#just try to make my needs known in the most polite and non-urgent way possible

[caffeinatedopossum]

Being an adult and still having to get everything from someone else is so devastating to my self esteem

[ilalos]

Lavender dreams (Anthony Bridgerton x OC)-Part 2/3

Word count: 1.8k

Dances came and went and Grace had saved a dance for Anthony in each and every one of them, but he had yet to ask her for an outing. Gigi supposed he was busy enough trying to get Eloise to go on at least one outing with one of the few men that passed his rigorous check but was it so hard to take her out for a walk in the park or perhaps to have some tea? It didn’t help that she had heard rumors of him meeting actresses every night with unholy purposes, but she held hope for the eldest Bridgerton because every time they danced she felt as if there was no one else on the dance floor with them, and every time they talked he pulled a smile from her even if seconds before she had been upset.

She had had some outings with a couple of gentlemen who were approved by Simon and Daphne, and even if they were fine, educated young men she felt nothing for them. She knew her time was cutting short as it was already the middle of the season and her father didn’t have much time left, but she hadn’t felt anything resembling love for any of her callers. She had, however, started a friendship with non-other than Colin Bridgerton, and this lead Lady Whistledown to speculate about a possible engagement between the pair. The truth was, Colin saw Gigi as a sister at most and she saw him as the brother she never had.

The possibility of Colin proposing was truly daunting to Lady Bridgerton as she knew this union would break Anthony’s heart and could potentially cause a rift between the brothers. She had taken notice of the way her eldest tensed whenever one of the girls read the latest Lady Whistledown and the young couple was mentioned, Colin would always scoff and remind everyone he had no intentions of getting engaged anytime soon but that did nothing to lessen the deep frown in Anthony’s face or his mother’s worry.

Anthony had been visiting the brothel more often in a poor attempt to forget about Gigi and also convincing himself that he would never be deserving of the girl’s love. He knew he needed a wife and he intended on marrying that very season, but the thought of Gigi suffering half as much with his death as his mother did when his father passed, refrained him from accepting his feelings and proposing. Despite his resolve to forget his feelings for her, he continued to dance with her at every ball and party. When they danced he felt as if he could stay there forever, twirling her in his arms and holding her as close as possible; they talked sometimes at these events and felt as if they had known each other their whole lives.

It was the day of the picnic and the Bridgerton family was excited after hearing from the eldest daughter that Lord Watts had informed her and her husband of his intentions to propose to Grace. He was an earl and he and Grace had had some successful outings.

Grace had no objections toward the young man apart from the fact that she bore no feelings for him whatsoever, but given her lack of time to worry on such silly matters, she chose to ignore that in favor of having the wedding her father wished for, and who knows? Maybe their love would sprout once they were married.

When Anthony heard the news he could almost hear his heartbreaking in half, a pain ten times bigger than the one he felt when Siena rejected him. He almost wanted to beg Colin to propose before Lord Watts had the chance, at least that way he would be able to still see her when the couple visited. He decided to skip the picnic and instead stayed at home reviewing the business to avoid having to watch the happy couple celebrating their future union.

The proposal didn’t occur at the event, Lord Watts was there and he did take Grace on a walk but he had made the decision to make a formal proposal at his family’s home the following day so he limited himself to invite Grace, the duke, the duchess, and Lady Bridgerton to his house for tea. The invitation was accepted and the picnic continued without much excitement. The Duke's family left first because baby A was behaving quite fussy and her mother suspected it was due to the unforgiving sun beaming down on them; soon after the Bridgertons left due to a menacing black cloud that darkened the festivities.

Night and storm had fallen upon Lady Danbury’s home when a nervous messenger knocked urgently on the state’s door. Mr. Lock, the butler, had opened the door.

“How can I help-”

“Lord Bridgerton’s carriage was robbed and he is terribly hurt!” The young man had yelled the message hoping the duchess would hear him “Lady Bridgerton urges the presence of her eldest daughter in this uncertain times”

Grace had been the one to hear the messenger’s words and she felt panic take hold of her body. She ran to the door and demanded a horse be readied for her, the butler refused to let her go alone into the rain and advised her to wait until the carriage was ready. At his refusal, she chose to forget decorum and took the messenger's horse and rode it into the storm. The duke and duchess had heard the commotion and ordered the footman to ready the carriage at once.

Grace rode to the Bridgerton household in record time and when she got there she rode straight into the nearby stables, dropped the horse, and ran to the home’s door. Lady Bridgerton opened with teary eyes expecting to see Daphne and let a gasp when instead of her eldest daughter she saw the soaked figure of Grace Gillingham standing at her doorstep.

“Where is he?” That was all the girl said.

“Upstairs, the doctor is seeing him in his bedroom”

The woman barely finished her sentence before the younger girl pushed past her and ran up the stairs, politeness be dammed. She found Benedict passing by Anthony’s door and before she could ask about the man’s condition a pained scream tore through the wood. She gasped as if she felt his pain and fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

“The doctor said his injuries are extensive but not life-threatening” Benedict said it trying to calm the poor girl down but her sobs remained the same, “he said it would take a while, maybe you should go get changed into some dry clothes, surely Eloise can lend you some”

“I’m not leaving this door until I see with my own eyes that he is well”

Benedict only nodded and watched her seat on the floor with her back against the wall, right across the door. Daphne arrived not long after and she too tried to convince Grace to change out of her soaked clothing or to at least drink some hot tea while they waited but the girl refused

“I will be fine” was all she had said through gritted teeth and blue lips.

Hours passed and every once in a while a pained clamor would leave the room, Benedict watched how each sound made a fresh wave of tears fall from Gigi’s eyes. The wait was long and soon Benedict found himself nodding off against the wall, only to be suddenly awakened by the door opening, Grace barely waited for the doctor to exit the room before running inside and kneeling at Anthony’s bedside, taking his hand between hers and looking at his face with relief when hearing taking notice of his breathing and the pulsing of his heart.

“He’ll need lots of rest to properly heal his wounds but he will make a full recovery” the doctor took one look at Grace and shook his head with a smile “Give this to her as soon as you can” he said as he handed Benedict a vial with a yellowish liquid.

“What is this concoction?”

“It will help her fever and lessen her cold symptoms” he explained “If she looks abnormally flushed or agitated, call me immediately”

Anthony thought he had never felt pain as bad as when the doctor had healed his wounds but seeing Grace’s feverish form sleeping uncomfortably in a chair at his bedside hurt more than whatever he felt the night prior. He saw her pale skin and red cheeks that hinted towards a fever, and her labored breathing pointed to a terrible cold, his hand was resting between hers and he marveled at how small they looked around his. He saw Benedict enter the room and questioned him about her presence.

“She rode on a stolen horse in the middle of a storm to be by your side, brother” Benedict chuckled at his brother’s astonished expression, knowing his surprise would only grow “She pushed past mother, entered the house uninvited, sat on the floor in the hallway and refused to move until she knew you were alright” he pointed to her reddened cheeks and continued “She didn’t even change out of her soaked dress until she saw you with her own eyes, the poor thing caught a terrible cold and only accepted to take the medicine and the change of clothes if we allowed her to stay here by your side”

Anthony felt his heart explode with love for the girl, the feelings so strong his eyes glossed with unshed tears. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have such an angel loving him so much, and he only hoped he could make her feel half as loved as he felt at that very moment. He had to admit he was angered by her reckless behavior but the love overshadowed his protective feelings...until he saw her being woken up by a sudden fit of horribly sounding cough. He watched as she fought to regain her breath and was ready to chastise her until he noticed the way she looked at him, with so much love and so much relief he forgot what he was going to say.

“You’re awake,” she said simply, processing “You are awake!” Once processed the information had caused her tremendous joy and she jumped to embrace him, only to jump back when she heard his quiet complaint from the pressure put on his recent wounds “I apologize Lord Bridgerton, in my excitement, I seem to have forgotten about your injuries”

“No need to apologize, love” the pet name just flew past his lips, catching them both by surprise “You must go to get some proper rest now, you are sick and tired, we’ll talk later about the poor decisions you took yesterday”

Grace only nodded and without thinking took his hand and kissed his palm before leaving to finally get some rest on an actual bed.

“Fetch the Duke of Hastings for me, Benedict, I have a proposal to make”

PART 3

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Hi! If you’re still following along this story know that I appreciate it :))))) Thank you so so much for reading! I hope you enjoy it

[free-pancakes]

A Fire in the Shadows

LeviHan - Avatar the Last Airbender AU fic

Characters: Levi, Hange, Erwin, Mike, Nanaba, Moblit, Kenny, Zeke, Sasha, Jean, Armin, Kuchel, Porco, Pieck

Summary: Levi, the nephew of a fire nation captain, stumbles upon a ragtag group of 5 known as the Scouts, formidably known for foiling the plans of local fire nation control, living in the forests a few miles north of Ba Sing Se.

Chapter 5: Interconnected Chapter 4: The Fire from the Shadows Chapter 3: Bonds  Chapter 2: Trust  Chapter 1: The Scouts

(crossposted to ao3)

CH 5: Interconnected

A 10 year-old Hange sat by the edge of the river running right outside her home, listening to the happy quacks of little turtle ducks swimming by. She smiled as she molded the fire in her palm into a small ball of flame, tossing and kicking it back and forth to herself. Erwin walked quietly towards the river, and stared at Hange from afar. He couldn’t help but watch, mesmerized at the finesse of her movements—she was a natural, more adept than even the adult firebenders he knew, at just 10 years old. She was just a kid, but she was skilled beyond her years. He was so proud of her, but admittedly, a little jealous. He looked down at his hands, sad that he wasn’t gifted with the ability to bend an element. He lowered them and shook his head—despite this, the pride he had for his best friend far outweighed any sadness he felt being a non-bender. He’d always stand by her side.

“Hange, I got the stuff you asked for.” He pulled off his backpack and shook its contents onto the grass—a metal funnel, metal clamps, and wax adhesives. Hange’s eyes glowed with fiery excitement as she squealed with joy. “These are perfect!” She gathered the supplies and ran towards the house. “Come on Erwin, race you back to my room!” She sprinted ahead, and Erwin laughed as he ran to catch up with her.

Hange ran into her home, tracking dirt all over the wooden floorboards. “Hange dear, come on, I just mopped the floor!”

She disappeared into her room and yelled, “Sorry, Mom! I got a super-top-secret-urgent project to work on!”

Before she could ask Hange to come back and clean up her mess, she turned around to find Erwin already sweeping up the dirt.

“Oh Erwin, you’re so sweet, you don’t need to do that!” She gently took the broom out of his hand and ruffled his hair. “Go join Hange, don’t worry about it,” she said softly.

“Thanks for having me, Mrs. Zoe,” he politely nodded his head and walked into Hange’s room, closing the door gently behind him. He looked down to find Hange busy producing a tiny fire at the tip of her index finger, welding the metal to the rest of her contraption. Erwin knew better than to talk to her while she was engrossed in conjuring up her newest invention, so he put his backpack down on the floor and sat neatly across from her. He stared up at the wall, at the same picture frames he always looked at whenever he waited for Hange to finish her latest project. The picture was that of a man who resembled Hange’s father, his arm around a young Avatar Roku and a few other people, all of them smiling together.

According to Hange, the bespectacled man in the painting was her great grandfather, a good friend of Roku. Beneath this was a picture of Erwin’s grandparents arm-in-arm with Hange’s grandparents and all of their friends. The picture below that was one from a few years before either Hange or he was born, showing his and Hange’s parents laughing together, and in the center, a beautiful woman with long, black hair and the most gentle eyes. Generations… lifetimes of the most powerful firebenders, yet the most kind people were displayed there before him, and it was almost crazy to think that he and Hange, along with their new friends, Mike and Nanaba, were probably next in line to join that wall—a wall displaying both genuine friendship and deep loyalty to the peaceful and harmonious land the fire nation once was. Erwin smiled as he remembered his father’s words to him one night not too long ago—“Friendships really do transcend lifetimes.”

“Success!” Hange held the contraption in her hand, a mess of metal tubes swirling into a metal funnel at the end. Before he could ask what it was, Hange was dragging him by the hand and climbing out the one window in her room. “Hurry up ya slowpoke! Before my mom or Moblit hears us!”

They ran towards the small barn marking the halfway point between their houses. Hange walked along the edges of the barn to a spot in the dirt marked with a small scarf of hers. “Here! Help me dig, Erwin!” They used their hands to scoop piles of dirt out, deep enough to fit the end of the funnel under and inside the barn.

“Ok! Can you stay right here and listen to me through the pipe? Tell me how clear the sound is.” Hange ran around the corner and into the barn, and began to speak and whisper, alternating between the two. Erwin’s eyes widened in shock at the clarity—even Hange’s whispers were audible through the pipe. “How did she even manage to do this?” he thought to himself. Now they could listen clearly to their parents’ secret meetings, and he was quite excited with their new tool.

“From the look on your face, I take it that the acoustics are perfect, no?” Hange smiled deviously, and Erwin returned it. The two friends happily bumped fists. “Now we can hear about their next mission without taking turns pressing our ears against the wall!”

Ever since she and Erwin stumbled upon a meeting about a year ago, their minds became hyper-fixated on discovering their parents' work and uncovering the secrets behind it all. Since they were probably the two most dangerously curious kids of all the fire nation, it was only natural that they’d figure it all out eventually. They had spent the past year trying to listen to the group meetings in the barn, and learned all about their missions. Ridden with curiosity, the two eventually found years of hidden documents containing information on their families, kept in boxes under faulty floorboards of their homes.

When Avatar Roku mysteriously died nearly 100 years ago, his group of friends awaited their friend’s reincarnation as a child from one of the air temples. But after the fire nation attacks on the airbender monks, they feared the worst. The world began to tip out of balance, and when no avatar seemed to appear in the earth kingdom, they wondered whether the avatar was gone for good. But among Roku’s friends, hope was not lost—they passed down their stories from generation to generation, and as the fire nation grew in power, the Zoe family was the face of those defending from the inside, attempting to do what they could to restore balance. They became the crux of movement within the shadows of the fire nation, thwarting plans of conquering villages and cities of the world, keeping as many citizens and innocent people safe from fire nation soldiers’ violence. Their numbers have dwindled over the years from fighting for their cause, and most of them eventually moved into the earth kingdom colonies to help out the villages more closely, though a few stayed behind in the fire nation to continue retrieving intel from the inside and kept correspondence with any information gleaned.

Hange was quite keen on listening for more every week, confident in her desire to follow in her family’s footsteps. As much as Erwin shared Hange’s excitement, part of him was deeply concerned about Hange’s safety. Out of the families that moved out into the earth kingdom colonies, she was the only firebender in their generation, and he was afraid that she’d have to take on too much responsibility and carry the brunt of the work in order to live up to their families’ names. But they were only kids, right? He waved away his own worries—it’s not like they’d have to join in on this right away. Their parents didn’t even know that we found out about all of this yet.

-------- When the sun just began to set, the two friends snuck their way back to the barn under the calm, orange glow of the sky. They crouched down at the spot where they lodged Hange’s invention through the ground and listened in—but to their disappointment, the adults were simply chatting and enjoying each other’s company. “Booooring,” Hange sighed. “Maybe we should just call it a night, huh Erwin?” As Erwin readied himself to walk Hange home, he overheard the quiet closing of a door and a new voice sound through the pipe. They locked eyes and quickly threw themselves down to press their ears close and listen.

“Kuchel!” Hange’s mother exclaimed, and they heard the soft sound of sniffles and happy cries of the reunion.

“KUCHEL??” Hange exclaimed loudly.

“Who’s Kuchel?”

“My mom’s friend! Her best friend!” Hange clasped her hands together and jumped around in excitement. “Oh I’ve always wanted to meet her, she sounds so nice and—“

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Hange and Erwin spun around to see Hange’s dad staring at the two of them and eyeing their little listening device. “Eavesdropping now, are we? You might have made something where you can hear us loud and clear, but did you consider the possibility that we could hear YOU loud and clear from the other side?” Erwin and Hange nervously laughed at his words—they really did forget to consider that. He bent down to look at Hange’s creation and his facade of playing “bad cop” parent melted away quite quickly, and he turned to his daughter and chuckled. “So how did you make it?” As the two Zoe’s babbled on about the intricacies of Hange’s ideas, Erwin continued to listen into the barn.

“Oh yes, Kenny’s alright, as annoying as ever, telling me we should give up on all this and that my son and I should just move out here with all of you. But how else would we get more intel without me on the inside?”

“But you can move in with us! We can adjust. Our plans can change! Kenny’s right, it’s probably safer for you to stay here. On top of that, I’m sure your son would love to meet Erwin and Hange,” Hange’s mother answered.

“I’m sure he would. He’s very quiet and doesn’t really have any friends. But I have no doubt they’ll all meet someday.” She smiled at the thought of Levi making new friends, but her smile slowly transitioned into a concerned frown. “It might have to wait a year or two, though. I don’t know if I trust Zeke anymore...”

“Well what do you mean by that? Hasn’t Zeke proved himself to us?” Erwin’s father asked.

“I’ve seen him spend some more time with Ozai recently. I can’t put a finger on it... but I think something in him has changed. I think we may be able to trust him for now, but we’ll have to see.”

The doors of the barn slammed open, revealing Hange’s father holding Hange in one arm and Erwin in the other. “I think we found our culprits!”

Mike and Nanaba’s parents burst into laughter, while Hange’s mother and Erwin’s father darted looks of deep disapproval at their children.

Hange’s dad playfully threw the two down into the pile of hay that the horses were working on, who seemed to neigh at them in disapproval. Hange and Erwin lost themselves in a fit of giggles that simply lightened up the room from the bleak conversation about Zeke. The rest of them began to catch up again and reminisce about the “good old days” while Erwin and Hange pet and fed the horses.

A few hours later, Kuchel made her way over to them, and the two suddenly felt shy, falling quiet.

Erwin’s eyes widened in recognition as she sat close to them. “You’re the beautiful lady in the picture,” Erwin accidentally whispered loud enough for Kuchel to hear.

Kuchel laughed, “You’re Erwin, right? You’re the spitting image of your father, and from what I hear, the only person smart and strong enough to keep this one under control right?” she said as she looked over to Hange.

“What, me?” Hange questioned. “Yes, you! Come here, dear,” she waved Hange towards her and gently pulled her glasses off, and wiped them clean with her sleeve, and carefully pushed them back onto Hange’s face. “And you’re the infamous, reckless Hange Zoe, correct?” She laughed, and Hange was simply mesmerized by her kind soul and the loving twinkle in her eyes.

After warming up to each other, Hange soon begged for stories from Kuchel about how all their parents became friends and both she and Erwin eagerly listened. The three of them talked for what felt like hours, until Erwin and Hange could barely keep their eyes open, their sheer curiosity and interest in Kuchel the only thing keeping them awake enough to listen.

“So that’s the sign of you all being undercover firebenders right?” Hange asked sleepily as she pointed to the little charm peeking out from pocket of her skirt. Kuchel was startled by her question, and sighed in defeat. “Well, neither of you should know anything about this until you’re old enough, but it was silly of me to think that you two wouldn’t figure that out by now being the nosy little kids you are,” she said with a small laugh. She pulled out the charm to show them. “When the time is right, we’ll all pass them down to you. It might not be as significant now—it was once used to prove that you were one to be trusted, but now that there’s not too many of us left...” Erwin noticed the hint of sadness that showed in her eyes.

“Well, it‘s still important, something to remember who you are and where you came from. Whenever you look at it, I hope it brings you peace and reminds you that it’s our responsibility to bring back stability and light to our nation, no matter how dark it may become. But who knows, it still might be important in recognizing who is a friend or foe someday. Whoever holds one is someone you can trust—I can promise you both that.”

Hange asked, “Kuchel, will we ever get to meet your son?”

“I have no doubt you will,” she said with a smile. “Hopefully soon. I think you both would be really good influences on him.” With a yawn, Hange asked one more question.

“What’s his name?”

But before they could hear Kuchel’s answer, both of them were fast asleep. Kuchel smiled lovingly at the two. She gently pulled off Hange’s glasses, pocketed them before picking her up. She chuckled at the sound of her snores as Hange’s face leaned against her chest— “Just like her mother,” she thought and suppressed full-on laughter. She then whispered quietly into Hange ear, hoping it would somehow register in her heart, despite her being asleep. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Hange. And.... I can’t wait for you meet Levi someday. Don’t let his little scowl fool you—he has a good heart.” Kuchel beckoned Hange’s mother over to pick up Erwin. “Come on, let’s go put these two to bed.”

-------- Levi could not believe Erwin’s story. But... there was no denying the description of his own mother.

He remembered the day before his mother died, and her words that morning echoed in his mind, “Levi, did you know that some friendships are strong enough to transcend lifetimes?” He wondered if that applied here—an explanation as to why his bond with Hange ran so deep, and why he felt like he’d known Erwin, Moblit, Mike, and Nanaba for much longer than he actually did.

They had been interconnected this whole time. As much as it frustrated him that knowing this would have made their meeting 3 years ago much easier, he felt a wave of happiness fall over him, and he was absolutely overwhelmed from head to toe.

“So, you’re Kuchel’s son.” Erwin remembered her kind eyes and gentle voice, and began to laugh.

“Oi, what the hell are you laughing on about?”

Erwin continued to laugh and started to wipe tears from his eyes. “I was just thinking about how you’re just...well let’s just say I never thought Kuchel’s son would turn out to be such a small, angry man.” He laughed, along with Nanaba and Mike. Levi grumbled but couldn’t help but let out a tiny smile.

After their laughter died down, Levi let the information sink in a little along with the situation at hand. “I didn’t know you met her...” he sighed. It seems there was a lot he didn’t know, and he wished he could turn back time and ask his mother everything.

Mike asked, “What did happen to your mom anyway? I know you said she was gone but...”

“She died after she saved a child from a house fire. My uncle and I were gone training for a weekend. I was only 12 at the time,” Levi said as he stared down at the ground.

“Since you and Hange are the same age... that must mean she died around the same Zeke betrayed everyone and had fire nation soldiers kill our parents,” Nanaba said quietly.

Each of them held their parents’ charms tightly in their hands. All was silent except for the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze and the crackle of logs from their campfire. Dusk quickly fell upon them, the glow of the moon peeking through the light cloud cover.

Erwin’s eyes softened as he looked at Levi. “Well, we got some work to do, don’t we? Hange and Moblit are in trouble—I can only imagine what Zeke wants to do with them.”

Levi looked up at Erwin, noticing a minuscule flicker of worry in his eyes. “My bet... is using an Agni Kai versus Hange as public display to destroy anymore hopes of internal rebellion.”

The other three furrowed their eyebrows at this, gritting their teeth in anger.

“And... killing the last firebending Zoe would be the ultimate symbol of crushing any hope that may be left.”

Levi stood up and looked out into the horizon, in the direction Zeke and Kenny escaped the night before. He had a good idea of where they might be, but the exact coordinates of that base was kept hidden from everyone except for high ranking officials. However, knowing Hange, he had utmost confidence that she marked a way for them to find her. They'd just have to figure that out—and soon.

Levi balled his hands into tight fists and fierce determination flickered in his eyes.

“Well, we’re not gonna let her face Zeke alone, are we?” he whispered, not taking his eyes off the horizon.

--------

As Hange’s screams grew silent, Armin breathed a sad sigh of relief—either they stopped torturing her or she finally just passed out from the pain. Either way, she at least had some respite. He looked at the thick wooden bars of their cell, cross hatched like a solid net, trapping them inside. He could only assume that at least one guard was standing watch outside the metal door about 8 feet away from their cell—the only exit point in the room. How in the world were they supposed to get out of this mess? And more importantly, why were they targeting Hange? Where were the rest of the Scouts, anyway?

He turned back towards Moblit, “Hey so... what happened? How did you get captured?”

Moblit used his sleeves to wipe at his tears, revealing his swollen eyes, filled with a terrifying swirl of anger and hopelessness. “They ambushed us, Zeke and Kenny. They set everything on fire and we didn’t stand a chance—and they told us...” He looked down, tangling his fingers in his hair anxiously, like he was trying to pry the memories out from his mind.

“Told you what?”

“That Levi led them to us, and...that he was a firebender and... that he’s Kenny’s nephew.”

Sasha and Armin’s jaws dropped at the news, and Jean looked away, as he knew Levi’s secret. He wrestled with the possibility that he might have made a mistake in trusting him. “No... there’s no way I made the wrong call,” he thought.

“I’m not sure if I believe it, though. Hange was very adamant that we should trust Levi.” Happy memories of his relationship with Levi came rushing relentlessly into his head. “No, I don’t think we should stop trusting Levi.” He paused. “After that, the next thing I knew, I woke up restrained on the komodo rhino, and then saw all of you.”

“Moblit, why did they only take you, and no one else?” Sasha asked.

“Well Hange and Levi were in Ba Sing Se that night. And I think they were just using me as bait.”

“But why not any of the others, why just you?” Armin asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. Couldn’t they have just taken Erwin since he leads the Scouts?”

Moblit sighed. “I guess I better just fess up and explain everything, right? All of this would be easier if we were just on the same page.”

He fished a small, metal keychain from his pocket, a fire nation emblem etched into it, matching the one stitched into the red tapestry behind him. He held it up for them to see.

--------

A dull pain ached against the left side of Hange’s face, the skin around her eye throbbing alongside her steady heartbeat. She felt a warm hand pressing a dressing over her left eye, and saw strands of black hair hanging over her. She blinked her right eye, confused as to why she wasn’t still in the barn back home, laying in the hay next to Erwin and Kuchel.

“K-Kuchel?” Hange croaked.

She was answered with a soft whisper, “No, I’m sorry, I’m not Kuchel. My name is Pieck.”

“Oh…” Hange sighed, wishing she could return to dreamland, back to her old, yet comforting memories.

A harsh, gruff voice sounded from the dark corner of the room, “Kuchel’s been long gone, dearie.” From the shadows, Kenny stepped out into the light next to Pieck. “My dumb sister died saving some stupid kid a long time ago.” He peered down at Hange and scoffed. “Didn’t think she’d go that way, to be honest. I thought she’d at least have gone doing the pathetic work your parents and her other friends got into.”

