#just doing my own election post-mortem

[thoughtsafter3am]

This is rambly and I needed somewhere to put this to defrag my brain tonight, so apologies. Tonight, I was going back through my manuscripts as I was updating my CV and I wrote an article about Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn and how she subverts benevolent sexism in that series and it got me thinking. It made me think about how deeply interwoven the concept is in the US and why the tradwife movement and the glamorization of conservative gender norms that a particular type of influencer has latched on to is so harmful because it just reifies this. We see both types of sexism (benevolent and hostile) on social media sites so I’m not surprised that Gen Z men, went the way they did. They are engaging with both hostile and benevolent sexism at the same time, which aligns with Glick and Fiske’s theory but those underdeveloped critical thinking skills make it worse. They see “traditionally feminine” women celebrated and placed on pedestals all while the hyper-misogyny of people like [insert podcast bro here] that tells them to hate women who don’t comply with those “traditionally feminine” behaviors runs rampant as well.

I feel like women, especially conservative women, and younger people (largely Gen Z and Gen Alpha) need a crash course on benevolent sexism and how gallantry is not really a good thing. Men only have power because of dyadic relationships with women because without relationships power can’t really exist. At their root, these chivalric behaviors are only enacted so that they can hold their power. They may not know that, but maintaining gender based power imbalances is why chivalry and gallantry has remained since the dawn of time.

This rhetoric of “men protecting women” is textbook benevolent sexism at work because it: (a) places women on a pedestal and (b) continues to link women directly to men via a relationship. That dyadic link really only benefits men but we’re socialized to believe it helps us too. It’s also important for men to be taught that this behavior doesn’t help them either because it convinces them they must fit a certain mold to be considered masculine. I feel like we do a shit job providing spaces for people to deconstruct that belief in the US. It’s not up to women to help men unpack this but I don’t think men are going to do it on their own. So it’s a bit of an impasse.

I teach this young voter demographic and as a whole the critical thinking skills just aren’t as strong as they should be. But when that is compounded with being constantly online, it becomes so dangerous, especially in the context of sexism and misogyny. As a young millennial, I didn’t have social media until I was in the eighth grade and that was only so I could stay connected to my sister who was going to college. I didn’t get a smartphone until I was in college. I’m not that much older than Gen Z but there’s just something about the rise of social media that has fundamentally altered critical thinking and reasoning skills. Were there sexist assholes in my high school and undergrad? For sure but this Andrew Tate-ification of young men is terrifying and frustrating. But then they don’t engage in the classroom when presented with the opportunity to learn and grow, even in a class about critical thinking, so I am at a loss at how to intervene.

[sarahelainewrites-blog]

On Honesty

(Or, Personal Grief, Collective Despair, and Finding the Will to Survive)

CW: Depression, grief, anxiety, and loss – Please take care of yourself, and only engage if you have the emotional capacity to do so)

Can I be honest? I mean, can I be brutally – if not painfully – transparent? I am not okay, and I haven’t been for a long, long time. At what felt like the height of my professional achievements, my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV endometrial cancer. She died less than a year later. Her sister, my aunt, died six months after that. All of this happened less than a year after my Nana’s passing and only four years after my grandfather’s death.

I’ve been suffering in silence, isolating, struggling to grapple with loss, grief, fear, loneliness, and even shame. The past four years have been the hardest of my life to date. I’ve felt unbalanced, untethered, and, at times, completely broken. I cannot count the number of mornings I struggled to pull myself from bed, nor can I specify the number of nights I cried for the elusive relief of sleep. I’ve been sinking into a depressive spiral – overwhelmed with the burdens of living and paralyzed by the eternal challenges of just being. 

“come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.” Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me”

Lucille Clifton writes about surviving the thing that has tried to kill her, but there have been days where I have felt like death is winning its war with me. With every phone call, text, email, private message, and letter to which I struggle to respond; with every bright, clear day that feels shrouded in darkness; with every ruminating thought that pulls me from the present and traps me in the sadness of the past or uncertainties of the future; with each of these things, I have wondered if this is what it feels like, to stop living before your death.

I warned that I would be brutally honest, but I didn’t expect to divulge the ugliest bits in the way I have. It’s clear that my mind and heart were begging for relief. 

I’m writing, in part, because I need to. I have to. Writing, for me, was once (and, I think, still is) a part of my survival. It was – is – as vital as breathing. But writing also requires an honesty and openness that I haven’t been brave or bold enough to bear. That is, I think, why I haven’t written in so long. I’ve been drowning, struggling to articulate just how I’m feeling and why. I’m writing this, primarily, to save my own life. But I’m thinking about our collective survival too. 

The outcome of the recent U.S. election is heavy on the minds of many, myself included. Knowing what can trigger my own anxiety- and depression-fueled spirals, I try to keep myself away from post-mortem analyses. I cannot afford to sacrifice any more of myself to despair. But, I think – hope – that this is a moment where we will dwell upon our relationships to one another and be intentional about caring for ourselves and others too. 

….

How do you survive a war? How do you armor yourself for ongoing catastrophe, crisis, and disaster? To be sure — there are those of us who don’t survive, those of us who don’t make it to the other side. And then, there are those of us who survive, barely.

I think of my loved ones who have lived under dictatorial regimes. Their bodies carry the build up of so much pain. Some live with the physical manifestations of decades of psychological and emotional terror: constant illness, constant sickness, and premature death. Others are scarily silent. They refuse to speak about “those times,” bottling away all their memories and whatever emotions that may surface. I think of my loved ones who are  emotionally distant — never sentimental, rarely loving. Dissociated and detached. So death — be it physical, spiritual, or emotional — is always a possibility in times of authoritarian rule, but it is not the only possible future. 

For over a century, the United States has deliberately prevented revolutionary activism from transforming nations across the globe. In no region is this more true than the Americas. Examples abound, but Haiti immediately comes to mind. Whenever the Haitian people have asserted their freedom and attempted to build a state for and by the people, the U.S. has used its military and diplomatic powers to thwart Haitian self-determination and advance U.S. economic objectives. This was true in the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, in the years that followed the creation of the world’s first Black republic. This was true during the U.S. Occupation of Haiti in the early 20th century. This was true during the reign of the Duvalier regime when the Tontons Macoutes terrorized the Haitian public. This was true every time liberation theologist Jean-Bertrand Aristide was democratically elected Haiti’s president, ousted in U.S.-backed coups, and forced to live in exile. This was true in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, and it continues to ring true in the midst of Haiti’s current political and economic crisis. A few years ago, when there were fierce protests against then Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, I remember watching a U.S. journalist interview Haitian activist David Oxygène in Port-au-Prince. Oxygène castigated U.S. intervention in Haiti:

“It’s American policy that has a problem with Haiti. Jovenel Moïse is in power, under the control and direction of American imperialism. They’ve attacked our culture. They’ve attacked Vodou. They’ve attacked the spirit of our ancestors. They spit on the memory of Jean-Jaques Dessalines.” 

The journalist asked Oxygène if there was anything he believed that U.S. president Joe Biden should know, if there was anything Biden could “do for Haiti.” Oxygène responded, “I have no message for Joe Biden. He is not superior to Dessalines.” He went on to explain that Biden and Trump’s policy agendas towards Haiti were identical despite the politicians’ ostensible ideological differences. 

I think of that interview often, particularly Oxygène’s proclamation that Biden was not and could never be as consequential as Dessalines. For this activist who had spent decades living under the political and economic brutalism facilitated by American politicians, corporations, and even non-profits (the Clinton Foundation is especially deserving of scrutiny), revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines constituted a guiding light. American intervention in Haiti has wrought a great deal of pain. But it has not killed Haitians’ critical engagement with the island’s history or isolated them from the beauty of their inheritance. Although centuries apart, in Dessalines, Oxygène found a model of possibility, an ancestral guide in the continued struggle and resistance against imperial rule.

….

There’s a question floating around many Left and progressive spaces across the U.S.: Where do we go from here? 

I most certainly do not have any special insight or clarity, let alone answers. But I keep thinking of how much knowledge there is to be gleaned from people who have lived under authoritarian repression and still organized, still gathered, still written, still hoped, still dreamed, and still fought. I think of folks like David Oxygène. 

One dominant narrative of political transformation positions the U.S. as the “leader of the free world.” In this false narrative, the U.S. instructs so-called less sophisticated nations on how to create an enduring constitutional democracy. After all, the U.S. has the world’s oldest and — supposedly — most stable constitution. 

To be clearer than clear — I do not believe this narrative. It’s as fictional as the United States’ Founding Fathers’ hypocritical declaration, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal” while creating a government that protected slavery at all costs. No, the U.S. has never been a true democracy, and many of us who have lived under its authority — both within its borders and beyond — have never been fully free. And, while some legal scholars still refuse to acknowledge this, the U.S. is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. What have historically been described as bedrock, foundational constitutional principles are and have long been under assault. This has been a long and steady decline, one that has occurred over the past forty plus years with numerous shifts in both the make-up of the judiciary and the forms of interpretative enterprises deemed acceptable. The depoliticization of legal education has further reversed the modest gains of the mid-twentieth century. The incoming presidential administration will only quicken what has been in motion for some time. 

Nonetheless — I share this dominant narrative because, for too long, U.S. education has wrongfully espoused the notion that the nation has a great deal to teach the world. Now is the time for us to follow in the tradition of writers, thinkers, and activists who have long rejected such a proposition. We who live in the U.S. have so much to learn from revolutionary struggles. And, like the Black liberation activists of the early and mid-twentieth century who understood the relationship between the kinds of violence the U.S. government inflicted upon both domestic and global populations, I hope we see our oppression and liberation as bound up with the plights of many others in this world. 

There’s much to be said about the lessons we can learn from history, from past struggle. And I hope that, over the coming months and years, we will find community with one another as we engage in that critical study. We must also consider the importance of shifting our own temporalities, of neither desiring nor expecting that we might live to see the labor of our work. 

A few years ago, Angela Davis was supposed to receive the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award in her native Birmingham in honor of her activism, scholarship, and advocacy. However, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute rescinded Davis’s award due to criticism of her long-standing support of Palestinian liberation. Eventually, the award was reinstated, but a group of Birmingham natives, grassroots activists, decided to host an alternative event in Davis’s honor. In that event, Davis engaged in an hour long discussion with the writer and scholar Imani Perry. I’d like to share the end of Davis’s talk from that night because I’ve thought of it often in the years since: 

“Oftentimes, we assume that when we work for justice and equality and freedom, that we’re going to see immediate results. And capitalism teaches us to want to see the immediate…So we have a relationship to our history that is very much modeled after capital’s market. And we don’t necessarily recognize that the work we do today, while we may not see immediate consequences tomorrow, or even next year —  or even ten years from now —  but maybe down the line, maybe twenty years, or fifty years — or one hundred years from now — the work that we have done, at this particular moment, will have made a difference. I think it’s so important to try to develop that different temporality… I always point out that hundreds of years ago, there were people who were standing up against the institution of slavery, and they were imagining. They were imagining a different world. They knew that a different world was possible. They never got to experience that world, but, that world is the world we’re inhabiting today. They made it possible for us to be where we are, and so we have to begin to think broadly in that way and imagine how consequential our work can be… Let’s see if we can gauge the value of the work we do now by its possible future consequences. And perhaps fifty years from now or one hundred years from now, there will be some people gathered in the way we are gathered here this evening, who will be thankful, who will give thanks to those who came before them, who will be thankful for the work we did when we were called upon to do it.”  ….

I don’t know where we go from here or what comes next. I am, as I have shared, trying to figure out how not to die under the weight of my own depression, anxiety, and personal journey with grief. What this journey has taught me, however, is that survival is not and cannot be an isolated endeavor. To the extent that we are able to survive, we cannot survive without each other. We are moving into an uncertain future, living in an unsettled time. But we cannot make it through this thing called life alone.

I hope this note finds you, and I hope we find each other. I hope that we will be intentional about caring for ourselves and those we love in days, months, and years to come. We must create the world we seek to live in, even if we will never be able to inhabit that world ourselves.

A luta continua. The struggle continues. 

[hardynwa]

