#i can not donate to causes that have any sort of political ties

[narrettwist]

Since I've gotten 5 this week I'll share this publicly.

If you are not a mutual or a follower at the least and you DM me with some sob story and a link to a go fund me or whatever I am reporting it as spam and blocking you.

[mshexley]

I think what’s very interesting about the defenders of the nazi magic game is that it’s a clear case of people being more concerned with being seen as a bad person than actually reflecting on why ppl view them that way and watching them argue with ppl on Tiktok has made that clear.

(putting a cut causes it’s long)

real shit I should go to school for sociology or psychology or something, this shit is fun to watch unfold

Because if they had just quietly played the game, they could’ve been quiet and wrong and wouldn’t have to be fighting for their lives. However, when people set the boundaries, the lines in the sand and said “hey I’m going to unfollow or unsub from anyone that streams the game” “hey, I’m gonna unfriend people who cross that line” and other variants, that’s when the pro-nazi wizard brigade truly starting their grandstanding.

Because being the type of person that others distance themselves from sounds like hell, especially in the landscape where the internet makes it easier to scrunitized. However, the response to justified scrunity is often to deflect.

One of the actual cons of this era of political correctness, is that when people like or dislike something, they don’t let it just be that. It has to be tied to some moral high ground to either justify your dislike or like of something.

This isn’t the case for everything obviously so here’s some examples for what I mean:

Koreaboos claim people are racist for not being liking Kpop or a specific group while also partaking in racist behavior themselves like harassing black Kpop fans or the very obvious example of them fetishizing Korean ppl.

The Boyfriends WebToon is also a good example because rather than leaving it at “oh I think it’s cringey” “oh it’s not my thing” they would have a moral high ground by claiming that the comic is fetishizing gay men because the author is a “woman” (the author is a gay trans man btw)

In more smaller instances, you can find this behavior in shipping wars. You’ll see a ship that’s being shat on for having a claimed “toxic dynamic” of some sort because simply saying you don’t like the ship doesn’t sway ppl’s opinions in your favor.

Back to the main topic, there is a similar thing happening with defenders of the game. Because despite the years of bigotry that Rowling has spewed and supported, despite the game having an ex-lead with an alt-right page that the company KNEW about already and that after his departure they felt is was too expensive to get rid of his inputs in the game…the real offense to these people…is that folks will stop liking them.

But rather than accept that, (which granted that’s rough but it’s a part of growth) they’d rather pretend that they are victims. No one held a gun to their head and told them to play the game. That was the bed they made but sitting in that shit is hard so they deflect.

“Well, I might have bought the game but LOOK I donated to trans charities. So that cancels it out.”

Except you could’ve done that with any game. Why this one? It’s not an own on anyone. Like it’s the equivalent of when conservatives were boycotting Starbucks…..by buying Starbucks.

Arguably even worse, are people who are going the “No you” approach where in response to people actually taking the time out of their day to educate folks about the history of Jewish caricatures and how goblins relate that, (something that don’t HAVE do to), people respond with by pretending that simply just isn’t the case. Literally ran across one comment that said “I just see goblins as goblins, if you see Jewish ppl then YOURE the one in the wrong”.

Except that when THIS

is in the game, it breaks that response into pieces. Many Jewish folk have pointed out that the item is a “shofar” often used for religious reasons. In Harry Potter, it’s a “war horn” that annoys witches and wizards.

“that’s just coincidence”

the year is interesting too. 1612 was the goblin rebellion in the game, I wonder what happened in the real world—

Hm. An infamous case of anti-Jewish bigotry in the country that would later become the deathbed of so many Jewish ppl during WW2.

so now at what point do these stop being coincidences? At what point do you just take the L?

Now people have more reasons to not associate with you and you’ll be left with a circlejerk of ignorance.

and it wouldn’t have even been that bad if y’all would’ve just shut the fuck up and read another book.

[zankivich]

Corona Diares pt 2: An Arrangement Sequel

a/n: Hello. Something must be in the air. OR, you’re all trapped in your houses and paying my pics more attention than when I actually wrote them lol. Either way I felt inspired to write this and would LOVE to point out that I planned this entire chapter out before the the S + C bullshit was even a thing. I quite enjoy this. I love talking about mental health. It’s so serious and so underrepresented and so poorly represented. I wanted to show a black woman dealing with it and one way, not the only way, that a partner can be supportive during that. If you like it let me know. And if you have ANY ideas for this series please please please share them with me because this was the last idea I had. K bye! 

WARNINGS: Depression, discussions of mental health, a very worried husband just wanting to love his wife

*Shawn’s point of view*

After the first month, he notices a change. When they can no longer go out to the store to shop anymore and have to get everything delivered. No more throwing random things at her to build dishes around. When she can’t go to get her hair done, or go on friendship dates with Ti. She gets a little down, not as energetic and bubbly as is her nature. Even the level of sass she seemed to whip at him with incredible comedic timing was at odds. It’s not that he’s not enough for her, it’s just that all the other parts of her life outside of him seem to dry up. There’s not much managing to do, beyond giving their artists a break. Her world domination halts when the world does. And what he’s left with is a rare and devastating vision. A depressed y/n.

At first he’s not super concerned. The whole world was turned upside down. They were witnessing history on a day-by-day basis. Who wasn’t a little sad?! At first, she just takes a little longer to get out of bed. So, he cooks them breakfast after his morning workout. But then she starts to zone out for shorter and then longer periods of time. One day he notices that for an hour during a movie, she just stares out the window. Barely blinking. Never moving. Just sat still. And then come the naps.

“Babe, I have a headache. I’m gonna go lie down for a little while, okay?” She murmured, placing her hand on his shoulder as she stood up.

He peered up at her with concern.

“Of course. You want me to make you some peppermint tea? We can watch movies in bed if you want. I’ll rub your back.”

She smiled a smile so small it barely touched her face. It was nothing like the beautiful wide-toothed grin he fell so deeply in love with.

“You’re incredible, but I think I just need to lie in the dark for a little while. I’ll feel better and then we make some fresh gnocchi for dinner.”

Her gnocchi was one of his favorites. So, of course he nodded and kissed her fingers as she slipped away. He tried his best to stay quiet the rest of the day, sticking to the other side of the house as he played guitar, or video games, or piano. As the day grew later, he went about prepping the potatoes for the gnocchi. He cleaned, scrubbed, and pierced the potatoes before placing them in the oven to bake. He even went about setting up the pans, olive oil, salt. Anything they might need. He grated the parm himself.

When the potatoes had but about ten minutes left to go, he finally made his way upstairs. Their bedroom was dark, the light outside the hallway even turned off. He flicked it on as he stepped quietly inside on raised toes. She was on her side of the bed curled up in the entirety of their comforter. Her bonnet was missing, something he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. He wasn’t nervous yet though, so he just assumed it had fallen off in her movement.

“Sweetheart. Hey, I went ahead and got everything prepped for dinner. I thought we could listen to some records while we cook? Maybe open a bottle of wine if you want.”

Her eyes opened. And she looked near him. But she was completely and utterly away. Like her body was a shell and she’d fallen within the depths of herself, hidden away and unwilling to come out. She took one look at him and shook her head before rolling to the otherside of the bed.

“I can’t.”

“Oh...Okay. Well how about I do the cooking, give you a little more time to rest. I’ll come get you after.”

“No Shawn I...I can’t.” She whispered.

This is where the worry started to creep in. Let’s just say he was very good at worrying.

“What is it? Is it your head still? Maybe you should take something.”

“I just...You gotta leave me alone for now, okay? I need to sleep.”

And that was where things started to shift. Because she sounded broken. Not sick, not hurt, but just absolutely broken. Like she might cry if he asked her again, might completely break down and never come back to herself. The most surprising piece of this new territory that he found himself in was that...she didn’t want him near. In a relationship where every pain, every fear, every insecurity thus far had been comforted, if not cured, by the presence of the other, for the first time in his marriage, his wife wanted to be away from him in the midst of her sadness. This was a phenomena he knew nothing about how to manage

He goes back to the kitchen and busies  his hands with gnocchi, in part because he had nothing better to do, and in part because he thought he might freak out if he didn’t. Silly him for thinking the concentration on the physical could do anything to silence his mental. At first he wondered if it might be the virus, and that was a terrifying thought all on its own. y/n had made it clear from the jump that their celebrity would not be an excuse for privilege in the face of death caused by oppression. They had not been tested for the virus when half the industry had without symptoms. Even in Canada where healthcare was far better, she was more concerned with donating to others. But she wasn’t exactly showing symptoms, and she didn’t really seem sick. More than anything he couldn’t shake the loneliness in her eyes. Like he could hug her for hours and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. That wasn’t a virus. That was something else.

So as the fear of the virus hitting the love of his life ebbed, what remained in its place was a sort of terror about the unknown. And he tried to be positive, tried to imagine the next morning when she’d come bounding down the stairs singing a song beneath her breath and looking for eggs for breakfast. However, Shawn couldn’t shake the idea that his wife was experiencing something new entirely, something that she herself may have never navigated before. And he simply may have no idea how to help her out of it. He was scared shitless.

*Three Days Later*

She hasn’t left the room once. In the middle of day two he had insisted on taking her temperature. She wasn’t even ninety-eight degrees. No dry cough. No trouble breathing or wheezing or anything. She was physically fine in the technical sense. But God was she far from fine. On the third day, he was so terrified he didn’t know what to do. So, he reached for the blanket and tried to wiggle it away from her. The result was catastrophic. She just absolutely fell apart. She cried and cried and cried until her cheeks were soggy, until her eyes were red, and all she could do was stare at him in helplessness.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” She cried at him.

He had never seen her so quiet. So timid. So dull. It was everything that she wasn’t, and it shook him to his very core.

“Please. Y/n I love you so much. Y--You’re scaring me, sweetheart. I just want to help. You’ve been lying in bed for three days now and I’m trying to help. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll fix it okay? I need you to tell me what’s happening.”  

She shook her head and rolled onto her back, legs curled awkwardly beneath themselves. He sees a tear pool on the apple of her cheek and then spill over and down the side of the face he hadn’t kissed in days.

“Don’t you understand? You can’t fix it. They’re dying Shawn. They--they’re gonna die.”

“Who’s gonna die?”

Her face crumpled then and she covered her mouth as a sob let loose that cracked into his chest and tore open his own heart.

“All of those people. Who can’t afford to stay home from the restaurants, from the grocery stores. The people who got fired and can’t afford rent. The people without homes, without safety nets. They’re gonna die. Because we allowed them to. Because we created a system that needs their death to remain sustainable. They’re gonna die. And then we’re gonna die. And it’s all gonna be for nothing. The protesting, the political statements in interviews, the canvassing door to door. It will mean nothing under eradication.”

This wasn’t pessimism under a patriarchal, racist system. This wasn’t y/n on her soap box complaining about the white man, or teaching him about the intersections of oppression. This was something different entirely. This was like watching the love of his life suffocate. He was literally watching her worry herself into a frenzy.

“Y/n, you have to breathe. You’re not breathing.” He mumbled crawling deeper into the bed to get beside her.

She shook her head vigorously back and forth, the tears pooling into puddles on their bed.

“I can’t--I can’t see my way out of it. It’s like... it’s crushing me from above and below. Like I’m sandwiched between it. T--there’s no light. There’s nothing.”

“Okay, okay just uh--give me a second to think...Can I lie down next to you?”

She shrugged more than nodded, but he took it for what it was and crawled in next to her. His thumb wiped at her cheeks, chasing away the tears as she worked to breathe. Her chest rose and fell in rapid succession. And all he could do was reach out and place his hand slowly over her heart, his lips falling to her ear. Everything was measured, intentional, because he didn’t want to scare her anymore.

“I used to have panic attacks as a kid. Listen to the way that I breathe. Try to match it. Don’t focus on getting it right, just do your best. I’m right here, okay?” He whispered. “Your body knows how to breathe. You just have to remember.”

He took a few deep breaths, slowly in and out against her ear. Her heart was hammering, and he knew that before they addressed the existential dread, he needed to calm her heart down. He was glad that in that moment her hand wasn’t on his chest, because she might feel the way that his heart beat just as fast. He was terrified, not of her, but for her. He knew this was the “in sickness and health” part of the deal, and more than anything he just wanted to be good to her. He didn’t want to see her suffer. So despite the crippling fear of getting it wrong, of saying the wrong thing, he had to try. He’d do anything for her.

“Find something to focus on.” He offered still breathing in and out in exaggerated slowness. “I--It can be the ceiling, or anything really as long as it’s not moving. Sometimes it helps. You’re doing good. It’s gonna be okay, babe.”

At first she just flounders. Y/n was a woman good at most things with an ease and precision that could make him feel insecure at times. In this moment though she just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it no matter what she did. Every moment she didn’t succeed only seemed to ramp her heart rate up further.

When she chooses to look at him, to use him to focus, he almost cries. But instead he smiles at her. And he keeps breathing with her. And slowly, slowly, slowly, she floats back down to him. And she sort of just collapses on his chest in a mangled heap. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s okay.” He whispered kissing at her hair. “I’m right here, my love.”

And she falls asleep again there. With him holding her. He’d rather it be that way. He can only hopes she feels the same

***

He puts out a call on instagram and twitter. He doesn’t name names, but he asks some of his friends if they were experiencing anything like y/n, or if they knew how to help loved ones who were. The next day, he lets her stay in bed just because it breaks his heart when she cries. And also in the hope that he could do a little digging to get her some help.

He’s on an instagram live playing guitar and staring off into space with a blunt in his mouth when the chat starts going crazy.

“What’s going on guys?” He asked, reaching to scroll past the words.

He just kept seeing the words GAGA over and over again. In hindsight it may have been obvious, but he was a bit of a dumbass...and stoned.

“Gaga? What does that stand for? Is that some sort of internet slang I’m already too old to understand?”

He pulled the phone closer to his face and finally saw someone who said: No dumbass. Lady Gaga is in the chat and she wants to speak with you. Woops.

“Holy shit.”

It takes him honest to god ten minutes to figure out how to get her into the video. His fans make no qualms about laughing at him while he does it either. Eventually she’s there and it’s like the first human connection he’s had in days. And he can’t quite explain it but there’s a part of him that wants to cry.

“Hello Lady! I hear you like to be called Lady, is that okay?” He asked.

She smiled through the tiny image on the screen and gave a slight nod.

“Lady is perfectly fine. Your wife calls me Lady all the time...Actually she likes to call me lil Lady. She’s the only one who gets to call me that though.”

“Sounds like her. I’ll stick to Lady then. H--How are you doing right now? Thank you for joining me here.”

“Of course, of course. You know I saw what you posted on twitter the other day and I’ve just been thinking about it so much. I wanted to give it some genuine thougth before I responded, and then I saw you were going live, so I thought I’d give it a shot.” She explained. “It’s hard isn’t it? I’m healthy and I’m safe and I can take care of my family, so I’ve got nothing to worry about. But uh people are dying. And people don’t have the same resources we have, so I just kind of feel like a piece of shit most days. Like I gotta do something ya know?”

He takes a breath so deep it stuns him a little. His fingers still on the guitar and he just looks up at the ceiling and nods. She gets it. Maybe better than he does. Definitely better than he does.

“I do. My uh--y/n. She said the other day that it’s like we allowed it to happen. We as in society, the big ‘we’. And we did in a way. It’s in who we vote into office, who we confront about their world views, who we question and who we don’t. It kind of feels like a culmination of what a lot of us have been saying for a long time. And nobody would listen. Nobody would change. And so this is the card we’ve been dealt.” He sighed. “But you’re right. It’s not gonna be me, or you, or any of the assholes in office. I--It’s gonna be the people we were fighting alongside the whole time. The people without a fanbase, or the ability to write a check. So what the fuck do we do?”

It’s the wildest thing. He’s talking to Lady Gaga, but she’s got no make up on and she’s sitting cuddled up on her couch in glasses. And he’s at home in his studio. The only place where he makes sense. And they’re talking through the hurt together. It’s a collective hurt that seems to permeate through the screen. But at least they can wrestle with it together.

“I think we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line. We got to stand up and offer what we can, because it’ll always be more. And not like the bullshit sing a longs ya know? Like dollars, and pushing of the political agendas, and more dollars. That’s only way we get out of this, all of us, together.”

She’s kind of a genius. The way she spoke reminded him of y/n and the way she would talk sometimes. It was the kind of way of speaking that made you know she could change the world. And it only hurt his heart all the more that she was in such a space.

“Can I ask you a mental health question?”

“Oh of course?”

“I know that you’ve been open with your own experience andI guess I was just wondering… well first how you’re doing in this moment? And then I have someone close to me who’s really struggling under the weight of all of these things we’re talking about. And I don’t really know how to help them, but I really want to.”

She took him seriously which was nice and listened empathetically in a way that didn’t make him feel so alone.

“Absolutely. You know it’s--it’s hard to get out of bed some days. And some days I don’t. For me personally, channeling my energy towards finding funding and aid for people has been helpful. I’m an italian girl so I want to fix shit immediately ya know?” She giggled. “So I’m doing okay today, and I’ve learned to be happy with where I’m at, to try not to push myself towards something I don’t have. Is your loved one okay?”

He could feel the part of himself that was being pulled towards the stairs to get to her. He could still remember the whine she let out when he asked her if she wanted to shower that day. His heart hurt for her and because of her, as it belonged to her.

He shook his head softly and she frowned back at him.

“She--They haven’t gotten out of bed in four days now. N--not really eating. Cries a lot, and they’re really not a big crier. I just wanna make it better, but I guess I don’t know how.” He mumbled. “It’s hard to tell ‘em it’s gonna be better when it feels like that might never happen ya know?”

She nods and suddenly it’s like a huge therapy session for him, which only makes him feel a bit more like a piece of shit. But he’d do anything if it meant she felt better.

“Let me guess. You tried giving her space? Thought maybe she’d snap out of it?”

He gets the feeling she knows exactly who he’s talking about it and the pretenses sort of melt away.

“Yea. It’s kind of driving me crazy though. We’re not really the distance type.”

“Of course.” She smiled. “I can’t really explain what’s going on in her head. It’s different for everybody. What I can offer is only a suggestion if what’s currently happening isn’t working. Just go lie next to her. It might not be today. It might not be this week, but there are moments in and out of it--kinda like a fog? And in those moments of clarity, Shawn? There is nothing worse than finding yourself alone. I can promise you that.”

He nods, hanging onto every word that she speaks. In all honesty the genius of women had never gone unnoticed to him. It was a part of what always made him realise what an idiot his father was.

“Look, still get up. Work out. Shower. Eat. But when you can...be there. And let me know if that helps. In the meantime I think I’ve got a bit of an idea, would you mind if I sent you something?”

“Absolutely. Send away.”

The second the livestream ends he makes his way upstairs. She’s sat on his side of the bed this time, which makes him wonder what’s going on in her head. It’s clear that she’s awake, so he climbs in slowly after her. But this time he doesn’t press, doesn’t beg, doesn’t coax. He simply goes back to plucking at the strings of his guitar. And the reality is that nothing happens. He honestly doesn’t know if he helps even in the slightest. But he’s there. And that’s all that he could offer. He just hoped it was enough.

***

Day six she snuggles into his side for the entirety of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. She’s asleep, but it’s a win.

Day seven she lets him open the curtains for a while.

Day eight she asks him if they can take a bath. He gets a little overzealous. Pulls out the bubbles and the bath salts and the bath bombs. In the end, when she takes her bonnet off for the first time, her curls are flattened and stuck together. He asks if he can wash it for her. She pauses but tells him she’s afraid she won’t be able to get out of bed again to rinse out a deep condition. So they make a deal to sit in the tub long enough for the conditioner to penetrate, and then he rinses it for her. She spends a long time with her head pressed against his chest, bubbles popping into thin air against their skin.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, tears welling up again. “‘M so sorry.”

“Shhh. I love you more than life. I’d do this every day. I don’t need an apology okay?”

The bath drains her. He gets her into a robe and she crawls immediately back into bed. There’s no time to detangle her hair for her. She goes to sleep and lets her curls mat against the pillow. He doesn’t stop her.

Day nine she comes downstairs for lunch. He makes her soup. She finds an old loaf of bread and drizzles olive oil over it before broiling it. It’s the first cooking she’s done in days and he beams with pride, he’s sure of it. They get her hair detangled together. She cries at the puff of hair that comes from the comb. He holds her for a while and then helps her back up the stairs.

Day ten is a movie on the couch.

Day eleven she walks around outside with him.

It sometimes feels like the tiniest of steps, but every day seems to get a little bit better. She cries and sleeps and still seems to think herself into a frenzy, and yet he gets to see her slowly come back to herself. It’s not until two full weeks after the first incident that she finally talks to him about any of it.

He was in the bathroom shaving and she walked in on socked feet wearing one of his sweatshirts and apparently nothing else. He could still only beam at her like crazy. It was practically in his DNA to be smitten by that woman.

“Hi.” She whispered to him in the mirror.

“Hello. I like your sweatshirt by the way.”

She smiled. The first smile he’d seen in weeks. And it drove him giddy. So giddy he slipped and cut himself like an idiot.

“Ah shit.” He mumbled touching at the cut.

“Are you alright?” She asked him and reached on her toes to touch his shoulders.

He couldn’t quite explain the intimacy her touch brought. Or how starved he’d felt of the feeling. Truly the thought had never occurred to him in the past few weeks. Despite their active and frankly adventerous sex-life, a day hadn’t gone by when he thought about anything but her wellbeing. So why, oh why was he ready to fall to his knees and cry for her off the touch of a goddamn shoulder?

He nodded shakily. “Just a knick, sweetheart. You look...you seem--you know? Good today. Better than the past few days.”

“Yea I--I feel different. Good different.”

“Yea?”

She peered up at him. “Yea. But maybe I should let you finish up here. I could make us some eggs and toast maybe? I--I don’t think I’m ready for much else.”

“Eggs and toast sound great. I’ll be right down.”

“Okay.”

She nodded to herself like she needed the confirmation that she could do it before turning on her heel.

“Y/n?”

“Yea?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

***

“I still don’t really know what happened. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

He reached for the hand not occupied with playing with her eggs and squeezed.

“Did you ever have depression or anxiety before? Maybe to a lesser degree?”

Y/n snorted. “Depression? Anxiety? In my mother’s household? I love her dearly but black mothers aren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat to therapy. My mother had one goal, to keep a roof over my head, and she didn’t make room for much else. We didn’t have time to be sad.”

He frowned. “Darling that sounds...honestly kind of terrible.”

“Maybe. But it’s the reality I grew up in. Depression has always been a white folks thing.”

“Well last I checked depression doesn’t know color, babe. And I think the fact that you lied in bed for two weeks means that there’s something bigger at play here.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. And he knew she was back by the way that eyebrow told him every word that would come out of her mouth before she said it.

“You know you’ve gotten bolder since you married me? I don’t like it.” She whined.

He chuckled softly and reached to push her dish out of reach. She’d taken to playing with the leftover scraps so that she didn’t have to look him in the eye, but he desperately needed her attention.

“If anything I’ve only fallen more in love with you. And I just wanna understand. I wanna help. If that means getting you to understand that you, my beautiful, intelligent wife are not immune to depression and anxiety, then I’m sorry we’ll simply have to work through it. I’m only interested in what’s best for you, you know that.”

She bit her lip and squeezed his hands, intertwining their fingers across the table. Her mouth dips into a frown as she finally reflects on her emotions.

“I just kept thinking about it. I mean constantly. I--I couldn’t stop. And it...made me sadder than I’ve ever been in my life.” She whispered. “Even now I’m imagining bodies. When I close my eyes that’s what I see. And I don’t know their names, I don’t know their faces, but I can feel their pain. And it is absolutely insufferable. It’s like this big, huge brick. And I can’t move it. I can’t get rid of it. It’s just there. All the fucking time.”

“That sounds terrifying baby.” He sighed holding onto her tighter. “I--I’m so sorry that you’re feeling this way.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do? See a therapist in the middle of a pandemic? Whine about my sadness while we live in a mansion and fucking cook all day while healthcare frontliners are pulling twenty-four hour shifts, and people can’t afford their bills? I don’t do this, Shawn. This isn’t me.” She sniffled.

He let go of her hands and wiped at her tears instead. This felt like a moment best spent with her cheeks in his palms anyway.

“Hey, having money doesn’t mean you don’t get to feel. In fact I think you’re the person who taught me that. What you’re feeling right now is nothing less than a product of your empathy and your willingness to care for people you’ve never even met. You need to be fucking kinder to yourself, do you hear me? It’s my wife you’re talking about.” He smiled. “We’ll get you whatever you need. But we will get it, and you don’t need to feel bad about that. I promised you the world didn’t I?”

She sighed and took a deep breath to calm herself, always feeling quite silly when he held her face that way. It’s why he did it.

“I do remember something to that effect.” she said dryly.

“Good. Now perhaps I could kiss you? It’s been quite a while for me.”

“It has...You may proceed.”

“Thank you, your majesty.” He chuckled and kissed her silly at the dining room table. “Hey I think I have an idea to balance how you’re feeling and still get you the help that you need.”

“Oh god. Every time you have an idea it always ends up with me having a damn heart attack.”

“I’ll keep the paddles near by.”

“Not funny!”

***

*y/n’s point of view*

Leave it to Lady Gaga to try and save the world. And leave it to her to reach out to Shawn and ask for your help when you couldn’t get out of bed. Women really do it all.

She called on a Sunday. She said she was sick of the instalives and the donation swipe up buttons and the rally cries that we were all in the same boat. She wanted to use her privilege, her money, and her big ass mouth to really get some change made. But she couldn’t do it alone. She had three people helping her thus far and they’d raised twenty million already. But, the reality was that the pandemic was disproportionately impacting black and brown bodies. If the thought of the pain and the death was really getting to you, this was essentially your shot to make some good out of it.

So, you went all out. Tyler Perry gave ten million up front. Normani donated five hundred thousand. Michael B. Jordan gave a million. Chadwick added two. Oprah heard Tyler gave ten so she gave fifteen. The messaging was simple. Our people are hurting, it’s our responsibility to help the very communities that no one else will. Besides, Shawn and you were putting up another ten million yourselves. Excuses were minimal.

Every one of your artists joined in on the One World: Together at Home, including the big man himself with the piano you bought him for your anniversary. It really was an amazing experience. That didn’t mean you were fixed though. Usually work in the midst of anything going on in your life was your MO, but you couldn’t manage to kick this one. There were still days where you just needed to sleep and sleep and try to forget the world was in turmoil. And the hardest part is seeing him lean over to your side of the best and whisper in your ear asking if there was anything he could do. There was so rarely anything he could do.

There’s a therapist. Black. Female. Located in Toronto but she was raised in Alabama. Shawn finds her when you don’t get out of bed again. It’s the most stern your husband had ever been with you, and even that was full of devastatingly warm gooiness.

“You need to talk to someone. And I understand that it can’t be me. I understand it needs to be someone who gets it and who can connect with you in all the ways that you’re hurting right now. So we’ll set up the zoom calls on the tv in your office, you can close the door; we never even have to talk about what goes on during your sessions. But, baby I...I can’t watch you just be in pain like this. Not anymore, okay? So you’re going to therapy dammit, do you hear me?”

And that’s the story of how you got a therapist for the first time in your life. Men. So dramatic.

***

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[joshler]

regarding my last post

tw// topics relate to suicide/suicide prevention, racism, and bullying

before i get put on blast for “being white” or whatever the replies have accused me of: no, i’m actually a queer asian poc! my dad is a chinese immigrant from hong kong and my mom is cambodian who immigrated to america from vietnam during the vietnam war. i support blm 1000% bc i feel that as a fellow minority, we are on the same team. we’ve felt oppression, in different degrees, yes, but oppression nonetheless. i wanted to clear the air in regards to myself personally because the things aimed at me in the replies of my last post were insensitive and ignorant when you do not personally know me.

i would like to say i’m more of an update page at this point for TWENTY ONE PILOTS. i’m not here to get political, but i do want to say some things in regard to yesterday’s twitter incident with tyler joseph. first of all, YIKES. the joke was distasteful and the entire “thread” on everything he made yesterday had the worse timing in the history of ever. the platform “joke” was in regards to everybody pressuring for him to say something on current events such as blm, lebanon, etc. those things are very important and i have already done many things on my part to support blm and lebanon including donations, signing petitions, and posting on my main social media accounts (i’ve really ghosted tumblr) with ways others can help. i put links to resources, petitions, and places to donate among other helpful sites. the way tyler handled things yesterday was really idiotic on his part. with that dumb joke, he could have immediately linked blm and apologized right afterwards which is what should have been done. instead, he moved on into a tangent regarding mental health and suicide awareness. i understand what he was trying to say, but in the heat of the political movement RIGHT NOW, shifting the conversation to mental health while it should have been about blm was a terrible choice on his part. even if he connected how mental health and blm tied in together, it would have been great for what he was trying to say.