“…Sister?”

“Yeah, my dumb old sister. What, the genius Hange Zoe hadn’t figure it out yet?”

“Sister… then… you’re Levi’s uncle??”

He let out a chilling laugh and began clapping—pathetic applause at her realization. Kenny stepped closer and bent down, staring right into Hange’s face. “Zeke told Porco to do much worse than what he ended up doing to you. You’re lucky I happened to walk in and stop him—what kind of self-respecting uncle would let his wonderful nephew’s girlfriend suffer right in front of him?”

Hange felt her brain short-circuit at his comment. “Oh I know how my nephew works, I saw how he looked at you after your cute little group took down that fire nation camp in the forest. All of you trying to be like your parents—their work was pathetic and so are you.”

Hange tried to make sense of everything and it was difficult to concentrate against the throbbing pain in her eye, but she quickly focused on the situation at hand—no need to show him weakness at anything he decided to say to her. She wasn't sure if she could trust him, though his tone seemed genuine underneath the rough exterior. She laughed to herself--she knew how to read and communicate with Ackermans.

“Their work wasn’t stupid, you pathetic old man,” Hange retorted.

Kenny laughed. “I told my sister not to get into that business. World’s gone to shit anyway, why not just live for yourself at this point?”

Hange began seething at this response. The only reason why she didn’t burst out flames at Kenny was because she was completely disoriented to her surroundings. Sadly, she figured she’d kiss her left-sided vision goodbye. Plus, she didn’t want to injure the girl next to her, as she was clearly very kind, tending to enemy’s wounds. “Maybe if you actually joined your sister back then, you could have helped them!”

“Well maybe if they all just gave that up, none of them wouldn’t have died and left you all as orphans. Have you ever thought of that?”

She stared back at him and spat as she spoke, “Well if you’re arrogant ass is ‘living for himself’ then why the hell do you care about that, and why would you decide to lay your loyalty to Zeke?” Kenny stepped away to make sure no one was within hearing range in the corridor. He walked quickly back towards Hange and leaned down close to her face.

“Listen here, little girl. My loyalty is to no one but myself. Zeke is simply offering the best deal I’ve gotten over last few years—we’re protected among his crew, plus the money’s good. And don’t get all disrespectful now, you’re lucky I didn’t let Porco take out that other eye of yours!”

“Or maybe you did it to keep Levi safe too, you DO care about him don’t you?” Hange teased.

Kenny scowled and grumbled at her comment—Hange stifled laughter as she now knew where Levi got it from.

“You’re delusional, Zoe. You’re just like your parents.” He turned around and slammed the door behind him—the metal reverberating around the walls of the room, the force causing her sensitive eye to throb again. Hange winced in pain.

Pieck held a cold compress to Hange’s face, and she sighed in relief. “Thank you,” Hange breathed out.

“Of course.”

Hange looked curiously at Pieck—“So, why are you helping me, anyway?”

Pieck answered softly, “Hange, I know what Zeke wants to do with you. But I don’t want him to go through with it.”

Hange held back the fear in her heart. She abandoned her curiosity at Zeke's plans with herself for a second--she needed to clear up other information with Pieck first.

“Why?”

“We’ve been friends since we were kids, and… I think he’s truly lost himself. This isn’t him, and it hasn’t been him in a long time. A lot has happened, Hange, and I think you’re just unfortunately stuck in the midst of it." She peeked out the doorway for any listening ears, and sat back down, whispering to Hange.

"There are guards everywhere though, and I can’t just let you out, plus your friends are still trapped somewhere in the building, and I don’t know exactly where. All I know, is that we have a decent amount of time before Zeke returns. In the meantime, rest.”

Hange breathed a sigh of relief—she was ridiculously lucky, she thought. Her mind scrambled to put together all the information she’s gathered and started on mustering up a plan to get everyone out of here safely. But one thing was really bothering her—was being friends with Zeke enough for this girl to help her, a Zoe, a target of the fire nation? There had to be something else--could it be?

“Pieck, can I ask you one more thing?”

She nodded, inviting her to continue.

Hange nodded back, “Is there any more reason why you’re trying to help me?”

Pieck smiled—Hange was just as sharp as the rumors told. She reached into her pocket and held out a luck charm, identical to everyone else’s, the fire nation emblem shining brightly back at Hange. Hange closed her eye and laughed, feeling nothing but hope and happiness. She wondered if Levi felt the same way at this same moment--after all the events of the past few hours, she thought it'd be quite likely that Levi, Erwin, Nanaba, and Mike were likely revealing their charms to each other right around now. It was about time.

[fan-clan-fun]

Clans of the Wood Ranks

On second thought, I just want the rank system looked over. Also because I’m frustrated at having to write the same thing over and over again (this is attempt four).

Yay! Good news is I figured out a workaround to finally access submissions and comment on them appropriately! Im so excited to read all about this!

Just know a lot of realistic cat behavior is taken into account, such as toms killing foreign kits and cats relying on their ears and nose for perception over their eyes.

When a cat of the Woodland Clans is born, they’re called kits or kittens. For the first month of life, they have minimal interaction outside of the nursery. The second and third months of life are generally spent playing and learning about clan culture through stories. Kittens four months old begin assisting other ranks that largely stay within camp. Upon five or six months old (depends on the maturity and size of the kittens), they can begin to help ranks that may be considered more dangerous. Cats are considered kittens until they are fully accepted within a rank, which usually happens between a year and a year and six months.

Interesting, I see you have done away with the apprentice rank. I feel like there are pros and cons with this. For one there isnt any illusions that kits are minors in every sense of the word, and it would be entirely inappropriate for them to hold certain responsibilities or expectations with relationships. But I can also see older kits being extra hurried to become warriors or the equivalent since being so much older than the younger kits but still being considered kits would be frustrating. I can certainly remember as a teenager  being annoyed when I was considered a child (even if I was still a minor and therefore technically a child).

A handful of cats take up the role of healers. They are to look after the health of cats within the clan and maintain a good supply of medicine in storage. While every cat in the clan gets basic medical training, these cats specialize in it and memorize remedies to every known injury and illness. Mollies also tend to double as midwives.

I like how this is worded, because it is important for the entire clan to have at least basic first aid, but also of course to have cats to specialize in it. I had always seen medicine cats to share like the medical side of birth, while older more experienced queens provided the emotional support, but I suppose these healers could do both. 

A handful of cats stay within camp as guardians. They are to protect camp, fight off predators and aggressors, and escort weaker members to other camps. Every cat does receive battle training, these cats also study strategy and the weak points of predators like wolverines, birds of prey, foxes, dogs, and coyotes. Tom guardians sleep with the rest of the clan and molly guardians sleep in the nursery.

I find it interesting you split up warriors into two groups. I have an image of some gorgeous big buff cats. And also female guardians protecting the nursery! Super cute.

Two or three cats within each clan are messengers. They stay within camp and are sent to camps of other clans when urgent matters need to be relayed. Only swift cats become messengers and must be disciplined in the art of remembering messages.

As nice as this is, I feel like the messengers wouldnt be able to be only messengers, as there isnt a constant need for messages to be carried (unless there is, Im just going off what I have been given). Maybe they are just some of the fastest hunters?

Seers are the one or two cats who are highly attuned to the earth, listening to her whispers and echoes. They can assist with daily life and have mates and bear kits, but must remain open to the earth’s voice. Many cats are born with an innate attunement to the voice and it’s partially hereditary. Commonly, a current seer’s kit, grandkit, or nibling will have this affinity.

I do like me some spiritual cats, I would love to hear more what they see about the earth!

Hunters is everyone else in the clan. They hunt for most of the food and patrol the borders, bringing friendly tidings from other clans. They take up the bulk of the population and have a wide array of personalities and skills.

Ah I see, so the Hunters are basically the warriors of the clan, with the guardians being like the equivalent of -claw cats being extra skilled in fighting

When a cat decides to bear kits, she can decide to move to the nursery at any time and become a mother. Because of the often stressful situations cats can get into, it’s imperative a pregnant mother remain calm lest complications will arise endangering her and her kits. Once they’re born, she will be with them at almost all times during their first month of life. After that, she can leave them for longer periods of time until they’re fully weaned. Once weaned, she can decide to stay with them until they’re all around six months old (when they’re kicked out of the nursery), or can return to her duties, checking up on them periodically.

Elders are the clan’s history and are just as protected as its future. They’re cats normally over a hundred months (eight or nine years) old, spending their days sleeping, bestowing wisdoms to all who ask of them, and gossiping on inter-clan politics and relationships.

The matriarch is the overseer of mothers and kittens. She will usually try to get restless pregnant mothers to calm down for a safer labor and look after the young kittens of nursing mothers when she needs me time. If any orphaned kittens are taken in, she will be their mother. In a way, all kittens born under her care are her kittens, and many young cats call her “Mother” alongside their own mother. She doesn’t even have to be fertile or have her own kits to be the matriarch; if she has a strong maternal instinct and knows a lot on mothers and kits and has the skill to back it up, she can be the matriarch.

I have had a similar role in one of my clans before, and I do really like it. Its something of the idea of a permanent queen, but only one and with a serious amount of authority in the clan.

The keeper is the diplomatic leader, not only in charge of maintaining friendly relations with other clans, but also other feline societies outside of the clans. Their job also includes relaying their diplomatic information to the leader and let members of the clan know when they should probably stop fraternizing with that sexy otherclan cat because tensions are high, so it’d be better if one of them moves to the other’s clan instead. A keeper is likely to have formerly been a hunter.

This is quite clever and makes me wonder about the existence of informants and primitive spy networks. 

The captain is the military leader, in charge of organizing a quick response when the lives of their cats are endangered. They are almost always a former guardian and normally a brilliant strategist. They are also in charge of overseeing the kittens’ battle training.

I appreciate that you have sort of deputies for the two major  ranks in the clan, which is nice because Im getting the vibe that these are fairly large clans, so the extra organization is helpful.

Lastly is the leader, the head of the clan. They are to make decisions for their clan as a whole based on the information gathered from their council of elders, senior clan members, seers, matriarch, keeper, and captain. Should the keeper or captain die, retire, or be exiled, the leader is to choose their replacement, knowing which cats are skilled for the role and who the clan would find a good decision. A leader is the final authority on all decisions, but the seers can authorize their overthrow if the clan is overall displeased with their rule and the seers receive an omen confirming this. A new leader is chosen upon their death, retirement, or exile through a vote of all adult cats between the matriarch, captain, and keeper. Everyone votes for who they are okay with being leader, not for who they prefer, so you can vote for everyone if you like everyone. The one with the highest votes wins. Ties should be non-violently resolved between the tied parties.

I like this because  it doesnt necessarily require votes for every decision, but there is a vote for a leader, which would then lead based on those votes and the advice of their council and others who are most familiar with different aspects of the clan. That said I can just imagine the shenanigans involved when it comes to an election, like do they campaign? What does a campaign look like? Are there any restrictions as to who can be voted for or is it just anyone? Has there been a time where a young and maybe inexperienced  leader was voted for? Its an intriguing possibility.

So yeah, I’d like to know what you think of this unusual setup for my clans. Thanks for taking the time to look it over!

This was lovely to look over! Sorry it took so long! Thanks for sending it in.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

In the economic sphere too, the ability to hold a hammer or press a button is becoming less valuable than before. In the past, there were many things only humans could do. But now robots and computers are catching up, and may soon outperform humans in most tasks. True, computers function very differently from humans, and it seems unlikely that computers will become humanlike any time soon. In particular, it doesn’t seem that computers are about to gain consciousness, and to start experiencing emotions and sensations. Over the last decades there has been an immense advance in computer intelligence, but there has been exactly zero advance in computer consciousness. As far as we know, computers in 2016 are no more conscious than their prototypes in the 1950s. However, we are on the brink of a momentous revolution. Humans are in danger of losing their value, because intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

Until today, high intelligence always went hand in hand with a developed consciousness. Only conscious beings could perform tasks that required a lot of intelligence, such as playing chess, driving cars, diagnosing diseases or identifying terrorists. However, we are now developing new types of non-conscious intelligence that can perform such tasks far better than humans. For all these tasks are based on pattern recognition, and non-conscious algorithms may soon excel human consciousness in recognising patterns. This raises a novel question: which of the two is really important, intelligence or consciousness? As long as they went hand in hand, debating their relative value was just a pastime for philosophers. But in the twenty-first century, this is becoming an urgent political and economic issue. And it is sobering to realise that, at least for armies and corporations, the answer is straightforward: intelligence is mandatory but consciousness is optional.

Armies and corporations cannot function without intelligent agents, but they don’t need consciousness and subjective experiences. The conscious experiences of a flesh-and-blood taxi driver are infinitely richer than those of a self-driving car, which feels absolutely nothing. The taxi driver can enjoy music while navigating the busy streets of Seoul. His mind may expand in awe as he looks up at the stars and contemplates the mysteries of the universe. His eyes may fill with tears of joy when he sees his baby girl taking her very first step. But the system doesn’t need all that from a taxi driver. All it really wants is to bring passengers from point A to point B as quickly, safely and cheaply as possible. And the autonomous car will soon be able to do that far better than a human driver, even though it cannot enjoy music or be awestruck by the magic of existence.

Indeed, if we forbid humans to drive taxis and cars altogether, and give computer algorithms monopoly over traffic, we can then connect all vehicles to a single network, and thereby make car accidents virtually impossible. In August 2015, one of Google’s experimental self-driving cars had an accident. As it approached a crossing and detected pedestrians wishing to cross, it applied its brakes. A moment later it was hit from behind by a sedan whose careless human driver was perhaps contemplating the mysteries of the universe instead of watching the road. This could not have happened if both vehicles were steered by interlinked computers. The controlling algorithm would have known the position and intentions of every vehicle on the road, and would not have allowed two of its marionettes to collide. Such a system will save lots of time, money and human lives – but it will also do away with the human experience of driving a car and with tens of millions of human jobs.

Some economists predict that sooner or later, unenhanced humans will be completely useless. While robots and 3D printers replace workers in manual jobs such as manufacturing shirts, highly intelligent algorithms will do the same to white-collar occupations. Bank clerks and travel agents, who a short time ago were completely secure from automation, have become endangered species. How many travel agents do we need when we can use our smartphones to buy plane tickets from an algorithm?

Stock-exchange traders are also in danger. Most trade today is already being managed by computer algorithms, which can process in a second more data than a human can in a year, and that can react to the data much faster than a human can blink. On 23 April 2013, Syrian hackers broke into Associated Press’s official Twitter account. At 13:07 they tweeted that the White House had been attacked and President Obama was hurt. Trade algorithms that constantly monitor newsfeeds reacted in no time, and began selling stocks like mad. The Dow Jones went into free fall, and within sixty seconds lost 150 points, equivalent to a loss of $136 billion! At 13:10 Associated Press clarified that the tweet was a hoax. The algorithms reversed gear, and by 13:13 the Dow Jones had recuperated almost all the losses.

Three years previously, on 6 May 2010, the New York stock exchange underwent an even sharper shock. Within five minutes – from 14:42 to 14:47 – the Dow Jones dropped by 1,000 points, wiping out $1 trillion. It then bounced back, returning to its pre-crash level in a little over three minutes. That’s what happens when super-fast computer programs are in charge of our money. Experts have been trying ever since to understand what happened in this so-called ‘Flash Crash’. We know algorithms were to blame, but we are still not sure exactly what went wrong. Some traders in the USA have already filed lawsuits against algorithmic trading, arguing that it unfairly discriminates against human beings, who simply cannot react fast enough to compete. Quibbling whether this really constitutes a violation of rights might provide lots of work and lots of fees for lawyers.

And these lawyers won’t necessarily be human. Movies and TV series give the impression that lawyers spend their days in court shouting ‘Objection!’ and making impassioned speeches. Yet most run-of-the-mill lawyers spend their time going over endless files, looking for precedents, loopholes and tiny pieces of potentially relevant evidence. Some are busy trying to figure out what happened on the night John Doe got killed, or formulating a gargantuan business contract that will protect their client against every conceivable eventuality. What will be the fate of all these lawyers once sophisticated search algorithms can locate more precedents in a day than a human can in a lifetime, and once brain scans can reveal lies and deceptions at the press of a button? Even highly experienced lawyers and detectives cannot easily spot deceptions merely by observing people’s facial expressions and tone of voice. However, lying involves different brain areas to those used when we tell the truth. We’re not there yet, but it is conceivable that in the not too distant future fMRI scanners could function as almost infallible truth machines. Where will that leave millions of lawyers, judges, cops and detectives? They might need to go back to school and learn a new profession.

When they get in the classroom, however, they may well discover that the algorithms have got there first. Companies such as Mindojo are developing interactive algorithms that not only teach me maths, physics and history, but also simultaneously study me and get to know exactly who I am. Digital teachers will closely monitor every answer I give, and how long it took me to give it. Over time, they will discern my unique weaknesses as well as my strengths. They will identify what gets me excited, and what makes my eyelids droop. They could teach me thermodynamics or geometry in a way that suits my personality type, even if that particular way doesn’t suit 99 per cent of the other pupils. And these digital teachers will never lose their patience, never shout at me, and never go on strike. It is unclear, however, why on earth I would need to know thermodynamics or geometry in a world containing such intelligent computer programs.

Even doctors are fair game for the algorithms. The first and foremost task of most doctors is to diagnose diseases correctly, and then suggest the best available treatment. If I arrive at the clinic complaining about fever and diarrhoea, I might be suffering from food poisoning. Then again, the same symptoms might result from a stomach virus, cholera, dysentery, malaria, cancer or some unknown new disease. My doctor has only five minutes to make a correct diagnosis, because this is what my health insurance pays for. This allows for no more than a few questions and perhaps a quick medical examination. The doctor then cross-references this meagre information with my medical history, and with the vast world of human maladies. Alas, not even the most diligent doctor can remember all my previous ailments and check-ups. Similarly, no doctor can be familiar with every illness and drug, or read every new article published in every medical journal. To top it all, the doctor is sometimes tired or hungry or perhaps even sick, which affects her judgement. No wonder that doctors often err in their diagnoses, or recommend a less-than-optimal treatment.

Now consider IBM’s famous Watson – an artificial intelligence system that won the Jeopardy! television game show in 2011, beating human former champions. Watson is currently groomed to do more serious work, particularly in diagnosing diseases. An AI such as Watson has enormous potential advantages over human doctors. Firstly, an AI can hold in its databanks information about every known illness and medicine in history. It can then update these databanks every day, not only with the findings of new researches, but also with medical statistics gathered from every clinic and hospital in the world.

Secondly, Watson can be intimately familiar not only with my entire genome and my day-to-day medical history, but also with the genomes and medical histories of my parents, siblings, cousins, neighbours and friends. Watson will know instantly whether I visited a tropical country recently, whether I have recurring stomach infections, whether there have been cases of intestinal cancer in my family or whether people all over town are complaining this morning about diarrhoea.

Thirdly, Watson will never be tired, hungry or sick, and will have all the time in the world for me. I could sit comfortably on my sofa at home and answer hundreds of questions, telling Watson exactly how I feel. This is good news for most patients (except perhaps hypochondriacs). But if you enter medical school today in the expectation of still being a family doctor in twenty years, maybe you should think again. With such a Watson around, there is not much need for Sherlocks.

This threat hovers over the heads not only of general practitioners, but also of experts. Indeed, it might prove easier to replace doctors specialising in a relatively narrow field such as cancer diagnosis. For example, in a recent experiment a computer algorithm diagnosed correctly 90 per cent of lung cancer cases presented to it, while human doctors had a success rate of only 50 per cent. In fact, the future is already here. CT scans and mammography tests are routinely checked by specialised algorithms, which provide doctors with a second opinion, and sometimes detect tumours that the doctors missed.

A host of tough technical problems still prevent Watson and its ilk from replacing most doctors tomorrow morning. Yet these technical problems – however difficult – need only be solved once. The training of a human doctor is a complicated and expensive process that lasts years. When the process is complete, after ten years of studies and internships, all you get is one doctor. If you want two doctors, you have to repeat the entire process from scratch. In contrast, if and when you solve the technical problems hampering Watson, you will get not one, but an infinite number of doctors, available 24/7 in every corner of the world. So even if it costs $100 billion to make it work, in the long run it would be much cheaper than training human doctors.

And what’s true of doctors is doubly true of pharmacists. In 2011 a pharmacy opened in San Francisco manned by a single robot. When a human comes to the pharmacy, within seconds the robot receives all of the customer’s prescriptions, as well as detailed information about other medicines taken by them, and their suspected allergies. The robot makes sure the new prescriptions don’t combine adversely with any other medicine or allergy, and then provides the customer with the required drug. In its first year of operation the robotic pharmacist provided 2 million prescriptions, without making a single mistake. On average, flesh-and-blood pharmacists get wrong 1.7 per cent of prescriptions. In the United States alone this amounts to more than 50 million prescription errors every year!

Some people argue that even if an algorithm could outperform doctors and pharmacists in the technical aspects of their professions, it could never replace their human touch. If your CT indicates you have cancer, would you like to receive the news from a caring and empathetic human doctor, or from a machine? Well, how about receiving the news from a caring and empathetic machine that tailors its words to your personality type? Remember that organisms are algorithms, and Watson could detect your emotional state with the same accuracy that it detects your tumours.

This idea has already been implemented by some customer-services departments, such as those pioneered by the Chicago-based Mattersight Corporation. Mattersight publishes its wares with the following advert: ‘Have you ever spoken with someone and felt as though you just clicked? The magical feeling you get is the result of a personality connection. Mattersight creates that feeling every day, in call centers around the world.’ When you call customer services with a request or complaint, it usually takes a few seconds to route your call to a representative. In Mattersight systems, your call is routed by a clever algorithm. You first state the reason for your call. The algorithm listens to your request, analyses the words you have chosen and your tone of voice, and deduces not only your present emotional state but also your personality type – whether you are introverted, extroverted, rebellious or dependent. Based on this information, the algorithm links you to the representative that best matches your mood and personality. The algorithm knows whether you need an empathetic person to patiently listen to your complaints, or you prefer a no-nonsense rational type who will give you the quickest technical solution. A good match means both happier customers and less time and money wasted by the customer-services department.

The most important question in twenty-first-century economics may well be what to do with all the superfluous people. What will conscious humans do, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better?

Throughout history the job market was divided into three main sectors: agriculture, industry and services. Until about 1800, the vast majority of people worked in agriculture, and only a small minority worked in industry and services. During the Industrial Revolution people in developed countries left the fields and herds. Most began working in industry, but growing numbers also took up jobs in the services sector. In recent decades developed countries underwent another revolution, as industrial jobs vanished, whereas the services sector expanded. In 2010 only 2 per cent of Americans worked in agriculture, 20 per cent worked in industry, 78 per cent worked as teachers, doctors, webpage designers and so forth. When mindless algorithms are able to teach, diagnose and design better than humans, what will we do?

This is not an entirely new question. Ever since the Industrial Revolution erupted, people feared that mechanisation might cause mass unemployment. This never happened, because as old professions became obsolete, new professions evolved, and there was always something humans could do better than machines. Yet this is not a law of nature, and nothing guarantees it will continue to be like that in the future. Humans have two basic types of abilities: physical abilities and cognitive abilities. As long as machines competed with us merely in physical abilities, you could always find cognitive tasks that humans do better. So machines took over purely manual jobs, while humans focused on jobs requiring at least some cognitive skills. Yet what will happen once algorithms outperform us in remembering, analysing and recognising patterns?

The idea that humans will always have a unique ability beyond the reach of non-conscious algorithms is just wishful thinking. True, at present there are numerous things that organic algorithms do better than non-organic ones, and experts have repeatedly declared that something will ‘for ever’ remain beyond the reach of non-organic algorithms. But it turns out that ‘for ever’ often means no more than a decade or two. Until a short time ago, facial recognition was a favourite example of something which even babies accomplish easily but which escaped even the most powerful computers on earth. Today facial-recognition programs are able to recognise people far more efficiently and quickly than humans can. Police forces and intelligence services now use such programs to scan countless hours of video footage from surveillance cameras, tracking down suspects and criminals.

In the 1980s when people discussed the unique nature of humanity, they habitually used chess as primary proof of human superiority. They believed that computers would never beat humans at chess. On 10 February 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, laying to rest that particular claim for human pre-eminence.

Deep Blue was given a head start by its creators, who preprogrammed it not only with the basic rules of chess, but also with detailed instructions regarding chess strategies. A new generation of AI uses machine learning to do even more remarkable and elegant things. In February 2015 a program developed by Google DeepMind learned by itself how to play forty-nine classic Atari games. One of the developers, Dr Demis Hassabis, explained that ‘the only information we gave the system was the raw pixels on the screen and the idea that it had to get a high score. And everything else it had to figure out by itself.’ The program managed to learn the rules of all the games it was presented with, from Pac-Man and Space Invaders to car racing and tennis games. It then played most of them as well as or better than humans, sometimes coming up with strategies that never occur to human players.

Computer algorithms have recently proven their worth in ball games, too. For many decades, baseball teams used the wisdom, experience and gut instincts of professional scouts and managers to pick players. The best players fetched millions of dollars, and naturally enough the rich teams got the cream of the market, whereas poorer teams had to settle for the scraps. In 2002 Billy Beane, the manager of the low-budget Oakland Athletics, decided to beat the system. He relied on an arcane computer algorithm developed by economists and computer geeks to create a winning team from players that human scouts overlooked or undervalued. The old-timers were incensed by Beane’s algorithm transgressing into the hallowed halls of baseball. They said that picking baseball players is an art, and that only humans with an intimate and long-standing experience of the game can master it. A computer program could never do it, because it could never decipher the secrets and the spirit of baseball.

They soon had to eat their baseball caps. Beane’s shoestring-budget algorithmic team ($44 million) not only held its own against baseball giants such as the New York Yankees ($125 million), but became the first team ever in American League baseball to win twenty consecutive games. Not that Beane and Oakland could enjoy their success for long. Soon enough, many other baseball teams adopted the same algorithmic approach, and since the Yankees and Red Sox could pay far more for both baseball players and computer software, low-budget teams such as the Oakland Athletics now had an even smaller chance of beating the system than before.

