#how am i supposed to continue working my government fucking job knowing what that government is fucking doing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ranger-kellyn]

.

[luveline]

could i request teacher!reader with hotch? like maybe she’s jacks teacher

thank you for your request! fem!reader, 1.2k

You're a teacher: you're always tired. Overworked, underpaid, everybody knows how it goes. And maybe you've let yourself go because you don't have any real material hopes for the future beyond getting Macy Danish to read at a first grade level, but how were you supposed to know that Jack Hotchner's father would be so overwhelmingly attractive? It's not fair. 

He's handsome though older than you'd been expecting, but that isn't the cut and dry of it. When he comes in, it's alone, in a well-fitted suit. He's tall and remarkably dark-eyed, shaking your hand without trying to impose any authority, as some of the fathers tend to do, and when you call him Mr. Hotchner, he says, "Aaron, please," but continues to call you Ms. L/N.

"Aaron," you say, pulling your skirt under your thighs as you sit down. You're dressed in nice clothes for the parent-teacher conferences, but you could've covered your sleeplessness better. "Jack is the nicest boy in class. He's actually my loveliest kid. Um…" You search through your notes for the preliminary assessment of Jack. "Sorry, two seconds." 

"Take your time. I know what it's like to dig through a mountain of paperwork every day." 

"Jack mentioned you work in the government, he calls you a special agent," you say, smiling. "You get the bad guys." 

"I am a special agent. Supervisory." Aaron is conscientious enough to pretend he doesn't notice your surprise. "I'm chief of the behavioural analysis unit." 

You can't even begin to guess what that entails. "Oh," you say breathlessly. 

"I understand that it sounds fantastical." 

"It sounds impressive," you say, floundering to correct yourself. Behavioural analysis? It must be obvious to him how nervous he's making you, then, and when you realise that, you get worse. "I'm so sorry about this. I should be more organised. I usually am." 

"That's alright. Take your time." 

Does he always speak that way? His voice is like fucking silk? Is he messing with you?

You yank the notes you made for Jack from the pile and flatten them across the desk. "Okay, sorry. Like I was saying, Jack is really the nicest kid, him and his friend Molly. They're both lovely, and teachers shouldn't have favourites, please don't tell the other parents, but they're my favourites." You smile at him quickly and return your eyes to the paper. The words swim in front of your eyes. "Jack can read better than you could ever hope for a first grader, he's immensely intelligent for his age group. He's patient. He'll explain anything to anyone if they ask him too, and he does it well." 

"I'm glad to hear that," he says, again so softly. 

You pick up one of your skinny biros to have something to fidget with. He's a very good looking man, but you're a good teacher. You can focus on what to say. Some parents need good things only. Some need reassurement that they're doing a good job. Aaron is harder to read, but you know what he needs, too. 

"He can be lonely," you say, looking him in the eye. "I don't think that that's down to any fault. I'm sure you know better than I do why he might feel that way." You know about his mom's passing over a year ago. You've seen grief in children too many times. "He… I understand if this isn't okay with you, but he eats lunch with me sometimes. I encourage him to sit with his peers, of course, but I think he runs out of energy pretty quickly." 

Aaron nods thoughtfully. His brows quirk into a furrow that you're afraid is directed at you. 

"I don't think he necessarily has trouble connecting with his friends." 

"What do you think?" 

"I think something awful happened to your family, and Jack will feel it for the rest of his life, but that it won't stop him from being great. It already isn't. And… he clearly has a father who loves him and who he admires. You're his second favourite topic." 

"What's his first?" he asks. 

"He's really into Fruity Fridays," you say with a laugh. "I bring in fruits you don't get often in America. Someone would've had to sign a form." 

"No, I remember signing it. He likes that?" His smile is golden. "I can't get him to try new things." 

"He had all the leftover gold kiwi last week." You rub your lips together. Time is ticking. You have nearly thirty parents to see tonight, but talking to Mr. Hotchner has been so normal. He's a regular person in a sea of inattentive helicopter narcissists. It's a relief and a half to meet him and know a kid as gentle as Jack is in good hands. "Mr. Hotchner, I have to tell you, I'm really relieved to meet you." 

"Aaron," he corrects.

Your tone drops too low. "Aaron." 

"I'm more than relieved," he says. "I knew that this year would be harder for him. I didn't know… I'm grateful to you, for being so kind with him." 

You look down at your notes, flushed from head to toe despite your airy skirt. Crossing your legs, you shake your head. "It's my job." 

"To let him take up the only break you get all day?" he asks. 

"It's not like that. Jack doesn't bother me." You fold your notes in half. "I can see his role model measures up." 

"I could say the same thing." 

The next time you see Jack, bright and early Monday mooring shepherded by his aunt Jessica, he's very happy to see you. You offer him a hug and pat his back when he wraps his arms around your hips. "Hello, Jack. Was your dad pleased with your drawings?"

Jack smiles at you. "I have a note for you." 

"You do? Can I see? Where is it, honey?" 

Jack takes off his backpack and pulls out the note and a tupperware container. "Oh, wow, did you make treats for the class? Jack, that's so nice!" 

"No. Dad said those are for you. He said you should have nice for nice, or something," Jack informs you. 

"You'll share with me, though? I can't eat them all by myself," you whisper. 

He nods with enthusiasm and runs off to put his backpack in his cubby and his coat on the hook. You look down at the cookies and note, which is actually an envelope. 

You open it with your thumbnail. The writing is Aaron's usual tight cursive.

Dear Miss L/N, 

I hoped to thank you again in person, but work makes that hard. I appreciate everything you do for Jack. There are teachers who work, and there are teachers who go above and beyond. I can feel confident anywhere in the country knowing Jack is being taught by the latter. 

Gratefully yours, 

Aaron Hotchner. 

P.S. Please don't feed Jack too many cookies. They're not for him. 

You keep the letter even if it's lame to do so. When is the next parent teacher conference, anyways?

[pub-lius]

Why don't you have any detailed posts about Steuben smh do better

AW FUCK NO MY REPUTATION!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE THE GAY HISTORY PERSON IF I DONT HAVE A DETAILED POST ABOUT STEUBEN!!!! i have to fix this...

Early Life

Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Baron de Steuben was born on September 17, 1730 in Prussia. He joined the Prussian army at the age of 17, so he got a real early start.

Note: I've written his name here as "Baron de Steuben", as this name is from a French record, however he is typically referred to as "Baron von Steuben", as "von" is the translation of "de" from French to Prussian, and they both mean "of" in English. I just wanted to clarify that for the sake of my own linguistically correct sanity

Steuben began his service in the French and Indian War (or Seven Years War if you're a dirty European) as a second lieutenant, and was then wounded at the Battle of Prague, a Prussian victory. Then, he joined General Johann von Mayer's adjutant and principle staff officer in a special detached corps.

Then, he was promoted to first lieutenant and wounded AGAIN at the Battle of Kunersdorf, which was a Russian and Austrian victory. He was then transferred to general headquarters as a staff officer in the position of deputy quartermaster (this is important!!).

He was taken prisoner when Major General von Knoblock surrendered at Treptow, and was released after a year in 1762. He was promoted to captain and then became an aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great, which is as metal as it gets. He joined the King's class on the art of war, where he learned even more super cool military leadership skills.

Life Between Wars

Steuben met St. Germain in Hamburg (a notoriously great place to meet people). If you aren't in the know like I clearly am, St. Germain would eventually be the French Minister of War during the American Revolution. They'd meet again in France when Steuben was serving as Grand Marshall to the Prince of Hollenzollern-Hechingen, and if that sounds made up to you, it's because you don't even know him like I do.

Steuben continued looking for military work, but those European assholes (the British, French, and Austrians) rejected my man for no good reason (probably because he was gay or something). It was during his stay in France where he heard of the rowdy Americans across the pond.

St. Germain introduced Baron von Steuben to Silas fucking Deane and Benjamin "Slim Shady" Franklin, but they weren't able to promise Steuben anything but some regurgitated American propaganda, since, by this time, they were already getting yelled at by Congress and Washington for allowing too many incompetent Frenchmen into the Continental Army. They told him that the only way he could assist in the American fight for independence would be to go to America and present himself as a volunteer to Congress (like Lafayette ended up having to do).

This obviously pissed off Steuben since he was actually experienced trying to get a job, because its not fun being an overqualified, unemployed gay man in 18th century Europe. But still, he settled for being a volunteer, and set out for America, his passage being paid for by the French government.

WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETERRRRRRR

Steuben traveled to America with his Italian greyhound, Azor, and his two assistants, Louis de Pontiere (ADC) and Pierre Ettienne Duponceau (military secretary). They arrived in New Hampshire on December 1, 1777. They were almost arrested upon arrival because Steuben had a blond moment and mistakenly dressed them in red uniforms instead of blue. They traveled through Boston to York, Pennyslvania, arriving on February 5, 1778.

In Steuben's letter of recommendation, Franklin mistranslated Steuben's rank to "His Excellency, Lieutenant General von Steuben, Apostle of Frederick the Great", which made him seem way more distinguished than he was. As a result, he was presented a much higher rank by Congress.

Steuben was ordered to report to Washington's headquarters at Valley Forge, where he arrived on February 23, 1778, and was described by a soldier as "a perfect personification of Mars."

Steuben's good first impression also had an effect on Washington, who appointed him temporary Inspector General, and it was in this position that he had his largest impact on American history, and changed the course of the war

Why Every Army Should Have Gay People, An Essay by Publius

Baron von Steuben began his transformation of the Continental Army by writing training drills, overriding the regional trainings of the state militias into a unified and universal regimen. There was a significant language barrier, however, as Steuben originally wrote the drills in French, which were then translated into English by Duponceau, John Laurens, and Alexander Hamilton. Then, they were given to the brigade inspectors, who made the copies which were then copied to be delivered to each officer. There was definitely a more efficient way to do this, but you know. It was also Valley Forge.

General Washington's Life Guard and some men from each state (totalling around 120 men) were used as a model to show the rest of the army how they were supposed to go through the drills. As they trained and demonstrated the drills, Steuben was writing new ones, only a few days ahead, which is a massive time crunch. This was done intentionally to make the drills as simple as he could, so the training of the army was dispersed in a rapid, orderly fashion. This man was a genius, I can't emphasize it enough.

The officers in the British army, which was the standard for Americans in many respects, would allow the sergeants to drill the men, but Steuben said fuck that, I'm gonna do it myself. This made many American officers uncomfortable because the men developed a bond with him because of how talented he was (and the fact that he was funny and used profanity in multiple languages), and along with the fact that Steuben's office seemingly had no limitations, this caused them to complain to the big boss, Washington. To make them feel better, Washington issued orders on June 15, 1778 to govern the Inspector General's office until further word from Congress.

The reformed Continental Army showed off their swag on May 6, 1778 when they celebrated the news of the Franco-American Alliance, which impressed soldiers, officers, and civilians. More happy news came when Steuben was given his commission from the Congress as Inspector General, with the rank of Major General.

It was at the Battle of Monmouth when the new training of the Continental Army was able to take what would have been a losing battle for the Americans to a technical draw. Steuben was actually almost killed/taken prisoner (depending on the mood of the British) during this battle because he was wearing so many metals of honor that he glimmered in the sunlight, and was spotted by the British. He was fine, though.

General von Steuben went to Philadelphia in the winter of 1778-79 to write his book of regulations, referred to as The Blue Book. Lieutenant Colonel Francois de Fleury, a volunteer, assisted in writing it. It was with the assistance of ~Benjamin Walker~ and Duponceau that the blue book was translated into English, which is why we know Walker as being important! And the fact that he and Steuben totally boned! Anyway, Captain Pierre Charles L'Enfant was illustrated it, and the book was used all the way until 1814.

After the war

General von Steuben rejoined the Continental Army in April of 1779 to serve through the end of the war. He was an instructor and supply officer for General Nathanael Greene's southern army from the beginning of the southern campaign until Yorktown. Steuben commanded one of three divisions in the Continentals at Yorktown. He assisted in demobilizing the army in 1783, and resigned his commission in 1784, which is actually the latest I've heard of a Continental General resigning his commission!

Steuben continuously petitioned Congress for financial compensation for mesothelioma (not really) and fuck ass Congress only gave him a part of what he was owed, which was pretty typical. But! New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all gave him land grants, which he sold portions off to have enough money to live. So, he retired from NYC to his land holdings to live the remainder of his life.

Oh, and fun fact, Steuben was present at one of the riots in New York that Alexander Hamilton tried to stop, and they both had bricks thrown at them. It might have been the Cadaver Riots, but I could be wrong since I didn't feel like double checking.

Steuben never married, and instead lived with Benjamin Walker for a long period of time. He died on his 16,000 acre farm tract in the Mohawk Valley of New York on November 28, 1794.

Homosexuality

The source I used for this does not mention his homosexuality at all, but I'm going to, because the last thing you'll ever see me do is pretend like gay people didn't exist or are "unprofessional" to talk about in history.

If you say that Alexander Hamilton was gay, you have to say Steuben was, and vice versa. Rumors of homosexuality followed Steuben from Europe all the way to America, and play a large role in why he relocated many times, and never seemed to have a permanent home until the end of his life. This was a form of unofficial exile that many queer people faced in times where their existence was illegal. As soon as your name was associated with possible homosexuality, you couldn't get comfortable anywhere.

But von Steuben wasn't brought down by this, and you've gotta respect that. He threw elaborate parties starting almost as soon as he arrived at the Continental Army. If you're new to the amrev community here, this is what we mean by "flaming shot/pantless parties", because they had shots of liquor that they would light on fire, and in order to get in, at least part of your breeches had to have been missing. While straight men did attend these parties, the subtext in discussions about them seem to imply that they were also a gathering place for queer men.

These parties continued, and some familiar faces were there, such as Duponceau, Walker Hamilton, Laurens, and, later on, Charles Adams. However, I'm not going to speculate on who was fucking who, though it has been largely accepted by historians that General von Steuben and Benjamin Walker were lovers, and I personally think there is substantial evidence to support this when you align their personal correspondence with the close proximity they maintained throughout their lives.

General von Steuben is a figure that is very important to many queer people as a conspicuous queer man in history who had an undeniable impact on the course of American history. Portrayals of Steuben in media typically disregard this, however more and more biographers are discussing his homosexuality and the significance it plays in queer history. So, I'll end this post by saying this: Steuben is just as significant in American history as he is in Queer history, and it is irresponsible to pretend like he isn't.

Source:

National Park Service- Valley Forge

British Battles.com- Battle of Kunersdorf

George Washington's Indispensable Men by Arthur S. Lefkowitz

John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory D. Massey

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Anyway, thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about Steuben lol. I didn't previously know much about his life before the American Revolution, so I was very happy to learn. I actually bought a biography about him not long ago, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army by Paul Lockhart, but I haven't read it yet. If anyone has, pls let me know if it's good or not. After Massey and Chernow, I'm practically on my hands and knees begging for a male author to treat queer history seriously. Anyway, thank you for the ask! I'm going to go watch the george washington mini series for steuben content

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

hey. i rarely go political in here because it's a space for me to truly chill, hence i am going on here as anon.

the work you're doing is phenomenal. it's affecting a small part of the majority, but it's good work nonetheless. it's tiring to continuously see people hype up the current govt. and not criticise them and their actions — our democracy is falling at a rapid place and all indians are on about is hindu muslim mandir masjid.

no one talks about manipur, no one talks about how almost half the opposition was suspended, no one talks about continous ED summons to anyone who raises a voice. the media channels are puppets, nothing else.

it's tiring to see criticisms of the current govt. actions been met with "what congress did" and no actual replies, only deflections. they are in charge of our nation today, it's important to talk about the present and the future— it's our job as citizens of a democracy to keep the government in check, be aware of their actions and question them when necessary.

unfortunately, people have failed to understand this.

i am a hindu too, and seeing the state of india truly dissapoints me to no end. we are beyond a party, a leader. being a critic of the current govt. doesn't make us anti-hindu. it's so stupid. istfg.

anyways, will forever be a supporter of you guys.

jai hind.

We usually don't post about politics on this blog either. We typically do it on our own personal blogs. That's not to say that we kept any and all opinions away from the page either. People that have been following us for a while know that we have occasionally posted something if we felt it pertinent at the time.

I posted something this time because I saw posts circling around with some objectionable content in them and it surprised me because I recognised the usernames. It's a little silly but I typically do remember the usernames of our followers, it's pretty hard not to. You have to imagine the shock and hurt I felt that these were the same people engaging with our posts and enjoying them. Did these people felt like we shared their opinions? Had we somehow fucked up and cultivated that sort of a community? My first instinct was to delete this entire blog, I will not lie to you. The thought that something I was involved in making and curating was somehow fueling followers of Hindutva? I honestly couldn't stand it. After it calmed down, I made a post and a clarification reblog. I expected those users to just unfollow us, maybe send us a curse or two over anon and that would be it.

I'm glad I didn't delete the blog after so many people have confirmed that the community here isn't all like that.

The state of India's politics honestly leaves a lot, A LOT, to be desired. It was exhausting seeing all the fuss about an unfinished mandir when we have so many other important things to talk about. Any sort of criticism or opposition has been completely wiped off the board by the current government and they expect me to care about the mandir? The leader of the nation won't even do an open interview, let alone a press conference. Falling prey to the religious angle of their politics is a folly. People are being coddled and distracted as their own houses burn down. How much longer will this go on? How much worse will this get? These questions haunt me.