Before They Begin Igbo Point-And-Kill In Lagos By Felix Oboagwina

April last year, I wrote an article, titled, “Didn’t Tinubu Just Goof On MC Oluomo?” The piece did a post-mortem on the crisis rocking the Lagos State chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW). Long story short, Musiliu Akinsanya, alias “MC Oluomo,” was issued a query by the union’s national leadership, he refused to answer it and he was handed a suspension. Out of the blue, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu declared NURTW banned. In its place, they created the Lagos Parks and Garages Management Committee and appointed MC Oluomo to head it as Chairman. Those who know, know that Sanwo-Olu merely served as the hand of Esau carrying out the dictates of the godfather puppeteer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. MC Oluomo is Tinubu’s strongman. Lately, MC Oluomo’s pre-Governorship-Election message to the Igbo stock in Lagos became a social media virus. In it, the Tinubu-assisted tough-guy warns all Iya Chukwudis (all Igbo), “Vote APC or stay at home!” Simply put, should the South-Easterners fail to support APC, these attack dogs want to scare Igbo with a promise of Rwandan-style point-and-kill. It is a desperate message from a desperado whose desperate paymasters have read the handwriting on the wall from February 25, where they fell from their Olympian heights and lost Lagos to Peter Obi’s Elu-Pee. However, people like me saw the February 25 fall coming long ago. In my April 2022 piece, I observed and warned: “As the Nigerian proverb says, ‘It is the foolish fly that gets buried with the corpse.’ Tinubu, in bailing out his embattled unionist godson may have succeeded in damaging his own ambition.” Could I have been more right? Anywhere in Nigeria, where commercial transportation takes place, NURTW “full ground berekete.” So does its parent body, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). These are nationwide networks. Injury to one of them means injury to all. NURTW and NLC could be making Tinubu pay for robbing them of Lagos. Apart from the MC Oluomo blunder, several others factors triggered the shock APC and Tinubu received in their traditional hold of Lagos and gave the lead instead to the Labour Party’s Peter Obi, on February 25. That February loss made them zero in on Obi’s Igbo kinsmen in Lagos. They think they have an Igbo problem they could solve through scare tactics. Perish the thought! It has nothing to do with Igbo people. LAGOS-BORN WANT LAGOS There is the “Omo Eko factor.” Aboriginal Lagosians from the Awori stock and the Saro Islanders, descendants of the freed slaves who returned to Lagos and Freetown in the dying days of the slave trade, these too want a shot at the throne too. Rallying around the likes of Chief Olabode George and General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, they have formed “Omo Eko Pataki,” dedicated to planting a trueborn, full-blooded Lagosian in Eko Roundhouse. The dream the aboriginal Lagosians and Island Lagosians dream about ruling Lagos should make sense. They point out that unlike the likes of Rauf Aregbesola (Osun State), who, after a spell of meritorious service in Lagos, still headed back home to vie for state governorship positions, indigenous Lagosians have nowhere to go. Only godfather Tinubu knows why he shunned their yearnings since 1999. He paid dearly for it on February 25. It has nothing to do with Igbo people. THE #EndSARS FACTOR The 2020 anti-SARS protests against police brutality threw up leaders like Aisha Yesufu at the national level. In Lagos, from its angry embers rose the likes of the comedian Mr. Macaroni, the musician Eedris Abdulkareem and FALZ, the “Bahd Guy” musician son of quintessential Lagos lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN. The #EndSARS protests eventually became a symbol of youth resistance to constituted authority. It is an understatement to say that Tinubu and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu soiled their hands in the ugly episode, which started out as a peaceful protest. The Lekki Tollgate has today become a symbol of that epic struggle, Nigeria’s own version of China’s Tiananmen Square, a place of sorrows, tears and blood. Lekki Tollgate, a private concern run by LCCI, has its ownership traced to Tinubu. His son Deji owns the advert firm that runs advertisements atop and around the structure. On the D-Day, three things happened at Lekki Tollgate. · CCTV cameras were removed. · Lights were switched off. · A killing squad of soldiers shot into the crowd of hyper-peaceful, flag-waving protestors. Blood flowed. Corpses of Nigerian youth piled up. The Army whisked away the slain, denying them the decency of a burial. Who sent in the marines? Sanwo-Olu denies but the military insists he did. Those youngsters have been waiting to get their pound of flesh. These 2023 elections provide that chance. They have waited for this moment since October 20, 2020. Fate only provided Peter Obi as the accidental rallying point. Is it by omission or design that Aisha Yesufu, a veritable symbol of the #EndSARS protests, is highly visible in the Obi’s LP campaigns? This is payback time. For that desecration of the flower of their youth at Lekki, Benin, Ogbomosho, young Nigerians want their pound of flesh. And they are determined, mobilised and organised enough to get it. It has nothing to do with the Igbo. ANTI-MEDIA POSTURING Apart from TVC and The Nation newspapers that he owns, which media can Tinubu identify as friends and allies today? The likes of Arise TV and AIT have gone overboard to denigrate him, after they wooed him without success. So does AIT. They spend generous airtime to mock and disparage Tinubu and his party. Little wonder. Before and since June 2022 that he won the APC ticket, Tinubu shunned the several debates they organised for presidential contestants. What cockiness! This anti-media posturing, unfortunately encouraged by his publicists, has proved a damager. Who remembers that pre-February 25 even Sanwo-Olu did not much campaigning in Lagos? Instead of running his own political business, he was minding Tinubu’s business –gallivanting all over Nigeria with his godfather. The electoral results of February has sent the poor guy running from mall to shops to churches to computer villages, doing photo ops like a jack-of-all-trades! It has little to do with the Igbo. MUSLIM-MUSLIM TICKET By the way, Sanwo-Olu blames their poor show on his godfather’s Muslim-Muslim ticket. And who says that formation would escape unscathed in a multi-religious country? Tinubu performed woefully in the Christian-dominated South-East, South-South, as it did in several Christian featuring states of the North? Ditto Lagos. It has nothing to do with the Igbo. GODFATHER’S LIMITED TENURE The governorship is a tenured office. You do your maximum term of eight years and quit the scene. Tinubu became Lagos Governor in 1999. He left office in 2007. Thereafter, he has remained the ultimate godfather of Lagos politics. From Babatunde Fashola, to Akinwunmi Ambode, to Babajide Sanwo-Olu, all Lagos governors have come under the control of this ultimate puppeteer. All local government and Legislature operatives are handpicked by him. The question is: Will Tinubu’s godfather tenure in Lagos last till death do them part? Or will die the natural death of Olusola Saraki in Kwara State, Orji Uzoh Kalu in Abia, Adams Oshiomhole of Edo, Jim Nwobodo in Enugu and James Ibori in Delta, all of whom have had their godfather influence extinguished? The law of diminishing return is a nature thing. It has nothing to do with the Igbo. THE LOSS OF AFENIFERE Egbe Afenifere singlehandedly made Tinubu in 1999. His romance with them has long lost its fire –forget the other day’s PR trip to Pa Reuben Fasoranti in Ondo. Today, that foremost Yoruba socio-political group backs Obi 100 percent. Without Afenifere’s pillar of support, it cannot be smooth sailing for the former Lagos Governor. OBI AND THE IBO FACTOR Yes, Peter Obi is a boy, an Igbo (or Ibo) boy. Therefore, the former Anambra State Governor will naturally command the support of his kith and kin. However, social media buffs have pointed out that if you drop Obi from LP and replace him with any other Igbo politician, like Orji Uzoh Kalu or Rochas Okorocha, they would abandon LP like hot potato. Obidents swing only in one direction, the Peter Obi direction. Why Obi? Obi packs qualities that those other politicians lack. Like them, he served in public office, but his integrity rings loudly and deafeningly. Here is a man who has refused to allocate to himself post-service pecks and pecuniary, where his mates corner lifelong cars, cash and castles from the state coffers! He exudes capacity, competence and character. Those qualities make sweet music in Nigerians’ ears. It has nothing to do with the Igbo people. Obi’s magic goes beyond Igbo backing. His votes in Lagos came majorly from non-Igbo voters. Go and verify. Agreed that the garrulousness, bragging and verbosity of a minuscule few of Igbo loudmouths would not help matters, but not all Igbo proclaim Lagos as a NO-MAN’S-LAND that they want to TAKE OVER. Yoruba “indigenes” will fight anyone proclaiming that assumption. However, one thing I know (since serving as Director twice in the Jimi Agbaje governorship campaigns of 2015 and 2019) is that the Tinubu political family dusts up this propaganda-blackmail every election cycle. Fela calls it “their regular trademark.” This Igbo-want-to-take-over-Lagos is a xenophobic slang they apply during every election. They spread the misinformation that the opposition wants to red-carpet and royalise the “Igbo strangers” in Lagos. They used it against Jimi Agbaje. They tried it with Jandor. Now they are bringing that piece of trash against Rhodes-Vivour, whose principal happens to be Igbo. They disguise the blackmail as a clarion call for Yoruba unity, irredentism and nationalism. By these satanic verses, they paint Tinubu’s clique as protectors of Yoruba interest and resisters of Igbo expansionism. Those who know Lagos politics know that the MC Oluomo-Tinubu group are lying. Unfortunately, however, the formula seems to work. Always. Read the full article

[peninkwrites]

The Cost of Bread - Niki & Wilbur

Wilbur tries. Niki deserves more.

(CW: mentions of suicide and self harm/neglect. Yes this is an adaptation of a scene in tddd but it deserves its own piece)

crossposted to ao3

~

Wilbur knows Tommy did this on purpose.

Tommy was not short on food, nor did he need a specific type of bread from the middle of fucking nowhere, no, rather, Tommy had figured out the easiest way to get Wilbur to talk to Niki and then he’d pushed.  Wilbur had made something like progress in the past weeks, he’d spoken briefly with Jack, finding a young man with less anger and more confidence.  Tubbo had grown so much and Wilbur hopes he will continue to outgrow him.  It's better that way.  Seeing Fundy had been much more painful.  He would do his best not to dwell on what he could not change and who he could not save.  At least for a little while longer.

Wilbur had spoken with Eret more extensively, that had been hard at first and then so much easier.  Eret had beaten Wilbur to the punch.  He supposes that’s easier to do when you’re still alive, but Wilbur had spoken with Eret about his own post-mortem efforts at atonement and Eret had replied in turn.  Eret had helped with the efforts to try to bring him back.  Eret was one person Wilbur was surprised to find he believed when they said they were glad he’s alive again.  No one had openly rebuked him for his resurrection, but Wilbur thinks that might be mostly because of the legacy he had returned to.  They’re afraid of him.  Afraid enough not to tell him he isn’t wanted here.

And then there was Niki.

She didn’t spend much time around the Mainlands, instead residing in a not-so-secret city underground.  She was baking again.

So Tommy made the executive decision to demand and expect cheesy bread, but only from Niki’s bakery, so Wilbur had done something harder than staring death in the face–  He reached out first.

He doesn’t know why he feels so fucking nervous it’s ridiculous–

No it isn’t.  It’s because she is– or maybe she was, your best friend.  And you hurt her.

Eret betrayed you.  That made it hurt less to see them.  You were on even ground, or something like it.

Jack it felt like he’d already been moving on, even just a bit, by the time you got to the elections.  He was still there for the war, but for L’Manberg, not for you.

Fundy, ruse or not, cut you off and stayed in Manberg.  He let go of you then, you knew what to expect so it hurt to see him again, but nothing you hadn’t seen coming, or at least should have seen coming after all you’d done.

But Niki…

Niki never let go.

You did.

The scar he had left Niki with would surely match more closely to what he had left Tommy and Tubbo with.  Those three had never left him, and for that he will always be sorry.

Walking down those stone steps was far more daunting than any trek into hell– he would know– but Wilbur almost thinks whatever comes next is worth it as he gets to see Niki, flour smeared across her face, working the dough in front of her with a serene concentration.  He should say something.

“Uh, hi–” Wilbur has a split second to feel embarrassed about his voice cracking as he tries to get the words out, because in the next moment there’s a sword level with his throat.

“Oh my god– I could’ve killed you!” Niki lowers the sword, her surprise replaced by irritation before what him being here means catches up to her.  Her expression turns cold, staring at Wilbur like she doesn’t know what to make of him and certainly not like she trusts him.  “I’d heard you were alive.  Wasn’t sure if it was worth believing it this time.”  She finally puts away her sword, floured handprints now marring the hilt, as she returns to her dough like Wilbur’s presence is merely an aside to her work.

“Niki…” Wilbur hesitates, swallowing thickly.  He’s more scared now than he had been trying to kill Dream.  “I am here to…”  He trails off.  Niki finally turns back to look at him, an accusation in her eyes but something almost hopeful too.  Wilbur recognizes it, that little gleam that he was a fool not to see back in the L’Manberg days.  Niki had trusted him and therefore she had needed him.  And he left her behind.  “...to get some bread.  Tommy asked for some bread.”

Niki turns cold again, looking at the wooden shelves along the side wall filled with fresh loaves.  “What does he want?”

“The cheesy bread.  The… the one with the garlic?” Wilbur doesn’t know why he phrases it as a question.

“What do you want?” Niki goes up a step ladder to the right shelf.

“What do I–?” Wilbur’s voice goes hoarse, faltering.

Niki returns to even ground, placing the bread on the brick counter between them.  She looks up at him.  Wilbur can’t remember if she’d always looked this fucking strong and he’d just been blind to it or if she’d changed that much.  Who is he kidding– everyone he’d once known had changed so much.

“Yeah.  What do you want, Wilbur?  Or are you just here getting things for Tommy?” Niki asks.

“Oh!  Oh– Right,” Wilbur laughs almost with a hint of panic.  “How–” He clears his throat, trying to sound anything close to stable.  “How are you?”

Niki gives him a look, mildly exasperated, but maybe even concerned.  “Do you have anything to pay for it?”

“What?”

“For the bread.”

To pay for the bread.  Wilbur Soot left his fucking brain in limbo, he’d come all the way over here and hadn’t brought anything to trade, not emeralds, not iron, not anything.  “I…”

“Didn’t think so.”  Niki doesn’t send him away, instead she nods him around the corner, opening the door back into the bakery.  “Take off your coat first.  It’s dirty.”

“My– Oh, right,” Wilbur tosses his coat on a row of hooks in the corridor.  He stops and stares at his old cloak right beside it.  He cannot begin to fathom what that means.  It will surely break him.  So he just joins Niki inside the bakery.

“If you help me with this, I’ll count that as payment, alright?” Niki nods to the dough on the counter.  “For the love of god wash your hands first,” she gives him a sharp look as if she’d really expected him to get right to work.  To be fair, Wilbur most definitely had in his frazzled mind.  “Good.  You remember how to need, don’t you?”

Wilbur feels like there’s a strange hum in the back of his head.  “I– what?”

Niki repeats more slowly.  “You remember how to knead, right?”

“Oh!  Oh, right– Right, yeah, I do,” Wilbur nods quickly.  It’s been over ten years, but he hasn’t forgotten.  Niki’s bakery.  The scent of bread.  

Wilbur is quiet for a change.  He doesn’t know what to do with this.  With any of it.  Niki is still being short with him, she isn’t exactly her usual– or once usual– friendly self, not that he’d expected that in any way, but the fact of the matter is, she’s being kind.

“Niki, I–” Wilbur doesn’t know what he’s going to say.

“You’re a liar, Wilbur Soot,” Niki says quietly, but she has him silent in an instant.

Wilbur feels the words caught in the back of his throat.  He forces out a reply.  She deserves  reply.  “Yes.  I was.”

“Was,” Niki laughs, sharp and painful.  “You don’t get to say that to me.  Not yet.  Or maybe ever.”

Wilbur tries again.  “Yes.”

Niki isn’t looking at him.  

“You didn’t care in the end.  Did you?”  Niki’s voice is shaky now, but she doesn’t stop.  “Not about L’Manberg, not about us– about– about me–”

“No,” Wilbur can’t help it.  Anything else, but not that.  Niki stops.  Wilbur takes that as the expectation to continue.  “I never stopped caring.  About any of it– about you.  But…” Ah.  There’s that familiar old feeling.  That last stretch dead he thought he’d stopped hating himself, but maybe sometimes it’s only fair for it to return now.  “I still hurt you.”

“That’s… That’s worse.  You know that’s worse, right?” Niki still isn’t looking at him and Wilbur is so fucking grateful.  He doesn’t think he could survive her looking at him right now.  “If you cared, and you still… you still did that, then– God, you’re the most– the most selfish person!”

“I am so sorry, Niki– I’ll go, I should never have– Shit, Niki, I am so–” Wilbur goes to grab his coat, refusing to look at the cloak beside it.

“Don’t you move, Wilbur!” Niki turns to face him sharply, eyes shining with tears and righteous fury.  “You’re going to stand there and you’re going to listen for once!”

Wilbur stops, he fights tooth and nail to meet her eyes even as it feels like a knife in his chest.  At the very least, she deserves this.

“I have tried so hard to recover from– from you.  I didn’t sleep or-or eat and I was so alone because I trusted you and you left me!  And don’t you dare apologize again– I can see you about to, don’t you dare!” Niki catches the words on his tongue.  “Because I got better!  You stayed dead, and I got better,” it’s a threat and a promise.  Niki glows like the sky on fire.  “And I gave up on forgiving you because you were gone.  I’ve had a lot of time to think about what having you back would mean.  The last time– you have no idea what that was like, to love you and hate you and have you back to have the idea of you, running into the wreckage just when I thought I could finally– I was trying to– I burned it to let go of it–”

Wilbur knows what she’s talking about and maybe he’s still supposed to keep his mouth shut, but the words come out whether he wants them to or not.  “I know.”

Niki pauses, something cautious mixing with her anger.  “What?”

“I know.  Through– I could see through that… that stupid ghost sometimes.  And know you were there.  In the wreckage.  I still can’t really piece it together, but it was a crater.  And I saw–” Wilbur stops himself.  He won’t do that to her.  He won’t say I saw you give up.

“You– You saw,” Niki has a war going on behind her eyes, as she struggles to factor in what this means to all the rest of it.

“I never should’ve left,” Wilbur sounds almost steady.  He hopes even if she never believes in him again, she’ll at least believe this.  “And I will never be able to take that back, but I…” He has nothing else to give.  Apologies and wishes for things to be different are so worthless they’re cruel.  “I never should have left.”

The memories of a ghost are meaningless.  Those vague, distorted after images of a life he never really could touch are nothing compared to his last day alive.  Niki, who had fought beside him despite every time he had failed her.  Niki, standing too close to the podium when he left, waiting for him to come back.  The day of the sixteenth, Wilbur had walked right past her, past her and so many others, and had lied.  I’ll be right back.

Niki nods, still unwavering, but it’s so clear she doesn’t need him anymore.  “You’re back now.”

“I– Yeah?”

“And whatever you are now, whatever this is,” she still looks grim, but also so determined.  Completely unyielding.  The face of a woman who had shouted her fury up at a podium in the midst of a bloodied festival, without weapons or help, she had burned them.  “I deserve to have my best friend back.”