In 2004 Professor Frank Levy from MIT and Professor Richard Murnane from Harvard published a thorough research of the job market, listing those professions most likely to undergo automation. Truck drivers were given as an example of a job that could not possibly be automated in the foreseeable future. It is hard to imagine, they wrote, that algorithms could safely drive trucks on a busy road. A mere ten years later, Google and Tesla not only imagine this, but are actually making it happen.

In fact, as time goes by, it becomes easier and easier to replace humans with computer algorithms, not merely because the algorithms are getting smarter, but also because humans are professionalising. Ancient hunter-gatherers mastered a very wide variety of skills in order to survive, which is why it would be immensely difficult to design a robotic hunter-gatherer. Such a robot would have to know how to prepare spear points from flint stones, how to find edible mushrooms in a forest, how to use medicinal herbs to bandage a wound, how to track down a mammoth and how to coordinate a charge with a dozen other hunters. However, over the last few thousand years we humans have been specialising. A taxi driver or a cardiologist specialises in a much narrower niche than a hunter-gatherer, which makes it easier to replace them with AI.

Even the managers in charge of all these activities can be replaced. Thanks to its powerful algorithms, Uber can manage millions of taxi drivers with only a handful of humans. Most of the commands are given by the algorithms without any need of human supervision. In May 2014 Deep Knowledge Ventures – a Hong Kong venture-capital firm specialising in regenerative medicine – broke new ground by appointing an algorithm called VITAL to its board. VITAL makes investment recommendations by analysing huge amounts of data on the financial situation, clinical trials and intellectual property of prospective companies. Like the other five board members, the algorithm gets to vote on whether the firm makes an investment in a specific company or not.

Examining VITAL’s record so far, it seems that it has already picked up one managerial vice: nepotism. It has recommended investing in companies that grant algorithms more authority. With VITAL’s blessing, Deep Knowledge Ventures has recently invested in Silico Medicine, which develops computer-assisted methods for drug research, and in Pathway Pharmaceuticals, which employs a platform called OncoFinder to select and rate personalised cancer therapies.

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might not only manage businesses, but actually come to own them. At present, human law already recognises intersubjective entities like corporations and nations as ‘legal persons’. Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and money, and they can sue and be sued in court. We might soon grant similar status to algorithms. An algorithm could then own a venture-capital fund without having to obey the wishes of any human master.

If the algorithm makes the right decisions, it could accumulate a fortune, which it could then invest as it sees fit, perhaps buying your house and becoming your landlord. If you infringe on the algorithm’s legal rights – say, by not paying rent – the algorithm could hire lawyers and sue you in court. If such algorithms consistently outperform human fund managers, we might end up with an algorithmic upper class owning most of our planet. This may sound impossible, but before dismissing the idea, remember that most of our planet is already legally owned by non-human inter-subjective entities, namely nations and corporations. Indeed, 5,000 years ago much of Sumer was owned by imaginary gods such as Enki and Inanna. If gods can possess land and employ people, why not algorithms?

So what will people do? Art is often said to provide us with our ultimate (and uniquely human) sanctuary. In a world where computers replace doctors, drivers, teachers and even landlords, everyone would become an artist. Yet it is hard to see why artistic creation will be safe from the algorithms. Why are we so sure computers will be unable to better us in the composition of music? According to the life sciences, art is not the product of some enchanted spirit or metaphysical soul, but rather of organic algorithms recognising mathematical patterns. If so, there is no reason why non-organic algorithms couldn’t master it.

David Cope is a musicology professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He is also one of the more controversial figures in the world of classical music. Cope has written programs that compose concertos, chorales, symphonies and operas. His first creation was named EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), which specialised in imitating the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. It took seven years to create the program, but once the work was done, EMI composed 5,000 chorales à la Bach in a single day. Cope arranged a performance of a few select chorales in a music festival at Santa Cruz. Enthusiastic members of the audience praised the wonderful performance, and explained excitedly how the music touched their innermost being. They didn’t know it was composed by EMI rather than Bach, and when the truth was revealed, some reacted with glum silence, while others shouted in anger.

EMI continued to improve, and learned to imitate Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. Cope got EMI a contract, and its first album – Classical Music Composed by Computer – sold surprisingly well. Publicity brought increasing hostility from classical-music buffs. Professor Steve Larson from the University of Oregon sent Cope a challenge for a musical showdown. Larson suggested that professional pianists play three pieces one after the other: one by Bach, one by EMI, and one by Larson himself. The audience would then be asked to vote who composed which piece. Larson was convinced people would easily tell the difference between soulful human compositions, and the lifeless artefact of a machine. Cope accepted the challenge. On the appointed date, hundreds of lecturers, students and music fans assembled in the University of Oregon’s concert hall. At the end of the performance, a vote was taken. The result? The audience thought that EMI’s piece was genuine Bach, that Bach’s piece was composed by Larson, and that Larson’s piece was produced by a computer.

Critics continued to argue that EMI’s music is technically excellent, but that it lacks something. It is too accurate. It has no depth. It has no soul. Yet when people heard EMI’s compositions without being informed of their provenance, they frequently praised them precisely for their soulfulness and emotional resonance.

Following EMI’s successes, Cope created newer and even more sophisticated programs. His crowning achievement was Annie. Whereas EMI composed music according to predetermined rules, Annie is based on machine learning. Its musical style constantly changes and develops in reaction to new inputs from the outside world. Cope has no idea what Annie is going to compose next. Indeed, Annie does not restrict itself to music composition but also explores other art forms such as haiku poetry. In 2011 Cope published Comes the Fiery Night: 2,000 Haiku by Man and Machine. Of the 2,000 haikus in the book, some are written by Annie, and the rest by organic poets. The book does not disclose which are which. If you think you can tell the difference between human creativity and machine output, you are welcome to test your claim.

In the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution created a huge new class of urban proletariats, in the twenty-first century we might witness the creation of a new massive class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society.

In September 2013 two Oxford researchers, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, published ‘The Future of Employment’, in which they surveyed the likelihood of different professions being taken over by computer algorithms within the next twenty years. The algorithm developed by Frey and Osborne to do the calculations estimated that 47 per cent of US jobs are at high risk. For example, there is a 99 per cent probability that by 2033 human telemarketers and insurance underwriters will lose their jobs to algorithms. There is a 98 per cent probability that the same will happen to sports referees, 97 per cent that it will happen to cashiers and 96 per cent to chefs. Waiters – 94 per cent. Paralegal assistants – 94 per cent. Tour guides – 91 per cent. Bakers – 89 per cent. Bus drivers – 89 per cent. Construction labourers – 88 per cent. Veterinary assistants – 86 per cent. Security guards – 84 per cent. Sailors – 83 per cent. Bartenders – 77 per cent. Archivists – 76 per cent. Carpenters – 72 per cent. Lifeguards – 67 per cent. And so forth. There are of course some safe jobs. The likelihood that computer algorithms will displace archaeologists by 2033 is only 0.7 per cent, because their job requires highly sophisticated types of pattern recognition, and doesn’t produce huge profits. Hence it is improbable that corporations or government will make the necessary investment to automate archaeology within the next twenty years.

Of course, by 2033 many new professions are likely to appear, for example, virtual-world designers. But such professions will probably require much more creativity and flexibility than your run-of-the-mill job, and it is unclear whether forty-year-old cashiers or insurance agents will be able to reinvent themselves as virtual-world designers (just try to imagine a virtual world created by an insurance agent!). And even if they do so, the pace of progress is such that within another decade they might have to reinvent themselves yet again. After all, algorithms might well outperform humans in designing virtual worlds too. The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.

- Yuval Noah Harari, The Great Decoupling in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

[laurasinele]

Magpies

Prompt 4: “I know you didn’t ask for this”

Fanfic from: the Harry Potter series

Tags: preslash Drarry, epilogue what epilogue, heavy dialog, seven years post Battle of Hogwarts, ofc, Harry & Draco’s friendship, mental health, guilt

Warnings: mild swearing, mentions of abuse, mentions of war, mentions of death

Ao3

Outside the window a couple of magpies were fighting over an apple, effectively distracting him from his reading. Not that he was very focused to begin with. One of the birds had picked a rotten apple from the orchard ground and the other was trying to steal it. They cawed angrily and flopped their wings in ampulous, threatening motions while clashing talons. Draco was engrossed by their belligerent dance, open book forgotten on his lap.

The hinges of the reading room door screeched as it opened. All the elfs in the Manor had left to work at Hogwarts or the Ministry immediately after Draco informed them of that possibility, so there was no one left to oil the joints nor announce visitors. Not that there was any need. The only visits he got regularly were Ministry’s agents on Ministry’s business or his designated/volunteered auror, checking weekly on the conditions to his house arrest. Mother wasn’t allowed to leave St. Mungo’s and his aunt Andromeda, who was trying to forge a family bond with him, was always sensible enough to owl before coming. By the works of the DMLE, the doors and floo system would not open for anybody else. 

Aware of this at all times, Draco didn’t pause his keen observation of the magpies’ strife. It was Friday after all, and Auror Appleworm made always her appearence on that day at the time of her best convenience.

“I would have prepared lunch for us both, had you come half an hour earlier”, said Draco as he rose and put the book aside, still looking out the window.

“Thank you Malfoy, I’ve already eaten”. 

Malfoy startled at the male voice, and then startled again when he realised who it belonged to. He turned slowly, disbelieving, his aristocratic training supplying a small surge of nonchalance thanks to which he managed to pocket his hands and look calm. 

“Excuse my surprise, I was expecting Mrs Appleworm, as usual. To what do I owe the pleasure, Potter?”

Harry remained near the door, politely waiting for an invitation to sit. His auror robes were impeccable, their maroon bringing back to Draco’s memory their quidditch matches.

“Mrs Appleworm’s daughter went in labor this early morning. She is going to take some months away, although we are trying to convince her to retire and enjoy her grandchildren. Septuplets”, he added at Draco’s curious expression. 

“Oh, my. I thought she wasn’t due until next month. I trust they are all healthy and well”

Harry nodded, “I paid a visit on my way here. They are all well and Agnes and Mr Appleworm are over the moon”.

“I’ll have to remember to send them a present”. 

An awkward silence settled between them while Draco reigned his nerves and Harry looked around the room, taking in the elaborate shelf-cases, the light upholstery and drapes, and the yellow wallpaper. It was nothing as he remembered the Manor. 

“I made some changes”, offered Draco, guessing Harry’s train of thought. “Now that I am the only inhabitant I figured I could make this house, eh, more welcoming. Please, do sit down”, he finished gesturing towards the armchair next to his, by the other side of the window. “And please excuse my manners earlier, I was caught in two magpies fighting over a piece of apple in mid flight right outside the window”

Harry looked perplexed at that confession and a small smile graced his face while he approached the window. “They don’t look like fighting now”, he said as he spotted them through the window, resting atop of an ornamental stone cornucopia, grooming each other. 

Draco followed Harry’s pointing finger and he couldn’t contain a delighted exclamation upon finding the two birds. 

“They must have learnt to share, then. Now, what can I do for you, Auror Potter?”

--

They fell in a comfortable routine. Every Friday at precisely 2 o’clock, Harry appareted outside the reading room door and knocked before entering. Draco would put aside whatever book he had picked from the list the Ministry had provided as one of the conditions to keep him out of Azkaban and, after the compulsory questions and tests, they’d settle in an easy conversation that could go on until dinner time. Draco would always politely extend an invitation to stay and Harry would always politely refuse. They’d talk about quidditch, muggle culture —a big part of Draco’s assigned readings—, recent news, what were the Manor’s elfs up to��

Over time, more than seven years if he wasn’t mistaken, Draco had struck a sort of friendship with Mrs Appleworm. He had started to forgive himself for his acts of war and his past arrogance upon learning how she saw him. A veteran auror and elderly mother, when she looked at Draco Malfoy she saw an abused child never too rotten to mend. Draco might not think as benevolently about himself yet, but he was willing to get there someday, which was a huge step forward from the self-deprecating, self-harming depressive state Agnes Appleworm found him in. This days he barely indulged in regret and sadness and fear. He stayed firmly attached to calm and apathy. 

After five weeks of Mrs Appleworm leave, eagerness joined those two main emotions. Draco found himself eager for Friday afternoon well early in the week, and Saturdays and Sundays were usually filled with a peaceful sensation akin to happiness. It felt good to face Potter once a week for a few hours. It gave his before and after a certain continuity. They never talked about school or the war, not even a passing mention, but the fact that Harry Potter existed, and acknowledged Draco’s existence, made all the memories and every movement away from them and past his prior ways, somehow more real. 

That afternoon, however, Harry’s dark mood was all over the place, making it impossible for Draco not to ask if everything was alright. 

“I’m sorry, it’s nothing important. I just had a tough session with my therapist last evening”, said Harry with an apologetic smile. 

“A therapist? Like a muggle psychotherapist?”, Draco couldn’t refrain to ask, surprised as he was. Harry scoffed.

“A muggle psychotherapist, actually, yes”. 

Draco made a very polite, very English face of understanding and promptly looked through the window in search of and urgent change of topic, for he could not possibly fathom a non-personal, prim and proper way to continue this conversation. Providence delivered in the form of two magpies landing on the windowsill. 

"Oh!", softly exclaimed Draco, inexplicably delighted. "Would you look at that!" 

"Are they the same two?" 

"I couldn't tell…"

Both young men fell silent, watching the birds. They had landed side by side with a fraction of a second between them. They had looked around with that avian sort of movement that made most corvids look offended, and then started to skip all along the windowsill, apparently without purpose but very pointedly ignoring each other. 

After a while, Draco could not take the ominous feeling that scene had sparked in him, and turned to Harry, who was still transfixed by the magpies' bizarre dance. 

"Should I ask? About your therapy". 

Harry smiled as if he had been expecting the question, and didn't say anything nor looked away from the birds for a little while. 

"Why, Malfoy, what would you ask?", inquired Harry, finally looking at him with a placid expression, devoid of any hostility Draco might have anticipated. At this, Draco shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly and gave a spontaneous response that seemed to be aching to be spoken.

“What is it for. Although I can imagine. How is it going. Or whether it helps or not”. After a very brief pause he added: “How are you”. 

Harry laughed softly, throwing his head backwards. He covered his face with his hands and sighed. 

“I am fucked”, he declared meeting Draco’s gaze. “I’m a child soldier with PTSD, abandonment issues, identity issues and claustrophobia. I’m an abuse victim and have a deep distrust towards any authority figure. This, added to my natural tendency to bend rules results in ‘severe misanthropy and incapability to work within a hierarchy’”, he said, signing in the air the quotation marks before dropping his hands on his lap with mild frustration. “Every fatherly figure I ever had aside from Hagrid and Arthur Weasley is dead. All my friends are war heroes with similar issues, so we barely talk about normal stuff. So to avoid feeding each other’s neurosis we barely talk, full stop. My adopted family was so invested in actually making me one of them that they unconsciously pushed a relationship that ended up feeling unsettling close to incest and finished awkwardly and dramatically, distancing me from them. Oh, and right when a single month had passed without the press pestering me, tomorrow the Prophet is going to be all about me being queer because the guy I met at a muggle gay pub last Friday happened to be a squib, and he knew exactly who I was. So, uh, yeah. I’m fucked”.

Draco’s eyes were wide in shock and concern. He hadn’t known what to expect when he had enunciated the hypothetical questions he would make, but he was pretty sure he’d have been shook even if he had imagined the half of what Harry had just said. 

“I am deeply sorry, Potter. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up”.

“I wouldn’t have told you if I hadn’t wanted to”.

“Nevertheless, it is none of my business”.

Harry scoffed, this time a tad irritated. When he spoke it was patent that he was trying to refrain from lashing out completely onto Malfoy:

“How is this not your business? My psychopathic tutors certainly aren’t, but all the rest? My parents’ death? Voldemort’s return? The war? You were a part of it ever since you were born!”. Draco only managed to mouth like a fish, watching as Harry grew more and more indignant. “You conspired and helped to set on the battle at Hogwarts. At a bloody school!”, he boomed now. “You put a cursed necklace on a student! You let the Deatheaters into the castle! You were a bloody little soldier just like I was!”.

Draco rose from his seat, trembling with rage and shame: 

“I didn’t have a choice, Potter! I was born into it! I didn’t ask for any of it. I didn’t ask for this!”

From his armchair, Harry was looking up at him, at first with defiance. Upon hearing this, watching Draco looming over him, eyes wet and breathing deeply, his features softened. 

“I know you didn’t ask for this. It was uncalled for. I am on edge since I knew about the Prophet, but that’s not an excuse. I am very sorry for yelling at you and bringing up the past. For the record, I think you’ve already done more than enough to repay your debts and change your ways”. 

Draco was still staring, still looming, still breathing heavily and holding back his tears with all his power. He stood there for a few beats, and then he sat back down slowly, not taking his eyes off of Harry. A few moments of silence elongated between them, faces flustered, bodies tense, eyes locked. Finally, Draco relaxed into the backrest and spoke calmly:

“I never knew you were mistreated as a child. It’s an abomination”.

“I never knew you would be learning about muggle culture willingly”. 

“It’s part of my sentence”.

“Hermione told me you wrote her like six feet of an apology letter and asked for books, music and films”, shot back Harry with a mischievous grin. Draco rolled his eyes, mocking annoyance:

“You can’t keep secrets anymore”.

“Not between Hermione, Ron and I, no”.

They smiled at each other with something warmer than the pleasant politeness that had grown between them during the past weeks. Harry broke eye contact first to look out the window. Draco kept looking at Harry, letting the list of his presumed flaws sink in. They both spoke at the same time: 

“The magpies are gone”.

“Did they know?”.

Harry looked at him, seeming at loss.

“Sorry, who knew what?”.

“The new head of Muggle Relations and her husband. About you being queer”.

Harry avoided Draco’s eyes and bit his lower lip. “No they didn’t. If I don’t tell them today, they’ll find out tomorrow and they’ll be pissed I didn’t tell them. Luna Lovegood was the only one that knew besides my therapist. We had a one night stand some years ago. In the afterglow we were talking about this and that and I told her I liked guys. She said that people is people no matter what they pack, and love is love. Honestly we were high and I’m derailing. You’re the third person I tell this and I’m not getting any good at it”. 

Draco smirked. He rested his elbow on the armrest and his face atop his open palm, his little finger tracing the corner of his smile.

“I used to think I was asexual. Many honorable wizards were by birth or choice. Something to do with amplifying magic with your ‘life drive’”. Harry stifled a laugh and Draco smiled wider. “I used to think I’d marry Pansy Parkinson, or Millicent Bullstrode or one of the Greengrasses, force myself to produce one single heir and dedicate my life to study potions and being a socialite. Then I saw Cedric Diggory on a broom”.

Harry gaped, completely pleased with this piece of gossip, and maybe also with the fact that he and Draco Malfoy were talking about Hogwarts and it was not a sensible topic.

“Cedric whispered in my ear that I should bath with one of the clues for the Triwizard Tournament and I still get the chills when I recall it”. 

“He was stupidly handsome”, murmured Draco looking away, suddenly aware of the cause of Cedric’s death. “And stupidly brave. Like you”. He looked back at Harry just in time to notice he was flustered. He told himself it was because they’d been talking about Cedric. 

“I have to go soon. I have owls to send”, stammered Harry standing up to take his cloak and leave. Draco stood to see him out.

By the door they stopped and looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to do. In the end Draco offered his hand and said:

“Thank you. For telling me all that. And acknowledging that I’ve changed. And volunteering to be my counselor. I know nobody else beside Agnes was willing to come here and not beating me up”. 

Harry ignored Draco’s hand, his earnest look of gladness invading all of Draco’s range of sight. He pressed his lips together and dove for a hug. It was a tight, deliberate embrace, oozing sincerity and the true, deep affection that only likeness invokes. Draco wrapped his arms loosely around Harry, completely dazed by such gesture.

“Thanks to you”, whispered Harry on Draco’s ear. “For trying, getting there, and leveling me all the way up to here”. He stepped away and out the door, and a muted snap confirmed that he was gone until next Friday.

Draco stood there, the chills running through his spine. 

[lamentalia]

Amelia - Chapter 5 - Part 1

(Thank you @flamaflavio for the Italian help! :D If I somehow messed it up in copy-pasting and clipping the beginning and ending off, please let me know... lol) ★

Consciousness returns to Amelia slowly. She is achy and heavy and shrouded in something soft and warm. Something cool brushes her face and it spurs a memory from long ago of a time when Mama was still alive; when she would sit by Amelia and Mattie’s bed while they were sick.

Amelia misses hearing her voice so much, it hurts.

An unfamiliar, floral smell pulls her out of her reverie and she opens her eyes to find a kind looking face smiling down at her.

“Ah, she is awake!”

Amelia blinks up at the unfamiliar face and, she can’t help but notice, the very large bust beside her. She stares, at a total loss for how to react. Aside from her mother, she’s never met another molly cat before. Her hair is short and pale and her ears are small and roundish, covered in long, white fur, that is not unlike Amelia’s.

“Tell me dear, how do you feel?” the cat asks in an unfamiliar, lilting accent, as she fussily adjusts and smooths Amelia’s covers. Which leads Amelia to her next discovery: she is in a bed. In a room? With… Oh! A window! The interior of the room is constructed primarily from wood but the window-side wall appears to be of the same Two-Cane’s stone that her house is made of. Finally, she can see that there is a third cat in the room standing behind the first and its another female cat with a sharp gaze. Her hair is much longer but her coloring is quite similar to the smiling cat’s. Amelia feels uncharacteristically shy in their presence.

“Oh, of course! You must be confused.” The kindly molly continues easily when Amelia fails to answer. “My name is Yekaterina and this is my sister, Natayla. We take care of you since you arrived. You were in such terrible condition!”

“I have been making sure you are safe, Katyusha.” Natalya says as though offended that her intentions have been misconstrued as kindness.

“Do not be silly, Natasha, we are all safe here.” Says, er, Katyusha? Natalya’s (Natasha’s?) expression goes slightly flat at her sister’s assurance. Her ears, which had been held back up to this point, flicker in annoyance as the tension she’d created melts away slightly. Apparently her meaning hadn’t been understood. Amelia chooses to let it go, too, as she’s a little too spacey to be buying needless fights right now. The kind-faced cat picks up a cup of water from a side table and offers it to Amelia, who sits up and takes it gratefully, downing it in one go.

“Thanks,” Amelia says after catching most of her breath. “… Yekata— um..”

“Oh, call me Katya, dear. Here everyone does.”

“Thank you, Katya…” And because she feels awkward without addressing the other cat in the room, even if she’s not here to be friendly, Amelia says, “Thank you, Natalya.”

Natalya looks away disinterestedly but Katya smiles.

“I’m Amelia. Um… Where am I?”

“Amelia. It is nice to meet you.” Katya says warmly. “We call this place ‘Sanctuary.’ It is very safe place, hiding south of Ransen. Tell me, how did you come to be in river?”

Amelia’s memory is such a haze right now, she can hardly make sense of anything. River? Did something like that happen? Why in the world is she south of Ransen? When was she in a riv—

—SLAM—

Amelia and Katya both flinch at the sound of a slamming door coming from somewhere outside the room. She can hear indistinct, muffled shouts and stomping footsteps growing closer. Katya huffs quietly and Amelia glances at her, looking to measure the possibility of approaching danger through her expression. Apparently there is none. Katya smiles wryly, shaking her head. Natalya merely rolls her eyes.

The door to the room rattles. The voice has quieted into a ranting hiss as it swings open to reveal a cat backing into the room, carrying something large and heavy in both arms.

“— uscire per dieci cazzo di minuti senza che questo posto vada a puttane! Non posso credere che abbia lasciato—”

That is definitely not a language Amelia understands.

After taking a step or two into the room the new cat cuts off mid-tirade and freezes when he looks up from the pile of things in his arms to lock eyes with Amelia. For a long moment no one moves or says anything. He looks startled, donning an expression that probably matches the one Amelia’s wearing. The sharp change in his demeanor would probably have made Amelia laugh if she weren’t so out of it. As it happens, all she can do is stare blankly at the intruder.

“You’re awake.” He says, lamely. Amelia blinks, watching him step slowly backward to stand in front of the door frame. His eyes swim around the room for half of a moment as he stands there trying not to look flustered. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay by the door.”

“Okay?” Amelia responds, not entirely sure why she would be worried. She’d been startled, yes, but after years of sizing up opponents, she can see that this cat is clearly more defense than offense. Amelia glances back to Katya when she hears quiet giggling. She’s hiding a smile behind her hand politely and attempting to stifle her laughing. The tom’s face flushes and he clears his throat before continuing.

“I found these up river.” He holds up the lump in his arms and Amelia realizes that he’s carrying her coat and her pack! “They had your scent so I brought them for you. I’ll uh… put them here.”

He sets Amelia’s belongings on a chair placed near the door. It sure is nice of him to bring her stuff in.

“Oh! Wow. Thank you.” Amelia says. Huh… Why didn’t she have them on her in the first place?

“Amelia, this is Lovino.”Katya says cheerfully gesturing to Lovino and then back to Amelia. “He found you this morning in nearby river and brought you here. Lovi, she is Amelia.”

“I was in a river…?” Amelia says distractedly. Ah, right, they had just been talking about that.

“Well, Amelia, you were soaking wet and freezing cold when I found you lying beside it. I thought you must have been in it for a while.” Lovino explains. “How are you doing?”

That’s… a good question. She hasn’t quite worked that out yet. Amelia urges her stalling thoughts to focus on her body signals. Aside from full body aches and what feels like several, stinging scratches and bruises, she can feel a twisted ankle and a sharp pain in her back. It’s weird that she can’t remember how she got this way…

“Well… I’ve been better. I should be fine after I get some rest. Um… Thank you for taking me in.” Amelia rubs her eyes, willing the fog to lift from her mind. She vaguely remembers being very cold. Remembers his voice; low and melodic, worried and urgent. Amelia takes a closer look at her rescuer. He is probably close to Mattie’s height, shoulders not quite as broad, but he looks older and more filled out. She can see a shortish tail waving curiously behind his legs and he’s got a persistent furrow in his brow and a cautious air about him. By the sound of it, this stranger may have saved her life.