Having a silly meme blog was supposed to be a fun activity to break the monotony and mundanity of existence. Turns out, now I have to make sure that this silly thing doesn't get infected by the horrors too.

Life is transiently long and fighting the horrors is a herculean task. I'm grateful for every voice of support because it makes me feel like I'm not alone out here.

-Mod S

[hopeymchope]

Hey. There was a new Raincode interview written a few days ago and in that interview, Halara’s gender was brought up. I made a post about that question on my blog and I am curious your thoughts about it. I also linked the interview in my post.

(This is the post in question, for anyone interested. Which I think you probably should be, but... )

My thoughts are mostly that Kodaka's quote/response feels frustratingly uninformative and devoid of any value, but also sadly unsurprising. I know it's just a machine translation, so maybe this isn't capturing the exact nuance of the statement... but the sentence "I didn't specifically intend a social message" is just exactly the kind of vague, wishy-washy, "I really don't want to be in trouble with or offend anyone on any side of any possible argument" language that I've LONG gotten used to in promotional interviews about movies, TV, books, games, etc. Because god forbid you possibly appear to be either for or against anything that might be considered controversial in any possible market! Having STANCES on THINGS could damage your profit margin with some potential demographic.

I suppose this could be all there is to it. Maybe Kodaka legitimately means what he says here and put no greater thought into Halara's lack of gender identity. But I also think it'd be weird if the implications of leaving their gender unknown didn't at least occur to him at some point, particularly as there's been a growing awareness of so-called "X-gender" people in Japan over the last year and a half.

But ultimately, "Master Detective Archives: Rain Code" is Japanese media, and that leaves this kind of question-dodging not only expected, but arguably maybe even necessary. Take a look at the recent of the recent controversy over The Witch From Mercury, the Gundham anime that is over-the-top mega-gay. Bandai Namco still felt the need to declare that the relationship between Suletta and Miorine is "open to interpretation" despite the fact that the two get FUCKED MARRIED.

In fact, this Kotaku article does a good job digging into not only that anime's particular can of worms, but also how queer-friendly media in Japan continues to be suppressed and censored from the dominant conservatives behind the media companies and government even while those works enjoy massive popularity with younger consumers. Get a load of what they say about Yuri! on Ice:

Look no further than the fate of 2016’s smash hit Yuri! On Ice, which tells the tale of a struggling figure skater, Yuri Katsuki, who is coached back to success by the charismatic and undeniably handsome Victor Nikiforov. Similar to The Witch From Mercury, the pair’s relationship is explicitly laid out in the story, and the characters also exchange rings. It was, and still is, celebrated as a landmark anime for LGBTQ+ representation. It received acclaim in Japan, winning Animation of the Year at the Tokyo Anime Awards as well as a number of fan-voted awards. It has consistently been named as one of the top anime of the 2010s by IGN, Anime News Network, and here at Kotaku. In what seemed like an obvious move to capitalize on the success of the show, a feature-length Yuri! On Ice movie was greenlit almost immediately. But six years later, a statement from Studio MAPPA CEO Manabu Otsuka said that despite the show being a hit, the company didn’t make a lot of money off of Yuri! On Ice, and as such, the movie likely won’t happen. Back when Blu-ray sales mattered to the anime industry, Yuri! On Ice torched the competition, selling nearly double the amount of discs of its nearest competitor, the juggernaut franchise Love Live. The runaway success of Yuri! On Ice led to MAPPA’s heightened profile in the industry, which helped it secure the rights to produce Attack on Titan’s never-ending final season, the massively popular Jujutsu Kaisen, and the second season of Makoto Yukimura’s viking masterpiece, Vinland Saga. For MAPPA to claim that the Yuri! On Ice movie isn’t financially viable is disingenuous and contradicts standard industry metrics for success. MAPPA could release the Yuri! On Ice movie tomorrow, and it would be a guaranteed hit. Which begs the question, what is the hold up? It's a reminder that speaking out against the anime production committees that dole out the work to animation studios is a dangerous game. In most of her press for Yuri! On Ice, creator and director Sayo Yamamoto played nice, answering softball questions that never directly addressed the very obvious love playing out on screen between Yuki and Victor. But, in the Yuri! On Ice fanbook “Go Yuri Go!” from 2017, Yamamoto claimed that the series had been censored outside of her control, and she had to fight to keep a kiss between Yuri and Victor in the final cut of the show. Since then, Yamamoto has not gotten any other projects. To have arguably the biggest hit of 2016, receive critical acclaim from your own industry, and then not be given any work? It doesn’t add up. MAPPA has tied Yamamoto to the Yuri! On Ice movie project and essentially strung her out for six years now, leaving her in a kind of professional purgatory. In an industry where the slightest scandal can lead to blacklisting, the idea that Yamamoto is being punished for wanting to go all-in on a queer narrative is not far-fetched.

So. Yeah. This is all a very long way of me saying "I don't know whether what Kodaka said here really tells us much about his intentions/thoughts, nor do I expect we'll ever hear much more on the topic." A lot of Japanese creators have gone the way of just letting the work speak for itself and vaguely denying anything else in public, because it's just safer that way... even if it leaves the rest of us clueless as to where the legit allies are.

Either way, Halara is a pretty awesome representation regardless. I'll just take that as a positive sign.

[lexosaurus]

The Truth to Light: Chapter 2

(oh my goddd this was supposed to be a drabble. why am i writing a three part fic? lexx, stop it, bad lexx)

Side Hoes Week day 2: Wes Weston, Revenge Characters: Wes, Tucker WC: 1494

[chapter one]

[ao3]

****

“What are you gonna do if he loses?” 

Tucker turned around, trying to not let the annoyance show through. One of these days he’d be able to walk by Wes Weston without hearing a comment, but today wasn’t one of those days. Though interestingly, Weston was far less…gloat-y than Tucker thought he would be.

Maybe it was the video. Maybe finally seeing all the horrors on screen was enough to humble him. Maybe the stupid redhead was finally realizing how recklessly he had been acting, trying to expose Danny for the past two years.

But instead of shutting the hell up, Weston had now taken to lurking around and trying to have “secret” conversations with Sam and Tucker. As if he had been in on their trio the whole time.

Hah. As if.

Weston leaned against the brick wall and bit into the apple in his hand. His green eyes were steeled on Tucker, and the determination on his face was reminiscent of a cheesy spy movie. The situation itself was so stereotypical, Tucker would have found it comical a few months ago. But then again, it was hard to find anything humorous lately.

“So?” Weston said through a mouthful of apple. He swallowed, then continued, “You gonna go after the Ghost Investigation Ward?”

Tucker had to refrain from letting out his hundredth exasperated sigh that month from talking to Weston. “And how exactly would I do that?”

Weston, it seemed, had no reservations about letting out a huff himself. He pushed off the brick wall, tossing the bitten apple in his hand. “Foley, I’m not a fucking idiot. I know what your little side hobby is.”

“You honestly don’t know anything about me.”

“Oh, and so I bet that mechanical ghost just happened to hack his own system for a year? And all Technus’ world domination attempts just happened to get shut down by themselves?”

“I’ve heard Phantom was pretty good at his job. Maybe he got a lucky shot.”

Weston rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Because Fenton is known for being such a programming genius.”

Tucker folded his arms over his chest. Play stupid, just play stupid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t?” Weston said lightly through his glaring eyes. He snatched the apple out of the air mid-toss and stalked over to Tucker, jabbing his finger into his chest. This close, Tucker could smell the deodorant Weston had sprayed on his body after basketball practice. “The rest of this school may think it was just Danny, but I know all about your double life too. You can’t fool me. I know you didn’t make the honor roll last year through any real academic merits.”

“Maybe I’m just smarter than you think, Weston.”

“Oh, I know you’re smarter than everyone else thinks. Trust me.” He took a step back and tore out another chunk of the apple. “And I know you played a bigger role in your little secret trio ghost fighting club than anyone knows.”

Tucker glanced around knowing that everyone had left the school property long ago. He would have been long gone too, had he not needed to make up this English exam. But it was worth it. He needed to appear in court for Danny. He had worked too damn hard to get his friend out of that hellhole, and he would never forgive himself if he let school get in the way of this rescue operation now.

With the assurance they were truly alone, he finally dropped his shoulders and hissed, “So what if I did? You gonna go tattle to the government?”

“No…” Weston’s gaze finally flickered away from Tucker. “But I’m just wondering what you’re going to do if he loses the trial.”

“He’s not going to lose.”

“He might.”

“He won’t,” Tucker said. “He can’t. I worked—I—he can’t lose. He can’t.”

Weston’s keen perception and ability to get under Tucker’s skin were all too annoying. “So you’ve already done something, then?”

“Yeah, Weston, it’s called spending weeks trapped in a room with lawyers being hounded by questions about my best friend. The fuck did you think I’ve been up to?”

“As I said, I’m not an idiot. You’re a hacker. What sort of revenge have you been planning?”

God, Tucker could scream. Did this moron actually think that just because he waited for Tucker after school, that suddenly meant all secrets would be revealed? 

They weren’t even friends! They had never been friends! Just because Weston figured out who Danny was, didn’t mean shit!

But he forced his anger back down, he forced that urge to punch Weston in his stupid freckled face down, he forced his shaking fists into his hoodie pockets. “I haven’t planned anything, dumbass. Why would I risk Danny’s freedom like that?”

“Because you know the government is never going to give him up. He’s too powerful. You know this.”

He did know this.

“Judges don’t care what the stupid Guys in White want.”

“They don’t?” Weston said. “Huh, that’s news to me. I didn’t know the US Judicial system was so flawless. Better go correct the history books, then.” He made a big show of biting into his apple, chomping loudly as he said through a muddled jaw, “I guess the government will just have to give up a massive bio-weapon and unlimited source of ecto-energy when some random judge asks them nicely to hand Phantom over. I’m sure it’ll go over well.”

The urge to punch Weston in the face was growing stronger by the second. 

“Whatever, Wes,” Tucker bit out. “If you’re just gonna be a dick, then I’m done talking to you. Unlike you, I actually have things to do. Like, you know, saving my friend’s life.”

“No, come on.” Weston grabbed Tucker’s arm, who didn’t hesitate to rip himself out of Weston’s grip. “Listen, I know you’re planning some sort of revenge against the GIW. Come on, I can help.”

“I’m not planning anything,” Tucker reiterated. Mentally, he noted that it was because he’d already done it by releasing the videos. “And even if I were, I’d never tell you.”

“I can be useful. Admit it, the fact that I figured out who Danny really was two years before anyone else did? That was impressive.”

Tucker snorted. “Sure, and we can forget the part where you stalked us trying to out Danny and sell him to the government. What’s wrong, Weston, feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse?” He whirled back around to face the other boy. “You got your wish, didn’t you? You spent years trying to sell him out to the Guys in White, and guess what? Eventually, they got him! And then the videos came out and it turned out, you were fucking right about Danny being a halfa. Wes was right all fucking along! So congrats, Wes, truly. You got your wish. Now go celebrate with someone else and leave me alone.”

When Weston finally said nothing in return, Tucker let the anger fade. The fists in his pocket uncurled, and the tightness in his neck released. He sighed and toed the patchy grass. “My best friend was kidnapped, dude. I don’t really care about your guilt or whatever it is you’re feeling. I’m just trying to get him back.” His voice cracked at the end, but he didn’t care anymore.

Tucker wasn’t some macho, tough guy. He was just a sixteen-year-old geek who liked to fool around with computer programs and play video games with his friends on the weekend. He didn’t want all…this. 

But he didn’t have a choice.

“Just leave me alone,” Tucker said.

“Foley…listen, I’m sorry, okay? And—and you don’t need to recruit me. But you’re gonna have to think of something. The government’s never going to let Danny go. The videos were good, but they won’t be good enough. This isn’t the first time torture has been uncovered by the federal government.”

Tucker continued staring at the ground. He knew this…he really did…but…

“The public pressure,” he tried.

“It won’t matter.”

Tucker gnawed at his lip. “This isn’t about revenge, Weston.”

“Okay, fine. But you’ll still have to do something. And correct me if I’m wrong, but based on what you’ve already done, I don’t think this will be too challenging for you.” 

Surprise flickered through Tucker, but before he could process what Weston was talking about, the taller teen had already grabbed his backpack and shouldered past him.

“Just think about it, okay?”

And then Weston was strolling to the parking lot, whistling with an ease that suggested nothing but pure innocence. Like he hadn’t just spent the past few minutes conspiring with Tucker.

Leaving Tucker standing there, alone, stunned.

Had Wes really…?

But no. No one knew about that.

Danny would be fine. Tucker had done enough. He had to have. What more could he give? What more could he do to get Danny out of there? 

There was nothing else…right?

Right?

****

chapter 1 / chapter 3

[miseriathome]

Cool stuff that is happening at my work job (hospital)

I have been reporting upwards of 5 nursing units a day for HIPAA violations. There is no end in sight. I literally just copy/paste the event reports now. There are actual physical signs right above the trash cans that say "don't put PHI in the trash" and they still just fucking do it. What the actual shit is wrong with this place.

The hot goss is that a coworker was offered a role she applied for... and then the offer was withdrawn because our shift lead told management that said applicant has lupus and would be unable to perform the functions of the role. This is mega illegal, kids!

This is the same shift lead who argued against me about how women should be allowed to staff the [manual labor position]. I told her it was a Title VII violation, she lied that she would escalate my concern to management, I brought my concern upwards myself, and management agreed with me. Except the shift lead keeps unscheduling women staffs' training and was heard this week saying "I will not be bullied into forcing women to staff [manual labor position]." So I guess we're still doing the gender discrimination thing, huh?

I took a bunch of issues like this to HR four months ago. My associate advocate told me my manager was supposed to follow up with me. Every time I reported back that he still had not spoken with me, she reached back out to him. He still won't follow up with me.

But this same manager won't even show up to regularly recurring meetings that he owns the calendar events for. He will assure people day of that the meeting is still on, then ghost. I already told the HR person that he was unreliable, so idrk what to do at this point. Any time I do talk to him, he just tells me he doesn't know anything about the job I do, then makes excuses for why it's okay for the shift leads to be incompetent as shit.

Anyways, a lead for a different shift tried to bite my head off when I informed him that somebody from his shift didn't do their job and left a mess behind for my shift to clean up. He said "maybe it was me. Go to HR about it." So uhhh... I went to management about it. And they "addressed the behavioral issue" and now he won't acknowledge me when he walks past me. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, dipshit.

My own leads have somehow managed to staff me in my most loathed area for three months straight and I'm fucking mad about it. Even when it makes no sense to move me, I get moved. And it should be noted that this is the area that my leads famously refuse to learn for themselves and notoriously always try to screw over as much as possible. And my manager sure doesn't give a shit that I never get to take my lunch and constantly have to stay over, of course.

I don't think management actually has any power over the leads, though. Management will straight-up say "this is a high-priority, time-sensitive task that needs to be done and these are the people who need to be given the time to do it" and the leads (who make the schedule and endlessly tinker with it so they can pretend they're busy) will simply understaff those specific areas and not schedule the time that management requested. Somehow this is cool and beneficial for the department.

Reasons why I can't quit my job:

I require health insurance to live. I've been averaging 6 medical appointments a month for the past year.

Pure spite. It would be really hard to let me go in a way where I couldn't claim retaliation. Everyone must suffer me continuing to be extremely fucking in-the-right all the time. I am literally exemplary and no one can figure out how to argue that I'm in the wrong, because I'm fucking not. I'm both untouchable and insufferable.

Might give it a few weeks and then start filing (more) government complaints, idk. Pretty sure I'm going insane on a clinical level, so honestly who knows where this is going.

[darlingkara]

Nevermind the loose dirt. It's my 99 cent grocery store plant rescue that I am trying to save via better soil/re-potting and with bread ties, and my little tiny espresso. The stems were brown when I got it, but I don't think she is gonna make it. Taken a few days ago, but seemed like good photo for this post.

I woke up WAY too early. Again. I either stay awake for like 25 hours, and sleep 8, or the usual 16 hours and sleep about 4 hours. I have had 3 sleep lab tests done (albeit years and years ago) when I kept falling asleep. This was before I had this weird habit I have now. I slept normally back then. Diagnosis: Narcolepsy and non-24 hour sleep cycle (Circadian Rhythm Disorder?). I was a bit blown back, to be honest, especially by Narcolepsy. And guess what? The MD had to report it to the DMV, if I did not. If you have a driver's license, it is stated on it AND you have to be medicated while driving. The medicine was Dexedrine, or pretty much @mphetamine. Makes sense-- Can't be falling asleep while driving. I stayed awake, and my depression lifted. Any MD's reading this-- Please consider it for treatment resistant depression. I never felt hyper on it (I felt nothing, tbh) which would of course, lead me to being diagnosed with ADHD*.

So now, I am an unmedicated ADHD and sleep disorder gal of a mess, hahaha. But I am happy, or at least content. I think it has gotten better, or I have learned how to deal with it. I could not do now what I did in my unmedicated 20's-- Full time school, full time job and a kid. Nope. I have ZERO idea how I did it. The narcolepsy mostly went away. I WILL fall asleep at the theatre, so don't bother inviting me, especially in Plague Era that 99% of people refuse to admit still exists. And it is 50/50 in any dark situation, regardless of how well rested I am.