WHAT HE MEANT for all of the sjws jumping on this bc “a white man is being racist and using his privilege”: september is suicide prevention month. tyler’s intensions with the platform tweet was to make fun of everyone mass tweeting him for the past few months (you cannot make people do things). he was NOT mocking blm or any political movement. that platform joke was supposed to lead into talking about mental health. for anyone who doesn’t know, tyler is a very meticulous person. there’s no doubt he’s planned talking about this stuff for a long time. the fucking band’s moto is “stay alive” so of course mental health is a huge part of twenty one pilots culture, and tyler would want to talk about it. at the same time, that doesn’t mean i’m at all excusing him for not immediately speaking on behalf of blm in yesterday’s tweets. once he saw that what he was saying was not received as he thought it would be, tyler apologized for hurting anyone and sent out the links.

this is not the first time he has talked about blm either (as seen above). his band mate (josh) and wife (jenna) have spoken on behalf of blm as well. debby ryan (josh’s wife) has been the most vocal in regards to everything going on right now. for you strangers out there to jump on here and to call him this and that is doing nothing but spreading negativity. you are wasting your own time. instead of badgering people, how about taking your business elsewhere or at least trying to educate others. do not come onto my replies just to make trouble. as fans, you can’t just say “we don’t personally know them” while you know even less than we do since you just popped in when shit hit the fan for them and they turned “problematic.” tyler did what was right at the end of the day. i am not praising him at all, but he has at least apologized and learned his lesson.

in regards to them being rich and not donating: nobody knows what they’ve done behind the scenes. i personally donated to many blm funds and to the red cross in lebanon, and nobody knows that until now! just because you donate does not mean you are obligated to publicly blast that for everybody to know. your money is going to a cause that you support, and that should only really matter to you. celebrities are no exception to that idea.

fun fact: tyler has a niece named mercy on his wife’s side! she is black and tyler and his wife are extremely close to her and her family. to come out of no where just to call him racist and all that when you in fact don’t know a thing about him besides some surface tweets is uncalled for. in regards to being silent on the crisis in lebanon, tyler is part lebanese! without a doubt, he’s donated to some sort of lebanon aid fund. but again, we will never know.

for those of you upset about the platforms: dollskill isn’t the only site that sells those boots! dollskill is certainly the most popular brand the shoes are on, but if you look them up, the platforms pop up else where as well. to blatantly say “oh he supports dollskill so he’s racist/homophobic/supports the police/all the shit that company stands for” is just as ignorant as you think he is!  dollskill as a company is complete shit. i don’t support them at all. many people think they’re from dollskill mainly because of this one instagram page that’s all about finding the exact/similar clothing to what tyler/josh/jenna/debby have worn, but we cannot be 100% sure that they were purchased from dollskill. that shit company steals from other smaller artists/designers, remember? (that same instagram account reuploaded a link to a different store who is selling them, as found here)

if you still have beef with tyler and what he said, there’s really no point in bickering just to call complete strangers “stupid” or “clowns” or just really hurtful names! you are screaming into an abyss and hurting others at the same time. there is a fine line between straight up bullying and educating others on bettering their understanding with what is currently going on. my intensions behind the post was to show that he had become active again. we are a fandom, and i like to update my page when they post new pictures. that is simply what i did. i made THIS post to clear the air on what people were saying about ME. i deleted tumblr off my phone because what was being said was just belittling and i didn’t want to see that when this whole situation with what tyler did already made me upset. feel free to dm me if you would like to talk about anything. i would be happy to discuss any points that i’ve mentioned. i would much rather have a civil conversation than be picked on through replies and anonymous messages.

at the end of the day, not everyone can always have satisfied and that’s okay. if anything, this entire situation truly opened my eyes to that. hopefully you read through this whole thing before you put anything on blast again.

here’s this, too. they do care.

summary: sorry on behalf of tyler joseph. he needs to work on reading the room better.

[craniumhurricane]

FINALLY finished one of my @bellarkebingo fics!

@kindclaws suggested established relationship and prank wars. I did it in  modern setting so I checked alternate universe (any kind) off as well. Ignore the other colors, I didn’t save this photo in parts so it’s marked with my wips.

fool you once, shame on me

[ On AO3! ]

The whole thing had honestly started as an accident.

One of Clarke's coworkers made an offhand comment about the cleanliness of her workstation which, in true Clarke fashion, meant she had to prove anyone and everyone wrong, sending her into a cleaning frenzy. Unfortunately, that energy didn’t just keep to her place of work.

Their place was never dirty, by any means; Bellamy was used to cleaning up after his sister, so tidying up after himself and someone else was just habit at this point. But after the thing at work, Clarke made a declaration about pulling her weight around the house and thus "Clarke's Spring Cleaning Project" was born… nevermind they were a couple of months well past Spring. Unpacking boxes that they haven't touched since they moved from their apartment into their house 5 years ago, only to then turn around and use those same boxes for sorting the donations from the trash which was certainly economical. She even had plans for the attic, which honestly even Bellamy is too scared to go in there; it's why most of their holiday decorations are in storage containers in the garage instead. 

The crowning jewel of Clarke’s project came this past weekend in which she spent cleaning, rearranging, and even painting their kitchen.

"This color is much more cheerful," she had told him, along with, "And doesn't the silverware make much more sense in this drawer?"

Bellamy didn't mind. And honestly? It did make more sense for the silverware to be in that drawer.

It's early the next Monday morning when he stumbles into the kitchen and gets the coffee pot going, completely unable to start his workday without having a cup. He's still groggy so it takes him two tries before he remembers that Clarke moved the mugs too.

He's waiting patiently, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and when the coffee is finally ready he pours himself a generous cup and doctors it up with cream and sugar. He's taking that first blissful sip and as soon as the liquid touches his tongue… he spits it out all over the counter.

"What the hell?" He manages between coughs.

Bellamy takes an experimental, tentative sip like somehow this one will be different from the first. At least this time he manages to spit the god awful stuff back into his cup. He grimaces and glares at the liquid like it's personally betrayed him.

He glances around before his eyes land on the ceramic sugar container on the counter. Slowly, Bellamy pulls it towards him and sticks his pinky inside, bringing the white granules to his tongue. The taste of salt makes his face screw up.

Bellamy eyes the salt container next and brings it over to repeat the process. Sugar. 

It’s still too early for him to properly process this so he just makes another, proper, cup of coffee and goes about his morning getting ready. He kisses Clarke on the forehead goodbye before she’s even gotten out of bed and writes her a note and leaves it on the counter in front of the coffee machine.

Bellamy gets a text from her later when he’s unlocking the door to his office at the University saying, “Sorry! Thanks for the heads up!” and honestly that should have been that…

*

To be fair, he didn't plan on seeking revenge. All of the pieces just sort of fell into his lap. Or rather, fell into his desk drawer after he confiscated it from a student.

It's a couple of days later in the week and Clarke's decided to try one of those websites where you type in all the random ingredients you have in your house and it tells you a possible meal you can make with what you got. They usually have to do this once or twice a month because they forgot to put something on the grocery list and they don't feel like ordering takeout again.

She walks out of the kitchen carrying the pot of gumbo or goulash or whatever it's supposed to be (stew maybe?) and brings it over to the table. Bellamy watches intently, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling and tries to hide it behind his glass of water.

“Well, at least it smells good,” Clarke says and sets the pot on the trivet. She plops down in her seat and then immediately shoots out of her chair due to the sound it makes.

Bellamy can’t contain his laughter after that, not that he's really trying anymore.

“What the hell?” she asks, brows furrowed in confusion. She moves the cushion on her chair to find a whoopee cushion underneath it. Clarke lifts it up with something like disbelief on her face before she turns her focus on him and stares with a frown.

Bellamy’s still chuckling, “Consider it payback.”

Clarke purses her lips but he can tell she’s trying hard not to smile. “I'm sorry,” she starts as she sits down again and waves the whoopee cushion back and forth, “are we 12?"

"Funny enough,” he says as he starts ladling food into their bowls, “I confiscated that from some frat kid in my Ancient Civilizations class that probably has the IQ of a 12 year old."

She laughs at that as he sets her bowl down in front of her. "You know the salt and sugar thing was an accident, right?"

Bellamy shrugs as he sits back down, "I know."

She shakes her head and then blows up the whoopee cushion so she can squeeze the air out directly in his face. 

He smirks. Now he knows it’s on.

*

A few days later, they're both up at the same time, Clarke having to get up earlier than usual for a new exhibit opening at the museum. He's shuffling behind her on their way to the kitchen and nearly has a heart attack when he tries to cross the threshold. Someone put saran wrap from one side of the doorframe to the other, just high enough so that someone is able to walk under it while he gets a face full of plastic.

His "what the fuck!?" is drowned out by his wife’s laughter. Bellamy threatens to withhold her morning caffeine, but they both know that's an empty threat. 

He retaliates instead by putting bubble wrap under the rug that leads to their bathroom one night after she's gone to sleep. It succeeds in scaring the literal piss out of her at 3am. (That one kind of backfires because it scares him awake too and somehow he ends up on the floor.)

It's the next week when Clarke strikes again, sticking with her tried and true plastic wrap. Bellamy almost breaks the damn bottle of his body wash with how hard he tries to squeeze the soap out. Apparently that wasn’t enough because she covered the openings of his shampoo and conditioner too. Jokes on her though cause he doesn't mind smelling like her citrus wash and shampoo all day.

He tries something a little more creative next and hides all of her right shoes so she's forced to go to work with two mismatched left flats. 

Since apparently this opens up work attire as a new area for their so-called torture, she hides all of his ties except for the novelty one Murphy got him as a gag gift that has rubber ducks on it. She makes sure to take a picture and send it to their entire friend group.

Bellamy knows, logically, that they could stop at any time. But the pranks are harmless, even a little exhilarating, as they wait to see what the other will do next. They still kiss each other good morning, binge watch sitcom reruns curled up on the couch in the afternoons, and make love at night. They’re not even that subtle about it, each one having caught the other looking up pranks online which prompts Clarke to politely inform him that if he fills her Oreos with toothpaste that she would definitely divorce him.

It startles him a bit when, about a little over a month after this whole “prank war” thing started, she meets him at the garage door when he gets home with a smile on her face. He's wary, to say the least.

"What did you do?" He asks, wondering if he’s missed a sign taped to his back all day.

She chuckles softly, "Nothing. But I have a surprise for you.”

She takes his hand and leads him to sit down on the couch while she perches in front of him on the coffee table. Her hand never leaves his and now she’s brought the other one into the mix so his is sandwiched between her small ones.

"I'm pregnant."

He feels his breath hitch and his heart stop. But then his head starts to weigh in and he narrows his eyes as her.

"That's not funny, Clarke."

She blinks at him, opens and closes her mouth a few times before she finally speaks. "What, you think I'm lying?"

"Come on, clearly you stole this from Brooklyn Nine Nine. We just rewatched that heist episode the other night.”

Clarke let’s go of his hand so she can drop her head into her’s and groan, "Oh my God, Bellamy.” 

He’s not done though; he’s more than a little miffed. "Where did you see this prank going exactly?” he has to ask.

"It's not a fucking prank,” She snaps at him. “And if I have to pee on a Goddamn stick in front of you to prove it then fine."

She's clearly upset about this which makes him more inclined to believe her. And really, deep down, Bellamy knows she wouldn't lie about something like this. Something they both want.

All the same, he follows her without protest as she drags him into their bathroom and makes him sit on the edge of the tub while she rifles through the cabinet under the sink, grumbling the whole way as she does it.

When she's done; she sets a timer on her phone, crosses her arms, and stares at him while they wait. She’s sitting on the closed toilet lid, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into a pout.

Her phone goes off and she continues to look at him but her stare turns pointed, eyes shifting from him to the stick and then back to him. His palms are sweaty and he doesn't know why but he reaches across her for the pregnancy test on the counter

All the air leaves his lungs in a simple, "Holy shit."

"I'm going to hold this against you for, like, the entire pregnancy. And maybe the first few years of this kid's life."

She's probably still pretty pissed at him but she's looking at him with tears in her eyes so he figures it’s safe to lean forward and press a soft kiss to her lips.

She keeps her word. And when she says she's in labor, he’s sure to believe her.

[an-annyeoing-writer]

vampire!Baekhyun x Reader: meant to belong.

Word count: 7 998 Date of release: 06.05.2019 Warnings: blood, mentions of death, minor descriptions of violence;  

The first step was difficult, but there was a sense of purpose that kept you going.

You wanted to belong somewhere. You wanted to know your place. If you couldn’t have it where you were born, then you wanted to find it elsewhere. No matter what effort it’d take.

That first step was to convince yourself that you can manage to live on your own, that your world doesn’t have to close up on what you’ve experienced until now. You weren’t brave, you didn’t really know if what you’re doing is right. But you had your purpose and you knew that the best advice you can get, is to do exactly what needs to be done.

You pressed your lips together, calming down your breathing. The pretty, elegant clothes you wore suddenly became too tight for your liking, the white shirt pressing on your chest as if it wasn’t heavy enough. 

Checking the way your pants fitted in the window’s glass, she stepped inside.

“Hello, I’ve heard you have a vacancy. Could I…”

“What’s your experience?” the woman in her fifties, standing behind the cash register, asked in a bit harsh tone. Some of the customers sitting nearby spared you a glance, making you feel even more nervous. 

“It’d be my first job” you replied truthfully.

The woman squinted her eyes at you. 

“School?”

“I’m a college student” you admitted. 

“Need quick cash, I see.”

You didn’t answer to that, not really wanting to get into details. Her eyes seemed to judge your very existence, and in her head – you could literally hear that – she was making assumptions as to what were you looking for here.

“Sorry, we look for experienced people” she replied thoughtlessly. 

“I-I can learn…” you stuttered.

“I won’t take responsibility for a kid running around.”

“I’m not a kid, ma’am…” you tried to explain politely.

“Told you I won’t take you, just go away.”

“Ma’am…”

“Want me to call security?”

You pressed your lips together and forced a strained smile onto your face. Your patience was wearing thin.

“Hope you go bankrupt, ma’am” you exclaimed politely and turned around. It wasn’t the only shop in the city. And surely there were other places that could hire you. Surely. 

You left the building and leaned against the wall, exhaling slowly. The conversation unnerved you more than you’d like, the woman’s attitude didn’t leave any doubt that the lack of employees must have been a result of not-too-friendly atmosphere at the workplace. In fact, who would want to work with such a b…

“Hello, you okay?”

The door of the coffee shop opened and a man stepped out, smiling softly. Your upset face did nothing to take him aback, as though he was prepared to see it. At first, you didn’t really believe he was talking to you – but when you quickly proceeded the facts, he must have been a witness to the situation that just took place.

“Oh, I’m alright” you replied quickly, smiling back with your lips pursed. The last thing you wanted to do was to bother strangers with your own problems. It was bad enough that they had to witness the situation.

“Mm, it wasn’t really nice of her” he noticed, closing the door behind himself and leaning against the wall next to you. You glanced at him curiously, but also with a doze of suspicion. 

“Well, it’s up to her how she chooses her employers” you shrugged. 

“But it doesn’t give her right to treat others like this.”

To that, you only nodded, pressing your lips together. A silence welcomed the two of you as you stared forward, slowly letting the tension flee away from your body. The stranger’s presence seemed peculiarly comforting.

The weather on this day was really pleasant, warm, but not hot, with soft breeze doing a good job at calming you down. You smiled.

“Well, guess it wasn’t meant to be. I’ll go look somewhere else. Thank you” you said, bowing softly.

“Is it true that you need money fast?” he asked, peeking at you from underneath his lashes. His face was a bit more relaxed now, not smiling anymore, but still somewhat welcoming. 

You sighed.

“Kinda. I need to pay rent as soon as possible. But I need to have a job in order to afford it later, of course” you explained. Sensing the other’s curiosity, you cleared your throat. You felt just fine sharing with him such brief peeks from your life, but you didn’t want to overwhelm a stranger with your problems. “I barely moved out, so it’s all new to me. I need to settle down.”

The stranger nodded his head understandingly. 

“You know, there are ways to get money quickly” he started carefully, glancing at you and watching your expressions, unsure as to how would you react.

The realization of what the man was – in your opinion – implying, made your whole body go stiff, and your mind automatically started imagining the worst case scenario that could occur now.

“I-I’m sorry, I think I’ll be going” you muttered, pushing yourself off the wall. Before you could take a step, a hand wrapped around your wrist, stopping you from going any further. You felt your heart drop. 

“Please, hear me out” the man said calmly. “It’s not what you think it is. And I’m not going to force anything upon you. I just think we could help each other out.”

It’s not what you think it is.

Was he truthful now? Could you really trust him? You needed money. Even if you found a job today, you’d still have to wait a long time before getting your first salary. You already borrowed money from your friend to pay the fee, you needed to give it back to her as soon as possible. And you had to get food, too. 

You cleared your throat, glancing back at the man. He seemed somehow desperate, and that much you two had in common.

“O-okay. But if it gets fishy, I’m leaving right away.”

He exhaled and nodded quickly.

“Let’s go sit somewhere. There should be some better place nearby” he announced, and you had to admit, the coffee shop was the last place you’d like to spend anymore of your time in.

“Before we go. What’s your name?” 

The man smiled gently once again.

“Byun Baekhyun. Nice to meet you.”

You nodded slowly.

“[F/n]” you replied, deciding that it’s too soon to share your last name yet. “Nice to meet you, too. I hope.”

* * *

The two of you ended in some fast food restaurant. Your stomach grumbled at the smell – you didn’t eat much for breakfast, both to save money and because of the stress tied to the task you had. It didn’t look like a proper place for business conversations, but neither of you cared.

“What would you like?” the man asked, eyeing the meal offers sprawled on the screen above the counters. “’I’ll pay. I owe you for coming with me. No big deal.” He smiled warmly. As much as you didn’t want to agree, you weren’t in a position to turn down a free meal.

“It’s up to you then, I’m not picky” you replied. “I’ll go look for seats.”

Once the two of you finally sat down, the atmosphere finally started to get less awkward. The slight smile on the stranger’s face seemed to be nothing but polite now. It was hard to tell what he was thinking – it seemed as though he was doing his best not to scare you away. And you appreciated it. It had some sort of sincerity in it, something that caused you to trust him a little bit more. In fact, even not knowing any details yet, you were almost sure that what he said before was true and he was not going to ask you for anything inappropriate.

Or maybe it was only the facade? A well-prepared way of gaining the others’ trust, learned through years of experience? 

You sat in silence, glancing either at him or the surroundings every few seconds, waiting for the order to arrive. The man seemed not to hurry, letting you ease yourself in the situation. When he looked away, you took it as an opportunity to study him a little more. He seemed not much older than you, and, what kind of struck you – he was handsome. His hair seemed strong and fluffy, which you envied instantly. There was nothing about his appearance that’d seem less than perfect and it, in fact, did nothing to ease your suspicion. 

Someone called your order’s number and he stood up to get it, not even giving you a chance to do it instead. You waited for him to arrive a few second later and put a tray in front of you. The tray contained two of everything: two cheeseburgers, two packs of fries, two boxes of nuggets and two cups of some sort of drink. Your mouth salivated from the smell that overwhelmed you instantly. 

“Cola or juice?” he asked, pointing the cups.

“A-anything will be okay.”

“Then juice, it’s healthier” he said, taking the cola and putting it in front of himself, encouraging you to take the other cup. You couldn’t help but smile at his reasoning. 

“Shouldn’t you take the juice for yourself if it’s healthier?” 

The man laughed shyly, looking down at his hands. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but eventually decided not to. A pleasant silence fell upon the two of you and you decided to reach for the nuggets. They seemed like the best treat right now. 

“So? What’s the deal, Mr Byun?” you asked politely. The man seemed a bit dumbfounded for a few seconds, as if not proceeding what you just said.

“O-oh, please, just call me Baekhyun.”

“W-well then, Baekhyun. What’s the…”

“Have you ever donated blood?” he asked casually, lazily swirling the straw in his cola, whatever the gesture’s purpose was.

You frowned. It was definitely the last question you’d expect to hear. 

“I don’t think I’ve had the chance to” you admitted. “But it’s not a problem for me. Why?”

Baekhyun took a sip of his cola, watching you with full interest. 

“It’s kind of what I’d like to pay you for” he announced straightforwardly. Your frown only deepened. 

“Illegal medicine business?” you asked hesitantly, feeling slightly nervous again. Maybe the idea didn’t sound that bad, it surely was an easy money, but you didn’t want to engage yourself in any sort of illegal stuff. Once again, what if someone decided to use your body in a way you wouldn’t approve? 

“Not really” Baekhyun said slowly. “It’s nothing that could get you in trouble.”

“Then what it is?”

The man bit on his lip, not looking away. He must have been thinking of what to tell you and it urged you to stay cautious – who knew how many of his words were true.

“I can show you. But I need you to promise that you won’t walk away once I do.”

You crossed your arms, leaning back.

“I can’t promise you that. I told you I’ll leave as soon as it gets fishy. And it’s already fishy.”

“Please. There’s nothing I could do to harm you now, there’s a lot of people around, and cameras. It’s technically safer than if you were to leave now.”

That was true. You were relatively safe here. If you left though, and he followed you – before you reached home (or the police station) you’d surely be passing through someplace secluded enough to make it easy to harm you. The fact he was the one to point it out made you realize just how aware he was of your doubts. 

You exhaled.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll hear out whatever you have to say. But it still doesn’t mean I’ll agree.”

He nodded quickly. 

“Just… try not to freak out.” He glanced around quickly, making sure there was no one nearby. He rested his chin on his palm, blocking the view of his face from anyone who could be accidentally looking in his direction. There was only you, with your frown deepening with every second.

And when you were about to ask him what’s the deal about, he blinked, and his eyes suddenly turned red. You stared at him, completely dumbfounded, unsure if your sight wasn’t betraying you now. But the way he looked at you, the way the crimson flickered when he glanced away for a brief second, it only ensured you that – in fact – it was exactly what he wanted you to see. 

Your lips parted slightly in shock, still unable to proceed what just happened. Was it some sort of illusion?

Baekhyun licked over his lips briefly. With another blink, the crimson disappeared, exchanged with the previous, dark color. 

“U-um…” He looked down, letting his hand fall onto the table. He sipped on his cola again, probably to ease the tension. “So, do you have an idea of what I am?” he asked quietly, seeming slightly self-conscious. 

“I… Uh… no” you blurted out.

“Think carefully.”

Was it some sort of a joke? You felt like this situation was somewhat familiar, you’ve read stories, you imagined things like such being real. 

You laughed hysterically.

“No, no way.” 

You stood up without thought, as if to walk away just like that. You were pretty much ready to ignore the promise you gave earlier. If it, in fact, was a joke, you were only going to embarrass yourself. 

But the look on Baekhyun’s face, filled with despair and sincere shame of his own nature, made you realize that in fact, you didn’t want to leave just like this. You felt annoyance at the thought of it being a lie. But no fear, no resistance.

So you sat back down, biting on your lip, crossing your arms and staring forward at the man. His face showed some kind of uncertainty, and he seemed to shrink a little under your bold gaze. 

“You gotta tell me more” you exclaimed. 

He breathed out, closing his eyes for a brief moment before opening them again and mindlessly swirling the straw in his cup. 

“I don’t want to drop too much onto you right now. But tell me what are your thoughts right now. If you don’t want to help me, it’s the right time to say it, and I’ll just let you go. I don’t need you to promise that you won’t tell anyone, because no one would believe you. But I don’t want to tell you too much for nothing” he explained carefully.

You nodded slowly.

“I… In fact, I’m interested” you admitted. “I still need money and if what you’re saying is true, this deal is even less risky than what I originally expected.” You scratched your neck, looking away for a moment before looking at him again. “But I still need to know more. About everything. You need to understand that it’s um… new. Of course I want to know more.”

Baekhyun watched you thoughtfully.

“How about that. I’ll tell you about what we will need to do, and after we do that, I will tell you more about myself. This way, the both of us will have some sort of… security here.”

You nodded. Your eyes landed on the food in front of you. Both of your sets were getting cold already, so you decided to focus on the fries now. 

“Technically, we can do it in two ways” Baekhyun started, finally letting go of the straw and starting to eat his fries as well. “I could use the supplies that are usually used for blood donation or… well… do it traditionally.” You gulped and he must have noticed your uncertainty, because he glanced up at you now. “Whichever you prefer. I’ve done it with needles before, you don’t have to worry about it. And you’d be able to see how much exactly I take.”

“Speaking of which. What about my… um, fee?” you suddenly recalled. After all, you were doing it for money. 

“I don’t have a specific interest rate, but… Technically, fully recovering the amount of blood I’d need would take your body around two months. How about twice the average monthly salary, then? It should be enough for you to settle down.” Your breath hitched. The average salary is above what you’d expect from a job at a coffee shop. Getting it now would be surely more than enough. You’d be able to settle down. You wouldn’t need to worry about getting a job as soon as possible. And you’d still have time to study.

“Where have you been all my life” you muttered thoughtfully, licking over your lips. “Okay. It’s a deal.” 

“Huh-”

“I mean, I agree.”

The man blinked, a bit surprised, but not opposing. Apparently, he could have mentioned the money at the beginning, and it would save him anymore explanation. Okay, then. 

“In this case, do you have a free evening?” 

In fact, you were supposed to spend all this day hunting for job. But if you were to actually earn money during this time, then it was even better, right?

You nodded eagerly. 

“Would you mind coming to my place? I have everything we’ll need.”

“Okay.”

“[F/n]?” You tilted your head to the side, watching as Baekhyun’s expression turned soft, completely concern-ridden. “Thank you. You’re literally a life-saver.”

* * *

You didn’t really know how was it possible that knowing such a peculiar piece of information about someone’s life would be enough for you to trust them so much. After all, the fact of Baekhyun being – in fact – a vampire, should scare you away. Yet, the very moment you made decision to accept it, you found yourself putting all your trust in this mysterious man, completely dismissing just how dangerous could be the thing you were about to do. 

“How often do you need to… you know?” 

“Around every two weeks, but I can go on for around a month without it.”

“What happens if you starve?”

“Well, I’m… hungry, weaker, unnerved. But I rarely ever let that happen.”

“And when was the last time you drank?”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows furrowed when he glanced at you. These and other questions were asked in the past few minutes of your way from the restaurant to his apartment. 

“Isn’t it too many questions? I promised I’ll answer everything after we’re done” he muttered. Well, weren’t you a little nuisance to him right now? But he had to tolerate you, you were aware. 

“Just this one, and I swear I will shut up” you pleaded. 

Baekhyun laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“Three weeks, so it’s not that bad yet.”

“And do you always just walk around asking strangers for-”

“It was your last question, wasn’t it?” he smiled, politely cutting you off. 

You pouted childishly, but decided to restrain yourself from asking anymore. Apparently, you would still have some time to ask him later.

Baekhyun’s apartment block was an average place, one of many doors in the staircase led to a flat that didn’t stick out at all. It was quite minimalist, with barely a few ornaments on the walls and the space filled mainly with things that were just useful, like a laptop, treadmill, PlayStation, first aid kit. These random things were placed in various places around the house, along with empty pizza boxes, chips bags and energy drink cans. 

He seemed to live here alone.

“U-um, sorry for the mess” he muttered, closing the door behind the two of you and taking off his jacket. “Make yourself at home. Hungry?”

“We just ate” you reminded.

“Ah, right. Want some drink though? Juice?”

“Do you really have a juice here?” you doubted, seeing how most of the trash here was after anything but healthy foods. 

“I always keep something healthy in the fridge. In case, you know, humans.”

Ah, right. It probably didn’t matter to him what he ate. Did he even need food at all? 

“Maybe later” you smiled. “I know I was supposed to ask things later, but I really need to know this one.” The man turned around, looking at you expectantly.

“When you asked me about there, it looked like you weren’t really sure how to proceed this. And I don’t think you have to tell someone about yourself every month. How do you usually get blood, then?”

He bit on his lip, a bit unsure. Apparently the topic was something he’d rather avoid, but at the same time – it was the answer he owed you, too.

“Well, we usually have a deal with several people we drink from regularly. Around three humans is usually enough so that if we drink from one, and then from the others, by the time we need to drink from them again their body manages to regenerate. So it doesn’t influence their health.”

“Is that what you’re usually doing?”

“Please, later.” The man’s expression was tense, making you realize that you touched something he anything but wanted you to touch. It made you wonder though – what happened to his donors? Why couldn’t he use their blood now? If they were away for any reason, he could just say that. It wouldn’t cause him to act so tense around this topic. So there definitely had to be something wrong.

But it was none of your business. 

“Okay. Sorry.” You nodded, accepting it. You had a feeling that even “later”, he still would be unwilling to share it with you. But how could you blame him – you were here only to earn money, and all he wanted from you was a food supply. You weren’t automatically becoming friends only because he told you something so crucial about his nature.