“Wow… I really owe you one, huh?” She murmurs, coming to realize the gravity of the situation.

Lovino repels the thought with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head and Amelia finds herself moved by the gesture.

“You owe nothing, and you’re welcome to stay here.” He says, turning to leave. He nods to the other two. “Thanks for tending to her, Katya, ...Natalya. Dinner will be ready soon.”

And with that he slips out, closing the door behind him. Amelia returns her thoughts to retracing her memories… She and Mattie had… left home. Right. Then they… got caught up in that business with the village cats…

Amelia’s dawning horror comes with a flood of vivid, terrible memories. Of awful cats attacking, of that creepy nightmare with the snake, and—

“Shit! Katya,” Amelia turns to her abruptly, forgetting about the injured muscles in her back for a moment. She winces while Katya stares at her, mouth open. It seems Amelia hadn’t noticed that she’d been talking. Oops. “Oh, sorry! But uh. My brother, Mattie. How is he? Is he in another room around here?”

“Your… brother?” Katya says, raising her eyebrows and looking back to Natalya in confusion. A weird expression flashes across Natalya’s face before settling back into disinterest and she responds.

“You are the only one Lovino brought here. He did not mention seeing anyone else.”

It looks like Natalya is going to continue but Amelia has gotten out of bed, onto her feet and she’s out the door before she can realize that she’s really not all that stable on them right now.

“Lovino!” She calls down the hallway outside while stumbling into the wall on her right. Lovino is farther up but he seems to have heard her; he’s turned back toward her looking halfway incredulous. Amelia slides ahead a few steps using the wall for support. Damned ankle.

“Woah! Hey, stop!” Lovino says dashing back to her. He takes hold of her shoulders to help steady her before she can fall on her face. “You need to lay down or you’re going to make that worse.”

“Did you see anyone else out there when you found me?” Amelia grabs onto his arms, both for balance and to ensure that he’s listening to her carefully. “Was there any sign of a tom cat?”

Maybe she sounds a little desperate or scared because Lovino stops trying to nudge her back into the room and looks her directly in the eyes, deadly serious.

“Did he hurt you? Are you being followed?”

Amelia blinks in surprise before shaking her head.

“What? No! No. He’s my brother. I was traveling with him but we were attacked and that’s kind of the last thing… I remember…” She trails off at the telling lack of recognition in Lovino’s expression. Amelia’s breath speeds up and her chest tightens painfully. She always knows where Mattie is. She has always known where she could find him when she needed to. And now she can’t. She feels lightheaded.

“Lovi, over here!” Amelia hears from somewhere. Another pair of arms supports her left side while Lovino takes over her right. Other murmuring voices trickle in around her and she vaguely registers that several faces have poked out of the doors that line the hallway. It’s making her feel awfully claustrophobic. The tightness in her chest continues tightening.

“Calm down, Amelia.” Lovino says maneuvering her back through the door of the bedroom. “Breathe. Sit and tell us what happened.”

★ TBC ★ Comments and critique are always welcome! :D Thanks for reading! Edit: wow it took me a long time to realize I mis-labeled this as chapter 4. It is most definitely chapter 5. Fixed.

[leftpress]

Jasper Bernes | July 9th 2019 | Commune

Acid against austerity.

When cultural theorist, author, and blogger Mark Fisher passed away in 2017, he left behind an unfinished book manuscript. Acid Communism: On Post-Capitalist Desire was to continue the project of his 2009 book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? In Capitalist Realism, Fisher wrote that decades of deregulation had all but fully destroyed our ability to imagine viable alternatives to capitalism. If we couldn’t envision a better world, he declared, there could be little hope that such a world would manifest. Capitalist Realism was by no means defeatist, though. The book concludes with a call to action: Fisher draws attention to what he saw as the most urgently needed political resource. If the future we want lies at the limits of our imagination we must begin there — with the creative, unruly parts of our consciousness, that parts that capital wants to claim as its own. The current political nightmare, he suggests, will only be defeated by vibrant dreams.

In this spirit, Acid Communism was meant to strengthen the political imagination. A recently published anthology of Fisher’s writings includes a draft for the introduction, which reads something like a manifesto. Fisher had taken a cue from his friend Jeremy Gilbert, a scholar who had long maintained that the sixties might serve as a blueprint for contemporary leftist revolution. Inspired by Gilbert, Fisher coined the phrase that would become the title for his next book: “acid communism” represents the idea that psychologically profound experiences — including the use of psychedelic drugs — should be used to galvanize anticapitalist movements. In the introduction, he observes that the optimism of the hippie-era left had faded during the heyday of Reagan and Thatcher. Neoliberal economics catalyzed widespread cynicism, Fisher claimed, and in so doing depleted the mental energy required for proactive organizing. We now owed it to ourselves to revive the hopeful politics that flourished in the sixties.

In the wake of Fisher’s suicide, several activist initiatives took up the Acid Communist banner. The 2018 transmediale festival, an annual arts and culture event in Berlin, included a workshop called “Building Acid Communism.” Workshop leaders gave the audience a series of prompts aimed at “unveiling and exploring the precise idea of freedom” that motivated left-wing activists. These questions inquired into how participants experienced boredom, whether fashion and style mattered to their political identity, and the last time they felt truly free from work, among other issues. Meanwhile, a spate of recent articles about Acid Communism reflect the multiple ways it might be interpreted. In one editorial, Jeremy Gilbert points out that the concept has taken on other names, including “freak left,” “psychedelic socialism,” and in the UK, “Acid Corbynism.” Acid Corbynism is referenced in the title for Gilbert’s new podcast, #ACFM (Acid Corbynism FM), which investigates “the links between Left-wing politics and culture, music and experiences of collective joy.” Although they are eclectic, these endeavors agree that the psychedelic sixties might make a reappearance in the political future. The work of Acid Communism, it seems, is just beginning.

The timing is apropos. Currently, we are in the midst of what some have called a “psychedelic renaissance,” referring to the revival of scientific interest in the psychiatric use of these drugs. Psychedelic psychiatry was a burgeoning field in the postwar period, but by the seventies the criminalization of all psychedelic drugs had brought investigations to an effective halt. After years of advocacy by researchers and psychedelic enthusiasts, clinical investigations of LSD, magic mushrooms, and related chemicals resumed in the nineties. 2014 saw the first peer-reviewed study on LSD published in over forty years, and the number of clinical trials is rapidly growing. Until recently, however, the psychedelic renaissance could not be considered mainstream. Its breakthrough moment came with the publication of Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Reaching the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list, How to Change Your Mind was a watershed moment for the reputation of psychedelics. Pollan is a widely-respected journalist, and much of the current research is being conducted at well-known universities; Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and NYU all currently have psychedelic research labs. This is encouraging to those who have long known what researchers are now trying to prove: when used safely, psychedelics can vastly improve one’s quality of life.

Although Acid Communism stands to benefit from the improved public image of psychedelics, these movements have yet to meaningfully overlap. I’ve been keeping close watch on both. My interest in the two subjects began around the same time, during my sophomore year in college. This was the fall of 2008. I was already skeptical of the US economy, but the financial crash confirmed my suspicion that capitalism was dangerous and unethical. That same fall marked my introduction to psychedelic drug experience. My initial encounter with LSD was overwhelmingly positive. It made believe that that the world was joyful, mysterious, and full of promise — an impression which contrasted sharply with the current political mood. In an attempt to reconcile my psychedelic-inspired hopeful outlook with extenuating social circumstances, I started participating in anti-capitalist and pro-peace activism. The fall of 2008 made it impossible for me to separate my political sensibilities from the hopefulness that psychedelia represents for me. But I’ve rarely seen psychedelics politicized this way in contemporary pop culture. I’d just assumed that after the sixties, psychedelic experiences could not be framed as political in mainstream discourse.

For the most part, then, I’ve pursued these subjects as separate intellectual endeavors. Both have continued to be central to my life. In 2013, I moved to New York City to pursue a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management. Although I hardly had time for anything other than school, I volunteered to help out at an after-party for Horizons NYC, which is an international forum on the science and culture of psychedelic drugs. Held every October, Horizons brings together researchers, artists and spiritual leaders to give talks on topics ranging from the globalization of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca to the use of magic mushrooms in treating cocaine addiction. My schedule of classes and work prevented me from attending any lectures. Volunteering offered me partial access to this complicated, interesting world.

“If the future we want lies at the limits of our imagination we must begin there — with the creative, unruly parts of our consciousness, that parts that capital wants to claim as its own.”

The night began with a dinner for benefactors of MAPS — the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies — a non-profit promoting psychedelic research based in Santa Cruz, CA. As we relayed kale salad and vegan cheesecake across the kitchen, my friend Nina pulled me aside. “This is weird,” she whispered, nodding toward the dining room. I knew what she meant. The venue was a lavishly-appointed brownstone belonging to a moneyed Manhattan couple. It bore little resemblance to the psychedelic settings we knew and loved: earthy, DIY spaces which would no more readily welcome conspicuous displays of wealth like the one before us than then they would a visit from law enforcement. The guests didn’t match the hippie image we associated with psychedelics either. Their conversation flowed from remarks about exotic vacation getaways to opinions on Brooklyn’s finest private schools.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was a benefit dinner, after all. But I still found the atmosphere unsettling. At the time, the economic crisis of 2008 was beginning to hit me hard. Not long before the conference, I’d watched a close friend become homeless. The tiny heart attack that happened whenever I used my debit card to buy groceries — the I-hope-there’s-enough-in-my-bank-account panic — had become a normal part of my reality, and I was resigning myself to the possibility that things might never get easier. A large part of me felt psychedelic activism to be extravagant in this climate. But I didn’t want the therapeutic use of psychedelics, a cause I’d believed in for years, to become yet another victim of late capitalism.

I tried to keep that idealistic thought at the front of my mind as the night continued. If anything, I assured myself, I should be glad to meet so many psychedelic enthusiasts who appealed to more conservative perspectives. After all, I reasoned, a controversial movement needs allies in the mainstream. Still, I couldn’t help but resent the guests for their seeming obliviousness to the current state of affairs. I wondered if they’d ever drawn a connection between their immunity to the war on drugs and their economic status, and if so, how much this bothered them. I wondered if they’d achieved some sort of enlightenment — perhaps thanks to psychedelics — that somehow made them both socially conscious and comfortable with their personal wealth. Even if participating in this space represented to me giving up some integrity, I wanted in on this insight. I was tired of feeling hopeless.

Although the luxe setting was unfamiliar, that would not be my last experience with psychedelic activism. My interest in hallucinogens followed me to my PhD in critical theory, where I explore the new psychedelic science in my dissertation. Throughout all these years, my social commitments have felt at odds with the pervasive cliché of hippie escapism. There is some truth to the myth of the disengaged drug-user: a friend of mine in the scene once said that, having attained a non-dualistic state of enlightenment, he “saw through” all political opinions. Other psychedelic explorers I’ve met intentionally ignore current events, claiming politics to be too depressing them. But, like a lot of common depictions of drug use, this is more fiction than fact. The consumption of LSD and magic mushrooms is no more likely to promote apathy than caffeine and alcohol. Moreover, in the age of Donald Trump and the rise of the new far-right, more and more people are realizing that their individual lives are ineluctably political. Political consciousness has extended to modern New Age subcultures, which now appear more thoroughly engaged with issues of justice than they did when I was an undergrad.

The Acid Communist movement has helped me view my politics as part of a historical lineage, not a misappropriation of serious Leftism. It’s helped me embrace the idea that if the experience of tripping had a message for society at large — if it aspired beyond the self-indulgence embodied in Timothy Leary’s “turn on, tune in, drop out” — it would threaten the very basis of capital. While the economic virtue of individualism rules over the modern psyche, any dedicated hippie will tell you that hallucinogens offer quite the opposite. These substances tend to break the flow of self-directed thought patterns, leading to a sense of unity with one’s environment. This state of mind is inherently communal and collectivist, and because of that, it’s easy to see how it could heighten sensitivity to political concerns. This is the connection that Fisher was to expound upon in his new book. We can now only speculate on what he might have said.

It would be wrong, however, to portray Fisher as the emblem of the movement. By Jeremy Gilbert’s account, anti-proprietary virtues are key to the concept. As a diverse set of ideas united by a collectivist ethos, appointing a figurehead would make little sense. But if such a title were to be given, Gilbert, not Fisher, may be the more worthy candidate. In a 2017 article titled “Psychedelic Socialism: The Politics of Consciousness, the Legacy of the Counterculture and the Future of the Left,” Gilbert offers some frank words on the difficulties he faced — and still faces — developing the notion in Fisher’s absence: “‘Acid Communism’ was Mark’s term for a political and analytical position that he’d derived more than a little from my work and interests,” he writes. “But it would be totally against the spirit of those shared ideas and priorities to attribute ownership or authorship of any of these ideas to anybody.”

So while Fisher appears to have owed Gilbert more credit than he gave, saying as much might be in bad faith. And, indeed, reducing Acid Communism to a particular thinker or even a cohort of thinkers would miss the point. While researching this article, I interviewed Gilbert, who offered some historical answers to the question of who might claim rightful ownership to Acid Communism. Although lighthearted in spirit, the sixties counterculture was profoundly critical of the bourgeois subject — the individual who sees herself as isolated and therefore acts out of self-interest rather than the common good. On principle, therefore Acid Communism cannot be represented by one person or group. This perspective bears a direct connection to political theories that emerged from Europe in the thirties and forties. Both Gilbert and Fisher link the postwar counterculture to the radical vision of the Frankfurt School, a circle of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Its luminaries told of a structural relationship between individualism, capitalism and authoritarianism. With these warnings, it attempted to both retroactively account for fascism and prevent its future resurgence.

“A large part of me felt psychedelic activism to be extravagant in this climate. But I didn’t want the therapeutic use of psychedelics to become yet another victim of late capitalism.”

Unlike the Frankfurt School, Acid Communism deliberately operates outside of academia, which makes it more widely accessible than movements developed mainly inside institutional frameworks. Some of Acid Communism’s strategies include freely disseminating texts and speeches: Plan C, an England-based collective in the UK that produces festivals, includes on its website blog posts and videos of Mark Fisher’s Acid Communism lectures. But Jeremy Gilbert, a member of Plan C, acknowledges that the immediacy and immersiveness of psychedelic feelings demands non-intellectual modes of invocation. He views his work as a dance party organizer as part of his political pursuits. So while there’s certainly no ban on digital organizing, real-world gatherings appear crucial to a new psychedelic Left.

Toward this end, Gilbert and Fisher both explored the viability of incorporating old-school “consciousness-raising” events in a psychedelic framework. First developed by socialist feminists in the 1970s, consciousness-raising encourages participants to share stories about struggles normally conceived as private and shameful. The idea is that when people tune in to others’ narratives of hardship — which may include accounts of mental illness, social isolation and poverty — such problems are revealed as not an exception, but the norm. In his essay “No Romance Without Finance,” Fisher writes that “as soon as two or more people gather together, they can start to collectivise the stress that capitalism ordinarily privatizes. Personal shame becomes dissolved as its structural causes are collectively identified.” When community is built around shared struggle, feelings of alienation are modulated by feelings of solidarity.

Telling stories in this consciousness-raising spirit is key, but making and listening to music might be an equally powerful consciousness-raising technique. At concerts, Fisher writes, “a mass audience could not only experience its feelings being validated, it could locate the origins of those feelings in oppressive structures.” The current popularity of free-spirited music festivals might be framed as a reaction to neoliberal malaise. While modern festivals aren’t as explicitly political as, say, Occupy Wall Street, they do permit attendees to transcend the capitalist reality of dullness and detachment. It’s not just that people directly encounter joy, but that this joy is amplified by the presence of so many others. And at festivals, psychedelic drug use abounds. “Psychedelic drugs gave birth to the modern-day music festival,” points out journalist Kevin Franciotti. “There would have been no Woodstock without LSD.” It matters just as much that the historic Woodstock Festival also has a political history. The anti-Vietnam War movement was at least as essential to Woodstock as drug use. Jeremy Gilbert and the Plan C collective maintain that politics still go hand in hand with festival culture.

The politicization of tripping and trippy art raised my suspicion, however. Political thinkers have long raised been skeptical of a connection between aesthetics and politics. The difficulties of rendering politics as art and vice versa were a major topic of Frankfurt School publications. During our interview, I asked Gilbert about German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin’s essay ��The Work of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction.” Penned by Benjamin during the rise of the Nazi regime, it makes a theoretical argument that the artistic representation of political ideals accommodates fascism. Dictatorships, after all, rely heavily on aesthetics. One might imagine the sweeping grandiosity of Nazi propaganda, or the striking color palette used by the fascist rulers in the fictional government of V for Vendetta. It’s admittedly hard to think that tie-dye and jam bands might be used for the same purpose as the military uniforms and Wagnerian orchestras of the Third Reich. But applying the vibrant, affect-heavy veil of psychedelia to Leftist organizing seems strangely manipulative, as if it’s not enough for politics itselfs to appeal to the intellect. And besides, not everybody likes psychedelic art.

In response, Gilbert reminded me that while Benjamin warned against aestheticizing politics, he was by the same token interested in the social potential that inheres in art. This, he said, is a major goal of Acid Communism, which seeks not to authoritatively impose an aesthetic program, as in fascism, but to cultivate seeds of transformation contained in already-existing cultural forms. Mark Fisher’s writings on Acid Communism make frequent references to another Frankfurt School philosopher, Herbert Marcuse. For Marcuse, Fisher wrote, “art was a positive alienation, a ‘rational negation’ of the existing order of things.” Fisher positioned Marcuse against another Theodor Adorno, another Frankfurt School philosopher. While Adorno upheld creativity as a space of revolutionary otherness, Fisher said, he did not provide any tangible visions for the politics that art might inform. Rather, Adorno had readers “endlessly examine the wounds of a ‘damaged life’ under capital.” Instead of “marking our distance” from utopia — Fisher’s final verdict on Adorno — culture should strive to embody the ideals to which we might aspire.

This sentiment was echoed by Gilbert during our interview. Radical politics, he said, are always utopian, and utopian intentions are wasted without a manifest blueprint for change. Psychedelic art, with its message of love and transcendence, delivers. “It’s not going to be for everybody,” he clarified. But he indicated that its recognizable styles — whirling geometric patterns, fractals, and musical intricacy — offer an “aesthetics of complexity” which contrast with the dull reductiveness of capitalist realism. “Not many people allow themselves the full extent of their complexity,” he said, quoting composer Arthur Russell. With its multidimensional intricacies, both the art and the drugs might throw the banality of contemporary popular media into high relief.

Of course, psychedelic experience can’t be relied on to lead to communitarian politics. One weakness of Acid Communism is that it appears to rely on a presumptive natural link between psychedelic experience and Leftist perspectives. This may have been the case for me, but, it’s not exactly scientific law. In a talk titled “Psychedelics, Fascism and the Politics of Profane Illumination,” religious historian Alan Piper admits that “initiation by psychedelic experience does not inevitably lead to liberal values” — where “liberal” is counterposed with “fascist.” Piper’s talk included a brief history of psychedelia’s dark side. Hallucinogenic drugs, he noted, have long been deployed as tools of subjugation. Hallucinogen use prevailed in the Weimar Republic, and was formative for fascist thinker Julius Evola. Then there are the Cold War era MK Ultra experiments, where US government officials administered LSD to unwitting subjects to determine its potential as a truth serum. Today, the pervasiveness of sexual assault by ayahuasca shamans is becoming well-known in subcultures using psychedelics. And the use of ayahuasca by non-indigenous people has been critiqued as cultural appropriation. Psychedelics, in view of all this, could hardly be said to lead to directly to political enlightenment.

“Acid Communism could be a component of a dynamic, experimental Leftism that is as interested in creativity as it is in critique. It would just take a bit of determination, and a strong dose of imagination.”

The case of Burning Man — the world-famous gathering long heralded as a locus of communitarianism — complicates things even further. In theory, Burning Man perfectly embodies an Acid Communist practice. No money is allowed to be exchanged within its borders; it instead promotes the free sharing of resources as part of a gift economy structure. Burning Man is organized around the idea that people want to help out more than compete with one another. But there has been a recent backlash against this image: a spate of popular reporting tells of excessive tech-sector wealth and the rampant consumerism required to prepare for a week in the barren desert. The stories usually go something like this: once safely distant from their offices, Bay Area Burners descend into well-financed hedonism. Spending millions on private jets to the remote Nevada location, they proceed to “camp” in utmost luxury. Technology scholar PJ Patella-Rey considered this in an article titled “Burning Man is The New Capitalism.” While he emphasizes that there’s no causal link between the two, Rey claims it’s also not a coincidence that Burning Man began in 1989 — the year that the Berlin Wall fell. “Burning Man demonstrates how market-driven consumption fuels a new commons and how this commons, in turn, creates new markets,” he writes.

Gilbert considers the transformation of commons into markets to be a perversion of psychedelic values. But perhaps it’s to be expected. As he reported on his blog, “you can’t expect projects like Burning Man to end up in any place other than where it now is, in the absence of a much wider political movement for them to connect to. Experimental spaces like Burning Man will end up being co-opted by capitalism if there isn’t some wider political movement to sustain them, inspire them, and inform them about how to do things differently. You can’t really blame Burning Man for the fact that that’s happened to it.” It would seem that if music and art events are committed to widespread social transformation, such intentions would have to be extremely clear from the outset.

The intimacy between Silicon Valley and psychedelics deserves further remark. The rise of the “cryptopsychedelic” movement joins Bitcoin boosters and hippies, and initiatives are being launched to help corporate executives expand their professional mindset with some hallucinogenic assistance. And this surpasses the tech sector. Across the US, the reform of drug policy is a popular cause among libertarians and certain factions of the alt-right. Of course, not all who vouch for laissez-faire economics support the new psychedelic movement. But in the US, much overlap exists between these groups. When I pressed Jeremy Gilbert on this, he responded that contemporary hippies who embrace libertarianism fail to grasp the political history of their subculture. The New Agers of the mid-20th century, he claimed, were never in favor of capitalist principles. But this history may be more clear in Europe, where socialism has not withstood the bad reputation it has had in the States. If Acid Communism is to thrive in the USA, it would have to emphasize that psychedelia has been long-embraced by anti-capitalism. Its current vogue among libertarians is a historical anomaly.

On this note, it’s especially relevant that the psychedelic resurgence is not strictly happening in well-financed research labs. Much like the new left, it is taking place in the streets. As the number of legal investigations grows, the rise psychedelic in psychedelic drug may appear to be the exclusive result of science. A recent Vice Magazine piece points that the last few years have seen a major swell in the illegal use of LSD, especially among young people. “US government statistics show 1.31 million 18- to 25-year-olds admitted taking LSD in 2017 compared with 317,000 in 2004 — almost a fourfold increase since the mid 2000s,” it reports. While the fiat renaissance raises the socially-acceptable banner of medical studies, on the streets, it crosses into brazen political territory. Vice interviewed 25-year-old Abby, a student in the US who claims to use LSD to cope with “the ravages of modern capitalism,” as she puts it. “Psychedelics take the edge off the costs and burden of existing in a materialist and capitalist society, and the fact that this is not how life is supposed to be,” Abby said.

The construction of psychedelic spaces “where people can learn and grow” might be a natural pastime for youth increasingly skeptical of the status quo. Indeed, aiding the creativity and curiosity of young people — capacities preempted by neoliberal education policy — could be a goal of Acid Communism. When I asked Jeremy Gilbert about his hopes for the future, he indicated public school curricula as a site desperately in need of reconstruction. While it may be hard to translate Acid Communism into education policy reform, its program of consciousness-raising might take the form of alternative education practices, such as teach-ins and ecologically-focused curricula. And, indeed, there is indeed a burgeoning para-academic psychedelic pedagogy. Most psychedelic conferences welcome speakers without institutional affiliation, and a recent assembly titled “Cultural and Political Perspectives on Psychedelic Science” joined scholars across disciplines to weight in on the social implications of psychedelia.

Although formal meetings openly embrace Acid Communism, its truths might always be more evident at the after-parties. While I missed the lectures at Horizons 2013, I’ve since attended a number of other psychedelic conferences. More often than not, the formal lectures are less interesting than the conversations that ensue. While it’s too much to expand on medicine, culture and politics in a single talk, the disciplinary orthodoxy that guides conference lectures doesn’t apply to casual conversation. [a pattern emerged]. Many people see their psychedelic and political commitments as intertwined, refusing to reduce one to the other.

This brings me back to my story about Horizons. Following the benefactor dinner, there was an dance party. People were welcome even if they hadn’t gone to the conference, and the ticket price was affordable. As my friend and I made our way through the crowd, something stuck out: people seemed elated. They were unselfconsciously giddy in a way I rarely encountered at a typical bar. Of course, for some, this was the result of a little chemical assistance. But I was sober the aura was infectious anyway. It helped me set aside my bitterness from earlier hours and enjoy my company. I ended up talking to a man who’d brought his children along. When I asked him if he was worried about the party’s possible bad influences, he replied that this was the most wholesome thing they’d seen all week. What they encountered at school, he observed, was far less uplifting. There was no argument there. Despite the reason for the occasion, the feeling of inclusiveness made psychedelics seem incidental. People were what mattered, not chemical compounds.

“This is what it looks like,” I thought. An ideal was realized if only temporarily. Of course, it may seem tenuous as the basis for a new politics. But Acid Communism could be a component of a dynamic, experimental Leftism that is as interested in creativity as it is in critique. It would just take a bit of determination, and a strong dose of imagination.

The post Turn On, Tune In, Rise Up appeared first on Commune.

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[lachalaine]

drabble . a hangover and two

disclaimer: emilia is jackie’s childhood best friend, and not necessarily the nicest person ever. if she seems excessively rude, it’s because she is. she’s got the biggest ego on the continent borne of being very, very rich and very, very spoiled, and rather just enjoys throwing her money and power around and being the most aggravating presence possible. she has her good sides as well ( just buried severely deep ). regardless, her main countenance is not the best. particularly, she is the type to walk over people if she deems them unworthy, and that’s almost everyone. it’s just the way she is and that’s that. pls keep that in mind if u read, thank you. 