Luckily, I can now work when I want (other than 2 days a month), and do not have to drive. I do have to set an alarm for three days out of the week for class (it is used as a take a shower and get ready alert bc I keep waking up before it, lol), but luckily it isn't early. I LOVED driving, btw, and I loved cars. But as an American, what else are you supposed to do? Tangent, but... I would re-do SO much in the USA if given the chance. Like...Public transport and social housing. These are looked down upon in the US, which makes it seem SOOOOO odd to me now. Plus the whole gun thang. Sorry, but I will never change my mind. The 2nd Amendment was written for MUSKETS. We have drones now. If you feel the need to open carry a weapon of death to the grocery store, there is something wrong with you. Sorry, not sorry.

I am not exactly against hunting (if you do it for food, not sport). When I was about 12, we moved** to a mostly hillbilly area (not making fun of them-- I mostly like them dern hillbillies, and one of my BF'S was one since I was TWELVE... Though I have not been able to find her since 2021 or early 2022. Covid or went Trump, I do not know. I will continue my search. Her having the most generic name in the English speaking world does not help)). And well, my first look at hunting was not pretty. Dead deer legs, sticking out of truck beds. Like, everywhere. People told me this was normal. I literally vomited and remember thinking and saying, out loud at lunch, ''The fuck, this is NOT normal. Throw a TARP over it, for Christ's sake.''

*Btw, girls and women are SO good at hiding ADHD. We are typically not hyper or rowdy. If we are, it is within our safe spaces, with friends. If your sister/mom/gf/wife tends to forget things you have told her, seems unorganized or stressed over little things, gets bitchy before leaving the house with you, look into it first and do not get upset.

**I was not an Army Brat, but my family did move a lot (6 times, to different states), and it was not because of financial instability. Yes, my parents worked for the government, but not in any military way. So--I learned a new term-- TCK-- Third Culture Kid (also applies to adults). We are GREAT at fitting in anywhere, more empathetic, less racist (bc sometimes, even being white, people are racist if you are the minority. Trust me, I know personally, and it was horrible), tend to attend university more (not saying all should).. But of course there is a catch.

We probably have attachment disorders on all sides. I didn't get the overly attachment type, luckily. If anything, I need help attaching. And I do not have ''the itch'' to move. As an adult, I rented the perfect house for me and my minion at the time. Great school district, fenced in (by chicken wire on one side for most of the time) backyard, walkable to the downtown area in 3 mins, and I was allowed to plant a garden and paint, etc. I did have to mow the effing backyard when my weirdo neighbor went away every summer. Fucker never told me when he was leaving, but the grass length did. I lined the fences with gladiolas and ivy and had a gas BBQ and a nice table and umbrella. I would let my kitties out every now and then, but only when I was there-- they could escape if they wanted to. One was a serial killer, not even kidding. A Persian, fluffy, serial killer. I got minion*** a slip and slide, hahahaha... We threw some pretty good backyard parties. All of my neighbors were snobs. Like Harvard asshole snobbery. Anyway, I lived there the longest-- almost 11 years. My landlord wanted to sell it, and it was sold within about a month and a half. THAT SUCKED and was not expected... Thought I had about 5 or 6 months.

I had to go live with my mother, as she lived in the school district minion was in. Worst decision of my life. I love my mother, and she was really a great mother, but something went CRAZY in 2002 and again in 2014, that I am not yet capable of discussing on a public forum. Thinking of substack. Like a $4 a month thing. This is shit that horribly affected my life, and I needed therapy for-- as an adult. Shit that when I think about, even 8 years later, I still tear up. And I am NOT a cryer. As a mother, she was awesome! She told me to avoid beauty magazines, taught me how to plumb and do home repair, said chose your religion when you are an adult if you want to, and sooooo much more. My father was really great, as well. They stayed married for FAR too long. I think I was about 25 when they got divorced, but it was over my mom being selfish with her health insurance and cutting my dad off. He had a disabling heart attack when he was 42, and died in 2007. My mom cutting off his health insurance was fucking brutal.

The dude was ALWAYS on my side. So, I still say hello from time to time to my mother. Most importantly, I talk to minion, but he is busy working and crushing on some girl, his best friend's girl. They work together and he hates his job. He is waiting for her to give the okay for them to both leave and work somewhere else. I said DO NOT WAIT FOR ANYONE--- EVER!!! He sent me a pic of her and said that sometimes she drinks too much and gets sexual. I was like OMG.

She looks like me and that is what I did when I was younger. Freud, are you out there? It's me, Kara.

And I have lived here the second longest.

And I want to die and be buried here. Every year, there is a free concert, ranging from classical music to rock music, held at the cemetery.

5-30K people can come listen to music, drink a bit, dance, and have fun. That the cemetery I would like to be buried in.

If that is morbid to you, you are not invited. :)

***Minion is now an adult. I am not worried about his financial future (everyone born after The Boomers got fucked, let's be honest)because luckily, I am a Black Sheep, and he will get my inheritance. Good for him! Since I am 34-99 years old (haha), I will not tell you how old he is. Yes, I was married and he was planned. I was TOO young-- but when your spouse made $80k a year in the early 2000s, you figure, nice, I will just raise minion, and then finish school. That did not happen the way I had it planned. The ex husband is still wealthy and lucky, and it pisses me off. If you knew the full story, you would understand. Let's just say that one brutal character mentioned in today's blog had a lot to do with it, including my parent's divorce. I swear it is not some Jerry Springer shit, and they did NOT bang, and luckily, my father and I were together when we found ''the letters''. The Brutal one would end up doing MUCH worse things than having feelings for her daughter's husband, and yeah-- it is personal.

Life is 50% unplannable. I do believe in luck, and I do believe in you get what you give, although I LOATHE woo woo pseudoscience bullshit.

I will NOT be camming tonight. My theatre thing begins tonight. It is only once a month. Last week, I couldn't have a schedule because I still have periods, which are very predictable, but this every 18 days shit is a bit new. Usually its every 25 days, abnormal is under 23 days in between periods. Went to the dr, had hormone levels taken. Good news-- I am NOT an alien. Bad news is that the tests prove pretty much nothing. I am having about 5 more periods a year than normal-- so about half the year. Great. Of course I now have to a dailytake high-ish dose iron supplements. I believe I have peri or pre-menopause which literally NO ONE talks about, yet it affects HALF of the population. And pre or peri-menopause is WORSE than menopause. Menopause is easy street, so I have learned. Some days I am nice and patient, other days I want to bite your face off. Sometimes I am horny, sometimes I seem asexual. When my roommate/ex bf of like 12 years (No, we do not bang and maybe once a month I fall asleep in his room watching a movie), DARES to shut MY room's window or turn off MY fan, especially if I am sleeping and wake up hot, I am literally thinking:

''I could kill you, and if half the jurors were women 35+, it would be an excusable homicide.'' I am not a violent person at all, btw, in any way or sense. I am learning as I go along. Surprise, surprise, there is not a whole lot of research on it. Reddit's Menopause has been a Godsend.

In the one racist area I lived in, I was ''jumped'' by 3 or 4 girls who basically PLAN attacked me, outta the blue. I won. All almost 5 feet of me. I learned about adrenaline and JFC, I get strong and mean if I think I am gonna die. I kicked dirt into their eyes and kicked their throats. How fucked up is that? I was maybe 11 years old. I did not and do not know how to fight. Is is something instinctual? I have no idea and too many research topics as it is. All I knew was that there were three of them, one of me, and they were larger and taller than I was.

Anyway, off to shower and go to my classes. Idk if I will cam after the theatre or not.

And you would not believe what I found when I took out the garbage, shortly after writing this (within the hour). It is not a popular name here, afaik. I will post it on Twitter @DarlingKara.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

i had a crazy idea. you know how people make 'sonas for various fandsoms? like a lotr or star wars character? what if you had to make a napoleonic 'sona like a marshalsona or something

Oh man, I guess I don't operate in that corner of the fandoms I'm in so I've never come across that. I associate 'sonas with fursona and other sex-play related things, not fandom. I also personally don't do self-inserts, they're just not to my taste or my style.

If I had to create a self-insert (I think that's what this would qualify as?) for the Napoleonic world I'd 100% just be a long suffering, over-worked civil servant (...which is what I am in real life) OR I'd be a scheming diplomat. So, a Berthier or a Cambeceres or a Talleyrand. Something in that ballpark.

Hmm, probably scheming diplomat or spy. Since that sounds fun.

I'm not terribly into military things (perhaps a surprise?) so being a marshal or a soldier holds no appeal.

Since my character would operate rather high up in the Napoleonic governance structure, they'd have to be damn good at their job because Napoleon didn't suffer fools. I like to think they'd have a bit of Larrey or Lannes' guts in terms of telling Napoleon facts as they are and confronting him when he is making massive, fucking mistakes. Which as the empire continued on, he made more of and was less receptive to critique.

For sure my character would be buddies with Talleyrand and would have an ongoing letter-friendship(?) with Metternich. They'd hang out with Fouche just to get the gossip on everyone but since we all know Fouche is a snake, they wouldn't trust him an inch.

The more I think about it, the more I'm here for them being a spy or agent of some kind who isup to no good, but on behalf of the Empire. An Antonio Cincinello sort of figure (he was a ruthless diplomat/envoy/spy who worked on behalf of king Ferrante of Naples [yes, the one with the museum of mummies of his enemies]). Hopefully my character won't be hacked to death by an angry mob, unlike Cincinello.

So, a mash-up of Thomas Cromwell, Talleyrand, and Cincinello.

My character and Talleyrand would have wine-and-whine sessions where we bitch about people, mostly the Bonapartes and all the crap we put up with from them and on their behalf.

My character does know some of Talleyrand's less-than-loyal-to-Napoleon's schemes but doesn't tell but they're not some godless narc.

Talleyrand: you can't tell a soul.

My character: I'm offended that you think I'm a snitch, honestly.

Appearance I suppose would be unassuming. Nothing to write home about. Um, yeah, I don't know what I'd go for in terms of appearance. Since this is aself-insert do they have to look like me? Just make me a dude, then. Which means I'd look like my father lol. If I get to choose my appearance uhh brown or black hair? Long features, big eyes, ummmm I don' t know man. Average. lol.

I'm sorry if this isn't the right way to answer this! I've never done this before and haven't really seen this sort of thing, again, outside of sexual fantasy situations! Or fursonas, which runs the gamot from pedestrian to very sexual.

Thank you for the ask! <3 <3

[jacksprostate]

Considering the vast majority of the analysis involved condemning psychiatric medicine, I'm not certain how you loved or mostly agreed with it.

Your thing about sleeping pills entirely ignores what I was saying; the insomnia is a symptom of his larger problem, not the driver of it. You're positioning the development of Tyler as a psychotic break resulting from him lacking sleep. Ergo, if he's forced to sleep, Tyler wouldn't've happened. However, the whole point of my above analysis is that the insomnia is merely a symptom of the rotting core of his issues. Tyler Durden syndrome isn't real; there's no more reason to believe forcing him to rest would have changed the development of Tyler, especially considering the narrator gets varying amounts of sleep throughout the book with no change to the development of Tyler.

Being forcibly drugged into getting sleep wouldn't've magically changed everything he knew. Changing his job wouldn't've changed everything he knew. He could have left his job. But as I said before, he cannot unlearn what he knows. Insomnia meds would not have changed that he felt radically isolated from pretty much everyone specifically on the basis of being very aware of insidious corruption in the overarching sphere of 'things that are supposed to protect people.' Simply saying, oh he could make friends and get involved in community activism! Ignores exactly how in depth these things are. This is the scale of things where it is very hard to get involved with small scale activism because you're deeply and unwillingly aware of who actually holds power and exactly how easily they get away with it. I am not saying that the hopeless implosion is correct, in fact I argue Fight Club is a story about how that's not the right answer, but it is callous in my opinion to take such a degree of isolated anguish and simply go 'oh join a random community activism thing!'

How would community activism solve the fact that he knows all the major car companies are allowed to get away with murdering people? That if they're allowed to get away with it, this means the government is fine with allowing it so these companies can continue to profit? Knowing that if the car companies are allowed to do this, certainly other companies, pharmaceutical, air, war, are allowed to do this? Do you think it is easy to ball this up and decide campaigning is an acceptable bandaid? Do you think it is? Drawn from later in your post; 'Citizen's Collective for Change'; what the fuck is the immediate impact you think they're making?

I'm not saying community work isn't important. I actually think it's one of the most important things one can do, and is the solution to feeling like the deep corruption is insurmountable. Personally, I'm orienting my entire career towards serving my local community. Specifically in providing necessary services. Because that's a difference as well. Community activism, citizens for change, are you just shouting about things? Or are you actually doing something? Because the whole point is the narrator needs to do something. He has already tried telling people and all it results in is, as I said in my post, him getting dismissed as individually crazy since it's easier to do so than to accept the truth. He is pushed into creating Fight Cluba and Tyler and everything specifically because it is an avenue of doing something with specific impact.

Regardless, back to the psychiatric medications thing. Despite saying you like my analysis or whatever you decided you needed to explain the old broken inaccurate analogy of psychiatric medication and broken bones. Thanks, really. Obviously, anyone who critiques psychiatric medicine just doesn't understand the concept of numbing an issue to give it time to heal. Silly me. Do you realize that this is insulting? I've been on psychiatric medications. I know many people who have been on psychiatric medications. I know people who swear it was needed and I know people who hate that they were ever brought into their life.

Saying psychiatric medication is like a cough suppressant ignores the absolute laundry list of horrific side effects and dependencies it creates. Cough suppressants also usually have a specific and well documented mechanism of action. (Though, as an aside, their effectiveness has actually been put into question, especially in children, so fuck me lol! Nothing is sacred!) Psychiatric medications, especially antipsychotics, produce chemically induced suicidality (which trust me, feels a LOT different to norm), involuntary movement disorders (neurological damage), metabolic syndrome, memory loss; I'm sure you'll just say I'm drawing from the worst of it but I'm not. These things are well documented and considered acceptable risks because the mentally ill have little rights to refuse medication. Akathisia, for example, which is considered somewhat mild of a side effect, literally makes people want to kill themselves due to the experience of it. Antipsychotics have huge discontinuation rates because of how fucking bad it is to be on them. If you think they give space to deal with problems, you're ignoring a hell of a lot of the experience of being on them. Even more 'benign' treatments can massively screw with someone's ability to regulate their own chemical balance, as evidenced by the fact that it can be catastrophic to go off the meds, even for something as widely prescribed as Prozac. Is that space to cope? Does that actually help people, if the drug leaves them in a muted, stagnated state, and whenever they try to leave it, they experience withdrawl?

I know I won't convince you since you read my entire first post and thought 'oh I agree except for literally everything' but come on.

Again, you position the development of his weird Tyler Durden syndrome as purely due to his insomnia, which I disagree with for the reasons I've already stated. A copy of Stone Butch Blues ain't doing shit for a man, christ. Not that it's any better for women. Fucking hate that book <3 I know it's become a popular pick for people who feel very nouveau but alas it's actually hilariously insulting if you're a butch who doesn't think that means she can be a colossal dick to everyone around her. Still don't get why you brought it up for the narrator of Fight Club but you do you I guess. Fucking, benzos and a copy of Stone Butch Blues. Do you hear yourself. You do not agree with me.

I agree with forming community and collective action. Ironically, that's what he DOES do. That is literally what Fight Club is. The whole point is that those things alone are not a miracle, they still need to be oriented properly.

And again! Oh my god! Obviously, you do NOT know how the sausage gets made, because if you really did, if you really had an experience that left you with something so horribly huge and nebulous that everyone treats you like you're crazy because the alternative where you are being honest is too horrifying to consider, you would be very aware that NO, most people definitely are unaware of these things. Like, holy. Come talk to me when your friends all drop you for being honest about experiencing medical malpractice or something. When your boss tries to give you a pay raise so you ignore how you're being used to rubberstamp the opposite of the safety or protection your job is supposed to serve. When you actually have your life fall apart for a while because you learned something no one wants to talk about.

Of course his issue is he's decided the beast is too sick and needs to be put down instead of changed for the better. That's what the book is about. But you're putting the cart before the horse. He already felt it was unbeatable. That's why he can't sleep.

Forming a community and doing collective action. To do what, bud? What should he be doing instead? I agree, community and collective action. But he's not finding solace in fucking marches and leaflets. Most people aren't. Hence why the vast majority of people feel detached from politics and like it's all a puppet show.

He's not going to the support groups because he knows he needs support and he's subconsciously gravitating and he just didn't know he needed to go to the Green Leaf Peace Brigade. He's going to the support groups because it's the only place where if he acts like everything is dying, people don't dismiss him. They let him feel like he's dying. Because then he's acceptably isolated as the problem.

Again, I do think community and collective action is the answer. But you can't just say that and end it there like it's some novel insight. Those things are literally what he develops via Fight Club. He wants action. And I can't take you seriously when you proclaim community and collective action to be the answer but turn and call the dudes in Fight Club sheeple for falling for a political suicide cult. How fucking insulting to the fact that it's portraying how deeply lost and hopeless these people feel, lol. Do I think their crimes should be ignored or whatever? No. But I'll give the pain that makes Fight Club seem like a good alternative to life the respect it should have.