“Take a seat” he said, pulling over a huge armchair and pushing some cans off. “I’ll prepare everything, so just try to relax, okay?” He glanced at you as you sat, making sure you were still alright. You smiled reassuringly. Your heart skipped slightly, realizing how close you were to the whole ordeal. 

“Do you always do that donation thing? I’ve read a book where vampires didn’t actually have fangs and they had to cut their victim with something like a knife to cause bleeding, because their teeth couldn’t really do that” you blabbered. Was it nervousness speaking?

It made a small chuckle escape the man’s lips.

“I told you before that we can do it traditionally. With the use of fangs is exactly what I meant back then.”

“Ah, right.” True, you suddenly recalled what exactly he said back in the restaurant. “Wait, so you could just bite me? Can vampire attacks actually happen in real life, then?”

He smiled wider, clearly amused, sitting by some drawer and starting to pull things out of it.

“Theoretically, they do. But people usually don’t die from it because the amount of blood we take on one go is not lethal. And we usually try to make sure the person won’t tell anyone about it.”

“How so?”

“Vampires are generally pretty good at convincing humans to do what they’d like.”

Seeing you frown deeply, Baekhyun only chuckled. 

“Mind games. We can’t really hypnotize people into being completely obedient, but we can influence their emotions.” 

You pouted, feeling somewhat offended at the thought.

“Have you used it on me so that I wouldn’t run away back then?”

His smile faltered. 

“I didn’t have to. It was your decision to stay. But if you actually tried to run in panic, I’d need to calm you down. Ah… here it is.” He finally took out something from the drawer, some sort of wires and other things, pushed into a plastic bag as if they weren’t, in fact, medical supplies. 

“W-wait, it’s not sterile” you noticed. “Is it even clean?” 

“Well, I always wash it. If you think dried blood tastes nice, then no, I wouldn’t want to have that either.”

“Wash it with what.”

“Water? And vodka.”

“Do you have fresh needles at least?!”

“…I wash them too.”

Your lips parted in horror. You wouldn’t be surprised if he’d caused his previous donors go sick with such treatment, hence why he couldn’t ask them for help now.

“You ain’t putting that on me.”

“…W-what?”

“No way! I don’t want to die from some infection.”

He put the supplies down, sighing deeply. 

“Then there’s only one other possibility. But if you’re getting stressed over a used needle, then you really won’t, won’t like it.”

“Your saliva doesn’t stress me half as much as this” you admitted truthfully. 

“…It’ll hurt more, too.”

“I still value my life.”

The corner of his lips turned up and he looked away, smirking.

“Is that why you agreed to go to a stranger’s apartment, knowing he wants to empty your veins?”

“…I still need money” you grumbled in response. “Just stop mocking me and let’s get this done.”

“Sure!”

He stood up and in that moment, the doorbell rang out. The both of you froze, instantly looking in the door’s direction. 

You hesitated, glancing at Baekhyun. His finger touched his lip in a silent request for you to stay silent and you nodded, not letting out a single noise. 

The man stepped towards the door so quietly you swore he could as well have been a ghost. Not a single sound could be heard and you wondered if – in fact – vampires possessed some sorts of unnatural abilities. Your conversation still hasn’t gone far enough for you to find out that much. 

He found himself by the door and you watched silently. The doorbell echoed yet again. But before Baekhyun managed to turn around and tell you what was going on, the door suddenly creaked and fell off the hinges, straight at the man and pushing him inside with such force that he was thrown a few meters into the room and landed by the window with a loud thud. At this point you stood up suddenly, fear sinking through you. The heck was that?!

Two men stepped inside, their calm demeanor sending shivers down your spine. Their presence screamed with danger as they looked around, taking in the surroundings. Their eyes fell on you and you froze.

“Another donor? Thought we’ve found all” one of them spoke, stepping in your direction. With a blink, his eyes turned red and something in you suddenly screamed in fear. If you weren’t already panicking, the look sent you down onto the floor as your trembling knees gave up underneath you.

“Jongin, no.” The other gently placed a hand on his shoulder. The sensation disappeared, leaving you blank and confused. “Just calm her down and we’ll take her home.” 

You crawled backwards, trying to escape as far away as possible. The two of them were on your way to the door, which definitely didn’t help you. A quiet whimper echoed from your left and, to your relief, Baekhyun stood up, pushing the door off himself.

A thin trail of blood dropped from his nose, but the attack affected him way less than it’d affect a human. You were sure that if you were the one to be thrown all the way through the room, you’d get some brain damage at least. 

“She’s not a donor. Don’t drag her into this” Baekhyun spoke, trying to stay as calm as possible. 

“Don’t lie. You’re the one who’s dragging her into this” Jongin spoke, slightly annoyed but – to your surprise – it seemed as though he wasn’t half as hostile as it would seem from what they welcomed Baekhyun with. 

“You knew we won’t let you feed until you join us” the other said calmly.

“You want to sabotage me? Would you rather I walk around and drink from random people?”

“That wouldn’t happen. We warned you we’d watch you.”

“Just what are you trying to achieve?!” the man burst out, making you flinch at the harsh tone. Unlike what he was like while talking to you, now he seemed almost furious. 

As if he was keeping enormous amounts of rage deep within and now suddenly they erupted, completely reversing his demeanor. 

“And you? What do you gain from being alone here? You belong with us. You’re our blood, we’re not going to leave you.”

“I don’t belong to you! And you can’t force me to join you.” With these words, you felt a hand wrap around your fingers tightly and pull you up abruptly. You whimpered, Baekhyun’s fingers dug into your shoulders, keeping you in place. You looked up, at the other two, their faces showing fear you didn’t expect to see. You turned your head briefly, a flash of crimson appearing in the corner of your vision.

You thrashed in panic that suddenly overwhelmed you, but the firm grip mercilessly held you in place. 

“Baekhyun, you need to calm down” the man spoke. “You’ll hurt her if you feed from her now.”

“Minseok, he’s going to…”

Sudden pain erupted in the side of your neck, overwhelming your nerves and thoughts. Your lips parted in a silent scream of agony, everything around you mixing suddenly, all the colors, shapes and sounds losing their sense and purpose. 

In the next moment, you were harshly pulled away. The rough motion felt as if a part of your body had just been ripped away. The air wouldn’t reach your lungs, you realized, the mixture of hot and cold spilling all over you. 

It felt numb. The whole world started to feel numb.

“Fuck. Her trachea…”

“…have you done…?!”

“…didn’t mean…”

“The venom, she needs the…”

“Hurry up…!”

“Please…”

And the last thing you saw, was a flash of three pairs of crimson eyes, staring at you with emotions you couldn’t quite interpret. Then, the world went black.

* * *

Something touched your cheek gently, but the motion seemed to wake you up from your slumber and you groaned lowly, turning your head away from the touch’s source. 

“How is she?” some familiar voice could be heard nearby, the touch disappearing soon after. 

“The wound seems healed so it surely worked. But we have to feed her as soon as possible. She needs to wake up.”

You groaned again, moving your head as a sign that you, in fact, were already awake. The other voice was unfamiliar, but its soft tone instantly gained your trust. Something shuffled and you didn’t have to open your eyes to sense that theirs were locked on you. 

“Can you hear us, [F/n]?” the familiar voice echoed again and you finally forced yourself to raise your eyelids. You were in a room you didn’t recognize. A pair of cat-like eyes stared at you intently. You instantly recognized this face. Was his name Minseok? You briefly remembered someone calling him like this.

You slowly pushed yourself up. Your eyes met yet another gaze – this one belonged to a man you’ve never seen before. Everything seemed hazy in your head, you felt like you were swaying, yet your body felt lighter than ever. Kind of as if you were drunk. 

You looked around, expecting to see yet another familiar face. And surely there he was – a tad further from the couch you were laid on, staring at you intently with an inscrutable, serious look on his face. 

His shirt was covered in dry, red stains and it made all the memories hit you, forcing you to recall all that happened.

You panicked, your first instinct was to run, but a hand was quickly put on your shoulder, pushing you down gently, yet firmly at the same time. It belonged to the man you didn’t know. The man smiled softly and you calmed down at this. 

“Hello.”

You opened your mouth to answer, but no sound would leave you. Your throat felt dry and it hurt from the very attempt to speak.

“Ah, don’t strain yourself. Your body lacks of liquids now, but we’ll fix it.”

You mouthed a silent who are you, and the man chuckled. His voice was pleasant to your ears.

“My name is Yixing, I’m Baekhyun’s friend.”

In the background, you spotted the man roll his eyes and rest his chin on the palm of his hand in visible annoyance. Seeing you feel better than not must have pushed the main concerns off his mind. Then his eyes met yours and he lowered his gaze. From afar, you saw him clear his throat. 

“Well then, we will check on you later” Yixing announced suddenly, probably spotting the tension. “Baekhyun, you know what you have to do.”

The both of them – Yixing and Minseok – stood up, smiling at you with something pity-like, which you couldn’t quite comprehend. What exactly happened right before you lost consciousness, was still unknown to you. And when the two left through the room’s door, all you could do was to rely on the one who stayed there.

A weird silence fell upon the two of you. You yourself couldn’t speak, the ache in your throat didn’t subside even a bit. The other seemed to be still dwelling on what to do. You sighed quietly and that was when he finally looked at you. The look in his eyes showed the same kind of pity the others held, but there was something more to it.

He finally stood up and your gaze followed him as he reached under some table and took out a bottle of water. He came over and handed it to you. You bowed thankfully, opening the bottle. Cold liquid filled your throat, giving you some sort of relief. You coughed, discovering that your speech seemed to be no longer missing. You leaned against the couch’s backrest. 

“What happened?” you spoke huskily, putting the bottle down on the floor.

Baekhyun sat down on the stool Yixing was using barely a minute earlier. 

“I bit you” he stated shortly. 

“I… remember that much” you admitted, frowning. You remembered the way the pain blossomed from your neck. You couldn’t really make out what kind of pain it was, its intensity blinded you completely. But it could be nothing else.

“…I was angry. And hungry” he continued, words coming out a tad awkward, as if he wasn’t sure what would be the right thing to say. But you didn’t expect anything in particular. Any sort of apology would be nothing but useless right now. What happened, was already done. You could see the regret on his face, an attempt to make up for his mistake.

It still didn’t explain anything, but somewhere in the back of your head, you already knew what happened. Or, to be specific, how was it possible that with your carotid being ripped out you were still alive and feeling more than fine – at least considering the circumstances. Your hand unwittingly traveled to your neck and, just as you thought, your skin was clean. No kind of wound or even scar was there to be felt. 

“I, uh… W-we had to…”

“I’m like you now?” you asked, the words coming out lighter than you expected them to. 

The man licked over his lips, taking in your whole frame. You seemed to react better than he expected you to. Once again, your ability to accept your situation had taken him aback. 

“Not yet. But you will.”

He stood up from his stool, switching to sit on the couch next to you. The proximity was not something you braced yourself for and you moved away a bit, partly to give him space to sit comfortably and partly because you still didn’t know what he’d planned. 

“We’ve decided to empty you from blood completely. It’s half of the deed. Minseok’s venom in your system is the only thing keeping you alive now. But it won’t last long before you run out of it” he explained slowly. He raised his hand and you froze, watching him intently. To your surprise, his fingers met your forehead, pushing loose strains of your hair aside. “You’re… something like a zombie now.”

“Gross.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, but his face turned serious soon after.

“If you drink a vampire’s blood, it’ll mix with the venom and fill your veins. Your body will start to produce your own venom, and then all you’ll need to stay alive will be human blood. That’s long story short on how it works.”

“And if I don’t, I’ll die” you concluded. What he said before about Minseok’s venom made it more than clear that you were still on your deathbed. 

“But it won’t happen.” He took his hand away and, without hesitation, bit into his own wrist. You winced at the sound of his fangs going through the flesh as if it was an apple. You cleared your throat, gazing at the blood that started to seep from the wound. 

“W-wait…” 

He didn’t let you think, thrusting the wound at your mouth. The taste was foul and you instantly coughed, pushing it away.

“I-it’s gross” you whined. “No way I’ll be drinking this all my life.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, half-amused.

“It’ll get better. Vampire blood will always taste different than human, but it’ll taste better once your body adjusts. Just deal with it for now.”

You tried to shake your head, but in the next moment, his wrist was back on your lips, his other hand firmly tilting your head back. The blood filled your mouth, running down your throat. The taste was even worse than before, making you sick to the core. 

Your head spun from the effort and you finally gave up, resting back and letting the liquid fill your insides. 

Everything was burning, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. Except for the gross flavor of the other’s blood, everything else felt ecstatic. You felt dizzy and alive at the same time; your vision was hazy, yet your mind was clear. Somewhat, you quickly connected the feeling with the way liquid filled your throat. And it made you want to drown in it, to take in all you could find, no matter how awful it tasted. You found yourself sucking on the wound greedily, a quiet hiss escaping the man’s lips as your own, blunt teeth bit into the wound, extending it to gather more of the precious thing.

Something in you snapped and you threw yourself at the man, your instinct to bite into his neck taking over. The two of you landed on the floor, but he was fast to react, rolling you two over and pinning your wrists down, a lazy smile curling up the side of his mouth when he squinted his eyes, looking down at you in some sort of dominance.

“Easy there, you’ve had enough” he announced, clicking his tongue. You pursed your lips, resting your head against the carpet underneath you. The whole ordeal costed you a lot of effort and you were panting now – exhausted, but weirdly happy nonetheless.

After he was convinced you wouldn’t go for his neck again, he finally released you and sat you back on the couch. A handkerchief was pressed to your face, wiping off the blood that adored it right now. You thoughtlessly licked over your lips, taking in all you could before it was gone.

Next, he pressed the cloth against his wrist. It all got so messy. You looked up at his face. He seemed slightly dizzy and you supposed that blood loss for a vampire was just as unpleasant as for a human. 

“Are you okay?” you asked with worry.

“Yep” Baekhyun brushed you off. “But better don’t attack me again. I know how to use fangs, too.”

You crossed your arms.

“We’ll see about it.”

“Now. We need to talk.”

And then, you talked.

It took a few hours. Baekhyun explained everything that seemed to be important, from how to feed without making a permanent damage on one’s body, through explaining why vampires’ eye color changed in some circumstances, to why the venom in vampire’s system was so important. 

He wanted to explain everything to you. When you asked him about it, he told you that he won’t be able to do that later. You didn’t dwell on it.

Thorough the talk, you found yourself becoming more and more tired. It was nothing surprising, in fact, you were surprised you didn’t pass out way earlier. Your body was still accustoming, the dull ache in your skull being the best proof that it still needed rest.

Baekhyun put you down, a blanket finding itself around your frame. “Are you doing all this because you feel guilty?” you asked suddenly. The question was something you held back before, but you sensed that it was the best moment to ask it.

“Hm… Somewhat, but not only” Baekhyun admitted, brushing some of your loose strands aside. “You see, just as I’m from their blood, you’re from mine. So you’re kind of my kid.”

You snorted at that. 

“Is it really so important? It’s just blood.”

“My blood is in your veins. For vampires it’s always something special. I mean, just think about it. You’re my creation, in a way.”

You could somehow understand it. The way he looked at you when you craved his blood, or earlier, when he brushed your hair aside as though it was him it should bother. In a way, you felt like you belonged to him. There was some kind of bond, almost parent-like, but tighter, more intimate. 

A yawn escaped you and you felt a chill run down your spine, a feverish feeling making you curl up in the blanket. 

“Let’s talk later” you mumbled. A hand touched your head gently, a single pat that lingered on your hair a bit longer than necessary. 

“Yeah, let’s. Rest lots, [F/n].”

And once again, you’d been engulfed by darkness.

* * *

The sound of birds chirping was so vibrant that for a minute after being woken up by it you were ensured that they somehow got inside the room. Only once you finally forced yourself to open your eyes and have a look at the outside world, have you noticed that the windows were closed, and it was only your sharpened senses that could pick up on such small noises. 

It took you aback for a moment and you just stared forward, listening to the sounds. Slowly, more of them appeared in the range of your hearing. The walls of the house were thin, it seemed, and the sounds of steps echoed all through. At least three or four pairs of steps mingled together, and you wondered if one of them belongs to Baekhyun.

Slowly, voices emerged as well.

“He said he wouldn’t stay. We can’t keep forcing him. It already has gone too far.”

“We did all we could.”

“It’s still just… not right.”

“Do you think he’ll be fine on his own?”

“He’s a grown up guy, just let him go.”

The words didn’t quite make a sense to you at first, but then, although briefly, you realized that it could be Baekhyun they are talking about. The more you thought, the more sense the idea held. 

Was he leaving?

You thought that maybe after all that happened he’d decide to stay with the group. But, truthfully, it was never stated. 

Apparently, you weren’t enough of a reason to change his mind. You could understand it, though. Whatever their reason was, they still threatened him in a way, taking away his donors and – pretty much – stalking him all along. Did it mean that they gave up on trying? Were they letting him go?

You ran out of the room. The sudden speed you managed to reach almost sent you onto the opposite wall. You looked around, the stairs to the ground floor were nearby, and you used it without hesitation. The very moment you found yourself in the main corridor, five men, three of which you already knew, stared at you, as though they’d already known you’d come here before you even stepped down the stairs. And maybe they did, maybe they heard your shuffling just as you heard theirs. They must have had way more experience in figuring out the meaning of noises coming from afar.

But you couldn’t care less right now. One of them stepped in your direction, extending his hand to you in a welcoming gesture, but you didn’t spare it a single glance.

“Where is he?”

A silence filled the hall for a few moments. You could tell what they were thinking – looking at you, almost enraged; you must have felt abandoned, like an orphan. 

“Where is he?!”

It was Minseok who stepped out, finally speaking to you.

“He left half hour ago. He told us that he won’t let us find him anymore, and that we shouldn’t even try. He’s probably taking off to another city. Or maybe country.”

You felt your heart drop at that. So that was, in fact, what he meant when he said he wouldn’t be able to talk to you later. 

He was leaving you.

“He wanted you to stay with us” someone else said. The man smiled at you reassuringly. “You’re welcome to do so. You’re from our blood, too.”

You bit on your lip, but didn’t really listen anymore. It didn’t take you long before you made your mind.

“Where can he be now?”

“Maybe his flat?” Yixing spoke up. 

“But you won’t get there on time. He’s probably already leaving” Minseok noticed. “You won’t find him like this.”

You felt frustration rise within you, a strong urge to move, to go just anywhere to find him. 

“You can stay here, you know” the other one spoke again. “You don’t have to chase him.”

The offer seemed to be the simplest of ways. In fact, if you were to stay with them, you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Neither about getting a job, nor about staying alive with your new nature. You didn’t know them all that well, but in a way, they felt like a family – one you didn’t know you’ve had, but still like someone who you can rely on. Unlike Baekhyun, you didn’t hesitate to admit it. 

“Then how can I find him?” you turned your head to Minseok.

The man glanced at the others around him, as if looking for affirmation. No one dared to speak a word though, as if all of them already acknowledged your decision.

“You’re from his blood, you can track him. Go to his apartment and get a hold of his smell.” With a swift move, he tugged off his hoodie and threw it at you. “You’ve got blood on your shirt. Cover it. You’ve got around a week before your body starts to crave for blood, so make sure you won’t take longer than that.”

You pulled the hoodie on. Its smell was already familiar. 

“How do I make him come here, though?” you asked, rolling the too-long sleeves up.

“You don’t.” The other man spoke yet again, his calm composure making you stop and look at him. You didn’t realize that before but from the way the others were gathered around him, it seemed as though he was the leader. “If that’s what he wants, don’t force him.” The man’s eyes flickered with bright red, so briefly you almost didn’t catch it. “But no matter what happens, don’t let him leave you. You’re from his blood, and he knows that.”

You cleared your throat and nodded, understandingly.

Minseok’s eyes flickered at that moment, too. You briefly remembered it being a sign, something that connected them, as a family. Your own eyes itched at the thought.

“You belong in his world now. Don’t make him wait.”

That was the last thing you needed to go.

With one, respectful bow towards the others, you left the house. 

The familiar aroma was what led you.

The first step was, in fact, difficult. But there was a sense of purpose that kept you going.

Please reblog if you enjoyed! Follow me for more uwu!

[cyrusxdukeofmaine]

Chateau du Maine | Planning

Parties: Members of the House of Maine

Summary: Rhett gets prickly and Asa gets grumpy but overall success in the planning of the direction of the House of Main for the first challenge!

Date: Sunday, January 26, 2022. Evening

Tagging: @susanna-gallou, @asmatamaji, @asa-le-pennec, @rhett-thomas, @henrixseznec, @theresponsiblefloch, @lianaromano-ofmaine

Cyrus was on hand to greet each arrival at the Chateau. As he looked over the room, most of the members of the House of Maine within, he felt a rush of pride. They may be small but they were mighty. Most importantly, they were good people and he only hoped he was worthy of them all. “Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. I will not stand on ceremony. We are all too practical for that. We have been dealt quite a challenge. Event planning isn’t quite our forte. But I thought first I would ask what cause you believe we should advocate with our event. There are, quite literally, no wrong answers, but I would like it to tie, in some way, to the values and interests of our House.”

Jadon hadn’t been able to make it after all, but Javan had given his solemn promise that he would text regular updates as necessary to make sure the other man’s voice could still be heard. They often had similar enough opinions that it wouldn’t make too big a gap. With a glass in his hand, Javan listened carefully as the Duke began to speak, smiling slightly at the ceremony comment. “If we’re starting to throw out ideas, why not something based in the environment? There’s a lot of unfinished clean up initiatives or green energy tech we could push which would better protect the land long term.”

Henri set down the baby on a blanket spread out over the rug and let Lola attempt to keep herself sitting upright. She was very content to be in the centre of such a group of people, as was he. Frankly, he had been relying heavily on his house since Lola arrived and they had yet to let him down. “I like the idea of environment? Or food related in some way? Given how many farmers, gardeners and chefs we have in the family?” he sort of suggested, not precisely sure how he could help but wanting to try.

Susanna sat with her notebook in her lap, dutifully making notes as her family spoke. She could plan an event, but she wasn’t sure she could do it on this scale for this many people. She considered the question Cyrus posed before biting her lip. “A lot of our family is related to food,” she agreed with Henri. “Whether directly or indirectly. But then, a lot of our business also falls into hospitality and hominess thanks to our presence in the hotel industry?” She shrugged. “It’s difficult but the positive is that we can reach several types of avenues. I know we should stay away from the arts, as Anjou will have that covered.”

Liana looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the ground next to Lola. She didn’t know what she could do to help the House, especially since she was so new, but she would do whatever she could. This was her father’s house and they had been more than welcoming to her, so they had her devotion. “I like the idea of doing something with the environment, too. If not something with recycling or cleaning up the Vannes, maybe we could think about bringing more green space to the city? Or sustainable food growing resources. That could be especially beneficial to the lower-income residents in the area.” She liked the idea of giving back to those in need.

“Perhaps.” Asmata started after hearing the propositions of her house members. “There is a way to combine all of those.” She tapped her lip, thinking. “There is an opportunity here to undertake a project with long term benefits that other Houses would not be able to afford. There are already homeless shelters running entirely on solar energy in Mexico, New York, San Francisco. If our family funds half of such a project and raise the rest of the money it would only further show that House Maine is willing to invest in the future of Breton. Our family has a lot of ties in construction, the building of such shelters provides an opportunity to teach and employ the chronically homeless, and leave them with a skill that would make them employable in the future. 

Cyrus looked over with interest as each spoke. They were all good ideas and he felt a sense of bubbling excitement. They could pull this off. They really could. “I like this. If we could tie in some means of a community garden perhaps and put together sustainability, housing and food security … well I think we’re really onto something that would be good for Vannes and Breton. I would certainly put some of our House funds into such an endeavour that could sustain itself for many years. Once it is going we could have Abel … for anyone new in town.” Cyrus glanced at Liana, “He is our lawyer … put together some sort of foundation that could go far beyond this year. Asa? Can you think of any lot of land we could acquire that might be suitable?”

Rhett looked around as everyone talked, unsure really how he could contribute to the discussion. As everyone talked, his gaze flitted from person to person, silently agreeing with the proposals. It was only when Cyrus mentioned available land that he finally spoke up, not quite realizing it was out of turn. “Your Grace, there’s lots for sale just outside of the city proper, to the South. They were going to build a neighborhood there, but I think the developers overestimated the amount of luxury homes people wanted away from the city center. I got back a deposit we’d put down there about nine months ago - I’m sure they’re still available.”

Asa had been ready to speak when interrupted by the younger member of their family, giving a slightly annoyed look in Rhett's direction before forcing a polite one towards the Duke and remainder of the family. "Regardless of if those developers have overestimated their market or not, I think we should be focusing specifically on options closer to the heart of the city... Not outside of city proper," he countered, giving the submissive a pointed look before turning back towards Cyrus. He may have been drunk at the Gala, but he’d been sober enough still to remember Rhett’s annoyed responses when they’d interacted briefly during the event. The repeated disrespect irked him, intentional or not. "In response to your question, Your Grace, if we're focusing on low income individuals who may not have enough even for proper housing or food, we should be focusing on potential locations where they'd have easy access to things such as public transportation, assistance programs, and other community resources. I can do some research and ask around if you’d like, and get you a list of options sorted by price, location, and square footage by the end of next week."

Liana was especially pleased that the conversation seemed to have lingered on helping those less fortunate. It was an idea that she could latch onto and already feel herself becoming passionate about. After her uncle responded Liana nodded eagerly. “I like the idea of having something closer to the heart of the city. I think the need is all over, but if we focus on the city itself we can offer more resources and do more to support those that would be using what we create. Apart from that, it would also be more in the public eye. I’m sure that would be useful in the coming months.” She spoke quietly, but with determination.

Cyrus nodded thoughtfully. “All right then. I think we have a direction and I for one, am quite pleased with it. It is something that we can sustain, in an area we know well, and something we can continue in other areas around Breton once we have given it a first run through.” Then he let out a big breath, “So what kind of event shall we have? Any ideas?”

“We … could do some sort of fundraising party?” Henri offered up. He couldn’t contribute to land discussions or even how to grow and prepare food but he did know parties. Lots of parties. From high end to those decidedly less so. “We could auction stuff off? Like art  …. Or books ... “ Lola chose that moment to squeal and he paused, “Or like a bachelor auction?”

“Bachelor auction,” Susanna repeated with a wrinkle of her nose. She didn’t love the idea of auctioning off the family members and she could just see it getting dicey considering some of the personalities in House Maine. “I suppose that could work. Or we could do something a little bit more...” How did she say less like waving their Dominants around like pieces of meat? “Directly related to what we’re proposing here. We’re taking care of the homeless. Donations could be monatery, I suppose, or it could be something like donating things for the shelters outside of what we’re doing. In exchange, we could always do things like recognition for those donations. People love to see their names on plaques.”

Rhett faded into the background, his lips pursed into a frown. After getting his idea shot down, he wasn’t sure what else he had to offer to the conversation. He’d thought that maybe having a location on the outside of the town would best serve non-noble families, a cause making the House of Maine worthy of royalty, but conversation quickly deterred to the next topic with his idea gently brushed aside. There was absolutely nothing for him to offer up with this conversation. Instead, Rhett scoffed at the idea of a bachelor auction - if the idea passed, he would absolutely not participate. His relief was palpable that Susanna seemed to agree at least. He did agree with the idea of a donation drive. “I agree with Suze,” Rhett added in, just so it could be noted that he’d participated. “But plaques can get expensive. Do we really want to waste money on something masturbatory for rich donors when that money could be spent on actual people in need?”

“Cyrus could talk to the city officials, as well.” Asmata offered, voice calculated. Nice as helping those less fortunate was, all this was an exercise to prove Cyrus was fit to be King. To better highlight the Duke’s qualities: “Convince them to donate space in the more populated areas in Vannes. Our House can invest in real estate outside the city, as well – the community gardens would fit there quite well, so it’s a win – win for everyone.” As for the rest, she leaned into her chair, a little amused. “Let’s charge them for a plate then. Those are cheap.”

“Why not have multiple parts to it? We could do a donation drive and either before or after do a high end catered event featuring locally grown foods from all the different farmers as part of the family? Sort of showing off the quality and meals that would be provided to the people in this shelter, but it gives us a bracket for the highest donors to have an additional formal event but keeps it accessible to all tax brackets. Do the right kind of advertising, we could even get some of the tourists in on this so we’ve got multiple sources of money,” Javan threw out.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Asa interjected, motioning for one hand for everyone to calm down for a moment. "Bachelor auctions, engravings for donations... Is any of this honestly necessary? I'm pretty sure between everyone in the family, we could raise more than enough funds for at the very least the majority of what's needed. If we accept donations from the public, it should be accessible. Not an event that only appeals to singles or those with enough money to afford their name up on a wall or a plate at some dinner.... I'd rather we encourage the public to volunteer their time than their money, if anything. If donations come along as well, so be it. If we do delve into something with construction as well, perhaps Rhett has connections and could help us cut down the cost of any materials needed? Or assist in leading whatever work needs to be done by volunteers? Provided certain things don’t require professionals, of course.”