* this has talk of a one night stand and a copious amount of alcohol, please be warned thank u

She wasn’t the type to come around very often, and that much was true.

For how much she might have played a part in Jackie’s formative years, and for how much she’d loved to make her presence known when she was actually around ( so loud and so proud and so unapologetically annoyingly Emilia ) the truth of the matter was, the blonde only tended to slip her way out from whatever obscure part of the world she’d lazed her days about in when she’d finally deemed her esteemed attendance to be – well – most opportune, really.

Which in translation really just meant when her instincts were blasting clamorous and off key that Jackie was currently stuck in a most compromising position of which could not miss.

In this case –

“Why is there a very ugly stranger waiting for you outside your house?”

When she was flat out drunk and nursing a hangover. Apparently.

As you do.

Truth be told, the resonance of the blonde’s lilting accent was honestly enough to startle the plastered girl almost fully cognizant.

Perhaps the most terrible wakeup call ever, truly.

“Oh fuck.” And Jackie knew this script only far too well by now.

But she’d still fucking hated it, dammit. “No, please no, Emilia ---“ Incoherent mutterings of the most debilitated kind, the kind that might’ve made one almost pity her.

Almost.

She wasn’t really that lucky. “Why are you here?”

The smile her suffering brings to the blonde reeks of sheer delight.

And if that wasn’t a cause for concern - she didn’t know what was.

“Now, now – no need to sound so excited to see me, Dulcet. As knackered as you are –” A sharp cackle of amused laughter even as lacquered crimson lips stretched into an amused grin, long nails tugging teasingly at the thick comforter that hid her best friend from view, her viridian eyes alight with a shimmer that was perhaps only just a smidgen all too bright.

It only makes the DJ clutch the material around her just that much tighter.

If only she could sink into the fabric and never come back up again --- oh gods, please help her.

“You should have expected I would arrive sooner or later.”

Please.

The gods response? 

No.

“Emi.” Jackie whines softly into her pillows, the most that she can manage when she feels so absolutely trashed. Even within the confines of her bed, from where she’d burrowed herself in like some kind of burrito – oh lords, it was too much. “Please, god forbid. Not today. I just had. The worst night. In the history of nights. Seriously, I feel like absolute shit and I could just – “

“Retch?” The echo of a loud and most obnoxious sound, much like air being sucked through an empty Starbucks straw. A Venti. Espresso Frappuccino. Non-fat but with extra chocolate syrup and a double helping of whipped cream. Sugar, sugar, sugar. 

( jackie hated how much she’d remembered that even in the throes of her suffering, fuck her sideways, bloody hell )

…oh no. it was happening.

She wasn’t human enough for this. 

Yet Emilia continued onwards with her litany much without pause. “Pass out? Die? Do tell which one it might be, darling, and I’ll either have a trash can or a funeral prepared for you either way. Alexander will take care of it, won’t you, love?”

“Of course, my lady.” The corresponding utterance of a subdued voice, most polite and most obedient. The kind that’d made Jackie deflate only that much further.

Between the both of them and their combined forces, she was turning into a soggy ass pancake. As expected. Business as usual, so you might say. “I can have a plot of land dug and prepared for Mademoiselle Jackie in the course of half an hour. Fifteen minutes, if urgently required.”

…well. That was a very promising response, first thing in the morning.  

Somehow, she’s not at all aghast by it anymore.

What did that say of their friendship, truly? 

She would hate to ask. 

“…how did you even get in here?” She asks instead, tone most wary and uncertain, though somehow sounding already resigned to her fate. “I had the locks changed a month ago when I lost my keys, I could swear.”

The soft wiggle upon her bed, as the blonde made herself more comfortable. “Don’t underestimate my capabilities, Dulcet. I had a backup key made the very evening that you had it changed. Can’t have any barriers whilst getting into my protégé’s house. But, please, before you go on into all that personal boundaries speech and all that jazz – “ The female already cutting her off, even when she was still trying to make sense of the words, holy fucking shit. “Don’t try to change the subject.“ Another too loud sip, another clench of Jackie’s nails into the mattress in a bid for self-restraint, the sound of a doorbell ringing faintly off in the distance –

‘Why was this woman her best friend, goddess help her – ‘

“I ask again: why is there an ugly bloke of a man ringing your doorbell? And holding your knickers, of all things.”

--- that caught her attention.

“WHAT?” She was popping up from the covers like a jack in the box well before the uttered sentence could properly settle, and quite frankly, the expression on the Brit’s visage honestly couldn’t be anymore more pleased.

It was like the smile of a shark that’d smelled blood in the water.

Bingo.

And Jackie was whatever sorry son of a bitch sea lion that had gotten caught in its trap.

Shit.

“Ah – so you do actually possess mobile capabilities. Wouldn’t you wonder at that, Alexander? I am so amazed.”

The most playfully amused smirk even as red lips remained sealed around her straw, while her butler’s expression as he’d stared down at them both appeared as though it truly couldn’t be anymore blasé then it already was, really. His short response was just as annoying. “Yes, my lady. Much enthused, it is truly a miracle.”

why jackie ever bothered to put up with either of them, she would never know.

“Oh, screw you both!”

But she was down and shoving herself beneath the covers again without a second thought.

And yet her moment of weakness had been enough, as blonde so quickly reached out and grasped at the edgings of the covers with a steel grip, tearing it up and off her incapacitated victim with a dark grin. “I would say yes to that offer, love, but three is a crowd and you don’t swing that way the last I checked. Unless something’s changed, of which case I would say I am absolutely aghast that you would not tell me, but I trust you to fill me in on every little bit eventually.” A sassy wink, a relentless attack. Jackie would have no escape from her at this rate. Not if she’d had anything to say about it.

And truly. Emilia had a lot to say about everything, all the damn bloody time, Jesus Christ. It was like she never shut up.

( on her fucking grave, bitch. )

“At least, on anything of what I don’t already know about you, more or less. But we’ll talk about that later. We shift instead our discussion to today’s most important concern, of which case, I must say, you cheeky, cheeky girl –” She’d tittered, tossing her cup backwards and not even checking to see if Alex had caught it. She was fairly certain he would have, in any case.

Considering how often she threw things, his reflexes were superhuman at this rate, really. But anyway, as she was saying, back to the main point behind this visit -

Her best friend’s shitty life choices. Exhibit A, of which she’d practically crooned to the poor girl with an all too amused little giggle, the sound conspiratorial in every sense of the word as she’d leaned down, down, down, down, down –

“I really can’t believe you walked out without your knickers.”

Shit. Wait. What?

If the Brit was trying to give her a heart attack, it was working.

For as it was, all Jackie could seem to do was stare up at the ceiling with wide eyes filled with the most optimal amount of dread, and even she couldn’t deny the sudden and pervasive feeling of absolute doubt.

Her heart echoes a stuttered pulse within her chest, and her whisper when it resounds – is only but a mere breath. “...are you fucking serious right now?”

Emilia’s smile when it spreads – is damning. “Look out. The window~”  

Jackie blinks. Jackie stares. Jackie is really, really, severely, absolutely and terribly uncertain.

But her heart is pounding at her to move. And she’s up. Up and suddenly rolling herself off the bed with naught but a little thump, where she hits the ground hard; and with a long suffering groan, and despite the unsteadiness ( and oh, she really was about ready to hurl, holy shit ), she’s up on her feet and wobbling her way half off towards the hallway without a second thought.

She stops on the landing, she works her way to the window, and with face pressed flat against the clear glass – she feels her heart drop.

And for the third time in a row this drabble ( or was it the fourth? fifth? who knows? ) –

Holy fucking shit.

“He has my underwear.”

Bad adult choices 101 – how not to have a one night stand, whoops.

“Mhm.” Emilia hums as she inches up against the window with her, looking all as though a pampered cat that’d acquired two villages worth of both cream and tuna. “Black and lacy and waving it up and down like the Union Jack. You do know how to choose them, darling. Your drunken decisions would haunt you. It’s fully on brand, I must say.”

Honestly, she’s not even sure how she would have managed to respond. Her soul was fast spiraling into an endless abyss at the proof of her negligence, and Jackie truly feared she was going to go down with it.

How had he even managed to figure out where she’d lived?

The despair of such notion only triples when the man finally halts his godforsaken doorbell ringing and chances a quick glance upwards – merely a moment, really – but Jackie only has just enough awareness left in her to grab the blonde by the shoulder and duck!

It’s far too late, of course.

“BABY!” His sudden screeching proves that point well enough, oh boy.

But she’s on her knees and digging her nails into Emilia’s shoulder before she can stand to even plan an alternative action otherwise, crap.

Is she having a heart attack? It certainly feels like it. And yet Emi, bless her soul, is far too amused to really fucking care.

Really, she’d lived for this, truly. Who else could you have found to be the embodiment of the protag of a rom-com without even trying? 

She was so lucky.

Maybe.

“Provided you are done trying to claw a huge chunk of my shoulder off my body, perhaps we can discuss how you plan to take care of this before the paparazzi show up?”

The look Jackie grants her at that remark with seems to be all kinds of staggering, and the blonde almost feels a surge of pity.

Almost.

She wasn’t that type of person. 

“Earth to Jackie. Oi bitch, wake up.” A short slap against her cheek, if only enough to snap her out of it.

If anything, all the stinging gesture manages to do is make her even more panicked.

Both hands quickly relegates to the Brits shoulders without nary a second thought, and even Emilia – in all her persistent amusement – muses if perhaps she might have gone just a wee bit too far off the edge this time.

Jackie’s whisper to her sounds like the beginnings trails of insanity. “You need to get rid of him.”

“BABY, MY LOVE, COME OUT PLEASE – “

Nani the fuck? 

“Excuse me, you need me to get rid of that?” The look on her face was pure disdain etched into a picture. “Are you absolutely kidding me? The man sounds like a step away from being a desperate git, he hasn’t even said your name yet, which probably means he forgot it. I am not subjecting myself to that.”

“Emilia. Please.” The softness of her voice was not at all equal to the focused intensity of which laced her very being. “I need you to do this for me. On the love of our fucking friendship – “

“Oh god, Jackie.” The toss of her head, platinum blonde locks shifting with the movement as she’d waved the younger female away. “Don’t beg. You know that’s beneath you.”

Excuse her??

“Emi – I am so fucking plastered off my ass I am going to fucking puke on you. That man has my underwear, which means I made the walk home without them, and he knows where I live even though I’m pretty sure I had him passed out cold when I left this morning and I don’t remember telling him anything and with all due respect, I do not think anything is capable of being beneath me at the moment except my fucking grave.”

“Of which I can still have prepared in but a moment, Mademoiselle.” The short pipe up in the background wasn’t helping.

“Alex.” Sanity was evidently not a word in her vocabulary when Jackie finally looked up at him. “I will fucking slaughter you, do not test me.”

A short shrug, an almost amused nod. “As you wish.”

Her concentration shifts back down to viridian hues without missing a beat. “You need to take care of him. But be nice about it if you can. But just -- please. It is a need.”

“It is a need for you to calm down, that’s what you need. I did not fly here all the way from Bali to solve your boy troubles, Jackie. I merely flew here just to laugh at them --- eep!”

If mahogany hues could burn, then perhaps – the blonde mused - she would be on fire right now.

“Please.”

That was no longer a request.

Five minutes later, and she was finally opening the front door with a look upon her face that spoke quite distinctly of her absolute disdain.

If the poor man felt like he’d belonged more accurately squished at the bottom of her heel, it was honestly because he - quite very bluntly - did.

In her expert opinion, at least.

And she was an expert in all her opinions, but of course. 

“Are you done ravaging the doorbell yet, you twit?”

The guy was American, and so he couldn’t quite understand the insult. But also, it appeared he didn’t take to context clues all too well.

That or he was evidently still hung over off his ass.

Whatever. 

“Sorry, I just.” The male began, not actually having expected someone to open the door and yet already scrambling for words, perhaps not even having thought about his actual game plan before he’d come by. It certainly seemed to be the most logical explanation, really. He’d been driven to follow after the girl based on something inexplicable really, he’d just - “The DJ girl. Is she - is she here? I just wanted. To see her. She was gone this morning and I couldn’t find her and she didn’t give me her number and you know I had to ask – “

“She’s not available.” She cuts him off. A short response, a curt and both cutting stare.

How harsh, she hadn’t even let him finish.  

“Not for the next half of a century, at least. But she will have her knickers back though, if you please. Thank you for bringing it.”

The laundry basket she’d kicked out towards him drilled in the fact that he wasn’t even worthy of an explanation beyond that.

He’d stared down at it, and then looked up, and then down again, and then up.

It was quite like watching a puppy really. Unfortunately - 

She wasn’t much a fan of dogs.

The short cock of her head once more, as though that was answer enough. “Well put them in, won’t you? I don’t have all day.”

He was clutching at the piece of lingerie like it was his lifeline now.

‘How terribly depressing.’

“I – but – is she - really not here?” He’d asked, the words sounding almost stilted on his lips.

“No, she’s not.” The female drawled, already rolling her eyes in the picture of absolute irritation. “She’s gone, actually. Lying in a ditch somewhere and questioning her life choices, probably, but regardless, can you please?” Another light kick, a lowly uttered tut beneath her lips. “Put them in?”

Either the guy was slow or he was just very much attached to a woman he’d barely spent even five hours with, good god.

He still hadn’t let go of her underwear.

“But – are you sure? I saw her. People saw her. Come home. Her hair – “

Somewhere by the banister, Jackie was slamming her head against the wall and trying not to groan.

By the doorway, Emilia was heaving a long suffering sigh.

“She’s much a fan of violet, I will tell you that much. Anything that you think is her hair is literally just her couch, her bed sheets, her wallpaper and even her dishes. I’d give you a tour of her place but this isn’t a museum. So god for-fucking-bid – the underwear. Now.”

There must have been a spike to her tone, one that was sharp enough to make the man flinch.

But still. He tried.

“…can I wait for her? I’m sure – she’ll want to see me – after the night we had –“

Another shuddering knock from upstairs, the woes of a plastered woman cursing herself to the high heavens above. It was enough to make anyone look up. 

Emilia didn’t even bother. 

“Not a chance.” The female uttered, lyrical tone not even missing a beat. “In fact, I doubt she even remembers your name. Alcohol tends to do that to her, no offence. Which, I might ask – what is your name, by the way? For short term memories sake.” For it wasn’t so much that she’d cared, but it was always good to have this kind of information on hand for potential blackmail.

At the slightest glimpse of interest, at perhaps a chance to gain some form of entrance, the man puffed up his chest with a sharp nod. “Kale.”

A short stop. A loud screech. The perch of a thin and neatly trimmed brow. 

She couldn’t quite believe this. “Kale?”

“Yes.”

“…like the vegetable?”

“…yes?”

Oh, he was far too proud for a man with a name like that.

“Say no more.” She’d waved him off, much like a woman ridding herself of flies. “Gods, she really must have been drunk off her arse last night. No matter. You can leave now, and never come back again. Drop the knickers or I’ll have my men take care of yours.”

Well – that hadn’t gone the way he’d expected it to. 

“What?”

A roll of her eyes, a mere snap of her fingers. And before he knew it

--- there were three dudes boxing him in. Breathing down his neck. Intimidating him even by mere presence.

Had they been there the entire time?

It would certainly appear so.

They’d just learned all too well to be discreet until needed, that was all.

Suffice to say though, that at the very least – he’d dropped off the underwear without much trouble after that.

Yet Emilia, when she finally stalks her way upstairs, along the look of absolute disdain now directed at her wasted best friend sprawled out along the floor – she’d just had to ask, after all –

“You had sex with a man named Kale?”

As if Jackie’s heart wasn’t already due to give out on her. Of all the fucking things to care about - “Emilia, I swear to god – “

“I am so disappointed in you. Of all things. Kale. You couldn’t just fuck a bloody carrot. A zucchini. A cucumber. No, you go for fucking Kale instead. Jesus Christ, no wonder you hated it. Not to mention, you really need to rethink your strategy of not wearing wigs when you go out with plans to get fucked. Your bum is a sitting duck with these men, have you not realized that?”

Jackie doesn’t know she has it in her to answer the blonde at all anymore honestly. Perhaps she would have. Perhaps she would have not. Regardless, and without further ado, with no small amount of drama --

It appears she passes out. Right out of it. Just like that. 

Boop. 

To the slightest prod of a designer heel - there is no response. “-- is she dying, Alex?”

Said butler appeared as though he could only nod. “Perhaps, my lady. I cannot quite say – “ A low and most suffering groan emanated from the girl, and all too soon, he was quickly rethinking that thought. “It would certainly appear so.”

And for perhaps the first time that afternoon, the blonde doesn’t scoff. In fact, she doesn’t bother to do anything anymore but just release and all too heavy sigh. 

“Hmm. Pity. Do pick her up then, I suppose.” The slight nod, even as she’d quickly turned on her heel and moved to make her way down the hall. “We’ll take care of the rest, as usual.” 

“Shall I prepare the funeral then, my lady?” The servant had the gall to ask, already bending down to pick up the passed out female, cradling her in his arms much like one would handle overly precious cargo.

One that was lightly snoring and stunk of a distillery, at least. 

How charming. 

He didn’t mean that statement in sarcasm.

For all as ironic as it was, she really was as precious as they would come. 

At least they would think so, really. 

“Hardly, Alex. We’ll bother with her funeral only after we prepare her bath. The bloody girl is still as hopeless a turtle as ever, wouldn’t you say? All these years and she’s still the same absolute mess.”

The smile the male sports as he follows after his lady appears to be if anything -- only all too pleased. And he knows for a fact that the same amusement is only ever matched by the blonde. 

Not that they would ever tell, of course. 

“As ever, madam. A very curious turtle indeed.”

But perhaps, just as they had back then, they’d rather much appreciated her that away after all.

FIN

[brywrites]

The Political Abyss

[1st | 2nd ]

Author’s Note: A number of people have messaged/commented about the political AU! You can read it here on FFN, but if that’s not your jam, I figured I may as well post it here. Be warned it is a WIP and with my schedule, I can’t make any promises about when it’ll be updated, but I’ll give you what I’ve got so far!

Number One Observatory Circle, Washington DC May 3rd, 3:01 AM

Aaron Hotchner was not unfamiliar with phone calls at odd hours of the night. It's just that he usually had an inkling that they would be coming. This one was wholly unexpected.

"Mr. Vice President, I'm sorry to wake you." It was the voice of Grant Anderson, one of the heads of secret-service. "But there's something you need to see, and it's urgent. I'll be outside the house to escort you to the Situation Room in five minutes." This wasn't a suggestion or a request, but a non-negotiable order. He had five minutes to throw on some appropriate clothing and gather his things, bracing himself all the while for whatever might be waiting for him.

Gideon preferred to use the Situation Room sparingly, even in the state of paranoia he suffered after the bombing in Boston. It took a truly clandestine crisis to receive such a summons. The last time he remembered being called there was for a briefing after Frank Brietkopf had resurfaced in the DC area. Hotch shuddered at the thought.

That was a night he never wanted to relive.

In the room, he found the Cabinet all waiting, looking expectantly at him, evidently the last to arrive. Jennifer Jareau was at the head of the room, managing the others as any good Chief of Staff knows how to do. Correction – perhaps he wasn't the last to arrive. The President's chair was open. And yet, the doors were being closed. What was happening?

JJ cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably. "I'm afraid we have a crisis. Late last night, a letter was discovered in the Library. A letter from President Gideon stating that he felt he could no longer perform his duties as President of the United States, and has henceforth resigned." Gasps of disbelief and anxious chatter flooded the room, which JJ quickly shut down, commanding attention once more. "Upon examining the Oval Office, we found two additional letters, formal resignations to be delivered to both the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore, as called for by official procedure. Gideon however, has vanished."

The cacophony of sound rose again, this time louder and more panicked. Hotch sat there in the midst of it all, trying to process exactly what this meant. "Who found this letter?" he asked.

"That would Secretary Reid," answered JJ. The young, awkward Secretary meekly raised his hand.

"And how did you find it?"

Reid swallowed hard, the picture of uncertainty. Despite his youth, the man was brilliant, Hotch knew that. He'd been a mentor to the Secretary, tried to impart what wisdom he could; but now was not the time for niceties. It was a matter of national safety.

"I was looking for the President. He hadn't been around all day, and we were going to meet and review suggested policies over a game of chess, but he never showed up. I thought he might be in the library, and when I went there… well, I found it. It had my name on it," he added, his voice a little quieter. "It said he knew I would be the one to find it."

For a brief second, Hotch felt something akin to jealousy, that the youngest member of the administration should be the one Gideon chose to address; but then he reminded himself it made the most sense. Despite having worked with Gideon for years, he shared a special with Reid. He was father and mentor and friend at once, and while Hotch had long since learned to see the flaws in the President's ways, Reid practically worshipped the man. Besides, Hotch had a wife and a son to go home to at the end of the day, a life of his own. Reid had no friends outside of work and no family of his own.

Of course he would go looking for Gideon, late after hours. Of course he would be the one to find the letter. It was nothing personal. Merely Gideon running the odds and predicting which one of them would be most likely to be in a particular place at a particular time.

"So where do we go from here?" Hotch wasted no time on other questions, just got to work.

"The President left very specific instructions. He doesn't want to be disturbed or found. We're to tell the country he's dead."

His eyebrows knit together in confusion at JJ's words. "That would mean holding a funeral. A televised one. Not to mention notifying Stephen and-"

"I'll take care of it, Hotch." Blue eyes stared into him, unwavering. The Chief of Staff has never faltered in her promises. Work that was done with the utmost precision and perfection, that is what he'd come to expect from her. "All you need to worry about right now is fulfilling your duty as President of the United States. The inauguration will take place as soon as possible."

There were a million things weighing on his mind after the Cabinet was dismissed. What would he say to the country? How would he choose a new administration? Who would be his Vice President? Hundreds of choices to be made.

The very first of which was deciding what to do next. Hotch instructed Anderson to take him back to Observatory Circle, to the old, white Victorian house that was designated as the official residence of the VP. Walked up one flight of stairs and into the bedroom where he gently woke Haley.

"Aaron? What time is it?"

"5 AM." That seemed to shake most of the sleepiness from her senses, and she sat upright.

"What is it? What's happened?"

"It's Gideon," he told her. Paused. Then said, "He's dead." The truth was strictly need-to-know, and Haley didn't need to know. Every day things happened that he had to lie to her about, because the truth was too dangerous. Or was absolutely confidential. So he lied, no matter how much he wished he could tell her. At times he wondered whether or not she could tell that the information he gave was false. Did she know, instinctively, that he knew more than he was allowed to say?

This was one of those times, when her eyes searched his face before she murmured, "Oh, God. Aaron. That means…" Things had been tense between them lately, but she held him close, arms flung tight around his neck. "Our life is never going to be the same, is it?"

This time, he didn't have to lie. He simply returned his wife's embrace "No. No it won't."

The White House Cabinet Room, Washington DC May 3rd, 11:30 AM

Only eight hours later, an inauguration was put together. Eight hours wasn't enough time to process it all. Derek Morgan went to sleep the previous night sure of his status and his job, knowing that the President was a little unsteady (but then, he'd been before, and had come out of it mostly intact), and believing that Jason Gideon would be president for another two and a half years. When he was awoken that morning, the world was turned upside down, like a junk drawer, all of its contents shook loose and spilled out on the floor.

A mess, that's what it was. They were all just trying to make sense of things. The Cabinet had been through so many changes already. Not even a year ago had Emily Prentiss replaced Elle Greenaway as Secretary of State, after Elle suffered a nervous breakdown and resigned. Now Gideon was gone, too.

There were four members of the Cabinet who were exceptionally close, both with each other and with the President and Vice President. Emily, Reid, JJ, and Morgan. Along with the Director of the Office of Public Engagement, Penelope Garcia, they had a close-knit group that supported each other in the daily challenges of government work. Now Gideon was missing-in-action and Hotch was the President. That left Morgan feeling uncertain about the future, as he stood and watched the swearing in ceremony. It had been thrown together as soon as possible, almost immediately after announcing to the press that the President had passed away.

Chief Justice Jack Garrett recited the oath of office, which Hotch faithfully repeated. "I, Aaron Hotchner, do solemnly swear that will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Haley stood by his side, their two year old son, Jack, sleeping in her arms.

The new VP was to be an old associate of both Gideon and Hotch, the former Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, David Rossi. Rossi was a bit of a bureaucratic legend, having authored several books since his days in the Senate, and wasn't known for being a team player. If Hotch trusted him though, they all had to trust him.

"Reid, what do you think about this guy?"

Reid barely glanced away from the scene at the front of the room, where Hotch was now speaking intently with the new VP. "Well, Rossi has decades of experience to offer. He changed the game in the Senate during his time in Congress, and was instrumental in putting through crucial legislation. He's respected, but I don't know if he's well-liked."

"You don't get to be where he is by being well-liked," he said.

"Does anybody get anywhere in this field by being well-liked?" Emily asked, leaning in to speak lowly. "I mean, we're politicians for god's sake." Before Morgan could respond, Hotch cleared his throat at the front of the room, and all eyes turned his way.

"I'd like to thank you all for being here," he said, his voice measured and steady. "I realize, circumstances being what they are, that things are going to be chaotic. This won't be an easy transition, and I'm going to need each of you to be at your best. With Gideon gone, there's bound to be media scrutiny and speculation. We've got to present a united front to the country right now, and show them that we're capable. If you wish to leave your post, I ask that you submit your resignation immediately. I have no plans to fire anyone currently in the Cabinet. However, there are a few open positions that will need filling. Things are changing, and this is a difficult time, but I assure you that together we'll get through it."

Morgan could only hope as much. There were so many unanswered questions. Where did Gideon go? Would the press buy their story? Would the funeral go off without any problems? How was this going to work? Hotch had always acted as a de facto leader to the team, as Gideon had a history of going off on his own and overlooking the people who made things happen. It was natural to have him in a position of power, but that didn't mean everyone would accept it.

That evening, a private dinner was held with the closest members of Hotch's Cabinet. After the main course had been served and conversation drew to a lull, Morgan stood with Reid and Emily outside the door, gossiping about David Rossi.