The narrator feels isolated about having discovered a lot of corruption in society because he IS. It is heavily established in the book that literally everyone dismisses him. But congrats on finding a new way to do so by literally saying it's just a personality flaw and not a product of his stated experience being constantly rejected and ignored and speared on his own stake!

Anyway. I will do you the courtesy of not lying: I very strongly agree with your analysis, as is evident in my response. I'd love if you were honest next time instead of pretending our positions are not literally diametrically opposed. I agree collective action is the answer, but I think you're blind to how dismissive you are and consider yourself more knowledgeable than you are. Additionally, your final line acts like there's no disabled or chronically ill people who disagree with your view here lol. You might want to take a step back on that.

Treatise on why No, the doctor just giving the narrator of Fight Club (full name) his requested sleep medication or sending him to therapy would not have Fixed Him

Firstly, saying giving him the insomnia meds would’ve fixed him ignores the reason he has insomnia in the first place. He is so deeply upset by his place in society that he literally cannot sleep. Drugging him to sleep would not change that. That, of course, is the easy, quick response.

But with regard to therapy? The biggest flaw is that it ignores a central tenet of the book. Part of what tortures the narrator and drives him to invent Tyler is that his feelings about this collective, systemic issue are constantly reduced to a Just Him thing. His seatmates ask what his company is. He’s the only one upset at the office. He gets weird looks if he says the truth of what he does. People will do anything in their power to pretend he is the issue, as an individual, because it is far scarier to consider the full implications of the systemic issues implied by what he is saying. Everyone treats it as if the issue is him, so he goes insane. He does anything to get someone to say, holy shit, that’s fucked up, what you’re a part of is wrong. In an attempt to feel any sort of vague sympathy and catharsis, he goes to support groups to pretend to be dying, because then at least people don’t habitually blame him for his anguish. 

Saying therapy would fix him ignores that his problems are not individual. They are collective. It’s the reason the entire story resonates with people! Something deeply, unignorably wrong with society, where people would rather blame you for bringing it up than try and address it, because it feels impossible. I don’t blame people for this, really, because it IS scary. It’s terrifying to sit and feel like you’ve realized there’s something deeply, deeply wrong, but if you say something, people will get mad at you since it’s so baked into everything around you. Or, even if they agree, it’s easier to deal with the dissonance by pretending it’s individual.

And it’s not like that’s not the purpose therapy and medications largely serve, anyway. Getting into dangerous territory for this website, but ultimately, the reason the narrator was seeking medication was because it’s a bandaid. A very numbing bandaid. For these very large, dissonance causing problems, therapy does very little. Medications do what they always have, and distract you with numbness or side effects. It’s a false solution. He is seeking an individualized false solution because he has been browbeaten with the idea that this is an issue with him alone, when it's plainly clear it's not. 

Don't get me wrong. Obviously he has something wrong with him. But it's a product of his situation. It is a fictional exaggeration of a very real occurrence of mental illness provoked by deep unconscionable dissonance and anguish.  There is a clear correlation between what happens and his mental state and his job and how isolated he is. 

The thing is, even if he were chemically numbed, I do think he would’ve lost it regardless. Many people on meds find they don’t fix things. For reasons I’ll get into, but in this case because even if numbed or distracted, once you’ve learned about deep, far reaching corruption in society, it’s very hard to forget. Especially if, in his case, you literally serve as the acting hand of this particular variety. He’s crawling up the walls. 

So why do people say this?  Well, it's funny I guess. Maybe the first time or whatever. But also, often, they believe it, to a degree. Maybe they've just been told how effective therapy and meds are for mental illness, they believe wholeheartedly in The Disease Model of Mental Illness, maybe they themselves have engaged with either and have considered it successful. Maybe they or someone they know has been 'saved' by such treatments. 

But in all honesty.... What therapy can help with is mentality, it's how you approach problems. For issues on a smaller scale, not meaning they are easier to deal with my any degree, but ones that are not raw and direct from deep awareness of corruption; these are things that can be worked through if you get lucky and get an actually good therapist who helps build up your resiliency. But when your issue is concrete, something large and inescapable? It's useless. At best it can help you develop coping mechanisms, but there is a limit for that. There is a point where that fails. To develop the ability to handle something like this requires intense development of a comfort with ambiguity and dissonance and being isolated and a firm positioning of your purpose and values and and belief in wonder and all the other shit I ramble about. The things that the narrator lacks, which lead him to taking an ineffectual death knell anarchist self-destruction path. Therapy, where the narrator is, full of the knowledge of braces melted to seats and all the people that have to allow this to happen? It fails. 

And meds — meds are a fucking scam. We know the working mechanism of basically none of them, the serotonin receptor model was made up and paid its way into prominence. We have very little evidence they're any better than placebo, and they come with genuinely horrific side effects. Maybe you got lucky. I did, on some meds. On others? I don't remember 2018. The pharmaceutical industry is also known for rampant medical ghostwriting, and for creating 'off-label' uses for drugs that have gained too many protests in their original use, then creating a cult of use to then have 'grassroots' campaigns for it to be made a label use (ie, legitimize their ghostwritten articles with guided anecdotes). 

The DSM itself is basically a marketing segregation plot. It's an attempt to legitimize the disease model by isolating subgroups of symptoms to propose individualized treatments for subgroups that are not necessarily all that separate. But if the groups exist, you can prescribe more and different medications, no? Not to mention, if you use the disease model, you can propose that these diseases are permanent, or permanent until treated, considered more and more severe to offset and justify the horrific side effects of the medications. Do you know why male birth control doesn't really exist? Same reason. They can justify all the horrible side effects for women, because the other option is pregnancy. For men, it's nothing. 

And they're not bothering to invent new drugs without side effects. When they invent new drugs it's just because the last one got too bad of a name, or they can enter a new market. Modern drugs don't work any better than gen1 drugs. They still have horrific side effects. At best, the industry will shit out studies saying the old one was flawed (truth) so they can say this new gen will be better (lie). They're doing it with ssris right now. 

Fundamentally, the single proposed benefit of any of these drugs is that they numb you. To whatever is torturing you. It's harder to be depressed if you can't feel it, or if you just can't muster the same outrage. Of course, there is people who find that numbness to be helpful, or worth it. But often, it's stasis. For the people who have problems that can be worked on, it serves as a stopgap to not actually work on said problems. The natural outcome of the disease model is stagnation for those whose need is to develop skills and resiliency. It keeps them medicalized and dependent on the idea that they're diseased and incapable. Profitable. Stuck in the womb. 

I’ve been there. It’s easier, to wallow, and resist growth because it’s difficult and painful and unfair and cruel and you can think of five billion reasons to justify your languishing. But don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re just permanently damaged, no matter how nicely they word it, no identity or novel pathologization, no matter how many benefits they promise, especially if they swear up and down some lovely expensive medications with little solid backing and plentiful off-label usage and side effects that’ll kill you. Some days it feels like they want us all stuck in pods, agoraphobic and addicted to the ads they feed us to isolate the markets for the drugs they’ve trained us to beg them to pump us with. Polarization making it as easy as flashing blue light for go, red like for stop, or vice versa. I worry about the kids, for fucks sake. That’s a bit dark and intense, and I apologize. But I want you (generic) to understand, there is a profit motive. Behind everything. And they do not mean well. They do not care about your mental health or your rights or your personhood or your growth. They care about how they can profit off of you.

For those struggling with immovable, society problems, like the narrator grappling with how his job fits into and is accepted by society while his rejection and horror in the face of it does not, it can work about as well as any other drug addiction. Your mileage may vary. From what I've seen, recovering from being on prozac for a long time can be worse than alcohol. They put kids on this shit. They keep campaigning for more. Off label, again. A pharmaceutical company’s favorite thing to do has to be to spread rumors of someone who knows someone who said an off label use of this drug helps with this little understood condition. Or, in the case of mental illness, questionably defined condition. And like, damn, I know I'm posting on the 'medicalization is my identity' website so no one will like all this and has probably stopped reading by now, but yall should be exposed to at least one person who doubts this stuff. Doesn't just trust it. Because I mean, that's the thing right?

It's so big. What would it mean, for this all to be true? Yeah, everyone says pharmaceutical companies are evil and predatory and ghostwriting, but to think about what that really entails. Coming back to the book, everyone knows the car lobby is huge and puts dangerous vehicles through that kill people. What does it mean if the car companies all hire people to calculate the cost of a recall and the cost of lawsuits? No one wants to think about the scale that means for people allowing it or the systems that have to be geared towards money, not safety like they say. Hell, even Chuck misses the beat and has the narrator threaten his boss with the Department of Transportation. And shit, man, if every company is doing this, you think Transportation doesn't know? That they give a fuck? You're better off mailing all the evidence to the news outlets and hoping they only character assassinate you a little bit as they release the news in a way that says it's all the fault of little workers like you, not the whole system. Something something, David McBride, any whistleblower you feel like, etc. 

So I don't blame you, if your reaction is "but but but, that can't be right, people wouldn't do it, they wouldn't allow it" or just an overwhelming feeling of dread that pushes you to deny all of this and avoid thinking about it. Just know, that's in the book. That's all the seatmates on the flights. That's all his fellow officemates. It's easier to pretend, I know.

But think about, how the response fits in with the themes of the book. The story, as a movie too. What drives the narrator’s mental breakdown? How would you handle being in his position? How would you handle being his seatmate? It’s easy to say you’d listen. But have you? Have you had any soul wrenching betrayals of how you thought society worked? How about a betrayal by the thing that promised to be the fix of the first? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t follow that gut instinct, saying follow what everyone says, that person must just be crazy, evil, rude, cruel, whatever it is that means you can set what they said aside?

For a lot of people, they can do that, I guess. Set it aside. Reaching that aforementioned state of managing to cope with the dissonance and ambiguity and despair is very hard. The narrator made the Big Realization, but he couldn’t cope. He self-destructed. Even when people don’t make the big realization consciously, they’re already self-destructing. It’s hard to escape it when it feels easier than continuing anyway. When it feels like the only option,

Would therapy fix the narrator of Fight Club? Would meds fix the narrator of Fight Club? No. He knows too much. All meds will do, by the time he’s in the psych ward, is spiritually neuter him. A silly phrase, but really. Take the wind out of his sails. 

Is he fixed if he doesn’t try to blow up town? If he just shuts up and settles in and stops costing money? If he still can’t cope with the things he’s unearthed? Do you see how this is a commentary in a commentary in a commentary?

Fight Club is an absolutely fascinating story because of this. The fact that it addresses the fallout of knowing. The isolation. The hopelessness. The spiral that results from a lack of hope. This is, I think, what resonates most with people, even if not consciously. Going insane because you’ve discovered something you wish you could unknow. It’s a classic horror story. Should our society be lovecraftian evil? I don’t think so. 

Do I think changing it will be easy? No. Lord knows a lot exists to push people who make these sorts of Realizations towards feelings of individuality and individualized solutions and denial and other distractions and coping methods. And to prevent people who make One realization from expanding on it and considering further ramifications. Fight Club itself gets into this; the isolation of men being a strict part of the role society shapes for their sex leaves them very vulnerable to death fetishes, in a sense, and generally towards self destructive violence. It helps funnel them away from substantial change and towards ineffectual change. Many things, misogyny, racism, serve to keep people isolated from one another, individualized, angry, and impossible to work with. Market segregation; god knows even appealing on those fronts has become such a classic ploy that companies do it now, the US military frames its plundering that way, etc. 

I’ve wandered a bit but ultimately, my point is this: Fight Club is a love letter to the horrors of critical thinking, and the importance of not falling into the trap of self destruction and hopelessness in the face of it. The latter is why Tyler was an anarchoterrorist instead of anything useful. The latter is why it was a death cult. It’s important to work through the horrors of critical thinking so you can do it, and stand on the other side ready to believe in each other. It’s worth it.

[shurisneakers]

shut in [14]

Summary: When your high profile mission goes terribly wrong, you’re forced to hide in a safehouse with a man you’ve never met before. With seemingly nowhere else to go, you’re forced to work together to figure out who is trying to have you assassinated before it’s too late. (Sam Wilson x Reader, Hitman AU)

Warnings: anxiety, violence, guns, death, ptsd, swearing, abuse

Word count: 6.3k

A/N: last chapter you guys :’’’’) im too emo about a fanfic i s2g. there’s an epilogue but this is the official last chapter. 

i really appreciate feedback so if you would like to, please consider dropping me an ask or comment ly guys!

Previous Part || Shut In Masterlist

You had only heard of the warehouse before, never actually seen it.

Its reputation preceded it. It was only mentioned in passing as a place for the worst of the worst.

It was murky and smelled like rust, concrete and rotting corpses. You had no doubt a few of them would be littering the place. A few tube lights shone over you graciously like a spotlight, barely illuminating the area. 

The room you were in was utterly silent. The only exception were noises outside the door; loud shouts and clanging of metal. You assumed it to be people in the other rooms. Your assessment on how tight the ropes were coiled around you earned a few grunts and odd squeaks, but nothing major. 

You were bound to a chair, of course, with knots you had used before on others. It felt like a convoluted form of irony. It was firmly nailed to the ground to prevent you from using it against captors. You were gagged; pretty well, by the look of it. 

A noise from beside you threw you off track. A quick look to your left and you found Sam in a similar predicament. He shook his head slightly, implying that it was useless to find an opening. At least he was alive and breathing. 

“Are you done?” A voice came from behind you, echoing within the four walls. “I really want to get going and you’re taking too long.”

You knew who it was. It was impossible for you to mistake it at this point.

“Don’t mind the noise outside. We’re just torturing a bunch of people to death.”

You roll your eyes out of sheer instinct. The footsteps slowly moved towards the front of the room, heavy and deliberate. The expensive material of his suit shone under the light as he edged in front of you. Only he’d wear Armani to a murder.

The dramatic fuck clearly rehearsed it.

“Hey Buttercup,” Ransone smiled, distinctly proud of himself. Your bite on the bundle of cloth haphazardly shoved in your mouth tightened. “Been waitin’ on you for a while now. Wilson’s no good company.”

You sneak a glance at Sam’s side profile and he looks relatively untouched. There were a few cuts on his face that you could make out under the harsh light but that was it. 

“You can’t get out of those, if you're wondering.” He gestured to your current set up. “I told you, Sam. I save my warehouse for special guests. All your fun tools are gone. Took ‘em when you were brought in.”

As your eyes adjusted to the lighting, you faintly make out the presence of two men in the corners of the room, stiff as cardboard. His security. 

“Oh! Except this.” He brandished the paper airplane you had brought with you in the utility belt. He’d use anything to potentially get a rise out of you.

“Gettin’ sentimental now, are we?” He tested the tip of the plane with his finger. 

You prayed he wouldn’t destroy it. It had more value than he was willing to bet on. 

“You must be asking yourselves why you ended up here,” Ransone mused, looking at the plane from all angles. “No need to worry, I’ll tell you.”

You didn't expect anything less from him. Everything about this felt cinematic; the inconvenient lighting, the men standing in the corner. This man oozed drama over efficiency. 

“When I was just starting out, people warned me. Told me I wasn’t going to get anywhere, that we’d always stay in the same position because that’s how it’s been for all these years.” He tested the plane, holding onto the body sturdily.  

“There were too many big names already. We were one of them, of course. My father did a good job of giving us a solid foundation.” He pulled his wrist back like he was going to launch it, only to never actually do it. He carried it through the air, simulating its flight pattern.

“You remember my father, don’t you? The guy who cut off someone’s finger because they didn’t finish the job.” Ransone really only had one story to tell about his father and he worked it to death. Other than a few handful of times, his father never bothered about his presence much from what you heard. He favoured the ones who were brutal and Ransone- well, he was a glorified theatre kid. 

“Of course you do. He was an incredible man.” He laughed crisply. “But he had no real ambition. No drive. I told him we could have been at the top, the ones parents warn their kids about. He didn’t listen to me. He never really paid attention.”

His tone got wistful in the end, eyes distant like he was living the scene out in his head. 

“So obviously when he died, I had the chance to really make a difference. Really set us apart. Ten Rings and Hydra had their own niche; they had some ties with the military and the government and whatnot. Crazy motherfuckers, all of them.” He shook his dead in distaste. “But Serpentine- that was closer to home. Same market as us.”

You wondered how long he would take to get to the point. The only distraction you had were the noises that continued outside. An odd gunshot here and there really pulled your attention away from the story.

“Serpentine with their stupid code names. They really thought they were all that.” He sounded embarrassingly like a bitchy teenager. “Who do they think they were fooling with the Norse Gods thing, huh? Naming your leader Odin, his wife Frigga.”

“I fucking hated them,” he spat, face twisting into anger. “Told them to watch out, that I’d end their legacy. They laughed in my face.” 

He spun around, a wicked gleam in his eyes as he pointed to Sam, “That’s where you come in.”

Sam looked thoroughly irritated with the show that was going on in front of him. If he wasn’t gagged you had no doubt he’d have a few comments to pass. Ones that would get the both of you killed. 

“I told you to kill their leader. One job. You fucked that up.” Sam recalling the story of his first mission flashed in your memory. “Let that old nutjob into your head and allowed him to escape. We didn’t know where he was for years.”

“I let it go because I thought Serpentine was done for. Radio silence after Odin disappeared. And they were, until a few years ago when I get news that they have a new leader. Odin’s son, the new heir.” He waved around his hands, mocking the last part of his sentence. “Word on the street was that he wanted to kill whoever murdered his mother in front of his eyes.”