“You do.”

Niki assesses him carefully, coming to some conclusion.  “I hope you can be him one day.”

“Me too,” Wilbur’s voice breaks but he holds back tears.  He’s not entitled to relief when he’s the one who did this.

“You’re not redeemed, you know.”

“I know.  That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Right,” Niki turns back to her bakery.  “You’re here for bread, right?”  There’s almost a smile there.  Almost.

“Right,” Wilbur feels weak.  He feels alive.  ”For bread.”

“Then you stay,” Niki decides it.  “You’ll need to do a better job than that, Wil,” she nods to the lump of dough she’d carefully begun to shape and which Wilbur had managed to ruin almost immediately.

“I will.”

[fernstream]

For months, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a good soldier for the Democratic Party and Joseph R. Biden Jr as he sought to defeat President Trump.

But on Saturday, in a nearly hourlong interview shortly after President-elect Biden was declared the winner, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made clear the divisions within the party that animated the primary still exist. And she dismissed recent criticisms from some Democratic House members who have blamed the party’s left for costing them important seats. Some of the members who lost, she said, had made themselves “sitting ducks.”

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

We finally have a fuller understanding of the results. What’s your macro takeaway?

Well, I think the central one is that we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore. But whether we’re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question. We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up.

We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.

But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.

To your first point, Democrats lost seats in an election where they were expected to gain them. Is that what you are ascribing to racism and white supremacy at the polls?

I think it’s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives’ fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives.

I’ve already started looking into the actual functioning of these campaigns. And the thing is, I’ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating D.C.C.C.-run campaigns for two years. That’s how I got to Congress. That’s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That’s how Jamaal Bowman won. That’s how Cori Bush won. And so we know about extreme vulnerabilities in how Democrats run campaigns.

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.

Well, Conor Lamb did win. So what are you saying: Investment in digital advertising and canvassing are a greater reason moderate Democrats lost than any progressive policy?

These folks are pointing toward Republican messaging that they feel killed them, right? But why were you so vulnerable to that attack?

If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don’t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn’t run a full-fledged campaign.

Our party isn’t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence. And so, yeah, they were vulnerable to these messages, because they weren’t even on the mediums where these messages were most potent. Sure, you can point to the message, but they were also sitting ducks. They were sitting ducks.

There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee. And there’s a reason that when he didn’t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party — in and of itself — does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.

If I lost my election, and I went out and I said: “This is moderates’ fault. This is because you didn’t let us have a floor vote on Medicare for all.” And they opened the hood on my campaign, and they found that I only spent $5,000 on TV ads the week before the election? They would laugh. And that’s what they look like right now trying to blame the Movement for Black Lives for their loss.

Is there anything from Tuesday that surprised you? Or made you rethink your previously held views?

The share of white support for Trump. I thought the polling was off, but just seeing it, there was that feeling of realizing what work we have to do.

We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.

But the problem is that right now, I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through this. Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That’s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don’t think that is sustainable.

There’s a lot of magical thinking in Washington, that this is just about special people that kind of come down from on high. Year after year, we decline the idea that they did work and ran sophisticated operations in favor of the idea that they are magical, special people. I need people to take these goggles off and realize how we can do things better.

If you are the D.C.C.C., and you’re hemorrhaging incumbent candidates to progressive insurgents, you would think that you may want to use some of those firms. But instead, we banned them. So the D.C.C.C. banned every single firm that is the best in the country at digital organizing.

The leadership and elements of the party — frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party — are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy. This isn’t even just about winning an argument. It’s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they’re just setting up their own obsolescence.

What is your expectation as to how open the Biden administration will be to the left? And what is the strategy in terms of moving it?

I don’t know how open they’ll be. And it’s not a personal thing. It’s just, the history of the party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election.

I think the transition period is going to indicate whether the administration is taking a more open and collaborative approach, or whether they’re taking a kind of icing-out approach. Because Obama’s transition set a trajectory for 2010 and some of our House losses. It was a lot of those transition decisions — and who was put in positions of leadership — that really informed, unsurprisingly, the strategy of governance.

What if the administration is hostile? If they take the John Kasich view of who Joe Biden should be? What do you do?

Well, I’d be bummed, because we’re going to lose. And that’s just what it is. These transition appointments, they send a signal. They tell a story of who the administration credits with this victory. And so it’s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It’s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district.

It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don’t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.

If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is.

You are diagnosing national trends. You’re maybe the most famous voice on the left currently. What can we expect from you in the next four years?

I don’t know. I think I’ll have probably more answers as we get through transition, and to the next term. How the party responds will very much inform my approach and what I think is going to be necessary.

The last two years have been pretty hostile. Externally, we’ve been winning. Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, it’s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive.

Is the party ready to, like, sit down and work together and figure out how we’re going to use the assets from everyone at the party? Or are they going to just kind of double down on this smothering approach? And that’s going to inform what I do.

Is there a universe in which they’re hostile enough that we’re talking about a Senate run in a couple years?

I genuinely don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn’t even know if I was going to run for re-election this year.

Really? Why?

It’s the incoming. It’s the stress. It’s the violence. It’s the lack of support from your own party. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.

I chose to run for re-election because I felt like I had to prove that this is real. That this movement was real. That I wasn’t a fluke. That people really want guaranteed health care and that people really want the Democratic Party to fight for them.

But I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same.

[hellraisered]

tommy jarvis x reader killing jason together

tommy jarvis / gender neutral reader || killing jason voorhees. 

You've lost so much in such little time. Far more than you cared to comprehend.

People you'd bonded with, befriended, relied upon, now little more than bloodied spatters upon one white walls, smeared across mahogany shelving and only just barely recognizable as a person at all anymore. You'd vomited when you saw the first body. Mangled, hung and stuck upon a protruding branch, as if it was to serve as a morbid trophy, a territorial marking - a reminder of who the camp belonged to.

Despite the fact that'd they'd been dead for at least a few hours, the same gaze of revulsion and fear stayed frozen upon features post mortem. You had nothing with which to ground yourself - as if you were already accepting your impending death, your own safety now completely irrelevant or nearly impossible to attain. However, a hand upon your back interrupted your haze. Who the cause of the sensation was mattered little - for all you cared, it was the killer - the legend, Voorhees, here to tear you apart limb from limb until you're nothing but meat for roaming wild dogs.

"Hey," a voice, masculine and warm, sends a shock through you, a feeling not dissimilar to sitting by a fireplace during a cold winter night, hands cupped around a warm beverage. "I'm here, it's -" and you can tell he wants to say ' it's alright ', but catches himself on the lie. "I'm here now."

The shotgun on his back, and the confidence with which he held himself echoed an aura of comfort that only further drew you in, like a magnet you didn't care resisting. The mere fact that someone alive was with you made you feel better, but you still found yourself heaving once more into the dirt, even though you had nothing more to vomit. And yet, the entire time, he kept a firm hand upon your back. The gesture did not go unnoticed on your part.

Regaining your senses, through eyes blurred by tears, you faintly recognize him to be the man a pair of officers escorted off of the premises earlier that same evening. 'Thomas Jarvis', - a raving lunatic, they'd called him. Funnily enough, at this point, he didn't seem so crazy anymore.

He offers you a place in his vehicle which you graciously accept, and the interior, like him, smells of leather and sweat - but in a pleasant way - subtle, not overwhelming. It distracted you from his explanation a couple times, your new companion giving you almost annoyingly brief summaries of the occurrences at the camp, and dubiously snippy responses.

"I can drop you off at the exit; you can run and get help, or at least get out of here," he said, taking a left. You hadn't noticed before, having been busy vomiting, but he was kind of a pretty man. The way his brow furrowed slightly in worry, the subtle curve in his nose elegantly giving way to an inviting pair of lips.

"Well?"

You first realize you had been staring for longer than you intended to, and he likely noticed, but then the question registers with you.

"Well I think that's bullshit," your throat still stings from your stomach acid, but that didn't stop you from snapping at him. "The bastard killed my friends, and now he has to fucking pay."

                                                              -

You stand with an axe in your hand, tattered sweater just barely hanging on to your shoulders.

The hulking mass of a man approaches the both of you, blood trickling down the hockey mask faintly illuminated by the moon. You feel paralyzed - frozen in place, your knuckles paling around the wooden and splintering handle.

"Do what we talked about, alright? We can do this. But if you change your mind, you- you can still go, I can do this by myself."

Even the implication that one man would have been able to tear down Jason on his own would have made you laugh, but for him to say it out loud? That was even funnier.

"I can," and you swallow, still finding it difficult to speak, "I can handle myself."

Rivulets of sweat trickle down your forehead, and Jason continues to approach - almost mocking with his near leisurely pace. When he’s in reach of your blade, you lift the axe, and begin your assault upon his person. 

A shotgun goes off, his mask falls, and you shout something, pretending to be his mother -  

Jason is entranced.

Tommy seizes the opportunity, and tears the axe from your grip, raising it in the air, allowing it to come crashing down upon Jason’s head with no hesitation. 

Jason's body sits there, bleeding from the skull, an axe having been jammed into a soured brain, rotten and maggot ridden. His corpse falls still to the ground, and you're not even sure he's dead yet - neither is Tommy, you discover, turning your head to look at him, alert with hands now clenched around the shotgun. The both of you stand silent like that for a while, able to faintly make out approaching police sirens in the distance.

You elect to break the trance the both of you found yourselves in. Each of your footsteps seemed far more louder than they should have been as you approached him. He's shaking - just barely, and his grip upon his weapon hasn't relented, as if he's expecting Jason to get up again, perhaps almost wanting him to, just so he could kill him once more.

A hand of yours outstretches to tentatively place itself near the small of his back, the other resting upon one of his hands, knuckles paled.

"It's over- " almost a whisper. " - you did it. He's gone. Please let go."

It's obvious he doesn't want to, by the way he reflexively moved the shotgun towards his torso, protective of it- it was his security - but he looks into your eyes, and doesn't need any further explanation to understand that this is the closest you can get to pleading in this state. His grip relaxes, and you take the shotgun in one hand, putting a hand on his cheek with the other. 

He places his own palm on top of it. The skin on the front of his hand is rough and calloused, but has the same warmth his voice did - consuming, addictive, and suddenly all you wanted to do was place your face in his hands and never leave.

"We did it," he corrects you, quietly, and a little late. He kisses your forehead, pulls you into an embrace that you think might break your spine, and you can feel a few of his tears fall upon your own skin. His hand tangles itself in your hair, and he pulls you away from him, just enough to look you in the eyes once more.

"We did it."

[xtruss]

Kiranjit Kaur, far left, came to the Tikri protest site from Talwandi, Punjab, on Feb. 23 with a group of 20 women, including her mother-in-law and children. “It is important for all women to come here and mark their presence in this movement. I have two daughters, and I want them to grow up into the strong women they see here.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

WORLD INDIA

'I CANNOT BE INTIMIDATED. I CANNOT BE BOUGHT.' THE WOMEN LEADING INDIA’S FARMERS’ PROTESTS

— Text By Nilanjana Bhowmick | Photographs By Kanishka Sonthalia For TIME | MARCH 4, 2021 | TIME Magazine

The message to women was clear: Go back home. Since November, hundreds of thousands of farmers had gathered at different sites on the outskirts of the Indian capital to demand the repeal of three agricultural laws that they say would destroy their livelihoods. In January, as the New Delhi winter set in, the Chief Justice of India asked lawyers to persuade elderly people and women to leave the protests. In response, women farmers—mostly from the rural states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh—scrambled onto stages, took hold of microphones and roared back a unanimous “No!”

“Something snapped within us when we heard the government tell the women to go back home,” says Jasbir Kaur, a sprightly 74-year-old farmer from Rampur in western Uttar Pradesh. It’s late February and Kaur has been camping at the Ghazipur protest site for over three months, only returning home once. She was stung by the court’s suggestion that women were mere care workers providing cooking and cleaning services at these sites—though she does do some of that work—rather than equal stakeholders. “Why should we go back? This is not just the men’s protest. We toil in the fields alongside the men. Who are we—if not farmers?”

Amandeep Kaur, 41, from Talwandi, Punjab, is employed as a community health worker and as a farmer to support her two daughters. Her husband died by suicide five years ago; because she did not know her rights, she didn’t receive government compensation given to families of farmers who die by suicide. The new laws, she says, “will kill us, will destroy what little we have.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

Questions like this have rarely been asked by women like Kaur, long used to having their contributions to farming overlooked as part of their household duties. But this wave of protests—the world’s largest ongoing demonstration and perhaps the biggest in human history—has prompted thousands to make their voices heard. Indians of all ages, genders, castes and religions have been united by a common goal: to roll back new agricultural laws passed in September by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The laws, suspended in January by the Supreme Court but not yet repealed, would allow private corporations to buy directly from farmers, which they say would leave them at the mercy of buyers and do away with the traditional wholesale market system or mandis, where they are assured a minimum set price for certain crops.

The protests have drawn women of all ages. While some speak onstage, others are simply determined to be present. “I am an illiterate woman,” says Gurmer Kaur, center, at the protests with her friends Surjit Kaur, left, and Jaswant Kaur, right, all in their mid-70s. “I cannot talk well, but I can sit tight—and I will sit here till the next elections if these laws are not called off.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

Women, who form the backbone of Indian agriculture, may be particularly vulnerable to corporate exploitation. According to Oxfam India, 85% of rural women work in agriculture, but only around 13% own any land. “Women are not seen as farmers. Their labor is immense but invisible,” says Jasbir Kaur Nat, a member of the Punjab Kisan Union, who is mobilizing farmers in Tikri, the protest site at the border of Haryana and Delhi.

Photograph by Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

“This law will kill us, will destroy what little we have,” says Amandeep Kaur, a farmer from Talwandi in Punjab, whose husband died by suicide five years ago, following a bad crop that landed him with a debt of around $7,000. As well as farming, Kaur works as a community health worker to support her family; she and her two daughters only got rights to the land after her husband’s death. She lost out on compensation of almost the same amount that the Indian government gives to families of farmers who die by suicide because she did not secure a post mortem of the body to certify the death as suicide. “I didn’t even know the procedure to claim compensation from the government for my husband’s death,” she says. “How am I going to negotiate with businessmen?”

Sarjit Kaur, left, and Dilbeer Kaur, right, from Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, have been at the protests for two months. “We are here to show solidarity and support,” Dilbeer says. Prime Minister Modi is “making us leave our farms and sit here to fight for our rights. We are here to get these laws repealed, and we will be here till we get it done.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization has urged action on the gender gap in agriculture, saying women’s voices must be “heard as equal partners” to ensure both agricultural development and food security. And at the protests in India, women are speaking up. Before now, some women had never stepped out of their homes without a veil, let alone spoken onstage in front of thousands of men. Many arrive at the sites in tractors, a powerful—and previously male—symbol of farming in India. “Women are changing women here,” Nat says, praising the spirit of protest among these women. “They are claiming their identities as farmers.”

Bindu Ammini is a well-known Dalit rights and women’s rights activist from Kerala. “I came here to support the farmers” she says. “but I saw a very different India without any caste or gender discrimination. Hopefully it will continue beyond the protest.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

All of this is happening in India’s deeply patriarchal heartlands of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. Changing mindsets in states where femicide, sexual violence and gender discrimination are rampant has been a persistent challenge for activists. “We have been working to bring about gender equality in these parts for so long—but the process has been slow,” says women’s rights activist Sudesh Goyat. During the first few days of protests in Tikri, she says, she was the only woman from Haryana there. But after the court suggested women leave, they “started to pour in. They came with their families. They came with other women. They came alone. It’s no less than a miracle,” she says.