“If we’re seriously thinking of opening a place for the homeless or those with less-income, we could have an event where volunteers and donors could tour the place once it’s done. We could show them what we’ve done to make it sustainable and why it will be such an asset to the community.” Liana chewed on her bottom lip as she watched the people around her come up with their ideas. She liked them all, but found herself trying to combine them all together somehow. She looked over at her uncle and gave him a tentative smile, pleased to see how he was contributing.

“Rhett is a laborer at a construction site,” Rhett interjected, looking over at Asa, who’d suggested he had connections. “Duke Cyrus has better connections than I do on that front. Now if you want me to help out building the thing, I’d be glad to donate my time as well as Maeva’s money. This… whatever we’re doing, should be transparent and accessible, as Liana suggested, but you don’t want a hundred people who have no clue what they’re doing trying to work on it. You want cash to fund it with skilled contractors. Sir.”

Oh heaven forbid he try to be nice to the guy and include him, despite his annoyance. “I was referring more to the aspects of ideas like community gardens or I don’t know.. Building bird boxes, Rhett,” Asa replied giving the submissive a rather annoyed look. “Not that you’d know anything of the former. As I said-- certain things of course will require professionals, but I was thinking if we can we should offer opportunities for individuals who maybe don’t have the financial means to contribute, but do have the time and or experience. There are other laborers in this city for instance, who if interested in volunteering their time and effort alongside yours, could be of great use. But perhaps we should just circle back to the bachelor auction idea since you seem so enamored with that.” Not that Asa actually wanted that.. Even remotely.

Henri just looked around as the conversation grew heated. “As awesome as some of these ideas are … can we organize this in less than a year? I mean? Would the ground even be cleared and ready for construction that fast? The plans or whatever? I … I think we could have a concept but we won’t have a thing available for people to do or see that fast, will we?” He looked around the room, “I’m legit asking. I have zero idea.” Reaching over, he picked up Lola, “What I will say is that if I didn’t have money and I was left alone with Lola, I would have been fucked … so I like this idea a lot. I can help with planning a party … kind of? But construction stuff and all that, I have zero idea. I couldn’t hang a shelf. We need to raise money because that’s what the Arbiter said. We could … put together like packages of things … like the hotel does? You know? But this time, they are auctioned off? We could associate them with a person. Like his grace could be a yacht trip along the coast. And he doesn’t actually have to go. He’s just like … the face of the package?” He proposed, with a look around, “Liana could be a garden redo. Javan and Jadon could be like a food and alcohol tour or something? I have no idea what I’d be but we could come up with something?”

“It is doable” Asmata assured him. “Some of the city spaces are abandoned and merely in need of upkeep, equipping them with solar panels would not be much effort. And we don’t even have to be done with the project by the year’s mark, merely have a start, since something like this doesn’t have to end anytime soon. Hopefully, it would be just a step in a direction many other cities in Breton would take.” Asmata nodded, quite liking Henri’s idea. “The package sounds lovely, actually. Of course, I offer the hotel as a venue for the fundraiser.”

Asa nodded in agreement with Asmata's response. "As long as we're not building from scratch, we won't have to deal with a lot of the nitty gritty that would slow this type of process down. There's plenty of properties available out there that just need a facelift. I can pull up a list once I just have a more solid idea of what's needed. I'm not opposed to the idea of individuals offering up their own specialities as well though.

“Okay, let’s go back for a minute to the bird boxes. This is supposed to be a place for the homeless, right? Do we really want amateurs building homes for flying rats to shit everywhere they’re going to be hanging out?” Rhett asked, his brows raising. “I mean, respectfully, sir - I don’t think we’ll be missing the funds of those who can’t contribute financially. We need to meet with a contractor and get a proper budget. I know I can part with a good bit once the sale has gone through on Maeva’s condo, which should be soon.” So much for staying out of this conversation and being quiet. Rhett turned to Henri next. “It’s doable,” he repeated Asmata’s assessment. “But again, why waste money on prizes? The people we’ll be going after have the money to do that on their own time. Whatever money we raise should go to the people and I think we should be transparent about that. That will win the family favor not just with nobles, but with everyone.”

Asa sighed and turned towards Henri, annoyed with the fact that Rhett obviously couldn't take a joke. "Why don't you let Rhett go and babysit for you in the other room while the adults talk?"

“No need - I’m sure all of you very capable adults have this under control. Let me know when you need physical labor taken care of. Would hate for anyone to get a blister,” Rhett huffed, standing up to leave the room. Enough was enough.

“Rhett!” Cyrus called out. “That is quite enough. Take a seat. Now.” He wasn’t known for raising his voice but sometimes a situation called for it. Then he straightened, “We must do something for the other nobles to attend, including the Duke of Vaneti. He is, after all, the Arbiter. I like this project and would be pleased to do it without this challenge hanging over our heads. But we must also recognize that we are trying to cast a cohesive impression of the House of Maine. I will speak frankly, I need you. All of you. If I am to have the slightest chance of succeeding. Asa … I will ask you to look at buildings and locations. Perhaps Liana can assist to see what land would be suitable for sustaining gardens, capable of feeding people. We do need some sort of … thing for people to attend … Asmata, will you look at the hotel’s calendar and select some possibility availabilities for an event.”

Rhett sat back down as told, his expression a mixture between anger and annoyance, but he knew better than to open his mouth any further.

Asa nodded, expression calming in response to the Duke's words. He sent his niece a glance, nodding in agreement. “Of course, your Grace.” 

Asmata nodded, lips tight in a displeased expression. “Of course, your Grace. I will get back to you with dates.”

Liana nodded resolutely, happy to be given a task that could contribute. “I can do that, Your Grace. I’m sure between all of us we can find somewhere suitable that will thrive in Breton.” She then stood from where she had been sitting on the floor next to Lola and folded herself into a seat at the table, meeting the other’s eyes with a hopeful smile. They really had a chance of doing something great and she was eager to be a part of it.

Susanna narrowed her eyes before getting to her feet and moving over to sit beside Rhett, her heels clicking on the floor before she perched and reached out to take his hand so she could squeeze it hard. They would be having words. She sighed before humming a little nonsense tune to perk herself back up. She was too tired for the squabbling over nothing. “I only suggested the plaques because people don’t tend to want to do anything for nothing. That might be cynical, but it’s realistic. If they did, we wouldn’t have any causes to address.” She shook her head. “I think I can probably name on one hand the people who voluntarily check the box on their taxes to make charitable donations. People like credit. But given Cyrus’ charisma, I think that he could possibly demonstrate his way with the people--like Asmata implied--by convincing them. If you really think some kind of reward or recognition is too far.” She shrugged. “As for whether it’s doable… a year is an awfully long time. And as Asa said, we aren’t bad off.” 

She looked to the fellow submissive beside her, biting her lip. “Rhett… with the right hours and monetary incentives, could a construction crew do it? Realistically? Because I think we’ve decided they can, but you would know best of this group.” He could contribute without being a butt, if the right questions were asked.

Rhett sighed - he could expect a dressing down from Susanna for sure later, probably Cyrus too. But he could set that aside for the moment and get through this meeting. “Yes, realistically,” he answered. “But we need to have someone draw up plans and we need a firm budget in place first. The budget will tell us what we need to raise and allow a crew to start work as soon as possible. A year really isn’t that long. It’s already the end of January and it’ll take at least a month to finalize plans and determine a working budget. Assuming we move rapid pace through everything, I doubt ground could be realistically broken until at least April or May, and that’s if there’s an available crew.” There, he’d managed to keep his cool.

Now that it seemed like tempers had cooled off a little, Javan rolled his shoulders and spoke again. “In that case, it sounds like we’ll all need to pull our weight to get the ball rolling in time. I can’t do much on the building side, but since an event like this is going to take series planning, a couple of us can start to also work up the budget needed for our show to the nobles. Nothing says we can’t do a fundraising event at the hotel and also do a Grand Opening if we’ve got the right expertise and luck on our side. Jadon and I can work with Asmata on that part. Maybe Henri join in? I figure Susanna you’ll be running between all of us to make sure we’re on track.”

“That sounds amazing, between the four of us, we can do something great. We can pool the resources from the hotel and the restaurant to figure out the best way to staff and manage the event.” She nodded, looking at Henri. “And Lola can stay with child care services at the hotel while meet up, so she can be near.”

Cyrus was pleased to see everyone so invested in the House. Would he become King? It was up to the Arbiter. But at the end of the day, the House of Maine would put on a good showing and credit for itself. That was more than enough for him. “Wonderful. I am enjoying the progress of the matter and declare this preliminary meeting a success. Shall we all head into the dining room now? I’m sure the cook is pacing … she always likes to put on a good show when one of the Floches is here.” He nodded at Javan as he spoke. “Please…” He murmured, gesturing toward the door.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: episodes 3x06-3x10

Continuation of my post here

This post includes reviews the following episodes:

3x06 Bitter Harvest

3x07 Thirteen

3x08 Terms and Conditions

3x09 Stealing Fire

3x10 Fallen

3x06 Bitter Harvest

The Arkadia plot in this episode is quite interesting because it doesn’t go the way you expect.

It’s all about Pike’s plan to conquer some fertile land to grow food, so the Grounders couldn’t starve Arkadia out, but his plan requires them to “clear” a Grounder village in the area, as he already explained in 3x05. Bellamy was obviously horrified by the realization of what that would probably mean, but it ends up being one of several frustrating moments of this arc where he fails to change Pike’s opinion and then goes along with Pike’s decision in spite of his misgivings.

The story seems like it’s going to be all about the small armed Arker force victimizing helpless Grounder villagers – especially when it becomes obvious that Hannah and resident bigoted a-hole Gilmer would be ready to kill a child to prevent him from telling other villagers. And about Octavia saving the villagers by warning them to leave before they come. But there’s some moral complexity thrown in when Miller points out that the situation is tricky as warning the villagers, they might end up causing deaths to their friends, though Octavia also rightfully points out that an attack on a village, aside from being bad in itself, would be likely to make Lexa reconsider her decision and decide to attack Arkadia after all.

But I really like the twist that the villagers weren’t a bunch of helpless folks just waiting for Octavia to save them, and that, instead, they don’t want to leave their homes (why the heck would they?) and decide to defend themselves – and that they do it successfully, by releasing poisoned smoke. Because, guess what, Grounders aren’t “Noble Savages” or whatever nonsense some think they are. And it’s funny that Monty – who had pointed out “they are Grounders, they will fight” - actually had judged the situation better than Octavia, who thinks she’s so well versed into Grounder culture. If the village leader, Semet, hadn’t gone on to act like such an idiot in 3x07, I would have a lot of respect for him and the rest of the villagers (they showed themselves to be more competent than their soldiers). And just to be clear, I’m on their side here – as always, people have the right to defend themselves. Arkers here underestimated them and got smoked, just like Grounder army and Commander underestimated the Delinquents in season 1 and got burned.

In the end, Octavia had to warn her brother and the rest of the Arkers so they wouldn’t all die – and it still took two lives. It ends up with Octavia getting tied up by the villagers and brought to Polis, setting up 3x07, while Hannah blames Octavia and “traitors in the camp” for the two deaths, which sets up the conflicts in 3x08.

The first time I watched this episode, I was so terrified that they were going to make Bellamy’s group commit war crimes in the village  – because of all the brouhaha I had heard about Bellamy’s controversial actions in season 3, the supposed “character assassination”, or even haters calling him “genocidal” (?). So it was a huge relief none of that happened. But it would have been interesting to see what he would have done if they had indeed run into villagers. I think he may have been able to proceed with the mission as long as the villagers were either defending themselves, or if they took them captive, but it would be different if one of the group tried to harm someone defenseless, and he definitely would have snapped if anyone tried to harm a child. And that would likely cause conflict with the more extreme members of the group, and maybe prompted him to break away from Pike earlier. But it didn’t get to that.

But the other plot, the one in Polis, drives me nuts, because it makes no sense on so many levels.

King Roan gives Emerson as a “gift” to Clarke so she could get her revenge. Instead of of enacting one himself or giving him to his people. And then Lexa and Titus act as if their people have no reason to want revenge against Emerson - and that Clarke and the Arkers are the only ones that the Mountain Men have hurt. Lexa even says “So it is Blood must not have blood only when it’s my people who bleed?” Wait, what?! Her people did bleed at the hands of the Mountain Men. For decades. In all sorts of horrible ways. They said in season 2 that they lost thousands of people. We saw it: they were killing them with acid fog, keeping them in cages, draining them and throwing them out like trash, or hooking them on drugs and torturing and turning them into controlled cannibalistic monsters and sent them against their own people. And Emerson is not some random Mount Weather resident, he was one of the leaders in their regime, he was Cage’s right hand and led the Ground Unit. Clarke knows it, Lexa knows it - because she directly negotiated with him in season 2.

Did the writers forget what happened in season 2, or do characters on this show have super short memory? Is three months the statute of limitation on “Blood must have blood”? It gets worse because we’re later supposed to believe that many Grounders are unhappy with Lexa’s decision to not take revenge on the Arkers for killing 300 of their warriors…which is somehow, apparently, much worse than everything the Mountain Men had done to them? First Nia, then Roan, now Lexa, none of them tried to get revenge for the crimes of Mount Weather against Grounders, but apparently there were no riots over that. The crowd just murmurs and talks at the end of the episode, when Lexa let Emerson go, after handing over the decision of what to do with him with Clarke. But that’s all.

The whole dilemma Titus and Lexa put in front of Clarke here is based on a ludicrous premise that Clarke punishing Emerson would be the same as Lexa and the coalition waging war and trying to kill all the Arkers. I guess you could just ascribe that to Titus being a manipulative d*ck (which he is). But committing genocide of an entire group of people in retaliation for actions of a few is very, very different from punishing one person for his own crimes. To be fair, Clarke points that out to Titus. But then he shuts her up with another false analogy bringing up Mount Weather. And it’s especially grating that it’s Grounder leaders, or even Emerson himself, who give Clarke crap about MW, which is incredibly hypocritical. They know damn well that she had no choice but either kill all of the Mountain Men, or let them kill her and all her people. And why was she left with no choice? Because Emerson and the other Mountain Men tried to kill all of her people (and they didn’t have to - they could have started by asking them to donate bone marrow. There’s a few thousand Arkers, no one needed to die to save the Mountain Men) and because Lexa and the Grounders betrayed Clarke and her people and left them to be killed by the Mountain Men. So Emerson is like “How dare ypu defend yourselves when we tried to kill you all?” and Titus is like “How dare you defend yourselves when we left you to die and they tried to kill you?” F*ck off.

Then there’s the stupid dichotomy of “either death by 1000 cuts, or let him go”. Come on, guys, surely you can think of other options in between? From killing him fast and without torture, to not killing him but keeping him locked up? This is not like that time in season 1 when the Delinquents exiled Murphy instead of killing him. They had a camp with tents, few people, few resources, they were not able to keep anyone imprisoned for any longer period. But in Polis, they have buildings and facilities (we later see cells in 3x13) and enough people to keep prisoners. Why would you let Emerson go free? Forget even justice, forget revenge - this guy is obviously a threat. Let him go, and he’s going to make trouble again. Who cares if he suffers? The primary concern should be stopping him from doing any more damage.

Clarke has always been pragmatic, so only way I can make sense of her actions here and not consider them OOC is that she’s been in this position where she is risking peace if she doesn’t let Emerson go, and she doesn’t have emotional energy to argue the case and point out the stupidity of it all, so she just opted for the lesser evil/lesser risk.

At the beginning of the episode, Lexa wakes up and says that she hears past Commanders talk to her in he dreams (setting up the chip reveal in the next episode), and that they’re not happy about her decision. So, past Commanders were really into killing and revenge. (Does that include Becca?) Lexa is clearly still unsure about her new policy at this point, though by the end of the episode, she gives a rousing speech about peace being the better option. Most of the episode’s plot in Polis revolves around Titus’ attempts to change Lexa’s mind, so I guess we’re supposed to think that Clarke’s decision to let Emerson go helped solidify Lexa’s resolve? This is dumb, for all the reasons above.

We see Clarke as an artist, again – she draws Lexa’s portrait while she’s sleeping, and this and her awkwardness while showing Lexa her drawing is an indication of her growing feelings for her. And that’s the only one-on-one scene they get in this episode, everything else is political stuff about Emerson, so 80% of the development of their romance is all in 3x07.

Another development setting up the next episode: captured Murphy is brought to Titus.

Timeline? Not sure, this time. One of the few times in the season where we don’t know

Body count: Two victims of poisoned smoke.

Monroe, one of the original 100 (leaving 45 Delinquents that are still alive)

 another Arker – Lacroix, minor character introduced this season. 

Note: There’s a huge continuity error in this episode. Emerson says that Clarke killed 381 people: “182 men, 173 women, and 26 children” That’s not true. Tsing said there were 382 people in Mount Weather in episode 2x11. Since then, a bunch of people had been killed before Clarke and Bellamy irradiated Level 5, so the number of people still alive in the finale were probably just a bit over 300. Many died long before Clarke came back to Mount Weather – killed by Bellamy or the Delinquents, some died fighting the Grounders and Arkers, some of them (like Vincent Vie) were civilians who were murdered by the guards for helping and hiding the Delinquents. Obviously, I have paid a lot more attention to these things than the writers ever have.

Rating: 5/10

3x07 Thirteen

And here we are, this infamous episode again. The title presumably refers to the 13th station, whose fate we find out in the flashbacks, but since 13 is supposed to be the unlucky number, it’s a very fitting title for the most unfortunate episode in the show’s history, the one where the writers had the romance between Clarke and Lexa happen for 15 minutes just to immediately kill Lexa, which it wrecked the show’s reputation and made a mess out of the fandom.

The present day events in this episode happen only in Polis, and Clarke Octavia and Murphy are the only ones out of the main cast who appear in it.

But to start from the beginning –the villagers from the last episode come to Polis for an audience with the Commander, and Titus introduces them. They give a redacted version of their story, with Titus claiming that their village was attacked and helpless. Which is not what happened – they defended themselves successfully. Semet also says Skaikru killed various members of his family. Which I guess might be true, but only if all of them were soldiers in Lexa’s army… but that’s not the story they’re trying to present, they’re making it look like their village was attacked and helpless civilians actually killed. And Octavia is there as their captive, tied up and gagged so she can’t say anything. And then, when Lexa reiterates that she’s not going to be going to war, Semet acts like a complete idiot and tries to assassinate her, in front of everyone (WTF) before getting stabbed by Titus. I always thought this was an incredibly stupid and unconvincing moment. But on rewatch, I noticed that Semet looks at Titus with a look of huge surprise and shock as he dies. Now why would he be surprised that the Flamekeeper killed him to protect the Heda? Either he’s an even bigger idiot than I thought – or Titus was the one who put him up to it in the first place (he was the one who brought them in and controlled the narrative they presented) in order to demonstrate to Lexa that her new policy will turn her people against her. He is maybe the only person with enough authority that he may have convinced Semet that he could get away with an assassination because he would support them. So, maybe at least this plot point was not that bad as I thought, but only if my theory is right. That would also solve the issue of “why are the people suddenly ready to rebel against their Heda over this, when they were OK with her deal with the Mountain Men and with letting Emerson go, and when they generally have a semi-religious worship of the Commander and value obedience and hierarchy” –if there was no spontaneous riot after all

Lexa makes the decision that every Sky person caught beyond the line would be killed. Which creates obvious problems for Octavia and Clarke. Octavia uses her remaining time in Polis to convince Indra to come with her, and to not retire because of her injuries, and to call out Clarke, making a snide remark about how she must be enjoying the comfort of her quarters in Lexa’s castle-like tower, and telling her that she has an hour to come back to Arkadia, or “you are not the person I thought you were”. Clarke says that she’s staying because she was needed for political reasons, but Octavia is not fully convinced, and Clarke seems unsure at this point. The fact she is even considering both options shows how much she’s changed. How much of it is being drawn to staying with Lexa because of her feelings for her, because Lexa is giving her comfort and making her feel good, and how much because she’s still scared of facing her friends back in Arkadia and the painful memories that would bring up, especially after that intense and painful confrontation with her Not=Boyfriend that reminded her of all that history and no doubt convinced her that he hated her, it’s up for discussion.

Good acting and the fact that the actresses have a lot of chemistry helps sell the romantic scenes between Clarke and Lexa in this episode, and on their own, they are really well done, with romantic music and soft lightning – but it all comes off as too soon, considering how poorly this has been set up and developed in the previous episodes. They both know they are going to go their separate ways, which prompts them to show their feelings for each other. Lexa suggests that Clarke could decide to stay with her, and Clarke avoids an answer, instead implying that Titus would have a problem with that (without naming him).If Clarke were to accept Lexa’s proposal, they could have an actual romantic relationship – all that Clarke would have to give up is: her identity, her freedom all of her remaining power, and all her family and friends, and live surrounded by people who dislike and distrusts her, with Lexa as her only protection. Seasons 1-2 Clarke wouldn’t even have considered that, but post-Mount Weather Clarke had already given up most of that, even before Lexa re-entered the picture. Still, she chooses to be herself again, and get back Arkadia. The best written CL moment in this episode is when Lexa show she expected that decision – she is aware Clarke would never choose her over her people - and comes close to telling Clarke she loves her, for being that way – “That’s why I… that’s why you’re you”. They are both aware that their respective roles are too much of a part of both of their identities and that they could only, perhaps, have a real relationship one day if they were free from leadership responsibilities (would that ever happen, if Lexa hadn’t died? We’ll never know, but it’s hard to imagine the Grounder society without a Commander, or a Lexa who retires and isn’t Commander anymore), before they kiss and Clarke initiates goodbye sex.

Two of the show’s many repetitive catchphrases get referenced- Lexa’s line “Love is weakness” from 2x09 and Clarke’s “Life should be about more than just surviving” from 2x14. Here we learn that “Love is weakness” wasn’t just something Lexa believed because of her horrible experience with what Nia did to her lover Costia, but something that Titus, her mentor, had always taught her. Later, in season 5, we learn that it is what all Flamekeepers teach Commanders. It makes sense: not just because of the Grounder views of what strength is, but also because, if a Commander doesn’t fall in love or get close to anyone else, the Flamekeeper can continue to be the main influence in the Commander’s life. It seems that Nightblood novices typically become Commanders as children, who are taken and separated from their parents– and Flamekeepers are quite older and their mentors, and the ones who can shape who they are. Titus is something like a father figure to Lexa, and also her subject, so while she has all the power, he has shaped her while she was growing up, and still has a lot of influence on her – and he hates someone else having more influence, especially someone from Sky people, who is making Lexa abandon the traditionalist views that Titus had taught her. He worships her, but he wants her to be who he made her to be, and love can be abusive (including the platonic, mentor/father-like love). Lexa had shown a tendency to try to control and isolate Clarke, and Titus has been manipulating and trying to control and isolate Lexa. In that way, her death, while problematic in many ways, isn’t random as people say – even though it’s a stray bullet, it happens because of Lexa’s choices and Titus’ toxicity, and it is tragic and both ironic and fitting that he is the one who ends up killing her. She ended up a victim of the traditions that shaped her and made her Commander but that she was starting to move away from.

Where I agree with Lexa/CL fans is that her death - the way it happened - was extremely poorly written and ended up playing into some bad tropes - Bury Your Gays and Death by Sex. Where I disagree with most CL fans is that I think the relationship between her and Clarke leading up to that was rushed, underdeveloped and poorly written. Both the CL romance and Lexa’s change of policy were incredibly rushed – and would have required a lot more episodes (probably an entire season, at least) and way better writing than what was there.

The weird way they wrote their relationship in season 3 weakened both characters in different ways.  As a Clarke fan, I’m far more interested in her, and I’m not sure what exactly they were trying to do with her arc here, except give her another short-lived, tragic romance that ends in the other person’s death (because Clarke must suffer in her love life and never be happy or be in a committed relationship). There are interesting interpretations that Clarke falling in love with Lexa was symbolically about her learning to accept a part of herself that she hated – but I’m not sure that her overall arc really fits with that so well, since Clarke still feels guilty and hates herself over various things she has had to do as a leader. In any case, I wasn’t enjoying watching her spend almost all of season 3a as a literal Princess in the Tower, no more really a leader but just a court favorite, staying in Polis as a symbol and putting all her energy into convincing Lexa to do or not do things and having to depend on Lexa to do or not do things to save her people.

Maybe that arc was better if you look at it from Lexa’s POV or as Lexa fan, since a lot of her fans seem to enjoy it. But I don’t think her arc is great, either. Her transition from adhering to “Blood must have blood” to deciding to be a peaceful leader happened very quickly - she was going to go to war against Arkadia in 3x05 and changed her mind at the very end of that episode when Clarke told her she should be a peaceful ruler. She still wasn’t sure about it in 3x06. And they kind of made it all in the end about her romance with Clarke, which made it a very muddled arc: did she really change her policy mostly because of Clarke’s influence (as Titus and everyone around her believed) or did she start to really question everything she had been taught and believe in another way? How would she have dealt with the opposition to her new policy among her subjects? Would she continue to rule as a tyrant and use violent means – as she was taught a Commander should –or would she come to the conclusion that, in order to attain peace, you need to use peaceful means, too? We should have had more time with her struggling with that and making those decisions without Clarke and without the context of Clexa romance. And definitely a different death would have been a much better writing choice - either in battle or something else that was about politics and war, not right after sex with a bullet meant for her lover.

Another, most unexpected Luna mention happens – in bed, when Clarke is looking at the tattoos on Lexa’s back, and hears about the Conclave for the first time, and the fact Luna was one of the kids she was meant to fight.

My favorite moment of the episode is when Clarke finds Murphy tied up – certainly the last thing she expected to see in Polis – and yells “He is my friend!” That was kind of funny and unexpected, since they were hardly what anyone would call friends in seasons 1-2, but they do become more friendly in this episode, where Murphy later even offers her sympathy for Lexa’s death.

Finally, the Becca flashbacks… The first time I watched this, I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly bothered me about them, but I just found them boring and annoying. The second time I started to realize, and now I’m sure: it’s because Becca’s actions make no sense to me. Are we supposed to like her or be on her side? She comes off as an insufferable megalomaniac, the savior complex gone wrong. The android you created destroyed the world, and you think an improved version of that same android is going to save it? Really? And you get a bunch of people killed just to preserve it?

And this is the big revelation about the Flame, and Becca as the first Commander. This is probably my least favorite plot point on the show, ever. What were the writers smoking every time they came up with some new element of the Grounder culture? None of it makes sense, but the chip, in particular, creates a bunch of plot holes. The fact that Grounders managed to forget all the technology, history, culture, just after 97 years (in fact, less – they’ve been like that for a while, presumably) never made any sense – but it is even harder to make sense of if the Commanders all have memories of a genius scientist from before the apocalypse. I have no idea if the show expects us to take the Grounder tradition and belief seriously, and why it romanticizes it so much. From what we can see, having memories of past Commanders never helped any of them be any wiser. So how exactly did the chip help anyone? Unless it was all just about the prospect of ALIE 2.0 one day helping put down the original ALIE.

Timeline: How much time did the villagers need to get from their village to Polis? That’s the amount of time that passed since the end of 3x06. This should mean there have been about two weeks since the beginning of the season, give or take a couple of days.

Body count:

One minor character death - Semet stabbed by Titus

The most infamous death on the show: Lexa, shot and deadly wounded by Titus

This does not exactly count as it happened way in the past, but the flashbacks covered the deaths of most of the population of Earth (six and a half billion people, according to what Becca says in 3x16), and then later, everyone from the Polaris station minus Becca.

Rating: 3/10

3x08 Terms and Conditions

Timeline: This episode seems to take place approximately at the same time as 3x07, in a different location and with a different set of characters, taking place fully in Arkadia, which is under Grounder blockade that they are promising to lift only if Pike is handed over to them.

While 3x07 didn’t feature any of the main cast characters other than Clarke, Octavia and Murphy (and was the first episode of the show that Bellamy didn’t appear in), this is the first episode without Clarke or Octavia. It’s a pretty solid and intense episode that focuses only on the growing tensions inside Arkadia, especially the mistrust and schemes as the two sides are spying on each other and luring each other into traps. It’s like a little political thriller about what happens when a community living in the state of war and isolation and increasing paranoia starts looking for enemies not just outside but inside, with sharp divides between friends, families and lovers.