“I thought that was hilarious. You know why?” He laughed humourlessly. “Because that was you. You were the one who killed his mother. You remember that? Your big mission?”

“You killed my mom,” he jeered, unmoving.

“I’m sorry. I had to.” Your voice was quiet. Your hand clutched at the hood of the car to keep your balance. “But I don’t want to hurt you. Go.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be there. No one had even heard of him. His brother’s too soft to take on anything like this. He’s some farmer in England now. But he was supposed to be Odin’s only son. Yet somehow, the only person who could have known this other son existed and actually seen him… was you.”

“Turns out he’s like you. A secret adoption. No record of him anywhere.” You didn’t blink, not once taking your eyes off him in case he decided to go wild. “He should have died that day. You were supposed to kill them.”

Only Ransone would justify killing a kid because it fit his agenda. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before, and though he tried very hard to shove his ideology onto you, you never complied.

“Goes by Loki now, another stupid codename. Trained by his father who this idiot let go of.” He gestured to Sam callously, “and mad about the murder of his mother that you committed. Serpentine came back pretty quickly after he took control.”

A particularly loud sound of metal slamming would have made you jump had you not been tied down. Ransone swung around in anger, loudly cursing at them for ruining his train of thought. He muttered some more curses under his breath before plastering a fake smile on his face and continuing.

“I’ll admit, he’s a sneaky one. But they grew faster than any other cartel. They somehow knew all our connections, all our targets, our key players. It wasn’t possible,” he shook his head low as he paced up and down slowly. You knew where this was headed. “Unless we had someone giving them information from the inside.”

He stops to look at you.

“I would have forgiven you, Y/N, I really would. You know how I am about second chances.” He looked at you, eyebrows upturned with regretful eyes. “But then you had to go and spy on me for two years.”

You could see Sam turn to you from the corner of your eye, assessing your reaction. You didn't extend the same courtesy to him. You didn’t have any reaction.

“We found out very late, of course. I taught you well,” he chided, his inescapable  narcissism making an appearance once more. “But then we had to figure out why. Why you’d betray me and everything I’ve done for you.”

“I still can’t figure that out.” You wanted to scream at him, everything he had taken away from you, everything he forced you to be. “I treated you the best out of everyone I had. You had the best training, the best resources. You wouldn’t have made it anywhere if I didn’t drag you out of that shithole orphanage.”

You had heard of blissfully ignorant, but he was well beyond that at this point. 

“Didn’t take too long to connect the dots. What, with Wilson’s great act of charity and your lack of better judgement, both of you managed to fuck up enough to screw me over years later.”

“I initially was only going to have you killed, Buttercup,” he admitted nonchalantly, like your life had no value. “But then we found out that Sam’s been lying to me for a long time too. Been hidin’ his friend a few states away.”

“It was meant to be,” he cooed. “Such a similar past. You could have met each other before, you know? Pierce wouldn’t be the first time you were at the same house on the same day.”

You couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if you had known Sam earlier. Would you have been friends or would you have been forced to kill each other in his sick ‘survival of the fittest’ game?

“It felt poetic to have you both die together, you know? On a mission gone wrong. A full circle.” God, he spent too long planning something elaborate when he could have just put a bullet in your head and ended you the day he found out. Fucking weirdo.

“Made sure I sent you to the same place at the same time. Pierce was dead long before you came, the poor fuck. But then again, collateral damage. No mercy.” He shrugged. “Had everyone at the ready. You should have died that night.”

“But like everything you do,” his voice suddenly rose like a child throwing a tantrum, “you fucked that up for me too. Escaped with his stupid fucking car.”

“None of those useless agents could find you. How could they?” The beauty was that Ransone must have spent too long looking when you were basically right there, just miles away. “You didn’t go to one of our locations and Serpentine hides their safehouses well.”

You still remembered the relief when the door accepted your fingerprint. 

 It was a long shot but you didn't have anywhere else to go. You weren’t even sure that this house existed.

Another loud crash arrived from the outside with noises that sounded like more gunshots, making Ransone jump this time. Just how many people were being tortured here?

“Keep the volume down, you stupid fucking imbeciles!” he screeched, pounding at the metal door. The decibel reduced, but still continued on.  

He dragged his palm across his face in exasperation, talking under his breath to himself. He shook his head before turning back to you.

"Oh, by the way, don't think about escaping. Got every last one of my best agents out here after that stunt you pulled at Pierce’s house,” he says offhandedly.

He takes a second to regroup, get back into character.

“So we released your pictures to the public. Can’t go very far if people are looking for you constantly. It was the only way we could get you to stay in one place.” Ransone raised his shoulders casually. “We had every lowlife out there waiting for one of you to show up.”

“We eventually had someone report Wilson in a town a while away from Pierce. I was making my way there but then you sent me your location on your own. Had men outside your house that night.” He paused, peering at the plane in his hand.

He finally let it go, watching as it barely went any distance before nose diving to the ground. Your eyes trailed after it, hoping he wouldn’t crush it with his foot.

“This is the worst fucking paper plane I’ve ever seen. The balance is completely off.” He stared at it in wonder, picking it up again and shoving it back into his pocket. You let out a breath you didn’t realise you were holding. “Anyway one of them heard you talkin’ about how you’re leaving the next day so we just got ready at the door.”

“Et voila.” He grinned, spreading his arms. “Here we are. Brilliant, wasn’t it?”

Unnecessarily long, but you weren’t going to complain. 

“Oh, I forgot you can’t talk.” His mouth quirked downwards into a ‘whoops’. 

He took a long pause right in front of you before his hand reached out to cradle your face. “I wouldn’t let those idiots kill you, Buttercup. You deserved better than that.”

He stared unnervingly into your eyes, looking for a hint of anything, any sort of remorse. He wasn’t going to find any. You wished he saw nothing but hatred. 

“It’s why I had to kill you myself.” He sighed when you pulled your face away the best you could from his palm in disgust. “But I’ll do you a solid. I’ll give you a chance to beg for forgiveness. Maybe if you’re good enough I’ll let you go.”

You knew he was lying. He had no intention of doing that. He only wanted you to grovel in submission, plead for your life for a fucking power trip.

He ripped off the tape that was over your mouth, making you flinch at the burn. He pulled out the cloth faster than you could spit it out at him.

“Go ahead,” Ransone said smugly. His ego would outlive all of you. 

“Him first.” Your mouth was dry and your lips felt chapped. You had clearly been knocked out for a while by then. You had no idea how far away you were from the original location.

“What?” His smile dropped to a frown rather quickly.

“Him first.” You mentioned towards Sam with your head. 

“That’s cute.” He laughed, stopping when you didn’t join in. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“I’m not saying shit till he does too.” You were bemused, monotonous. You just wanted to get this over as quickly as possible. 

“Fine,” he huffed when your expression didn’t change. “It’d be fun to watch him beg anyway.”

You hear the rip of the tape from his face, the scrunch of the material before he balled it up and threw it on the floor.

Sam shook his head furiously, forcing Ransone to take a step back swiftly before he hit him. 

“Right.” Ransone clapped his hands together. “Let’s get star-”

He was interjected by another loud bang followed by a series of gunshots. Another victim massacred. He groaned in frustration, stamping his feet at the constant interruption. The universe was determined to not let him finish his monologue in peace, and for that, you thanked her.

You looked at Sam, nodding slightly. He gave you a small smile in return, calming the nerves you were beginning to feel.

“Where were we?” Ransone did not look happy; a vein was dangerously visible on his forehead. Now would not be the best time to do anything that angered him. “Yes, go ahead. Beg.”

“Ransone,” Sam began, exhaling lightly. “We knew.”

The smile on Ransone’s face faltered. “What did you say?”

“He said we knew,” you cut in. “You melodramatic fuck.”

Ransone’s grin faded abruptly and it was by far the most satisfying experience you had ever experienced.

“Yeah, we figured it out ourselves a while ago.” Sam had the slightest smirk on his face. “Y/N did, actually.”

“Fuck,” you cursed.

You could feel his muscle shift as he looked at you. 

“What’s wrong?” 

You opened your mouth but shut it again. How do you explain it to him without sounding utterly ridiculous?

“I need to tell you something and I need you to hear me out before saying anything,” you pulled away from him, shuddering at the sudden cold that enveloped you. 

“I’m listening.”

“I think it’s Ransone. He’s been trying to kill us.”

“Why?” He didn’t sound judgemental, hardly even fazed, like it was a completely plausible suggestion. You couldn’t express how glad you were.

“The guy you didn't kill, if he’s the old head of Serpentine, then... I know his son.” Your mouth was dry as your mind raced to piece it together. “He’s the one I didn’t kill.”

“What?” Sam’s eyebrows furrowed, and you could see him trying to figure out the connection. “How are you so sure?”

You closed your eyes, letting out a deep exhale. “I’m going to need you to not react to what I’m going to tell you.”

“Okay...” he trailed off. 

“I’ve been working with him for two years. Passing information on to him about Ransone.”

“Wait so that means-”

“I’m the spy. And I think Ransone figured it out. He wants to kill me.”

“You knew,” Ransone stated. He looked like he was in a daze.

Sam looked at you once before nodding. “If you would shut up and let someone else talk for once, we would have told you a while ago.”

“It helped that you confirmed details about Pierce’s death without us having to tell you.” The last conversation you had with him replayed in your head verbatim. “There’s no way you would have known he was dead before we got there unless we told you. Or you did it.” 

“We knew you had agents outside the house. Kinda expected that when we gave you the address,” you shrugged the best you could, “Sam’s security cameras got all of them.”

“Made sure that one fuck behind the tree could hear us planning outside,” Sam added. “He wasn’t very stealthy, by the way.”

“Have you decided on a day?”

You nod, looking straight ahead into the darkness. “Tomorrow.”

“You sure? Our timing has to be right.”

“Yeah.” Your voice is coarse. “I’ll have to tell him.”

He nodded, leaning his elbows on his knees. He was too tall for the stairs, almost like he was crouching instead of sitting.

His voice dropped to a whisper like it’s a secret only meant for you.

“You knew you were going to be ambushed.”

“No shit.” You nodded. 

The loud bangs continued outside the door but you paid no heed to it. The closer it got, the more your stomach jumped, hoping that more people you pissed off didn’t storm in. You had quite a list anyway.

“You knew they were coming,” Ransone appeared like he had gears turning in his own head, trying to add everything up on his own. “Then why didn’t you run?”

“Well, we kinda needed all of you in one place.” 

“Huh?” He blinked, not listening to all the commotion that was going on around him. If he didn’t, he was choosing to focus on this instead.

“We had to take out all of you at once,” you disclosed, fidgeting with the rope to see if it would give. “Kinda knew you were waiting to kill us yourself when we gave you the location and nothing happened immediately. You’re too much of a sissy to kill us without backup so we wanted you in one place with the rest of them.”

You tilted your head towards the two men standing in the corner.

“You knew all this while and lied,” Ransone jeered, face twisting into something rather indiscernible; a nice mix of shame and rage.

“Not like we had another choice, man.” You just knew Sam was rolling his eyes. “You think I would voluntarily listen to you monologue like an idiot?”

“You did gag us,” you added, trying to buy as much time as you could. “That’s on you.” 

The ropes were still tight as could be and the chair wouldn’t budge. Even your feet were too tightly tied together to do anything. It was what you expected, but that wasn’t going to stop you.

“Shut up!” Ranone’s face was hideously red.

“You rehearsed it, didn’t you?” Sam called out, taunt in his tone. “With the lighting and shit.”

“He doesn’t have to. He does one a week to some poor fuck who has to listen.” 

You couldn’t believe the both of you were teaming up to bully a man who literally held the fate of your lives in his hands. It was something you never imagined yourself doing.

“How do people take you seriously?” Sam laughed. More than yours, his remarks seemed to be ticking Ransone off. 

Ransone let out a guttural cry, knuckles so white you were afraid they were going to break. He whips around, stomping over to pull the gun from the hand of one of his bodyguards.

“Easy there, DeNiro, that’s not a stage prop.” Sam chided.

The concrete in front of him suddenly cracks loudly. He looked up, slightly taken aback. 

“Next time it’ll be your fucking face,” Ransone snarled, waving the gun around like a maniac. You send a cautionary glance to Sam, telling him to back off. Ransone was volatile. He would act without thinking. 

“Why did you kill everyone I was friends with, Vincent?” you asked slowly, trying to divert his mind. 

He turned to you, a crazed look in his eyes.

“Why did you take everyone from me?” The more you asked, the more it became about genuine curiosity rather than a distraction from shooting Sam in the head.

“Take everyone from- none of them were going to last anyway!” He throws his hands up in the air angrily. “I was saving you from yourself. From the eventual pain.”

His face was desperate, and you for a second forced yourself to think from his perspective. He looked like he truly believed in what he was saying, like he genuinely thought he was supporting you. Like he cared. The thought that maybe he truly wanted to help you was the only way you could comfort yourself for so many years. 

“If you were in pain, you wouldn’t perform. I was only pushing you to your full potential,” he continued, a wild smile on his face mixed with eyes rimmed red like he was ready to cry. 

Your stomach sank, even though you hated it. It wasn’t about you, it was about what he could get from you. 

There was silence. Even the noises outside seemed to have stopped, all waiting for your next move.

“You’re a sick, conniving fuck,” your words waver, and you hope it hits him as hard as it can, “And I can’t wait till you’re dead.”

His face morphed from one of helplessness to slow fury once more. Manipulative prick.

“Do I have to remind you that you’re the one tied up?” He wipes at his nose, voice returning to normal. “The only reason you’re alive right now is because I need to know why you let yourself be captured so willingly.”

Your incessant need to know everything stemmed from him and the paranoia he induced in you from when you were a kid. Everything you thought was wrong about you came from him.

“We told you, you overdramatic fuck.” Sam drew the attention away from you thankfully. You took a deep breath, stabilizing yourself. 

“What, that you needed the team in one place to take us out?” Ransone asked, to no one’s answer. “You and what army?”

“Well, the one who’s been here for a while now,” you pipe up.

No one says anything. Pin drop silence reigns free. 

“You said he’d be here,” Sam hissed at you. “How much longer do we keep this going?”

“He said he would,” you argued back, feeling the heat creep into your cheeks.

“What the fuck are you both talking about?” Ransone asked, but you continued to ignore him.

“What are we going to do if he-”

The door violently exploded off its hinges, sending debris flying everywhere. You clenched your eyes shut and ducked your head to avoid getting smacked in the face with rubble

The dust hadn’t even cleared before multiple rounds were fired. You flinched when your ringing ears hurt more at the sound of gunshots. 

You struggle against your ropes, trying to get to Sam. They only get tighter until suddenly your arms break free. Your neck and legs soon follow as you shrug off the ropes that were cleanly sliced off.

Your ears were still getting used to the chaos when you notice someone humming behind you. It took a second to register that it was a fucking Britney Spears song. 

“What took you so long?” You coughed, waving the air in front of you to clear it as you stumbled towards Sam.

“I wanted to make an entrance,” Loki said dismissively, following you. “I think I may have overshot it by a few seconds.”

You fell to your knees in front of Sam, quickly moving to untie the familiar knots. He lifted his head to look at you, a thin layer of dust covering his face.

“Are you okay?” you asked in concern, simultaneously untying as fast as you could. It was one you had used many times before; a complicated knot that guaranteed you wouldn’t have been able to make it out of the bondage.

“I think my leg’s asleep but other than that I’m good.” 

You give him a small smile, thankful that he wasn’t hurt enough to lose his dry sense of humour. Your hand involuntarily reached up to brush some dust off his cheekbone. The intensity with which he looked at you had you swallowing thickly.

You snapped out of it quickly, working on freeing his legs as Loki took a step behind his chair to cut the rest of him loose.

“This him?” Sam mentioned to Loki, massaging his wrist to return some feeling into it. 

“You can just ask me, you know,” Loki commented, but clearly not taking any offence. 

“I’m sorry about your family, man.” 

You didn’t expect Sam to say that, and from the looks of it, neither did Loki. He stopped for a moment, before continuing to cut the last rope.

“You let my father go,” he said, sawing the last part off, “and although I personally think you should have killed the miserable old bastard, he made it clear that he owed you one.”

The both of you stood up. You glanced around the room, noting how both of Ransone’s bodyguards were on the floor, bullet holes riddling their body. 

He himself was beside them, lying facefront on the ground. Armani suit be damned.

“How many more are outside?” Sam asked, tearing your attention away from the bodies on the floor.

“All taken care of.” Loki put the knife back into its sheath on his thigh. “We made quite a commotion. I’m surprised he didn’t do anything.”

“He’s a little dense,” Sam remarked. Most of the noises you heard earlier weren’t just other victims being tortured, although you knew that it was still a large fraction of it.

“Should we go?” you asked, doing a quick sweep of the room. You found nothing moving among the pile of rubble.

“Unless you got anything else left to do.” Loki gestured to the large hole in the wall where the door was.

“I think we’re done.”

He simply nodded, spinning on his heel to walk out the room when someone yelled from behind you. 

You all halted what you were doing, slowly turning to look at where the noise was coming from.

