day, we decided to hold a vigil outside the Home Office in London. There was a lot of anger and sadness, particularly in the east and southeast Asian diasporas,' said Kay Stephens, a member of the Remember & Resist collective that was formed in the wake of this tragedy. Other commemorations took place across the UK, from Belfast to Glasgow. 'The media and the authorities were quick to point the finger of blame at the smugglers,' Stephens said. But 'to see the home secretary, Priti Patel, say on Twitter that she is ‘shocked and saddened’ is to forget that these deaths are above all the consequence of the hostile environment policies deployed by the British authorities.'"

"During the vigil in front of the Home Office, 'a Chinese community activist, Jabez Lam, took the floor and recalled that, 20 years earlier, 58 Chinese migrants had died in similar circumstances,' Stephens said. Customs officers at the port of Dover discovered the bodies Lam was referring to on 18 June 2000. Like the 39 migrants from Vietnam, these were also in a trailer loaded onto a ferry at Zeebrugge."

"'The same policies continue to be pursued, so there's obviously a strong resonance between these two events,' Stephens said... In December 2001, 13 people left Zeebrugge hidden in a container bound, they thought, for Dover. Four days later the container was opened in Waterford, in the south of Ireland. Eight were dead, and the rest were perilously close to it."

"In the UK, this investigation led to the conviction of 11 people, including the truck driver, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for manslaughter. Eighteen people were punished in Belgium, including cab drivers and the owners of homes through which victims had passed. In Vietnam, four convictions for human trafficking were handed down. Most recently, in November 2023, 18 people were given jail sentences of up to 10 years in France, including several cab drivers.

"But, seen from Vietnam, 'the death of these 39 exiles didn’t change anything,' [Mimi] Vu said, [an independent expert on human trafficking in Vietnam]. 'The main consequence has been an increase in the cost of the journey.' Before October 2019 the price to reach Western Europe ranged between £13,000 and £27,000 she said, but now it can reach £43,000. 'The more risks smugglers take, the higher the cost of passage,' Vu said."

image: "kent anti-racism network organised a vigil for the 39 people found dead in a lorry in essex on sunny sands beach in folkestone" (andy aitchison for kent live)

[image description: a photograph of a vigil at a beach. people stand roughly in a line in front of a large heart shape drawn in the sand that has the number "39" written inside of it. on both ends of the line, there are people who lit up smoke grenades as colourful smokes rise up to the sky. behind them, the ocean and the sky just before dusk.]

[dankusner]

An ex-Kansas police chief who led a raid on a newspaper is charged with obstruction of justice

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former Kansas police chief who led a raid last year on a weekly newspaper has been charged with felony obstruction of justice and is accused of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct.

The single charge against former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody alleges that he knowingly or intentionally influenced the witness to withhold information on the day of the raid of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher or sometime within the following six days.

The charge was filed Monday in state district court in Marion County and is not more specific about Cody’s alleged conduct.

The raid sparked a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri.

Also, newspaper Publisher Eric Meyer’s mother, who co-owned the newspaper and lived with him, died the next day of a heart attack, and he blames the stress of the raid.

Meyer said last week that authorities appear to be making Cody the “fall guy” for the raid when numerous officials were involved.

He said Tuesday that he suspects the criminal case ultimately will be resolved through a plea bargain so that Cody will not have a trial that would more fully disclose details about the raid.

“We’re just being basic journalists here,” he said. “We want the whole story. We don’t want part of it.”

A report from two special prosecutors last week referenced text messages between Cody and a local business owner after the raid.

The business owner has said that Cody asked her to delete text messages between them, fearing people could get the wrong idea about their relationship, which she said was professional and platonic.

The Associated Press left a message seeking comment at a possible cellphone number for Cody, and it was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Attorneys representing Cody in a federal lawsuit over the raid are not representing him in the criminal case and did not immediately know who was representing him.

Cody justified the Aug. 11, 2023, raid by saying he had evidence that Meyer, the newspaper and one of its reporters, Phyllis Zorn, had committed identity theft or other computer crimes in verifying the authenticity of a copy of the business owner’s state driving record provided to the newspaper by an acquaintance.

The business owner was seeking Marion City Council approval for a liquor license and the record showed that she potentially had driven without a valid license for years.

However, she later had her license reinstated.

The prosecutors’ report concluded that no crime was committed by Meyer, Zorn, or the newspaper and that Cody reached an erroneous conclusion about their conduct because of a poor investigation.

Zorn used the information she had to legally search an online state database using her own name.

The prosecutors also said police search warrants signed by a judge contained inaccurate information because of the “inadequate investigation” and were not legally justified.

But the prosecutors said they couldn’t show that Cody had intentionally misled the judge.

The obstruction of justice charge against Cody was filed by one of the special prosecutors, Barry Wilkerson, the top prosecutor in Riley County in northeastern Kansas.

The other special prosecutor is Marc Bennett, the district attorney in Sedgwick County, the home to the state’s largest city of Wichita.

A conviction for a first-time offender can be punished by up to nine months in prison, though under the state’s sentencing guidelines, the typical penalty is 18 months or less of probation.

The Record’s publishing company and current and former staffers have filed four federal lawsuits against Cody and other former and current local officials.

The publishing company’s lawsuit includes a wrongful death claim and suggests total damages exceed $10 million.

The city’s current annual budget is about $9.5 million.

The publishing company also filed an open records lawsuit last month in state district court, seeking to force the city to turn over texts between police and other local officials.

Police body-camera footage of the 2023 raid on the publisher’s home shows the publisher’s 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, visibly upset and telling officers, “Get out of my house!”

The prosecutors said they could not charge Cody or other officers involved in the raid over her death because there was no evidence they believed the raid posed a risk to her life.

The prosecutors also said there was no “gross deviation” from how officers served other search warrants in the past.

However, Eric Meyer said seven officers came to the house for the search.

“A couple of weeks earlier, they conducted a raid on the home of a suspected child rapist who was known to have guns in his house, and they only sent two cops for that,” he said.