"He's a loner," Morgan said, tossing back a glass of whiskey. "Definitely not the kind to make friends in his work. He's focused on one thing and one thing only. Which means he has to have some sort of motive for accepting the position."

"Yeah, it's called power, and anyone in this swamp would say yes. Even those who say they'd never want the job would say yes," Emily retorted.

Reid shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. "He's a successful politician whose books have sold over a million copies."

"Yeah, so there's a million reasons not to come back, if you know what I'm saying," Morgan said. "He's rich, he's famous, he appears on plenty of talk shows and news programs. The guy could do anything, and he swore off politics when he retired. Gideon disappears and he changes his mind? Seems strange to me."

Morgan wasn't the only member of the Cabinet prone to overanalyzing people and situations. They all did. Politicians had to be good at reading people, their jobs demanded it. He could tell what a person wanted and what they needed to hear after only a few minutes of conversation, and he could determine their background based on their habits and behavior. Who had money, who didn't, who was trying too hard to fake it? Who was there for the right reasons and who was just concerned about reelection? It was all about playing the game, and Derek Morgan was good at playing the game.

"Reid, you've read all his books, right? What do you know about him other than his political record?" The Secretary of the Treasury was brilliant, and his eidetic memory made him one of the most accurate fact-checkers in Washington. On the job, he could calculate just about anything, memorize important documents, and keep facts straight; more often than not though he was utilized as a party trick at government functions.

"I don't feel comfortable speculating on the personal life of the Vice President."

"Come on, Reid," Emily urged, elbowing him. "Give us something."

Reid sighed. "He's from an old Italian family, he's been married and divorced three times, served in the Marine Corps-"

"Okay," Emily interjected. "Italian, so he's probably had strict Catholic upbringing. That coupled with the Marine Corps could make him a bit of a hardass, He's likely to be distant, emotionally detached, perhaps even lonely."

"Which fits with his inability to maintain meaningful relationships," Morgan added. "He's not a team player, and he tends to do things his way. Despite that, he probably has a moral code, being Catholic. Probably believes in redemption."

"Oh, I believe in a lot of things." The three of them turned around, horrified, to see Rossi standing behind them, looking vaguely bemused. "You got the Italian-Catholic bit right, but my upbringing wasn't that strict. As for my relationships and my time in the military, I hardly think you can accurately judge a person's personality by a few brief glimpses of their past. If you have questions, you know you can just ask."

Emily glanced down at the glass of wine she was holding, all of them embarrassed to have been caught in the act. To their surprise, Rossi simply said, "You should probably come join us back inside. They're serving dessert, and Hotch has a few things to say before we head our separate ways."

They obeyed, following the VP back into the dining room. It was still a shock to see Hotch sitting at the head of the table, where Gideon had always been. Things were more calm than the morning had been, but Morgan knew this was only the beginning. They were all still shell-shocked, standing deep in the river and waiting for the current to drag them under. 'It would be then that they would be forced to sink or swim. A thing like this didn't effect everyone equally. It would take time to heal, yes, but it would take time too for wounds to be revealed.

The only thing he was certain about – nothing was ever going to be the same.

Arlington National Cemetery, Washington DC May 6th, 1:49 PM

They buried the President with all the grief they could muster. Reid didn't feel sadness so much as bitterness, anger, but it manifested all the same. He didn't have to fake the tears as they stood on the lawn, somberly dressed in black. Flashbulbs on cameras went off all around them, marking the moment in history. Hotch gave the eulogy, as Stephen has refused to attend.

The words were hollow, fake grief for a fake death. The world wouldn't know that, though. They didn't know the casket was as empty as the things they said that afternoon. Hotch was stoic as always. Garcia and JJ looked genuinely moved, mourning the loss of a friend who would never return. Emily and Morgan stood in a stiff silence, sunglasses on despite the cloudy weather. Reid cried quietly, not caring who saw him. In his heart, he hoped Gideon was watching the mess he made, would realize how many people he'd hurt.

I was not all about him. There were other people whose lives depend on him. And he was just gone.

Everyone has always left him. His father gave up, his mother lost her mind to her illness. He could never make friends outside of work. He even lost himself, after the incident with Tobias Hankel. He was still losing himself, fighting to keep it together and not to give in to the only thing that promised consistency.

Gideon left. Gideon abandoned him. Leaving him only with a letter to remember him by. As if it helped. A piece of paper couldn't fix a heart so broken by loss, or mend what was such a violent severing of ties. Gideon was a coward. He couldn't even step down publicly. Instead, they had to fake his death for him.

I knew it would be you who came to the library to check on me. You must be frightened. I apologize for that. I never meant to cause you any pain.

Then why leave the letter at all? Gideon was one of the few people Reid opened up to, he knew how hard it had been when his father left. Had Gideon ever really been listening to those confessions? Quiet discussions on the lawn or over chess. Maybe that's all it was to him. One big chess game, and Reid was merely another pawn on the board, a piece Gideon could move to get what he wanted.

A president needs to have solid footing to lead a country. I don't think I do anymore. This country confuses me. The world confuses me. The cruelty, the indifference. And the tragedy.

The tragedy? What right did Gideon have to say the senseless tragedies of the world confused him? His head asserted that there was plenty the President had to deal with, so many losses and failures and difficult moments. He'd led the nation through dark days, even when struggling with his own personal losses. He lost Sarah, killed by a radical extremist only because she was connected to the President. He'd lost colleagues and friends, most notably at the bombing in Boston years earlier. And for all of those things, part of Gideon blamed himself.

Yet he took no responsibility for Elle's breakdown, or for allowing Tobias Hankel to get close to Reid.

It was irrational, the anger he felt, but he'd spent his whole life acting rationally. He deserved one moment of rage, to allow all the frustrations he'd compartmentalized to come crashing over him.

Tragedy. That was his life. One tragedy after another. They all had burdens to carry, but how was it that Gideon thought someone who'd been through all he'd been through couldn't understand the tragedies of the world?

As bad as losing faith in humanity seems, losing your faith in happy endings is much worse.

Was this Gideon's way of finding happy endings again? By forcing all of them to sit through an unhappy one?

For once, Reid didn't have answers. Nothing about it made sense. He didn't know why he was standing in an uncomfortable black suit, shedding tears over someone who didn't even have the courtesy to say goodbye. What was the point? What was the point of any of it? He wanted to think his work made a difference, but maybe a the end of the day he was just another bureaucrat in a suit, unable to make the slightest ripple in the world.

The rifle party raised their guns to begin the twenty-one gun salute, and simultaneous shots rang out into the air. Reid wiped his sleeve over his eyes, and a hand touched his arm gently. JJ gave him a cautious look, silently checking in on him. Reid sniffed and nodded, letting her know he could handle this. Not that he had a choice.

Gideon, one way or another, was effectively dead. It was time to let go, and move on. He deserved a happy ending, too. Didn't he?

[holidaysat221b]

Part Two of the List of Sherlolly Prompts as of 3/8/2017

As of 12/5/2017 the Prompt List has been split into two parts due to size.

Here is a link to the very informal Sherlolly Prompt Fest FAQ

Below is the list of prompts submitted to @holidaysat221b.  Where possible, we have tagged the submitter so that credit can be given if a prompt inspires someone to write a fic or create a piece of art.

Some submissions were specifically labeled as Art prompts, and they have been separated into their own category.  However, if you are a fic writer and one of the art prompts calls to you, go for it.  Likewise, if one of the other prompts makes you want to draw, have fun with it!  Prompts that have been filled at least once will be followed with an *, in case that influences your decision to work with one.

We only ask three things:

1) If you use one of the prompts on this list, please remember to credit the prompt and prompter somewhere in your fic summary/art description or in your notes.  It’s the polite thing to do.

2)  Please submit an ask or message @holidaysat221b with a link to your work, the prompt you used, the prompter, and how you want to be identified (in cases where your Tumblr and fic/artist name are different).  This will allow us to share your work with our followers and tag the prompter (if possible).

3)  We have set up a Sherlolly Prompt Fest Collection on Ao3.  If you are planning to post your fic or art on Ao3 and would like to add it to the collection, please do.  As of this moment, the collection is open and unmoderated.  Please remember to credit the prompt and prompter in your fic/art notes.

On to the Prompts as of March 8, 2017

Everything Else

Sherlock is undercover.  He’s renting a small place and he’s trying to fit in with the extremely old fashioned community that is probably hiding a deadly smuggling ring or something equally bad.  He ends up calling on Molly to come help.  Since he’s already established as an unmarried man, his ‘sister’ (or other family member) arrives for a visit.  Cue living in the same house while hot for each other type shenanigans while pretending to be siblings under the watchful eye of some suspicious townspeople.  -  Anonymous

Molly’s school reunion – Sherlock assumes he’ll be needed to help Molly show everyone up.  The catch:  Molly’s been a beloved peer, so it’s him who gets the obligatory “you hurt her, we’ll end you". :)  -  @mychakk

Sherlock sees a woman on the street.  Instantly intrigued (you can choose as to why) he follows her.  -  @mel-loves-all

Molly loves wearing Sherlock’s house robes.  -  @mel-loves-all

Molly has a piece of body piercing jewelry or a tattoo located somewhere that surprises and titillates Sherlock.  -  @mel-loves-all  *

Whenever Molly is close, Sherlock unconsciously always seems to need to touch her in some way after they start dating.  He doesn’t notice it, but Molly does.  -  @mel-loves-all

A midnight dance.  -  @mel-loves-all

John tries to set up Sherlock with a girl.  Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of contenders.  And what does Molly have to say about that?  -  The Silent Fangirl

Through unexpected circumstances, Sherlock and Molly get engaged.  It doesn’t end well.  Crack!fic  -  The Silent Fangirl

Eurus Holmes ships the Sherlolly.  So does John and Mycroft.  Soon, everyone gets dragged into the Sherlolly craze.  Crack!fic  -  The Silent Fangirl

Molly lives in the flat across from 221B.  You know, the one that exploded?   Yeah.  But before that, there was a) looking at the hot naked guy in the window b) said hot naked guy crashing into her flat because he just wants to c) her traitorous cat crossing the street to hot naked guy’s flat.  -  The Silent Fangirl

Molly stops being Sherlock’s pathologist, and starts being THE Pathologist.  BAMF!Molly  -  The Silent Fangirl

This, Sherlock thinks through the haze of cocaine, truly is the worst form of torture.  Mycroft and Molly’s wedding through Sherlock’s drug-addled POV.  -  The Silent Fangirl

Molly commits suicide, but only Sherlock thinks she didn’t.  He may not be wrong.  -  The Silent Fangirl

When John Watson dies, Rosie is given into the care of her godparents.   Problem is, they aren’t exactly on speaking terms.  Bonus for Harry Watson appearance!  -  The Silent Fangirl

Molly nearly gets hit by a speeding car … until Sherlock pushes her out of the way and gets hit himself.  H/C  -  The Silent Fangirl

Molly in labor.  After watching Mary in labor in TST, I kinda wanna see a funny take on Molly giving birth to her and Sherlock’s child.  Maybe something like Molly being in pain, she wishes out loud she’d never had sex with Sherlock, while Sherlock logically points out how well they emotionally and biologically fit together.  -  Anonymous

Fluff. Molly has been hospitalized for whatever reason.  She decides that she is feeling better and just wants to go home.  However, the hospital does not want to release her yet.  So Molly decides to leave AMA (against medical advice).  She feels she can recover at home just as well and also she is eager to get back to work.  Besides, who is going to know?   This is something someone might expect from Sherlock, but not Molly.   How long before he finds out?  What is his reaction?  -   @shadowyqueenbeard

Angst.  Molly discovers she is pregnant and is not happy about it.  Although she would love to have a baby at some point, right now is not the time.  She and Sherlock do not have a commitment and her career is going well.  She plans to terminate the pregnancy.  Sherlock finds out and tries to stop her.  He please with her to change her mind, marry him and be a family.  Is this just a control tactic or does he really love her?  -  @shadowyqueenbeard  *

Molly discovers there is Sherlock Holmes RPF (Real Person Fiction) on the internet.  She’s shocked to find that someone called Sherlolly4vr74 has been writing fic about her and Sherlock, and they seem to have a dedicated fan base.  Some of the stories are very sweet and romantic, some of them are hot enough to give her NSFW ideas.  Who is Sherlolly4vr74 (Is it Anderson?  Mrs Hudson?  Mary?  John?  I bet it’s John.) and is Sherlock aware of the stories?  -  @darnedchild *

Eurus has been known to put on a persona and disguise to get close to people for information – she was Faith for Sherlock, E and the psychiatrist for John.  What if she had also spent some time around Molly prior to the events at Sherrinford?  What information would she have gleaned about her brother and his pathologist?  -  @darnedchild

Can they be R rated. Because I feel Sherlock would not muck about, with telling Molly what he would like to do to her, he would not use cute little names for all her female parts and would go into great detail, like all his cases. She would be his very serious case. Yes he would most defiantly do a lot of research on pleasing her. Write it however you are most comfortable with.  -  @oliverfel4

Sherlock and Molly are getting married!  It’s time to work on the guest list for the wedding, and suddenly they are faced with the question—Do they let Euros come, or not?  -  @celticmoonbeam

Shipwrecked Sherlolly—Sherlock saves Molly from drowning.  -  Anonymous

Euros leads Sherlock to believe that he failed, and Molly was killed after the ILY scene.  Much angst ensues as he blames himself for her loss … but then we get to see the happy reunion scene when he learns she’s alive.  -  Anonymous

Moriarty trying to up Sherlock by sleeping with Molly, but the joke is on him, as Sherlock and Molly knew each other from secondary school/uni and were each other’s firsts.  They can be regular (exclusive) lovers too.  -  @mychakk

Mary as matchmaker.  At John and Mary’s wedding, Mary feels a little sad when they leave him alone to go dance (“What about you?”).  She decides to make it her mission to help Sherlock find a girl so he’s not alone anymore.  And this former agent has no trouble figuring out the potential between Sherlock and a certain Molly Hooper … (Up to you whether or not you want to throw in a Janine segue before she decides to set him up with Molly.  And feel free to cover Sherlock being shot!) -  @celticmoonbeam

Molly discovers she’s pregnant with Sherlock’s child at the worst possible time:  while she’s with his parents, being hidden away, and the two are pretending to be just friends.  Bonus if they figure it out before they’re told!  -   @penaltywaltz

After the events of TFP, Molly and Sherlock get closer.  Suddenly, though, he pulls away and starts flirting with a coworker of hers, sometimes blatantly in front of her.   It isn’t until an event at Barts that the truth comes out that it was all for a case.  -  @penaltywaltz

Molly finds out that as a child Sherlock liked the book “The Westing Game” and for one of his birthdays she arranges a vacation mimicking the plot of the book, even if none of them really fit the particular characters.  -  @penaltywaltz

Sherlock wants to make a gourmet meal for Molly for a special occasion, but he doesn’t seem to get it quite right.  Fortunately, a friend/relative is willing to help.  -  @penaltywaltz

Sherlock moves in with Molly and begins perusing her book collection, picking up random books that have interesting looking covers, and the next thing Molly knows he’s turned into a fantasy buff.  -  @penaltywaltz  *

Non-established Sherlolly.  Sherlock gets a hold of Molly’s phone one afternoon and can’t resist snooping.  He’s surprised to see a folder in her photo gallery marked “Special” and it’s all photos of him.  -  @penaltywaltz

Have you had sex? – After Euros asked that I somehow thought “Molly??” (as Sherlock says, Irene only texts him, he doesn’t reply).  Later it seems that Euros is the only one who ever has noticed that Molly causes some emotions in him.  So my theory is that something happened between Molly and Sherlock, it happened pretty recently, somehow (stressful night and they talked or they had some drinks and somehow one thing led to another) they ended up having sex; but Sherlock wasn’t good at dealing with it after or something urgent came along and he didn’t really consider Molly’s emotions, he ran off right after or in the morning, and that could be the reason why Molly didn’t pick up the phone first and was in a bad mood during the “ILY scene”.  What happened between them recently is the reason why Molly is a bit rude to Sherlock when he calls, and the reason why she gets so emotional and raw so easily over the I Love You thing, and why she so easily tells him to say it first.   Well, then when Sherlock says “I love you” he finally realizes fully that he really does love her too, and that he is capable of loving that way, and finally sees how easy it could be and what he could lose.  Then after this whole thing he goes to talk to Molly and explain things to her.  -  @lullikiish

Complete me as a person. — Scene that popped into my mind.  Irene has been texting Sherlock again, Sherlock in the end almost agrees to meet her for dinner, but as he’s walking out of his flat while Molly is there looking after Rosie he sees Molly in kind of slo-mo in the golden evening sun holding Rosie and being all sweet.  Maybe already something a bit has happened before between them, some flirting, etc.  The talk with John about a relationship completing him as a person is on the back of his mind.  He walks out, but midway down the stairs while taking his phone out (symbolically in darkness compared to that evening sun) he realizes that he misses that warmth and Molly, and realizes that is what completes him.  He takes out his phone and texts he’s not coming and then goes back upstairs.  Sees Molly all adorable and confused/surprised in this beautiful light and maybe goes to kiss her, etc.  -  @lullikiish

Crack!fic. Molly and Sherlock had a fake wedding for a case. However, when Molly applies for a marriage license to Tom, it turns out the wedding was actually real. She has to approach Sherlock for an annulment. It seems Sherlock deleted the event, because he doesn’t seem to remember it. Or does he? It seems he is too busy to sign the paperwork, he has misplaced it, always an excuse not to dissolve the marriage. Eventually he has to admit he really does want to be married to her. So Molly has to decide between two men. Which one does she choose? 😉  -  @shadowyqueenbeard

Molly, unbeknownst to Sherlock, suffers from psoriasis since her teen years. This is why she’s been adamant about being more physically intimate with him, no matter how much she wants to. Fortunately for her, Sherlock doesn’t care about it at all. Could be a hard T or M rating. Loosely inspired by Loo’s own bout with the disease.  -  @violetjersey *

Fluff and maybe smut, or angst with a happy ending: Molly has a creepy feeling that she is being followed, and goes to Lestrade for help. He discovers that she has a security detail, curtesy of Sherlock. Molly is not pleased with this situation. Sherlock doesn’t understand why not, shouldn’t she be glad that he cares about her safety? After getting an earful from Molly, he cancels the security detail. Molly promptly leaves town without a word to anyone, leaving Sherlock to sweat. Is she okay? Most likely she is on a beach sipping Margaritas, but maybe she’s in trouble. He would like to make amends but first he as to find her. Should he try to locate her or leave her alone as requested?  -   @shadowyqueenbeard

I have read this in one or two fics, but not really developed as a main theme of the story … so: What if Rosie wants to pair John and Molly? How Sherlock will react and … how will he convince Rosie that Molly is for him and not for John. I’m imagining some angst in the middle because the silly man thinks this is a wonderful idea: Rosie gets a mummy and Molly gets a family. In fact, Sherlock sets up a date between Molly and John while he’s babysitting Rosie.  -  @kalkopyryt

Crack!Fic. Molly decides to try speed dating. The day she goes Sherlock is there, deducing everyone else to shreds. He tells Molly he is there purely by coincidence. He’s not trying to thwart her attempts at dating at all. Really!  -   @shadowyqueenbeard

I’m thinking about Sherlock early in their relationship finds someone clothes that are familiar but can’t remember where, but then he watches some old Moriarty video and realizes where the clothes come from. The end is up to the author. Thank you! -  @deemura

Fluff.  Molly marries Sherlock, believing it is a fake wedding.  Molly is livid when she discovers it was real.  Sherlock has a lame excuse.  Molly really loves Sherlock and wants to be with him, however she is not a pushover.  She demands that they have another ceremony, so that this time she will mean her vows when she says them.  Alternately, Molly wants the marriage annulled.  Sherlock is a little hurt, but doesn't want to lose her friendship, so he agrees to dissolve the marriage.  When Molly receives confirmation that the annulment is final, that is when Sherlock surprises her by asking her out on a date. Can she forgive his deception and begin a real romantic relationship with him?  -  @shadowyqueenbeard

Fluff. Molly is getting ready to get married to Sherlock believing the wedding to be fake, when she discovers that it is actually going to be a real ceremony. Will she refuse to walk down the aisle at the last minute, or does she go ahead anyway?  -  @shadowyqueenbeard

Some strange guy is bothering Molly, so she tells him that Sherlock is her fiance in order to make him stop. To her surprise, Sherlock goes along with it. Maybe he goes even further by announcing it to family and friends. Now what does Molly do? - @shadowyqueenbeard

[lalainajanes]

Based on those posts about Therapy Humans that float around. IDEK guys this is not my genre.

Star Crossed World

A persistent beeping fills Klaus’ tiny berth, bouncing around the metal walls. Echoing, growing louder, snapping Klaus out of the first stretch of decent sleep he's managed to get in weeks.

The words that spill from his lips, unintelligible and thick with exhaustion, are not appropriate for company.

Luckily, Klaus has none.

He scrubs a hand over his face, absently wonders when the last time he shaved was. Grooming rather fell to the wayside when you’re only company was a disembodied voice.

The A.I. had come with the ship, an unfailingly cheerful presence that had introduced itself as Josh. Klaus had grown up with various AI’s – his mother preferred them to human servants who tended to be noisy and have an excessive amount of opinions – but they’d always been carefully programmed and unable to speak unless spoken to. Speaking to them was strongly discouraged because, as his parent’s had insisted, it wasn’t as if they were equals.

Josh was far more verbose than any of the AI’s Klaus was accustomed to. He exhibited curiosity about Klaus and where he’d come from. Had even managed to execute some tact, and move on to more general subjects, once his inquiries about Klaus’ well known family had been met with terse replies.

Josh also offered suggestions unprompted, many of which were incredibly helpful since Klaus was new to the mechanics of a ship. A few were less welcome – Klaus was perfectly capable of researching brothels should he desire to. He did not need a rundown of which ones were purported to be the most cleanly and which offered non-standard services. He was well aware that the endorphins released after climax improved a human’s mood.

As aggravating as that conversation had been Klaus hadn’t considered activating the protocol in Josh’s programming that would prevent him from speaking out of turn. Having another entity attempting to nurture him – even ineptly – was novel and the part of Klaus that was homesick, that missed his siblings desperately, appreciated it.

For an AI Josh was also a little on the sensitive side so Klaus makes an effort to keep his tone from being harsh, “Is the ship on fire?”

Before retiring to his bunk Klaus had issues a single order, that he only be awoken if the situation was life and death.

He’s been suffering through a drawn out bout of insomnia, a common side effect to adjusting to living in space. He’d read about it while he’d been hastily throwing together plans, had figured he could deal with it. He’s finding it’s much more difficult than anticipated.

Having spent his entire life on the biggest, most prosperous, planet in The Aesir System Klaus had been less prepared than he’d realized for life on a ship. The terraforming on Odin was designed for human comfort – the temperatures were perfectly regulated, vegetation flourished and the air was filtered and fresh. Before spending his life’s savings on a ship that had seen better days Klaus hadn’t spent more than a week onboard one. As a child his family had taken occasional jaunts to the Vanir planets though even those had stopped once his mother’s parents had passed on.

Had he been a less stubborn sort of person Klaus might have already given up. His hands were covered in bandages (because he’d run out of skin fixative and it wasn’t cheap). Every muscle in his body ached constantly, strained by the physical labor required to keep the ship running on his own. He was lonely though he’d never admit that. He’d kept to himself the few times he’d had to make a stop planet-side for supplies, did his best not to seem hopelessly out of his depth when he took in terrain that defied logic, traversed cities filled with species he’d only ever read about.

As children the acquaintances he and his siblings cultivated had been strictly monitored. They weren’t permitted to interact with anyone who could possibly reflect badly on the family name. Mikael had wanted to be Chancellor, had no qualms with using his children as bargaining chips to fulfill his political ambitions.

Klaus had always hated it. Had preferred to keep to himself rather than dive into the den of snakes his father considered company befitting a Mikaelson.

Finn had been lucky enough to fall in love with his handpicked bride. Elijah chose duty, gave up Katherine Pierce for the daughter of a top ranking general. Though Katherine was an obnoxious harpy, in Klaus’ opinion, and he thought Elijah well rid of her, his dislike was personal, unlike Mikael who thought her too low born to ever be family.  

Klaus had thought his turn was coming, had been dreading the parade of plastic smiles worn by acceptable possible spouses that he’d have to endure.

A heavily buried family secret had saved Klaus from such a fate though it had cost him. In his old life he had access to every comfort, luxuries most people could only dream of.

When he’d left the home he’d grown up in he’d only had a hastily packed bag containing essential personal belongings and a few small trinkets he’d stolen away with. His access to the family accounts was cut off though Mikael hadn’t been able to touch his personal ones. Klaus imagined he’d tried, took great satisfaction in imagining how he must have fumed at being denied.

It was one of the things that kept him going.

“The ship is in perfect working order,” Josh tells him. “You’re being hailed by a courier ship and it’s urgent.”

That made no sense. Klaus hadn’t ordered anything- wouldn’t because the courier ships charged ridiculous fees. He sits up, reaching for a tablet. “What is it?”

“The manifest only lists a single package aboard,” Josh supplies helpfully, even as Klaus accesses the information himself. “From a University on Thoth.”

“Tell them I don’t want it.” It certainly sounded like something he couldn’t afford.

“I can try. But when I told them you weren’t available they insisted their delivery is time sensitive and must be opened within the next two hours. And, that as it was sent in your care, you’ll be held liable for its expiring.”

“The package is alive?” Klaus exclaims, shooting to his feet. Honestly, only an AI wouldn’t think to lead with that information.

Josh isn’t really capable of variations in pitch put the pause is long enough to seem pointed. “It’s obviously a Therapy Human. What else would come from Thoth?”

Klaus’ only knowledge of the planet was vague recollections of Rebekah begging their mother to plan a shopping trip. Something about how the fabric produced by their artisans being the best in the galaxy. “I don’t want a Therapy Human,” he says, reeling. “I don’t need a Therapy Human.” He hurriedly pulls on a shirt, sits to tug on his boots.