“Don’t take another step,” Ransone warned, a gun pointed straight at you, barely able to stand straight. He looked worse than you’d ever seen him. His suit was torn and he had a few streaks of blood down his face. His hair was tousled and unkempt, rougher than it had ever been before. “Or I swear I’ll-”

“Oh, shut up,” Loki interjected, firing a shot into Ransone’s stomach before anyone could even react. He returned the gun to its holster that you didn’t even notice was there on his waist. “He talks too much.”

Ransone staggered back until he hit the wall, knees buckling beneath his weight as he slid to the ground. The gun he pried off his bodyguards lay where he was standing previously. 

You ignored Sam’s uneasy questions as you took a step forward. 

You picked the gun up, cautiously making your way to Ransone. You crouched next to his body. He looked at you before looking down. You followed his line of sight, watching as he lifted his hands. They were covered in blood. 

“How’d he know where to find you?” Ransone’s voice was more subdued than you’d ever heard him.

You reached over, slipping your fingers into his jacket pocket and pulled out the paper airplane that was flattened due to the impact.

“Hey, you can put a message in it. Maybe one of those button trackers, a microphone. The possibilities are endless.” He laughed, folding another one out of the limited supply of paper he had left.

You unfolded it, letting a small object, not bigger than a button, fall into your palm. He stared at it before realisation dawned on him. 

“I knew you’d take all my weapons, but you wouldn’t get rid of this,” you disclosed, folding the paper plane back to what it was and gently putting it into your pocket. It was still salvageable. “Not if you could use it to hurt me.” 

You watched him take a shaky breath, flinching when more blood rushed out of him. 

“You can still help me, Y/N. We can get out of here together,” he rasped. “Think about everything we’ve been through. We can work it out. I love you.”

You involuntarily let out a strangled cry at the last part. It was nothing but a last ditch attempt to persuade you, pull you back in.

“Look- look at me. Buttercup,” he croaked when you wouldn’t oblige. “I love you. I’m your home.” 

You finally look at him. Look right into his eyes, red rimmed and fading. You look for it, the adoration he spoke of. The care he promised. Anything to make sense of why he would tear you apart time and time again. The love he had for you.

You find nothing. Gray eyes look back at you blankly, desperately, in pain.

“You never were,” you whisper, standing up abruptly. 

You raised your arm, pointing the gun at him. He sputtered out more half baked apologies, unaware of anything that was coming out of his own mouth.

You clench your eyes shut, pulling the trigger. He lets out a cry when the bullet lodges in his shoulder. 

You take a step back, letting the scene imprint itself in your brain of him powerless on the ground at your will. If you followed what he preached, you’d have ended his life right there. No mercy.

But you weren’t him. And you didn’t ever want to be.

“I need to do something too,” you heard Sam say. You can feel him near you, brushing against you for a moment as he gently reached for the gun you held. You gave it to him, feeling him squeeze your hand in reassurance. 

Ransone looked at Sam as he stood beside you. He fired a single shot into his leg, clearly hitting bone. You hear the same wail from before, mixed with sputtering as blood leaked from his mouth.

“That was from Riley. He says fuck you.” Sam let his hand fall again. “All yours, man.” 

“You already know what this is for,” Loki said simply. 

You chose not to look away as he shot the last round right into his forehead. Ransone’s head slumped over. Dead, glassy eyes stared beyond you. 

None of you say anything. Just stare at the lifeless body in front of you.

“It’s really over, huh?” Sam’s voice is quiet, like he's having trouble processing what just happened.

You don’t answer. Only take a step towards him, and intertwine your fingers with his, continuing to stare at the corpse of your lifelong abuser. 

____

The sun was beating down on you. You didn’t expect it to be evening when you stepped out of the warehouse. 

“Where are we?” you asked, shielding your eyes from the sudden brightness that left you squinting.

“Middle of nowhere, I’d say.” Loki stares with disdain at the old building that looked worse for wear. “Would it kill the man to have a bit of taste?”

That reminded you. “Thanks for the house. And… sorry we showed up uninvited.”

“You didn’t do too much damage to it, I hope.”

You looked at him guiltily, mind flashing to the many bullet holes that decorated the back wall. “I’ll pay for the repairs.”

“Forget it. It’s of no use since everyone knows it exists now.” He dismissed with a wave of his hand. “So, Y/N. I guess that concludes our deal?”

“I guess it does.” You nodded,

Sam wraps his arms around your shoulder and you lean into him with a sigh, allowing the comfort his touch brought to seep into you. 

“How’d you guys make a deal anyway?” he inquired. You closed your eyes, chest rising and falling steadily.

“Well, I was going to kill you at first,” Loki explained offhandedly, gesturing to you. “But then-”

He trailed off.

You remember, clear as day, when Loki confronted you in the early hours of the morning outside the park you went on runs. He had a gun pulled on you before you could fathom what was going on, before you could even realise who he was.

“But then?” Sam prodded.

“Did he make it?”

“He did,” you divulged the information you had found out a while ago. It was a messy confrontation to say the least but you got out unscathed.

“Saw something that I recognised,” he said dryly, eyeing you up and down. “We were both pulled into something we didn’t have a say in. Stuck, you could say. I just thought that it was a win-win situation if we worked together to kill that idiot back there.” 

“So you agreed to spy on him,” Sam concluded. “You got revenge. What was your incentive?”

You look at Loki who just smiled at you. You return one half heartedly.

“I’d say freedom is a pretty big reward, wouldn’t you?” And it was. You couldn’t even begin to explain the weight that would be lifted off your shoulders. “I can’t guarantee you’ll have a perfectly normal life. Might have to change your identity, move around a bit.”

“Everyone’s looking for us as wanted criminals,” Sam voiced everything you were forgetting about in the surge of emotions rushing through you.

“I got some connections,” Loki said dismissively. You peered at him from under Sam's arm. “I can have it traced back to a dead mobster in a warehouse, no problem. If they think it’s a gang war there’s no way they’ll try to get too involved. Consider it a gift from my father.” 

Sam nodded, relaxing slightly now that most things were taken care of.

“That’s sorted then.” Loki examined the barren land that surrounded you. “You’re going to need a ride back to civilization, aren’t you?”

“If that’s possible.”

“I’ll have someone drop you off. You got any place to go? At least to stay low for a while.”

You didn’t have anyone. The only one you had was the man beside you. Nothing was settling in at the moment, and you realised that it would be a long road until it did. But you had a shot. A real shot at something even resembling recovery. 

Sam and you looked at each other before he turned back to Loki and nodded.

“New Orleans.”

Next part

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <3

here’s a list of references/foreshadowing to the end all throughout the series!

[5lazarus]

Salt, Flesh, Heat

Bull notices that Solas is a deeply sensual person, reveling in clean clothes, good-smelling herbs, and hot water. He's also deeply masochistic. When the two find themselves enjoying the baths one early morning in Skyhold, Bull decides to press. Solas decides to play along. A @black-emporium-exchange gift for gamerfic. Read the other works in the AO3 Collection here! Read the story on Archive of Our Own here.

Steam on skin, worn wood pressing slick into his back as each vertebrae clicks: the Iron Bull sighs as he unwinds in the Skyhold baths. Few beyond the servants and the hungriest soldiers and Josephine herself were up at this hour. Bull has the steam room to himself. Carefully he unwinds his bulk onto the bench, laying his towel over his eyes. The clearcut eucalyptus smell lingers on his skin, sweated into his muscles. He groans aloud as a muscle in his bad knee pops.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he grunts.

Then the door opens and the dawn rushes in. Bull lifts the towel from his remaining eye. Solas stands there, a bit nonplussed. Shit, Bull thinks, and slowly makes room.

Solas lets the door close firmly shut. He holds a bundle of white birch twigs and dried eucalyptus.

Bull grins. “Want me to hit you with that?”

Solas climbs onto his bench and drapes himself on the upper story. “That may not be necessary.” Right, Bull thinks, you self-flagellate enough for both of us. He inhales deeply. “Would you mind putting more water on the stone? Some of the steam escaped.”

Bull says, “Uh, sure.” Slowly, because the ache in his body is delicious and he savors it, he reaches for the ladle and throws another pail of water onto the heating stones, and then another, and another. He hears Solas settle onto his bench, right leg stretched out. Bull turns to look. The man’s pale, graying red hair trailing down his chest. Dorian managed to catch a glimpse of his cock when they bathed after a particularly fetid journey into a Dalish swamp, and reported that it was the largest he’d ever seen on an elf and one of the bigger he’d seen on a man. Bull has to admit he is curious.

Amusement in his voice, Solas says, “Are you quite done?” Still tense, he turns away from Bull. He’s wiry, built broader in the shoulder and legs than most mages he’s met, but still has a weak core. Blackwall told him he’s fought in “some elven skirmish,” and he looks like a man about to retire from the field. He has a slashed scar on his right shoulder and claw marks on his right leg.

“Where’d you get that?” Bull points.

Solas does not turn around. Bull’s eyes travel down his back and rest on his well-shaped ass and thighs. Solas is a bit too thin for him, practically speaking, but he does like to look. He’s built like a dancer gone to middle age, rather than some Emerald Knight stalking the Dales for humans to kill, or—so he has heard from Ben-Hassrath stationed in the outskirts of the Tirashan—Dhal’Vallaslin chasing down strange elves with crimson vallaslin, who sacrifice the living to their long-forgotten gods. He seems more the type to plan and give orders, than carry out the dirty work himself, though of course Bull has seen him do it. He saw what he did with those Kirkwall mages.

Bull asks, voice casual, “You know, you’re kinda built like a dancer.”

At that, Solas shifts. He opens a single blue eye, looking down at him like a large cat eying a much smaller, squeakier dog. “I was many things, as a youth.”

“A dancer?” Bull says, taken aback, and slightly turned on.

“Not that,” Solas laughs. “And you, Iron Bull? Were you ever a—performer in your youth?” Solas slowly raises to his knees and leans over, taking the ladle from him. In one easy swoop, he throws more water onto the steaming rocks, and leans against the wall, inhaling deeply.

Bull says, a tad defensively, “That’s not how we do things in the Qun. I was earmarked for the Ben-Hassrath pretty early on.”

Solas says, “But there are many ways of being a spy, regardless of how your government attempts to standardize. Though I suppose you are too—big for the more subtle aspects of infiltration work.” He stretches. During his time with the Inquisition, he has put on enough weight and muscle that his ribs no longer show.

Bull says, “I did my job okay. Most of it is people-work. Watching, being watched. Don’t need a lot of variety in that.” He snorts. “The less, the better.” He eyes the bushel of branches Solas brought with him to the bania. The eucalyptus mingles wonderfully with the heady scent of sweat. He says, “Are you sure you don’t want me to hit you with that? That’s why you brought that here, right? I thought that was just a Dalish thing.”

He’s hit a nerve. Solas says sharply, “The Dalish do not monopolize all aspects of what has become of my people’s culture. And one simply…rubs the body with it, harder force is not necessary.”

“Ah,” Bull teases, “but if you really want to get the eucalyptus into the skin.”

“And I assumed this early, I would be alone,” Solas says flatly. “How is your knee, Iron Bull?”

Bull grunts, “Shitty. Running from all those demons tore it up again. But this helps. How’s yours?”

Solas pauses. Bull edges to the intersection of the benches, trying to find enough space to spread his leg out without having to sit on the floor. He maneuvers his bulk carefully, and gently lifts his bad leg onto the bench, folding his good leg underneath. It’s a vulnerable position, but he can see the door.

Finally, Solas admits, “My sleep has been disrupted with the amount of strain I’ve put my body through. I am hoping this will help before I must return to my desk and Vivienne’s lectures, as we calculate yet again the futility of using templars to isolate the rifts.”

Bull chuckles. “She’s still on that?”

“She has relented that a team of templars cannot hold the perimeter by themselves. We differ on how many mages are needed to perform the ritual to stabilize the Veil, and how vulnerable it leaves them.”

Bull says, “Give yourself a little bit of a good thing before you charge into the bad. That’s what I like about you, Solas.”

“Oh?” Carefully Solas climbs down onto the lower bench, favoring his unscarred leg.

“You know, you’re such a sensualist. You clearly like the baths, you don’t mind talking, you like the birch broom and feeling your blood roil and all that. I’ve seen you flirt with the Inquisitor before, and you were positively purring at the Winter Palace. But!”

“But,” Solas repeats, looking up at him. “But?” He is enjoying this, Bull is amused to realize. He enjoys it when people talk about him. As a younger man he must have preened. With that red hair, he would’ve had to.

Bull says, “But you never go all the way. You never fully surrender yourself to it. You get tipsy but not drunk. And you never let yourself alone with the Inquisitor, or anyone, really.”

“I am here with you,” Solas points out.

Bull shrugs. “And even though you like to talk, you like to argue, to debate, you never hang around the Mage’s Tower, or go back to the tavern with Dorian and the others. You keep patching up your shitty homespun even though with the Inquisition salary, you can buy yourself proper robes. You’re a masochist, man. I’ve never met someone so—sensual—who likes to torment himself so much.”

Solas is silent. Sweat pours from both their bodies, dampening the smooth hot wood. He fingers the bundle of oak twigs and eucalyptus, rubbing a single leaf with his thumb. Lowly, voice pooling like steam, he says, “Surely I do not need to tell you of the pleasure of desire, long-denied, finally sated. Or of living simply, with the occasional indulgence in luxury. After all, what is an elvhen apostate to do with silk? I take pleasure in making and mending my own garments, Iron Bull. As for other indulgences of the body…”

He trails off and Bull swallows heavily. He flicks his tongue around his lips. The air tastes of clean water and sweat: his own and the sharper, earthier scent of the elf’s. Every species has their particularities.

Bull says, “In the Qun, we believe in moderation, sure. And if you’re into edging, more power to you. But you know that’s not what I mean. If someone ends up that tightly-wound, that isolated, the Tamassrans intervened—“

“And if you do not give a proper showing of yourself, they break your mind and set you sweeping floors,” Solas says flatly. “I have seen how such authoritarian systems deal with dissenters. I take my pleasure in my own ways, in my own time. Not at my commander’s orders.”

Bull says, “It’s not like that. Sometimes you just need a good fuck, or a massage, or to be sat down in a discussion group with the priests and get into an argument all night long. The Tamassrans just prescribe the medicine. It’s good, it works. Keeps you from going too far.”

“Which is precisely why there is no Tal-Vashoth problem in Par Vollen,” Solas says. “Once, while in the Fade—“

Bull groans, “Right, let’s put some demons into this.”

Solas says, “Do you ever tire of repeating what your elders have told you, or would you like to learn something? Once, in the Fade, I saw a young Qunari working in a simple kitchen, baking bread as she was ordered every morning.”

“Cute,” Bull says. “So I’m not the only Qunari you’ve asked about their horns.”

Solas ignores the dig. He continues, “In every loaf she broke the rules. She’d take a pinch of sugar and would fold it to the center, like a secret.” He leans back with a fond smile. “And this act of small rebellion brought a shining smile across her face.” He spreads his hands, as if he has laid a winning flush in their game.

Bull thinks, you had to have been a slave. Are you the baker? Rather than provoke him further, Bull takes a different tact. “Hey, Solas. Why do you shave your head?”

Solas blinks. He raises a hand to his scalp, which is beginning to get bristly again. He says, “Fastidiousness, or lack of fastidiousness. Take your pick.”

Bull says, “No, really. If you can ask me how I put on a shirt I can ask you about your hair. Why do you keep it shaved? You’re not naturally bald, are you?”

Solas eyes him. “I am certain you have heard Dorian complain, at length, of the difficulties of keeping his hair perfectly coiffured and shaved while traveling. I have been nomadic most my life. It became easier, this way. Particularly since it is such a prominent color.” He shifts slightly.

Bull says, “Hey, I like red heads.”

“I know you do.”

“Don’t you ever think about growing it out?”

Solas laughs. “No. Never.” He pops his knee up and stretches his other leg, sighing as the muscles in his back audibly crack. Taking the bath broom, he begins rubbing the leaves into his skin. The air fills with its medicinal scent, and under that: earth.

Bull says, “I can rub that into your back.”

Solas says, “I prefer to take my pleasures simply.”

Bull says, “But I can look.”

Solas rolls his shoulders back and begins rubbing the bundle into his arms, swiping sweat away. “I never said you could not.”

Bull, frustrated, brings his bad leg down with a thump. He says, “You gonna take a dip in the cooling pool? Or is that too much of an indulgence for you?”

“My people first discovered this way of bathing,” Solas says distractedly. “I will take any opportunity to enjoy it now that I can, however primitive our facilities in Skyhold.”

“You’ve got baths, out in the woods?”

“You’ve never built a steam hut, and then flung yourself into a snow drift? Really, the Qun did not let you enjoy your youth.”

“But your people did,” Bull says, seizing on this note of autobiography.

Solas places the bundle on the bench. He stands up in silence and tosses another ladle of water onto the furnace. The room fills with steam, and Bull feels sweat pool in the back of his head.

Solas takes his towel and wraps it loosely around his waist. Looking over his shoulder, he says, “I took pleasure when it came my way.” With that rejoiner, he grins, and opens the door. Bright light and cool air pools in; the steam thins. The day has begun. Solas leaves.

Alone in the steam room, wonderfully hard, the Iron Bull says, “Fuck.”