This is also most of all a Bellamy-centric episode, which starts with him doubling down on his loyalty to Pike, and ends with him finally making the decision to turn against him – maybe not yet to the point of being ready to hand him over to the Grounders, but certainly enough to go behind his back in order to save his friends. Bellamy has looked unsure about Pike’s policies since 3x05 when he told Pike “We went too far” about the killing of the Grounder army, and after that he was obviously increasingly uncomfortable whenever he realized how far Pike was willing to go, but whenever someone (Kane, Octavia, Clarke) would try to change his mind, he would bring up some of the reasons why he joined Pike in the first place (mostly their history with the Grounders and the resulting distrust) and double down on his allegiance, maybe because, to admit to himself he was wrong, he would also have to admit that he’s made a terrible mistake again and killed people he didn’t need to kill. Monroe’s and Lacroix’s deaths in 3x06, apart from being Pike’s reason/justification to start looking for traitors within Arkadia – or rather, prove that the ‘traitor’ was Kane, and find those helping him – also seems to have convinced Bellamy to go along with it. Another thing that made him double down even more is the Grounders delivering their terms with threats and heads of the dead Arkadia guards who got caught over the line. Shooting them on the spot is certainly one of Bellamy’s most impulsive violent moments, but it’s not surprising he wouldn’t react well to that. But when Pike decides not just to keep Kane and the others imprisoned, as Bellamy thought he would (and as Pike first said he would do, after arresting Sinclair), but condemns Kane to death for treason and attempted murder (for trying to deliver him to the Grounders), it’s the crucial moment where you can see Bellamy start changing his mind: “Are we killing our own people now?”

Pike’s policy certainly escalated from 3x04 when he argued to the crowd that they shouldn’t look for enemies among their own, inside Arkadia (and counted Lincoln among those their own). Bellamy’s attempts to pacify Pike up to an extent rarely worked, - maybe the one time it did was when Bellamy managed to convince Pike that the sick Grounders who tried to escape should not be punished, because they just didn’t plan an escape, just saw the door and run, “just as we would do”. But he can’t prevent Pike from sentencing Sinclair and Lincoln, as leaders of the failed escape, to death alongside Kane.

So many Finn references in season 3 – by Raven, Jasper, and now Pike (just none from Clarke since season 2). Arguing with Kane, Pike – who doesn’t believe Grounders would keep their promise if he gave himself up - brings up the time when, as he says, they gave Finn to the Grounders in similar circumstances: “You surrendered one of the young lives you were sworn to protect…” but it ended in Grounders betraying them. I guess that’s the idea he got from the short summary he heard from Monty (who was in Mount Weather when everything with Finn went down), but that’s not what happened. Finn gave himself up, after everyone had been protecting him as long as they could. Why didn’t Kane correct him? This may be one of those times when the writers forgot the details of what happened in season 2. Anyway, considering his genuine desire to protect the teenagers from the Ark, which we later see in the flashbacks of 3x13, I wonder what Pike would have done if he had found out that Miller and Harper were one of the “traitors”, and if he would go as far as to cross that moral event horizon or if that would make him stop, but we won’t ever know. He did find out about Monty’s betrayal in the following episode, but in that case he had to promise Monty’s mom he wouldn’t hurt him.

The strain that the political divide puts on relationships is best seen in the familiar relationship between the Greens – Monty eventually helps his friends behind his mom’s back – and the romantic relationship between Miller and Bryan, because Bryan is from the Farm Station and loyal to Pike because he feels he owes him his life, and because Bryan plants a bug on Miller. Bryan doesn’t feel about himself for doing that to someone he loves, but Bellamy tries to reassure him that this kind o deception and betrayal is OK “if you are doing it to protect him”. Bryan isn’t sure: “What if I am the one he needs protection from?” Parallel to Bellamy’s actions regarding Clarke in 3x05.

Kane was initially against Harper’s suggestion that they knock out Pike and give him up to the Grounders to lift the blockade, citing moral reasons – that it would practically be murder: “This is not who we are” = “Maybe it should be”, replies Miller. Two seasons ago, Kane was the one arguing for ruthlessness in the name of survival, but now he’s on the opposite end. However, he eventually changes his mind and agrees with Miller and Harper, and tries to hand over Pike himself.

The big argument between Kane and Pike after Kane’s arrest is a clash of two different views of the world. Kane calls out Pike on having become a dictator, and points out to him that the world is not the way he sees it and that his way of doing things is destructive and has no future. But Pike is convinced that he is being realistic and doing what is necessary for survival of his people, and his arguments, including invoking the Ark laws, must remind Kane of his old self back in early season 1.

The City of Light stuff in this episode is really strong. Having this storyline focus on Raven, who is incredibly strong but has suffered so much both physically and emotionally, and Jasper, who has been broken the most by his suffering, was the best idea of season 3. Raven, under ALIE’s influence, recruits Jasper to help her to look for the second AI that ALIE is focused on finding, but instead, Jasper ends up being a catalyst for Raven to finally understand the nature of ALIE’s brainwashing and turn against her. Raven is still wearing Finn’s necklace, but it turns out she has forgotten everything about him, including nice memories, like her first kiss. ALIE doesn’t just remove the pain, she removes all important and emotional memories (Jaha has forgotten Wells, Jackson has forgotten his mother…).

Is this the first time we see Maya’s music player, which Jasper kept, or was he already using it in 3x01? Was that what he was using to play Violent Femmes? This time he’s playing Algiers, the song “Remains”. Maya had good taste in music.

Body count:

4 Arkadia guards killed off-screen by Grounders, who delivered their heads,

2 Grounder warriors (the same ones who delivered said heads) shot by Bellamy

Rating: 7/10

3x09 Stealing Fire

This episode is much worse than I remembered it. It’s not even bad, it’s just mediocre.

That’s in large part due to the Polis storyline (again), which is particularly bad here. In the aftermath of Lexa’s death, we finally find out the details about the way that new Commanders are made: we had already learned in 3x07 that what was described as something mystical and similar to reincarnation, is actually more of a Dollhouse thing, with people having computer chips in their heads with memories of dead people< and now we find out that the romanticized story about the Commander’s “spirit choosing its successor” is actually about kids being forced to fight and kill each other until only one remains. That’s extremely disturbing. (It also makes the line about the Commander’s spirit nonsensical and probably referring to superstition.)

In addition to being messed up, the Conclave is also a really stupid idea. Best line of the episode – Clarke pointing out to Titus just how stupid their succession plan is (Nightblood people are so rare, let them kill each other). It’s terrible that Ontari kills all the children, but, as Roan explicitly points out, those children were all (but one) going to die anyway, except it was going to be by each other’s hand.

This is where Ontari really gets into focus as the new villain. She’s my least favorite character on the show – what a trashy, one-dimensional, over-the-top, badly acted villain, and on top of it all, she’s so sexualized, that her scenes, especially every time she interacts with Murphy, look like I’m watching some trashy exploitation movie fantasy. They even show her bathing and acting seductively towards her future rape victim. WTF is up with that? She manages to bring down the quality of the show several notches every time she’s on screen.

Roan, now King Roan, also comes back, and is in his usual maybe-ally-maybe-not mode, and saves Clarke and Murphy, but also supports Ontari, because she’s Ice Nation, so he doesn’t care that she’s batsh*t. He justifies it by throwing Mount Weather into Clarke’s face, and I’m really sick and tired of everyone (Lexa, Titus, Roan) making that comparison WHICH DOES NOT ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE to justify their BS.

Speaking of bulls*itting, Titus is a piece of work: dude actually tries to blame Clarke for Lexa’s death: “I may have pulled the trigger, but you killed her”. Yeah, Clarke, how dare you be my intended murder victim and not die!

Clarke, of course, desperately tries to ensure that Ontari doesn’t actually become the Commander, because she’s made it clear that she wants to kill all Sky people (and is generally awful), so she finally manages to convince Titus to give her the Flame to go and find Luna, who they all think is the last Nightblood (how lucky that Clarke remembered that and that she asked Lexa about that in bed). Before that, there’s a lot of talk about how the Flame works – according to Titus, if a bad person like Ontari gets the Flame, it only enhances those bad qualities, all the more reason not to give her that. (Does that mean it works kind of like Dr Erskine’s serum?) According to Titus, Lexa was the “wisest and purest” of the four Commanders he’s served (and Titus is not even super old, so that gives you an idea that Commanders tend to die violently). I really don’t know if this is supposed to be objectively true – Lexa made quite a few really bad decisions, from starting an unnecessary war against the Delinquents and losing, to making a deal with the Mountain Men and betraying the Sky people, to expecting Sky people to accept her as their Commander afterwards; but she was said by Emerson to be different from most Commanders because she was making alliances, and we don’t know anything about the earlier Commanders, except that they probably constantly waged wars between clans, killed a lot of people through the “Blood must have blood” motto, and failed to mount any serious resistance against the Mountain Men…. So it’s entirely possible that most Commanders were terrible leaders. So having the Flame didn’t exactly help them, did it? The one thing that would have been useful, Becca’s technological and scientific knowledge, they somehow didn’t know about.

On the other hand, Titus is hardly objective – dude is very genuine (and rather creepy) in his pseudo-religious adoration of his mentee/daughter figure/Heda Lexa (who, we learn from Luna later in 3x14, was his favorite even as the novice in the Conclave), He even kills himself with Roan’s sword, refusing to give Ontari the Flame, with the last words “For Lexa”. I don’t doubt that he really did love her in his toxic, controlling and manipulative way.

Throughout seasons 2 and 3, Murphy’s role was basically to be thrown around between various random storylines, and have bad things happen to him, while making snarky remarks and talking about being a survivor. Murphy ending up as Ontari’s fake Flamekeeper – just because he happened to be there and see when Titus took the chip out of Lexa - is one of the most random things that’s happened on the show. You’d think that Grounders would make sure that there would be more people who knew to do that, since the position of the Flamekeeper is so important.

The storyline in Arkadia is more interesting but also really frustrating in many ways.

The one good thing that happens is the Kabby development. Faced with the likelihood of Kane being executed, Abby indirectly admits that she loves him, by saying: “I can’t do this again” (see the man she loves die), and later, when he has to escape from Arkadia for the time being, Kane kisses her. Most romantic relationships on the show are either rushed or developed off-screen, so it’s good to finally see one that can be called slow-burn = their chemistry was obvious back in season 1 -and has had genuine development, but hasn’t been endlessly dragged out (slow-burn by TV standards – it’s actually just normal-burn, since it has been less than six months since the Pilot).

The episode starts as a follow-up to the resolutions from the end of 3x08 – Bellamy and Monty come to Miller and Harper, offering help and trying to convince those two they are on their side now because they want to save Kane, Sinclair and Lincoln, though Miller and Harper are unsure if they should trust them – trust between the Delinquents has really been damaged by the events of the previous episodes. Harper teases Monty about his mother, apparently not believing that he could oppose her or go behind her back, which Monty indeed does to help his friends. Bellamy opts to set up a meeting with Octavia to help her save Lincoln.

The Green mother-son relationship is pretty complicated – Hannah knows Monty ‘betrayed’ Pike to help his friends, so she warns Monty to get away but claims she didn’t give him up… although she actually did, she just asked Pike to promise not to hurt Monty. (This reminds me of Abby turning Jake to Jaha.)

The relationship between Miller and Bryan has been strained due to everyone spying on each other, especially since Bryan put a bug on Miller, and Miller found out someone did it, since Bellamy had to remove the bug first when he came to talk to him. And it wasn’t hard to guess who put it there. Miller makes Bryan reveal it, or maybe his intent was more to see if Bryan would choose him over his political affiliation and loyalty to Pike. Which he does, but that was when the stakes were as high as Miller’s life. The relationship was surprisingly fine after this point, I guess Miller was fine with Bryan making his choice at this point.

On the other hand, the Blake sibling relationship doesn’t heal so easy but gets worse, because Octavia meets Bellamy’s offer of help but nothing but distrust and anger, electrocutes him and chains him up in a cave and declines his help, saying that she doesn’t need his help “for the first time in my life”. Not a good decision on her part, since Bellamy’s plan was much more likely to work without alerting Pike, since he still had Pike’s trust and could have used that, unlike Octavia’s plan to be the lone hero – which was a lot more dramatic, but resulted in Pike using the interned sick Grounders to blackmail Lincoln to come back, under threat of the others being executed instead. Was that a deliberate parallel between Octavia electrocuting and handcuffing Bellamy, Bellamy handcuffing Clarke, Clarke electrocuting him to escape, and between Octavia electrocuting Bellamy and Lincoln knocking out Octavia with a syringe at the end of the episode, so he can go back to save his people and stop her from coming with him? Very different situations, but there has been a lot of that going around between people who love each other.

Lincoln’s death was a heroic, martyr-like one; he chose to sacrifice himself for others, which is fully in-character for him. His last words and the choice of music (“Cloud” by Elias) were really good. But it’s really hard to talk about Lincoln’s death without thinking of all the ugly BTS drama connected to it, and the fact that he barely had any screentime or development in season 3, makes me a bit bitter, as does thinking about the interesting storylines he could have had.

It’s interesting that one of the things Ricky said in his post-season 3 interviews was that he thought moving the death of his character from the finale, when it was planned, to this early, undermined the story, because, in his opinion, it made Pike too much into a villain. I thought the show was already going maybe too much in that direction, and Pike is actually not portrayed in muhaha villain fashion at any point, not even here (his attitude is more like that which we’ve seen, for instance, in Lexa – I don’t particularly want to do this, but I must do it to demonstrate my authority - but it’s true that the one thing audience doesn’t forgive characters is killing a beloved major character. However, in hindsight, Lincoln would have to die at some point even without the BTS drama, so Octavia would start her dark development.

Timeline: The episode starts almost immediately after 3x08.

Body count:

Seven Nightblood children/novices, including Aden,

Titus - suicide

Lincoln, executed by Pike – this is first death of a character billed as main cast member since Finn in mid-season 2, and third overall (the first one was Wells, another infamous death of a black character on The 100)

Rating: 5/10

3x10 Fallen

This is one of the episodes that’s really tricky to rate, because it has one storyline that’s great (the confrontation between Raven and ALIE), one storyline that is really good but where I have some issues with how certain things are portrayed in the long run (Blake siblings), but the third one is worst thing the show has ever done.

The City of Light scenes in this episode are really strong. I’m amazed to realize just how often in season 3 that storyline was the best thing or one of the best things about an episode, even though I found its conclusion in the season 3 finale really underwhelming. ALIE messing with people’s minds and characters either succumbing or fighting her was the most interesting part of that plot (way more interesting than everyone eventually joining to fight the evil robot). Raven’s storyline in seasons 3 and 4 is generally pretty strong and original, you don’t often see a character fighting a battle with and in their brain.  Here, she tries to defeat ALIE, first by blocking her from her mind, and then she finds a way to block her permanently – through the wristbands that the 100 wore in season 1. (I’m not even going to pretend to understand Raven’s explanation how that’s supposed to work, it’s really not my field.) But Jaha finds and destroys them all (of course, there’s where the detail from 3x01 – Clarke noticing that Niylah had one of the wristbands – is going to come in).

This is where ALIE achieves her victory in Arkadia, managing to chip almost everyone. She wins the battle against Raven by making her relive all her most painful memories, from physical torture – like being drilled in Mount Weather, tortured in Tondc, her operation, to seeing Finn die. This kind of thing can break even the strongest person, and Raven breaks.

We learn that Jackson has also already taken the chip. We also get a bit of backstory on him – his painful memory that he forgot is the death of his mother Mary from an illness, and he became a doctor because he wanted to save people the way he couldn’t save her. (I’m still confused why everyone on the Ark, which was supposed to originate from 12 different nations. has English first names and why almost everyone has English last names as well, with rare exceptions like the Jahas, Raven Reyes and John Mbege, but that’s a part of this show’s problems with worldbuilding.)

ALIE forces Abby to take the chip, too , by making Raven cut her wrists and almost kill herself. Lindsey Morgan’s performance as Raven and ALIE in Raven’s body is amazing.

Jasper is the only one in Arkadia who isn’t chipped at this point, and he manages to escape in the Rover and save Raven, before he bumps into Clarke, which is very fortunate since Clarke is the one who knows where to find the wristbands. These are some Jasper’s last heroic moments, before he breaks and has an antiheroic role at the end of the season.

But thanks to the other two storylines, I tend to think of this episode as the one where engage in physical and sexual abuse of men, to questionable and varying portrayal on the show/responses from the fandom.

The Blake siblings relationship has always been dysfunctional, but it goes to another level here.. I get that Octavia is grieving and I have sympathy for her, but that does not excuse beating the crap out of your brother, and then not showing any remorse. Some people argue it’s not abuse because Bellamy allowed her to do it, asking Miller and others not to interfere. Just like he later let her treat him as a “hostage”, even though he obviously could have overpowered her any moment, since he did it immediately when he wanted to - after Pike told people to shoot Octavia in the leg. But if the genders were reversed, I very much doubt that the viewers would be that blase over a grieving male character dealing with his issues by brutally beating his sister bloody, or that they would be OK with it because she allowed him to do it because she loves him, or because “she deserved it” (yikes!). That justification is wrong and disturbing even if Bellamy were actually responsible for Lincoln’s death. Which is highly questionable at the very least. He did come to her and offer to help get Lincoln out, but she chose to distrust him, treat him as a villain and chain him up and went to rescue Lincoln on her own - but Bellamy’s plan was better and he had an opportunity to use Pike’s trust in him, just as he did in this episode. So, one could argue that if Bellamy should be considered partially responsible for Lincoln’s death (for unintentionally setting the chain of events in motion that ended with his death), so should Octavia. But I’m sure it’s much easier for Octavia to blame Bellamy than to blame herself or not have a punching bad to take out her pain on (since Pike is not there), and Bellamy also prefers it that way, both because he cares about Octavia’s well-being more than his own, and because he’s always feeling guilty over things.

This pretty much encapsulates the dysfunctional Blake sibling relationship, which never had a chance to be normal, due to the circumstances they were raised in. He is always doing things to protect her and being self-sacrificial, like a parent towards their child, and she’s blaming him for everything that goes wrong, assuming the worst of him the moment he is not only doing things she is in favor of, and taking things out on him at least half of the time

Unlike something else from another storyline in this episode, I don’t have a problem with how the beating is dealt with in the scene itself – it’s portrayed as a dark and disturbing moment, and Miller and the others are obviously upset. But the fact that, after this, it’s still all framed as Octavia having to forgive Bellamy things and having nothing to feel about or be forgiven for, really bugged me and made me unable to like Octavia again for a long time after this

I don’t know if the show was trying to fool the audience into thinking that Bellamy was really going to hand over Octavia to Pike and betray the rest of the group – I always found it really obvious it was a ploy. Anyone who knows Bellamy would have known he would have never prioiritize Pike over Octavia -  at the time he probably wouldn’t prioritize Octavia over anyone (it took six more years for him to be able not to always put her first), but it wasn’t obvious to Octavia, since she actually believed his ploy.

Octavia wasn’t the only one who treated Bellamy as a villain throughout 3x09-3x10. Kane was also doing that, calling him an enemy an insisting he couldn’t be trusted, and the rest listened to him. Which is interesting, since Bellamy and Monty came to Miller and Harper to offer help after Kane, Lincoln and Sinclair had been condemned to death, and Bellamy has been trying to help since, while everyone is apparently cool with Bryan, who only switched sides after Miller figured out that he was the one spying on him, because he wasn’t able to sacrifice his boyfriend. Maybe Kane, Octavia and the rest were hanging out in The 100 fandom in 2016 too much…    But I guess that’s just the way this show works – the more important a character is, the more blame and punishment they get from everyone and themselves and the more they need to work for redemption, so Clarke gets blamed the most and Bellamy gets blamed for things he didn’t do together with Clarke, while supporting and especially minor characters can get away with much more because the show doesn’t care enough to focus on them.

When Bellamy turns over Pike to the Grounders, which is to ensure peace and lifting of the blockade, Kane asks if he did it because it’s the right thing or for his sister, and when he doesn’t get the answer, points out that it matters, and „Until you understand that, you will still be lost“. Which is a good point, Bellamy does still need at this point to work out some things and not just make his decisions on the fact that he wants to protect Octavia… and Kane, and Lincoln, and Sinclair, and Harper and Miller (because the lives of all of those that made him decide to turn against Pike, though protecting Octavia is what made him decide to give up Pike to the Grounders. It should be about general principles rather than just protecting those you care about… So why is this one of the moments where I find Kane kind of irritating? There’s something about the way he gives his mentorship advice that grates on me at times, even if he’s making good points – he sometimes comes off kinda of condescending.

Unfortunately, this episode has another plot – everything in Polis with Ontari and Murphy. Even after everything else that I had a problem with this season, everything involving Ontari in this episode is utter trash and feels like it comes from some much cheesier and worse show. If that was the only thing I was judging this episode by, it would get a 1/10. Ontari in general is a terrible character – not because she’s evil, evil people can be good characters, but she’s not.

But that’s not all - he premise is completely nonsensical: she has to prove that she’s a real Commander by… reciting the names of all previous Commanders, which they said only a real Commander would know? What??! That’s like saying only a President of USA would know who the previous Presidents were. You don’t need to have a freaking chip with the memories of dead Presidents to know their names, LMAO.

After the show went two and a half seasons without any rape, but now we get that with Ontari/Murphy… Which wouldn’t be a problem, if the show really acknowledged that and treated it accordingly. But that doesn’t seem to be the case? On the one hand, they make it clear that she has full power over his life and she makes it clear she will kill him if he refuses to have sex with her (what exactly do people think that is? Yet I’ve seen articles describing Ontari as „Murphy’s former lover“!), and he will reiterate that a couple of times later… but the way the scene is portrayed is at odds with that – tit’s all sexualized, they even use the same music as in the Clarke/Niylah consensual sex scene in 3x01..it all feels very  It can’t be rape when it’s a dude being forced to have sex with hawt chick, har har, right? Ugh. The worst scene in show’s history.

Timeline: The amount of time that passed between since 3x09 and the end of this episode is the amount of time that Clarke needed to get from Polis to Arkadia - so probably about a day, which is the case with most episodes (except 3x03, which took place a week after 3x02, and I don’t know how much time passed between 3x05 and 3x06 – a day or a few days). I guess this means this takes place some 16-18 days since 3x01.

Body count:

Three Arkadia guards who were with Pike, shot by Grounder arrows

Shawn Gilmer, stabbed by Octavia – because of course she was going to take a chance to finish that dude.

(Not really body count since the poor guy didn’t die – I guess – but there’s a scene where Ontari gets to be Ontari and gorge out an emissary’s eyes, after he has questioned her authority.)

Rating: 4.5/10

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #92

UPDATE 92: Daughters

Last time Taylor and Rachel started fixing their relationship somewhat, and Taylor proposed to the rest of the Undersiders the rather daunting task of fighting Coil. They have one week, maybe one week and half to succeed. Let’s continue!

And here it is, it has started: the interludes in the middle of the story, brought by the generous souls who donated to the author. This is one of them. To be honest, I’m not very sure about this...it feels kind of disjointed. I have liveblogged a few webcomics and since then something that’s starting to tick me off is intermissions happening in middle of the story. By now I can only sigh with annoyance every time they happen. More often than not it feels like it breaks the storyline. In this particular case it didn’t really do that because the arc was just starting, but in the future I hope these bonus interludes don’t happen in middle of the arc unless it’s like...another point of view or something like that.

It’s not clear right away who is the protagonist of this interlude. Seems to me it’s a young girl in...a cell, perhaps? A dungeon? It’s a dark place she can’t leave by their own will, seems to me. There’s also another young girl in here – a fellow prisoner? This is confirmed further when a man enters with a plate of food, giving it to them. The point-of-view girl thanks him, he hesitates but doesn’t let that stop him from closing the door and leave them still locked inside.

For a fleeting moment Dinah came to mind, but unless Coil recently kidnapped another girl for whatever reason and also stopped drugging her, it’s unlikely the girl this interlude is about is Dinah. Haven’t ruled out the other girl being Dinah, though. Very low chance but it’s there.

The other girl can’t believe POV girl thanked the man. Why’d she do such a thing to her captor? Hard to think it’d be just politeness.

She couldn’t justify it.  Her heart was pounding.  She stared at the plate.  Soup and bread: enough food for one person, barely enough for two.  She could have said she did it in the hopes that he would feed them more often, but she wasn’t sure she would be telling the truth.

“Let’s… let’s just eat,” she spoke.

It’s still too early to know for sure what to think about this girl, but she seems...I’m not sure what’s the word. Kindhearted? Naïve? I don’t know. She’s a nice girl, that’s what I’m trying to say.

There’s no time for that because the scenario changes to a different person. It’s Alan and Carol...it took me a moment, but I think they’re Panacea and Glory Girl’s parents? No, wait, it was Mark. I think Carol – Brandish – is the mom, but I’m not sure who Alan is.

Carol is dealing with the possibility of closing the office because of the city getting condemned. Right, she’s a lawyer. She’s gathering files and getting busy, but she’s not okay. She has stuff to be worried about, since this is clearly the present, unless Brandish had been in another condemned city before.

Yup, this is the present. I bet she’s worried about Glory Girl. She must be missing right now, after all. But nope! Looks like it’s not that. It’s less motherly and more frustrated reasons to be distracted.

Line by line, Brandish talks about how things led to her husband getting a brain injury that led to a very sad situation we readers are very aware about. We all know how it ended:

Carol smiled, but it wasn’t a happy expression.  “So imagine my surprise when, after weeks of taking care of my husband, wiping food from his face, giving him baths, supporting him as he walked from the bedroom to the bathroom, Amy decides she’ll heal him after all.”

I imagine how it was like for Carol, yeah. There’s this healer in her family who ironically isn’t able to heal him, because she can’t heal brains. Weeks later, you find out that was a lie, and the healer sat on her hands for all these weeks before finally deciding to help. Of course we all know it wasn’t like that! We know about Panacea’s plight. However, Carol doesn’t. To her it looks pretty awful, leaving aside her husband’s recovery, and now, she’s going to spread the word about this to other people, causing damage to Panacea’s reputation. Great, as if that girl didn’t have enough problems in her life. With some luck her stained reputation won’t reach wherever she’s going to go after Glory Girl is healed.

The Slaughterhouse Nine’s visit to Panacea also doesn’t help. Mark must have told her about how that visit went, right? So she must be aware he was healed at their behest. If so, then the impression she has of this is even worse, because it took a supervillain coercing her to finally heal Mark, meaning she didn’t do it willingly. Of course she’d be upset!

Victoria went looking for her after she ran away, returned home empty-handed.  I think she was even more upset than I was, with Amy taking so long to heal Mark.  She was almost inarticulate, she was so angry.”

“Your daughters are close.  The sense of betrayal would be that much stronger.”

So far from the truth. I don’t doubt Glory Girl maybe felt confused and all, but she was very willing to forgive her at first. If it wasn’t for Panacea losing control of her powers because of her emotions for a moment, things may have ended in a much more peaceful manner.

And now, like I said earlier, Glory Girl is missing. She was thinking about joining the Wards, so this mission alongside them may have been her way to prove herself. It...didn’t go like expected at all. Welp! While Glory Girl isn’t anywhere in my list of characters I like, I feel bad for her. I hope Panacea removes from Glory Girl the love she hastily had implanted in her and then goes away. Glory Girl will be majorly upset with that, but it’s for the better to do that anyway, I think.

They know the Undersiders took her for medical attention, but apparently Brandish doesn’t know where in the city the Undersiders are at. Huh. Battery knew where Skitter was, at least. I doubt she kept that to herself, so the Protectorate must know what territories the Undersiders have taken – at least some of them, right? Kind of surprising Carol hasn’t been able to get any leads. So now she’s distraught and came here to get herself busy and calm down. I can relate to that. Pretty normal reaction, yup.

Alan tries to offer help but it’s not that simple. There’s nothing they can do other than continuing the search...

“Welcome back to Brockton Bay, Mr. Barnes.”

Oh! I remember now! I think. Wasn’t Emma’s father a lawyer named Alan? I think it once was mentioned Barnes is her last name? I don’t really remember, but yeah, I think this is Emma’s father. Emma and family must be back in Brockton Bay.

Some time later, Carol seems to have fallen asleep, presumably not in her office. Back at home, most likely. She woke up because a stranger has arrived.

It took me like a dozen lines to realize this is the past, with the girls trapped. My bad. Anyway, these are Carol and Sarah. Now that I think about it, this may be how Photon Mom and Brandish met, right? Because New Wave is a group where two families decided to leave aside any ‘secret identities’ stuff and just admit what their real identities are. I don’t think a pair of random families without any sort of ties would agree to shake the status quo like that. The other possibility is that Carol and Sarah are family. I don’t remember if Carol and Sarah were related, honestly.

These girls have been trapped here for quite a while, it seems they were held as ransom or something, because now a man comes to kill them, saying time’s up. This is the moment Sarah has her awakening. Neat! And like anyone would do in her situation, she uses her newfound powers to fight back against the man threatening them, and it’s pretty bloody. Yikes.