“Humans are social creatures,” Josh remarks and Klaus assumes that’s a disagreement.

“Can’t I send it back?” he asks.

“One moment,” there’s an extended pause and Klaus waits anxiously, pacing the few steps his cabin allowed.

“I’ve scanned the typical contracts. Returns are permitted if the Therapy Human doesn’t suit.” Well that was a relief. Unfortunately, Josh’s next words make it clear that Klaus wasn’t quite off the hook. “Which rarely happens, according to the information packet, since selections are carefully done to ensure the best match. It would be your responsibility to return Caroline to Thoth.”

“Caroline?” Klaus asks.

“Your Therapy Human,” Josh supplies.

Klaus groans, running his hands through his hair as he considers his options. Thoth was on the outer edges of the galaxy, a cluster of planets far outside the usual shipping lanes. A trip out there would cost a fortune in fuel and he had no contacts out in that direction, no way of picking up any income when he got there. “How much would a cryosleep set up cost me?”

Josh quotes a figure that would just about eat up all of Klaus’ emergency money.

“Fuck,” he grits out.

Josh is unsympathetic. “You’ve about ninety minutes left in your provided timeline. What do you wish to do?”

Klaus has very few choices and not a single one he’s especially thrilled by. He grabs the ladder and hoists himself up. “Begin docking procedures. I’ll accept the delivery.”

He’d figure everything else out later, starting with who exactly had seen fit to order him a Therapy Human, when he wasn’t in a time crunch.

Klaus hadn’t bothered to check the time on Odin when he’d placed the call. He’d been seething, his hands shaking with the effort not to smash something (because he couldn’t afford to repair anything – not now). He’s viciously pleased when Kol’s face fills the screen, eyes half open and disgruntled. He squints, “Nik? It’s the middle of the night. You’d better have a damned good reason to be interrupting my beauty sleep.”

Were this a call made for a more friendly reason Klaus might have taken the opportunity to needle his brother’s vanity. “You got me a Therapy Human?” he spits out. “Had you been imbibing something illicit again?”

Kol perks up immediately, “Oh, did she arrive already? How wonderfully efficient. Do you like her? I picked out a pretty one, just for you.”

Klaus grits his teeth together, sucks in a shallow breathe through his nose and tells himself he has to be calm. He wasn’t sure how Kol had managed to impersonate him but he needed more details before he contacted the Thoth University where Caroline had been trained. He might be furious but he’d like to avoid landing Kol a lengthy prison sentence.

Though it was entirely possible that his brother would manage to change his mind.

“Why is Caroline under the impression that she’s been corresponding with me?”

Kol grins, obviously immensely pleased with himself. “The thing with procuring illicit substances, brother, is that one meets all sorts of talented people. “I’ve got all the family videos at my disposal. Putting together a voice sim was a breeze. I told her I was shy and she didn’t push for a video call. Probably part of her training.”

“And how is it that you have a copy of my I.D. chips?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets, brother.”

“How did you pay for it?”

Kol shakes his head in mock disappointment, “You’ve no imagination, Niklaus. Do you think I’d only copy your I.D. chips? Dear old dad has quite the clever stash of hidden accounts. It’ll take him ages to realize one’s been emptied, and he’ll never trace it.”

Klaus mulls that over. Kol was alarmingly clever, particularly in matters of mischief. He’d rarely been caught, even when they’d been children and logically he should have only gotten better at covering his tracks. He has one last question, “Why did you get me a therapy human?”

Kol sighs in annoyance, “Rebekah’s in cahoots with your ship. Managed to hack in and download your vitals. She knows you’re not sleeping and she’s afraid you’re going to get space dementia and stop eating and wither away. I told her you’d do something far more dramatic like steer your ship into a star and go out with style. She wasn’t comforted for some reason. So I promised to take care of it.”

Right. Klaus makes a note to call Rebekah more often. He’s been careful not to do it often, afraid she’d be punished for refusing to cut off all contact with him. Evidently that had been a mistake if she’d gone to such lengths.

“And your mind jumped to Therapy Human because…”

“I always said you were a little off, didn’t I?”

Klaus resists the urge to ask further questions, well aware that Kol wouldn’t offer more info. Had he been closer, still in his family’s favor, he might have been able to exert more pressure. He’d just have to accept that this was, in Kol’s mind, a good deed.

“Tell Rebekah to send me a list of times she’ll be free to talk without mother hovering. We obviously need to have a discussion about boundaries.”

“Yes,” Kol says blandly, “I’m sure a discussion will immediately cure our sister of a lifetime of meddlesomeness.”

He cuts the feed without bothering to reply. His timing is impeccable because he hears the squeak of boots on metal approaching. For a moment his heart beat picks up, a kick of fear, before he remembers that he’d told Caroline to come find him once she’d eaten.

He’s been alone for weeks, had become used to being alone. It’ll take some adjusting to another presence. He’s only got the door to the cockpit open a hair and she raps her knuckles on it. “Come in,” Klaus offers, spinning around in his chair.

She smiles, open and friendly, the sort of smile that’s impossible not to respond to. She’s changed out of the thermal jumpsuit she’d been wearing in her cryochamber into a pair of snug black pants and a soft looking blue sweater. His eyes linger on the length of her legs for a too long moment before snapping back up to her face. She is, as his brother had said, very pretty. Her skin’s the sort of fair that requires protection from the sun and Klaus wonders if it could possibly feel as smooth as it looks.

Perhaps he should have paid more attention to Josh’s brothel rundown.

She’s got a bottle of water in one hand and she lays the other on his shoulder briefly. Klaus stiffens under the touch and she notices, “Sorry. My training emphasized tactility. But I understand if you’re not accustomed to it. Would you prefer I didn’t touch you?” She helps herself to the co-pilots chair, curling her legs up and swiveling to face him.

It’s been a long time since Klaus has been tongue tied in the presence of a woman but he’s finding words difficult. In truth he has little objection to her touching him but he knows enough about Therapy Humans to understand she’d find the thoughts racing through his head off putting.

He clears his throat, “Caroline. May I call you Caroline?”

Her brows furrow, “You’ve been calling me Caroline for weeks,” she says slowly.

Any lascivious thoughts immediately flee Klaus’ brain. He had to tell her the truth. “No, that’s the thing. I haven’t. You’ve been speaking to my brother.”

Her denial is immediate, “That’s not possible. Clients are vigorously vetted.��

“I’m sorry but I’m afraid my brother’s talents for deception are unparalleled.”

Caroline studies him intently, weighing the truth of his words. She wraps her arms around her legs, “Why would he do that?”

“Honestly? I’m not entirely clear. If I had to wager I’d guess 10% genuine concern for my well-being, 20% compassion for our sister who does fret over much, and 70% a desire to see if he could do it.”

Her nose wrinkles, “If that’s the case I wonder how he did such a decent facsimile of appearing appealing when we spoke since he’s obviously a cretin.”

The tiny burst of jealousy that settles low in his gut is unwelcome, “Oh?” he asks. “Appealing how?”

She shrugs, “I thought you, or well, he, was lonely. Were the things he told me about your family a lie?”

Klaus bristles, “What precisely did he tell you?”

Caroline’s eyes don’t leave him, soft with empathy, “That you found out your mother had an affair. That the man you thought was your father is a harsh man and that he was always hardest on you. That you left everyone and everything you’ve ever known behind instead of continuing to try to play the role of the perfect son.”

Klaus’ lips press tightly together, embarrassment and anger roiling through him.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just know that I’d never tell anyone things I learned in confidence. You don’t have to worry about that.”

He nods tightly, reaching out to make minute (and not strictly necessary) adjustments to their flight path.

Caroline seems content to let him have his silence, watching the stars with great interest. She sips steadily at her water and once she’s done Klaus offers another. She’d been under for a month according to the data they’d been transferred. All because of his brother’s machinations. The least he can do is ensure her comfort. “I’m fine,” she murmurs. “Thank you, though,” she twists to look at him once more. “Actually, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Were the drawings yours? Or did your brother do those too?”

“Drawings? They were probably mine,” Klaus says. “Kol’s hopeless with a pencil or paints. Why?”

“They’re why I picked you.”

Klaus blinks, surprised. “You picked me?”

She hums a confirmation, smirking playfully, “What, did you think I was ordered out of some catalogue? Please. Do you know what the demand for Therapy Humans is like? We go where we want.”

“And you wanted to come to me?” Klaus asks incredulously.

“There was one of a forest. Not the kind of forests we terraform now but one like the pictures from Old Earth. Where the trees could grow as high as they could manage and they tangled and every shade of green you could imagine was only broken up by pops of other colors where flowers grew wild. My mom used to tell me bedtime stories. A princess who escapes her castle and finds friends in a forest. A maiden in an enchanted sleep under the cover of trees, waiting for true loves kiss. A girl, who wanders off the path, finds danger but defeats it. I loved them but it had been forever since I’d thought of them. The drawings brought it all back.”

“Are you close to your mother?”

“I was,” Caroline answers, sorrow in the words.

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes close for a moment, and Klaus sees a hint of wetness, wishes he had something to offer her. She shakes her head, “I’m fairly certain that I’m not the one who’s supposed to cry so let’s talk about something else. What’s the plan now?”

“I have to figure out the best course to Thoth. What we’ll need for the journey.”

Her head turns to him sharply, “What? You’re taking me back?”

Klaus gestures around him, “A Therapy Human isn’t in my budget, love. Nor do I need one.”

She tips her head to the side, a hint of challenge in her blue eyes, “Really? You’re happy in this teeny metal box all by your lonesome? That’s not what Josh said.”

Klaus glares at the ceiling well aware that they’re not technically alone. He’ll have to remember to make sure that a recording of this conversation doesn’t get played for Rebekah. “Josh shouldn’t be gossiping. And happiness has little to do with finances in the real world, I’m finding. ”

She waves a dismissive hand, “My contract is paid for the next year. I won’t cost you a cent. I have a generous stipend for food and clothing and things. What if I want to stay?”

That takes him aback, “I… hadn’t considered that.”

Her smile is teasing, “I’ll forgive you for being self-centered since you’ve been in hermit mode for months but don’t make it a habit.”

“Do you want to stay?”

“Maybe. Stand up, let’s test something.”

Klaus thinks about arguing but something about the set of Caroline’s shoulders tells him he’d be wasting his breath. He rises slowly, watches warily as she does the same. He sucks in a gasp when she steps into him, tucking her face into his shoulder. “This is a hug, Klaus. Try it.”

Tentatively he winds his arms around her, finds he can’t help but savor the weight of her body so close to his.

He tenses when she makes to pull back but manages to resist holding her tighter.

“Huh. You’re not as terrible at that as I anticipated.”

That’s the oddest approximation of a compliment Klaus has ever received.

“Did you hate it?” Caroline asks. “While some humans function better with regular physical contact there are some that are touch averse.”

He hadn’t hated it. Not at all. Klaus shakes his head. “It was… fine.”

Caroline beams up at him. “I can work with that. I’ve always wanted to see the rest of the galaxy. Didn’t have the money to travel but, when my aptitude test scores came back, I figured becoming a Therapy Human was my best shot. You’re my first assignment and I’d rather not fail it.”

Klaus thinks about pointing out that she wouldn’t be failing anything given the circumstances but Caroline plows ahead. “What if we try it out? Give me a month, you can chart a course vaguely in the direction of Thoth. Just… a scenic route.”

No one would ever accuse Klaus of being a pushover. Twenty minutes ago he’d had a plan but somehow Caroline had blown it to smithereens. “A trial,” he says. “Fine.”

She hugs him again, more aggressively, all soft curves, warm skin and exuberance, and Klaus acknowledges that he’d never had a fighting chance. He can easily see a month stretching two, two stretching into the full year. “You’re not going to regret this,” she tells him, sounding almost smug.

Klaus isn’t sure if he will or not. If she stays the year, if they work together, what happens then? Would he want to let her go? Could he convince her to give up her job and stay just because he wanted to?

Was that even possible?

He hears her yawn, an insistent one that sends a shiver down her whole body. “Let’s get you to a bunk,” he murmurs and she nods against him.

“Please. Cryosleep is weird and I’m exhausted.”

He’s read that, isn’t surprised when she stumbles when he begins to usher her out of the cockpit. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

While she slept Klaus would do some research, figure out just what the rules and boundaries were. He’ll get Kol to send him everything even if he has to induce Bekah into histrionics to make it happen.

He’s been aimless since leaving his home planet. It’s probably long past time to start planning for his future.

[rhetoricandlogic]

AUTONOMOUS BY ANNALEE NEWITZ

BY: NIALL HARRISON ISSUE: 11 DECEMBER 2017

1.

Medicine, medical research, and healthcare systems have always felt to me a little under-explored by SF. Every so often there's a small-press anthology, or some think tank-y futurism—such as this year's Writing the Future competition, organised by Kaleidoscope Health & Care—and on screen no starship is complete without its sickbay and doctor. But when it comes to more substantial SF, and in particular novels, the pickings seem slim. The two recent-ish examples that come to mind are Project Itoh's Harmony (2008, trans. Alexander O. Smith 2010), and Juli Zeh's The Method (2009, trans. Sally-Ann Spencer 2012): both are classically dystopian narratives that dramatise the totalitarian potential of excessive care. Beyond that, you have to look for more generally biotech-oriented stories that incorporate elements of healthcare politics, such as Stephanie Saulter's (r)egeneration series (2013-2015), or mainstream-published work that shades into the speculative, such as Jillian Weise's The Colony (2010) or Hanya Yanagihara's The People in the Trees (2013). The gap seems especially glaring when it comes to American genre SF, given the political prominence and immanently-dystopian quality of the American healthcare system, and its knock-on effects for global healthcare: to paraphrase William Gibson, the drugs are here, they're just not evenly distributed.

So Annalee Newitz's first novel, Autonomous, is welcome for building its narrative around the practicalities and morality of access to effective drugs, even if some of its choices are a little more confusing than you might hope. But we'll come to that. Setup first: towards the end of the present century, the global Collapse that looms in most of today's near futures leads to a realignment of the international order, away from nation-states and towards “economic coalitions”—of which the big players seem to be the Free Trade Zone that covers most of North America, the Asian Union, the African Federation, and the Eurozone—that represent near-total capitalist capture of governmental and public services. As a result, patent terms for new medicines have been extended to longer than a normal human lifespan; regulatory oversight of the clinical development process has been weakened nearly out of existence; drugs that enhance health and cognition are common and required for many jobs; and the pay-for-treatment US insurance model appears to have been extended to basically the entire world, leading to cascading generational inequality:

Only people with money could benefit from new medicine. Therefore, only the haves could remain physically healthy, while the have-nots couldn’t keep their minds sharp enough to work the good jobs, and didn’t generally live beyond a hundred. Plus, the cycle was passed down unfairly through families. The people who couldn’t afford patented meds were likely to have sickly, short-lived children who became indentured  and never got out. (p. 55)

Enter Jack Chen, patent pirate. From a family of farmers, she moved into synthetic biology research, and then into open medicine activism, first as part of a group known as The Bilious Pills, then later and for decades as a solo artist. In July of 2144, we find her in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, charging up the batteries of her submarine and worrying over news stories about a bad batch of black-market pharma that might be her fault. In an attempt to raise funds to subsidise her “real work” making medically urgent antiviral and gene therapies freely available, Jack reverse-engineered and sold Zacuity, the hot new “productivity pill” made by Zaxy, which was “didn't just boost your concentration [but] made you enjoy work” (p. 14). Now there are stories in her feed about people with obsessive task addiction, starting with a student whose “brain showed a perfect addiction pattern [...] like she'd been addicted to homework for years” (p. 11). Before too long, Jack is on the run, attempting to find a cure for the people she's inadvertently hurt, while being pursued (in alternating chapters) by agents of the International Property Coalition.

Newitz's future, while perhaps not quite matching the likes of Lauren Beukes or Ian McDonald for sentence-level stylistic verve, is rich, varied, and consistently interesting; it's fun to roam from the Arctic to Casablanca to Vegas and on. But every now and then something doesn't quite ring true. The mildest of my eyebrow-raises were down to inconsistencies or ambiguities in terminology. If you tell me a drug is in “beta” (p. 29), I will assume a move-fast-and-break-things culture has replaced more rigorous medical research, unless and until you later start talking about phase 1 clinical trials: those two linguistic paradigms don't fit neatly together. If you refer to “cloned Zacuity” (p. 13), I will assume it is produced by a process in which cloning could plausibly be relevant; so it's probably a biologic, perhaps a cell therapy of some kind; but if you then talk about “isolat[ing] each part of the drug” and “narrow[ing] the questionable parts down to four molecules” (pp. 28-9) I will get thoroughly confused, since not only does that not sound like a cell therapy or biologic, it doesn't even sound like Zacuity is a single drug, but rather a combination of small-molecule treatments.

Above this, however, sit some practical and conceptual concerns. I can accept that the novel's characters believe that subversion of intellectual property law is the most practical solution to their crisis because they are living under total capitalism; but it is odd that nobody even laments the impossibility of a system that would centralise and pool healthcare costs. Socialism seems to have been thoroughly erased in the present, in memory, and in possibility. And I can accept that “Zaxy didn't make data from their clinical trials available”, but the corollary, “so there was no way to find out about possible side effects” (p. 14) seems a little dubious in what is evidently still a networked world easily capable of crowdsourcing that information. Then there's the underlying business model itself. It seems that the have-nots massively outnumber the haves, and while pharmaceutical companies are not perfectly rational economic agents, and have been known to push the limits of appropriate pricing for access to treatment, at a certain point charging x to a market of y patients becomes less profitable than charging a fraction of x to a multiple of y. Everything we learn about the world of Autonomous suggests that Zaxy and its competitors deliberately keep themselves on the wrong side of that equation. It's only Jack and her friends attempting to fill the market hole, and it's not clear why.

Why does such pedantry matter? Perhaps it doesn't. But Zacuity is presented to us as symptomatic of a system, a synecdoche for lost autonomy, the reduction of human lives to biological machinery. It's everything Jack has dedicated her life to fighting against. And for that fight to really matter, the symptom and the system need to feel crushingly inescapable; and they don't always.

2.

Or is there another way in? Autonomous explores its core theme on more than one front. It is a novel about seeking freedom in an owned world, and although the owners in the background don't always quite feel solid, their property is memorably thorny. Two pairings stand out in particular. Travelling with Jack is Threezed (3-Z, two syllables), a young indentured man she inadvertently rescues from his owner; pursuing them are two IPC agents, an enfranchised man named Eliasz, and an indentured artificial intelligence, Paladin.

Indenture is, for the avoidance of doubt, slavery, but a version grown from the worst of contemporary employment practices and a perversion of the concept of equality. It took root, we are told, in the mid-twenty-first century, with the arrival of the first true artificial intelligences: “companies could offset the cost of building robots by retaining ownership for up to ten years” (p. 224). (The parallel to non-sentient innovations such as pharmaceuticals is hard to miss.)

But when bots were granted human rights, that didn't come with their immediate freedom; instead, a new human right was enshrined, namely the “right” of indenture. “After all, if human-equivalent beings could be indentured, why not humans themselves?” (p. 224). This global endorsement of slavery as the ultimate choice of a good capitalist subject means that in 2144 it has expanded from what we know and become an order of magnitude more extensive than at any previous point human history. Its supposed limits are fig-leaves: even if birth-indenture of humans remains technically outlawed in most of the economic coalitions, many turn a blind eye, and in any case, child indenture is fine. Such was the fate of Threezed, as Jack sees it:

Families with nothing would sometimes sell their toddlers to indenture schools, where managers trained them to be submissive just like they were programming a bot. At least bots could earn their way out of ownership after a while, be upgraded, and go fully autonomous. Humans might earn their way out, but there was no autonomy key that could undo a childhood like that. (p. 31)

The other characters—and for most of the novel Threezed is seen only through the eyes of others—know this story intellectually, but for various reasons have a hard time internalising what it means. After Jack rescues him, Threezed, “his eyes wide with feigned innocence” (p. 52), offers to “repay” her; Jack wonders whether he is “trying to manipulate her” or whether “his indenture had trained him in this specific form of gratitude” (p. 52). She asks him if he is sure. “He bowed his head in an ambiguous gesture of obedience and consent” (p. 53): a haunting reaction. Their 'relationship' continues for some time, and Jack—an ostensibly pragmatic woman, for whom romance is “like any other biological process [...] the product of chemical and electrical signaling in her brain” (p. 57)—starts to convince herself Threezed's compliance is perhaps more than his programming. “She leaned over to kiss Threezed hard on the mouth. His reaction was not artful. It felt sloppy and real” (p. 88). That “real” lands hard, I think, imbued with a desperate desire for a simple story to be true, for Jack not to be exploiting vulnerability. But of course the power imbalance has distorted Jack's perceptions, as power imbalances inevitably will. Late in the novel we discover that Threezed keeps a blog of his experiences. It is a “prickly, grotesquely truthful story” (p. 243), and his take on Jack is simply that, “Every master loves to fuck a slave” (p. 253). What he doesn't add is the horror we have already seen: a master who wants to believe the slave loves to fuck them back.

While all this is happening, Paladin and Eliasz are becoming similarly entangled, but this time it's the master's view that is withheld. Paladin—newly activated and thus something of an innocent, albeit one equipped with alarmingly lethal military hardware, and with appropriate software installed to ensure an uncomplaining 20 years of indentured service—has an unexpectedly intimate moment with Eliasz fairly early on in the novel:

The bot stood at full height, and Eliasz rested his hands on the guns that jutted from Paladin's chest. Eliasz' right hand began to move slowly, getting to know the whole barrel by feel.

[...]

Shoot the entire roof off that house. Eliasz' lips were pressed into Paladin's carapace, moving slightly as he gave the vague order.

[...]

Paladin categorized the physiological changes in Eliasz' body and reloaded his guns. The bot decided to continue his human social communication test by not communicating. It didn't make sense to remind Eliasz that every single movement of his body, every rush of blood or spark of electricity, was completely transparent to Paladin. He would allow Eliasz to believe that he sensed nothing. (pp. 75-76)

This is entertaining—and a later scene in which Paladin allocates 20% of his processing power to run internet searches for confusing sexual terms while reserving the remaining 80% to concentrate on blowing shit up is outright funny—but it's also tragic. Every one of Paladin's actions is oriented towards meeting Eliasz' needs, even “his” acceptance of a particular pronoun. Bots, we are told more than once, do not have a sense of gender, and as a result it takes Paladin a while to understand how profoundly gender shapes the world for humans. When it becomes clear that Eliasz would be more comfortable with their relationship if he could think of Paladin as a woman, Paladin accommodates by accepting “she” instead of “he”, even recognising the potential impact of the change, even knowing that the choice may not be free: “Bug would no doubt say that there are no choices in slavery, nor true love in a mind running apps like gdoggie and masterluv. But they were all that Paladin had” (p. 236). More completely programmed than Threezed, Paladin's chosen truth shies away from the grotesque—even after she achieves autonomy.

Fortunately for Paladin, Eliasz treats her better than Jack treats Threezed—he asks permission, for one thing—and his feelings, when we are eventually given access to them, do appear to be—that word again—real. In contrast to Jack's mechanistic view of love, for Eliasz it is an unexamined but powerfully felt emotion, and when at a moment of crisis he has to choose between achieving a goal and saving Paladin, he thinks: “He had a choice. Or maybe he didn't” (p. 285). And like that we are reminded that the novel's logic for “human indenture” is particularly malevolent because it extrapolates from an underlying truth: that even when nominally free citizens, humans are never perfectly autonomous and that that is in fact a good and necessary fact; that in a thousand different interactions we give up some of our freedom, for the sake of each other, for the sake of society. Is that grounds for a faint flicker of hope? In Newitz's dystopia it may be supremely difficult to define when and where “real” occurs, but if at least some voluntary abstentions of autonomy remain possible, some of the time, then neither humans nor bots have been reduced to perfect commodities yet. So the fight does still matter. I think that, in the end, is what I choose to take from this unsettling, uneven novel.

@booksandghosts This reviewer is brilliant and the emphasis above (I bold/italicked the paragraph which matters to me) explains eloquently what I called “misgivings” while I read this book. I thought you would like to know. The review is -of course- somewhat spoilery, though not overly.

[revlyncox]

Water & Wheels

This Platform Address was offered to the Washington Ethical Society by Interim Leader Lyn Cox on September 13, 2020. 

About twenty years ago, I made a trip to Hungary and Romania to attend a conference of the International Association for Religious Freedom (that year in Budapest) and to visit Unitarian congregations that had been surviving despite the best efforts of state repression for almost 500 years. Unitarians in the part of the world that used to be called Transylvania now mainly find themselves, thanks to political border maneuvering, as ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities in Romania. For five hundred years, empires rose and fell, and the Unitarians of Transylvania persisted. To be sure, their practice is quite different from Unitarian Universalists in the United States, and from Ethical Culture societies. At the same time, I can’t help but admire their perseverance, their commitment to continuing to search for the truth, their intellectual rigor in periods of history when asking questions was dangerous, and their creativity with keeping their folk arts alive whether or not it was legal. We may need to draw from the wisdom from allies such as these in times to come.

In one of the villages I visited, I saw the inside of their grain mill. It was still in operation the same way it had been for generations. The water flowed down the river, turned the water wheel, which turned wheels and gears, which moved the runner stone above the stationary bedstone, with just a fraction of an inch between them to leave space for the grain. I say the mill had been in operation for generations, but of course things don’t remain the same. A millstone needs to be re-dressed every so often, to have its grooves renewed by an expert. Occasionally, a millstone needs replacing. So there are larger cycles of renewal enveloping annual cycles of grain enveloping daily routines enveloping the turn of the wheels necessary for the bread of life. There are cycles, and yet not every cycle is exactly the same.

Rivers are not the only thing that can turn a mill, of course. Ocean tides can power a mill, and so can currents of wind. You don’t turn a mill with one drop of water or one molecule of air. The power comes from something that moves freely, something that may seem insignificant as a single particle, but produces a lot of physical force when enough of those particles are moving in the same direction.