[tomwambsmilk]

k so my work put on a conference last week and I only went to the saturday morning sessions but I ended up in a seminar discussion about climate activism. not really my wheelhouse so I just listened for the most part but - I was sitting next to this university prof who was an ex-politician and at one point he was talking about how if pro-environment policies are going to be a priority people need to push their political representatives. and at first I was like yeah totally!! I am big on contacting my political representatives about the things that matter To Me. but then he kind of dismissively said 'recent polling has shown that most canadians care far more about cost-of-living than the environment. and they don't want environmental progress if it'll cost them anything' and everyone sort of ruefully shook there heads and I was just sitting there like.... I think that's extremely valid actually. cost of living has SKYROCKETED and many people are really, really struggling to put food on the table and pay rent. and yeah climate change is terrible and will have potentially catastrophic impacts tomorrow if not stopped but. those impacts are coming tomorrow and people need to eat today. and its all well and good for a bunch of uni profs on tenured salaries to shake their heads because for them 'increased cost of living' means their summer vacation is in canada instead of europe, whereas for a lot of people I know its the difference between living in an apartment and a car. and if you're in that boat, and an environmental policy is being proposed which will negatively impact you financially (either directly or indirectly) I think its actually pretty understandable to be opposed to it

speaking of cars - a really excellent example is the carbon tax on gasoline in canada. the carbon tax is one thing for people who live in toronto, which has moderately effective and affordable public transit. if you live in toronto the choice to drive is, in fact, a choice - so a program which attempts to discourage driving makes sense. but geographically speaking, most of the country is pretty rural. I grew up in a pretty rural area. In those parts of the country, driving is not optional. There's no public transit and odds are most people have a 30-minute drive to work or school or the grocery store. In these areas, being too poor for a car is like being too poor to buy groceries or pay rent - its going to seriously hamper your ability to continue living. So for these people, the carbon tax is a penalty for something which simply cannot be helped, and there's 0 effort on the government's part to provide them with the resources which would give them other options, like affordable public transit. It's just fuck you - your gas bill is going up. And when people are struggling to pay bills, that's no small thing; but politicians consistently paint people opposed to the carbon tax as anti-environment greedy conservatives. And I look at that whole situation and go, honestly? Some of the people complaining do in fact have a point

There are broader examples too.... Canada's national economy is inextricably linked with Alberta's oil industry. If we all stopped using oil tomorrow, not only would hundreds of thousands of people be without work, but there would be millions of dollars in lost tax revenue, plus the shuttering of businesses in alberta due to lost revenue and the ripple effect this would have on jobs and income. That doesn't mean we just keep using oil forever, but it means that any sustainable plan for Canada to move away from oil NEEDS to have a significant economic component which addresses all of those lost jobs and revenue so we don't impoverish an entire province in the process. And yet for whatever reasons government policy always seems to be one or the other, and so of course nobody in alberta is going to support it because you haven't explained what they're supposed to do for work once the oil jobs disappear.

I'm sort of just rambling I guess - I'm just a little frustrated with watching all of this discourse from comfortably middle-class politicians and academics who think that anyone who raises an economic concern is a money grubbing conservative. A lot of them are in fact working-class people who are fearful of the financial implications of these policies and I do in fact think we owe it to them to make sure the poor are not disproportionately shouldering the burden of environmental progress

this is just me thinking out loud but. I do think perhaps maybe there is a problem with politically-focussed environmental activism that doesn't address the economic impact of pro-environment policies. if that makes sense

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stalker X Stalker, Part 2

First part

Next

Perma tag: @nathleigh

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades

Tim wheeled his bike into the alleyway nearby and set the alarm to call him if someone messed with it beyond the normal ‘must touch cool thing’ instincts.

Once he was sure that his bike couldn’t be easily stolen, he turned back to where Marinette was waiting for him.

She struggled with her phone with her gloved fingers. His lips twitched into a grin and he took a moment to school his face into a neutral expression before he started over.

After a second, her head turned to look at him and she flashed a wink, pocketing her phone.

“Cheers!” She chirped, flashing him a wave.

Tim raised an eyebrow at her behind his domino mask. “I hate to break this to you, but that’s a British thing.”

He could only see the top half of her face, and yet he was sure she was pouting. “Kwami, this is Canada French all over again.”

“Canada --?”

“They speak the language all wrong,” she said, as if that made it make more sense.

“I feel like you’re implying that I speak English wrong.”

“Would you rather I say it outright? ‘Cheers’ is a cute word and it sucks that Americans don’t use it.”

“Is this really a hill you’re going to die on?”

“Not just a hill I’m going to die on, it’s the hill.”

He scoffed lightly at that, then turned to get the door for her. The moment they stepped inside they tensed. The silent stares pressed in on them on all sides and he felt Marinette shuffle just the slightest bit closer to him as they took their place in line. The Gothamites continued watching them -- no, they were watching her -- warily, and of course they were (new people in costumes usually meant pain for them).

Well, he could assure them she was safe, at least.

He slowly, carefully, threw his arm over his shoulders. Marinette’s hand twitched towards the arm on instinct to throw him off, but otherwise she didn’t give much indication that what was going on was weird. There were a few more tense seconds before people turned back to what they were doing, visibly relieved by the fact that she was apparently on the good side. Chatter started back up.

Marinette relaxed slightly under his arm and he gave her shoulder a little squeeze in a weak attempt at comfort.

“Kwami, I forgot how much being a new hero sucks.”

“Vigilante,” he corrected her absently.

She rolled her eyes. “At least try and make it sound like you’re not a cop with a bird theme.”

He sputtered, pulling away to cross his arms over his chest. “Hey!”

“Am I wrong?”

“Yes!”

She rested her hands on her hips.

“We break laws!”

She snickered. “So do cops.”

Tim… didn’t have a retort for that. Luckily, he didn’t need to have one, because it was their turn to order. Neither of them hesitated and within a minute they had their drinks and were out the door. They waved for the few cameras pointed at them on their way out, false smiles lighting up their faces, and then quickly ducked back into the alleyway to have their drinks in privacy.

“I’m going to start going places as Red Robin more often since it seems to mean I’ll get served quicker,” joked Tim as he leaned against the wall.

She gave him a puff of laughter and then pulled the bottom of her mask up to take a sip of her caramel frappe. He watched her expression for a moment and then decided that it must have been good because she didn’t instantly recoil. He pulled his coffee to his lips and took a confident gulp, only to choke.

“Shit,” he hissed, fighting the urge to spit it out.

Now that he knew what to look for he could see the pain behind her eyes.

“It’s really bad,” she informed him, purposefully just a moment too late in her warning.

He huffed a little, looking at the cup in his hand. It’s an iced coffee! How do you even mess that up?

There was a beat as the two vigilantes considered their options, before giving each other shrugs and downing their drinks. It may have been bad, but at least it was caffeinated. Marinette, lucky her, had an easier time of it because she’d gotten whipped cream with hers. He was tempted to snatch the drink from her hands to have something to wash down the cup threatening to sully the good name of coffee for him…

But he didn’t have to. She smiled and offered him the last of her whipped cream. He squinted at it suspiciously as if expecting it to be poisoned. After the coffee incident just a moment before he wasn’t about to take any chances.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s actually good, promise.”

“If you’re lying I’m taking back vouching for you to Batman,” he told her.

Her eyes crinkled with mirth.

“I’m serious! If it’s terrible I’m marching back to the Batcave --!”

“All the way back?”

“Yes! All the way back to the Batcave! And I’m going to revoke my vouching!”

“Oh noooooo, not the vouching!” She said, bringing her hands to her cheeks in mock terror. When he continued to ‘glare’ at her she snickered and assured him that: “It’s fine, I’m pretty sure it’s from a can.”

He squinted at her, because canned whipped cream was still far below his normal standard, but he did end up taking it. It was… okay.

“See? Not poisoned.”

“Very suspicious thing to say unprompted but okay.”

She grinned, reaching over to swipe some cream off his nose. “You’ll die in exactly four hours”

He rolled his eyes. “Hm. I guess I should go home and work on making an antidote, then.”

“Yeah. Good luck with that. I’ll see you later.” She leaned forward and pressed her mask to his cheek in a sort of kiss before heading off.

He watched her leave, smiling to himself. He leaned back against his motorbike absently, thinking.

Well, he supposed he didn’t need to watch her to make sure she was safe anymore. She was Ladybug, she could take care of herself in a fight…

But then a thought occurred to him: she couldn’t detect him when he had been watching her earlier. He bit his lip anxiously. Sure, he was trained to evade detection but did he really want to chance it? In a place like Gotham the ability to tell when you’re being watched is an absolute must.

Okay. Fine. He’d watch her just a little longer…

~

Marinette frowned when her phone rang while she was doing some late-night work.

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep, M’lady?”

A wide grin stretched across her face and she fell back in her bed. “Chaton! And here I was thinking you would never call!”

Adrien laughed. “Well, our time zones don’t exactly match up and I forgot that your sleep schedule is less of a schedule and more of a suggestion.”

“Fuck you, too, then.”

He laughed and she could hear him shifting around on the other side. She heard him zip something up on the other side and she lit up. “When’re you coming over?” He sighed and that was all it took to let her know that he had bad news. The momentary silence afterwards as he tried to figure out what to say was a good indication, too.

“I can’t, unfortunately. The Son of Hawkmoth moving away right after he gets jailed isn’t a good look. The United States Government isn’t that eager to have me, either.”

She wasn’t about to give up that easily. “Just steal the horse miraculous from Fu and come over illegally.”

He snorted. “Yeah, no, straight up disappearing is even more suspicious, thanks.”

Marinette frowned. She supposed that made sense…

She pulled her cat plush over so she could rest her head against it. “It’s so boring without you.”

“You’re making new friends, right?” He questioned, concerned. “I saw on the news that you’ve met the other vigilantes already.”

“Yeah, I guess… but they clearly don’t trust me.”

“Well, did you trust me when we started out?”

“No…”

“So give them time. They’ll realize you’re the best person on Earth soon enough.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, obviously. They’d have to be blind not to notice that.”

“Well, one of them is called Batman --.”

“I’m hanging up on you.”

He laughed at her and she smiled as she burrowed into her plush.

“Thanks, Chaton.”

“Anytime. Now, go to sleep.”

She rolled her eyes and hung up on him without promising him anything.

~

He leaned against the concrete of the roof, head on his arms to prevent scratching up his chin as he watched her through the window. He kind of worried about her having the blinds open like that, anyone could look in at her, but at least she closed it at night.

Still, he couldn’t deny that it certainly made things easier for him. She did most things by window light -- to save electricity, he theorized -- so he didn’t have to work all that hard to keep track of her.

Currently, she was working on stitching some pieces of an outfit. Her tongue poked out of her mouth a little when she concentrated, he had learned. A tiny part of him wondered if she did that as Ladybug, too, and he just couldn’t see it under her mask.

He kind of wished he could ask. Maybe one day he would (if they ever got close enough for him to reveal he’d been watching her without her knowledge, of course).

His phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling him from his thoughts, and he groaned to himself as he synced his earbuds and picked up.

“Yeah, B, what do you need?”

~

Listen, Marinette liked her job. She had the privilege of designing most of the outfits she did and that was a lot of fun -- certainly more fun than working solely on commissions -- but… sometimes she just wants to be told what to do. Artist’s Block is real and it fucking sucks.

Thankfully, Gotham gave quite a bit of inspiration. The difference between Gotham and Paris was striking. Paris was pristine; lots of tourists meant keeping the city in a constant state of newness, all bright colors and surfaces so clean you can see your reflection in them. Gotham, on the other hand, felt exceptionally lived in; graffiti, decaying buildings, cracked sidewalks…

She found a nice vantage point that overlooked the city and looked out over the horizon. That was another difference between the two: the height of buildings in Gotham was far more varied than those of Paris. It was more interesting to look at, she thought.

(It had been a point of annoyance at night as she could no longer jump from rooftop to rooftop with ease, but that’s not the point here.)

Maybe she could do something inspired by all the different heights. Audrey would probably like a dress like that.

She smiled walking to a nearby gargoyle. Red graffiti dubbed them Charlie, and who was she to not use his preferred name?

“Hello, Charlie, may I sit on you?” She joked quietly.

Charlie did not answer, not that she really expected him to.

She perched herself on the gargoyle’s back and pulled her sketchbook from a secret pocket in her leather jacket. She hummed tunelessly as she sketched out the shape.

Layers of different lengths -- and different colors, too, of course, she thought as she pulled out some colored pens (what’s the point of different layers if you don’t make it rainbow?) -- and oh it definitely had to trail a little in the back for the drama…

Artist’s block hit her like a too-high wall on patrols as she stared at where the bodice needed to be. What should she do? Obviously it needed to be relatively simple otherwise she risked the dress being an eyesore but…

It was just her luck that the moment she came to a decision about what to do for the bodice and accessories is the moment the first water droplet hit her sketchbook. She pulled her gaze to the sky and noticed the storm cloud overhead.

Shit, it was starting to rain.

She looked back down at her sketchbook, irritation spiking under her skin.

Option one: tough it out and continue drawing so she doesn’t risk forgetting the idea she’d had.

Option two: don’t risk her outfit (or her health, she guessed) and just head inside like a sane person.

… Marinette chose option one. She wouldn’t be herself without the occasional bad decision.

She drew her jacket over her head and hunched over her sketchbook as she continued sketching out her design.

Except, after a few minutes, she didn’t feel the beat of the rain on her jacket. She blinked a few times because she could still hear the rain nearby and she started to wonder if she had died somehow before she caught the sound of someone moving just out of her seeing range.

She turned her head to see a man holding an umbrella over her head, her jacket falling back to rest on her shoulders.

She gave him a once over. It was a little paranoid, she could admit, but she was in Gotham; it paid to be cautious. He was wearing a thick trench coat and gloves, which was a big red flag. He also had open posture -- more open than was natural, actually -- what with his slight slouch and hands spread wide in a somewhat placating gesture. The only good thing was that he was keeping a respectful distance, even standing a bit in the rain in order to avoid crowding her.

… well, he had an umbrella, at least.

She gripped the gargoyle tighter with her legs just in case he decided he wanted to try and push her, then turned to face him more.

“Hi,” she said carefully.

“You know, it’s illegal to be up here,” he said, flashing her an almost blindingly white smile.

She grinned. “You’re breaking the law, too, then.”

“Yeah. I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me.”

She reached a pinky out and, after a second’s hesitation, he returned the gesture.

Deal made, he wiped some of the water away with gloved fingers and took a seat beside her.

He clearly trusted her more than she trusted him, even allowing his legs to hang over the side of the building. She wondered why, vaguely, but she couldn’t exactly go and ask...

So, instead she smiled and said: “Thanks for the help. Water stains are a bitch to get out of leather.”

“You’re welcome, but I really can’t believe you went out without an umbrella in this city of all places.”

She shrugged sheepishly. “I’m a little new here, to be honest.”

She watched him carefully out of the corner of his eyes. The man frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by her laughter.

“I’m kidding, I’m not stupid enough to genuinely tell someone that. I was just going for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl aesthetic.”

His shoulders relaxed in a way that would have been imperceptible if she hadn’t been trained to check body language. She let herself relax her grip on the gargoyle a little as well; he had been concerned about her right then, he was probably pretty safe. Safe enough to not strain her legs too much, at least.

“Well, I do like your aesthetic,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl stuff, my outfit, or what I’m drawing?”

“All of it. But mostly the outfit.”

She felt a faint blush rise to her face but she brushed him off with a: “Yeah, thanks, but I’m not about to start taking fashion advice from a guy in a trenchcoat.”

He gasped and brought his free hand to his chest in mock offense. “Excuse you, this is peak Gotham fashion!”

“It’s shady, that’s what it is.”

“That’s what Gotham fashion is!”

She couldn’t have rolled her eyes harder if she tried. And she did try.

Her gaze fell back to her work and she sighed as she pulled out her pens and started working on finishing up her sketch.

“So, what’re you up here for?” She asked because she didn’t want to risk him getting bored and leaving with the umbrella.

“Hm? Oh, I do photography in my spare time. Figured I’d scope out some new areas.”

“Know all the best places in Gotham?”

“You have no idea.” The man flashed her a grin. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone in person, though, so I figured I’d get some update shots.”

“Well, if we both need to go sightseeing around Gotham for our things, why not do it together?”

He raised an eyebrow at her but she could see the way his lips twitched downwards with concern. “Trust me that much already? We’ve just met.”

“Well, you seem like a nice guy...” She smirked. “And I could totally beat your ass.”

He scoffed and unbuttoned his trenchcoat to prove to her that he did, in fact, have muscles hidden beneath all those layers and she laughed before she noticed the shirt he was wearing.

Holy shit. She’d made that shirt. He was wearing one of her shirts. She could see the gold stitching partially hidden beneath his collar, and fuck maybe she was concerned about all the wrong things.

Her eyes narrowed in on him just slightly. He clearly wasn’t actively hiding the shirt and didn’t seem concerned that he had shown her, which meant he:

a) didn’t know she was MDC,

b) saw her as just another artist,

or c) was showing her on purpose so she could make an informed decision about being his friend.

So… he didn’t seem to be a threat to her.

Maybe she could do some checking up on him, though, just to be safe.

She smiled. “I realize I never got your name. Probably would be a problem if we’re going to be spending more time together from now on.”

He grinned. “Yeah, it’s kinda hard to be friends with someone if you don’t even know their name. I’m Tim Drake.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she said, watching his expression carefully.