Left: Urmila Devi, 41, works in the fields with her husband in Bahadurgarh village near the Tikri site. “Both of us get it done together. I don’t know about rights,” she says. “I have never thought about it too much. There’s a family to run and mouths to feed.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

Right: Inspired by women singing, reciting protest poetry and chanting slogans at Tikri, 18-year-old farmers Sahumati Padha, left, and Hiraath Jhade came from the central state of Chhattisgarh. “I wanted to bring our story to them and to the rest of India,” Padha says. “We need to be seen.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

It’s also a unique opportunity to address the gender imbalance in Indian society, says Gurnaam Singh, state secretary of the Punjab Kisan Union. At the protest sites, men and women from different cultures and communities must live side by side without much privacy and under harsh circumstances.

Taking advantage of this rare situation, activists hold frequent discussions on women’s work and their contribution to the rural economy. Regular announcements from the stage about treating women as equals echo around the protest sites throughout the day. “I like this India,” says Harsharan Kaur, a young IT engineer who left a job in Dubai to volunteer at the protest site.

A gender-rights activist from Haryana, Sudesh Goyat has been at the Tikri protest site since the very beginning, helping mobilize women and organize for Jan. 18 to be recognized as Women Farmers Day. “Women work equally in the fields with the men. It’s only right they should be here to protest,” she says. “The awareness among women about their own power has never been higher than now.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

At the Ghazipur site, 29-year-old Ravneet Kaur, a law student from Bangalore, has successfully normalized conversations around a taboo topic in India: menstruation. She set up a women’s store at the site with the help of the women protestors, where they displayed sanitary napkins openly. “The men got used to it soon enough,” she says. “Now these conversations are normal around here. Men don’t flinch when they say sanitary napkins anymore.”

Whether such sentiments will spread beyond the protests is unclear, but for now, female farmers are being seen, heard and acknowledged—offering a new vision of what gender equality might look like for the country. “We have looked upon them as mothers, sisters, wives,” says Sukh Deep Singh, a young farmer from Punjab. “But now we see them in a different light.”

The women see themselves differently too. In Tikri, Sudesh Kandela, a 55-year-old farmer from Haryana, watches a play being staged by a local theater group, enraptured by the spectacle. “I didn’t know what I was capable of beyond the expectations of me as a woman, a wife and mother,” says Kandela, who had never before been to a protest or taken her veil off outside her home. “But I am here now,” she says, clenching her fists, “and I cannot be oppressed. I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be bought.”

[upennmanuscripts]

Question of the Week: “What will you do when he comes at you with the sickle?”

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 31/52

   Denis Faucher, manuscript additions to Hendrik Herp, Speculum perfectionis (Mirror of Perfection), Venice: Sabio, 1524; University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1620, fols. 1v, miniature of a Nun on a Cross, and 3r, miniature of the Mememto mori, both by Denis Faucher, after 1524

As we approach the end of October, we interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you a seasonally appropriate reminder of the grisly fate that awaits us all. This week, we delve into an item from the University of Pennsylvania’s holdings (not formally within the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project but closely associated with it, and now accessible through the main BiblioPhilly interface), a sammelband or hybrid volume that consists of a printed book sandwiched between two manuscript gatherings. Despite the extraordinary morbid imagery present in these hand-written and illuminated sections, the book in question has been little studied to-date, despite the fact that we can name its author (who was also its scribe and artist) with great precision.

The printed core of the book is an edition of the fifteenth-century Franciscan mystic Hendrik Herp’s Mirror of Perfection issued in Venice in 1524. The two eight-folio manuscript quires that bookend it contain texts authored by Denis Faucher (1487–1562), a mystical poet and Benedictine monk with close links to the South of France. Faucher’s authorship was deduced by Norman P. Zacour and Rudolf Hirsch in their catalogue of the manuscripts of the University of Pennsylvania, published in 1965.1 They were able to locate the hymn to Saint Catherine, which begins “Festa lux mundo rutilans coruscat…” in the standard index of hymns, Ulysse Chevalier’s Repertorium hymnologicum.2 At numerous points in the manuscript portions, the rubrics tell us that the poems were written by a certain “Dionysius,” all but confirming Faucher’s identity.

Surviving information on Faucher’s biography is quite rich, and corroborates the notion that he actually transcribed and decorated his own devotional manuals.3 He was born in Arles and began his religious vocation in 1508 at the Benedictine monastery in Polinore, near Mantua, but was based for the majority of his career at the Abbey of Lérins off the coast of Provence, where he was elected prior in 1548. This storied island monastery was the subject of several early monographs, which discuss Faucher at length, and mention his activities as a spiritual advisor and provider of edifying religious texts to various mentors.4 Most fascinatingly, these sources also mention Faucher’s work as a scribe and johnny-come-lately illuminator.

The Abbey of Lérins, France (photo: Alberto Fernandez Fernandez, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)

The poems by Faucher present in the sammelband are mostly addressed to a scholasticate, a nun in the training period following the novitiate, and concern the attainment of spiritual perfection in the world. While hybrid books of print and manuscript could be useful for obtaining a customized set of literary texts, or for pairing mass-produced images with favorite prayers, they could also allow for spiritual advisors to add tailored content suited to pupils, in a manner reminiscent of the earliest thirteenth-century Books of Hours. Faucher’s interest in embellishing pre-existing books is conformed by an intriguing manuscript, signed by him, that surfaced on the market in 2018. Formerly in the collection of Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow (see Riverrun Books & Manuscripts, Hastings-on-Hudson, catalogue 2, 2018, item 1), and now in a European private collection, it consists of an apparently unfinished fifteenth-century Book of Hours that has had its miniatures and border decorations entirely painted by Faucher in a colorful style that can be described as a mid-sixteenth-century re-imagining of a century-old illuminated book. Faucher’s intervention is attested by an autograph inscription, dated 9 April 1554, in which he offers the book to his brother Jean on condition that it remain in the family in perpetuity (“Semper apud Faucherios maneant.”). Remarkably, this Book of Hours is mentioned in Barrali’s early-seventeenth-century biography of Faucher. Barrali even transcribed a portion of the inscription, and stated that the book was not only illuminated, but also written, by Faucher (“Haec sunt horaria preces manu propria ipsius Dionisii scriptae & miris figuris penicillo subtiliter adornatae….”).5

As seen at the top of the post, Faucher’s poems in the Penn sammelband are accompanied by two striking images. The style is extremely close to the miniatures in the aforementioned Book of Hours, confirming that Faucher’s hand was responsible not just for the images but also for the texts as well. The first image shows a nun in a black habit being crucified, with a snake biting a heart, representing sin, entwined around her left arm (fol. 1v). The lit oil lamp the nun holds in her right hand represents faith and refers to the parable of the Wise Virgins (who tended their lamps). This remarkable iconography merits further study, as apart from its brief mention (and illustration–thanks to digitaztion) in a recent article on the figure of the crucified abbess in the New World, it is totally absent from art-historical literature.6

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 1v, detail of miniature of a Nun on a Cross by Denis Faucher, after 1524

Arrayed around the nun are illusionistic scrolls with quotations from scripture: Matthew 25:41: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire;” Matthew 5:16: “So let your light shine before men;” Psalm 118:120: “Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear;” Psalm 118:37: “Turn away my eyes that they may not behold vanity;” Psalm 140:3: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: and a door round about my lips;” 1 Corinthians 15:56: “Now the sting of death is sin;” Luke 12:35: “Let your loins be girt;” Psalm 118:116: “Uphold me according to thy word, and I shall live: and let me not be confounded in my expectation”; Jeremiah 2:2: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals;” Psalm 118:101: “I have restrained my feet from every evil way: that I may keep thy words/order;” and Galatians 2:19: “I am nailed with Christ to the Cross” (with a feminine ending in Latin).

The four-line poem below can be roughly translated as: “The heavenly bridegroom, so that he could appear beautiful / Made this likeness of a chaste girl for your eyes. / Do not be pleased by her face, or lose your shame in front of what is shown here, / only pray now for those who are dead.”

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 1v, detail of poem

The second image (fol. 3r) consists of a somewhat more conventional memento mori, at least pictorially. A medallion hangs from a stalk of lilies, its frame decorated with bones and pansies (pensées in French). At its center, a skull in a circular mirror is intended to invoke a sense of self-consciousness in the viewer’s mind. The scroll above the image bears a further moralizing extract from the Bible: “In all thy works, remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (Ecclesiasticus 7:40). Similar scriptural quotations are found surrounding a painted skull in a manuscript addition to a printed Book of Hours of 1491 now in Cambridge University Library (Inc.5.D.1.19 [2530], fol. 4r).

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 3r, detail of miniature of the Mememto mori by Denis Faucher, after 1524

The two vertical scrolls, however, bear a unique message, likely authored by Faucher himself: “If you tremble in fear looking at this image of death, what will you do when he comes at you with the sickle?” (“Si fremis inspiciens mortis turbata figuram, quid facies cum te falx truculenta trahet?”). Interestingly, the verb faucher in French means to mow, reap, or knock down, and it comes from the Latin root falx (sickle, scythe) used in the verse. One wonders whether the author was indulging in a macabre pun. The large scroll directly beneath the image contains a quatrain that, in Barrali’s early-seventeenth-century history of Lérins,7 was ascribed to Faucher and said to be dedicated to “Anna de Boufremont,” possibly Anne de Bauffremont-Sennecey Abbess of Tarascon, suggesting that this otherwise obscure figure may have been the recipient of the present hybrid book, early in her career.

The final scroll is an adaptation of Saint Bonaventure’s exhortation: “When death comes, no one accepts it willingly, except for he who prepared for it, while living, with good works” (“Mortem venientem nemo libenter accipit, nisi qui se ad ipsam, dum viveret, bonis operibus praeparavit”).

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 3r, detail of scroll

All good things to keep in mind in the run up to All Saints’ Day. Happy Halloween!

  from WordPress http://bibliophilly.pacscl.org/question-of-the-week-what-will-you-do-when-he-comes-at-you-with-the-sickle/

[lhs3020b]

Days To Go...

We are now less than a week from the general election.

The TL;DR of this post is, turn up and vote, and please do not vote for a Tory.

I’ve been mostly-silent during the campaign, for the simple reason that it has been the worst that I can recall in my lifetime. Every single party has clown-show’d themselves - well, actually, I haven’t heard anything bad from the Greens, but maybe there’s their problem. (I haven’t heard anything from them at all, and perhaps we should during a GE campaign?)

As for the rest of them, well, I have a huge, seething lake of salty bile for all of them. It’s fair to say that no-one looks good at the moment. There has been some very dark comedy in watching various peoples’ mistakes catch up with them - except the humour disappears when you realise that they could have handed Boris Johnson a majority via their own incompetence.

I’m planning on holding off on indulging the real scathing vituperation until after the polls will have closed - bad enough that there is a circular firing-squad without me joining it - but believe me, I do intend to do a post-mortem on the sick, squalid mess.

Nonetheless.

What we absolutely must not do is repeat our 2015 mistake. At the 2015 general election, turnout was lower than forecast. A lot of people simply stayed at home. It was understandable - St. Red Ed Milliband of the Bacon Sandwich had spent five years spinning around over nonsense fiscal rules, put Controls On Immigration on a mug (thus getting himself into a bidding war with the Tories on racism, which he was never going to win) and the “offer” on housing/public services was vague, confused and unconvincing. Plus a lot of us on the left were still dealing with the aftershocks of the Clegg betrayal. We didn’t think anyone could be trusted. We thought it couldn’t get worse. We were tried, demotivated and exhausted.

Basically, we thought it was the Mass Effect 3 general election - would you like Red neoliberal, the Blue neoliberal or the Yellow neoliberal?

We thought nothing would change, that things couldn’t really get worse, that it didn’t really matter and what we did would have no effect on anything.

So a lot of us stayed home on the day. Labour crashed and burned and we got David Cameron. And look what he did. It took less than two years for the Tory Party to bring the country to the edge of breaking point. And I don’t mean that flippantly. We really are falling apart. Everything is awful. It was already bad before 2015, and things have got so much worse since.

I think what I’m saying is, it’s OK to vote for an imperfect opposition candidate. Seriously, it is OK. The parties are all flawed fuck-fests, but the current government is worse, and will get even worse if it’s allowed to. We didn’t ask this collection of inept parties to fuck up like this. Their screw-ups are on them, not us. We’re just trying to make the best of a horrifically-grim situation.

If BoJo gets elected with a majority, no-one will stop him. Once he controls the parliamentary time-table, he can do what he likes. The press won’t hold him to account. His own party certainly won’t - as long as the ministerial salaries flow, they’ll do what they’re told. (He’s already expelled all the people who might have stood up to him - in hindsight, perhaps this was a cannier move than I thought it was at the time, depressing as that realisation is.) BoJo will double down on all the bad things the Tories have done for the last 9 years. There will be no silver linings and no happy endings.

Thursday is the last chance to pull an emergency stop on this madness.

Turn up and vote, holding your nose if needs be, and do what you can to stop these lunatics before they make everything even worse.

[mymomanddadaregonnabesomadatme]

24 jongerry lmao

Oh fuck I gotta go through my smooch backlog…undead kiss is basically the premise of my entire fanfic so I made Jon be the undead one this time…specifically thinkin’ about this post concept because I’m obsessed with it

👁

You sit by his grave, mid-day, mind glancing barely over the words in front of you: a book of poems, leather-bound. There’s some appeal to sitting by your boyfriend’s grave in all black, gothic poetry propped open, that you know he would get a kick out of if he were around. And that’s part of the motivation, isn’t it? Tempting the memory of him, like a ghost might manifest just to poke a little fun at an ostentatious display of dedication to macabre.

You have your reservations, based all in the dodgy behaviour and vague comments by Elias: glib amusement at the Archivist’s funeral and smiled remarks of post-mortem ‘decisions’, boyfriend buried in a shallow grave in a lidless casket: ‘Easier to behold, perhaps?’ from his slimy lips when you’d pressed Elias for details, delivered with a smirk.

A familiar felling of being watched as your mom peeled skin from bones in your dreams, the flit of a face on the window quiet and sad, desperately hungry.

You don’t ask the archive staff if he’s still in their dreams, too. You don’t go back to his office anymore, but you do sit at home in his flat: wait for his lease to expire knowing full well it should have terminated three months ago. Knowing there’s no way it makes sense for him to still be on the payroll.

It doesn’t make sense to give into the denial, either, to cocoon yourself in the least productive stage of grief as the flowers overtake his resting place and you read poems about death to a daisy sprung from more or less where you’re sure his head is. But a lifetime of things that don’t make sense acclimate you to these urges, check only their alignment with an entity when you have the time before laying down beneath them, feeling them wash over you and through you and back out of you in turn.

There’s a spider in the next one, something grim about madness and being trapped in a room with the inhuman, consorts with six legs and a hundred legs and their enemies with eight, and you elect to skip it both for his sake and your own. The one that follows is twee: ridiculously placed after its predecessor, flowery language and romantic observation of a female figure, absurd and saccharine and hysterically funny, so you begin to read it with grave importance– the kind of thing he’d light into you for while pretending not to enjoy it.

You lose yourself in the silliness of it, stretch your voice to its baritone extents and catch the eyes of passing mourners: more empathetic than you assume when you feel their eyes hit the weight of your hair and the cut of your profile. You’re attuned to it now, to being watched and how it feels when it starts, where it’s coming from and sometimes, when you’re really focused, to the spirit of it. So when your voice clicks nervously and you feel the sudden stumble of momentum, the deep, deep plunge of being truly observed, your eyes strain against their captors, throw your eyelids up and back and grind makeup deep into the wells of your skin-hugged skull and you turn, arms numb and body automatic, back to his grave.