She couldn’t bring herself to protest.  For the first time in long weeks or months, she felt a flicker of hope.

Weeks or months?! I did think it had been a couple weeks, at least, but I didn’t think it could potentially be months! That must have been quite a nightmare for them.

Speaking of nightmares, heeeeere is the other guy! The man who had been bringing them food. This time no amount of ‘thank you’ would make him hesitate, I suppose because his partner in crime’s battered corpse must still be around, so he raises a gun and shoots.

He’d tried to attack them?  Carol couldn’t understand it.  He was the one who’d taken care of them.  When he’d appeared, she’d been happy.  And now it felt like that had been ruined, spoiled.

She felt betrayed and she couldn’t understand why.

Okay, now I know the word I’m looking for is ‘naïve’. I guess it’s not out of the question a criminal can change their mind and all that, but it sounds like Carol took for granted he’d help them. True, he did show some hesitation that one time, but unless he showed hesitation every single time or other signs he was reconsidering this all he wasn’t going to switch sides just like that. Also, there’s a bloody battered body on the floor. Can’t have appealed to his good side.

The man shoots and heeeeere comes the trigger. This is the moment Carol gained her powers. I must say, I really like there has been parts where people other than Skitter have been shown gaining their powers. It has really driven home how traumatic it is to be in the kind of situations that’d get them their powers.

In this case, the vision Carol is having is of an egg opening and a lot of creatures bursting out of it, taking partners and flying away. Quite the vision! So far it had been visions of much older creatures, ones that were dying. I wonder if this is meaningful in some manner, if the vision depends on the person or something like that.

When the vision is over, Carol found herself on the floor. Sarah had tried to defend them, but I suppose the bullets were a lot to protect themselves from, and now that Carol had her trigger event, it’s her turn to fight back. She makes a weapon and attacks, it’s like a laser sword. The man’s limbs are cut and soon, well, he’s dead. That’s the end of this kidnapping and it’s pretty clear this is going to have some nasty psychological trauma on her.

You know, with all these traumatic situations required to have trigger events, it’d be great for new parahumans to consult a psychiatrist. It’s a shame so few have the chance to do so, I suppose.

Back in the present, Lady Photon is here to see her. She brings what could be interpreted as good news: they made contact with Tattletale and struck a deal. Good! If there’s someone who can deduce Glory Girl’s location it’s her. Maybe not with precision but she could perhaps say the general area? Where would Panacea take Glory Girl, anyway? Not a hospital, because she needed to work on her.

The information wasn’t free, of course.

“She wanted a two-week ceasefire.  The Undersiders won’t give any heroes or civilians any trouble, and we ignore them in exchange.”

“That gives them time to consolidate, get a firmer hold on the city.”

“Maybe. I talked to Miss Militia about it, and she doesn’t think they’ll accomplish anything meaningful in that span of time.  The Undersiders have their hands full with white supremacists and some leftover Merchants, the Protectorate and Wards aren’t part of the ceasefire and they’ll be putting pressure on the Undersiders as well.”

Ah, clever. She bought the Undersiders enough time to be able to focus on Coil without any other distractions. I have to wonder if, when Coil is defeated – because I think it’s a foregone conclusion they will! The enigma is how they’ll achieve it – the heroes will find out the Undersiders did it. That’ll make them even more dangerous in the eyes of the heroes.

Indeed, what Tattletale gave them in exchange was the location of both Glory Girl and Panacea. It’s time to go see them! I hope Glory Girl is almost healed by now, so Panacea can get on their good graces before she leaves. Some good reputation even in a place you’re not going to return to is always good, after all.

This interlude is jumping everywhere in the timeline. Back in the past, it’s Brandish in the Brockton Bay Brigade, confronting Marquis – Panacea’s father. They cornered him in his expensive house, Marquis isn’t worried at all. Hm! Is this going in the direction I think it’ll go! I hope it is! It would show how Panacea was adopted by Carol.

Looks like Marquis’ power is to manipulate bone. In a moment many bone spears erupt through his body in what must be a really weird thing to see, but it’ll be effective nonetheless. Bone is kind of a weird material, sometimes it’s depicted as brittle, other times as rather sturdy. I’m guessing Marquis would be able to control the density and hardness of the bone, right? In that case, he could make it as sturdy or as fragile as he wants.

The bone spears weren’t to impale anyone, instead they break off and are transformed into shapes that’d leave open wounds if the heroes get careless. It was to get bone exposed, I think. One of them’s bones in his foot break.

Alright! The heroes’ strategy is to attack constantly. Hit hard and hit often! It’d work better if Marquis couldn’t make a shield of bone, expanding it until it was larger than him, protecting him from Lady Photon’s blasts. I was already thinking ‘could they attack his back somehow?’ when Brandish thinks about how Marquis’ usual strategy is to get out of sight and then burrow to somewhere else.

Marquis emerged from the floor a short distance away, driving a spike of bone up through the ground and then deconstructing it to reveal himself.

I can imagine him encased in a drill made of bone, spinning through the floor and all, haha! But yeah, I must say, this power is pretty interesting, from what I have seen. It’s kind of quirky but also quite fearsome in the right hands.

Apparently he’s trying to protect something and he’s not being straightforward about it. Protecting his daughter, perhaps? It’s an anomaly in his behavior, one that puzzles Brandish.

His power let him manipulate bone.  If it was his own, he could make it grow or shrink, reshape it and multiply it.   It made him, in many respects, a competent shapeshifter.  His abilities with the bones of others were limited to a simple reshaping, and there was a nuance in that the longer his own bone was separated from his body, the less able he was to manipulate it.  Every second he was wasting talking was a second that the bone splinters he’d spread over the area would be less useful to him.  He was putting himself at a disadvantage.

I’m not certain, but I think Marquis has a finite amount of material to work with. Otherwise it wouldn’t be that much of a problem, he’d make more bone spears and replenish the bits of bone he’s not able to control so well. Also, now I see the purpose of the bone spears was for them to break and scatter around. Clever!

So yeah, Marquis is usually known for turning everything around to his advantage, and that isn’t happening here even though he put two of the heroes out of commission in like five seconds flat. Something is distracting him, Carol thinks. In the moments the narration takes to tell all this stuff, Brandish is blindfolded with bone and Lady Photon is imprisoned in a column. Only Manpower and Brandish are available right now, and they’ll try the plan the heroes had agreed all along.

The plan is charging straightforward and even lunging at the weapons Marquis makes. Luckily for them, Marquis is focused on making things as nonlethal as possible, instead trying to imprison them and even undoing a scythe of bone when there’s a chance it can kill Brandish.

Kind of a random thought right now, but I can kind of see how Panacea and Marquis are family, in terms of powers. Panacea has biological manipulation as well, just that instead of just bone like Marquis, she can handle pretty much the entirety of a living being’s biology. The similarity is faint, but it’s there. Must say, the topic of parents and children’s powers being related in some manner is pretty interesting to me.

Anyway, Marquis tries to get away, chance Brandish uses to slash the protection there’s over a closet, which she then tries to impale. Marquis emerges in middle of them and gets stabbed in the shoulder. Ouch!

“What were you so intent on protecting?” Manpower asked.  “This where you stash your illegitimate gains?”

Marquis chuckled.  “You could say that.  The most precious treasure in the world.”

It definitely is Amy. Pretty sweet of him to say such a thing of her. Seems like a sincere remark...it’s a shame things are like this and, well, Marquis had to be taken away. Leaving aside that he’s a villain and therefore does pretty awful stuff, seems to me he genuinely loved Amy. Amelia.

But Lady Photon was already reaching for the door, pulling it open.

A girl. A child, not much younger than Vicky. The girl was brown hair, freckle-faced, and clutched a silk pillow to her chest.  She wore a silk nightgown with lace at the collar and sleeves.  It looked expensive for something a child would wear.

“Daddy,” the girl’s eyes were wide with alarm.  She clutched the pillow tighter.

I wonder if the reason why Amy was hidden in the closet, if it was to protect her or if he also intended to hide her for some reason. Doesn’t seem like the heroes knew he had a daughter.

“I have enemies.  Would you like to see her fall into their hands?  It wouldn’t be pretty.”

I’m not surprised a parahuman would hide the existence of their family, especially if you’re a villain with lots of powerful enemies. Of course if the heroes found out, then the enemies could find out too. He really was trying to hide her, not just protect her. And now that he has been captured, it’s up to the heroes to decide what to do with her.

“The motherfucker has a kid?” Lightstar muttered the question, as if to himself. “And she’s, what,  five?”

“Six,” Marquis answered.

Six. Vicky’s age, then.  She looks younger.

Six years...I’m a bit surprised Amy didn’t remember her father. Six year-olds are self-aware and it’s possible to remember stuff from back then. Faintly, but it’s possible. It’s not out of the question Amy may have forgotten Marquis, but yeah...it’s surprising to me. Well, there are other factors that cause memory loss, such as intense trauma. That’d depend on if Marquis getting arrested was intensely traumatic for Amy, though.

While Marquis talks about what happened to Amy’s mother and about how he enjoyed a lot his life with Amy, Brandish hates everything. Something about Marquis makes her remember the moments back from when she got her power. I don’t...really see the similarities, honestly.

That cultured act, the civility that was real.  Marquis was fair, he played by the rules.  His rules, but he stuck to them without fail.  It didn’t match her vision of what a criminal should be.  It was jarring, creating a kind of dissonance.

This kind of character is interesting, but I feel he’d have more impact if this was explained in some more detail. True, we already know one of his rules, and we can kind of deduce others from the fight, I guess, but I think there’s a chance to go deeper into this. Although...there wouldn’t be much of a point, I guess. Marquis isn’t going to appear again after this – most likely.

Young Amy doesn’t want them to take her dad away, she wants him to stay and rejects any consolation. The heroes can’t do anything but call the PRT and just take Marquis away. Later, Lady Photon has Amy by the hand and seats her in a car. Hm! Amy was calmer than I thought she’d be, if she accepted to get on the car so easily.

Leaving the girl in foster care is not a good idea because if anyone finds out she’s Marquis’ daughter, she’ll be targeted, kidnapped, and exploited for her powers. Brandish gets a bad feeling and asks Lady Photon to adopt her, proposal that is rejected because they already have two children and no possibility of having another. Instead, Lady Photon suggests Brandish adopts her. So that’s how Amy got into this family! And Brandish didn’t want her at all. I think that had been said before, but it sure hits harder when you see it happen.

Brandish doesn’t want Amy, and her husband may have clinical depression. It’s not an ideal family for an adopted daughter, especially one who just saw this bunch of strangers take away her father. She had even shouted at them she hated them. It really is a tragic there were no better options for Amy, because this is far from ideal.

“It’s not just that,” she said.  “You know I have trouble trusting people.  You know why.”

The change on Lady Photon’s face was so subtle she almost missed it.

“I’m sorry to bring it up,” Brandish said. “But it’s relevant.  I decided I could have Vicky because I’d know her from day one. She’d grow inside me, I’d nurture her from childhood… she’d be safe.”

That perceived betrayal scarred her much more than I expected. Maybe it was Stockholm’s Syndrome? The term gets thrown pretty lightly in some stories, so I don’t really how grave it is in reality. From what I read here in a rather superficial research I just made, it’s pretty rare but it’s generally positive emotions and thoughts towards people who have wronged you, as illogical as it can be. Not sure if that fits, though. The cases I read about here indicate those feelings stayed for a very long time, unlike in this story, where Carol felt betrayed pretty quickly. I don’t dare to just call it naiveté, though.

Nothing else to be said here. Brandish will take Amy, even if she doesn’t want her. Nobody else can do it. And that’s the story behind this family. Goodness gracious!

Back in the present, Carol isn’t full of joy when she encounters the daughter she didn’t want. Yup, they found Panacea and therefore Glory Girl must be around too. Brandish immediately asks where’s Glory Girl; Amy’s response is that she’s sorry. Sorry for having kept her and made everyone worry the Undersiders had kidnapped her or something, I guess.

The location is a ruined neighborhood, possibly a random abandoned house. When Carol had arrived, Amy rushed outside to block the door – and yield at the first push once they try that, because compared to Brandish and Lady Photon, Panacea isn’t an obstacle at all. They ask for explanations, giving her the chance to say what’s going on.

“I didn’t want her to fight.  And I didn’t want her to follow, or to hate me because I used my power on her again.”

Again?

“So I thought I’d put her in a trance, and make it so she’d forget everything that happened. Everything that I did, and the things that the Slaughterhouse Nine said, and everything that I said to try to make them go away.  Empty promises and-“

So she did manipulate her memory again. She did break her own rules again and did what she thought was best. Erasing the memories of what Jack had said and everything Amy replied is more than I expected, but maybe it’s for the best. How will Brandish and Lady Photon react at these news? I doubt they’ll approve Panacea modified someone’s memory, but will they become angry?

They didn’t have much of a reaction to that. Alright.

Something in Amy’s voice alerted Brandish something was wrong, so she forced her way in and rejected Panacea’s hand when she tried to stop her. Amy was fearful, both staying against the wall and pleading her to stop going further into the house, while Brandish got upstairs and saw the only open door around, entering without hesitation. When Brandish stops, Panacea hurries to get there to explain.

You know, nothing good happens when someone has to say ‘please, let me explain’. I already dread what I’m going to read.

Amy kept talking, her voice strangely monotone after her earlier emotion, as if she were a recording.  Maybe she was, after a fashion, all of the excuses and arguments she’d planned spilling from her mouth.  “I wanted her to be happy.  I could adjust.  Tweak, expand, change things to serve more than one purpose.  I had the extra material from the cocoon.  When I was done, I started undoing everything, all the mental and physical changes.  I got so tired, and so scared, so lonely, so I thought we’d take another break, before I was completely finished.  I changed more things.  More stuff I had to fix.  And days passed.  I-“

Brandish clenched her fists.

“I lost track. I forgot how to change her back.”

...you know, the more I read this, the more I felt this...strange sensation inside me. It was the same weird sensation of nervousness, like intense dread, I even had goosebumps. I reread it all when I pasted it here and I still felt that. Guess that means it’s pretty effective writing, eh? I can say without exaggeration this is the most...nervous, I guess...I have felt reading Worm so far.

A caricature. A twisted reflection of how Amy saw Victoria, the swan curve of the nape of the neck, the delicate hands, and countless other features, repeated over and over again throughout.  It might even have been something objectively beautiful, had it not been warped by desperation and loneliness and panic.  As overwhelming as the image and the situation had been in Amy’s mind, Victoria was now equally imposing, in a sense.  No longer able to move under her own power, her flesh spilled over from the edge of the mattress and onto the floor.

...

...

...

...well then.

I’m glad I’m having a very hard time picturing this. Usually when I read something, I imagine it pretty vividly, but here I’m having some trouble picturing Victoria’s current state. Just from the description here it’s horrifying. I’m glad I can’t process just how awful it is.

...but dang, I’d have never thought something like this would have happened to Glory Girl. I didn’t like her, but that doesn’t mean I thought she’d have such a...I don’t even have words to describe it well. If Jack heard about what Panacea once she broke her own rules did...well, he’d be pleased he managed to push her towards doing something like this, even if it was pretty much an accident.

Last time these two had appeared in the story Glory Girl was recovering and Panacea was...not completely stable, but she seemed to be okay enough. What’ll Skitter think of this? Will the Undersiders find out?

Now what? What’s going to happen to them? No way anyone will let Panacea get anywhere close to Glory Girl again, and there’s not an abundance of parahumans with healing powers or the ability to manipulate someone else’s body. And Panacea...no way the heroes are going to just brush this aside. Is she going to be prosecuted for this? Sorry for the rambling, I guess I’m at a loss for words.

Obviously, Brandish isn’t taking this well. Her first thought is that this is a betrayal, and she was about to hit Panacea with her weapon when she finally took a good look at her.

The girl was so weak, so powerless, a victim.  A victim of herself, her own nature, but a victim nonetheless.  A person sundered.

Yeah, that’s...an apt description. Goodness, all this is pretty messed up. It takes all the fighting will out of Carol.

Some time later, Dragon and Carol are talking.

Carol stared as Amy shuffled forward.  The cuffs weren’t necessary, really.  A formality. Amy wasn’t about to run.

She’s going to the Birdcage, isn’t she. Geez, what an unfortunate end for her character arc. Unless there’s an arc happening in the Birdcage or something – a viable possibility, given how dangerous the Undersiders will be known as if their plans work! – Panacea isn’t going to appear again.

Just...just some recognition for how complicated Panacea is. I find that appealing and also very pitiable.

The armed escort would be waiting.  No court- Amy had volunteered, asked to go to the Birdcage.

No surprise there, she must be feeling a horrifying amount of guilt, so intense only going to the Birdcage will be a step towards getting rid of it. I don’t think she ever will. This isn’t the kind of thing you ever forgive yourself for.

Surprisingly, Carol gives Amy a rather tight hug. I don’t think there’s any love, but she’s sorry. Amy gets into the truck and off the transport goes towards the Birdcage, to never leave that place ever again.

Carol nodded. “Two daughters gone in the blink of an eye.”

“Your husband decided not to come?”

“He exchanged words with her in her cell this morning.  He decided it was more important to accompany Victoria to Pennsylvania.”

What I do find surprising is that Carol was the one to stay with Amy instead. She never wanted her, after all. I thought she’d want to avoid being anywhere close to Amy after...after what she did to her daughter. Guess the defenseless, hopeless and desperate Amy did strike a chord in her, enough to sympathize with her enough to stay and say goodbye to her. Too little, too late, though.

“You didn’t want to see Victoria off to the parahuman asylum?”

“Victoria is gone.  There’s nothing of her left but that mockery.  Mark and I fought over it and this was what we decided.”

Maybe it’s unkind of me to say such things, but with this it seems like she refused to say goodbye to Victoria because in Carol’s eyes she doesn’t exist anymore – all that’s left is whatever was the result of Amy’s mistakes. In contrast, Mark still thought of her as a daughter and wanted to see her off. Am I being too harsh with Carol by thinking like this? Maybe. But that’s what comes to mind.

Amy is gone, but Carol doesn’t leave yet. Instead she requests to watch Amy’s arrival to prison. Dragon has no problem allowing that, so after a few hours of waiting, Carol finally gets to watch it. Amy arrives, Dragon turns on the sound so Carol can hear what happens inside.

A second later, the sound cut in.  An announcement across the prison PA system: “-one-two, Amy Dallon, AKA Amelia Lavere, AKA Panacea.  Cell block E.“

You know, this must be quite a shock for anyone who knows who Panacea is. I bet many will be wondering how the hero who went around healing people in hospitals and stuff was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in the Birdcage. I imagine there’ll be lot of questions, and Amy will refuse to answer every single one of them, I bet.

Or maybe not, because Marquis enters the scene. With his protection, Amy will be left alone. Lung is behind him and is blocked so Marquis approaches Amy alone.

“I’ve been waiting,” he spoke.

Welcome home, Amy? I’m not sure if meeting Marquis again is good or bad for her. I just hope it’ll be good. At least she’ll have someone to trust in here – if she trusts him, that is.

This is the end of the chapter; Carol goes away after seeing Marquis meet his daughter again. Before I stop writing, though...

The day I cease seeing her as his daughter and see how she could be mine, he takes her back, she thought.

I understand how Carol feels – I think. I understand the traumatic reasons behind her complexes, I understand it’s very difficult for her to trust anyone, and I understand in her eyes Amy was a walking reminder of Marquis.

But, despite all that, I’m having a pretty hard time sympathizing with Carol. I just...can’t, for some reason. It’s tragic, pitiable, some would even say pathetic, but despite all that I just am unable to sympathize with her. Maybe because the thought of a small child being blamed for something out of her control rubs me the wrong way. It’s the kind of thing that’s very unfair, you know?

But even though I don’t sympathize with Carol I can’t despise her. Maybe precisely because of how pitiable she is. I’m not sure what kind of emotion Mr. Wildbow was aiming for, but I’m sure he managed to tug the right heartstrings in a lot of people, even if in me it may not have the right effect.

Also, I’ll miss Panacea. I warmed up to her throughout the story, maybe because she was a complicated character. Oh well. She had a good run.

Guess next update the arc will continue? We’ll see next time!

Next time: in six updates

[theritualofourexistence]

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

1. The title for this blog is straight plagiarism.

2. It doesn’t really connect to the general theme super well.

3. Twitter and Instagram polls picked this topic! Don’t worry, dating app folks, that one’s coming next.

--

Recently I had this weird, philosophical ah-ha moment when I was thinking about ghosts.

Yep, ghosts.

So, the lore behind how a ghost or a spirit gets left behind is commonly linked to trauma. The idea that if you experience a particularly gruesome death you may be more likely to have your essence trapped on earth is something I’ve come upon a lot. The more I thought about it, the more fear became a significant element in my thinking. Fear is something I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to manage and I believe it’s one of the most powerful forces on Earth.

What if it’s not a tragic death that generates a ghost, but rather, a fearful death? 

--

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, that brain worm got me going down a different sort of path. My faith, which I talk about a little bit in my last post, mainly centers around the concept of a force of light and good that lives through and in and around all living things. I believe that force is, in essence, Love. And the first thing that pointed me towards exploration of this idea is a passage from the Bible in the book of 1 John. There is a section in that chapter about loving one another that states very plainly, across many translations, that God is Love.

I’ve found over the years, that by focusing on this concept, I’ve been able to live what I consider to be a much more “Godly” life. I believe the Christian God wants us to spread love and I believe that’s the thing He/She wants the most.

To sum up as much of my personal, faith-related philosophy as I can, I believe Love is a living force that flows through everything and that we can choose whether we bind ourselves to that cause or whether we stand against it.

That’s a simplification, of course, and if you’d like to wade into specifics, feel free to shoot me a personal message.

--

Now, back to fear. Fear has always been my Big Bad. When I was a kid, one of the most important lessons my dad tried to teach me was that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. A kid with anxiety can only grasp so much of that, though, and I didn’t really understand or believe that phrase until adulthood. Years of therapy, and adulthood. 

So, in my world, love is the Big Good and fear is the Big Bad.

Can you see where I’m going yet?

--

I have long hated the timeless dichotomy of good and evil. 

I hated it well before I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but even more so now. 

Nothing is all good and nothing is all evil.

Period.

You won’t change my mind about this.

That’s why I believe the old “good vs. evil” trope is trash. I have never and never expect to encounter something that is purely good or evil. It doesn’t even really work as a spectrum either. Like, sure you could argue that something or someone is “mostly good” or “mostly evil” but that still requires people to give inherently subjective interpretations of how much weight “good” acts and “evil” acts deserve. 

What if a person has donated over three billion dollars to charities that have actively helped provide effective treatment to an infamously fatal disease. What if that same person also raped a 12-year-old.

You can make the argument that that person directly led to hundreds, even thousands of saved lives. But that doesn’t erase the fact that he raped a 12-year-old. 

I think most people would probably struggle to tell you whether they considered that person “mostly good” or “mostly bad” and I can assure you that that judgment would always boil down to the judger’s personal experiences and opinions. 

If you’ve been raped, you would probably find it easier to say that person is “mostly bad.” 

If you had a loved one saved by the treatment that man funded, you may find it easier to say he’s “mostly good.” 

There you go, “good vs. evil” dichotomy is busted.

--

Whether or not I’ve stopped to really think about it, the more life I live, the more I think of the world around me through a “Love vs. Fear” dichotomy. It is, now that I am taking the time to think about it, a much better way to evaluate our own actions as well as the actions of others.

A lot of people have hypothesized that fear of The Other sits at the heart of racism and sexism and homophobia. Love, however, can be the difference between acceptance and affirmation. 

There is a very acute difference between saying you have nothing against gay people (”I have gay friends!”) and actually loving those people. Loving those people means you are committed to fighting for their rights and safety. At least, that’s what I believe true Love looks like. True Love is action... just as Fear is also often action. 

--

1 John 4:18 says that there is no Fear in Love and that perfect Love drives out Fear. 

I believe the only perfect Love is the force of pure love and light that flows through the living world. I believe humans can only try to replicate that and that in the majority of cases, we fail. But I believe our call is to try to live a life of perfect Love because only that will truly eliminate Fear.

I dream of a global community. Of equity and equality. Of Love. 

Fear is the root of hate. Fear is the root of war. Fear is the root of violence. 

--

There will always be actions and feelings that require deeper analysis. Anger, for instance. I had a conversation with my friends recently about anger and whether or not it’s a valuable way to spend your energy. I am someone who feels angry pretty often. Other people may not be, and that doesn’t inherently mean that one of us is wrong and one is right. 

My anger, however, is almost always flowing from a place of Love. I get the most angry when the people I care about are threatened or hurt. Today, in the United States, a lot of my anger is directed towards our administration and policies that actively wreak havoc in the lives of my poc friends and family and LGBT+ friends and family. I’m not angry because I hate this administration, though, I’m angry because the people I love are being hurt. 

Sometimes, though, I get angry for less righteous reasons.

Sometimes I get angry because my plans for my future aren’t exactly going the way I predicted.

That anger comes from Fear. And it’s not healthy anger.

--

So, really, this post has two intertwining branches.

1. Let’s get rid of Good and Evil and think about Love and Fear instead. 

2. If you embrace Love, it should impact all areas of your life, including politics.

--

That is, at least, why I feel the way I do about political issues. 

I believe in committing my life to Love. I believe that’s the only way we can leave the world a better place. 

I believe Love has no boundaries or borders and I believe everyone deserves to be treated with Love. 

Striving to treat everyone with Love is what motivates me to try and understand everyone I encounter. It motivates me to listen to their stories. It motivates me to respect them. 

Striving to treat everyone with Love is why I cannot and will not ever support a death penalty.

Striving to treat everyone with Love is why I believe in and support updating our nation’s gun control laws and immigration policies.

It’s why I am so passionate about criminal justice system and prison reform. 

It’s why I have spent so much energy learning to be forgiving.

The thing I didn’t necessarily expect was how much those changes align with Biblical scripture. As I said in my last post, I feel like my choice to move further from the church has allowed me to live a more loving life... which, in many ways, has brought me closer to God. 

And the most awesome thing about Love and Fear is that it’s absolutely not tied at all to any specific religion. It translates across all of humanity, making it one of the most inclusive ways of thinking about our thoughts and actions.

--

So, that’s my call to you today. Spend some time thinking about your life in terms of Love and Fear and see what you come up with. 

No one is perfect. I will always make choices and have thoughts and take actions that are rooted in Fear. But if I have the insight to know that and therefore make those choices less, that’s a success story. If I put the work in to think through my motivation and to focus on loving thoughts and actions, I’ll stay on the right path. 

“Good” is not “right” and “evil” is not “wrong” because nothing is ever good or evil. 

Love, though...

Love feels right.