He remained impassive. She wasn’t sure what that meant -- or if it meant anything at all, for that matter.

She pulled out her phone and offered it to him, taking the umbrella so he could type his number in with both hands. That done, she stuck the phone back in her pocket and smiled up at him.

“I’m stealing your umbrella, by the way,” she informed him, grip tightening on the handle in case he tried to take it back from her.

He grinned and made no move to do so. “If you must. Can you at least walk me inside the building before you run off with it?”

She giggled. “I guess I can do that, yes.”

~

It had been a long time since Tim had fanboyed this hard.

If he was any younger, he would have fallen back on his bed and squealed like a person in those old movies. As it were, he still wore a dopey smile.

He had MDC’s number! And not her work number, because he’d already had that, this was her real number!

And, even cooler, she might just let him go with her to get inspiration! Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to watch one of their favorite artists do their thing?!

… oh, yeah, also the protection thing, obviously. That was the whole reason he was doing this, after all.

It would be so much easier to protect her if he went out with her on these excursions. Just being around men tended to ward off potential assailants. It was perfect!

Which meant he wouldn’t have any reason to follow her for her own protection anymore…

Wait, what about when she needed to go out for chores like groceries? She’d still need to be safe for that! Gotham is a scary place! What if someone tried to follo -- what if someone tried to mug her or something dangerous like that? No, she still needed his help!

Yeah, no, he has to do this. It’s for her own safety.

[vergess]

@autismserenity​ said: Your tags are the most American thing I’ve ever read, we are truly so screwed here   

May I interest you in a more complete, and more excruciating, explanation of what I spent the last 18 months doing?

It is, I need to emphasize, fucking nasty. Don’t feel obligated, especiallly if you’ve already had A Day(tm).

There’s a lot of disease, a lot of worker abuse including sexual and racial abuse, a fine portion of letting people die for not being white enough for real medical care, all leading to homelessness.

For NDA reasons, because my former employer was just as vile as any tech company has ever been, I cannot be super specific about who I worked for. However, I can say that we handled the records and patient contact for all COVID testing for several states, as well as 2 of the 5 largest metros in the US, and several dozen smaller ones ranging from the approximate population of San Francisco, down to little towns, as well as the testing for several public school systems and at least two government agencies that I am not at liberty to disclose.

I tell you this for a sense of scale. When I say shit like, “my boss was more than happy to let thousands or hundreds of thousands die” I am not exagerrating for effect. We handled hundreds of thousands of tests a week.

Again, I need to emphasize, government agencies. Ones you would know if I named them. Ones everyone in the country knows.

And we were in charge of getting their test results from the already over swamped labs back to the patients, who often were not allowed to quarantine while awaiting results.

The fastest we got our turnaround time to on any consistent basis was about 30 hours. Often it ballooned well into weeks.

There were a number of factors for this, but the big one was always understaffing.

The staff we did have were treated like trash. One of the big selling points of this company is how “trans friendly” it is to work there. That is a lie. Every trans employee on payroll had their dead name displayed to all other staff, and until I personally changed the system setup on my arrival, patient facing trans people’s dead names were displayed to patients.

Remember that thing about “hundreds of thousands of tests a week”?

I was able to change the way patient-facing names were displayed. I was not allowed or able to alter the way internal systems displayed trans people’s names. But I was assured that it’s fine, because once you get a legal name change, you’ll be given new system accounts with your new name!

Your old accounts with your dead name would still be displayed and associated with the new ones though.

This is the “trans friendly” working environment. We were allowed to be out of the closet, as long as we were willing to put up with that. And any attempts to get it altered were the result of those nasty little transgender ingrates not being thankful enough.

Meaning that by asking to use our own fucking names we were already in the disciplinary shitter.

Another big selling point is the ~racial diversity~. The CEO was a man of colour, and so were like four other people on staff!! Wow!!!!!!!

This, too, was laughable.

Once numbers started coming in about the care gap for COVID between English and Spanish speakers, and our Southwestern US service area began to have a separate and brutal backlog just of Spanish speaking patients, my employer encouraged me to interview potential hires who speak spanish.

Fair enough! We all wanted to do our part to help close the already massive mortality gap.

So, I found candidates, did interviews, hired them, trained them, etc. But I don’t speak Spanish. As a result, I appointed 2 assistant managers who do speak Spanish to assist me in managing, you know, like the job name.

So when my super contacted them directly, completely skipping me on the chain of command, and told them to stop all of our Spanish speakers from translating helpful simple messages to send to patients, and instead start translating medical and legal documents, they very reasonably assumed I was in the know and went ahead with it.

TO BE CLEAR, that could have ended my life, theirs, basically everyone involved. Everyone in the company would have been completely fucked. At that point, my subordinates, the people for whom I am wholly responsible, were doing everything from practicing medicine without licenses, to encouraging spanish speaking patients to enter contracts that no one on the fucking executive tier could even read.

The moment I found that out, I and the A.M.s immediately started trying to get actual medical translation services to do our documents. We collected them in a neat folder. We queried translation services. We got quotes. We contacted my super and the CEO, about this over and over again for months. In the late autumn, we received approval for one of the translation services.

The CEO decided at the last minute that having people with no medical or legal training draft medical and legal forms was fine and good actually, and refused to sign the contract or send the documents for translation.

The excuse I received was that the COVID emergency HIPAA relaxations would protect us.

That’s not how that works.

Throughout all of this, Spanish speaking employees were told to either keep doing medical and legal translation work, or lose their jobs.

Oh, did I mention everyone was working between 30 and 80 hours a week, and all of us were marked as “contractors” so the employer could tax evade? Don’t worry, we filed complaints with the labour bureau.

So the entire department was let go, and “rehired” as temps through a temp agency, which because it was a temp agency could keep them marked as contractors regardless of the facts.

This change was presented to all of us, myself included, as the company getting a new accountant to handle payroll.

So if you’re keeping score, we’ve covered racism, queerphobia, medical negligence, fraud, and a frankly uncountable number of deaths.

Let’s talk about the sheer negligence towards employees ourselves. If you’ve worked in near-death medical care before, or any number of emergency services really, you know that the standard benefit suite includes either a dedicated therapist for your staff, or access to peer support groups with other emergency and medical servants through your employer’s benefits program.

Do you know what our mental health benefits were for this company?

The CEO got on a fucking zoom call with us all one (1) time, and said that if we were feeling suicidal or traumatized by the work, to talk to him about it, and he would be our therapist.

Do you know how many people per fucking day we had to contact only to be told they had already died because our understaffing delays killed them? He doesn’t. He never listened when we told him.

But let me put the cherry on the “Oh baby, you can talk to me, oooh” sundae.

Anyone who “looked” or “sounded” female, regardless of actual or assigned gender, was subject to constant flirtations and slimy, overly personal compliments about our appearances. Fortunately, at 3 levels removed from the CEO (Executives > Department heads > Managers > Employees), most of the people under my management had relatively little contact with him.

I was not nearly so lucky.

The CEO of this company has a watersports (urination) fetish. I know this, because he told me so and attempted to get me to join him in it. I have no idea how many other people in the company he did this to. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do, risk losing my job to find out? I have a fucking family to support, people.

Not that it mattered.

Eventually, all of these abuses became too much for my subordinates. Productivity fell off a cliff. Delays were getting worse and worse. In a medical emergency like this, delays=deaths.

So, like a fucking idiot, when the department heads reached out to me to ask what they could do to improve productivity, I shot down their frankly insulting suggestion of raffling a $20 amazon gift card to patient facing employees, and instead suggested a very simple, “enroll us with a peer support group, every single person in this department has PTSD from working in this pandemic.”

They were confused by my assertion of PTSD. I was asked to compile a document of complaints, concerns, and weaknesses in our patient facing services.

I and the A.M.s did so. It was roughly 40 pages long, with each page given a known problem, the reasons why it was a problem, and some potential solutions that might inspire further solutions or be able to be implemented. We submitted it. There was no response.

A week passed.

I had been working 80 hour weeks for most of a year. I hadn’t even been able to take weekends. I took my first sick day, in a company with “unlimited vacation days.”

I received a call at 3PM.

I had been fired for “differences in communitcation.” If you’ve ever seen that “Problem Women of Color in the workplace” chart? Yeah.

So had most of my department, including every transgender member of the department, and several of our extremely limited in supply Spanish speakers, who were presumed to be “on my side.”

Some of them, I barely even knew beyond the formalities of the job, and they were punished anyway.

I lost my insurance, and as a result I lost access to my medications.

But the real problem? I lost my house. And not due to lack of payment.

I lost my house, because when I got the job we waited 6 months for stability’s sake, and then readied to move out of the area. I got a mortgage on the basis of my employer’s written guarantee to the bank that I would continue to be employed for the next year at a minimum.

With the mortgage approval in hand, we entered a sales contract on our existing home.

We got and accepted an offer just days before I was fired. To keep our house meant paying a 25,000 dollar broken contract fine. We didn’t have that. We had a 10% down payment for a modest fucking place in a cheaper area, which is less than half that.

But without a job, my mortgage approval was also voided, meaning we couldn’t buy a house either.

All of a sudden, we were homeless during the plague, because my employer wrote and signed a letter to a bank guaranteeing my future employ, and then changed his mind when too many people died due to his own negligence.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the job paid less than Pandemic unemployment Assistance.

...After that, well, it’s homelessness until just last month. I... if you’ve never been homeless it’s.

It blurs. Everything is happening constantly, except for all the ways in which you are endlessly, mind breakingly bored. Bored, overloaded, and always uncomfortable.

Obviously my health would have declined regardless. Malnutrition, stress, everything.

But I was also unmedicated.

It was hell. I was in hell. I don’t know if I can recover from it, to be honest.

I bounced back from being homeless as a child. Children are as resilient as they are stupid, and the monstrosity of homelessness was little more than a vaguely remembered loathing and a panicky fear that it would ever happen again.

A child who is dying is worthy of sympathy, even if it is meaningless coos from passers by. If they have family, they may be able to rely on them too.

An adult with the indignity to die homeless and crippled, according to the average passer by, is worthy only of disgust and perhaps even punishment for being such a worthless waste.

My reward for nearly killing myself in a desperate bid to help stem the tide of COVID was the destruction of not only my life, not only my entire family’s lives, but the lives of every single family of every single employee who worked with me.

And you know what’s worse?

Each one of us still did more to limit the lethal impact of COVID than the entire united states government.

It breaks something in you, going through that.

It makes you realize that hope is a fool’s game.

But, I have ever been a fool, and so, I continue to play.

[finnyboywolfhard]

Now That I Saw You- Chapter 4- Jump Then Fall

Steve Harrington x Reader

catch up here

This Chapter is Inspired by Jump Then Fall by Taylor Swift 

summary: Steve and Reader are falling more and more for one another. 

warnings: cursing, fluff

word count: 1.4k

For yet another morning, Y/N woke to the feeling of Steve’s arms wrapped around her body. Her eyes looked over his face a few times, a smile spreading sweetly across her face.

“Don’t stare, it’s creepy.” Steve grumbled out in his grizzled morning voice. Chills went down her spine as he spoke.

“But you’re so handsome.” Y/N faked a pout in response. His hands pulled her tighter to him, and his hand reached up to cup her face.

“You’re absolutely adorable, you know that?” He said before pulling her in for a kiss. Despite both of their morning breath, the kisses between the two just kept getting better and better to her. He pulled away from the kiss and placed on her forehead. He climbed over top of her to get out of bed.

“I hate being an adult.” Y/N spoke from the bed. Steve gave her a confused look as he continued putting on his pajama pants. “I don’t want to go to work. And I don’t want to spend a weekend without you.” She pouted as she watched him get dressed.  

“Come here.” He waved for her to come towards him. She got out of the bed and shuffled towards him. Instantly, she was swallowed by his arms in a hug. They swayed back and forth in the middle of the room. “Listen, it’s just one weekend. It’ll be okay! Plus we have those plans with Dustin when I get back.”

“I forgot! That’s gonna be fun!” She smiled looking at him, her eyes looking at every feature on his face. He kept talking, and she could hear him but her brain was going 100 miles per hour about how much she really liked him and wanted to be with him. He just felt right for her, like they were meant to be together. Her eyes moved over to the clock propped on her dresser. “Shit! I’m gonna be late. And so are you! Aren’t you supposed to be picking up your mom soon?

“Oh shit, yeah. I-uh-I forgot completely.” He went silent for a moment while watching her get dressed. “Do you want me to take you to work before I go to my parents?”

“That would be great babe, thank you.” She said without thinking of the pet name she just used.  He didn’t say anything, but that pet name made butterflies go aflutter in his stomach and he realized he was falling again.

Steve dropped her off at work and the hours seemed to tick past even slower than usual for the girl. She kept re-reading the same paragraph because her mind kept going back to Steve and every little thing about him. He really was becoming the most important thing in her life, something that she had never experienced before.

“Y/N, call on 2.” Another intern piped up from the cubicle across from her.

“Hi, you’ve reached Y/N Y/L/N in the human resources department, how can I help you?” From the other end of the phone, she heard her favorite sound in the entire world- Steve’s laugh. She wished that she could listen to it all day.

“Jesus, you sound so professional.” Steve finally spoke.

“Wow, I wonder why I would sound professional at my job in the government?” They both erupted into a fit of giggles.

“You make a fair point, I just wanted to call and tell you that I got here safely. I miss you already.” Her heart melted at the gesture of his call.

“I miss you. I’ll be counting down the hours until I see you.”

“I already am. Sunday at 6, at the diner. Be there or be square.” He joked through the phone.                  

“I’ll be there.” She smiled.

“Okay, well-uh, I gotta go, but I’ll talk to you soon okay?”

“Okay. Bye Stevie.”

“Bye Y/N/N.” She hung up the phone and let out a groan. These next two nights without him were gonna be rough. It’s not like she didn’t love spending time with Robin, she absolutely did. Robin was without a doubt in her mind her best friend in Hawkins, but after spending nearly all of her time with Steve in some way shape or form, it was gonna be weird to not see him for a bit.

The days leading up to Sunday evening went by slowly. Robin and her had eaten dinner together every night, but with Robin at work all day and Y/N being home alone, things got boring. But things were all better when Sunday rolled around.

Y/N pulled into the diner and saw the oh so familiar BMW parked. She got out and looked into the car, noticing that it was empty. She bounded up the stairs and into the restaurant, instantly spotting her favorite head of hair in the whole world. As she approached, she saw Dustin flailing his arms telling Steve something.

“What’re you boys talking about?” Steve’s eyes lit up as Y/N slid into the booth next to him. He placed a kiss on her temple. She leaned into him and the feeling.

“Dustin here is trying to explain something that he learned in his AP Bio Class.”

“Oh, that will go right over my head. Me and science don’t get along.”

“Don’t you have a political science degree?” Y/N let out a laugh at the very valid question Dustin just posed.

“I mean, Yes I do but PoliSci is a whole different beast. It deals more in the social sciences and humanities rather than physical sciences.”

“Wait what do you mean?” Dustin asked her, which instantly sparked a conversation between the two. Steve’s eyes flickered between the two and how easily they had fallen into a conversation. He admired how they talked so intelligently without trying to make the other feel dumb, it was sweet.  

“Any new movies in the store?” Dustin snapped Steve back to full attention.

“Yeah…uh…a few horror movies came in, and some other ones I had never heard of that Robin likes.” They talked over their dinner for a bit, all enjoying each other’s company. Steve leaned over to take a bite of food, and his hair fell into his face.

“Oh my god, come here.” Y/N turned his head around and pulled the top portion of his hair out of his face, tying it up with a hair tie. He turned his head back to her after and she let out a giggle. “You look ridiculous, but I’m sure it will help.” She pecked his lips once before going back to her own food. Dustin’s face was turned up into a smirking smile, mainly happy that his best friend had found someone who works well for him and very clearly makes him happy. It also helped that he also really liked Y/N, she was fun, caring and most of all clearly infatuated for Steve, more than Dustin ever thought Nancy was. They walked out of the diner, with Y/N’s fingers laced with Steve’s, them both trailing behind Dustin.

“I gotta drive Dusty home, I’ll just meet you back at home yeah?”

“Perfect!” Y/N walked over to Dustin and gave him a hug goodbye before giving Steve a kiss. She walked back to her car and drove home alone, waiting patiently for her boyfriend to come home.

As she lay in her PJs she heard the front door open and footsteps approaching her room. When her door opened, she lifted the blanket up so he could crawl in with her.

“Hello.” She said as his face hit the pillow beside her. He let out a little laugh before responding.

“Hi. I’ve missed this.” He said sweetly. She smiled at the sentiment, and was overcome with her feelings.

“Steve…” She said, not sadly but more yearning.

“What my dear?” His voice laced with a little worry.

“I used to feel so scared to fall for someone but…but with you…fuck. With you, it’s like I’m jumping into freefall with no net. And I’m just…I’m just a little scared you’re gonna leave me.”

“Hey hey hey, I’m not gonna leave you, I can promise you that. After the shit with Nancy, I-uh-I never thought that I would feel like…this. I…I love you Y/N.” He said, looking deep into her eyes and placing a gentle hand to her cheek.

“I love you Steve.” She wasn’t scared with Steve, she felt the happiest with him and she knew that falling for him wasn’t even over yet. She loved him and he loved her, and frankly, that was all she was worried about.