“Good. I was hoping you’d stop that absurd poetry reading. A little help? This isn’t as easy as it looks – and I doubt it looks easy.”

And he’s there: half underground with his arms braced on the disrupted grass and soil, clump of earth shellacked to the side of his head with the daisy you’d been reciting to sticking defiantly outwards from his hair. You feel the absurdity of your denial spin itself around, invert itself, reinvent, break itself open and show you: this is what this moment always would have felt like. That impossible sureness and disbelief sewn together, the crashing dance of impossibility and destiny.

He stares at you from under a dirt-sodden patch of hair, fond smirk of impatient understanding, beautiful and gaunt and terrifying and meek, with scars of decay that look older than time. Dust and bug bites, life and death, breathed into every inch of him that surfaces from the earth into the sun.

Your lips are on his, fast and desperate, and you feel the bemusement on his lips under your own, hands gripped deep into the dry fabric of his sweater, his collar, the reality of Jon. There is a hand on one of yours, the one that clings, urgent, to the front of his shirt, and it rubs a line so gentle down your hand you almost start to sob.

“Couldn’t wait until I was more than halfway out the ground?” He laughs into you, breath just barely warm over your tongue, and he knows you could not but you answer anyway:

“No.”

Back into him, and he concedes: sweet softness of his palms on your cheeks, over your hair, down your neck and resting in the collar of your shirt. And when he needs you to pull him up you will and in the future when you are the one he needs you do, but for now you are lost in the inverse of destruction: the impossible bliss of infinite potential.

[dlrconlicense]

A Strange Favor (or Favour if you’d like)

Not beta’d just another little brain fart I had looking at a pic of Strange and Spidey, set in a timeline in this multiverse as my Strange Desserts ficlet. It’s just utter Strangeolly crack (Also pays a little homage to my high school which was very similar to Peter’s)

New York City, somewhere in the multiverse.

“Ah, young master Parker. To what do we owe your presence?” Wong opens the door to 177A Bleecker Street to see the young man fidgeting in front of the Sanctum.

“Oh hey Mr. Wong, listen is Dr. Strange in right now? I really need to ask him a favor?” Wong looked at the teen and he could see Peter Parker was anxious, whatever it is must be of utmost importance.

Wong lead the youngster into the Sanctum “Master Strange will be back shortly, he has to attend to some business in London. Can I get you anything? Tea?”

“Oh no, it’s ok. I’ll just wait here.” Whenever Peter visit the Sanctum, he was always both in awe and a tad creeped out. Last time the Cloak snuck up on him and he ended up knocking over one of the relics in the library upstairs. Needless to say, Strange and Wong were not amused. Peter rocked back and forth on his sneakers and saw Wong still stood by watching him. “Come on Mr. Wong, I’m not going to touch anything, I swear!”

“It’s not you I’m worried about. That Cloak has a mind of its own and for some reason, it likes to have fun with you Master Parker.”

A portal opens at the top of the stairs and through it comes Stephen Strange, dressed not in his usual robes but in a sweater and jeans. He turns around and gives a brunette woman on the other side of the portal a kiss “I’ll see you next time?” Before she could answer, they hear rapid footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Dr. Strange, I need a HUUUUGE favor…oh, hi Dr. Hooper!”

The brunette smiles at Peter and crosses the portal to give him a hug “Hey Peter! How have you been?”

“What is it, kid?” Stephen was just a tad peeved that his goodbye kiss to Molly was rudely interrupted. “You know I can’t use the stone to turn back time so you can upload an assignment that you somehow forgot that was due because you were fighting some thug down by the bodega at the same time as the deadline…”

“Actually Doc, it’s not that. Well technically, I don’t have to ask you now that Dr. Hooper is here.”

Stephen cocks his eyebrow up inquisitively at the kid “What do you need from Molly?”

“A body.”

“A body?” Stephen looks over to his girlfriend, why does everyone seem to think that she can provide bodies like she runs “Corpse-r-Us”? Nobody knew about her involvement with Holmes’ little magic trick a few years back save for their little circle.

“See I am taking Intro to Forensic Science at school as an elective because NOTHING else was available and we were supposed to be visiting the morgue to observe an autopsy but for some reason they canceled on us and I don’t know why I mentioned that I knew a pathologist and my teacher Mr. Citron is an absolute forensic nut and when he found out that I knew Dr. Hooper from St. Bart’s, and believe me he is a big fan of yours Dr. Hooper, read like all your papers. Anyways, he wanted me to ask her if she can video an autopsy for the class…”

Stephen really wishes he can open a portal and send this kid back to Long Island City or Sunnyside or wherever in Queens he lived. But his Molly would not approve, for she was rather fond of this teen. He was smart and an overall decent kid, Strange would agree, as he would regularly seek the sorcerer out when he needed tutoring in biology or how to deal with mystical beings that occasionally popped up around his neighborhood. Currently however, he was getting a splitting headache from his incessant chatter. Though what is up with this kid and his run-on sentences? Oh, the demise of the school system. But he got to hand it to the kid and his lung capacity for being able to articulate so much in a short span of time.

“Well I would have to check with Mike first, but I don’t see why not. We are a teaching hospital, be glad to motivate the next generation of mad scientists. Just hope your lunchtime isn’t scheduled after the post-mortem video, otherwise I don’t think you can look at pizza or macaroni cheese for a while.”

“Well see here’s the thing…” Peter rocked back and forth on his heels, not looking at the couple, Stephen squinted his eyes as though reading his mind “Tell me you did not promise a live one?”

“Not really possible though.” Peter looked up at Molly in disappointment, she turned to Stephen with a small impish smile “Can’t exactly do it on a live one, can I?”

The raven-haired sorcerer smirked at this comment. His Molly did have a most unique sense of humor “You know what I mean.”

“I mean think about it guys. Wouldn’t this be a fine opportunity for your institution for outreach and collaboration with an American academic institution? I mean, we need a bit more professional anecdotes, the most exposure we get on the morgue are CSI reruns and iZombie.”

Stephen knitted his eyes and stared at the boy, well played Peter, he knows how much Molly loves to rant about how unrealistic those shows are.

“Live-streaming would be a first, though you guys would have to set up the whole feed…”

“See here is where you come in, Dr. Strange. How about we bring Dr. Hooper and the body into my school using your Sling Ring?”

Stephen and Molly both raised their eyebrows in unison, was he serious now?

“Umm, that’s a no, kid.”

“But Dr. Strange, you for one know how fascinating the human body is and plus my classmates would think that you are mad cool as a scientist and a sorcerer, two practices that run completely opposite to each other, I mean you can actually also do a seminar on how does one balance science and the metaphysical…”

Stephen twirls his hand to open a portal behind Peter to the alley next to his apartment building. “Bye, Parker.”

Just as Stephen was send Peter into the portal, a loud banging comes from Molly’s flat inside the other portal.

“Molly!!! I need you to head into Bart’s and examine the corpse from Dimmock’s case! I believe I have found the correlation between the victim’s Swedish Fish addiction and…oh Strange, you’re here.”

Molly and Stephen sighed and turned to find Sherlock Holmes had picked the lock to her flat. Peter looks at the tall curly haired man in awe “Holy crap! You’re Sherlock Holmes. Oh man, Mr. Citron is going to be so jealous! Mr. Holmes, I’m Peter, Dr. Hooper’s friend…”

Sherlock gazed at the boy with a frown, then turned to Molly with raised eyebrows as if asking who is this reprobate?

“Oh! Maybe you and Dr. Hooper can conduct a seminar on solving crimes through forensics and deduction together”

“Ok kid, bye bye!” And with a flick of his hand, Stephen sent Peter through the portal and closed it. He turned to Molly and drew his fingers in the circle in the direction of Sherlock “You need me to, you know…?”

Molly shook her head, wound her hands to his neck and pulled him down for a slow and sweet kiss “I’m kind of curious what Swedish Fish have to do with this case. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Your place or mine?”

Sherlock was already out of the door and impatiently called out “Strange, you’ll end up slinging or whatever it is that you do into her bed later anyways. Come along, Molly! Time is of the essence.”

Molly took his hand and caressed over the Sling Ring “How about Singapore? I’m in the mood for some chili crab and away from them. I’m pretty sure Sherlock has been banned for his little investigation involving their otter population. Even Mycroft won’t be able to get him into the country.”

[jovialyouthmusic]

Uneasy Lies the Head

A Royal Romance AU fanfic followup to Charlotte’s Choice

1 Mourning and Doubt 

Queen Charlotte of Cordonia deals with the death of her Father King Constantine, and an old enemy strikes.

@ao719 @agent-bossypants @andy-loves-corgis @sleepwalkingelite@boneandfur @blackcatkita @brightpinkpeppercorn @choicescommunity@darley1101 @drakewalkerrosenberg @debramcg1106 @fluffy-marshmallow-heart @goirishsunshine @gardeningourmet @livingthroughchoices@likethetailofacomet @mrs-nazario @mind-reader1 @ooo-barff-ooo@silviasutton1989 @speedyoperarascalparty @zaffrenotes @missevabean@mrsdrakewalkerblog @cora-nova @missameliep @tanelle83 @endlessly-searching-for-you @jlouise88 @drakenazario @tabithacarlisle@furiousherringoperatortoad @notoriouscs @classylady1234@wickedgypsymoon @carabeth @choices-fangirl @indiana-jr @indiacater@noey718-blog @katedrakeohd @bobasheebaby @annekebbphotography  @kennaxval @sirbeepsalot @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria @aworldoffandoms@iplaydrake @drakesensworld @drakewalkerisreal @samcpossum

1 Mourning and Doubt

Drake had arrived at the King’s room just too late. Charlotte sat by his bedside, the machines switched off, the room silent, her head bowed, holding his cooling hand. He walked rapidly over to her and knelt by her side.

‘My Queen’ he said simply, but she tugged at him to get up, tears in her eyes.

‘Never kneel to me, my love’ she said softly ‘You’re my equal, you’ll be by my side. I’ll announce it after the funeral’ She sent for Hana and told her to remain with the King until she had finished with the Press.

She had washed her face and gone out to the Press, taking him with her to stand by her side, unannounced as her Consort. She told the nation of their King’s death and declared three days of mourning to be followed by a State funeral. She stated that Anton was guilty of treason and stripped of his title and lands, and anyone who helped him would also be accused of the same.  She returned to the silent room where her Father lay lifeless, Hana sitting dutifully by his side, her own eyes red. She looked down at his body.

‘It’s funny, it felt like he was still here before. He’s gone now.’ She turned to the doctor ‘I want his body treated with respect. No more examinations, no post mortem. He’s to be laid in State at the Palace for all to see.’ The doctor protested.

‘Your Majesty, there are things we must do…’ She held up her hand to quiet him.

‘He can be prepared for viewing, nothing more. I am your Queen, and I command it’ The doctor bowed.

‘Yes your Majesty’ he answered. 

She turned to Hana.

‘Hana, I appoint you my personal aide. I hope you will accept – we can discuss terms in due time.’ Hana dropped a curtsey ‘I know laying Father in state at the Palace will create security problems, but I am sure you can liaise with Bastien and Lewis to ensure my safety.’ She put her hand to her face, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. ‘I need to rest. Will it be safe to return to the Palace?’

‘Yes your Majesty’ replied Hana ‘The Royal Guard has combed it from top to bottom. I’ll send for a car to take you back’

 At the Palace an armed guard stood at the gate. It had been night time when the King passed away, and now the clear light of dawn now broke over the capital and a new Monarch reigned. The staff welcomed her with both sorrow and joy and she made her way straight to her suite, Drake following a few steps behind. Lewis was the one to stand guard in the corridor, as Bastein and Hana co-ordinated security details, he from his hospital bed, she from wherever she was needed.

Once in her room, she sat heavily on the bed and turned to Drake. Her whole world had changed in just a few hours, and it all weighed heavily on her shoulders.

‘Don’t leave me Drake, stay with me’ She pleaded wearily. He smiled ruefully

‘I can’t do that right now, not until I’m declared Consort’ She tried to protest, tears starting to her eyes ‘You’re Queen now, nothing must tarnish your image. The country needs you, needs to respect you. Don’t worry, I’ll be seen leaving your room – I’ll sing and dance all the way back to mine if I have to, to make it plain I left. But I’ll come back in secret along the passages, I promise. I won’t be long’ He knelt and turned his face up to kiss her softly. ‘Soon’ he said simply, and she knew he didn’t just mean in the moment.

When he returned she was asleep where he’d left her, laying back on the bed, lower legs hanging over the edge of the high four poster bed. Gently he lifted her feet to take off her shoes and shake her awake.

‘Drake’ she said sleepily ‘You came back. I - I fell asleep’ He chuckled, touched by her trust and her vulnerability.

‘I noticed, Princess – my Queen. You can’t sleep like this, let me help you out of these clothes’ He sat her up and she shrugged out of the clothes she had put on at the lodge Anton had taken her to. It brought it all back – the fear, the sorrow, the realisation that Anton would stop at nothing to get the Crown. But Drake’s token hung round her neck, and he was there – her rock, her refuge, her lover.

‘Father, what happened to grandma? Why isn’t she here any more?’ the young Charlotte asked after the funeral of his mother. He knelt down to her, and scooped her into his arms, holding her against his chest. His cheeks were wet.

‘She’s not with us any more my sweet girl. Nobody knows for sure what happens when someone dies’ he set her down and carried on, half crouching on the marble floor of the ballroom ‘She loved you very much, and I’m sure she didn’t want to go, but she was very ill’

‘Will she come back Father, I miss her’ He sighed.

‘I’m sorry my dear, perhaps you will see her in your dreams, but she won’t come back to our waking world. I like to think that wherever she is, she’s watching over us. She’s with all her loved ones – your Gramps who you never met, with her Mummy and Daddy. She’ll still be there in your heart whenever you remember her. I’ll remember her too, and she’ll always be a part of us.’ Charlotte smiled.

‘That sounds nice Papa. Can I go and play with Drake and Olivia?’ He smiled.

‘Yes darling. I’m proud of my little girl for understanding something that a lot of grown ups find difficult. Go and play, your mother will call you when it’s time to come in.’

Charlotte slipped under the heavy covers of the bed. Drake slid in beside her for the first time, and she curled into his side and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

The three days of mourning passed in a blur of meetings and office sessions. Drake assisted when he could, even if it was only to bring her fresh coffee or make sure she ate. The funeral had been planned in advance and there were only small details to arrange. She poured her energy into drafting reform, swiftly abolishing the Chastity clause, smoothly and without incident before drawing up other plans to present to the Council after the Coronation. She planned to abolish the obligation of Dukes and Duchesses to serve on the Council, setting in motion the facility for ordinary citizens to be elected in their place – a Council of Citizens that would hold power in tandem with the nobles, eventually merging into one Council. She had Drake draft out a plan to leave a wing of Applewood for her use but turn the rest of the property over to an organisation that would set up a scheme of training for young people. Olivia planned to turn part of her own property over to the orphanage. Brad departed for England to see to his own estate, promising to return for the Funeral.

As Anton had been made landless, she put in motion a plan to hand Valtoria over to Drake as soon as he had been declared Consort and with it a place on the Council of Nobles. She prepared a communication for all the Duchies urging them to stop holding overly ostentatious balls and dinners and spend more on charitable causes. The Royal events would continue, but in a scaled down version, some events being dropped altogether, such as the annual hunt.  