[adios-aoidos]

What the Rich Think: a fly on the wall essay by 4onSix

This essay was written by user 4onSix on one of the leftist subreddits. I repost it here only so that the good people of tumblr can also read it. You can find the original post here.

~~~

I’m poor. If it weren’t for the ACA I couldn’t afford my crappy insurance. Even then, I can’t always afford medicine or doctor visits. I don’t own a tv, laptop, & if I weren’t mechanically inclined, my car wouldn’t run. I struggle to save money for the dentist and the cat’s vet.

But through strange chances of employment, I know some rich people. Without going into details, I work a blue collar job, but also as a musician.

Both jobs have introduced me to rich people. The ones I know best are probably “low” 1 percenters , but through them I’ve meet a few absurdly wealthy. Probably not anyone in the 9-figure range, but I have trouble gauging. I do know, most 1 percenters don’t view themselves as rich, as they all know people with far more money. The only ones who came from “upper -middle” classes have high income jobs and married up.

I’ve known some long enough that they forget, at least somewhat, my background. They certainly find my views amusing, and aren’t afraid to tell me what they really think.

The rich know how to code-switch in a way that will make your head spin. They talk differently at home, work, school and among friends. Their children go further, as in addition to that, they usually like hip hop, and online culture. (FWIW, “Get Out”, and “This is America,” had a profound impact on some of these kids. But, will it stick?)

Some of them are liberal, more are conservative, but those are sort of skeptical libertarians. They aren’t opposed to gay rights, many aren’t opposed to transgender rights. They love pot. I’ve noticed the rich women largely acknowledge systemic racism. Some of the men do as well, though more believe minorities could achieve social & limited mobility through “hard work.”

But most common, at least among the men, is an ideology that I don’t recognize. It’s not Randian Objectivism, as they usually acknowledge luck and the vagaries of fate. They usually accept that life and society are inherently unjust. And I mean “accept”- they have no desire, even to reform existing systems.

Their acknowledgement of luck is actually problematic, as it makes them more protective of their status. They know they could not simply replace any lost wealth.

It’s not nihilism as they do usually believe life has inherent meaning. It’s just a meaning reserved for a small group of people.

I’m not sure post-modernism fits, but I lack a better term. Everything is relative to them. They can have pet causes they care deeply about. It’s not just optics; they feel good about it. For example, they may donate money and even time to children’s hospitals, but adamantly oppose expanding Medicaid.

Every single one of them despised Trump in 2016. Most voted for him. The few liberals loved Hillary, but would take Pence over Sanders any day. Some of them, while still preferring a Romney-esque figure, have grown to love how he “triggers the libs.”

The conservative & libertarians among them despise the Democratic Party. While leftists view the Democrats as a centrist party, to them, any redistribution of wealth is socialism. They aren’t being ironic or dishonest when they claim Nancy Pelosi is a socialist. Hire taxes = socialism.

Once, in response to complaints about a local tax increase to fund road repair, I made a sarcastic joke, saying maybe taxes should be “a la carte.” It was clear that I was kidding, but everyone there essentially believed that. To them, corporate, property, income, estate and marginal taxes are all the same thing. You cannot “trick” them by saying you’ll only raise taxes on large corporations.

(It should be obvious that given those views, that reforms and moderation make no sense. Don’t cede power to be viewed as respectable; you’re not and never will be.)

I never wrote this stuff down, as I think other writers have done a better job. I have some issues with Chris Hedges, but his writing about boarding school are great.

But things have changed. I am trying to write this as carefully as possible, but please criticize me if needed. Some of these people are Jewish, maybe half. I live in the (mid-Atlantic, Acela Corridor.) They are mostly secular, but are Zionists, liberal or otherwise. They largely ignore Israeli politics, so to them, Netanyahu is not a Likud conservative; he’s just the Israeli leader.

After the massacre in Pittsburgh, I expected some of them would be filled with grief, concern, or even fear. Most Jewish people I’ve talked to have been shaken by this horrific tragedy.

So, I was surprised that the response from the rich was blasé. Yes, they thought it was tragic. But, they refused to see any connection to mainstreamed conservative bigotry. They universally condemned protestors who opposed Trump’s visit.

I thought this apathy was due to the Tree of Life’s progressive bent, or its ties to HIAS. But it was not. They simply can compartmentalize their identity in a way I cannot understand. Their solidarity retracts to the smallest contingent in which they belong.

I thought, perhaps they would take the Israeli position, that Jews are not safe anywhere except Israel. But they did not.

This is not to say they are not scared. But it’s not down to religion, it’s all of them. In the past few years, many of them have built up gun collections. They joke about the “zombie apocalypse.” I’m sure they have safe rooms and safe houses, emergency supplies and plans.

But their fears aren’t those of the persecuted minority. It’s a recognition of the growing instability of the socio-economic order, and the destruction that entails. They’re afraid the horse they’re riding isn’t truly broken.

A few nights ago, i overheard a discussion among a several middle aged rich men, a few of whom live in Florida.

They started talking about Gillum & DeSantis. They outright acknowledged he was a white supremacist. They don’t necessarily agree, but more than that, don’t really care. They think Rick Scott is a class traitor for expanding Medicaid. I expected to hear about Gillum’s tangential connection to BDS, but that wasn’t their concern.

To them, he’s a socialist, a criminal, and an existential threat. DeSantis could be a fascist, but he won’t raise taxes. As throughout history, as recently as Bolsonaro, the wealthy will ALWAYS side with fascists, over even milquetoast progressives. The liberals ones are no exception.

The topic of “the caravan” came up, and again, veered into fascism. Basically it was evenly divided between, “Let them in, they just have to work for free.” And “Time for target practice.” No exaggeration. (A few of these guys unironically love “The Purge.”)

I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know what the best tactics are.

I just know, things are gonna get heavy, and I’m afraid a lot of leftists, particularly socdems and demsocs, have no idea of what they’re facing. It’s easy to talk about systems and theory, but these guys have all the power, the police and armed forces, and a highly attuned personal instinct for survival .

It’s absurd to think they can be persuaded to relinquish anything. So, to quote a dead guy, “What is to be done?”

~~~

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

Alix Appreciation Week, day 4: Friends

I miss Pharaoh Alix, I had to write at least one prompt about her :’)

(Also here I dumped all these lil fics onto AO3 because my blog is a mess)

Pharaoh Alix, lounging on her throne with her royal sceptre in hand and pet cobra draped over her shoulders, snapped her fingers at her advisor. “Dude. Intel report. I wanna be ready before the meeting with the council.”

He cleared his throat. “First of all, welcome back, Your Majesty. Your citizens have been eagerly awaiting your return from school, as has the elected council. It will be good to have your input when governing again.”

She grinned, wondering if he was telling the truth or just being polite. “Yeah, well now that I’ve had three years of royalty school, hopefully I’ll actually do a good job at it.”

“I am sure you will.” The advisor looked down at the clipboard he had in hand. “Right. First things first, you know how much turmoil the Bourgeois Empire is in right now, having been at school there. No doubt the press will be asking for your official stance on the situation and your opinion of the new empress. Best to think of an answer to give beforehand.”

“Opinion? Yeah, Chloé’s cool, I guess.”

The advisor frowned. “Really? Most of our citizens have a rather low opinion of her. Or rather, they have a low opinion of her empire, which doesn’t seem to be doing so well right now. Though it is improving.”

“The problems are her dad’s fault,” Alix said. “Chloé’s been making reforms and stuff. She was in my class at school, she’s actually kind of okay once you get past how stuck-up she is. We actually made friends.”

“You made friends with a fellow leader? That’s good news, and I suppose your high approval rating here will give citizens an incentive to be more receptive to Empress Chloé too, and perhaps they might actually donate more to provide relief to the Bourgeois Empire…” He cleared his throat again. “Let’s see, what else… Ah yes, the kingdom of Kanté has been grateful for your abolishment of trade restrictions, and their economy is flourishing.”

“Of course.” Alix leaned on the back of her throne, crossing her arms. “Anything for Prince Max.”

“It wasn’t Prince Max who has sent the official thanks, it was his family.”

Alix waved her sceptre. “Actually he also sent me a text to personally thank me himself, since he’s my awesome best friend and everything.”

“Ah yes, your sceptre-phone receives text messages now… Do you really consider him a close friend?”

“Yeah, it’s not a bad thing, is it?”

The advisor shook his head. “No, it isn’t bad for a monarch to have close friends. But you must be careful who these friends are and what they get out of a friendship. I do trust that Prince Max has no ulterior motives, though, as a fellow member of the International Alliance and an advocate of peace and science. So being a close friend and ally of his is a good idea.”

“Obviously.” She hadn’t really thought about it in that much detail before – Max was her friend, what was the big deal about that? But he was right. Not everyone could be trusted to be friends with a pharaoh. Only the best were worthy of such an honour.

“Another thing,” the advisor continued, “is a matter of strengthening the ties between our countries. Top students from Kanté want to collaborate with our own scientists and engineers, and the country is requesting total open borders as proof of our cordial relationship.”

“Open borders are a definite yes. That way I can go visit Max all the time.”

The advisor tried to hide his smile. “You already do…”

“Yeah, but this way it’ll be cheaper, won’t it? And maybe they’ll make more robots if they team up, like Markov!”

“I believe that’s the idea. The decision will be put to a vote during the council meeting, but it is highly likely everyone would be in favour.”

“Nice! Okay, what else?”

He flipped a page over. “We’ve received news that Prince Kim has finally been able to return home, and has completed the journey safely.”

“Oh yeah, I already know that. He sent me a text.”

The advisor blinked a few times. “But… his kingdom doesn’t have portable telephones capable of text messaging… and we haven’t opened up trade with them… he can’t possibly have a phone…”

“I gave him one as a present.”

“Your Majesty, you can’t just go giving phones to random princes!”

Alix stood up and put her hands on her hips, not that it made much difference to her height. “He’s not just any prince, he’s Kim! My friend! And when his coronation happens in a few months then he’s gonna be a king, so there.”

“How many friends did you even make at that school?”

“Like, the entire class, I guess?”

“Hmm…” He looked down at the clipboard in thought. “That does explain a lot.”

“Explain what?”

“Why we suddenly have so many offers from distant kingdoms we’ve never associated with much before,” he said. “Many of your classmates returned home earlier than you did, didn’t they? It seems they have already begun diplomacy. We’ve had requests from Couffaine and Lavillant to establish embassies in our city, Tsurugi and the new Raincomprix Republic have been sending diplomats, and Kurtzberg is asking about housing some of their artwork in our Great Library in Alixandria as a joint cultural exhibit…”

“Yes to all of those,” Alix said. “Juleka, Rose, Sabrina and Nath are my friends too, and so is Kagami, though she’s actually homeschooled, I just met her in Nubia last year at that thing.”

The advisor looked rather stunned.

“What?”

“My apologies, it’s just… I’ve been working in this palace so long, and I’ve studied the history of our nation, the history of the politics of our world, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Young upcoming leaders all with close enough bonds to trust each other, despite the global tensions that have driven everyone apart in the past several decades. It’s incredible.”

She finger-gunned at him. “You mean incredible in a good way, right?”

“Yes, certainly. This level of support and friendship between countries has not been seen since, well, since Pharaoh Rania founded the International Alliance and ushered in a never-before-seen era of prosperity over 200 years ago!”

Alix flicked open the top of the sceptre, looking at the little hologram of Rania that popped up. “Really? So you think we’ll have another era of prosperity then?”

“I sincerely hope so. Oh, and that’s not all. Queen Marlena of Césaire has put in an application for her country to join the International Alliance, and the vote will of course take place later this summer. While I know that Princess Alya was a member of your class and you would want to vote to accept the application, her status as spymaster does make one wonder if her true reasons for wanting to join are to gain more intelligence, rather than promoting peace…”

“I know that too. The snake told me.”

The advisor almost dropped his clipboard. “I’m sorry – I – what?!”

“The snake.” Alix gave her cobra a stroke. “He can speak in Morse code, ‘cause he’s super smart and I taught him. He told me about Alya wanting to join the International Alliance.”

“Uh… if you say so…”

“And anyway,” Alix continued, “I’d definitely vote yes. She and that spy network have saved a lot of lives these past three years.”

The advisor shook his head in disbelief. “What’s even been going on at that school?”

“Lots. There was all that stuff with the Agreste Empire, so…”

“Ah yes, speaking of which, that’s another thing on the list.” He cleared his throat and tried to regain composure. “The new Emperor Adrien is a wildcard, and no one quite knows what to think of him. We could send spies of course, just to see what’s going on at his court, but as you knew him at school, your input would be valuable here too. What kind of ruler will he be?”

“A good one, don’t worry,” she replied. “He’s not gonna go causing wars or taking people’s land like his dad did. Not on purpose anyway.”

“It does seem that way so far. He’s already called off the invasion of Lê Chiến, and has made sure to let his subjects know he is nothing like his father. That does make him incredibly unpopular at his court, though. They think him a weak ruler. It doesn’t help that there have been smallpox outbreaks in his empire and he’s had to deal with those on top of everything else.”

Alix winced. “Smallpox still exists there? Yikes. We should send vaccines or something, right?”

“That would be a good idea, but would also signal to the world that we are ready to open up diplomacy with the Agreste Empire – previously everyone’s enemy. If you are certain that Emperor Adrien will be a good ruler, then it would be a good choice. But can we trust him to not only be a merciful ruler, but to keep his grip on the throne when many of his underlings wish to overthrow him and replace him with someone more keen on expanding the empire?”

“Yes. I trust him.”

“Are you sure?”

She tightened her grip on the sceptre. “Everyone’s sacrificed a lot for that kid, and he’s been through hell and back and is still kicking. He can do it. And anyway, he’s my friend. I have to support him.”

“Right. In that case at the meeting we can discuss exactly what sort of aid and espionage we can organize. The rest of the International Alliance might take some convincing if they’re to join our side on this, though.”

“That’s fine. Max and Nino already support Adrien too, I bet.”

“Speaking of Prince Nino,” the advisor said, smiling now, “we’ve had a request from him too. It seems he’s an amateur filmmaker, and would like to access our special effect technology in order to–”

“Request granted,” Alix said.

“Very well. It’s not an important enough topic to discuss at the meeting anyway, so I’ll let him know your reply.”

Alix had already been typing away at the little keys on her sceptre. “No need, I’m texting him right now.”

“I… alright then. How many of your classmates – well, your friends – have portable phones anyway?”

“Me, Max, Kim, Nino, Alya, maybe some others but I’m not sure…”

The advisor flipped over another page. “Anyway, there are a few more things pertaining to your friends. Princess Mylène and Grand Duke Ivan are engaged. They have sent a rather interesting request, stating that although it will be many years before the wedding takes place, if it is not called off by that time for whatever reasons, they would like you to be the official flower girl.”

Alix pulled a handful of flower petals out of her pocket and tossed them at him, smirking. “Good.”

“Do you really think someone of your status should…”

“Yes.” She chucked another handful at him.

“Fine, fine. I will let them know of your answer. That is, unless you already have some means of communicating with them, considering that you already seem in the loop when it comes to news about your friends, without me having to inform you.”

“Nah, they don’t have phones, you can send a letter or telegram or whatever.”

“I shall. Now, there is one last matter I should mention, as it’s almost time for the meeting to begin, and everything else can be discussed there. The rail lines in Asia are being repaired as we speak and should make journeys across the continent much quicker, despite their lack of air travel as of yet. This means that it’s possible you may be able to attend Prince Kim’s coronation.”

“Yes!” Alix pumped a fist in the air. “Me and Max are going to that, and no one’s gonna stop us.”

“No one would dare,” the advisor muttered, glancing warily at the snake. “But yes, considering that his kingdom is a new member of the International Alliance, in order to cement his status it would be good for some other members to attend, such as yourself and Prince Max. Now, Cheng would be very close by from there, and Princess Marinette has issued an invitation for you to visit. Something about taking part in a tennis tournament.”

“Makes sense. Me and Marinette are tennis bros, we’re the best team ever.”

“I didn’t realize other young royalty were just as sporty as you are,” the advisor said, smiling. “But yes, it would certainly be a good idea to visit Cheng and foster good relations. If that involves playing tennis with Princess Marinette, then so be it. Just… please don’t get too competitive. We don’t want a war.”

“I wouldn’t cause a war over a tennis game–” Alix began, but quickly stopped when the memories of getting into brawls during lacrosse matches or trying to beat up Kim during a game of Monopoly came to mind. Yeah, maybe that was good advice after all.

“I believe that’s all the news I currently have that pertains to your classmates,” the advisor said, putting the clipboard down. “The rest can be discussed during the meeting. Now that school is over and you’ll be here permanently, it would be good for you to get into the habit of being more involved in decision-making.”

Alix nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“My pleasure. And if I may say so, I think I have a lot of faith in the new generation of rulers. You and your friends. You all seem to have peace on the mind, and after so many years of invasions and wars and frozen conflicts, that’s exactly what the world needs.”

“I guess that’s the power of friendship, huh?”

“You’ve done well for yourself. When you were a much younger child I’ll admit I thought you were somewhat… um… chaotic. But you have reached a balance, and for that, we’re all glad.”

There was a knock on the door, and Jalil popped his head around. “Alix, you’re needed in the council meeting now.”

She jumped down off the raised throne platform. “Cool, let’s go.”

Jalil left the room again, and Alix and the advisor followed towards the meeting room. In a way, this was going to be the first true council meeting Alix had taken part in – the first time her opinions and decisions would actually count for something, making a difference to her country, and by extension, the entire world. Until recently, the future of that world had seemed very grim indeed. But now? The upcoming leaders were all friends and allies with each other, dedicated to making a new era of peace and growth.

Friendship really could save the day, couldn’t it?

[royal-writer]

cuteness in comedy?

The least-descriptive-random-thing ever. It’s so random. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t. I kinda want a nap.

Lacing his fingers in front of himself, Abernathy gave a small but considerate nod. His eyes swept over to the Illiad, causing him to tense slightly. It moved across the rest of the group after a while, settling back on the young Ravamora who seemed hardly to be listening as she tore open a wrapped candy bar to shove part of it in her mouth.

“I like the idea, but it really is up to Lord Amon…”

Rava choked, swallowing a mouthful of her chocolate.

“You do?” she muffled through her food.

“You do?” Amon gaped, flabbergasted. “That’s got to be the worst idea I’ve heard so far-”

“I don’t know, it might work,” Adela agreed.

“Infiltration tactics could prove useful,” Sulhadur slowly chipped in. “We’d have a better idea of the interior layout, to, to better coordinate our efforts and move swiftly through the castle.”

Giving a sound of indifference, Aylin shrugged and smiled pleasantly. He seemed more amused by the current discussion than anything.

“I could care less either way,” Penimra yawned, throwing an arm dramatically over where his eyes peered out from his mask. “None of you listened to my idea, anyway.”

“Penimra, we can’t buy out people with more wealth than us for information.”

“Not with that attitude, we can’t.”

Offering a slow, shake of his head, the orc-elf pitifully raised up his face with a ‘what can you do’ expression towards Amon.

“We’d need to keep your party small to get you inside without looking too suspicious,” he ventured. “Perhaps one, two other people? A significant other will do; now… Rava’s got stealth, but Aylin-”

“Essätha.”

The word blurted out of Amon’s mouth so suddenly, it shocked even himself. Snapping his mouth shut, he swallowed the horrified expression down rapidly as everyone eyed him. His pupil dilated by fractions that would hardly be noticeable as he glanced over to the one, silent figure with a pondering expression sitting a few seats down from Abernathy.

She looked up at the sound of her name, shocked.

After a pause, Adela spoke up, almost humored, “Why Essätha?”

“Why not Essätha?” Amon offered in as smooth of a tone of indifference he could offer. “She’s capable of high concealment and secrecy. She can be covert; and she has a strong knack for intuition and following a gut-feeling. Essie should be able to sneak around a bit while I cover distractions; and she’ll be able to make judgment calls without my counseling that sound convincing; not to be offense to young Rava, but…”

“You sound childish sometimes,” Penimra offered, laughing. It was shortly cut off with an elbow to the side from the younger elf, scowling.

“That’s true,” Abe agreed. There was something about his smile that was… hard to place as he looked between them.

“Wait- what am I agreeing to?” Essätha mumbled; her face reddened. “I was a bit lost in my own thoughts- I’m sorry-”

A softened smile awakened on Amon’s features. What an endearing quality; to have a head so full of ideas and thoughts that you got lost in them. She could come up with such clever little ideas and whimsical epic poems with a carefully scrutinized nose and moment’s pause, what wasn’t to adore about that? A woman with a crafty, sharp, cunning head on her shoulders.

“Posing as Lord Amon’s wife, under aliases of course, to get into the castle and snoop around a bit. You know, get some feedback and information on this discreet organization. See if you two can figure out anything more about these big-heads funding the plots or who the big shots are”

“Amon houses a good point,” Abernathy went on. “Aside from Ravamora, you have the most ability and luck when it comes to stealth, and you know how to bluff your way out of a situation and read people. I’m inclined to agree.”

“Me too,” Adela purred, leaning forward as though watching the most delicious soap opera.

“Works for me,” Rava agreed, nibbling her candy. “I offered the idea, but that didn’t mean I wanted to pose as his wife. Sorry Lord Amon, you’re kinda old and not my taste.”

“No offense taken,” he offered dryly, giving a deadpan look to the young, practically child-elf.

With a pause, Essätha looked to the crimson dragonborn, cursed warlock, and contemplating drow. None of them offered any other options or opinions; only staring back at her until she, finally, rested her gaze upon his.

The color of her face was lovely when she blushed as she did now.

Amon smiled reflexively to her. Recklessly. Naturally. Unable to stop himself if he tried.

She offered a nervous, half-placed one in response.

“Alright, I guess,” she agreed while staring into his eyes. “So, what’s my name and what made me fall in love with Lord…?”

Reaching out to her, Amon took hold of the alluring Yuan-ti’s hand as he offered a polite tip of his head.

“Lord Amos, my dear.”

Giggling, her fingers curled against his as she replied, “Yes of course, m’lord Amos. Your devoted Lady Esmeralda, happy to accompany you.”

A few of the others produced sly glances, or eye-rolls amongst each other that neither of them seemed to see.

Amon could only smile, stupidly and fondly, right back at that warm expression and glowing face.

Lady Esmeralda, hmm? Emerald… Emerald like the Emerald expanse. Emerald like the color she wore so well.

It didn’t ring as nicely as Essätha in his ears, but he could make it work on his tongue, for a short while.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The moment she slipped off to the side; unseen by the man speaking, Amon shifted his position to better cover the empty space beside him where Essätha had just been. His head nodding bluntly; hardly hearing a word the individual was saying as he kept his face turned partly away. Stiff, he tried not to show he was sweating bullets from the bold move.

After a moment, Essie slipped back against his side. Her arm wrapping around his; for second stealing his breath.

She shook her head. Tight-lipped, frowning a little so far as he could tell from the corner of his eye.

He patted her hand gently, pretending to nod to the man in front of him.

They’d keep looking.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Oh my word, it’s so nice to meet you Lady Esmeralda, Lord Amos.”

“The pleasure is all ours, right honeycake? We’re very honored to be here.”

Amon coughed vigorously on his drink. With a sideways glance stolen to his ‘wife’, he watched the glimmer of humor play in her Essätha���s eyes before she gazed back to the older woman before them.

“… Yes, tia caes (my heart),” he slipped, staring with wonder down at the illustrious beauty hanging to his arm.

“Oh my!” the stateswoman giggled loudly.

He could see the curious look enter Essätha’s eye as her face reddened further. She seemed to be trying to understand the words he spoke with little consequence, but judging by the reaction of the woman before them, or maybe the obvious look in his face as his heartbeat raced looking upon her, she looked away.

How he wished she hadn’t. He could do without air a while longer, if only her gaze would just remain there, against his.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Swirling the contents of his beverage, the Illiad Lord attempted to look as lax as possible while slipping in key words of interest to the couple before him. They were rattling off some nonesense however that made no sense to their progress on their current case. Still, he slipped away as much as he could in his thoughts just in case. Maybe he was missing a clue amongst their rambling, but there was no stand out information in their boisterous voices.

Gazing briefly around the room, he still didn’t see a sign of Essätha.

He wiped at his sweaty brow. No need to be edgy. She was probably still trying to get into that locked room they’d passed by earlier. Or she had found some useful stuff and was filing through it. Nothing to be alarmed about. She was probably fine.

“Lord Amos!”

It took him a moment to respond, and when he did, the individual slurring his false-name in a drunken stupor was already upon him. He could only cringe as they leaned into his shoulder. His arm reaching out, pushing the figure off of himself and holding him at arm’s length.

“Amos! Yee know initiates gotta pay the sum o’ the drinks tonight, if yee know what I mean?”

Amon stared blankly at the man as he winked. Stone-silent, and void of expression.

“Oh don’t listen to him Amos,” a middle-aged woman broke in. “You can contribute as much as you’d like tonight; there’s no requirement on donation size.”

The man who had been using him for a support stumbled as Amon released him and sidestepped to keep from being his post. He crashed into another drinking patron; starting up a spew of colorful language as he raised an eyebrow to the woman in a curious display.

She raised her glass with a smile of approval.

He raised his in answer, taking a steady drink. This was going quite well, but…

Where was Essätha?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Where were you? Did something happen? I-… I was…”

“Shhhh,” Essie hissed, pressing a hand to his chest and subsequently, pressing his back against the wall as she looked around.

He reached up, placing his hand atop of hers.

For a moment, she seemed distracted by the contact. After a moment’s hesitation, her hand dropped just as his did, in nearly the same moment.

Clearing his throat roughly, he spoke: “Did you find anything?”

Glimpsing around, Essätha reached into the top of her shirt. Amon looked instantly aside; adjusting his collar with an embarrassed swallow.

“Here,” she offered, holding out a pile of documents. “I copied some of the ledgers I found in a drawer. I didn’t get to all of them; I thought my absence might go noticed. Most of it is written in some sort of code, unfortunately, so I don’t know how much will be of use to us.”

Glancing down at the papers, Amon gave a silent ‘ah’ in response.

There was a prolonged silence, and then she sighed, pressing them against his chest. “Hide these on your person, would you? I don’t exactly have the assets to hide these things on myself discretely, and you’re wearing more layers.”

Grunting, he reached out for the records. Folding them over, he went to stuff them within his coat discretely.

Footsteps began to move down the hallway, in their direction.

They stared upon each other. Frozen.

Swiftly, Amon shut his coat and began to button it back up. Essie went to help him, cursing beneath her breath.

The footsteps came closer.

“Shit shit shit- fuck-”

He wasn’t paying attention. Fumbling fingers against his jacket, his head suddenly slammed back into the wall as Essätha gripped tighter to side side of his garment. Her mouth pressed to his; dizzying and soft.

The alarm bell was still ringing in his head as the thump of shoes seemed deafeningly close now.

Reaching around, he pulled her closer. Mirroring the softened brush of her lips; dipping his tongue against hers as she inhaled his air.

Heat burned into his body from hers.

Pelor…

“Oh-… Well…”

Pulling away from him; too soon as his teeth dragged against her lip, Essätha gasped with shock. Caught in a moment’s ‘intimate passion’, she slapped a hand over her mouth and looked away in a faked appearance of shock.

Amon cleared his throat roughly once more. His thoughts, miles upon miles away from here.

Laughing awkwardly, the nobleman that approached them turned around; his voice carrying as he remarked, “Don’t mind me; I didn’t see anything!”

Once he was out of sight, Essie sighed, releasing his coat and straightening her posture.

“That was close,” she murmured, her face flush as she nibbled on her lip.

Too speechless to formulate a reply, Amon quietly stared at her full mouth.

He could have handled that being a lot closer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Well?” Abernathy pressed. “How did everything go?”

Amon pulled out the reports, holding them smugly in the air.

“Oh good!” Aylin stated with a flash of colors moving through his eyesockets. “You brought back information.”

“And you know, they’re not dead,” Penimra offered in a bored tone.

Adela elbowed him in the side this time, making the elf swear quietly.

“Well, we had better saddle up and get going. I’m sure there’s more than just those?” Abe indicated to the paperwork.

“Plenty more,” Essätha stated, to which Amon could only nod gently with agreement.

Sulhadur nodded with relief, and Ravamora offered a thumbsup and a grin in answer.

Amon moved to follow after the others, and paused to glance at the Yuan-ti woman. Her gaze switching from behind them, back to him with a quirky smile.

“What a shame,” he could hear Adela teasing. “They made a cute couple.”

“Adela,” Abernathy stated crossly, as the remainder of the group carried on in the direction of where the wagon and horses were hidden.

They stood quietly. A friction in the air between them as the group disappeared from sight.

“Well,” Essie began; her voice strained, “Lovely as it was meeting you, Lord Amos, I’m afraid we won’t be seeing each other anymore.”

Reaching up, Amon scratched the whiskers on the side of his face. “Perhaps… Unless- there’s ever another reason for a little… covert mission?”

She laughed. A beautiful sound; true and real.

“Well if that’s the case, Esmeralda and Amos sure have to learn how to kiss.”

Blundering, Amon looked over at her, red-faced and gawking.

“I- beg your pardon? Amos was clearly taken off guard. He can certainly kiss better, under the right conditions.”

“Uh-huh,” Essie sang with a short snicker. She stepped by him, shoving a hand against his chest.

“Bet you can’t even prove it.”

A light sparked in his eyes. The challenge was… all too enticing.

She moved to step away from him, eyes sliding away.

His hand reached out, taking hold of hers.

The glimmer of her toffee eyes slipped into his.

“Maybe they just need a little practice,” he offered; his voice faint as he pulled her closer and, somehow, she willingly came closer.

“Mm… maybe they do,” she agreed, the faint smell of rosewater rising up from her the closer she got.

This time, he ready for the softness of her lips. A last look into those wonderful eyes, and he was lost before hers slid shut and so did his, and the most perfect and holy of unions was met. No space between the molding of her mouth to his. Just softness; a delicate taste of the sweet wine she’d had from the manor still on her tongue.

It was perfect.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sighing loudly, Rava flicked some pieces of hay out from her hair while leaning over the side of the wagon.

“Shouldn’t someone go check on them?” the elf-child reported.

Frowning, Adela glanced to Abernathy. “Ordinarily, I’d want to leave Essie to her space and peace like she prefers it, but they are taking their time?”

Abernathy held up his hand.

“Just give them a moment longer,” he offered. “I’m sure they’ll be along shortly.”

“What do you think they’re doing?” Rava sighed with boredom. “How much of their little espionage do they need to discuss alone, anyway?”

“Oh, you poor naive child,” Aylin soothed.

Some of the faces in the wagon went suddenly red-faced. Adela shifted uncomfortably in place; exhaling loudly.

“Don’t make assumptions, Aylin,” Sulhadur stated with a frown.