There are two things resonating for me right now in this metaphor. One is that many aspects of our lives run in cycles, though some things may be more like spirals than closed circles in the way change is introduced with each trip around the bend. Mark Twain is quoted as saying that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. Nevertheless, opportunities or themes or perspectives might come around with a bit of predictability. Sometimes another trip around the spiral gives us a chance to try again, to make a correction, to begin anew.

The other thing that resonates with me in this metaphor is that we can build power with focus and unity. Bringing in the harvest, turning the wheels, caring for loved ones in a difficult time, struggling for justice -- all of these things are best approached in community. In our story this morning, Higgins may have provided encouragement, but the renewal of the land required the collective action of drops near and far. At a critical point, the drops did not wait for a perfect bucket or for certainty of success or for universal consensus of all water droplets, but joined together in a common goal.

September is a good time to consider seasons and cycles. The Fall Equinox might get some people thinking about balance in their lives. For those with a connection to the Jewish calendar, the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah (coming next weekend) and Yom Kippur invite introspection and commitment to self-improvement. Students of all ages and the people who love them know September as its own kind of new year, with new classes to take or teach, new goals, and (if we’re lucky) new school supplies. Stay tuned for information about how to contribute to our school supply drive for Friends and Family of Incarcerated People. Here at WES, September brings Opening Sunday, a renewal of attention to community life, and a new program year flowing from one event to the next.

Some things are the same this year, and some things are different. We are experiencing a new season, though not like any we have known before. We may have some of the same impulses to renewed commitment, new ideas, and renewal through contemplation. This time around the spiral, we are navigating big forces like the pandemic, climate change, community trauma that threatens Black lives, opportunities for systemic change in racial justice, increased economic pressures, and perhaps some hope and trepidation about politics. Our challenge is to respond to the moment, drawing the wisdom that we can from the familiarity of this part of the cycle, while still being open to new inspiration.

One of the strengths of being in a community like WES is being able to draw from the wisdom of people at many different points in the cycle of life. There are times in our lives when we are at rest, part of a pool of deep and still water. There are times in our lives when we rush inexorably forward, surrounded by other droplets doing the same, to the point where it might seem that this rushing is all there is to being water. There are times when we are drawn upward, vapor rising and finding perspective in the big picture. There are times when we are held in suspension, clouds in wait. There are times when we are called back toward the earth, remembering a direction, ready to wear down stones once more. The quote from Felix Adler I shared earlier alludes to an ever-expanding journey of consciousness. Eventually, we all reach the sea.

If a river had a consciousness like the human consciousness, we might imagine that it hears the murmur of the distant sea from the very moment when it leaves its source, and that the murmur grows clearer and clearer as the river flows on its way, welcoming every tributary it receives as adding to the volume which it will contribute to the sea, rejoicing at every turn and bend in its long course that brings it nearer to its goal. Such is the consciousness of a spiritually-minded human being. -Felix Adler

So it is in a multigenerational community. The insight of children, the urgent observations of adolescents, the generative drive of adults, the wisdom of seniors, the legacy building of elders are all necessary to complete our circle. Being together helps us understand a more complete picture of how to draw out the best in others and therefore in ourselves. Each part of the cycle of life has its gifts. Though we cannot be together in the same way for the time being, I am hoping that we can get creative about strengthening ties in our multigenerational community. We could consider exchanging letters or cards. We could have guest readers in Platform from different age groups. If you would like to start a mixed-age book group, perhaps there are fans of Lois Lowry, Nnedi Okorafor, or the Rick Riordan Presents series just waiting to talk to you. It will take effort and a willingness to try new things. I hope you will help this multigenerational community stay connected.

Understanding time in terms of seasons and cycles also gives us chances to try again. A different phase of life might bring a new career, or permission to let go of one that no longer fits. This turn around the spiral might bring an opportunity for taking responsibility or growing toward reconciliation. Maybe a new year also brings self-knowledge about purpose or identity or the values to which we commit ourselves. For some, disaster or trauma or state interference have disrupted the cycle, and a new season might mean a chance to rebuild. As people who are committed to the worth of every person, a community of people who recognize human beings as ends in themselves, the open spaces in the spiral are vital. There must be room for second chances, for discovery, for new perspectives. Repeating patterns make it possible for people to enter, leave, or switch positions in the dance gracefully.

This understanding of a repeating pattern, a way for each person to find a unique place and yet be part of a larger whole, brings me to the second point that I made earlier. When we can bring together focus and unity, we can build power to accomplish great things. There’s an old labor song, lyrics from the constitution of the American Miners Association, and music adapted from an Irish tune by Waldemar Hille and Pete Seeger.

Step by step the longest march Can be won, can be won Many stones can form an arch, Singly none, singly none And by union, what we will Can be accomplished still; Drops of water turn a mill, Singly none, singly none.

Using our leverage for justice requires us to work together. That means following the lead of people who are most impacted, and for some of us with privilege that means downshifting our perception of ourselves as experts. It means staying focused on the goals, and not getting sidetracked by minor disagreements or wordsmithing. Flowing together toward a common goal means staying the course when it becomes inconvenient.

I attended my first Washington Interfaith Network meeting this week. Washington Interfaith Network or WIN is a broad-based, multi-racial, multi-faith, strictly non-partisan, District-wide citizens’ power organization, rooted in local congregations and associations. WES has been a member of WIN for several years. Together, WES and the other member organizations of WIN are working on affordable housing, community safety, immigrant rights, and other issues that I know are near and dear to the hearts of WES members. As just one member, we don’t single-handedly decide on strategy or action or timing. We participate, and we show up when we’re asked by our neighbors who need us to sustain the power building that is necessary to get things done. WIN is planning some actions coming up related to utility justice, ensuring people have access to electricity and other basic necessities. I’ll keep you posted. I hope that sustaining WES’s relationship with WIN is something we can do together during this interim time. One drop alone cannot fill the bucket or turn the mill. Great things ask us to work as a collective.

Sticking together goes for other efforts, too. Community care is getting more difficult as the pandemic drags on. When we thought we might have to limit our in-person activities for just a few weeks, alter our routines for just a season, change the way we work for a short temporary period, it was overwhelming, but many of us had a sense of unity. Now we are entering a time when it seems like different governments, institutions, and subcultures are holding on to entirely different sets of facts. And we miss each other. And some of us can’t be as careful as we would like, because we have to put food on the table, or go to medical appointments, or find accommodations for learning differences, or find some sense of balance so that our families can go on functioning. We are tired of Zoom. We are tired of not hugging. And I think we prefer this to being responsible for someone’s death. I am asking that we maintain an ethic of community care, even when it is hard.

The staff is nearing completion on a set of guidelines for socially distanced, small group, outdoor events. If cases continue to decline -- which they might not in the near term, as regular flu season comes into play and people move moderately risky gatherings indoors -- but if cases continue to decline, we’ll start working on guidelines for socially distanced, small group activities in the main hall. After that, we are preparing for the day, I hope as soon as June, when we can have hybrid Platforms in the Main Hall. Hybrid platforms would have about 30 people at a time in the room and an inclusive, active experience for people participating from home. Meanwhile, please wear your masks, wash your hands, and stay the course so that as many of us as possible can get to the other side of the pandemic. Our collective commitment matters.

Many important things happen in circles and spirals. The energy for those great movements is collective energy. The cycles of life, the cycle of the seasons, the spirals of history, the opportunity to begin again as people and as a community are all curved in their own way. Let’s use that curvature to learn new things as well as draw wisdom from the past. Let’s use that curvature to leave people and communities the space to be who they are now rather than frozen in time. Let’s use that curvature to gather people and power in our collective commitment to build better communities and a better world. The spiral continues. So be it.

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  The Dark Curse

Chapter 23:  A Most Dangerous Game

Royal weddings were extravagant affairs. They were never planned in a day, or even a week. At minimum they took months, especially when there was so much for the bride to learn. Soon after her engagement, it became obvious to Cora that Prince Henry was only distantly in line for the throne, the chances she'd ever be Queen were slim, but not impossible. But regardless of that fact, Henry and Cora, once they were married, were to be given their own spit of land to rule over for the King and Queen. There was a lot to teach her before she could marry Henry and be crowned as Princess, and the King wasn't going to allow her to marry his son without that education.

And so, the wedding was planned so distantly down the road it felt like something that would never get there. But a lengthy engagement suited him just fine. Aside from politics, there was much for Cora to learn.

She was a promised woman, and a part of him acknowledged that was dangerous, but after that night together in the tower, he just couldn't stop spending time with her. During the day the King and the Prince, the Kingdom and the palace could have her. But night was their time. After the castle had gone to bed or Cora had pronounced she was retiring, he'd gotten good at slipping into the castle under cover of darkness to see her. They'd met every night since the Prince had proposed and she'd moved in. And she knew it was wrong too, dangerous, but he suspected that she got a secret thrill out of the running around. He suspected it, because he got a secret thrill out of running around behind the backs of so many. Not that they were ever discreet. They'd been nearly caught more than a few times, and knowing that the fate for Cora, if caught, would be death, one of the first things he'd taught her had been privacy. He taught her how to place a spell upon the reflective surfaces in the rooms they used. It wouldn't make them unusable, he taught her, but it would make sure no sound came from them. To stay hidden from view, she simply had to place a blanket over them. It was usually only after the blanket went over the mirrors, once the illusion of complete privacy was achieved, that their meetings turned into something more.

The reason for seeing her was always under the pretense of learning magic, but more often than not, there lessons turned into late-night rendezvous that involved learning far more than magic. It wasn't exactly their fault, not always at least. Their classroom kept moving and shifting. First, they'd met in the tower she'd originally been imprisoned in, it was there that he'd given her Morgan's book, so she could learn even while he wasn't present. And it was there that the noise of their embraces had drawn the curiosity of the servants and forced them out. Into the garden next time, underneath the moonlight, where they discussed plants and herbs and the purposes of each in magic, before the gardeners had heard voices and they'd taken shelter in the little gardening shed and quieted their laughter with passionate kisses. He taught her about potions in the kitchen when all the maids had gone to sleep, and that was when they'd learned that she was ticklish just under her ribs and he'd first gotten away with holding her breast in the palm of his hand as she groaned at the path his lips made over her neck. He'd gotten, perhaps, a bit too aggressive when he pushed closer and when she'd reached back to balance her weight on the table, she'd suddenly shrieked as blood covered her hand. She'd cut herself on a knife, and they'd barely escaped before they'd been caught. He taught her how to heal herself that night.

Today they'd been talking about spells in the ballroom. It was brazen and daring, considering all the possible reflective surfaces that couldn't be covered with a blanket, but they'd needed a large space. Tonight he was teaching her how to move air and make wind capable of gusting and knocking opposing forces backward. This time, it was her that got a touch too aggressive, only with magic instead of his body. Eventually, she'd knocked the King's throne back. A maid in the next room had come running and they had taken off running. In the back of his mind, he knew it was ridiculous. He was the fucking Dark One! He could disappear and reappear at a second's notice, and yet here he was, chasing after Cora, hand in hand, letting her push him into a room and close the door where they hid from a mere non-magical mortal! It was childish. But maybe that was the reason it was also fun. He liked the way she shrank into him and allowed him to hold her closer as they suppressed their laughter and listened in the hallway, praying those maids wouldn't come in to clean this place next or search it for the reasons behind the noises. By now, it should have been at the forefront of their mind not to make so much noise.

But hiding did have its perks. When the sounds they heard outside finally passed and they realized they were safe from discovery, they were finally free to look at each other, let out a peal of riotous laughter before Cora leaned up to kiss him once more. Deeply. Urgently. As it always did the passion grew and just as he let out a sigh and had the urge to take a breath, he felt a pull against his arms and he pushed until Cora was up against a wall, smiling with drunken happiness he was confident he shared in before kissing her again so that their mouths opened and he tasted the chocolate she'd had for dessert on her tongue.

The magic they were teaching each other was most certainly not limited to spells and potions. It was a dangerous game they were playing right under the nose of the King and her fiancé, but at the moment, he didn't particularly care to stop. And for the first time, he didn't feel as though he had too.

Meeting Cora meant more than secret mid-night meetings. It was a timeline. For the first time since he'd acquired his power of foresight, he had a sense of time. He wasn't searching blindly for random faces and events. He was waiting for Cora. For her child. For Regina to get old enough to cast a curse. To hate Snow White enough to cast the curse. No, Cora wasn't even pregnant yet, it might be a couple of years until her firstborn came along, but it wouldn't be long. And from there it was what? Twenty years? Thirty? Thirty-five? To anyone else, it might seem long, but he'd waited a century already. Next to that, another thirty-five years was nothing. And if Cora was there with him, why shouldn't he enjoy this time with her?

Suddenly, Cora broke away. Her chest was heaving, making him need more than anything to bend down and place another kiss at the indent at the top of her cleavage as he caught his own breath.

"You've gone rigid again, Darling," she finally breathed.

"Have I?' he questioned with false surprise. She complained of that whenever this happened. When he was with her and his thoughts drifted to his son. He hadn't known his body would react to those thoughts but she sensed it every time. Not that she understood it, he had yet to actually explain to her the reason for it. "Merely taking in the scenery," he excused moving away from her and letting his eyes wander around the room they'd taken shelter in. "Where did we end up?"

The room was big, but simple. A single lit fireplace against the wall and book after book sat upon shelf after shelf. There was a desk and high-backed chair pushed against one wall. Another table with chairs around it was in the center of the room. And by the fireplace big, plump, soft-looking armchairs that looked like they'd be a joy to snuggle up in with a loved one or a book.

"The Library," Cora said, stating what he'd already put together. "Xavier's personal library, to be specific. Fortunately, he goes to bed early. And better yet, it's fortunate that Henry and I will be moving to an estate of our own after we're married. I can't wait…he's not exactly what a prince should be, but I'd rather live there with him for an eternity than stay in this place with his father breathing down my neck. I hate that man, and yet…Henry could stand to be a little more like him," she sighed falling down into one of the armchairs, so her legs were kicked over the side of it.

Her musings were not news to him. This was a dangerous game they'd been playing but he knew that her side of the game was more difficult than his own was. He had to be secretive for her sake, but it was she who led a double life. She had to be a future princess, madly in love with her own "Prince Charming" during the day as she was taught manners and etiquette and all that she needed to know in order to be a princess one day. But then at night, with him…she became this. Magical. Beautiful. Rude. Arrogant. A sorceress. And if the look she was giving him from that chair had the proper effect, a temptress like he'd never imagined existed. It had to be difficult for her, but gods was it intoxicating to him!

He was about to give into her beckoning eyes, to pull her down onto that rug and maybe feel for something lower than her chest, but the second he took a step closer, he encountered something magical that stopped him in his tracks. Focused as he'd been on Cora, it was as though he was a dog who had just smelled a cat, and the feeling was so unexpected it distracted him from the beautiful woman wordlessly calling him closer.

"Rumple…Rumple, what is it, my dear?"

He didn't know. He was looking around, trying to identify the source of the magic when…there it was. His heart began to flutter as he moved closer to it, wondering if it was what he thought it was.

Yes…Dark One magic. It had been created by a former, and therefore he had the memories of the creation. He knew exactly what had gone into the making of it, and the reason it existed, he only had to tap into those memories from…four Dark One's before him. A King who had been cruel and punishing to his sons after losing the first and most beloved in an accident. The King had wanted a way always to know where they were the more they rebelled against him. So he'd made a deal with a Dark One who fashioned this — a globe made of magic. White on the surface, with no identifiable landmasses, inside it hummed from magic, perhaps recognizing his as he recognized it's.

"Valuable," the Seer's voice whispered in his ear. "Find the boy!"

"Rumple, are you alright?" he felt Cora's hand upon his shoulder and felt her warmth next to him. She was concerned. He, on the other hand, felt ecstatic.

"This globe…do you know where it came from?"

She gave it a glance before shaking her head. "No, of course not, as if Xavier had time to waste on telling me stories. Why? What is it?"

He plucked it off the table and brought it closer to the light, where it was easier to see. "It was made by a Dark One, hundreds of years ago. It can find anyone, anywhere, any realm. Or so the King it was given to was told." He searched the foreign memories once more and confirmed it. Yes, that was what it did. The King hadn't been lied to, which meant…

The tip of the globe was sharp, meant to pierce skin even skin as thick as his own was these days. Cora hissed out his name when she saw what he'd done but didn't stop him from letting his hand hover over the mass of white and swirled on the surface as though it were made of water. He watched with eager anticipation, hardly feeling it when Cora took his hand to heal the puncture on his finger as slowly something began to form along the white of the globe. And island. A single solitary island in the entire world with only one little pinprick in the water a fair distance from it. It was red, the precise color of the blood he'd dropped onto it, but he hunched his shoulders in frustration and did his best not to reach out and toss the thing across the room.

Neverland.

The globe had found his blood. But it had found his blood one generation in the wrong direction!

And Bae…

"Do you know where that is?" Cora asked next to him as the image, no longer needed, began to swirl and fade.

"No," he lied with a growl. Maybe it wasn't that it didn't work, but that it couldn't. Bae had gone to a Land Without Magic that much was clear. By very definition, then, magic couldn't work in that land, and nothing for it would work here…not unless he changed the Land Without Magic into a Land With Magic. On that day the globe might be useful, which was the only reason he wasn't destroying it now. But until then…

"And who is it you're trying to find, exactly?" Cora prodded next to him.

That answer, truth or lie, certainly didn't come as easily as the last question. As an unwritten rule, he'd spoken of his son to almost no one since he'd gone away, save for one conversation with the Blue Fairy and another with Milah and a final one with the Seer. Beyond that, there were times that he'd mentioned he had a son, to comfort or manipulate others into trusting him; in this case, he was certain he'd mentioned it to Cora once, on the night they met, but he hadn't spoken his name. Not aloud, not to another. Telling someone else, explaining the reason behind his dealings, and how he'd failed in them, it seemed wrong. And thankfully, in his situations, the people he mentioned it to generally didn't care. In truth, it was because he hadn't ever had a relationship with any one of them, not since Bae had left had he bothered himself with just trivialities. But now with Cora, things had changed in the last month. What once seemed like an endless stretch of unknown time suddenly had an end date. The time was coming! And the brown-haired woman he'd seen in his bed, the one from his vision…if it was Cora, if things had truly shifted to the point that he had a partner in all of this, why not tell that someone. He had done a lot of terrible, awful things since becoming the Dark One, the part of him that was still human recognized that sometimes, that all the trickery, murder, and deception had to return to him at some point. Yet, all of those terrible things were far easier to confess than what had happened with his own flesh and blood.

"My son," he muttered in a voice so low he was certain he'd have to repeat himself but prayed he didn't. If she asked him to, he might lose his nerve and reconsider.

"Your son…" she repeated thankful. "You mentioned him the night we met. You lost him?" she guessed correctly.

He bit the inside of his cheek until it bled. He'd never thought of it that way before. He'd never thought of it with such an active and careless verb, but he supposed…yes, it was right.

"Many, many years ago," he confirmed. "I am…quite old, you know."

"I've assumed," she answered. For a while, there was silence a time when he didn't know how to go on, and he could sense Cora wanted so badly to ask a question it was beginning to make his skin itch. "How long ago was it?" was finally what came out of her mouth, and he was almost happy she'd asked it in the way she had and not pondered how old Bae was when he'd gone missing.

"A little over a hundred years now…"

Cora was a pale woman, there wasn't much color to her except for the color she added to her face artificially. But his words he swore that even that drained out of her face. She'd assumed he was old but hadn't assumed he was that old.

"Cat got your tongue?" he questioned with a smile, thankful they could move onto something to do with him rather than Baelfire.

"No, it's just…Rumple, if it's been over a hundred years, how can you be sure that your son is-"

"Alive?" he finished for her, unwilling to hear such a thing from her lips. He supposed they hadn't quite moved on as he thought they had. "I know," he promised. "I know he's still alive for the same reason that I know that your daughter will one day help me get back to him."

"And that reason is…"

Again he paused. Tell, don't tell? It was quite the conundrum. When he glanced over at her, he knew he was going to have to tell her something; the question was, just how much was he going to have to tell.

"Because I see the future," he answered. "It's a very uncertain difficult practice. But the future dictates that one day the firstborn of Princess Cora will cast the spell that will take me to the land where my son is."

"Princess…"

"Yes, that's how I knew you could be more than a Miller's daughter," he'd made the comment off-handedly, but now that he was looking at her once more, he knew he'd made a mistake. She looked away from him, her eyes wide her mouth open…she looked hurt. Should he not have told her that bit?

"That and…your tenacity," he whispered turning away from the globe and pulling her into his arms. "The power that I sensed inside of you…" he kissed one side of her neck, "…your determination…" he kissed the other side and she began to smile as he turned back to her mouth. "And-"

"Quit while you're ahead, my dear Rumple," she interrupted before throwing herself back into his arms.

[theconservativebrief]

Would you look at your phone less if your notifications were available without it, hovering in the air just a few feet away from your face? Would you buy a pair of glasses, even if you don’t actually need glasses for medical reasons, to achieve this state of always-on but possibly slightly less demanding engagement with your digital life?

Focals, the augmented reality glasses released Monday by the startup Thalmic Labs — now going by “North,” because it sounds more like a “fashion and lifestyle” brand and less like a tech company — are a response to these odd hypothetical questions.

There’s no screen in Focals, just light filtering through, according to founder Stephen Lake, “a holographic lens that never existed before.” The holographic display appears at arm’s length, a friendly and colorful interruption. It’s off by default, and wakes up only when it has something urgent to tell you, or if you ask it to.

You can click through suggested auto-response text messages, into more detailed summaries of the weather, or through your calendar to see where your next appointment is even while you’re in your current one. You do so using the paired black or copper ring (called the Loop) on your index finger, which is equipped with a little joystick.

An example of the turn-by-turn navigation you can see in Focals. North

What Focals can do is limited, intentionally. The glasses have a custom version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant that you have to wake for it to talk or listen. They can show you text messages (or Slack notifications, if you fiddle with the settings), turn-by-turn navigation, reminders from your calendar, and the weather. If you want to talk to Alexa, it can call you an Uber, browse headlines, or control your smart home devices.

North’s go-to line is that the company is “committed to building a future where technology is there when you need it and gone when you don’t, hidden by design.”

“Digital presence is just as important as physical presence,” North designer Marie Stipancik says. “But we want people to live with their heads up.” Her job was making the glasses look like something a “professional with a busy personal life” would want to wear all day.

“Digital presence is just as important as physical presence, but we want people to live with their heads up”

There are only two places in the world where you can buy Focals. The first is in Toronto; the second is in Cobble Hill, the neighborhood of Brooklyn currently best known for its Trader Joe’s and its rich people (including Daniel Craig). Secretly, North has been outfitting a storefront at 178 Court Street over the past several months. The company is designing a high-end eyewear shop in which it hopes to show you the future, with the help of $136 million in venture funding, shelled out in large part by Intel Capital and Amazon. Retail rents in the vicinity are about $134 per square foot.

Focals go for $999 each, and come in tortoise-shell, grey, or black, in a “classic” or round style. They’re custom-made for your face, and you must go into one of the two North-owned stores for a scan of your skull before they can be built.

The glasses look good from the front and awkwardly bulky from the side, mostly on the wearer’s right side, where there is a tiny projector positioned on their temple. (According to Lake: “The most precise projector ever built. We had to invent that.”)

If you want a pair of Focals, you can preorder them online, but you also have to schedule an appointment and have 11 cameras take pictures of your head and build models of your face. It’s “a white glove experience,” Lake says. It turns the purchase into a kind of freaky sci-fi ceremony, in which you sign some release forms to get an ultra-customized product that’s meant to be part of your life all day, every day.

Tortoise-shell Focals with their corresponding Loop ring. North

Focals’ obvious comparisons are the ambitious Google Glass experiment, which failed because its usefulness wasn’t well-explained to a doubting public, and the fun but ultimately doomed investment of Snap Spectacles, which lost Snapchat’s parent company $40 million when novelty wasn’t enough to make them catch on.

Lake is polite but frank in arguing why these ventures don’t fit in the same sentence as his product. “We’re not Google, we’re not a tech company that’s trying to take [the technology] we already have and shove it on your face,” he says. North built all the ingredients for Focals from scratch, he notes; 500 people have been working on it for five years.

Recently, I went to Cobble Hill and tried some Focals. The demo glasses routed me to Carrie Bradshaw’s New York apartment, and told me it would be cold in Brooklyn all day. They did so with glimmering little cartoons! The images were close enough to me to make me feel like they were my cartoons alone, but not so close that I felt like I’d been turned into a robot.

Though I have never tested Intel’s Vaunt AR glasses — which use retinal projection to display images on the inside of your literal eyeball — I think I can safely say I’m more comfortable with this arrangement. Though I have never tested Vuzix’s Blade AR glasses — which put a full screen in the upper-right corner of your field of vision — I think I would hate them. Though Focals are admittedly clunky when viewed from the side, I really only encourage people to look directly at the front of my face anyway.

Focals are clunky when viewed from the side, but I really only encourage people to look directly at the front of my face anyway

And what if I were to never accidentally spend 20 minutes in a bar bathroom, watching Instagram Stories on the toilet, ever again? What if I could always check, without leaving the room or stopping my conversation, to see if my rude boyfriend is on his way? That would be amazing! I would be so much more pleasant to hang out with.

During the test, my display blinked in and out, seemingly mostly because the non-custom pair was too big for me. It was obvious that it would take time to get used to the display, which only pops up when you’re looking forward, and disappears if you look away.

But from what I could tell, it genuinely was non-invasive and convenient — a good way to navigate long walks through unfamiliar neighborhoods without staring at Google Maps and walking into a tree, a good way to avoid rummaging in your pocket while carrying a bag of groceries. Wearing glasses already makes you a cyborg, technically; I can concede that adding AR might not be so big of an adjustment.

Focals mostly offer a good way not to take out your more powerful device with the goal of performing a simple task, and end up lured into any one of its dozens of seductive time-sucks. I spent only about half an hour in the freezing, unfinished Focals store, and have no intention of ever spending $1,000 on the device. But I have to concede I found the glasses, as a hint of what the future of personal gadgets might look like, oddly comforting.

Original Source -> Augmented reality glasses could help us look at our phones less

via The Conservative Brief