At night Drake came to her room unseen, and left before her staff woke her and brought her breakfast, returning in public to eat with her. When they were alone at night they made love tenderly and slowly, Charlotte taking comfort in their complete union, wondering how she had lived for so long without knowing such bliss.  It balanced out her busy days and she mourned the loss of the carefee days of the social season. She understood why Constantine had thrown her into the world of diplomacy and economics and governance; if she had not had that experience she would be floundering now.

The day of the funeral came, and defiantly she walked behind the hearse with Drake, as she had some months ago behind her stepmother’s cortege. Bastien had urged her to travel in an armoured car, but she wanted to appear free of fear in front of the people. Security was tight, the Guard running ragged after working long hours policing the Palace where Constantine had laid in state, citizens and nobles queuing to pay their respects. Charlotte had promised Bastien that she would hole up in the Palace for three days afterwards to lessen the load on her loyal forces.

Thankfully the funeral passed without incident despite Anton still being at large, no trace of him to be found. The following day she welcomed a television recording crew into the Palace to film an official statement to be broadcast later that day. She recorded it in Her Fathers’ wood panelled study that was now put aside for her exclusive use

‘Citizens of Cordonia, I thank you for the heartfelt sentiments on the death of King Constantine. As you know, there has been no official Coronation, although I am legally the King’s heir. There are many reforms under way that will change the way our beautiful country is run, of which you will be informed very shortly. I would like to announce that in five days’ time there will be a formal Coronation ceremony at the cathedral, but in advance of that, I wish to announce the identity of the man who will serve as my consort.’ She paused, knowing that although she was not being broadcast live, she would need to leave a little time for people to process what she said.

‘You will be pleased to hear that I have chosen Duke Drake Walker, whose support over the years has been so valuable to my Father and myself. You will also know that his status as Duke is unique, his title having been handed to him in honour of his father’s service to the Crown, and coming with no land or property. I hereby announce that he is to be appointed Duke of Valtoria and awarded a place on the Council, in the absence of the traitor Anton Severus, who has forfeited his own title and lands.’ She paused again, to allow her words to sink in.

‘I have already informed the former Lord Severus’s staff at his properties, and offered them a place under Duke Walker if they so wish, providing that they swear their loyalty and fealty to him and to myself. They are free to find employment elsewhere if they wish, but as you know, anyone who retains loyalty to Anton Severus is by implication, guilty of treason, or of aiding and abetting a traitor to the Crown. It saddens me that any of my citizens hold me in contempt and I offer immunity to any who truly wish to give me their loyalty. Again I urge any of you with knowledge of the whereabouts of Anton Severus to step forward and give up that information or hand him over to my Royal Guard. I will be lenient with anyone who does so.’ She paused again.

‘I wish prosperity and happiness to all the citizens of Cordonia, no matter what their status. I look forward to serving my country and helping to achieve that prosperity for all. God Bless Cordonia’ Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief, and the camera crew turned off the lights and started to pack away. The director turned to her.

‘Thankyou your Majesty, we’ll look the footage over for any flaws and get back to you as soon as we can with the film ready for broadcast.’

‘There’s to be no editing of my words, nothing left out or changed around’ Charlotte asserted ‘If anything material is changed, I will bring down the full force of the law on you, is that clear?’ The director swallowed.

‘Of course your Majesty, I just meant that we have to check the quality of the film. There will be no editing, nothing will be changed, you have my word.’ Charlotte smiled warmly

‘I’m sure you will carry out my instructions, I just had to make things absolutely clear. It is vital that everyone understand my intentions. I only want the best for my country.’

Later that evening, Charlotte sat with Drake, Hana and Bastien, who had been discharged from hospital and was on light duties as he healed. She wished she could allow him time off, but the handover of power was her priority, and she was not formally crowned as yet. They waited for the broadcast. The film crew had not been allowed to leave the Palace following the recording and a member of security remained with them until the broadcast was due.

All went as planned, the film crew had not changed anything – but just as Charlotte had come to the part where she reminded her citizens that Anton was a traitor, the picture faded and static appeared on the screen. She frowned, and Drake got up to check the connection at the back of the set, only to hear Charlotte gasp as he lost sight of the screen.

‘Oh my God’ whispered Hana ‘Anton Severus – he’s hacked the broadcast, he’s about to speak’

[braindamageforbeginners]

Q: Can I pray for you?

Yes, Godsdammit, go ahead and pray for me. I get that people don’t want to be weird, and, for some inexplicable internet reason, I’m rapidly becoming some weird brain cancer idol/shrine on Facebook and Instagram (which would explain the creepy robo-prayer calls I occasionally get from :prayer centers” (I’m also old enough to remember when “prayer centers” were called “churches” and/or “temples”). So, here’s the deal: even though I consider myself resourceful, lucky (in a weird way), and cunning, there is literally no way I would know whether you’re praying for me unless you specifically ask or tell me. I appreciate consent, but, really, just go ahead and pray. Unless God is like a special delivery by UPS, and I have to be home at a certain hour to take delivery (again, theologically, that would explain an awful lot). My apologies for running roughshod over a good-hearted request and all that, but your own Holy Book* actually has something applicable: “ And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites. are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and. in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men “ One almost feels a screenwriting possibility...

 EXT. GOLGOTHA - DAY - In the background, the followers of Brian are singing an unorthodox but merry song. A crowd gathers around one of the crosses. CHRIST: Why hast thou forsaken me?! CHRISTIAN 1: We haven’t forsaken you, dude. We’re just waiting for the “Kickstarter”pledges to reach the stretch goals before we save you. You okay, Jesus? CHRIST: Oh, rather.** I was wondering, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask for some pliers and a step-stool. CHRISTIAN 1: Yes, since they haven’t been invented, yet. But you seem like you got this. CHRIST: Hang on... CHRISTIAN: See you in three days, dude

I mean, I get that the LDS got into trouble for baptizing Anne Frank, and I’m not advocating that anyone do a post-mortem baptism, unless they can rig me up like “Weekend at Bernie’s,” but, at the same time, Anne probably has bigger, more pressing issues than what is or isn’t being done in her name (especially since we’re still hostile, as a nation, toward refugees and immigrants, which is what the Frank family hoped to be... before the US denied them travel visas). i can only base that on my own experience, but I feel it’d be faster and easier to get forgiveness than permission. I could be wrong, but I’ve never heard of anyone in dire straits getting angry, post-facto, at being prayed for.

So, today marks the second-to-last infusion before, in an ideal world, the Warlocks cut me loose for observation. Again, it’s been an utterly miserable year, but, at the same time, I do feel almost as if I’ll be adrift. When you put every last scrap of energy and potential into a task like this (not dying a horrible death), suddenly having time or energy to do things like carve out a career (or at least make some sort of money on this blog)(again, you guys are only getting a thin dribble of output; there was literally a brief time in my life where had three modes: writing, sleeping, and library).. At the same time, not aggressively and preemptively treating a cancer that is infamous for coming back, is somewhat scary, although I know unending chemo will eventually kill me.

Which brings me to today’s topic, body horror. This is the broad trope/genre of biology horror, usually best-seen in David Croenenberg’s films. It’s not an uncommon sensation for cancer patients to have some distal clump of cells come alive and attack. For most patients, however, that story usually ends with, “And then me arse fell off, and the doctors knew what it was!”(Reminder to self: schedule colonoscopy and/or other recommended preventive/screening procedures, ASAP). For neurosurgery patients - those lucky enough to end the story with, “And then I had neurosurgery,” It’s a slightly different story. For the first few months post-surgery, your sutures hurt like hell - like any major surgery would, I’d imagine. Then comes the longer phase, when they have an odd, itching/stinging sensation. For everyone keeping track, that’s not a continuous sensation - it’ll be maybe a minute or two out of every week, and, when you reach up to scratch, the pain receptors in your scalp will slap you away. After that, you enter the body horror part of neurosurgery, the itchy phase. This is the shortest of the three, and I will admit, horrifying dander is one of the less-offputting aspects of it (you don’t know what relief is until you scratch out self-dissolving stitches). I apologize for that graphic description, but it’s important. So, on November 1 of last year - er, 2017 - I had my most recent neurosurgery (that’s #3, for those keeping track at home). And then, as expected (There’s a reason I started the blog well before any treatment), everything in my life went into hyperdrive, and I didn’t have time to keep track of my new scars (and, really, once handfuls of hair start coming out in the shower, you’re disinclined to investigate further). So, it wasn’t until very, very recently that I realized how very itchy the right side of my head is. Which bodes well for the time frame of entering the recovery period shortly.

I mentioned in a previous post that I never got a PICC or CVS - which are semi-permanent venous access devices - because I had a shunt in my skull last year (2017), and one opening for opportunistic infections every election cycle seems a more-than-generous opportunity. In a year of chemo, that’s generally seemed like the better bet (for me, anyway), even though I have a blood draw every week. Today was the one time I’ve faltered in that decision. I have mentioned that I am notoriously hard to install in IV in  - it’s a horrible feeling when you’re on a first-name basis with all the nurses in the chemo ward; it’s dwarfed when not only can you recognise everyone, but the nurse at your station not only recognizes you, she literally ducks out on-sight and calls Alex over)(the nurse on shift today gets full marks for listening to me  complain about Alex - “He’s not terribly affable or gentle, and way too fast” - and retorting, “Well, that’s men.”). My previous find-a-vein record is seven. I don’t know if that record was achieved today, I stopped counting after four  However, eventually an IV was installed and Keith Richards’ essence distilled into my circulatory system. Then, the second hour, we all waited for my heart to explode (yes, that is exactly what they do, although they have an automated blood pressure cuff to aid their measurements). Then, oddly enough, I encountered a friend from a support group, Which wouldn’t normally be worthy of comment, except she’s a fan (hey, Sarah!), and, based the latest data, the folks who actually use social media and/or social publishing to keep tabs on me/read my stuff are: 1. Close friends and family that are legally obligated to do so

2. Distant friends and family that I probably haven’t thought about in years (hey guys)(if you’re worried that you’re “distant friends and family,” I’ll pray for you)

3. Inhabitants of Narnia or the Hundred-Acre Wood (or wherever people on the Internet live

4. Racing in or out of parking lots as I am leaving

The bad news for today - hopefully - is that this infusion is going to be a bad one, based on how sore I already am, just 3 hours post-infusion. The good news is, I’ve got an Advent Calendar of assorted mostly-legal substances to help my battered psyche onward, I mean, drugs are bad, kids, unless directly monitored and prescribed by a physician.*** Anyway, next week will be the last infusion, hopefully, and, even more hopefully it’ll be followed by a long, uneventful life. That would be ideal, for me; however, since my life is run on the principle of, “What would make the most interesting narrative” I’m going with, “Even odds I’ll come down with Ebola before Monday.”

*My Holy Book is, of course,  Dolly Parton’s autobiography. **In this adaptation, Jesus is played by Hugh Laurie, circa 1993 ***Odd final thought of the day: gateway drugs are real, and they serve as the way out of some amazingly awful other drugs.

[eyecache]

K. Muthukumar’s Letter

Below is a four-page statement by K. Muthukumar (1982-2009) in protest against governmental inaction in the Sri Lankan Tamil war-genocide, before his self-immolation. Translation originally from TamilNet.

Dear hardworking Tamil people...

Va'nakkam! I am sorry at having to meet you at this juncture when you are hurrying to work. But there is no other option. My name is Muthukumar. I am a journalist and an assistant director. Right now, I am working in a Chennai-based newspaper. I am also one like you. I am just another average person who has been reading newspapers and websites of how fellow Tamils are daily being killed, and like you I am unable to eat, unable to sleep, unable to sleep and unable to even think. While his ancient land of Tamils lets anyone coming here, like the Seths, to flourish, our own blood, the Tamils in Eelam are dying. When we lend our voices to say the killings should be stopped, Indian imperialism maintains a stony silence and does not give out any reply. If India's war is really a justifiable one, they can wage it openly... Why should they do it stealthily?

The Indian ruling class is eager to annihilate a very large population by using the hollow excuse of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in order to satisfy the vengeful and selfish goals of a few individuals. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were not the only ones charged with the murder of Rajiv Gandhi. The Jain Commission Report held that the people of Tamil Nadu were also guilty of this murder. If so, are you also the murderers who killed Rajiv Gandhi?

They say the British killed people in Jallianwallahbagh, but what are they doing in Mullaiththeevu and Vanni? Look at the children being killed there. Aren't you reminded of your children? Look at the women being raped? Don't you have a sister in that age? When Rajiv Gandhi was killed why where frontline leaders of the Congress not with him? Why did Jayalalithaa, an alliance partner, not go to take part in such a massive rally that Rajiv took part in? Such questions are not being raised, and they are not being answered by them either. People, please think. Are they your leaders? What is the guarantee that these people--who indulge in politics through their money and muscle power--will not target us tomorrow? If they turn against tomorrow, who will be on our side?

Kalaignar [Karunanidhi]? Even at that point of time, he will make an announcement that the members of parliament will resign. Then, he will understand (?!) the Central Government. Then, he will once again request for a right decision, and pass a resolution in the Legislative Assembly--like actor Vadivel's comedy in the film Winner where he claims that no one has touched him until a particular month, a particular week, a particular time. People! A paper will not achieve anything! Now, the Election-time Tamil Kalaignar, who wants to be the leader of the worldwide Tamils and who desires to transfer all the money in Tamil Nadu to the coffers of his family, has hidden himself in the hospital afraid of bearing the brunt of people's anger. This paper tiger staged such major fights in order to get the required cabinet portfolios for his ministers, but truthfully, what has he done for Tamil or for the Tamils? He has himself admitted once, "Will the honey-gatherer remain without licking the back of his hand?" If we look at his puppet-shows, it looks as if he has done a lot of licking...

Law college students who have entered the field through your hunger strike...

As a fellow Tamil, I wish you all success. I also regret that I am unable to join you. Not only the Eelam Tamils problem, but even the protests seeking water for Cauvery, any protest in support of Tamil Nadu, you, and lawyers, are the first ones to fight. Even this time, only these two sections were the first to voice their protest even four months back. I have a suspicion that only in order to destroy your Tamil feeling, the Indian intelligence would have systematically instigated caste-feelings among you and paved the way for the skirmish that occured at Ambedkar law college. It is the caste of students that takes the initiative in people's revolutionary struggles all over the world. Likewise, even in Tamil Nadu, an earlier generation of students in similar circumstances took to the streets before the Indian repulic day and chased away national parties, including the Congress from the Tamil land.

So, an historically important juncture has again reached your hands. Normally, such things don't take place in world history. Like it happened last time, don't let selfish people steal the fruits of your labour. The DMK that came to power riding high on the efforts of your struggle, first made a law that students should not take part in politics. After capturing power, it blunted Tamil feelings, and turned the entire Tamil population into a petitioning tribe. Smash that tradition. Don't believe anybody who asks you to submit a petition. This is the juncture when we should burn the differences of caste and religion between us. Throw away your fasting and enter the field. In reality, the Indian military's role in Sri Lanka is not just against the Tamils. It is against all Indians. They tried the sexual techniques they learnt from Sinhalese soldiers with innocent Assamese women! They learnt the strategies of how to crush the Tamil Tigers from the Sinhalese and they applied it to crush the fighters in the north-eastern states! As if this were not enough, what do we learn from the fact that the Indian and Sri Lankan peacekeeping forces were deported from Haiti because of sexual misdemeanour? That the India-Sri Lanka alliance is not an ideological alliance, but a sexual one! So, because the alliance between the Indian and Sri Lankan armies is against the fundamental human rights of the Indian people, try to rally students and democratic organizations towards your cause on a national level.