“I’m not making-”

“Hush.”

From the brush, Amon and Essätha emerged. Amon’s hand wrapped around Essie’s, helping her delicately maneuver around the ungodly brambles.

“You people couldn’t have picked a less prickly location?” the Yuan-ti grumbled with frustration.

“Ha-ha, prick,” Penimra snorted, nudging the drow. “I think you were on to something, Aylin,”

“HUSH,” Abernathy repeated with disapproval, shooting the two a sharp glance before looking back to the pair moving closer.

“Everything… alright? Situated…?”

They both looked up, a bit flushed and pupils slightly dilated.

“Yeah,” Essätha breathed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Abernathy nodded, a self-satisfied grin.

“Good,” he offered. “Hop on then, Essie, let us-”

“That’s okay,” she cut in, stepping over to Maestro as Amon guided the equine from behind the treeline, her hand reaching out to take hold of the reigns. “I’ll ride with Amon.”

There was a few glances around the cart to each other.

Aylin whistled innocently.

Sul looked away.

Penimra laughed to himself.

Rava still appeared dumbfounded.

Adela turned a deep scarlet from ears to neck as she glanced away.

Abe appeared partial to his enjoyment, at the moment.

“Alright then,” he ventured, clicking his tongue to the drafthorses that snorted and began to tug the wagon free from the bushes.

Offering out his palm, Amon helped boost Essätha up onto the horse before throwing his leg over himself. A quiet hitch in his breath as arms wound around him within seconds; a head pressed to his shoulder with a softened sound of joy.

He took her hand, bringing it to his lips for a quick kiss before taking hold of the reigns of and leading Maestro on to follow behind the cart.

Lord Amos and Lady Esmeralda would do just fine, if needed again.

How could they not, when rooted in the echoes of a fondness found in Lord Amon and Essätha Meduza?

[patriotsnet]

Who Gives More Democrats Or Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-gives-more-democrats-or-republicans/

Who Gives More Democrats Or Republicans

Crime And Capital Punishment

Who LIES More- Republicans or Democrats?

Republicans generally believe in harsher penalties when someone has committed a crime, including for selling illegal drugs. They also generally favor capital punishment and back a system with many layers to ensure the proper punishment has been meted out. Democrats are more progressive in their views, believing that crimes do not involve violence, such as selling drugs, should have lighter penalties and rehabilitation. They are also against capital punishment in any form.

Bloomberg Lp Gave The Most Money

In total, nearly 600 financial-sector companies and trade associations spent at least $500,000 on contributions and lobbying across 2019 and 2020, per the report. It added that there were more than 2,000 registered lobbyists working across the sector.

These are the 20 companies and associations who spent the most, according to the AFR:

Bloomberg LP $158.9 million

Mike Bloomberg briefly ran for president before pumping his fortunes into helping Biden beat Trump.

Political Competition Decreases Giving

The concept of redistribution of wealth through taxes and charity remains polarizing. And for groups that want to continue to receive generous donations and organizations that want to be funded by government money, knowing how to navigate that polarization may be a good thing.

When counties are split evenly between the political parties, both donations and the tax burden go down.

Or in the studys terms: Political competition decreases giving.

Dr. Nesbit said the findings called to mind the research by the social scientist Robert D. Putnam on racial diversity. Exposure to different people especially in a homogeneous community that became more diverse caused people to keep more to themselves, she said.

That argument can be extended to philanthropy as well, she said. This high level of political competition decreases trust. Thats tied to all kinds of possible outcomes. And in these counties, people are keeping to themselves more.

The studys findings may be a resource for understanding philanthropic patterns in the United States and a guide to where people will tolerate higher taxes. But those homogeneous communities will do little to get people from different political parties giving, let alone living, together.

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Republicans Give More To Charity But Not Because They Oppose Income Redistribution

Who gives more to charity Republicans or Democrats? Michael Sances and Michele Margolis found that conservative Americans donate more, even when socio-economic differences are taken into account. Could this be because they support a smaller role for the state, or as an effort to signal their philanthropic credentials? In fact, it is because Republicans attend church more frequently and donate through their congregations. If Republicans and Democrats are culturally divided, these divisions appear to have little if anything to do with disagreements about public policy.

Photo: Joshua Morley via a CC-BY 2.0 licence

It seems as if Democrats and Republicans cant agree on anything, even when it comes to decisions that have nothing to do with politics: where to live, what television shows to watch, and even what to name children. How far do these differences really extend, and to what extent are they driven by policy disagreements? In a recent article in Political Behavior, we explore these questions by looking at partisan differences in an important, yet relatively unexamined apolitical activity charitable giving.

Having established the difference, we next wanted to know why a partisan gap in giving appears. We tested three potential explanations religious identity, political beliefs, and economic status.

This post represents the views of the authors and not those of Democratic Audit.

Can A Religious White Republican Party Survive

The partisan gap between black and white voters is the most durable and powerful split in modern American politics. Soon after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he remarked, I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come. He wasnt wrong. Afterward, the Republicans courted racist white voters by opposing school and housing integration.

Among white people, religion is the most stable and important determinant of party choice. But the way religion shapes party attachment has changed. Today, the best way to sort the population of white voters is not by which religion they belong to, but by how religious they are.

Among white Americans:

else

Religious

The number of religious white Americans is plummeting. In the long term, that spells disaster for Republicans. I dont think the Republican Party right now has a sustainable business model, said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University.

The party knows this. Or at least it should. After Republicans lost the 2012 election, the party leadership commissioned a report on how to move forward. One answer was clear: appeal to nonwhite and less conservative voters. But in the years since, the Republicans led by Mr. Trump have doubled down on white identity politics and seem to believe that their path to a majority is through gerrymandering, voter suppression or attempts to skew the census.

Recommended Reading: Do Republicans Or Democrats Give More To Charity

What Is The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats

Republicans and Democrats are the two main and historically the largest political parties in the US and, after every election, hold the majority seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the highest number of Governors. Though both the parties mean well for the US citizens, they have distinct differences that manifest in their comments, decisions, and history. These differences are mainly ideological, political, social, and economic paths to making the US successful and the world a better place for all. Differences between the two parties that are covered in this article rely on the majority position though individual politicians may have varied preferences.

History Of The Republican Party

The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of abolition of slavery. They were a small third-party who nominated John C. Freemont for President in 1856. In 1860 they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Lincolns Presidency throughout the war, including his policies to end slavery for good helped solidify the Republican Party as a major force in American politics. The elephant was chosen as their symbol in 1874 based on a cartoon in Harpers Weekly that depicted the new party as an elephant.

Also Check: Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Names

Republicans Winning Money Race As They Seek To Take Over House In 2022

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced Wednesday that it had raised $45.4 million in the second quarter of 2021, the most it has ever raised in three months of a non-election year, as Republicans seek to take over the House in 2022.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

Does Partisanship Influence Charitable Giving

Whos More Corrupt, Democrats Or Republicans?

America is one of the most generous countries in the world. According to the 2017 CAF World Giving Index, the US ranks fifth globally in charitable participation and giving, and in 2017, donations reached a new height of $390.05 billion.

As a whole, its clear that Americans are incredibly philanthropic.

But what if we looked at things through a political lens? Americans are divided by partisan lines on many issues, and as we head into 2018 the divide continues to grow. Has this partisanship carried over to philanthropy?

Democrats and Republicans believe that it has. Recent survey results show that 95% of Democrats believe Liberals are a more charitable group, while 81% of Republicans believe Conservatives are more charitable. Are they right?

Taking a closer look

In a survey conducted using SurveyMonkey Audience, we asked 2,073 adults and found out that in reality, neither are quite right.

Even with different views on many issues, Democrats and Republicans are equally generous in their giving habits.

In fact, the majority of Republicans and Democrats have already donated money to, or volunteered with, a nonprofit organization in 2017 and many still plan to contribute before the year ends.

The largest proportion of both groups have donated money, and more than half of each group has volunteered their time. Its inspiring to see that Americans, regardless of political stance, are incredibly driven to support nonprofits.

A different divide

Looking forward

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Democratic Party Enters 2021 In Power And Flush With Cash For A Change

The Democratic National Committee has a roughly $75 million war chest, raising the partys hopes of keeping power in 2022 and accelerating a Democratic shift in the Sun Belt states.

After years of flirting with financial disaster, the Democratic Party entered 2021 not only in control of the White House, the House and the Senate but with more money in the bank than ever before at the start of a political cycle.

The Democratic National Committee will report to the Federal Election Commission on Sunday that it ended 2020 with $38.8 million in the bank and $3 million in debts, according to an advance look at its financial filings. In addition, there is roughly $40 million earmarked for the party, left over from its joint operations with the Biden campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. This gives the Democrats a roughly $75 million war chest at the start of President Bidens tenure.

This is a number that is unimaginable, said Howard Dean, a former party chairman.

Party data, resources and infrastructure undergird candidates up and down the ballot, and Democratic officials are already dreaming of early investments in voter registration that may accelerate the political realignment Democrat are hoping to bring about in key Sun Belt states.

We had to juggle who we were going to pay, Tom Perez, who until earlier this month was the chairman of the D.N.C., said of the early part of his tenure, which began in 2017.

Which Party Is The Party Of The 1 Percent

First, both parties receive substantial support. Much of it comes from registered voters who make $100K+ annually. However, Democrats actually come out ahead when it comes to fundraising for campaigns. In many cases, Democrats have been able to raise twice as much in private political contributions. But what about outside of politicians? Does that mean Democrats are the wealthier party? Which American families are wealthier? Republicans or Democrats?

Honestly, it is probably Republicans. When it comes down to it, the richest families in America tend to donate to Republican candidates. Forbes reported out of the 50 richest families in the United States, 28 donate to Republican candidates. Another seven donate to Democrats. Additionally, 15 of the richest families in the U.S. donate to both parties.

Don’t Miss: Who Has More Billionaires Democrats Or Republicans

Republicans Give More To Charity Than Democrats But Theres A Bigger Story Here

November 3, 2018; New York Times

The political differences between Republicans and Democrats dont play out solely at the ballot box; they also predict how likely people are to donate to charity. This finding from a newly published research project reflects a key difference, one tied to political affiliation, about how our nation should take on critical social issues like homelessness, poverty, and health care. The data also suggest that in times of political strife, both parties supporters pull back, making problem-solving harder.

Using voting and IRS data for the residents of 3,000 counties across the nation, the four-professor research team found, according to the New York Times, that counties which are overwhelmingly Republican report higher charitable contributions than Democratic-dominated counties, although giving in blue counties is often bolstered by a combination of charitable donations and higher taxes. But as red or blue counties become more politically competitive, charitable giving tends to fall. The full study was recently published in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

Importantly, the study did not find that in Republican counties, private funds replaced public funds so that social services were equally supported.

How Come We Are Red And Blue Instead Of Purple

Republicans to live outside of urban areas, while Democrats tend to prefer living inside of urban areas.

Rural areas are almost exclusively Republican well strong urban areas are almost exclusively democratic.

Republicans also tend to stress traditional family values, which may be why only 1 out of 4 GLBTQI individuals identify with the GOP.

63% of people who earn more than $200k per year vote for Republicans, while 63% of people who earn less than $15k per year vote for Democrats.

64% of Americans believe that labor unions are necessary to protect working people, but only 43% of GOP identified votes view labor unions in a favorable way.

The economics of the United States seem to have greatly influenced how people identify themselves when it comes to their preferred political party. People who are concerned about their quality of life and have a fair amount of money tend to vote Republican. Those who have fallen on hard times or work in union related jobs tend to vote for Democrats. From 2003 to today, almost all of demographic gaps have been shifting so that Republicans and Democrats are supported equally. The only true difference is on the extremes of the income scale. The one unique fact about Democrats is that they are as bothered by their standard of living as Republicans tend to be.

Read Also: How Are Democrats Different From Republicans

Biggest Influencers: Democrats Or Republicans

To understand who influences politics, you can easily find out who the wealthy support. For example, the Walton family, the owners of the retail giant Walmart, has traditionally donated to Republican candidates. Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmarts founder, hasnt strayed from that too much. That is, until the 2008 election. In 2008 and 2016 the Walton family donated to Hilary Clintons campaign.

She isnt the only person from a wealthy family to change tradition where politics are concerned either. Many of the younger individuals in Americas richest families have begun to sway from their familys political associations as well. Below youll find the affiliation and overall net worth of the top 10 richest families in America.

Congressional Staffers Can Take Trips Funded By Foreign Governments

After the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, Congress put several new restrictions on gifts that could be offered to members of Congress or their staffers. Yet theres one significant loophole that remains Congressional staffers are allowed to take trips abroad funded by foreign governments.The Washington Posts TW Farnam reported on paid trips taken by Congressional staffers last year, and the map here is our depiction of Farnams findings. Between 2006 and 2011, 226 staffers took trips to China, 121 to Taiwan, and 65 to Saudi Arabia where those countries governments footed the bill.

You May Like: How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans Are There

Democrat Or Republican: Who’s More Charitable

J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing

Lay belief suggests that Democrats are more charitable than Republicans because of a more community-minded orientation. However, surveys of giving show that Republicans give more to charity than Democrats, though the charitable giving also includes religious organizations. A careful reading of the evidence precludes strong conclusions.

A recent study by WalletHub;compiled charitable giving data from different states. When combined with state-level political identity data from the American National Election Studies;a simple analysis was conducted. A simple regression suggests a positive association between charitable giving and being a Republican. You can find your state in the graph above.

This simple analysis, however, does not tell the whole story. Understanding charitable giving by Republicans and Democrats is more complex than portrayed in this graphic. My colleagues Karen Page Winterich at Penn State and Yinlong Zhang at UT-San Antonio conducted a series of controlled experiments to investigate this issue. The study published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing;can be downloaded here:

Specifically, the study showed:

Overall, Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to be charitable.

In another study, we created two descriptions of “Children’s Advocates”. They started with the same introduction, but had two different descriptions, one republican-oriented and another democrat-oriented:

versus

Americas Top 10 Richest Families

Who Do YOU Think Is More Racist, White Democrats or White Republicans?

Walton;Republican; The family owns the Walmart corporation.;The Walton family fortune is estimated to be about $130 billion.

Koch;Republican; Businessmen, owners of Koch Industries, a manufacturing company.;Koch brothers have a net worth of about $41 billion each .

;Republican; Own the Mars candy company.;The three children of founder Forrest Mars are worth about $78 billion together.

Cargill-MacMillan;Republican; The Cargill-MacMillan family owns 90 percent of the largest privately-owned corporation in the U.S.;The family, as a whole, is worth about $49 billion.

Cox;Democrat; The Cox family owns a number of auto consumer sites and services . They have an estimated net worth of $41 billion.

Johnson ;Republican; The Johnson family is known for their cleaning products and hygiene products.;They are valued at $30 billion.

Pritzker;Both; Founders of Hyatt.;The family has a combined value of $29 billion in 2017.

Johnson ;Republican; Overseers at Fidelity, ensuring the cash of millions of Americans.;The family has a combined net worth of $28.5 billion.

Hearst;Republican; The Hearst family owns one of Americas largest media companies.;The family is valued at $28 billion.

Duncan;Republican; The Duncan family works mostly with oil and pipelines.;The family is valued at about $21.5 billion.

Recommended Reading: Why Are The Republicans Protecting Trump

Who Is Richer Democrats Or Republicans The Answer Probably Wont Surprise You

by Jenny Smedraon ~

Which of the two political parties has more money, Democrats or Republicans? Most would rush to say Republicans due to the partys ideas towards tax and money. In fact, polls have shown about 60 percent of the American people believe Republicans favor the rich. But how true is that? Assignment help;can help you write about the issue but read our post first.

[scripttorture]

1/2 Hi. I've got an enemy group who kidnaps and imprisons a spec ops type main character because they desperately want confidential information out of them, but the MC refuses to talk. This group knows torture is not very effective. They want to get it right, get the truth, and are capable and willing to donate lots of resources and time to convincing the main character to spill the beans. They have time, and the person is also much too valuable to maim, so I was wondering what combination of

2/2 techniques they might use to try and get truthful information out of them? I was thinking alternating between police style interrogations, general abuse and positive reinforcements. They use enemy allied spies posing as neutral/friendly individuals to give the main character a sympathetic ear, intending for the main character to accidentally let slip something of use. Would this work? What other options are there?

Well I think ifpossible you should be clear that torture does not work at all. ‘Not veryeffective’ can be taken to imply something might work some of the time. Andgiven the issue at hand I think it’s really important be clear.

 I think the generalsituation you’ve outlined seems perfectly reasonable for this kind of story.It’s realistic. But I’m not sure itwould be the most effective possible strategy.

 One of the big caveatshere is that actual scientific research on interrogation is woefully lacking.As a result I can’t say with certainty that one particularly thing we know can work is better than any otherstrategy that can work. The way I approach these sorts of questions is tryingto get as many ‘positive’ factors into the situation as reasonably possiblewhile minimising any ‘negative’ factors.

 Any abuse is a negativefactor. It makes it less likely that they'll gain the character's trust in anyrespect. It serves as a reminder to the character that they are 'the enemy'. Itcould strengthen the character's resolve not to cooperate purely because theypissed them off.I'm also a little wary of the phrase 'police style interrogation', not becausethere's anything wrong with it or your suggestion necessarily but because mostpolice officers don't receive much training in interrogation. The reality inmost countries is that when it comes to interrogation police officers make itup as they go along. Sometimes they're lucky enough to have someone close tothem who knows how it works but often that isn't the case.That's a big part of why I think this blog is important: these guys are lookingto us to tell them what 'works' and unfortunately a lot of fiction tells themthat the answer is 'torture'.I think the idea of having a friendly/neutral person as a spy is a good one. Ifyou can I'd suggest having two or three. Most fiction tends to use another'prisoner' in this role and that's perfectly feasible. I'd suggest that adoctor might work as well. So- suggestions. Well to start with I'd have them look for forensic evidencecarefully even if the chances of finding something that will help are slim. If this character is wearing shoes, clothes etc when they catch the MC havethem take literally everything and clothe the character in a standard uniformof some kind. If there’s any possibility of evidence from that confirming orsupporting the information they get from the MC use that in the story. Types of soil, chemical residues, plantmatter, anything at all.

 I realise that mightnot fit your story, it won’t fit every story. Some information may literallyonly exist in the character’s head. But if there is any way to use physical evidence as well I’d say do it.

 Next I’d stronglysuggest having as few people as possible on the interrogation team in the roomwith the MC. Don’t have more than two people talking to the MC regularly, thepoint is that they’re building up a relationship with the MC. If there are toomany people that’ll make it more difficult to form a strong connection with anyone individual and it’ll reduce the amount of time he spends with eachindividual.

 These people are goingto be spending a lot of time with theMC. Like forget 9-5 hours and having a family life outside. They’re going tospend hours each day every day just talking to the MC. They probably won’t evenspend most of it asking about what they want to know. They’ll be encouragingthe MC to talk about their beliefs their preferences their personal life-anything.

 They probably won’talways go in together. And I think ‘sessions’ might be in the realm of 5 hoursdaily. It’s a lot of time and itprobably isn’t going to give obvious rewards or indeed anything quickly.

 The rest of the team-the real work is in monitoring,recording, filing and cross referencing everything the MC says. An organisationwith this many resources will begetting information from other sources as well, people volunteeringinformation, paid informants, possibly undercover agents in the MC’sorganisation as well and of course hard evidence and seized materials.

 Checking that what theMC says lines up with other things they know about this organisation is massively important and a lot of hardwork.

 It’s essentially theirfact checking exercise. And if they’re serious about getting accurateinformation a lot of resources need to be there.

 They need to have agood enough cross referencing system in place that they correctly identify whenthe MC has let something slip, asopposed to when they’re lying or deliberately trying to throw these people off.

 If the character knowswhat’s going on deliberately lying at points is extremely likely. But thecharacter probably won’t be able to keep those lies perfectly consistent overmonths. The ‘bad guys’ need to be investing enough time, effort and people toanalyse and recognise the difference between lies, truth that was revealedaccidentally and genuine mistakes on the MC’s part (ie inaccurate informationthat the MC doesn’t know is inaccurate).

 Depending on how youwant to write this I think making members of the analysis and monitoring teamcharacters could be a good idea. It could help show just how much time andeffort is going into every word the MC says. It’s a less overtly violent sideof the evil organisation but one that’s potentially just as creepy anddisturbing- these people are basically professional stalkers.

 I think you shoulddefinitely be prepared to make the interrogator/s fully fledged characters. They’regoing to be spending a lot of time with the MC and if you’re not intending toskip over those months they’re going to be the people the MC interacts withmost. They’ll be doing everything they can to strike up a friendly, respectfulrelationship with the MC.

 It sounds like a stupiddetail but many real life cases have missed this- the interrogators must speak the same language as the MC fluently.

 The interrogatorsshould also have invested time in understanding the MC’s politics, culture andreligion. If something is core to the MC and can be researched/read about theinterrogators should do the reading.

 The only other thing Ican think of is a memory-aid which may or may not be helpful in your story.

 The interrogators getthe MC to tell their story of events backwards. This is something that getsused on witnesses as well as suspects. Essentially it’s difficult to tell astory backwards and inconsistencies become more obvious when comparing theforward and backward versions.

 That doesn’tnecessarily mean it catches lies. The errors could be genuine mistakes. But itgives an idea of what is accurate and consistent in the person’s memory. Ifthey’ve made something up they’ll probably get a lot more details wrong.

 From the MC’s side Ithink it’s important to remember that vanishingly few people refuse to talk.The MC could refuse to say anything they judge as ‘useful’ but that’s not thesame thing. Most people can’t sit quiet during conversations for weeks on end.

 The chances are the MCis going to engage with these interrogatorsto some degree. They’re going to get sucked in to ‘harmless’ conversationsabout sports or art or tv shows. Those conversations help build a relationshipthe interrogator can later try to use to get information.

 The chances are that inthe long term the MC is also going to let someinformation slip out. It might not be valuable or what the bad guys wantthough. But it’s difficult to keep all genuine personal information under wrapsfor months on end when you talk to someone every day.

 Broad responses aregoing to depend a lot on your MC’s personality. I think frustration and boredomwill probably be major problems: you’ve taken someone used to being active andreduced their world to a box and their social circle to may be 4 people.

 It’s going to take anemotional toll, even if it isn’t nearly so high or damaging as if they were insolitary confinement. That can also be used to encourage a strongerrelationship with the interrogators or the spies.

 Interrogation isn’tvery effective and whether it ‘works’ or not is dependent on a lot ofvariables. Even with all that time and effort on the bad guys’ part you could still realistically have the characternot give them the information they really want.

 The longer he’s therethe more likely he is to want to givethem that information and the more likely he is to have forgotten it.

 A lot depends on thecharacters themselves and how you write this. If you want the MC to give themthe information then I’d suggest strong, positive relationships with theinterrogators and/or spies, having the MC held prisoner for longer than a year(anything up to 4 sounds reasonable) and an MC with fewer strong emotional tiesto the ‘cause’.

 If you want the MC notto give them the information then I’d suggest a shorter imprisonment, 2-6months perhaps, a distrustful relationship with the spies, interrogators thatmade mistakes (like shouting or verbally abusing the MC) and an MC with strongemotional ties to the cause, which can include friends/family in the cause.

 I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

[informationpalace]

Jack Ma Is Triying to Stop Coronavirus and Fix China's Repute

Last month, at the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, Jack Ma, the richest man in China, opened his own Twitter account. So far each of his posting has been dedicated to his unrivaled effort to bring medical what is supplies to nearly every country in the world. "One world, one fight!" enthused Jack Ma in one of his early messages. "Together, we can do this!" he shouted out in another. The billionaire businessman is the driving force behind a massive project to ship medical what is supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators over life-saving appliances to several places that were elbowed out of the global brawl. Yet opponents of Ma and even some of his what is supporters are not sure what he is getting into. Has the daring foray into global philanthropy shown him to be the friendly face of the Communist Party of China? Or is he an independent player, used for propaganda reasons by the Party? He seems to be pursuing China's diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries would benefit from his donations, but his growing influence could place him at the top of China's political ladder in the crosshairs of the disgruntled leaders. Many tech billionaires have promised more funds to combat the virus' impact-Jack Dorsey of Twitter is offering the cause $1bn (£0.8bn). Candid, a philanthropy watchdog based in the US that tracks private charitable contributions, places Alibaba 12th on a list of private donors to the novel coronavirus. But that list does not include shipments of essential what is supplies which at this point in the international outbreak some countries might find more essential than money.

No other than the effervescent Ma is able to directly assign what is upplies to those who need them. Starting in March, the Jack Ma Foundation and the associated Alibaba Foundation started airlifting what is upplies to Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America and even to politically sensitive areas like Russia, Iran, Israel, and the United States. Ma has also contributed millions to work on coronavirus vaccines, and a handbook of doctors' medical knowledge in his native province of Zhejiang has been translated into 16 languages from Chinese. Yet it is the clinical shipments that made headlines and set Ma apart. Ma's biographer, Duncan Clark, uncovered, "He has the ability and the money and the lifting power to get a Chinese supply plane out of Hangzhou to land in Addis Ababa, or wherever it needs to go, this is logistics; this is what his company, his people and his province are all about." An Amiable Face Jack Ma is renowned as the charismatic English teacher who went on to establish the largest technology business in China. Alibaba has been known as the "Amazon of the East" Back in 1999, Ma began the business inside his tiny apartment in the coastal Chinese town of Hangzhou, in the middle of China's factory belt. Since then, Alibaba has grown to become one of the dominant players in the second largest economy in the world, with main stakes in the internet, banking and entertainment worlds in China. Ma himself priced over $40bn. In 2018 he formally stepped down as the chairman of Alibaba. He said he should concentrate on philanthropy. Yet Ma also held a permanent seat on the board of Alibaba. Along with his riches and fame, he stays one of China's most powerful people. Ma's donations tend to meet Party guidelines: there is no proof that any of the donations from the Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation have gone to countries that have formal ties to Taiwan, China's neighbor and diplomatic rival. Ma revealed on Twitter that he is making a donation to 22 Latin American countries. States alongside Taiwan but also calling for medical what is supplies-from Honduras to Haiti-are among the only twelve countries that do not seem to be on the list of 150. The foundations have consistently declined to include a complete list of donation countries, claiming that "at this moment in time, we are not sharing this level of detail"

The donations that were delivered, however, have definitely created much goodwill. With the exception of troublesome deliveries to Cuba and Eritrea, all shipments of the foundations dispatched from China seem to have been received with gratitude. Ma's commitment to the performance is now more optimistic than ever. Ma has been listed by state media in China almost as much as the autocratic leader of the country, Xi Jinping. Comparison is an awkward one. As Ma soaks up attention, Xi faces constant concerns about how he treated the virus' early stages, and when the epidemic started, exactly. The Chinese government has deployed medical teams and what is apply donations to a great number of hard-hit countries, particularly in Europe and South-East Asia. Even however, those efforts have fallen flat. China has been accused of having sent defective what is supplies to many nations. For some cases, the samples it submitted were misused but in some, what is supplies of poor quality went unused and the donations backfired. Walking the Tightrope Yet, Ma is facing a Beijing Backlash? Xi Jinping is not regarded as someone who likes to share the spotlight and his administration has definitely threatened popular faces before. The country's top actress, a celebrated television anchor and many other billionaire businessmen have all "disappeared" for long periods of time in recent years. Others, including the news presenter, wind up serving jail sentences. Others re-emerge from jail, chastising and swearing allegiance to the Group. "There's a rumor that (Jack Ma) stepped down in 2018 from being the chairman of the Alibaba Group because he was seen as a homegrown entrepreneur whose popularity would eclipse that of the Communist Party," states Ashley Feng, Research Associate at the Center for New American Security in Washington DC. Yes, Ma shocked many when he declared his retirement in 2018 unexpectedly. He has refuted persistent reports he was pushed out of his position by Beijing.

Duncan Clark, Ma's biographer, is also aware of news that, after a crucial incident in January 2017, Ma was pushed away from Alibaba. The Chinese billionaire met in Trump Tower with then-elect Donald Trump, supposedly to negotiate trade between China and the US. Trump was not approached by the Chinese President until months later. Clark says, "There was a lot of speculation of time that Jack Ma had moved too fast, so, I think there's lessons learned from both sides on the need to try to coordinate." "Jack Ma represents a sort of entrepreneurial soft power, that also creates challenges though, because the government is quite jealous or nervous of non-Party actors taking that kind of role," Clark adds. Do not forget leaving your valuable comment on this piece of writing and sharing with your near and dear ones. To keep yourself up-to-date with Information Palace, put your email in the space given below and Subscribe. Furthermore, if you yearn to know about Pichot’s thinking regarding rugby, view our construct, ‘Agustin Pichot Thinks He Can Save Rugby; Unions Are 'On Their Knees'. Read the full article