It is possible for people to do all this. However, they lack the right leadership. Make leaders from among yourselves. Change this protest from law college students, to students of all colleges. Let your frenzy and people's fury change the history of Tamil Nadu. Thrash and throw away muscle power, money power and power craze. This is possible only by you. "We are Tamil students, we are the life of Tamil Nadu. If Tamils are allowed peace, we will read magazines. Otherwise, we will surge like volacanoes." Convert these lines of poet Kasi Anandan into your intellectual weapon. The police force will try to lay my body to rest. Don't allow them to do that. Capture my dead body, don't bury it, and use it as a trump card to sharpen your struggle. Students of the Tamil Nadu medical colleges who will treat me, or conduct my post-mortem, I should have done some virtuous deed to be cut at your hands. Because, while upper-caste medical students in the rest of India were fighting against reservation, you were standing alone and fighting in support of reservation in medical education. What you do to me can remain aside. What are you going to do for our brothers, the Eelam Tamils, from your side?

Tamil Eelam is not the need of Tamil Eelam alone, it is the need of Tamil Nadu also. Because of the fishermen of Rameswaram. There are laws in the world to protect goats and cows.

But, are the Tamils of Rameswaram and the Tamils of Eelam lower than cows and goats? The Indian media carries on a systematic campaign that Tamil fishermen who cross [maritime] boundaries are attacked because of the suspicion that they might be Tamil Tigers. Don't they ever read newspapers? Often, Taiwanese fishermen are arrested at Chennai because they lost their way at sea. If it is possible for people from Taiwan, which is thousands of kilometers away to lose their way, can't they believe the fact that the Tamil fisherman from Rameswaram, which is just 12 miles away from Lanka strays away from his route?

Brothers of other states who are living in Tamil Nadu...

You will have known from experience that Tamil Nadu is the only state where you can enjoy greater peace and protection when compared even with your home-state. Today, we are facing a major crisis. Our government is killing our brothers in Eelam by using our name, our Indian identity. The Indian government wants us to be isolated in this struggle. We don't want that to happen. So, please tell the Central Government that you too support our brothers who are fighting. It is my opinion that this will not only strengthen the hands of your leaders who are part of the Government at the Center, but is will also prevent the danger of a Navnirman Sena, or a Sena from being formed within Tamil Nadu in the future.

Youth belonging to the Tamil Nadu Police Force...

I have great respect for you. Irrespective of what other people did for the sake of Tamil, you are making Tamil live by using Tamil words in everyday contexts, such as calling employees as 'ayya'. I believe that you would have joined the police force with noble intentions of serving the people and weeding out anti-social elements. But, does the ruling class allow you to do that? By allowing you to commit minor mistakes, the ruling class hides its major crimes. It converts you into its trained henchmen, and makes you fight against the same people whom you wanted to serve. It is the Tamil Nadu police who guard Delhi's Tihar Jail. One of the oldest police forces in India, the Tamil Nadu police is one of the very best. But, are you given that respect by the Indian government? When Union Minister Chidambaram returned to New Delhi following his Chennai visit, Central Government security agencies have refused to handover his security arrangements at the Chennai airport to you. When asked why, they have derided your capabilities and said that they are aware of how you protected Rajiv Gandhi. While it is true that the Tamil Nadu police could not save the life of Rajiv Gandhi, it is equally true that the majority of those who died with him were only innocent policemen. Your dedication is unquestionable. But it was later exposed that this Indian intelligence had been careless even after coming to know that there were threats to Rajiv's life... Even if you have been against innocent people all this while, you are one of the pride of Tamil Nadu. At this historical juncture, only if you stand on the side of the people, you can regain the respect that you have lost among the people. Just once try to dedicate yourself to the fellow Tamils. They will carry you in golden plates. The feeling of gratitude among Tamil people is immeasurable. Because somebody spent his own money and built a dam, the Tamils on the Mullai river in Madurai built a temple and name their children after that man. All that you have to do is, when Tamil Nadu is boiling, you should refuse to cooperate with the Central Government officials, and you should reveal to the Tamil people who are the ones working for R.A.W and CBI. Do at least this. The people will take care of the rest.

People of Tamil Eelam, and Liberation Tigers....

All eyes are now in the direction of Mullaiththeevu. Tamil Nadu is also emotionally only on your side. It also wants to do something else. But what can we do? We don't have a true leader like you have... Please don't leave hope. Such a leader will emerge from Tamil Nadu only in such desperate times. Until then, strengthen the hands of the Tigers. Because the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation was placed in the hands of a few selfish people, the history of Tamil Nadu has been dragged to the stone ages. Please don't do that mistake.

Dear International Community, and our hope Obama...

We still have hope on you. But, there is no guarantee that a sovereign republic will not torture its people through ethnic discrimination. It is possible to cite instances from America's own history. After all, boxing hero Muhammed Ali said, "The little white in my community would have come only through rape..." As long as you remain silent, India will never open its mouth. Perhaps India may break its silence after all the Tamils have been killed. Until then, are you going to keep looking at India's mouth? They say that the war in Vanni is against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. They say that the Tigers are using the people as a human shield. If that is true, why do they come into the safety zone declared by the Government and kill people? This one evidence is enough that irrespective of whether the Tamil people are dependent on the Tigers or on the Government, they are going to be killed for the sole reason that they are Tamils. Is this not genocide? If India, Pakistan and China are supplying arms, Japan is giving economic aid, and moreover India is bullying Sri Lanka and thus killing Tamils, why don't you realize that you are also committing the same murder by your silence and your blindness? Nobody becomes a terrorist simply by taking up arms. Our Thiruvalluvar has said: Arathirke anbucar penpa ariyaar / marathirkum akthe thunai (The ignorant say that affection is appropriate only to righteousness, but it will also inspire heroism to be restrained).

Jayalalitha says that the Tigers should lay down arms--as though the problem arose because the Tigers took up arms. In reality, the Tigers were formed because of the genocide of Tamils in Eelam, and they are not the reason for it. They are not the reason, just an outcome.

As long as Indian Government's involvement was not exposed, it kept saying that this problem was an internal affair and that India could not interfere. It also said that it was aiding Sri Lanka in order to prevent China, Pakistan and America from gaining supremacy in Sri Lanka. Yet, to kill Tamils, it joins hands with Pakistan that has killed scores of Indians and was responsible for the attack on the Indian Parliament, the serial-blasts in Mumbai and the recent strikes in Mumbai. If that is so, we suspect that Pakistan's terrorism in India is a mutually agreed-upon concept created by both sides in order to exploit and squander their respective citizens. Now, they say that the LTTE is a terrorist organization, hence the war. It says they killed Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi is not a councillor or a district secretary. When a Sinhalese attempted to kill him in Sri Lanka, he was not interrogated. One of my demands is that the Sinhalese soldier who tried to kill him earlier must also be included in the list of the accused and he must be interrogated again. The Tigers might have been sad with Rajiv, but they wouldn't have been angry with him. Because Rajiv was Indira's son. Indira, is next to MGR among the small gods who populate Tamil Eelam.

It has been clearly exposed that India is opposed to justice form the fact that it often changes the explanations that it offers. In such a situation, Sri Lanka said, Why don't you directly interfere, the Tigers are making use of the ceasefire to stock up weapons. Chandrika, or Ranil, or Mahinda were not gods in the past, they have not even behaved as human beings. Just because they agreed to the ceasefire in view of their compulsions, how could it be argued that the fighters should lay down their arms, or that they should not involve themselves in reconstruction activies. Only by bringing about the faith and confidence that you will behave honestly and truthfully, you can make the fighters lay down their weapons. No government in the past has honoured their promises. For instance, Ranil-Karuna. But the Tigers have not used the ceasefire to simply acquire weapons, but they have created a governmental administrative structure. Is this terrorism in the eyes of the world? India is trying to ingratiate itself by saying that it is fighting in order to save the innocent Tamils. Only sophisticated weaponry and spy planes from India are going to Sri Lanka; can they show a single paracetomol tablet that has gone from India? In such a state, they want us to believe that the Sri Lankan government will provide all the amenities for the people of Eelam, and that India will support this endeavour.

Now, they are attacking the ambulance of the International Commitee of Red Cross, are they also Tamil Tigers? They killed 17 aid workers from France, were they Tamil Tigers? China's tanks, India's spy planes, Pakistan's artillery... not only these kill our people, but the silence of the International Community also kills them. When will you realize this--after a people who greatly desire justice are totally wiped away from the face of the earth? If you are interested in adding us to the list of Aborigines, Maya and Inca peoples, each day one of us will come in front of you and kill ourselves, as it comes in one of our myths.... Please leave our sisters and our children alone. We are unable to bear this. We are fighting with the sole hope that one day we will watch them laugh whole-heartedly. Even if we accept for the sake of rhetoric that the LTTE should be punished, we must realize that both India and Sri Lanka lack the moral ground to hand out any punishment.

Justice derailed is worse than justice denied.

The International Community must condemn India and force it to immediately withdraw its troops from Sri Lanka, and be prevented from helping Sri Lanka through satellites and radars. Even unimportant discussions between the Governments of India and Sri Lanka should take place through the International Community. India should publicly apologize before the people of Tamil Nadu and the people of Tamil Eelam scattered across the world.

Because the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is always functioning with a bias towards his homeland China, he must not be given the power to take any decision regarding Eelam.

All the countries who have banned the LTTE based on the request from Sri Lanka should immediately revoke the ban and unconditionally release all those who have been arrested because they belong to the LTTE.

Members of the LTTE should be forgiven for their passport related mistakes, and they should be immediately released.

The industries which have been banned based on the allegation that they are connected to the Tigers, should be given the licenses once again, and they should also be adequately compensated.

Rajiv Gandhi's murder should be investigated by the InterPol and the real guilty must be exposed.

Pranab Mukherjee, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Chandrika, Udayanakkara, Kekaliya Rambukawela, Basil Rajapakse, Mahinda and Fonseka should be subjected to narco-analysis.

While the International Community shall have the right to recognize Tamil Eelam which is going to be formed, only the people of Tamil Eelam shall have the right to decide under whose leadership it should be formed.

When the Tigers were weakened militarily, the Upcountry Tamils were targetted, and it is feared that in the future that area might be subjected to a major genocidal pogrom. So, a referendum must be conducted among the Upcountry Tamils to know whether they want to join Tamil Eelam. In this matter, the decision of the Upcountry Tamils shall be final.

Douglas Devananda, who was punished by the courts for firing at innocent Tamil people in Chennai under the influence of alcohol escaped to Sri Lanka before the period of imprisonment was completed. He must therefore be arrested and handed over to the Tamil Nadu police.

Everyone responsible for the murder of journalist Lasanta should be punished.

The Sinhalese journalists who have sought refuge in Tamil Nadu must be given adequate protection.

The Sinhalese couple who came as refugees to Tamil Nadu must be recognized as refugees, and the charges of passport-doctoring against them must be dropped.

The livelihood of families of Tamil fishermen shot dead should be secured.

With eternal love,

Your brother against injustice,

Ku. Muthukumar, Kolathur, Chennai 99.

Dear Tamil people, in the struggle against injustice our brothers and children have taken up the weapon of the intellect. I have used the weapon of life. You use the weapon of photocopying. Yes, make copies of this pamphlet and distribute it to your friends, relatives, and students and ensure that this support for this struggle becomes greater. Nan'ri.

[aion-rsa]

Quibi Quibites the Dust: Why the Streamer Failed

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Let’s start off with an important disclaimer. The end of any major company means the loss of jobs and livelihoods for many hardworking people. Hundreds of Quibi employees will likely soon find themselves out of a job amid a global pandemic and a grim economic environment in the United States. We wish them the best of luck in quickly finding gainful employment at other stable entertainment entities. 

Having said that, Quibi is dead…Quibi is finally, blissfully dead. Undoubtedly the first big dud of the streaming era came to an ignominious end today when the Wall Street Journal reported that Quibi Holdings LLC will elect to shut itself down in the face of non-existent viewership, mounting debts, and a patent lawsuit or two. 

Quibi had previously been searching for a buyer to take on all its assets (and its debt) but had already been turned down by Apple, WarnerMedia, and Facebook – mostly because Quibi didn’t even own much of the content on its own servers. The company is expected to hold a conference call with investors today to discuss the decision to shut down. 

The doomed streaming service was the dream of former Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg who wagered that as long as he spent enough money on something, audiences could be convinced to care about it. This turned out to be not quite the case, but not for lack of trying and not for lack of money. 

Founded as “NewTV” in August 2018, the concept of Quibi was a novel one. The streaming service would develop content to be consumed as “quick bites” (hence the name Quibi) that audiences would consume in 10 minute increments. That concept made just enough sense to spur a truly stupefying amount of deep-pocketed investors to step in to offer up their money. Before producing even one second of content, Quibi had raised $1.75 billion in pre-launch funding from film studios, telecom companies, banks, and more. That money helped Quibi launch with a truly impressive war chest. The streamer had more than 175 shows and movies lined up for its first year featuring an array of talent such as Chrissy Teigen, Sam Raimi, Sophie Turner, and more. 

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All was looking good in Quibi-land…and then Quibi actually launched on April 6, 2020. Within one week of the service’s arrival, it was quickly clear that this would be a once-in-a-generation case of corporate failure schadenfreude. Despite offering a 90-day free trial, Quibi found itself well outside of the Top 50 apps on the Apple app store one week after its release. The service could claim only just over 1 million active users, well below its initial expectations. Meanwhile, social media was alight with cringeworthy clips from Quibi’s shows.

Losing my fucking MIND at this Quibi show where actual Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan plays a woman obsessed with her golden arm pic.twitter.com/rSfqCv75SG

— Zach Raffio (@zachraffio) April 15, 2020

The problems with Quibi were manyfold and will likely be the subject of media studies for years to come. So let’s just jump the gun on media historians and get into them right now. 

For starters, Katzenberg, Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, and Quibi’s investors misunderstood how people engage with content in some breathtakingly arrogant and astonishing ways. While it’s likely true that audiences’ average attention spans have tightened in recent years, Quibi just decided to overlook the existence of hundreds of TV shows and movies that continue to absolutely kill it for other streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max. NBC Universal paid $500 million (or nearly one-third of the entirety of Quibi’s original investments) to secure the rights to The Office alone. And that’s because all evidence, both tangible and anecdotal, suggests time and time again that people are more than happy to binge 22-60 minute episodes. 

Not only that, but Quibi was clearly targeted towards younger audiences…while fundamentally not understanding younger audiences. Per ad tracking firm iSpot, Quibi spent a staggering $63.7 million on television advertising to reach the coveted youth demographic, not realizing that that demographic likely wasn’t watching much traditional television advertisements in the first place. Not only that, but those young audiences already had their fair share of “quick bites” available to them, and for free. Mediums like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Tik Tok had mastered the art of short form content and had granted them to eager young audiences for only the cost of their digital soul (demographic information). Any capitalist worth their salt should be very aware that “Free + Sacrificing of Digital Privacy” will beat out “$4.99 a month + Also Probably Sacrificing of Digital Privacy” every time. 

Then there’s the fact that Quibi was available only via mobile devices and not on streaming providers like Roku and Amazon Fire. In fact, it’s only this week that Quibi finally found its way to living room viewing devices  This is because Quibi could only imagine a world in which people were dying to watch content on their phones and their phones alone. This meant that Quibi watchers couldn’t screenshot, gif, or meme any of the content on Quibi, which in turn created little meaningful social media buzz. Notice how that viral “Golden Arm” bit is recorded on a phone recording another phone.

But Quibi’s biggest downfall (and what makes said downfall so cathartic for so many) was its hubris. A Vulture story about the streaming service released just three months after its launch now reads more like Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” than a piece of media analysis. It is filled with foreboding dispatches from a company unaware it was already dead. Katzenberg and Quibi CEO Meg Whitman come off as barely caring about television, with Whitman in particular saying “I’m not sure I’d classify myself as an entertainment enthusiast” and offering up only a History Channel special about President Ulysses S. Grant as an example of a TV show she likes. 

That article also features the following truly awe-inspiring passage of corporate ineptitude and carelessness:

“When Gal Gadot came to the offices and delivered an impassioned speech about wanting to elevate the voices of girls and women, Katzenberg wondered aloud whether she might become the new Jane Fonda and do a workout series for Quibi. (‘Apparently, her face fell,’ says a person briefed on the meeting.)”

Not only did the folks at Quibi misunderstand the entertainment landscape, they misunderstood how their app was supposed to work in the first place. Quibi launched during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, which would be a tough beginning for any company. But Quibi was in the streaming business, and should have hypothetically flourished alongside its many other streaming rivals with potential viewers across the world holed up in their houses with nothing but time and boredom to spare. In an interview with The New York Times, however, Katzenberg said “I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus. Everything.” In the minds of Katzenberg and Quibi’s investors, watching Quibi was a kinetic activity – something that someone would do while waiting in line for coffee or riding the subway. 

It’s as though the decision-makers at Quibi bought into their own Silicon Valley Apple commercial bullshit in which a country full of beautiful people commuted to their high-paying jobs via readily available public transportation and just wanted to watch quick bites of other beautiful people entertaining them in 10-minute bursts during the brief downtimes in their exciting lives. Whereas other traditional streaming services continue to grow by presenting hours upon hours of bingeable ‘memberberries for a couch potato to have on in the background while they scroll through Instagram.

Based on Katzenberg’s New York Times post-mortem while the company was ostensibly pre-mortem, it seems as though no lessons will be learned here as well. Quibi is unquestionably the first biggest massive failure of the streaming era and it’s also unquestionably won’t be the last. That’s good news for casual onlookers craving the rightful humiliation of very rich executives and bad news for anyone hoping for the continued health of the entertainment industry post-COVID. 

The post Quibi Quibites the Dust: Why the Streamer Failed appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[strangedreamings]

Posting this here in case @noregretsnotearsnoanxieties can’t get to AO3.

Behind a cut since it’s long.

Simple Intimacies

Forget lingerie, Sebastian Moran thought as he watched from the doorway. My shirt is the sexiest thing ever. At least, when Molly’s wearing it.

His wife of two years was at the stove with her back to him, frying eggs if the smell was anything to go by. She wore his grey henley, the shirt going to the tops of her thighs, and her white ankle socks. Her legs seemed to go on forever, and he loved that he knew exactly how they felt wrapped around his waist.

“If you’re done ogling,” she said, amused, “you can make the toast.”

Seb smirked. “Who said I’m done?”

She looked over her shoulder to grin at him. “Breakfast first, then we’ll work up an appetite for lunch.”

He gave her a salute, delighted. “Yes, ma’am!”

It happened every time they were in a crowded place – Sebastian would take her hand and wouldn’t let go until they left. It didn’t matter if it was a pub, a shop, or a party at someone’s house – he’d take her hand and just hold it. Her left hand in his right, always – Molly knew it was to keep their dominant hands free.

The first time he’d done it, they were in Harrods close to Christmas and the place was packed to the rafters with last-minute shoppers. It was their first Christmas together and Molly was having a hard time finding just the right present for her boyfriend. Seb was looking at jeans when she decided to check out the blazers. Wading through the sea of people was tough and she had only left his side for five minutes when she felt a hand on her shoulder then he turned her around and kissed her hard.

“What was that about?” she asked after she caught her breath.

“I couldn’t find you,” he said quickly and she swore she saw panic being replaced with relief in his eyes. “One minute, you were beside me, the next minute, you were gone. It took forever for me to find you in this fucking crowd.” He took her hand. “I’m not letting you go again.”

“Seb,” she said gently, “it’s alright. I would’ve looked for you as soon as I was done. I’m not a child, no one’s going to walk out of here with me except you.” She lightly squeezed his hand.

He smiled weakly. “I probably sound like an idiot, but with the life I lead…”

“You sound like someone who cares.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

His cheeks turned slightly pink as he smiled. “You’re welcome.”

Seb groaned softly as he leaned back in the tub, letting the warm water relax him. His broken left arm, wrapped in plastic to keep the cast from getting wet, was resting on the side of the tub. Next time, he thought darkly, Holmes can fight his own fucking battles.

“Feel better?” Molly asked as she knelt by the right side of the tub. Her sleeves were rolled up and Seb wished she’d remove her top entirely.

He grinned at her. “I’d feel even better if you joined me.”

She smirked back. “Tempting, but you’d have a hard time holding me with just one arm.”

“I’m certainly willing to try.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Molly laughed softly. “Save it for after, handsome.” She leaned forward to kiss him softly then she started to wash his hair.

Seb could feel himself melting into the bathwater when he felt Molly massage his scalp. “Oh God, babe, right there…”

“I had a feeling you’d like that,” she murmured, amused. “You’re a house cat wrapped in a tiger’s hide, admit it.”

He chuckled. “I knew there was a reason why you liked me.”

“Love, husband,” she corrected him softly. “Love.”

Molly absently played with Seb’s hair while she read an article in a pathology journal. She was sitting on one end of the sofa in their sitting room, his head in her lap and the rest of him stretched out along the length of the sofa. He was watching news coverage of the election in Russia, occasionally adding commentary.

“Nyet, nyet, nyet,” he muttered. “It doesn’t matter what he promises, re-electing him will only get them more of the same. ‘Course, the election is rigged, so what the people actually say won’t matter.”

“Since when did you become interested in Russian politics?” she asked, not looking up from the journal.

He tilted his head back to look up at her. “I’ve done a few contracts in Russia. Haven’t been back in a while, but if this election turns out like I know it will…” He smiled a bit when she looked at him with her eyebrow raised. “And I’ve already said too much.”

“Can’t Mycroft make use of you closer to home?”

“He’d rather eliminate his domestic enemies at the polls.”

She lightly smacked his shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

He smirked. “If you want to tell my boss I need a shorter commute, go right on ahead. I’ll stand by while you get audited.”

Molly rolled her eyes then went back to the journal. Seb turned his head to kiss her knee then went back to the election. After a while, she heard him snoring lightly.

He only does that when he’s truly exhausted, poor baby, she thought sympathetically. She considered waking him up so they could move to the bed but decided they were both comfortable enough where they were. Kissing her fingertips, she lightly brushed them on his lips before going back to her reading.

“We’re doing this why, exactly?” Sebastian asked as he helped his wife make a fort out of couch cushions and blankets.

“Because Rosie loves blanket forts and she’s going to be here any minute.” Molly added one more blanket to the structure. “There. Sturdy and cozy, just right.”

“If you say so.”

She looked at him over the top of the fort. “You never made one of these before?”

“Not that I can remember. My brothers and I were too busy getting each other in trouble to make blanket forts.”

“You must have been a holy terror.” Her smile was fond and he felt a sudden, desperate need to kiss her.

Seb cleared his throat. “Yeah, no surprise there. I can’t tell you how many times I had to sit in the corner. ‘Course, that was just a foreshadowing of how much time I spent in detention.”

Molly was about to respond when her mobile chirped. He knew by the disappointment on her face what happened.

“She’s not coming?”

“No, a client just came in. Mrs. Hudson will watch Rosie, John says he’ll bring her here tomorrow.”

He moved around to her side of the fort, murmuring, “Well, it would be a shame to waste all our efforts.” He held up the blanket “door.” “After you.”

Molly gave him a confused look then shrugged and crawled into the fort. He followed her, rolling his eyes when his long legs stuck out. Giggling, she laid down beside him.

Seb pulled her close, murmuring, “I love you, you know.”

“I know, Seb.”

“And I love your goddaughter.”

“I know that too.” She softly kissed his neck. “Rosie loves her ‘Unca Sebby.’”

He chuckled. “And you?”

Molly grinned. “Oh, I’m completely crazy about you, didn’t you know?”

“Actually, I think I did.”

It was Molly’s second-favorite thing to do in bed – lay in Sebastian’s arms as a storm raged outside. Sometimes, they’d quietly listen to the rain and the wind. Other times, they’d talk about whatever was on their minds. Seb tended to get philosophical during those times, expressing his thoughts on human nature. His opinion of it tended to be pessimistic; Molly hoped to change that one day.

“What was your first impression of me?” she asked softly. It was after midnight and a thunderstorm that had been going on for what seemed like hours was still going strong.

Seb chuckled. “I haven’t told you this already?’

“Not yet,” she said, smiling a bit. They were laying on their sides, holding each other.

He reached up to stroke her hair. “Honestly, my first impression wasn’t all that favorable – I thought you were just a little mouse that Jim was playing with.”

“What changed your mind?”

He grinned. “You dumping him. That’s when I knew you had some fire in you. I wanted to see more of that.”

She grinned back. “And now?”

“Now I know you’re the warmest, brightest fire I’ve ever seen.”

“Aren’t you afraid of getting burned?”

“Never.”

Sebastian tugged at his collar in a vain attempt to loosen it. He hated wearing suits, especially tuxedos. The one he wore to their wedding had been tolerated because it had been important to Molly, but this tux…

“Bored?” she asked as she sat down next to him. She’d brought over a piece of the cake and two forks.

“Uncomfortable,” he muttered.

She smiled sympathetically. “Just think about how much Mycroft and Anthea appreciate your effort.”

Seb rolled his eyes. “They only have eyes for each other. I thought we were besotted when we got married.”

Molly giggled. “Considering they have yet to be caught making out in the ladies room, I say we still have them beat.”

“The reception’s not over yet.” He took one of the forks then tried the cake. “Not bad.”

“Considering they paid five thousand for it, I should hope it’s a lot better than ‘not bad.’” She tried the cake and her face lit up. “Ooo, that’s good!”

Seb smiled a bit as he took another forkful. “Ours was better.”

She smiled at him softly. “Honestly, I was in such a dreamy haze that day, you could’ve put sawdust in front of me and I would’ve eaten it happily.”

“I’ll remember that for our anniversary.” He chuckled when she playfully smacked his arm.

Molly was in the path lab, hunched over a microscope when she heard the door open. “You’re early, Sherlock. I won’t get the test results for another hour.”

“If I see Holmes before then, I’ll let him know,” her husband said as he approached her.

She turned to look at him then winced as her muscles protested. “Ugh…”

“And how many post-mortems did you do today?” Seb asked, moving to stand behind her. He helped her take off her lab coat, which he draped over a nearby stool, then he started to massage her neck and shoulders.

Molly groaned quietly as she relaxed. “Oh God, yes… Um, three.”

He chuckled. “I told you, you need to stretch your muscles between bodies or you end up in knots like this.”

“Mmm… Or I could just have my private masseur take care of me.”

“It’s a good thing my rates are reasonable.”

“Oh? What’s your usual rate?”

“A kiss.” He leaned down as she tilted her head back and kissed her upside-down.

Molly grinned up at him. “Works for me.”

“Wait, I’m not done,” Seb murmured.

They were sitting in bed, his arm around her shoulders, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in her hands. Between the two of them, Molly was more of a bookworm so he had a hard time keeping up with her speed of reading, but she got him hooked on the series.

She smiled at him fondly. “Which House would you be in?”

“Gryffindor,” he said immediately. “All the courage, not enough brains.”

Molly playfully smacked his leg. “You’re smarter than you let on. What about me?”

“Hufflepuff.” He bent his head to kiss her neck. “Loyal, hardworking, and sweet.”

“Mmm… I’d say those two Houses go well together.”

Seb grinned at her. “Three years and counting.”

“You’re a sniper, you kill people for a living, you currently work for the British Government, and you used to work for the world’s only consulting criminal. How in the bloody hell did you crack several ribs playing football?” Molly glared at her husband as she laid an ice pack on his chest.

Sebastian looked up at her from where he lay on the sofa, his blue eyes plaintive. “Sherlock’s a lot tougher than he looks, believe me, love. Bastard speared me and honestly, a car hitting me would’ve been softer.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “You have fifty pounds on him at least.”

“Doesn’t matter, he’s fucking solid.”

She shook her head in disbelief as she handed him two painkillers and a glass of water. “Well, you’re taking it easy for the next six weeks.”

He groaned quietly. “Mycroft will have a thing or two to say about that.”

“Well, if he does, I’ll have a thing or two to say to him. You’re going to be too busy healing and staving off pneumonia to work.”

“Don’t forget not doing anything fun,” he muttered.

“Ah,” she said, smiling fondly. “Now the truth comes out.” She leaned to kiss him softly. “We’ll make up for all the sex we’ll miss once your ribs have healed.”

A hopeful smile spread across his face. “Promise?”

If someone were to ask, Sebastian would say that the kisses he gave Molly in public had a code all their own. Since his wife wasn’t always comfortable with kissing on the lips when they weren’t at home, he found other ways to show his devotion.

When Seb wanted to thank her for doing something for him or give her encouragement for saying something clever, he’d kiss her on the cheek. That never failed to bring a happy smile to her face.

When she was upset and he wanted to show that he was there for her, he’d kiss her forehead. She’d sniffle and give him a weak smile.

When she pointed out to someone that she was very happily married, he’d take her left hand and kiss it, keeping his eyes on hers. A happy blush was always his reward.

But as soon as they got home, she would grab the front of his shirt and pull him down for a good snog.

God, he loved this woman.

There was an unspoken tradition between Seb and Molly that every time they heard their song, they’d stop whatever they were doing and dance to it. They were known to dance in the middle of their sitting room, at weddings, at pubs and nightclubs, even, on one memorable occasion, in Mycroft’s office. Both of them loved it.

What Molly didn’t know was that Seb was behind every single instance of their song being played “randomly.” He knew every professional DJ in London – all he had to do was make eye contact and they’d play his and Molly’s song. He also knew the number for their song on every jukebox in all of their favorite pubs. A quick trip to the jukebox while Molly was in the loo or stepping outside to take a phone call was all it took.

He realized she’d caught on when their song “mysteriously” became his new ringtone.

Sebastian woke one morning to the sound of Molly crying. He was standing in the doorway of the bathroom before he even realized he’d gotten out of bed.

Molly was sitting on the counter, sobbing. There was something in her hand but all he cared about was protecting her from whatever was hurting her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly as he gently wrapped his arms around her.

“Oh, Seb…” she whispered, burying her face in his shoulder.

He gently stroked her hair, murmuring, “What is it? Tell me and I’ll make it right, I promise.”

“You … you won’t like it.”

Something in her voice made him curious. “Let me be the judge of that, Molly.”

Wordlessly, she held up the thing she was holding. It was the wand of a pregnancy test, and it clearly indicated “pregnant.” Molly was holding her breath as she looked up at him, her eyes even bigger than usual.

Inside, he was shouting for joy, but he knew he had to be calm for her. Instead, he smiled at her lovingly. “What made you think I wouldn’t like this?”

“We … we never talked about kids.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want them.” Seb kissed her softly. “I love you, I already love this baby, and I hope we have a bunch more after this one.”

She laughed weakly. “A bunch, huh? God, I love you.”

He murmured in her ear, “What do you say we go celebrate?”

“I’d say you read my mind,” she murmured back.